THE PRESENT…
Barry was halfway back to Central City when the Legion Ring on his finger began pulsing rapidly. He skidded to a stop on the i70, eliciting several honks as trucks rushed past him despite the late hour. He held the ring up to his eyes and saw that the L symbol had transformed into Kara's S sigil, and it was flashing red.
Within microseconds, he had turned around and was racing back towards National City.
Kara was, to put it mildly, panicking. A little girl with golden hair and sparkling blue eyes was standing in front of her in a green night-shirt and a pair of loose tracksuit pants, staring up at Kara, searching for recognition. And she had called Kara Mom.
'Alex. I'm going to kill you.'
"Why are you going to kill Aunty Alex?" Ellie asked, frowning. She looked to the homework book in Kara's hand, and her frown deepened.
"Did I do something wrong? I promise if somethings wrong it was my fault. Aunty Alex didn't help. She only ever helps me if I can't do it on my own. She's mean like that." Ellie's eyes widened. "I didn't mean it! I swear! It just came out and I didn't think about it and it was so rude and it makes sense that I did something wrong and…" Ellie dropped her head, eyes fixed on the floor, hands trembling, and Kara finally snapped out of her haze.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. You did nothing wrong, alright?" Kara kneeled down and pulled Ellie into a hug. The girl clung to her, and Kara couldn't help the feeling of warmth that flooded through her. It was… it was almost as if her body recognised the feeling of being hugged by this girl, but her mind did not.
"Mommy's just really tired," Kara said, stroking Ellie's back. "I'm going to call your Aunty Alex and see if we can't come to a less… deadly solution, okay?" How had the girl even known that? Kara hadn't said it out loud. Of that, she was sure.
Ellie lifted her head from Kara's chest, squinting eyes searching Kara's.
"Mommy… you're scaring me," she whispered.
Kara's heart gave two quick jerks at the words.
"What's scaring you?" she asked softly. Ellie said nothing. She just kept staring into Kara's eyes. A spike of pain shot through her head, and Kara winced, stumbling backward. Ellie pulled herself from Kara's grip, and Kara watched, stunned, as Ellie's eyes shifted from blue to purple in colour.
"Who are you?" Ellie demanded, "where's my mom?"
Kara's heart started beating faster and faster, hands shaking. This was not happening. It simply wasn't. She did not have a daughter that couldn't remember her. She… she couldn't believe that.
The door swung open and Barry appeared.
"Kara! What's going…"
"Dad!" Ellie screamed, running towards Barry and jumping at him. Barry caught her reflexively, and she wrapped one arm around his neck while pointing at Kara with her other hand.
"Doppelgänger! Doppelgänger!"
Kara remained on her knees, staring forward, eyes unseeing. Mom. Mom. Mom. You're scaring me. My daughter. She had a daughter. With Barry. And nobody had thought to mention that!
Barry blinked, staring at the figure in his arms. Then he took a deep breath and knelt down beside Kara. Ellie flinched away from her.
"I can hear her, Daddy! She doesn't know me! Please, Daddy not again. Mommy, please don't leave me again."
Kara looked into those glowing purple eyes. Then, the world around her evaporated, and she was transported to another place. Another time. And she was another Kara.
THE FLASH: S4EP01 – ELLIE (PART I) (SEPTEMBER 2017)
Barry raced down East-32nd Street in Central City, wreathed in lightning. His target was an orphanage in the Roughs district near the edge of the city, and the Dark Matter explosion that just detonated there.
"Supergirl to League, I have eyes on the orphanage."
"What are we looking at Supergirl?"
"Structural damage to the north-west side and fires have broken out on the bottom floor."
"Copy that," Barry said. He zoomed down the avenue, past several poorly kept houses with boarded windows or cracked rendering, before finally spotting the orphanage.
"Ten people on the upper floors!" Kara cried out. "Arrow, I need an evac! Flash, take the bottom floors!"
