ALL Chapter 13 Closing thoughts
Normally, I would have done this in the author's notes at the end of the chapter, but I was feeling too much from finally getting to the end of my very first fic, and also I think I may have had too much to say it might not have all fitted. Anyway, I'm doing it now, so consider this your spoiler warning for my fic if you haven't read it. If so, I would definitely consider doing so, especially before you read this bit, as it discusses the final chapter https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/149705248
So, with that out of the way, let me get into this. This chapter has always essentially been about establishing the new status quo after the tumult of the past three chapters. Everyone had gotten started on their healing journies by chapter 12, but some of them (cough* Alex *cough) still had some ways to go. So, I had to give them enough time not only to finish those journeys, but also to settle into the new way of things once they had done so (and wrap up whatever lingering plotlines that were still hanging).
Honestly, I'm not totally someone to reckon with the fallout of things outside the scope of the fic I am interested. There is a lot to be said about the press and public's reactions to what's happened in this fic and many others, wrangling with keeping Kara's identity secret from her coworkers or the DEO and government. There are dozens of inconsequential actions that any number of the characters do that could be overheard or witnessed that would have far-reaching repercussions, but I don't really dive into them unless they directly interest me or there is something I want to directly address. So yes, someone could totes have seen Kara superseded out of CatCo and figure out her identity or some rando at the DEO overhear Alex call Kara by her name instead of Supergirl, but will probably never happen in my fic because I don't care about that sort of thing.
Now, you may be wondering why I am bringing this up. I bring it up because that is exactly what I am doing in the opening of this chapter. Normally, I wouldn't really bother with any sort of negative outcome between Kara and the government, or at least wouldn't give it it's own dedicated scene. The reason I did this time is specifically because of a fic I read some time ago that never sat right with me. I won't say which, and really this isn't about why that fic is wrong (I don't think it's wrong at all, it just didn't jibe with my personal interpretation of the character, nothing more, nothing less. Everyone is free to write how they please). Anyhow, in that fic, Kara did something similar to what she did in chapter 10 of my fic, and when the president started talking down at her about it, she just let herself be cowed and was like, "yeah, won't happen again. My bad.). I certainly understand this reaction, especially in the context of how Kara can be in both Canon and Fanon, but that's not my Kara. My Kara stands her ground, especially when it comes to Lena. I will admit beyond that, I do deeply enjoy this scene, and I don't regret adding it at all. I did also briefly set it up back in the beginning of chapter 4 when Kara the president's visit (just more so that they had met, so it wouldn't be out of the blue when they talked again in the end)
Another thing from this scene that's more of a mention and less of a feature, but you just know that Lena made Kara a kryptonite resistant suit, and I don't know why the DEO never invested more effort in that. I have a series of headcanons about Kryptonian powers and Kryptonite, so let me know if you want to know more about that, as it is directly involved with how it works in my writings, and also how things like how anti-Kryptonian and anti-Kryptonite technologies work.
Let's talk about titles. For the longest time, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to title this fic. This is legitimately one of my greatest struggles. I seem to be able to name other people's fic pretty well, but when it comes to mine, I just don't know. For the longest time, my WIP title was Supercorp Secret Marriage which just doesn't make any sense as an actual title. Then, for another long stretch of time, I thought the title was going to be Prime, as the crux of the fic is really when Kara goes Prime mode to rescue Lena (I'm not super duper familiar with the comics, but my understanding is that there are some comics where the supes get a ridiculous power boost, and they are typically called supergirl/man/boy prime. Could not be quite right). Anyhow, that was the best I could really think of, but it never sat quite right with me. Partly because I think it's sort of boring, and also because I was petrified that someone would somehow guess where the story was going, and I wanted to do my best to shock everyone.
The other title I briefly considered was The Day the Sun Fell to Earth. This falls in the same line as a title surrounding chapter 10, specifically in reference to how brightly Kara was glowing as she descended to the DEO, it looked like the sun was falling to earth. I thought that might have required a bit too much of a leap to put together though (I did include it as a bit of a fun reference in this chapter, regardless of the fact no one would really get it but me). This title and the previous had the same flaw in my mind though, because while that scene was really the keystone of the fic, the title only related to that one scene and had nothing to do with anything else in the entire fic.
