Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.
"Becoming Kara Kent, huh? That's a bit of a long story. Let me see..." Kara leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling while she put her thoughts in order. Susan took the opportunity to study Kara. In her blue jeans and tee shirt, with her platinum blonde hair in a pony tail and wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, Kara looked like any other teenaged girl from south-central Kansas: ordinary. Perfectly ordinary.
That shouldn't have been the case, Susan decided. Leaving aside the incredible powers Earth's yellow sun granted her, Kara wasn't human. She was an alien, born and raised on another planet, one that circled a far distant star. Susan remembered something she'd read once, or perhaps heard, though she couldn't recall just where.
"You and I, and anyone else living today, have more in common with a peasant who lived in Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, than we would with anyone from another planet."
Susan frowned thoughtfully. Whoever had said that had been talking about the possibility of communication between intelligent races, if Susan recalled right. Something about the need for commonality of experiences. Apparently the originator of the idea had believed that life on any alien world would be so...alien...that it would be impossible for said aliens and humans to relate to one another, and thus make communication impossible as well.
Susan snorted. She wondered if he, whoever he was (and Susan conceded that it might not have been a man), had ever found out how wrong he was. The girl sitting across the table from her was proof of that. Even allowing that Kara had changed some of the details of her life story (ok, a lot of them), she had still lived a life that wasn't very different from Susan's: mother and father, sisters, friends, boys, dreams of a career and a family. A very familiar life path.
The oddest thing by far was just how much Kara looked like a human being. Taking communal showers after gym class meant putting everything on display, be it tattoos, piercings or stretch marks, what have you. Externally Kara was indistinguishable from a human being. She even menstruated, just like a human female, though her cycle was a bit longer. Not enough to raise any red flags, but enough for Kara to be asked about it. Her answer was to shrug and say she got it from her mother and that's just how it was. That seemed to have settled the matter, because Susan had never heard anyone mention it again. At least, Susan grimaced, no one in her circle of friends mentioned it. Kara was liked by many at school, even if she wasn't part of the 'popular' crowd. The exception was a clique of girls that included Melanie Andrews, the now ex-girlfriend of a boy Kara had jumped in the sack with a few months after she arrived in town. Kara had seemed surprised when Melanie took exception. The resulting confrontation had been loud and ugly, though to be honest, Melanie had done almost all the name-calling. The principal had broken up the incipient fight and made them apologize, but neither girl had really meant it. Kara and Melanie had been enemies ever since, though again, Melanie did most of the grudge carrying.. Her little group was an odd mix of jealous girlfriends, bitter ex-girlfriends, and outraged moralists. Susan herself tended toward the latter. If there was one thing about Kara that Susan unambiguously disapproved of, it was Kara's promiscuity. Of course, knowing (now) that Kara couldn't catch or transmit STD's, let alone get pregnant, put the matter in a somewhat different light, as did knowing Kara's true life story. Having literally lost everything, it wasn't so surprising that Kara would have a 'live life to the fullest' attitude.
Susan grinned. Part of her disapproval came from simple jealousy. She liked sex as much as anyone, and if she didn't have to worry about getting sick or pregnant, she might be a bit more willing to screw any boy who asked her, too.
She must have laughed, because Kara looked at her and asked, "What?"
"Nothing," Susan said, shaking her head. "I was just thinking about you not being human, and how that explains a couple of things that happened when you first came to town."
Kara made a face. "You aren't going to bring up the hedge apple thing again, are you?" Susan laughed out loud then. She laughed until tears came to her eyes. Kara scowled at her, but Susan kept right on laughing until she was red in the face. After she and Kara had become friends, Susan had taken Kara to the farmers market one day. While walking among the displays Kara had picked up a hedge apple. She'd sniffed it, paid for it, then tore it open and started eating it, much to the consternation of both Susan and the man who'd sold it to her.
"How was I supposed to know?" Kara demanded when Susan finally stopped. "It smelled fantastic," she added defensively. Then, with a self-deprecating grin, "Tasted good, too." That sent Susan right off again.
Kara waited patiently until Susan composed herself, then said, "That brings up a good point though." When Susan offered her a puzzled look Kara explained.
