Kara lands on Earth and the first thing she does is scream. Her planet had exploded in front of her eyes and her family is dead. Her mother is dead and her father is dead. Her aunt and uncle have been missing for months and they're most likely dead-
Jor-El and Lara are dead.
"Where is Kal-El?" Kara whispers suddenly, choking on her own tears. "No, no, no-" Kal-El is nowhere. Their pods should have landed side-by-side, or at least near each other. She looks around the grassy plain she's landed in and of course, that's when she notices it's actually grass – long, dry plant-life that confuses her because she can see how it differs from Kryptonian plant-life, how- how green it is, how bright and colourful.
Later in the day, when the sun – brighter, whiter and yellower than her red sun – has traversed half the bright, cloudless light blue sky, a vehicle makes it way towards her and her pod, trundling and chuffing down a strange, grey road.
"What's your name, sweetie?" The woman asks, blonde hair shining in the sunlight. She's young, very young, almost the same age as Kara. "I'm Eliza, but you can call me El."
Kara starts crying again, but goes to El, who peers at her pod past her head as she wraps her arms around her. El bundles her into her automobile – "It's called a VW, it's awesome" – and takes her to her home, a little caravan parked outside an empty observatory that can be attached to her VW without much heavy lifting. They live there for a few days, Kara learning how to make pot-noodles and work a kettle. El is an astrophysicist and she lives like this by choice.
"I could have gone to college again – I went when I was very young and I got my degrees. I might go to get my PhD, maybe a biology degree. But I love space. Can you tell me what it's like, up there?"
"Dark," Kara replies, staring up at the stars from the top of El's VW. "Cold. Home."
Together, they bury her pod in the foot of the mountains, near the observatory. El uses spray paint to mark the entrance to the cave as unsafe for humans, in case any climbers or hikers come across it and then, together, they go to the local law enforcement. Kara doesn't say much, answering some questions but not many others. They log her and get her finger-prints, calling in other government officials before finally shipping her off to the nearest big city.
El says goodbye with a kiss to the forehead and a gift of pot-noodles. Kara never sees her again.
The city is loud and Kara can't deal with it. Accidents happen and running away doesn't work when they can put her picture on the news and blame the broken sinks and cracked doors on assailants. Within a year, Kara is under police protection, eating pot-noodles when she feels alone and looking up at the stars when she just can't bear it. Her mother is dead. Her father is dead.
Her planet is gone.
The psychologist assigned to her – a young man by the name of Luthor, only nineteen, a genius man who Kara appreciates – sits with her sometimes, asking what she sees when she looks at the stars. Darkness, she says, cold and darkness. Home. Alexander questions her beliefs, her thought process and asks her blunt questions.
"What do you think of soulmates?" He asks, one day, voice careful and slow. Kara glances at him, frowning as she remembers what El had said to her. Soulmates are two halves of one whole. Somewhere out there is your second half and when you see them for the first time, the world will burst into colours.
Kara had said, but I already see colours. Doesn't everybody?
"I met mine when I was very young," she says, telling the story that El had helped her fabricate those few years ago. "I've seen colour for as long as I can remember."
"That's not what I asked," Alexander replies, placing his pencil behind his ears. "I asked what you thought of soulmates."
Kara shrugs, looking to her hands and then her shoes, dusty with dry dirt. "I don't know. My parents weren't and neither were my aunt and uncle. No-one I knew when I was little were soulmates…except Jor-El and Lara. I think. My father's brother and his wife. They loved each other so much."
When she turns eighteen, Kara says goodbye to the police guard who have been her constant minders and protection against a supposedly terrible world. Alexander at this point is twenty-six, with a wife and small business set up and ready to go, now that he isn't paid by the government to talk to her. Kara is given a monthly stipend to live on, one she carefully measures and accounts. Food is her main issue, at times, when pot-noodles aren't enough and she has to make soup out of tinned spaghetti-juice.
Her saviour might have been her scholarship to Yale, had Kal-El suddenly not dropped out of the sky.
Screaming babies aren't easy to look after. Kara cries just as much as Kal-El does but she loves him so much, so, so much. He's a beautiful child and Kara speaks to him in nothing but Kryptonian. His presence is both a gift and a curse – he cries so loud, sometimes and eventually, her landlady tells her to pack her bags. Kara doesn't know what to do except try find work, try to find a place to live for the night.
Alexander takes her in. Alexander gets her a job and Alexander gets her a place to live. It's out in the country, in cornfields and wheatfields with open space where all the men wear checkered shirts and jeans. Kara acts as a farm-hand, Kal-El sitting inside with Martha while the aging Jonathan and Kara work machines and tractors. It's not college and it's not becoming an artist or a scientist, like she always wanted – but its safe and its steady work.
When the day comes that Jonathan has his heart-attack, Kal-El is the one to find him, screaming for his mother in Kryptonese. After Jonathan dies, Kara makes Kal-El his first pot-noodle.
Martha sells the farm, uprooting the three of them so they can move into the suburbs of National City. Everyone has their own rooms, but Kal-El sneaks into Kara's most of the time. Kara goes to National City University, getting her degree in Fine Art, sculpting and painting in their basement, devoid of cars and instead hiding two silver pods under tarpaulins that Kara had dragged from their cave at the foot of a mountain. Kara rides a motorbike back and forth into the city and when the time comes for Kal-El to go to kindergarten, he takes the bright yellow-orange bus that caters to their district.