This is something that was bothering me the entire fic, from the time when I barely had the outline completed. In the end, as you all know, I went up going with At Long Last. These words are from the very final sentence I wrote for the whole fic, and as soon as I wrote them I knew that I had my title. Because, while the first scene of chapter 10 was what I built the fic towards and around, there is so much more to it now, and this sentiment fits so perfectly with what I had already written about Kara's thoughts and feelings about the secret that I was once again struck with the idea that I couldn't have planned it better had I tried.
The build up of this theme really started in chapter 2, before Kara even got together with Lena (as a brief aside, this makes me feel like I'm in school again writing a book report using quotes to support my argument, except for I wrote it and I'm explaining my own thoughts instead of someone else's). I'm just going to post the timeline of quotes as this theme develops.
Chapter 2:
If only he [Kal] would let up on Lena, she thought her life might be perfect, or at least as close to perfect as anything could ever come with the gaping hole the loss of her planet had left within her.
Chapter 3:
“So, it falls to me to preserve my culture, my language, my people, but I feel like I am failing them. For so long I have held them tightly in my heart. No matter how much I love Earth, how much I love the Danvers, Krypton has always been my home. Now, Krypton isn't my home anymore, you are,” Kara pulled back to look at Lena with pleading eyes, “Does that mean I've failed them?”
Chapter 13:
“There‘s a time you might have been right, when that's what I would have seen, but that was before I met Lena,” Kara said, her tone almost wistful, “She helped me accept that Krypton was gone, but still with me. For years while I was in the phantom zone, then on earth, I struggled to even comprehend the death of Krypton, the loss that it caused me. There were times, even after I had been on earth for years that I would wake up and forget what had happened, despite the fact that I had watched the whole thing with my own eyes. “Some days in that moment just before I opened my eyes, I expect to see my bedroom, to be able to look out over the skyline of Argo and see the red skies beyond it, and every time I woke to see our bedroom in Midvale, or my apartment, every time the window showed me National City's skyline and skies of blue, I broke all over again. And while I love you, I truly do, and Eliza, and everyone else I had on earth, it couldn't plug the whole that the loss of Krypton had made.” Kara paused for a moment, looking out of the window with a far-off expression on her face, as if in that moment she was seeing the cityscape Krypton out past the glass, but it lasted for only a moment before she continued speaking, her attention returning to her sister as she did so, “Then I fell in love with Lena. She was the first one to even come close to filling the void within me. She learned Kryptonese, not to help me acclimate easier to earth, or from some sense of idle curiosity about where she had come from, but because she knew how much it meant to me, how much it gladdened me to hear it even while it tore the scars off my wounds. Little by little, piece by piece, even before I realized she was doing it, she filled that void, until one day there wasn't a void anymore, there was only Lena. The pain was still there, but it was no longer debilitating. I no longer woke in the wrong bedroom, or on the wrong planet, I woke up to her.” ... “What I want, more than anything,” Kara said, bringing Alex's attention back to her, “Is for my family to accept my wife. I didn't need the black mercy to tell me that.” ... Kara looked around, her friends and family surrounding her, laughing and joking, drinking and playing. Lena was tucked into her side, completely at home amongst everyone, her wife was laughing openly at something her sister had just said, and finally, at long last, everything was perfect.
This theme is really what brought so much of this fic together in the way it did, and it weaved throughout my preferences to form new headcanons and all the lore about Kara and Kryptonians that helped me so much to sell this story. I love all the ideas that came from this fic so much that they have just become my default settings for Kara and Krypton going forward. This is my Kara, even more so than the one I came into this process envisioning, and I think that theme was much more worthy of the title than just that one scene (I still adore that scene though, don't get me wrong, but even it is so much better in light of the headcanons this story helped me build).
Well, I've already written so much, and I haven't actually even started reading back through the chapter yet, so I think I am going to do that so I can go back to the more "normal" word vomiting I usually do.
If anyone was curious exactly what Kara was implying when she was talking to the president right at the end, she was totally telling her that while her disguise might have been fooling everyone else, it was not fooling her. Kara totes knew she was an alien, and if the president was going to go mucking about in her family, Kara was more than capable of firing back. It might not be a morally great action, but I've always viewed Kara as someone who's family comes first over anything else.