Barry blasted past the fire-engines, jumping over a wall of flames and crashing through a window at superspeed. Then he entered 'Flashtime'. Everything froze. The fires, the people, the collapsing roof. He was moving so fast the world around him, Kara included simply couldn't keep up with him.
He picked his way through the floor, approaching a group of people huddling from the frames in what looked like a lounge room. An adult man, a teenage girl and three young children. Cracking his knuckles, Barry grabbed two of the kids first, then raced them to the fire truck outside. He returned for the other kid, then the adult. Finally, he grabbed the girl and flashed her outside, letting the world snap back into real-time in the process.
The girl in his arms sucked in a breath as Barry put her down and started back towards the building. An explosion echoed from the next building over, and a fire-escape fell free from the wall. An arrow shot from the building's roof, slamming into the side of the burning orphanage. It exploded, taking a chunk of the brick with it. Enough so that the falling fire-escape crashed into the wall of the orphanage, forming a bridge between the two structures. Oliver appeared, jumping off the roof and landing on the fire-escape. He slung his bow around his back and ran across the makeshift bridge, stopping halfway as a group of people rushed out. He guided them across the bridge and into a shattered window in the other building.
Barry turned to one of the fire-men.
"Get some people into that building!" he barked.
"Yes Flash!" One of the firemen said. He gestured to one of his friends and, and they broke away, racing towards the building.
"Flash," the girl breathed – Barry hadn't realised she was still gripping his arm, "you saved me."
"Yep," he said, not even noticing as the girl batted her eyelids at him.
Barry flashed back into the building, moving up the stairs to check for runners. He spotted no-one, so instead turned his attention to searching for the source of the blaze. He followed the stairs down, right into the heart of the fire. Moving as fast as he was, it wasn't hard to avoid the flames, though he could still feel the incredible heat.
He dodged the flickering tongues of fire and ran up the wall to avoid a patch of collapsed floorboards… wait, this was supposed to be the ground floor. A basement? Barry dropped back to the ground and peered into the basement. Something was giving off light down there. Gritting his teeth, he jumped into the hole.
It was much cooler down here, and Barry let himself slide back into ordinary time.
"Looks like everyone's clear," Kara said.
"I've got a secret room under the building. Possibly the source of the blast," Barry told them.
"I'll search for a back entrance. Supergirl, help Flash."
"Copy."
Barry concentrated, willing a tiny current of lightning through his left arm. The golden lightning flickered to life, providing some illumination to the space.
In the centre of the room was a large device, blackened and scorched, circular in shape but tiered like a pyramid. The apex of the machine was pointed straight at the broken roof. Several desks had been set up around it, but they'd been scattered in the blast.
A burst of air quelled the flames in the room above, and Kara dropped down into the hole, floating in the air. She powered up her eyes, providing more illumination, and Barry saw what he'd missed before. Three corpses were lying on the ground, all burnt to a crisp.
"Oh Rao," Kara breathed, touching down beside him.
"Arrow. We've got a lab down here, and several bodies. Better call in the…" Whimpers. Barry and Kara both froze, searching for a further sound.
"Hello?" Kara called, "Is anyone there? It's Supergirl!"
A soft rustling came from the other side of the room, and Barry and Kara both ran in that direction. The light from Kara's eyes revealed several children, ranging from toddlers to teens, all chained to the wall. All of them had been… deformed. Horribly. One boy's skin had been turned to solid stone, another's skin had turned a horrid purple colour, and blood was seeping from his eyes. Two young girls had somehow been fused together, and a teenage boy's eyes had burned in their sockets.
All of them were dead. At least, everyone who was left. Three more sets of restraints were fixed to the wall. One had been broken, one was sitting open, and the final set was still locked, though there was no person to be found.
"Hello?" Kara tried again. No reply. Kara panned around the room, but they couldn't find the source of the voice… until Barry refocussed on the machine. There was a disturbance on this side. It wasn't as smooth… He gasped, then raced over to the device, illuminating his arm again.
