Kara wakes up to pain. So much pain that she doesn't understand how she's still alive.
She should be dead. She wants to be dead. She should have died on Krypton.
The inside of her mouth is coated with sour bile, and the taste upturns her stomach, but it doesn't feel like she has anything left to vomit.
She tries to open her eyes, but they won't, and actually, she isn't sure her face is still attached to the rest of her body. She raises her hand to touch it, but encounters resistance. She's strapped down to something, and it sparks something at the back of her mind. She's been in this situation before.
A voice, rich and smooth, reaches her ears and she latches onto it, hangs onto its lilt and patterns even when its words hurt.
"I've been so blind," the voice says. "I didn't want it to be her so bad that…"
"I did the same thing." Another voice joins the first, and it's one that is familiar too, comforting in the greenish darkness that encompasses Kara. "Sam offered herself up on a golden plate. We all wanted it to be her. It would have been easier."
"She's my best friend. And I tortured her without second thoughts."
"She's my best friend too you know. Before she was my first love, and the mess in my head, she was my best friend. And I just watched her pummel my sister into the ground."
"How is she doing ?"
"Sam ? She's bruised. Battered. But awake. Ruby's with her. Kelly went and picked her up from school."
"Why did it have to be Kara…?"
"I don't know. But we're going to have to…"
"…do the same thing to her that we did to Sam ?"
"Yeah…" There's defeat in the voice, and Kara wants to reach out because this voice is supposed to be strong and unwavering. It's the voice that's supported her and carried her through everything up to this point. It's her sister's voice.
"Do you think she can forgive us ?"
I already have. Kara wants to scream out. Whatever is happening I forgive you. But her voice is stuck in her parched throat and she still can't move. I love you. She thinks as hard as she can, trying to make herself heard by the two most important voices in her life.
"I don't know. I think she's waking up. Knock her out again. She deserves a bit more rest before we start."
Kara tries to speak once again, she thinks she can feel her lips opening to form words ; but before she can, a blissful blackness takes over, and the pain disappears.
When Kara wakes for the second time, she feels floaty, untethered. The voices around her are warm, cottony ; she feels safe. A hand rests on her naked arm, Lena's, and she realises one of the voices belongs to her too. She tries to flex her own hands, to show that she's awake, but movement doesn't seem like an option for her right now. It's okay, if her girlfriend and her sister are here, Kara has nothing to worry about.
"That scan's not normal," Lena's soft voice says.
"Could be a difference between human and kryptonian bone density," Alex's reassuring tone chimes in.
"No that's not it. Sam's was normal. And here it's different from one side of the body to the other."
"That's right. Look at the pattern on her right arm."
Said arm starts to itch ; it tenses against Kara's drowsy will.
"Could it be...? No."
"Metal," Alex whispers. "It's metal."
The itch becomes unbearable. It spreads on her arm like a burn but the rest of her body is unresponsive and she can't move to do anything about it. Her head starts buzzing and she doesn't feel safe anymore, at all. It's like her body has been slammed down to Earth with incredible strength and pressure starts building in her lungs as they close up.
Awareness eludes her once more.
When she wakes up for the third time, it's to a dull pain covering her entire body like treacherous flames. It's not bad enough to really bother her, but the soreness is present in a way that makes her very aware of the danger she's in. Something is happening, something wrong. This time, when she tries to wiggle her fingers, it works, and she starts repeatedly bumping her hand on the hard surface she's laying on trying to draw Lena's attention. At least she thinks Lena is the one standing next to her, she's not so sure anymore. She tries to inhale deeply to get a whiff of Lena's characteristic smell, but her nostrils are clogged by something and all she manages to do is choke.
"Please, don't try to move," a soft voice says, "I'll remove the cannula for you, but please, don't move."
At the sound of Lena's voice, Kara forces herself to calm down immediately. Whatever is happening, if Lena is here, it can't be that bad. Two hands briefly brush against her face and the plastic tube stops bubbling air into her nose. Kara takes a long shaky breath, and tries to make words work again. "What…" she croaks, "what happened ?" Her throat is parched in the worst way, and she wonders if the gap in her memory might have involved swallowing barbed wire. "Can I… ? Water ?"
