Kara felt lighter than she had since arriving in this weird parallel reality. Things were good. Barry still hadn't fully forgiven Cisco, but confirmation of the weapons' destruction, which Kara brought a sanitized tale of the next time she'd gone into the labs, helped to smooth things over. No meta's cropped up for the rest of the week, leaving Barry on emergency responder duty for the most part. Things were slow. It gave her more time to work on her own project.

She'd managed to transcribe everything she remembered of portal technology from Krypton. She needed that as a base before she could examine how to tweak it for reality? Interdimensional? Cross-universal? Whatever travel. She hadn't nailed down a name yet. She shouldn't have narrowed her project focus so much when she was trying to get into the Science Guild… she would've known a lot more. At this rate, she might have to take Felicity up on her offer to find an alien bar just to find a scientist from another system who might know more about portals. The thought stung. Krypton developed portal tech ages ago… and here she was, considering begging for help.

"Quite the lab you've built for yourself here," Dr. Wells commented idly as he rolled inside the abandoned physics lab she'd co-opted.

She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, leaning back against the counter. She… well she might not have explicitly told Dr. Wells what she was doing in here, but she didn't really mean to hide it. She didn't turn off the cameras or anything, so of course he would notice eventually. She still felt a little bad. Though that didn't sound like disapproval…? "We were slow today, so I figured…"

He held up a hand. "No need to explain yourself to me. I am a patron of the sciences, after all. While I took issue with Cisco's… personal research, I assure you I am supportive of most individual scientific projects."

"Oh. That's good!" Her hands ticked up to adjust her glasses while her other discreetly shifted her notes behind her body. "Um, is there something you needed?"

"Nothing in particular. I would like to know more about your research, of course. But I happen to be aware of a certain plan for this evening."

Kara nearly jumped as she checked her watch. She was going to be late! She normally worked longer than the others, Dr. Wells' schedule could be peculiar, but she'd meant to ask if she could dart out just an hour early today. "Oh gosh! I'm late! I can stay if you need me…" she offered belatedly, one hand already grabbing the coat from her chair.

He waved her off. "Go. Believe it or not, I did survive without an assistant."

Kara waffled for just a moment, but Dr. Wells seemed sure, not angry or anything. She looked down at her notes. They were in Kryptonian… he'd probably just think it was a secret code or something if he tried looking through her stuff… It'd be fine. She gave him a smile and breezed out to join her friends.

"I'm glad you invited Caitlin and Cisco," Iris was saying inside.

"They're cool, right? Kara's supposed to be here too but-"

"Hey, hi!" Kara bustled in just in time, coming to a stop beside Barry and Iris at the bar "Sorry I'm late!"

"Kara!" Iris dove in for a quick hug. "Are you okay? Barry said you were sick last week?"

"Oh!" She glanced at the sheepish looking Barry. "Yeah. It uh… I dunno what it was but wow it hit me like a truck." Her chuckle was awkward in the silence. "Just… wham! All better now though."

"That's good. And, can I just say, it's nice you became friends. All of you." Iris gestured back to Caitlin and Cisco at a table behind them.

"Didn't you say you hoped Kara and I would never meet?" Barry asked, shoulders shaking with slight laughter.

"Yes, well, that was before I realized Kara is the link between your nerdery and normal." She grinned and grabbed a shot. "To friends! Old and new."

Barry offered Kara his shot, she hadn't yet ordered one of her own. She took awkwardly and clinked it against Iris', downing it in unison with her like she'd seen Alex do, but when the glass lowered out of her vision, Iris was making a weird scrunched up face. Kara hurried it imitate it. Right. Alcohol burned. Supposedly.

"Ooh," Iris shivered, maybe revulsion, as the shot went down. "Well, I'm up. Wish me luck." She set her shotglass down on the bar and left to join Eddie for darts.

"Not a fan of vodka?" Barry asked, good natured smile on his lips, though he kept looking over at Iris and Eddie.

"What?" She set her shot glass down as well, nice and far away.

