"This isn't your fault," Alex insisted, but the words barely registered in Selah's mind as she stared down at the metal table that she was seated at. They were in a conference room at the DEO, and the girl was refusing to make eye contact with the agent as she spoke, briefing her on what had just happened and why. "Selah?" She asked. She didn't move. Alex sighed, standing up and walking over to her. She leaned against the table next to where Selah was sitting, and put a hand on the girl's shoulder, who stiffened slightly, but she didn't pull away.

"Have you heard anything else from the Agenda?" she asked in a low voice, still not looking up.

"No," Alex replied. "But there was the letter 'A' spray painted on the basement floor of the apartments that were bombed."

"How many more bomb threats have come in?"

"Two more since yesterday," she winced. "But there have been no casualties."

"Yet," the girl muttered darkly.

"Selah." Alex said seriously. "This isn't your fault."

"You can say that all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that all of this is happening because of me." She finally lifted her gaze, looking Alex directly in the eye. "If I was still at that lab, there wouldn't be any bomb threats in the first place."

"You were abused and mistreated, and now they are trying to manipulate you -and us- in order to bring you back into an incredibly harmful environment. You deserve better than that."

"Maybe I don't get to have better than that." The girl looked away again, this time focusing her stare on the wall that was directly ahead of her.

"Don't say that."

"It's the truth." Her jaw tightened, and she jutted her chin out slightly. "I can't stand by and do nothing while everyone is being put into danger because of me."

"We aren't doing nothing. We have upped our patrols, the police department is helping out, and the FBI is going to be joining up as well. Not to mention that Kara and J'onn and Dreamer are here too, and they are all doing whatever they can to prevent anything else from happening." Selah didn't say anything, she just kept staring ahead, her face hard. After a few moments of silence, Alex squeezed her shoulder gently and straightened up. "I'll keep you updated, alright?" She simply nodded.

She sat alone in the conference room for a long time, completely still. Her mind, however, was a whirlwind of activity. She was scanning as far as her telepathy could reach, trying to find anyone from the lab. At the same time, she was also trying to come up with a plan. She was so focused on her task that she didn't notice the door to the conference room open.

"Thinking pretty hard, eh?" The girl whirled to see J'onn standing in the doorway, his eyes gentle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I just sensed a lot of psychic energy from this room."

"I'm listening for them," she said curtly. "There has to be something useful that I can do." He smiled and walked to the table.

"Did you know that Andromedans are one of the few races that Martians cannot psychically connect with?" he asked, sitting down next to Selah. She glanced at him quickly before going back to staring at the wall. "Your psychic powers travel on a different wavelength from mine, one that I cannot access."

"I can still hear you," she said. "It's different than human thoughts, though. Yours have more-" she hesitated, choosing her words. "Emotion. Colors." J'onn smiled, leaning back in his chair.

"Then I'm sure that you hear my thoughts of Mars," he said. She nodded. "I stood by and did nothing as my people were killed, and my wife and daughters were turned to ash." The girl turned her head, finally looking at him. "It took me many years to come to terms with that. But I now know that if I had resisted, or tried to act out against the atrocities that the White Martians were committing, I would not have been able to change anything. They would have killed me, like they killed so many others, and I would have never been able to get away and come to Earth." He cleared his throat and paused for a moment, before continuing. "It was my survival that allowed things to change on Mars, for people like M'gann and other White Martians to see that there were still Greens left. For them to try to make changes to the way that things are on Mars, to right the wrongs that were done." He turned to face Selah, his eyes serious. "If I had died on Mars, those changes would not have come. My survival is what allowed for Mars to improve. Do you understand?" Selah nodded.

"How did you get past it?" she asked quietly, looking down at her hands. "The shame of doing nothing."

"I thought of my family," he replied. "They would not wish for me to be ashamed of the fact that I am alive. They would want me to be happy." He leaned forwards, looking intently at Selah. "There is no shame in survival." The girl nodded again, glancing up at him. He smiled, and clapped a hand on her shoulder, standing up. "I'm going to go see what I can do to help," he said, exiting the room.

.

"I can walk home by myself," Selah grumbled, kicking a pebble across the sidewalk. It skittered ahead of her and Kara's feet before slowing to a halt.

"I know," she replied. "Alex just wants to make sure that you get there safely, and that The Agenda doesn't jump you in some dark alleyway somewhere." Selah kicked the pebble again, but this time it rolled off the sidewalk and into the street. "Do you want to stop at Noonan's on the way?"

"No. My aunt said that my mother has been coming around there. I don't want to see her."

"Okay." They were quiet for a while, walking together in silence.

"Do you ever feel guilty for being the one who survived?" Selah asked abruptly, looking over at Kara.

"Sometimes," she replied honestly. "I didn't understand why it had to be me. I lost everything that I knew; everything familiar to me was gone forever. But I learned how to become open again, and how to let myself love new things and new people, and now I don't feel so alone anymore. And I knew that my family would have wanted me to make new connections, and to find a new family. They wouldn't have wanted me to be lonely and guilt-ridden forever."

"J'onn said the same thing. He says that there is no shame in survival."

"He's right, you know. He's a wise old Martian." The girl chuckled. "I know Alex probably told you this a million times already, but this isn't your fault."

"It doesn't really feel that way," she admitted.

"I know." Kara put an arm around the girl as they waited for a red light to change. "It will get easier." The light changed and they began to walk again, taking the longer way to avoid Noonan's. "Are you excited to start classes next week?"

"Yeah," she said. "It might be a little bit tough because I'm enrolling when it's already almost a month into the semester, so I'll have a lot of work to catch up on, but it will be good to finally have a schedule and some structure again."

"Brainy told me that you're in an English and Classical Studies/Physics double major."

