"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." - Buddha.

The year 2045. National City.

Passing doors locked to secrets, Tina hurried down the fluorescent lit hallway. Much like the doors, her lips pressed together tightly, causing her ruby red lipstick to smear a little under her lower lip; she had a secret, but it was only so long before it burst out of her. She passed a janitor in grey overalls, his head bowed as he hurried by, a mop in his hand and a lanyard that showed his credentials to be allowed in the building's bowels, just like Tina. Although today, Tina clutched her credentials in her hand instead of around her neck; she didn't want anyone to know her identity, not even the janitor of the DEO.

Tina's high heeled footsteps echoed down the hall but seemed to stop abruptly once she reached the door at the end, pausing a moment to fix her summer blouse and smooth down the height of her curly brown hair; she didn't have time to dry it out of the shower today. She hovered her ID over the identity pad on the wall and practically pushing the door as it opened, Tina entered into a hectic environment of raised voices, panicked tones and faces of worry and denial. No one knew the fate of the world. No one knew the fate of National City.

But Tina did.

She pushed her way past suit and ties, armed agents in uniform and those who were lucky enough to earn a spot in the comfy twirly chairs at the computers. J'onn J'onnz stood on a small platform, an audience standing before him with their arms raised and questions firing out of their mouths at a speed that even he couldn't understand. He rubbed his fingers on his temples, attempting to try and find a peaceful moment in the chaos that was consuming him. If only he could just be in his happy place, on the red planet before the White Martian's, before everything, before...

"Mr. J'onnz!" Tina yelled, jumping up in the crowd with her file folders clutched tightly to her chest. J'onn had spotted her instantly, but poor Tina, still too short even in her heels was having a hard time seeing J'onn. "Excuse me, please, let me through." She asked the angry crowd politely, pushing her black rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose.

J'onn rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. "Let Tina through!" He bellowed and the crowd allowed young Tina to pass and walk the two steps up the platform and stand next to J'onn, looking like an ant next to a falcon. She stood there, shaking, looking up into his hazel eyes. So much strength for someone who had been through so much, something that Tina had always admired about J'onn.

"What is it, Tina?" J'onn growled at his assistant, although he didn't mean, the stress was coming to him slowly, it was only a matter of time before it would break him.

"S-sir," Tina stammered, handing him a sheet of paper from her first file folder. "This is a list of those who may survive the meteor being hurdled towards Earth."

J'onn studied the list. "Tina, there are five people on this list."

"Four of those five people have been enhanced genetically in their life, their blood containing a chemical known as YSS, it can protect the body against the deadly toxins the meteor contains once it impacts Earth."

"Okay, so those five will be lucky. Do you have any better news for me, Tina?"

"We did find out where the meteor came from and what made it so deadly," Tina pulls paper from the second folder. "It came out of a distant wormhole, it travelled through time and space, it's from another galaxy completely! There's a certain chemical in it, and it makes it deadly to humans and any other alien race, except for two similar alien races..."

"Kryptonians and Daxamites?"

"Correct!" Tina chirps pleased. "The good news is, sir, that we can stop this."

J'onn turns his full attention to Tina, blocking out the harsh and angry words of the crowd before him. "How? What can we do? We can't just sit here any longer, look how bad it's become," he motions to the crowd. "We're going to kill ourselves in riots and stampedes before the meteor can finish us off!"

"That's the bad news, sir. You see," Tina produced paper from the third folder. "We no longer have the cure on Earth, we lost it in 2018 when National City was under the power of Reign and her goons."

J'onn took a deep breath in, remembering the horror and the pain he had endured himself during the small time period when Reign had control over the city. Dark days, but yet, the days ahead look even darker.

"What was it?"

"It actually came from Reign's hideout. Deep within the ground the material that was her fortress was made of a stone called Larmatte, it was only found on Krypton and later Earth, but the DEO destroyed Reign's layer a couple years after they destroyed Reign herself, destroying all of the Larmatte Earth was ever going to see."

"So we can't stop this meteor and whoever sent it because we don't have the stone?"

"Yes and no. We can't stop it now, but we could stop it," Tina giggled, excitement trickling all over her body. "In the near future."

"Spit it out, Tina! We have no time for games today!"

"We need to send someone into the past, retrieve a few samples of the stone and send it at the meteor in the present. We don't need every last piece of the stone, it's so powerful only a few pockets full will do."

J'onn looked into the faces of the crowd, of his employees and his people. He has called many of them family and almost all of them friends. He has even called few his enemy but regardless they always found a way to save the day in the end. The DEO had seen dark times, and within the past decade lost a valued member of the team, who's picture on the wall reminded him everyday of the man he still needed to be.

"Who are we going to send?"

Tina took a deep breath. "It has to be one of the five people on this list. They can travel through time and space without being affected by the chemical the meteor is emitting. I have highlighted the perfect candidate, but I don't think you're going to approve."

J'onn took a closer look at Tina's list again and frowned, his lips forming a smile to laugh in horror and then back to anger once he realized Tina was not joking.

"No!" He growled but this time, meant it. "I am not sending her back to the past! It's too risky!"

"This is just a risk we're going to have to take! We only have two weeks before all of us except for five people are wiped out! Gone!"

"I made a promise to her mother as she lay on her death bed that I would not let any harm come to her child," tears welled in J'onn's eyes. "And that's a promise I intend to keep."

Tina took a step closer to J'onn and laid a hand on his shoulder, taking a deep breath in. "It's not my place, Mr. J'onnz, but don't you think deep down, this is what everyone that you have lost at the DEO would have wanted? Don't you think this is what she would have wanted?"

"Enough!" J'onn rubbed his temples again, the mental pain back and not showing any signs of letting up. "Let me think about this, alone, okay?"

