you always miss it when you return
Jun. 29th, 2019 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maidofmistakesWhen she got back to Earth, the right Earth, it was full and whole and didn't fade off in places. The people looked real, felt real as they gathered on the green, watching Supergirl fly back in. The first time she'd arrived here, she crashed and caused a need for major renovations. This time, she just lowered herself down from the air slowly, heart beating too fast, head swirling around inside with all her right memories freshly having put themselves together.
She spotted a head of red hair under an indigo hood, already running towards her, and hugged her. Too careful, too gentle, but as tight as she could safely allow.
-
"We were all pretty worried," Batgirl said, helping to hang Supergirl's clothes back in her closet. "Nobody kept too many memories of the time the world was in that weird state of being put back together, but I had Oracle record the whole thing. I can show you if you want." She set down the device with the personal assistant in question on the desk.
"That's okay." Supergirl laughed nervously. "I'm just glad to have you back again. And have me back again, I guess."
Wonder Woman came in from the door, hauling the rest of her regains with one hand. "Yeah, what was it like being in another world, but actually living a life in it?"
"About the same as when we were just visiting one, I guess," Supergirl said. "Sort of. Except the me they made from what was left of our world felt like an actual separate person sometimes. I still have all these memories in my head, and I could go back there any time and live out that life. But all I wanted was to come back here."
She didn't know when they started hugging her, but she sniffled and let it go on.
"You'll always have a home with us," Wonder Woman said, "just like we talked about before, okay?"
Yeah. One of the last things she'd remembered before the plan. Even if her homeworld was gone, this was her home now. It was always going to be. Lina Ellis was just some weird thing that happened, always intended to be a temporary state to help save the world that took her in. She'd get over it eventually, that kind of thing always happened, right? But thinking like that only reminded her that, all of a sudden, it was something to get over.
-
There was one person she could think of in the school who would know about alternate timelines. Or maybe wouldn't. Whether she did or didn't was the thing here anyway. After that one incident with Vandal Savage, the Bumblebee who'd helped them in that doomed timeline was supposed to have merged with the one they knew from the right world, or at least that was what they were told to get them on the bus.
The fact that her real name was Karen rose into Supergirl's mind as she knocked on the door. This was followed by the proposition that this might have been a bad idea.
The door with the bee sigil opened to a smiling Bumblebee, hair in a bonnet and work goggles on despite it being entirely too late to be awake (which, to be fair, in a high school, meant nearly everyone was still up). "Hey, Supes! I was just going to get my drones to help deliver some invitations. We're having a party this weekend to celebrate getting through whatever that was with the world. You in?"
"Oh, uh, sure!" Supergirl smiled for a moment, but then took a deep breath. "I was actually going to ask you some things, though. It's about other timelines."
"That field trip?" Bumblebee stepped back and ushered her in. "Wondy let me in on the details a little after it happened."
Supergirl thought she might have gulped audibly, but it might just have been her. "Uh... yeah. Do you remember anything? From the other you."
"Uh-uh. Not a thing, even now." Bumblebee sat down at her work desk and gestured to a spare office chair. Supergirl noted the honeycomb design. This was a girl dedicated to her aesthetic almost as much as to her science projects.
"Oh." Supergirl sighed and slumped down into the chair. Seeing Bumblebee's expression, she sat up straight. "I -- I mean, that's fine! I just -- I wondered if you had, then maybe you'd be able to give me some advice on that, but it's not like other you isn't still you, unless you don't want it to be, because there were a lot of other people like that too, and Iiiiiiii should really stop talking, shouldn't I."
To Bumblebee's credit, all she gave that was a raised eyebrow and a small laugh. "Sounds like you had a honey of an adventure while the world was falling in place. Want to talk about it?"
Bee puns. Supergirl laughed a little. For someone she barely remembered while she was in Recollé, she'd missed this girl.
"Yeah. I think so."
-
Bumblebee had listened, which was all Supergirl could have asked. She didn't have the other world's memories like her Lina Ellis memories floated in her head, so maybe it was more like how Lina Ellis had dealt with Kara Lee. But thinking of that only got her on the topic of other selves the person didn't want back, and that, in turn, led her to the library.
She'd avoided the library for a while after that first incident at school, but that was long past, and the others would take her in for class research sometimes. Still, she'd never been in this part, scanning the shelf endcaps for foreign literature and then floating around with a finger running across the book spines to find --
"Looking for something?"
"Whoa!" Supergirl startled and flew back, nearly knocking over a shelf.
A winged girl with a hall monitor's badge, suddenly up beside her, gave a stern look. "You're lucky nothing broke. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wondered what I could help you find."
"Sorry, Hawkgirl..." Supergirl sulked. "I guess I was just concentrating too hard. I probably won't find it anyway."
Hawkgirl looked her over. "Oh, don't act like you've dealt with the clown when you've barely even started looking. I'll help you see if we have it. Where would it be?"
"Uh, Japanese literature, I think." Well, she was pretty sure Mr. Tsushima was Japanese, anyway, and the other him was real in other worlds besides his own, so... "Wait, what about Harley? I thought she was helping Katana with the decorations for Bumblebee's party."
