"You're absolutely sure that this is okay?" Selah asked for the umpteenth time, setting down a cardboard box.
"Yes," Nia said decisively, rolling her eyes to Kara. "I am one thousand percent sure. Yvette already moved out a month ago after she booked a starring role on Broadway, and I was going to start looking into sublets soon anyways."
"I just know that this is a lot in general, and you're being really gracious, but I don't want to overstay my welcome."
"You are not overstaying anything. I miss having a roommate, and I'm really happy to have you here."
"Okay," she said, clearly still unconvinced.
"Besides," Kara interjected. "The DEO is the one who is going to be covering your rent for the first year, until you get onto your feet. It's coming from the same scholarship that's giving you a full ride at National City University this year."
"Thank you again for that," the girl said, bumping Kara's shoulder gently.
"Don't mention it." She went to pick up the cardboard box, ignoring Selah's protests. "Your arm has barely healed itself up, you shouldn't be lifting too much," she reminded.
"I carried it up here," she grumbled.
"And that is something that I am certain Alex would chastise you for, were she here." Nia led them to Yvette's old bedroom, a smallish room furnished only with a beat up dresser and a twin bed.
"This is mine?" the girl asked, looking at Kara.
"Yep," the hero replied. "It's all I could get at such short notice, but I think that we'll be able to get you a desk as well."
"That's a nice touch," Selah said, sinking onto the bed as she gestured to a well-worn poster of Justin Timberlake circa 2000 that hung on the wall above the dresser.
"I flew to Midvale to get it from Eliza. That is a Kara Danvers childhood heirloom."
"I'm honored."
"Don't be rude. I'd love to stay and help you unpack, but I have to be at a DEO meeting in five minutes, and Alex said that if I show up late one more time then I have to buy her dinner, so..."
"Okay." She took the box from Kara and set it down on the floor beside her. "Thank you. Again."
"You're welcome." The two hugged before the hero left, kissing her hand and touching it to Justin Timberlake's cheek as she left.
"Is that all you have to move in?" Selah turned to the door to see Nia leaning against the frame.
"I was actually about to head over to Noonan's to pick up some stuff from my aunt. She still has things from when I lived with her, and she said I could have it. We decided it was best that she didn't know where I'm staying, in case my mom tries to read it off of her." Selah fiddled with her keys for a second. "Do you want to come along?"
"I'd love to." Nia paused for a moment. "Just so we're both on the same page, you can hear my thoughts all the time, right?"
"Yes."
"Cool."
Together, the two left the apartment and began walking towards Noonan's, talking idly about Star Wars and the DEO as they went. Nia lived even closer to the coffee shop than Kara, so they were soon approaching the door.
Selah's aunt looked up as the bell over the door rang, and her face brightened at the sight of her niece.
"Hi, aunt Lea," the girl said quietly. "This is my friend, Nia." Nia waved to the woman, who smiled politely. Lea moved out from behind the counter and went to Selah. She delicately put a hand on her cheek, gently tracing the bruises that had almost completely faded away, her face hard. "I'm fine. I swear."
"I'm going to go check out that hot chocolate cart that Kara mentioned to me," Nia said, carefully excusing herself. Selah smiled gratefully as her friend left, leaving her alone in the coffeeshop with her aunt.
"I told her that she was no longer welcome in my home, and I changed the locks," Lea said. "I doubt that it will actually stop her, however. She did not have a key before."
"It wasn't your fault."
"I failed to protect you when you were a child, and I still fail now." The woman's eyes filled up with tears, and she angrily wiped at them. "I am truly sorry."
"I know," Selah said, taking her aunt's hand. "I forgive you." Lea pulled the girl into a tight embrace, jerking back quickly once she sensed the girl's pain from her still-healing ribs.
"I'm sorry," she stammered. Turning behind the register, she picked up a duffel bag and a box of sticky buns, placing them atop the counter. "These were all of your things that I still had around. Your mother got rid of a lot of it, and I am sure that some of the clothes will no longer fit you, but I thought that you deserved to have it again, so that you can decide what you want with all of it. And the buns are for you and your friend." Finally, she pulled a single key out of her uniform pocket and handed it to Selah. "This is for my new set of locks. I want you to have one."
"Thank you, Aunt Lea."
"Of course, my dear."
"I'll come by again soon," she promised, picking up the bag. "I enrolled in the university, and the campus isn't too far from here."
"It is across town," Lea replied.
"Yeah, well. I am faster than a speeding bullet." Her aunt pulled her into another hug, much more gently this time, and the girl left the restaurant to find Nia not too far away, sitting on a bench.
"Hey," she exclaimed as Selah approached. "Did you get your things?" She lifted up the bag as proof, and opened the box of sticky buns.
"Do you want one?" she asked, holding the box out.
"Always." They both managed to eat two buns before returning to the apartment, where Selah placed the duffel bag onto the dresser and began unpacking the cardboard box from the DEO. She had thought that the only thing in it was the clothes that Alex had gotten for her, but buried down at the bottom she found a set of books on the space-time continuum that Winn had left behind. She placed them on top of the dresser, smiling, as she put the clothes into a drawer and threw the empty box into a corner.
