Kara didn't seem to appreciate Ellis' help with packing her stuff much, but it at least sped the process along. Surprisingly, the amount of clothes Kara had was less than Ellis expected. Even more shockingly, Ellis saw the assortment of weapons that Kara had acquired over her years as a merc. As a girl who grew up on stories of the Maiden of Might, it felt almost traumatic to see the woman was once Supergirl with a gun in her hand. She watched as Kara filled a large duffel bag with several blades of different lengths, and pistols and rifles of both the plasma and traditional solid ammo varieties.

The majority of vehicles on Zuestea's streets were self-driving. Wealthier individuals often used a premium cab service that was operated by an AI named Echo. It was offered through various levels of subscription, of which Kara held the premium service even though she seldom used it. An Echo cab picked them up, taking them a little further into the affluent area of the city and making a stop at another apartment building, one more refined than Kara's. Ellis stood a couple of meters back to give Kara some space as she walked up to a unit door and knocked.

The door was answered by a slender woman with red hair, whose head tilted immediately due to the unexpected nature of the visit.

"Hey," Athena greeted Kara, a hint of suspicion creeping into her voice.

"Hi," Kara replied through pursed lips.

"What's going on?" Athena asked, her eyes momentarily shifting to Ellis and lingering for a second before returning to Kara.

"I'm, uh, leaving," Kara replied.

"What? Why?"

"You knew I was never going to be here forever. Got some shit I need to take care of right now."

"This have to do with her?" Athena asked, gesturing to Ellis. Kara nodded. "Who is she?"

"Relative of an old friend. She needs my help."

Athena nodded. Kara had told her she never planned to stay in Zuestea permanently and that she would eventually leave. Athena also knew that it would likely come out of the blue without much warning signs, which turned out to be the case right now. Yet, she still felt a hint of sorrow realising that this moment right now was the end of their association.

"So, this is it?" Athena asked.

"Yeah, I think so."

"It's been nice," Athena beamed.

"Yeah, it has," Kara responded, feeling a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Athena stepped forward, leaning in to place a gentle, soft kiss on Kara's right cheek. "Fate willing, we'll see each other again one day. Take care, Kara."

"You too."

Kara let her gaze rest on Athena for the last couple of seconds they were in front of her. The door closed, and then just like that, it was all over. She too felt a hint of sorrow, but she tried to focus on the relief that came with the end of their liaison. She noticed that they were getting too close, something which she couldn't afford, so it was better for it all to come to a screeching halt here. The chances they did or didn't see each other again seemed equally likely, but for a person like her, Kara felt that fate would choose the latter.

She paced away from the door, meeting up with Ellis again.

"Who was that?" Ellis asked as they began the walk back to the Echo car.

"An acquaintance."

Ellis frowned. "She seemed a little more than that."

"Acquaintance with benefits."

"That makes a little more sense."

Kara turned to Ellis and scowled. "What do you mean by that?"

Ellis held up her hands. "Nothing. Just must be someone important if they're the only one you're saying goodbye to."

"Yeah, whatever," Kara replied, shaking her head.

The drive to Kara's spaceship didn't take long. Compared to the ship that Ellis had been travelling in, it was a dream. It stuck out amongst the other vehicles in the large hanger area due to its bright white paint job and bigger size. The interior was just as beautiful to Ellis, with streaks of ocean blue patterns occasionally breaking up the white colouring.

"Damn, sweet ride. Past three months would've been a lot cosier in this," Ellis remarked.

"Don't worry, journey won't be as long this time," Kara replied, setting the bags down and making her way to the pilot's seat, "B-line to Earth in this should be no more than two Earth-days."

Ellis followed Kara to the front of the craft. "Can I…" she asked, gesturing to the passenger seat next to her.

"Just don't touch any buttons," Kara replied with the sigh of a disgruntled parent that barely dulled Ellis' glee.

The ship booted up quickly, showing no signs of rust despite eight months of inactivity. It glided smoothly in the air, so smooth that Ellis' body hardly registered a difference once it had lifted off. They began moving through the planet's several atmospheric levels as their altitude increased, and Kara couldn't help but notice Ellis' gawking out the windows. It occurred to her then that this was one of Ellis' first few takeoffs. Kara had no reason to look back anymore. She'd lost count of how many planets she rose away from over the years. She had only ever looked back on two occasions, both times when she was leaving the two places she had considered her homes.

Soon, Sadostia was far behind them and they were out into the cosmos, their only view being bright stars far away that had probably long since died. Kara set the ship to autopilot and leaned back in her chair, paying little attention to Ellis. A silence between the two lasted for a good while before Ellis eventually decided to break it.

"If we're going to be here for two days, we gotta find a way to pass the time," she said.

"These chairs are comfy. Sleep it away," Kara rashly replied.

"I've got some cards?" Ellis suggested.

