The heartbeats in her ear
The very first power Kara Zor-El learns to control, is her hearing. It's a necessity for survival and her own sanity. Every sound on the entire Earth knifes through her skull. A cricket just outside echoing and driving pain into her brain. Oh, and the screams. The screams of the dead and the dying (the screams like her own people made as their world imploded).
Kara didn't get her powers immediately after arriving. No, it was three days later, after she was given to the Dan-Vers, that it hit all at once (waking her from her nightmares).
And she screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed, hoping that her voice would drown out the others, but it doesn't (her own pain sounds muted compared to the rest of the world). She screams for her mother, for her father, for Aunt Astra, for Kal, but they don't come (Her mother and father and aunt are all dead and Kal doesn't want her).
It's Alex that goes to her. Alex- even though the girl has ignored Kara these past few days, and Kara knows that the human hates her. It's Alex who cups her hands over Kara's ears, and who's heart rushes strange and wet and loud, drowning out everything else. Wa-wump wa-wump wa-wump- fast but alive.
The other noises slowly drain away until there is only Alex's heartbeat, and Alex's hands cupped over Kara's ears, and Alex's pulse racing under Kara's hands, which have found their way to Alex's wrists, holding her there in an iron, ridged, grip (she bruises Alex's wrists, and then won't touch anyone, or let anyone touch her, for the next four months).
After that, Kara searches out that heartbeat obsessively. When she's feeling overwhelmed and needs to calm down, when she can't sleep from the nightmares, when Alex is away with friends- always. Her Kryptonian mind is made for multitasking, and compartmentalizing, and one of those compartments becomes solely dedicated to tracking Alex's heartbeat. With any change in its normal speed, the entirety of Kara's mind snaps to attention and her hearing reaches out to check if she's okay. She tries not to be intrusive, she really does, but she really can't stop even when she should. If she does, it feels like the planet is going to crack under her feet and die like Krypton did (Kara doesn't know why her mind thinks the Earth is tied to Alex's heartbeat).
Kara doesn't start collecting heartbeats (other pulsing, living, organs, that keep the world turning and whole) until she gets to National City. Miss Grant gets a compartment in Kara's brain dedicated to that little, vital, organ, and Kara obsesses. Then she learns Winn's heartbeat. Then James' and Lucy's and J'onn's and Carter's.
Kara knows that Alex works for the DEO, of course, before ever catching that plan (she can, after all, hear to the opposite side of the world, and she's been obsessed with Alex since her third day on Earth).
So, Kara gains these hearts- these fragile things vital to the survival of Earth- how can she keep them safe?! How can she keep them safe when they are out there just wandering around, and Alex is jumping from buildings and moving vehicles (and how can Alex risk the world this way- doesn't she know that if she dies, the Earth would too?). But Alex is an Agent. Alex has a team and J'onn and Kara herself to protect her- the planet (Kara's world).
And then Lena Luthor shows up. Lena, who's very first meeting with Kara is because her own brother tried to kill her. Lena who almost dies once a week because someone tries to assassinate her. Lena who becomes another heart that is essential to the survival of planet Earth.
(Everyone else can burn except these hearts. How is she supposed to protect all of them from a planet so determined to die?)
To the world, Kara is Sunny Danvers and unmovable Supergirl, but in private, Kara Zor-El dissolves in anxiety and despair and tracks her hearts- focusing all her Kryptonian mind on the slightest change in beat, the smallest hint of danger, the tiniest sign that her world is going to end again (she has to protect them, she has to, she has to, shehastoshehastoshehasto).
Her own heartbeat is too quick, her breathing too ragged, the sounds too loud as she searches for the danger danger dangerdanger she knows is just waiting around the corner to end the world (her world, her world, is gone and dead- extinct- like it never existed- and she just knows it's going to happen again- knows the end of the world is going to keep following her because she should have died with the rest of her people).
Kara bursts out her apartment window, hardly remembering to redon her suit before taking another lap around the city, counting her hearts in person instead of listening at a distance.
It's her tenth lap around L-corp for the day, but this particular friend has almost died more times than any of her others put together in the short time Kara's been aware of this precious heartbeat.
What if there is a sniper hiding in the building across the way? A bomb? She could get there at the first click of a trigger, before the first flame licks outward, but what if it's something quiet? What if Lena is poisoned again and she's not there to save her this time?
Kara's vision swims, blocking out the city lights. There is nothing to ground her in midair, nothing to hold onto. Oh, Rao, is Lena's heart slowing?
The tethers holding Kara at bay snick like the trigger of a rifle, and Kara is slamming onto the stone balcony with less control than she's felt in years. The marble cracks and spiderwebs out, and Kara almost rips the balcony doors out of the wall.
