Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kara heard screaming.

She opened her eyes, and was faced with a smoldering city. Buildings were on fire, houses were destroyed…and Kara was flying above it all.

Most species wouldn’t be able to make out any of the countless voices overlapping each other…but a Kryptonian…

A Kryptonian could hear almost all of them.

“Anyone…please…”

Screaming

“My boy! Someone, somebody help!”

Screaming

“No…no! Please, wake up!”

Screaming

“For the Kryptonian Empire.” Kara was forced to say, the words feeling like acid on her throat, before her eyes lit a crimson red.

Explosions followed…and the voices were then silent.

Kara jolted awake.

Hyperventilating, she looked around, and promptly remembered she was in Jimmy and Ka-Clark’s apartment.

Kara tried to calm herself, breathing in and out.

‘We surrender! Stop!’ 

“No…” Kara muttered. She felt nauseous.

‘Somebody help!’

“Please…” Her eyes began to water.

Fire crackling

“It was just a…” Kara began, but couldn’t finish, not being able to stop the realization of what, deep down, she already knew.

It wasn’t just a dream.

Vile began to form in Kara’s stomach, and she put a hand to her mouth, desperately trying to conta-

Screaming

More thankful for her super speed than ever, Kara beelined it for the apartment’s bathroom, retching the second she got there, clutching the sides for dear-life.

Monster!

That voice, however, wasn't from the casualties from her dream, her nightmare, her memory . It was just her calling herself what she was. A mons-

“Kara?”

The real voice made her thoughts stop. Weakly, she turned around, and saw a worried Jimmy next to the bathroom door.

“Can…can I come in?”

Silence briefly filled the air, until Kara hesitantly answered, “Yes…”

In an instant, Jimmy was beside Kara. Crouching down, he quickly noticed the tears streaming down her puffy eyes.

“Are…are you okay?” Jimmy said, internally scolding himself. He was trying to think of anything and everything he could do to help her besides just generic words.

“I…” Kara stammered, trying her best to reassure Jimmy after noticing his concern, “I’m alright, it was just…”

Like that, Kara was reminded of what she dreamt about.

What she remembered.

What she did.

Kara gagged, and grabbed the sides of the toilet once again.

Suddenly, she felt a little pressure on her back, circling soothingly near her shoulders.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Jimmy asked, willing to do anything to help her get through this.

“Just…please keep doing what you’re doing.” Kara groaned out.

“You got it.” Jimmy agreed straight away. 

After a couple minutes of this passed, Kara shifted a bit to face him, “You’re very good at that.”

“Heh, thanks. Learning was the topic of a FlameBird video.” Jimmy responded, hoping it might bring up the atmosphere, even by just a little bit.

Kara let out a weak smile at that, but it faded almost as fast as it appeared. A melancholic silence filled the room, until Jimmy finally decided to bite the bullet.

“Do you want to…talk about what’s going on?” Jimmy then immediately added, “Obviously, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Kara thought for a moment, before responding, “Okay. …It’s just…it’s what I’ve done…”

Instantly knowing what she was talking about, Jimmy began, “It wasn-”

“I know .” Kara cut him off, knowing what he, Clark, and Lois keep telling her, “I know it wasn’t my fault, that I was brainwashed, that I had my memories removed! But…but…”

A new set of tears began forming.

“I still did it…I still killed billions of people …and now fa- Brainiac is dead, and I’m here on Earth being a hero like I didn’t do what I did!”

…

“I know it wasn’t my fault…but when will I know it not being my fault doesn’t make me a monster?”

The silence that followed was brief but terrible, with the only notable noises being from Kara’s sniffling.

A moment after, however, was when Jimmy finally found the right words for what he always thought, “You’re not acting like what…happened…didn’t happen.”

Kara looked at Jimmy once again, “Every day, when you go out and save the city, a group, even just a single person, I know that you’re trying with everything you have to make things right.”

“And I hate how you can’t stop feeling guilty, how you feel like things need to be made right in the first place, that you can’t see how amazing you are…” Jimmy continued, “But at the same time…it’s so inspiring knowing that you’ll save twice as many people Brainiac killed.”

…

Kara didn’t immediately respond, and for a second Jimmy began to panic, wondering if he said the wrong thi-

“Ten times.” Kara declared to him, “I’m going to save ten times as many people.”

Jimmy smiled, “I know you will.”

Kara returned the smile, and after a moment, got on her feet.

“ Thank you , Jimmy.”

“Anytime.”

After washing up, Kara exited the bathroom, and found Jimmy waiting near the door.

(Well, that was after the two noticed the many cracks and two hand shaped imprints on the miraculously not leaking toilet. As much as Kara tried to apologize, Jimmy was honestly more amazed it took this long for her to accidentally break something in the apartment with her super strength. The two spent a good minute chuckling as Jimmy tried to recount how many mugs and doorknobs Clark went through during his and Jimmy’s first month at the apartment.

“If you need anything, just let me know.” Jimmy said, “Well, good n-”

“Wait!” Kara exclaimed, before then looking towards the floor.

“What?” Jimmy worriedly asked.

Immediately regretting her short burst of confidence, Kara nervously continued, “I heard that on Earth…a common treatment for people who experience these types of emotions is…”

Kara looked up, very clearly blushing tremendously.

“...not sleeping alone…”

It was then Jimmy’s turn to blush enormously.

Not being as smooth as she thought she would be (her blushing hard enough to have an alternative to heat vision probably having something to do with that), Kara immediately began to backtrack, “I-probably-misheard-welp-anyways-thank-you-again-good-ni--“

One day, Jimmy would try to understand and be confused on how the weight of Kryptonians worked. How someone who could fight giant robots and destroy trucks could be pulled by a regular human like him, out of the way of said truck (totally random example).

That was not this day, however, as Jimmy quickly scooped Kara into his arms “Hey-you-know-I-think-I-heard-that-too-welp-can’t-be-too-safe.”

The two blushing messes couldn’t even look at each other as Jimmy made his way to his bed.

They could talk about what this meant tomorrow…or at the very least sometime in the future.

Right now, though, the two were more than content with having their arms wrapped around the other, both drifting off wondering how such a wonderful person could exist.