"Think of all the stuff you know about life on Earth, the things you know without even realizing it. Like, for example," Kara said, giving Susan a meaningful look, "That hedge apples aren't 'people food'. Or how to tell time, what the names of days of the week are, what the names of the months are. That 'autumn' and 'fall' mean the same thing, all the subtleties of the English language that most native speakers never think about. You know how you sometimes accuse me of being too 'formal' when I talk?" Susan nodded.
"That's because, even after two years of intense study, I still don't know as much about English as you do." Kara paused briefly. "You also remember how I pay closer attention to people when they talk than most folks do? That's because I don't always understand what they mean when they use an expression, and I'm trying to figure it out."
"Why don't you just ask someone?" Susan asked, and Kara smiled humorlessly. "I used to, but after hearing 'Don't people use that expression in Boston' for the hundredth time, I kind of gave up asking anyone but Clark, or Jonathan and Martha."
Susan winced. She'd been among those who'd looked askance at Kara when she asked about things. Not as bad as some, but Susan had had her moments. A memory sprang to mind of the time Kara asked what 'It'll be a cold day in Hell' meant. At the time, Susan had been dumbfounded, but now, looking back it made perfect sense that Kara might not have known that Hell was supposed to be hot all the time.
"Well, at least asking me won't be a problem from now on," Susan said by way of apology, and Kara gave her a smile. "It'll be nice to have a close girl friend again," Kara admitted. "I haven't had one of those since Pala died."
Susan felt her eyes sting with tears. In objective terms Pala Nan-ad had been dead for over forty years. From Kara's point of view it was only six years, but that was still a third of Kara's life. A long time to be without a best friend your own age. Someone you could confide in, share secrets with. Kara could probably talk to Martha Kent about boys, for example, but only in a general way. Talking about sex would be out of the question, along with gossiping about who was seeing who, or who was sleeping with who, or any of the other things parents disapproved of, or teenagers just didn't feel comfortable talking to adults about.
Susan stood up, rounded the table and put her hands on Kara's shoulders.
"It'll be my pleasure," she said with a warm smile.
Kara's own eyes had gone misty.
"Thank you," she replied. Susan drew Kara into an embrace that she eagerly returned.
A certain amount of sniffling and tears later the two drew apart. They started giggling almost at once, even more so as they blew their noses and wiped their eyes.
When she had composed herself Susan gave Kara a mock stern look. "Enough mush. On with your story, In-ze!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Kara shot back with a grin, tossing off a salute. "Well, like I said, that's a long story." Kara frowned suddenly. "No," she corrected, "Not so much 'long' as 'complicated'." She began ticking items off on her fingers. "I had to learn to speak, read and write English; I had to learn to control my powers; and I had to learn about this strange new world I found myself in, about which, of course, I knew absolutely nothing." Susan nodded silently. It was a daunting task by any stretch of the imagination.
"At first, Clark was going to have me stay at STAR Labs, which I didn't care for at all. He didn't like the idea much either, so then he though about bringing me here." Kara gestured around herself, "But he liked that idea even less. Finally he decided to just take me to his apartment."
"And how did he explain to the STAR people that Superman had to leave, but that Clark Kent would be right back to pick you up?"
Kara grinned. "He didn't. Once the doctors had given me a clean bill of health we went up on the roof, Clark scooped me up in his arms and we flew away."
"You didn't fly yourself?" Susan probed. Kara shook her head. "It took me a while to master that, and we didn't have time right then. Anyway, we took a quick turn around the city while Clark told me a little about it, and then we went to his apartment."
"In broad daylight?"
"Yeah. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but at super speed almost no-one can see him. On top of that there's a hologram projector on the roof that sends a picture of empty sky up a mile or so that he can descend through. That hides him even at low speeds, so, ya know," Kara shrugged. "What surprised me was how small it was. The apartment, I mean. I guess I expected something a little more grandiose, something more in keeping with how I assumed an El would behave.
