A/N: This fic is getting so long it probably should have been a stand-alone, but oh well, I hope you guys are enjoying it! This chapter has lots more Danvers sisters. Big thanks to the guest who prompted the ending - you rock, that was an awesome idea!
She misses Kara's favorite movie at game night, and she fights with Supergirl at the crime scene. And this person in front of Kara, she looks like Alex and she sounds like her, but the words don't fit the voice and the hugs are too soft and the shared glances don't hold two worlds of history, and when she says "I'll see you, tomorrow" it sounds like goodbye instead of a promise.
"Hey," Alex's voice draws Kara's attention. "Is everything okay?"
Alex lingers in the doorway, hours after J'onn has left and the sun's set and the apartment is heavy with shadows and sounds Kara's never noticed before.
"Hmm?" Kara's gaze flickers from the floor back up to Alex. "Oh, yeah, yeah everything is fine." She slinks an arm around her waist, weight pressed onto the back of her heel.
"You're not good at lying to me," Alex says, a teasing smile slips across her cheeks and Kara's heart clatters in her chest, all sharp edges and heavy. "I know something's wrong, your face," she waves her hand in the air, "it's all scrunchy, like you have a… a…" She purses her lips, squinting.
"A crinkle?" Kara fills in the blank with a whisper, and all this filling is emptying her on the inside.
"Yes, exactly!" Alex exclaims and presses up on her tiptoes, tapping the space between Kara's brows. "So what's wrong?" She asks, wearing a soft smile, as she settles back onto flat feet, like they're in the middle of inside joke.
But it's all one-sided and everything between them is off-kilter and Kara can't help the way her face falls, watery eyes looking everywhere but Alex.
"Hey," Alex's voice softens, and she reaches her hand out to Kara's shoulder. "I'm serious, what's up?"
Kara just shakes her head. "I can't—"
"What does that even mean, Kara?" Alex blows out a breath and one arm settles on her hip while the other raises in the air, accompanying her words. The world feels tilted out of axis. This feeling that something's been off, accumulating over the past few days, pinnacles here with Kara just an arm length in front of her but feeling galaxies away.
"I, nothing, I—"
"You've been acting weird lately and at first, I thought it was just me overthinking or something, but now you're—you're keeping secrets from me, I mean, we don't do that? That's not us."
"I wish I—" Kara rings her hands together and holds them close to her chest where her heart beats so loud it hurts. "It's not that simple," Kara whispers, her head shaking and her eyes filling with tears that won't fall.
"Really?" Alex's foot taps against the ground. "Then explain it to me."
"I can't!" Kara shouts, cheeks blazing red and the room too hot.
Alex rolls her eyes and pushes around Kara. Alex's rough touch burns against Kara's impenetrable skin. "Don't bother calling until you want to start acting like the sister I know," Alex jabs and yanks the door closed behind her.
The frame rattles and joins with the stomp of Alex's retreating feet down the hall, the cacophony clattering in Kara's skull and making her head ache. She moves, backing up until her back slams against the closed door. Her phone rings and she glances at the caller ID, seeing Lena's name and tossing the device to the side. There's only one person in the world she wants to talk to right now.
Giving in to her shaky legs, Kara sinks to the floor. Her phone, still vibrating across the room, is miles away now. The ground is cool beneath her palms and a shudder rips through her shoulders. She lets her head fall and the sobs break forward.
/
"It's never going to be the same," Kara says. Her stride matches Lena's as they walk through CatCo, side by side. In Kara's arms, sits a stack of takeout in a brown bag from their favorite restaurant down the street. They'd slipped away to spend a few moments catching up while they made the trip, returning as the building began emptying of its last few nine-to-five employees who'd stayed behind extra to finish articles and meet deadlines. "We've barely talked since then. Everything just feels different."
Lena's head tilts to the side, brows scrunched just slightly like they always are when she's trying to work something out. After a few moments she lets out a sigh. "I think," she begins. "That's just how it's going to be for a while, and I can't imagine how painful it is, Kara. But, once this witch-hunt for your identity settles down, I'm going to figure out a way to restore her memories. I'll work with J'onn, we'll get Winn back, whatever it takes to find a solution. We will make this okay."
Kara bites her lip, her full attention on Lena. "You really think so?"
Lena opens her office door for Kara, giving her shoulder a squeeze as she passes. "I do."
"Thank you," Kara says as she begins setting out the food on the coffee table. "For everything. I really don't know how I would be getting through any of this without you."
Lena smiles at Kara, her hands in the takeout bag and fumbling with plastic cutlery and paper napkins. "What are friends for?"
Just as Kara's about to return the smile, her facial features twist in concentration. She turns toward the long windows, head tilted and eyes squinting. "Ugh," she sighs. "I've got to go."
"Supergirl?"
Kara nods and apologizes but Lena shakes her head and waves it off. "Duty calls, I understand. I'll save the potstickers for when you get back, sound good?"
"Absolutely. See you soon." And with that, she slips out to the balcony and takes off.
/
With the third robber removed from the bank and apprehended, Kara touches back down to Earth, feet pressing against the street.
"What are you even doing here, Supergirl?" Alex emerges from around the corner, bathed in the red and blue of police lights. "It was made abundantly clear the last time we interacted, that you are not to have any part in DEO activity."
Kara tosses her hands down to her side. "I heard people yelling, I can't just turn that off, Alex!"
"Alex?" She questions and her voice is low, a growl, as she steps into Kara's space, hands on her hips. Kara may be taller in stature, but she feels herself shrinking. "I thought I told you—" The disapproval on her face is wiped clean in a moment and Kara's head tilts in confusion as Alex squints. The fury flaming through Alex goes rigid. "Watch out."
"What?"
A solid weight crashes into her side, the surprise sends her tumbling into the ground. A body crashes into hers, a mass of brown hair in her face and those sirens blaring in the night. A roar of footsteps thunders from the cars, swerves around them and accumulates around a figure cloaked in darkness, visible just over the place Kara's shoulder had been mere seconds earlier.
Her brows crinkle, and she realizes the weight against her is Alex.
"What the hell?"
Kara pushes Alex off her, seething as hurt and anger flare inside her. Heat flushes her cheeks and her hands ball into fists on their own accord as she shoves herself off the ground and stands, wobbling as she does so.
"Are you—are you okay?" Alex's eyes peel open, then drop shut again, stuck in a cycle of parting just to fall closed.
"What?" Kara stumbles. "Am I—yeah, I'm fine? I—" The realization hits Kara like an icy fist in her chest. The screaming sirens turn to silence, the traffic halts, the moon stops its climb through the night sky.
"You're bleeding." Kara drops to her knees and feels the gravel bite into the skin between her skirt and boots. She doesn't blink at the emerging droplets of crimson that rise from her torn skin. "Shit you're bleeding. You were—you were shot. For—for…" Kara's gaze sinks down toward a whirl of shallow breathing and the eyes that meet her are all Alex. Her Alex. Then they wink shut and the night crashes onto her shoulders.