"I'm telling you there was someone there !"

"And I'm telling you our sensors didn't pick up any heat signature apart from yours !"

"There was someone there !"

Lena doesn't need superhearing for Kara and Alex's screaming match to reach her before she's even set foot in the corridor leading to the med bay. Kara sounds terrified, Alex sounds lost and Lena's heart is about to leap out of her chest. Receiving vague texts summoning her to the DEO for unknown reasons is going to get old really fast. She picks up the pace, covering the remaining distance in long strides ; she'll be late to her board meeting, but Kara needs her. She skids to a halt in front of the glass doors, tottering on her high heels for a second before she rights herself and storms inside.

"Could be sleep paralysis."

The suggestion comes from Taylor. It's spewed sombrely between two bites of a french baguette the size of Lena's arm. They're sitting cross-legged on a chair in the far corner of the room, their knees picking out from ripped holes in what Lena is almost sure were still brand new jeans this morning.

"I've never had sleep paralysis even once in my life," Kara bites back, her voice strained from the effort she makes to keep it even.

"And realistically, there's little chance you'd develop it so late in life," Lena says, stepping into her sightline with the most reassuring smile she can manage when she didn't have time for breakfast and is running on pure adrenaline and half a cup of tea. "It'd most likely have happened right after you crashed on Earth."

"Lena," Kara breathes in greetings, her voice lilting in that way Lena can never describe but that always twinges her heart in sweet pain.

"Can you tell me what happened ?" she asks, stripping off her jacket and folding it neatly in two before depositing it at the foot of Kara's bed. She's a little bit overdressed, in her burgundy slacks and vest ; at least compared to Taylor's purple hoodie and torn jeans, and the blanket that has temporarily replaced Kara's cape around her shoulders.

"There was someone sitting on my chest," Kara says, frowning deeply as she grasps at recollections of whatever happened. "Their face very close to my face but I couldn't make out their features. And, and there was a sort of blue glow. I couldn't move, my arms were pinned to my sides but I don't know by what. And I tried to call out but I couldn't speak."

"This does sound like sleep paralysis," Lena mumbles under her breath.

"I'm telling you there was someone there," Kara repeats, her voice going shrill with frustration. "They were standing on my chest and they smelled like burnt plastic."

"I believe you darling," Lena says softly, the term of endearment slipping out for the second time in less than a day, not that she really has time to worry about that. "If you're telling me someone was there, then someone was there. We're going to run another scan of your apartment, right Alex ?"

"Can I speak with you ?" Alex seethes, tugging her by her elbow without waiting for an answer. "Outside ?"

"I'll be right back," Lena mouths, electing to go with the flow rather than to fight Alex.

They're not even out of the room yet that Taylor is already next to Kara to share their breakfast with her.

Alex drags her to the opposite side of the hallway, as far as this floor allows to be from the med bay without bypassing a biometric door. Lena resists the urge to point out that Kara can no doubt still hear them if she wishes to.

"Kara has a history of vivid nightmares," Alex says with zero preamble. "Not sleep paralysis, sure, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities."

"Olfactory hallucinations are not commonly associated with sleep paralysis. If she says someone was there it's worth investigating."

"I've investigated !" Alex shouts, her voice more worry than fury. "There was only one heat signature, hers. She's had a rough couple of weeks and Ghim, who need I remind you, is the clone who killed her not two months ago, just woke up. She just has too much on her mind."

"What about someone who doesn't have a heat signature ? Or can cloak it temporarily ?" Taylor blinks into existence next to them and Lena yelps, nearly jumping out of her skin. "You guys are anything but discreet," they add, motioning to their ear to justify their sudden appearance.

"Could that really be a possibility ?" Alex asks, heavily running a hand across her face.

Taylor shrugs. "I've seen weirder things."

Alex deflates in one go, sagging on herself and staggering back to the wall for support. "It's not that I don't believe her," she says, "but I, I'd rather nothing more happen to her. She can never catch a break and now if heatless creatures start attacking her in her sleep..."

Lena glances back at the med bay. From where she stands, she can see Kara's silhouette propped up against pillows, staring woefully at the last bite of bread in her hands. She looks tired, sure, but not more than for the past few weeks.