"Not that clown! It's an expression. It..." Hawkgirl paused and facepalmed. "...doesn't work that way in English, does it."
"Uh... nope?" Supergirl rubbed the back of her head. "Sorry."
Sigh. "Let's find your book."
-
As it turned out, at least one of Dazai's books did exist in this universe. As it also turned out, it was really, really depressing.
Supergirl shut the book on a library receipt turned bookmark and hugged it. She gazed down from the bell tower onto the green, with everyone returning to their lives. Bumblebee's drones giving out party invitations as she chatted with the rest of the Junior Detectives. Cheetah, Frost, and Star Sapphire gossiping about something that probably wasn't good. Poison Ivy chasing Catwoman's cat away from her cat-unsafe houseplants. Thunder and Lightning swapping heroic legacy stories with Jessica Cruz under the statue of the person she was always being compared to. (She hadn't heard from Kal since he'd lent ker Kandor for safekeeping. She half wondered what he'd think of all this, but then shoved it away. Whatever it was, it would probably make her feel worse.)
"Hey, Supergirl!"
She turned her head around. Batgirl walked over with a wave and sat beside her on the roof.
"I thought I'd find you up here. Still thinking about that other world, huh?"
"Yeah," Supergirl admitted. "You know, the whole time I was living that life they put together for me, I wanted something better. But now that I have something better back, I still miss them. I mean, the people and stuff."
Batgirl put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "Friends are like that. I don't think anyone would hold you against it if you went and visited once in a while. You can still do that, right?"
She thought for a second and nodded. "Maybe not a lot, but yeah. ...I was practically the only one left in the end who wanted to go back home to their real life. I guess I'm just worried about what's going to happen to them."
"You know, I think I get that." She smiled. "But they're in control of their lives now, if I got what you described right. Anyone gets too upset, and pow! Reset on. And they can still save their worlds."
Supergirl nodded. "Yeah. I guess I was worried for nothing."
"I don't think it's nothing to be worried about the people you care about." Batgirl looked at the book cover now that Supergirl's grip on it had relaxed. "Oh, hey, I know that one. Not the happiest thing out there, but it's still good to know people remember him. Did you know when he was a kid, this guy he had a crush on gave him a lizard, and he had to pretend he was happy about it even though they scared him?"
"No way, really?"
"Yes way! If someone I liked gave me something gross, I don't even know what I'd do. Throwing it out seems mean. What do you think?"
Supergirl laughed. "I guess I'd have to think about it. Hey, you want to go to Capes & Cowls? I still have a little allowance left from Aunt Martha's last care package."
They descended from the school rooftop, library book in hand.
She spotted a head of red hair under an indigo hood, already running towards her, and hugged her. Too careful, too gentle, but as tight as she could safely allow.
-
"We were all pretty worried," Batgirl said, helping to hang Supergirl's clothes back in her closet. "Nobody kept too many memories of the time the world was in that weird state of being put back together, but I had Oracle record the whole thing. I can show you if you want." She set down the device with the personal assistant in question on the desk.
"That's okay." Supergirl laughed nervously. "I'm just glad to have you back again. And have me back again, I guess."
Wonder Woman came in from the door, hauling the rest of her regains with one hand. "Yeah, what was it like being in another world, but actually living a life in it?"
"About the same as when we were just visiting one, I guess," Supergirl said. "Sort of. Except the me they made from what was left of our world felt like an actual separate person sometimes. I still have all these memories in my head, and I could go back there any time and live out that life. But all I wanted was to come back here."
She didn't know when they started hugging her, but she sniffled and let it go on.
"You'll always have a home with us," Wonder Woman said, "just like we talked about before, okay?"
Yeah. One of the last things she'd remembered before the plan. Even if her homeworld was gone, this was her home now. It was always going to be. Lina Ellis was just some weird thing that happened, always intended to be a temporary state to help save the world that took her in. She'd get over it eventually, that kind of thing always happened, right? But thinking like that only reminded her that, all of a sudden, it was something to get over.
-
There was one person she could think of in the school who would know about alternate timelines. Or maybe wouldn't. Whether she did or didn't was the thing here anyway. After that one incident with Vandal Savage, the Bumblebee who'd helped them in that doomed timeline was supposed to have merged with the one they knew from the right world, or at least that was what they were told to get them on the bus.
The fact that her real name was Karen rose into Supergirl's mind as she knocked on the door. This was followed by the proposition that this might have been a bad idea.
The door with the bee sigil opened to a smiling Bumblebee, hair in a bonnet and work goggles on despite it being entirely too late to be awake (which, to be fair, in a high school, meant nearly everyone was still up). "Hey, Supes! I was just going to get my drones to help deliver some invitations. We're having a party this weekend to celebrate getting through whatever that was with the world. You in?"
"Oh, uh, sure!" Supergirl smiled for a moment, but then took a deep breath. "I was actually going to ask you some things, though. It's about other timelines."
