Brace for tears, my sweets. I had them editing this chapter. geesh.

It started slowly, a flutter of eyelashes, a short sharp inhalation, a roll of eyes beneath closed lids.

Alex held Astra's hand more tightly, trying to comfort her, to reassure her even in her still unconscious state. Her internal monologue had gone from a litany of prayers to simply repeating 'I'm so sorry, please forgive me.'

Astra's heart began to race. Her breathing hitched as she tried to draw in short breaths, and her eyes rolled open, panic and fear flashing in their blue depths before snapping about the room. Gasping for air, she turned her head and her eyes found Alex still clutching her hand between both of her own. Astra's eyes which had been unfocused before were sharp and clear as she seemed to understand exactly what had been done to her, brilliant mind already putting it together without needing anything more than the remorse and guilt-ridden expression on Alex's face.

Alex's eyes filled with tears as she breathed, "I'm so sorry. Please trust me."

Astra didn't look away from her even as her heart rate continued to rise, her breathing became even more difficult, her body tensed, and the hand between both of Alex's grasped so tightly that Alex winced.

"What's happening?"

Kara rushed back into the room, despite Vazquez trying her best to step into her path. The Kryptonian utilised her Super speed and dashed back over, her body filling the door way for a second before she was at Astra's bed side taking her Aunt's other hand. She lifted it from the bed, holding it against her stomach, and looked at her sister.

"Alex!"

"I don't know, Kara." Alex shook her head and dropped Astra's hand and sprinted around the bed. She slammed the emergency button on the wall nearest the door before she ran back over, pulling a tray of equipment towards the bed. Her stomach tied in knots, hands shaking as adrenaline began to pound through her veins again.

She had to make this look good, believable, but there was always the chance it would all go to hell. Astra might actually die.

The medical alarm blared through the room as Alex set about checking Astra's rapidly dropping vitals, doing everything she should be doing if she was working to stabilise the woman.

"What the hell is going on here?" a booming voice demanded from the doorway.

"General Lane! This is a medical ward, you can't be in here," Alex shouted back at the man. An image of Astra being tortured with liquid Kryptonite at his hands shot a spear of white hot rage into her veins, calming the effects of panicked adrenaline. "Get the hell out!"

"Move people! Move!" The medical team rushed into the room. The head doctor shoved aside the bulky barrel-chested General and immediately surrounded the wounded Kryptonian's bed. A nurse tried to push Kara aside in order to get nearer to her patient, but Kara was the Girl of Steel. She moved for no one, unless she wanted to.

"Tell me what's happening!" she screeched at the doctor as he took Alex's place and began to speak to his team, medical jargon completely flying over the heads of the untrained in the room—Kara, General Lane, and J'onn who had tried to delay the other man for as long as possible.

"Get her out of here," The doctor yelled without looking up from his patient.

"Tell me!"

"Supergirl," J'onn called from the door.

"Please tell me!

"Director, get her out of here," the doctor ordered.

"You need to let go, Supergirl." J'onn stepped into the room and walked over to the distraught Kryptonian, trying to ease her grasp on Astra's hand without raising any suspicions. No one should have been able to manoeuvre the young Kryptonian without her conscious effort. Thankful that the medical team was too focused on Astra and General Lane was still in the doorway behind them, J'onn wrapped an arm around Kara's and eased his fingers around her wrist.

"Let her go, Supergirl. Let them save her."

"Please…. Please…."

"Shhhh, it's okay. Let go, let go now," he whispered, soothing her with his deep timber and gentle but firm touch. Kara almost became limp in his grip. Her hand released, and her trembling frame stumbled back from the bed and into his chest.

Without a thought as to what the General would think or the repercussions, he wrapped her up in both arms and pulled her to him, turning her so her shoulder was pressed into his chest, her wrist still held loosely between his fingers as he turned them both away. Kara's knees almost gave out on her, and taking more of her weight against his side, he practically carried the superhero from the room, stumbling them both out and into the waiting arms of Alex Danvers. J'onn handed the distraught young heroine off to her sister, his face pained as he listened to the heaving sobs she cried into her big sisters' shoulder as she clutched at her tightly. Kryptonian spilled from her lips as tears tracked down her cheeks.

"Shhhh, shhhhh, it's okay. She's going to be okay. It's okay." Alex whispered, wrapping her arms around Kara and pressing her hands against her shoulder blades over the cape, trying to keep a tight hold of her little sister's trembling form. Kara's chest heaved with sobs, dampening Alex's standard issue polo with her tears.

