January 25, 2019
Kara walked into Al's at a little past eleven that night. If she were honest, it didn't look much different than any other time she'd been there, but there was something about the place that night that matched her mood. Empty, desperate, and smelling of pain and bad decisions.
She stepped up to the bar and waved the bartender over.
"What can I get for you," he asked.
"Bolovaxian Whiskey," Kara said.
He looked her up and down. "I don't think so," he said. "That stuff will kill humans. How about a nice Shirley Temple?"
Kara reached over the bar, and grabbed his shirt, lifting all two hundred some odd pounds of him off the ground and holding him a good two feet in the air as she let her heat vision glow behind her eyes.
"Do I look human to you?" she asked.
"Uh, no," he said.
She sat him down gently and smoothed out his shirt. "Good," she said she said, a bright smile on her face. "Now, a bottle of Bolovaxian whiskey, and a glass."
He nodded and reached under the counter and pulled out a bottle of something blue and glowing and sat it on the counter, then handed her a tumbler.
"How much?" Kara asked.
"A hundred for the bottle," he said.
Kara took out her wallet and counted out eight twenties and dropped them on the bar. "I'd like the party size wings, nuclear. Keep the change," she said, before she picked up the bottle and the glass, and walked over to a booth in the corner. She slid into the booth, and twisted the cap off the whiskey, pouring herself a generous glass. She knocked it back in one shot, then refilled her glass, and did it again.
She was pouring her third glass when someone slid into the booth across from her.
"Unless you've got my food, go away," Kara said, not bothering to look up at whoever it was.
"I can't afford to feed you on what the city pays me," her guest said in an all too familiar voice. Kara looked up to see Maggie sitting across from her.
"What are you doing here?" Kara asked.
"I've been coming here for years," Maggie said. "What, did you think your sister got the bar in the divorce?"
"I don't want to talk about Alex," Kara said before slamming her third glass of the alien whiskey.
"Why not? Did something happen?" Maggie asked with both confusion and fear in her voice.
"Yeah," Kara said. "But probably not what you're thinking."
"What do you mean?" Maggie asked, and Kara could still hear the fear in her voice.
"You remember J'onn quit the DEO, right?" Kara asked.
"Yeah," Maggie said. "I heard he just hung up his shingle as a private investigator."
"Yeah, well, next time you see him, punch him in the face for me," Kara said, pouring herself another glass. She started to lift it, but Maggie reached over and put her hand on top of it.
"Kara, what the hell is going on?" Maggie asked. "You're flashing your powers around like you don't give a damn who knows who you are. That's not like you."
"Maybe it should be. All of this wouldn't have happened if I didn't have a stupid secret identity."
"Would you mind telling me what all of 'this' is?"
"You remember me telling you that the President brought this woman in to run the DEO?"
"Yeah."
"And you remember the part where the President fired me?"
"Yeah."
"So, it turns out that this woman, Colonel Haley, is an anti-alien bigot."
"Not terribly surprising, but there are a lot of those out there, and none of them have you in here getting hammered."
"None of them found out my secret identity," Kara said.
"What?"
Kara waved her hand. "J'onn fixed it. He wiped the knowledge from her mind."
"Thank god," Maggie said.
"That's what I thought, but he couldn't make her stop trying to find out my identity."
"But if you know she's looking, you can take precautions."
"Doesn't matter," Kara said. "She's questioning people at the DEO using a truth seeker."
"Is that one of those octopus things?"
"Yeah. Makes you tell the truth as long as you're in physical contact."
"Shit, Kara. A lot of people at the DEO know who you are."
"Not anymore," Kara said as she poured herself another drink.
"What do you mean."
"J'onn fixed it," Kara spat before she tossed back another glass of whiskey.
"What do you mean, J'onn fixed it? How could… No. Kara, tell me he didn't…"
"Yeah, he did," Kara said. "They all volunteered. And it's less people than you think. We lost a lot of agents to the Daxamites, and we lost more fighting the Kryptonian Witches and the Worldkillers."
"How many?"
"Five," Kara said.
"Jesus Christ. They really volunteered?"
"Yeah. Some of them couldn't wait."
"Okay, but what good is that going to do? Everyone knows Alex has worked closer to you than anyone else at the DEO. Haley's bound to use the trust seeker on her."
"Won't matter," Kara said. "J'onn fixed that too."
