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sssammich · 1 year ago

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day 19: hazy

for supercorptober 2023

read on ao3 instead

crepe AU: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 day 19: hazy, day 22: art, day 24: enchanted, day 30: magic

author's note: this is kinda sad with no real resolution at the end. so if you don't wanna read it, then that's fine! feel free to skip. thanks!

---

“Kara, who am I?”

“You’re Lena. You are my life’s greatest love.”

“Don’t forget, okay?”

“How could I ever?”

—

Kara, depleted of all her energy, watches as the vengeful alien points a specialized extraterrestrial gun directly at her. She places her hands up in surrender, but he is not so merciful, his final act before his inevitable death is simple: take Supergirl down at any cost, to isolate and ruin her the way her people had done to his.

But, of course, Kara didn’t know that.

The gun blast hits Kara dead center in the solar plexus, penetrating through the dwindling defense of her supersuit, propelling her back several yards until her back collides with the wall. She is caught under the rubble, her body buzzing like it’s been infiltrated by white noise under her skin.

She hears a muffled voice yelling after her, pushing through the debris until she finds Lena hunched over her.

Her consciousness starts to wane and within one long blink of an eye, the vengeful alien’s mission is complete.

—

When Kara first opens her eyes, her gaze immediately lands on the source of her deepest comfort standing by her bedside: dark hair framing pale skin, sculpted brows arching beautifully, and light green eyes the color of moss in sunlight.

She blinks a few times to clear the remaining haziness in her mind and she is awash with relief, her nerves settling.

“Hi,” she offers, her voice croaking. Lena turns to her, relief all over her face as she stations herself by Kara’s side. Alex rushes to her other side, quick to give her the once over and check for her vitals. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Lena asks, her voice tinged with worry.

“I just remember this nasty alien shooting me and it blasted me against the wall.”

“Well, that’s about the long and short of it, actually,” Alex offers. “You’ve been out of it for about 36 hours.”

“Didn’t think a gunshot would render me powerless,” she comments, grimacing as she pushes herself upright. She does not see the way Lena and Alex glance at one another.

“It didn’t.”

Brows furrowed, she asks, “What do you mean?”

“We’re not….we’re not sure what the gun did to you. All of your injuries and your blown powers can be traced back to everything before he shot you.”

Their worry gives her pause, but she is not the paragon of hope for nothing, so she bravely wears a reassuring smile, and grabs hold of their hands. “I’m sure whatever it is, we’ll figure out in due time. For now, though, mind if I go home?”

Her wish is easily granted and she makes her way back to her apartment, Lena by her side. Kara senses the tension and worries all over Lena’s face.

“Are you worried?”

Lena’s gaze softens. “I think you know by now I’m always going to be worried.”

She slumps against the bar stool and beckons for the other woman. “Tell me. Please?”

There’s hesitance in Lena’s posture, but Kara only flashes her a reassuring, albeit tired, smile.

“I just…it doesn’t make any sense. You were affected by the blast, but the shot itself did not affect anything, at least none that we can trace or track or check for. But…we can wait until tomorrow to start solving that particular problem. How about for now, you get settled in bed?”

She doesn’t protest and follows silently as Lena ushers her to bed. Lena tucks her in before sitting on the edge of the bed, their joined hands resting on Kara’s stomach.

“Whatever it is, I know you’ll figure it out. You protected me before, I know you’ll protect me again. You always do.”

Lena smiles and clutches at Kara’s hands. “Always.”

—

The return to normal is expected, and goes without any special notice. She attends to her duties and her obligations, savors every minute with her loved ones. Her days inch forward the same as they had always done. And the case with the vengeful alien laid to rest a few weeks after the attack, though without any real conclusion or closure.

Yet despite moving forward, the tension in her shoulders never quite disappears, not when Alex and Lena continue to share worried glances from across the room when they think she’s not looking. Or when they huddle together in a corner in hushed tones when they think she’s out of earshot.

“Maybe it was just an anomaly,” she offers one late night at the Tower. “I just don’t want the two of you to carry all these stresses when nothing has happened.” The ‘so far’ hangs unspoken.

