#commiecorp

///// It took two days of conversation, meditation, and tears before Sam agreed to learn to fly, and now they're here on the mountain where the DEO once put a very green Supergirl through her paces. There are no tests to run now, no military to win over, no point to prove. Just Alex, Sam, Kara, and the open sky.

"Are you ready?" Kara asks.

Sam shifts her weight from foot to foot and looks up at all that bright blue nothing. "The last time I flew, people died. You almost died."

Kara nods. They've been over this hangup a couple of times now, and there isn't much left to say. "That wasn't you," she says anyway. It doesn't hurt for Sam to hear it again.

"What if I fall?"

"It doesn't hurt." Kara looks at Sam out of the corner of her eye, at her crossed arms and closed expression, hoodie and sweats even in the heat of the day. "You might leave a mark on the mountainside, but I don't think anybody's going to notice. Not a big deal. Promise."

"It's not hitting the mountain I'm afraid of," Sam says. "It's just the falling."

Kara doesn't have an answer to that.

They stand there together for a while until Alex pats Sam twice on the shoulder and walks away to watch from the other side of the plateau. Kara pretends not to notice that Sam's hands start shaking in Alex's absence. She kicks off gently from the ground and hovers some ten feet up.

"Just come up to me," she says. "Nice and easy. And then, if you want, we can go back down."

For a moment it seems like maybe Sam doesn't know how to take off. She sort of half hops and then huffs, turns all the way around to throw her arms up with exasperation in Alex's general direction, turns back around and looks up, closes her eyes. Kara has been there.

"You know," she says. "In a couple of years you'll be back here teaching Ruby how to do this. If it is Rao's will."

Sam opens her eyes.

"You really think she'll be able to? Do all this?"

Kara shrugs. "We don't know. Maybe." There's no precedent for a half-Kryptonian child on Earth as far as Kara knows, but she's asked Lena, and Lena says probably. Almost definitely. She says Ruby is already showing signs, but that Sam is afraid to see them, that the best thing Supergirl can do for Ruby and Sam both is to make Sam as comfortable as possible in her own body.

Sam kicks off the ground. She shoots up a little too fast at first with a yelp, overshoots Kara and has to bring herself back down. Her cheeks are flushed and her whole body is trembling, but she's doing it: she's flying.

"There you go," Kara says with a bright smile. "See? Super easy. Like riding a bike."

"I don't like bikes," Sam mumbles.

Kara isn't sure if that's true or if Sam is trying to make a quip about flying. "You want to go up a little higher?"

They spend an hour on it. Sam stays close to the ground at first, testing her limits, always afraid of falling even as the sky itself steadfastly holds her up. Kara takes her on laps around the mountain range, faster and faster, higher and higher, until Sam puts on a burst of speed and breaks the sound barrier. Alex whoops far below, and Sam comes to a halt laughing and crying as Kara wraps her arms around her for a midair hug.

"See? You've got this. You were born for this."

Sam says nothing for a long while, weeping into Kara's shoulder. Kara holds her tight. To the right stretch the city and the sea, and to the left the desert on and on forever, and there's Sam in the middle of it all flying for the first time, and Kara is feeling small and magnificent and less alone than she has in a long time.

Sam pulls away and wipes her face. "Do you think..." She looks out at the city and shakes her head once, hard.

"Do I think what?"

Sam makes a pained face. "It's stupid."

"Nothing is stupid today."

"Do you think I could do what you do? Do you think I could help?" She fixes Kara with a serious expression. "I know I have a lot to learn. But I want to do some good; I feel like I have to do something. I know it was Reign who killed all those people, but it was this body, and I want... Sitting at home watching you on the news knowing I could have been there to back you up, I felt guilty. And useless."

Kara hums. "If this is something you want. But you have to really want it."

"Do I get to wear a cool suit?"

"I think Brainy would give his right arm for the opportunity to design a cool suit for you."

Sam laughs at that. "No skirts though," she says. "The skirt thing is all you."

