the last daughter of krypton

Kaz narrowly dodged the massive backpack attached to the costume - a blocky thing with a tube sticking out of it. The costume certainly was… Irregular. And Kaz had to respect that it wasn’t a skimpy version of some animal. Something about people associating animals with sex left a bad taste in his mouth. “I guess a janitor?” He offered. It was a genuine question, unlike many he normally asked. “One who has a weird vacuum.”

***

Kara frowned, definitely a bit offended at the insinuation that she was a weird janitor. Not that janitors were weird. She’d actually become good friends with the one at the newspaper and liked to talk to him about his grandkids. “No!” she sighed with exasperation. “Ghostbusters! Like... who you gonna call?” She paused with an expectant smile but there was no reaction and she sighed again. “Ghostbusters... Never mind.”

“Oh I see, that sounds very interesting” She would actually be really interested in reading it, after all the ones taking care of the government should listen to what the people are saying to try and make the town the best place to live for everyone “I see, well I don’t see why not.”

***

“You’re not too busy right now, are you?” she asked. Kara knew that Zelda had a busy schedule working for the mayor and she didn’t want to stress the other girl out by eating up her spare time. “If you’re free now, we could grab some coffee though. My treat. Because who can go wrong with coffee and donuts!”

~*~

All she wanted to do was find one of the bars that she wasn’t currently banned from and have a nice long drink. Or rather, a nice long weekend of drinking. Cheapest shit on the shelf, that’s all she needed. And she was almost out clean, but Danvers held up a hand at the last second. Jessica sighed, but she stopped, turning to look at the board the other reporter had set up. Photos of the bodies and crime scene tape, maps of the woods with pushpins indicating dump sites, coroner’s reports with notes scrawled in Danvers’ careful handwriting.  “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. But she couldn’t look away from the puzzle in front of her. Her brow furrowed. “None of them are from here,” she said, tapping a photo. “Not a single one. No one knows who they are, where they came from – so what’s the point in dumping them here?” 

***

Kara knew that Jessica Jones might not be interested in being buddies with Kara Danvers, but she knew that Jessica cared about this community, in her own way. The bodies were concerning, and the answers weren’t adding up. In fact, there were no answers. “We don’t even know where they are from,” Kara added. All of these bodies and there was no one coming forward to claim them as a previously missing family member or friend. They were bodies without names or stories.

So many people were out at various Halloween celebrations and Kara had gotten her fill of candy and fun earlier in the night. She hadn’t planned on wander to the edge of town and making her way to the forest, but something about it was drawing her to explore. Her bulletin board of too little information at work just irked her to no end, and if the police weren’t going to give her answers, then maybe she’d be able to find them herself. If there was something dangerous going on (besides the obvious), then the people had a right to know the truth. What she hadn’t expected was to run into someone during her sneaking around. “Oh! Trick or treat?” she lamely attempted to joke despite the fact that she was dressed as one of the Ghostbusters and wandering near the forest close to midnight. “You know, I swore there was another house somewhere around here. Can’t miss on any free candy!”

Kara was at the Halloween celebration that the Lounge was throwing, and while she wasn’t there for the free drinks, Kara wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to dress up for a fun holiday like this one. “What?” she asked, whirling around and almost whacking Kaz Brekker in the face with her giant backpack that added to her Ghostbusters costume. “Wait, you really don’t know?” Of course Kaz Brekker didn’t know. He had something against fun, clearly.

“But then what kind of wishes are we making?” She said with a small laugh “Maybe is just sometimes when we dream nice things” The subconscious mind and dreams were still not fully understood “Oh….what questions?”

***

“Oh! Well, I’m trying to do a segment on the town’s opinion of the local government,” Kara started, a bit surprised that Zelda was actually willing to possibly answer a few questions about the mayor. The topic wasn’t exactly her assignment, but it was something she wanted to write about, ever since her interesting conversation with the mayor about the stars. “I was just hoping to get an inside perspective.”