"Haven't played an Earth card game since… I don't know, 2060-something."

"I could refresh your memory."

"I'd rather not," Kara said, shaking her head.

While her first idea had been shot down, Ellis persisted with another attempt to engage with Kara. "We can just talk then."

"Not exactly feeling talkative."

"Okay... but I mean, you must have some questions."

She wasn't wrong, Kara did have questions, but not the kind that Ellis was thinking of.

"You said Lord basically runs the city. How so?" she asked.

"The only way to get by for most people is to answer to the highest bidder, and very few have more money than him. He's got law enforcement and politicians in his pockets. His company has moved beyond tech manufacturing as well. Food, weapons development, water supply, energy, there's no one aspect of the game which he doesn't have skin in."

"So, raiding the tower, how do we do it?" Kara asked, sitting up in her chair, "Do you have the building schematics?"

"No. Don't think we have a good chance of getting our hands on them either."

"So even if we get in, we don't know where to go to do the construct transfer?"

"No, we don't."

"Great," Kara sarcastically muttered, "At least you can lead us to Lord and Sinclair."

"They spend a lot of their time at the tower. It'll just be about picking the right time when they're both there."

"What guarantee do we have they won't leave as soon as we hit the tower?"

"Hadn't thought about that," Ellis replied before pondering for a moment, "Not much."

"Do you even know how to operate Soulkiller and facilitate a construct transfer?"

Ellis bit her lip. "No."

"So, your plan is not even a plan. It's really just an idea," Kara responded, chastising her.

"Got any suggestions to improve it?"

"Get our hands on someone who works in the tower, force them to talk."

"They're not going to be of great use unless they're important. And if they're important, getting our hands on them is going to be quite difficult."

"I was thinking whoever works on the construct transfers, a scientist or something. Someone we could force into directly helping us, or at least give us an idea of what we're supposed to do."

"Lord has kept public knowledge about the program vague. Very, very few people know a whole lot about it and the identities of those who work on it have been kept a secret."

"What kind of contacts do you have? Are they the type that can point us in the right directions?"

"I've spent a lot of time on the streets. I know a couple of powerful people who might be able to help, but that comes at a price. I do have one person who would help for free, I just don't know if they will."

"You're going to have to try them all."

"Guess so… When I asked if you had questions, I didn't mean about the plan."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "What did you mean?"

"Like about how things have changed on Earth. Or just about me, you know. You still don't really know enough to trust me."

Well, she got that right. Kara still didn't fully trust Ellis. She trusted her enough to help her, but there was still a lot else she needed to know that would serve her well. She decided to play along, throwing a series of questions at Ellis.

"How old are you?" Kara asked first.

"27."

"And Cody?"

"34."

"You got a partner? The romantic kind."

"Sorta, but we're not really together at the moment. It's complicated."

"As it usually is… Got any of those cybernetic enhancements you said were common?" Kara asked.

"Oh, yeah," Ellis replied, rolling up her left sleeve. Her left arm had been replaced by a mechanical one, but one might not have noticed that if they weren't paying attention. It matched perfectly with Ellis' skin tone, with Kara being able to tell it ended just past her elbow joint due to the glossy texture fading away into real skin. A mechanical port rested just above the wrist from which Ellis proceeded to pull out a long wire. "Cyberlimb with a monowire attachment. Neat, right?"

"Not bad," Kara nodded with approval, "How does it work getting one?"

"Well, if you're rich, you have access to the best implants and safest procedures done by qualified surgeons. The rest of us, we've got to settle for ripperdocs. Basically, a ripperdoc is like a surgeon, engineer and doctor all in one, except they're unqualified in all three."

"Doesn't sound very safe."

"It isn't. Gotta find the right one or you might die on the table. I got lucky finding mine, he's good."

"And that thing on your neck?"

Ellis' brushed the piece of cyberware embedded below her left ear with her fingers. "It's a neural port," she said as she pulled a cable out of a slot, "You use it if you need to read datashards or jack into The Net, get deeper into cyberspace. Connects directly to my cyberdeck."

"Cyberdeck?"

"Cyberware operating system connected to your brain. The better your Cyberdeck, the more you can do. Hack quicker and better, get better quality implants, etcetera."

"What do you do with it?"

"Mostly hacking. I'm a netrunner. I can sort through tons of metadata, hack systems, interfere with other people's cyberware, override a vending machine to get all the snacks you want without paying."

"Nice," Kara smiled, "You ever taken a life?"

The abrupt shift from rather benign and harmless questions stunned Ellis into a momentary silence. Nonetheless, she answered truthfully. "Yeah, I have."

"With that neat wire, your hands or a firearm?"

"Firearm. Why is that relevant?"