"Something's gotta give," Lena whispers, unsure of what, or who, exactly she's talking about.

Kara is exhausted. Solar flare level of exhausted. Except she hasn't solar flared, she checked by taking the liberty of burning a hole in the wall of a side conference room at the DEO. She's bone deep tired, but every time she closes her eyes to take a surreptitious nap all she can feel is the pressure of someone sitting on her chest ; there was someone there, and she knows it.

Alex is right, she is accustomed to vivid nightmares, it comes with the job and the tragic backstory ; and she does have to give credit to her sister for handling years of night terrors. But this time was different, she feels it deep in her gut. It was almost like being back in her pod in the Phantom Zone but not quite, she was suffocating, and the presence there with her was familiar in a way she can't put her finger on.

Once the initial panic had passed, once the anxiety had abated back to its usual flow, she'd tried to convince herself it was just a dream, but she'd fail ; and even now, she can't control the erratic beating of her heart.

Across the bullpen, Nia eyes her curiously but Kara shakes her head dismissively ; Nia's powers are dream-based, she too would no doubt try to convince her it was only a nightmare, and she's not in shape to fight back.

Lena is stuck in a board meeting so Kara decides to skip lunch, powering instead through her break so she can get out of work sooner. She eats five of the protein bars she keeps on hand for emergencies and washes them down with mediocre coffee from the break room ; Franklin is a wonderful coworker but he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a coffeemaker. Unfortunately, it means she looks crazed enough for Nia to simply follow her when she slips out early. They fall into step before Kara can reach the elevator and she finds herself trapped with her in the metal death box before she has the time to consider escaping through a window.

Nia leans back against the wall, arms crossed, and glares at her silently for the entire ride down. Kara is suddenly very glad that she picked a dark shirt this morning, at least no one will notice she's sweating through it. She counts the floors under her breath, calculating the exact speed at which she'll have to exit the elevator to bolt out of here in a mostly human way. Before they can reach the ground floor however, Nia hits the emergency stop with surprising strength.

"Can we maybe not do that ?" Kara squeaks. "Tight spaces and I are not friends."

"It's tough love time," Nia says, her glare somehow more frightening than a second ago. Kara is starting to regret training her.

"Okay...?"

"Lena, Alex and Taylor have all spent the day texting me to ask if you're alright. That's three persons Kara, three."

Kara resists the urge to point out that she comes from a very advanced civilisation ; she definitely knows how to count. What she doesn't know however is where Nia is going with this.

"Apparently," Nia continues, "you stormed the DEO in a panic this morning and despite everyone trying to reassure you, you managed to be even more anxious on the way out. Then you proceeded to avoid me all day which is about the dumbest thing you could have done." Kara coughs, trying to no avail to cut the flow of Nia's speech. "I'm the resident dream expert Kara, I could have told you it wasn't a nightmare."

Oh, that makes sense.

"Which I've told everyone since then and you'd know that if you'd bother checking your phone instead of working yourself to death and feeding on out-of-date protein bars," Nia finishes in a breath before slamming her hand on the elevator button. "Oh, and Taylor is waiting in the lobby, we're all going to the DEO."

Kara's hand trembles when she reaches out to stop the elevator again ; she doesn't bother to steady it. "It wasn't a dream...?"

"No, it wasn't," Nia says, voice softer, her whole demeanour shifting in pure reassurance. "I've been dreaming about you a lot lately. Shadows surrounding you, ominous glowing lights, generic doom stuff. I should have told you, but I didn't want to worry you before figuring it out."

"Nice," Kara gulps.

"And then last night I saw what you described to Alex. Someone sitting on your chest, their face close to your face. It was a bit blurry but I think they had blue skin. Maybe purple. That's all I saw, sorry."

Kara expects to feel worse at the confirmation that someone was indeed there last night but she doesn't. Instead, it's like a weight has been lifted off her chest ; if it's not a dream, if it's a real and tangible threat, then it's a problem she can punch. She sags against the wall, both in relief and in exhaustion.

