All that Kara could see as soon as they entered the breach was white, swirling around them in all directions. It made her kind of dizzy to watch it, which was a rare sensation for her.
"Selah?" she called, but her words were muffled by the white mist. Suddenly the girl appeared at her side.
"Hey," she replied, her voice sounding as if it was very far away. "Are we breaching?"
"I guess. It's taking longer than any time I've done it before."
"Is that a bad sign?"
"Not sure." Already her mind was jumping ahead to the 'what ifs', and she was envisioning an endless future being trapped here with Selah when the mist disappeared in an instant, and in front of them was a large, round hole.
"Huh," the girl said after a moment, her voice now clear.
"Do we... go through it?" Kara asked. Selah shrugged.
"You're the one who's done this before," she pointed out.
"I already told you, it wasn't like this then." The hero walked over to the hole and stuck her head inside, but all she saw was darkness. Straightening again, she reached out her hand to the girl. "Let's go in together. I'm not risking leaving you wherever here is."
Selah took Kara's hand and they gingerly stepped into the hole together. As soon as they entered, it was as if they got sucked into it, and Kara felt as if she was spinning around rapidly, like the mist that was previously filling the room.
"I don't like this very much," Selah yelled into the darkness, but as quickly as it came, the spinning stopped, and they were standing on solid ground.
"Where are we?" Kara asked after they had both caught their breath.
"I'm not sure," the girl replied.
"When you built this machine, you didn't plan where it would spit us out?" she demanded.
"I had other things on my mind."
"That's a pretty important factor, Selah. We could be in... Tokyo, or Frankfurt, or-"
"Not sure if I have to remind you of this, but you can fly faster than the speed of sound."
Kara was about to retort, but their bickering was cut short by an abrupt panel of light piercing the darkness around her and shining directly into her eyes. It took a minute or two for her eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. Once they did, she saw a tall, blond man with a large moustache standing in front of her. He was wearing coveralls, holding a mop, and had a very confused expression on his face. Kara looked around her and realized that she and Selah were standing in a broom closet.
"Hallo?" he said in a very thick German accent.
"Frankfurt," Selah whispered, leaning over to Kara's ear. Kara elbowed her sharply in the ribs.
"Um, Anglais?" she asked.
"That's French," the girl informed her.
"Shoot, um."
"What are you doing in my broom closet?" the man asked in halting English.
"We were, um. Looking for the bathrooms," Selah supplied. "Must have gotten lost along the way. We'll be out of your hair now." The man slowly nodded, his eyes wide as Kara and Selah awkwardly stepped out of the closet and began walking down a hallway.
"Are we seriously in Germany?" Kara demanded once they were out of earshot of the janitor.
"Maybe?" she tipped her head to one side and shut her eyes. "There's not many people nearby, but I think the ones around here are thinking in English. It's hard to tell though, because thoughts don't really have a language." Kara spotted a plaque on the wall ahead of them with various directions on it, and went over to read it.
"Selah, we're in the university," she said in an exasperated voice.
"Really?" the girl replied, opening her eyes and walking over to Kara. "I guess that makes sense."
"Can you hear anyone? Are you sure we're on the right Earth this time?"
"Let me check." Selah closed her eyes again, and took a slow breath. Biting back a grin, she looked up to meet Kara's eyes. "J'onn says hi and also that Alex told him to tell us if we're not at the DEO in five minutes she's going to kill us."
Squealing, Kara pulled the girl into a bone-crushing hug, her heart swelling with relief.
"We did it!" she exclaimed.
"We did," Selah replied, her face free of all the worry that Kara had grown used to seeing on it over the past weeks.
.
Alex was there to meet them as they landed on the DEO balcony. Kara had been able to hear her heartbeat from several blocks away, and she had been reminding herself over and over to be gentle, and she kept repeating it in her mind as she wrapped her sister in a hug. All she wanted to do was squeeze as tightly as she could, but Alex had gotten enough rib fractures over the years from her intense hugs.
"Kar," Alex breathed out, her voice trembling.
"I'm okay," Kara insisted. "Selah too. We're both okay." Alex pulled away, keeping her hands on Kara's shoulders as she looked over her sister, examining her for any injury.
"What are you wearing?" she asked finally.