He pointed at the glass. "The face you made when you drank it?"

Kara grimaced. "Mmmhm… definitely… um… not my thing."

"More for me then." He took the tray of shot glasses the bartender just dropped on the counter, Kara belatedly realized they must all be for him, and took it to Caitlin and Cisco. Kara followed along behind.

"Guys," he announced while setting the tray down on the table. "I have a problem."

"We all do when guys like him exist." They all followed Cisco's glower to where Eddie stood behind Iris, one hand on her waist, coaching her through her next dart throw.

"Yeah… he's so hot," Caitlin breathed. Kara tilted her head. He was good looking… "Uh! I mean, genetically speaking!" Caitlin spun around to face them, eyes wide. "Because I'm a geneticist of course. Oh my god… do I sound like Felicity?"

Kara winced and held two fingers a little too close together for Caitlin's comfort. Poor woman turned red as her hair.

"I'm not talking about Eddie! I'm talking about this." Barry proceeded to down the six shots on the tray, one after the other, no pauses. He sucked in a breath after the last, pleading eyes looking out at them. "I don't feel anything."

"That's usually what happened when you drink too much," Cisco pointed out.

"No, I mean the alcohol is not affecting me. I mean I literally feel nothing!"

Cisco caught Kara's eye.

"It's your hyper-metabolism!" Caitlin said excitedly. Her eyes darted to Kara. "Must be a weird side effect from the coma…" She lazered in on Barry again. "I need a sample."

"Kara and I will get more shots." Cisco jumped up to head back to the bar and again, Kara followed.

"We've got to tell him," Cisco said the moment they were out of earshot.

"We can't. Dr. Wells doesn't want me to know yet."

"Okay one, that's just stupid. You were literally there when Barry woke up and heard he changed. We work with the Flash and Barry! I shouldn't have even been surprised you knew… And two! Barry hates being lied to."

"I know!" Kara huffed, watching Cisco order the shots and crossing her arms. Childish? Maybe… but they were treating her like one. So it was earned. "I do want to tell him!" And now that she felt how freeing it could be to let the people who care about in on her secret, it'd been hard to stop herself from spilling the beans.

"Then we just tell him and… you know… don't tell Dr. Wells."

She gave him a look. She could hear how fast his heart beat in his chest at the idea, casual tone or not. "That's an awful idea. You and Caitlin blew Barry's secret identity to Felicity immediately."

"So not fair! She already knew!"

"Not about the rest of the operation."

Cisco's lips pulled into a frown but ceded the point. "Fine. We'll just have to stage you finding out on 'accident'."

"You really think Dr. Wells will fall for that?" She had her doubts.

"Nope." He grinned. "But Barry will, and he can tell Dr. Wells how it happened later. He literally can't fire Barry. It's the perfect plan."

Kara just shook her head and picked up the new tray of shots. "I'll think about it." She had a feeling telling Barry required a lot less scheming. She'd just… be honest with him next time he needed to talk.

Caitlin already had her blood sample collection kit out by the time they returned. Barry took the shots like Alex after a break up, if she'd had superpowers that is, drowning them immediately. He resolutely ignored Caitlin sticking his left arm with a needle.

"Still nothing!" he announced, the last shot slammed back onto the tray. "I'm only twenty-five and my drinking days are already over."

Privately, Kara thought Barry wasn't missing much. Alex never seemed very happy when she was drinking. Caitlin and Cisco both hummed in appropriate sympathy, though.

"Allen! You're-" Eddie started as he came to tag Barry into the game of darts, interrupted by his phone's chime. He checked it quickly. "There was a bombing on 8th and Pass…" Pecked a kiss on Iris' cheek. "I gotta go babe."

"Okay," she murmured back.

Eddie pulled away, calling out, "sorry guys!" over his shoulder as he left.

"I've got an early shift at Jitters…" Iris grabbed her purse. Which was weird. Iris hated the morning shift. She swapped off it whenever she could, and it was normally Kara picking it up until the manager realized she should just stop trying to schedule Iris in the morning in the first place. "Barry, we'll catch up tomorrow?"

