507. Chapter 507

She wasn’t talking to anyone.

She was barely eating.

She was yelling, when she was opening her mouth at all.

Yelling, and slamming doors, and studying.

Studying, studying.

All the time, studying.

And surfing.

But nothing else.

Nothing else.

Kara was allowed to approach. Sometimes.

Kara was allowed to knock softly – sometimes, too softly by accident, sometimes, too hard by accident, sometimes not being heard at all and sometimes knocking the door off its hinges, but sometimes, mercilessly, knocking effectively in line with Earth physics – and crawl onto Alex’s bed with her.

Alex would even glance up at her new sister sometimes, would even create a path for her by piling her books instead of sprawling them, so Kara had a path to crawl up, a space to lay next to her.

She would put her arm around Kara’s shoulders, and she’d stroke her hair, and she’d rock her when Kara cried.

She would wish she’d allow Eliza to rock her when she cried.

But she liked to cry alone instead.

She liked to scream at Eliza to get out of her room when she cried, instead.

So she rocked Kara and she pretended someone was rocking her.

Eliza tried. She tried and she tried but she couldn’t get Alex to soften, couldn’t get Alex to smile.

Couldn’t get Alex to allow herself even a moment of rest, a moment of comfort.

Unless one counted surfing. And it was good for her body, Eliza knew, but it was also dangerous – very dangerous, especially with Alex’s newfound reckless streak – so no, Eliza didn’t exactly count it as comfort.

She didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t exactly get on well with her own mother, and her brother had never liked Jeremiah.

She couldn’t reach Alex. She had her hands full with Kara and her heart full with Jeremiah.

Clark.

Clark. She called Clark.

And he came, obnoxious cape and flame-resistant boots tucking away – somehow, somehow, but now wasn’t the time to ask him – underneath his shirt, his tie, his slacks, his glasses.

His glasses that Jeremiah had created for him.

She wept when she saw them, and he let her hold them while he held her.

“Where’s Alex?” he asked when her chest stopped wracking quite so hard. When she could breathe just a little bit easier.

Eliza sniffled and ran the edges of her index fingers underneath her eyes – a habit that, unbeknownst to her, her eldest would acquire years later. When she finally learned to cry.

“The beach. When she’s not locked in her room studying, she’s out on the beach surfing. Always one or the other. I can’t get her to do anything else, Clark. I can’t get her to say anything else, to… I haven’t even seen her cry. I’ve heard her, alone in her room, but she yells when I try to…”

Clark nodded and sighed and held her close again.

“I’m sorry, Clark, you’re just a young man yourself, I shouldn’t be – “

“Not at all, Eliza. I loved Jeremiah, too. And none of us should mourn alone. Ever. Even if that’s what Alex is trying to do. Do you want me to go try to talk to her?”

“Would you?”

Clark smiled his Kansas wheat smile, soft and understanding. “Lois has a little sister. Lucy. She’s about Alex’s age. I have a little practice. I’ll see what I can do. Okay?”

Eliza nodded gratefully and Clark resisted the temptation to fly out of the kitchen, to fly and scoop Alex out of the ocean, out of the waves of her own pain.

But he couldn’t.

She needed her cousin Clark, not Superman.

Because even his strongest lift couldn’t fix this.

“Alex!” he called from the shore, waving his hand over his head, full extension.

Alex rolled her eyes despite herself: how could anyone be such an unabashed nerd?

A wave broke over her and she groaned, cupping her hands over her mouth and shouting, “You made me miss a great wave!”

“I’m sorry!” he shouted back. “I’ll wait here: let me see you catch another one!”

She didn’t know what it was about the way he was standing there, yelling to her like it was perfectly normal to shout from the shore out into the ocean, like it was perfectly natural to…

She froze. That was it.

He was talking to her like everything was normal.

Like she was normal.

Like sometimes people have dead fathers.

Like sometimes people don’t want to feel, because if they do, they’ll never escape their own hell.

Like that pain, that loss, is… normal.

Like she’s not broken or fragile because of it, like she might still have a chance at… living.

He was talking to her like everything was normal.

And that was precisely what broke her.

She nearly overbalanced on her board with the violence of her sob, but Clark was already halfway out to her.

He kicked off his shoes and he tugged off his tie, and he swam and he swam and he swam, like he had in his race against the Flash, but slower, this time.

Normal, this time.

Because he didn’t know loss as intimately as his little cousins.

But he did understand it.

He caught her just as she started to choke on a mouthful of ocean spray, on lungs full of grief.

“I got you,” he told her, holding her up, holding her safe, just like she’d been doing for Kara since she got to Earth. Just like she’d be doing for Kara for the rest of her life.

“I got you, Alex,” he whispered into her soaking hair, and she clung to him, close and desperate and terrified and trembling.

“You’re not wearing a wet suit, you must be freezing,” she choked out after a while, and he just chuckled.

Suddenly, Alex did, too.

“Are you wearing your supersuit? Do you seriously wear it under all your clothes?”

She tugged at the top few buttons of his collared shirt, and she laughed uproariously when his House symbol was revealed.

“Does it hurt you?” she asked when the laughter faded, and sober eyes replacing laughing ones, Clark gently treading water, holding up the part of Alex that was still overbalanced off her board.

She didn’t have to clarify. He knew exactly what his little cousin meant.

“Yes. Every day. Not like it does to Kara, I imagine. She grew up on Krypton, she… she’s stronger than I will ever be. But you know what, Alex? So are you. You’re every bit as powerful as your sister, and you’re going to get through this. Jeremiah Danvers’s girl can get through anything.”

“Even without him?” Alex whispered, and the roar of the waves around them would have muted her words to anyone else.

But she was with her cousin, Clark Kent.

So he heard her crystal clear.

“You’ll never be without him, Alex,” he kissed her forehead and pointed to his own chest. “And you’ll never, ever be alone. I can’t promise you life will be without more pain like this. But you’ll never have to face it alone. That, I can promise you.”

Alex stared at him until her eyes started to sting from the salt of her own tears, the salt of the ocean spray.

“Wanna watch me catch a wave for real?” she asked after what felt like forever, and Clark grinned and nodded eagerly. Proud.

Jeremiah Danvers’s girl, indeed.

“Most definitely.”