Two heavy boots shuffle on her right side and she recognises the characteristic sound of Alex's anxious gait. Water trickles down into a cup, and moments later, Kara feels a cardboard rim pressed to her lips. Gratefully, she gulps it down to the very last drop. In her eagerness, part of the liquid runs down the wrong pipe, and for the second time since she woke up, she finds herself gasping for air, her lungs contracting painfully and sending aching shivers through her body.
"Careful," Lena says quietly.
She sounds small in a way that makes Kara uncomfortable beyond the simple pain in her body. What happened ?
A warm gloved hand presses to her forehead, lightly brushing away strands caught in cold sweat. Kara wants to lean into it, but as she tries to do so, her head gets stuck against a metallic frame. She's trapped.
Panic grips her heart and she can feel it contracting uselessly as her ribcage tightens against it. But she doesn't have time for panic, she needs to remain calm, assess her surroundings and see if the people around her really are Alex and Lena or if her senses are deceiving her. Surreptitiously, she tugs at the restrains around her wrists, testing her strength against them. As she does so, the phantom of a memory makes itself known at the back of her mind. It prickles at the back of her neck, but when she tries to grasp it, to understand it, it slithers away leaving only a pounding headache behind.
"What, what happened ?" she manages to ask again.
Beside her, someone inhales sharply, but when she tries to open her eyes to identify them, all there is is blinding light.
/"Ah, child. Glad to see you are awake."
"Glad to be, Master," her own cold voice replies. "May I ask where I am ?"
"On board of my ship. Inside my own brain. Everywhere. Try it, what do you see ?"
She opens her eyes and worlds flicker before her. "Everything," she says, "I see everything." She closes her eyes again, the rapid rotation of dying souls and planets making her feel slightly nauseous. "What am I to assist you with Master ?"
"Your task is quite simple child, harvest the universe."
"Very well Master, this will be my sole purpose."/
A gasp tears itself out of Kara and she hears her restrains crack as her body arches away from the hard bed. A strong hand pushes her back until she's laying flat again. It burns where it touches her, the spike of pain adding to the latent ache that already encompasses her body. She feels it even through the unknown thick material she seems to be clad in. The sudden realisation that she isn't dressed in the clothes she remembers falling asleep in sparks a flare of anxiety and her breathing goes awry once more. There is no staying calm anymore, no taking the time to access the situation, she just wants someone to fucking tell her what's going on.
"What's happening ?" she asks for what feels like the bazillion time since she first woke up.
She opens her eyes again, and this time, forces them to stay that way, fighting against the blinding light until she can see the outline of the ceiling and two concerned faces hunched over her. She recognises Alex and Lena, can confirm that her other senses didn't deceive her, but it doesn't make her feel better. She's in pain, feels sore, weighted down, vulnerable, and like something is terribly, terribly wrong. In one simple and awful word, she's scared.
"You're okay," Alex says. These are the first words her sister has said to her since she woke up, and it doesn't take much for Kara to detect the lie behind them. A kryptonian swear word that would make even her aunt Astra blush escapes her lips.
"Don't lie to me Alex," she replies a bit harsher than intended. "Please."
"You were right," Lena whispers, her voice cracking on every word. "It's you."
It takes a moment for Kara to catch up with this simple sentence, her tired brain working double time to make sense of it ; but when she does, when she understands, she wishes more than ever before, more even than on her first nights on Earth, that she had died on Krypton.
She's an abomination.
She shudders. The skin and bones that house her consciousness suddenly disgusting ; being alive is repulsing. Is she even alive ? Or is everything she remembers, everything she's ever experienced, a construct of someone else ? Are the memories that built who she is real, is anything about her real ? She thinks of Kal then, of holding is tiny body in her arms on his Naming Day, he is a real person, right ? If she knows him, some of her has to be real too. She tries to hold on to this, but it starts slipping away, everything starts slipping away spiralling out of reach, her memories blurring around the edges until she isn't even sure her mother really sent her away from Krypton, until even the face of her father starts to fade.
