As the rest of the week went by, Lena found her anxieties beginning to ease, and Kara found that adjusting wasn't as bad as she had originally expected it to be. Andrea didn't seem to be making any new moves toward using Kara from what Lena could tell so far, and according to Lex, Gemma didn't seem to know anything of interest concerning Andrea or Kara. He, of course, wasn't asking her outright, but was instead trying to get information out of her slowly. So far, he hadn't figured out anything suspicious.
Kara, meanwhile, found that students began to ease up on her after the first few days. Once she became old news, nobody really bothered her, and the more people she helped, the less people there were that had any desire to pick on her. She'd even begun to make a few friends; Nia Nal had started to sit with Kara and Lena at lunch and shortly thereafter, Winn Schott did the same. He sat next to Kara in her history class and had offered to help her with some of the assignments when he noticed her having difficulty keeping up. The two found that they got along very well and soon, Winn started hanging out with them more.
To Lena's surprise, she actually found it nice to sit with a group of people at lunch. Nia and Winn were a lot like Kara; they'd been given the cold shoulder by almost every clique because they didn't "fit in" for one reason or another, but they were both incredibly kind people and were very reliable friends. It was new to Lena, putting her books down and engaging in normal social interactions, but for the first time in a while, she didn't feel like everything she was doing was a waste of her time.
Not to mention the fact that, even as Kara expanded her friend group and made connections with other people, when it came down to the most important things, Lena was the first person she'd turn to. The first time Lena had realized just how important she was to Kara was, ironically, the same day Kara asked Nia to sit with them at lunch for the first time. Lena was in the process of rationalizing with herself that evening, recognizing that it didn't mean Kara would leave, when she'd heard a soft knock at her door.
Lena had opened it to find Kara standing there in her pajamas, looking at her feet and avoiding eye contact. Most students were turning in for the night at that point, but Lena was still awake, sitting up in bed with a book that she had every intention of reading from start to finish that night. When she asked Kara what was up, Kara explained that Alex was already asleep, but that she was unable to fall asleep because her mind was racing with memories and she was afraid that falling asleep with her mind on the past would lead to nightmares.
"Come in," Lena had offered, and she would never forget the way Kara's eyes sparkled with gratitude as she walked into the room and the two of them took a seat on Lena's bed, propping pillows up against the wall to make it more like a sofa.
Kara had shared with Lena that nightmares were not uncommon to her. The first month she spent in America, she had had frequent nightmares, and there'd been a full week where she hadn't gotten more than two consecutive hours of sleep each night without waking up from one. They'd faded and become less common by the end of the month, but the blonde confided that she was afraid of them worsening now that she was in a new environment, and since things were finally going better between her and Alex, she didn't want to ruin it again by waking her sister up screaming in the middle of the night.
"I used to have nightmares, too," Lena had mentioned, once Kara finished venting and had calmed down somewhat. "I had memories of my biological mother that haunted me every time I closed my eyes."
"How did you get them to stop?" Kara asked, her eyes pleading for an answer.
"I never could," Lena murmured. "But, funnily enough, I was afraid of waking Lex up just as you're afraid of waking Alex up. And then one night, I accidentally did wake him up. But to my surprise, he wanted to help. He just sat with me and we talked for a while, and when he went back to bed and I went back to sleep, I didn't have any nightmares. I found that, when you're with people who care about you, they help to keep the nightmares at bay."
Lena had looked over at Kara then, and her eyes softened when they landed upon the blonde, who was leaning against the pillows with her eyes struggling to stay open. Kara had murmured something then that Lena just barely caught along the lines of "that's why I think I came here." She then asked, a bit more clearly, if Lena would read a "genius" book to her, claiming she wanted to know what Lena was always so fascinated by in them.
She'd pointed to a book that Lena was reading on ethics and moral philosophy, and Lena had agreed, grabbing the book and resettling into a position where she held the book on her lap while Kara was leaning her head against the young Luthor's shoulder. Lena began to read aloud, getting about a chapter and a half in before she became aware of soft snoring in her ear. Kara had fallen asleep, her glasses tilted on her face. Not wanting to wake up her sleeping friend, Lena had gently and carefully adjusted her into a more comfortable position before sliding into bed herself.