"Okay," Tina threw her empty hands in the air; J'onn had received all of her information. "Fate of the world depends on you, Mr. J'onnz. What actions are you going to take?"

With that, Tina disappeared into the crowd, leaving her job behind until the end of the world came near, then she would resume to be by her boss' side once again. J'onn knew she was right, knew he had to take the right action as to what would be right to the world. But was it right to the person he kept dear in his heart? Would it be fair?

Nothing, not on any planet, was ever fair.

At fifty seven, Alex Danvers still felt as spry as she ever was. In her mind she could chase criminals, take them down with one swift kick of her left boot and pin them to the floor, a gun of any kind against their head. But of course, that was just in her mind. She looked down at her artificial legs from where she stood; her metal hooks were exposed, digging deep within the sand causing her to gulp back a tear; she has forgotten what it feels like to sink your toes in the sand.

Down the beach stands a girl close to her own height, doing jumping jacks in the red hot glow of the rising sun, her skin glistening with sweat. She's smiling, Alex can tell even though she can't see that far, she had forgotten her glasses on the kitchen counter. The girl readjusts her dirty blonde hair in the ponytail atop her head, and continues to run further down the beach, out of Alex's view.

"She's quick,"

Alex jumped, turning quickly on her legs only to come face to face with J'onn. Alex smiled, embracing the father figure in a warm hug, one that has been long overdue. "J'onn," Alex breathed. "I've missed you."

"And I you," J'onn squints at the blonde haired dot in the distance. "My, she's grown."

"Well yeah, she's not fifteen anymore! The kiddo has gotten a lot taller since you last saw her."

"College or University?" J'onn slipped his arm around Alex's shoulder and the two walk down the beach towards where the girl in the distance has stopped.

"Neither. She dropped out second year, said she couldn't take the stress of it but I call bullshit. She's a strong kid."

"She has to be for what she's been through."

Alex paused, stopping a moment to pretend to be adjusting the hinge of her leg. "Why did you call us here, J'onn? I'm worried seeing you again will cause her more stress than what she needs. It's been ten years, but ever since she moved back with me, she's been having these nightmares, and J'onn I don't know if I can fix her or what I can do to help."

"You've done your best, Alex. I have no doubt you raised her to be an exceptional person."

Alex laughed. "I love her, so much J'onn, and I've always tried to do what's best, but I don't know what that is anymore," she took a deep breath to clear her head. "Find a solution to that meteor yet? I have my every faith the DEO will pull through at the last moment like old times."

"That's actually what I want to talk to you about, Alex. You and Claire."

Claire squinted down the beach at Alex and the other man she was with, talking to, holding hands with? Claire kicked up the sand and cupped her hands around her mouth to yell down the beach.

"Yo!" She shouted. "Aunt Alex? You going to catch up or what?"

"Or what!" Alex shouted back, but unlike usual there was no hint of laughter or playfulness in her voice, it was serious, and this twisted Claire's stomach into a million knots. She placed her hands on her knees, out of breath from running and anxiety that plagued her veins day in and day out. She waited for Alex and the man to catch up to her, and stayed down until Alex put a soothing hand on her back, rubbing it up and down in a motion she has mastered over ten years.

Claire recognized the man now, she hadn't seen him since the funeral but of course he didn't age, didn't grow old or even a single wrinkle to dent his face, but still, he had changed, she could tell. But, she wasn't going to let him have that satisfaction after all, it was because of him her mother was dead. It was because of J'onn J'onnz she never had the closure she rightfully deserved and wanted.

"I haven't seen you since..."

"I know," J'onn held up a hand. "I want to apologize to you, Claire, it was not right of me to disappear like that. I made a promise to your mother, and I thought I was to best do that at a safe distance. I was just trying to do the right thing."

"The right thing?" Claire scoffed and gently shooed Alex's hand off of her back. Claire straightened her shoulders, looking J'onn dead in his eyes. "Where were you the night Supergirl fell from the sky? The night National City lost its hero? The night... the night I lost my hero? The night I lost my mother?"

Clearly, apologizing wasn't his way back into Claire's life. J'onn squared his shoulders to match Claire's, his sympathetic approach gone. "I was not there the night your mother fell from the sky, but I was there for her dying breath. I not only promised her that I would make sure no harm came your way, but I also promised her I would look out for National City and any threat that came Earth's way. I plan to fulfill that promise and I hope you can help me out."

"Why? I don't have everything she had. I'm not Supergirl."

Alex gulped loudly, choking back an onslaught of tears from this reunion. "No one is asking you to be Supergirl, Claire. We're..."

"Actually," J'onn cut Alex off. "I am. I'm not asking you to wear the cape or the uniform. But I am asking you to try."

"What are you saying?"

"Claire," J'onn put a hand on her shoulder, much like Tina had done for him. "I need you to be the woman behind the cape, I need you to be Kara Danvers."

"Kara Danvers, is dead," Claire shouted, and much to her relief no one else was around to hear her. "What you're asking me is impossible. I am Claire Danvers, you can't just come back into my life and force me to be my mother. Whatever your asking I won't do it."

And with that, J'onn and Alex watched as the last hope known to Earth dashed back down the beach at a speed only Supergirl would have been able to match. And in a flash, she was gone, out of sight and to Claire, she felt as if she were out of her mind.

"She's hurting, J'onn," Alex whispered. "I tried to tell you."

"Being hurt is one of the ways to find your strength," J'onn winked at Alex, the woman he had always seen as one of his daughters. "Let's go find her. We have to save the world, and hopefully Claire can be the person I know Kara raised her to be."

"Oh hey," Alex pushed him playfully. "I raised her too, through those tough teenage years as well!"

J'onn smiled. This was his family, and in this moment, he hadn't a clue why he had left it.