Chapter 3: Normality

As soon as she touched down in her apartment, she started to cry. The images and memories rampaging through her mind, how J'onn had burnt along with his family in the fires of Mars, crying out for someone, anyone to save his children. How she could do nothing but watch as their flesh melted off of them, further fueling the furious blaze, their bones turning to ash and their screams being drowned out by the sound of blood sizzling. Kara couldn't take it. She used her superspeed to change out of her Supergirl attire and into pajamas, practically throwing herself onto her bed. She hugged onto herself as if for dear life, and sobbed until she eventually fell into deep sleep, riddled with nightmares.

Kara jolted awake at the sound of her alarm clock, the screen displaying that it had been ringing for about 15 minutes. Dammit, she was going to be late for work. Lena would want her in early to keep tabs on an important staff meeting, and Kara had been missing enough work as it is. She rushed to get changed and get ready for the day ahead. She splashed cold water onto her face and looked at herself in the mirror. Kara sighed as she saw the huge dark circles under her eyes, which were puffy and red from crying so much the night before. Kara used some foundation to cover the bags up and blinked a few times to dry up her eyes, no one needed anything less than her usual self. Hopefully Cat Co would distract her from all of the horrible things that she'd experienced and seen. She could say hi to Lena… bullet through her eye… no. Lena, she could talk to the very alive, very kind Lena Luthor, one of her best friends. She grabbed her things, slipped on her shoes and ran out of the door, down the stairs and towards the towering Cat Co building.

"Kara!" Lena smiled upon her best friend's arrival meanwhile James cautiously looked up, surprised that she had turned up to work after a night like the last. Lena continued.

"How are you? You weren't returning my texts last night and I was getting concerned. You didn't stay up late binge watching Brooklyn 99 did you? That show gets on my nerves." Lena's smile was contagious and soon Kara was grinning as well, fiddling with the sides of her glasses.

"It's a pretty good show, what can I say. Anyways, I'll get those sources done for you ASAP." Short and sweet, a good tactic. Kara swiftly turned around and headed to her desk, burying her head in paper work.

After a few hours of uninterrupted digging for sources and quotations, Kara felt a hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to flinch away, and looked up.

"You are too good at this job Kara, I would not have been able to find this many results in a week."

"Thanks, Lena. I try my best." Kara smiled.

"How would you feel about coming over sometime this week? I haven't seen you in ages and thought that maybe we could catch up and all that." Kara was about to answer when suddenly an image of Lena lying on the ground with a bullet through her eye burst into her thoughts. Lena was screaming out and clawing at the ground, she was suffering so much. Kara didn't save her. She knew that Lena was thinking about that, how Supergirl let her die, that Supergirl didn't care about her after all. Supergirl was a failure.

Kara's hands started to shake as she tried to reply, tried to say something, anything to show Lena that she'd heard and thought that it was a great idea. But tears started to sting in her eyes, forcing Kara to keep her head down so that Lena wouldn't notice. Kara felt her body start to go numb, the beginnings of a serious panic attack.

Shit not now, any time but now.

Kara tried to stand and make her way out of the building somehow, it reminded her too much of the building that her adoptive mother was crushed in during PSI's mental attack. The bricks falling onto her, propelling the air from her lungs and crushing her rib cage. The bricks were too heavy, Eliza was dying. Eliza looked up at Kara. "Kara, why aren't you helping me?" And then she went limp, blood pooling around her lifeless body.

Kara grabbed the side of her desk to steady herself, but she felt as if the whole building was tipping over and collapsing.

"Kara are you okay? You're scaring me. Kara?!" Lena's words were the last thing Kara heard before her knees gave way and she fell onto the floor, unable to move and shaking.

Lena knew something was wrong when Kara didn't answer right away. Looking closely, she saw that Kara's hands were trembling, what was going on? But before she could ask, Kara stood up and began shakily walking around her desk, head down, most likely trying to get to the elevators. Lena moved to steady her friend, but was too late as Kara collapsed onto the floor, shaking and crying. She'd never seen Kara like this, the adorably awkward, kind and passionate Kara Danvers was the one she'd come to know. She barely knew how to react, before her instincts kicked in.

"Help! Someone call an ambulance! Oh my God Kara. Kara? I'm here okay, it's going to be okay. Someone's calling an ambulance, you're going to be completely fine. Don't worry." Lena's attempts at soothing Kara only made Kara panic more. An ambulance? They can't come. If they did they would all find out that she wasn't human. The whole floor was in disarray, someone was already calling the emergency services, many more crowding around Kara and Lena, trying to see what was happening. She needed someone to step in, take her away from this chaos. Anyone.

"ALRIGHT EVERYONE. THAT'S ENOUGH. Sit back down, she's going to be fine. No ambulance is needed. Lena call Alex, I'll bring Kara downstairs." James to the rescue. Thank Rao she had such a brilliant friend.

"James what are you doing? She could be having a seizure for all we know! Kara needs help right now!"

"Calm down Lena, she's having a panic attack. I've seen them before, she just needs some open air and some space."

"Well I've never seen Kara have a panic attack, certainly nothing anywhere near this scale of…"

"Lena I know what I'm doing. You have to trust me." And with that James scooped a shaking and crying Kara into his arms and started carrying her towards the executive elevator, Kara falling limp as she passed out. All Lena could do was look on as her best friend was carried away, limp and vulnerable towards the elevator. She needed to find out what made Kara react this way, if it was her that triggered the so called panic attack. She needed to know that her best friend was okay. She called Alex, told her what was going on, and then hung up once Alex told her she was on her way over. Lena leant against Kara's abandoned desk, in shock over what had just happened.