Part 1: Better for You
How Will He Find Me, Deb Talan
Each chapter of this fic is inspired and influenced and prompted by a song off Deb Talan's album "A Bird Flies Out." It's not a song fic in the way where that really matters - if you know the album that's cool but it doesn't matter at all. The lyrics are just prompts, really.
Lyrics are in bold italics.
The chapters will go roughly in order through the canon, but they're thematic so some of them cover a couple episodes worth of ground.
This first part, Better For You, is pre-canon.
Hope you like
How Will He Find Me
if i don't stand out like a star among the moons
Alex was never one of those kids who got special treatment if they got all A's. She didn't get a ski trip or a special dinner, and she sure as hell never got paid for her grades. Straight A's were the minimum expectation, really. If she got them, she'd get a good job and, if she was lucky, a see we told you that you could handle pre-calc even though you're only 12.
If, god forbid, she didn't get straight A's – no matter the situation, no matter how hard the classes were or how high above her grade level they were, or how many assignments of hers the teacher had lost which wasn't her fault – she'd get a stern lecture. Always the same lecture, the one that started with we're disappointed in you Alexandra and ended with we know you can do better than this and you obviously need to try harder.
They never said why they were so hard on her, not openly. Once, after a terrible fight where she'd screamed at them that she didn't want to take AP chemistry in 8th grade, why wouldn't they let her be NORMAL, she'd heard her mother say to her father, angrily, if we don't push her, who will, her teachers? Like the idea was absurd, laughable.
Once she was in the living room laughing with a couple of friends about how their teacher clearly hadn't read their work well enough, because they'd all written their final reports in half an hour and all had gotten high marks. Her father pulled her out of the room, demanded to see her work, skimmed it right then and there, and then gave her the look. He told her he expected more from her, that she needed to hold herself to the highest standards because out in the world people would underestimate her. If she didn't push herself, he said, his eyes sad, then she'd never reach her full potential. I'm disappointed in you, Alexandra, he said, his face heavy. I want you to do better than this, he said. You're better than this, he said.
Alex always knew she was smart. She started doing middle school work in second grade, and it took all of her powers of persuasion to get her parents to agree that she should only start a private independent college-level study for math and science in high school, not in middle school.
She understood what was expected of her: to excel, to exceed no matter how high the standards were. When she accomplished something, even something that was thought to be impossible for a child her age (not to mention a girl), the standards were simply pushed further. She could never succeed, not really. She could never rest, she had never worked hard enough. There was always something higher, something further, something better, something new to try for.
She was never good enough.
how will he find me
with no one's arms to gather me together?
how will he find me?
only held by gravity, faded with uncertainty
no longer young and not that pretty
how will he ever find me?
In elementary school it was cool to care about school, about grades, about science. In middle school it was cool to care some, but you were also supposed to care about B-O-Y-S. Suddenly, those small snotty smelly shitty kids who had been universally acknowledged as bothers were desirable. You had to have a crush at all times, Alex learned, and it was supposed to be a secret, but not from your best friends. You didn't have to tell him, ever, if you didn't want, but you had to have one you could point to and say, there, that's him, my crush.
Alex didn't quite understand the alchemy of crushes. How did you know if you had one? Who were you supposed to have one on? What did it feel like? There were boys that she liked okay, that she respected enough in class, that she thought were kind of cute, so she figured that was it.
So one day she was sitting with her friends on the blacktop, waiting for the PE teacher to finish calling roll. Just the day before she'd gotten teased for not having a crush, so she was taking the opportunity to look over her prospects and decide who her crush would be. She looked methodically up and down the rows of kids to find a boy who was decent looking, wasn't a total jerk, was at least kind of smart, and wasn't the crush of one of her friends. Daniel was the first one who fit her criteria. Daniel it is.
She was purposefully slow to respond to Vicky, who was sitting right next to her. Earth to Alex, she'd said. Oh, sorry, I was just looking at my crush, Alex said, in a completely calculated gesture, wishing she could blush on command. It worked. Vicky squealed, and spent the rest of the period grilling her to find out who her crush was while Alex played hard to get. Vicky even told Sarah and the others to leave them alone, and Alex just fucking basked in having Vicky all to herself for the full hour, having Vicky's full attention on her, having Vicky link their arms as they strolled alone around the field, absently kicking a soccer ball between them. Having Vicky make her feel special.
Having a crush got her exactly what she wanted. Having a crush made her better.
it never seems to matter, the tears i cry
there's a well inside of me that never runs dry
from being born i guess, and born in life until we die
When Kara arrived, everything changed. Alex liked her, and she felt bad for her, and wanted to do her part to help Kara fit in. She thought that maybe having an orphaned alien in the house would take some of the pressure off of her, take some of the spotlight away and let her grow how she wanted to.
But it didn't.
