This chapter is kind of short, but last chapter was long so it kind of evens out. I do have to say that this chapter kind of ends in a cliff hanger, but I'm not going to be talking about it for a little while. I really struggled writing the Legion, but I'm starting to get better as I figure out some purposes for them during their stay. Anyway, enjoy and please review!
"Oh, man, I forgot how nice Metropolis was," Kara said, tilting her face to the sun.
"Is," Clark corrected.
She chuckled. "Oh, yeah. I get mixed up with my tenses. It's weird, coming back here and knowing that everything is going to change by the time the Legion forms."
"When exactly is that?" Mallory asked, soaring next to them.
"In the thirtieth century," Kara replied.
"Woow, that must have taken some getting used to," Mallory commented.
"You have no idea," Kara replied.
Conner and the Supercycle caught up to them, Wolf in the passenger seat, and Kara laughed and said, "I love that there's a super dog. What's his name? Krypto?"
"What? You mean he's not in the history books?" Mallory asked.
"He is, but they just call him a wolf, they never say what his name was," she replied.
Mallory kept a straight face. "Well, it's not Krypto. I mean, give him some credit, he has more imagination than that. He's not gonna just give his wolf some generic name like Krypto."
"Ok, so what is his name?" Kara asked, looking at Conner.
"Wolf," he replied with a small smile.
Kara chuckled. "Huh, I'll have to correct the books when I get back."
Clark chuckled, but it was a sad sound. Kara looked at him and sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that I was staying," she said quietly.
Clark shook his head. "It's all right. Green Arrow explained everything."
Mallory exchanged a glance with Conner. Green Arrow had been to the future?
"How long have you been gone?" Conner asked.
Mallory thought about it. She'd been twelve when Supergirl had made her last appearance in public. She'd never met her because the girl of steel never been a permanent fixture in Metropolis. She'd show up for a week or two, then disappear for months at a time. Clark had talked of his cousin fondly, and she'd stayed off the streets when she saw on the news that Supergirl was in town to give him time with her.
Kara let out a breath. "Well, to me it's been five years," she said.
"It's been four for me," Clark mentioned.
The Supers suddenly stopped, and Mallory followed suit, looking from one to the others. "What is it?" she asked after a moment.
"Sirens, and some yelling. Sounds like a pretty bad accident," Clark told her. He and Conner started flying off in the direction of the accident. Mallory started to follow them, but Kara grabbed her arm gently. Mallory turned to look at her questioningly.
"Let the guys handle it. There's something I've been dying to do since I came back, and I don't want to do it alone."
Mallory followed Kara as she started flying out of the city. "What is it?" she asked. Kara flew faster and Mallory doubled her speed to keep up. They landed in a big, open, grassy field a few miles outside the state line and Kara grinned and knelt in the grass.
"Just like I remembered it," she murmured. Mallory tilted her head, waiting for the super to explain what they were doing here. When she stood up, though, she just stood there and stared at the country landscape.
"Well, what did you want to do?" Mallory asked.
Kara grinned and looked at her over her shoulder. "Run," she said simply, and took off. She wasn't using super speed, she was just running through the grass, her face tilted up. Mallory stared after her, not sure what she should do. Kara doubled back and grabbed her wrist. "Come on!" she said, her voice full of joy.
Mallory stumbled a little, trying to keep up, but she soon found her stride and Kara let her go. The girls ran side by side, arms and legs pumping as they just ran. The warmth of the sun spilled onto Mallory's arms and she tilted her face up to it, squinting her eyes against the light as she continued to run as fast as she could. After fifteen minutes of basically running in a big circle, Mallory slowed to a stop, panting heavily. Kara stopped a few feet in front of her, not even winded.
"Mind if I take a few more laps?" Kara asked.
Mallory waved an arm, still trying to get her breath. She sat down and rested her arms on her knees. Kara took off at superspeed, a trail of dust and a wind the only evidence she hadn't just disappeared. Two minutes later, the wind was back and Kara was in front of her again. She sat next to her, leaning back and studying the sky. Mallory tilted her head.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked.
"Sure," Kara replied.
