Chapter 10: Those We Leave Behind

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

"You're not coming with us today?"

Thea shook her head. "Mom and Dad are finally loosening up and are allowing me to go out with my friends for once. It's Friday afternoon, after all."

Kara sighed. "Well, alright then. You'll call if you need the car, right?"

Thea smiled. "But of course."

"Thea!"

The Queen turned her head and waved to her friend. "In a minute!" she turned back to Kara and Kal. "I'll see you two later, alright?" Ruffling Kal's hair one last time, she bid them farewell and jogged to her friend.

The Kryptonians watched her disappear into the crowd, and then turned to each other. "Ruby's going to the arcade today. Can we come with?" Kal asked his guardian.

Kara sighed once more, then smiled. "Let's go ask Sam."

"Mom! Kal and I are going to play skeeball!"

"Go on ahead, honey! The food will still be here!" Sam called out to her daughter, watching as she dragged her friend over to the machines. "Always needs to be active, that one." she deadpanned to Kara, causing her to chuckle.

Kara grinned. "I know the feeling. Kal always had a hard time staying still," when he had the choice of actually moving, "I remember always having to try to find something for him to do."

Sam give a short laugh of her own, then looked at her speculatively. "Kara, I know we've just met and all, but I noticed you don't have a job. Even for Balliol Prep that's…"

"…rare?" Kara finished for her. Sam shrugged. "You're right. Truth is, I don't even have a high school diploma. I'm currently studying for my GED."

"Really?" Sam asked, genuinely astonished.

"Really. Not by choice, obviously – I never even got the chance to attend high school." Kara admitted.

Sam blinked. "Why?" she asked, letting her curiosity get the better of her.

Her companion smiled weakly. "Kal and I spent the last ten years stranded on an island in the middle of the North China Sea." she bluntly stated, knowing that there was no point in hiding it any longer.

Sam stared.

"It was the same island Oliver Queen washed up on." Kara continued. "It's how we know Thea, and how Kal got into Balliol – Moira Queen helped us get our foot into the door."

"…Wow…I'm sorry for prying into something so personal like that." Sam apologized.

Kara waved her off. "It's alright. You couldn't have known. As you can tell, we don't like to advertise the fact – the last thing us and the Queens wanted was for someone to start rumors about Kal being Oliver and I's son or something, disregarding the fact that we met when he was sixteen and I was twelve."

"I can imagine." Sam giggled as the awkward atmosphere dissipated.

"So, what about you? How'd you end up in Starling?"

"Oh, nothing special. I started my own company down in Coast City. As we got more and more successful, I moved headquarters to Starling City when Ruby was eight and we've been here ever since."

"And Ruby's dad?"

"No longer in the picture." Sam's expression tensed. Just a bit.

Kara slowly nodded. "I see."

"We should do this again sometime." Sam suggested when it was time to leave.

"Definitely." Kara agreed.

Oliver went to press the doorbell on Laurel's door, only to stop when it unexpectedly opened on its own. On the other side was Tommy, who had a dejected look on his face.

"Tommy?" he asked. Tommy looked up, and his expression changed to one of surprise.

"Ollie? What are you doing here?" he asked.

Oliver shrugged, and lifted a bag of snacks. "Movie night. Laurel said she would watch the last Harry Potter movie with me. I already saw the other seven with Thea, Kara, and Kal." he explained.

Tommy plastered what was clearly a fake grin on his face. "Oh, okay. Well, don't let me keep you." Then, without saying anymore, he stalked past Oliver, heading straight for the elevator. The Queen lowered the bag of snacks and watched him leave, concerned, before turning back to his other friend's apartment.

He walked in, slowly, and popped his head into the living room. Laurel was sitting on her couch, eyes closed, looking deep in thought. Oliver watched her for a moment. "Laurel?"

Her eyes immediately snapped open, and her head turned, her eyes spotting him. "Ollie! What are you doing here?"

"Movie night?" he stated, lifting the bag up once more.

"Oh! Right, that's tonight."

Oliver looked at her with concern this time. "We can do this another time if you want, Laurel."

"No, no." She shook her head and smiled. It had a hint of melancholy to it. "I'll go get the movie prepped. You deal with the food."

"Wow." Oliver said, once the credits started rolling. He couldn't keep his eyes off the TV the entire time.

Laurel hummed and nodded her head. "Quite the emotional coaster."

"There were times where I wanted to cry." Oliver admitted, and considering he was trained by the League of Assassins, that was saying something. "The thing with Snape, Harry meeting his parents, Lupin and Sirius in the forest, the ending…"

"I'm glad to see you're as sensitive as always, Ollie." Laurel teased him.

Oliver blushed. "It was a really good movie, alright!" he defended himself.

