Chapter Text
The launch bay doors slid slowly open, blinding Kara with a flash of Rao’s brilliant red light. Her heart still ached with the sorrow of leaving her parents behind, knowing that they would die. Tears still stung her eyes, but one thing she would not allow herself to be was afraid. Her cousin Kal-El was only a baby, and it fell to her to guide and protect him in their new life on the planet called Earth. Her parents- and Kal-El’s- had been sure to impress upon her the enormity of the responsibility she faced, the fact that she would have to be both cousin and parent to Kal-El from now on, and teach him Kryptonian ways. Kara tried not to think too hard about the concept of teaching her cousin the ways of a people that would be dead by the time they reached their new home.
Squinting against the bright light flooding the launch bay, Kara could make out Kal-El’s pod, just ahead of her own, its hull gleaming silver in Rao’s ruddy light. As she watched, its engines fired, and it sped forward, out through the open doors of the launch bay and into open air. Kara’s pod rumbled and shook as its own engines came alive, launching itself and its passenger out into space, following after Kal-El’s pod as if in a game of tag. Her pod was self piloting, which left Kara with nothing to do but watch and weep as Krypton, her home, collapsed and crumbled around and beneath her.
With the breakneck speed at which the pods were moving, it wasn’t long before they broke the atmosphere and went hurtling out into the cold black vacuum of space. They were making good time, and Kara began to believe that their journey would go smoothly and they would arrive at their new home without mishap. Then disaster struck. Just behind Kara, Krypton exploded, the last gasp of a dying world. The shockwave from the blast struck Kara’s pod, sending it tumbling end over end. As she tumbled, she caught glimpses through the window of Kal-El’s pod continuing uninterrupted on its course, dwindling into a smaller and smaller shape as it got further and further away. Kara felt a twist in her stomach as she realized that she’d been knocked toward the opening to the Phantom Zone that lurked like a waiting, hungry maw in the space between Krypton and its nearest planetary neighbor. As she felt the inescapable gravity of the Phantom Zone opening pull her backwards toward it, deep sorrow overwhelmed Kara. She’d never make it to Earth, wouldn’t be there to protect and guide her cousin. She had failed in her task, failed before she’d even begun.
“Kal!” she cried out in a voice raw and ragged with despair as she watched his pod disappear from her sight. Then all she knew was the cold and the darkness and the silence of the Phantom Zone.
The next thing Kara knew was blue sky and sunlight. Yellow sunlight. She’d made it to Earth at last. Perhaps she hadn’t failed. Perhaps she could still fulfill the task her parents had placed upon her in their final moments.
Her pod rattled and shook as it plummeted toward the ground far below her. A crossbreeze shoved it sideways, and Kara cried out, but then she clamped her mouth shut, remembering herself, remembering the promise she’d made in those moments before her breakneck flight from Krypton- she would not be afraid.
That promise became a little harder to stick to when her pod finally impacted with the ground, crashing through tree branches and plowing a deep furrow in the ground behind it. When it finally came to a stop, Kara opened the hatch and sat for a moment, the riot of noise and color and light all around her leaving her dazed and disoriented after so long spent in the cold, silent blackness of the Phantom Zone. Then she pushed herself to her feet, climbed out of her wrecked pod, and headed toward the buildings she’d caught glimpses of on the way down- rows of houses with neatly manicured lawns, occasionally separated by a fence or a hedge or trees. If Kara remembered her lessons about Earth correctly, this was what was known as a suburb, a residential area located just outside of the nearest population center. Maybe someone here would know something about her cousin, or know how to help her find him.
As Kara wandered the streets, however, she came to realize what a foolish plan this was. It was late afternoon, with the shadows lengthening into evening, and the streets and sidewalks were silent and empty. At this time of day, it seemed, the residents of this suburb were all in their homes, and Kara had no idea how to gain entry to one of those homes, or what she would say if she did. She had no external features that distinguished her from a random human off the street, and if she tried to tell someone that she was an alien who’d crash landed here and was looking for her cousin who was also an alien, they’d just think she was crazy.
Feeling despair overwhelm her, Kara sat down on the porch steps of the nearest house, put her head in her hands, and started to cry, sobs shaking her shoulders and rattling her entire frame. After a while, in the midst of all her tears, she heard voices inside the house, just behind the door- a man and a woman, discussing something in low voices. A moment later, their conversation came to an abrupt halt as they apparently arrived at some consensus unknown to Kara. Then she heard the door open behind her and the woman’s voice said “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” Kara’s only response was to cry harder, the unexpected kindness striking her in the heart.
“Oh, honey,” the woman murmured, and the next thing Kara knew she was sitting beside her on the porch steps and putting an arm around her shoulders. Kara glanced over at her. She had red hair and smile lines around her eyes, her features folded into an expression of maternal concern. In that moment, Kara knew, somehow, that this woman had children- maybe one, maybe more than one. It didn’t matter. She could not have more clearly been a mother.
“What’s your name?’ the woman asked in a gentle, patient voice.
“Kara,” Kara managed to answer between sobs.
