"I was working on a project with Andrea earlier," Kara said casually as she and Lena walked into her room and the two of them worked on setting up a fold-out table for everyone to use for games. "I'm surprised you two aren't friends." Kara kept her gaze averted for the most part, but her blue eyes glanced over when she said Andrea's name to see if there was any reaction on Lena's face. She thought she saw a tense look cross Lena's features for a moment, but as soon as she thought she'd seen it, it was replaced by an impenetrable calm.

"What was your project on?" Lena asked, cutting around Kara's comment about her not being friends with Andrea.

"Oh, it's actually really neat!" Kara said, smiling. "It's for the general business class I'm taking, we have to present on how a certain product is produced, so we did ours on computers over time! It seemed like something you'd be interested in. It probably would've been a lot better if you were the one working with Andrea on it, she already understands it way more than I do."

Lena chuckled. "Don't sell yourself short. I'm ahead in business and technological classes because my parents forced me to learn about that stuff at a young age. Andrea is probably in a similar boat." She was suspicious now that Kara was deliberately mentioning Andrea to try to find out if they had a history. Lena felt a shiver run down her spine. Had Andrea mentioned something about when they were friends? Lena knew that she hadn't done anything wrong in her and Andrea's relationship, but did Kara?

Suddenly, the door opened to reveal Alex carrying a heavy tote making clinking noises, Nia with a few party games, and Winn, who was holding a stack of board games and card games. Alex gave them a mischievous grin as she swung the tote onto her bed. The door clicked shut and she swung the contents out of the bag—two bottles of wine, one white and one red, and a bottle of inexpensive scotch.

"We're not party animals, folks, but it's not game night without drinks," Alex announced, grabbing a pack of red solo cups from a storage unit under her bed. It was no surprise to Lena that Alex was stocked up on party supplies given the people she tended to hang out with. "Obviously, Winn can't drink, so no pressure, but I figured some wine sipping would be nice. And Lena," she said, pointing at the Luthor, "you struck me as a scotch girl, and Kara is a tank, so you two can split that bottle if you want."

"Kara, a tank?" Nia asked, laughing, but Alex shot her a look that read I am absolutely not kidding.

"When I first moved here, I may have accidentally drunk a lot of wine… like a lot of wine, and I was barely tipsy," Kara said sheepishly, "It's just genetic! I thought it was juice! The bottle was very misleading. Plus, the drinking age was lower in my country and it wasn't a big deal if your parents gave you a bit to drink, I didn't know it wasn't normal here."

"Only you would mix up wine and juice," Lena teased, bumping Kara's shoulder with her own and giving her a playful smirk. To her relief, Kara stuck her tongue out at her in response and let out a laugh. Lena had been starting to worry that Kara was trying to get something out of her, like she might be upset with her for some reason, but things seemed back to normal now that they were all hanging out together.

They started with a game of Catan, laughing and chatting about how their weeks had been and what the school year was shaping up to be like. Winn was going to be working on a research project with the school's STEM program once he recovered from his concussion, which he excitedly told them about in great nerdy detail. Alex already had freshmen writing her papers for her as payment for her to rough up their bullies, and was using her free time to learn boxing. Nia, meanwhile, was loving her English and art classes. She had vivid dreams that she painted for art class assignments, and wrote analyses of her dreams for her English journaling assignments.

"I think I'm finally almost caught up in classes," Kara said. "I suppose I have Lena to thank for that," she added with a small smile, and she hoped Lena didn't see through her words to the truth; that she was trying to vocally give herself reasons why she should believe Lena, reasons not to be distrustful of her friend. Lena gave her a warm smile in response, realizing that she was the only person who hadn't said anything about her week.

There was silence for a moment, and Lena could feel the expectant looks being cast her way.

"My stepmother is visiting on Sunday," she blurted out before she could think better of it. "And my week was fine until Lex told me that. If my father were coming, there wouldn't be anything to worry about. He considers me his greatest creation, so he can buffer Lillian, but Lillian… Lex is her greatest creation. She does everything in her power to remind me of that. I'm a bit nervous about seeing her, truthfully."

"That really blows, little Luthor," Alex said, and though her words weren't the greatest choice, Lena could tell by the emotion in her voice that she meant it. "Nobody deserves to have shitty parents."