A toddler had been strapped to the machine, dozens of wires attached to her head and two intravenous lines in her arms. Her body was incredibly thin and malnourished, and she had only a grey smock covering her body. She seemed to be barely conscious, muttering silently, head sunk into her chest.
Kara let out a strangled cry, rushing over and grabbing the girl's head. She didn't' stir, and Kara made to pull the wires away.
"Wait! We don't know what it could do?!" Barry exclaimed, grabbing her hand.
The sound of a creaking door drew their attention, and light pooled into the room. There was a hallway they hadn't noticed before, and at the end of it, Oliver dropped into the basement.
"Fire's out," he said, moving towards them, then he stopped, catching sight of the girl.
"Oh crap," he muttered. But the light had illuminated something else. Tapped to the side of the machine, near the girl's head, was a sticky note with black writing on it.
See you next time, Flash.
Barry grabbed the note, and the machine jerked to life once more. Barry and the girl both screamed at the same time as the lightning in Barry's arm was sucked into the machine. Kara grabbed the girl and yanked the wires free as Oliver raced forward. The second she did so, the engine exploded. Barry, Kara and Oliver were all thrown backwards, Kara putting her body between the explosion and the girl, shielding her as she screamed.
Barry crashed into the wall, falling to the ground, groaning in pain. Oliver rolled to his feet, and Kara caught herself in the air, cape wrapped around her and the girl. The explosion funnelled upwards through the hole in the floor, dispersing, and Barry shook his head in an attempt to clear the ringing in his ears.
"Ow," he muttered, rolling over and shaking his now numb hand. Kara landed on the ground, unwrapping her cape. The girl was staring around in a panic, heavy breathing.
"Hey, hey, hey sweetheart, it's Supergirl. You're okay now. You're okay," Kara assured her, rocking the figure in her arms. Barry was instantly reminded of Jeremiah, their little boy from the Duet dreamworld.
Oliver helped Barry to his feet. "You alright?"
"Yeah," Barry grumbled. "Probably just the electromagnetic fields interacting."
The girl tucked her head into Kara's chest, calming down. Kara continued to rock her until the poor girl finally stilled, falling asleep. Kara nodded to Barry, tears in her eyes.
"Take her to STAR Labs," Barry said, "We need to know what happened to her."
"What will you do?" She whispered.
"Barry Allen is going to do some forensics on this nightmare place," he said, looking over the lab with a sour expression.
Oliver turned to Kara.
"I'll brief the cops, then meet you back at STAR." Together, the three advanced towards the open door, and out into the light.
Meanwhile, in a parallel pocket dimension, an elderly man in a hover-chair, the fastest mind alive, grinned.
THE PRESENT…
Kara sucked in a ragged breath, pulling her gaze away from Ellie's.
"Kara!" Barry reached a handout and grabbed her shoulder. A spark of yellow electricity ran down his arm and into Kara, and everything froze.
For Kara, her super hearing was on at all times. It was not something one could turn off on command. The only way she could go about her day was by ignoring it. Forcing herself to focus on the here and now. But in that second, for the first time in living memory, Kara's world fell silent. All sound simply faded out of existence. Gone, as if it had never been. She blinked, focussing on Barry's hand on her shoulder. Ellie sat, frozen, in Barry's other arm.
"Kara?" Barry asked, his voice coming crisp and clear in the silence.
"What did you do?"
"It's Flashtime. It's… It's kind of how I see the world."
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"It does have a peaceful sort of vibe to it," Barry admitted. Kara closed her eyes, then, when she thought she was just a bit more in control of herself, she looked back to the girl in Barry's arms. Hair that seemed to glow a faint golden colour at the roots. Slightly tan skin and a small crease line from what she assumed was a dimple on her left cheek that formed when she smiled. She supposed the girl did look a bit like her, though she could see nothing of Barry. But those eyes. A deep indigo colour, with a strange sparkle to them that felt unnatural.
