"Tell me that story, the one you told me when I was little," Alex asks, stretching out her mother's hand, staring at the thin digits and short-cut nails as her skin stretches out of small wrinkles.
"Really? I haven't told you that one in years…when I was young, I met a girl from space. Her name was Kara Zor-El and she was an alien, but she didn't look any different from you or I. She had dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes and sunlight gave her powers, because our sun is yellow sun rather than a red sun, like the one that orbits her planet. Her planet was called Krypton, which had blown up in front of her eyes."
"How can a planet blow up?"
Eliza hums, "Kara said they used it too much. All their natural resources, gone after hundreds of years of mining and extrapolation. I'd say that it became unstable." Shifting, Eliza pulls her hand away, tucking Alex's covers up higher, ignoring the ten year-old's batting hands. "Kara was very scared and very confused and she cried a lot. Figuring out that she was an alien – an easy feat, ignoring the silver space ship she'd crash-landed in a wheat field – I took her home and got to know her."
"You taught her how to use a kettle," Alex adds. Eliza nods, smiling sadly.
"Yes. I did. I taught her little things about human life and culture and helped her build a story for herself. She had to pretend she didn't remember anything when we finally went to the police – and she had to pretend she'd seen her soulmate when she was very young, because she could see colour."
"I don't get that," Alex frowns, "It can't just be Earth that has soulmates, even in a story. Everyone has a soul and everyone has a soulmate – or soulmates," she corrects herself belatedly. "Lloyd had more than one soulmate. He can't see all colours, just some. Why did you make Krypton not have soulmates in your story, mom?"
"I didn't make up the story, Alexandra," Eliza shakes her head, "I have to go check on your brother. I said I'd come see him to make sure he wasn't on his Gameboy."
Alex rolls her eyes but nods, accepting the kiss on her forehead and the soft goodnight before Eliza leaves to go see Winn. Turning on her side, Alex thinks of far-off planets and alien girls with blonde hair and blue eyes, before shutting her eyes and trying to ignore the murmurs through the walls as her mother puts Winn to sleep.
At least Susie doesn't have to listen to him cry, Alex thinks of her foster-sister, grumpy, though it makes more sense for her to have to put up with it. He's her brother, after all.
Alexandra Danvers had been born to Eliza and Jeremiah Danvers in May of nineteen ninety. When Alex was six, one of her father's old college friends in National City died, Orla Vasquez leaving behind her twelve-year old daughter, Susan. Alex is a bit fuzzy on the details as to how Winn is Susan's brother, but she loves her sister very much and frankly, thinks she's awesome.
When Winn came to live with them last month, so he could have his own bedroom, Susie was moved down into the basement, which was refurbished to be her bedroom and ensuite bathroom. Alex still thinks it's really unfair, but Susie said once she goes to college, Alex can switch bedrooms with her, which is another reason why her sister is awesome – even if she's really, really rubbish at surfing.
The year after, Susan goes to university – National City University, meaning she stays at home and commutes every time she goes into campus, meaning Alex doesn't get the basement until she turns fourteen and Susan moves out at age nearly-twenty, getting a flat in the city so she doesn't have to drive two hours every day to get to work. To Alex, the basement is brilliant, for more reasons than you might think.
First off: the basement has an outside access. This, plus the private bathroom, means Alex can go surfing every morning and afternoon without pissing off her mother for trailing sand into the house. Later, this also means that Alex can sneak her friends in without her parents knowing…until they install a security camera after some close shaves, which earns Alex an entire summers worth of grounding after they see Eric sneaking out in the early hours of the morning, without permission from any adult, Danvers or otherwise.
(In another universe, a young Kara Zor-El would have been Alex's only sibling, adopted or otherwise and Jeremiah would have been forced to work at the DEO to keep her safe. In another universe, Susan Vasquez and Winn Schott Junior would have lived in foster-care for a long, long time, never discovering their shared blood due to Jeremiah's lack of friends, having socially progressed in a different way due to the advent of Superman. In another universe, Eliza never met a scared, terrified, orphaned alien girl when she was a teenager and never was inspired to make sure other scared, terrified, orphaned children had homes and families that loved them.
But in this other universe, Kara Zor-El never landed in nineteen eighty-seven on a world where the word soulmate is taken literally, did she?)
Once the time comes for Alex to go to college, she has the choice between going to Harvard and going to Princeton. Alex chooses Princeton, purely because she has surfer friends there that go to Sandy Hook to catch some waves. Biotechnology is her major and she works – oh, she works. Still, however, she pushes herself to surf, to keep up her skill and to always be there at the bay by the crack of dawn, unless she has a morning class.
Her determination is her downfall.
Drowning, Alex finds, is not at all peaceful. It burns and it is killing her. She can't move her limbs more than a few inches in any direction, the pressure too much and her energy gone. Her brain is screaming in pain and she can't even feel her chest anymore, the crushing need for air, for oxygen a battle she's already lost. All she can do now is keep her mouth shut as long as possible and try to move, dammit!
