The mauve tinted light that was shining weakly through the curtains was the first thing that Kara saw as her eyes fluttered open. It took her a few long moments to remember where she was, and all that had happened in the past few days. She glanced over at Selah's bed to check on the girl, and let out a breath she had instinctively begun holding in once she saw her curled up under the blankets, still asleep.
They had been at Linda's for three days now, and Winn didn't seem to be getting any closer to a breakthrough when it came to building the device that would bring them back home. He had built two prototypes, both of which exploded soon after they were turned on, and Selah's psychic powers didn't seem to be strong enough to get the machine running on its own. On the bright side, he did manage to create a new remote sensor for the nanites, meaning that Kara had finally been able to get out of her super suit. Linda had supplied her and Selah with enough cardigans and pantsuits to keep them going for several weeks, all of them pink toned.
She rubbed her eyes wearily, wishing that she were still asleep. She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table, and saw that it was barely five o'clock in the morning. She had been having nightmares again- the old ones of Krypton, but also newer ones that were filled with long shadowy corridors and blue lights.
Selah stirred and murmured something in her sleep, and she glanced over at her, wishing -not for the first time- that she had the girl's telepathic powers. As much as she had opened up over the past few months, there was still so much of her that seemed shut off and distant, and Kara knew that her trauma ran deeper than she could even guess. There always seemed to be so much going on below the surface with Selah, and she made a mental note that once they were back on their Earth, she needed to ask Kelly about how they could set up alien therapy for her. And for herself, for that matter.
Being on this earth was strange, in many more ways than just one. At home, Kara was always busy; she was always working on some project for work or a case as Supergirl. She never had very much down time, but here, down time was all that she had. There was no Supergirl on this earth, and while Selah was fully involved in getting them back home, Kara didn't know the first thing about mechanical engineering or physics. Every day, she followed Linda and Selah to campus, and she sat in Winn's office as the girl tinkered with machinery and pored over blueprints. She tried to help out as much as she could, but usually she just stayed out of the way, not wanting to hinder the process in any way. And while she appreciated having a break from the rush of daily life, she longed to be busy again, to feel like she was achieving something and not just waiting and hoping for things to fall into place.
She heard cars on the street outside, beginning to make their way to work, and she burrowed her head under the pillow. Sometimes she really wished that she didn't have super hearing. Rolling over, she tried her best to fall back asleep, knowing that it was going to be a fruitless endeavor.
.
The evening air was cool- Kara was certain that this earth was colder than hers. She wrapped her coat tighter around herself despite not really feeling the chill. The coat was Linda's, woolen and pink, and it looked to be at least thirty years old. It fit her snugly, enveloping her in a comfortable warmth as she walked along the streets of a city that was ever so slightly not hers. Everything was bathed in the dim tea-colored light of early evening, and the buildings around her seemed softer in its glow.
She wasn't certain where she was going as she walked, but she had learned that this National City was laid out in almost the same way as her National City, and that she could still find her way around with surprising ease. She idly wondered if any of the people that she passed had Earth-38 doppelgangers who also lived in her city, and if she had seen any of them on her walks in the evenings back home. She found that walking always helped her to clear her head when things felt too confusing, or if everything was changing too quickly. It was second only to flying, but she had decided that it was best to stay under the radar while they were here, and flying wasn't exactly conspicuous.
As she walked, she wondered about what life might be like back on her earth. Had it snowed there yet? Was everything still relatively the same as they had left it? A lump rose up in her throat as she thought of Alex. She really missed her sister, she missed movie nights and pizza and late night conversations about anything and everything. It was always hard for her when she was away from Alex, but this time it was worse. She wasn't sure if it was just because she had no way of contacting her sister to check if she was alright, or if it was because she knew how worried Alex must be. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two, but the guilt that she felt weighed heavily upon her.
She approached the waterfront and sat down on a bench, staring out over the bay. The wind was stronger away from the shelter of the buildings, and it blew her hair around her face. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was flying, soaring high above the city where the world was quiet.
When she opened her eyes again, it was darker around her. All of the street lamps were turned on, and the sleepiness of dusk had been replaced by the sharp chill of evening. She stood up from the bench, giving the water one last glance before heading back to Linda's apartment. The professor lived on the other end of town from Kara, and she passed her loft as she walked, staring up at it wistfully.
She found it surprisingly difficult to connect with her doppelganger. Considering the fact that all of the other Karas that she met had immediately tried to kill her, she greatly preferred Linda, but there was a strange sense of distance with her. Kara wanted to talk to her about Krypton, about the ways in which her Krypton was the same or different from Linda's. She wanted to know how it was for the woman when she came to Earth without Kal-El. There were so few people that she could talk to openly about what her life had been like, but Linda was so stoic and reserved. Kara didn't want to make her uncomfortable, or to overstep on any boundaries, especially when she had so graciously accepted them into her home and life. Still, she yearned for that connection, to be able to tell her about how awkward middle school was, or how her aunt used to read her bedtime stories, and had taught her all of Krypton's constellations, knowing that she would be able to truly understand her.
