Selah had been hoping that the walk to Kara's apartment would help calm her nerves, but it wasn't doing much for her as she made her way across the city. Burrowing her face into a scarf that she had borrowed from Nia, she held back a yawn. She hadn't slept much the previous night; she hadn't been sleeping much in general lately, and the periodic thunderstorms through the night hadn't helped. At one point, she had given up on sleep entirely, and she went into the living room to read. There she had found Nia up, writing an article. They had drank tea together and watched the rain, talking late into the night, and it had been nice, but Selah's eyes felt itchy from fatigue. Even once the storm had died down and she went back to her room, she had laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling for hours. Her body was tired, but it was also too jumpy to rest. And that wasn't even factoring in the fact that her dreams were... terrifying lately.
She arrived on Kara's corner and glanced up at the familiar red brick building, feeling the presences of her friends inside. Part of her was excited, but part of her was nervous, too. Entering the building, she ignored the elevator buttons and began walking up the stairs instead, rubbing a thumb along the plastic cuffs on her wrists.
"You're late," Kara said matter-of-factly as she pulled the door open, before Selah could even knock.
"There was traffic?" she ventured.
"You don't drive."
"Hmm?" she asked, pretending not to understand the hero's statement. Kara rolled her eyes and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the apartment. Lena, Brainy, J'onn and Nia were crowded around the coffee table playing a card game that seemed to involve a lot of slapping, and the girl was glad that they were all too distracted to notice her arrival.
"I didn't know that everyone else was here already," she said, taking off her coat and scarf. Kara took them from her, hanging them over a chair.
"That is what tends to happen when you're late."
"It's not my fault you are all so punctual. You said to come at seven, and it is exactly," she checked her watch. "Five after seven. Besides, I'm not that late, Alex isn't here yet either."
"She and Kelly said they'd be here soon, they stopped to pick up ice cream first." Kara glanced over to the living room as the others suddenly got much louder, Nia was yelling something to J'onn about him winning too much, Brainy was flinging cards across the room, and Lena was muttering threats under her breath as she poured herself another glass of scotch.
"Can I hug you?" she asked, trying her best to not make the question awkward. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but also I'm glad that you're here, and-" Selah cut her off by putting her arms around the hero, who settled into the embrace. "I'm sorry that things have been weird for you."
"It's not your fault."
"But I didn't see it. I should have noticed."
"It's okay." Kara let go of the girl, but put a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm always going to be here for you. You know that, right?" The corner of Selah's mouth pulled upwards.
"Yeah," she said. She bit the inside of her lip, about to say more, but before she could, the door behind her opened. Alex and Kelly entered, each with two grocery bags in their arms.
"Hey," Alex said, walking to the counter and setting her bags down. "Sorry we're late, the roads were busy."
"Told you," Selah muttered.
"Selah, you don't have a car," Kara said, pulling her sister into a hug. "Or a license."
"I don't have a lot of things. Is this all ice cream?" The girl asked, peering into one of the bags.
"And alcohol," Alex said, taking Kelly's bags and setting them on the counter next to Selah. The girl pulled a case of beer out of one, but Alex slapped at her hand. "You are not twenty-one."
"I can't get drunk," she stated, as the agent put the beer into the fridge, taking one out for herself.
"Still illegal." The girl rolled her eyes, and went to peer over Kara's shoulder as the woman dug through a grocery bag.
"Did you get mint chocolate chip?"
"Ew, no. That's unequivocally the worst flavor of ice cream."
"You got pistachio!" she protested.
"Pistachios are nuts," Brainy said, walking into the kitchen and snatching his ice cream away from her. "What's the difference between peanut butter and pistachio?"
"Quite a bit, actually. And besides, mint is a leaf, so how is it morally worse than this Earl Grey ice cream?"
"You don't pair mine with chocolate," Lena called from the living room.
"I knew that I should have stayed home," the girl muttered.
"Calm down," Alex said. "I got you lemon." She grouchily took the ice cream, heaving an overdramatic sigh, and Kara swatted at her with a tea towel.
"Help me put these away," she told her, beginning to put the extra cartons into her already crowded freezer. The girl obliged, jumping as Nia started yelling again from the living room.
"Literally how dare you!" she was complaining. "That's the third round in a row where you've skipped my turn."
"It's the point of the game-" he began, but Alex, who had deserted the groceries to see what was going on, interrupted him.
"No, Nia's right," she stated. "It was a lot more fun playing cards with you back when you were still a man of peace." The argument swelled up again, and Kelly passed the last grocery bag to Selah.
"I should go make sure that nothing gets broken," she said, sighing. "You know. Again."
"Thank you," Kara replied.
"I didn't expect game night to be quite so loud," Selah stated, watching as Kelly subtly placed herself in between Nia and J'onn.
