Kara doesn't know how long she hovers there, at the limit between sky and space, but when she lets herself fall back to Earth, she entertains for a while the idea of just crashing down below and not getting up until someone finds her. She doesn't, but only because she knows the pain she would gain from it wouldn't be enough to compensate for the damage it would do. The DEO has signed enough checks in her name for all the buildings and streets she's wrecked.
Instead, she corrects her downward course and lands in front of the train station, purchases a one way ticket for Midvale and hauls herself into a mercifully empty compartment. There are plenty of places she could go right now, she'd be more than welcome back at Alex's house, but she needs to be far away from the one place where she actually wants to be.
Her phone rings and she extracts it from her boot with some difficulty, the armour's joints creaking loudly. She finds on it a single text from her sister that she stares at until the screen goes black. Mum will pick you up at the station. Be safe. I love you.
She feels a spark of guilt at the thought that they must have been looking for her, but the familiar feeling is nothing compared to the whirlwind of emotions roaring inside of the cave left by her absent heart. She feels cold, and takes full advantage of the first class amenities, unfolding the thick blanket provided for her and wrapping it around her shoulders. She rests her head against the window, staring mindlessly at the landscapes unfurling on both sides of the speeding train. Things were so different the last time she was on it.
She's the last one to exit the train and Eliza is there, waiting for her on the platform, a burly bodyguard shadowing her a couple of feet away. Her mum takes her into her arms with no questions asked and Kara buries her face in the crook of her neck, filling her lungs with the fresh smell of home. She can feel the stares of the few people left milling around, can hear the discreet snapping of their phones' cameras, but she couldn't give less shit about it if she tried ; she's exhausted all of her capacities to care about this.
"Come on," her mum says after one last tight squeeze, "let's get you home."
They drive to the house in Eliza's blue pickup truck, a DEO van following them ominously. There's another agent hidden in the bed of the truck and Kara keeps on making accidental eye contact with them through the rearview mirror ; they look bored. She sits at an awkward angle on the front passenger seat, the armour wasn't really made for confined spaces ; and getting out of the car is even more of an adventure as she ends up faceplanting in the grass after tripping on her own feet.
She's hesitant to get back up, feels like maybe it would be nice to remain here, nose full of the dewy smell of grass and face gently tickled by a thousand smooth blades, but her mum tugs at her cape with the intention of helping her up and so she leaves her ground hug behind and makes her way inside in a chorus of creaks and clicks.
In the bathroom, she strips off her armour, leaving it in a pile on the floor before she steps under the burning stream of the shower letting the thick white steam slowly obscure her vision. The synthetic skin on her palm hasn't healed yet, it's become greyish and flaky in a way that should be worrying but isn't really. If she's to rot in place and die, then so be it. Maybe then that stupid prosthetic will fall off and she'll be rid of the last part of Lena she carries with her. She's still wearing her bracelet, but at the thought of her body falling apart into oblivion, she rips it off angrily and throws it out of the shower, the golden band quickly disappearing in the mist. The sound it makes when it rebounds off the tiled wall echoes in her head for far longer than she would like.
Eliza slides a jumbo sized hot chocolate her way and Kara grabs the giant mug, towing with the handle to keep her hands occupied. Her mum prepared two dozen sandwiches while she was in the shower but Kara is not hungry. She feels sick, a bit like she's coming down with a cold, headache, sore throat, aching sinuses ; which should not be possible on this planet. Clearly her heartbreak is fucking her over.
She makes her way slowly through two of the sandwiches and most of the hot chocolate before she's sent to bed with an extra blanket and a droplet of lavender oil on the collar of her hoodie. Eliza doesn't ask questions, doesn't force her to talk, to explain herself ; but Kara can hear her mum fretting anxiously downstairs and talking to someone on the phone, probably Alex, for long hours after she's gone to bed.
