"How are you, Alura? It's been…two weeks since we last saw each other. Why didn't you come to last week's meeting?"
Fabric on skin, a kind of buzz that grates on her ear as Alexander moves. Outside, cars whiz past, their engines so loud and distracting. Alura brings her hands together, resisting the urge to curl up like- like a child. Everything is too loud – too bright.
Alexander breathes in deeply, his lungs expanding and his blood pumping faster than Alura would think possible for a creature of such a gravity as Earth.
"Let us broach another subject of discussion, then. What was your relationship with your husband like? Do you miss Zor-El?"
Alura starts then, stiffening, lip dropping open. "How do you know his name?"
"I was your daughter's psychiatrist for a few years and her friend for longer. We talked. I don't do much psychiatry nowadays – I'm too busy with my family company – and my license expired some time ago. This is a personal favour for Kara that I'm willing to give. Both you and Lara need help, help I'm willing to give. Now, my problem is that I can't help you unless you want to be helped." Alexander looks at her with hard eyes then. Alura feels like he's looking through her and its uncomfortable.
Kara's only trying to help, she thinks, knowing that this would be good for her if she could only start talking to Alexander properly. We don't fit. That is the problem.
"I do not like you," she says aloud, not afraid to say it. Alexander smiles.
"Finally. We're getting somewhere."
Alura does not like meeting with Alexander Luthor, but it is helpful, she does admit. Alexander is not afraid of her and does not hold her to any high standard. The confidentiality agreement ensures that Kara cannot pry or – at Alexander's insistence – be within a certain distance, so she can hear either. Lara is held to much the same standards and vice versa.
However the strangest part is not that Alexander knows about them. To Alura, the strangest part is how he is able to get them identities, how he is able to hand over faked passports, IDs, medical records and financial details. Alura was the High Judge of the Grand Council of Krypton – she knows that on any planet, this ability is far from legal. That Alexander can get away with it is abominable and foreign to her. This is wrong, she thinks as she stares at her papers, even knowing that this is the only way that she is ever going to have a life on Earth.
She lives in a house with Lara, a mile away from the edge of National City in the desert, on the edge of government territory – or, as Alura knows it better as, the place that she, Lara and Fort Rozz crashed. Only a day after their departure, Alura had heard the almighty hum of it flying through the atmosphere and the crash of it landing on the desert floor. Kara had been right to take them and their pods from that place. From their house, they cannot see Fort Rozz, so far away and over ridges that it is, but Alura can still hear the rumbling of it's engines – the explosions, the gunfire and the loud screams and bellows of the inmates as they run and fight their way to freedom.
Or captivity, Alura thinks as she sees from a distance as a Lunarian tries to run but is caught and bound by the human militia, bundled into a van.
"Lara," she starts, "Do you think Astra is among those that have escaped into the world?"
Lara pauses at her question, stirring her Earthen 'fruit tea' with a spoon before answering, tapping the metal cutlery on the side of the green ceramic mug.
"I think that if she had been captured, we would have been approached by the government already, questioning why we live in such close proximity to an alien crash-site and why you have a doppelganger. Humans are paranoid."
Alura sighs, watching Lara as she comes closer, sitting beside her on the 'sofa', their knees touching. "I miss her, Lara."
"I miss her too," the darker-skinned Kryptonian murmurs, smiling sadly, "Maybe not as much as you, but we were all still friends. I met Jor-El through you both."
"I remember," Alura sighs again, before reaching over to take Lara's tea, sipping it before returning it, frowning. "It is rather strange."
"Mmm, I know, but I rather like it," Lara glances at the empty plastic cup on the short table beside them. "Unlike those. I don't understand how Kara and Kal-El can consume them – they have no nutritional value."
"It has come to my understanding that these 'pot noodles' are a comfort food," Alura shakes her head, "I am not ashamed to say I have become addicted. They also have the added benefit of providing a meals worth of calorific content. Our powers take up a large amount of energy, as you well know."
Lara groans, "Oh, don't."