Kara was quiet while Alex spoke. Then, after a moment, she looked up. "What if I went with you?" she offered. "You said your father usually buffers Lillian, so what if you brought me along instead?"

Lena raised her eyebrows. She remembered what Lex had suggested, and now, here Kara was offering to do exactly that. She supposed it made sense that Kara would be the only person ballsy enough to choose to be in a room with Lillian Luthor; everyone else in the room were staring at Kara as if she'd grown a second head.

"I couldn't ask you to do that," Lena said, frowning. "Lillian is not somebody you want to meet—"

"So, it's decided then, I'm coming with you," Kara said matter-of-factly. "Not because you asked me to, but because I chose to. You aren't going without backup."

"Thank you, Kara," Lena said, and Kara felt her heart do a little flip. She was so genuine, and her stormy eyes always looked at her with such an earnest glow. Forcing down her conflicted feelings, Kara nodded with a smile and an of course.

A few hours and several games later, everyone except for Winn was pretty buzzed, including Kara, who had downed about three quarters of the scotch herself and had a bit of wine as well. Lena, on the other hand, took to drinking the rest of the scotch, while Alex and Nia split the rest of the wine between each other. Winn was more than happy to be sober for the evening, seeing as how the group was pretty entertaining to play games with when they were buzzed.

They were, at that point, joking around and playing a group card game called Most Likely To, where a card Czar which rotated each round would draw a Most Likely To… prompt and everyone would vote on who the card fit the best. So far, Alex had won most likely to have been to a gay club, Winn most likely to be a nerd, Nia most likely to interpret your dreams and offer a follow up Tarot reading, Lena most likely to become the most powerful woman in the world, and Kara had yet to be voted for a card.

Alex drew the next card and, dramatically clearing her throat, read in a booming announcer's voice, "Most likely to live the longest! Begin discussion."

"Oh, definitely Kara," Winn said, and Alex gave him a look that said, okay, valid, explain. "Well, think about it. Out of all of us, I'd say Kara is arguably the most childlike. It makes sense that, then, in theory, she would age the slowest and therefore be the last to die."

"Are you calling me immature?" Kara shot at him, raising an eyebrow. "You talked about the new Pokémon game for three hours yesterday, Winn. Three hours!"

"Pokémon is a classic," Winn said, putting his hand over his heart in mock hurt. "I am wounded, Kara. You've wounded me."

"I would agree that Kara will live the longest," Lena chimed in. Looking at Kara, she elaborated, "I mean, remember when you tripped on the first day? If that had been me, I would've been covered in bruises, but there wasn't a scratch on you. You're like a cat, you basically have nine lives. So, naturally, you would outlive us."

"These are very convincing arguments, very convincing arguments indeed, folks," Alex said, pretending to be commentating on an imaginary microphone. "Are there any other contenders? Kara, do you disagree, do you think someone else should get it more?"

"Well, by Winn's logic, it should be Winn. He's definitely more immature than I am, so he would live longer than me," Kara said.

"That's definitely not the only reason you'd be likely to outlive everyone—" Winn abruptly stopped as his eyes met Kara's. He didn't seem to realize how he was phrasing the sentence at first, but when he did, the two of them instantly entered a silent conversation in eye contact. Winn's eye's widened in surprise, shining with regret, as Kara's eyebrows twitched toward each other, slowly registering what he was implying. He couldn't explain, not in front of Lena and Nia, so he gave her the smallest shake of his head. I didn't mean that.

Kara knew he didn't. It was pure dumb luck she had outlived all of Krypton. That wasn't something that would just come up as a pattern. Winn's reasoning would've probably been that she could be stubborn as a bull, or that despite being tiny, she could take anyone in a fight, but that choice of words… that's not the only reason you'd be likely to outlive everyone. Lena helplessly looked at Nia, who shrugged in confusion, and a tipsy Alex loudly cleared her throat to break the silence that had fallen after Winn cut off his sentence.

"Let's vote then! Cast your votes everyone!" Alex's announcer voice wasn't as booming this time, and plopped to the floor like little stones into a stream. Wordlessly, everyone passed in their votes. Kara won the card. It would've been too apparent if they had all voted for Winn out of pity; the best thing to do was just act natural and move on, which was exactly what they did. Kara sat through a couple more rounds, and while the game resumed as normal, there was a significant gap where Kara was no longer taking part in the jovial conversation, teasing, and joking around.

