"Hi." Lena smiled as she joined Kara for lunch.
"Hi."
"Sorry I'm late. A board meeting over ran." Lena said sitting.
"It's fine." Kara said.
"So how are you getting on with the Landon mystery?"
"Not well. He's so good at covering his tracks. But after he scored us so well with the pysch eval I'm really creeped out by him."
"Do I get to have another go with him?" Lena asked.
"J'onn said no."
"What if I ended up in the same coffee shop as him?"
"J'onn said he doesn't believe in coincidences and any chance encounters would result in him locking all three of us up." Kara said.
"So wait until J'onn is out of the city then?" Lena asked smiling. "I thought you were taking the sessions seriously for a while to throw him off the scent."
"Well pretending to anyway. But with no Alex, it's going to be hard."
"Where's Alex?"
"Away with Maggie."
"Alex is letting you attend a session alone?"
"We thought it would be easier for Landon to buy into me taking him seriously if Alex wasn't there. And she managed to get her and Maggie tickets for some weird punk rock band they're into. But it's been ages since I've had to deal with Landon alone. He has a way of making me feel like a bad person."
"No matter what he says or does you are not a bad person." Lena said.
"I won't feel like that after the session. Don't suppose you want to come round later?"
"I can't tonight." Lena said apologetically. "I have a date."
"A date?" Kara asked.
"No need to look quite so surprised."
"Sorry, I just didn't know you were looking."
"I wasn't. Eve decided I worked too hard and put my profile online."
"That explains why I keep finding her hiding behind filing cabinets." Kara commented.
"I wasn't going to go, but I guess it is time that I moved on." Lena said.
"Well good luck." Kara smiled. "Do you want me to call with an offer of a fake emergency?"
"I appreciate that, but I'll be fine. It's just dinner. You know, when you are ready Eve is pretty good at the profiles."
"I'm...no...I've turned my back on that."
"Online dating or happiness?" Lena asked.
"Dating." Kara said.
"Either way, it is a good neutral discussion topic for the session today." Lena suggested.
"Seeing he has already accused me of sexual harassment I'm not to sure it is a good idea to talk about dating."
-00-
"Kara, welcome back. Please take a seat. I have to confess I am surprised to see you. I thought you'd look for any excuse to skip the session seeing Alex isn't here."
"I was tempted. But I was impressed with your score on the ink blobs."
"It wasn't actually a competition."
"But you matched our answers really well." Kara pointed out.
"It is my job to get into the heads of my patients. Just because you and your sister don't take my profession seriously doesn't mean I'm not good at my job."
"I'm sorry for not taking you seriously. But from now on I will." Kara said enthusiastically.
"You will?" Landon asked suspiciously.
"Yes. So ask away."
"You seem a little different." He pointed out. "Everything okay?"
"It's fine."
"Is this just about Alex being away?" He probed.
"No."
"Then what?" He asked. For a minute Kara didn't answer as she thought about Lena's suggestion. Finally she said.
"I was just thinking about Lena and something she said."
"What did she say?" Landon asked, not sure if he wanted to answer.
"She's ready to move on. She's actually going on a date tonight."
"And that's bad?"
"No it's great. I hope. I mean it is an online date set up by Eve so has the potential to go horribly wrong, but if it doesn't it is great."
"But it is making you question your self imposed banishment from the dating world?" Landon guessed.
"No. I'm not ready."
"Then why are you looking so unlike your normal self?"
"I don't know. I guess with Alex being away with Maggie and Lena going on a date, I'm just missing Mon-El more."
"Do you want to know what I think?" He asked.
"Honestly, I don't know. You have a tendency of making me feel bad about myself." Kara replied.
"That's not my intention. I just want you to face your problems so you can move on with your life." Landon said. "If you don't want my opinion I won't give it."
"Maggie said I should take the sessions seriously and I did say just now that I would." Kara said after a moment. "So what do you think?"
"I think you are feeling lonely and are questioning your decision to not move on."
"I'm not ready." Kara said.
"Did they have a defined grieving time on Krypton?"
"Yes."
"Are you past that?"
"Yes." Kara conceded.
"But you've not moved on, even though Kryptonian traditions would allow it? What is really behind the decision?"
"I wasn't sent here to find love. I was sent here to protect my cousin."
"He doesn't need you." Landon pointed out.
"But the people of Earth do. I'm using my powers to help them, to be a hero."
"You lived for years without coming out as a hero." Landon countered.
"And I always felt something was missing."
"Isn't something missing now? You are trading love to be Supergirl. You may have filled one void, but you are creating another."
"I can't be Supergirl and have love. I thought I could but I couldn't. I needed to choose, be a hero or find love. I chose to be a hero."
