The staircase isn't what you would expect for a hidden little segment of the accommodation. It's completely white and in pristine condition, not a hint of dust or dirt covers the surface of the steps.
"I am now realising that we should have been more curious about why there was a book stashed in a storage container with a load of medications." Lena points out. "Hindsight really is 20/20."
Kara hums in agreement. "Should we like…go up there? Or should we go get the others first?"
Lena stares her down for a second. "Who knew that the mighty Supergirl is scared of a little hidden staircase?"
Kara whips her head around, indignant. "It's not every day that you come across something as weird as this, I'm very sorry I have some of my survival instincts left."
Lena chuckles in delight that she has successfully riled Kara up with just a sentence.
Kara shoots her a withering glare and stomps up the stairs, glad that wherever they are heading up to has some form of natural light as she didn't bring a light source with her in her strop.
It comes to her attention very quickly that she didn't really need to be afraid. The staircase leads right up into what appears to be a tower and from a quick glance, it looks perfectly safe.
They find themselves standing in a single room, albeit quite large, surrounded by what appears to be displays of battle plans.
There are maps hanging on the walls and details formation plans all laid out on a large table at the edge of the room.
"Oh, Rao." Kara breathes out, approaching the table to get a better look.
The tiled floor gleams under her feet, looking as though it has recently been cleaned. As she steps forward, one tile a couple of feet away from the centre of the table glows bright white as she steps on it, clicking ominously as her weight centres on the square.
Kara doesn't even have time to react before the ceiling is opening up and a blade is dropping down, aiming right for the top of her head.
For Lena, the entire series of events seems to happen in slow motion. The tile lit up, the ceiling opened and then she is running. She uses her momentum to barge into Kara unceremoniously which causes them both to land on the ground in a tangled heap with a great thud.
They lay together on the ground for a second, frozen in shock as they look back at where Kara was once stood to see a mighty sword nestled into the tile, the edges glinting in the light to display their sharpness.
"Your knee is in a very uncomfortable place…"
Lena is snapped out of her shock as she looks down at Kara. Her entire body is covering Kara's and as she takes in what Kara just said to her she realises that her knee is pressed pretty firmly to the blonde's nether region.
She shifts quickly, bringing her knee down but staying on top of her, wrapping her arms around her in what is about to be a very ferocious hug.
Kara hugs her back with a little less intensity, still in shock. The last thing she was expecting was for a fricking sword to drop from the sky.
"That was way too close," Lena whispers into her ear, clutching onto her as though she is about to drift away at any second.
Lena's breath is tickling Kara's neck, and it takes everything in her to resist the shiver that aches to dance up her spine.
It's odd being back on Krypton, under the red sun. Every part of her body feels more sensitive and the feeling of Lena on top of her and the delicate little puffs of air on the skin of her neck stirs up some feelings that she feels guilty about even touching upon.
Lena takes one last deep breath, her nose pressed to Kara's skin before she retreats and leans back so she can look into Kara's eyes. "Are you ok?"
Kara's eyes flicker between her eyes and then trail down to her lips briefly before shooting back up when she catches herself. If Lena notices, she doesn't show it.
She jerks her head in a very slight nodding motion, her hands clutching at Lena's shirt lightly as she remains hovering above her. "I'm ok. Are you?"
Lena is about to respond when Alex comes barrelling into the room. She pauses her rapid movements when she lays eyes on them. "What the hell is…what are you two doing?"
Lena moves away quickly, rolling from her spot on top of Kara who grunts a little, uncomfortable from the cool rush of air that overtakes her as Lena's warmth is taken away.
"I-uh…a sword fell from the ceiling and Lena pushed me out of the way." Kara stutters through her reply.
The woman in question is still scrambling to her feet, eyes fixated on the sword that almost got lodged in Kara's skull.
Alex turns to Lena. "Is that true?"
Lena snaps out of it, her snarky self coming back full force. "No, the sword is just in the floor for decoration, and I happen to enjoy lying on your sister on a cold tile floor."
Alex rolls her eyes dramatically. "What you and my sister do on your own time is your business, leave me out of it before I puke everywhere."
She carefully skirts around the sword, offering her sister a hand up from the floor. Kara takes it, whining when Alex pulls with too much force and her arm almost comes out of its socket. "Watch it, I'm delicate."
She is ignored as the other two women come to either side of her to take a look at what is on the table. Most of it is in Kryptonese but the maps and battle formations are clear to see, especially to Alex's trained eye.
"Well, this is unexpected. I thought you said this was an accommodation for scientists, not the military?" Lena turns her attention back to Kara.
They meet eyes for a second and Kara turns back to the papers on the desk, a blush dusting her cheeks.
"Yeah, I did. Downstairs looks like it is set up for scientists but based on what I can see, it has been repurposed but not by the military per se."
