Chapter 3
Lexa felt the sadness like she could feel a wave crashing into her.
The interrogation room was getting smaller- filling up with water and engulfing her in this terrible nightmare, her mother gone and never coming back. It pooled at her ankles, anchoring her to the concrete floors so that she couldn’t move. She felt it rise to her chest, cold and numbing until her heartbeat rang in her ears like a siren. It quickly came up over her head, filling up her lungs so that she couldn’t breathe- drowning her in an inescapable sadness.
Lena Luthor died ten years ago.
“No.” She shook her head, maybe if she pretended she hadn’t heard them then the words would lose truth. Her breath came to her in short, fleeting spurts- her heart beating erratically. It was different when it’d been her home, when it had been her mother’s building- but her mother? She didn’t know how to fix this, she couldn’t bring someone back to life.
“Lexa..” her mom began, trying to soothe her in any way she could. She only shook her head, backing away from the hero and into the wall.
“No!” She trembled, her voice cracking- startling her mother and aunt. She continued shaking her head, tears falling down her face. “My mom’s not dead!” she insisted, hoping that if she believed the words then maybe they would become true. “I saw her this morning,” she tried to recall it, but she found her memory was hazing. “I saw her this morning-” she repeated, trying to hang on to the memory.
“Lexa?” Alex asked, her tone laced with concern. She took a step forward cautiously, as if she was afraid of moving too fast and scaring the younger girl.
She was quiet, straining to remember her mother. What she looked like, what she sounded like- who she had been. “My mom’s……” her eyes widened in fear, unable to come up with the answers that should have been right there. “Gone.” She looked to her mother and her aunt, her confusion becoming overwhelming.
Three hours ago her life had been perfect- two healthy parents, good grades, friends, a team at the DEO. Now, she didn’t know how much of it was left. If her mother was gone- who else was gone? And when were they going to take her with them?
“Lexa, I’m so sorry,” Kara whispered, “It was my fault- she died in an explosion,” she began explaining. “There was a threat to L Corp, somebody called in a bomb but your mom, she-” Kara smiled fondly, as if recalling a distant memory. “-she refused to leave, said she wasn’t going anywhere until all her employees were safe outside. We almost had them all when it went off.”
Lexa scoffed through tears, “of course she did.” Her mother would throw herself in front of a perfect stranger, for no good reason. Loyalty above all, her mother had always told her. It was a trait that her entire family seemed to have.
Kara chuckled lowly as she stepped forward, slowly pulling her daughter back into her embrace. “Your mother was one of the bravest people I had ever met- she didn’t hesitate for a second putting those people’s lives in front of her own.” She pulled back a few inches and looked at the girl’s face. “You look just like her, you know?”
It was true, Lexa had always heard that she was almost a perfect carbon copy of her mother. She had Lena’s dark hair, her strong jaw and near immaculate posture- her mother’s bright smile. Kara had told her throughout her entire life how she and Lena were ‘two peas in a pod’. If not for the Zor-El blue eyes and Kara’s tall build, they would have been twins.
“Don’t tell me you’ve got the attitude to match,” Alex joked, her smile fading at the knowing smirk her niece gave her in response. She shook her head and groaned, attempting to give Lexa a playful punch on the shoulder, but pulling back a reddened fist. “Jesus, there’s two of you!”
“Sorry,” Lexa felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment, remembering something her aunt had said once. "The Luthor brains and the Danvers brawn.”
Kara laughed, and Lexa could feel a spark of warmth in her chest. She still had her mom- this mom, with her now. Kara’s face had lit up, looking proudly at her daughter and the display of her kryptonian side. “That sounds like something Alex would say.”
Lexa smiled and let her eyes turn to her aunt, arms crossed over her chest and smiling at them sadly. “It was actually Aunt Maggie- is she okay?” She felt her heartbeat pick back up again, wondering how many others could be gone in this timeline. “Was it only my mom? Is everybody else still here?”
