Chapter 2

So yeah, if you've read this before and were expecting new content sorry but I'm just revamping a bit.

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Kara Zor-El

College!

She was finally in college! She could hardly stand it, she was so excited!

In this place of learning, this National City University, she would begin her new life. A life that was her own, not as a Danvers or as an El, not as a Kryptonian or as a human, a life as just Kara.

If only she knew who that was. But she was excited to find out.

She loved the Danvers family deeply and would forever be grateful to them, but the constant over-protection, especially from her big sister Alex, was really getting to her. Really, what did they think could possibly happen to her? She was more worried about them, they were all so very breakable.

So she was also quite glad to be out of the small town of Midvale where, despite the wide open spaces filled with nature that she'd loved, she'd always felt her every move was being scrutinized by all the nosy neighbours. And she was glad that she'd get a chance to discover who she was without Alex always whispering "be careful, trust no one" in her ear and giving frightening glares to anyone who came within three feet of her precious fragile little sister (who could bench-press a Mach truck with one hand).

She was also very glad to leave behind her peers at Midvale High. Here, nobody knew her, there was no one to call her freak or weirdo. And she was better now, better at pretending to be human. Things would be different here she promised herself.

During her first few months on the planet, she hadn't even known the language, much less the culture. Her obvious deficiencies in language and general knowledge, her naturally introverted nature, the fear of confrontation that had been profoundly ingrained into her by Kal and her adoptive parents due to her terrifying new powers, her lack of understanding of the most basic of social customs (and there was nothing basic about the social pecking order in high school); all of these things had made her a prime target for bullies and mean girls during her high-school years.

No, high school had not been a particularly pleasant time for Kara, despite how much more in love with Earth and all of its beauty she became every day, she was starting to have serious misgivings about the humans that her cousin praised so much.

In hindsight, she had to admit that she had probably appeared very weird to her classmates. But for someone who had to literally switch entire species and planets in just a few days (from her perspective), Kara thought she had done quite well.

But she was better now. She hadn't had any more problems with English in years, even the curses and the slang. She'd been thoroughly educated on current pop culture by use of movie-nights, CDs and going through trashy magazines with her sister. She had a very decent and normal wardrobe and she could spout off the most inane details of her cover story by heart. And she was finally starting to get a handle on those "powers" of hers.

This time, Kara was determined to be as normal as possible, to fit in, to actually feel as if she belonged to this world; maybe she was hoping it would dull the constant ache in her heart at the loss of her own world.

Now where was her dorm-room? The older student outside with her clipboard that had looked a bad comment away from a full-blown mental breakdown had barked at her "Danvers, 407, Hall A. Next!".

And so here she was, on the fourth floor of Albert Hall in National City University, looking for her dorm-room and, she thought excitedly, her roommate. The idea of living day in/day out with someone who was, as of now at least, a complete stranger, was naturally frightening, for a dozen different reasons. The fact that she was secretly a super-powered alien from another galaxy wasn't even the scariest in her opinion, what if her roommate didn't like her? Thought she was a freak as well, like all those other kids? Her mom and sister had both insisted that she could get off-campus housing alone and that they would help pay for it but she'd categorically refused. Alex had practically had a coronary trying to convince her of the dangers of exposure. But she had held firm, she wanted to be a normal girl with a normal college experience. And that included living in the dorms with a roommate.

Oh, how she hoped they would get along. She had this image in her head of her roommate becoming her best-friend and confidante, she'd never had one of those before, apart from Alex but she didn't really count. She wanted someone that was just hers, that would be her friend because she liked her for her, not because she'd been dumped on her. Someone that would stay up at night with her talking about nothing and everything, someone that would look at her like she was normal, someone with whom she didn't feel so alone. And that was the real reason she'd insisted on dorm-housing despite the "security risk", because a roommate was like a built-in best friend wasn't it? She'd never been very good at making friends (on Krytpon either).

Ok, she was probably getting far too ahead of herself like she always did when she was excited, they hadn't even met yet. For that matter, she had yet to even find her dorm-room. She was still stumbling around the corridors, carefully avoiding all the other rushing students for fear they might break something by running into her and easily carrying her multiple bags.

"412…no…409…no…Ah! 407!"

This was it. The beginning of her new life. She wondered if her unknown room-mate for the next year was already inside so she strained her ear a tiny bit and heard a steady heart-beat in the other room.

