A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows, favorites, and reads. Just so you all know, the poll has finally been updated and is now ready for your votes! And, as always, feel free to send in more prompts.

The website has been sort of weird with reviews recently, so if I haven't responded to yours, I promise I'm trying and I'd like to say thank you SO much.

Special thanks to Cheshire Assasin for today's prompt. It will be split into two parts.

I wrote this chapter while listening to a few songs, I think they help set the tone, so, if you want to listen to them, here's what I've got... Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol, New York - Snow Patrol, The Greatest Bastard - Damien Rice, Song for Someone - U2, and literally any song off of Paul Travis' album 'Songs for Ruth' (it's such a gift of an album. I love it.)

Okay, okay, so... prompt: Kara sacrifices herself to save Alex after she accidentally blew her powers trying to protect Alex and her adoptive mother, including Cat Grant and Winn or James or both

Also, I apologize. This chapter made me really sad, too.

"When are you leaving to pick up Eliza from the airport?" Kara asks, throwing open the door to Alex's lab.

"About an hour and half," Alex answers and turns away from her cell culture to face the blonde. "Why?"

"The usual alien-terrorizing-civilians routine. I'll be quick, wait for me to leave, please?"

"Wouldn't you rather just fly over?"

"No radio in the sky," Kara says pointedly and grinning, leaning against the door frame. "And you know there isn't much I love more than car duets with you."

Alex cracks, letting a smile fall over her face. "All right, be safe."

"Always am," Kara says, swinging back around the doorframe and tossing a smirk over her shoulder. "See ya soon, sis."

"See ya," Alex calls to her sister's retreating form, blonde curls bouncing as she all but skips down the hall.

/

It all goes right until it starts to go wrong.

"Kara! I need intel," Alex prompts two hours later, running a hand through her hair.

She receives a huff in response and retracts as the noise meets her ear.

"The loudness was not necessary, Kara," Alex mutters through her teeth, she looks out through the windows of the DEO, where night has fallen across the city.

"Yeah, sorry, kind of busy right now," Kara replies, zipping through the air to avoid an attack from her alien opponent. Sweat has gathered on her hairline, an ache spreading through her muscles.

"I'm sending back up. It might take a while though, with J'onn stuck on a separate mission, I'll contact him as soon as possible," Alex says into the comms, beginning to pace through the DEO.

"It's too late, Alex," Kara mutters and the brunette catches the fear lacing her words. "I'm having trouble containing the alien, it's strong and angry and it shoots bolts of electricity—like lighting, but arguably more powerful," Kara says, "I would know."

"Just stay calm. You got it, Supergirl."

"Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I got grazed by a lightning strip and I think it has the ability to drain my powers. They're made of green kryptonite."

Alex rubs a hand across her forehead.

"It's moving toward the airport," Kara says. "Where Eliza is."

"I'll head over then, meet you there," Alex says. "Best of both worlds… we'll beat the alien and pick up Mom on time," she jokes, hoping to tease the worry out of her sister's voice.

"Yeah," Kara says and air whooshes through her end of the earpiece as she slits through the sky, following the alien toward the airport.

Alex is already suiting up as she talks. "Be safe. I love you."

"I love you, too," Kara says before their communication clicks off.

/

They all arrive at the same time, with the moon shining in the sky and rain misting the air as thunder shakes in the distance.

DEO agents are working to evacuate the airport and as soon as Eliza gathers her luggage she pulls out her phone, eyes hovering over a single text sent by Alex just thirty seconds earlier.

'Alien threat contained.
Kara in danger and hurt badly.
I'm with her. Come to Parking Lot S immediately.'

Eliza lets her luggage fall from her hand, lets her legs carry her through the airport she knows well after numerous visits to see both girls. She cannot afford to lose another person she loves; and she is reminded of the fact as she gets closer, until the nearly vacant parking lot is in view and she sees the crumbled red of Kara's cape illuminated by streetlights.

Her run turns to a sprint until the sisters take shape in front of her.

"Eliza," Kara says, making an attempt at smiling and sitting up, but she falls back against Alex's lap, a whimper escaping her lips and her hand creeping up to clutch her bloody abdomen, knocking Alex's hand along the way.

"Shh," Alex sooths, keeping pressure on Kara's wound and grabbing the searching hand with her own, squeezing it gently.

"Oh, Kara, sweetheart," Eliza breathes, pausing in front of the girls.

"Hi," Kara says. Her voice is weak and strained, her breathing labored. She's dying. Eliza knows the moment she arrives, sees those normally bright blue eyes are dull and full of pain. Eliza knows those eyes, has loved them from the first moment she saw them—young and lonely but so, so brave and so incredibly strong. Capable.

She's hugged Kara as those eyes cried and lifted Kara's small frame into the air as those eyes shone with jubilance.

"Mom," Alex hiccups and she stares up at Eliza, eyes watery and features frowning. Alex shakes her head and confirms what Eliza already knows. Kara isn't going to make it.

"What happened?" Eliza kneels to the ground beside them, running a hand over Kara's hair as rain begins to fall, harder-more violent and angrier than before.

"The alien was coming to the airport… toward your plane, toward Alex. He was going to kill you, I-I couldn't let that happen. So I—so I…" she breaks off, wincing in pain and Alex squeezed her tighter, wishing so hard she could fix it—fix the dulling of Kara's eyes, the paling of her skin, the blood seeping from her abdomen. All Kara can remember is a burst of pain spread through her body, and falling, falling, falling; Alex screaming; rain.

"It's okay," Alex says and Eliza takes Kara's open hand, running her thumb over the bruised skin.

"Kara took a bolt of green kryptonite from the alien, draining the creature of its strength so the DEO could detain it. But at the same time, Kara lost her own powers and was…" This time, Alex trails off, choking on a sob. Her tears drip into Kara's hair and turn the light hair dark.

"I got attacked before the alien got detained, then I fell, from the sky" Kara says through a grimace, a distance seeping into her slurred words. "And I'm going to die."

"There has to be something we can do!" Eliza cries and thunder cracks above them.

Alex's shoulders rise and fall in a hopeless shrug and her words tumble out in a rushed heap. "I'm doing everything I can, but the medical staff is too far away and they've sent a helicopter but everything's been slowed by the storm and there's so much blood."

It's then that Eliza notices the metal bar sticking through Kara's abdomen, the rubble pushed in her skin. A gasp catches on her lips, features sinking in defeat.

Kara fights the haziness pulling at her gaze to look at Eliza. "Thank you for taking me in and for raising me. It will always mean more than I can express. I love you," Kara says, tears pooling in her eyes.

Eliza clutches Kara's hand, kisses the girl's forehead. "I love you, too, sweet girl. I love you so much."

"And Alex," the blonde begins, but Alex interjects.

"No! You don't know that you're dying, you can't know for sure," Alex says through sobs. She is tired of being strong. She is tired of keeping it together.

"It's okay, Alex, you'll be fine. You need to live the life you could have had if I wasn't your sister, you need to go do all those things and more… Do fun things. Go to Paris and Rome and learn to play guitar again and be happy, okay? I just need to know that—that you're going to be happy…"

"I don't want to do any of those things without you," Alex cries. "I can't. I won't."

Kara reaches up, cold, bluing fingers brushing tears off Alex's warm cheeks. "Alex, I am not scared, I am going to the light of Rao, I will see my parents. And someday, I will see you again." Tears gather and fall from her eyes. "I will miss you more than I can ever say, but this not goodbye. It is never goodbye, I will always be with you. I will never leave you." She whispers her love for her sister in Kryptonese and Alex repeats the words back, through a lump in her throat.

"You have given so much to me," Kara says and her words are growing softer, slower. "Alex, I cannot thank you for everything you have done. You are the best sister I could have asked for. I—I—this is important, okay? You have to promise me you'll move forward."

Alex shakes her head, tears dripping from her eyes and down her cheeks. "I can't. Kar, you're my sister, I can't. I'm not giving up on you." And she's hit with a thousand memories, all piling up in her chest. Kara arriving, Kara's first day at school, looking at stars, teaching Kara how to punch and play football, sleepovers and movie marathons and secrets whispered through sleeping bags and messy hair. She closes her eyes and she can feel Kara's breath tickling her ear, their hands curled together, pupils wide and words honest in the dark.

"Alex," Kara pleads, fighting desperately against the heaviness pulling at her eyelids and fogging her brain. She just needs time. Just a little more time. She cannot—will not—leave this planet until she knows her sister will be okay. "Please, you have to promise you'll be okay."

"Okay," Alex breaks and presses her face into Kara's hair. "Okay, I promise."

She's seeing nerf wars and races and rough housing. She's seeing Kara in her doorway at three in the morning, tears on her cheeks and nightmare still swirling through her mind. She sees Kara tucked in her bed. Kara coming for advice about school and friends and boys and clothes and life and Earth. She sees her sister by her side, cheering the brunette on, through every meet, every game, every test, every step of her life for more than the past decade. How is she ever supposed to let that go?

"Thank you." Kara returns a weak squeeze to Alex's palm.

How is she ever supposed to survive?

The rotor of the DEO helicopter tears through the storming sky, its noise booming through the air.

All three women look up.

"They're here," Eliza says.

"It's okay!" Alex feels her heart leap in her chest, just as Kara's eyes fluttered open and closed, open and closed. She's fighting with everything she has left.

It's too late, Alex's heart screams. Her gut wrenches.

Kara's muttering something, but Alex can't hear over the roar of the helicopter.

These will be her last words. These will be her last breaths.

"I can't hear you," Alex cries. "I can't hear you," she whispers, her voice tortured with desperation as rain crashes from the sky and mangles the street and Kara's lips murmur and her lungs quiver and her eyes take in their last wavelength of color and her heart beats the pitter-patter of a last symphony of action potential and actin filaments and blood and air and life and breath.

Her eyes slip closed and she faints, falling limp onto Alex.

"I didn't know what you were saying, I didn't hear you," Alex sobs and her words blur together as thunder splits the sky and Kara's lungs heave one last breath and her azure lips tremble and part and close for the final time. Her heart beats, beats, beats and then, it doesn't.

Just like that, as the helicopter begins its struggle to land. No final declaration, no slowing of time, no indication that her last breath was any different than the thirty other strained inhales that had preceded it. Just the howl of wind and grating, strangling sobs inching their way out of Alex's throat and filling the night air; the night air newly void of Kara's presence.

Just there and gone.

The whole world feels empty. Alex has never felt so lonely.

She pulls her sister further into her lap, hugs the chilling, lifeless body to her chest.

The metal that gored Kara's body now presses against Alex.

It isn't fair. It is never fair.

Kara's blood soaks through Alex's shirt, her limp head falling forward onto Alex's shoulder and the brunette cradles it, clutches a fist around a lock of blonde waves, and lets her body be overcome with the anguish poisoning each cell.

A different kind of hole bores through Alex's chest, burning like the white flame of goodbye. A scorched Earth.

"I'm sorry," Alex murmurs, tears splattering into Kara's hair. "I'm so sorry."

Alex shifts her eyes up, makes contact with Eliza crouched across from her on the slick pavement, fingers wrapped around Kara's frigid palm. The hands that will never again be used to save or heal or paint or write. The hands Alex will never again get to feel hugging her close or touching her hair or wrapped around her fingers.

"She's gone, Mom," Alex whispers and Eliza already knows. "She's gone and I don't even k-know her last words. The last I said was 'I can't hear you' I didn't… I didn't even…" Alex dissolves and Eliza wraps her arms around the brunette, Kara cradled in between them as Eliza pulls both her daughters into one last hug. "I didn't even say goodbye."

"I'm going to call J'onn," Eliza says with the poise one gains from seeing death too much, but as she stands and steps away, a part of her heart is yanked and shattered.

"Kara," Alex breaths, pressing her forehead into the girl's hair. This can't be happening. It can't. It's a joke, it's a nightmare. It cannot be real. Her heart hammers in her chest and it is more painful than anything she has ever felt. "Come on, Kara, wake up. Wake up! You have to wake up!" Her lips murmur against Kara's head. "You have to! You can't leave me," she screams and her voice cracks, condemning her to silence as a sob chokes her throat. "Don't leave me," her lips cry into the vast darkness. "You swore you wouldn't leave me. When dad died you swore I wouldn't ever be alone and now I am."

War wages inside her head. Nothing will ever be the same.

Kara. Kara. Kara. Alex's heart howls with every beat.

The world is breaking; the world is dark. Nothing will ever be the same.

Kara. Kara. Kara.

Alex leans back, just enough so she can gently push damp strands of blonde hair from Kara's forehead. Her fingers brush against her sister's skin, carefully, as though maybe Kara is just sleeping, just fragile and in need of protection.

But it's too late, and no one needs Alex's protection anymore, because her little sister is gone.

Alex cups Kara's face in her hands. She's never been good at saying goodbye.

The blonde slips from Alex's arms as the power of each sob wracks the agent's body and other DEO specialists emerge from the shadows, silently pulling Kara away.

"No!" Alex yelps, but the space her sister had filled is already empty and she slams her fists against the pavement—Kara. Kara. Kara.— over and over and over again, until her own blood mingles with her sister's.

Alex continues the motion, slamming and sobbing until strong arms gather her up and pull her away. Through blurry, watery vision she makes out J'onn's features, watches as Supergirl is loaded into a black van, her last touch with starlight severed.

Alex beats her bloodied bruised fists against J'onn's chest, her skin a mix of purple and crimson as she fights. Fights time, fights death, fights life.

Kara was not supposed to die first. It was always supposed to be me, Alex thinks.

She screams and shoves until she loses her voice and falls brokenly in the Martian's arms, fatigue making her limbs weak. He holds her up, hugs her close as tears soak his shirt and Eliza follows Kara's lifeless body into the vehicle.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Alex stands, soaked by blood and storm, and just like her sister, is swallowed by the night.