I don't know all too much about depression and anxiety so if some things don't seem right, please feel free to comment anything that needs fixing. I tried my best to do some research but, of course, research isn't the same as experience. Also, if you find any grammatical or spelling errors or anything of the sort please let me know. Anyway, please review whether it's good or bad you're saying. I can take constructive criticism ;) Now on to the story!
As Kara steps into the building she works in, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them she has a smile on her face that she knows must look fake, but she keeps her chin up even if her shoulders are slightly slumped.
Kara takes the main service elevator, avoiding Ms. Grant's private one. The one that sends a spike of self-loathing and anxiety through her at just the thought of it. She knows she won't ever look at that elevator again, the thought of what had followed after her brief ride on it not too long ago enough to ward her away.
Stepping through the slowly opening elevator doors, Kara glances over at Siobhan's desk. Only, there is no desk. It takes her a moment, but when she remembers that she got Siobhan fired, her empty hand twitches. Her breaths turn short and choppy and she realizes that even the smaller things she did might never be fixed. She realizes that there may be no hope for her to get her life back together again.
And why should I? Kara thinks, I'm the one who split it apart, I don't deserve to put it back together again.
Kara walks to her desk and sets her stuff down onto it. Her hands shake and she wills them to stop, believing that she doesn't deserve to lose herself in front of people. She hurt everyone enough already.
They don't need to carry the weight of my problems and issues, too, she thinks.
Kara's chest is subtly heaving, and her hands continue to shake slightly. She hears Ms. Grant's elevator moving up, which only serves to add more to Kara's restlessness. She imagines Ms. Grant walking in and realizing that she is Supergirl, and blaming her for everything that was her fault. She imagines Ms. Grant yelling at her about how much of a disgrace she is to the company—and the city—in front of all the employees. Her shoulders tense and when the elevator dings she jumps an inch into the air.
Grabbing Ms. Grant's latte, Kara forces herself to stop shaking, to smile, and to act as if everything is all right. Ashamed of her undeserved meltdown, she glances at Winn and James on her way to hand Ms. Grant her beverage, hoping to Rao that they didn't get a glimpse of her untimed freak out.
And it's the fact that no one noticed her breakdown that turns her already fake smile into a sort of grimace. She sees Ms. Grant is not too far away from her and smiles that fake smile of hers and hands Ms. Grant her drink.
"Here's y-your latte, Ms. Grant," Kara hopes that Ms. Grant didn't catch the slight stutter in the sentence. When Ms. Grant continues her walk to her office without the slightest glance to Kara, she takes a deep reassuring breath, knowing she wasn't caught not being 100%.
The reassurance from that breath plummets when she realizes Ms. Grant must be mad or upset at her. Kara looks down, and with shaking hands, twitching fingers, and a tense set to her shoulders, she returns to her post and sits in her seat.
Her day goes on and, slowly but surely, a sense of dread attaches itself to her which only grows as the hours pass. She tries her best to do the work presented to her, but Kara can't seem to focus on a piece of paper or on her computer screen for longer than a minute. The fact that she either tenses or jumps at the sound of people entering the floor or walking by her desk doesn't help matters in the slightest.
Halfway through the day, with her lunch hour just around the corner, Kara feels a headache coming on. Which is surprising since her Kryptonian biology only lets on a headache when she has an extreme concussion…or maybe just an extreme something?
Rubbing her temples, she tries to finish editing Ms. Grant's email to the board. Several minutes later, Kara realizes she's finished reading. Thinking back to what she read, her mind completely blanks out. She tries to remember what the first sentence was about and can't seem to come up with anything.
With short and stuttering breaths, Kara reaches her twitching and shaking hands in front of her to see what work she has finished. It barely takes ten-seconds to find the finished work and gather it up, since there is barely anything finished. Her whole body slumps as she taps on her desk.
Kara feels like she can barely breathe. Her breaths are short, her heart is thumping, and she can feel the lecture and subsequent firing coming her way from Ms. Grant.
Stupid, Kara, she thinks, not only do you wreck everything, you can't even help your boss by doing what you're supposed to do!
Kara can feel the sweat dripping down her back and thinks about what people would say if they caught sight of her. She glances around, and surprise surprise, nobody realizes what's happening to her. Not Winn, not James, and of course not Cat. And it's then, that Kara will later pinpoint as the moment it all went straight to hell.
Because the first thought she has after this realization is, Nobody cares about me anymore. And, of course, why should they? She is the one who destroyed police cars. She terrorized the city, she preyed on the weaker, she beat up her own sister emotionally and mentally, she threw Cat freaking Grant off her own building, she threatened to kill her own damn sister in front of the man who became a father figure for the both of them.
Why would they care for her? She is the freak that Tommy Harold said she was back in middle school, she is the monster that Trashwell Lord said she is.