She was here! Ok…show-time now. She remembered her sister's advice one last time. "Be friendly but not too friendly like you get. Be calm. Be cool. But be yourself too. And above all…be normal!"

Kara had really wanted to ask Alex how she was supposed to simultaneously be herself and be normal when herself was someone who'd been born and raised on a different planet which was hardly normal, but she'd held her tongue.

That was something she wasn't sure anyone quite understood when it came to her, not even Kal-Clark (urgh she hated that name), especially not Clark. They all thought her problems adjusting to Earth stemmed from her abilities and how that set her apart from everyone else. And that was true, to some extent, but that had been Clark's main problem, not hers. She could feel it when she talked to her cousin, that little part of him that wanted desperately to be human. And so, for him, his biggest issue came from accepting the fact that he wasn't human, and never would be, no matter how hard he tried and how much he pretended. But that was because Kal had grown up until adolescence under the belief that he actually was human. He'd once told her that when he first found out where he truly came from, he did his damndest to ignore it for a long time. He hated that part of himself that forced him to always be alone.

She could certainly empathize, but the thing was, Kara's problems weren't the same, at least not entirely. She had been raised on Krypton, not Kansas, she remembered her planet and its magnificent crystalline landscapes that shimmered under the shade of their red sun into colours that didn't even exist on this planet, she remembered her parents and Kal's real parents, she remembered their culture, their history, their arts, their achievements and their failings, their religion and so much more. Kara was Kryptonian, she had never believed herself human and she had never wanted to, not like Kal-Clark.

And that was why she truly felt so alone, despite having her cousin and her adoptive family. Because she truly felt like the last Kryptonian. Ironically, she knew that's what they called Kal: "The Last Son of Krypton" (which she guessed was true as she was a daughter but still), but the fact of the matter was, her cousin was far more human than he was Kryptonian and that was the way he liked it. He always seemed uncomfortable when she mentioned rites and traditions from their shared home planet, and shied away from her when she tried to teach him about their language and history. In truth, Kal often shied away from her, period. It was never obvious or overt and her cousin had never shown her anything but kindness but…she could still feel it and she had certainly seen it.

During the several years she had spent on Earth, she had actually spent a very short amount of that time with her only blood-relative, all things considered. Sure, Kal had helped her get a handle on her powers in the beginning and did seem genuinely happy not to be the only surviving Kryptonian anymore, but that was where it had stopped. She had expected to live with him, he was her family after all: he would teach her all about Earth and these strange changes to her biology that he called "abilities" and she could teach him about his lost heritage, one of the missions she had been sent with him to do but that she'd failed at so miserably. Despite him being an already grown and confident man in full control of his will and powers, there was still a part of her that heard Lara's pleading voice in her hear to "Please, take care of my son" and so she still felt deeply responsible for her younger/older cousin.

What she hadn't expected was the fact that Kal seemed decidedly uninterested in learning of his own culture and heritage, even mentions of his true parents were met with an uncomfortable silence. Kal, son of Lara and Jor-El, last Scion of the Great and Noble House of El, didn't want to be Kal-El the Kryptonian, he wanted to be Clark Kent, son of Martha and Jonathan Kent, human.

He proved this for real when he announced his plan to place her with some friends of his, a "good family with good values" just like he had been, so she could learn to fit in at her own pace and had a family to teach, love and support her, just like he had. Basically, attempting to clumsily recreate his own upbringing. Kara had wanted to tell him that, unlike him, she remembered her real mother and father and knew they had loved her unconditionally; she didn't need or want a substitute. She'd also wanted to tell him that he was her only real family now, so why couldn't he take her in? If their roles had been reversed like they were meant to be in the beginning, she knew that she wouldn't have hesitated for a second and in fact would have insisted that her little cousin stayed under her guidance and protection. He had given her some speech about keeping her safe and how his role as Superman exposed him to constant danger and scrutiny and how he would never forgive himself if something happened to her. Again, she'd wanted to ask what exactly did he think could happen to her, living in a world of glass inhabited by paper people as she was. And besides, he had Lois with him all the time, and she was publicly associated with both Clark Kent and Superman (she truly wondered how he still managed to remain anonymous). Certainly, she was in less danger than Lois and even if she were, again, so what? Nothing in this world could hurt her.