Sleep doesn't come easily. Kara tosses and turns on the narrow bed, both too hot and too cold, incredibly thirsty but too weak to go get herself a glass of water. She sees shadows in the dark, but refuses to close her eyes, and her hearing is unbearable, even with her hands clasped tightly on her ears. Her body is on fire. Her limbs, both organic and mechanical, are leadened with pain, and her skull is pounding with a headache so painful that for several minutes Kara thinks her brain is trying to crawl out through her eye sockets.
The morning never gets closer. Every time she glances at Alex's digital alarm clock across the room almost no time has passed. It's barely 2am by the time Eliza makes her way inside, no doubt alerted by the pitiful noises Kara isn't fully aware she's making. She leaves the door open, yellow light spilling in from the corridor, and brings with her a tall glass of water that Kara gulps down ferociously.
Her mum puts a freezing hand on her forehead and sighs. "You've got a bit of a fever. If it's not down come morning I'm calling the DEO." She goes to leave but Kara blindly grabs her wrist and tugs weakly. "I'm just going to go grab you some painkillers. The DEO sent some over a while ago just in case." She runs a hand through her hair, smoothing a few strands away from her forehead. "I'll be right back sweetie I promise."
Kara relinquishes her hold, though she has a feeling her mum wouldn't have had much trouble shaking it off, and she blinks owlishly, white spots dancing in front of her eyes. Before she walks out of the room, Eliza delicately lays something on the bedside table and in the glow coming from outside the room, Kara recognises her bracelet. She closes her eyes so she doesn't have to look at it, but the Kryptonese markings, barely visible in the dim light, are etched on her lids.
Eliza comes back some time later after much ruffling in the bathroom cabinet with a bottle of pills and another glass of water, cooler than the last one unless it's simply because Kara's raging fever has somehow gotten higher. Her mum helps her pop two into her mouth and she swallows them with difficulty, half the water spilling out of her mouth when she chokes on the medication. Afterward, she plops back against the pillow, slightly flattened by years of use, and, nose buried in the collar of her hoodie, she curls in on herself, praying for sleep to come. Eliza stays with her, sitting on the edge of the bed, hand slowly combing through her sweaty hair until Kara finally falls asleep.
She feels better in the morning, not by much, but enough that she doesn't feel like she's dying anymore, just like she doesn't really exist at all. She finds Eliza cooking breakfast in the kitchen, the older woman wrapped in a thick beige cardigan with her hair gathered in a humid bun. She smells clean, and Kara is surprised that the sound of the shower didn't wake her up.
"Morning Mum," she mumbles before she lets herself float down on one of the kitchen chairs. Like magic, a cup of coffee and a plate of waffles materialise in front of her.
"Good morning sweetie." Eliza presses a cool hand to her forehead, frowns and hands her the pill bottle. "Are you feeling any better ?"
Kara shrugs. "A bit," she grumbles around the waffle she's shoved into her mouth. She feels ravenous, and she supposes it's a good sign.
Eliza laughs. "Clearly." She sits down with her own coffee and her lone waffle, covered with dark chocolate paste on one side. "I took the day off. If you want to do something. Or if you want to sit at home and watch movies. That's okay too."
Kara silently considers her options for a moment. What she really wants to do is go home. Home home, where Lena is, and maybe knock some sense into her. Ask her again why she kissed Andrea, ask her why she broke them apart. But the more she thinks about that, the heavier the bracelet she slipped in her hoodie's pocket feels. What she also really wants is to find Lex and rip him apart, tear him limb for limb slow enough that he can see his death coming. The violence is strangely appealing ; she can feel the need for it coursing through her and, buzzing with destructive energy, she forces her hands to lay still on the table and quiets her mind with a few deep breaths.
"Can we go for a walk ?"
They take the path down the cliff, the dirt trail winding down the rocks all the way to the smooth sandy beach. She used to come down here with Alex a lot, when Earth was still a limitless playground and not yet a graveyard of her own making. Now, all she can think about as her mum removes her shoes and rolls up her jeans to walk in the sand, is how much pain her sister went through since their early days, and how she took Lena here only mere months ago. There isn't one grain of sand that isn't bursting with memories.