"I'm going to use the restroom," Kara said in a small voice finally, once a couple of rounds had gone by. "You guys can play a few rounds without me, I won't be long," she added as she left the room, the door clicking quietly behind her. A hush fell over the rest of the room for a moment after she exited.

"Is she okay?" Lena broke the silence, her tone taking an accusatory edge as she looked toward Winn, "What the hell just happened?"

"Hey, I don't know," Winn said, putting his hands up. "Maybe something I said upset her? People are more emotional when they're drunk."

"She'll be fine," Alex said, her voice eerily calm. "This isn't something you guys need to worry about, but we should probably call it a night. I'm sure she'd stay up all night acting the part for us but I don't think it's fair to make her pretend to have fun right now." She shot Winn a look that Lena couldn't quite comprehend, but he seemed to understand. It was like there was an unspoken understanding between them, and as Alex walked everyone to the door, Lena noticed that he lingered back and didn't leave when she and Nia did.

Curiosity gripped her, and though she knew it was a bad idea, seeing as how Kara could return at any time, Lena hung back around the door as Nia walked off toward her room, listening to see if she could pick up anything from what Alex and Winn were saying. She desperately wanted to know what Kara was leaving her out of; Lena didn't want to see the immense pain that had come over Kara's features when she processed Winn's words on her face ever again.

For a moment, all she could hear was a bit of muffled whispering and shuffling, and Lena couldn't make anything specific out. But after a few minutes, it got a bit clearer, as if they were moving toward the door and Winn was about to leave.

"Like I said, it wasn't your fault, Winn," Alex was saying. "My parents told me to look out for triggers, and she did lose everyone. That probably just… lit a fuse. But it could've just as easily been lit by a movie, or a book, so don't blame yourself. She might be willing to talk to you about it tomorrow. In fact, I'd say she'll probably want to. But right now, we just need to understand that she's processing something huge and let her do it in peace."

"Thanks, Alex," Winn said. "I just… I never really got the gravity of her situation until…"

"I know. The best we can do is be there for her. Now go get some sleep, it's late and you still have a head booboo," Alex said in a mock-babying voice, to which Winn started spouting off defenses, and Lena took that as her cue to leave. Winn was about to open the door, and Kara would be back any second. Lena made her way back to her room undetected, and sighed, feeling far too restless to go to sleep.

There were certainly parts of Kara's story that she was missing, and she had a feeling those parts were important. She knew Kara had lost her family, and that she was forced to leave everything she knew and loved, but the way Winn and Alex were talking… it was like her entire country had been nuked or something. Lena hadn't heard of anything like that recently. She felt her heart ache the more she thought about how Kara was feeling, and that for some reason Kara didn't think she could tell Lena.

Having friends is such a pain, she thought as she groaned and collapsed into her desk chair, although she knew deep down that that wasn't truly how she felt. The effects of the alcohol were causing her vision to swirl, and she realized as she was sitting there that she was much more drunk than she'd initially thought. She'd never considered herself a lightweight, but she also didn't really drink socially much anymore. A thought sparked in her mind then, and before she knew it, she was on autopilot, her laptop open, typing in the search bar. Planets that have recently been destroyed or deserted.

It wasn't a short list. Wars throughout the universe ravaged planets all the time, natural disasters and environmental catastrophes wiped out alien populations and sent refugees running for the hills a few times a year at least. But it was a start. She was going to figure out what the chemical was and what it had to do with Kara, because something finally struck her as potentially connected within all of this: Alex's father worked for a government agency, and they had taken in Kara, an outsider. Perhaps they had something to do with the truth about the chemical getting out and the Coopers being found guilty.

After a while, Lena had no leads and was beginning to feel drowsiness pull at her eyelids. Calling it quits for the night, she went to bed. Unfortunately, it was only to find that her dreams were replaced that night by nightmares of Kara revealing all sorts of major life-altering secrets, some of the worst being, I'm being hunted by assassins for a bounty, I have terminal cancer, and My entire family died of a genetic disease that is going to kill me and I only have two weeks to live.