"Shoot," the hero muttered. "Selah, we forgot to give Linda her cardigans back."
"That's fine," the girl replied. "She had enough of them already."
"Linda?" Alex asked.
"It's a long story," Kara replied.
"For later. There's a lot of people who want to see you." Selah looked at Alex carefully as the agent turned to her, her grey eyes filled with regret. Alex took a long breath, before pulling Selah into a tight hug, which the girl returned after a moment.
"I'm sorry," Selah whispered into Alex's shoulder.
"I know." She pulled away, wiping at her eyes as she looked at Kara again. "It doesn't matter anymore."
The next hour and a half was a flurry of hugging and crying as Nia, Brainy, J'onn and Lena saw Selah and Kara. Up until J'onn received Selah's telepathic message, they had all still been trying to find the Agenda- a search that was proving to be fruitless, so the sudden appearance of their missing friends was a shock to say the least. Selah also contacted her aunt telepathically, and Lea had come soaring into the DEO and tackled her niece in a hug.
"So you were on another Earth?" Alex asked over a slice of pizza that Brainy had ordered. Kara and Selah had given an abridged version of what had happened since they had left, not wanting to go into the gory details just yet. "Why didn't we think to investigate that?" She asked Brainy.
"I thought it was statistically improbable." He replied. "Clearly I need to recalibrate."
"But that was it?" The director pressed. "You were just somewhere else in the multiverse and we couldn't communicate? For two months?" Kara glanced over at Selah, who was running a hand over the chip implant in her neck and looking at the floor.
"We'll explain later," she told her sister. "For now, let's celebrate." Alex narrowed her eyes skeptically, but let the subject fall as Brainy loudly announced he was going to order eight more pizzas.
.
"You two are okay?" Alex asked nearly an hour later, once the party had finally died down. The others had returned to their various homes, but Selah and Kara volunteered to clean up, knowing that Alex would want to ask a lot more questions. "I find it hard to believe that you were just chilling on another Earth for nearly two months." Selah and Kara exchanged another look and Alex sighed. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Beta took us to that Earth," Kara said softly. "She had us in a facility there."
"A facility?" Alex asked.
"Think... Cadmus. But Selah and I were the only prisoners."
"What did they do to you?"
"Barely anything to me. It was almost all Selah." Alex looked over to the girl, who was sitting silently on a chair and looking down on the floor.
"Selah?" She asked over a moment.
"It was mostly the same as before. Lots of surgeries and testing. Sometimes they'd experiment with different weapons and how they affected me. We blew up most of the facility when we left so I can't imagine that they have much of their research left."
"Are you okay?" the doctor repeated.
"There's a chip in the back of my neck," the girl replied, running a hand over it again. "And uh," she placed her hands flat on the table. "I don't have thumbs."
"What?"
"Kara heat-visioned them off."
"What?" Alex picked up one of Selah's hands in her own and examined it before taking a long breath. "Do you want to come to my lab?" The girl nodded mutely. "Kara, do you want to come or go home and get some rest?"
"I'll come," Kara instantly replied, the thought of leaving Selah putting a knot in her stomach.
Once in the lab, Alex pulled on a pair of gloves while the girl sat herself on the bed.
"I know you've explained the whole 'regrowing fingers' thing to me before," she said walking over to Selah. "But can we refresh here? Why didn't they regrow?"
"Is it because thumbs aren't fingers?" Kara interrupted.
"That's not-" Alex sighed. "You know that's not true, right?"
"Yes?" she said unconvincingly.
"I don't know why they haven't regrown," Selah answered. "I think because they healed when my powers were gone." The agent began examining the girl's hands, bending her wrist and remaining fingers.
"I think our best bet is to try and reopen the incision and then to let it heal with your powers," she said finally. "If you're open to that."
"I don't really want to be thumbless forever. I feel unevolved."
"Okay." Alex pulled off her gloves and threw them away. "I can do it at the same time as when we remove the chip." Selah nodded. "I would like if you two stay here overnight, just for observation. I'm not going home either, so we can take over a sparring room or something."
"Sounds good," Kara said, pulling her sister into the umpteenth hug of the evening. "Can we rewatch Veronica Mars?"
.
