The Promises we Keep

By Ryu Niiyama

Paring: Kara Zor-El/ Alexandra Danvers

First off…this is KALEX, I know the fanbase is split about that so I've warned you upfront. Secondly, this is not happy KALEX (mostly) and is actually inspired by the old Lois and Clark series.

Alex always kept her word.

When Kara had demanded that she vanish, that it be as if she never existed, it took two weeks, but Alex kept her word. Her apartment was barren, her phone disconnected, even her online presence had been scrubbed. It was as if Alexandra Elizabeth Danvers had never existed. Aside from a few childhood friends that vaguely remembered her, and the physical records Eliza Danvers kept, it would be next to impossible to find Alexandra Danvers, anywhere.

Just as Kara Zor-El Danvers had decreed, so had it become.

Yet she wasn't gone…just further away. Kara knew this because she could hear Alex's heartbeat. A simple trajectory calculation had placed her in Washington DC and it would explain the sudden spike in efficiency by the DEO in that area. Project Cadmus had been cleared out and the government's treatment of aliens had become much more humane. So much so that many that had landed in other countries began to immigrate to the United States in droves. After all Fort Roz'z wasn't the only way an alien could be trapped on Earth.

Kara could hear an atom divide, and Alexandra Danvers' heartbeat had been a touch stone for the entirety of her life on Earth. More than Kal, more than the Doctors Danvers, it had always been Alex whom had been her lifeline, her defender, her sky beacon. So even when she became a kinkiller, Kara couldn't stop hearing her heartbeat, couldn't stop taking comfort in that steady, strong thump. At first it seemed fitting, for Kara who had lost everything, she would still have this and Alex who had taken away the last true tie of family would have nothing.

Nothing was exactly what Alexandra Danvers had. She had been a well-liked but extremely distant high ranking member of the DEO, and her job meant that she couldn't develop friendships or relationships easily…or at all really. Lucy Lane had been the closest to becoming a friend, but her turning on Alex and Hank had destroyed whatever had been budding between them. Lucy had confided to her once drunkenly that she'd believed Alex, but she was so desperate to prove herself to her father that she didn't listen to her gut. She mourned the loss of friendship to this day.

Winn and the others were her friends so aside from a brief lull they continued on as before Alex had become a part of their lives. Alex had no roots, using the DEO to follow Kara even though at first Kara had believed it was the other way around. Whatever excuse Alex gave to Eliza for her departure had driven a further wedge between them, pushing Eliza closer to Kara…which in hindsight two years later, Kara and Eliza both realized that had been her aim all along. Jon'n had not taken sides, although she could see his pain clearly. Of the two of them, Alex was the one he felt the closest to, though he loved Kara greatly, Jon'n Jon'zz had taken completely into his heart the daughter of the man that saved his life. Sometimes it looked as if he would say something…but then the moment would pass and Hank Henshaw would do what needed to be done.

At first it had been enough. She had punished the kinkiller and she would protect her city alone. Kara mourned the loss of her Aunt and then Non escalated his attack with Myriad. Kara still shivered as she remembered Non ordering her coworkers to their deaths. If she hadn't used her legs to catch poor Wendy, she would have been responsible for her death rather than two cracked ribs. Non had given her a taste of the unforgiving, relentlessness of war. Where civilians were the weapons of choice in the modern world and where Kara truly learned what it meant to be alone.

At first she'd wanted to forget that her Aunt was the General and that Myriad was her spear, not Non's, but as she watched the chaos unfold around her she could do nothing but weep for the fragile humans that suffered merely because Krypton had superior technology. When she flew Fort Roz'z into space she realized that she would never get to say goodbye to Alex, and that the punishment that she'd meted out had been for herself instead. Had her own mother felt that way when she led the investigation to capture her twin?

Jon'n still wouldn't tell her to this day how she'd survived and been returned to Earth. Death in service was an honorable way for a Kryptonian to die and Kara had been more than willing to seek her family in Rao's light. No longer would she be the source of pain for so many…even, even Alex would be able to rebuild.

Yet that was not to be her fate. She'd been saved, but none would tell her how and she clung to that heartbeat that echoed in everything that she did. More than once she considered going to that heartbeat's source and begging for forgiveness…but a small part of her could not forgive and she knew that Alexandra Danvers would be easy to hear but impossible to find. So she remained within her Protectorate and for a time it was enough.