"And I might minor in Math, but I want to see how this year goes." Kara shook her head, incredulous.

"Well, Lena said that if you ever want practical experience, L-Corp takes on student interns over the summers."

"I'll have to keep that in mind." As they turned onto a side street, Selah felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she sensed-

"You okay?" Kara asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "I just thought I heard something." She glanced over her shoulder, but didn't see anyone else around. The psychic energy around them seemed normal, she heard Kara's thoughts, and the odd snippets from people in buildings nearby. Whatever she thought she had felt was gone.

They soon arrived at Nia and Selah's apartment, both pretending not to see the rubble across the street where an apartment used to be. Kara insisted on walking the girl up to her front door, and delivering her directly into Nia's hands. She tried to mask her thoughts, and insisted that it was just because she was being chivalrous, and because she liked spending time with her paternal first cousin once removed, but the girl knew better. Nia, Kara and Alex all had the same underlying fear that Selah was going to turn herself over to the Agenda, and thus they were refusing to let the girl out of their sight.

Once she had said goodbye to Kara and shut the apartment door, she turned to Nia, who was sitting at the island and reading a novel.

"Good day at work?" she asked.

"Yeah," the woman replied. "I finished my article two days before the deadline."

"What an overachiever." Nia rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms.

"How was your day?"

"Fine, I guess. Are all the sticky buns gone?" she nodded. "Okay. I think that I'm going to go to bed early, it's been a pretty long day."

"Okay," Nia replied, and Selah pretended not to hear the worry rise up in her thoughts as she walked out of the kitchen and down the hall.

She went into her room, closed the door, and flopped down onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. There is no guilt in surviving, she reminded herself, wishing that she could believe it.

.

Shutting her notebook, Selah placed it into the hand-me-down backpack that Nia had given to her, and zipped it shut. She now had four essays to write, as well as a month of math homework, two papers, six assignments, and three upcoming tests to study for. The tests she was less worried about, she had learned in elementary school that it was impossible to try not to cheat on tests when you have telepathy and can't avoid hearing the thoughts of your classmates. But she had already pulled two all-nighters this week to finish the work that she was behind on, and more just kept getting piled on top. I guess that's the consequence of trying to complete a double major in only two years, she mused to herself, throwing the backpack over her shoulders.

"Did you hear there was another bombing this morning?" She spun to see two boys a few rows behind her, talking as they left the lecture hall. "Downtown. A fifteen story building went down."

"Damn," the other boy replied. "My aunt's building was bombed a few days ago, and they lost everything. I wish the police would say why all this is happening. We have a mandatory curfew and the feds are all over the streets enforcing martial law, but no one will tell us why."

Selah stood rooted to the spot as the boys left, trying to regulate her breathing. It had been over a week since the first bombing, and while there were still countless threats that the DEO was investigating, no arrests were being made. The few people that they had in custody were still refusing to speak and in the meantime, five buildings had been destroyed. No one had died yet, but seventeen people had been severely injured.

Alex was still insisting that one of the Superfriends always had to be made aware of where she was going, and if she was even just a few minutes late to arrive somewhere, she would get bombarded with a barrage of texts asking where she was. It was overwhelming to say the least.

Once she left the lecture hall, she found the director of the DEO herself standing outside the building, trying to look casual as she leaned against a wall, holding two coffees.

"Hey Alex," she said.

"Hi," she replied, walking over to join the girl as she began walking home. "I finished early at the DEO, so I thought I'd come to see how your class went."

"It was fine. We talked about probability and statistics stuff. Markov chains and Martingales."

"How exciting." She handed the girl one of the coffee cups, which she took. "Your aunt says hello, by the way."

"Thanks."

"She said that you haven't been around recently. Did you two have a fight?"

"No," the girl replied. "She said that there were a couple of people hanging around her apartment, and that she couldn't read their minds. I'm afraid that her connection to me could end up with her getting hurt."

"We can increase security in her neighborhood. We already have a few agents nearby, but we can add some more." Selah nodded.

"I heard that there was another bombing."

"Yes." Alex shoved her hands into her pockets, looking down at her feet. "Three casualties, and six more people are in critical but stable condition. But the FBI has decided to tighten up the state of emergency, and there's going to be more of their agents coming in to help."

"How long is this going to keep going on for?" Selah stopped walking, and turned to face the agent.

"We are following up on every lead that we can-"

"It's been a week, Alex," the girl interrupted." People are dying now."

"We just got someone else in custody, and I think that she might be able to give us some more answers," she began, but Selah rolled her eyes.

"None of you have any idea what you're dealing with or who you're up against!" she said. Frustration was evident in her voice.

"What am I supposed to do, Selah?" Alex demanded. "Turn you over to them? Let them torture you again until they eventually kill you?"

"J'onn and Kara keep telling me how I shouldn't have survivor's guilt, and that it isn't my fault, but it's bull. This isn't the equivalent of me living through some natural disaster or a genocide. Every day that I stay here, I am choosing to put everyone around me into danger. I'm allowing other people to get hurt for my own comfort. I am saying that my survival is more important than the lives of everyone else in this city. And what?" She laughed angrily, turning away from Alex. "I'm supposed to feel fine about that? I'm supposed to be proud of everything that I've overcome, ignoring the costs that come with it?"

"Selah," Alex began, but the girl cut her off again.

"No. Please don't try to make me feel better right now. Tell Kara to watch me walk home from the rooftops or whatever, but I need some space."

Alex watched as she stormed away, before tapping her earpiece.

"Brainy?" she asked.

"Present," the Coluan replied. "Did you tell Selah about our new guest?"

"I didn't get the chance to." She swallowed hard before continuing. "Start questioning her. We'll tell Selah what's happening once she's calmer."

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