"Yeah its getting late anyways so I'm just gonna…" Barry and Caitlin grabbed their coats and ran out after Iris.

Cisco lingered. "Tell him."

"Okay, okay!" She threw up her hand. "Fine!"

He nodded in satisfaction. "Still got that comm unit I gave you?"

"Yes…"

"Awesome. I'll patch you in." Then he was gone too.

Kara sighed. She grabbed Caitlin's long forgotten drink and took a sip, wrinkling her nose. At least it was fruity? It wasn't even karaoke night…. How had she gone from cloud nine with her friends to sitting alone in a bar with a drink that couldn't even affect her?

She rested her chin in her hand. She couldn't wait for Felicity to visit again.

Kara spun back and forth in her chair as she stared at the results Caitlin sent over from the scan they'd run on Bette Sans Souci. It was silly, but she missed chewing on the end of her stylus. Horrible habit, her mother constantly tried to break it out of her, but it stuck. Until she came to Earth. The horrible texture of snapped pencil wood in her mouth and graphite coating her tongue broke her out of the habit more effectively than anything her mother tried on Krypton.

Dr. Wells insisted that she work on finishing up the contracts for the vendor TAs coming to work on BV394, one of their power systems. The explosion knocked it out and left them with barely enough energy to power the operational wings of S.T.A.R. Labs. If they wanted to repair the entire facility, they needed it up and running again. At one point, S.T.A.R. labs was even producing excess energy, bought in part by Central City Power.

But she'd negotiated with the vendors already and written the basic verbiage, she just needed legal to approve it and she was pretty sure their "legal" was just one guy working remote from the middle of nowhere. It wasn't her fault she had nothing better to do, and Bette was far more interesting.

She flicked the model around on the screen. Caitlin wasn't kidding when she hypothesized that the bomb particulate somehow fused with Bette's DNA. It was fascinating, even by Kryptonian genetics standards. Not that she was an expert in genetics, study in that subject area slowed once Krypton perfected the Matrix. Only a few dabbled in the area, making small adjustments here and there for the benefit of the Matrix itself. Those who went beyond small tweaks… Kara heard her father talking to her mother about it once, a conversation she wasn't meant to hear, but it was enough. Those who still studied intense modification sought to do something bad with it. Something her parents wouldn't outright name even when they thought they were alone.

What happened to Bette, Kara wasn't even sure Krypton could replicate. But they might be able to help… They were always better at removing unwanted traits than adding superior ones. There'd been enough laws made to prevent the latter that innovation stalled.

Her phone rang. She scrambled to answer it.

"Ms. Danvers, you wouldn't mind getting the door, would you? We need a moment to make ourselves presentable." Dr. Well's voice was unusually tight and there was movement in the background.

She narrowed her eyes, nudging her glasses down the bridge of her nose. The walls of her lab faded into a fuzzy impression, the lab's interiors falling away until she could see a group of seven skeletons heading for the elevator. Skeletons with guns.

"On it!" She stood quickly. In moments, she was in the hall. Jumping into the elevator, she mashed the button for the lobby level, waiting anxiously for the elevator doors to close. Painfully slow, they slid shut. Her foot tapped on the floor. She kept her gaze trained on the mirrored ceiling, breathing in and out.

The metal doors slowly slid open and revealed her worst suspicions. Military. Tac-team. She swallowed thickly and tried to take a deep breath. Clark warned her about the military. About how they would try to take her away and experiment on her if they knew what she was. They were going after Bette like they'd go after her. Her spine straightened, hands falling into place on her hips.

