Chapter 2
Kara only realises she’s staring when she sees Alex’s smile falter. Alex awkwardly gestures at the napkin holder on Kara’s table. “Um, my table’s out, may I..?”
“Right. Sure! Yes, ah, go ahead,” Kara recovers quickly. She still can’t quite believe Alex is right here. She did, after all, spend an entire day looking for this woman.
Alex appears slightly amused as she reaches over to grab a napkin. “Thanks,” she says, and walks back toward her table.
Kara tries her best not to be too much of a creep, but surreptitiously sneaks glances in Alex’s direction. This Alex looks…well, she looks almost exactly like the Alex Kara knows back home. She’s wearing a black leather jacket that is identical to the one Alex owns back home, and skin-tight dark jeans.
Alex takes a swig from her drink and checks her phone. Kara suddenly realises that Alex is waiting for someone. A date, probably. Why else would she be here, alone, on a weeknight?
As if sensing Kara’s eyes on her, Alex starts to look up. Kara hastily looks away and takes another bite of her sticky buns, and desperately tries to act like a normal person who is absolutely not gaping at her not-sister from an alternate dimension. Which is kinda hard to do because her brain is racing a mile a minute. Kara came here to look for the Alex in this world – to see what she was like – but hadn’t actually planned on having to interact directly with her. Should she introduce herself, or–
Kara’s phone beeps. It’s the alarm she set herself before leaving her Earth, and she realises she is definitely out of time. She takes one last look at Alex before getting up to go.
--
“So, what have we got?” Kara asks as soon as she reaches the DEO command centre. J’onn, Winn and Alex are gathered in front of the briefing screen, and all three look up at her arrival.
“Supergirl, just in time. Mr. Schott here was just briefing us on some anomalous radioactive signatures we picked up this morning,” J’onn says.
That’s Winn’s cue, and as he launches into what Kara has come to understand as his awkward-DEO-geek-mode, Kara’s attention wanders. Thanks to her little cross-dimensional jaunt, it’s been more than 24 hours since she’s last slept. Not that Kryptonians need sleep, per se, but Kara is feeling a smidge less focussed than usual.
Or maybe that’s just her getting distracted by what happened last night. Or…last morning? Kara can’t decide what to call it, because apparently alternate Earths run on a different time zone too. She’d found that out the first time she’d been there to kick Dominator butt. Which is great because Kara could spend a whole day there looking for Alex, but back home it was basically just the night, and she was counting on no one noticing she was gone.
And no one did, which Kara was extremely grateful for as she lurched out of the portal into a nondescript alley that morning. She'd had 15 minutes before she was due to report for work, which was barely enough time to swing by her apartment for a change of clothes, and not give Snapper another excuse to fire her. She was half-expecting her phone to explode with missed calls and texts from Alex once she got back, but relieved when her phone only buzzed with a few email notifications. Kara supposed that shouldn't have been too surprising. She and Alex haven’t talked since that conversation at the park two days ago. It’s not like she’s avoiding Alex or anything, she’s just been busy, okay? And Alex is–
Currently giving her a look across the briefing table, Kara notes out of the corner of her eye. Alex’s arms are folded and her brows drawn together in an almost-frown. Great. It’s the same look she gets whenever she needs to talk to Kara about something, and Kara isn’t exactly enthused at the prospect of this particular conversation.
“…the radiation signatures don’t match any known substances from Earth either. Definitely alien, so we should definitely check that out,” Winn finishes.
“I’m on it,” Kara says quickly, almost flying in her haste to get out of the DEO, and refuses to think about how Alex’s eyes had looked a bit redder than usual.
--
Alex leans over to carefully remove the radioactive material from Kara’s skin, and Kara winces. Kara was a bit tired today, and she’d let that alien terrorist get a bit too close. Close enough to be within spitting distance, to be exact. Just her luck too, because this particular one had radioactive spit.
Which is why she is here, back at the DEO, sitting on an examination table as Alex patches her up and J’onn watches.
“I think that’s the last of it,” Alex announces, and she studies Kara’s skin as it heals itself. “Thankfully, the damage doesn’t seem to be permanent.”
“Thank God for Kryptonian super-healing powers, right?” Kara offers weakly.
