A/N: Thank you very much for reading ^^ Because there were so many people interested in another chapter, I've written it. :)

(And I'm going to write more if you are still interested. This chapter is much more angsty compared to the first one, so I wonder if you still like it. So let me know if you do, and a third one will be on its way as well.)
Anyway, let me know and enjoy :)

Astra had been living in Alex's apartment for almost a week now. It was Friday night and Alex was spending her night with Kara and the two boys she couldn't bother to learn the names of. She knew they meant a great deal to her niece, but they had done nothing to pique her interest, so she hadn't shown it either.

Besides, it didn't really make any difference. Not now. She was basically locked up in Alex's apartment. She couldn't show her face outside, because there would be a possibility that Non or any of their army would spot her, and then their advantage with Astra joining the DEO's side would be gone.

It was like being imprisoned in the DEO itself all over again. Although she had to admit that the couch was much more comfortable than the cot she had been sleeping on in her tiny cell. And at nights Alex kept her company, which was better than the solitude that the DEO had offered. Or the torturous visits of General Lane.

But she wasn't good at sitting still. At waiting for the right moment to strike. Till the dust had settled and everyone would have forgotten about her. They were also tied to the schedule of Non and his plan. They couldn't really do anything until he played his next move. But it didn't make the silence any less loud, and it didn't do anything to dull the boredom she had to endure.

She wasn't the only one with issues, though. She noticed Alex's drinking habits deteriorating every night. The moments that Astra encountered her sober, were the ones in the morning, before she left for work. She would never drink on her job, or show any signs of intoxication while she had to protect her sister, but in the evenings, after dinner, she would drink wine, and sometimes stronger alcoholic beverages.

Astra couldn't say she wasn't concerned about her increasingly worrying behavior, and how good she was at hiding it from her loved ones. Astra was certain that if her niece had known about it, she would have intervened, but Astra herself didn't know if it were up to her to do it. Apart from living together, they didn't share anything. They didn't have a relationship of any kind. The only connection they had was Kara, and their newfound collaboration agreement.

So she had kept her silence, pretending not to see how the other woman struggled with her sobriety. Until she returned from Kara's place that night.

She had been drinking again, and to cut her some slack, Astra had opened the door for her, so she didn't have to fumble with her keys until she finally managed to do it herself. She was less drunken than she had been on any of the other nights that week, but she seemed more tormented than ever. "Are you all right?" Astra asked, hiding the worry from her voice.

Alex pushed past her, much like the week before, when she had returned from her gathering at Kara's place after she supposedly killed Astra, but she could tell there was something going on. The anger that was evident in her posture was more rigid than Astra had seen her before, and she was even more worried now.

Alex breezed to her couch, but she didn't sit down. She kicked out her boots, and one of them ended up knocking the remote control off her coffee table. It landed on the floor and the batteries popped out, rolling over the floor. She followed one of the batteries with accusing eyes. She wanted to trash her own place, throw things and punch the walls, but she knew she had to contain her anger.

She didn't even remember going home, otherwise she should have decided to stay away a little longer, going to the gym to take it out on a punching bag instead of her own apartment.

"If you need to vent, at least take a hit at someone that fights back." Astra pointed out, basically offering herself to be used as that punching bag. It wouldn't matter to Astra. Alex was a good fighter, but Astra was a Kryptonian, so it wouldn't hurt. Which seemed to be just what Alex needed.

The younger woman considered the offer, supposed it couldn't do any harm if she took it with both hands. She took off her jacket and threw it on the couch. But as soon as she had, she didn't want to fight anymore. It was madness, she thought. How she could feel so destructive. She usually didn't do destructing. She did repairing.

So it made her feel helpless more than anything, and she didn't know what to do to get rid of the feeling. It consumed everything, her whole body. Her whole being. She felt it inside her, fighting to get out.

She started pacing back and forth, and when Astra opened her mouth to say something again, she took a swing at her. It was uncoordinated, so she missed, almost losing her balance as there was nothing to catch her punch but the wall. The combination of her weight and the force she had put in her swing let her fist make contact with the wall in a very uncomfortable way. A sharp pain shot through her body and immediately extinguished the anger that was burning inside of her.

About thirty different swear words were about to fall off her lips, but instead she just sunk down on the floor, letting her back rest against the very wall she'd just hit. She wrapped her other hand around her injured fist, holding it tightly. It did nothing to ease the pain, but she wasn't really trying to either. It was almost comforting to feel another pain than the emotional pain she had been feeling all this time. She just wanted it to stop. She needed it to stop.

Astra sat down – albeit somewhat reluctantly – next to Alex. She didn't know if it were the right thing to do or if Alex would even let her, but she figured an attempt wouldn't make things worse. Alex was the kind of person that was good at bottling up her feelings until they became too much. It was like stretching a rubber band until it snapped, and that was what was happening with Alex in that moment. The band had snapped.

