Without You

Chapter 17

Kara and Kenna are having a tea party in Kenna's room when Kara hears a faint but distinct knock at the door.
"Hey Ken? I'm going to go get some cookies to go with our tea from the kitchen."
"Yay! Yay! Yay!"
"Yes, but you have to stay in here until I get back okay?" Kenna nods excitedly. Kara steps out and closes the door behind her. She looks through the door with x-ray vision and sees Alex leaning her head against it. Kara opens it slowly, so her sister won't fall on her face.
"Alex what's wrong? Are you okay?" Alex is crying and can barely stand.
"M-Maggie- broke up" she manages to get out through the sobs. Kara pulls her into a hug and then leads her to her bedroom. She leaves Alex on the bed, heads into the bathroom, and calls Lena.
"Hey Lena," She sighs.
"Kara? Is everything all right?"
"Are you busy right now?"
"No I'm just doing some work at home, nothing important."
"Alex and Maggie broke up."
"Oh no! What happened?"
"I don't really know... Alex just showed up here and she's a mess, also I think she's drunk. So I was wondering if you could pick Kenna up and watch her for a bit while I deal with this? I just don't want her to see Alex like this."
"Of course, no problem."
"Thank you," Kara sighs in relief, "I'll tell you more later."
"Okay, I'm on my way."
Kara heads out to the kitchen gets water and an aspirin that Alex will inevitably need. Then she goes to Kenna's room, but not without grabbing an Oreo first.
"Is somebody here?" She asks as she takes the Oreo from Kara.
"Yeah it's aunt Alex, she's sick."
"Oh." She frowns and takes a bite of her cookie.
"Do you want to hang out with Lena today?"
"Why can't I stay with you and aunt Alex?"
"Because we don't want you to get sick, and besides Lena told me she really wants to hang out with you again. Maybe you can even make some more cookies, or a card to help aunt Alex feel better?"
"Okay!"
"Great! How about you put some toys in a bag that you can take to Lena's?"
While Kenna's distracted Kara heads back to her room.
"Hey, how're you doing?" She asks gently.
"I don't want to talk about it." Alex mumbles into the pillow.
"I'm here for you if you do," Kara says gently stroking her hair. She leaves the aspirin and water on the nightstand and quietly leaves the room.
After Kenna and Lena leave, Kara just holds Alex for a while until finally she starts talking.
"She doesn't want kids. Apparently that was a deal breaker that we never talked about." The rest all comes pouring out. "Alex, you're gonna make a great mom, and you'll find somebody who wants that and who makes you happy." Kara reassures Alex and hugs her again.  "Thank you, I really needed someone to talk to. I'm sorry I just burst in like that.." she says with a small embarrassed laugh, and wipes her eyes. "Oh," she gasps, "is Kenna here? I did the special knock." The quiet knock they developed when Kenna was a baby so that she wouldn't wake her, it only worked because of Kara's superhearing.
"She's fine I told her you were sick, she's at Lena's now."
Once Alex has recovered slightly she goes back home and Kara goes to Lena's.
———
"Kara! How's Alex?" Lena says in way of greeting.
"She's feeling a little better, she went home." Kara says being mindful of Kenna, she'll give her a watered down explanation later.
"Kenna fell asleep in the other room, do you want to stay until she wakes up?"
Kara tells Lena everything that happened. Then they start to talk about other, lighter things. Lena tells Kara about her newest employee, Sam.
"You should meet her, she's really nice. And she's a single mom."
"I'd love to, maybe I'll stop into LCorp sometime this week?"
Then they hear Kenna stirring, and she comes into the room.
"Hi mommy! How's aunt Alex?"
"She's feeling a little better, she's back at her house."
"I made her a card!" She says holding up a piece of folded paper proudly.
"That's sweet, we can take it to her tonight with some dinner!"