“Oh, that’s a beautiful name,” the woman said, offering Kara a smile. Kara tried her best to return it, but had a difficult time of it. There were a few minutes of silence where the woman just sat with Kara, her arm still around her, and waited for her crying to quiet. Even once it did, she didn’t say anything right away.
“Where on Earth did you come from, Kara?” she finally asked. Kara almost laughed. She hadn’t come from Earth at all, but how in Rao’s name was she supposed to explain that?
“I can’t really tell you,” she mumbled. “I’d have to show you.”
“What was that?” the woman asked.
“I said, I’d have to show you,” Kara repeated, louder this time. The woman nodded and followed Kara as she got to her feet.
“Nora, what are you doing?” The man’s voice came from behind them. Kara flinched, startled. She hadn’t realized that he’d been standing in the doorway this whole time. “You can’t just follow her off somewhere!”
“She’s a thirteen year old girl, Henry,” Nora replied in an exasperated tone. “She’s clearly lost, and alone, and scared. What do you think she’s going to do to me?” Henry didn’t respond. Nora sighed, but there was a certain affection buried in her exasperation toward Henry, who, Kara realized, must be her husband.
“You can come with me, if you’re so worried about it,” she said. Henry hesitated, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Think about what you would want someone to do if it were Barry in Kara’s position,” Nora implored. That seemed to convince Henry, as he stepped out onto the porch, closing the front door behind him, and came to stand beside Nora and Kara on the steps.
Barry must be their child , Kara thought. Without a word, Kara set off in the direction of her pod’s crash landing site, glancing behind her only once to make sure that Nora and Henry were following.
It took a while to reach her pod, during which time Kara’s worry over how Nora and Henry would react to it grew and grew. When they reached it at last, at first the sight of it was met only with stunned silence on the part of the two people with Kara. Then Nora asked “Is that what you came here in?” Kara nodded.
“From where?” was Nora’s next question. In answer, Kara pointed upward at the dome of the sky, with stars just beginning to speckle it. She spotted a small, faint red one that might have been Rao, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Up there?” Nora asked. “As in from space?” Kara nodded again.
“Did you come alone?” Nora asked, concern in her voice now- not concern about a possible invasion, but for Kara’s well-being.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m alone. I was supposed to come here with my baby cousin, but I got knocked off course, and I don’t know where he is now, or if he’s even alive-” A strangled cry escaped her, cutting off her words, at the thought of Kal-El being dead. It was too horrible an idea to even contemplate.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Nora murmured, drawing Kara into her embrace. “We’ll help you find him. It’s going to be okay, I promise.” Kara nodded, her face pressed against Nora’s shoulder. Already, she felt better.
“We have to take her in,” Nora told her husband. When he started to protest, she said, “Henry, she’s a child . She’s a child, and she’s all alone. We can’t just leave her to fend for herself. She needs us.” Henry conceded to Nora’s will rather quickly, which told Kara that his heart hadn’t really been in his protests in the first place. Nora nodded once, seeming satisfied.
“Come on,” she said to Kara. “Let’s get you home.”
~~~
Barry crept downstairs, carefully avoiding the one step that he knew creaked. He’d been in bed about to fall asleep when he’d heard his parents talking downstairs, followed by the sound of the front door opening and his mother talking to someone outside- a girl, it sounded like- who was crying. Then he’d heard his mother and father get into a brief argument, then the front door had closed and he’d heard footsteps heading down the porch steps and away from the house. There had been about an hour of silence, then his parents had returned to the house with a third person in tow, probably the girl that he’d heard his mother talking to earlier. His curiosity piqued, he’d sat up in bed and waited for everything to quiet down before he’d snuck out of his room and down the stairs to see what was going on. His parents were in the kitchen talking; he caught snatches of their conversation as he passed it- “Hide the pod in the garden shed- We’ll have to find some way to forge adoption papers- What are we going to do about school?” None of it made any sense to Barry.
Reaching the living room, Barry stopped and stared. A strange girl was sitting on the couch, her gaze fixed on the entryway. She flinched slightly when Barry entered her view.
“Who’re you?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m Kara,” the girl replied in a small, sad voice. She was really pretty, Barry noticed distractedly, with long dirty blonde hair and clear blue eyes.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked. Kara just shrugged. She seemed not to know herself.
“Barry, what are you doing in here?” his mother asked from behind him, cutting his conversation with Kara short. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“I heard noises,” Barry replied, turning to face her. “And I wanted to see what was going on.”
“How many times have I told you that curiosity killed the cat?” his mother asked.
“A lot,” Barry admitted. “But you also always told me that the other half of that saying is ‘But satisfaction brought it back’”
“I suppose that’s true,” his mother said with a laugh. After a pause, she said, “Well, Barry, it’s sort of hard to explain, but Kara came from outer space-”
“Cool!” Barry interjected.
“And she’s alone,” his mother went on. “She has no one, so your father and I decided to take her in.”
“So I guess,” Kara offered, “I’m going to be your sister from now on.”
“That’s cool with me,” Barry said with a shrug. “I’ve always wanted a sister.” Kara brightened at that. Behind Barry, his mother smiled, pleased that this had gone so well.