Hello Supergang!

Kryptonese note: The Kryptonian parental blessing in this chap comes from a translation of the original blessing Jor-El gave baby Kal-El (ya know, Superman) before sending him to earth in the original 1978 Superman movie, and can be found on the Kryptonese dictionary website. I stuck a couple of new Kryptonese words in this chap too; the meaning will be clear in the context. As far as authenticity, again, I have cobbled my phrasing together using words from the aforementioned adorable dorky online Kryptonese dictionary.

Lastly, Alex's song is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. She sang it to Kara in chapter 4 too. It's kind of their song. :)

XOXO,

—JW

…...

I'd Carry a Plane for You

Chapter 19: Safe Space

…...

When Kara woke up and Alex wasn't lying next to her on the sunbed, she nose-dived straight into a confused, half-asleep, PTSD-triggered panic attack. The black mercy, the red kryptonite poisoning, hurting Alex...finally learning the whole truth of Myriad...and then being slammed with the worst, most intense kryptonite exposure she had ever experienced...at the hands of a decorated military officer, no less...being jeered at and told she had no constitutional rights, while she was writhing on the floor in pain...it was all just too much, and the universe was a giant, scary abyss, and she was all alone in the middle of it.

Heart pounding like a hammer in her throat, Kara jumped off the sunbed like she'd been jolted with live electricity; but her knees were still weak, she wasn't done recharging yet, and she stumbled to the floor again, just like she had in Astra's cell. Trembling with confused, trauma-fueled adrenalin, she curled up on the floor and sobbed, hands over her face in a defensive pose, like an abused child waiting for the next punch.

"Kara?" The blonde girl's crying had roused her aunt, who was still cuffed to the other sunbed with kryptonite-lined restraints. "Why do you weep, sweet child? You are safe now, you will be well again soon." Astra's voice was soothing, but it wasn't the voice Kara was looking for. There was only one person who had ever known how to comfort her when she was really and truly having a PTSD attack, reliving vivid memories of seeing her planet explode into the endless blackness of space, or waking up briefly in the phantom zone, so profoundly alone and helpless that there were no words to express it.

"Lexie..." Kara whimpered, her voice a choked whisper behind her hands. "Lexie, I need you..." As if by psychic force, Alex came racing back to the sunroom mere moments later, literally running, like she already knew something was wrong.

"Hey, hey, I'm here bluebird, I'm right here, I got you..." Alex skidded down to the floor on her knees, wishing more than ever that she could tear the sling off and wrap both arms around her baby. Kara just climbed into Alex's lap and latched both arms snugly around her, shaking and sobbing into her dark hair. Alex kept her left hand snugly threaded through Kara's blonde hair at the back of her neck, gently rocking her and whispering words of love and devotion. Astra just watched in silence, more alert now than she was the first time she briefly woke up on the sunbed a few hours ago. She could not help but see the truth of her niece's kri-zhao as she looked at them...there was a wholeness, they fit into each other's hearts like puzzle pieces.

Eventually, Kara's hysteria drained away, leaving her limp and exhausted all over again, her face hot with tears against Alex's neck. "I'm sorry," Kara whispered, her voice still wobbly as she sniffled softly.

"Please don't say that, Kar, please...don't be sorry," Alex murmured, pulling back just enough to tilt Kara's chin up, to look into her teary blue eyes. Kara could have refused the movement if she wanted to; but she didn't want to. She wanted to let Alex be in charge of her right now, because she didn't feel like she could be in charge of herself. She just felt vulnerable, and lost, and scared...and Alex was the only one who could protect her from those things. That was her kri-zhao's superpower.

So she let Alex tilt her face up, and slowly kiss the tears away, one by one. "You don't have to be super all the time, zrhueiao. You can fall apart if you need to. I'll be right here to put you back together again," Alex hummed tenderly, her hand never leaving Kara's hair.

"Forever and always?" Kara croaked softly, resting her forehead against Alex's with a soft sigh.

"Forever and always," Alex agreed, with a smile in her voice. It had been a long time since Kara had asked her that, those exact words...she used to say it a lot when they were kids, when she was first coming to terms with her PTSD and the trauma of being orphaned not just by her parents, but by her whole world; and she needed reminding, over and over, that Alex wasn't going to leave her and wasn't going to die. She hadn't understood the feelings at first, when they would come to the surface out of nowhere; they were so big and dark and scary, and she was just a kid trying to fit in with a whole new planet. She pushed away the grief and the terror anytime they would start to creep up on her. Don't think about that, she would tell herself firmly, anytime the image of Krypton exploding flashed across her mind, squeezing her heart like a vice. There was always something to distract her, something new to learn about life on earth; or if all else failed, she could always just start a tickle fight with Alex.

