Sitting on her bed, Kara peeked out the window and did a once over of the room before carefully slipping her glasses down her nose and using her heat vision to warm up the cup of tea in her hands. She practically jumped out of her skin, nearly spilling the hot liquid all over her, when the door opened and Alex walked in, tossing her backpack down at the foot of her bed and shooting Kara a dirty look.

"Really? Didn't my dad tell you not to use your powers at school? If you're not careful, everyone's going to know that you're an alien, and it's not my job to protect your weirdo secrets." Her tone was bitter, and Kara felt a tinge of sadness hit her. She really wanted Alex to like her. She'd always wanted a sister, and now that she had the opportunity, she'd been eager to get to know Alex. But, despite agreeing to let Kara room with her at school, Alex was still very upset about having to share her family with a new sibling that wasn't even human.

"My tea was cold," Kara offered in a small voice, knowing even as she said it that the excuse was going to fall flat, "and no one was around. I'm sorry, I didn't think anyone other than you would see."

"Whatever," Alex said, her voice revealing that she was annoyed as she sprawled out on her bed and scrolled absentmindedly through her phone. "Do whatever the hell you want. When you get caught, it's your funeral."

Kara huffed, sipping her tea as she went back to reading the book in front of her. It was on basic American history, but seeing as how she knew nothing about it, she had a lot of catching up to do. She wondered how Lena was able to read books so quickly, and read them just for fun. Every time she finished a paragraph, she found herself getting distracted and wanting to go do something else. Sitting still and learning things that she was supposed to already know wasn't exactly the most fun thing she'd ever done.

She was trying her best to stay focused, but boarding school was proving to be a challenge and it had only been the first day. She'd only been on Earth, awake, and out of her pod since the end of June. She'd had a month to adjust to things before she was sent off to school. Jeremiah had taught her everything he could in that amount of time and explained that boarding school would help her adjust to being around people her age and he believed it would help her keep her powers hidden, as aliens were often not admitted to nice private schools like Mount Helena.

A month hadn't been a sufficient amount of time for her to get over the loss of Krypton, though, and now she was forced to play catch-up in classes while the thought of her parents, family, friends, planet having been utterly destroyed raced around her head and begged her for attention. The teachers were going easy on her, of course, believing that she had come from another country which taught a much different curriculum than the American curriculum, so she wouldn't be expected to finish certain tests like history and English in the same amount of time as other students, but that didn't change the fact that most people at least had some basic knowledge—she had none.

She was reading about America's involvement in World War II and the atrocities committed during the Holocaust when she started to feel sick to her stomach and shut her book. Images flashed in her mind of her mother, father, and Aunt Astra. Hopping off of her bed, she haphazardly set the half-finished cup of tea down on her desk and walked briskly out of the room, making her way toward the communal bathrooms with a bit of haste in her step. The world in front of her looked fuzzy, and it was all she could do to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. About half way down the hall, she collided with something solid, stumbling backward as she bit out a quick apology.

"Kara? You okay?"

Kara looked up, surprised to hear Lena's voice. "I, um," she looked around quickly, feeling as if the walls were closing in. She needed to be outside. Everything was tight and small; too tight and small. All she could think of was Krypton. She may as well have been back in her pod. "Yeah, I just, uh, I need to… to…" She was hardly aware that her breath was coming out in quick pants now and her hands and shoulders were trembling.

Lena frowned, taking Kara's wrist and gently tugging her through a doorway and into another dorm room, although this one only had one bed in it and was decorated in much more plain, modern colors and objects than Kara and Alex's room was. Lena guided her over to a desk chair, where Kara sat without argument, her terrified blue eyes trained on something distant, invisible.

Kara was aware of Lena moving around her physically, but mentally, she was elsewhere entirely. She remembered vividly being back in her pod, trapped, unable to escape, unable to help her world as everything erupted into flashes of bright, fiery light and perished before her very eyes. Alura, Astra, Zor-El… she had promised her mother she wouldn't fail, and then she disappeared into the Phantom Zone for years. Her whole purpose—to protect her cousin—was obsolete. She had failed them. They died in vain. It should've been someone else in the pod, someone who knew what they were doing. She should've gone down with the rest of Krypton, stood alongside her people one last time.

"Kara."

Kara, the trip will be long, but you will sleep for most of it, and we will be with you in your dreams.

"Kara. Hey."

The yellow sun will give you extraordinary abilities on this planet.

