1. In another world, there was a girl who'd lost her home, who pulled an army of monsters with her when she, at long last, crashed to the surface of the Earth after being trapped for so long in a place where time didn't pass.

Kara Zor-El, age thirteen, who would've been Kara Danvers had a certain Coluan interfered before she did, slept for over a thousand years before she was finally awoken.

2. The Legion was on a mission, one of their first since Clark had left for the final time, when they'd discovered the Kryptonian pod.

It was no surprise to anyone present that Brainy had spotted it first.

He'd been hopeful, despite how illogical the possibility was, that perhaps Clark had returned to them somehow.

The others would later recount that he'd never before looked so disappointed than when he'd opened the pod and glimpsed golden hair instead of black.

3. Kara was, naturally, taken to Legion headquarters, just as her cousin had been all those years ago.

But instead of testing her powers, since she was so young and only now discovering them, they opted to train her, different members helping her explore each of her newfound abilities.

She'd been warned that the one called "Brainiac-5" would have particularly high standards, expect a lot of her because he had been the closest to her cousin.

She hadn't expected him to be on the verge of tears when she'd first learned of her 'solar flare', the result of her particularly strong laser beam attack that expended all of her strength and left her powerless.

When that had happened, and she'd started to bleed from a mere scratch, he'd started crying.

She resolved to never use that attack again, and pushed the whole experience to the back of her mind.

They all taught her how to fly, in-between fighting the escaped criminals she'd accidentally unleashed when she arrived on the planet.

She liked those lessons the best.

She especially liked flying near the front of their line-up, so she wouldn't have to see Brainiac-5, or the blatant evidence on his face that she'd failed him somehow.

4. When she was sixteen, she properly tried out for the Legion, wearing a costume based on the designs she'd seen of her cousin's super-suit.

For one reason or another, Brainy wasn't present at the tryouts, and when results came he stumbled over her name, barely managing to get out "Supergirl" before asking to be excused from the room.

Kara caught up to him while he was leaving the headquarters.

"Brainy!" she said, trying to get his attention.

He didn't turn around, and Kara almost thought he wouldn't speak to her.

"I've been meaning to ask…what was my cousin like?" she asked. "Apparently, you knew him best, so…"

"Oh, Kara. I wish you could've met him." he said, finally. "He was…well…Superman pretty much sums it all up. Courageous, and strong, and…radiant. Sometimes, you even resemble him."

"Really?"

"Yes, Kara."

5. Brainy was in the Superman museum when Kara found him, after he'd left the headquarters for the second time that day.

"Brainy! Why are you so upset with me? Did I do something wrong?" she asked, crossing the museum floor to where he stood, in front of the glass case containing a statue of who she presumed to be her cousin.

"Sometimes, you sound like him as well." he said, looking forward even though he was speaking to her behind him.

"We were here, five years ago, when he finally decided to leave us- the Legion, I mean." he continued, softly. He activated a device on his arm, and a hologram of Superman himself sprang forth, presumably in the midst of his last conversation with Brainy.

"Brainy?"

"Yes?" the real Brainy answered.

"I have to leave now, and fight in the twenty-first century, to become the hero I was meant to be."

"You don't have to go yet…that's the thing about time travel, like what we told you when we first arrived in your timeline- you can stay as long as you want to, and return the moment you left."

"But I want to go. I want to see my family again, experience life in my own time."

"Then let me come with you!" Brainy blurted out. "I can…disguise myself. Live as a human. It won't be so hard."

"You have a life of your own, too, Querl. Friends who would be very upset to learn that you'd abandoned them."

"Look at me, Kal. I've lost everything that made me an asset to the team. They don't need me anymore."

"You say that, but you still help them anyway. That's where you're meant to be, with the Legion. We both have our own paths to travel. There was a time when those paths merged, but now…I think they have to move away from one another."

"Kal, no-!"

"I'll never forget you, Querl."

The hologram-Superman reached out his hand, and real Brainy attempted to grasp it, only for the hologram to dissolve, leaving Brainy weeping, on his knees, in front of the statue. Kara crept further, gradually nearing him.

"Everything I did for so long, even before he arrived, I did because of him. I wanted to be a hero just like him, live up to his legacy instead of that of my ancestor. Now he is gone, and I'm…here." he said, gazing up at Clark's face.

"If he could see me now…even through your eyes…what would he think of me?" he asked.

Kara closed the gap between the two, hugging him from behind.

"I can't speak for him, but…I think you're pretty great." she said.

He smiled at her, and for a moment, all her worries about not living up to his expectations melted away.