The next morning, she'd woken up to find Kara's arm draped over her midsection and had carefully extracted herself to get ready for the day, feeling a warmth in her chest that was unfamiliar to her. It felt good to know that she was needed by someone. And, after all, spending the night with a friend had clearly been successful; Kara hadn't been plagued by any nightmares that night.
Now, it was a Saturday, and the two girls were lounging outside in the grass by a lake near campus. Winn and Nia were with them as well but were splashing around at the edge of the lake, having finished their studying already, and Alex was relaxing against a tree nearby. The older Danvers claimed that she was accompanying them to the lake for the sole purpose of sunbathing, but Lena had a feeling she secretly enjoyed spending time with her little sister and her friends. Unfortunately, things were not very entertaining at that point in time. Kara was fighting her way through her geometry homework for the weekend while Lena absentmindedly braided her hair, giving her pointers whenever she would get really stuck.
The tranquil atmosphere was broken when Winn and Nia found an abandoned bucket for making sand castles and they decided to fill it up with water, sneaking up on Alex and dumping it on her head.
"You pipsqueaks are going to pay for that!" Alex shrieked, leaping to her feet as she started to chase the two freshmen around. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the three of them trampled past Lena and Kara, effectively managing to distract Kara and cause her to shoot into an upright position.
"Careful!" Lena said, dropping the pieces of Kara's hair she was holding just in time to avoid pulling it, "I could've ripped your hair right out of your head just now!"
But she couldn't keep the smile off of her face when Kara looked at her, beaming, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"We've been sitting for too long anyways!" she shouted with joy as she leaped to her feet and grabbed Lena's hand, pulling her along as she raced after Alex, Winn, and Nia, who were all running back toward the lake then. As soon as Winn's bare feet touched the water, Alex jumped toward him, tackling him with a splash and just barely missing Nia as she enacted her revenge.
Kara laughed gleefully as she kicked her shoes off and ran into the water as well, letting go of Lena's hand to give her time to do the same. Before Lena knew it, they were all wading in the water, engulfed in a splashing war while secretly relishing in the refreshing coolness of the water. It felt good to release their pent-up energy from school and studying and to savor the last bits of warmth and sun that summer would offer them.
When the water started to seep through their clothing and chill them down to their bones, Alex was the first to jog out of the water, calling over her shoulder that the last one to the tree she'd been sitting at was a rotten egg. The rest of them needed only to exchange determined looks before they all broke into sprints, running through the grass and up the hill to the tree in frenzied attempts to not be the last one there.
"I won!" Alex boasted proudly, reaching the tree a split second before Nia did and turning around to look at the rest of them with a triumphant smirk on her face. Kara and Lena were basically neck and neck, although Alex could tell that her little sister was keeping her powers in check and deliberately running slower to arrive at about the same time as everyone else. "I guess Winn lost," Alex added when Kara and Lena caught up to them.
"Where is Winn?" Kara asked suddenly, her demeanor instantly changing as she started looking around with her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He was nowhere to be seen between the shore of the lake where they'd just been and the tree that they'd all arrived at. She could've sworn she had seen him running with them. Hadn't he just been there a couple of seconds ago? "I'm going to look for him," Kara said, her voice suddenly very serious as she retraced her steps and walked off toward the woods in the direction she thought she'd seen him go.
"Kara, wait," Alex called as she trotted after her. "Do you really think this is a good idea? Maybe we should go back to campus and ask a teacher for help."
Kara whipped around, and Alex froze. She had never seen Kara with such an intense, serious look on her face before. If her glasses hadn't been on, Alex was sure she would've blasted heat vision out of her eyes at that moment.
"By the time we get back here with a teacher, Winn could be gone for good. He's obviously missing, so if we don't want anything bad to happen to him, we have to start looking now."