“Maggie’s fine, honey- though the uh, aunt part didn’t make it through,” Alex assured her ears turning pink at the mention of her old girlfriend, “who is everyone else?” She could see the young super beginning to panic again and quickly moving to calm her. A strange fondness for her supposed niece was settling in her, as if it had been there all along and she just… hadn’t remembered it. “Here- why don’t you tell us about your timeline, and we’ll fill you in on what’s happened in ours. We can trade off.”
Kara nodded, rushing to soothe her daughter alongside Alex, “we can go through it- together.”
And they did- the bleak interrogation room traded for Kara’s cozy one bedroom apartment. Alex drove a car in this timeline, she found out- having traded her beloved bike years ago. Her mother had never moved out of the loft she’d lived in before moving in with Lena- Lexa guessed without her mother, Kara had no reason to move out. It made her realize how much her mom must have missed out on without the Luthor. Lexa was sat on the baby blue couch and watched obediently as Alex set up her DEO tablet, connecting it to her mother’s television so they could see the files as they were pulled up.
When they were ready, Lexa had begun to list them off one by one- asking her mother and aunt about everyone she could think of. Most people were more or less the same- Eliza and her uncle Clark being almost exactly as they’d been in Lexa’s timeline. (Though of course in this one Eliza was still berating her children over her lack of grandkids.) Clark was still married to Lois, and Lexa’s cousin Jon had made it through to this reality.
It turned out that everyone else had become drastically different- surprising Lexa with how much Mon-El could change by staying in the past for a few seconds longer than he should have. None of the married couples she’d grown up around had made it- and she listened intently as her mother told her their timelines one after another. She asked them questions- and let them ask her questions in return, the sisters marveling over how different the timelines were.
“Winn has a daughter?” Kara had asked incredulously- as if her best friend having a child was the most outlandish thing Lexa could have come up with. It was the first question she’d asked, having listened silently up until then.
Lexa nodded, “Claire’s the DEO’s youngest tech genius in history- and my best friend,” she smiled. They didn’t know it, but this was one of Lexa’s greatest feats- Claire Schott hated most people, and was famously introverted. Her friendship was hard to come by, and it had taken Lexa many tries to gain it. “He and Uncle James adopted her when I was 14.”
Alex chuckled, “I knew there was something going on between those two.” Of course she did- Alex always knew everything before the rest of them.
“In our world, James moved back to Metropolis a little bit after we defeated the world enders,” Kara explained as Alex pulled up his picture on the screen. He looked the same, but the notes in his file were new to Lexa- his reporter job at the Daily Planet, his wife Lucy, and his photography career slowly flattening out.
Lexa shook her head, “he doesn’t run Catco?” She couldn’t imagine the man she’d known giving up his spot leading National City’s newspaper.
Alex shook her head, “he said that he just missed it back home- gave the company back to Lena, your mom, and left.”
Lexa hummed, watching her aunt with careful eyes. “And what about Aunt Maggie?” She looked from her mother to her aunt, “You guys really didn’t end up together?”
Alex sighed, swiping the tablet until an old photo of her old fiancée was displayed. “After we called off the engagement, we-”
“Called off the engagement?” Lexa gaped, “you mean you guys got as far as getting engaged and still didn’t end up together?” An almost angry look crossed her face, making the women in front of her laugh.
“She didn’t want kids,” Alex gave her niece a tight-lipped smile. She remembered when Maggie left like it was yesterday. Lexa could tell this was a hard subject for her aunt- and she didn’t blame her, in her timeline Maggie was her aunt’s world.
Lexa giggled knowingly, “she sure seemed to like Jeremiah just fine.” She stopped laughing, as if she’d said something she wasn’t supposed to. Her eyes dropped to the floor, and she refused to meet her aunt’s eyes. It was quiet for a while before she spoke again, “but I guess he’s gone too, huh?”
“Jeremiah?” Alex asked, her voice coming out much smaller than she’d meant it to. Lexa watched as her mom put a hand on her aunt’s shoulder comfortingly.