"This is your first one, huh?" she asked. "This is tame compared to back when James was still around. He got really heated about Mario Kart. It's not too much for you?"
"I don't think so," she said, cracking her knuckles as Kara shut the freezer door and leaned up against the counter, folding up her tea towel.
"Do you want to go see what's going on over there? I think that if we don't intervene soon my table might get broken." Selah snorted a laugh and they began walking to the living room. "You think I'm kidding but Winn tried to flip it once after he lost a game of Monopoly. Thankfully he wasn't strong enough to do anything, but now most of my friends have super powers, so..."
J'onn was picking up stray cards off of the floor, presumably the ones that Brainy had thrown, but he smiled at Kara and Selah as they approached.
"I'd ask if you two want to be dealt in for the next round, but I think that this game should stop, for all of our sanity," he said.
"Oh, so now you're concerned about our feelings?" Nia asked tightly. "But that wasn't an issue when you blocked me four times?"
"I apologize for that."
"Your words mean nothing," Brainy spat, glaring at J'onn.
"Really weird vibes over here," Selah said, sinking onto the floor next to Nia.
As J'onn finished cleaning up the game, conversation drifted on to other topics, whether or not they should watch a movie, or if they should try another game.
"One that telepaths can't cheat at," Kara muttered, scowling at Selah, who stuck her tongue out. Nia suggested Twister, but that was quickly shot down by Alex. Finally they settled on a board game that didn't include too much thinking, although Kara still accused Selah and J'onn of mind reading whenever her plans went awry.
She didn't put too much effort into the game. The cuffs only mildly suppressed her telepathy, so she did have a bit of an unfair advantage, especially since Alex's thoughts lit up in bright green bolts of color every time she picked up a resource card she wanted, and you didn't even need telepathy to be able to tell what Kara's plans were, she had no poker face at all. Instead, she chose to lean back against the couch until her turn came, absorbing the energy of her friends around her.
Nia was slouched comfortably against her shoulder- Selah was pretending that she didn't realize the woman was also looking at all of her cards- and Lena was on her other side, periodically passing her chocolate covered pretzels. Across the table from her, Kelly and Alex had started a truce together. They squabbled back and forth about strategies, and who could be trusted to make trades with. Brainy was building a tower out of spare game pieces, which Kara kept knocking down when he wasn't looking, and J'onn sipped on a glass of alien alcohol that he had brought from the bar, trying his best not to get in Nia's way too much, for fear of starting another argument.
As Selah looked around the room, she felt a strange, warm feeling in the center of her chest. She wasn't sure how to put the feeling into words, but something about sitting on the floor of Kara's apartment, surrounded by her friends, it felt so simple and easy and right. These people, this feeling of belonging, it was something that she had been missing for so long.
And then, the evening was over. Lena won all four games, which no one seemed terribly surprised by. Nia grumbled a bit, but then she quickly moved on to helping Kara knock down Brainy's tower, which was his tallest one yet. They had brought out the ice cream after the second round, most of which was now half-melted, leaving puddles of condensation on the table. J'onn was the first to leave after the game was packed up, claiming that he had to work on some cases in the morning, and besides, he was too old to stay up past eleven. Alex and Kelly were next, and Selah wished she didn't have telepathy as she heard their itinerary for the rest of the evening. Finally, Nia, Brainy and Lena packed and began grabbing their coats.
"Are you coming?" Brainy asked Selah, through one final mouthful of spring roll.
"Actually Selah, can you hang back for a second?" Kara asked, before she could answer.
"Sure," she replied. "Don't wait up for me, Nia. But also if you watch Frozen 2 without me I will never forgive you."
"Frozen?" Lena questioned, lifting an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Nia replied. "Selah made the mistake of telling me that she hadn't seen any Disney movies, and I felt the need to right that wrong."
"None of them?" Brainy said, incredulous. The girl shook her head.
"My mother didn't like cartoons, and my aunt and I didn't watch much tv. Plus I was literally underground when Frozen came out."
"Yeah," Nia said. "So we've been working our way through the entire filmography of Disney together."
"And Nia's also been catching me up on all the pop culture stuff that's happened since I've come back into society," Selah added. "Did you guys know that One Direction broke up?"
"I did, thanks," Kara deadpanned.
"I'll see you on Monday," Lena said, cutting Nia off before she could say anything about the Jonas Brothers getting back together. She grabbed the half-full bottle of gin off the counter and began heading for the door.
"Bye Lena," Kara replied. "Bye Nia, Brainy."
"Bye!" The door shut behind the trio, leaving Selah and Kara in the quiet- and slightly disheveled- apartment.
"First game night," the hero said, covering up the guacamole bowl and putting it into the fridge as Selah gathered the empty cups. "How did it go?"
"It was good." She dumped an armful of cups into the sink. Kara felt a sharp jolt as her psychic energy zapped her.
"That hasn't happened in awhile," she commented, shivering.