“Thank you,” Yuri said quietly, giving a slight smile and placing a hand over her’s

“I know I keep harping on it, I’m sorry, I probably should let you get on with your night, it’s just….” he paused, pursing his lips as his shoulders sagged, going quiet for a moment in consideration

“I’ve felt for the longest time like part of me is missing,” he confessed quietly, eyes trained on the countertop

“I’ve never told anyone but… I just feel like I’m missing… something... or someone… or… or a peice of myself, a peice of my life… I know that probably sounds crazy but…. what if those… whatever those ‘memories’ were… what if they were real? What if… I do have a fiance` somewhere…?”

He tried to force himself to remember more, to go back to that place from earlier, a flash of gold came and went before his eyes, the sound of church bells and the biting chill of winter across his skin…

If he focused hard enough, he could almost feel the warmth of someone’s hand around his own….

But it was gone so quickly, and he was left feeling instantly exhausted, head pounding like a beaten drum as he winced from the sudden pain

“I feel it there in the back of my mind, I just can’t….. I just can’t get a grasp on it..”

***

“Hey,” Kara said softly, reaching out and putting her hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay. You’re not crazy,” she promised. Whatever was going on with Yuri, she knew that her friend was not crazy. He was kind and loving and passionate and whatever might have caused him to snap, he was still Yuri. “You’re Yuri. Nothing is going to change that.”

She smiled sadly. “Sometimes, I feel that way... about home. My family... I’m... I’m not from here.” Kara didn’t know how to start the conversation, but she felt like it was something he needed to know. “When I was 13, my family died in a fire. I lost everyone. And sometimes, I can’t remember things. What their voices sounded like or the smell of my mother’s cooking. I miss them.”

(✉️ ➡️ kara danvers ): never understood the notion of off the record. if someone were to confess to a laundry list of crimes off the record, would you simply refuse to post it? (✉️ ➡️ kara danvers ): off the record, I don’t particularly care about costumes. One free drink is plenty to draw someone in to losing their money elsewhere in the lounge.

“You seem pretty confident that the Lena you know is the real one, and not just… a mask, put on to protect herself or… depending on who you talk to, to trick people,”

Lena had been accused of just about everything at this point, no one ever took her at face value anymore, even when she was at her most genuine

…Except for Kara, but then, Kara seemed to be different in every way imaginable….

She had to admit, the suggestion certainly caught her off guard, here she had thought that she’d be having to convince Kara not to have her sentenced to death by court of public opinion, and yet somehow instead she was being invited to movie night….

When had she even last watched a movie with someone else?

“That….. sounds absolutely lovely,” she promised

“I’m good with anything you decide, wherever you’re most comfortable, if you want to go out though, then I insist on atleast buying you dinner, in leiu of the copious amounts of pizza we’d be missing out on, do you… have a genre in mind..?”

***

“Call it a reporter’s intuition,” Kara replied with a smile. She could tell that Lena was hurting and that putting up this front was a way of coping, but she wanted the brunette to know that she was seen for more than just the mask she put on in front of the world.

“You might regret offering to pay for pizza, because I can eat more pizza than a growing teenage boy,” Kara joked. It was true. People didn’t understand how she could pack away so much food, but it was like she had boundless energy that just absorbed all the calories like her skin absorbed the sun’s rays. “Well, I have a weakness for musicals, but I know that’s not everyone’s thing. Just... no horror movies, please.”

(✉️ ➡️ kara danvers ): does that seem like something I would do

“Dreaming a feeling?  I think I get it? …I have woken up feeling…so many things at once are rarely are good feelings…but I can’t for the life of me remember what I dreamt, maybe is like that” She said tilting her head slightly as she thought about it “The subconscious mind still holds many mysteries from what I know especially when we are asleep so who is to say we can’t dream feelings…but why and why we are dreaming or feeling what we are is also a question” She found it very interesting but her knowledge on psychiatry was limited, that didn’t stop her from wondering though. 

***

“Maybe Disney is right... a dream is a wish your heart makes,” she sang the line with a bright smile. Kara wished she had the answers, but sometimes too much thought could be overwhelming. Still, she was curious. Kara Danvers was always curious. It’s what made her love journalism so much. “I have a lot of questions. Especially about your boss.”