"I agree," Nia chimed in as she and Lena walked up behind Alex.
"Me too," Lena added. "We're not that far from campus. As long as we all agree not to go too far, we can go off in pairs and look for Winn. Then, we can all agree to meet back here at a certain time unless someone can alert everyone else that they've found Winn."
Alex exchanged a look with Kara. Kara couldn't keep the smug expression off of her face; she knew Alex's misgivings were that Kara could get roped into using her powers, but she was glad her friends agreed that they ought to look for him.
"Kara and I will head in this way then," the sophomore said with a sigh, caving under the hopeful looks the three younger girls were giving her. "Lena and Nia, do you want to head the other way? We can reconvene in half an hour if we don't find him before then."
They all nodded in agreement. Before turning to walk off with Alex and as Lena prepared to head off with Nia, Kara caught Lena's eye.
"Please be safe," Kara said, and Lena gave her a nod and a smile.
"You be safe, too," Lena said before turning to follow Nia and take off into the woods in search of Winn.
Alex shot a sidelong glance at Kara as the two of them headed into the trees. "You know, you're lucky Lena suggested splitting off in pairs. What were you going to do, honestly, if we find Winn and you think the best way to help him is by using your powers? I swear, you don't think at all when you rush into things."
"I was thinking!" Kara shot back defensively. "Who said I'm going to need to use my powers anyways? It's Winn. He's probably just pulling some sort of prank on us." Even as she said it, though, she had a bad feeling in her gut, and she couldn't quite bring herself to believe her own words. It was weird how Winn had disappeared, and he wasn't the type of person to pull a mean prank like this on his friends. Suddenly, Alex stopped.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Look at how the leaves are trampled over here. It almost looks like…"
"Someone or something was in a fight?" Kara finished, observing the way the branches looked like they'd been kicked and grabbed at, and frowning at the scuff marks in the dirt at their feet. "We have to go toward it," she said, and although she could tell that Alex wanted to argue, the older girl's determination broke through the confliction on her face and she gave Kara a grim nod.
Cautiously, the two of them picked their way down the trampled path, until it eventually tapered off into a clearing and it was no longer as apparent where the path led.
"I'll go left, you go right?" Alex asked, and Kara nodded. The two of them headed in opposite directions through the clearing, but it wasn't long before Kara froze at the sound of Alex's voice. "Kara!"
Turning on her heel, she couldn't control her super speed as she shot to Alex's side and skidded to a halt, looking at Alex to see what she was staring at before turning her attention in the same direction. "Oh, Rao," she choked out, her eyes wide in shock. Winn was hanging by his ankle out of a tree, swinging lightly upside down, and he appeared to be unconscious. Before Alex could stop her, Kara had whipped her glasses off and used her heat vision to burn the rope, followed by using her super speed to run and catch Winn before he hit the ground. Alex jogged after her, stopping to kneel down by them as Kara dropped to her knees, supporting Winn's head on her lap.
Winn groaned, stirring slightly, and Kara let out a sigh of relief.
"What the hell happened, Winn?" Alex asked when Winn's eyes cracked open and he managed to focus on them.
"I don't know…" Winn mumbled, "my head's a little fuzzy… Kara did you just shoot lasers out of your eyes?"
Kara glanced over at Alex, panic written all over her face.
"I, uh, I mean," Kara stammered.
"It's okay," Winn said, sitting up groggily and putting a hand on his head. "I mean… it's okay if you're an alien," he was starting to sound a bit more coherent now, but it was clear he wasn't quite his usual self. It was as if someone had hit him in the head, and thinking back to the trampled path, Kara had a feeling that wasn't such a far-fetched guess.
"I won't tell anyone," he continued. "You might've just saved my life. And, honestly, you're probably the best friend I've ever had. You're still the same Kara who needed help with history and who's kind to everyone."
Kara hugged him tightly then, and Alex was about to call her off at the sight of Winn's wince when he shot her a look that said don't and gently lifted his arms to hug her back. Alex shot him a smile and mouthed back 'thank you.'
