482. Chapter 482

Kara likes being Alex’s sister.

Likes it, because it makes Kara feel more connected to this loud, strange planet that seems impossible to understand.

Likes it, because it makes Kara feel at least a little less lonely, even knowing that Krypton is now nothing more than ash and dust, that the people left there – family, friends – are nothing more than debris and whatever memories Kara can scavenge.

Likes it, because it makes Kara feel like family.

But the Kryptonian can’t understand the extra expectations – beyond love, beyond devotion, beyond care – that seem to come with that label.

With sister.

Kara doesn’t understand why Jeremiah is the only one to lead the blessings, the offerings to an Earth version of Rao, every Friday night; doesn’t understand why Alex, Maggie, and Lena are the only girls in the advanced science classes, why they get made fun of for it; why Lucy gets ridiculed for wanting to join the military like her father.

Kara doesn’t understand the extra expectations, the odd contradictions, the double standards, the degredation, that seem, on earth, to come with girl.

With sister.

Kara doesn’t understand why that word, that term, that box, seems so… limiting. Seems to not quite… fit.

Not quite fit everything Kara feels inside. Everything Kara… is.

It doesn’t fit Alex, either; Alex in her science classes and with her girlfriend that people also, oddly, seem to find unusual, or even wrong.

But somehow, the way girl doesn’t quite fit Alex and the way girl doesn’t quite fit Kara feels… different.

Because Alex seems to like it. Seems to like being a girl in science, being a girl with a girlfriend, no matter what other people say. Or sometimes, even because of what people say.

Being a girl makes Alex proud.

But Kara?

Kara just can’t seem to make the word fit, the label fit, the box fit.

It doesn’t sit right. It doesn’t feel right.

But on Earth?

It seems like there’s no other option, because man? Jeremiah, James, Winn, Kal-el?

Those don’t feel like they fit Kara, either.

Maggie notices first.

Of course Maggie notices first.

Maggie notices when she’s over for Shabbat dinner – she’s always over for Shabbat dinner – and Kara shifts uncomfortably as Jeremiah makes kiddush, makes the blessing, pours the wine, breaks the challah.

Maggie notices Kara’s eyes sink in confusion, sink in conflict.

Maggie notices the twitch behind Kara’s eyes when Eliza tells Jeremiah what a great job Kara’s been doing at school, she this and she that and isn’t she progressing so beautifully, Alex?

“Hey, Kid Danvers, come here,” Maggie takes Kara aside after they eat, after they bench, after they clean up the dishes with a grumbling Alex.

“Yeah Maggie?” Kara asks, brow furrowed and glasses adjusting.

“Can I ask you something personal? I mean, you don’t have to say yes just because I’m dating your sister, I – “

“You can ask whatever you want, Maggie.”

Maggie nods and bites her lip and glances over to where Alex is laughing, is leaning into Jeremiah’s chest, is accepting his teasing about her being in loooovvvvve.

She smiles faintly and she turns her attention back to this new little kid in their lives; this new little kid who seems more like a little kid than anyone Maggie’s ever met, and yet somehow seems older than anyone Maggie’s ever met.

She supposes that’s what happens when you’re stranded on an unfamiliar planet after yours is destroys.

“Did you guys have… gender? On Krypton?”

“Like… boys and girls?” Kara asks, heart starting to race, wondering desperately where this is going, what thoughts are in Maggie’s tilted head, slightly furrowed brow.

“Yeah.”

“Well… yes. I told you about my mother and father – “ Kara’s eyes flood with tears like they still do at nearly every mention of home, of family. “– and that’s… gender, right?”

Maggie nods and thanks Eliza as she passes by for a wonderful dinner. Eliza smiles, thrilled that Kara is making another friend. Even if that other friend is older, is Alex’s… girlfriend.

“Yeah. Yeah, but was it… was it different?”

Kara stiffens. “Why are you asking?”

Maggie shrugs, deliberately casual. “You seem a little uncomfortable. With all the she pronouns and all the… all that. And I don’t know if you know this, but that’s okay. If it doesn’t feel like it fits you.”

Kara blinks. Maggie continues.

“One of the kids in your grade is a friend of mine. Everyone thinks he’s a girl, but they’re wrong. He’s a boy, and he’s thinking about telling everyone soon. And that’s okay.”

Kara splutters. “But I’m not a boy, I don’t – “

Maggie holds up her hands in surrender and shakes her head. “I wasn’t done, Kid Danvers.”

“You’re a kid, too.”

“But you’re a littler kid.”

They take a break from their serious conversation to stick their tongues out at each other, and they both giggle.

“It’s okay if you don’t fit either boy or girl, too. Like, you know. If you feel like, in between. Or more like a girl some days, and more like a boy others, or both at the same time, or like… like all kinds of possibilities. That’s okay. You know people can use pronouns that aren’t he or she, right? Did you… did you have anything like… like they or something in… in your languages?”

Kara doesn’t answer, eyes wide and full of unshed tears.

“I can have people use they instead of she?”

Maggie smiles and nods. “You learned the word binary yet?”

Kara squints, thinks. Nods, always eager to know things. “The smallest unit of data in Earth computer technology.”

Maggie stifles a laugh. “Yeah! Yeah, you’re right, Kid Danvers. But also, it means – “

“Two! Something that has two things, two parts. Like bisexual! Like Lena.”

Kara beams and Maggie smirks. “Exactly. But you can have people who aren’t on that binary, too. For gender. People who might be, maybe, like you, Kara. Or maybe not. And that’s okay, too. But I just wanted you to know. Just in case.”

“A nonbinary person, then?” Kara says it seriously, then exhales out a giggle. “A person who doesn’t use Earth-based data storage systems. Like… like me!”

Maggie lets herself laugh this time, and she hasn’t seen Kara smile that big since Alex introduced them both to the wonders of s’mores roasted over an open fire on the beach.

“Can you… can you maybe try they pronouns for me? To see if they fit better than… than binary ones?”

Maggie smiles as Alex comes over to sprawl out dramatically on her lap.

“I’m so fulllll,” she sighs, and Maggie leans down to kiss her lips shyly, happily.

“You got it, Kara,” she says, and Kara beams.

“Kara’s got what?” Alex asks, and Maggie glances up at them with a quirked eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” Kara tells their sister with a smile, testing everything Maggie had said out in their mind and deciding that, so far, it seems to fit perfectly.