She shuffles behind Eliza in the sand, head low, kicking up small geysers with her old running shoes. They're scuffed at the heel and at the toe from too much time running around trying to get rid of enough energy to go to sleep. If Clark had stuck around, or even visited once in a while, she would have had someone to spar with, wouldn't have ruined so many clothes, wouldn't have been such an inconvenience. She knows Eliza doesn't hold it against her ; but she wonders how she did it, how she didn't break, sat down and gave up. It makes her angry, but she isn't sure why.
Once they reach the town, they sit on the pier for a minute so Eliza can dust her feet and put her shoes back on. She does so meticulously, rubbing her heels and wiggling her fingers between her toes so that not one grain is left behind, and then puts her thick socks and boots back on, and buys her daughter a giant ice-cream cone. Chocolate, cookie dough, whipped cream, sprinkles, it's got everything and Kara is trying her best to enjoy it, even making a show of it. It doesn't work but on insight, Kara should have known better ; her mum has always seen right through her no matter the circumstances.
"Do you want to talk ?" Eliza asks, sitting on a bench facing the ocean and gently patting the space next to her until Kara lowers herself down on the cold wood.
"No."
"That crinkle says otherwise."
Kara smooths down her forehead in a brusk motion, feeling the telltale sign of her irritation etched between her eyes. "It's just," she starts, "how- Never mind."
"How what ?" Eliza prompts gently.
"How did you do it ?" Kara snaps, bits of ice-cream and waffle cone flying off when she squeezes her food too tight. "How did you go on ? How did you raise me, and Alex, after- after-"
"How did I go on after Jeremiah passed away ?" Eliza offers, infuriatingly tender and comprehensive.
Kara nods, jaw clenched, tears burning in her eyes.
Eliza sighs sadly. "I didn't have a choice. I had two teenagers that depended on me, I didn't have the luxury of never getting out of bed again."
"But didn't you want to ? Didn't you just want to shut down and never move again ?"
Eliza chuckles, her little laugh full of years of grief and sorrow. "Oh," she says, "believe me I did. But it wouldn't have been fair to you, or to your sister. Patricia helped a lot. She would take Alex in as much as she could and cook food for all of us when I couldn't. You may not remember it, but you spent an entire month eating nothing but Arias' patented chicken casserole." She smiles at the memory. "Alex refused to touch chicken for three weeks after that. But my point is, I wasn't alone, and you're not alone either Kara. You've been through so much already, survived all of it. Don't let heartbreak be what gets to you."
"Exactly," Kara whispers, the word barely audible through her teeth. "Exactly." Her ice-cream cone is dripping down her fingers now and she abandons it on the bench next to her, dejected. "I've been through so much already. Every time I get comfortable, every time I think I'm okay, everything gets ripped away from me. My planet. My family. My memories. My life. And now, now Lena. How is that fair Mum ? How is that fair ?"
"It's not," Eliza murmurs. "I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you, I want to tell you everything is going to be okay but I'm afraid sometimes life just isn't fair."
"I don't want to do this anymore Mum. I don't think I can. I want to curl up in a corner and fucking die. But I can't because- because the entire world depends on me in case some madman decides to blow up an entire city, again, or an alien refugee or another has an allergic reaction to our atmosphere and goes on a rampage. Why am I not allowed to give up Mum ? Why ?!"
"The world does not depend on you Kara."
Out of all the usual reassurances Kara expected to come out of Eliza's mouth, this is not it, and she has to do a double take to be sure she heard correctly. She turns to look at her mum, finds her looking at the ocean, lost in thought.