"Kara!" The sudden sharpness of Lena's voice snapped Kara out of her daze. She blinked a few times to see a very concerned Lena on her knees in front of her so that she'd be eye-level with her sitting in the desk chair. Her mind slowly made the connection that she was at school, and that Lena wasn't her aunt or her mother. A wave of emotion hit her like a train then, and Kara lurched forward into Lena's arms, sobbing.

Lena froze for a moment, her limbs robotically remaining at her sides and her eyes wide as they flicked around in confusion. She didn't know how to react to someone… hugging her? Uncertainly, she lifted her arms and patted Kara's back, her movements a bit awkward as she tried to figure out what the right thing to do was. When her hand brushed Kara's soft blonde hair, she started to comb through it gently with her fingers, remembering that her biological mother had once done that when she was little to calm her down.

Slowly, Kara's crying subsided, and Lena felt her tense muscles start to relax. Letting go of her vice grip on Lena, which the young Luthor had been surprised to find was incredibly strong, Kara sat back in the chair, wiping the tears off of her cheeks.

"S-sorry," Kara mumbled. "I was trying to get to the bathroom."

"Why, so you could go through this alone?" Lena asked incredulously. "No way. What was that? Where did you go just now? Are you okay?"

Kara started to whimper again under the sudden interrogation, so Lena quickly stopped her flow of questions, instead allowing Kara the space to explain on her own terms. When the blonde was able to compose herself, she spoke again.

"I was… reading about… the Holocaust and it…" she started to choke, forcing herself to keep the words coming, "…reminded me of my family…"

"Oh, Kara, I'm so sorry," Lena murmured, her usually cold, calculating eyes softening. "I can understand how reading something like that must've hit close to home. That's not something you should deal with by yourself, though. Believe me, I know. I didn't want to confide in anybody for a long time. But the more you bottle things up, the worse everything feels."

Kara was silent for a moment, looking at her hands in thought. She knew Lena was right, but what could she do? The story she'd given Lena about her origins had just barely brushed the surface of the incredible loss she'd really faced. An entire planet… a planet she loved dearly and wanted to serve, to protect. To confide in anyone about that, she'd have to go against everything she'd been told to do for her safety and the safety of everyone who knew her.

"Yeah," Kara said finally, her voice small and somewhat hesitant. "You're right. Thanks for being here, Lena. It's nice to not be alone right now."

"Of course, Kara. And, listen, I know you and Alex don't get along great. If you ever need an escape, I'm right down the hall. You never need to ask. Okay?"

Kara nodded, wiping the last few stray tears off of her cheeks. "I should go now though," she said, "I'm sorry that you had to deal with something like this. You probably just wanted to read."

Lena chuckled. "Actually, I'm just getting back from a game of chess with Lex, so you were in luck. You caught me while I was completely free! But, really, don't consider yourself an inconvenience. Nobody should go through loss alone."

"Thanks," Kara said, giving her a small smile. "I really appreciate your help, Lena," she added as she stood, getting a grasp of her bearings before she made her way toward the door. Lena gave her a soft 'you're welcome,' in response, and Kara shot her a tired smile as she left the room, shutting the door behind her with a quiet click.

Lena let out a breath as Kara exited, running a hand through her hair. She felt conflicted. Something about Kara was intoxicating to her. Perhaps it was the way she always smelled of warm honey and vanilla, or the way her eyes seemed to always sparkle with energy and determination. Or perhaps it was because she was able to see Lena for who she was rather than what Kara assumed she'd be. Realistically, Lena figured, it was a combination of all of those things. She had sworn she wouldn't make another friend after Andrea. But Andrea was cold, manipulative. Kara didn't seem to have a mean bone in her body.

Lex and Lena had discussed their first day of school over a game of chess, as she'd mentioned to Kara, a tradition of theirs to unwind and check in with one another after a day of classes. Lex had eagerly informed Lena about the girl he had the hots for, sophomore Gemma Cooper, and boasted about the fact that she had been batting her eyelashes at him for an entire class. Lena laughed a little, but surprised her brother by saying that she, too, had met someone that seemed trustworthy and who she could maybe get along with.

"Oh? Could it be? You're finally making friends? How wonderful, who is it?" Lex had asked, teasing her until she interrupted him and told him about the new girl, Kara Danvers. She explained that the two of them had a lot in common and that she felt like it was much different than her friendship with Andrea had been. It felt less forced, and unlike with Andrea, she didn't feel like she had to look over her shoulder constantly when it came to Kara.