No, there was a much more simple reason why Kal had placed her with the Danvers and more or less washed his hands of her. He simply didn't want her there. She hadn't known why then, though she suspected it had something to do with his still on-going struggle to accept his true nature, but whatever the reason, it had hurt…bad. Her last remaining family wanted nothing to do with her and what he thought was "best", was to attempt to give her the exact same childhood that he had received, to suppress her Kryptonian side as much as possible, as he had.

It was a few years later, during one of the rare times that Kal had flown by the house to spend some time with her, that she understood the root of his actions and why he disdained all things Kryptonian so much.

They had been discussing General Zod and his failed attempt (thanks to Superman) to invade the Earth and use it to create a New-Krypton (she hadn't been there then, but even as much as she missed her world and would have loved to see it rise again, she could never condone the genocide of a entire sentient species to achieve that goal and she knew that she would have stood with her cousin against her fellow Kryptonians in that fight). Kal was being uncharacteristically open when he talked of the fallen General and the mix of dashed-hopes, disappointment and regret he had felt when meeting a fellow Kryptonian for the first time in his life and saw what he was like. And that was when she got it.

Kal not only disliked but was afraid of his own people. Not even solely because of their abilities, but rather because he'd formed this image in his mind of Krypton as a cold, emotionless place; ruled by cold logic, arrogance, power over lesser beings and xenophobia. The sad fact was, he wasn't entirely wrong in his assessment either. But it also meant that he'd become convinced that Krypton only produced sociopaths.

And that was why he'd pushed her away at first. He didn't trust her. He didn't trust her because, just like Zod and his exiled compatriots, she had been raised on Krypton and to him, that meant that she was potentially a monster without conscience. He didn't fear her because of her abilities, well not only, he feared her because, unlike him, she hadn't had any humans to "turn her good".

Kal-El hated his own people.

And that angered her. Sure, Zod had hardly been a good poster-child for Krypton (or sanity in general), but what right did Kal have to judge an entire people on the actions of one, and a convicted criminal at that? Krypton as a civilization had existed for hundreds of thousands of years and had accomplished wonders upon wonders, creating far more than it ever destroyed. It was true that when she was born, during (what nobody knew except one genius scientist at the time) the last years of Krypton, their society had become stagnant and arrogant in practically every way, but that didn't erase their very long and glorious history and their countless achievements (but rather they fed it). Their arrogance didn't come from nowhere after all, there was a time when the Kryptonian Empire ruled supreme and benevolent over their galaxy, before they'd turned inwards. Yet, Kal-El had but a few glimpses of the worst of Kryptonian society and judged them all to be megalomaniac sociopaths? And he thought the human race was better?

Not long after "waking up", she'd started studying the history of the people whose planet she now shared using their centralized communications network called the internet, and she had been absolutely horrified by what she found: by the sheer amount of violence, cruelty and destruction that the humans routinely unleashed on one other for the most petty of reasons. And she wasn't even talking about their exceptionally bloody past (Krypton had its own after all), but what was happening on Earth right now. To her, it had been inconceivable to think that at the exact same moment, on the same planet, sometimes on the very same street, some humans lived in absolute safety and luxury while others lived in squalor and suffered and struggled to survive day to day…and that everyone seemed to find this state of affairs perfectly normal.

And even in peaceful and civilized countries, such as she'd been told America was, Rao, the crime! The horrors that humans could and did perpetrate on one another, and so routinely? Murder, torture, rape, abuse…the list went on. And this country was considered to be one of the pinnacles of modern society and civilization, she didn't even want to imagine the state of affairs in those poor countries she'd seen on their viewing screen, urgh, television she meant! And again, everyone knew it was happening and seemed to find the situation perfectly natural and went about their lives. She just couldn't understand it, couldn't understand them.

Those kinds of things hadn't happened on Krypton for centuries: antisocial and violent tendencies could be identified, isolated and purged from the DNA and brain chemistry of a child before it was even born (usually). Of course, that had its drawbacks too, her uncle Jor-El often decried those kind of pre-natal manipulations and the obsession that Kryptonians had with keeping their bloodlines "pure". But it still meant that crime had been more or less non-existent on Krypton, the same went for hunger and poverty. Her home planet may not have been the utopia it had liked to pretend it was to the rest of the galaxy it was true, but they had been civilized to an extent that the humans had a long way to go to reach.