She reached out and pressed against Ellie's skin. There was no difference Kara could detect on the surface, so, biting her lip, she pushed down just a little harder.
"What are you doing?" Barry asked cautiously.
"Testing." There was no resistance to her touch. No trace of invulnerability. She wasn't Kryptonian.
No. This girl. Ellie. She was not Kara's blood. But that didn't mean that this girl wasn't Kara's daughter. That machine… she had seen it in her mind… almost as if she had lived it…
"She's telepathic," Kara realised. "She was reading my thoughts. That's how she knew I wasn't her mother."
"Mother?" As in, she's…"
"The other Kara's daughter. The Kara I… replaced."
"Replaced? Kara, you're not making any sense."
Kara took a deep breath, feeling tears start to well up in her eyes. She turned to Barry, looking at the confusion marring his face.
"This girl. Her mother was the Kara Danvers that Oliver weaved into this world. Not me. I… By waking up here as I did, I effectively erased Ellie… my… her daughter's mother from existence. I replaced her. Oh god…" Kara's breath hitched, and she tried to pull away from Barry, but he kept his grip on her.
"I killed her mom."
"Kara you didn't…" She wouldn't hear it. Couldn't hear the words he used to placate her. All she could hear were Ellie's words.
"Mommy… you're scaring me."
Mommy. She was a mother. Against her will, her brain mutinied. She found herself analysing how the girl spoke. In rapid sentences without taking a breath. Like Kara herself often spoke when she was excited. The way she'd sought Kara's praise, then instantly tried to determine what she'd done wrong to better herself when Kara hadn't given it. That was so Barry it hurt.
"Where's my Mom?"
Kara jerked herself away from Barry, and the sounds of reality crashed back into her as the lightning pulled away. She couldn't look at the gorgeous little girl. She couldn't do it. Instead, she jumped through the nearest window, shattering it, then accelerating with a sonic boom. She had to get away. Had to… had to know that she hadn't killed Ellie's mother. Had to know if there was some way to bring that other Kara back. She needed Cisco.
THE FLASH: S4EP01 – ELLIE (PART II)
Kara laid the unconscious girl down on a bed in STAR Labs, staring down at the emaciated, pale face. It was hard to gauge her age. She was so thin and small. She could realistically be anywhere from three to five years old. What had this kid been through?
Caitlin took over, scanning the girl while Cisco typed away at his tablet.
"Weird," he muttered, scratching at his chin.
"What?" Kara asked. Caitlin was far too busy with the girl. She'd already prepped a bag of saline to try and rehydrate their sleeping patient.
"It's… It's weird," Cisco said again.
"Yes, I got that the first time," Kara noted dryly. She leaned over Cisco's shoulder, staring at the readings from Caitlin's scanners. They looked very familiar, though she couldn't place why.
Cisco furrowed his brow, before moving towards the Cortex, utterly oblivious of Kara's curiosity. He sat down at his desk, transferring the file across. Then he pulled up another one. This one she recognised instantly.
"Barry," she said.
"Mmmmm," Cisco muttered. He overlaid the two samples, and though there were differences, the similarity between the two was undeniable. Cisco started typing rapidly, and the screen next to him changed to a map of the city, several smaller windows around the edge of the screen. He hit the enter key, and the map zoomed into STAR Labs. The time code in the corner said December 14, 2013. The Day of the Particle Accelerator Explosion. A shockwave emerged from the facility, and the map zoomed out as the wave covered the city. As it moved, several pins dropped, the accompanying flags displaying names of various metahumans the Flash had either faced or met. She even saw Barry's own pin, marked by an abnormally large dark matter signature. The lightning bolt.
The map continued to shrink as the shockwave lessened in strength and moved further out. Then Cisco paused it, and Kara looked closer. He was staring at another dark matter signature, over a hospital near the edge of the city. It was almost an exact match to Barry's.
"Cisco…" Kara started, but the genius ignored her again. He returned his attention to the screen, using Felicity's hacking app to search through personnel files of people in the hospital, trying to match faces to the girl currently in Caitlin's ICU.
