AN -

Hi Friends! Here's a little bit on the gap between season 2 and 3. I hope you enjoy. I plan updating once a week.

Please review/comment! It really makes all the work worth it!

It's about 10 pm on a Tuesday night in National City. People around the city are crawling into bed to rest for another day. Another day they get to have because Supergirl and her team. Said team had gone home for the night, their duties wrapped up for the day. J'ohn said he had the night shift and that they should get some much deserved rest. However, that did not mean that Alex had listened. The boss had sent everyone home at 4, taking a page out of General Statler's book when he ran a department at the pentagon. Alex knew if she got caught here he'd be mad but she had work to do. She basically had been running the DEO alongside J'ohn for months now. She was the go-between for Lucy in D.C. and the jolly green giant and there was so. Much. to. Do.

Maggie: I'll meet you at the DEO just finishing up

Alex: Almost done here. See you soon.

The hum of lights dimmed in the empty building fade to nothing as Alex stands from her seat and cranes her neck releasing a string of popps. She bends back over the paperwork in her office where she's spent the last few hours signing things and looking over files and reports she had just finished. She moves the pile of finished work to a somewhat neat stack on the corner of her desk and plops back in her chair. Another night of crossing every "I" if you will, Alex chuckles at the memory of a tired Maggie claiming to be doing that when she was late for a date. She runs her fingers along the smooth edge of the last manila folder flipping it open with a sigh just as she feels Maggie step in behind her to rub her shoulders and kiss the top of her head. Alex places a hand on top of Maggie's as she tries to look up at her fiance. "You ready, Danvers?"

Alex turns to the newly opened file on her desk and lets out a long sigh. "Yeah." She says closing it. It can wait till tomorrow, she's exhausted and she wants nothing more then to go home and curl up with Maggie. It's been a long day and after her argument with Kara the other night she just felt drained. Alex stands up to grab her jacket from the back of her chair sliding it on as she slips her arm around Maggie's shoulders, returning the kiss to the top of her head. "Let's go home."

They walk wrapped in each other as Alex closes down the empty DEO for the night. Kara had been working so much that they really had not been busy. It was nice but Alex worried for her sister. In the quiet DEO they hear a thud, a crash as they walked past the training room. A green glow coating the air just outside the window. The two stop and watch Kara pound her fists into a concrete punching bag. "Let her be Alex, she is in here alone when she knew the DEO was going to be empty for a reason." Alex notices the level of Kryptonite is up near 30%, twice as much as it should be. She also notices wet marks on the concrete from Kara's bloodied knuckles and she just about losses her shit.

She steps away from Maggie to take care of this completely asinine alien she has for a sister. She steps into the room and turns off the Kryptonite. The concrete breaks in half at the next contact of Kara's fist and flies across the room into the wall. "That is enough."

"Why are you here?" Kara whips around to face her. Hands firm on her hips after glancing at her already healing knuckles. Her hair still moving from the momentum of her spin. Blue eyes staring holes in her older sister. Alex swore that if she looked any harder she'd be a pile of ash from Kara's heat vision. "J'ohn sent everyone home at 4."

Despite being a little bit intimidated by the very not-so-sunny version of her sister standing in front of her Alex remains in her grumpy-protective of this reckless idiot-big sister mode. She crosses her arms and stairs right back knowing her eyes don't even glow a little bit. "I should be asking you the same thing."

Kara turns away from her and wipes her knuckles off with a towel she had grabbed from one of the shelves. "Go away, Alex." The older sister takes a step forward into the gym leaving room for Maggie to watch the two sisters over Alex's shoulder. Kara slams the towel down into the soiled bin and steps toward the one pushing her buttons with fists clenching and flexing by her sides. "You know what, nevermind. I'm leaving now so don't worry about it." She brushes past Alex's shoulder though still careful not to touch her. Kara didn't trust herself right now to control her strength enough to not hurt the woman before her who was trying so hard to be strong.

"Kara." Is whispered with a tenderness Supergirl didn't wish to hear but she was already deep into the night sky before it had finished falling from her sister's lips. Not deep enough though to not listen to the conversation between her now heartbroken-at-her-expense sister and her fiance. "Maggie, I want my little sister back." Kara can practically hear the tears rolling down her cheeks. She can see the way her shoulders drop and her head dips forward when she's upset - crushed.

"I know, babe. I know. She'll get through this, just give her time." Kara knows too that Maggie has wrapped Alex in a hug and is now rubbing soothing circles over her sister's back. Thank Rao for the detective who seems to be cleaning up Supergirl's messes at every turn.

