Astray

Deadly

She landed heavily on the roof, a squad of DEO agents propelling down from helicopters around her. She marched forward, a monarch with an army on her heels. She yanked open the roof door and hopped over the banister. She floated down, looking at each floor for signs of life. She stopped at the bottom floor and walked forward. She hit the metal door with an open palm, and it went flying back, a dent in the surface the size of a crater.

She stepped inside, and an alarm started going off. She paused momentarily to look around the vast underground space. It was almost cavernous, standing tall above her head. Men came around the corner with weapons she didn't recognize. She jumped out of the way as they shot. She sped downwards, landing on top of one and punching the other. They both fell uselessly to the ground and she flipped her hair over her shoulder.

She marched through what seemed like scores of men, her sister and the DEO right behind her, picking up her scraps and finishing the job completely. Kara barely noticed. She didn't want to think about them--she didn't need to. All she needed was to find him.

She burst into a room that looked promising and found four empty cages. She walked over to them urgently, expecting for him to appear in one or the other, but he wasn't. She froze and turned, finding her sister in the doorway.

"He's not here," Kara said broken-heartedly, "come on."

She brushed past and Alex tried to stop her, "Kara--"

"--UGH!" She bellowed, throwing a metal crate the size of a small sedan across the room.

"Kara!" Alex screeched, "Kara stop!"

She swallowed hard and stared at the box, and the cracks in the wall around it. She closed her eyes and squatted down, her cape floating down around her and gently falling to the ground. She covered her face and took a shaky breath.

Suddenly, soft in her ear, she heard a voice. It was so faint, like the last breath of a man on the eve of his death. The single word, calloused and frayed, brushed her sensitive ears, and she froze. Time stood still as that moment was stretched out into something much longer and more profound. It was a god send, and the word was the simplest call, and it said:

"Kara,"

She stood straight up, sprinting down the hall, and following the sound of a weak heartbeat. She came to a dead end, finding shelves of supplies against a dank, metal wall. She hooked her hands around the edge of the scaffolding and yanked, pulling the piece away from the wall. It came to the ground with a deafening crash.

There was a door behind it, and although it was sealed shut. Kara's steady hands grabbed the latch and pulled with all their might. The door flew off it's hinges. She watched it fly past her, and then turned to the room. She stepped inside and looked around. It was huge, and dark. Something was dripping, she could hear it. She felt on the wall for a light switch, and then found one. The fluorescent lights flickered on, illuminating a scene she knew she wasn't going to forget for a long time to come.

In the center of the room, she saw a man she barely recognized; his skin was soaked in water and blood, his eyelids fluttering open and closed because he couldn't muster the strength to lift them any further.

Alex ran to her side and then stopped, as they both stared at the man hanging by his limbs in the center of that cell-like room.

"Dad!" Alex breathed, running forward and trying to get the chains off of him.

Kara snapped out of her haze, rushing forward to help. She yanked the chains off his arms and Alex caught his weight, holding him up. Kara stepped back and watched them hug each other, her father barely conscious and her sister barely keeping it together. Kara watched it and felt happiness, and the bitter aftertaste of disappointment. She hated that she felt like that, but she couldn't help it; finding Jeremiah had always been, in the back of her mind, a goal they might never achieve, and suddenly now, if the impossible was possible, than maybe what she thought was possible was really the opposite.

*    *    *

She stood next to her sister, above her adoptive father's bed, as Eliza checked on him. There was an air of serendipity in the room, the Danvers were glowing collectively, Eliza brushing the hair gently off his forehead. She looked up at her daughters and smiled,

"Thank you," She exhaled, and the two girls beamed.

"Tell us when he wakes up, okay?" Alex said, turning to guide her sister out of the room, to which Eliza nodded.

They walked outside the infirmary and turned to each other. They grinned, and Alex began to cry again, throwing her arms about Kara's neck and pulling her into a hug,

"Oh, Kara," she sniffled, "I'm so happy."

Kara closed her eyes, a feeling like a warm glow beginning to ignite in her gut. "I am too." she beamed, pulling her sister closer.

Alex pulled away, "We're going to find Mon-El, alright? We will."

Kara nodded, smiling as convincingly as she could, "I know."

Alex beamed and wiped a tear off her cheek, "Oh god," she laughed, "I gotta go get a tissue,"

"Go!" Kara laughed, watching her sister run off.

"Kara!" She turned to see her mother leaning outside the infirmary door, "He's awake!"

Kara ran over and her mother stopped her before she entered, "Where's your sister?"

"Bathroom--do you want me to go get her?"

"No, no," her mother smiled, "I'll go. You keep your father company."

Kara nodded and walked inside. Her father opened his eyes fully for the first time, and his face broke into a teary smile, "Kara," he breathed.

She beamed, moving closer and hugging him. He chuckled and patted her back. She pulled away and they smiled at each other for a long moment.

"How are you feeling?" She asked gently.

"Much better," he said contently, "now that I'm here, and your beautiful mother has tended to me."

Kara laughed and looked down at her clasped hands in front of her. She smiled at them for a long moment.

"I met someone while they had me," he said, "someone I'd met before."

She looked slowly up at him, her heart racing in her chest, "Who?" she asked breathlessly.

"The man who was with you when I helped you escape Cadmus all those months ago," He said, barely able to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds. He swallowed, "Mon-El."

Her lips parted and she clenched her hands harder, stepping closer to his bed, "Do you know where he is?"

He shook his head slowly, "No," She looked down at her hands again and leaned back on her heels.

"He talked a lot about you though," He said, "he was convinced that you were going to find him. It didn't matter what they did to him, because he knew that you were going to find him."

Kara swallowed, hard. She both wanted and didn't want to hear this; it both reaffirmed her belief in her own abilities if he still believed in her, but it also made her feel inadequate for not finding him soon enough.

"Don't give up on him," Jeremiah said, "not yet."

Kara looked up, "Never."