Kate needed to take Lucky for a walk what better place then the park plus the it was a beautiful day out once they would both arrive at the park she would walk around with him watching Lucky run off she shakes her head. “You have got to be kidding.” she said and starts to run after him. Lucky get back here.” Kate would see him stop and walks over to him. “Don’t ever run off like that,” then she hears someone and gives the girl a smile. “yes he is mine i’m sorry for him doing that.”

***

Kara smiled up at the girl. “No need to apologize!” she said. “I’m always okay with being interrupted by a dog. You just wanted to say hi, right buddy?” She turned her attention back to the scruffy dog wagging his tail in front of her. “Sorry, I should introduce myself.” She cleared her throat and turned her attention back to the human in front of her. “I’m Kara. Have I seen you before? You look kind of familiar. Of course... it’s a small town.”

Kara was frowning, looking at the board in front of her with all the information she knew about the bodies in the woods. And what she knew? Was nothing. Arms crossed, she muttered, “hm? Yeah, sure...” Something was up, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Kara tilted her head, frown deepening for a second before the words registered. “Wait!” she said, holding up a hand before Jessica could leave. It was just the two of them at the office, because gods forbid that the editors work as much as their employees. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

(✉️ ➡️ kara danvers ): a party in which costumes are encouraged. 

“Yeah… he was getting along with her well at first and then I made the ‘mistake’ of pointing it out and he got offended, like I had insulted him by saying that he was Veeya’s new freind, then he turned on us both,”

In Yuri’s opinion, if you were going to get that upset over being referred to as the freind of a dog, then you had bigger problems going on in your life, but Yuri was keeping that comment to himself, focusing instead on the coffee he was making to put with Kara’s doughnuts

“Yeah, um… he had mediumish hair, not light but not really dark either, and he had hard set features, kind of a square jaw, an almost permenant frown, kind of scary and intimidating…”

Although that last part was probably pretty obvious considering the guy had punched him in the face but it still felt worth saying

“I don’t get it,” he sighed, setting a cup next to Kara’s plate

“I thought everything was fine…. but… I guess more than that, it’s the…. way that I acted that worries me, I don’t think I was unjustified for defending myself, but my mind… drifting… like that… I don’t know, isn’t that tantamount to some kind of psychotic break?”

***

Permanent frown... a cane... kinda scary. Kaz Brekker. Kara had already had her own awkward encounter with him under the pretense of an interview that she thought was going to turn into her own kidnapping or murder. It didn’t surprise her that beneath the attempt at a smile of Kaz Brekker there was a violent man that would beat someone for insulting him. “Yuri, it’s not your fault,” she reassured him softly, reaching over and touching his arm with concern.

She listened to him continue and her brow furrowed in worry. “Hey, you’re still you.” Kara knew what it was like to feel lost. Floating. Drifting. It reminded her of her dreams, of the nightmares after the fire.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said quietly, unable to look up and look into Kara’s beautifull blue eyes

“I… I know you’re not that type of person, it’s just… the person who started those rumors was my friend, or so I thought…”

She carefully left out the word “only” in that sentence, Lena’s only true friend…. so she had thought

“I just… feel like there’s something wrong with me, every single person in my life has used me or betrayed me in some horrible way… well, every person I ever let get close to me, I suppose acquaintances don’t count,”

She paused, carefully pushing herself off of the couch and moving closer to Kara, though it was hesitant and a little unsure, like a mouse moving towards a cat

“I didn’t… mean to imply that you would… just come here for the story, it’s just… the last time I let myself have a friend she stole my royalties and then accused me of plagiarism when I found out, so… my track record isn’t great,”

***

“Well, the Lena I know is pretty cool, so I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with her,” Kara said with a small smile of encouragement and a tilt of her head, wanting to do anything to lift the other woman’s spirits. She glanced around the apartment for the first time, taking in the space that the author lived in. Kara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting.

“You know what this calls for? Movie night,” she declared with a sense of finality that was impossible to argue with. “Whenever I was upset my... parents would order more pizza than they could eat and we would put on a movie.” Maybe she shouldn’t have just invited herself to a movie night at an almost-stranger’s place. “I mean -- we could go back to my apartment and watch one. Or I’m sure there’s something in the theaters! Or we could do something else. It was just a random idea anyways.”