Kara doesn't deserve having anyone to care for her.
Not even her sister, who says she still loves her. Because who could love her? Kara knows now, that she isn't worth that love, knows that she is pathetic and just like Non in almost every aspect. Because even if she wants to help save people, is that even what she is really doing?
Astra wanted to 'save' the world, she thought she was too, and her methods were wrong. What if that's exactly what Kara is doing?
What if I thought I was helping, but was really just scaring people into believing in me? Kara thinks, Maybe I just finally went too far and now they all see me for who I really am?
At this point, her eyes are rapidly glancing around, her whole body is slightly shaking—especially her hands—her headaches worsened, she can't concentrate on any one thing, and she still can't breathe.
Kara looks up to Ms. Grant, who's sitting in her office working, and bolts to the washroom the moment she knows it is safe to do so. Her shaking has grown, muscles twitching as she tries to calm down while sitting on a toilet in a bathroom stall.
Kara's breathing has grown rapider, and she's sweating more than she ever has without working out. She just feels so tired. She doesn't want to get back up and go out and work. She just wants to go home to her bed and wallow in her sadness like she deserves.
But, she knows it'll only make things with Ms. Grant worse, and plus if anyone still cares even slightly, she doesn't want to burden them with herself anymore than she already has. So, Kara closes her eyes and takes slow deep breaths. She thinks of every happy moment she's had, any time she's felt content and at peace. She wills herself to stop shaking, and after a few minutes of silence, her headache decreases and she thinks she's back to normal. Or as normal as possible right now.
Standing up, Kara opens the stall door and washes her hands and face. Feeling more refreshed, but overall not much better, she slips the mask of 'Happy Kara' onto her face and steps out of the washroom.
The moment she steps out she hears it, "Kiera!"
With her head turned down, Kara rushes over to Ms. Grant's office, picking up her notepad and a pencil from her desk along the way. She opens the glass door, and with perkiness she doesn't really feel, says, "Yes, Ms. Grant?"
Kara throws a bright but fake smile in there too, hoping Ms. Grant doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Ms. Grant barely glances up at her through her glasses, eyes focused on the layout under her eyes.
"Kiera. I've been calling for you. For over a minute," Ms. Grant states, anger bubbling beneath the surface of calm.
Kara freezes, millions of scenarios flashing through her mind, each worse then the last. She thinks of Ms. Grant firing her on the spot like she did with Siobhan. She thinks of Ms. Grant's suspicion of her being Supergirl rising up again and calling her out. She thinks of Ms. Grant finally being done with her sorry excuse of a life and throwing her under the bus like she knows should happen.
Because she can't even do the smallest part of her job. Kara always felt like she wasn't enough, but now she realizes that there had to have been something more needed in that case. She realizes now that she isn't anything. There's nothing to add to, to become enough.
And now Ms. Grant is ranting on and on about how Kara should be better, talking about how her style choice is now worse then ever, about how pathetic she is—something she knows already—and Ms. Grant just doesn't stop. She goes on without stopping for a breath on every little issue of Kara's. Every little thing that could be thought of as a problem is spewing out of Ms. Grant's mouth.
The sad part is, though, that Kara agrees with every single thing. Because she is pathetic, she has no style, and she really should be better! She is Supergirl, she is supposed to be super and an idol and she ruined it.
Because now, Supergirl is at terrifying alien that shouldn't be looked up to. Now, Supergirl is a fraud and now there is no one for little girls to aspire to be and no one to give women a good name. In fact, Supergirl may have just given women a bad name instead.
And it's all Kara's fault.
Everyone is now staring at her and Ms. Grant through the glass doors, and Ms. Grant hasn't stopped once in her speech on Kara's terribleness. Her hands are shaking, her body twitching, tears are forming in the corners of her eyes. Her breathing is unsteady, her headache is worse then earlier, and she can feel her heart pounding—ready to jump out of her chest—and she's just so damn tired.
Kara just doesn't care anymore. So she decides to do something that she knows will result badly for her. But, who cares, right? She knows no one cares about her so maybe she should just do something and end at least some of her suffering.
So Kara takes a deep breath in and shouts, "SHUT UP!"
It seems as though the whole city has suddenly gone quiet, when, in fact, she knows it's only the one floor that has. Kara watches as various emotions play across Ms. Grant's face. Shock, confusion, anger, and then comes the emotion that means Kara is in for it. Calmness.
Kara had hoped that shouting would make her feel better, but it seems as though her shaking has just gotten worse. The dried sweat from earlier is now hidden over a new layer of sweat. And she can feel it dripping down the nape of her neck. Her face is now caught in a deer-in-headlights expression, and she knows all her fears are going to come true.