"No… Kara, tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying."
"That depends," Kara said as she poured herself another drink. "Do you think I'm saying J'onn wiped Alex's memories of me being an alien and being Supergirl? Because I'm definitely saying that."
"Jesus fucking Christ."
Kara downed another glass of whiskey, and reached for the bottle again, but Maggie got there first, pulling the bottle away.
"Hey!" Kara said. "Give that back."
"I don't think so," Maggie said.
"I paid for it!"
"You're drunk."
"Not yet, I'm not," Kara said.
"Isn't your sister the one who self-medicates with alcohol?" Maggie asked.
"I don't even know if I have a sister anymore," Kara said. "Everything that made us sisters, everything that brought us together, was because of who I am. If you take that away, what do we have left?"
"Kara, she loves you," Maggie said. "That is not going to change."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because she's Alex. Because she isn't capable of not loving you."
"I didn't want her to do it. I begged her not to do it. But she did it anyway. She was always the person I could share my whole self with. And she took that away from me. She took my sister away from me."
"She was trying to protect you," Maggie said.
"I don't want her to protect me," Kara said. "I want her to be my sister."
"You know what. We should get you out of here," Maggie said.
"No," Kara said.
"Kara, you're drunk," Maggie said.
"I ordered food, Maggie," Kara said. "I have to eat."
"We can get you food when you get home," Maggie said.
"I don't have a home," Kara said. "The First one burned up, and J'onn erased the second one."
"Kara," Maggie said.
"No," Kara said. "I'm not going anywhere. And if you want to stay, you have to have a drink."
"I think one of us should probably stay sober," Maggie said.
Kara crossed her arms over her chest. "Drink or leave."
"Fine," Maggie said. She held up the bottle of whiskey. "Is this safe for me?"
"No," Kara said. "That's about fifty times more potent than alcohol."
"Right," Maggie said. "You stay here. I'll go get shots that won't put me in the hospital."
Maggie came back to the table a couple of minutes later with four shots and sat them down. It didn't escape her notice that the bottle of alien alcohol was now on Kara's side of the table, and at least a couple of fingers worth were missing, but she didn't say anything. Kara was an adult. If she wanted to get plastered, she probably had more right than just about anyone on the planet, given all the shit she'd put up with.
Maggie knew she should probably just leave her to it, but she couldn't bring herself to leave her alone. Not when Kara was so obviously hurting, and not when there were far too many people who would be willing to take advantage of a young girl in a compromised state. Besides, Kara was trying to be her family. It might be strange, and awkward, but Kara was trying, and Maggie wanted to try too.
"You got drinks," Kara said, a happy smile on her face, and Maggie figured the alcohol had finally hit her. She picked up her bottle and refilled her glass. "We need a toast!"
"What are we drinking too?" Maggie said as she picked up one of her shots.
"To being things Alex had to give up," Kara said.
Maggie tapped her shot glass to Kara's tumbler. "Here's to us," she said, and slammed the shot back.
She'd just sat the empty glass down when Kara leaned forward.
"You know, I never said I was sorry," Kara said.
"For what?" Maggie asked.
"For the way I treated you," Kara said.
Maggie frowned. "Kara, you never treated me badly," Maggie said. Which was mostly true. They'd both had their issues, largely with jealousy and wounded pride, but Kara had never been rude to her. Just cold.
"Yes, I did," Kara said. "I mean, I didn't get it until later. Until last year when Lena did it to me. But I froze you out. I treated you like you were just another agent Alex worked with. I never treated you like family."
Maggie reached for another shot, and downed it, because she had a feeling she was going to need it.
"What happened between you and Lena that made her freeze you out?"
"I was jealous," Kara said as she refilled her own glass.
"Of Lena?" Maggie asked, more than a little confused by the track of the conversation.
"No, of you and Alex," Kara said.
"Why?" Maggie asked, because apparently they were skipping whatever problems Kara and Lena had and getting right into the messy parts of their mutual past.
"Because I realized I'd never have what you and Alex had," Kara said.
"Yeah," Maggie said, reaching for another shot. "Lucky you."
"I know, right," Kara said. She held up her glass. "Here's to not being good enough for anyone."
Maggie tapped her glass to Kara's. "Here's to us," she said, before she downed the third shot.
"Are you drunk yet?" Kara asked.