Lena leaps to her feet as Kara strides in, heart doubling, tripling, in speed, as Kara looks around wildly for the danger.
"Supergirl, what-"
Where's the bullet? She heard it leave the chamber (like the echoing explosion of a planet- her planet).
Or was it poison? Was Lena poisoned? Kara speeds over to the bar Lena frequents after most of her staff goes home for the night (Lena is always the last to leave, always working well into the night- Kara can't sleep until she gets home- sometimes not even then as she waits for the assassins to show up).
Kara lifts each bottle sniffing at the contents. Is that the right smell for this kind of alcohol, or is it tainted?
"Supergirl?" Lena calls again, and Kara's head snaps up. Lena's heartbeat is racing, it's racing, it's racingracingracing- where is the threat?
Earth suddenly tilts on its axis. She's fallen to her knee. Her lungs burn- was she stabbed with Kryptonite?
Lena is suddenly rushing toward her, but she can't be here. If they got Kara out of commission so easily, Lena is doomed. Kara can't save her can't save her can's save her can'tsaveanyone.
"H-h-havve. T-to. P-p-pr-pro-protect…"
Kara's teeth are chattering. She feels cold, like the sun it gone- did something swallow the sun? Will she never feel Rao's light again?
"Supergirl, breathe," Lena says, and her heartbeat calms some. "You're okay. Just breathe."
Kara shakes her head wildly. She's not okay, she's not okay, the world is ending. She sees fire and hears the explosion- it's coming for them- drowning the world in flames are shrapnel.
Kara sobs out. There's nothing she can do. She can't save them. She can't save her world. She is the last, because she killed Non (she killed the last person other than herself who remembers the way Rao felt on their skin, the music, the festivals, and the dances- she killed the last who could remember her people- but Krypton was already gone. All she has left is this world and she had to protect it at all cost. She can't save ghosts).
Hands hesitantly cup her face and there is life, a heartbeat, throbbing under the fingertips as they slide up her face and close around Kara's ears.
Wa-wump, wa-wump, wa-wump.
"Shhh, just focus on me, only on me. Breathe, Supergirl."
Air catches and gusts, sending icicles crawling along the sleeves of Lena's blouse, and Kara clenches her lips tight as the scientist flinches at the cold.
"No, no," Lena reassures quickly, "it's okay, just breathe- just keep breathing."
Kara feels out of control. Her tongue is cold, her eyes burn- why did she come here? She knows better than to do this around humans- fragile, delicate, breakable, humans.
Kara squeezes her eyes shut tight and grips her own wrists so tight that her bones creak and her nails cut through the fabric of her suit and into her skin (vulnerable only to herself and pieces of rock from her own home world).
She bows her head, too, until her forehead is pressed into her knees, and only then does she breathe out. Frigid ice-air crystalizes along her thighs and hips, but it doesn't harm Lena who is still kneeled in front of Kara with her hands cupped over Kara's ears.
Wa-wump, wa-wump, wa-wump, wa-wump.
Lena isn't in danger from anything, except Kara, at the moment.
Kara slumps forward, face landing in Lena's thighs, and Kara's arms stretch out to loop around the scientist's waist. Lena is stiff for several minutes, just letting Kara cling to her like a child, until she slowly relaxes and starts carding her hand through Kara's hair (it's messy and twisted and knotted from all the times Kara fisted it in her hands while trying not to lose herself to her catastrophizing thoughts).
"Supergirl?" Lena asks after almost twenty minutes of silence. Kara's entire body stiffens as she suddenly realizes that she's not Kara Danvers, or even Kara Zor-El right now. She is supposed to be Supergirl- strong, immovable, the picture-perfect image of hope and strength.
And she just crashed into Lena Luthor's office in the middle of the night and had a panic attack in her floor.
"I'm-" Kara reels backwards, and Lena has to pull her hand back quick or get dragged forward by the blonde hair tangled around her fingers. "Miss Luthor, I'm so, so, sorry. I don't- I didn't mean to-"
Kara jolts to her feet, the anxiety crashing over her all over again- like it never left. How is she to protect everyone if she keeps falling apart?
"I should go."
Lena scrambles up, the most graceless that Kara has ever seen of the Luthor with a wrinkled shirt and skewed skirt that she doesn't even try to straighten. It's ruined- tear and mucus covered that it is- but Lena doesn't even seem to care as she reaches out for Kara, brow furrowed and a deeply troubled look creasing a line in her forehead.
"Supergirl, wait-"
"I have to go." Kara spins on her heel, feeling as if she's never walked before with how shaky she is.