All around them DEO agents stood nervously. Many had gathered when General Lane arrived, wary and watchful of the Army soldiers he had brought with him. The agents respected National City's resident hero and held a deep admiration for Agent Danvers whom they had worked with for years. They all wanted to be close by in order to help, to protect their heroine from the General and his men if it came down to it. J'onn looked from the sobbing Kryptonian and her stern-faced sister, trying to hold her own emotions in check with the General standing so close by, to the audience of milling agents and stiff-looking soldiers and gave them all a sweeping narrow-eyed look. They scurried away to their respective stations, except Agent Vazquez who stood close by but not intrusively. Her dark eyes tracked the movements of all the new bodies in their command centre.

Alex's bottom lip quivered slightly but no tears fell, her face set in hard determined lines, her jaw shaking with the effort. He knew whatever she'd done to prevent Astra's captivity had taken a toll… and wasn't over yet.

"What the hell happened, Director Henshaw? I was told you had stopped some kind of Alien terrorist attack on Lord tech satellites?" Lane marched over to the trio, his face a strange mix of confused and angry.

"We did, we manage to stop…"

"She's not a terrorist!" Kara pried herself out of Alex's arms and turned on the General, face still red and puffy from the hours of crying. Her eyes were bleary behind unshed tears, but her expression was no longer that of a distraught heartbroken young woman. It was stern, determined. J'onn almost thought she was angry. There was a set to her jaw he had never really seen before when she tried to be intimidating or angry. It never seemed to fit, her features refusing to mould to the emotion as naturally as it did others. But now he revised his thinking, he had simply never truly seen Kara Zor-El Danvers, last daughter of Krypton, truly angry.

General Lane stopped short in his tirade against Hank and turned his head sharply. His already squinty eyes narrowed as he took in the Superhero, dishevelled and mussed hair, cuts and gouges in her uniform, the dirt clinging to her skin and cape.

"And just what would you call a woman who seems intent on causing widespread destruction and chaos? An enemy combatant that you yourself once captured?" Lane asked in a mocking tone.

Kara sneered and took a menacing step closer to the General, her whole expression twisted into disgust and contempt, looking at the stars on his uniform as if they were a personal affront.

Alex dashed forward and grabbed Kara by the elbow when she noticed the soldiers that had accompanied the General tighten their grip on their weapons. They hadn't raised them, but the implication of violence was quickly understood and received by the experienced agent. They wouldn't have harmed Kara, unless they were loaded with Kryptonite, and knowing Lane, they probably were. She held her sister as tightly as she could, her fingers digging into the textured blue uniform. Kara's body hummed with Kryptonian adrenaline and turned her normally soft, slightly pliable skin to stone under Alex's grip.

"Easy, easy," she breathed softly into Kara's ear, even with Kara in her red Supergirl boots she was at least still tall enough to do that and felt some of the tension release in a rolling wave through her sister's body.

Lane glared at Kara but simply ground his teeth and locked his jaw. Everyone nearby could see his pulse jumping in his jowls, but he didn't respond, simply glowered at the hero for a moment before he turned his attention back to Hank. "What happened?"

"We managed to track down three Kryptonian strike teams. They were attempting to integrate their own technology with the Lord Satellite system. Our teams managed to interrupt them, but we can't be sure how much of the system has been breached. We're still running scans to confirm."

"And that, woman?"

Alex stepped around Kara. "General Astra came to me before the mission. She told me how to save Supergirl from an alien plant that Non had sent to kill her because he wanted her out of the way so they could implement their plans without any interference. He figured we'd be too busy trying to save her to stop him."

Alex set herself in place beside her sister, straightening up to her full height, fingers still wrapped tightly around Kara's elbow, even as Kara crossed her arms across her chest and rolled her shoulders back to straighten herself up under the Generals scrutiny, not wanting to show any weakness in front of him. Before the General could speak again, Kara's arms fell from her chest and the colour ran from her face as the entire command centre heard the long, unbroken wail of the heart monitor.

The doctor was shouting clear.

Alex's grip tightened on her sister.

Kara's heart stuttered in her chest.

J'onn held his breath.

The doctor shouted again and still the heart monitor wailed, one long unceasing note.

Alex's breath caught in her throat when after a third attempt, the monitor stopped its unceasing piercing scream but not because Astra's heartbeat at returned to rhythm.

Kara's entire body trembled even as she staggered forward, shoulder checking the General out of her way sending him staggering back and grasping at his shoulder in pain, but no one paid him any attention. All eyes, all focus was on National City's heroine as she stumbled into the recovery room, dutiful sister following in her wake.

"No… please…." Kara's voice throbbed in her throat as she looked at the scattered medical team, taking in each of their forlorn faces as they looked at her briefly before turning away, unable to look her in the eyes.