Kara Danvers was a bundle of surprises wrapped up in one perky pink cardigan. She stood as the only barrier between a squadron of armed men under Eiling's command and the elevator up to the rest of the facility. Her composure never wavered, her hands set firmly on her hips, chin up, looking certain in her choice. More so than the young soldiers who glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes, uncertain of forcing a little blonde woman out of their way.
Thawne rolled out of the elevator and came to a stop behind Miss. Danvers. She nodded down to him, but her eyes never left General Eiling, who stood firm in the middle of his men, as though he needed protection from the walking Pepto ad that was Miss Danvers.
"Harrison Wells," Eiling said with no small amount of disdain. "Your," he looked down his nose at Miss Danvers, "assistant here refused to allow us access to the facility until you arrived. I'm tempted to have her arrested for obstruction."
But he hadn't yet. Thawne's lips twitched. Empty threats from General Eiling, just what had Miss Danvers done?
"And, like I told you earlier, you don't have jurisdiction to arrest me," she said, chin raised in defiance, her eyes a blazing blue. "Come back with a JAG. Or better yet, have your partnering law enforcement agency do it for you, but I don't see the CCPD here, so I'll wait."
Thawne chuckled, waving a dismissive hand he just knew would piss Eiling off. "There you have it, gentlemen."
Eiling stepped forward, snarl on his lips. "Where's my asset, Wells?" His fists clenched at his sides.
"I've no idea what you're talking about."
His eyes flicked between them. Thawne smiled blandly. Miss Danvers opted for a rather lazy, or perhaps just genuinely terrible, look of faux confusion, complete with a hand on her chest and over exaggerated eyebrow scrunching.
"We tracked her here." Eiling took a step forward. His finger jabbed out to punctuate each word. "Turn her over. Before you see the rest of your precious palace crumble."
"Oh Wade, Wade, Wade." He grinned at the way Eiling tensed, face turning an angry red. He delighted in this game, taking small minded men and prodding them until they blew. Eiling raised an angry hand. Three sharp gestures. His men closed in.
Thawne's hand grasped soft wool on instinct. Miss Danvers' froze with a start. Her wide eyes found his own raised brows. He hadn't even thought. He caught fast movement in the corner of his eye, and simply reacted. Miss Danvers' moved fast. He moved faster. Curious...
He held on. No use in letting her stubborn self-righteous streak get her arrested. Good assistants were so hard to find. Exceptionally brilliant ones with compelling layers of secrets, nigh impossible. They'd stalled long enough. Barry and Bette were long gone by now.
"We could've saved the world you and I." Eiling's hand landed on Thawne's shoulder. His fingers squeezed hard, but Thawne didn't give him the pleasure of seeing a wince.
"Well done, Miss Danvers," he said once the elevator doors slid shut behind Eiling and his men. "Where did you learn about military police jurisdiction?"
"My cousin's wife's estranged sister is a JAG. Lois rants about her all the time." Miss Danvers adjusted her glasses, unable to hide the proud smile on her lips.
He shook his head, not with irritation, but with a fondness he'd almost forgotten how to feel. Just another enigma to add to the ball of mysterious that was Kara Danvers. "My compliments to her then. She helped you save a woman today."
Her eyebrows furrowed and her hand found its way onto her chest once again. That faux confusion... "Who?"
"Bette Sans Souci." Though she already knew that. How? He wasn't sure yet. Unless Caitlin consulted her...? No. They hadn't finished a full work up by the time Eiling interrupted. Caitlin didn't send half completed reports. "I'll call you when the soldiers leave. She should meet the woman who just saved her."
Miss Danvers ducked her head to hide the barest hints of a pink flush on her cheeks. It didn't hide the fervent red burning the tips of her ears. He'd... Missed that in the weeks she'd been sulking over the pipelines and the following weeks of needing to keep her at arms length to hide the development of another weapon, one he could control.
The idea of killing her when she crossed him proved a painful thorn in his side. Unfortunate.

Kara found Bette outside the cortex, sitting alone on the floor with her knees pulled out her chest in a branching hallway they rarely used. It let to the old machining shop. After the incident, Cisco took the precision fab lab on the lower floor instead of the large scale shop. He didn't need the giant CNC for the sporadic gadget manufacturing he did now.