"Humanity, well I'll admit we're not always doing good. We have our moments but we're a shit species. Or I think this is how Alex would put it ?" She marks a pause, turns briefly to smile at Kara and takes her hand. "If you curl up and die," she continues, repeating her daughter's words with difficulty, "the world is not going to stop turning. Sure, people are going to mourn you, statues will be erected, you'll get your name on a few buildings, but then they'll go on with their lives. I won't. And neither will Alex. And Ruby, and Sam, and Kelly... You weren't there the first time, and I'm sorry to have to say this to you but I don't think you can understand what your sister went through, what I went through. If the world loses you again, it'll be alright. But we won't."
"It hurts," Kara says, whatever is left of her heart squeezing painfully in her chest. The stunted organ beats oddly, trying to expand again to fit in the love of a mother.
"It doesn't have to hurt alone," Eliza promises. She squeezes Kara's hand tightly, enough that she can actually feel the comforting pressure. "Come on. I want to show you something."
She rises from the bench, adjust her jacket, and extends her hand, looping it around Kara's arm when she follows. They walk down the rest of the pier, taking a right when it projects over the sea and continuing until there is nowhere left to go. The end of the pier has been cordoned off with red and white tape and beyond it, a rounded metallic structure protrudes out of the waves.
"What- ?"
"It fell over during the last storm," Eliza explains, gesturing to what is left of Midvale's beloved ferris wheel. "Thankfully no one was on it when it happened, but that was still a bit of a shock when we found out."
"Great. Another part of my life gone with the wind."
Kara resists the urge to kick a piece of trash that has rolled to her feet, but barely.
"Everything is temporary," Eliza says. "The ferris wheel, your heartbreak. I don't understand why Lena did what she did. I wish she'd explain it to me. But what you're feeling right now, your pain, it's temporary."
Kara turns her back to the wreckage, starts walking back to the town. She can't stomach to look at this any longer. She knows Eliza is right, and that, maybe, is the worst. She got used to everything else, why wouldn't she get used to having lost Lena ? It's going to hurt a lot, for a while, maybe a long while, and then one morning she'll wake up and it won't hurt as much. It will be ridiculous, almost unnoticeable, but it will be the beginning of the end and progressively the pain will recede until Lena is nothing but a memory, a missed breath, a little twinge somewhere around her heart, just like everything else.
Eliza catches up with her quickly. She's surprisingly fast for a woman her age, probably because she spent years running after a superpowered teenager.
"I know I'm going to get better," Kara says when they're side by side again. "I'm just not sure I want that to happen."
"I understand," Eliza says softly, "I think it's the case for all of us. When we're heartbroken, we tend to forget who we are outside of our pain. But you're great Kara, amazing, and it just happened, give yourself some time to heal."
"Lucy cheated," Kara whispers, throat constricted and dry, "Lena cheated. What does that say about me ?"
They've walked back the length of the pier now, and the town is a little busier than when they arrived. Kara wouldn't be able to tell what day it is, but children are out and about, parents lost somewhere behind them.
"That you're better than them."
Kara sighs. Being better than Lena isn't going to keep her warm at night. It's not going to protect her from nightmares or make her a cup of tea when she's sad. Being better than Lena is not a hug after a long day, it's not a laugh at her bad jokes, it's not a hand in hers, a head resting on her shoulder. Being better than Lena is not love.
They stop at the crosswalk, Eliza putting a hand on her elbow like she's done so many time to prevent her from crossing without looking. Kara would be safe, the incoming car and its passengers definitely wouldn't. The unmonitored little kid on the other side of the street is not as careful and Kara watches in horror as a bouncing blond ponytail launch itself into incoming traffic.
She takes no time to think, jumps in between the child and the speeding van, wrapping herself out of habit around a frail and small body. Tires screech on the asphalt and barely a second after Kara's jumped in the middle of the road, the car collides with her back in a loud mess of metal and plastic that rips her eardrums and her clothes. She remains still for the moment, then slowly, she rises again, unfolding her body until she towers over the confused child. No longer distracted, parents rush forward, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees someone dialling the emergency services, but she pays little mind to all of this. The back of her neck burns like it's been branded with a hot iron, and in the eerie silence that follows the accident, Kara sees red /