"Well, what's the future like if the first thing you wanted to do when you came back is run? I mean, is the world that bad that you were so happy to see grass?"
Kara chuckled. "No, the world's not so bad. It's just that there are so many people in it that pretty much the whole planet is a city. There aren't any open fields in the thirtieth century. I lived on a farm, so it was hard for me to adjust. I wanted to run because the planet's so cramped that I really can't get up a good speed without running into something, that's all."
Mallory studied her. "Why did you stay?" she asked.
Kara sighed. "Because I found a place that I finally felt like I belonged in. I love Clark, but staying here I was never going to get out of his shadow, and the rest of the League just saw me as a sidekick, something attached to Superman."
"You were on the League?" Mallory asked in surprise.
Kara shrugged. "More like an honorary member. I never got inducted or anything, but I was allowed in the watchtower and I went on a few missions with them. That was another thing. Clark never stopped being worried about me, even though I was one of the most powerful people on the planet. When Brainy brought me and Arrow and John to the future, he made me feel like I was important because of who I am, not because I was wearing the S." She glanced at Mallory and smiled. "We just celebrated our fifth anniversary. Dating, that is."
Mallory nodded. She'd figured that he'd had something to do with it. "Clark took it pretty hard," Mallory mentioned, remembering the period of time when the Man of Steel had been closed off. She hadn't known what happened at the time, but it was right after Supergirl disappeared, and she'd assumed that she'd died. That had been a turning point for her, the moment that she realized that she could die, and she'd made the decision to continue doing hero work.
Kara sighed. "Yeah, I knew he would. That's what's worrying me about this mission. I'm going to have to go back, this time for good. I just don't want to go through losing him again, and I don't want him to have to go through it again either."
"Then why did you go to the League in the first place?" Mallory asked. She also wanted to ask why she was spending time with her if she didn't want to say goodbye to people, but she didn't.
"Because we needed them to agree to stay out of it, and, well, because I want to say goodbye this time. Last time I sent a message through Green Arrow. I've never felt too good about that."
They fell into silence after that. Mallory was bored after a while, but she didn't want to get up and have Kara feel like she had to leave, too. After a half an hour of sitting there doing nothing, however, Mallory found herself wondering how anyone could just sit there for so long.
Finally, Kara sighed and got up. "I guess we should go catch up with the guys. They've probably handled the accident by now."
Mallory jumped and flamed up in the air so she wouldn't catch the grass on fire, and they started flying back to Metropolis.
That night, Kara and the other Legionnaires gathered in her room. It was the first chance they'd gotten to be alone since they showed up at the cave that morning.
"Ok, so what's the bad news?" Brek asked. He'd taken off the bulkier parts of his Polar Boy suit and now sat at the foot of the bed pulling off his boots.
Brainy sighed and pressed a button on his belt. A projector screen shone on the opposite wall, showing their timeline for the mission. "The Time Trapper put a curtain around the time that he jumped to. This was the nearest I could get us to that time, and now we'll just have to wait for the day he shows up in this time period."
Brek studied the line, then glared at Brainy. "Four months? You mean to tell me that we're stuck in this time for four months?"
"Well, technically it's three and a half," Brainy mentioned.
Brek narrowed his eyes at him. "That's long enough. I can't believe we're stuck in the twenty-first century. I mean, look at this technology," he said, gesturing to the holographic laptop on the desk, "it's practically the stone age."
Kara sighed. "It's really not that bad. Four months is nothing considering what's at stake if we aren't here when the Time Trapper gets here."
They stared at each other grimly, remembering why they had come.
Sandy looked between her companions uncertainly. "Maybe we should just let the League know what's going on. After all, it does concern them, and we could use some help if our plan fails."
Kara shook her head, a dark look on her face. "No. You know why we can't do that. They can't know anything about it. None of them."
Brainy put a hand on Kara's arm. "Perhaps we were a bit hasty in our planning. I could try to come up with another solution. After all, I have three and a half months to kill."
Kara winced at his choice of words and shook her head again. "No, Brainy. We went through everything before we left the thirtieth century. This is the only way."
Brek, Sandy, and Brainy filed out, leaving Kara to think about what she needed to do.