"Hey."

Bette looked up. "Hey…"

"Mind if I sit?" Kara gestured to the space beside her. Bette only shrugged. Good enough for her. She sat down beside her, leaning her back against the wall, blowing a long breath out. She was stalling, giving Bette time. It wasn't… The test results weren't good. She'd eavesdropped Caitlin's prognosis. No one should be alone after something like that. "Long day."

"Tell me about it…" Bette muttered. She stared ahead at the wall across from them, picking at her fingers. "Who are you?"

"Kara. Dr. Wells'-"

"The admin assistant that stood up to Eiling. He told me about you." Her gaze flicked over to her now, a quick up and down assessment. "Must be hiding a spine under that cardigan of yours."

Kara flushed, picking at the pink cardigan she'd thrown on before dashing out the door. She couldn't explain why she always felt the need to throw on one more layer for work. The action just… was so familiar, comforting even.

"Come to comfort the weapon of mass destruction?" She raised a challenging brow. "Hate to say it, but your effort's wasted here."

"I don't believe that…" Kara said looking up to meet Bette's eye roll. "Everyone could use a little comfort. A shoulder to cry on?" She smiled a little.

"Nothing you could say is going to make me feel better about my powers being permanent."

"What if I told you they aren't?" Kara's mouth moved before her mind caught up.

Bette snapped to attention. "What?"

"It doesn't exist right now!" Kara hurried to add, "the technology that's needed. But it could! One day…"

She scoffed, sinking back against the wall. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"I-I'm sorry." How could she explain that it was possible! Just not with Earth technology. Krypton perfect the science of genetic manipulation. They just… perfected it to the point few opted to study it anymore. Everyone knew the basic principles, but Kara could hardly recreate it. She wanted to curse the universe for its cruel joke. The one person on Earth who knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how to help this woman, who could cure her! Let her live again! And yet, couldn't be the one to do it. Even if she could… what would happen if someone like Dr. Wells had access to it? Would he strip everyone in the pipeline of their powers? Maybe… Maybe for some it would be a blessing. Like Bette. But Barry? What if someone used it to take his powers too? There would be no more Flash…

"There's still life to live… even with them," she said lamely instead.

"Hard to live when everything you touch explodes."

Didn't Kara know it. Her fists balled at her sides, and she just wanted to scream, 'I'm here! I know what it's like to live in a world made of paper!' and tell her it would be okay, there was a way to help her! She might not know the exact science behind it, but she knew it existed, and surely with her basic knowledge and someone else's expertise… But she couldn't say any of it. She wasn't sure they could even do any of it. "We don't know that…" she said lamely instead.

Bette rolled her eyes again.

"We don't!" Kara insisted. "I looked at the tests Caitlin ran. They were all preliminary. They tested you like they tested Barry, seeing how well your powers worked. How far, how much force, how long. They looked at your upper limits, how your abilities worked when stretched to their max." Kara gesticulated wildly in the air. "They didn't test what activates them! Or even the lowest reaction you could create!"

"It's involuntary." Bette's voice was carefully devoid of emotion.

"Is it?" Kara pushed.

Bette's eyes turned dark. "You think I haven't tried to control it? To not blow things up?"

Kara winced, scrambling to salvage the stupid, stupid word vomit that kept coming out of her mouth. "I know you have! But…"

Bette stood, glaring down at her. "You know nothing about me, Kara. I know what I am. Stop trying to save me when you can't." She turned on her heel. Took two steps away.

Kara shot to her feet. Her decision was made in an instant.

Her hand closed around Bette's elbow.

They both froze.

Bette whirled on her, eyes wide.

Nothing exploded.

"See?" Kara asked, breath coming a little fast. She hadn't been sure… a strong hypothesis, Barry had managed to run Bette here after all, but the limits of it unconfirmed. "There's so much we don't know yet. But other people can touch you! That's a start! You won't hurt them just by being around."

Bette blinked. Her throat bobbed thickly. "I have to go.