Until that heart beat spiked with such fear that it had nearly knocked Kara from the sky during patrol. She'd reacted on instinct and was hovering over Texas when she reminded herself that Alex would take care of herself. The heart beat calmed, and perhaps if Kara had been with her more, she would have noticed the thread undercurrent of fear. Alex wasn't calm, she was making her peace. Yet Kara Zor-El didn't realize that until she'd gotten near the desert that housed the DEO base that Lucy now commanded. That cherished heartbeat spiked once more and then… nothing.

Kara had fallen to the ground instantly, convinced that she'd gone deaf, that she'd lost control over her powers. The DEO staff found Supergirl in a massive impact crater, covering her ears and vomiting until she passed out.

When she awoke in a hospital room that had been outfitted with sun lamps (Alex's last project before she left actually) it was to the tearful gaze of a sullen and somber Martian Manhunter.

Field OP.

Rampaging alien.

Collapsed building.

Evacuating her team.

Broken and pinned leg.

Explosion.

The body…Alex couldn't be recovered.

I'm, so sorry.

Kara couldn't comprehend the words the Martian was telling her, she couldn't understand what he meant. Desperate, she reached out her powers until she could hear every voice on the planet, even the worms burrowing in the soil were made known to her, yet within the cacophony there was only silence.

Kara surged from the bed, knocking even the Martian to the ground, punching into the sky without a care for those nearby. Fortunately Jon'n had expected this reaction and had ordered the area and surrounding floors to be cleared. She flew faster than she ever had before, she could hear her cousin take flight but he was too slow to catch her, she flew to where she'd often triangulated the heartbeat to be. Surprised, blank, solemn faces met her in a sea of the unfamiliar until she locked onto familiar chestnut colored eyes.

"Where is she Vasquez?! Tell me!"

Confused soldiers that didn't have the camaraderie forged from working with Supergirl daily raised useless weapons, but Commander Vasquez ordered them down. She turned and entered the base, and Supergirl followed, her senses reaching out like grasping hands for any trace of that cherished heartbeat.

She was led to the Director's office, which had a living suite smaller than most dorm rooms and Vasquez opened a small locker and pulled out a metal box the size of a shoe-box and handed it to Supergirl. With that the agent stepped outside and stood vigil at the door. With trembling hands Kara Zor-El Danvers opened the box and as she viewed its contents she realized it was all that Alex had in the world. Pictures of her childhood home, of her parents, of Alex and Kara as children, a picture of Supergirl, a picture of Kara taken about a month before everything stopped making sense…and a newspaper clipping from when Kara had carried that 747 to save Alex's life. This was all she had…the office was practically barren save any research notes and Kara closed the box and sunk to the floor. It didn't seem fair. Kara had lost her world and gained a new one…while Alex…Alex had watched her world die in small pieces, becoming an alien on the planet of her own birth.

Kara placed the box reverently onto the floor and she pressed her hands into her eyes. Her senses still searching for what could not be found, but she could hear the whispers.

"…Director Danvers... knew Supergirl?..."

"…Why didn't she save her then?..."

"…Why would Commander Vasquez let her in?..."

"…Is she the reason the Director came here?..."

"…The Director was always so …hollow, what did Supergirl do to her?..."

"…She shouldn't be here…the Director gave her life for us…Supergirl shouldn't be here…"

"…She should have saved Director Danvers…isn't that what heroes do?..."

Heat lanced, powerful and filled with rage and grief, blocked only by Kryptonian flesh even as tears boiled as they dripped down her face. The Light of her Life was gone. Was this price worth avenging her Aunt? Her Aunt who had raised arms against her people, her family and now Earth? Was this worth wandering in darkness for the rest of her life?

Commander Susan Vasquez didn't move as she heard the low moan ascend into a scream of unbearable loss. She didn't know why Alex had been assigned to Washington, but she requested a matching transfer immediately. The reinstated Director Henshaw had granted it because he needed someone to look after Alex and Vasquez willingly agreed. Alex had stopped drinking, but she stopped living as well. Even in the DEO she had always been professional, stern yet still warm. Director Danvers had only been professional and stern, but because she would never ask her team to do something she wouldn't do, because even she couldn't snuff out her light, her soldiers grew fiercely loyal even as they ached at the distance she kept.