"I'll explain everything later, I promise," Kara said as she released him. "But right now, we need to meet back up with Lena and Nia and get you to the nurse. Whoever did this to you is still out there somewhere. I'm starting to worry about the fact that we split up. Are you alright to walk?"
Winn gave her a small nod as he slowly pushed himself to his feet and gathered his bearings. The three of them took off back in the direction of the lake then, coming out of the trees just in time to see Lena and Nia appearing from the opposite side.
"Oh, thank goodness, you found him!" Lena said as the group reconvened by the lake again. "Winn, are you okay?"
"I think so," Winn said, "I can't quite recall what exactly happened. All I remember is running out of the water, and then I was fighting with someone? The next thing I knew, I was hanging upside down from a tree!"
Lena looked at Kara with an eyebrow cocked, her expression demanding an explanation. "How the hell did you get down then?"
"I climbed the tree and cut the rope. Kara was waiting at the bottom to help break his fall," Alex answered without missing a beat, pulling her pocket knife out of her jean pocket to explain how she'd cut the rope. Lena's intense look relaxed.
"Guys?" Nia interrupted the exchange suddenly, and they all snapped their attention over to her. She'd been quiet for a while, and when they looked over at her, they realized that she looked very uncomfortable and was shifting from foot to foot anxiously. "I have a really weird feeling that we're not alone."
"We should get out of here," Alex agreed. "Winn needs to be looked at anyways."
The group gathered their bookbags and headed back toward campus, and as they did so, Nia significantly relaxed and the overall mood of the group settled into a less worried one. When they got inside, Kara offered to walk Winn to the nurse, leaving the other three to head back to their rooms or, in Lena's case, head to the library. Kara and Winn made their way to the infirmary, where they explained to the nurse that some other students had played a nasty prank on Winn and strung him up from a tree by his ankle, but that the string didn't hold and he fell, hitting his head.
The nurse seemed to believe it, though she pointed out that they should bring what happened to the principal, and set to work examining Winn. After a while, the nurse explained that Winn had a concussion and would need to modify his schoolwork in the coming days while he recovered. She gave him a note to show to his teachers and informed them that they were free to leave and that she doubted it was anything worse than a mild concussion, but that Winn should come back if he began to notice any worsening symptoms.
As the two of them headed out of the nurse's office, Kara looked over at Winn. "I'm really glad you're okay," she said, and he gave her a small smile. Noticing the way her eyes averted from his, though, he frowned.
"Kara, you know I don't see you any differently, right?" he asked. "You're still my friend. And honestly, what you did today was kind of incredible."
"Everyone I've met so far who knows the truth about me has warned me not to let anything slip," Kara said, her voice quiet. "And I know, it's for my protection, and for all of my friends' protection, but when I saw you in the tree…" she choked on her words for a moment. "I can't just deny who I am, and I can't watch my friends suffer."
Winn put a hand on her shoulder. "I know who you are, Kara, and you are an amazing person. Come with me. I know where we can talk in private. You shouldn't have to deny who you are, so I want to tell me all about it."
She beamed at him and let him walk ahead of her, following along as he headed through one of the computer labs and through a trapdoor up to the roof. When she looked at him questioningly, he briefly explained that few people really used the smaller computer labs so they were really only used by students deeply interested in technology, such as him. He'd found the ladder up to the roof one day on accident, looking for a place to store some boxes that no one had thought to clear out of the lab, seeing as how not many people visited it anyways.
Sitting with his legs swinging down over the side of the building, Winn waited for Kara to get situated next to him and placed his bookbag over the trapdoor to ensure it stayed shut. Once that was done, he looked at her expectantly, waiting for the explanation she'd promised and giving her the opportunity to elaborate on her past.
"I'm from Krypton," she started uncertainly.
Winn's eyes lit up then and a huge grin spread across his face. "No way! You mean you're actually from there? Didn't Krypton explode years ago? Does that mean you're, like, the last Kryptonian?"