This time, Kara didn't stop her.

Caitlin worked quietly beside her in the lab. She'd taken to joining her here when time permitted, and Barry wasn't around to demand attention. Kara wasn't sure if she actually had her own lab outside of the small set up in the corner of the Cortex to do basic testing and aid on the fly. A shame if she didn't, she was a talented biochemist by human standards and deserved something that catered to her specialty, the same as she and Cisco. Though, she and Cisco had sort of just… taken an unused lab and claimed it at their own. Maybe she could talk Dr. Wells into giving Caitlin one officially. Bio wasn't S.T.A.R. Labs' focus back in the day, but they could retrofit something into the old infirmary, something with specialized equipment for treating meta-humans.

It was nice, having someone else around, even as they worked on different projects. Caitlin with her neck craned, nose nearly touching the diagnostics she'd printed out and scribbled notes all over, trying still to find some way to help Bette. Kara had to force herself to do something else to avoid offering suggestions. She still had a couple of invoices to go through from the construction company, so in the end she didn't end up in much better of a position than Caitlin, pen in hand and paper invoice held near her face as she marked off each charge and compared them to their own records.

Caitlin's phone interrupted them, and she scrambled to answer it. "Barry, what's-"

Kara heard him clearly on the other end, "Bette's gone." Her heart froze in her chest. Quickly, she turned her attention to Bette's heartbeat, pushing past Barry's and Dr. Wells' and Cisco's above, further out, down the reaches of the corridors of S.T.A.R. Labs, sweeping past the janitors working on the lower levels, through Natalie working away in Jitters, beyond Iris' steading thumping, out to the waterfront. There. She heard Bette's heart, only a fraction faster than what it was at rest, surrounded by seven hearts beating hard in fragile human chests, one unfortunately familiar. Eiling.

She and Caitlin stood at the same time, and Kara forced herself to move at a slow, normal, human speed until they reached the door and parted ways. Caitling to the left, headed to the Cortex, and Kara to the right, disappearing in a blur toward the exit. But her body was too eager to simply go and she nearly ripped the door off its hinges as she burst into the sunlight outside, stumbling on the pavement and taking a quick breath to try and settled the excited jitters that came with using her powers. She was steadily getting used to the feeling. No time to think on it now.

Her legs pounded on pavement, spiderweb cracks sprawling from each step, pushing herself faster to get there in time.

"I'm ready to give myself up," she heard Bette say from across the city. What was she doing! Kara thought she got through to her!

"Oh, I highly doubt that," said Eiling. Kara urged herself faster, ignoring the frantic beat of her heart in her chest now. Jitters flew by in a blur on her right. "Think you can pull one over on me? You can't. Stand down, soldier."

She was nearly there now. She could smell the waterfront.

"All over the world people are plotting to destroy our country. To end our lives. Brave American soldiers are gonna die in that fight, but they don't have to. Because of you, we could have victory."

Bette spoke lowly. "All I've ever wanted was to make the world a safer place." She recognized that tone. That was the same low hint of warning Alex got when someone tried to pick on her in highschool, before she dealt with them. "And it will be! When you're not in it!"

Kara burst in front of the soldiers just in time to catch the marbles, alight with a strange purple glow. For a moment, she held them close to her stomach and waited. Her wide eyes met Bette's, hers filled with sudden horror.

It was like a string yanked her back by her navel and like crashing stomach first onto the ground at the same time, like that one time she'd been too excited to help her father in the lab and tripped. But ten times worse. Her back hit something solid. Then something else. Oh Rao, something crunched. What crunched!? Then the world was spinning, greens and blues and whites whirling as she tumbled, finally rolling to a stop in the grass, face up toward the sky. She lifted her chin enough to stuck in desperate lungfuls of air.

A gust of wind shot past her, familiar hummingbird heart beating at its center.

"Being a soldier doesn't mean you're a murderer," Barry said, his boots standing between Bette and the soldiers, Kara well behind the soldier's back line now.