Vasquez wanted to be furious at Kara, because she knew that Alex would never leave her baby sister willingly. The sun rose and set within Kara for Alex and even in her exile that seemed to be unchanged. When Director Henshaw had hacked their systems and patched a direct line to the Director she watched Alex's skin pale and then her mouth set into a grim line. Two minutes later the escape pod of Supergirl, which had been transferred to Washington for further study, had shot off into the air. After Supergirl was deemed out of danger, the Director quietly returned as if nothing had happened at all. She never talked about Kara, but she'd adopted a mien about herself as if she was Sisyphus reborn. Her punishment was deserved in her eyes but she would not wail in grief, rather she pushed herself that much harder.

Too much harder.

Alex took the mantra of "first one in and last one out" to heart. Her squads had the lowest injury rate…if you excluded Alex herself. Yet she would pump herself full of some bio concoction to accelerate her healing and then she would be back in the fray with only a little down time. Vasquez tried…desperately to keep her Director from setting herself ablaze but she could do nothing in the face of a will stronger than the Maiden of Might.

The last OP was a disaster all around. It would seem that Director Danvers had made a name for herself within the super villain community. They seemed to consider her a bigger threat than the Krypton cousins. After all a god restrained is still so much less potent than a mortal with no reason to live.

By the time they realized that they were being corralled, that the "rampaging aliens" were a decoy for the camouflaged ones, it had been too late. Still Alexandra Danvers lived up to her namesake, every member of her team got out…but her. She'd been pinned with a mangled leg, the building coming down around her, an alien bio bomb with the destructive force of a nuclear warhead about to go off in the same room as her. Director Danvers had calmly opened a channel and explained the situation, declining any extraction team. Half of the DEO had been ready to disregard the order but they knew that though she had no care for her life, the Director wasn't suicidal, if she said they wouldn't get to her in time…they wouldn't get to her in time.

Vasquez told her that she'd never known a greater friend or Commanding Officer and that it was an honor beyond measure to serve with her. Director Danvers- Alex responded in kind and left one last message for her little sister.

"Tell her, I've kept my promise. Be happy, and may she walk in Rao's Light, always." And then there was nothing…except reports coming over the comm that Supergirl had collapsed. Vasquez had wondered then how two soulmates could hurt each other so much and would the world ever make sense again.

The wailing went on, but Vasquez knew that Supergirl could hold her breath for about 17 minutes to Superman's 22, his being male granting him a large lung capacity. So she closed her ears to it, and waived off any soldier foolish enough to drift down the hall, waiting for silence once again. The only acknowledgement she made was to the update that the Man of Steel had arrived, looking for his cousin.

Supergirl had been…broken, broken in a way that losing her planet or fighting her last familial tie to Krypton couldn't do to her. She was broken in a way that stifling her culture, customs and language for a species that Krypton had long deemed barbaric couldn't do to her. Vasquez had hacked the comms to find out what happened the day the Director took her pod and even as the Sunshine of Steel had been saying her goodbyes she had more cheer than the broken thing that finally lurched from Alex's office.

Vasquez said nothing, she merely handed Supergirl a flash drive with the Director's logs, last transmissions and helmet cam footage on it. Technically what she was doing was illegal, but she was willing to face a court martial if it meant she could honor her friend's last wishes. She followed at a distance and watched in surprise as Supergirl didn't embrace her cousin in grief, rather she decked him hard enough to drop him like a sack of bricks and she took to the sky. The Man of Steel was lucky his body healed so quickly as Vasquez watched the black eye that was beginning to form, recede over the course of a minute. Blushing sheepishly in that cornflower boy charm that made him annoying to trench soldiers, the Last Son of Krypton took to the skies as well.

Kal at least had the sense not to follow her again. She would not be reprimanded by the child that abandoned her, for if Kal had lived up to his blood then none of this…none of this would have happened. Yet Kara Zor-El Danvers knew she could not let her anger fester only with him. She had entered into Alex's life like a maelstrom and she had taken everything the Light of her Life had to give. Including her life itself.