Turning to the duffel bag, she took a deep breath before unzipping it. There wasn't much in it, only some worn out clothes, most of which looked to be too small, and a threadbare, stuffed purple elephant that she remembered playing with when she was little. Picking up one of the shirts, she realized it was wrapped around something square and heavy. She pulled the fabric off and found a stack of her old childhood photos, held together with a rubber band. The very top one was of her as a baby, with her mother holding her and smiling.
She opened up an empty drawer and dropped the pictures inside, quickly shutting it again before going to find Nia.
.
"Selah doesn't know about any of this yet, right?" Alex asked, leaning on the desk at the DEO.
"I tried to hide it in my thoughts," Kara replied, rubbing her forehead. "But I don't know if she still saw it or not. She didn't say anything about it if she does know." There had already been two bomb threats that the DEO had stopped, and they had constant guards around the main buildings that the Agenda might be targeting. However, the few culprits that they had managed to get into custody were refusing to talk, and they had some kind of psychic inhibitors that prevented J'onn from being able to read their minds. "What are we going to do about this?" she asked wearily. "Obviously we can't let Selah go back there, but I have no idea how we are supposed to stop these bombings when they're happening all over town and we have no way of knowing when they're going to happen, or where they'll be."
"We just have to keep having tactical teams on the street, surveilling the sites. Hopefully that will be enough," the agent replied. "Brainy is running constant scans of all the traffic cam footage in the city to keep an eye out for anything that could potentially be suspicious. We've also made the NCPD aware of the threats, and they are responding appropriately."
"Do you think that Lyla is still in contact with the Agenda?" she asked. "It does seem a little suspicious that as soon as she sees Selah, the Agenda knows where she is."
"I thought that too," Alex answered. "That's why I'm also having Brainy scan traffic footage for her, and why we've filed a warrant for her arrest."
"What?" she demanded, whirling to face her sister. "Are you serious?"
"She assaulted Selah, for one thing, and now we also have probable reason to believe that she is involved with a terrorist organization. At the very least, she was involved with them in the past, so we could potentially gather more information about The Agenda through her."
"Don't you think that we should tell Selah what we are planning before we go out and arrest her mother?"
"We'll tell her if we get Lyla in custody. For the time being, I think she's already overwhelmed enough by the situation." Kara rubbed her eyes in frustration as Brainy burst into the room.
"Ma'ams?" he asked. "We just had a new bomb threat, at Magnolia and Reed Street. Two more suspects are coming into custody."
"Did anything actually happen?" Alex asked.
"Negative. Our agents were able to thwart their attempts," he replied.
"Good. Keep me updated." Kara watched as he left the room again, frustration building up inside of her.
"There must be more that we can be doing," she said, gripping the edge of the table with her hands. "There must be something that we are missing that we can be doing."
"This is why we need Lyla in custody. If she can tell us anything that will help us predict what The Agenda is going to do next, we can get ahead of all of this. Start being proactive instead of reactive." Alex sighed, running a hand through her hair. "That is, if she tells us anything at all."
.
"Kara?" Selah asked, opening the door to her new apartment to see her paternal first cousin once removed on the other side.
"Hey!" Kara exclaimed, grinning. "I thought that I'd just stop by and see how you're settling in, and- oh Rao, do I smell sticky buns?" Rolling her eyes, Selah let the hero into the apartment.
"Help yourself," she said. "I went to get some stuff from my aunt, and she seems to be following up on her 'free sticky buns for life' offer." The hero began to eat a bun, and set another onto a plate.
"Did you get everything unpacked?" she asked, spewing crumbs across the kitchen.
"Yeah," the girl replied. "Thanks for the books."
"Alex put them in, I can't take credit for that." Kara took a large bite of the second bun, and sighed happily. "Is Justin Timberlake still up?"
"I moved him over to the closet. He kind of freaked me out, I felt like he was going to watch me while I was sleeping."
"That's the dream," she muttered through a mouthful of sticky bun, and Selah swatted her arm.
"How was your meeting?"
"Fine. Just going over some leads." The girl tilted her head curiously, her brow furrowing. Before she could ask any other questions, however, the entire apartment was rocked by an explosion. Nia ran into the kitchen, and the three all looked at each other in silence for an instant, before rushing outside. Exiting the building, they saw a small two-story brownstone apartment across the street engulfed in flames, the front wall decimated.
"Oh, Rao." Kara murmured, her eyes wide. Nia pulled out her phone and began dialing 911 as she changed into her Supergirl outfit and tried her best to extinguish the flames. Selah wasn't sure how long she stood there, frozen on the spot, just watching the building in front of her burn, but eventually Nia rejoined her and put an arm around her shoulder. The flames licked up the side of the building, and soon, the other three walls crumbled, leaving behind nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble. Kara had put out the fire for the most part, and the emergency responders had arrived and were taking statements as ash floated on the gentle breeze like snowflakes.
"Why did they do this?" Selah whispered. No one answered her.
.
.
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