Notes:
This chapter is a time jump so it's stylistically different. I don't particularly like it but I also don't think I have the patience to slowburn this for a couple more chapters. Apologies too for the long hiatus between updates. Real life has been really fucking hitting me hard. wow. Why you gotta do me like that, real life?
Also want to say that I've stopped watching Supergirl. It's a bit too racist for me, what with a white slaver replacing a great black male lead, it really is time to just throw in the towel on trying to watch something that has such problematic elements of white supremacy and seems to be actively pushing this kind of narrative. I'm not here for this apologist kind of attitude that asks it's viewers to accept that 'all opinions are equal'. No. They fucking aren't. I'm also not here for chastising the lead character for finding a problem with someone who fucking owned slaves.
Season 2 was problematic enough with how they basically made it the Mon-El show and wanted people to actively sympathize with the 'good-looking' slaver (HE FUCKING LOOKS LIKE EVERY OTHER WHITE BOY ON THE CW). To celebrate his mediocrity while chastising Kara for having an issue with someone who actively hid how horrible he knew he was to avoid punishment, and had everyone come to his defence even at the risk of looking super OOC and promote TOLERANCE for fucked up white boys. Fuck that shit.
People say, well, he wants to change, he wants to be better, he's paid his dues. Yeah? So if a Nazi guard hiding in Canada gets called out, are you gonna say the same thing? He's living his life, he's not killing Jews NOW, he's learned his lesson.
Fucking only sorry he got caught.
Sorry, I'm angry. I love some of the actors but it's not worth it. I hope that people that watch this show don't second-guess themselves. If someone has an opinion that all other races are inferior to them and they wanna wipe these inferior races off the face of the earth? You are correct to not entertain that opinion and you fucking stand your ground on that. Take a fucking stance and do not let what happened in Nazi Germany happen in this present day and age. Do not let fucking racists think it's fucking okay and it's just a fucking opinion.
Fuck you, CW. You can go choke. I hope that whole fucking network dies and I don't really care for CWood, but now if I never see his face again, it'll still be too soon.
In saying all of this, yes, I will continue writing because this fic has become an entirely different beast. And I might watch again if things change but that's a huge might because it's the fucking CW.
If they were alone, Kara would always be reaching out to Alex, needing this physical closeness that was at once so strange to Alex and so normal. Alex had never been touchy but this was… normal. Kara made it normal. Normal in a way that made Alex's breath catch when Kara would almost purr at her touch. When Kara's grief loomed large and palatable, it was vanquished when Alex was there. It was the best feeling in the world, for Alex, making Kara feel better. The way Kara looked at her, like Alex was the world, was addictive to put it simply. Alex just wanted to make Kara happy.
It took a good several weeks to get Kara to really smile again. Kara always tried to do her best. In front of Eliza and the entire world, Kara fake smiled and fake laughed and tried to fumble through attempts at humour. Alex always knew better. After school, there was designated snuggle time on the couch, where Kara drew comfort in Alex's arms, exhausted from the day. Alex always tried to be more tactile during their times together, raking her fingers through Kara's hair, using deft fingers to rub at the base of Kara's neck, and sometimes just holding Kara and trying to breath in an even and calm manner, smoothing her hands down Kara's back, hoping it helped.
Alex was really grateful to Sharon who also seemed to know that Kara was going through something. Sharon would keep showing up with documentaries for Kara so they could all watch it together when Sharon didn't have to help her family at the restaurant after school. Even Brendan, in his own unassuming way, tried to include Kara when he and Alex had to go study at the library, or always brought snacks just for Kara. But most of the time it was just Alex and Kara. Bundled in a blanket, Kara was usually draped all over Alex and Alex would just trying to breath with Kara and offer whatever comfort she could give.
Alex was there throughout the whole period of mourning for Viox, holding Kara's hand, going with her to school, walking her to her locker and hugging Kara before they had to go separate ways. If they shared a lunch period on some days, Alex would opt to stick by Kara instead of her friends, sometimes leaving the crowds of the cafeteria to sit somewhere quiet outside with Kara. It was the constant care and attention that Alex had showered on Kara that made Kara finally smile, a real one, after weeks of sad facsimiles. Alex, at that time, felt like it wasn't unlike finally seeing the sun past the clouds.
Life calmed down, smoothing over to mundaneness, finally feeling better after Viox had allowed itself to be taken away. It seemed like it had been the right choice for Kara, for integrating into human society. Kara still had off days where she might freeze completely, or her mind would wander, her attention on something else nobody else could hear or see. But she seemed more determined to fit in, more determined to be as human as possible. She was more focused and she was getting her powers under control.