The evening air was cool on Selah's face as she flew high above the fields below her. She was pretty proud of herself as this was only her second time flying, and she hadn't hit any drones or trees or low flying planes. Alex had given her and Kara DEO sweatsuits to change into, so she finally had been able to get out of Linda's hand-me-downs. Despite the joy-filled reunion, she felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach as she landed quietly in the grass at her location.
"Um," she said as she walked up to the house, unsure of what to say. Both Clark and Lois whirled around to see her standing on the dark back lawn of their house in Smallville. "Hi,"
"Who is this?" Lois demanded, turning to Clark.
"Selah, this is my wife, Lois. Lois, Selah." Lois raised her eyebrows at the girl's name, and turned to her husband.
"That Selah?" she asked.
"I can't imagine it's a very common name," he replied. "You're back," he said to his daughter.
"I am," Selah replied.
"Are you okay?" he asked, walking to the steps and standing at the top of them. "Are you safe?"
"I'm fine, yeah. Kara too. I'm sorry for showing up like this, I just wanted to say hi." The girl looked down at her hands, which were twisted together. "And uh. I need to talk to you about something." Clark and Lois again exchanged glances before Lois offered a smile to the girl.
"Why don't we take this inside?" she said. Selah followed her father and his wife into their house, chewing on the inside of her lip as she walked up the steps to their porch. Lois sat at the kitchen table, and Clark sat beside her. After a moment, Selah placed herself in a chair across the table from them.
"What's going on?" Clark asked finally. "When did you get back?"
"A few hours ago. Alex wanted to check us over at the DEO before anything else."
"And you're fine?" he asked again.
"You can track anyone in the world based on their heartbeats, right?" Selah asked instead of answering.
"Yeah. Why?" The girl closed her eyes, and suddenly the kitchen was filled with a steady thrumming sound.
"Can you track this?" she asked.
"How is she doing that?" Lois hissed to Clark.
"Did I not mention she has psychic powers?" he replied. Lois raised her eyebrows. "It uh, must have slipped my mind." Eager for the distraction, Clark shut his eyes and began listening for the heartbeat. Selah let the noise fade, but kept her eyes shut and waited for her father's answer. "I can't find it," he said finally.
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
"Okay," the girl opened her eyes to see Clark giving her a puzzled look.
"I don't quite understand what's going on," he admitted. "Kara can do that just as well as I can. Why didn't you ask her?"
"She's with Alex. And I didn't want to stress her out."
"Why would it stress her out?" Clark asked, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. The girl sighed.
"That heartbeat belonged to the woman who took us. Beta. I don't know-" she trailed off, rubbing a hand over the slightly raised bump at the back of her neck.
"What aren't you telling me?" he pressed gently.
"I killed her. At least, I thought I did, but I never actually saw her die. But now I'm scared that she might still be alive, at least a part of her."
"How?"
"She psychically connected herself to me, so that she could gain my powers. After Kara and I escaped, I stopped hearing her, but now..."
"You do again?"
"Not exactly. I haven't heard words or anything, but I just get a feeling, and-" she trailed off again, fixing her eyes on the table.
"You haven't told Kara or Alex about this yet?"
"You're the first people I'm telling." Selah took a deep breath, and shut her eyes again before continuing, "And I'm really hoping it's just trauma or whatever, and I'm just being hypersensitive, but,"
"Hey," Clark said, and she looked up. "We will figure this out." He glanced at Lois, who nodded.
"Okay," Selah replied quietly. "Alex said she'd take the psychic chip out tomorrow, so I'm hoping that will help."
"Keep me updated?" The girl nodded. "And just know, you're welcome here any time, okay?"
"Yeah, we have two growing boys, so there's always plenty of food in the house," Lois added. "If you can excuse the table manners."
"Thank you." After a moment, she cleared her throat and pushed the chair back. "I should be getting back to Kara, I told her I was going to my apartment to get extra socks."
"Why would you need extra socks?" Clark asked.
"I left before she could ask me that."
"She inherited your composure," Lois said, elbowing her husband.
"That's rude," he muttered. "I'll stop by the DEO soon to see how things are going, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks again."
"Anytime." Clark turned to his wife as the girl left the kitchen, and she raised her eyebrows.
"So your daughter is a telepath?" She asked.
.
.
.