"But…"

"Don't tell me you've never tried to feel better by punching something or overworking yourself." Alex has no words, she had done that, quite often actually… though not as often as she found herself comforted by the burn of alcohol down her throat. She really didn't know which one was worse in this moment. At the very least, she finally decided, Kara is making things happen instead of becoming a useless drunk. "She will be ok."

"I hope so. I just wish she knew she is allowed to be human."

Kara feels tears welling up in her eyes when Maggie answers. "Is she?" The softness behind the detective's voice confirms that no… no she is not. Kara doesn't stick around to hear the rest of their conversation. She rockets off into the other side of the city to start her patrols.

She used to love flying. She still does most of the time. It is a place she can clear her head. It doesn't feel as dangerous to think up above everyone then it did in her bed or in her apartment either. She felt closer to the stars, closer to home, closer to him.

Rao how she missed him. She saw his smile in nearly every happy thing her eyes came across and that made her want to crumple to the ground and cry at the shear loss of never getting to see it again. She saw his shining eyes playful and kind. His shaggy dark hair always sitting just a little differently on top of his head inviting her hands to run through it. His 5 o'clock shadow…. She saw him everywhere and it hurt. She loves him so much - loved - that it consumes every nerve in her body and constricts her chest making it too hard to breathe the very air she had made poisonous to him. And all she had to say to him was that she was so sorry. Sorry for what she wasn't sure. Sending him away? Killing his mother? His people? Him? Sorry for saving the world? Sorry for ripping both their hearts out without hesitation?

That wasn't true...Kara had hesitated. She hesitated. When it came time to push the button, to save the world, she had hesitated. And then... then he gave her the smallest of nods and her thumb pressed down ever so slightly releasing National City's only hope at surviving. Funny how hope, the very thing she was supposed to stand for and basically personify, worked it way into her thoughts. Mon-El had given her hope too, a hope she had to send away and would never have again. Pushing that button crushed her, she knew it would, and so she hesitated because the idea of losing Mon-El hurt so badly it almost wasn't worth it.That's not true either, it would always be worth it. She knew it had to be worth it. It had too. And she wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

Her planet. Her city. Her responsibility. She just wished she could say her heart-her responsibility. But that was-and always would be-collateral damage she had to live with. Somehow. Somehow she had to figure out a way to live with that.

If it hadn't been for his little nod of permission, of support, she really doesn't know how she would have done it. In that moment she had been so, so proud of him. He had grown so much. He made that sacrifice too, made it easier for her to make that sarcirife. It still hurt like hell though, and Kara did not care-not even a little-if it ever stopped or not. She just missed him.

She had told Alex that she was above being human. That she was better than that. Truth is, Kara didn't know if she was strong enough to be human and do what she had to do. She wasn't strong enough to be Kara Danvers and "earth's champion." So she told herself she was at peace with walking away from those comforts of being human. Walking away from those vulnerabilities. Shame on her for having a human heart. She tried to embrace earth and trying to be human for so long she had walked away from that Kryptonian pragmatism - stoicism - righteousness. Her body was invulnerable and damnit she wished to Rao that her heart was too. Kara can't even begin to remember a time when her heart didn't ache with everything she had. She could though. Mon-El had eased that hurt. He had made her so happy. Alex eased that hurt too in her own way but not anymore. She can't do that anymore, if she was to lose Alex that would be it. No. Kara could not deal with that. Not anymore. Not again.

Now that Mon-El was gone it felt like she had lost part of Krypton all over again too. He was a Daxamite sure but he understood. He knew her planet. Her customs. Her language. Her culture. Her God. They could joke about things no one knew about. They could reminisce about things others wished to see in dreams. They could comfort each other over a loss no one else really felt. He knew and understood Kara Zor-El better than anyone ever could.

Kara knew she cared too deeply to ever be above being human so in order to be what she needed to be she had to stop doing that. It simply hurt too much. And she was so, utterly, exhausted.

Kara didn't even know when the last time she had slept was. She thanked Rao that her alien DNA allowed for weeks on end without sleep. Or that no one could see circles below her eyes or notice how exhausted she was. Exhaustion was better than sleep though. That was for sure.

She had been going non-stop. Supergirl had the city pretty much under wraps. Most the mess was cleaned up. Crime was way down. Supergirl had never been better at her job. Kara Danvers was publishing so many articles it wasn't even funny. It was a constant cycle, her flipping between Kara and Supergirl. She was only at her apartment long enough to shower and change. She whipped between the DEO and CatCo like some sort of crazy tennis ball. If anyone was paying close enough attention she imagines they might be getting whiplash watching her go back and forth.