But her cousin either didn't want to know or didn't believe her when she spoke of it, and really, what could she expect? Kal liked to say often and loudly that Superman was just a costume and that he was really just a regular guy from rural Kansas. And it turned out, that was true. Because regular guys from Kansas had never seen the seven shining towers of Argos City, the great walls of New Kandor or the vast frozen ocean of Solitude; they had never paid homage to Rao, never felt proud to wear the ancient and revered symbol of the House of El. And neither had Clark Kent. She had come here to protect her little cousin but she had failed and slept for 24 years. She could now see that he had been happy, safe and loved and she was so very, very glad for that; but she could also see that Kal-El didn't exist anymore and in his place stood Clark Kent: an excellent human by all accounts, and if people knew of his extracurricular activities they would call him a great one, and Clark Kent was all of those things, including human, and that broke her heart.

But enough of these maudlin thoughts, time for some positive attitude! She had a roommate to meet and a new chapter of her life to begin!

She dug out the key she'd been given at the Admission's Office and started to wiggle it in the lock of door 407 when she heard someone come barrelling towards her in the narrow corridor. A quick glance informed her that it was some tall and muscular dark-skinned boy (who was clearly on the wrong floor seeing as he was a boy) carrying a such a huge amount of boxes and luggage in front of him as to block his sight, and advancing quickly, expecting everyone else to move out of his way. Kara was still struggling to open the lock, her key seeming to be stuck and she got progressively more frantic as the boy continued his rapid approach through the crowded hallway. She could already see it, he would run right into her and probably break his clavicle (this had happened before) and she'd be labelled a freak on her very first day of college. This could not happen, not now! She continued to wriggle the key in the lock as gently as she could, terrified she might break the fragile metal with her strength, as the guy kept getting closer and closer. And finally, just as he was about to collide with her and she had been debating whether or not to super-speed, the lock popped open and she bodily threw herself into the room, avoiding the boy narrowly…and landing on her hands and knees with her glasses, hair and bags flying everywhere.

Great entrance Kara, way to make a good first impression she thought, filled with embarrassment as she looked up to take in the girl she would share a room with for the next year.

Kara's first thought upon seeing her new roommate, aside from embarrassment…was that she looked incredibly like a Kryptonian (like a very beautiful Kryptonian). Most people would say that humans and Kryptonians look exactly the same and for the most part they do, but there were still some subtle differences that came from having DNA strands fifty times more complex than humans. A tendency for the various inherited DNA traits to harmonize in the most optimal way possible. In a purely aesthetic sense this almost always translated in what humans would call "beauty" nowadays: sharp and symmetrical features, brilliant eyes, perfectly proportioned body, and a complete absence of all those little individual features humans called flaws. It was simply the way that their DNA worked, the "best" traits were always dominant. She had it, her cousin Kal had it, and…so did this girl.

Everything about her, from her silky raven hair, her supple yet athletic form, her almost glowing green eyes, her perfect aristocratic features, to her flawless, porcelain white skin; even the way she was seated or raised a single regal eyebrow in surprise exuded poise, elegance and control; all of these were deeply Kryptonian characteristics. For a moment she truly wonders if she just found another survivor of her people, and such a beautiful one at that. Hell, this girl looked more Kryptonian than she did right now.

And then…something perhaps not entirely unexpected happened. Her X-Ray vision (as Kal calls it) activated by itself with the lead-lined glasses she usually wore to prevent it currently sitting on the floor instead of her nose. Only, for the very first time in her life, her sight didn't completely overwhelm her. She didn't start seeing through everything, her vision didn't shift from microscopic details to things dozens of miles away. It was focused, stable and she was seeing selectively through specific surfaces and materials and not others, just like Kal said he was able to do. She had just mastered this power in this moment. Kal used that power to locate lost little children trapped in burning buildings. Only Kara's focus wasn't on saving orphans from a fire or stopping bank robbers, no she had another focus entirely. And that focus was… the girl currently sitting primly in front of her; and the material that her eyes had suddenly decided to ignore (for some unknown reason)…was the other girl's clothes, all of her clothes.