"Brainy says he's going to increase monitoring on your apartment, at least for a few days. But even if it's not a dream, I, we, think you should take it easy. You have way too much on your plate. Taylor, Lena, Red Daughter, and then everyone who seems intent on murdering you these days, you can't take care of everything Kara."

"They need me," Kara fires back, mostly out of habit.

"They do," Nia says, "they need you alive and well. Not anxious and burning holes in random walls."

"How do...?"

"My boyfriend works at the DEO. I know everything. Now come on, Taylor is waiting, we have work to do, and you're buying us ice cream on the way."

"I'm buying you ice cream ?" Kara repeats dumbly, extremely confused as to why this is what her brain decided to latch on.

"Of course you are."

Taylors feels uncomfortable to say the least. They're not really sure what their role is here apart from standing at the back of the room looking scary. Which they are very skilled at doing, but still. Tension permeates the air. It crackles around them like high voltage electricity to the point that they're surprised they can't see it. Alex is gritting her jaw so hard her teeth are probably about to burst from it and Kara is so tensed, her ice cream reprieve forgotten as soon as she stepped foot inside of the building, that Taylor wonders when her skin is going to rip apart at the seams. In a show of support, though both sisters have their backs turned to them, Taylor draws their shoulders back and affixes a scowl to their face. They need to bribe Brainy for a new suit, since theirs went up in flames and they don't look anywhere near superhero-like in their ripped jeans and loose t-shirt. They look regal either way, it's the Luthor's genes, but they'd feel more comfortable if they looked less out of place.

"Why are you after Supergirl ?" Alex asks, over-carefully splaying her hands on the jagged metal of a rusty table.

Persuader snarls, looking relatively unbothered by the whole situation even as he's handcuffed to the table and probably won't see the sun again for a very long time. Unless he escapes, which with the way things seem to be going, isn't completely out of the realm of possibilities.

"That's none of your concern lady."

"This is the Department of Extranormal Operations," Alex enunciates slowly. "You are extranormal, you fall under my jurisdiction. So again, why are you after Supergirl ?"

"Under the Intergalactic Justice Convention, I'm allowed a lawyer. I won't speak without one."

Taylor is surprised ; he's less dumb than he looks. "Newsflash," they say, uncrossing their arms and stepping forward to align themself with the adultier adults. "You're too early. That won't be a thing for the next fifteen years. So you better start talking, because Director Danvers packs a mean punch."

"The double time travelling was unintended," he growls.

"Doesn't mean you don't no longer fall under the laws of your time," Taylor points out just as Kara exclaims, "wait, double time travelling ?!"

"There was an incident," he grumbles. "Don't think you can trick me into talking."

"I'm not going to trick you into anything," Alex says slowly, her voice low and threatening. She flexes her fingers against the table, leans forward until her face is inches from his face. "But I am going to make your life a living hell if you don't talk."

Kara grabs her away just in time to avoid his attempt at a headbutt.

Persuader growls, baring rotten teeth that threatens to send Taylor's ice cream back the way it came.

"You went after me twice already," Kara says sidestepping Alex before she can retake the lead of the interrogation. "And last night someone broke into my home. I want to know why."

She shivers, it's almost imperceptible and Taylor knows Persuader won't have noticed but they do, the slight quiver of Kara's shoulders giving away the fear she still feels after last night's home invasion.

"You've committed a crime, you need to answer for it."

Taylor sighs, pinching the bridge of their nose. "Can we stop the broken record routine ? Supergirl obviously has no idea what you're talking about."

"And I have no idea what you're talking about," Persuader fires back. "I can't have visited Supergirl last night since you're holding me here."

"Do you think we're stupid ? Is that what you think ?" Taylor asks, lowering their voice and taking Alex's previous position, hands firmly planted on the table as they try to tower over the prisoner. A hand gently claps itself on their shoulder and for a second, they consider resisting it before they step back and let Alex take over again.

"Let's say that you didn't," Alex says, "your boss might have. Who are you working for ?"

"The Fatal Five are indivisible," Persuader bites back immediately, something akin to offence taking over his face. "She wouldn't trust anyone else."

