A/N: Hello hello my lovelies! It's been a hot minute!

So this is the start of something I toyed with a lot as I was writing Unknown Number. And to be honest, I've hesitated a lot in starting to really write it because I knew it would be so hard to write, just because Kara is so heartbroken for the majority of the story. But I decided to go ahead and take a stab at it mainly because I was curious. I spent a lot of time getting into Alex's head, I kinda want to explore Kara's. And partly because this hiatus is killing me and I miss the Danvers sisters and the Superfam.

For those of you who read Unknown Number, you know they get a happy ending. And if you haven't read Unknown Number, you don't have to read it to understand this one. All you need to know is that this takes place after the episode Homecoming, and I suppose acts as an alternate for Exodus. Alex and Kara haven't talked about their fight about Jeremiah and Alex has been pushing Kara away.

Oh, and announcement! I'm on tumblr now, kenzcraw13! Hit me up if you want to chat Supergirl, or anything else, really. I'm not picky.

Anyhoo, this first chapter is short and not sweet at all, but let me know what you guys think. Onwards!

I swing around the doorframe into Alex's lab the Friday after Jeremiah... left – again – and plop down on my stool. She doesn't glance up from where she has tweezers buried in the mechanics of her alien gun.

"So," I start, "I have pizza and potstickers on the way to my place. Do you want me to-"

"Maggie and I have plans." She doesn't even look up. Her eyes stay focused on the gun as she moves her tweezers minutely.

For a moment, I just stare at her while she works, not completely understanding what she means. My heart starts to ache.

You're either part of the family, or you're not.

I shake the memory away before tears can sting my eyes. "Oh," I say, and have to clear my suddenly tight throat. "Okay. Yeah, that's… Yeah. Awesome."

Alex still doesn't look up, and I clench my jaw to ward off a sudden urge to cry. You're either part of the family, or you're not.

I slide off the stool. "Next week, then."

"Yeah. Sure."

I hesitate at the doorframe, watching my sister tinker with her gun, eyes fixated on whatever it is she's working on. I absently tap the frame, wanting to say something but not really sure what. And when Alex still doesn't look at me, I retreat silently and hurl myself out the window and into the skies.

This is the first sister night I've spent alone in… I can't even remember how long.

You're either part of the family, or you're not.

I shake her words away again, throwing my momentum forward so fast it feels like I left my lungs behind. Which is a small relief. The city lights blur together, the desert races to meet me, and I shoot upwards. Through the clouds and straight up. Like I can reach the stars if I fly fast enough, fly high enough.

She loves me. She's just mad. She loves me.

A week, a couple Supergirl fights, and a lot of midnight flights later, I'm edging into Alex's lab again. She's writing something down in her lab notes and barely shoots me a glance over the paper.

"Hey," I say, settling on the stool. My stomach is in knots and twists painfully when she merely jerks her chin at me in response. "Pizza or potstickers? Or both?"

"Kinda busy tonight," Alex says, turning away and fiddling with her test tubes.

My heart clenches and my eyes burn. I take a deep, quiet breath. "Okay," I say, voice quiet but still shaking. "Just… Don't work too hard."

"Yup." And then she's striding right past me and out the door without even looking at me.

I'm back in the clouds a split second later, listening to her steadily thumping heartbeat over the pained racing of my own. The squeezing in my chest is an old but familiar feeling, and it takes me a second of hurtling through the air at the speed of sound to place the tightening in my heart.

Lost. I feel lost.

She still loves me. She still loves me. She still loves me.

She promised. She's not abandoning me. She promised.

I lean in the doorway seven long days later, swallowing the lump in my throat as I watch Alex flit around her lab. Writing down notes, tapping at the keyboard on her laptop that's sitting precariously close to the edge of her crammed work table.

"Am I ordering for two tonight?" Please say yes, please forgive me, please let me back in.

Alex shakes her head without looking up and my heart plummets. "Not tonight. Kinda busy."

I'm sorry. I miss you. I'm so so sorry.

"Okay," I mumble instead of everything I want to say. "I'll, um… I'll see you later."

"See ya." She still doesn't look at me. And now that I can't ignore it, I can't remember the last time she looked, really looked, at me. I think it's when she threw those words at me. When she glared at me with an anger and malice that she had never directed at me before.

Tears burn in my eyes and my chest throbs. But I retreat back out and launch myself into the sky, not letting the tears fall until I'm high enough that even my cousin won't hear.

And then I can't contain it anymore. The weight of loneliness, of grief, of loss that has been building is so overwhelming that I'm gasping and heaving for breath. My eyes burn and I paint the stars and clouds blue with Heat Vision, screaming in an attempt to get this… thing, this writhing storm, out of me. Out of my chest where it's crushing and consuming.

You're either part of the family, or you're not.

I guess I have my answer.

It takes all the strength I have in me to stay aloft, to not crumple thousands of feet down to the earth with the weight of not belonging, of being lost on a planet without the love of my sister and her family.

You always knew this could happen, I think bitterly. I've always been very aware that one day, Alex could look at me and remember that I'm the reason she lost her dad. I'm the reason she was so pressured as a kid. I'm the reason she has to risk her life day in and day out. One day, she would look at me and hate what I've done to her life. And she would be fully within her rights to not love me anymore.

I've always known this could happen. Even braced myself for it a few times. I just… Didn't think it would feel like this.

I didn't think it would feel like being adrift in the Phantom Zone again. Like I just watched my world die and now I'm stuck in a place of no light and no meaning.

And I don't think I'm going to get out of this one.