Kara buried the box in tundra of snow and ice before she returned home and donned grieving robes of Krypton. Krypton grieved in the color of red, red of the blood lost, red for the life returned to Rao. She added black where she could to concede to North American Earth culture and she began the hard task of explaining to Dr. Elizabeth Ann Danvers that she had taken another beloved member from her house once again.

With no body to bury, and Alex's enforced recluse lifestyle, the memorial was quick. Madam President had shown along with a few other super heroes, but as she looked into the faces of the crowd, Kara realized that aside from the Martian Manhunter, and Commander Vasquez there was no one here that truly knew Dr. Director Alexandra Danvers. Kara could not let that stand.

After the faceless crowd had drifted away and Eliza was safely home Kara began her work. It had been so long since she'd picked up the pursuits of her youth, when Science and Math were lullabies, when feats of engineering were deemed children's play. With great effort she built a cloaking force field, marrying Kryptonian technology and Earth technology to complete the deed, culling every lesson learned on Krypton and within her pod as she lay in timeless death for decades.

Within in the force field she built a Fortress of Remembrance. She gave her parents and her aunt and uncle and Jeremiah Danvers their due, but primarily the fortress with filled with Alex, Alex, Alex. Ice sculptures chronicled her age from the time Kara had met her until her death. Paintings, many from Kara's studio lined the walls, but the crowning achievement had been a simple one. The day Alex had saved Kara from Vartox…the concern but easy confidence, the strength in one that should have been afraid, the salvation that her very presence represented. This sculpture Kara had made life sized, so that she could touch Alex one last time.

Kara Danvers moved back to Midvale to be with Eliza as tradition dictated. She still protected National city, but her life there ended. Winn and James tried the longest to draw her out but when Kal had come to her again, demanding that she open up to her friends, Kara had beaten him so badly that it took him a week to heal. The others stopped calling after that.

It took three months before Kara could listen to the recording that Vasquez had collected for her…and in three minutes she destroyed her Fortress. It was only when her fists had crashed through that life-sized replica of Alex that she'd returned to her senses, and slowly she rebuilt everything she'd torn asunder.

Supergirl had changed, her uniform was now closer to the Kryptonian Military guild light armor, and while she didn't let her pain and rage enter her actions, she lost the kindness and cheerful disposition she was known for. The public didn't understand and Cat Grant returned to spearhead Cat Co in the hopes that she could draw her protégé out of her shell. She failed just as all the others did. Kara Zor-El Danvers didn't know these people; she only protected the world her heart had called home.

It took time but National City adjusted to the changes their heroine had undergone and they too forgot her pain. For two years it was enough. When flying patrol, Supergirl saw a meteor streak across the sky and curiosity piqued, she flew to its impact creator. When she got there she found a small flight pod of Kryptonian design, and with no care of its contents the Maiden of Might ripped off the flight hatch. She was so shocked she didn't even realize that she'd slipped into Kryptonese.

"By Rao's Light…How can this be?!"

This takes place post season 1 and I stopped watching the show halfway through season 2 so sadly Jeremiah actually did die when Jo'nn thought he did. The thought of Dean Cain being a bad guy for any reason after being the Superman of my child-hood pains me anyway. The only thing that carried over was Maggie's rejection of Alex and the fact that Alex is a homosexual. Since we don't really know her dating history as far as I'm concerned she has always been closeted and has never dated or touched a male beyond what undercover jobs at the DEO require (plenty of longing glances at a few ladies she'd admired though…). However having a genetically perfect orphan alien that didn't understand human culture living with her, losing her father and her mother's personality changing and her rigorous studies…dating was the last thing on her mind.

A lot of people drag Eliza, and forget the grief that she had to bottle up. She couldn't go self-destruct like Alex did, while she had a kid and a walking (albeit kind and gentle) nuke to raise to adulthood safely. It is hard enough being a single parent…but Eliza got parenting dark souls style. Why SHE isn't the alcoholic is beyond me.

Also most of the character assassination of Krypton and its people won't be present here. They won't be the utopia Superboy dreams them to be, but they won't be the arrogant, blind fools that the series seems to try to portray them as which prompted me to bail on the series…plus Mon-El…why was that a thing? Mon-El Is on Daxam in this story.