Alura smiles at that, laughing. "Do not try to make me forget, for I shall not. The memory of you eating the entire contents our cold-box after some long hours of flying will not leave me."
Lara grimaces before drinking more of her tea, both women turning their heads at Kal-El's groan.
"Could you not make me dream of eating an entire fridge, please?"
"Are you hungry, Kal-El?" Alura questions, humoured by her nephew's behaviour.
"Yes. Very hungry."
Lara speaks then, "Come and make yourself some sandwiches, Kal-El." In an instant, Kal-El is out of his room, a flurry of movement that is rather hypnotic, even for how long it lasts, ending with Kal-El slowly biting into a triple-stacked ham, lettuce and tomato sandwich, drizzled in some yellow sauce that Alura has yet to learn the name of. Another two sandwiches await him and a pot-noodle filled with cold water sits on the benchtop.
"Should that not go in the microwave?" Alura questions. Kal-El answers by biting into his sandwich again, moving to the benchtop so that they could still see, using heat vision to boil the water, causing it to bubble neatly. The teenager then pops a folded towel over the open top.
"Microwave is annoying. It makes my ears go funny sometimes. It takes just as much time to do it with heat-vision," he eats more of his sandwich, swallowing before continuing. "Once you've got better control, I'll teach you – outside, though."
Alura glances at the patch on the wall, amusement leaving her as she remembers Lara's accident. "Yes. Outside would be best."
Kal-El visits on weekends. Alura usually goes to spend time with Kara, while he is in the country house with Lara, but this weekend Kara is having a short holiday with Catherine – something Alura can understand intimately, remembering the few times a year she would drag Zor-El away from his projects for a short expedition to another planet in their galaxy or the neighbouring, leaving Kara to Astra or Lara's capable hands. To her knowledge, Lara only ever managed to drag Jor-El from his laboratory twice, before Kal-El's birth and Krypton's subsequent demise.
"I am going to bed," Alura announces at the memory, beginning to feel the familiar sensation of her depression – as Alexander called it – folding in around her. Standing, she walks to her room, keeping composure as long as she can until the tension in her muscles finally slacks. Breathing deeply out, Alura shuts her eyes, knowing this is the exact opposite of what Alexander advises her to do when Krypton's explosion weighs on her such.
Lying under her covers, Alura is blank and uneasy all at the same time. The gravity of Earth is not the same – it is lighter and altogether disconcerting. The roiling feeling in her gut and the haze that covers her mind feels like home sickness. She knows what she feels is wrong, though there is a logical reason to feel such a way, but it is still wrong. There is no home to feel sick for. There is no Krypton and there is no Zor-El.
I missed so much of Kara's life, Alura begins to think of her daughter, of her bright smile and terrified eyes. But more of this, of Kara, brings to mind the strength that her family has. She pushes off her covers, getting up and pulling on her dressing gown. Leaving her room, she walks with purpose to the kitchen, getting out a pot-noodle from the cupboard and filling the kettle, waiting for it to boil patiently.
"Get me one," Lara requests, coming to sit at the table. Alura nods, retrieving another and wondering morbidly, as she glances at Lara, if this was their destiny. To live together, wallowing in their grief. Is this what the last of In-Ze and Lor-Van are fated to do? Eat comforting substances in a darkened kitchen with no words to share?
More time passes. Kal-El has his fifteenth birthday, Kara, her thirty-third. Alura is informed that physically, she shall be thirty-four in late November, Lara to turn thirty-one in March. Alexander cuts their meetings in half and Alura is left with more time to herself – even more as Lara finds friendship in a woman by the name of Lillian. Alura drifts, only becoming more attached as her carefully calculated birthday comes and goes.
"You should get a job," Cat advises, "or qualifications to back up that little high school record Luthor made for you."
Alura likes Cat. She doesn't quite understand the wish to be known by the name of house-felines, but yes, Alura likes Cat Grant. So, taking her advice under consideration, Alura reads up on the American schooling system and quickly decides that Americans are strange, even for humans and so she looks to other countries. Law programs catch her attention, as she much expected, the workload appealing to her, alongside the salary.