Water pours down her throat and she can't even choke properly. The need to breathe overrides what control she has left and what she draws in is wet and it burns, oh it burns!
Blearily, Alex can see a dark shape coming towards her, from the surface. They swim through the water slowly, coming closer and closer. She feels something wrap around her, a heavy, tugging sensation before the pressure begins to get inexplicably lighter-
Alex coughs violently, throwing up what water is in her lungs and stomach, meagre breakfast spilling onto the beach. She's being held up, her knees barely brushing the sand and her ribs are broken, they have to be – it's the only way to explain the sharp pains there, the bone-deep pain that causes her to begin crying immediately.
"Shh, shh, you are safe, human," a voice is quick to assure her and once Alex finishes throwing up and drooling she brings a shaky hand to her mouth, wiping it and looking up, turning her head. Hair, is the first thing she thinks, before seeing dark, colourful eyes on a smooth face. Woman, is the second thing she thinks. "What is your name, human?"
Alex can't speak. She doesn't have the energy or the will, her mind spinning and taking in everything about her before it clicks. Colour. This, colour, colour.
The woman moves them both, placing Alex down on the sand. "I am Astra. Can you speak, human? Do you even speak this infernal English language?" Alex blinks, wanting to nod but having no energy. Her hair is sticking to her face and-
Alex internally laughs, because her board is still tied to her ankle. Or at least half of it is.
"-an effort to learn each of the most well-known languages on this planet and yet no-one I deem suitable to speak to even recognises a word I'm saying. It is truly ridiculous-"
"Alex," she says, regretting speaking even as she says it, throat scratching. Coughing again a few times, mentally screaming at the pain in her chest, Alex forces her body to move, spitting into the sand before nearly losing her balance as she sits up. The woman grabs her, grip impossibly strong and painful around her arm, but it keeps her up and that's all Alex can ask for in this moment.
"Is that your name?"
"Yes," Alex says hoarsely before giving a wracking cough that causes her to make loud, pained noises, interspersed with more pain-inducing, wracking coughs. The woman – Alex guiltily can't remember her name – rubs circles in her back that squidge her wetsuit weirdly. Alex uselessly reaches back, trying to find the cord to pull it down, to get the outfit off. The woman makes a noise of understanding, undoing the zip and helping her take her arms out.
With her torso exposed, Alex shivers, but more of her attention is brought to the hand-shaped contusions on her chest, matching the spidery webs of pain beneath her skin.
"…oh," the woman audibly swallows, "Humans use a method of resuscitation I am familiar with, but I did not know where-"
"Human heart is in the centre of the chest. Even a little kid knows that," Alex cuts in croakily, "Saved my life, though. My- my life. Saved me." Alex feels her eyes heat up, embarrassment flooding her as her emotions get the better of her, causing her to start crying. Leaning somewhat on the woman, Alex sobs like a baby, every so often opening her closing eyes so that she can look at the bruises – look at the colours that bloom there, blood making shapes in her skin.
Once she's finished crying, noises petering off, Alex feels the cold wind against her skin and pulls up her wetsuit with difficulty, trying to use it as a barrier.
"Are you cold, brave one?"
Alex looks up at her rescuer. "Yes. I think you broke my ribs giving me CPR."
"Apologies," the woman murmurs and it's then that Alex notices she's wearing a wet-suit too, except…it's not a wetsuit.
"Is that a bodysuit?"
"It is armour," the woman replies, before gathering her up in her arms. Alex lets out a pained noise as the movements jolts her chest, gritting her teeth as she feels things move. "Where should I take you?"
"Hospital. I need a hospital," Alex gets out, wondering just how exactly the woman doesn't know she needs to get to a hospital. "You broke my ribs. They need to be put into place before they can- can puncture my lungs or something."
"That sounds particularly unpleasant," the woman practically flies up the beach to the road, slowing when she comes to the sidewalk, approaching a beach hut only just opening up. Alex sees the man pause at the sight of them, before he calls.
"What happened?"
"She needs a hospital," the woman proclaims, voice loud as she walks over, Alex curling into her chest with a shudder as the wind batters her thin frame. "I rescued her from the depths when I saw she did not come up and had to perform a resuscitation when on land again."
"Fuck!" The man reaches over the counter for a phone on the wall, dialling nine-one-one. Alex looks up to the woman again as he summons an ambulance.
"What's your name?"
The woman glances down, "Astra In-Ze. You are Alex, yes?"
"Alex, yeah. For future record, my full name is Alexandra Danvers, but please don't call me that." Immediately, Alex decides that was the wrong thing to say as she sees Astra's lip tug upwards.
"Of course, Alexandra."
Alex decides that whatever colour Astra's eyes are – the same sort of colour the grass is, so it must be green – that colour is her favourite.