But eventually, Kara experienced a trigger she couldn't run away from, and couldn't push down: her first earthquake. It was a relatively minor one, for California; but no one had warned fourteen-year-old Kara about earthquakes, there was no equivalent phenomenon on Krypton, and they hadn't yet studied tectonic plate shifts in science class at Midvale Junior High. All Kara knew, in that moment, was that the world was literally falling apart. Again.

…...

Alex was studying on her bed when the house suddenly started to shake, and narrowly missed being hit by one of her big bookshelves as she stumbled into the doorway, bracing herself there so she was stable and safe from falling objects. It lasted just long enough for the tough, unflappable fourteen-year-old to start to get genuinely freaked out; and then just like that, it stopped.

"Whoa," Alex muttered to herself, weirdly impressed by the quake now that it was over. She felt, briefly, like she'd just gotten off a really incredible roller-coaster. Then her heart skipped a beat, and she ran to the phone, praying the landlines weren't down, because Kara's foster parents still didn't let her have a cell. As it rang, she sighed with relief, and her clenched heart started beating again. She heard her parents calling for her, and she yelled down the hall distractedly, "I'm fine! It's all good!"

Finally, Kara's foster mom answered. "Hi Dr. Danvers, is Kara okay? Can I talk to her?" Alex didn't bother introducing herself because she knew Eliza knew the sound of her voice; she called their house pretty much every day.

"Alex, sweetie, I'm glad you called," Eliza Danvers sighed, and Alex already knew her gut-check was right; Kara wasn't okay. She was already fishing around the debris of her room for her shoes while she held the phone.

"Can I talk to her?" Alex asked again urgently.

"We can try...but I'm not sure if she'll take the phone. She's hiding under her bed crying, I can't get her to talk to me. We might just have to let her be for a while," Eliza explained gently.

"Please just let me try," Alex begged. She knew Kara needed her. She just knew. Her heart was turning inside out on itself with the certainty of knowing it. She heard, distantly, the sound of the blonde alien girl's muffled sobbing, and Eliza's voice saying, honey, do you want to talk to Alex? There was no audible reply, but Kara must have nodded or reached for the phone, or something, because a moment later her sobbing was right in Alex's ear.

The dark-haired girl could hear her best friend trying to calm down, trying to slow her breathing. For the first time, Alex wished from the bottom of her soul that she had superpowers, so she could rocket to her best friend's side instantly. "Hey bluebird," she murmured gently, trying to pour all her love for her sweet little alien into her voice. "You're gonna be okay, you're just having a panic attack, it's going to pass. I promise," Alex swore, tying her shoelaces and stepping across the debris of fallen books and furniture, and climbing out of her room. "I'm coming over right now, okay Kar? Do you want me to come over?"

"Y-y-yes," Kara whispered brokenly, her voice rough and shallow with tears.

"Okay, baby girl. Just hang on, I'm coming. Everyone is safe, Kara. Say it back to me." Alex waited patiently while Kara choked on her tears, whimpering like she'd just been thrown flat on her back and had all the wind knocked out of her.

"Ev...*snf*...everyone...is...s-s-safe," Kara sniffled, her voice still breathless and panicky.

"Say it again," Alex hummed soothingly.

"Everyone...is s-s-safe...shehdim voi..." Kara was unconsciously drifting into Kryptonese; she was shellshocked, lost in the blackness of space inside herself, the frightening memories she'd been avoiding for a year all crashing down on her at once.

"Shehdim voi," Alex repeated back to her a little awkwardly, hoping it would give Kara something to hold onto, to anchor her, to help her feel that Alex was already there with her; because really she was.

"Lexie..." Kara whimpered. "Please..."

"I'm coming right now, bluebird. I'm coming. Just keep breathing, and let Eliza hold your hand until I get there, all right? I swear I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Please don't hang up," Kara whispered, the tears welling up in her shaking voice again. "Please Lexie..."

"I'm not leaving you Kar, I'm right here, I'll be holding your hand in five minutes. But I can't keep holding the phone and ride my bike at the same time, honey. You're gonna be okay. Tell me your parents' blessing, the one they gave you when they put you in your pod. I'll have my phone in my pocket, I can still hear you. Just keep talking to me, okay?"