"You say indivisible," Alex says with an almost predatory smile, "I say expendable. Clearly your boss found herself another team."

"She wouldn't."

Kara snorts, falsely confident. "Seems like she did."

Persuader jumps up, tries to at least, his chains stopping him in a ridiculous crouch above his chair. "You will answer for your crime Supergirl," he growls again. "You took her Highness' family and she will take yours." He seems about to say more, mouth opened to spew more nonsense, when his body seizes and a short fizzle fills the room. He collapses, foaming at the mouth and thrashing violently before stilling just as brutally, leaving them in ominous silence.

Kara wonders if she's going to pass out or throw up. Both is also an option. She's hungry, tired, the residual fear of her home invader spiked up significantly and the room feels constricted around her, like she's going to open her eyes and she'll be trapped in space all over again. There's a nagging thought at the back of her head, a narcissistic why is it always me ? And part of her knows the universe isn't specifically out to get her but still, why is it always her ?

Brainy tinkers a few feet away from her and she decides to focus on anything but the open brain he's got his hands in right now. At least she's not the only one who's mildly bothered by that, Taylor is looking at their feet and Alex has been inching closer and closer to the door for the past fifteen minutes.

"So," Brainy eventually says, straightening up abruptly, "his brain was fried from the inside."

"I think we all gathered that from the smell," Taylor mumbles under their breath, their face scrunching up in a painful imitation of Lena.

"I've retrieved this microchip," Brainy adds, brandishing clamps and a bloody piece of metal. "It was most likely encoded with a failsafe to prevent Persuader from speaking. And there is a high probability this is also the case for his companions."

"Of fucking course," Kara sighs, the curse slipping out on its own accord.

Taylor elbows her gently. "Language," they whisper with a cheeky grin ; but Kara isn't really in the mood for jokes.

"Anything else you can tell us ?" she asks, a bit harsher than is necessary.

"I can try tracing the chip's signal back to its source but with the damage taken by the equipment, this could prove to be difficult."

"Can you try anyway ?" Alex asks, stepping a bit further into the room again though she still refuses to look at the sawn cranium.

"I will do my best. But I need to call Nia first, to rearrange our date."

Kara shakes her head, a knot of guilt tightening in her chest. "Don't push back your date, it's important."

"Your security is important."

"I'll be fine," Kara deflects. "I can take care of myself."

Kara is most definitely not fine.

She delays bedtime by having dinner with Taylor. They eat their weight in potstickers and watch two very unsettling documentaries about deep sea creatures. But when Lena's town car comes to collect them and they part over a not so funny joke about divorced parents, Kara starts feeling queasy again.

She locks her door, something that she never does and checks all her windows thrice, something that has never been a concern before. How many times exactly has someone entered her apartment without her knowing ?

She thinks about the previous months, how there's a very high possibility that both Lex and Red Daughter came here at some point. She gets the vivid image of Lex reading her journal, of his greasy fingers running over her furniture. She remembers all the times she's found things out of place, or simply missing, and can't repress the shudder flowing down her spine.

How many times exactly has someone been here without her knowing ?

She knows she's spiralling, can feel anxiety churning deep in her guts and she knows she should call someone, Alex, Lena, hell, even Taylor, but she doesn't. Instead, she stands still in the middle of her apartment, trying to get a hold of her out of rhythm heart and wondering how she's survived this far when she's obviously so fucking careless.

And arguably, a little home invasion is not the worst thing she's had to face in the past year, but lately, her life feels too much like uncontrollably running down hill for her not to expect to trip on a surprise root and brutally crash at the bottom, possibly taking everyone down with her.

There's a ringing in her ears and it takes her a full minute to realise it's her own blood pumping erratically. She's getting slow, too slow to react, to protect herself, to protect others. If she keeps going down this slop soon she'll be paralysed and useless and they will have won ; whoever "they" are. She's irrational, but she isn't sure she knows that anymore. She catches movement outside of her window, rushes to check it out, just a bird, or at least it appears to be. In the distance, a blinding flash of blue light, just an ambulance beacon, or at least it appears to be.