Rao, it hurt to-

"Move!" Bette shouted, feet moving forward, brought to a stop by Barry. "I have to- Kara!" Her name came out a desperate cry, shaky and terrified.

Kara heard the unfortunately familiar faint clanging of a bullet jiggling inside a metal barrel. She forced herself up on one arm, sucked in a breath, and disappeared in a crack. By the time Barry turned around, Eiling's hands were bound with his own handcuffs, his gun lying several meters away. He dropped his head weakly back onto the grass. Kara skidded to a stop behind a park bench well out of the way, leaning against it heavily as she sucked in another desperate lungful of air. Her lungs hurt.

Oh Rao… it was Eiling that crunched… She could see his leg sticking out in a way human legs were not meant to stick. She was going to be sick.

"Bette, we need to get you out of here," Barry said. He reached out to hold her, but thought better of it. "There's another speedster. They're here."

Bette's face was ashen, hands shaking at her sides. "But I saw…" She swallowed thickly, trailing off. Kara followed her gaze to the spot in the grass she'd been lying in after getting blasted.

"Bette!"

She watched from the park bench as Barry waited for Bette's slow nod, and sped her away.

Kara ducked away as one of the soldiers flicked his eyes over to the bench. She hurriedly walked down the riverfront in the opposite direction. She was gonna need a new shirt… And icecream. So much ice cream.

"Call Kara," Bette demanded the very moment her feet hit the floor of the Cortex.

Thawne's fingers wrapped around the arms of his chair, knuckles turning near white. Eiling was still alive, thanks to the other speedster. He'd hoped they, at least, would have died in Bette's little suicide mission, but that would be too kind of the universe. No, the universe loved to laugh at Thawne's expense. Nothing else couple explain the suicide assassination resulting in not a single death.

"Bette, Kara's fine. She'd just down in her lab-" Bette started moving before Caitlin could finish her sentence.

"Wait, hold on." Barry sped in front of her. "We need to talk about what happened back there."

"Move, Barry," Bette growled.

"You tried to kill somebody!"

Her eyes flashed and slid in Thawne's direction. He jumped in to cut her off. Best not to chance her particularly murderous mood today. "Let her go, Barry."

"Dr. Wells-!" he started.

Thawne eyed him sharply. "Let. It. Go."

Barry crossed his arms. The thought of refusing played on his face, of continuing to push until he heard what he wanted to hear, which, god only knows what that would be. Thawne dared him to try. He was not feeling charitable toward his creation today. Barry's jaw ticked, eyes darting between the two of them. He stepped aside.

"Find Eiling. I need to know when to expect him back," Thawne told Cisco. Then to Caitlin, "get Cisco's help and dig into his squad's charts. I want to know what that speedster did."

"And me?"

Thawne flicked his eyes toward Barry. "Be ready to put Bette in the pipeline."

Never mind that he was the one to plant the idea in Bette's head. The damage was done. His dear Barry Allen saw the world in black and white. The moment Bette tried to kill the general, she'd lost Barry's faith. He'd go along with locking her in the pipeline. Caitlin and Cisco would do as ordered. He'd just need to ensure Ms. Danvers' distance for a time. Though, given he had yet to be forgiven, that likely wouldn't pose a challenge.

"And what about you?" Barry asked.

"Ms. Danvers may be able to hold her own against the likes of Eiling, but I hesitate to leave her alone with Bette in this state." Thawne trapped the comm in his ear. "If we need anything, I'll call."

With that, he rolled off to his office and switched on the cameras in Kara's lab. He blinked. Now… where was Miss Danvers?

Kara shut the door to her apartment far too quickly, surprising Bette who had been looking down at her phone to respond to Kara's text to let herself in. The woman tensed, spinning on her heel.

"Please don't run!" She said at the same time Bette breathed, "you're okay!"

"I- you came out of nowhere!" She said in a rush, taking a hesitant step closer, eyes searching Kara's. "I saw you catch the bombs, how are you alive?"