Kara's new determination to be as human as possible seemed to open up communications between the Kryptonian cousins. Clark called a bit more, talked to Kara a bit longer about how she could hide herself, make herself invisible. Encouraged her to slouch, to choose friends wisely, to not use her powers EVER in public. Alex felt, to put it lightly, irritated at Clark's attempts to hide Kara's light even though she understood why Kara needed to hide and herself encouraged it. But she hated the fact that Clark was telling Kara to… but Alex was happy that the calls always put Kara in a better mood.
Jeremiah came and went, and his first time back after Viox had been taken, had been awkward. Kara barely came out of her room when Jeremiah was there and when she did, Kara very deliberately made sure that Alex was always between her and Jeremiah so that they wouldn't have any physical interactions. And even though Kara didn't blame him, Alex knew that Kara was still so sad from the loss of the AI. Alex was angry enough at her dad that she also gave him the silent treatment and immediately regretted it when he left soon after that visit.
The next few times Jeremiah came back home to visit, it progressively got easier. Even if Alex didn't understand why things had happened the way it had and was still angry at her father, he was still her dad and things were easier when he was around. Alex was mature enough to realize she had to make the most of the time she had with him.
Eliza wasn't so biting when he was around and Alex felt like they were standing on firm ground when Jeremiah came home. Alex wished things between Kara and Jeremiah would get better, but even Alex understood Kara's withdrawal. When everything you had known was taken away from you, and all of this was beyond anyone's control, having something-someone-taken away from you so deliberately did not make it better. Jeremiah always wanted to try and heal that rift, but Kara always seemed to shrink from him, blinking rapidly behind her thick-framed glasses.
Alex could see that Kara tried really hard to forgive and seemed to understand why. Kara didn't like it, but Kara understood. Alex still didn't. She tried, but at times she just felt so angry, then guilty at all the anger. Kara still smiled, so Alex should be able to, too.
It got easier with time, Jeremiah's absence felt, but normalized. There wasn't time for the confusion and the anger Alex felt when he came back, the relief and excitement from his reappearances didn't leave any room for that. When Jeremiah got leave for more than a couple of days, the summer before Alex went into the 12th grade, it was one of the happiest vacations, ever. But it was also that one point in time that Alex realized that things had started changing, and perhaps not for the better.
All of them, her mom, her dad, Kara… they had all piled into a car and gone across the country, stopping at weird places like the World's Largest Ball of Twine, natural wonders of redwood forests where Kara just stood there, gaping at the giant trees…
With Eliza and Jeremiah always following behind, Alex and Kara were always scampering ahead, Alex leading the way and Kara following close beside her. Whether it was running through a forest or trying to find Audrey Hepburn's star on the Walk of Fame, the two girls were always together.
It was the last year that the both of them would be in the same school together, the last year where Alex would wait for Kara and they could go home together. Kara had finally gotten a hold of the whole 'napping' and 'sleeping' thing underneath a yellow sun, and usually used that as an excuse to cuddle up to Alex. Jeremiah sometimes looked at the both of them with a… troubled expression on his face.
And it seemed Jeremiah and Eliza were fighting more. Since he went to his new job, there had been calm periods, lots of happy periods… but recently every time he came back, it seemed like Eliza got more and more frustrated with Jeremiah, their arguments usually in writing-Alex realizing a long time ago that this was their preferred method of communicating if they didn't want Kara to hear them-their arguments never seeming to resolve. It always ended with Eliza throwing up her hands and walking away, usually taking Kara with her, leaving Alex there to wonder about her mom's anger and her dad's anguish.
Even though the rift between Jeremiah and his wife and Kara seemed to widen, Alex and Jeremiah continued to be as close as usual, despite even Alex's deep-seated anger. He helped her with choosing universities, majors, working out applications. He would still take her alone for 'Alex and Dad' time, to go stargazing, just the two of them. He talked to her quietly, and Alex spoke at length, comforted that he listened without judgement, and listened even at inconsequential things. Jeremiah also encouraged her to talk about Kara with him, asked Alex about Kara since Kara was never as easy with Jeremiah again, not after Viox. Alex knew her father cared, could sometimes feel his eyes on her when she was with Kara, his face unreadable.
That, however, seemed to set off Eliza, who would bristle visibly if Jeremiah ever enquired about Kara within earshot of his wife, and protest even more when Jeremiah would take Alex aside. Eliza would complain that Alex was leaving Kara out, that Alex wasn't taking care of her sister. And that's when the word kept dropping and Eliza kept pushing it.
Her sister. Alex's sister. Watch your sister, Alex. Take care of your sister, Alex. Where's your sister, Alex. You're supposed to be watching your sister, Alex. Keep your sister safe, Alex.