Neither J’onn nor Alex seem particularly impressed. “You were lucky this time, Supergirl, but that’s not always going to be the case,” J’onn says.
Kara ducks her head. She knows her reflexes were slightly slower today, because apparently she needs sleep more than she initially thought. She looks up at Alex, expecting more chastisement, but Alex is uncharacteristically silent.
On any other day, Alex would probably be chiding her for her carelessness too, but their mutual awkwardness seems to be dampening Alex’s more overt protective tendencies. As is, Alex simply turns away to put down her forceps her expression strangely unreadable.
Kara hops off the table. “Anyway, thanks for fixing me up, Alex. I should be getting back to Catco.”
Kara moves so fast she’s almost out the door when – “Actually, Kara, I was wondering if you had a moment. To talk?” Alex isn’t looking at her, choosing instead to carefully rearrange some of the medical gear at the workstation.
Kara freezes. She could make up an excuse and go, but J’onn is here, observant as ever, and she doesn’t want this to become A Thing.
“O-okay. Sure.”
J’onn raises an eyebrow. He looks between the two of them before seeing himself out.
As soon as the door shuts, Alex turns around. “You’ve been acting weird ever since I told you,” she accuses.
Kara inhales. Alex has her hands folded again, but her shoulders are slightly hunched. Kara thinks, briefly, about the mimosa plants she’d seen once on an 8th grade school trip, and the way they shrank away from her fingers when she’d tried to touch them. She’d tried to unfurl the leaves with her hands, to unfold them carefully so they could get the sun, but Mrs Rodriguez told her that the more she tried to touch the plants, the more she’d hurt them.
Alex’s voice is deliberately steady now, “I know you’ve been freaking out about me being–“ but here she can’t quite keep the waver out of her voice – “t-that I like Maggie, and if you’re not okay with who I am–“
“No, no that’s not what–” Kara takes a halting step forward, “I’m totally okay with who you are, okay? I was just…surprised.”
Alex doesn’t respond. She just stares at the floor. Kara exhales.
“Okay, maybe I wasn’t just surprised. It’s just– after what you said, about Maggie and Vicki…it just got me thinking, y’know?”
Alex finally looks up, curious. Kara starts to pace.
“Ever since I got here, you’ve always been there for me. I’m really, really starting to see that now – especially after this past year – how everything has always been about protecting me, looking out for me. There’s never been any room for you,” Kara says, and her mouth twists because the second she gives voice to that last thought the truth of it seems to reverberate in her very bones.
Alex is still watching her.
Kara continues, because she’s not sure how she’s going to get the words out, but if she stops now she’s never going get them right. “A-and I’m so sorry for that. I’m sorry you felt like you had to keep this part of you shut off, and I’m sorry that you’ve had to spend your entire life looking out for me, that you didn’t have time to pay attention to yourself–”
But then suddenly Alex cuts her off by enveloping her in a crushing hug, and Kara just deflates, relaxing in Alex’s arms. For a moment, Kara allows herself to enjoy the feeling of being held, wrapped up in Alex’s comforting, familiar scent.
“Hey, hey, don’t apologise,” Alex soothes, “it’s not your fault.”
Something inside Kara snaps as she realises with growing horror that even though Alex has maybe just come out to her, Alex is the onecomforting her, because she’s somehow gone and made this all about her, again.
Kara straightens out of the hug and tells herself to pull it together. “But I wanted you to know that I’m here for you now, okay? I got you,” and Kara squeezes Alex’s hands tight. Alex’s smile is tight and watery.
“So, you need to tell me about Maggie,” Kara says enthusiastically, and Alex lets out a shaky laugh, “But this is probably not the right time or place, and I really do have to get back to work. Dinner later, my place? I’ll get pizza.”
Alex looks like she can’t stop beaming as she nods. Kara’s heart swells.
“Okay then, see ya later,” Kara says and makes to leave. She’s almost left the room when Alex’s voice stops her again.
“Kara– I’m glad you came to live with us. So…please don’t be sorry about that, okay?”
That Alex is trying to comfort her again makes Kara feel even worse, and, unbidden, the self-loathing rises up like bile in her throat. But Alex doesn’t need any of her bullshit right now. Alex needs her sister.
So Kara forces a small smile and nods.