The doorknob rattles.

Her heart stops. She whirls around, loses balance, and burns a hole in the wall.

Then a jingle, a clang, and the door creaking open.

She feels her eyes burning, her heat vision ready to fire ; she won't be caught off guard this time.

It's Alex. Just Alex.

Kara is okay, she's okay, she's okay ; her dinner makes the reverse journey and lands on her carpet.

When she cancelled on Kelly to go check on Kara instead, Alex had her doubts. When she packed an overnight bag, just in case, she was slightly apprehensive of encroaching on her sister's space. Now, as she's cleaning barely digested remnants of potstickers from the carpet while Kara is attempting to drown herself in the shower, she knows she made the right decision.

Kara is not okay. And well, it's not really new, she hasn't been okay for a long time, probably even since she became her sister ; but Alex still worries, still shows up, still helps, because no matter how used she is to Kara not being okay and no matter how good Kara is at handling herself, deep down Alex still sees a little scared alien when she looks at her.

In the next room over, the shower stops. She can hear the pipes creaking and smiles fondly at the sound. Kara was weirdly ecstatic when she moved in and found out that the plumbing in her building was noisy, said it reminded her of Midvale. Now every time Alex hears this sound, she thinks about Kara.

In a matter of seconds her sister exists the bathroom looking small and tired with her wet hair dripping on her oversized sweater. She scans the room slowly, somehow both hesitant and hawk-like until her eyes falls on Alex who clambers up and throws the cleaning rag in the kitchen sink.

"Let me wash my hands," she says, "then I'll take care of your hair. You can't go to bed like that, you'll wake up with a bird nest."

"Can you braid it ?" Kara asks softly, her words barely perceptible as she stares down at her hands playing with the hem of her sweater.

"Of course, anything you want," Alex replies, nudging her gently on the shoulder as she bypasses her on her way to the bathroom. "And I'm staying over," she shouts to cover the sound of running water. "I brought pyjamas and a gun."

She doesn't hear Kara's reply, there probably isn't one and it doesn't matter. Minutes later, she's running clean and dry hands through Kara's hair, gathering it in strands while her sister rests on the floor against her knees. They stay silent for a long moment but Alex doesn't mind, she feels content just being here with her sister, taking care of her and witnessing her shoulders relaxing inches by inches the longer she spends untangling her hair.

"I'm sorry," Kara says eventually, gesturing vaguely at the drying spot on the carpet.

"It's okay. Easier to clean than blood," Alex jokes. "And less scary than all the times you've died on me," she adds softly as an afterthought.

"Sorry about that too," Kara whispers.

"You don't have to apologise."

Kara sighs. "I feel like I do. I mean, everything bad that happens these days can be linked back to me. I literally bring doom wherever I go."

"You're catastrophising. You've been through a lot, lately and in general, and you're just overwhelmed. It's okay."

"I don't think it is," Kara says, "okay I mean. I don't think it's okay."

"With all due respect, you're wrong. Wanna know why ?" She doesn't give Kara enough time to answer before she goes on. "Because I'm here, with you, and I'm not resting until I personally find the creep who was here last night."

"So you believe me ?"

"Of course I do," Alex answers as softly as she can, sliding a hair tie on the tip of her wonky braid. "I just. I'm scared too you know ? I love you, and I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

"I don't want you to be scared for me."

"You can't do anything about that," Alex replies. "The only thing you can do is let me take care of you, let all of us take care of you. We worry about you, same as you worry about us. That's what family is like."

"I don't want you to worry about me." Her words come out whinny, less potent, like she knows it's not worth arguing.

Alex lightly taps her shoulder. "What did I just say ?"

"You've become too wise for me," Kara grumbles.

"I'm dating a therapist. Collateral damage was bound to happen."

At that, Kara barks out a laugh, clamping her hands on her mouth when she realises she's the one who made that sound. She twists, looking back over her shoulder and Alex takes her sister in, noticing the shadows under her eyes, and the tentative spark of amusement in them, the strength of her figure and the weariness that weights it down. She doesn't need to picture her twelve years old scared self ; beneath it all, Kara is still very much like that.