song and steel
a Glee / Supergirl crossover event
chapter eight
Kara stiffened with concern for Rachel. Her urgent thought was read by the shorter girl, although it would only have taken a look at the grave expression on the Kryptonian's face to tell what was on her mind, without the need for telepathy.
You don't actually know...everything you can do yet, do you? I mean, you only just remembered that you even have powers.
Rachel's show smile faltered for only a second. This is true, she sent back. But if anything goes wrong, you're here to save me, right? Like my own personal guardian angel.
Kara couldn't help but allow a small smile to quirk her lips upward at the girl's flirtatiousness, even in the midst of this most unusual situation. She felt her heart skip a beat in spite of the knowledge that it wasn't Rachel who might be in danger here, but the rest of the New Directions, their teachers, and the neighborhood around them.
It's not you I'm worried about, Rachel - it's everyone else. When I first started flying, I crashed right through our neighbor's window, and my sister had to cover for me by throwing a baseball into his house right after it happened, so he'd think we broke the window playing ball. And that's so not even the worst thing that could have happened. If I'd been practicing my heat vision, I could have set the whole place on fire!
Rachel's thought-giggle tickled Kara's mind in answer. That's why I'm not going to start with the heat vision.
And before Kara could even form another thought with which to respond, Rachel was unbuttoning her pajama top, revealing a sports bra beneath it, to show an impressively sculpted upper body. Gasps and whistles of shock and amazement went up from the small gathering at the sight of the petite singer's newly muscled arms and rippling six-pack abs.
"Damn, Berry," Santana husked, her eyes hungrily devouring Rachel's physique. "Love the new look."
Brittany licked her lips in agreement. "Hot. Totally."
Kara didn't miss the angry look Quinn leveled at the two cheerleaders, who were completely oblivious as they continued to shamelessly ogle Rachel's body.
"Wow!" Tina exclaimed. "If I'd known that a half-hour on the elliptical every morning could do that, I would have asked my parents to get me one a long time ago." She turned to Sam and Mike. "Looks like you guys need to do more crunches," she said with a wink.
"So now the dwarf's got muscles," Kitty groaned. "That doesn't necessarily mean -"
And then Rachel lifted her off the ground with one hand, while holding Artie and his wheelchair in the other.
"Hey! Put me down!" Kitty cried out in protest, while Artie just laughed at the cheerleader's reaction.
"Me next! Me next!" Brittany said, raising her hand. "I love rides."
"Oh, I've got a ride for you, Britt," Rachel smiled, loving the attention, the admiring stares. Even Ms. Pillsbury's already wide eyes had nearly popped out of her head when she had stripped off her top. "Everybody up!"
With that, the entire contingent of New Directions, excluding the ones balanced literally in the palms of her hands, began to float in the air as though they had suddenly become weightless.
"Holy crap!" shouted Puck. "This is awesome! But – how are you doing this?"
"It's called telekinesis, Noah. Defined as the ability to move objects through the use of one's mental energy. An ability, it occurs to me, that will greatly aid me in multi-tasking in the future."
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Mercedes moaned. Like it's not enough that Berry can sing better than everyone else – now she has freaking super powers too? So not fair! she thought glumly.
Sam and Blaine laughed aloud as the group continued to rise higher into the air. "This is totally like Avatar!" Sam stated firmly. Blaine shook his head vehemently in disagreement. "No, no – it's like Rachel's a Jedi, and she's just mastered the Force!"
"Rachel!" Mr. Schue called out. He looked vaguely green, as though he'd eaten something that really didn't agree with him. "I – I think you can put everybody down now. We've seen enough."
"Very well," said Rachel. She had to force herself not to laugh at the teacher's sickly expression. "I'm just getting started anyway."
"You mean there's...there's more?" Finn asked with a tinge of fear coloring his voice.
"Oh, yes. It's all coming back to me now, as the song goes. It turns out that suppressed memories return very quickly once the block against them is removed."
Are...are you sure about this, Rachel? Kara asked, projecting the concern she felt for the girl through her thought-sending.
Yes. I appreciate the concern, but it's true - it really is coming back to me with remarkable speed.
"Quinn," Rachel said, once she had lowered all the New Directions safely to the roof's surface. "Would you come here, please?"
The beautiful blonde blinked, then cast her eyes down, biting her lip, trying to hide the obvious pleasure she felt at being singled out. The blush that colored her fair cheeks told the tale, though, when she raised her head and stepped forward to meet Rachel, along with the way her eyes took in the shorter girl's new appearance.
"You look amazing," Quinn whispered, her voice low and breathy, intended to be pitched so that only Rachel would hear – but of course, Kara's alien auditory sense was every bit as acute as the young singer's, and she heard not only the words, but the quickened pulse that accompanied them. Internally, she batted away the sudden strange irritation she felt as she watched Rachel embrace Quinn in a tender hug, heard her whisper a thank you back.