To her surprise, Lex had encouraged it. He pointed out that in a couple of years, he'd be graduating, and he wouldn't be around to spend time with Lena as often. He'd be out in the world, pursuing his dreams of being a hero. When that happened, he explained, he wanted her to have people she could still turn to. She was going to spend two years in high school without him; she was going to need a support system.

Having her brother's blessing, Lena felt much better about pursuing a friendship with Kara. She was still hesitant. After all, it seemed as though every time she got close to someone, things went horribly, horribly wrong. She had pretty much convinced herself that everyone was a compulsive liar and that she should take everything anyone told her with a grain of salt. She was never quick to believe people or fall into traps. She would sooner do the research herself to find an answer to something than trust someone else to give her the correct answer.

But then, walking back to her room and seeing Kara in the midst of some sort of panic attack in the hall, her concerns had instantly faded. She had jumped into action, getting the blonde out of the way of prying eyes and doing everything she could think of to help Kara calm down. While speaking to her after she calmed down enough to talk, Lena's words came to her with ease, and she found herself speaking before she had had time to carefully select her responses. Now, even if they weren't yet friends, Lena had definitely changed things.

Kara, meanwhile, made her way slowly back to her and Alex's room. She was torn between wanting to crawl into her bed and hide and wanting to stay away so that Alex wouldn't see her post-meltdown and bother her about it. Her rocky relationship with Alex so far was not what she had in mind when the DEO agents had told her she'd be getting a sister as well as adopted parents.

She finally settled on returning to the room. Walking in, Alex looked up at her. Kara kept her head down, going over to her bed and failing to notice that Alex did a double take.

"Whoa. You good?" Alex asked.

Kara looked over at her with a confused expression. She hadn't expected Alex to show her any kindness. "I miss Krypton," she said in a steely voice as she crawled into her bed. She wanted Alex to know that it was serious, and that she wasn't in the mood to be teased, and she figured if she was dead honest, then the true gravity of the situation would settle and the older girl would leave her alone.

She was right to some degree, but she wasn't expecting the reaction Alex had.

"Oh. Well, look, I know no one else knows. As long as you don't try to sit by me in class ever again… I'm here if you ever really need to talk to someone."

"Deal," Kara replied, feeling a bit of surprise and exhaustion roll over her as her head settled on the pillow. In record time, the darkness of sleep encompassed her.

Kara stood in her room overlooking the city, her long white dress sweeping the ground as she twirled and danced, laughing gleefully. She had not a care in the world, and was enjoying life like a normal kid should. She was excited because her Aunt Astra would be visiting that evening, and she would get to spend time with both her parents and her aunt.

Walking to her window, she knelt next to it, taking in everything outside. Pods and aircraft flitted to and fro in the sky. The soft hum of the hustle and bustle of Kryptonians going about their day-to-day activities filled her ears, and she smiled to herself, imagining what all of the different people were doing. Things were extraordinarily normal, and she was loving every bit of it.

She felt at peace, a breeze gently brushing her hair out of her face as she took in a deep breath of the familiar, welcoming air. This was home. This was…

Kara woke up from her dream with a troubled expression on her face. Glancing out the window, she saw the stars and the moon in the sky. It was nighttime now, and a hush had fallen over campus. A soft chorus of crickets and frogs blended into the background. Kara remembered the feeling of the breeze against her face in the dream, the smell of Krypton. Walking to the window, she opened it, sticking her head out and feeling the wind against her face.

Suddenly, she had an idea, one that she knew she'd be in big trouble for if anyone found out about it. She glanced over her shoulder at Alex, who was asleep in her bed, soft snores easily picked up by Kara's super hearing. Everyone was asleep. Their window was facing the back of campus; nobody would be walking back there. Just once… she wanted to see what she could do. Hesitantly, she put one foot up on the windowsill.

"What do you think you're doing?" Alex's voice was low, quiet. Kara froze. When had she woken up? "If you fly, you're so screwed."

Kara suddenly felt a surge of confidence and defiance. "Come with me," she said, looking at Alex with a wild, excited look on her face that Alex had never seen before. "You can be my lookout. Unless you're a chicken."

Alex's face turned bright red. "I'm not a chicken!"

"Then come with me!"

For a moment, they stared at each other, Kara with the wild grin still spread wide across her face, the dream still fresh in her mind and the breeze invigorating her, Alex staring at her like she'd grown a second head. But then, the older girl slid out of bed and quietly walked over to the window. Her eyes held a nervous gleam to them, but Kara could see something else under that gleam: excitement. She felt it too.