"No," Maggie said. She was starting to feel a bit of a buzz, but she was a long way from anything that could be called drunk.
"Sobriety sucks!" Kara said. "You need more shots!"
"One of us has to be sober enough to get both of us home," Maggie said.
Kara poured herself another glass. "Told you, I don't have a home," Kara said.
"Well," Maggie said as she picked up her forth shot. "To being homeless."
Kara smiled. "Here's to us," she said.
Kara glared across the table at Maggie.
"You can't really be upset," Maggie said.
"Try me," Kara said, narrowing her eyes.
"It was one wing, Kara," Maggie said.
"Do you know how many calories I have to eat in a day just to maintain my weight?" Kara asked.
"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me," Maggie said.
"Ten thousand," Kara said.
"That's a lot," Maggie said.
"Do you know how hard it is to afford ten thousand calories a day on my salary, Maggie?" Kara asked.
"Pretty hard?" Maggie said.
"Pretty hard," Kara said. "You know what that means?"
"I'm buying you another order of wings?" Maggie asked.
"And the bottomless chips and salsa," Kara said.
"Okay," Maggie said, as she waved one of the waitresses over.
"And more shots," Kara said.
"Kara, I think I've had enough," Maggie said.
"Can you still stand?" Kara asked.
"Yes," Maggie said.
"So can I," Kara said. "Which means neither of us have had enough."
Maggie sat down the empty glass from her eighth shot and looked up at Kara.
"Can I ask you a question?" Maggie asked.
"Sure," Kara said. "We're friends right?"
"Yeah," Maggie said. "Of course."
"And there are no secrets between friends," Kara said. "Unless you randomly decide to start making Kryptonite in your basement, then lie to me about where you got it, then get your boyfriend, who is supposed to be my friend, and who I knew longer than you, to lie to me about it. And then tell me how you should never meet your hears because they always disappoint you, and how you can never trust Supergirl again. Because then, maybe you don't deserve to know that I'm really Supergirl."
Maggie stared at Kara for a moment, taking in everything she just said. "Is that what happened with Lena?"
"Yep," Kara said. "She kind of hates me too. Supergirl me. Not Kara me. She's Kara me's best friend."
"That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen," Maggie said.
Kara picked up her glass. "Here's to being a disaster waiting to happen," Kara said.
Maggie picked up another shot and tapped it to Kara's glass. "Here's to us."
They both drank, then Kara looked at Maggie.
"You had a question," Kara said.
"Yeah," Maggie said. "Why the fuck did you ever date Mon-El?"
"I thought it was better than being alone," Kara said.
"You weren't alone," Maggie said.
"Some detective you are," Kara said. "James didn't want me. He wanted my cousin in a skirt. What happened after the Red K made that clear. Cat didn't want me. She wanted to dive, whatever that means. Winn didn't want me. He wanted Kara Danvers, or he wanted Supergirl. He never wanted any of the messy places in between. Alex had you. You had Alex. I had… the suit, nights alone, and memories of all the people who didn't make it. My mother. Astra. My father. Jeremiah. Kenny. Thara. My Grandparents. My House. My whole world.
"Mon-El treated me horribly, but at least he wanted me. Not Supergirl. Not Kara Danvers. Me. Kara Zor-El. He made me feel seen in a way no one else did. And he was there when no one else was. You can forgive a lot for someone who just shows up."
"That would explain more than one of my relationships," Maggie said.
Kara held up her glass. "To being the one no one else wants," she said.
Maggie picked up another shot and touched it to Kara's glass. "Here's to us."
"What?" Kara asked as she looked up at the waitress standing next to their table.
"I said we've closing," the waitress said.
"But I don't have anywhere to go," Kara said.
"That's rough," the waitress said. "But you can't stay here."
"It's okay," Maggie said as she pulled out her wallet. She dug out a couple of bills and handed them to the waitress. "We'll get out of your hair."
"Thanks," the waitress said. She left to go clear another table while Maggie and Kara cleared out.
Maggie looked over at Kara, who's eyes were brimming with tears.
"I don't have anywhere to go," she said.
"You've got an apartment," Maggie said as she stood up.
"I can't go back there," Kara said as she stumbled to her feet. "Alex is everywhere."