"Anyway, once we were inside Clark went into another room and changed clothes. I have to say that when he came out again I didn't recognize him at first. 'Who are you?' I asked. 'It's me, Kara,' he answered. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt, and had his hair arranged differently, but what really threw me were the glasses. 'What are those things on your face?' He took them off and looked at them, then gave me a puzzled look. 'These? These are glasses.' When I didn't say anything he went on, 'I don't actually need them, I just wear them to alter my appearance, but most people use them to correct their vision.'"
Susan studied the peculiar look on Kara's face and said, "Let me guess. You didn't have glasses on Argo."
"Nobody needed them," Kara explained. "If your vision started to go bad, you went to a doctor and had your eyes fixed. The idea of wearing lenses to compensate was just..."
"Primitive?" Susan interrupted, a slight edge to her voice.
Kara blushed slightly. "I'm going to stop using that word, but yeah, that's it." She removed her own glasses, polished the lenses and put them back on.
"Clark had some books with him, and he took me into the living room, sat me down and said, 'Now Kara, what I'm about to tell you is a secret. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone without my permission, okay?' I didn't understand, but I promised anyway. Then he said, 'Superman isn't my real name any more than Kal-el is. My real name is Clark Kent.' He opened up one of the books then. It was a cross between a scrapbook and a photo album. The first picture he showed me was of a little boy with a man and a woman."
"Jonathan and Martha?"
"Naturally," Kara said, smiling fondly. "'Those are my parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, farmers from Smallville, Kansas.' Then he got a globe and an atlas and showed me where Kansas was, where Smallville was, and where we were at the moment. He flipped through the pages and showed me pictures of him working around the farm, helping Jonathan. I was shocked, and it must have showed because he said, 'What's the matter?' I said, 'You lived on a farm? You did manual labor?' He answered, 'Well, yeah, you have to sometimes. Why does that surprise you?' I gave him an imploring look. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but no El I ever heard of would stoop to manual labor. I just can't believe it.'" Kara gave Susan a meaningful look. "I expected a reaction, just not the one I got."
"What happened?" Susan invited curiously.
"Clark got this eager look on his face and exclaimed, 'You knew my family!'" Kara's own face went downcast. "I guess the idea of meeting someone who had known his biological parents was a secret dream of Clark's. 'No,' I told him. 'I knew of the House of El. Pretty much everyone on Krypton and Argo did.' Clark didn't give up hope even then. 'Did you know about my father, Jor-el?' 'I don't think so. What did he do?' 'He was a scientist.' 'What field?' 'Hyperphysics.' 'No, I'm sorry. My father might have heard of him, but if he did he never mentioned him.' Clark's face fell. We sat there in silence for a while. Then he said, 'Kara, what did you mean when you said no El you'd ever heard of would stoop to manual labor?'"
Kara made a face, and Susan winced. "Talk about your awkward moments," she said sympathetically.
"Yeah," Kara agreed. "I mean, there I was, casting aspersions on the family of my host, the man who had saved my life."
"What did you do?" Susan asked.
"I told him the truth," Kara said simply. "Well, sort of."
"How do you 'sort of' tell the truth?" Susan wondered, leaning forward and resting her chin on her fist.
"By discreet editing," Kara grinned. "I said, 'Kal, er, Clark,' and by the way, it was at that moment that I made up my mind to think of him as Clark Kent instead of Kal-el, 'Clark, you have to understand that Krypton and Argo didn't always get along. The House of El had a prominent role in Kryptonian society for thousands of years, and were at the center of most of the issues that divided our worlds.'"
"That was pretty diplomatic," Susan opined.
"I told him the whole truth later, of course, but at the time I said my opinion of his birth family was just that, my opinion, and colored by the culture I grew up in. He accepted that, along with my saying that he hadn't acted like I'd assumed he would."
"That's Clark for you," Susan agreed.
"Anyway, we spent a couple of hours looking at the books while Clark told me about growing up on Earth, thinking that he was a normal human being, about how surprised he was when his powers started to show themselves, and how freaked out he was when he found out he wasn't human. He explained the whole concept of his secret identity, and why it was important to him. It was all very un-El-like, so of course, I approved," Kara said, deliberately self-righteous.
Susan laughed. "What happened then?"