"Yahtzee!" he exclaimed, slumping back in his chair.
"Caitlin! You gotta see this!" He called. Caitlin appeared a moment later. Cisco cast the files to one of the larger monitors, and Kara could finally see what exactly he'd found.
Barry knelt with Joe and Captain Singh beside the burnt machine.
"Any ideas, Allen?" Singh asked.
Barry threw his hands up in the air.
"I'm no experimental physicist or quantum mechanics technician, Captain," he admitted, "I'm way over my head here."
"Can you give me a guess?" He asked. That was one of the many things Barry liked about the Captain. The man expected the best, but he didn't expect you to be an expert about things you knew nothing about.
"I think that this device was supposed to harness the powers of that girl the Green Arrow told us was strapped to it." Barry gestured to the now loose wires and drains. He'd already inventoried the place and taken photos for Cisco and Caitlin.
"How I don't know, and I can't really speculate without knowing who the girl was or why she was important. That being said, I'm glad she's with the Flash and his people because I doubt we'd have the means to help her." Barry glanced to Joe, who rolled his eyes at that comment.
"Agreed," Singh said, gesturing for Barry to continue.
"My best guess is that, whoever these people were, they were trying to use the girl to create new Metahumans."
"Great," Joe grumbled, "Just what we need."
"But they failed, and caused the explosion?" Singh asked.
Barry hesitated, glancing towards the mutilated corpses still strung up on the wall. They looked even more disturbing in the light.
"Caused the explosion, yes. Failed? I don't think so. Not entirely." He gestured towards the empty places.
"Three survived. One broke free of the restraints, another managed to remove themselves without opening them – most likely a result of their metahuman power – and a third opened them the old-fashioned way." Singh and Joe shivered, and Barry led them over to the charred corpses on the floor.
"I won't be able to get any identifiers from these guys," Barry explained, "Dark Matter burns aren't like regular fire. It warps the DNA and corrodes the bone, so even dentures won't provide a very accurate profile. At this level of saturation? Well, to be honest, it's a miracle there are even bodies to be found."
Barry stood up, dusting off his hands. "I've collected samples anyway, but don't get your hopes up."
Singh nodded. "Good work Allen." Then he moved away to speak to the fire-chief.
"STAR Labs?" Joe asked.
Barry nodded.
"I'll meet you there. Gotta drop this off at the precinct first…"
STAR Labs had changed the past few months. No longer was the facility in disrepair, locked down by FEMA. Instead, the metal gates had been torn down, the holes in the roof patched, security upgraded. The building had even received a paint job. For the first time since the disaster, STAR truly resembled the powerhouse it had once been.
Thanks to the founding of the Justice League, the superhuman community was growing larger by the month as new heroes came out of the woodwork. And thanks not only to its connection to Metahumans and Team Flash but also its central and easily accessible location, the facility was becoming a sort of hub, where all the Justice League members could regularly meet up. It even contained a dedicated team training room now. Harry, Cisco, Felicity and Winn had teamed up to build it; Barry was still nursing bruises from the last session. Not only that, but with the Speed Canon in the basement, it was also the gateway to the Multiverse, something that was becoming harder and harder to hide the existence of.
Leaving the building in disrepair had become a sort of non-option. Between Kara's epic marketing and administration skills learnt at the side of Cat Grant and Felicity's ability to manipulate the digital realm, they'd managed to get the federal regulations banning STAR from use lifted. That meant they could start actual research once more, instead of living only off the money they made from STAR Labs licensed patents. Then, with a recently 'resurrected' Ray Palmer's money, they'd put construction crews to work rebuilding the place. Team Flash had needed to move to a backup lair (which Oliver had chosen for them, after a long lecture about how they should have already made one) for a few months. Now they were back, and once again thanks to Kara's reporting and contacts, they'd even managed to avoid a media outcry. Cisco and Caitlin had then spent the next month preparing several of their inventions from the first few years – ones that didn't expose their Metahuman or Multiversal operations – for public reception. The plan was to start making real money again by Christmas.