Maggie stared at Kara for a moment. She understood exactly what Kara meant. She still felt the ache every time she walked through the park where she and Alex used to jog every morning. She'd had to find a new yoga studio because she couldn't breathe in her old one. She understood better than anyone what it was like to be haunted by the ghost of Alex Danvers.
Maggie reached out and caught Kara as she started to waver, slipping an arm around her waist as she dug her phone out. She led Kara towards the door, as she used an app on her phone to summon a cab from one of the more alien friendly cab companies in town. The wait was short, and a little awkward, because as soon as they stopped, Kara turned towards her, and slipped both arms around her waist. Standing there, with Kara leaning against her, and Kara's face buried in her neck felt a little too intimate for two women who'd come within a couple of weeks of being sisters-in-law, but Maggie couldn't bring herself to say anything. Not when she could feel the tears falling onto her shoulder. She just slipped her arms around Kara and held her close.
January 26, 2019
Kara woke up slowly, which wasn't unusual for her on a morning she didn't have to work. The first thing she was aware of what the scent. It was familiar. Something that had existed in her life before, but something she couldn't quite place. It smelled a bit like suntan oil, heavy on the coconut, but it wasn't. Not quite. Soap. No. Not soap. Shampoo. She smelled a faint whiff of a coconut scented shampoo. Warmth came next, and with it, softness. She was pressed against someone's side, and there was an arm wrapped around her, and her arm around someone. She snuggled closer, smiling at the contact. It had been too long since she'd been held, and she missed it. Sound was next. A heartbeat close by, air in and out of lungs. The soft rhythm of sleep. The heartbeat was familiar, not Alex, not Mon-El, but comforting. Even if she couldn't immediately place who it belonged to, it made her feel safe.
She lingered there, on the edge of wakefulness, reluctant to let the morning claim her and take her away from warmth and comfort. She knew she shouldn't, she should be up and around, but she listened, and there were no sirens calling her, and without her earpiece, her connection to the DEO, nothing demanded Supergirl's attention. She could be Kara for a few moments longer. Not Kara Danvers, not the mask she wore every day, but Kara Zor-El. Her truest self. A few moments without any of the masks she wore was a temptation hard to resist.
Minutes passed, stretching out as she drifted in and out of sleep, happy and content, and not quite able to place why that was a surprise because she wasn't awake enough to remember why it should be. Like all the happy moments in her life, it came to an end before she was ready for it to. The heartbeat so close to her ear changed, and with it the tempo of the breathing of the person she was cuddled up to. Sleep became wakefulness, and Kara sighed as she was dragged up into the waking world against her will.
"Morning," a soft voice said, and Kara lifted her head to match face to name.
"Maggie?" she asked.
"I hope so," Maggie said, "because I'm wearing her underwear."
Kara laughed, and Maggie winced at the sound.
"Not so loud," she said. "Some of us aren't immune to hangovers."
"Sorry," Kara whispered.
"It's okay," Maggie said. "Can you let me up?"
"Yeah," Kara said. She pulled away from Maggie, letting her go a bit reluctantly. She watched as Maggie sat up and opened a bottle of water that was sitting on her nightstand. She popped two pills into her mouth, then drank the entire bottle of water in one go. Then, she got up and headed into the bathroom.
Kara climbed out of bed and let out a small yelp of surprise when she found herself in nothing but an oversized t-shirt. She looked around the apartment, what there was of it, and spotted her clothes neatly folded on top of a chest of drawers. That made things easy. She was worried for a moment that she would have to look for them, and she didn't really want to go poking around Maggie's apartment.
Not that there was a lot to poke around in. The small studio couldn't have been much more than six hundred square feet. It was well kept. There was a small shelf with six Bonsai trees on it, another filled with awards from the NCPD, and a few other personal touches here and there, but something about the apartment bothered Kara though, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Maggie stepped out. "All yours," she said.
"Thanks," Kara said.
Maggie was doing her best not to freak out, but she was failing miserably. She was pretty sure she was hiding it well because she'd learned at a very young age to take what she was feeling and hide it. She's managed to hide the fact that she was gay years before Elisa Wilkey had come along and she'd been stupid enough to believe someone actually loved her. But however well she was hiding her freak out, waking up in bed with her ex-fiancé's younger sister curled up around her didn't seem like one of the better choices she'd been talking to Kara about a few days ago.
