Ko-fi thank-you sentences for @primtheamazing, @beatrice-otter, @qwertynerd97, and LadyLeocadia, who all picked the same WIP; Kara gets to Earth on time and the Kents get a two-for-one special on free kids.
Ma and Pa take her and Kal to a quaint little brick building and lead them inside. It's full of things Kara can't identify, but also racks and racks of clothes and dishware and furniture. She's briefly bewildered by the place, unsure if it's just a very unusual tailor shop or . . . what, exactly. Then she realizes–Smoll-Veel is a Laborer settlement, so this is probably just a clothing shop. She's never been to one before–the House of El always uses tailors–but Laborers must wear through their clothes much faster and need replacements for those clothes much faster, so of course they wouldn't always have time to wait for a tailor, when they just need to get back to work. And Laborers' work clothes must be much plainer than most tailors would be interested in making anyway, really. No demonstration of skill or fashion or anything similar. Nothing to really interest a real Artisan.
Ma guides Kara through the oddly-arranged racks of clothing and starts taking different items off them, and Pa disappears somewhere else when Kara is distracted by a particularly soft and pretty dress that Ma holds up to her. It worries her for a moment, for no good reason. Like he's just vanished from the universe and won't ever come back; like he's just dust and ash and dead and gone–
Kara forces herself not to think about it and smiles at Ma, who smiles back. Kal burbles and tries to stick his whole fist in his mouth, and Ma laughs fondly at the sight. Kara wants to cry. Instead she presses a kiss to his hair and holds him just a tiny, tiny bit tighter. He giggles and smacks her in the face with his spit-sticky hand.
She needs to take care of him. Needs to protect him. Needs to keep him safe.
He's the only thing she has left to keep safe.
The only thing she has left at all, except for their smashed-up ships and the clothes she came here wearing and the blanket he's all wrapped up in.
Kara tries not to think too much, and smiles at another pretty dress as Ma holds it up too. Ma picks out a few more things–a skirt or two, a pair of pants made of the same sturdy blue material as the jacket Kara's wearing, some strange tops with very short sleeves–and it's all soft and unstructured and very peculiar-looking, to be honest, but it seems to please Ma to pick them out with her and also beggars really can't be choosers.
And Kara does think the dresses are pretty.
Pa comes back with his arms full of–toys, maybe? They look like toys. Kara blinks in confusion. Why is he . . .
Pa holds up one of the toys, a soft little thing that looks a bit like a dog and is even white and floppy-eared like Krypto was, and offers it to Kal. His little face lights up in unabashed delight as he reaches for it, and Kara nearly cries.
Kal squishes the toy in a hug and then starts chewing on one of those floppy ears. Kara nearly cries again.
Ma and Pa really are just that kind, she thinks. Feeding them and giving her clothes is already so much, but they didn't need to offer Kal a toy. That's . . .
They didn't need to do that.
Or any of this.
Ma makes an approving sound; Pa looks pleased. Kal coos happily at his toy.
Kara keeps not crying, but it's getting harder and harder to manage.
She can't possibly repay them for this. They must know that. How could she? She's not from this planet; she doesn't speak its language or know anything about it. She can try to be another "Kent" for them, maybe, but that's all she could possibly do: basic Laborer work, not even anything specialized. Certainly nothing with any real experience necessary to it.
And even if she did, it'd be more so she could take care of Kal than to repay them anyway, so . . .
She doesn't understand why they're being so kind.
Ma takes the pile of clothes and leads the way to a little row of curtained doors off to the side of the shop. Kara isn't sure, for a moment, but thinks–are they fitting rooms, maybe? Though there aren't any tailors in them, when she peeks into the one Ma is hanging up all those clothes in. She can only assume she's just supposed to try them on and see if they fit. Which seems like a time-consuming process, really, but is admittedly much less time-consuming than a tailor making a full wardrobe's worth of custom pieces from scratch.
Kara takes Kal into the fitting room with her and tries on the clothes while he plays with his new toy, and she can mostly breathe as long as she keeps an eye on him. She probably should've left him outside with Ma and Pa instead of having him sit on the floor in here while she goes through all the clothes one by one, but with the curtain drawn she wouldn't have been able to see him and then . . .
She exhales. Tries on another skirt. It's pretty. Soft and shapeless, but with interesting pleats in it and a bright blue and yellow pattern.
She thinks her mother would've liked it, and then tries not to think.
She's been trying not to think a lot, at this point.
Kal is so little. So small and defenseless and she's not even come of age, technically, she's only–
Well, no, Kara realizes. She must be sixteen by now. After the sleep-stasis in the ship on the way here . . .
She swallows. Reaches for another skirt to try on. It's pink.
She's sixteen, and her parents are dead.
She's sixteen and her parents have been dead.
And so are Kal’s, and she's the only thing he has in the universe.
Kal giggles. Baps her leg with his soft toy and makes a playful growling sound.
Kara buries her face in the skirt and sobs in silence, all hitched breaths and messy, painful tears.
She wants her mom.