Alex's face scrunches in confusion. "Then who by?"
Kara takes a second to double-check what she is seeing before answering. "Based on everything we've seen; the overwhelming stores of medical supplies, the spy beacon and these plans, I would have to say that it's been used by The Rebellion."
"The Rebellion, like the people fighting against the council to try and prevent Krypton's destruction, Rebellion?" Alex was not expecting that answer and the surprise is clear to see across her face.
"That's the one."
Neither Alex nor Lena know where to go from here. They aren't sure if pressing the subject is worth it if it causes Kara emotional distress.
Kara begins to filter through some of the papers, there is more paper here than what she had ever seen whilst on Krypton besides in books, even in her father's office as a child. Crystals have always been much preferred because you can store more information in a smaller space. She supposes that The Rebellion decided on paper because it's easier to destroy.
"I'm going to stay up here and take a look, why don't you two go downstairs and have some breakfast?" Kara dismisses them, not really listening for an answer.
After so many years, Alex knows when Kara just needs to be alone with her thoughts and bids her goodbye with a comforting squeeze to her shoulder and leaves the hidden tower, eyeing up the sword as she steps around it.
Lena doesn't say anything, just keeps standing beside her.
"Are you not going with Alex?"
"Nope."
The nonchalant way she says it makes Kara wonder if she is being unreasonable for a second by asking her to leave before she decided that she just doesn't want to argue so lets it slide. "Ok."
"Good. I'm not planning on letting a sword fall on your head today."
Oh. Kara gets it now. Lena doesn't want to leave in case there are any more traps. She smiles at Lena briefly and hands her a heavy paperweight from the table. "Do you want to throw this onto some of the tiles to check that there are no more weight-activated traps in here?"
Lena takes the paperweight from her hand, their fingers lingering on each other's for a few beats as she does so.
Lena gets to work on checking for traps, clearing the floor as safe within a matter of minutes before turning to check every square inch of the room, just in case.
Kara takes a seat by the table, skimming each document to try and find something interesting. She pauses when she finds a little wooden trinket box beneath a pile of the papers. She unclasps the lid and is overtaken by shock when she sees what is inside.
"Lena, come look."
Lena comes behind her, leaning over her shoulder with her hands on either side of her, clutching the arms of the chair. "What am I looking at?"
The box is filled to the brim with red seeds of different shapes and sizes. On the inner lid, there is a short passage which Kara translates and reads out. "Seeds from The Scarlet Forest. Handle with care."
They both know what this means. The plants scattered through the forest on their way here were planted there on purpose.
"Should we tell the others?" Lena turns her head to look at Kara, who jumps a little when she realises how close her face is to Lena's.
"Yeah, but if they planted them, then they must have some medical supplies to deal with the injuries around here somewhere." Kara wastes no time flitting about the room. She knows quite a lot about the Rebellion. They were a smart bunch led by her aunt, and they wouldn't risk their own people needlessly so if they were planting different kinds of dangerous shrubbery, they would have some kind of remedy in case something went wrong.
The process of going through everything in the tower is long and painful. There is a row of cabinets and drawers along one side of the room, all only reaching about waist height, so they had to crouch down to check inside them, making their legs ache something fierce.
They pull out the contents of a drawer or cabinet at a time, going through everything together so they don't accidentally miss anything. The further through they look, the clearer it is that it is all equipment and documents for their missions.
Kara tries not to linger on the thoughts of her aunt but when she finds the plans for some of the missions that personally name her as the person in charge, she is a general after all, she asks Lena to move them away from her.
"I can't look at them. If I look then I will want to stop her, so she doesn't get sent to Fort Rozz." Kara blindly hands them to Lena, not wanting to look at the locations so she doesn't get the urge to go and stop her in person like a dumbass.
"That's ok, if you need a break then there is no shame in that."
Kara looks down at the ground, choking back her emotions and kicking herself that she let them get the better of her when she has a job to do.
She opens up the door to another cabinet and laughs dryly when she looks inside. "A break sounds good, but it appears that there is a hidden cupboard within a hidden room."
Lena instinctively rushes to look inside the cabinet, her mouth dropped open in surprise and her eyes wide as there is a second cupboard door at the back of the cupboard, set back into the wall somehow.
"What is it with this place and hidden spaces?"
"Don't ask me, I think this is weird as hell too." Kara runs her hand over the front of the cupboard, the only identifying feature is a handle, not unlike that of a car door.
She pulls on it, struggling to open it since it is so stiff. It takes a few tries with both of them pulling as hard as they can before it finally squeaks open.
Inside they see it, a large jar of what appears to be a light blue cream of some sort. Besides, it is an information crystal.
"I really hope this is what I think it is." Kara grabs the jar and the crystal, jumping up from her spot and heading back downstairs into the office.