It occurs to her that a conversation is still happening, that people are talking to her and she should react. The only reaction that she does have is shrinking away from the warm hand on her body ; nobody should want to touch her right now.
"None of this is your fault," Alex says, her voice too comforting and sisterly for what Kara thinks she deserves. "And we're going to do everything we can to help you. I promise. You're still my sister okay ? I love you no matter what."
"There's no point in loving me," Kara mutters, "I'm not a person."
"Of course you are ! You have a consciousness, memories, there are records of your life on Krypton !"
"It could all be fake... Everything about me is fabricated..."
"No one would go to such great length to cover it up," Alex states like it's a sure thing. In any other circumstances Kara would believe her, would cling to her, but her body is burning up and everything is hazy and all she can think about is that Rao has forsaken her and she shouldn't exist.
"What do you even know about Krypton ?" she spits hatefully. It's a low blow, and she's aware of it, but she doesn't have it in her to take it back. If she hurts Alex, maybe her sister will stop caring and she'll put an end to this.
"I don't think it's what you think it is," Alex says gently. Her voice is soft, too soft, and it makes Kara flare with anger.
"Then explain ! Share your great wisdom with me !"
"I'm going to ask you a question," Lena chimes in, "and I need you to really think about it before you answer. It's very important." Her voice is soft too, warm, but it plunges into Kara's heart like ice shards. "Did you ever suffer a life threatening injury ? Something that would require major surgery. Of the replacing body parts kind."
"We were much too advance to do something that barbaric."
"But did you ever have surgery ?"
"I," Kara stammers. She starts pulling at a distant memory, focusing on its sounds and colours, on the things that make it authentic. "I broke my arm once. Stollen race ship accident. I crashed it into a bridge." As she speaks, she remembers the crash, the harsh blow to her arm ; and the intense sudden pain, the memory of it fusing with her current ache. "It was fixed in fifteen minutes. Nanobots."
"Which arm was it ?" Alex asks tentatively.
"The left."
"Not the right ?"
"I said it was the left Alex. Why does it even matter ?"
"Because your right arm is a prosthetic," Lena says with a gentle finality.
"No it's not," Kara snaps. She tries to twist to glance at her arm but the way she's tied up prevents her from doing much more than frenetically moving her eyes.
"It is. And your right leg too. And part of your skull is metal. And," Lena stops abruptly. Kara can hear her swallowing nervously, she picks up the sound of her fingers tapping against each other, of her foot shuffling on the plastic floor.
"And what ?"
"And there's a motherboard at the back of your head," Alex finishes for her.
/ "Master, may I ask you a question ?"
"You may."
"Where do I come from ? Before you took me in and made me the greatest gift to the universe, what species was I ?"
A flash of annoyance passes on the green face of her master. He rarely shows emotions at all, and that's how she knows she's angered him.
"What prompts this enquiry ?"
"I've been having flashes, and I wondered if they could be memories."
"Well how do you feel about these ?" he asks curtly.
She ponders over this question for a while. For how long, she doesn't know, time means nothing to her.
"Annoyed," she answers eventually.
She doesn't get an answer to that. Her master just stares ahead ; in front of them, a red sun arises.
"Master ? What is Zor-El ?"
"Your last harvest seems to have damaged your circuits. You'll need some conditioning."/
"There's a what ?!"
"A motherboard," Lena says gently, "it's a..."
"I know what a motherboard is," Kara says sharply.
She doesn't mean to snap at her, and she isn't even sure that all the anger she feels really is hers. But everything is so confusing and she might be a robot and her girlfriend is looking at her so tenderly that she just needs to get it out. To her credit, Lena doesn't so much as flinch.
She breathes deeply, focusing on the intake and outtake of air in her lungs. Does she even need to breathe ? "I'm sorry," she says, forcing her voice to stay measured and amiable.
"You," Lena says squaring her shoulders, "you don't need to apologise."