"There's a level of detachment when you just shoot someone. Something like the projectile takes the life, you just pulled the trigger. But when you cave someone's head in, snap their neck or drive a blade through their chest, there's no type of acquittal. You showed the true guts needed to go through with it."

"Your point?"

"I'd feel a little safer going into battle with someone who's killed with their bare hands before," Kara chirped.

"Barry Allen never did and you had no problem being at his side."

Kara snorted. "Eventually even he had enough and phased his hand through Eobard Thawne's chest, but I don't blame you for not knowing that. So, a netrunner, that's something you do for a living?"

"Corps have their own netrunners. I make my scratch as a merc."

"A merc?" Kara scoffed, "So, what was with all that shit you gave me for being one?"

"On the streets of Knight City, it's either sell your soul to a corp, join a gang, or try to forge your own path. I'm sure you can guess which is the most enticing. So, yeah, I'm a merc, but it's because I didn't have much of a choice. You did."

"You don't know that," Kara shot back, "Don't throw stones from a glass house, kid. Your hands aren't any cleaner than mine."

"Nobody's hands are clean, but it's important how they get dirty. We don't take gigs from corps, only local fixers, and we try to steer clear of innocent targets."

"Sure, Ellis, whatever makes you feel better."

"How long were you on Sadostia for?" Ellis asked, seeking to change the topic before she or Kara got too agitated.

"Eight months."

"Only?"

"I've never really settled down in one place. I'm always jumping around."

"By yourself?" Ellis asked, a hint of dejection creeping into her voice.

"Yeah, by myself," Kara replied nonchalantly.

"Sounds lonely."

"Sounds peaceful," Kara replied while reaching into a pocket and pulling out her box of cigs. She put one to her lips, but became mindful of her companion, "Do you mind?"

"Your ship, your rules," Ellis shrugged, giving Kara the go-ahead to light it. "You said you owe Oliver Queen. How so?"

"Nothing super specific. He just did a lot for me. Saved my life more than once. Good friend, teammate, even a mentor at times. We both rejected subordination to those in charge and when they came after us for it, we stuck by each other's side and looked out for each other's backs."

"Just a perfect duo, huh? Balanced each other out. When he got a bit dark, you gave light. When you were too idealistic, he was there to be more realistic."

"Something like that."

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara noticed a sly smile creep onto Ellis' face.

"I also heard that you and him… kinda…" Ellis said, tiptoeing around a blunt statement, "You know…"

Kara scoffed, shaking her head. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"Not even if it was from people who knew both of you?"

"Listen, it wasn't easy doing what we did. When you were as constantly stressed as we were, you had to find a way to release that tension, you understand?"

"Of course."

"Oliver Queen and I used to fuck because we had needs and didn't have anybody else. There's no more to it than that."

"That's not exactly what I heard."

"Well, you heard wrong," Kara quickly retorted, "I was actually there, so you should take my word over whoever's."

"Sure," Ellis replied through pursed lips, though Kara could tell she wasn't fully convinced.

Eventually, her willingness to engage with Ellis in conversation dwindled down and so did their discourse. Seven hours had passed since they left Sadostia. Ellis felt that Kara had actually undersold the chairs to her. They were extremely comfortable, so much so that she had passed out quickly and was currently fast asleep. For Kara, nothing was comforting to her right now. She couldn't put her mind to rest.

Floating through space, staring out into darkness and sitting with nothing but your thoughts never got easier. It was an easy recipe to get stuck in your own head and dwell on thoughts that otherwise would have been fleeting.

At that first moment when she met Ellis, Kara could tell she was starstruck. It wasn't just about meeting your hero but it was also something like finding a long-lost family member. She, Oliver, Barry, Kal and the Legends were family first, an alliance of heroes second. That's what made them strong, but also all the more painful to lose one by one over the years. Now, Ellis was here, someone distantly connected to that family arriving with her own perceptions of who and what they were, and who and what she is. Already, Kara could tell those perceptions were slowly being broken. She came looking for Earth's most inspiring hero and found only a boozing, smoking has-been.

But she didn't care to live up to those past expectations. The stories Ellis had heard were just that now - Stories. Though they may have been exaggerated, she doubted they had been completely bastardised. Beneath the sensationalism lay the truth, but that was a truth that Kara no longer lived. To her, whatever Ellis had heard might as well have been fiction, including the nature of her relationship with Oliver Queen.

The part where he was an asshole to her in the beginning had probably been left out, and what happened in the following years had probably been hyperbolised and exaggerated. That was the way Kara chose to think of it. Her downplaying of what her friends truly meant to her first started when their deaths started to near. She thought that attempting to think of them as less would make losing them easier. It never did, but it was a habit that persisted even long after they had perished.