"She just.." Alex started, some kind of lump in her throat making her sound like she was on the verge of crying. Or maybe she really was. "She's pretending to be fine, but I see how she's suffering. I see how she looks at me when she thinks I'm not watching. But I see her."

For a few moments, both of them remained quiet. But Astra could tell Alex had more to say. She appeared more tired than angry now, and Astra wondered if she had slept at all for the past week.

"She went to see Alura.. even more than before you died." Alex divulged. She hadn't meant to tell her house guest, because she deemed the information private. Kara apparently didn't even want Alex to know about it, so Alex hadn't asked her about it either. "I have lied to her before. About working with the DEO, but I've never lied to her like this. A lie so big. Something that hurts her this badly."

Alex didn't even want to talk about it. She felt like she was betraying Kara more than ever. She wanted to throw up. Everything felt so wrong, and she couldn't stop it. She didn't know how to stop it. The words were spilling out of her like the bile she gagged up in the morning, whenever she had drunk too much the night before.

"I should go to bed." She added somewhat later, scrambling up from where she was sitting. The world was spinning around her, and her eyes had trouble focusing on everything around her. So she just let them run out of focus, staring into nothing. She longed for nothing. Just endless nothing.

"She'll be all right, Alex." Astra promised, while changing into standing position as well. If there were anything she knew about her niece, it was that she was strong. She had been through her share of pain and was still standing. Still good of heart.

Alex responded to the use of her name, turning around a tad too fast for the condition she was in. She threatened to fall, but the other woman steadied her, putting her hands on her arms.

"She's strong." Astra added sincerely. "Like you."

Alex looked up, her eyes scanning Astra's face, but there was a genuineness on her face that made her believe she meant it. She just stared at grey eyes, hoping they would absorb her and let her drown forever. So she could stop feeling. Could stop hurting.

She wanted to believe that the woman's words were the truth, not just hope. Not some justification for the things she was doing right now. The pain she was inflicting on one of the people she cared for the most. Kara was strong. Stronger than most people she knew. She had endured a lifetime of tragedy and loss, and still she managed to be a hero. So it was probably true. Kara was strong enough to endure this, too.

But Alex didn't want her to have to be strong. She didn't want her to suffer through this kind of loss and mourn her aunt's death only to find out that it was all for nothing. To find out that Astra was alive. That Alex had betrayed her; lied to her all this time. She had lied before, but nothing like this. And the guilt was almost demolishing her.

"She shouldn't have to be." Alex sighed. Exhaustion was taking over, but she knew that if she went to bed, sleep wouldn't take her. And if she ever fell asleep, it would be ridden with nightmares. "You don't understand it, do you? I have to protect her from that. She already has to be strong every other time of the day. I shouldn't add up to that. I should relieve her of that kind of pain or worry."

"You're doing the right thing." Astra countered. It was the truth, but she also knew that it didn't change the way the woman was feeling about the whole situation. But she didn't know what to do to make that happen. To help her alleviate her pain.

Alex slumped down on the floor again, against the wall. She pulled up her legs and let her head rest on her knees, and it made her look younger than ever. Astra felt sorry for her, but comforting had never been her strong suit, let alone comforting a woman she wasn't even sure wanted her to do it.

"You don't have to protect her from everything." She said as she knelt down and put her hand on Alex's shoulder hesitantly. Part of her expected her to shrug it off, but she didn't. Instead she lifted up her head and turned to Astra, her eyes piercing into hers.

"I do!" She grimaced. She looked at her like Alura had sometimes looked at her whenever Astra had done something that had hurt her. How she had looked when she had sent her to Fort Rozz. Her chest ached painfully at the resemblance. Or maybe it was also because it was Alex who was looking at her like that. She'd grown very fond of the woman, and she hated seeing her this tormented.

"No, you don't. You cannot." Astra objected. If there were anything she knew for sure it was that it was not Alex's job to protect Kara at any cost. She understood the conviction, though. But Alex had to know that the weight of the world didn't have to balance on her shoulders. That she wasn't alone and that she didn't have to protect Kara from everything bad that could happen to her. That the sacrifices she'd made weighted up in the end.

But Alex was a soldier, and she knew the bigger picture. She knew that what she was doing was necessary. So it was fruitless for Astra to make an attempt at ending her qualms. Alex would have told herself the same over and over as a mantra in her head.

"I have to. Someone has to." Alex sighed in defeat, her head resting on her knees again.

"You're already the best kind of sister she could ever wish for, Alex." Astra proclaimed. "Look at me and my sister. We were even built from the same DNA, and she ended up sending me to prison for the crimes I committed."