Something else about this that no one may realize though, is that Kara does still hold them to a high standard of morals and behavior. There is one little tiny word choice that really shows that in this conversation she has with the president. When Kara is laying down the law, she says, "...if the DEO or any other agency of the government does come after Lena without valid reason." Notice, Kara specifically says, "without VALID reason," and that is an intentional word choice by both her and me. Kara would not let anyone, not even Lena, do anything morally corrupt or villainous and let them get away with it just because they are her family (She also does say this with complete confidence that Lena would never give valid reason though). She would probably still prefer to take care of it herself than let the government step in, but I digress. I talk about things like this a lot as absolute, but these are more guidelines for me, and I totally might bend them for certain fics in the future to get out an idea I have though.
I threw Lucy into this scene for no other reason than because I wanted to. Really there was nothing else behind it.
You all just know that Lena was waiting for that moment at game night where she finally got to stake her claim in public, really hammer it home even though everyone technically already knew. Speaking more on that scene, as much as I don't like certain characters (James and Mon-El) I do try not to take out my biases, valid or not, on them in my writing. I did definitely sideline them since I didn't care to write much about them than was needed, but I don't feel like anything I wrote about them was either untrue to their character nor unrealistic in an effort to justify my choices. I stand buy it. Actually, as a matter of fact, I almost convinced myself that Mon-El wasn't as bad as some of the things that sort of get glossed over in canon. In the future, I may just exclude them from my fics, though without Mon-El in this one, we wouldn't have gotten that scene where Lena was possessive and jealous.
As much as I don't necessarily care for Winn as a character (I don't dislike him, but neither do I have any particular fondness for him, nor do I think he should have come to the DEO in season 2 (hence I brought brainy instead)) He did do me a solid in this chapter and chapter 5 by giving me a path through some difficult-to-write interactions.
So, I will readily admit that I definitely just brushed CADMUS and Lillian aside without much thought or wordcount. I never really cared too much about that plot by itself. It was definitely the B plot. It only really served to push the secret relationship agenda forward by butting Kara and Lena into odd spots where the cracks started showing a bit (by making Kara act up, so that Alex would notice it essentially), then obviously they put up a big part of the plot by getting Lena arrested. After that was done though, their role in the story was over, so off they went into the sunset without much fanfare.
I love the little call back I had to chapter 3, when Alex was thinking about Kara and Lena, and she was like, "I bet if Lena pushed Kara she would just fall over. It's a ridiculous thought though." I cackle every time I read that part, no matter how many times it's been.
I could probably write a full TED talk about every paragraph in this chapter, and every other chapter for that matter, and I think this post is already ludicrously long, so I will try to only hit the main parts I wanted to address here, and maybe pick up some of the other bits when I do the further posts I have planned.
That being said, there is maybe my second favorite scene in this entire fic that I've yet to say anything, and that is the moments between Alex and Lena after Lena saves Alex from the kidnapper. I won't lie, I definitely lean a bit more towards Kara than Lena, but this scene is something that I just love more than I can express. I love to see that protective side from Lena that we are used to seeing from Kara, and Lena finally got to say her piece after so long spent holding it in. It was very hard to get that scene to flow well and I spent at least an hour writing just those few lines of Lena's dialogue. I think part of it may be that Alex just seems to never be held accountable for any of that. Some of the scenes I included in the flashbacks were just to justify having Lena bring up all these points and hold Alex accountable for it, and don't even get me started on that threat she leveled at Alex. I wrote that and it still gives me the chills every time I read it. I love literally everything about this scene, down to the smallest detail.
Anyway, I think I am going to call this here. I still have some plans to go back through and make a few more posts. There are still quite a few details and such that I packed in there that no one has, as far as I know, noticed. I wanted to go through them, since I love them, and bring them to everyone's attention so they can enjoy them like I do. Secondly, there is so much that I feel I learned in answering everyone's questions, where I feel like I know twice or thrice as much about all the characters and their motivations than I did when I started, and I want to parse back through all that. If I may brag for a moment, I think my greatest strength as a writer is how cohesive everything is, and by answering all the questions you had I learned more about my fic then I know when I posted it, and I love just how perfectly it all fits. Anyway, if anyone actually made it this far, let me know if any of that is of any interest to you