That's how Kara meets Catherine Jane Grant and her son, Adam Alan Foster.
"Mama, what if something happens?" Kal-El questions her, gripping her hand. "What if I get scared? It's the whole day and everyone's going to be stupid."
"You shouldn't say that to people's faces," a boy pokes Kal-El in the shoulder. He's Kal-El's age with a mop of sandy-coloured hair, red backpack slung over his shoulder. "It's mean."
"But they're going to be stupid, I'm a genius," Kal-El moans, Kara copying the boy by poking Kal-El in the shoulder – but far, far harder, causing Kal-El to whine in pain.
"Don't be mean. He's right. Calling someone stupid isn't a nice thing to say. What would Nanny say?"
"She wouldn't say anything – she'd agree!" Kal-El jumps in place, looking to the end of the road where the bus has turned the corner. He looks to the boy. "It's here!"
"I know," the boy rolls his eyes, "it comes every day. I was here yesterday to watch. Dad doesn't want me to go to school here-"
"Enough, Adam," the woman who Kara presumes his mother says, pressing her clunky phone against her neck. "Be nice. Ask his name and make a friend." She goes back on her phone, wincing and Kara watches both Kal-El and Adam and Adam's mother, intrigued by the petite blonde who clearly is very busy. When the bus comes, Kara says her goodbyes to Kal-El, waving properly to Adam after he gets a quick kiss on the cheek from his mother and a visibly distracted wave.
"Does your mama not like hugs?" She hears Kal-El ask Adam, who he's sat beside, before she tunes them out.
"-just fuck off, Harold," the woman finally hangs up, shoulders lowering drastically as she watches the bus turn the next corner up the road. "Well, that was a disaster."
"Maybe a little," Kara murmurs, before holding out her hand. "Kara. Kara Zor-El. Kal-El and Adam seem to get on."
The woman grimaces, but shakes. "Yes. Hopefully, making friends will convince his father that this school is right for him. Why call him by his full name?"
Kara blinks, "Excuse me?"
"Kal-El. You said your name was Kara Zor-El, so I'll assume his first name is Kal. Why call him, Kal-El?" The woman questions, frowning.
"Uh…well, maybe I could explain it properly if I had your name first."
"Cat," she replies shortly. "Cat Grant. Nice to meet you, Keira."
"Kara," the Kryptonian frowns slightly. "Kal-El and I aren't from America. There's a different naming system. That's all I'm willing to say on it."
Cat sighs, "Fine. Have a nice day." Then, she turns, stalking across to the house right beside them, walking up the paved line that goes from the door to the pavement. Kara watches her leave, eyes trailing down her figure before she leaves.
It's the start of a pattern. Five days a week, Kara and Cat stand beside each other while Kal-El and Adam chat away. Sometimes, they speak, oftentimes not. Cat, half the time, has her phone with her and it's when she doesn't that Kara gets to see what she's really like with her son. It's just as awkward as when she does have a phone, but at least they hold hands. Adam, at least, seems content with that, but she can see how he looks at them with longing when they say goodbye, rubbing noses and kissing little kisses on foreheads and cheeks.
One day, about halfway through the year, Cat shows up without Adam – and there's something wrong, Kara can feel it in her bones.
"His father has custody of him, now," Cat says quietly after the school-bus has left, voice scratchy. Big sunglasses hide her eyes and she wobbles slightly as her heel gets caught on a rock. Kara offers her an arm, wrapping it around the small of her waist and Cat grips her tightly in return. The other mothers and fathers there to drop their children off disperse and Kara and Cat are left alone.
"Come on, let's go inside," Kara says softly, leading Cat to her house. It's the first time she's ever been inside and her heart flips in her chest at the bare walls and half-packed bookcases. "Oh."
"I'm getting a penthouse in the city. Adam's already gone to Opal City."
"Opal-" Kara gasps, "Oh Rao, Cat."
Cat shrugs weakly. "It's nothing I didn't deserve. CatCo is- it's just getting off the ground. I didn't have time for him. I could have won. I would have won. I…I just let him go, Kara. I let him go." Kara smells salt then and stops, taking off her sunglasses and bringing Cat into a gentle hug. Cat cries into her shoulder, shoulders shaking. When she finishes crying it out, Kara offers her a tissue from her pocket, swapping it with the sunglasses, watching her as she cleans herself up a little.
"Kal-El's going to be upset. I'm sorry," Cat says to her next, causing Kara to shake her head even though she knows that Kal-El will be absolutely devastated that his best friend is gone. "Don't lie, Kara, it doesn't become you."
"I didn't say anything."
Cat snorts, before shaking her head. "When did you first see me?"
And that question takes Kara off-guard, because… "What?"
"When did you first see me?" Cat repeats, "Because you see colour, Kara, I know you do, but- but I didn't see colour until I saw you that first day when Adam and Kal-El went to school."
Kara's eyes widen and it all computes rather fast. "I'm your soulmate? You're- but wait, no, that's not right. I've always seen in colour. There- there was never a day in my life when I didn't see it!"
Cat revolts then, face twisting as her hands grip Kara's arms. "That's impossible. You can't have been born with colours. It's scientifically impossible. Unless you're an alien-" Kara winces. Cat makes a new kind of face that Kara's never seen before. Kara grimaces. "Oh."
"Is it a bad time to admit that I'm an alien?"