Applying internationally gains her entrance to many different law programs, the majority of which do not offer 'conditionals'. Kara pays for her lodging and tuition at Sorbonne Law School and Alura decidedly thrives, enjoying the challenge and lifestyle that Paris offers – and if the odd tourist find their pickpocketed belongings returned to them within minutes of them being stolen, Alura will not say she did not enjoy the looks on the thieves' faces upon finding their loot of the day depleted.
So maybe it is coincidence, or maybe it isn't – but when Alura sees the fifth pod crash-land in the Seine, she isn't scared to dive in and retrieve it, hiding from the prying eyes of onlookers who had seen it go down, blue smoke trailing down from the sky and layering the water in front of the Pont des Arts like a skin, drifting down-stream. She isn't scared of who might be inside or what might not. Krypton died and Zor-El programmed all the pods to come to Earth. Alura will be damned to the heart of Rao, to burn to ash, before she will let her husband's last act – Zor-El's and Jor-El's both – be for nothing.
But inside is a boy, only a few years old who babbles in Daxammitan, confused and terrified. He reminds Alura of Kara, too much for her to leave him. So she programs the pod to shut with a sleeping gas, engine off, before running off after the boy who'd slipped out of her grasp.
"My name is Alura, Alura Zor-El," she tries to concentrate on speaking in his language, knowing just how hard it is to slip in and out of all the language she knows, through natural learning or the pod. She takes his wrist and almost tumbles as he stops, twisting to look at her in surprise.
"El? I am an El, too! I am Rhu-El!"
Astra knows his name almost too well and curses as she remembers the Ambassador all on their own on Daxam and what Krypton's destruction would mean for its sister-planet. She pulls Prince Rhu-El into her arms, cursing herself for not doing more, for not doing as Astra had and try spread the word. She places Rhu-El in his pod again, promising him that he will not be leaving again, that the claustrophobic space she is trapping him inside as his older brother, by the name of Mon-El did, will only be a temporary holding space.
Guilt manifesting quickly, Alura does not hesitate before flying to America, wobbly but determined, Rhu-El's pod held tightly in her grip as she takes him to Lara's house on the edge of the crash-site. Calling Kara, Lara and Kal-El – for none are there – she opens the pod again, holding Rhu-El tightly to her as he cries, voice stuck in Kryptonian, to his own fear.
Alura, not having had to deal with this for many years now, for lack of better word, panics.
"Would you like a pot-noodle?"
When Kara arrives, Lara on her tail – but Kal-El stuck in school – Rhu-El is asleep, half-eaten pot-noodle on the coffee table. Alura tucks him into her bed, loosely tucking in the covers before returning to them, speaking hurriedly and quickly.
"What do we do?" Kara questions, frowning. "I mean, I'll need to ask Alex for an identity for him, but-"
"I'll take him," Lara interrupts, glancing at them both, "He can stay here, with me. If he has powers too, then he'll need to practice and he's just a little boy."
"You can't replace Kal-El," Alura strikes the nail on the head, Lara recoiling only slightly, before shaking her head.
"I won't be. Kal-El can't ever be replaced. But Prince Rhu-El needs a home. If it was his older brother, I wouldn't even bother – but unlike you, I've met Rhu-El before, on a diplomatic council. Jor-El was discussing with Daxam's Royal Planetary Division, trying to convince them that Krypton's demise is coming, so they shouldn't fight any longer. I do not know what more they talked of, but I did meet with the Royal Family, as he did. Rhu-El knows me, just as his- his frat boy of a brother does. Did."
They all exchange glances, wondering just exactly how Daxam and the Daxammites fared.
"Okay," Kara says softly, before nodding. "I'll have Alex draw the papers up." She gets on her cell phone, Alura swallowing back her disagreement.
"I will return to Paris," she says later, after Rhu-El has woken and she has said her goodbyes to the little prince. She takes a pot-noodle with her, for her own benefit and Alura, once again, mourns for Krypton and the could-have-beens.