Chapter 8
Surrounded by the flames that would have instantly incinerated a human, my eyes blazed with the fury of Earth's sun. "You don't know me, Kal-El. You were only a baby when I last saw you! You only know what you want to know!"
We were hovering within the fire pit on Apokolips. He was trying to tell me Darkseid was controlling me, forcing me to be a bad girl.
I refused to listen to him, though.
I fired my heat vision directly at eyes as azure as mine. Kal tried to protect himself by countering my rays with his own. But it was too little, too late.
My beams brushed his aside and struck him full in the face, piercing deeply into his brain.
His body descended into the pit while I floated amidst the flames. My face plainly showed my joy in both pleasing Darkseid and satisfying my father's dying wish that I would be the last Kryptonian in the universe.
Then I screamed.
#
"Alfred!" I barked when I saw him standing just outside of Kara's bedroom. I had come racing from my bedroom when her scream awakened me.
"Thank heaven you heard it, sir!"
I clenched the knob and turned it. He and I entered the room that was dimly lit by the moonlight filtering through her window. Then we saw her, twisting and turning underneath her bed sheets.
"Switch on the lights!" I snapped as I rushed to her bedside. Then I paused. I had to fight against my instinct to reach for her and gently wake her. If she struggled in my grasp, with her Kryptonian strength, she could seriously injure me. That was a burden I didn't want her to bear.
"Kara," I called out to her, keeping the tone of my voice even and controlled.
Suddenly, she ceased her struggles.
"Angel...it's Bruce. I'm here."
She scrunched her eyes and attempted to focus on the sound of my voice. "Bruce?"
"Yes, Kara. You're safe now."
Her eyes blinked rapidly and she seemed to be dazed. "W-where am I?"
"Where no one can harm you. Don't be afraid."
Her body then bolted upright in her bed. She then stared at me, her cerulean gaze pinning me in place. Then she sighed deeply. "Oh, thank Rao, it's really you!" She smiled before a shudder trembled through her lithe form. "Tell me it didn't happen."
"I don't know what you mean, Kara."
She peered deeply into my eyes and demanded sullenly, "Tell me it's some kind of terrible dream. Tell me we weren't on Apokolips. Tell me I didn't kill my baby cousin."
I fought hard to keep the smirk off of my face at her reference to Clark before I told her, "We were on Apokolips but your...cousin is fine. You didn't kill him. Darkseid made you attack Clark but your cousin stopped you with the kryptonite ring I'd given him. Afterwards, we brought you back to Diana's island to help you recover from Darkseid's attempts to control you. Clark is all right and you will get better. All you need is a little time."
"N-no, Bruce. I don't think I'm all right. I don't know why. I just...know. In my dream, I remembered that I didn't want to kill Kal only for Darkseid. I also wanted to kill him because my father had wanted him dead, too. But, that was never true! My father loved both his brother and his nephew. He wasn't a monster! My father could never want me to kill the only other Kryptonian in this universe and leave me all alone!"
I opened my arms wide, inviting her into an embrace. She scooted across the mattress and allowed me to hug her closely as she wept. "Kara, you're never going to be alone again. You have Clark, you have Alfred and me."
While I gently stroked her hair, something wavered at the edge of my awareness. Then it struck with crystal clarity. It had been a study on the effect of radiation on memory recall in patients who'd undergone brain cancer treatment.
"Kara...your ship. It had been encased in a kryptonite fragment during your entire journey to Earth."
She sniffled and peered up at me. "That's what both Kal and you had told me."
"Yes. Yes, we did tell you that. Did you know that kryptonite is also radioactive?"
"Well, it has to be to have the effect it has on Kal and me."
I nodded. "Angel, I need to check something. Will you go down to the cave with me? I'd like to use my bioscanner on you."
#
He wanted to take me to his secret place.
The place where I'd felt safe and warm.
I will never, ever not want to be there so long as he is there with me.
"Of course, I'll go, Bruce. Just let me grab my robe."
#
I'd missed it.
She trusted me, relied on me to keep her safe from harm.
Yet, even with the knowledge of her long term exposure to kryptonite, neither Clark nor I even thought to check for anything that affected more than her physique.
I had failed the woman I love.
"Did you find something, Bruce?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat as she lay on the surface of the bioscanner, her eyes showing the trust she felt for me, trust I didn't deserve because my earlier suspicion of her motives had kept me from seeing what should have been right before my very eyes.
"Kara, your cerebral cortex shows signs of kryptonite radiation poisoning. The radiation is probably the cause of some of the long term memory loss you've experienced, as well as the misperceptions that may have colored your recall of what your father may have felt toward your cousin."
"I see," she said simply, her voice steady and calm. At that moment, the courage my lover showed made me fall for her once more.
"Kara...I promise you, we'll fix this." Then I strode over to my communications station, toggled a switch, and became the Bat once more. "Batman to Watchtower."
"Watchtower to Bats. Flash here."
"Wally, listen carefully because I have no time to repeat myself. Contact JSA headquarters. Tell them I have a patient for Dr. Mid-Nite. Tell them it's an emergency and I'll arrive with the patient within the hour."
#
TBC
Author's note: Sorry for the long delay in posting. I will post more often in the future. I also wanted you to know that I am going in a far different direction than canon in regards to Supergirl in the DC comics universe because I didn't like how inconsistent the writers and editors had made the character. I will probably guide her more along the lines of the TV show version in regards to the fact that Alura and Zor-El are really dead because they were on Krypton when the planet exploded. Anyway, thank you for sticking with this story!