Alex and Lena share one last glance before they nod and accept that perhaps they have given this incident more power than it truly wielded. Satisfied with their promise to let the issue go, Kara gave them both hugs. She wished her sister a good night just as she left with Lena to spend the night back home, the two of them under the security and comfort of rest in bed.

They break their promise: speaking in codes, meeting in secret as they pursued the niggling thought in the back of both of their heads that there was something more. They don’t get very far, every theory hitting a dead end.

But, of course, Kara didn’t know that.

—

Exactly 42 days, 13 hours, 56 minutes, and 27 seconds after Kara was shot that they enter the point of no return.

—

It starts with her nightmares, the images playing in high definition—vivid and real and altogether harrowing. She wakes up from them drenched in sweat, limbs tangled in the covers. She’s gasping for breath, like desperately breaking through the surface after having been underwater for a minute too long.

Lena is there, always, with a mixture of fear and worry and helplessness. Kara eventually comes down from the adrenaline rush, and she is filled with equal measures of guilt and regret when their eyes meet under the blue shadows of the moon that filter in the bedroom.

“You’re Lena,” she gasps out, a means of reassuring herself, even as she reaches forward to tether them together. She shuts her eyes tightly and lets herself be comforted by Lena’s arms that circle around to her back and rubbing it soothingly despite the dampness of her shirt. Or the way Lena presses comforting kisses on her hairline.

What Kara doesn’t see is the tremor in Lena’s lips that she tightens against her forehead nor the dawning fear in those eyes of what she and Alex had feared from the beginning.

—

The changes are gradual, almost imperceptible until she’s already in the middle of something that she realizes something is amiss.

Like ordering takeout from three places despite agreeing to only order from one.

Lena’s confusion is apparent when she enters the apartment and slowly drops her purse on the counter amidst the bags of takeout. Kara scratches the back of her neck as she does her best to explain what she cannot explain.

“Pizza, postickers, and sushi?” Lena asks, amusement laced in her voice even as she looks at Kara incredulously. “Are you really that hungry?”

No, she wants to say. This wasn’t her plan, she wants to say. She doesn’t know what made her do it, she wants to say.

“I saw a bunch of videos while at work and got carried away,” she offers with a shrug. Lena studies her for a moment before sighing and helping spread out the containers all over the coffee table and ottoman that they pull closer.

Kara’s not even that hungry, but she pushes herself to eat everything so that Lena doesn’t question her even as her mind reels.

—

On and on the days progress and Kara is beginning to buckle under the strain of making sense of her world and failing.

“Jess, how much longer is Lena gonna be? You think I can sneak into her office and wait?” she asks one late afternoon, carrying a bag of donuts for the two of them.

Jess only stares at her in mild confusion before slowly looking at her monitor.

“Is this some kind of trick?”

Kara’s brows furrow and she stares dumbfounded. “Wh-what? Why would you think that?”

“Because Ms. Luthor is in Metropolis for another two days.”

They stare at one another, the assistant’s face quickly transforming from confusion to concern, slowly reaching for the phone, no doubt on her way to call Lena. Kara reaches forward and places her hand on the phone.

“Gosh, I just—I must have been losing track of time and missing her so much. I’ll call her on the way home and see how she’s doing. Here, have the donuts and share it with your partner.”

Jess stares at the bag that gets dropped right by her keyboard.

What Kara wants to do but will not do in front of Jess is check her phone with the text message she knows is there from Lena telling her that she’s been craving a strawberry frosted donut and that she’d love to have one miraculously appear after her meeting with the board today.

“Can you do me a favor and not tell Lena about this?” she pleads. “She worries enough about me as it is and I want her trip to go without a hitch. I just, you know, really miss her.”

It’s another few beats of growing awkward silence until Jess nods.

“Thanks, Jess. I owe you.”

She doesn’t quite break into using her powers, but she hightails it out of the office, practically slamming her hand against the elevator buttons, hoping that it swallows her whole. She doesn’t dare look past the doors as they close knowing that Jess is watching her every move.