"Ow!" Quinn gasped. "Could you maybe, um, not hug me so hard? I think you might have bruised a rib or two. God, you really are super-strong."
Rachel jumped back, a look of horror on her face. "I'm so sorry, Quinn!" she yelped. "I didn't mean to hurt you -"
"Relax, Rachel. It's okay. I'm all right – just...just a little winded is all." Quinn smiled, clearly trying to reassure the smaller girl. It wasn't until she reached out to take Rachel's hand that the tension of the moment was dispelled, and the smile was returned.
"Don't scare me like that!" Rachel pouted, but there was no real bite to the words, and each girl knew the other truly was all right, especially when Quinn laughed at her friend's expression. "Now, I need you to help me to demonstrate another of my abilities. As you've just shown everyone here, I am quite solid -"
"You sure are," Santana interrupted, and no one missed the way her already dark eyes grew even more shadowed as she spoke.
"Santana!" Emma suddenly exclaimed, surprising everyone; the red-headed guidance counselor had been so quiet through everything that they'd all forgotten she was even there. "Please stop being inappropriate. We are all trying to learn here."
"I'm not sure she'd want to learn what Santana could teach her," Puck mumbled under his breath to Artie, who had to cover his mouth with both hands to stifle the laughter that threatened to burst forth.
"You too, Puck," Rachel commanded. At the boy's look of complete shock, she pointed to her ear and said simply, "Super hearing."
"Jeez," Puck muttered sullenly, drawing satisfied smirks from the girls at the way he'd been chastened. Tina and Mercedes surreptitiously low-fived each other, while Kurt rolled his eyes at Blaine. Even Kara allowed herself a small smile. "How many freakin' powers do you have, anyway?" he asked, desperate to redirect the group's attention away from himself and back onto Rachel.
"Just a few more. Now, as I was saying, I am quite solid at the moment. Quinn, if you would hug me again?"
Quinn blinked in confusion. "Um, what now? How would that -" she began, but Rachel gently cut her off by placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Please, Quinn. Just...just trust me," she said.
Shrugging, Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel in another warm embrace, enjoying the feel of the smaller girl's body against her own – until that compact frame suddenly became as insubstantial as smoke, or the wind.
"What the hell?!" she exclaimed, completely bewildered. She could just make out the faint outline of Rachel's form in front of her, but somehow the other girl had become – a ghost?
"Intangibility," Rachel's voice sounded from seemingly out of nowhere. "I have complete control over my body's density and molecular structure. I can phase through solid matter at will - yet my skin's natural, normal density is actually hard enough that it's impenetrable anyway, even though it feels soft like yours."
"Does that mean you're, like, bullet-proof?" Mike asked, scratching his head in befuddlement, perplexed by the fact that he was speaking to someone he could barely see.
"The technical term is invulnerable, Michael," Rachel answered, resuming her normal form as she did so. "And yes, I suppose I am." She noticed that Quinn's mouth was slightly agape in awe, and realized that her friends, all of them, were beginning to see her as something other, someone different than the person they'd known and interacted with for all these years.
And she found that she didn't like the way that made her feel.
Rachel didn't want them to think of her as being above them; she was still the same caring, determined, focused, talented and yes, occasionally bossy and demanding person she'd always been. She still loved singing and dancing and just being around all of these people, whom she'd come to cherish as something of a second family, and now she found herself worried, because she didn't want to lose that. She didn't want to lose the closeness she'd developed with each and everyone of the people before whom she was standing now, on top of the largest hotel in all of National City, the night before the biggest competition of the year.
Suddenly she felt lost and afraid and very much alone as they all stared at her, waiting for her next trick, as though she were a magician performing her act.
Kara instantly sensed Rachel's discomfort, knew exactly what the girl was feeling, because she herself had felt the same way the very first time she'd revealed her powers to a friend. She'd seen the same look in her friend's eyes that she was seeing in the eyes of some of the New Directions now, a combination of fear and wonder, uncertainty and amazement. While some were admiring, like Tina, Sam, Blaine, Mike, Artie and - to an extreme - Santana and Brittany, others were discomfited, clearly at a loss as to how to deal with the fact of this new "Super-Rachel," like Mercedes, Kitty, Puck, Finn and even Quinn.
Even Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury, the grown-ups who were older and wiser, supposedly there to give guidance and direction to this group of young people, were obviously shaken by everything they'd just witnessed, unsure how to handle not only the kids' questions, but their own.
And then Shelby Corcoran spoke once again, derailing Kara's train of thought with a most unexpected question.