"That field trip?" Bumblebee stepped back and ushered her in. "Wondy let me in on the details a little after it happened."
Supergirl thought she might have gulped audibly, but it might just have been her. "Uh... yeah. Do you remember anything? From the other you."
"Uh-uh. Not a thing, even now." Bumblebee sat down at her work desk and gestured to a spare office chair. Supergirl noted the honeycomb design. This was a girl dedicated to her aesthetic almost as much as to her science projects.
"Oh." Supergirl sighed and slumped down into the chair. Seeing Bumblebee's expression, she sat up straight. "I -- I mean, that's fine! I just -- I wondered if you had, then maybe you'd be able to give me some advice on that, but it's not like other you isn't still you, unless you don't want it to be, because there were a lot of other people like that too, and Iiiiiiii should really stop talking, shouldn't I."
To Bumblebee's credit, all she gave that was a raised eyebrow and a small laugh. "Sounds like you had a honey of an adventure while the world was falling in place. Want to talk about it?"
Bee puns. Supergirl laughed a little. For someone she barely remembered while she was in Recollé, she'd missed this girl.
"Yeah. I think so."
-
Bumblebee had listened, which was all Supergirl could have asked. She didn't have the other world's memories like her Lina Ellis memories floated in her head, so maybe it was more like how Lina Ellis had dealt with Kara Lee. But thinking of that only got her on the topic of other selves the person didn't want back, and that, in turn, led her to the library.
She'd avoided the library for a while after that first incident at school, but that was long past, and the others would take her in for class research sometimes. Still, she'd never been in this part, scanning the shelf endcaps for foreign literature and then floating around with a finger running across the book spines to find --
"Looking for something?"
"Whoa!" Supergirl startled and flew back, nearly knocking over a shelf.
A winged girl with a hall monitor's badge, suddenly up beside her, gave a stern look. "You're lucky nothing broke. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wondered what I could help you find."
"Sorry, Hawkgirl..." Supergirl sulked. "I guess I was just concentrating too hard. I probably won't find it anyway."
Hawkgirl looked her over. "Oh, don't act like you've dealt with the clown when you've barely even started looking. I'll help you see if we have it. Where would it be?"
"Uh, Japanese literature, I think." Well, she was pretty sure Mr. Tsushima was Japanese, anyway, and the other him was real in other worlds besides his own, so... "Wait, what about Harley? I thought she was helping Katana with the decorations for Bumblebee's party."
"Not that clown! It's an expression. It..." Hawkgirl paused and facepalmed. "...doesn't work that way in English, does it."
"Uh... nope?" Supergirl rubbed the back of her head. "Sorry."
Sigh. "Let's find your book."
-
As it turned out, at least one of Dazai's books did exist in this universe. As it also turned out, it was really, really depressing.
Supergirl shut the book on a library receipt turned bookmark and hugged it. She gazed down from the bell tower onto the green, with everyone returning to their lives. Bumblebee's drones giving out party invitations as she chatted with the rest of the Junior Detectives. Cheetah, Frost, and Star Sapphire gossiping about something that probably wasn't good. Poison Ivy chasing Catwoman's cat away from her cat-unsafe houseplants. Thunder and Lightning swapping heroic legacy stories with Jessica Cruz under the statue of the person she was always being compared to. (She hadn't heard from Kal since he'd lent ker Kandor for safekeeping. She half wondered what he'd think of all this, but then shoved it away. Whatever it was, it would probably make her feel worse.)
"Hey, Supergirl!"
She turned her head around. Batgirl walked over with a wave and sat beside her on the roof.
"I thought I'd find you up here. Still thinking about that other world, huh?"
"Yeah," Supergirl admitted. "You know, the whole time I was living that life they put together for me, I wanted something better. But now that I have something better back, I still miss them. I mean, the people and stuff."
Batgirl put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "Friends are like that. I don't think anyone would hold you against it if you went and visited once in a while. You can still do that, right?"
She thought for a second and nodded. "Maybe not a lot, but yeah. ...I was practically the only one left in the end who wanted to go back home to their real life. I guess I'm just worried about what's going to happen to them."
"You know, I think I get that." She smiled. "But they're in control of their lives now, if I got what you described right. Anyone gets too upset, and pow! Reset on. And they can still save their worlds."
Supergirl nodded. "Yeah. I guess I was worried for nothing."
"I don't think it's nothing to be worried about the people you care about." Batgirl looked at the book cover now that Supergirl's grip on it had relaxed. "Oh, hey, I know that one. Not the happiest thing out there, but it's still good to know people remember him. Did you know when he was a kid, this guy he had a crush on gave him a lizard, and he had to pretend he was happy about it even though they scared him?"
"No way, really?"
"Yes way! If someone I liked gave me something gross, I don't even know what I'd do. Throwing it out seems mean. What do you think?"
Supergirl laughed. "I guess I'd have to think about it. Hey, you want to go to Capes & Cowls? I still have a little allowance left from Aunt Martha's last care package."
They descended from the school rooftop, library book in hand.