Barry flashed into the Cortex to find Oliver, Cisco, Caitlin, Kara and Joe waiting for him.
"So, where's our mystery girl?" he asked.
"Sleeping," Caitlin said, "She's incredibly weak. Judging by her Vitamin D deficiency, I'd guess she was down in that lab for at least a month. Perhaps longer." Barry winced.
"That's disgusting. We've got to find out who's behind this and stop them before they try again."
"Agreed," Joe mirrored, "but we don't have any leads. At least not until you knuckleheads figure something out." He gestured to Cisco and Caitlin.
They all fell silent.
"What?"
Cisco pressed a button on his tablet, and a woman's face appeared on the large overhead monitor. She was young, perhaps a little younger than Barry, with brown hair and bright blue eyes.
"Meet Mira Ardern, a college student at Central City University, studying Quantum Field Theory."
"Should I know her?" Barry asked.
"No," Caitlin said, "she died four years ago."
"The night of the Particle Accelerator Explosion," Cisco added. Barry bit his lip.
"The girl's related to her?"
"We can't be certain," Caitlin said, "But we think, based on the genetic markers and… other evidence… that she's her daughter."
"Born at the exact same time a bolt of lightning from the storm struck the hospital Mira was in. A massive spike of Dark Matter saturated the building, and Miss Ardern died in childbirth. The child, and this is where things get really interesting, was born with glowing hair."
"Jesus," Joe whispered. "What happened to her?"
"She was discharged into the care of the father, one Brian Eccleston. No further records of the girl exist, and Eccleston left town within a month of the explosion," Caitlin said, and Barry let out a shuddering breath.
"So, we have a metahuman baby, who was never registered and an absentee father. Doesn't take a genius to guess what happened to her."
"She was abandoned probably," Oliver said, "There's no way to know what happened after that. Not without speaking to the girl."
"Barry," Kara said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "there's another thing." Caitlin took the tablet from Cisco, putting up a new screen. It contained two cellular break downs. One he recognised as his own, another was different.
"The other sample is one I took from our mystery girl a few minutes ago," Caitlin said, "they're almost identical."
"Her cells appear to be generating some kind of energy and storing it, like your cells do, in the cytoskeleton. But the output ratio is vastly different. Barry… I think we might have just discovered the existence of another force."
THE PRESENT…
Barry stared out the window, through which Kara had vanished. A daughter? Dad. This girl, this telepathic girl, had called him Dad. Instantly, his battles with the Thinker and experience with Cecile came to his mind, and he immediately sped up his thoughts. It wasn't much and didn't require a lot of concentration, but the Speed Force would protect him from having his mind read. He had a feeling that would be a bad idea.
"Dad?" Ellie whispered, shifting in his arms to stare up at him. Her eyes changed back to blue, and the glow at the roots of her hair faded away. Barry looked into her eyes, and his heart almost shattered at the look of utter fear there. He knew that look. He'd seen it in the mirror after his parents had been snatched away from him. After Zoom had killed his father. It was the look of terror only someone who had experienced horrors before, and was now witnessing the same thing happen all over again could create. God, what had this poor girl seen? She couldn't be more than seven!
And Kara… she had gotten a glimpse of something when Ellie looked into her mind. But what? Why had she fled? As much as he wanted to, he couldn't chase her right now. Not that he'd be able to find her anyway most likely. No. The girl was the most pressing thing. The most important thing.
Had Barry been thinking clearly, he most likely would have noticed how, within seconds, this tiny person had become as important to him as anyone in his previous life had ever been. Justifiably, given his track record, this should have been a significant cause for alarm.
But Barry was not thinking clearly. So instead, he stood up, Ellie's face buried in his chest, and grabbed Kara's phone, dialling Alex.