"Quite a few things. Clark started teaching me English, and borrowed a cutting edge teaching machine from STAR to help with that. When we weren't working on that he taught me to control my powers."
"How long did that take?"
"It took me a month to get fluent, and to learn to read and write," Kara said. Susan blinked in astonishment.
"A month?" she exclaimed.
"That's what working at it sixteen hours a day, seven days a week will do," Kara shrugged. "I actually spent far more time working on my English than I did on the powers. That was mostly limited to being careful about my strength. And of course, the teaching machine really sped things along."
"I suppose so," Susan said absently. Her eyes narrowed. "What about clothes? I can't quite see Clark walking into a department store, going to the Misses section and picking out outfits for you." Susan giggled wickedly. "Let alone your 'unmentionables'."
Kara giggled too. "You're right. Clark got someone else to take care of that."
"Lois?"
Kara shook her head. "No, Lois wasn't 'in the know' at the time."
"Who was it then?"
"Batgirl."
"Batgirl?"
Kara nodded. "Clark flew down to Gotham that first night and brought her to Metropolis. After Clark introduced us, Batgirl sized me up, Clark gave her some money, and she went shopping."
"As Batgirl?" Susan asked incredulously.
"No, she went in her civilian identity," Kara scoffed. Susan gave her an expectant look, but Kara turned away. "Not my secret to share, Susan."
Susan sighed. "I know. I shouldn't even have asked."
"That's all right. At the time I didn't know this person was Batgirl. Clark just introduced her as...well...he just told me her nickname, and that she was a friend. I'll leave it at that."
"So you got some clothes, learned English, and learned to not wreck stuff. What prompted the move to Smallville?" Susan asked.
"Clark is always busy, both with his reporting and with being Superman. He barely had enough free time to pursue Lois, without me taking even more of his time. He didn't see it that way, but I did. Then there was the matter of me having to hide every time one of his friends came over, and him not being able to devote as much time as he wanted to teaching me about Earth and stuff like that. So one day he asked if I would mind moving in with his parents. I hadn't met them yet, but they seemed like nice people, and I could see the logic behind it, so I said sure. Passing me off as a Kent seemed like an obvious choice. Giving me a past was trickier. We had to make it plausible enough that most people wouldn't question it, and then plant enough information in enough places that anyone who did look into my past would find evidence of my existence, while at the same time leaving it vague enough that someone who actually went to Boston would have a hard time pinpointing me, as it were."
"Sounds tricky," Susan offered.
"It was," Kara confirmed. "But Batman...he's the one who did the faking and the planting...was really thorough. For example, I was home schooled, so there are no classmates to ask about me. My mother ran a charity clinic for the homeless out of a building that no longer exists, and only took donations in cash. All of the clinics records were destroyed when the building, which we also lived in, burned down, which is also when she died."
"But what about her life story? And your Dad and sisters? You said they died in a car crash years ago. Wouldn't that be in the paper?"
"It isn't perfect," Kara admitted with a shrug. "If time travel was easier and less dangerous, maybe, but since it isn't..."
"But there are some records, right?"
"Oh yeah. Like the car accident. There's a police report filed by a now dead officer. There are death certificates and autopsy reports. Somewhere there's even a receipt for having them cremated. Batman did as much as he could, and tried to cover every possible question that an investigator might ask, but he's only human. It isn't perfect, and I'm sure that someone who really tried would figure out that Kara Kent didn't exist until two years ago."
"What would you do if that happened?" Susan asked softly.
"Well, I don't except it to. I'd have to give someone a reason to look into my background first, and I have no plans to do that." At Susan's puzzled look Kara explained. "I'm going into the technology business, but I'm going to avoid seeking personal publicity, and I'm not going to get involved in controversial matters if I can avoid it."
"So politics is out?" Susan teased.
"Way out," Kara grinned back. "Supergirl will be the one with the high profile, and since Supergirl and Kara Kent have nothing to do with each other..."
"Oh really?" Susan asked, quirking an eyebrow at her friend.
"Of course not," Kara said innocently. "After all, Supergirl hangs out in Metropolis, not Smallville."
"That's true," Susan allowed. "But speaking of Smallville, why don't you tell me about your first impression of our little town?"