When she opens her phone in the comfort of the empty elevator, she is filled with abject horror when she finds no textual evidence of Lena’s craving for a donut anywhere in their messages.

—

The moment it comes to a head for them all is when Alex and Lena find Kara sitting by the window of her apartment in front of an easel and a table with paint supplies.

“Hi guys,” she greets them over her shoulder before returning her attention to the image of what she’d drawn, putting the palette down, the brush gripped in her hands.

“That’s beautiful, Kara,” Lena says, placing a soft kiss on her cheek and resting her chin on Kara’s shoulder. “What is it?”

“Thanks.” She stares at the canvas in front of her; hues of red skies and purple mountains, a vista of a distant yet familiar landscape. “It’s…”

Kara’s silence stretches, her mind searching for words to come to mind, yet none appearing.

“Krypton.” It’s Alex who supplies the response when Kara’s silence has stretched entirely too long. “Kara, that’s Krypton.”

“Right.” She frowns, her eyes searching the canvas for answers, but not finding any. “This is Krypton. I am from Krypton. I am Kryptonian.”

Her heart sinks when she moves to look at Lena and Alex’s eyes, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I think I’m in trouble.”

—

She explains the last few weeks, the way her mind has been playing tricks on her, fabricating memories about dates and appointments, swaths of her memories blank for a time.

She confirms their suspicions and they explain all the secret work they’ve been testing.

The rest of the Superfriends are briefed about her situation and they all get to work as a team, coming together to pool their wits and resources on finding a solution that will reverse this problem and get Kara back to them.

Kara maintains her unwavering hope, if not for herself, then for Lena who touches her softly, reverently, cautiously.

“I won’t break,” she whispers to Lena, afraid to break the quiet that has blanketed over them in bed.

“But I might.”

She pulls Lena closer to her, their noses touching slightly. “I won’t let that happen. I’ll always protect you.”

Lena is crying now, and Kara’s heart splinters and cracks.

“I love you,” she says, kissing away each tear that escapes. “Please stay strong for me, Lena."

Lena’s face is tear-streaked and heartbreaking, but she’s kissing Kara and holding onto her, the two understanding what’s at stake, the gravity of their situation weighing on them.

—

When Kara opens her eyes, she sees the most beautiful woman in front of her.

Dark hair framing pale skin, sculpted brows arching beautifully, and light green eyes the color of moss in sunlight. Her face is light and pale save for the pink hues of her cheeks and the tip of her nose, like she’s been crying.

How unkind, she thinks to herself, to have such a beautiful woman cry.

She flashes the woman a smile. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Who are you?”

The woman flinches slightly, and Kara thinks she’s done something wrong. But the woman’s smile is soft, is sad. “I’m Lena.”

She likes that name, it’s familiar to her. She warms to it instantly.

“Hi, Lena. I’m…I’m Kara. Yes, right. Kara. Kara Zor-El.”

She offers her hand and Lena glances down at it for a second before gingerly placing her own.

It’s the same hand that has held her and touched her and loved her for years. So to offer it now as if for the first time is a cut through Lena’s heart and soul.

But, of course, Kara didn’t know that.

—

Alex sidles up next to Lena as they watch Kara talk with Kelly from across the Tower. Close, yet far. A chasm now between them and Kara.

She is determined above all else to get Kara back, but it doesn’t soften the blow or lessen the ache of having Kara stand in front of them in this state: like a stranger, like an alien.

“We won’t stop, okay? We’ll get her back. Just hang in there.”

She nods, restraining her tears as she watches Kara’s every move. As unreachable from this distance as she would be if she was in Kelly’s place.

Kara seems to sense her, and she turns to meet Lena’s eyes. Her smile is bright and lively and beautiful and darling and it’s still directed at her. Lena knows Kara is still there, and she’ll do anything to have Kara back and fight their way back together again.

—

“Lena, who am I?”

“You’re Kara. You are my life’s greatest love.”

“Don’t let me forget, okay?”

“How could I ever?”

#supercorptober 2023 #supercorp #supercorp fanfiction #my fanfiction #this is mm sad #so sorry in advance

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