"I don't like Earth."
Alex wasn't surprised by this response. They'd lived on another planet for so long and that was all that Ayrdaen remembered of growing up thus far. "You'll get used to it."
"I want to go back to Thoron."
"It's the past, Ayrdaen, the Thoron that you know doesn't yet exist...they have to go through changes in government and start to be more accepting of people that aren't Thorian, which means you...and me." Alex didn't know how she was going to do this...to leave Ayrdaen in someone else's care. It felt like she'd failed in so many ways. She needed to talk to J'onn, but she wasn't sure how Kara and her mother would take the truth. Her worry was bubbling, especially because she didn't know how much time she had left. "You remember what we talked about? If someone asks you who you are? Where you're from?"
Ayrdaen looked irritated at her questions. "Yes… I'm Ayrdaen M'rynn, I'm a Kryptonian that was lost until I landed on Thoron and you took care of me before we came here."
"Good," Alex whispered before closing her eyes for a moment. "The only person that probably knows who you really are is J'onn…"
"Because he reads minds freely?"
She smiled a little at that. Alex had wondered if before she knew who he was, if he had kept tabs on her. He had to have. He likely still did. As much as it could be seen as an invasion of privacy, she understood the circumstances of it. "I remember him over me...him asking me to show him about the pod before I passed out in medical."
"He keeps giving me looks," Ayrdaen said.
"He has to know."
"Do we trust him? Can we?"
"No matter the time we are in," Alex whispered as she opened her eyes to look at the little girl next to her. "One thing is sure. We can always trust him. He's our family."
Ayrdaen nodded and was quiet for a moment. "What about Kara and Eliza?"
"They don't know...they might not understand," Alex said, trying to choose her words wisely. "But they are still our family, Ayrdaen, and you need to remember that."
"They are your family," Ayrdaen fired back.
Alex sighed and then closed her eyes for a moment, covering her face as the pain continued to cloud her head. She dropped them a moment later and opened her eyes a moment later knowing that she didn't have that much time, it was likely Ayrdaen knew that as well. Being out of stasis only meant that she was going to get sicker at an increased rate, which was going to hurt everyone else...and it meant that she had no control over it. "Sweetheart-"
"I don't like it when you call me that," Ayrdaen said quickly. She was grumpy and Alex wasn't surprised.
There had always been some tension between them. Alex was certain that the same tension had been there when her future self had taken care of Ayrdaen as well. If she was going to die because of what Cadmus unleashed on the future, on her...then she had hoped to at least leave that world leaving some kind of good mark on Ayrdaen, but it didn't seem like that was happening no matter what she did. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not Kara-"
"Oh, I know…" Ayrdaen rolled her eyes and Alex didn't miss it. "I've told you stories...and I hope that they make you feel less alone."
"I'm not alone."
"But do you know that? Really know that?"
"I have J'onn."
"It's not just J'onn you have here."
"Yes it is," Ayrdaen said as she looked directly at her.
Alex watched as Ayrdaen's face changed from irritated and almost nasty expression to a concerned one as her head turned. She moved her head to look in the direction that the girl was looking now and found J'onn standing there in the doorway. There'd likely been a conversation that she'd not been apart of that had gone on in just a moment.
"What is going on over here?" her mother asked, coming up behind J'onn.
How could she tell her mother? How could she explain?
She sucked in a breath, the pain radiating throughout her entire being and Alex wondered in that moment if this was how her future self had felt before she'd died. There had been so much time that she'd studied what was killing her, but she'd never figured out a way to combat it...to cure it… The edges of her vision started to darken and her head was spinning, she opened her mouth to say things, but no words came out. Arms picked her up and she strained to focus on the face the arms belonged to.
J'onn.
She wanted to tell him that it was useless. No matter what anyone wanted to do to stretch time...or to attempt to save her would be done in vain.
You're not going to die, she heard in her head, his words...his voice.
He was wrong.
TBC...