…

Kara awoke in the morning feeling more exhausted than she had when she went to bed. Alex had tried to get her to talk about what happened the night before, but all she'd wanted to do was go to sleep, so she had just quietly gone to bed without answering any of her sister's questions. She ended up tossing and turning all night in spite of how tired she was, her waking periods interspersed by short bouts of sleep filled with traumatic memories of Krypton's destruction.

Glancing at her phone, she saw that Andrea had already texted her about coffee, and it was only eight. She didn't want to get coffee and hear about how her best friend might be a liar and a backstabber. She didn't want to deal with the fact that she wanted to believe Lena was good, even if what Andrea told her was true, and because of that, she felt absolutely torn over what to do. But she knew it was something she would have to deal with and figure out eventually.

She quickly responded to let Andrea know they'd have to talk about it another day because she wasn't feeling well. Rolling over in bed, she faced the wall, closing her eyes and finding that she didn't feel capable of falling asleep again. Nonetheless, she decided to stay there in the meantime. If Alex thought she was asleep when she woke up, that was one less person she had to worry about prying.

Luckily, it was only a little while before Alex woke up. Kara heard her get out of bed, shuffle around the room a bit, and then it was silent for a moment. Kara could feel Alex's eyes burning into her back, and though there was no reason for Alex to think she was awake, Kara could've sworn she could see right through her act. But then there was more shuffling, and finally the door clicked shut.

Kara waited a moment before slipping out of bed herself. She quickly changed into a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt, throwing her hair up into a messy ponytail as she threw the window open and scooted so that she was sitting with her legs hanging out of it. She knew Alex would kill her, and it was broad daylight, but the back of the dormitories where her window faced were facing overgrown woods that nobody ever bothered to go near and she couldn't bear another minute trapped inside. She hovered outside of the window just long enough to close it before shooting off through the sky.

She relished in the air against her face as she flew, flying for quite a while before she finally crash-landed in a clearing in the middle of the woods somewhere. Looking at the dent she'd made in the earth, she cringed a bit and reminded herself she'd need to work on her landings. Walking away from the torn ground, she settled herself under a tree and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds around her and breathing in the air deeply.

It wasn't exactly easy for her to close her eyes and pretend she was back on Krypton; the yellow sun shone much more brightly against her eyelids, a constant reminder that she didn't fit in, the birds twittering betrayed to her where she truly was, and the air had a different smell to it than the air on Krypton did. But there were some similarities to her home planet, and when she closed her eyes, she was able to lose herself in those few parallels.

The breeze against her face was one. She loved a breeze gently blowing the wisps of hair that escaped her ponytail out of her face. There were also the rustling sounds leaves made and the sound of distant rumbling, likely from a road, but on Krypton it could've been an aircraft. She could imagine her family peering out from behind the trees around her, and she wondered, if she had the chance to talk to one of them again, what she would say.

Hey, I'm sorry I never actually fulfilled my mission and you all died in vain. Now I'm just pretending to be a human and denying who I really am, the complete opposite of what you would've done.

Kara sighed. She knew it wasn't her fault that she had gotten lost in the Phantom Zone; her pod was supposed to take her straight to Earth. But regardless, she hadn't been able to do what she was sent to Earth to do, and her planet suffered just for her to fail. It didn't seem right, or fair, and Kara felt like she didn't deserve it. It wasn't like she was using her powers to make a difference. She wasn't even supposed to have flown anywhere.

Looking up to the sky, Kara's eyes scanned it as though she thought she'd see Krypton shining down and she would find that even just a portion had survived. She could've had just a sliver of hope that her parents had made it safely to that portion, and were adjusting to life on a planet much smaller than what it originally was. But of course, that was a fantasy, and something like that would never happen. Nonetheless, as she sat there watching the clouds, Kara found that she felt more at peace now than she had before. She felt that she could ease her grip on Krypton just a bit, and step away from her guilt.

Feeling a sense of calm wash over her, she pushed herself to her feet. It was a temporary fix, but she was glad she'd escaped for a while, and from the position of the sun in the sky, it was clear to Kara that it had been a few hours, and from the sound of her grumbling stomach, it was probably lunchtime. Taking off, she was flying back to her window when the sight of Lena standing in the room with Alex, both of their backs to the window, made her stop dead in the air. Panicking, she bolted upward onto the roof. Flattening herself against the roof so nobody would see her on it, she tuned into her super hearing to make out what was going on in her room below.