She often forgot to eat, not that she could anyway. Every time she did she wanted to throw up. She was heart sick and it made her queasy. The only thing that made her eat was knowing that without eating she couldn't sustain her current life tempo. So she ate when she had to but nothing else. She couldn't. She wasn't punishing herself or anything like that. She just felt so torn up she literally couldn't stomach it.

A gritty substance in her mouth pulls her back to reality. She had been flying away as high as she could, pushing herself to try to be faster. She had to be faster, stronger, better. The substance was metallic on her tongue. Lead. It had to be. What other metal would be floating in the air? She had flow through a patch of lead wind currents had gathered. This time her stomach lurched. She really was going to be sick. But she just pushed harder back down to the now very empty CatCo building. No one would be there past the bosses orders. Especially not at close to 4 am.

She changes quickly into the spare set of "Kara clothes" she keeps hidden in her desk. She's standing behind her chair motionless knowing emotion is bubbling over. She takes her glasses off slowly and plants her hands on her desk the stems of her glasses tangled in her fingers. She wipes her face with her hand and lets out as shaky breath.

Kara tilts her head back to keep those tears from spilling over her eyelids. Trying every trick in the book to make it past this onslaught of sorrow without allowing herself to break. Once the initial emotion passes she drops her head in exhaustion. Her chest pounding with her increasing heartbeat, unsure if her truly broken heart just might shatter with the force of it. She tries to breath slowly through the pain but her heart still could nearly beat Barry in a race. Maybe this was the Kryptonian curse, not kryptonite. Maybe since they couldn't feel physical pain, though she had her share of that too, her emotional pain was that much worse.

She told herself she was being dramatic but it truly did feel like she held the weight of the world, worlds, on her shoulders. Mon-El had told her that it made her beautiful, but anymore it was just so heavy it was crushing her. Each day she had gotten a little bit closer to giving up and letting it but somehow she got back up and kept going. It was like auto pilot. She had no idea how she was keeping going at this point but she was scared that if she stopped long enough to think about it she wouldn't be able to.

That's the thing though about her burden...she couldn't complain. She had accepted it willing. Volunteered even. Well the weight of this world was her choice anyway. Krypton's was an entirely different story and she found herself a little bit guilty for Daxum as well. She once read a quote about not asking for a lighter burden but for broader shoulders.

She was with Mon-El when they had seen the picture of atlas straining to hold earth with tears running down his cheeks. He had pulled her close into his side as they considered the grafiti before them and he kissed the side of her head, just above her temple, and whispered in her ear "You don't need broader shoulders Kara. You have Alex. Kal. Lena. The super friends." he had gotten a little laugh at that "You have me. And we're all standing under you, there to hold you up when you need us."

And now she felt so alone but she also didn't want anyone around to help her. No one else was strong enough, Mon-El had been but he was gone, and then there was Kal… She may have initially failed to protect him but she'd be damned to fail her parents by not protecting him from this. She had to bear this burden on her own. She had to be strong, they needed her to be strong. Sure, El Myara, but she didn't know how to do that anymore. It hurt too much. Everyone was so happy that Rhea had been defeated. Kara wanted to be but it only felt like knives straight to her heart every time she tried.

"Kara? What are you doing here? It's 4 AM." Kara looks up and tries to discreetly slide her suit off the table and put her glasses over her eyes still welled with tears. Only now does she notice the round drops of moisture spotting her family's crest. She hadn't realized she was staring at it or that she was crying. "Why do you have that?"

"I… Um…. She left it at my apartment."

"You guys are talking again?"

Kara remembers a certain talk with Lena a couple of weeks ago as Supergirl on Lena's office balcony after she had returned some of L-Corp's property Lillian had taken. "Thanks again, Supergirl."

"Anytime." Kara had gone to leave but she was stopped by a soft hand on her forearm.

"I'm worried about our mutual friend. She's struggling." Lena had nearly whispered as her deep green eyes seemed to stare straight into Kara-Supergirl's- soul. "Does she know?"

"That I was the one who pressed the button? Yeah. Yeah, she knows."

"Are you guys ok? She doesn't blame you. She wouldn't. It's no more your fault then it is mine for making it possible."

"No, Lena. She doesn't blame you. Not even a little bit. She does, however, blame me, and she has every right to. I ripped her heart out and sent it into space to die. I wish I didn't have to but there isn't a universe where I don't make that decision." She goes to leave again, her voice struggling to push down the sorrow building in her heart and trying to escape through her throat.

"Just take care of yourself, Supergirl. She can't be mad at you forever." She gave the waiting woman a half smile she hoped did not look as broken as it felt before taking off into the sky. She took off quick enough so her mutter of "I'm not so sure" was lost to the wind.