"Sure…" Laurel drawled mockingly. Oliver did not pout, but he did duck his head into his hands, causing his fellow movie-watcher to chuckle.

A little bit later, as they were cleaning up the depleted snacks, Oliver decided now was the time to act. Casually, he asked, "So, what happened between you and Tommy?"

Laurel jumped. "What makes you think something happened between us?" she shifted awkwardly.

Oliver gave her a deadpan look. "Laurel, I saw him storm out of here earlier. What happened?"

Laurel sighed, and flopped back onto the couch. Oliver sat with her, watching her curiously.

"Tommy asked me out on a date." she confessed.

"And I take it you said no." Oliver noted, already connecting the dots.

The lawyer raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound surprised."

"He told me he had feelings for you the other day. I was the one who pushed him to ask you out." Oliver admitted. "Told him that he didn't want to have any regrets, and that the worse that could happen is that you'd say no or you two would endure a failed date or two."

"Yeah, well…" Laurel trailed off, biting her lip.

"Look, I'm not judging. I just want to know why you didn't say yes."

Laurel shrugged, and looked at him with a tired expression. "As ironic and cliché as it is, I told him I didn't want to ruin our friendship."

At Oliver's urging look, she continued. "Ollie, I have dated a lot of great guys over the years. But no matter how hard I tried, the relationships never lasted. It usually wasn't because I didn't like the guy, so much as the fact that I couldn't put my heart into the relationship. I didn't want to give Tommy the same false hope."

"Why couldn't you put your heart into those relationships?" Oliver asked curiously.

Laurel bit her bottom lip a bit more before elaborating. "There was this one guy…that I could never quite get over," she spoke carefully, not wanting Oliver to know who she was talking about, "We weren't together. But I had feelings for him, and before I could tell him, he left. I guess I've never really managed to get over him."

Oliver gave her a comforting look. "Laurel, by the sounds of it, this guy isn't coming back. And if he isn't, you shouldn't let your romantic life revolve around him. I'm not saying you should change your mind about Tommy – that's your choice – but…you deserve to be happy, Laurel."

Ring! The Queen looked away for a moment, taking out his phone and reading the text on the screen. "That was Mom. She wants to talk about dinner with the Chens tomorrow." he turned back to Laurel, giving her a friendly hug. "I'll talk to you later, alright?" he got up and made his way to the door.

She watched him leave, a sad and longing look on her face.

But that's just the thing, Ollie. He did come back.

Iris West walked out of CCPD's 1st Precinct. Her shift was over. Normally, she'd be leaving with Eddie, but he had stayed behind to work more on a particularly hard case.

She stopped when she saw him. Someone she desperately did not want to see.

Barry Allen took a step forward.

"Can we talk?"

"You've been avoiding me." Barry accused her. They were at their favorite hotspot, Jitters.

Iris took a sip of her hot cocoa, and nodded. "I have." She didn't deny.

"Iris– "

She cut him off. "I know what you want to talk about. The Blog."

Barry exhaled. "Iris…"

"It was hard." she admitted. "Those first couple of months. After we learned what happened to you. After we realized you were never coming back. I was…I was just so angry, Barry. At Joe, at the shrinks, at the teachers, at the kids at school – everyone. I was angry at the world. Talking with Henry helped, but…after you were gone, I just shut everyone out."

"That first year without you was the worst. I wasn't coping well. So, I started hoarding everything about you – every memory, all your things, even your essays at school. I couldn't let you go. And then I remembered your blog. I would read it every single time I was down, just to remind myself of you. And then I…heard about something."

"Heard about what?" Barry questioned, already suspecting what it was.

"Something impossible. I don't even remember what it was. But it made me think of you, so I went chasing after it, obsessing over it. Then I figured out the password to your blog, and, well…"

"…you wrote about it." Barry finished for her. "And you signed your name to it."

"Yes." Iris confirmed. "People made fun of me at school for it, but I didn't care. You were closer to me than you had been since you left Central City and got on that stupid boat. I channeled my "inner Barry" for another two years before Henry finally talked sense into me. He told me that it wasn't healthy, that you would want me to live my own life, not clinging to your ghost. He was right, though it took a bad scrape with one of those 'impossible' things to make me realize it."

"What kind of 'bad scrape' are we talking about?" Barry asked, dreading the answer.

"I nearly got arrested." Iris confessed in shame, causing Barry to put a hand to his face. "After that, well, I realized I was going too far, and if I went any farther, I wouldn't be able to pull back. So, I shut down the blog. Focused on school instead. It was for the best."

After Iris finished her story, silence descended on them both, stretching for many moments.

"I'm sorry." Barry finally said, a guilty look on his face.

"For what?" Iris asked tiredly. "You didn't do anything."

"I left." her best friend stated pointedly, as if that explained everything.