Alex couldn't contain a soft chuckle - one that bordered on being bitter - which lifted the weight off of her for a moment, allowing her to breathe. It was exactly right then that they heard a knock on the door and Alex looked at Astra in confusion. But Astra's eyes shot to the door knowingly, and she scrambled up from the awkward kneeling position quickly to open the door. Of all the things Alex was expecting – one of them Kara, which was a terrifying thought because if Astra would open the door with Kara behind it, she would know what they'd done and everything would have been for nothing – it certainly was not the pizza delivery girl.

She heard a familiar voice talk to Astra, and after handing the girl some money and receiving a pizza box, she closed the door behind her. She was attempting to contain a grin, but it was done badly and it was rubbing off on Alex. She looked up at Astra with such incredulity on her face that the older woman couldn't help but smile proudly.

"I figured out how it works." She gestured at the phone, and Alex furrowed her eyebrows. "It took me a while, so I decided I would buy ourselves a pizza to celebrate."

Alex shook her head disapprovingly, but a small smile was playing around her lips. "It's past midnight." She remarked, pushing herself up from the floor, walking up to Astra to inspect the pizza. When she opened the box, she noticed the other woman had ordered her favorite. She squinted her eyes, assessing Astra's face.

"It was encircled on the take-out menu. I thought it might be your favorite." She shrugged, but there was something on her face that didn't resonate with the nonchalance she was trying to convey. "And I was hungry."

Alex shook her head again, adding a slightly suspicious "And with whose money did you pay this?" to the gesture.

"You know the answer to that question." Astra answered provocatively, walking over to the table with the box and setting it down on the table. "But I ordered your favorite." She offered sweetly, even though it sounded more as mockery than anything else.

Alex knew that the woman was just trying to cheer her up, so she smiled in response, albeit maybe a smaller smile than the other woman's. She decided that she wanted her to give her the chance to cheer her up. And it couldn't hurt to try and pretend to feel better than she actually did. Maybe it would make actually feel better.

At the table, Astra had picked up a slice of pizza, inspecting it carefully, bringing it up to her mouth. She was so tied up in the action, that she forgot to pay attention to the other woman, who had snuck up on her. Before Astra could take a bite of the slice, the other woman did, basically hijacking her pizza.

She took a step back to assess Astra's face with a taunting smirk on hers. "You shouldn't have." She simpered. "Now I'm going to eat it all."

Astra looked back at her with a sour face, but Alex could see it was all pretend. She was playing along with their little competition who could eat the most pizza. The Kryptonian took a bite from the same slice, chewing on it thoughtfully while quirking an eyebrow, her eyes never leaving Alex's. After she'd finished it, she quipped: "That's quite appetizing. Although I wonder if it had tasted as well if you hadn't tasted it beforehand."

Once again Alex shook her head in disapproval, a move that had become far more familiar than anything about the other woman was to her. A weak smile was plastered on her face, though, but this time it was genuine. She felt a weird flutter in her stomach that she wrote off as a reaction to her use of alcohol and eating on an otherwise empty stomach.

She watched Astra take another slice of pizza for a moment, thinking of what she'd said before. That Kara was as strong as she was. That it wasn't her job to protect her from all bad things that could happen to a person. That she was lucky to have Alex as her sister. It didn't make the guilt that she felt for doing what she was doing go away, but it did ease her conscious for a bit, and she was grateful for that. It alleviated the smothering sensation she felt in her chest whenever she thought of Kara.

So maybe Astra living with her wasn't as bad as she had initially thought it would be. Maybe the woman herself wasn't as bad as she thought she was. Now that she was standing in her kitchen, enjoying a slice of pizza and getting sauce all over her face because she obviously had no idea how to properly eat pizza, she even seemed harmless. It was also the first moment that Alex really recognized Kara in the other woman. There was something almost innocent about the woman, and she found herself curiously staring at her. Unfortunately, the Kryptonian caught her in the act.

"I thought you were going to devour all this?" Astra asked her, dragging her out of her thoughts, but putting new thoughts in her head in the process. For a second, her mind made a shortcut and she wondered if Astra had meant herself with 'all this', but when the woman gestured at the pizza after Alex gave her a questioning look, she grinned. It was more to cover up her embarrassment than anything else, and she figured that if she acted all smugly the woman wouldn't notice what kind of images the words had conjured up in her head.

"I was just giving you a headstart." Alex deadpanned, squinting her eyes a little. Astra tilted her head, her eyes carefully analyzing Alex's movements. The younger woman supposed she was checking up on her, seeing if she were all right. They went from quite a tense situation to one that was considerably less so, and she was probably trying to determine if Alex were hiding an internal breakdown or crisis situation.

But Alex didn't want to ruin the atmosphere that Astra had created by bringing in pizza, so she tried to convey into the way she looked at Astra that she was fine. She ended up staring a little too deeply into the other woman's eyes. However, after a while she averted her gaze and directed it to the pizza. When her eyes found Astra's again, she added a grin, silently vowing her that she would be able to eat more pizza than her and that she ought to be quick if she wanted more of it.