Kara does need to apologise, she hates being mean, hates being unfair ; but anger blurs everything around her, and she finds it hard to assess what part of what she's feeling is hers and what part is the thing in her head. If there is even a her at this point.
"Can you explain this to me ?" she asks with the intention of waving around to manifest the mess that is her head before she remembers she's tied down and can't move at all. "Am I, am I not a person ? A robot ?"
"I'm going to have to be cold and technical," Lena says, her voice wavering ever so slightly. "I'm sorry."
"Do not apologise," Kara snaps, her own voice almost foreign to her ears. "Just tell me. Please."
"You are not a robot. There are enough organic parts in your body for you to qualify as more of a cyborg," Lena explains in what is no doubt meant to be a reassuring voice but does nothing for Kara. "What you need to take away from that, what I want you to remember, is that you are a living breathing person. You are real Kara."
"And we can help you," Alex adds. "There are growth marks on your metal bones so the most plausible solution would be that you were enhanced in your youth."
"Enhanced ?" Kara repeats with as much snark as she can manage.
"Yeah, poor choice of words I'm sorry. We think that you might have suffered a critical injury that would have required such a heavy intervention. Possibly as a consequence of Krypton's destruction." Alex marks a long pause. Not being able to move enough to look at her is starting to get on Kara's nerves. She almost intervenes, almost snaps once more, but her sister starts talking again. "Sam did say that only two escape pods were recorded in this space sector's archives, and since biologywise you are undoubtedly a Kryptonian, you could have simply not made it out."
"I remember my mother putting me in that pod," Kara counteracts before she has the time to fully form that thought. "I saw Krypton explode with my own two eyes."
These words however, don't bring up the usual memory. This time when she says them Kara doesn't see her mother sending her to safety, instead she feels her father's arms wrapping around the distant remembrance of what her twelve cycles old body felt like, and she hears words that feel familiar even when she doesn't remember hearing then in the first place. "I'm sorry Karanizu. I'm really sorry. Close your eyes. I'll see you in Rao's light."
/"Why did you go against my orders ?"
There's a lie on the tip of her tongue, but she choses not to speak.
"I asked you a question child. Why did you go against my orders ?"
"They didn't seem worthy of your collection, Master."
He hears the lie of course. He always knows. Truth is she saw a little girl hiding in her mother's arms and for a split second she remembered that she was a child too once. Before she was gifted with enhancements and stopped growing old. Lately though, she's been wondering about this gift ; namely, is it really one ? She doesn't remember their faces, but she must have had parents too, and she misses them.
"And who are you," the cold disembodied voice of her Master asks, "to decide what is and isn't worthy of me ?"
I don't know who I am, is what the newly awaken part of her wants to reply. I don't even know my own name, is what's screaming inside of her. "I am your sole creation," is what she says, "and I exist to serve you." It's the expected answer, and it would be perfect if it weren't for her voice wavering at the wrong time.
"Are you sure of that ?" the voice asks right behind her.
She turns around to face him. It's rare that they find themselves in the same room these days. "I am, Master."
"See, I don't think you are. Lately, you've been a liability. You've become bold, and reckless, in your disobedience."
She opens her mouth to contradict him, but he silences her with a finger, shutting down her ability to speak.
"Have you forgotten I know and see everything ? I know you've been researching things you don't need to know. And I've seen you helping unworthy children. Did you really think I wouldn't notice ?"
Something strange simmers inside of her ; something cold. It's a strange feeling, a new one ; and in her contrived silence, she recognises it as fear. She shouldn't be able to fear.
"I could kill you right now."
She has no doubt of this. She's seen her Master kill with no second thoughts and right now, she can feel an invisible hand tightening around her throat. Behind him, his multiple metal appendages ripple to life. She hopes he will go straight for the heart. Make it quick.
"Unfortunately child, I've grown attached to you, so I'll give you one last gift, altered memories, and freedom. But remember, Kara Zor-El, I will come collect you too."/
"I'm sorry about the cuffs," Alex says, tenderly wiping her sweaty brow. "And the kryptonite."
"I tried to attack you didn't I ?" Kara asks oddly aware that she just missed a good chunk of time again.