"…it just worries me that she left her phone here," Kara heard Alex's voice first. "With the way she's been feeling… not to mention, she's usually up before me, and she went to bed without saying a thing to me after she got back from the bathroom. She wasn't even awake when I left to get breakfast. And then I get back, and she's gone, and her phone is just sitting here on her desk? After what happened last night? Should I be looking for her? Leaving her alone? I don't know what to do."

Kara felt guilt gnaw at her insides, almost as painful as the growling in her stomach. She always ate more than her human companions, but she hadn't realized just how hungry using her powers was going to make her. In that moment, however, her hunger was overridden just enough by the fact that Alex was worried about her. She didn't want anyone to worry about her like that. She mentally scolded herself for not taking her phone with her.

"She probably just wanted some time to be alone," Lena said gently. "There's no way for any of us to comprehend what she's going through, after all. She probably went to relax outside or read a book by herself in the library, and she'll be back in, oh, I'd give it fifteen minutes tops, starving for lunch. Let's just give her the space to talk about it if she wants, but unless she does something really scary… it's okay to be worried, but I would just let her be."

Thank you, Lena, Kara thought with a smile, wondering once more how what Andrea said could've possibly been true if this were the real Lena. The two of them talked for a little bit longer, and then Kara heard them both leave the room to get lunch at the dining hall. Slipping back in through the window, Kara changed into a more presentable outfit and haphazardly ran a brush through her windswept hair before she sped out of the room, heading toward the dining hall herself and hoping to meet up with them.

Grabbing an astronomical amount of food, Kara made her way over to where Alex and Lena were sitting, miraculously managing to keep all of the food balanced on the tray in her hands.

"Hey, guys! Mind if I join you?" she asked, setting the tray down on the table as they both enthusiastically encouraged her to join them. Kara was aware of Alex giving her a suspicious side eye, and she gave her sister a swift kick to the ankle under the table. Alex let out an annoyed 'ow!' and reached down to rub the spot that was definitely bruising, shooting a glare at Kara and earning a confused look from Lena.

"You have a stick in your hair," Alex muttered, grabbing the twig from the side of Kara's head and tossing it to the floor, her voice sounding somewhat accusatory as she cocked an eyebrow at the blonde. Kara shot a look that read, not now, and Alex smirked. That was all the confirmation she needed.

"How are you, Kara?" Lena asked politely, interrupting the older Danvers' silent gloating. "Hungover at all this morning? I had a headache, but nothing some water and Aspirin can't fix. Irish genes, perhaps."

"I've never been hungover," Kara said, grinning proudly as she started to dig into her lunch. With the attention off of her, Alex allowed a relieved smile to cross her face as she watched her sister tease Lena for getting a hangover at all. She figured that whatever Kara had done, it must've worked, and Lena had been right on the money about it. Alex only hoped that this little freak out of Kara's wasn't a minor symptom of a bigger underlying problem.

When Alex tuned back into the conversation, she found Lena seriously trying to coach Kara on how to act when she met Lillian, and Kara doing the exact opposite of everything Lena told her to do, before laughing and giving into Lena's coaching. If it had been a symptom, it was over for the time being. And though Alex knew she should enjoy this time while things were relaxed and good, she had an awful feeling that the peace was coming to an end.

A/N Getting in a bit more Kara character development before the real fun starts!

So, here's the dealio folks, I was planning to write a bunch of chapters in advance and start posting weekly because classes start next week for me and I don't know if I'll be able to update weekly without a backup few chapters written.

BUT I wrote chapter 8 today and I'm really excited to share that chapter with you all! I'm thinking I can either save the chapters and update weekly, or I can post them as I write them—if I do that though, don't panic if it takes a couple of weeks before new chapters are posted! I don't know what my courseload will be like yet.

I figured I'd give y'all the option though, because I personally love binge-reading chapters so if there's three new chapters at a time then you best believe I'm reading three at a time, so let me know in the reviews if you want chunks of chapters as they're written, or single chapter updates weekly!

And either way I might still give y'all chapter 8 tomorrow just because it's a doozy ;)

Thank you for your kind words and support and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Until next time!

Nana