He stopped when he saw the sadness in her eyes, and his excited expression crumbled. "Oh, no, I'm so sorry, Kara," he said, "I'm a huge history and science nerd, and I just found the story of your planet really fascinating. I didn't consider… it must be really difficult."
"It is," she said softly, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly in an attempt to reassure Winn that she wasn't upset with him, "but I'm not the last one necessarily. My cousin, Kal-El, is still alive and well somewhere. But I think it's safe to say… we're the last two. We were sent away as it was falling to pieces. I was supposed to come here to protect my cousin, but I got stuck in the Phantom Zone for years and my aging was frozen. Something knocked my pod loose after a while and I crash landed here, on Earth, years later than I was supposed to. We didn't have a yellow sun on Krypton. That's what gives me my powers here."
"That's incredible," Winn murmured. His eyes were wide with wonder, and he was looking at her with a look of amazement written across his features. "The part about your powers, I mean. I can't believe you went through all of that… and then had to come to this school, of all places. Geez, Kara… I've known loss before but never like that… how do you stay so strong?"
"El mayarah," Kara said softly, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips. "It means 'stronger together.' It's my family's motto." Her smile spread into a full one as she looked up at the sun, leaning back on her hands and letting the sunbeams bathe her in a golden light. "They would want me to keep fighting, to keep seeking justice like they would've. They're always going to be with me."
"Wow," Winn said, looking out at the world before them as well and shaking his head, unable to wipe the astonished look from his face. "You are… really something, Kara Danvers. But you know that it's okay to grieve, right? It's healthy."
"I know," Kara reassured him, giving him a warm smile. It was the one lie that she would tell Winn. Truthfully, she hadn't adequately grieved the loss of Krypton. She had recalled her mother's voice, telling her to be strong. She had internalized the meaning of el mayarah. And with that, Krypton was a memory. Heading to Earth, entering the Phantom Zone, she had been overwhelmed by and solely focused on her mission to protect her cousin. When she awoke, it was just in time to crash land on Earth, where she was immediately ushered into a life of hiding on a new world, with new creatures and rules and customs.
There simply wasn't time for her to be upset or to pity herself about what happened. She was sent to Earth with a mission, and even if that mission was no longer viable, she was still there for a reason. It was human to grieve, perhaps. But Kara was Kryptonian. If she was going to make it on this new planet, to survive and live a full life on Earth, she would need to be entirely focused on learning Earth's ways, not dwelling on Krypton.
All of this, she kept to herself, as she sat looking out over the horizon from the rooftop with Winn. It had already been relieving to her to be able to tell someone about Krypton and not have to worry about them judging her or trying to have her killed. She didn't need to remind herself of any baggage she might potentially have, and she absolutely didn't need to put any more baggage on Winn.
After sitting for a while longer, Kara pushed herself to her feet and held out her hand to help Winn up. "We should head back inside. You ought to go back to your room and get some rest."
The two of them walked until they reached Kara's room; the girls' dormitories were on the way to the boys' side. When Kara stopped to unlock her door, Winn paused too, putting a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him, and he promptly pulled her into a hug. She was surprised for a moment, but then gave him a gentle squeeze back.
Pulling away, he gave her a small smile and a little wave. "I'll see you later, Kara."
"Thanks, Winn," she said as he walked away, though she knew she'd said it loud enough for him to hear her. Turning back to her door, she entered her room, which was empty; Alex must've gone somewhere to study or gone to get dinner. That was fine with her. Something Winn had said must've set something off in her, because she suddenly felt aware of the gravity of her loss. Crawling into her bed, she buried her face in the pillow, and using the fabric to stifle the sound so as not to alert worried neighbors like Lena, for the first time since she'd been sent off in her pod, she allowed herself to really cry over Krypton.
A/N I wasn't planning to end this chapter on such a bittersweet note but that's rly where Kara's character development told me to go hehe
What would a high school AU be without Winn? c: I'm 100% weaving this plot as I go but I'm getting lots of really exciting ideas and I'm grateful for all of your support!
I hope you enjoy & I am open to any and all feedback
Until next time!
Nana