She knocked gently on Linda's front door before opening it. The professor was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea, but she looked up as she entered and hung up her coat.
"Hey," she said, wiping her shoes on the mat.
"How was your walk?" Linda asked.
"Good. It helped me clear my head."
"Alright. Winn asked if you and Selah can help him with the machine tomorrow evening. I have a late class so I won't be joining you." She hesitated, taking a long sip of her tea before adding, "I think that they've been having some difficulty with the prototypes. Selah's been pacing a lot."
"I'll check in with her."
"Would you like a cup?" She gestured to her mug. "I usually chamomile before bed."
"I'm fine, thank you," Kara replied. "I think that I'm just going to turn in for the night."
"Okay, goodnight."
"Goodnight." She smiled at her doppelganger, who returned the favor, but the woman's smile didn't quite meet her eyes. Leaving the kitchen, Kara went back into the guest bedroom that she and Selah were still sharing. The overhead light was off but she had turned on the bedside lamp, and the room was lit with its soft glow. Both beds were lined with papers and blueprints, but she didn't seem to be doing much with them. Instead, she was stonily staring at the closet door.
"What's up?" Kara inquired, and she tore her eyes away from the wall.
"Nothing," she answered evenly, much too quickly to be believable. She closed the door and walked over to the girl's bed, carefully clearing a space for her to sit down.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"I can't focus," Selah admitted, looking down at her hands, which still had no thumbs. "On the prototype, on anything. I feel like my brain has been turned to mush."
"Why?"
"I don't know." The girl slouched forwards and cupped her chin in her hands. "We almost died."
"We did."
"Will any of this ever get normal?"
"What do you mean?"
"I just-" Selah trailed off, rubbing a hand over her eyes before beginning to speak again. "Someday I want to live in a little house where the sun shines into the kitchen and I'll have herbs growing in pots on the windowsills. And I want to have a cat, I've never had a cat. And maybe I want to have a partner. I want to graduate from university, I want to get a job, even a crummy retail job or something. I want to feel normal. But it doesn't seem like I'm ever going to get that. Between my awful mother and the terrorist organization that's chasing us and now my inter-dimensional travel-" she cut herself off, and turned to look at Kara seriously. "Is it ever going to get more normal?"
"Honest answer?" she replied. "Not really." Seeing the girl deflate slightly, she put an arm around her, knocking a few stray papers off the bed. "Selah, you and I aren't going to be normal, at least by Earth standards. I tried to be normal for half my life, and things still never felt right. Trying to fit yourself into a mold that was not made for you is only ever going to make you limit yourself and your potential."
"Yeah but it would be a whole lot easier," she muttered, looking at the floor. Kara snorted.
"Maybe."
"What do we do instead?"
"We make our own normal. When I started using my powers, finding my chosen family, being a journalist, those are the things that finally made me feel like I was doing something right. And no, it's not always the most stable or safe thing, but it's what I'm meant to be doing."
"I just wish that sometimes it didn't have to be me, y'know?"
"I know." The girl's eyes were still fixed on a spot on the floor, and Kara shivered as she was jolted with a wave of energy that surged off of her.
"Sorry," she muttered automatically.
"It's okay," she replied. She took a deep breath and began speaking again: "Sometimes I feel like I have this clock over my head, right?" she said. Selah didn't react. "And it says how much time I have left before a villain punches too hard, or someone gets their hands on Kryptonite, or I fly too far away from the atmosphere. I don't know how much time is on the clock, but I know that it's there. And every morning I think is it today? Is today the day that the clock is going to run out? Sometimes the sheer weight of those thoughts can be overwhelming."
"And then what do you do?" The girl asked, still not moving.
"I get up. I go through my day. I live, Selah. You're still here, you're still living. Don't waste that." Finally looking up, she met the hero's eyes and nodded quietly. "Now," Kara began, standing up, gathering some of the discarded papers. "You should try to get some rest. I don't want to be stuck awake all night with you trying to figure this out."
"I just want it all to make it make sense."
"That's a job for tomorrow. You can make the scientific breakthrough of the century, and I can figure out if there is recycling on this earth or not." She put the loose papers into a stack and set it down onto the floor.
"My job seems like it's significantly harder than yours."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kara quipped with a smirk. "Hey. I have complete faith in you."
"Thanks," the girl replied, telepathically putting the cap onto her pen and setting it on the nightstand.
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