"Sorry." The girl shook her head slightly, blinking hard. "Why did you want me to stay?"
"Nia slipped me this when you were in the kitchen," she said, pulling a note out of her back pocket. She unfolded it and showed it to her. In purple pen, Nia had written: 'Selah has something to tell you. Won't say more, she needs to tell you about it herself. Xoxo, Nia.' She raised her eyebrows expectantly, putting the note down onto the counter. "Do you have something to tell me?"
"Well first off, Nia's a snitch."
"Selah," Kara said firmly.
"It was just an idea," she began slowly, not sure of how to put any of it into words. The hero pulled a stool out from the island and patted it, sitting down in another one as she waited for Selah to continue. "Um," she said, still trying to sort out her thoughts as she sat. "I was in a coma."
"You were."
"And that was the only time that I was able to safely communicate with Beta. In there, I could talk to her face to face, and... interact with her. Nia and I, we stayed up last night talking, and we were thinking-" she cut herself off, and another prickling wave of energy hit Kara.
"Thinking what?" She pressed, after waiting a few moments for the girl to continue.
"Maybe that's... the way to go?" she sat up, ready to argue, but Selah stopped her before she could begin. "Not specifically that. Nia could take me back into the dreamscape with her. I'd only be asleep, nothing more."
"Would that work?"
"I think that between Nia and my powers we could figure it out."
"And then what happens? You get in there and you'd face off against Beta alone?"
"I could do it."
"Selah," Kara asked seriously. The girl met her gaze. "Are you ready for that?"
"I could do it," she insisted, looking away. "I've faced her before, I can do it again."
"I'm not trying to cast doubt on your abilities, love, I'm just worried about you."
"I know."
"You have a lot of people on your side now. We're going to worry about you."
"I know," the girl said again.
"I don't like it," Kara said. Selah's shoulders deflated. "But it's an idea, okay? A last resort idea. We have to exhaust every other option before we go to that one."
"She's getting stronger." She poked at the cuffs again, stretching out her fingers. "I can feel her almost all of the time now. And sometimes when I wake up, I don't know..."
"We'll figure it out," she promised. "I'll talk to Alex and Nia about it, and we'll make a plan."
"I'm just scared that we're running out of time," Selah muttered. She shoved her cuffed hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt and looked up at Kara. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Are you okay?" Kara scoffed a little bit, taken aback. "I mean it."
"Selah, I'm fine. This kind of stuff, it comes with my job."
"Everything has been really focused on me since we got back. And a lot has happened, but you were in that cell for longer than I was. You could have died in that explosion, and you watched me almost die a couple times. I can't imagine that any of that was a cakewalk."
"I'm managing it."
"For as long as I have known you, you put other people before you. Their needs always come before yours. And that's really admirable, and it speaks a lot to your character, but I'm scared that you're making me a priority over you."
"I can handle my problems."
"But are you?" Kara set her jaw, frowning at the girl as she tried to decide how to reply. "Kara, the day I went into the coma, right after we got back, that was the first time that I ever saw you cry. Like, really cry. All that time with the Agenda and at Linda's, you were there for me whenever I needed it, and don't get me wrong, I appreciate it, but... You never let yourself feel anything. You never..." The girl sighed, cracking her knuckles again as she organized her thoughts. "Kelly's been talking to me about survivor's guilt. She says that when it comes to my stability in exchange for someone else's, I see myself as expendable, and I don't stop to factor in the idea that maybe I deserve to be okay too."
"Selah," the hero said, but the girl wasn't done.
"I'm sorry," she said, her hands twisting around each other frantically. "I'm sorry for all of the times that I got in the way of you being okay. You deserve to be okay. And if you ever find yourself being not okay, you can talk to me. I know that when things are busy and loud and complicated like they are right now that it's easier for you to kind of push everything that you're feeling away. But once this is all done and we can breathe for a second, I'm here, okay?"
"Okay," Kara whispered. She blinked tears away, breaking eye contact with Selah to stare at the cupboards, chuckling quietly. "Kelly must be a pretty good therapist, huh."
"She is. I bet she'd love to discuss theories of self sacrifice with you." The hero snorted.
"You're a good kid. After everything you've been through, you're still such a good kid."
"Right back at you." Kara hugged Selah, squeezing her tightly and letting herself take a deep breath.
"You should probably head home," she said, once she let go again. "Nia probably started the movie."
"She definitely did. Thanks for inviting me, though."
"You're family. You're never getting out of another game night." She rolled her eyes. "Get used to the arguing and the banter. And fair warning, Lena always wins."
"Yeah, I gathered as much." The girl shrugged her coat on, grabbing Nia's scarf again. "See you tomorrow?"
"You bet." Selah quietly closed the door behind her, and Kara watched her leave, frowning slightly again as she thought about what she had said.
.
.
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