The whole thing had been innocent, of course. Kara had been drunk and upset, and too damn tall to sleep on the couch, and it wasn't like the bed wasn't big enough for both of them, so why not? The idea had seemed a lot better when she'd been twelve shots in. It might seem a lot better now, if she had pants on.
She grabbed the jeans she'd been wearing last night and pulled them on, then went over to the kitchen, and started making coffee, because it was a lot easier to not freak out when she wasn't caffeine deprived.
The pot was about half full when the door to the bathroom opened and Kara stepped out, looking annoyingly well put together.
"Do I smell coffee?" Kara asked.
"Still brewing," Maggie said.
"Would it be weirder if I stayed for a cup, or if I left now?" Kara asked.
"Honestly, I'm not sure there is any way this isn't a little weird, so maybe just do what you actually want to do," Maggie said.
Kara pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. Maggie turned around and grabbed a couple of cups out of the cabinet, and a couple of packets of instant coco out of the pantry. She added both packets of coco to Kara's mug. By the time she was done with that, the coffee had finished brewing, and she filled both mugs, and carried them over to the table.
"I'm out of pumpkin spice, but I seem to remember mocha being your alternate," Maggie said as she slid the cup across the table.
Kara smiled as she took it. "By out of, you mean 'I'll buy pumpkin spice over my dead body,'" Kara said.
"Something like that," Maggie said. She took a sip of her coffee, sighing in pleasure at a cup that didn't taste like the three-day-old motor oil that came out of the pot at the station.
"Thank you," Kara said.
"It's just coffee," Maggie said.
"No. I meant for last night. It was good to have someone to talk to."
Maggie shrugged. "It's like you said. We're family."
"You really feel that way?"
"Yeah," Maggie said, a little surprised to find that she did.
"Good," Kara said. "I don't have enough family left to let anyone go."
"I thought… um… There were rumors of someone else wearing your symbol."
"My mom," Kara said. "We didn't spread it around, but she survived. She's on Argo."
"Really?" Maggie asked. "Kara, that's wonderful!"
"Yeah," Kara said without any real enthusiasm.
Maggie frowned as she watched Kara look down into her coffee.
"Kara?"
Kara shook her head. "It's nothing," she said.
"It's something," Maggie said.
"I just… It's so selfish," Kara said.
"Kara."
Kara looked up at her. "Yeah?"
"Whatever it is, you can tell me," Maggie said. "I promise, I won't judge."
Kara gave her a week smile. "I found her. Found my mom. I spent a lifetime thinking she was dead. All the time I was in the phantom zone. Fifteen years here on earth. Thirty-nine years, from the day I got in that pod until the day I saw her again on Argo. When she said she was coming with me to Earth, I thought she meant she was going to stay. And she did. For two days. After thirty-nine years, I got to spend two days with my mother on Argo, and two days with her on Earth. Four days total.
"I know I should be grateful. I know just seeing her at all is a miracle. But she went back to Argo. She left me, again. And then Clark wanted to go to Argo, and Lois is pregnant. and they have no idea how dangerous a human carrying a half Kryptonian baby would be on Earth, so it will be months before he can come back. And even once he gets back, he won't be able to be Superman again for a while. Not until the baby is older, so I can't even go visit."
"God, Kara," Maggie said. "That's… justified. That's… That's your mom being asshole."
"What?" Kara asked.
"Kara, she put you in a pod, and tossed you into space to raise your baby cousin when you were a child. Frankly, now that I know she's alive, I kind of want to punch her in the face for that. But it's not selfish to want to her to stay here with you. It's just… Well, I was going to say human nature, but in your case…"
"Close enough," Kara said. "We're taught from a young age that duty to our House and to Krypton as a whole is more important that our own desires. We set those feelings aside and we do what's best for everyone, but that doesn't mean we don't have them."
"It sounds like a hard way to live," Maggie said. "But as someone who isn't a Daxamite slave because you were willing to do that, I am grateful. Just remember that you have the right to feel however you feel. How you feel doesn't determine your character. What you do about how you feel, that's what makes you who you are. And you are a good person."
"You think so?" Kara asked.
"Yeah," Maggie said.
"I've got to admit, sometimes I wasn't sure you did."
Maggie shrugged her shoulders. "Sometimes I wasn't sure I did either, but I think some of that's just pride. You spend hours trying to talk down the bad guys, and Supergirl shows up and deals with it in twenty seconds. It stings a little."