Kara scrunches up her nose, but she doesn't answer. The skirt is getting old, and perhaps its time she had a conversation with Brainy about a new suit, too. But Brainy is about to have plenty to do, so perhaps not.

"When will you tell Ruby about your powers?"

Sam raises her eyebrows. "When will you tell Lena about yours?"

"That's not fair; it's a completely different situation," Kara protests.

"Because you're in love with her?"

Kara's stomach drops as though she'd suddenly fallen from the air. She turns away. Even from here she can spy the little black van winding its way up to the top of the mountain. Lena is in that car, and Kara's second student. Kara isn't ready. Kara isn't sure she will ever be ready.

"Let's do a few more laps before they get here," she says.

Lena arrives dressed more appropriately for a gala than for standing in the dust on the top of a desert mountain, high heels and a skin tight dress, hair falling loose over her shoulders. Kara almost laughs when she sees her, feels almost crushed beneath the sudden rush of grief and affection, but she doesn't come down to the ground. This is all difficult enough from here, thank you. Alex can do all the necessary talking; Kara will stay out of the way.

Sam touches down though and throws her arms around Lena, and Kara can hear them laughing together, can see the glow of pride in Lena's face as she holds Sam by the shoulders, can practically feel the warmth of the love between them. And then the second figure gets out of the car, shoulders hunched in her muscle tank, blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She's cautious, hovering at Lena's shoulder like a ghost.

Lena pushes the newcomer gently towards Sam. Sam cocks her head to one side and glances up at Kara, then at Alex.

"Linda," Lena says, "This is Sam. She's going to fly with you and Supergirl today. Sam, this is the woman I was telling you about."

Linda reaches for a handshake. Sam brushes her arm aside and goes for a hug.

"I didn't know Supergirl had a twin," Sam comments.

"She didn't," Linda replies.

Kara drifts a little higher into the sky. Sam comes up to join her at Lena's request, granting her a moment of privacy with Linda, at least to the extent that one can enjoy privacy in Kryptonian company. And Kara wants to look away because damn it all to hell Sam is right. Sam is right and Kara is in love and she would give anything, anything at all, to be Linda in that moment when Lena kisses her mouth right there in the dust in the sun at the top of the world.

"You can do this," Lena whispers, and Kara wants to curse her super hearing and she wants to curse her heart and she wants to curse the fact that she can't bring herself to hate the person who won Lena before Kara could work up the courage because it's Linda. Linda who nearly gave her life to save Kara's. Linda who lay unconscious in the DEO for days and days while she recovered from Kryptonite poisoning, and longer still while she waited out a solar flare so intense that for a while they weren't sure her powers would ever return. How could Kara hate her? It isn't her fault, not really.

Kara finally turns away. She does another lap around the mountain range to clear her mind and when she returns Linda is standing on the ridge of the valley leaning out over the precipice. Sam says nothing, doesn't ask why Kara never mentioned Linda, doesn't ask whether this has something to do with her decision to withhold her identity from Lena. She just squeezes Kara's shoulder and offers a sad, knowing smile.

"Are you ready?" Kara calls down.

Linda steps out into empty space.

For a split second Kara is afraid that Linda's powers haven't returned after all, that they've made a terrible mistake, and Sam must feel the fear too because they both flinch forward. But the air holds, and Linda stands there perfectly still, hovering just a few inches above the ground. It's as though the world freezes for a moment. And then she looks up, and she smiles.

Kara lets out a breath she never realized she was holding.

"See?" Sam calls down. "Like riding a bike."

Linda looks confused, and Kara laughs, and then the three of them are standing together in the sky holding one another by the forearms and the shoulders as though holding one another up.

"Do you think..." Linda begins. She looks out at the desert and shakes her head once, hard. Kara has a moment of intense deja vu.

"Do I think what?"

"Maybe we can make a better world," Linda says. She meets Kara's eyes cautiously at first, not looking straight at her, as though Kara will reprimand her or turn away.