They have to go to the lower floor to get to the crystal reader but are very happy when the crystal lights up immediately, indicating that they can view the information.
Kara touches the tip of the crystal lightly, setting off the hologram.
Despite the fact that the crystal was possessed by The Rebellion, and she has been thinking about her Aunt Astra's involvement with them all day, the last person she was expecting to see was Astra herself in hologram form.
She pauses the hologram before she can even get a word out, taking a second and turning away. Lena worriedly takes hold of her arm. "What's wrong?"
She takes a deep breath, but her lungs still feel empty as she turns back around. "Lena, meet my Aunt Astra."
"Oh." Lena isn't sure what to say.
"Yeah…" Kara simply walks back over to the hologram and takes a good look at Astra. "It's been a long time since I've seen her face. I'd almost forgotten how she looked."
Lena stands beside her again. "I meant what I said earlier about taking a break."
"I know but we need to know about this cream for Nia's sake. Hopefully, it is what we think it is." Kara releases the hologram and tries not to shake as she hears her aunt's voice for the first time since she held her in her arms when she was dying.
"This information crystal contains the description of uses for the cream that the crystal is paired with. The cream was specially made for the treatment of burning cuts from injuries acquired from the forestry of The Scarlet Jungle."
Kara translates Astra's fluent Kryptonese for Lena who grins when Astra describes the exact usage for the cream that they need it for.
"The side effects are greatly unknown, however, based on the minimal testing we conducted, the main side effect is a mild itching that occurs several days after the first application. From what we know, the itching will dissipate over the course of a week of discontinued use of the cream."
Kara and Lena share a high five, they have just successfully found the antidote for Nia's suffering, even if it was accidental.
"The jar of cream is the only one in the accommodation. Someone will stop by to replace it three days after the jar has been removed from the storage cupboard. We will be able to identify this remotely. We ask that you vacate the premises within two days to maintain anonymity between our supporters for your own safety. Rao's will be done."
The hologram cuts off as soon as she has finished speaking. "Let's not waste any more time and get this to Nia."
Kara nods, grabbing the cream from her hand and speed walking away. "Are you coming or what?"
Lena scurries behind her, jogging until she catches up to Kara's brisk pace.
Together, they barge into Nia's room, startling her.
"Jesus, don't you people know how to knock? I could have been having some personal me time…if you know what I mean?" Nia clutches her uninjured hand to her chest dramatically.
Kara plops herself on the edge of her bed. "Well, firstly, gross and secondly, do you want this cream to stop your hand hurting or what?" She holds it up in front of her, waving it enticingly.
Nia moves quicker than either of them have ever seen her move before, snatching the jar, ripping off her bandage and smearing a chunk of the cream across her wound. The effect seems to be immediate as she sinks back into the pillows with a sigh.
"Holy crap, that's good."
Kara and Lena share a smile, proud of themselves and each other for helping Nia.
"Good enough to come and join us, we haven't seen Kelly or Esme today and since we're so awesome, I'm sure they are missing us." Lena smirks.
Nia nods, grinning from ear to ear. "Yes! I have been wanting to explore this place since we got here!"
Kara cackles at her as she trips when she tries to get out of bed, one of her feet catching in the duvet. "I so wish that I could have recorded that!"
Nia brushes it off, pushing Kara so she falls onto the bed as she passes her. "I can't even be mad that you're being mean, I'm so excited that I feel well enough to get out of this room."
They all meet in the living room, finding the little Olsen-Danvers clan playing together, following the orders of Esme.
"Everyone's here!" Esme giggles when she sees them coming and directs them to come and sit with them. "We're playing a game and I'm the princess!"
Nia high-fives her with her good hand, "of course you are, you're too pretty to be anything else."
Esme bosses them all around for a while, giving them all roles to play from knight to evil queen to servant. Alex was especially displeased to find herself the servant of Nia, a noble lady.
They all share lunch, Kara cooking another Kryptonian dish that they all immediately fell in love with. Alex teases her a little bit about how she can't cook on Earth but is amazing on Krypton and feels like an ass when Kara explains that because the tastes and textures are so different between the planets, she finds it hard to group ingredients on Earth that taste good and when she does they take such varying amount of times to cook that she can't grasp it.
After lunch Esme has them running after her for a little while longer before she went for a nap, well and truly tuckered out. Kara and Lena take moment to discuss what Astra said in the hologram with the team. They have two days to be out of here before someone shows up, so they need to make themselves scarce despite the fact that Kara has a lot of things she wanted to look through in the tower.
They make their plan to leave first thing in the morning the day after tomorrow. That will give them chance to sort themselves out and repack as well as give Nia some time to heal.
It takes no convincing for Lena to give in to Kara's request to continue to help her look through the tower, she may have found the cream but there are more secrets hidden up there, she can feel it in her bones.