Kara hugged her arms across her stomach, though she'd already changed her shirt to get rid of the kind of undeniable evidence left by the large hole burned in the fabric, she still felt like Bette might somehow see the blossoming bruise hidden underneath her nice clean sweatshirt. "Why did you try to kill Eiling?" She countered. "I thought I got through to you! You can have a life! A nice, fulfilling life and we can work on something to help you! Why would you throw that away?"

"It wasn't about me," Bette snapped. "All the other metas. What happens to them when Eiling hear about them? He needed to die for the rest of us to be safe."

"That doesn't mean you have to kill him!"

"You wouldn't understand," Bette said stiffly, hiding her face behind a curtain of hair. "You don't know what it's like to be hunted."

"Yes… I do…" Kara said quietly.

Bette looked up.

Kara's fingers fiddled with her glasses again, giving them a little nudge. This was… two people in nearly as many weeks… Was she really going to do this? How many more would she tell? How many could know and still be safe? She took a breath and shook her head. Bette needed this right now, she needed a friend. Kara could… she'd figure it out later. "I know because I'm… I'm an alien." It was easier this time, to say it outright. "So yeah, pretty much my whole life on Earth has been being told to always hide myself and my culture, everything! Just so the government wouldn't sweep in and take me away."

Bette stood still, like marble. "An alien." She blinked, and Kara could see her battling within herself on whether or not to believe it or scoff the idea off. "You expect me to believe you're an alien?"

"You're a meta… How many people would believe you have superpowers?"

Bette pursed her lips.

With a sigh, Kara let her arms fall away from her stomach and slowly peeled up the hem of her shirt to show the already deep purple bruise on her abdomen. "Anyway, if I was human… I wouldn't have survived. Not much can hurt me here so..."

Hesitantly, Bette stepped forward. Her hand reached out to touch, as if to verify the bruise was real, but she caught herself, arm dropping limply to her side. "You… okay. That's… that's real. I did that. I didn't kill you." Her eyes widened. "I didn't kill you…" she repeated to herself.

"Nope! And that's why I think one day you can touch People again!" Bette's eyes snapped back to hers, walls starting to close in again. Kara continued quickly, to say all the things she couldn't before, "when I first landed I couldn't control my own strength. The yellow sun makes me more powerful than I was on my planet. Everything felt like paper. I… Rao I broke so much of Eliza's furniture… I was terrified to touch anyone. I broke my first boyfriend's nose!"

Bette's lips twitched a little.

"It felt impossible. Like I'd break everything and couldn't control it. But I kept trying and trying and eventually… I got a cat. Streaky. And I pet him and he purred and it was the best day of my life at that point."

"It's not about control Kara… it's…"

"Maybe you just haven't had an environment you feel safe trying in." She deflated, looking down at her hands. "I couldn't make any progress while I still felt terrible about breaking Eliza's stuff. But she bought me a bunch of plates on day and told me to have at it in the yard and… I just want to help you try, Bette. Make somewhere safe for you to try and maybe, maybe one day you'll be able to control it. Explosions can be good, you know? If they're controlled. Combustion engines… "

Bette shot her a look and Kara rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. Rao, she still wanted to tell her about the possibility of genetic modification to help, but she felt awful just… pushing the issue without knowing that it could be done. She wouldn't play with Bette's hope like that again.

"So… what to you say? We've got this saying on my planet. El Mayarah. Stronger together?"

"Alright," Bette said, her voice a little thick. "El Mayarah. I want to get better."

Kara pulled her into a hug, squeezing her firmly, squeezing all the promises she could into her. They would figure this out. Bette stiffened; her hands held far from Kara, but nothing exploded, and she slowly relaxed into the hug, melting even. "El Mayarah. I'm gonna call a friend. She can help you disappear. And probably destroy Eiling too, now that I think about it. You rest." She pulled back just far enough to point toward the couch.

"I couldn't-"

Kara only pointed again as she pulled out her phone and pressed the contact pinned to the top. "Felicity! Hi!"