Birth Day
You never tell anyone that you hate the Earth month of June. Even if you did, most people would probably assume it is a dislike borne of the weather. Despite Midvale and then National City having temperate climates, those months of summer are undeniably hotter, and sometimes the spring rains stretch into June and match heat with humidity. Very few people know that the heat has no affect on you. No, you hate June for reasons beyond the weather.
Your first memory of Earth is of your cousin, Kal - Clark - ripping the door from your pod and extending his hand towards you. If not for the House of El symbol on his chest, you might have been terrified. You were still terrified. And confused. He told you the date, June 10, 2004. Krypton had been gone for decades, but for you it seemed it had happened within the past day, and you are glad to fly in your cousin's arms because your tears are blown away in the wind.
That first year was undeniably difficult. Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers were gentle and loving towards you, but they weren't your parents. Alex was distant and aloof, and she was called your sister, but you knew she had never asked for a sibling.
Yet she was the only one who understood why you ran to your room when they brought out a cake on June 10, 2005 and placed it before you at the table. You knew what it signified, but that day was not your birthday. It was Alex who entered your room quietly and sat on your bed.
"They know it isn't your birthday, they just wanted to show you how happy they are that you're part of our family now," she says, and it's the first time she's said that to you. Our Family.
You are happy to be with them. They are wonderful to you and you have had many happy times with them. But you are not an Oliver Twist-style orphan, grateful for a place to belong. You had a perfect family on Krypton, and celebrating your arrival on Earth is like pretending they never existed, or worse yet, commemorating the destruction of your planet with balloons. You don't say all of that to Alex, but you say enough, and she leaves you to your pillow.
Alien ears pick up the muted and hesitant steps of Eliza and Jeremiah as they walk up the stairs. You are sitting up when they open the door and you can see a stricken look on Eliza's face, and Jeremiah looks ashamed. Somehow they never thought about what this day really means to you.
They apologize repeatedly, and say that you can pick your own birthday, or maybe Clark will be able to tell you what it should actually be. Because you know your Kryptonian birth date but you were not an astrophysicist when you landed and you don't know how to calculate the time difference.
A week later, they send you to Clark for a long-weekend visit. You are excited to be going, but the thrill doesn't last. You had thought, somehow, that being with him would nurture that part of you that is starved for a connection to your heritage. Speaking rapid Kryptonian to him, the minute you arrive, you are aching to hear those lilting syllables spoken back to you, but his accent is grating to your ears, his syntax awkward and speech slow. It just reminds you of your failure, because you should have been there to teach him as a baby and child. Instead he has learned from an artificial intelligence at the age of eighteen.
He would take you to his Fortress of Solitude to immerse yourself in Kryptonian culture and history, but you know now that it will never be enough. You don't ask him about your birthday. It no longer matters.
When Jeremiah is killed less than six months later, you experience yet another loss, but at the same time you seem to gain a real sister. You expected Alex to be more distant; to resent you for having stolen some of her father's time since your arrival. Instead, she opens up to you. She hasn't lost a planet but she has lost perhaps the most important person in her life, and she has a new understanding of what you have experienced.
Years pass and you remember Krypton every single day, but you are a citizen of Earth now. You love this planet and the people on it. You hate the month of June, but then, after you save your sister's plane on June 21, 2015, you find yourself hating it less. Because suddenly you are Supergirl and you don't have to hide everything anymore. You can't really reveal everything - okay, most things - but you can be helpful now. You can make a difference. You don't need to listen to Clark speaking strained Kryptonian because you can visit your own A.I. and while it is not enough, it is healing in a way that maybe only Alex would understand.
Another year passes and you have experienced more in that year than you ever expected; both good and bad. June the tenth passes without mention, but you wonder if you might be ready to celebrate something now. You have been on Earth for longer than you were on Krypton. It makes your eyes burn and your throat tighten when you think about that, but you cannot deny that you have found something wonderful here, something you cherish. You are happy now, in a way that used to make you feel guilty.
Autumn in National City is barely different than the summer. There are no turning leaves, no pungent smells of bonfires and earth and pine like during your trip to New England with Alex when you were eighteen. Instead it is just the sun setting slightly earlier, and a slight chill in the evenings. Still, you enjoy flying a morning patrol and seeing school children on sidewalks, waiting for their bus. Pumpkins start to appear on doorsteps, and Noonan's announces the arrival of your favorite spiced latte. Halloween will be arriving soon, and with it little girls dressed as you running through the National City side streets and joining the annual party in Wallace Park.
Ms Grant has been different with you lately, and you begin to wonder how long she has been pretending not to know your secret. She also does and says things that make you wonder if the feelings you have been thoroughly squashing might actually be reflected in her eyes. You mentioned it to Alex, during a late-late-night movie marathon and you had been nervous, but she just jabbed you in the side and teased that Cat Grant would have to be blind to resist you.
Three days later, it is October 10, 2016 and you step off the elevator, two lattes in hand, and head for your desk. You stop a step away from it, your eyebrows knit together in the way Winn always teases you about. There is a cupcake on your desk, and a yellow rose - your favorite color. There is also a folded sheet of paper with your name printed on the outside. The handwriting is Alex's, which makes you wonder how early she got there to be able to get in and out without crossing paths.
Setting down the cardboard cups, you lift up the paper and open it with great curiosity. There are only two lines printed on it.
"October 10, 1972. It took me a month, with "Alura's" help to calculate it, adjusting for everything.
Happy Birth Day, from your sister"
And all of the missed birthdays no longer matter.