"It's okay," Alex replies, a sad smile seeping all the way into her voice.
"We both know it's not," Kara croaks. She lets her words hang there for a moment ; time doesn't matter anyway. "What's the death count ?"
"I don't think…"
"What the death count Alex ?" Kara asks again, firmer.
"67."
"Including Brian ?"
"Yes, but…"
"There's not but," Kara cuts harshly. "I killed people." Her fists curl on their own accord and a loud crack fills the room as the pressure shatters the cuffs holding her arms in place. "Sorry."
"Technically…" Lena starts with little hope of finishing her thought before she's interrupted.
"Okay," Kara barks, "well my body killed people. That's the same thing. And it can't possibly be a new thing. How am I supposed to know how long this thing in my head has been influencing what I do ?"
"Well…"
"I should have died on Krypton."
"Yes, you should have," Alex says softly, and her words are so strange, so unexpected, that Kara completely loses her momentum and doesn't have anything to reply. "You should have died on Krypton. But so should have Sam and Kal. The three of you were given a shot at something else, and the fact that you're a cyborg doesn't change this. You have the right to live Kara, and I'll remind you of that everyday until the end if I have to."
"I'm a murderer Alex…"
"I've killed people too," her sister says in an almost too casual way.
"As part of your job ! Twice ! And one was an accident ! I did it on purpose !"
"You didn't," Lena cuts, "you were unconscious of your actions." Her voice is huskier than usual, it sounds exhausted, and Kara wonders how long this as been going on, how long Lena has been awake, how long she herself has been strapped down to this bed. "I don't think that your motherboard had any influence on your actions prior to, prior to what happened. Something must have triggered it."
"Can you remove it ?" Asking this question causes a spark of pain to shoot across her body. It starts in her brain, fizzling like electricity and drawing a sharp cry from her. The restrains around her neck and torso crack open when she arches away from the bed. "The motherboard," she tries again in between two breathless pants, "can you remove it ?"
"No," Lena replies gloomily, "I don't think so. Not without lasting damage anyway. I'm talking permanent memory loss at best, complete shutdown at worst."
"Then what ? How can we prevent me from doing that again ? Are you going to k…"
"I can overwrite it. Input a new code to block the trigger. It should work but I won't do it without your explicit consent."
"Do it."
"Are you sure ?"
"Do it Lena."
"I also can't promise you it'll be painless," Lena says softly as she types on her tablet without looking at it. On Kara's other side, Alex pulls out a green scalpel from a lead lined box. "We have to keep you awake during the procedure. The motherboard is in the back of your neck so we'll untie you and turn you over, okay ?"
"I'd rather you don't," Kara says before either of them can reach for the last of the restrains holding her back. "We don't know what could happen. I could… If you let me go completely I could hurt you and…"
"It could work if you were just sitting," Alex interrupts gently, putting a hand on her shaking arm. "Lena ?"
"I just need access to the back of her neck," Lena confirms.
"Wait !" Kara suddenly shouts even as she's starting to sit up to offer her neck. Her body and brain are torn in two different directions and everything is going too fast. She's barely had time to process the most life altering of things that already she has to decide for herself if the monster that she is deserves a life or not. She'd like the decision to be out of her hands, for Lena to fuck up the procedure so she could just be shut down and never have to deal with the blood on her hands and the new type of grief in her heart. "It might not be an Earth type plug, you won't be able to connect."
"Brainy got me 71 different cables from the DEO storage, it will work. And if all else fails, he'll be able to do something."
"Where is he ?" Kara asks, glancing around in case she might have missed him. Brainy does have an uncanny way of hiding in plain sight.
"Just outside the room," Alex says softly. "We thought you might want some privacy."
Kara doesn't answer. She does want privacy, but she doesn't deserve it. She should be scrutinised by as many people as possible to ensure that she won't hurt anyone ever again.
"I'm going to start," Lena says, her voice distant, rumbly in the static in Kara's hears. "Tell me if anything feels wrong, anything at all."