"I wouldn't go that far. I know she had to do it. Mon-Mike was her friend too, and if my broken heart is the price for a safe world I'd say that choice is a no brainer. Doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

"She is hurting too, Kara. I've never seen her so sad, so upset."

"I can't… I can't do this anymore." Kara looks down and tries to not hyperventilate as her heart feels like it is breaking all over again in her chest. How many times can it do that? She steels herself and looks back into Lena's eyes finding some semblance of strength from knowing that she was about to crush her best friend probably and she owed Lena to do it with some sort of dignity.

"What do you mean?"

"ITS ME!" Kara takes off her glasses and changes into the suit, tears still wet on the crest. "It's me. Please." Before she can finish begging the woman in front of her to stop - stop making her talk about how much she cant stand to be herself - Lena has wrapped her in a hug.

"Oh, Kara…" Lena's heartbreak evident in the way Kara's name breaks in the air between them. "I'm so...so sorry."

Kara grows rigid in her arms wanting nothing more but to sink into her friends embrace but she doesn't deserve that. She doesn't deserve this kindness. Not after everything... "I am sorry I never told you."

"I'm not worried about that. I understand. What I am worried about is the conversation I had with super-you the other day." Kara steps back but Lena's arms remain on her upper arms rubbing gently as if any sudden movements might scare Kara off. Kara looks away from her for a moment, blush coloring her neck and crinkle appearing between her eyebrows.

The hero before Lena takes a deep breath and brushes away the contact at her arms. The blush is pushed back down and she watches as Kara's eyes turn from churning pools of emotion to ice. "Lena, don't. Please. I never should have said anything."

"But you did."

Kara hears sirens in the distance and lets out a sigh of relief… or exasperation… she really wasn't sure. "I've gotta go."

"Kara…" But by the time her name is muttered She's gone, papers rustling in the now empty office.

Kara allows hot tears to run down her cheeks. She tells herself it's from the wind in her eyes as she wipes them from her face before thy can dry in salty evidence on her cheeks. As Kara lands she comes face to face with Maggie, who still looks exhausted from being called out of bed so early. It was nearly 5 now. "Hey, morning Little Danvers. Glad you're here."

The woman smiles at her, dimples and all. Kara just hopes there's no evidence of her tears from just moments ago. The whole concept of greetings in the morning was lost on Kara in her current state of never sleeping. Did it even count as morning anymore? It had literally been 6 weeks. "Yeah."

As Maggie watches her carefully Kara looks over her shoulder to scan the building. One guy, lots of guns and explosives, more drugs. Nothing she couldn't handle. "We have a mid level drug dealer pinned down…" She is cut off by Kara's swift movement into the building. Not two minutes later the "perp" is on the ground in front of the detective in her handcuffs.

"Here you go. Drugs and weapons are secure." Kara goes to take off again when she is stopped by Maggie tugging at her with a fist full of her cape.

"Davis, take care of this scumbag. I need to talk to Supergirl." She orders the young looking cop now staring up at Kara with awe. Maggie's hand is on the hero's arm now. "You, come over here." She tries to drag Kara away from the other officers but the blonde doesn't budge a centimeter. She pulls her arm from Maggie's grip and crosses her arms over her chest. "I'll call Alex."

"Fine." The kryptonian relents and follows her soon to be sister-in-law off away from prying ears. "What do you want?

Kara and Maggie both cross their arms as they stand close enough to whisper at each other without being overheard. "What were you thinking? You didn't know-"

"X-Ray vision." She shrugs and drops her arms relenting from the defensive position she had taken. Maggie cared about her, weather it was for Alex's sake or not she didn't know. The way the detective had asked her wasn't to scold her, or even to talk down to her. Just a question. Nothing more. Alex probably would have tried to shoot her. "I gotta go."

"Hold on." Maggie held up her hand so it was centimeters from Kara's chest warning her to stay put for a second.

The hero feels her hands drop to her side, why wouldn't people just let her do what she needed too and leave? She wasn't running from them she was just done with whatever conversation was happening and she had stuff to do. "What?"

"Just tell me next time, ok?" Kara was glad for Maggie. She wasn't there to scold her, to get her talking, to tell her that she'd changed in all the worst ways. She let Kara be and Supergirl was really appreciative of that. It was fair to want to stay in the loop of what was about to happen at her crime scene. That's all this was.

"Yeah, sorry." Kara gives a half smile to show how sincere she is for not giving her a heads up. Maggie nods a thank you as if to say don't worry about it Kid. "Bye Maggie. Kiss Alex for me."