"Sorry," Kara said. "Is the Supergirl defense really a thing?
"Yeah, but it's not very effective," Maggie said. "I mean, your kind of a hero."
Kara laughed. "You do pretty good yourself," she said.
"Yeah, I do alright," Maggie said.
"You know, that reminds me. Before the shootout at the warehouse, it had been a while since I'd seen you," Kara said.
"I was in Hub City for a while. Then Gotham. Then Coast City, which, funny story, I met Susan's moms."
"You did?" Kara asked.
"I did," Maggie said.
"What are they like?" Kara asked.
"Smoking hot, so in love with each other it's a little nauseating, and just really nice," Maggie said.
Kara leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "God, I miss Susan," she said.
"Yeah. I heard she left the DEO. What happened?"
"She moved to DC to be closer to her girlfriend," Kara said.
"Must have been some girlfriend," Maggie said.
"Lucy Lane," Kara said.
"James's ex-girlfriend?"
"The same," Kara said. "I can't blame Susan, either. If I'd known Lucy liked girls, I might have taken a shot at that myself."
Maggie looked at Kara for a minute, not sure she'd heard her right. "I didn't know you liked girls," she said.
Kara shrugged. "I don't talk about it much," she said. "Or at all, really."
"Why not?" Maggie asked.
"At first, it hurt too much. Growing up, I used to dream about marrying Thara. My dad had even talked to her mom about arranging a marriage," Kara said.
"You were going to marry a girl?" Maggie asked. "At twelve?"
"We wouldn't have been married until we were twenty-one," Kara said. "But it's normal for the betrothal to take place by the time you're fourteen."
"And you never told anyone?"
"Talking about that, even to Alex or Eliza hurt too much at first, and by the time I felt like I wanted to talk about it, I'd picked up enough Earth culture to know that people on this planet are weird about sex and gender, and I was supposed to fit in, and not attract attention. So, that's what I did. And I spent a long time doing everything I could to try and fit in, to be normal, I just kind of ruled it out, you know."
"It's a big part of yourself to close off," Maggie said.
"Yeah," Kara said. "Later, when I started to realize that there was someone I cared about enough to take the risk, Alex came out, and I sort of felt like I couldn't."
"Why?"
"Because it felt like it would be something else I was taking from her," Kara said. "You know it was really hard for her when she came out. And I think a lot of that was my fault. We spent so much time talking while we were growing, but it was always about me. My grief, my loss, my problems. I don't think I created a safe space where she could really explore who she was. And then, she found this piece of herself, and I just… I wanted her to have that. I wanted for once in our lives, for Alex to have something that was just hers. Something she didn't have to share with me."
"You know, that is kind, and noble, and well intentioned, and completely fucked up," Maggie said.
"Maybe a little," Kara said.
"Maybe a lot," Maggie said. "Kara, if Alex can't deal with you being… bisexual?"
"I prefer pan."
"If Alex can't deal with you being pansexual, then the problem isn't you. Her sexuality should be about what makes her happy. Not about being different from you."
"I know," Kara said. "I just…"
"You didn't want to draw attention away from what she was going through," Maggie said. "Which is good. That's a good impulse. But Kara, Alex has been out for a long time. She came within a hair's breadth of marrying someone. I think maybe it's okay if you come out now."
"There's not much point," Kara said as she looked down at her coffee. "The person I wanted to be with… isn't really an option."
"I'm sorry. I heard about Lena dating James."
"Lena?" Kara asked, looked up at Maggie. "What does Lena have to do with anything?"
"Well, you just.. I mean, you and Lena were…"
"OH!" Kara said, shaking her head. "No. No. I mean, I like Lena, but no."
"Really?" Maggie asked. "Because honestly, the way she looked at you was in no way heterosexual."
"Yeah," Kara said. "I noticed that too. It was honestly a relief when she started dating James, because I didn't have to play stupid when she made passes at me anymore. I mean, I care about Lena and she's not hard to look at but I couldn't have a relationship with someone if I didn't feel like I could tell them my secret."
"I thought trusting Lena was like, your default mode," Maggie said.
"You missed a lot of things," Kara said.
"Clearly," Maggie said. "So, who was it?"
"Who was who?" Kara asked.
"The woman you were interested in?" Maggie asked.