And it did, except Iris disagreed, shaking her head. "I understood why you left, Barry. I didn't blame you, not once, for doing so. In this entire situation, you were the only one I was never mad at."

"But…"

"Barry." He looked at her, and she reached forward, taking his hand in hers. "It may have been your choice to leave, but it wasn't your choice not to come back." They looked into each other's eyes, holding their gazes for a moment too long. Barry then diverted his eyes downwards, noting their joined hands.

He looked at her once more. "Come with me."

"Remember this place?" He spread his arm outwards towards the row of aisles. Central City Bowling Alley.

Iris nodded, glee on her face. "We'd come here as kids all the time. It's been so long…"

"Hey." she looked at him, and found that they were holding hands once again. And oddly enough, she didn't want to let go. "I can't change the past, Iris. I can't get us back all the years we've lost."

Iris looked down, only for Barry to tilt her chin upwards, so they were face-to-face. "But I'm here now. And I promise, I'm not ever leaving you again." They exchanged smiles, and Iris felt her heart stop beating, just an instant.

"Now, come on! I'm going to kick your ass, West!"

"In your dreams, Allen!"

"Do you have it?" Astra demanded as Braniac 8, or Indigo as she liked to be called these days, materialized from the nearest computer.

"You doubt me?" Indigo mocked her rival, handing over a file.

"Doubt? No. Trust?" Astra sneered, and then opened the file, clicking on the touchpad. It was a picture of a boy. "This is the wrong one!"

Indigo shook her head. "No. This is the file of her charge."

"Charge?"

"Your dear niece is the guardian of a boy. Officially, he is her maternal cousin and adoptive brother. But I think you might recognize who he really is, General."

Cousin? Astra looked down, and read the name on the file: Clark Calvin Kent. Calvin…Cal…

…Kal-El.

"Jor-El's son!" The Kryptonian gasped in shock.

"Yes." Indigo snarled. The Braniac Clan never did have the best relationship with Jor-El.

Astra payed her no attention. Jor-El's son. She should've known.

Jor-El, and his brother, Zor-El, were the two most brilliant men on Krypton. They knew about their home planet's imminent destruction, and they had worked tirelessly to find a way to stop it. But if there had been no way to stop it in time, it wasn't hard to believe that they had preparations in place, to save their children. Kara had been charged with taking care of Kal-El, no doubt, and they had landed here, on Earth, together.

Astra had always had a tense relationship with Kara's paternal family. She found them overly idealistic, pretentious. But Alura had loved Zor-El, and Kara had loved them all, so she endured. At least that love had not been for not – Kara survived because of them, and she would give them a token thanks, a brief prayer, for that.

"And Kara's file?"

"Here." Indigo handed another pad over, and Astra took it greedily, hurriedly opening it.

The picture was the first thing to catch her attention. Astra allowed her fingers to caress the visage of her niece, all grown up. Kara had matured into a beautiful young woman. Her long blonde hair and the color of her eyes may have belonged to her father, but the shape of her face, the curl of her lips – they were all Alura, and by extension, Astra. Oh, how much time we've lost, little one.

It took all of Astra's strength to remove her eyes from the image of her most precious one. She instead turned her attentions to the information. Her human name was Kara Linda Danvers. Born in Kansas City, on September 7, 1989, as the only child of Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers. Parents died in a shipwreck off the coast of China when she was twelve, she and cousin Clark Calvin Kent were presumed dead alongside them. Ten years later, they were rescued from an island in the North China Sea, along with an Oliver Jonas Queen and a Bartholomew Henry Allen. Now resides in Starling City, alongside her cousin, who is attending a prestigious private school.

Astra frowned. Why would she spend ten years on an island? Surely her powers would've awoken by that point and she and Kal-El and whoever else was with them could've escaped. The thought nagged at her, but she dismissed it – she would learn the reason eventually, when she and Kara met again. Instead, Astra looked at Indigo, and gave her a short nod.

"Well done."

Indigo waved her off, "Think nothing of it, General." she smiled slyly.

The cliffhanger will be dealt with in the next chapter, which will also be the last chapter in this arc. After that, I will take about a week of hiatus, for Finals and so I can fully plan out Arc II.

As for the actual events in this chapter: ship tease, anyone? Except for Kara, of course. I was tempted to pair off Kara and Sam briefly, but then I realized that pairing wouldn't work out for obvious reasons, if you've watched the most recent season of emSupergirl/em.

And I love writing Astra! I still think it's a shame that she wasn't the final villain for Season One and Non and Indigo were. No worries, though! Not in this fic! She will be the final villain for Kara in her storyline in Arc II. Harrison Wells / Eobard Thawne will be the case for Barry, as will Malcolm Merlyn for Oliver. And trust me – I've got a lot more twists to go through.