That's right, she was currently seeing her roommate completely stark-naked, and yet, wasn't seeing through her skin and bones (something she'd never been able to do before). Which was a very good thing she decided instantly, because she had such lovely skin. In fact, she had lovely and beautiful and succulent…everything. Kara had the vaguest sense that she should turn away now but she just couldn't find it in herself to care faced with such a sight. That is, until the heat that had spread from her belly all the way in between her thighs and unfurled throughout her entire body finally reached her eyes and she felt them start to prickle then burn. Oh Rao! She was going to…She quickly clenched her eyes shut before her heat vision decided to activate next.

Kara had almost vaporized her roommate within a 30 seconds of meeting her…and saw her naked. She wasn't sure which of these events freaked her out the most.

Unfortunately, she realized as she slipped her glasses back on, all of this meant that from her roommate's point of view, after Kara had come crashing into the room and fell on her hands and knees, she'd stayed there drooling like a fool, staring at the brunette far longer than was probably appropriate. What a great start, I nearly incinerated my roommate and she most likely already thinks I'm some kind of retard, really great job there Kara.

She quickly got back to her feet and attempted to smooth over her rumpled clothes, hair and ego but she couldn't look her new roommate in the eye. Her mind was still full of the tantalizing vision she'd just witnessed and she was sure her skin was beet-red already.

Faced with this incredibly uncomfortable moment, she fell back on her tried and true method…babbling.

"Uhmm…Hi! I'm so sorry about all…that. There was this guy with his bags and he just kept coming and he was going to hit me and the door was stuck and then…well, you saw. I promise I'm not always this clumsy! I'm like…cool. Well, not like cool cool. I was just saying I'm not - and I just realized that you probably can't just call yourself cool. Friends have to call you that, don't they? I guess my not knowing that means that I'm really not cool, I was just…trying to be I guess?But I'm sure you already figured that out…And I'm babbling. I do that. I babble when I'm nervous. I'm not even sure what cool even means! But my sister said I should "be cool when meeting new people", and I guess I've already ruined that and-"

"Lena" said a languid and smooth like whiskey voice, thankfully interrupting her full-on babble-fest. Her beautiful roommate was still sitting elegantly on her small one-person bed and managing to make it look like a throne, but she was looking at her with a slight smile on her lips. And not a cruel smirk like she was used to seeing on the faces of the mean-girls (as Alex called them) at her high school when she embarrassed herself like that, but what looked like a genuine and friendly, if a bit too amused, smile. Her heart lifted a bit and she refocused on the conversation.

"I'm sorry what?"

"That's my name, Lena. Since you didn't ask"

"Oh Ra- I mean God, I'm sorry, you're completely right, I'm being horribly rude, I didn't even ask for your name or introduce myself! Can we just…start over? Pretend I didn't act like a complete spaz and that we just met?"

"Well…I'm not sure I'll be able to forget that image of you on your knees with your hair all dishevelled like that, but I know what you mean. Sure, we can start over. Hello, I'm Lena Davies, your roommate for the next year I suppose."

Did she just flirt with me? Was that flirting? Rao! Why can't I ever tell about these things? I know Alex said that liking some girls a bit too much like I do was not considered normal on this planet and would only draw unwanted attention to me, but she also said it wasn't bad or all that uncommon, that even shetoo felt that way about her girl-friends sometimes. Relax Kara! You just met her a second ago for Rao's sake, you have an entire year to get to know her.

"Hi Lena Davies! I like your name by the way, Lena, it's…pretty. Urghm. I mean, Hi! I'm Kara! Kara Danvers! It's so great to meet you!" she answered excitedly with a wave that her new roommate observed bemusedly, still the very picture of elegance and self-control.

"Kara…that's a pretty name too. It suits you"

Okay, that was definitely flirting wasn't it?

"Oh! Uhmmm…well, thanks. So…I guess I should probably start by putting my stuff away rather than on the, uh, floor, again I'm so sorry about that. So, I'll just…do that now." She responded meekly while blushing even redder than before, still embarrassed and completely off-balance. This day was not going the way she had thought it would, and she wasn't all that displeased about it, maybe because she still had that glorious vision fixed in her brain.

Be cool Kara, she told herself as she hurriedly started to pick up her fallen luggage. Only she still didn't know what Alex meant by that. She suspected it was probably what the other girl was managing right now.

She carefully looked back towards…Lena, and she found the other girl seemingly studying her with interest. Her own eyes inadvertently darted to her full lips and she felt another dangerous flash of heat under her gaze.

Oh Rao, this was going to be long year.

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Thus ends chapter 2.

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