"Supergirl… I am so… so sorry, we did everything we could… it just… her body couldn't recover, she couldn't absorb the radiation fast enough after so much internal Kryptonite exposure." The Doctor explained as he stepped away from the bed and walked over towards her slowly, as though approaching a wounded animal. In a way, he was. There was no telling how Kara was going to respond.

Alex reached out tentatively and placed her hand on Kara's shoulder in support, trying to wrangle her features and keep up the strong stoic exterior. She needed to hold it together for her sister, she needed to keep her guilt off her face, she needed to be able to hold Kara together. She needed this to work. She needed not to have killed Astra. Her fear felt real, was real, and so was her grief, a surprising emotion that choked her even as she held her face perfectly still and stared at the wall opposite the door.

Kara's chest heaved as her tears began in earnest again, and all she could do was nod at the Doctor, eyes never straying from Astra's still pale form, the leads, wires and tubes that had been attached to her previously being removed methodically by a nurse who finished as quickly as possible when the young hero made a few shaky steps forward.

Alex's fingers curled into Kara's shoulder as she moved in step with her younger sister, not able to look at the absolutely heartbroken expression on Kara's face. This was worse than all the other times before, when Kara had told her about her home, her world, her people, her life, how it was all gone now. Everything she knew and loved was nothing but dust in space. That was a kind of removed grief, still fresh, still new for a thirteen-year-old girl who had just crashed on a strange new planet, still trying to learn and adjust and adapt, still hurting and scared and broken. Even though Krypton had been gone for more than two decades by the time Kara had arrived, it was still new to her, trapped in the Phantom Zone she only had the memory of her planet's last moments to relive over and over in her dreams.

That was a strange kind of subdued heartbreak, pushed down and hidden and kept secret late at night when her new parents couldn't see her tears, when Alex would find her curled up under her bed with her hands pressed over her ears sobbing into her pillow. All Alex could do was pull a blanket off the bed and crawl underneath there with her, wrap herself around the smaller little girl and hold her as she cried for her lost culture, her dead world.

This… oh this was so much worse.

Kara's tears were a river down her face, her cheeks seemingly permanently stained red from her crying, her whole face wet with them. Her normally sparkling bright blue eyes, always so clear and warm and intense were dulled, all spirit and fire and mirth and happiness drained out of them.

Kara's whole frame moved with her tears, her body shaking under Alex's grasp and she moved her hand down her sisters' arm, smoothing it over the blue of her suit to take her hand. She knew her sister needed her touch, her presence, to ground her and keep her from slipping away, from losing control of her powers. It had happened before, when she was angry or frustrated or scared or overly enthusiastic, ecstatically happy; Kara needed touch to stay in the moment and not loose herself, loose control.

Most people would have been worried about the Girl of Steel crushing their fingers in that moment of poignant grief, but Alex was not most people and she would risk her sister crushing her bones to dust if it meant she could offer her an ounce of comfort as she grieved.

But Kara's fingers didn't entwine with Alex's, she didn't clasp onto her hand tightly, didn't do anything. Her hand hung loose and slack in Alex's grip as they moved together towards the bed with agonizingly slow steps. When they finally reached the bedside Kara released a massive sob and practically collapsed beside the bed. Only Alex's quick reflexes and training kept her from crashing to her knees and possibly making a crater in the floor beneath as her knees gave out and her body sagged.

"Shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh, I'm here sweetheart, I'm here. I've got you. I've got you, Kara." Alex breathed against her sister's head as she dragged her back up and onto her feet, wrapping her arms around her sister across her chest, holding her from behind and bracing her feet to keep them both standing.

One of Kara's hands finally lifted and wrapped around Alex's forearm across her chest, squeezing as hard as the Kryptonian dared, holding onto her sister for support and comfort as Alex held her tighter. Letting Kara hang in her grasp, she felt her sister's chest expand and contract with every breath she forced through her lungs. Alex managed to manoeuvre them a little, Kara's hand still wrapped around her forearm, but she was able to slip her other arm back and reached up to smooth back her golden curls. Her hair, usually so soft, falling in perfect tumbling waves, were lank and mussed, and Alex smoothed them back so she could breathe words of comfort into her sister's ear, into her hairline, against her temple, moving with Kara as her chin dropped down and her head hung.

"Shhhhhh, shhhhhh."

"Alex."

"I know, sweetheart. I know. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Kara's voice was a nothing but breath, nothing but shredded pain and barely breathed out words as Alex whispered against her impenetrable skin, swaying them gently like she used to when they were young. Kara's body still trembled, but the quaking shakes of before subsided as she finally seemed to regain control, as her grief morphed into something more contained. Alex felt the moment her sister shut down, the moment Kara closed herself off and brought down the walls she had erected in her youth to hide her pain from everyone around her, to blend in, to not be found out as the damaged, broken little alien girl who lost her whole world. Kara's chest expanded with deep, solid breaths for a few moments. She sniffled and snuffled, regaining a semblance of control. She reached up with her free hand to wipe at her wet cheeks, one hand still holding Alex tightly against her.