THE FLASH: S4EP01 – ELLIE (PART III)
Barry sat in his office at CCPD, staring blankly at the pages on his desk. He was supposed to be running the victim's DNA, but all he could think about was that little girl.
A new force. The Speed Force wasn't alone. How had they missed that?! It was so incredibly obvious it wasn't funny! Of course, there would be more than one cosmic force out there.
The question he kept asking himself was, what does it do? The Speed Force's job was to ensure that time continued moving forward, stopping the fourth-dimension from collapsing into the third. Arguably, this was a rather important task, so the force that the girl was linked too must have some integral job as well.
He didn't know how long he sat there, only stirring when two hands fell on his shoulders and began massaging them.
"Thanks," he whispered, eyes closed.
"You looked like you need it," Kara said softly, and he could hear the slight smile in her voice. "Oliver's gone back to Starling. Mayor stuff. I tell you, Cisco cannot get that transmat tech finished soon enough."
"This girl Kara… she could be the key to yet another incredible door that will tear open our understanding of reality. The Speed Force can do so much… what can this new power do? Not to mention, who is after her? What happened in that lab? The machine was fried. I have no idea how it worked, and I doubt Cisco will be able to figure it out either."
He sighed, leaning back into her expert touch. "Kara… I'm scared. This… this screams that there's a new player out there. The note? The girl? Whoever this new threat is… they knew we'd find the lab. Counted on it even. This has been planned for a long time. I… I can't deal with a planner. Not again."
"Then we throw whoever it is off their game from the start," Kara said, and Barry cracked an eye, staring up into his girlfriend's gorgeous face. Once again, he was reminded of the ring sitting, hidden, in a lead-lined box in his desk drawer. Felicity, Sara, Alex and Caitlin had travelled back to the 1920s with him on the Waverider to help him choose it.
"What do you mean?"
Kara bit her lip.
"Well… I mean… We stopped using protection two months ago, and we haven't had any success yet. Maybe… maybe we help this girl. Adopt her. She's obviously important to this person's plan. We can both take care of her. Protect her." She paused for a second before continuing.
"Alex will be more than willing to help too. She's always wanted kids… always wanted to be a mother figure, but with her job, it just wasn't in the cards, and Maggie doesn't want kids… Maybe it could give her some closure." She trailed off, eyes unfocussed, attention elsewhere, and Barry found himself considering her words. They hadn't had any success in… that area. Though not for lack of trying. Threats had dialled back, and with the Justice League, they had protocols in place for dealing with major enemies. Maybe this time it wasn't the Flash that needed to save the world. Perhaps it was Barry Allen who could be there for this little girl. He smiled at Kara, still looking into the middle-distance. She would be a brilliant mother.
"Okay. Let's do it. You're right. There's no better way to protect her. And… well, with you as a Mom? I can't imagine anyone better to pull her out of the darkness she's been trapped in."
Kara beamed, then leaned down and kissed him.
God, he loved this girl.
Barry and Kara were sitting beside the STAR Labs hospital bed when their young charge finally stirred. She awoke slowly, then, like a rabbit fleeing headlights, she jerked upright and scooted away from them.
"Hey, hey… it's alright sweetie, it's alright." Kara said, holding out her hands. She and Barry wore their civilian clothes.
"Who… where am I?"
"You're in our secret-headquarters," Barry said, smiling softly as the girl's bright blue eyes scanned the room, then focussed on Barry and Kara. "My name's Barry, this is Kara. But, you'd know us better as…"
Barry's words trailed off as the girl's eyes flashed violet, the roots of her hair emanating with a soft golden light for a few moments.
"Supergirl and the Flash," she finished, fear shifting to awe. Kara reached out and took her hand.
"What's your name?"
The girl paused, once again scanning Kara's face. Her eyes flickered between blue and violet, then her body deflated, and she relaxed into Kara's grip.
"Ellie."
"Just Ellie?" The girl paused.
"The nuns called me Elizabeth, but I like Ellie," she said simply.