Kara just knows that Cat Grant is going to fire her and humiliate her in front of everyone, because she just yelled at her like never before. The disrespect that Kara intentionally put in her voice was dripping while she shouted, and no one disrespects Cat freaking Grant. No one. She didn't even disrespect her this much in her anger induced fit, Post-Red Tornado.
Kara feels helpless as she watches a plan form in Ms. Grant's mind. A plan, she knows, is going to make her life here at CatCo a living hell. Because she can already tell she won't be fired, oh no, she's going to have her work life turned into something worse than ever before. And any fondness Ms. Grant might have ever had for her is not going to save her from it.
At least I know that I deserve it, Kara thinks, and this is what I wanted right? To punish myself for all the bad I did the last few days?
And it must be, because why else would she intentionally disrespect and yell at Cat Grant? As Ms. Grant opens her mouth to say whatever it is she's going to say, Kara takes pleasure in the fact that the living hell she's about to find herself in, is warranted by what she's done and what she deserves.
With cold, hard eyes, Ms. Grant says evenly, "Get out."
Kara nods with her head turned down, and bolts out the glass doors. Hurriedly grabbing her stuff from her desk, Kara races to the main elevator and pushes the 'down' button so hard it cracks slightly.
No one tries to stop her—no one even attempts to speak to her—let alone comfort her. And this just cements her thoughts, no one cares for her. No one should care for her, and she truly does believe that. Kara ruined every relationship she had, destroyed the city's trust, and said so many things that she doesn't even believe. But it doesn't matter, because she said it and now she's paying the price.
Kara steps into the elevator and finally, after what seems like a millennium, the doors slide shut. She takes the thirty or so seconds that it takes to reach the ground floor to at least try and look sane, but all she manages to do is keep her tears in check.
When the elevator doors slide open, Kara speeds out of the building. Halfway to her apartment she can feel the wet, hot tears streaming down the soft skin of her face. Her body shakes as her sobs intensify, and she keeps her head down as to not attract attention. She knows she must look like a mess, but who's going to notice? It's not like there's a single person on planet Earth—or any planet for that matter—that cares about her anymore.
With all the things Kara did the past few days, she'd be more surprised if anyone even glanced at her on her way to her home. The guilt has been slowly crushing her, but she knows that her guilt is justified.
Running home, Kara almost gets hit by two cars and a bus. She's not worried about getting hit, she knows she'd survive it. It doesn't even matter if she'd be outed as Supergirl, because who freaking cares?
Actually, Kara kind of wishes she were human. At least then, if she got hit by a car or bus, this would all be over. But no, she doesn't deserve to die quite yet. She knows she has a lot to make up for.
Kara's shaking hasn't stopped, it's gotten worse really. Her headache is still there, her heart is beating so damn hard, she's just so tired of it all, and she still can't breathe. By the time she's standing in front of the door to her apartment, she looks like a demon dragged straight out of hell. And she feels even worse.
Kara's hands just won't stop shaking. She drops her keys multiple times, and she's too afraid of her own power and mental stability to even think of crushing the lock—let alone actually do it.
Because she can't stop thinking that if she lets her anger—or any feelings, really—get the better of her, she will turn back into the monstrous Kara that she was the last couple of days. The Kara that she knows is still inside her—has always been inside her—the one that has been buried deeply into the recesses of her mind.
Kara always knew that there was a darkness inside of her—the anger she showed before the Red Kryptonite is proof enough—but she never would have thought she was such a disaster. Such a monster.
It takes Kara at least a full two minutes to unlock and open the door, and in the back of her mind she is grateful that there is nobody present to witness the colossal breakdown she's having just now.
The moment she shuts her door she hurls all her stuff across the room and onto her sofa. She stands there a moment, just a few feet from the entrance, and just closes her eyes. She is shaking so hard, and she just wants everything to stop.
Kara is atlas and her guilt is the world. The weight of it is slowly crushing her, pushing her down, until she's on her knees. She realizes only moments later that she actually is on her knees.
She can't concentrate on anything, not the sound of cars honking, not the sound of children's laughter from the nearby park. Her minds gone blank and she wants nothing more then to just give up.
Kara can't find the will to move, and she knows she should eat, but it's just too hard to get up and do anything. So she doesn't. She sits there, in the middle of her apartment, with her knees tucked into her chest and her head between her knees.
Curled into a ball and heaving, with a pain in her chest, she feels an overwhelming sense of panic. She feels like everything is wrong and there's nothing she can do to make it right. She has no control and it's almost exactly how she felt under the Red Kryptonite. And that just escalates her breathing troubles into hyperventilation.
Kara is trembling, feeling like she's about to pass out. She hopes she passes out because then at least it would all end for a moment. She's crying—sobbing, really—like she never has before, and there's only one thought racing through her mind at the moment, This can't be real…please, don't let this be real, please!
And so Kara lays there, huddled into herself. She lays there for hours, begging for everything to be fake…and begging to wake up happy.