"Rachel, how old are you?" the woman asked quietly, obviously aware that something was going on inside Rachel, although she wasn't sure what. "I mean, how old are you really? In the Earth year equivalent of how time is...was...reckoned on your birth world."
The girl's eyes took on a faraway look and misted with tears. The full, crushing realization of the truth of her existence was bearing down upon her now; she was actually trembling a little, and it was clear that she was fighting the desire to just break down and cry, even with everyone watching her.
"Um...yes. My people...aged differently from humans. Time did not affect us, pass for us, on our world, as it does for you," she said, looking directly at her friends now with a plea for understanding shining in her eyes, still bright with unshed tears. "While I look to you like a typical, albeit small for her age, sixteen year old girl - but I'm actually the equivalent of twenty-two Earth years old."
Suddenly Kitty lunged forward, easily evading Finn's clumsy attempt at restraining her. "Wait a minute now, hold up!" she said, biting off each word angrily as she stepped into Rachel's personal space, poked an outraged finger at her chest. "You actually mean to tell us that you're really the same age as a college graduate, but you're still in high school? How...how is that even legal?"
Quinn stepped around her, trying to get between Rachel and the diminutive cheerleader. "Hey! Back off, Wilde!"
Kitty rounded on Quinn, her pretty, moon-shaped face reddening with anger. "Or what, Quinn? Your freak show E.T. girlfriend here is gonna vaporize me with her heat vision? Turn me into an ice pop with her freeze breath? Or maybe she'll just flick a pinky and break every bone in my poor little normal Earth girl body?"
"She won't have to do any of that if you don't step back, Kitty, because I'll take care of you myself!" Quinn hissed. Whatever internal conflicts she might have felt inside where Rachel was concerned vanished instantly when Kitty appeared to threaten her.
Rachel understood why Kitty was lashing out, and why Quinn was lashing out right back; both were frightened by the way their world had been completely, irrevocably changed this night. It was one thing to meet Supergirl, who was as familiar to them as any other figure they'd seen on television for the last several years – but it was quite another to learn that their own teammate, their friend and star performer, was someone completely different from the person they'd known since childhood.
Kara sensed Rachel's hurt and fear, remembered her own from that day so many years ago, but found she was at a loss as to how to help her. She hated feeling helpless, but a small voice in the back of her mind told her that if anyone was equal to the task of overcoming a situation like this, it was Rachel. So she stayed silent, watching carefully; if she was needed, she would do whatever was necessary to protect everyone from harm in this emotionally volatile atmosphere.
Rachel blinked, startled by Kitty's aggression and Quinn's equally forceful defense. She wasn't about to let either one of them hurt the other. She knew what she had to do.
She used the Voice of Command, her true voice, the one that would have marked her as one destined to lead on her world, and at the sound of it, every person on that rooftop stiffened to immediate attention.
"Katherine, Quinn - stop. Stop this right now. You're my friends. I'm your friend. I love you both. I love all of you. I won't have you – any of you – fighting with each other, especially if I'm the reason you're fighting."
Kitty glared at her. Rachel read the fear in her eyes even as her fists unclenched and her arms fell to her sides. Modulating her voice, she let her care, her love and compassion, flow into the sound of it as she pleaded with the other girl.
"Katherine, please. Listen to me. We've known each other forever. I let you use my shovel in the sandbox at the playground, finger painted beside you in kindergarten. You know me, even though you've spent years telling everyone how much you dislike me. I'm still the same person, okay? Yes, I can do all the things I've shown you here, and yes, I also have heat vision and freeze breath and super-speed, but knowing that now hasn't changed who I am inside. That's what's most important, not all that other stuff. You understand that, don't you? You all understand that I'm still Rachel Berry, right?"
Kitty Wilde hadn't cried in front of a group of people outside of her family until she'd joined the Glee Club. Her cheerleading coach would have her letterman's jacket and uniform in a heartbeat if she ever saw Kitty show the kind of vulnerability she was about to show now.
She threw herself into Rachel's strong arms and buried her face into her neck, smothering her sobs in Rachel's thick, dark hair.
"I'm...I'm so scared. I don't...I don't know...what any of this means!" she gasped out between great, heaving sobs, as Rachel gently held her, rubbing soothing circles at the small of her back.
The rest of the New Directions stepped forward, some with tears in their eyes, like Kurt, Tina, and even Mr. Schuester, and they all joined together in a giant group hug, an expression of solidarity even in the face of massive, wrenching, unexpected change.
Two sets of eyes merely watched the group, and each other: the eyes of Kara Zor-El, also known as Kara Danvers, also known as Supergirl, last daughter of Krypton; and those of Shelby Corcoran, Glee Club co-advisor of McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, woman of Earth – and, Kara, suspected, something more. Something else. She was sure of that.
Exactly what, she wasn't sure just yet.