"Oh," Kara said. "Does it matter?"
"It must," Maggie said. "Last night you were sitting there, listing off people who didn't want you and… Holy fuck. Cat Grant?"
The blush in Kara's cheeks was all the answer Maggie really needed.
"Well, you've got good taste, I'll give you that," Maggie said.
Kara let out a little laugh. "It's ridiculous, I know," Kara said. "I mean, what would someone like her ever want with someone like me?"
"You're kidding, right?" Maggie asked. "I mean, really, you're pulling my leg?"
"No," Kara said. "She's kind and smart and strong and loving and generous and compassionate and tough and beautiful and just… everything."
"Yeah. Being an unreasonably hot billionaire probably doesn't hurt," Maggie said.
Kara shrugged. "I never cared about the money," Kara said. "I cared that she was kind."
"You said she wasn't an option," Maggie said. "Did you ever ask?"
Kara shook her head. "No," she said. "I might have, if she'd stayed. But she left again, and I don't think she's coming back."
"I'm sorry," Maggie said.
Kara lifted her coffee mug. "Here's to being left being," she said.
Maggie raised her mug and tapped it to Kara's. "Here's to us."
Kara took a long sip of her coffee and sat it down.
"Can I ask a personal question?"
"Seems to be the morning for it," Maggie said.
"How did you deal with not having Alex in your life?" Kara asked.
"Poorly," Maggie said. "I drank. A lot. I slept around. A lot. I fled the country for a while. That was about the time other cities were starting to realize aliens weren't just going to stay in Metropolis and National City, so I took the assignments in Hub City, Gotham and Coast City to help them get their Science Divisions up and running."
"I'm sorry," Kara said.
"Not your fault. Can I ask you another question?"
"Sure."
"Why did you become Supergirl?" Maggie asked.
"Alex never told you?" Kara asked.
"She told me about the plane. That you outed yourself to save her. But that's not really what I'm talking about. You could have saved her, then just disappeared back into the woodwork. People would wonder, but they would have forgotten eventually," Maggie said. "So, why do it? Why put on the cape and the 'S'."
"Because I was tired of pretending I wasn't Kryptonian," Kara said. "I did. For a long time, I did. I only ever did it to protect Alex. I gave up everything to protect her. Who I am, where I came from. I took it and shoved it all down. I forgot myself, and I forgot the First Law of Rao."
"The First Law of Rao?" Maggie asked. "What does that mean?"
" rraop w tiv aorghahs ni waila/," Kara said. "The closest translation in English is 'You must make the universe whole'. It means, you help people. You protect people. You do everything you can to make the universe better, to ease and prevent suffering, and to help those around you. It's the most important of all the laws. It's the heart of what it means to be a Kryptonian.
"Every time I go out there, every time I save someone… It's not about me, or my ego. It's not because I want the praise. It's because, for just a moment, when I save a life, when I help someone, when I make the world a better place, I can feel Rao's light on my face again. It reminds me that someday, when my time is over, I'll return to his light, and I'll see my family again."
"Kara-" Maggie started, but she was cut off by the sound of Kara's phone ringing. Kara closed her eyes and muttered something Maggie suspected was Kryptonian before pulling her phone out and answering it.
"Hey, Alex," Kara said, in a bright, cheerful tone that she used when she was trying to convince someone everything was okay, when she was really about to fall apart.
"Hey, Kara," Alex said. "Where are you?"
"I'm having a cup of coffee," Kara said.
"Are you at Noonans?" Alex asked.
"No. Why?"
"Because I'm standing in your living room with coffee and donuts, and you're not here."
"Oh, um… I'm at a friend's places."
"Which friend?" Alex asked.
"You remember Nia, from my brunch party?" Kara asked.
"The girl Brainy was stalking?" Alex asked.
"Yeah. We were working on a story late last night, and I crashed on her couch."
"Oh. You had me worried for a minute," Alex said. "You want me to swing by there and bring you home?"
"No. I'm going to ride in with Nia. She's going to swing by my place so I can grab a shower and a change of clothes."
"Okay," Alex said, and Kara could hear the disappointment in her voice.
"Can you swing by for lunch?" she asked.
"No. I can't today. Things at work are mess."
"We could do dinner tonight, if you like."
"That'd be great," Alex said.
"Ru San's?" Kara asked.
