Hey, i saw you tagged something with "#Kara has been okay with dying for a very long time#makes me wanna write about it" and I just thought I'd pop in to say that if you write about it I would love to read it :D
She knows this, she knows this. But the truth is, the Phantoms do more than just lie.
They twist memories, create waking nightmares, force you to relive the most painful things your own mind can conjure up.
(And Kara’s mind is a dark place.)
She can distinguish it at first, what’s real and what’s not real. There’s a lot giving away the fake memories, the implanted thoughts. Little details that give Kara enough distance from what she’s seeing to recognize it’s not real.
Things like cruel smirks on Alex’s lips that she never wore in reality.
Things like J’onn’s distrustful eyes following her, like Nia’s disgust when she appears, like Brainy’s disappointed shake of his head when she takes another step.
But then, she loses focus. She loses her grip on reality. Because she sees Lena’s tearstained face, hears her blaming Kara for lies and betrayal and loss and...it’s all true. It’s true, and she finds she can’t tell the difference between the Phantoms’ lies and her own bitter memories.
(She takes another step, needing to keep moving, needing to find a way out, needing to get home.
The lies, the memories, and the hurt all follow.)
It’s cold in the Phantom Zone. Cold, dark, and utterly silent. There’s nothing but the sound of her boots against gravelly soil, chattering teeth, and guilt and blame ringing in her ears, the voices of her friends and family shouting at her, not wanting her, hating her.
(The Phantoms lie. She knows this.
There are no signs of passing days. There’s no rising and setting sun, no waxing or waning moons, no indication that time passes at all. At first, she tries to count, to create her own sense of time, using the numbers to block out the voices and the visions, but she loses track, loses focus, watches everyone she loves die and wishes she died with them.
She thinks she knows this.)
Kara takes another step. And another.
(It’s painfully cold. Her thoughts make her feel colder.)
A step. She has to keep moving, even if she’s unsure where she’s going. Why is she still going?
But lies with a foundation of truth are always easier to believe.)
Kara stops, surrounded by images of all her dead loved ones, and she drops to her knees to join them.
When she wakes, she’s in a small cave-like structure, a glow emanating from a fire that gives off no heat.
And the man who has rescued her, the man in the robes and defeated eyes, is her father.
When he notices she’s awake, he’s careful to shift, appear as non-threatening as possible, smiling benignly at her. And Kara just lays there, staring, wondering if she’s dead or if this is just yet another ghost sent to haunt her.
“Kara,” he says finally, breaking the silence, his voice cracked from disuse, tongue clearly not practiced with the single word he utters.
“I’m dead,” Kara guesses, sitting up, watching the robed man who has taken the guise of her father carefully. “Right?”
“But you’re not him,” she says, not really accusatory, just stating a fact. He looks at her sadly, like she’s hurting him.
“I am Zor El,” he says, almost like he believes it. “I am husband to Alura. Brother to Jor El. And most importantly, father to Kara Zor El.”
Kara gets to her feet shakily, stepping as far back from him as she can, back pressed against the cave walls. “No, stop. Zor El is dead. He died. He put me in a pod, alone, and sent me off, and he stayed to die with Krypton.”
Like I should have, she doesn’t say. I should have died too.
“You’re not real,” she tells him, meeting his gaze defiantly. The robed man, the man who calls himself Zor El, the stranger, lets out a sigh and hangs his head.
“The Phantoms lie, Kara,” he tells her quietly. “You know this.”
They begin their journey. Her hallucination tells her there’s some sort of outpost. A place she can perhaps send out a message, they merely need to get to it. He tells her he will go with her.
He tells her to be strong.
(And she wonders if this ghost knows what she’s thinking, if he can look into her mind and read those dark thoughts she can’t seem to shake.
Because even as she takes step after arduous step, she is focused on a singular notion: perhaps the universe would be better off with her dead. Perhaps fighting had no use at all.
Perhaps, in those endless days, dark and cold and alone in her pod, aimlessly floating through the vast expanse of space, she should have given up. Perhaps it would have been better.)
Ghost-Zor El doesn’t touch her, but she feels his heavy gaze on her, and she turns to him.
“The Phantoms lie, Kara,” he reminds her, giving her a smile that brings back memories of her father, of sitting in his lab and learning more about his work, of listening to his stories, of watching him when he wasn’t paying attention. “You should know this.”
Stay warm, he tells her. Find shelter, he reminds her. Conserve your energy, he advises her.
Rest, he says, rest and keep fighting to get home—back to those you love.
She doesn’t ask him how he knows she has loved ones, people she desperately wants to get back to. She merely listens without complaint, obeying thoughtlessly to his suggestions, and lets her mind go blank.
“Are you real?” she asks him after what feels like several days, but could have been weeks or months or years.
Her hallucination never comes too close to her, but he smiles her father’s smiles and that’s enough for her. “The Phantoms lie, Kara,” he says softly, his voice lulling her to sleep. “Don’t forget this.”
Everything aches. Each step takes energy she just doesn’t have. It’s as though all the weight she’s always carried, all the grief and pain and regret, has finally become too much, sapping her of everything she has left.
She buckles under the burden, but before she can fall, she feels a strong grip around her arm, dragging her up back to her feet.
“You must keep going,” her father’s ghost tells her, his eyes sad, no warmth from where his fingers are closed around her arm. “This is not where you fall.”
“But it can be,” Kara murmurs hopelessly. And it occurs to her, she’s not quite sure what she’s still fighting for.
A sister who she overshadowed and whose family she ripped apart? Friends who were terrified of her and what was capable of? And Lena—Lena, who Kara has loved from the day they met, but who she has hurt so completely that the CEO will never be the same?