"Ellie it is then," Kara said, smiling.
"Ellie, do you know what happened to you?" Barry asked softly. He sat down on the bed beside her, and Ellie leaned into him.
"I… The nuns at the orphanage. They started acting strange a little while ago. They… they didn't like me very much."
"Because of your gift?" Kara sat down on Ellie's other side, still holding her hand. Ellie nodded.
"I can… hear things. Things I'm not supposed to. Understand things I shouldn't." A telepath. That was cool. Ellie turned sharply towards Barry, eyes violet.
"You really think?" she asked, a pleading look in her eyes.
"You bet. You're just like us. I'm super-fast, she's super strong, and you can hear thoughts. It's not so different." Ellie practically beamed.
"I'm just like you?"
"You bet," Kara said, running her free hand through Ellie's hair. "A superhero in the making."
Ellie rested her head on Barry's chest, eyes drooping.
"Ellie? Before you go to sleep, can we ask you something?" Kara whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Would you like to come home with us?" Ellie froze, then looked Kara in the eye.
"You mean it? You'll be my… I've never had a mom." Tears started running down Kara's face, and she pulled Ellie and Barry into a hug. They lay like that for a long time, as both Kara and Ellie fell asleep, and Barry held them both. At one point, Cisco, Caitlin and Joe came to check on them, but they left without a word. Though there was most certainly a tear in Joe West's eye.
THE PRESENT…
Alex opened the door to Kara's apartment, hair dishevelled and eyes frantic.
"Ellie? Is she okay?"
Barry was sitting at Kara's counter, nursing the bottle of Okaran Rum.
"Asleep. I managed to explain that Kara's just had an accident with time-travel. She seemed to understand."
Alex released a long breath of relief.
"Thank Rao," she muttered, "Barry… I'm so sorry. I just assumed Ellie was yours in your history too. I mean, you and Kara weren't together over there, but I didn't realise neither of you'd have no idea who she was." She slumped into the seat beside Barry.
"Where's…"
"Kara? No idea. She jumped out the window and vanished." He gestured behind him to a shattered window that Alex had been too frantic to notice before. He turned to her, locking eyes with hers.
"Alex. Tell me everything you know about my daughter."
Authors Notes:
You get this chapter earlier because we felt bad for last week's cliffy. More on Ellie's origin and connection will be revealed in the next chapter, which we're proud to say will feature Lena's first on-screen appearance! That being said, because we have to rewrite a significant part of the Thinker and Reign plots, it might take a few weeks. Here's a question, did you guys want shorter chapters more regularly, or the longer ones we've been doing every couple of weeks?
We also have some big news. We have been working hard for over a year now on the draft of our original novel. Approximately one month ago, we completed this draft and submitted it for review to certain people whom we cannot name. Then, a week ago, we received some excellent news that, once again, we can't tell you. We would love to give you guys a taster, but because of Copyright, we can't.
Furthermore, we will be participating in the Jericho Writers Summer Festival of Writing running from June to September. For you guys, that means we might try our hands at Oneshots from time to time to flex our writing muscles or try out new techniques. If any of you are aspiring writers of your own, here is a link for you to check out (just remove the spaces).
jerichowriters festival-of-writing/
Thanks so much for all your fantastic and awesome reviews! They really do warm the heart every time they trickle into our inbox. We always reply to your reviews, but because of the new Fanfiction . net guidelines, they won't send you emails to notify you of our replies, so you'll need to check your account.
To our Guest reviewers, please, please create an account so we can answer you! It takes only a few minutes.
To Guest from April 27: Thank you so very much for your praise, good-sir or madame. We're sorry for making you wait so long for chapter 6, and, though we would apologise for the cliff-hanger… It would be a lie, so we won't. Take care, and make sure you stay just as safe.
Finally, a shout-out to AmayaBlack, who released an awesome answer to the original challenge prompt a few days ago on FFN and Archive. Go check it out!
With love, Ghost and Miracle.