Lexa smiled, remembering her cousin. She’d seen him only hours before- decked out in his black supersuit and electric night sticks. She let her eyes wander to her aunt- who sat in the chair across from her. Her shoulders were slumped, eyes set on the floor and beginning to water. Her mom had told her how much Alex had always wanted to be a mom. Lexa began to look around, searching for a piece of paper in the small apartment.
She found one easily, picking up a pen off of the coffee table and sitting in front of it- maybe her mother was still a reporter. She began to draw- of course, she was no artist, but she tried her best. She began with a square, and attempted to draw her cousin inside it. He was much better looking than her lopsided stick figure, but she hoped her aunt got the point. “Jeremiah Sawyer-Danvers,” she spoke aloud as she labeled the top of her paper with the name. She wracked her brain, trying to think of what his notes would say if he had a file. What she came up with was not nearly as detailed as a DEO commissioned file.
- 21 years old
- red hair, brown eyes
- super bossy
- electrocuted my boyfriend freshman year
- lieutenant of the group
She held the paper up to her aunt, who looked at her skeptically before taking it into her hands. She laughed, “I take it they don’t let you write the mission reports where you’re from?”
Lexa laughed with her, shaking her head. “Miah doesn’t let me go near the desks - apparently I don’t have the patience for paperwork.” She felt her cheeks tint a slight red. Ivy league? No problem. But a DEO report? She’d rather jump off a cliff.
“You get that from your mother,” Alex chuckled, her eyes not so subtly moving to Kara- who was equally as red-faced as her daughter. “I’m sorry, does this say that my son electrocuted your boyfriend?” Alex asked, her eyebrows raised in the classic Alex look she’d seen many times (mostly when they were caught making trouble.) She turned the paper around in her hands and pointed at the scribbled note written under his stick figure.
“You have a boyfriend?” Kara asked, even more accusatory than her sister. She looked at her daughter with a stern face- the protective mother in her resurfacing.
“I have an ex boyfriend,” Lexa clarified, looking pointedly at Alex, “thanks to said electrocuting.” She smiled, remembering the memory easily. She had never let her cousin live it down. “His name was Carter. Miah never liked him- and we thought it was just him being his usual self. He’s always been like my big brother, really protective and stuff. I…. kind of found out he was cheating on me.”
“He what?” Kara’s chest immediately puffed out, her eyes darkening. “You think he still exists in this timeline?” She spoke just like the mother Lexa had always known- overly protective and quick to fight anybody that came near her family.
Lexa rolled her eyes as Alex laughed, “Mom, jeez- by the time you found out you couldn’t do anything- Miah sort of….sent him to the hospital.” She grinned, “he got in so much trouble for it.”
Kara shook her head and snorted, her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Sounds like your aunt when we were younger.” Kara recalled fondly her memories of Alex fiercely interrogating every boyfriend she’d ever had.
Alex smiled sadly, “the more we find out the more it sounds like we got the wrong end of the timeline stick.”
Lexa couldn’t help but agree with her. The more she found out about the timeline Mon-El had created, the more she hated it. Her mother was gone, her uncles living their separate and sad lives, her aunts on different paths and her friends and cousin gone. Neither of them looked like they were living the happy lives she had seen in her own timeline. She could feel a dull ache in her chest- she’d never thought about the impact she’d had on her parent’s lives.
Of course, neither of her mothers ever missed the chance to tell her as much. Kara stopped her after almost every mission to tell her daughter how proud she was, and Lena framing any school certificate her child could bring home.
She began to think about her home- the beautiful brownstone that now belonged to the hipster couple. The fridge covered in her school forms, the pictures that hung on the walls. Her mothers’ room with the cool blue and gray tones, her entire house a perfect mix of Lena’s modern and Kara’s rustic. Her own room, decorated in-
Her heart began to ring in her ears.