The spotlight only got brighter. Now she was responsible not only for herself but for Kara, not only for her own grades and behaviors but for how well Kara fit in, for Kara having friends, for Kara not melting down at the sound of the school bell, for Kara not talking about Krypton where people could hear her.
She was drowning in balancing school – completing two AP-level classes in eighth grade – and friends – everything was so much more complicated now than when they were younger and could just unabashedly love each other – and boys – her new crush was Rick, she'd decided – and Kara.
Something had to go.
She tried to drop Kara. She treated her badly, dragged her along to an outing at the beach that she certainly wasn't ready for, because Rick had asked her to go and Vicky was going to the movies with Kyle and she understood that this was something she was supposed to say yes to, something she was supposed to want.
And then Kara had been so weird, staring at the birds and spinning around, and then had sprinted off to save two people from a burning car.
And Alex got the worst lecture of her life that night, still in her hospital bed, her stitches throbbing. It was Kara's fault that she was in the hospital, Kara's fault that she'd been anywhere near that exploding car, but she was the one who had whipped her mother into a nearly hysterical rage.
And the worst part was, her mother was right. Alex hadn't even wanted to be there, didn't care about Rick or anyone else on that beach. Kara could have been hurt, could have been taken away from them. Kara had saved two human lives in a minute, and all Alex had done was let some stupid boy talk at her about trucks for twenty minutes.
Kara was more valuable. Kara was more important.
Alex had to hold herself to a higher standard now, to be worthy of Kara, to be better for her. To support her, to protect her. Alex had to be for Kara now.
That night, she crept into Kara's room and held her while she cried. I was so worried about you, Kara said, I was scared I'd lose you too. Alex told her that they were family now, and Alex would protect her. She said it fiercely, you're not alone anymore and you have me now and she stayed with Kara all night.
Something had to go, and it was boys.
i walk the world with a skin so thin
i can wear no adequate protection
everything comes crashing in
if i'm too wide open for this place
but not enough for her to recognize my face
And then it was friends. By the middle of senior year things with Vicky were awful, and everyone was getting so catty and Alex was sick of having to watch herself all the time, having to keep them away from her house and from Kara. Sick of watching Vicky just hand herself to any boy who looked at her. She deserved better, and Alex told her that, and Vicky pushed her away, and Alex didn't fight back.
Alex threw herself into her work, graduating high school with more than half of the credits she'd need to finish college. She jammed through college, graduating with a joint BS/MS in two and half years instead of five or six, and went directly into a PhD/MD program at National City University.
And still, she wasn't good enough. Still, she got the lecture. Kara used her super hearing to listen to a lecture from her bed, her mother scolded her on the phone, like somehow this was Alex's fault. I'm disappointed in you, Alexandra.
And it hurt and it hurt and it hurt and she was never good enough, not at any of it. She held Kara all night as she cried about Krypton on her mother's birthday and, exhausted, seriously messed something up in the lab. The damage to her project was extensive and she got reamed by her PI.
Something had to go, and it was school.
and what shall i do with a drunken heart
with goggle eyes and the troubling hunger
reaching forward to trick mirror men
leaning out and in again
It was freeing, to drink. To dance, to party. She started to live for the feeling of a man's eyes on her body, of being desperately wanted, of not remembering the details. She never wanted the men back, particularly, but she convinced herself that she did. She confused wanting to be wanted with wanting this particular person, each time.
So she drank, and she danced, and to keep doing it she had to distance herself from Kara.
"You can lift a car over your head. I'm just trying to keep up," she said in a rare honest moment, something real about herself, but Kara didn't quite get it.
"I know having superpowers is hard," she said, because Kara mattered more than she did.
"You have to watch over yourself; I can't police you 24/7 anymore," she said, because it was true.
"Now is not a good time," she said.
"We'll talk later," she said but she didn't mean it.
She hugged Kara less – less often and less close – in case she could smell the alcohol on her breath and oozing out of her pores.
And she went on academic probation.
So she drank more, and danced more, and lied more, and ended up in a jail cell.
And then he found her.
if i don't stand out like a star among the moons
how will he find me
with no one's arms to gather me together?
how will he find me?
only held by gravity, faded with uncertainty
no longer young and not that pretty
how will he ever find me?
Hank found her, and he understood. He understood that she was never good enough but that she could be. He told her she was smart and powerful and important. He set a standard for her and then he held it. "You'll be ready when you can beat me," he said, and he was true to his word.
Alex excelled with Hank, without equivocation or conditions, without a but at the end of a compliment. Hank looked at her and he saw her, he found her, and he held her together until she could do it herself. She became vivid, certain, strong, self-contained.
Hank was her rock. Hank saved her life. Hank gave her a home, and a purpose. She served him with honor, and she was proud of that. She was proud of herself.
Hank found her.
And then she found herself.
I know I may be dating myself here, but Deb Talan really is the best. Back in my day, she was one of top folk people that us queer ladies listened to. She's currently one half of The Weepies. If you don't know her, you might want to.