(Kara has been okay with dying for a long time. Okay with dying in her pod. Okay with dying to save Earth. Okay with dying to protect those she loves.
And here now, she’s okay with dying with her father’s ghost—finally, finally joining him.)
“The Phantoms lie, Kara,” the fake Zor El says firmly, forcing her to take another step. “You must remember this. The Phantoms lie, and you must live.”
She stares up at him blankly, and obeys. She takes one step. Then another.
Time passes. She’s not sure how much. But her apparition father no longer walks a distance away from her. Instead, he practically holds her up as they keep going, his repeated promises than she can do this all she can really hear.
“I wish…” Kara manages weakly. “I wish you were real.”
Her ghost father chuckles, clearly hearing what she can’t say. (I wish I were with you. I wish I wasn’t alone. I wish, I wish.) “Ah, but I am real. I’m the best parts of you, daughter,” he says. “Resilience, strength, commitment…hope.” He says the last word with some force, as if needing her to understand. “You are good. You are kind. And you try, more than anything you try.”
“The Phantoms lie,” she reminds him quietly. He laughs again.
“Yes, but I am no Phantom.”
“I have hurt so many,” she says, half carried by the fake Zor El. “I cause nothing but damage and pain. Why would they even want me back? Lena especially?”
“I don’t believe love is as simple as you make it seem, Kara,” the fake Zor El says. Another step. And another. And on and on.
“Love? She hates me. I ruined her life. I lied. I betrayed her.”
“Sometimes we stumble,” the fake Zor El said gently. “Sometimes we fail. But as long as we learn, as long as we get up and try to do better, there is always hope.”
A step. And another. And on and on.
“I do, you know. Love her,” she adds when her fake father seems confused.
He smiles brightly at her, and it’s nice. Even though he’s not real. Even though she’s only partially sure she’s not dead and this isn’t all in her head, even though he’s at best a hallucination and at worst a trick of the Phantoms, it’s nice. Because she’d never thought she’d have the opportunity to tell her father about the woman she has fallen for—the scientist like him, the innovator like him. The woman who made her feel more at home, more like herself, than anyone else.
“Hold onto that love, Kara,” he says, helping her take another step. “If there’s one thing the Phantoms cannot destroy, it is your love.”
She nods, though she doesn’t quite understand. And they keep going.
She knows she’s reaching her limit physically. There’s only so much even she can endure. Between the cold, the bone deep weariness, the ache settling in her chest, and the energy sapped from her very being, she’s running on no more than fumes.
She tells herself it’s just one more step. Just one more.
“Father, are you—” She stops.
She’s completely alone. The ghost is gone.
Kara trembles, choking not only on the dusty, frozen air, but on her despair. All she wants, all she wants is to stop.
To fall to the gravelly dirt.
(She falls to her knees. The Phantoms lie, she thinks. But what a mercy, what a kindness, she’s going to die with her name on Lena’s lips.)
“Kara! Brainy, we found her. Alex, you’d best come quick.”
(The words make no sense. The Phantoms lie. They lie. They lie, lie, lie.
She looks up, and an angel stands before her. Lena, with wide, desperate eyes. Lena, with hair in a messy ponytail. Lena, in dusty, dirty clothes.
Oh, she’s a sight. She’s an angel. She’s everything.)
“Kara? Kara, we’re here. We’re going to take you home.”
(The Phantoms…have never lied like this.)
“Lena?” Kara manages shakily, unsure if she’s dreaming, hallucinating, dead even. “Are you real?”
Lena doesn’t answer, instead she rushes forward, falls to her knees too, and pulls Kara into a hug. She envelopes Kara in her scent—sweet and flowery—envelopes Kara in her warmth. Her heartbeat is strong against Kara’s chest.
She’s so alive. So present. So very real.
“Lena, my father, he…” But she doesn’t finish what she wants to say. After days, months, weeks, years (she doesn’t know, she can’t tell) of being lost in the Phantom Zone, her body finally caves under the weight of everything she’s gone through.
And she lets go. Falls into Lena. Lets herself be supported. Her eyes close, she breathes in Lena’s scent, and she thinks, even if this is just a lie, just a dream, it’s a good one.
When she wakes, her first thought is that she’s still dreaming. That the Phantoms lie, and that their lies are growing more and more impressive.
She’s laying underneath a sun lamp, nestled comfortably in her own bedroom, wearing soft pajamas and enveloped in her favorite blankets. There’s gentle music playing from somewhere in the living room, but otherwise that’s all she hears.
(The silence is eerie, disconcerting. She’s unused to such quiet, always assaulted by thousands upon thousands of sounds each and every moment. What a blessing, she thinks wryly, that the Phantoms would lie to her this way—would give her this much peace after so much pain.
And she wonders if this is what dying feels like.)
“Kara,” says her angel suddenly, and Kara turns her head, noticing for the first time that there’s a chair set up next to her bed, that Lena is there, watching her. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”
“Am I dead?” Kara asks. Lena’s eyes widen but she shakes her head. “Are you…are you real? Is any of this real?”
Lena slowly reaches out, giving Kara every chance to say no, to pull away, and she takes Kara’s hand into her own, threading their fingers together.
(She’s warm. Soft. And her touch stirs something inside Kara.
It’s familiar. Hers. Something lost in the Phantom Zone.
Or at least, something she thought she had lost.)
“I’m real, Kara,” Lena says. “We all are. And we’re here for you okay?”
“You found me?” Kara asks, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “You came for me?”
But love, love she thinks always tells the truth.)
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