"Oh-k-kay," Kara agreed with another tearful sniffle. "You...you will travel far, my little one..." She trailed off and started crying again. She had never repeated these words to anyone but Alex, and it was just one time, and it made her cry then, too. Alex didn't want to make her sweet Kara cry...but she knew the blonde girl would never really begin to heal until she faced her pain, the reality of her loss...because underneath that, her parents' love was still with her, and she deserved to be able to hold onto that, to feel the love that had travelled with her across the galaxy.

"But we will never leave you..." Alex prompted. She had only heard the words once, but she would never forget.

"...Even in the face of our deaths," Kara continued, with a steadying breath. "The richness of our lives shall be yours..." Alex put her phone on speaker so she could still hear Kara's voice even after she stuck her phone in her pocket, and ran to tell her parents she was going to Kara's. It was on the tip of Susan Grey's tongue to say no; they'd just had an earthquake, the house was a mess, and Kara had her own family to rely on. But, the kindhearted mother could see the desperation in her daughter's face; she could faintly hear Kara's voice coming out of the phone in Alex's pocket, and she knew the foster girl must be terrified if this was her first earthquake, her first trauma since her parents' deaths. So instead, she just hugged her headstrong daughter and told her husband to get his car keys.

It was no more than ten minutes before Alex was crawling under the bed beside Kara's trembling body, curled up in the fetal position under her bed, silent tears still streaming down her face. The blond girl had followed Alex's instructions to let Eliza hold her hand until she could get there; Kara's smaller hand was peeking out from under the edge of the bed, holding onto her foster mom's, who was sitting in patient silence with her back pressed up against Kara's bedroom wall, just holding tight to her little girl's unbreakable hand, that was nonetheless trembling with terror.

As soon as Alex shed her coat and shoes and crawled under the bed next to Kara, the blonde girl let go of her foster mom's hand and wrapped both arms tight around her best friend's body, losing what little composure she had regained as she burst into uncontrollable tears against Alex's chest. "I thought I would n-n-never s-see you again," the shaking girl sobbed, as she clung to the one person in the universe who made her feel completely safe, loved, and understood.

"I know bluebird, I'm so sorry you got so scared...this wasn't like what happened on Krypton, it's just a regular earthquake, it's normal here," Alex explained soothingly, slipping one hand up the back of Kara's shirt to press against her skin, giving her as much contact as possible, while her other hand held onto Kara's hair at the back of her neck, rubbing her thumb in gentle circles. They stayed that way for a few minutes without talking, Kara crying herself out with her tears soaking into Alex's t-shirt, curled up under the bed; neither of them noticed that Eliza and Jeremiah had left the room, knowing their sweet orphan from across the galaxy was in good hands.

Finally, Kara sniffled, and sighed, her tense muscles going limp against Alex's body. "Don't let go of me, Lexie," she murmured, rubbing her tear-streaked face into her best friend's dark hair.

"I won't," Alex promised, squeezing Kara's warm body a little tighter and kissing the top of her head. "I'll never let go of you, Kara."

"Forever and always?" Kara asked, her voice small and vulnerable and embarrassed, sounding much younger than her fourteen years suddenly. But Alex understood, without having to be told, that this was a natural, knee-jerk reaction to Kara's traumatized past. The trigger of her first earthquake had sent her sweet blondie right back into the worst moment of her life, when her entire planet had crumbled around her, leaving everyone she had ever known to die as she streaked away into the black depths of space, light years from another living soul as everything she'd even known was snuffed out in front of her.

"Forever and always," Alex promised, kissing the top of Kara's head. Without really thinking about it, the dark-haired girl started to sing; she didn't usually sing in front of other people, but she had a gorgeous voice, and she knew Kara liked hearing it. She sang the first thing that popped into her head, a new release that had been on the radio a lot recently, that made her think about the way she felt about Kara, every time she heard it.

"We'll do it all...everything...on our own. We don't need anything or anyone," Alex sang, threading her fingers lightly through Kara's hair. The blonde girl held onto the fabric of her best friend's shirt tightly in her fists. "If I lay here...If I just lay here...would you lie with me, and just forget the world?"

Half an hour later, when Eliza Danvers and Susan Grey tiptoed back into Kara's room, they were met with the silence of peaceful, sleeping breathing sounds from under the bed. When they got down on their knees on the carpet and looked under Kara's bed, they were unsurprised to see the two fourteen-year-olds curled up fast asleep together, Kara's head still nestled snugly against Alex's chest, and Alex's hand still buried in Kara's hair. Awkwardly but gently, the two moms managed to pull the pillows and blankets off Kara's bed, and crawl part-way under the bed (though their adult bodies didn't really fit in the tight space), slipping pillows carefully under their heads and nesting a few blankets around their sleeping bodies. The housecleaning could wait until tomorrow.