A warm hand ghosts against her back, "it's okay, I'm scared too," she thinks she hears, though it's low enough that she could be imagining it entirely. She feels the bite of the scalpel as it slowly cuts a line at the base of her neck. It hurts. The pain flaring then prickling as it spreads from the new wound. Something hot and sticky trickles down ; blood probably. Rao, she hopes it's blood and not machine oil. Lena forages behind her for a moment, she hears bits of metal clanging and long plastic tubes sliding against each other. Her hands tremble, Kara can feel their vibrations first, then their slight unsteadiness as they come rest under the gap in her skin. Something slides inside of her neck, and for a moment, nothing happens. Then the cable fizzle and she feels something rushing out of her faster than she can comprehend what's happening. She tries to grasp at it, tries to retain that part of her that seems to be abandoning ship but pain seizes her body and mind until all there is is white, and hot.
/The ground shakes underneath their feet harder than ever before ; harder even than the quake that preceded this one by only a minute. It's time, Kara knows it yet she fights against the inevitable, fights against her mother unwrapping her arms from around her, fights against the very idea of living when everyone must die. It's not right.
The pod is too small, too constricting, and she cannot breathe as it rockets away from the planet and into the stars. In front of her, vastness and the future, behind her fire and death ; she knows which she'd choose if she could. Something rocks her ship and it starts spiralling away, off course. For the longest second of her too short life, she sees a glimpse of all consuming fire before her home disappears into nothingness. Her pod shakes again and she hits the windshield, her forehead splitting open. It doesn't hurt, nothing can hurt as much as the hole opening in her chest as everything, absolutely everything, is erased from existence before her very eyes.
The ground shakes underneath their feet harder than ever before ; harder even than the quake that preceded this one by only a minute. It's time […]/
"How dare you lay your hand on me ?"
The words come out of her mouth but it's not her voice. Kara knows it. It's not her voice. It's not her voice and yet…
"You will pay for your foolishness."
/"Get inside Kara ! Now !"
"But I can't find Thara ! I need to go get her Dad ! I need to go !"
"Did you tell her to meet us there ?"
"I told her to meet me behind the line like you said. I told her everything you said. I promised her she would be safe I need to find her Dad !"
"If you told her to cross the line she's done it honey," her mother chimes in with her usual gentleness. "She's safe right now, you can find her later."
"I need to find her…"
"I'm sure she's safe Karanizu. I'm sure she's safe."
The ground shakes underneath their feet harder than ever before ; harder even than the quake that preceded this one by only a minute. There's no time left. She feels the sickening pull of gravity as the part of Argo City her father managed to secure lifts off the rest of the planet. Her legs give away and her body meets the ground with more strength than she has ever felt. Through the window she sees the force field flicker to life ; they're safe now. "We're safe now," her mother says as she slides down next to her. "We're safe."
Thara isn't on Argo. Kara looks for her for three days straight without stopping, she knocks on every door, turns every rock, twice, but her best friend is nowhere to be found. Her family may be safe, but who is she without Thara ? Her Aunt Astra is the one who picks her from the floor when she collapses from exhaustion. She doesn't talk, just lays with her in bed in silence. Her husband stayed behind to help with the evacuation.
Days pass and blend into each others ; bleak. But against all odds, Kara finds that it isn't that hard to breathe, the air less stale with each hour as her father and his team work on improving the machines, the thrum less present as she gets used to the sound of life support.
And then the ground starts shaking again./
It hurts. It hurts so much. Her whole body aches like it's been split in two and Kara isn't quite sure what's happening. There are voices yelling all around her and she's standing when she's sure than not a second ago she was sitting and everything was quiet. Her vision is blurry and she can't quite make the shapes dancing in front of her. She looks around for Lena. Or Alex. She knows they're here, they were here when she closed her eyes. She focuses, focuses hard to understand what's happening but the noise makes it impossible for her to grasp one single thing.
"Shut up !" She's almost sure she's the one who willed these words into existence, but this voice is too cold, too impersonal to be her own. These are her words, but she's not the one who spoke. The world sharpens around her, just in time for her to see her right hand tightening around Lena's throat.