Alex put a foot up on the windowsill next to hers, and Kara wrapped a protective arm around her waist.

"Hang on," Kara whispered, barely able to keep her voice down in her excitement. Stepping out of the window, she shot up into the air, flying over the treetops around the edges of campus and eventually crash-landing on the beach. She stumbled to a halt, rolling herself quickly under Alex to break her fall. Sitting up in the sand, the two of them stared at each other, wide-eyed, before bursting into rambunctious laughter.

"That was amazing!" Alex exclaimed, her eyes ablaze with excitement now. "Kara, you're—" she paused, as though the reality of what she was about to say was really hitting her. Breathlessly, she finished, "amazing."

Kara grinned. "Isn't it fun?" she said. "I knew you'd like flying." She had her hands on her hips and was giving Alex a smug grin.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Fine, you win this one. It's really fun."

Standing, Kara rolled up the bottoms of her pajama pants and ran into the waves that were licking the edge of the shore, laughing as she did so.

"Come on!" she waved to Alex, who scrambled to her feet and followed her lead. The two of them splashed in the waves, laughing and enjoying the waves on their feet for a while before tiredness started to seep back into their bones and they made their way back up the beach.

"We should head back," Kara commented. Alex agreed and the two of them flew back, the landing significantly better than the first one now that Kara knew what to expect when landing. Making sure to be quiet as they moved around the room, they both changed out of their now soaked pajamas into dry ones and brushed the sand off of their feet and legs onto towels. Once they'd both gotten back into their beds, Kara heard Alex's voice float over from her side of the room.

"Hey, Kara? I'm sorry about the way I've been treating you. You're not so bad… I just wasn't really prepared to get a new sibling, you know?"

"I get it," Kara said. "I mean, it was completely random timing and totally unexpected. You have every right to be upset about it."

"It was out of your control, too, though," Alex said, guilt creeping into her tone. "I shouldn't have been so quick to judge you. Anyways… this school is really cliquey, so I might not be able to get all of my friends to lay off you super easily, but I can try. And as for us… would you still have me as a sister?"

"Of course," Kara said, her huge smile evident in her voice. "I'd love that."

A few minutes later, Alex's light snoring alerted Kara to the fact that she was asleep, and Kara chuckled to herself. "Goodnight, Alex," she murmured as she settled back into bed and drifted back off to sleep herself.

…

The next morning, Lena noticed that Kara was not nearly as energetic as she had been the day before. Instead of fidgeting and looking at everything except for the textbook, she had her head leaning on one hand, and her eyes kept drifting shut before she'd shake herself awake. Her hair was even messier than it had been the day before, and Lena kept having to nudge Kara whenever the teacher's eyes would glance over in their direction to get her to lift her head and look like she was paying attention

"Rough night?" Lena asked curiously as she nudged Kara for the third time.

"Something like that," Kara mumbled. "I just didn't get much sleep."

The class continued to go on that way until the end, when even while walking out of the room, Kara seemed to have her head in the clouds. Lena eyed her curiously, wondering to herself what had kept the blonde from getting enough sleep to so much as function relatively normally, but figuring it was best not to ask. She tended to act in similar ways when she didn't get much sleep, and she didn't typically like to talk to people about the nightmares that led to that, so she could understand wanting to keep it private.

Her eyes trailed after Kara until she turned off down a different hall to go to another class. Deciding that it didn't make sense for her to worry about it just then, Lena snapped her attention away and made her way to her own class, thinking that if it were a big deal they would be able to talk about it during lunch. Tucking her new book on genetic modification under her arm, she forced herself to get excited about that and not dwell on the issue any longer.

Kara, meanwhile, was headed to her class when a hand reached out and yanked her off to the side into a janitor's closet. The door slammed behind her, and she whipped around to realize she was in the dark. A soft 'click' could be heard as someone else in the room turned the light on, and she was confused when she found herself face to face with a girl with platinum blonde hair and ruby red lips curled into a menacing smirk.

"Well, well, if it isn't the new kid, Kara Danvers," the girl said, her voice silky and smooth to a point that Kara found incredibly unnerving. "I'm Gemma. I believe we have much to discuss."

A/N Thank you all for reading so far! Things are about to pick up pace, exciting!

I'm posting this chapter a bit early to get the exposition up and running, but once the ball is rolling, expect updates at least once, probably twice a week!

Thank you all for the kind feedback so far. I am grateful for any kind words as well as constructive criticism y'all may have.

Until next time!

Nana