Despite a shaky start, she and Oliver Queen slowly started developing a good rapport with each other. She saved his life from a Dominator first, then he saved hers from her evil Nazi counterpart a year later. When mutual threats arrived on their doorsteps, they worked together to bring them to justice. From 2019 onwards, Barry made it a mission for the heroes to get together more often without a world-ending threat being the motivation behind it and that increasing interaction on a consistent basis helped her and Oliver find out that they were more similar than they initially thought. And they weren't like Barry and Kal or most of the others in the regard that they were the only two who couldn't find a steady partner. They got close, but she lost Mon-El after he got sucked into a wormhole that sent him to the 31st century and Oliver couldn't make things work with Felicity Smoak.

That made it inevitable for them to be magnetically pulled closer and closer to each other until one night they found themselves together on the bed of a fancy hotel suite. They attempted to keep it a secret at first. They didn't know how the others would react to it and it also wasn't really their business unless it began to affect the team. They managed to be discreet for a few months until Barry needed Kara's help with an alien convict, speeding into her apartment to find her and Oliver topless as she was undoing the belt of his jeans.

"Kara, I… Oh shit, sorry!" she remembered Barry exclaiming as soon as he entered, quickly turning around to allow them to cover up.

"Fuck, Barry, you really need to learn how to use doors," Oliver scolded him.

"What's going on?" she asked, buttoning up her shirt that Oliver quickly handed back to her.

"I just, I- I- need your help with something, but it can wait a few minutes if you guys need to finish up or… How long has this been going on for?!"

From that day forward, Barry always made sure to call before visiting and knock before entering.

Barry never minded it. Kal was a little more displeased. He saw Oliver as a polar opposite to him in terms of their ideologies and psyches, reminding him a little too much of Bruce in some ways. Kal was worried about that rubbing off on Kara through Oliver rubbing off on her in a different way. He did rub off on Kara… in both ways.

Some saw Kal and Barry working with the authorities as selling out, but she didn't. They had families and she couldn't fault them for putting their safety first. She and Oliver just couldn't do it. Neither of them held strong faith in institutions. Kara had seen first-hand how the Kryptonian elites' greed cost them their entire planet and she saw Earth heading down the same road. With her and Oliver having only run into walls trying to change that, they were more than happy to just continue on their own terms. Although that meant constantly being at odds with the powers that were, they knew they could always count on each other to be there if and when they needed it.

But was there more to it than that, like Ellis was suggesting? Kara tried not to remember it that way, but the lies she often told herself could only mask the truth so much. They trained together, exchanging knowledge and skills. They were there for each other in the most difficult of times, providing support in whatever form they needed. Soon, they found themselves caring for the other as something more than a teammate or friend. But love seemed dangerous to them, so they never outright crossed that bridge. When they themselves took care to never call the other their lover, how could anyone else say that for them? Maybe they had just been in denial through it all, and now, it was just another one of those lies that she had duped herself into believing.

But Oliver was in the past, and she was trying to grapple with the future ahead of her. She was only now realising how difficult it would feel returning to Earth. From what Ellis had told her, the place would be unrecognisable, and the worst elements of it that she'd fled from had become even more ghastly. There was the simplistic, poorly thought-out plan which was sure to take a permanent toll on either one of them in some way. Just the thought of getting her hands on Lord again was almost enough to cast such concerns aside… Almost. The cynical, analytical side of her mind prevailed this time, leaving her wondering if coming along had been the right call.

It wasn't worth it killing Lord the first time. Would doing it again be worth it?

"Didn't sleep?"

Kara was pulled out of her thoughts by Ellis' voice, turning to see her peeking with sleepy eyes. "Can't sleep," Kara replied.

"Why?"

"Thinking about what's ahead." One thing that Ellis said had been dwelling on Kara's mind ever since she heard it, and she decided to inquire about it now. "You said you were told stories about me."

"Lots. Some from my parents, some from Esme."

"What did they tell you?"

"How you almost sacrificed yourself flying Fort Rozz into space. How you, Superman, Green Arrow and the Flash fought off Nazis, alien invasions, Doomsday. Cool stories, but they weren't my favourites. Those were the stories about Supergirl. The stories about Kara Danvers resonated way more with me. When a little girl dropped her ice cream and you sped away to get her a new one. When you fought the legal system for four years trying to get an innocent man off death row. When you saved a stray cat seconds before it was about to be run over."

"What about the bad stories?"

"That the invasions only happened because of your presence. How the problems you solved were actually created by yourself. That you had no respect for humanity's wishes." Ellis paused for a moment before continuing, "That you murdered Maxwell Lord in cold blood… Did you?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

Kara swallowed the lump in her throat. "Because he took the most important thing in my life away from me."

"He's the one who killed your sister, isn't he?" Ellis asked. Kara nodded. "And that's why you're helping me? To make sure he doesn't take mine as well?"

"Yeah."

A/N: Y'all know I can't resist throwing a little bit of SuperArrow into anything I write XD