"Sounds good. What time?"
"Seven is good."
"See you then. Love you."
"Love you too."
Kara hung up the phone, then pulled up Nia's number from her contact list.
"Hey, Kara," Nia said.
"I need a favor," Kara said.
"Sure."
"This probably won't come up, but if you run into my sister for any reason, can you let her think I slept on your couch last night," Kara said.
"Um… okay," Nia said. "Should I ask why?"
"Because my overprotective big sister carries a gun, and probably wouldn't approve of where I spent the night last night," Kara said.
"Ah. Gotcha. Hope you had a good time."
"Goodbye, Nia," Kara said before hanging up the phone.
"Nia's the girl you're mentoring at Catco?" Maggie asked.
Kara looked over at Maggie. "Yeah."
"And you just let her think she's lying to your sister in order to cover for your booty call."
Kara winced. "I panicked?"
"You couldn't just tell Alex you crashed here?"
"She doesn't know I talk to you," Kara said.
Maggie looked down at her empty coffee mug.
"I'm sorry," Kara said. "She… she had a hard time, and she's just gotten her feet back under her. Just really started to move on. I don't want to…"
"It's okay," Maggie said. "I get it. She doesn't need her ex around when she'd not really past it."
"Yeah," Kara said. "That one sucks."
Maggie looked up at her. "Lot of experiences with that?"
"Depends," Kara said. "Does Mon-El showing up with his wife in tow count?"
"What the fuck?" Maggie asked.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Kara said. "And it's worse. He showed up a couple of months after you and Alex split, except by his clock, he'd been gone seven years. He ended up about a thousand years in the future, somehow. And there I am, finally starting to get over him, when he shows up with this beautiful, smart, amazing wife. And it sucked, so much."
"You have literally got the worst fucking luck of anyone I know," Maggie said. "At least my misery is my own fault."
"What?" Kara asked.
"I knew better than to get involved with someone fresh off the boat. I knew those relationships never work out. I just… I wanted it so bad, you know. And I was stupid enough to actually believe I would be enough for some."
"You'll find someone," Kara said.
Maggie shook her head. "There's no point," she said. "Loving someone the way I loved Alex… You don't get that twice. I don't think most people even get that once. And once you've felt that way, nothing else will ever measure up."
Kara started to say something, but a noise caught her attention. She tilted her head slightly, focusing on the sound.
"I've got to go," Kara said.
"Supergirl problem?" Maggie asked.
"A passenger liner and a Supercargo just collided in the mouth of the bay," Kara said.
"Leave your clothes here. I get them back to you."
"Thanks, Mags," Kara said, and then she was gone.
Kara flew in through the window of her apartment, more than a little ready to be done with the day. She's spent half the morning keeping a passenger line from going under while the coast guard welded on hull patches, then another few hours fishing cargo containers out of the bay, before, then dragging the supercargo into a dry dock so she could be patched up. After that, there had been a bank robbery, a hand full of cat in tree level incidents and a pile up on Otto Bender Bridge. By the time she headed home, she'd missed a full day of work, she smelled like a fish market that had been doused in gasoline, and all she really wanted was a shower and some ice cream and a little time to mope before she met Alex for dinner, but the moment she touched down, she felt it. Someone had been in her apartment.
She looked around, immediately alert for a threat, any threat, but there wasn't one, and it took her a moment to sort through the various sensory input to figure out how she knew someone had been in her apartment, but she finally found in. A faint hint of coconut scented shampoo. She also spotted the stack of neatly folded clothes on her table. She walked over to the table and saw a note laying on top of the clothes.
Kara,
Take care of yourself, and next time, call be before you start drinking.
Maggie.
P.S. You really should move the spare key once in a while.
Kara smiled and reached for her phone, taking a moment to put in Maggie's contact info, then firing off a quick text.
Kara: Thanks for bringing my clothes back.
Maggie: No problem. Nice job with the bank robbery BTW.
Kara: Not mad about me interfering with police business?
Maggie: Not when I don't have to do the extra paperwork :)
Kara: Need to grab a shower. Talk later?
Maggie: Sure. Take care of yourself, okay.
Kara: You too.
Kara sat her phone aside and headed for the shower, a small smile on her face.
Translated from the Kryptonian:
.kaopahdh rraop w tiv aorghahs ni waila
You must make the universe whole.