Alex and Kara had always used the title of 'sister' sparingly, sometimes feeling awkward using the term, the heaviness of what made them sisters, of the events that set into motion Kara's arrival on Earth weighing heavily on the both of them. Kara was always aware, that at one point, Alex never wanted a 'sister', and specifically didn't want Kara. But Eliza insisted stubbornly, until it was an everyday normal. They were sisters. The words, measured and unwieldy. As much familiar as it was so alien.
Jeremiah's comings and goings changed the family dynamic, especially with their constant arguing. Eliza put more responsibility on Alex, as Eliza had more odd hours as she tried to juggle being a parent and working full-time in a field she loved, both her personal and professional life demanding so much from her. Alex understood and bore the burden without complaint and became Kara's sole caretaker most times. The two girls, who spent so much time together, now found themselves almost always circling each other's orbit.
It was weird for Alex… to be the older sister in this relationship. Alex was 'older', but Kara had spent twenty plus years in a spacepod, floating in stasis. Alex might take the lead on a lot of things on Earth, but Kara, with her old-soul eyes, didn't need much direction. Aside from eccentricities Alex tried to help Kara through, Kara was whip-smart and wonderfully astute. Kar, for all her maturity and intelligence needed Alex, desperately. And if Alex was being honest, with her dad gone most of the time and her mother who sometimes seemed gone just as much, Alex needed Kara, too. Kara was the only thing that made sense.
When they went back to school, with Alex's last year going way too fast, Kara clung to Alex more than usual, their closeness starting off as a light joke amongst some of the students, cumulating to ugly rumours. There was hardly Alex without Kara, and Brendan, one time, tentatively told Alex about the rumours, when one of their friends alluded to it and Alex had seemed bewildered. It had set Alex off, a cold kind of panic hitting her straight in the chest. It horrified Alex, when she had tentatively asked Kara if anybody had bothered her about Alex, that Kara told her people were really nice to her and if they mentioned Alex, they usually made a gesture that Kara wasn't unfamiliar with, but it had seemed friendly enough. And then Kara had demonstrated the gesture to Alex and Alex's face had flamed in mortified anger. Alex was just as angry at herself as she was with the people who made fun of her and Kara. Alex shouldn't have let this happen, she was supposed to protect Kara!
Alex went through the last year of high school with a bang and shot her chances of being valedictorian by getting the name of every person that Kara remembered teasing her, and especially the names of the people that taught Kara that gesture, and made sure to threaten or beat them up; usually a combination of both. Alex narrowly avoided suspension when the vice-principal found out exactly what was going on. Wanting to avoid a scene and with all the bullies wanting to avoid calls to their parents, everyone got detention instead. But that didn't kill the rumours, not even when the very real threat of violence was imminent, and not even when Brendan asked Alex to the prom and she accepted to show people she didn't have an unhealthy attachment to Kara.
When Alex went away to university, on a fully-paid scholarship, that had been a rough time for the family, too. Eliza had hugged her daughter and seemed torn between wishing her good luck and almost desperately wishing Alex would stay. Kara had so wanted to go with Alex, her breath hitching, eyes wet. Alex had had to cajole and promise and sooth until finally, Alex had firmly said she was leaving and would be back, and had left.
Alex called home as soon as she touched down. Alex called every day, texting as much as she could, her time eaten up by school work, lab work, group work, and talking to a young Kryptonian. Alex planned her university career, building her path towards med school, but also taking xenobiology courses and aiming for a double-major. She was flying through her classes, flying faster than anyone else since she was already an expert in the xenobiology field-some of the books in her xenobiology courses written by her parents. She was a maverick and Alex blazed through her first year, her professors all recommending that maybe some of the courses she was taking could be deferred and she could be put into something more challenging, a faster track to the greatness they knew she was heading towards.
Alex needed to do all of this, be as fast as possible because over the phone and on the laggy video calls she made, Alex could tell that Kara needed her. Alex was flying fast and high, Kara's voice and face like the sun in the distance, waiting for her. Alex had plans, when she finally finishes school, she could take care of Kara better, go back to Kara to see her and make sure she was okay. Alex could be there, wherever Kara was and be there for her.
Alex got her wish sooner than she expected, at the end of her first year of university, she had to defer her exams and go home suddenly, her departure heralded by increasingly worrying phone calls from Kara, decreasing skype calls, and finally required when Eliza called her and spoke in that calm-but-freaking-out-voice her mother used when something she definitely could not handle was happening.
So Alex flew home, barely taking time to defer all her exams, almost forgetting to defer them if it weren't for her mother's sharp reminder to do so. As Alex grabbed her passport, her wallet, and her phone, Alex wouldn't remember this as a turning point as she raced to the airport. She would only remember the worry that gripped her, the fear. It had happened in increments, but this was the first time Alex had, with no thought of anything else, dropped EVERYTHING to get back to Kara. Incrementally, in slow steps, everything else had fallen to the wayside and Kara was now the most important thing in her world.