"Why can't you have it all? What stops you from being a hero and being happy? But I don't think that misguided reasoning is the real reason. I think you are afraid of moving on. Losing Mon-El hurt you more than you could imagine and now you are afraid of getting hurt again. There is nothing heroic about it."
-00-
"Kara?" Alex called banging on the door late the next morning. Not getting a response she used her key and entered the apartment only to find Kara sprawled on the couch. Concerned she went to her sister's side and gently shook her.
"Kara, wake up." Alex said.
"Alex?" Kara asked confused. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? You didn't show up for work and didn't call."
"What time is it?"
"Eleven."
"Eleven? How did it get so late? I am so late for work" Kara asked sitting up. As she did so Alex saw something on Kara's arm.
"What's that?"
"What's what?" Kara asked moving her arm back under the blanket.
"Did you break into Landon's office?"
"No. Of course not."
"Then why do you have Simon?" Alex asked lifting the blanket of Kara, revealing the sock puppet.
"Would you believe he was a clone?"
"Not with you wearing your lying face." Alex said.
"Fine, it's Simon."
"When did you get him back?"
"I technically never let him go. I made a copy that I gave to you. And seeing Landon never noticed none of his patients have as strong a bond with Simon as I do."
"It's a sock Kara."
"I know. But when I'm feeling lonely he cheers me up."
"What happened yesterday to make you feel lonely?" Alex asked as she took hold of Kara's unsocked hand. "What did Landon do?"
"Nothing, really."
"He did something." Alex said carefully watching Kara.
"Fine, he told me I was a coward for not moving on with my life."
"So you came back and got drunk?"
"No I came back and waited for Lena to text that she had survived her date. Then I had a small drink. It was only a glass, but I guess it knocked me out."
"I thought you hated getting drunk?" Alex said.
"I hate the hang overs." Kara agreed. "But the bottle was in the drawer next to Romeo and Juliet and I was already feeling low."
"Why?"
"I was having dreams about Mon-El and my mother and they made me hurt so much more."
"Since when?"
"Since I put Mon-El in that pod."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"They were just dreams." Kara said.
"You should have told me." Alex said. "Wait you said 'were'."
"Yeah, they stopped and I actually miss them. It is like I'm loosing them both all over again."
"And last night I cancelled sisters' night." Alex said pulling Kara into a hug. "You know next time you could call me. I mean I know I can't compete with an old sock but I'll always be there for you."
"You have your own life."
"You are part of my life." Alex pointed out as she hugged her.
"Do I have to give him back?"
"No. If Landon hasn't noticed then why should we rock the boat?" Alex asked.
"Thank you."
"Just don't tell Maggie." Alex warned.
-00-
"Is Kara okay?" Maggie asked when she got home.
"She will be."
"Why isn't she here?"
"Still sleeping off her hangover." Alex said.
"She got drunk, again?" Maggie asked surprised.
"Landon overstepped, again. He claims he was trying to help her, but no way am I buying that."
"When you say 'he claims', does that mean you asked him?"
"Of course I did."
"What happened to the laying low plan?"
"That was before he messed with Kara. Besides on reflection those Rorschach test results seem too convenient."
"Convenient?"
"No way should he have got so many correct guesses. It must have been faked."
"He guessed you'd see him being impaled." Maggie reminded her.
"My point exactly. The standard test has ten cards. We were shown twenty. The impalement one is not part of the standard test. I think it was a plant to make him look good. His boss thinks he's a genius and it looks like he knows what he is talking about so we buy into what he is saying." Alex explained as the door opened.
"Hey Kara." Maggie greeted.
"Hey."
"You sober yet?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah."
"That's too bad. Your sister has just jumped off the deep end and I think you'd need to be drunk or high to understand what she's saying. Or Woody Harrelson's character from 2012."
"Wasn't he right?" Kara asked.
"Don't know, I never made it past the first thirty minutes." Maggie confessed.
"Have you found out something about Landon?" Kara asked Alex.
"Just having doubts about that Rorschach test." Alex explained. "I think it was set up."
"He downplayed his achievement in my session." Kara said.
"Probably hoping to deflect attention." Alex added as Maggie looked on.
"You know there is something you could do to help prove or disprove your theory." Maggie said.
"What?" Both sisters asked.
"Perhaps you two should randomly pick a shrink out of the yellow pages. Or use Lena's. And see if they have the same effect as Landon."
"I really don't see how adding another shrink to our lives will help." Alex said.
"Wait, are you saying we need to see a shrink?" Kara asked.
"For a second there I thought I was being too subtle." Maggie shrugged.
"We're not crazy." Kara said.
"So see a shrink and prove it." Maggie countered.
TBC...
A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing.