A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, reads, favorites, and follows! It means so much. Big thanks to Ebble for submitting today's prompt. It wasn't on the poll, because it just got submitted on the last chapter but I started it because I had an idea and the next thing I knew, the chapter was pretty much done so I went ahead and finished and now we have an update. :) Plus, it seemed fitting to write since something seemed "off" about Kara in the last episode. She looked really stressed and nervous to me.
Just a warning, this one gets a little dark at some points.
The poll has been updated since I received so many new prompts.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Prompt: Kara having to deal with a big personal issue and really needing Alex but doesn't go to her because she is spending all her time with Maggie. Alex eventually finds out and they have a big heart to heart
It doesn't start like this, like the feeling that her lungs are full of water and her chest is heavy and thick with sludge and mud that threatens to drown her. It doesn't start with a shaking core and trembling hands and breath that catches in her throat. It doesn't start with omnipresence in her head and a racing heart that she can't stop.
It starts small, one morning, when she wakes up and just doesn't feel like getting out of bed. When she wiggles out of the sheets and her feet meet the cool wood beneath her and she can't help but send a lingering glance back at her mattress as she exits the bedroom and wishes she could go back, because things are getting so complicated and confusing in her life.
Everything is changing and she can't keep up. Cat had told her to dive, but it feels more like she's fallen into the ocean and each time she tries to swim forward she is battered by a wave and sent crashing back to the jagged shore where she's pressed against rocks and her skin is torn.
She shakes it off for a while, suppresses her feelings under Supergirl fights and CatCo reports until the first time she can't hold it in anymore. Tears brim her eyes at the end of a fight and she doesn't even know why. She sulks away after letting the medical crew check her over, flying around a bit before she finds herself hovering outside of Alex's apartment. She's about to let herself in through the window when she hears a knock on the door, listens as Maggie and Alex's voices mingle and a bag crinkles as Maggie sets takeout on the counter.
Kara bits her lip, lingers for another moment as she hears her sister's laughter—it's so light, so happy and opposite from everything Kara's been feeling. She can't go in there, won't let herself mess up Alex and Maggie's evening with something so small and stupid. She turns around and shoots back out into the night, cape fluttering behind her.
"Supergirl out there?" Maggie asks, tilting her head in response to the glint of red she'd seen outside the window.
"Nah," Alex says with a flick of her hand. "Earlier today Kara said she'd be busy with a report or something. It's just you and me tonight." She smiles at Maggie and Kara can hear it in her voice even from the skies.
She shoves the back of her hand across her cheeks, flying higher and higher until she can't feel.
/
The second time it happens, is on a Friday, five days later.
Kara's gotten a little better at reigning things in, holding tight when she's in company and submerging herself in distraction when she's alone. But Kara's always felt better after talking to people, talking to Alex, and their sister night has been the only thing keeping her upright as she'd trudged through the week. It'd kept her on her feet, kept her hands in loose fists to stop them from shaking, and kept the lump in her throat at bay just enough to mutter an intelligible response to Snapper the three times he'd yelled at her in the past day, to continue her work when James wouldn't look her in the eye, to keep showing up at the DEO when she wants to avoid Mon-El, to keep her from sobbing every time she passes Cat's office and sees it vacant of the woman because that's still a thing that rises inside her. It makes her feel a little bit okay each time Alex goes off with Maggie—when they eat together, snuggle together, and watch movies together and Kara's alone.
It's okay. It's okay because Fridays are sister nights and those have always been sacred and stable and Kara will cling to anything that's stable right now.
She enters the DEO around midday with a returned bounce in her walk, because maybe after so long things will feel a little normal again after tonight. She lets her feet carry her to Alex's lab, smiling at the sight of her sister.
Kara knocks on the door frame, entering before she waits for a response and lifting herself to sit on the edge of a lab counter.
Alex looks at her expectantly.
Kara swings her legs, crossed at the ankles as she speaks. "Ready for sister night tonight?" she grins, she's already picked out Alex's favorite movies and food, has everything ready.
"Oh, shoot, Kara." Alex rubs a hand across her forehead before resting it on the counter, the blonde's heart sinks. She knows that look, that tone. "I completely forgot to tell you, I can't make it tonight. Maggie has this ceremony, party thing at the precinct and I said I'd go with her. You don't mind, right?"
Kara swallows the lump in her throat and shakes her head. This is fine. It's fine, she should not be so upset over it. "No. You—you have fun with Maggie." She slips off her perch, needs to leave before the pain her chest and stomach and heart consumes her.
Alex grins. "Thanks." She tugs Kara into a quick hug and it does nothing to loosen the ache swirling through her body. Instead it stings and Kara feels like she's going to be sick. "You should call James or Winn or even Mon-El. I'm sure they'd like to hang out."
Kara hasn't told Alex that she hasn't been talking to any of them.
"We'll hang out next week," Alex promises as she fuses over test tubes.
The blonde just nods as she exits the room, she doesn't trust her voice to produce any sound other than a sob. When Alex turns around, her sister is gone.
She spends the night circling the globe as fast as she can. She thinks of Krypton and dust and broken things.
/
After that, she loses count of how many times it happens; of the times she clutches a phone in her desperate, shaking hands only to meet her sister's voicemail, of the canceled dinners and movies, of the times Kara's own guilt and shyness grow into self-imposed shackles. Until her sister begins to feel like a stranger and Kara feels more alien than she ever has before.
It's at its worst two weeks later on their sister night. Alex asks if Maggie can tag along. It splinters Kara's plans of talking to Alex, but of course she says yes because she loves her sister and she loves Maggie, and Alex has sacrificed so much for Kara that really, this shouldn't be a big deal.
Kara shows up to Alex's apartment hopeful that maybe the night would ease the tightness in her chest that had grown into a pervasive panic, to the feeling that she could snap and shatter at any moment and slip into some dark oblivion of anguish from which she would never return. She equates it to the Phantom Zone in her head.
It feels like she's back there or maybe, she's never left, not completely, and pieces of that wretched wasteland reside inside her.
She bundles her trembling hands in her coat pocket after knocking on the door and stepping inside to warm hugs and pizza and Netflix.
"Hey, Kara, help yourself to the pizza and join us on the couch," Alex says. "We're just about to turn something on."
Kara nods and grabs a slice of pizza before sinking beneath a blanket. At the sight of food on her plate she's reminded that she's been forgetting to eat lately. She takes a bite and chews slowly, can't seem to focus on whatever's happening on the TV in front of her.
She's trying to swallow a third bite, coax it down her throat when her stomach flips. She discards her plate, slice barely touched, on the coffee table and has to close her eyes.
When she opens them, Maggie and Alex are looking at her with concern. Guilt surges through Kara, mixes with her roiling stomach.
Something is wrong. Rao, something is so wrong and it is all slipping through her fingers and breaking.
But she does not want to mess this up for Alex. Can't mess this up.
"Is something wrong?" Alex reaches out, brushes Kara's cheek with her thumb. It's gentle, it's warm. She doesn't deserve it. It makes her feel like crying.
Kara shakes her head—too sharp, too fast. The room is reeling, her vision is a little blurry.
"Kara, are you okay?" Alex asks, moves her hands to cup Kara's face.
Maggie's still snuggled against the agent, both of them wearing identical concern. It's too intimate, Kara feels like she's imposing. She can't mess this up, can't mess this up.
"Kara," Alex says again, eyes boring holes into Kara's soul.
"I—I don't feel good." At least it's honest.
Alex straightens immediately, untangles herself from Maggie and moves closer. "You can't get sick, at least you aren't supposed to. Did-"
"I know," she heaves in a shaky breath and cuts Alex off, the nausea grows. "I just—I don't know, Alex. I don't—I—I have to go to the bathroom."
"Kara, wait" Alex calls as the blonde stands unsteadily. "Did you blow out your powers or catch an alien virus? Those are a thing, you know." She follows her sister and the door closes in her face.
The blonde tips her head back against the door, breathes in deep, violent breaths. Holding down the bile rising in her throat until she hears Alex retreat back to the living room. Her churning stomach lurches and she vomits in the toilet with tears burning in her eyes. She heaves and spits for a minute, before flushing and letting her forehead fall against the porcelain.
She hears Maggie offer to stay or leave, "whatever's best for Kara," she says; to which Alex responds that it might be best if "Kara has some down time" just the two of the them, while the agent figures out what's going on, she already has an idea. Is seeing reflections of Kara's younger, completely heartbroken and destroyed self.
Kara hears Maggie voice her goodbye and kiss Alex's cheek. Maggie says she hopes Kara feels better and then the door closes softly behind her and Kara is sorry, she's so sorry, as Maggie's heartbeat fades as the distance increases and Kara's senses are full of Alex's heart and Alex's breathing. She wanted sister time, but not like this, not with herself ruining Alex and Maggie's night.
Kara's so out of it that she startles when Alex returns on the outside of the door, giving a gentle knock. "Kara, come on, let me in," she prods softly. "Please," she adds.
Kara rises and has to lean against the counter, hands gripping the granite as she moves to unlock the door. Alex steps in, deep, brown eyes shiny with worry and brows furrowed like they always are when she's trying to figure something out. "Did you get sick?" she asks and her face is so contorted in concern, Kara feels herself battered with more guilt.
The blonde gives a small nod and her elbow buckles, sends her sinking toward the ground. Alex is at her side in an instant, lowering Kara to the floor until she's sitting and leaning against the wall.
"I'm going to be right back," Alex says and sprints off. When she returns she has a glass of water in her hand and nudges it into Kara's. "Small sips, okay? You can rinse if you need."
She helps Kara stand again and clean her mouth, wipes Kara's face with a warm towel and then switches to cool water to dab sweat off the blonde's hairline. "Come on, let's lie down and get you to bed."
Kara wants to fight, wants to tell her sister that she'll be fine, but words catch in her throat and she finds herself melting into the touch she's missed for so long. Alex has always had that effect on her.
She helps Kara change, replaces her work clothes with soft pajama bottoms and a tee shirt. Then she lifts the comforter and urges Kara beneath them. "I'll be back in a sec," Alex says once Kara is settled in the bed.
She returns moments later with her laptop as well as more water and some crackers, all of which she sets on the nightstand. "Tomorrow we're getting real food into you, and a trip down to the DEO med wing if you're still feeling bad." When she turns around tears are falling from Kara's eyes and in a second she's sobbing. "I'm sorry," she whispers in watery words and a hoarse voice. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."
"Oh God, Kara, what's going on with you?" Alex stops organizing the nightstand, dropping what she'd been carrying and climbing onto the bed. She brushes hair off Kara's wet cheeks and pulls her close. "Huh? You've been acting weird for weeks and I thought… I thought it wasn't serious, because you'd come to me if it was. But I was wrong, I should have said something. I should have been there."
"I di-didn't want to bother you," Kara murmurs against Alex's shoulder. "You've be-been so happy with Maggie I didn't—I didn't want to take that away from you or be a burden."
"No, Kara, oh God, no." Alex tightens her arms around her sister, so they're pressed together and she can feel Kara's warm, quick breaths. Not for the first time, she wishes she had Kara's super strength if only to match the tightness of her hugs, to keep her sister safe. "No, you could never be a burden to me, okay?"
Kara makes a sound of disagreement, shakes her head fiercely.
"Kara, look at me." Alex pries Kara's hands from her back, gently lifts her chin. She waits until she meets Kara's blue, watery eyes. "We are sisters and nothing changes that, nobody changes that. You will never be a burden to me."
"Okay," Kara says with a shaky whisper. "Thank you."
Alex runs a hand through Kara's hair. "You are the most important person in my life."
Kara stares back at her, gaze hollow and tormented.
"I want you to say it."
Kara remains silent and Alex nudges her side. "I'm serious. I need you to say it."
"You are the most important person in my life," Kara says and sniffles.
"The other way," Alex prods.
Kara sighs and drops her gaze. "I am the most important person in your life."
"There we go," Alex says with a smile. "And don't you forget it."
" 'kay," Kara says, fatigue beginning to slur her words. She slumps down so her face presses against Alex side.
"Want to tell me what's going on? Or what happened earlier? Are you sick?"
Kara shakes her head and the weigh in her chest returns, she loops her arms around Alex's middle, wanting to be as close as possible. "Not sick," she whispers. "Just sad. Really unbearably sad, like before. Like those times."
Alex nods. "Why?" she asks, curving against Kara and continuing to run her fingers through blonde hair.
"Because everything's wrong. Everything is broken and changing and I can't keep up, Alex, I can't. James won't look at me; and Winn's being skiddish; and Mon-El and I can't even talk anymore; and Cat left; and I haven't heard from Lena in days; and J'onn has M'gann; and you have Maggie; and I'm happy for you, I really really am. I just don't want to bother you, so I don't talk to you and I keep myself away. And my family from Krypton is dead. And everyone is gone and I'm alone and I'm scared that I'm going to lose myself again in the Phantom Zone, in my head, in my memories."
Alex gathers Kara in her arms, pulls her back up. "It's not gonna happen. Not again, not ever." She knows they're both referring to particularly dark months of Kara's teenage years, when she'd shut down and cry every night and withdraw. When she'd work herself up into the frenzied, haunted state she's on the verge of footing right now. She'd make herself sick with worry and sobs. Kara's strong and sunny, but Kara's also been through a lot, she buries a lot, hides a lot, keeps it closed and locked away until it threatens to destroy her and comes bubbling up. "Because you're not alone. You've got me and we know how to fix this, how to fight this: together." Alex slides her fingers between Kara's. "You're always going to be my number one, Kara."
"Thank you," Kara murmurs, tears dried on her cheeks and words a little more stable than before. She reaches out, curls flings her arms around Alex and burrows into the crook of her neck.
"You're welcome," Alex says. "Always, always, always. Your friends and everyone else will come around, they just need time. But even if every other person in the whole entire galaxy—the whole entire universe—left, you'd still have me. You've always got me, so don't ever think you're alone or you're a burden for needing help, because you're not."
Kara nods. "I love you," she chokes out.
Alex smiles and rests her cheek on the top of Kara's head. "I love you so much, sweet girl. More than you'll ever know."
Kara shakes her head and Alex can feel a small smile curve across the younger woman's lips. "I think I do know."
"Nah," Alex says and shifts so they're lying down.
"That's not fair," Kara murmurs.
"Yeah it is, I'm your big sister."
Kara grumbles with a smile on her face and lets her eyes fall closed, nestling against her sister. "I missed you, Lexie," she whispers.
Alex drops a tear into Kara's hair, quickly brushes it away and closes her own eyes. "I missed you, too. But I'm here now and I've got you, all right? You're okay. I've got you and we're going to fix this."
Kara nods, feels sleep tug heavily until she's floating away to somewhere safe and warm for the first time in weeks. "Okay," she mumbles and drifts off with her fingers still linked around her sister's hand; somehow that's enough. Somehow that is everything.