"Kara."
Kara freezes, every muscle locking as if kryptonite emitters suddenly sprang from the walls to radiate the office.
Lena walks around her slowly, and Kara doesn't move as she steps closer and oh-so-gently slides her hands into Kara's- like Kara hasn't bent metal in those same hands. Kara's fingers twitch, and Kara fears breaking all the bones in Lena's hands in a crushing grip, so she pulls away, crossing them protectively over her chest.
Lena doesn't take the hint to put distance between them; her fingers ghost along Kara's biceps (ghosting hands pull at her, toward the void where her planet- her home- once stood- angry that she, out of everyone, escaped- why her- why her out of all of Rao's children) before squeezing.
"Kara," Lena says again, and Kara hadn't imagined it. Hadn't imagined that Lena knows her name (maybe always knew her name). "Talk to me. What happened?"
Nothing. Nothing at all happened- something's always happening- it's been building for years. It's the seconds ticking away before a bomb explodes, the gun fires- she's been waiting for the world to end. She knows it's coming, she's felt this before- back on Krypton as the minutes tick down to seconds, the terror and inevitability suspended in her chest as she climbs into the pod- as she screams and slams her hands against the surface, begging her parent to let her stay, let them come with her, let her die with her people- the silence of space as her planet (cracking through the center and spewing molten lava) grows smaller- and then the explosion that rocks her ship- causes the hazard lights that flash aggressively in alarm- and then the relief that she'll die with her people after all as she loses consciousness (it's just the pod's cryosleep finally kicking in).
Kara stands frozen in Lena Luthor's office as the CEO's hands rub soothingly along Kara's arms, and then up to cup Kara's face, massaging at her tense jaw. Lena tries to pull her head down, but Kara is ridged and immovable, so Lena moves instead, rising up on her toes and pressing her forehead against Kara's. It feels cool against Kara's sweaty and damp one.
Wa-wump, wa-wump, wa-wump, Lena's heart goes in Kara's ears, pulsing against Kara's cheeks, and tears spill like laser beams from her eyes. Kara squeezes her eyes shut tight, just in case they do light up, but then they open again, unable to stop staring at the proof that the world is still turning. This world, this life, this heartbeat.
Kara reaches out, arms coming unfolded, so very slowly, and so very gently presses her palm against Lena's chest so she can drown in the sound even more- drown out everything (except those other pieces of Kara's new world still pulsing).
Wa-wump, wa-wump, wa-wump.
Safe. For now.
Lena stands so close, Kara can feel the heat, the life, in Lena's body, and Kara irresistibly steps even closer into Lena's space until they are hip to hip, chest to chest, and Kara can feel the Luthor's heartbeat in her own chest (and- oh- this is where it belongs).
Wa-wump-wa-wump-wa-wump!
"Kara?" Lena breathes so softly, gusting against Kara's chin. (She's alive, she's alive, they're all alive!).
"I am not okay," Kara cries, quietly. "Every second, every moment, of every day, it feeling like the ground beneath my feet is going to crack open and my world is going to end all over again. And there's nothing I can do," Kara's voice cracks. "You and Alex and J'onn and Winn and James and Lucy and Miss Grant and Carter and-"
"Kara, breathe."
Kara sucks in a breath. "And there's so many of you just- just-just out there where it's not safe, and if any of you die, I just know that this planet will die too, like mine did- I just know it- and I have to keep you safe. But people keep trying to kill you- keep trying to destroy the world- and I don't understand that- why would they try to destroy the world-"
"Breathe, Kara. Nothing's going to happen. I'm okay, see? You saved me. I'm okay," Lena says, stroking the tears from Kara's face and breathing on her chin- like she doesn't understand that Kara's trying to tell her that the survival of Earth is contingent that these seven specific hearts keep beating.
"You don't understand- you don't understand-" Kara heaves a sob, feeling like she's going to throw up even though she hasn't thrown up since Krypton (the ground is shaking and people are running, screaming, and the compound crumbles in sections, spewing magma up out of the crust, 'Come on, Kara, keep moving! There's nothing we can do for them!').
Lena tugs on her, and Kara can do nothing but follow as the Luthor pulls her down onto the couch they've spent hours wasting the afternoons away on. Kara collapses like her strings are cut, like the gravity that normally doesn't apply to her is suddenly taking revenge, and Kara curls into Lena's lap.
She lets Lena rock her and soothe her and sing what sounds like an Irish lullaby to her- like the world isn't just one bullet, one bomb, one accident away from ending.
A/N: Well, here's my first Supergirl fic. Please review and let me know what you think. Next chapter will be Lena's POV.
~Silver~