Small tremors were visible in her hand as she reached out towards Astra, curling her fingers into a fist to try and ease the trembling. She reached out again and this time, there was a steadiness in her fingers as she closed the remaining distance and brushed her fingers over Astra's face, over her eyebrows, down her nose, across her cheek, down the hinge of her jaw.

"Astra."

"Kara, I'm…" Alex started to apologize again.

"I… I know Alex," Kara cut her off.

"I'm so sorry," the agent said anyway. She had done this, and she would apologize forever if it went sideways.

"She… she deserves to rest in Rao's light… with… with her sister, with my family…."

"Yes, she does."

Kara nodded in her sister's embrace and skimmed the length of Astra's jaw and into her hair with her fingertips, tangling the brown and white strands around her fingers as she began to speak softly in her native tongue. The words fell with a cadence and rhythm that Alex wasn't familiar with, and she realised with a start that it was some kind of prayer for the dead. When she finished, Kara bowed her head, chin nearly touching the tops of her fingers which still curled around Alex's forearm. Blonde hair fell about her face like a curtain, and Alex desperately wanted to brush it back, to see her sisters face, to try and read her expression and figure out what she should do. With the rushing guilt still filling her gut and aching in her chest, Alex did nothing.

"What… what was that?" The words caught tight in her throat and she had to swallow to try and get them out passed her guilt.

"Our prayer for the dead… to send them on their way to Rao, so… so they won't be alone on the journey… she… she shouldn't be alone...I'll…. I'll be her light in the darkness," Kara said.

"Oh Kara."

"I'm the eldest of my House, the last daughter of…. it's my place to say the words."

Alex could only nod against her sisters' shoulder and clutch her tighter.

"She...there… there's a ritual, we… we light candles... we send them to Rao…."

"Kara?"

"We… we could use my pod…."

Alex pulled back from her sister and managed to extricate herself from Kara's grasp, slipping between Kara and the bed. The Kryptonian moved with her sister, malleable and pliable under Alex's trusted hands. Standing in front of her, Alex reached out and put one hand on Kara's shoulder and the other on her cheek, wiping away the wetness under her eye with her thumb before spreading it across the swell of her cheek bone, brushing away the remains of her tears.

"Kara… we can't."

"Alex?"

"I'm sorry, Supergirl." J'onn's voice startled both of them.

Alex's sole focus had been her sister, her brown eyes trained on her sisters beleaguered appearance, on her pain, and she hadn't heard him enter behind them. She hadn't noticed his silent observance, a sentinel standing guard over them, watching over the devastated Kryptonian with warm paternal concern. The sisters turned as one towards the corner where he had kept himself hidden, being as unobtrusive as possible while simultaneously keeping any one from entering and interrupting, mostly General Lane who they both noticed now was being kept from the room by not only a closed door but Agent Vasquez who, despite her small frame, was doing an admirable job of intimidating anyone in the vicinity into keeping their distance, standing in front of the closed door with her hand resting on the pistol strapped to her thigh.

"J'onn… please..." Kara's lower lip trembled as the words tumbled from her in a broken sob, her eyes dancing from the General to the Martian and then down to Astra.

"I'm sorry, Kara, we can't. I wish I could let you observe your religion in this way, I wish you could give her the proper burial she deserves…. But… I cannot allow it."

Kara's chin quivered, but she nodded, still wrapped up in her sisters' arms as Alex clung to her, trying to comfort and reassure and keep her from crumbling with the strength of her will and force of her embrace.

"Alex… let's get our Supergirl cleaned up?" J'onn gave her a loaded look and a nod, and Alex understood without words what he was saying. If the rest of her plan was to be implemented they had to move fast, they had to move now.

"Sir, J'onn… I'll… I'll take care of her."

He gave another nod as he moved from his spot and walked towards them, briefly wrapping Kara and by extension Alex in a hug. The hug was all too brief, J'onn wasn't one for emotional displays, but it was more than enough for the sisters who both took something from the embrace. Kara took solace and warmth from J'onn's strength, his solidity, which was only slightly ironic considering his abilities. Alex took comfort in it as well and no small amount of hope. Hope that when all this was over, she had made the right choice.

"Go on now, you've both earned a few days off." He let them go and stepped back, patting Kara a little awkwardly on the shoulder and giving Alex another nod.

"Please…. Watch over her?" Kara pleaded her blue eyes wide as she looked at him with a broken expression resembling a puppy that had been kicked.

"Like she was family," J'onn promised.