She was blanking, her thoughts coming up empty when she searched for the details of her own bedroom. She knew there was a bed- decorations on the wall, a desk she would do her homework on. It was the specifics that were gone from her mind. What color were her walls? Her bedsheets? What miscellaneous items lay around her room?
“Mom?” she called out, Kara’s attention immediately on her. Her eyes looked at the woman sitting in front of her, “what’s going to happen to me?”
Her mother was silent, confirming Lexa’s worries- that they didn’t know.
She had no home- no parents. Yes, Kara was right in front of her, but this woman wasn’t her mom. There was no longer any existing memory of her in this timeline- there was nowhere for her to go. She could try to blend into this timeline, but how long could that last?
She could hear Lena’s voice in her head, faint like it was coming from another room. If something is out of place, the universe does everything it can to put things back. It was common sense- small talk made at the kitchen counter as her mother made dinner. Lexa strained to remember it- her mother’s face was blurry, but Lexa could see the sleeves of a white dress shirt rolled to the elbows. Two sets of dark raven hair pulled back into ponytails- one neat, the other messy. She was practically leaning over the countertop, ap physics homework sprawled out in front of her. The two Luthor women talking idly about the theories of quantum physics as they waited for Kara to get home.
Her mother’s words repeated over and over in her head.
The universe will do everything it can to put things back, and in this universe- Lexa was the one thing out of place. Long dinnertime conversations she had once been fond of were now coming back to haunt her.
“Lexa,” her mom said gently, approaching her as if she were made of porcelain. “In our timeline, the only experience we have with time travel is sending Mon-El back to stop the World Enders. Even then, he supplied us with the technology to make that possible.”
“I’m not sure how it’s possible that you’re even here right now,” Alex chimed in. Her aunt being the nerd that she was, Lexa could see the gears turning in her head to try and work out the possibilities. “If in our timeline you were never born- or even close to being born, really- you shouldn’t still be here. Did something happen to you?” She was back in interrogation mode now, speaking quickly and intensely. “Did you have to go through some loop or come from a different world?”
Lexa shook her head, “nothing was different- I took the train home from the DEO and when I got home strangers were in my house and my stuff was gone.” She didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary- no flashing lights or portal jumping. She had just been coming home, like every other day.
“I’m sorry kiddo,” Alex apologized, “but I’m not sure how long this can last- either our universe might collapse on itself, or you could disappear entirely.”
“Or everything could be fine?” Kara asked, hope laced into her words. Lexa looked at her mom with sad eyes, though they’d only known each other for a few hours- it was clear that Lexa was Kara’s daughter. That, even if a different version of her had raised her, Kara still cared about the girl. She knew that part of her mom (and herself) was hopeful that she could stay there, a paradox stuck in an alternate timeline.
The look in her aunt’s eyes told her that the scenario wasn’t likely.
“I’m so sorry,” Alex repeated, not knowing what to say.
Kara huffed, frustration taking over her as she shook her head. “Isn’t there some way to fix it, Alex?” the words came out more pleading than questioning. “I mean, Mon-El figured out how to mess with the timeline, can’t we mess with it to put it back?”
Lexa began to smile- something she had always loved about her mother was her inability to give up. Of course, “mess with it” and “put it back” would not have been the terms Lexa herself would have used, but she was guilty of hoping the same thing.
“Kara, it’s much more complicated than that.”
“But Alex we can’t just sit by while Lexa - my daughter - just disappears!”
“I don’t want to see her go either, Kara, but messing with time isn’t just something we can do in our spare time. If the timeline has already been tampered with enough to change as much as Lexa’s told us, it will be very fragile!”
Her mother and her aunt went back and forth, their voices raised and arms flinging around as they talked. Lexa sat and watched them, the two women who she knew but didn’t really know. The same people, different lives. A million theories ran through her head- her aunt was right, the timeline would be very fragile. But, Lexa liked to think she knew enough about quantum physics to be able to dance around those cracks Mon-El had made. If she was careful- very careful- she just might be able to do it.
“What if you sent me back?”