All Dreamed Away, Cat/Kara, Rating: M
When Kara comes to Earth, she notices something different when she sleeps.
On a planet where soulmates are found in dreams, what happens to a girl who can't dream at all?
It takes three nights in Metropolis, that strange place that’s nothing like Argo City, before she shakes Kal awake. There are hours yet until the dawn of the yellow sun. There’s so much to adjust to, her strength and the sounds, and the way the whole world is turned up too high. At least she can’t hurt him when she shoves him hard enough to make the bed he sleeps on creak.
“What is it, Kara?”
He says her name wrong, flat and without its usual lilt. He says it like the humans do.
“I’ve lost my dreams,” she tries to explain. Twenty-four lost years and all she had were her dreams, cycling through her memories of Krypton and imaginings of what it would have been like, had the planet not perished. Here, when she closes her eyes and lets her body relax, she sees only darkness for hours. It’s so very lonely that Kara wakes up crying. Her dreams are where her mother and father live, where the spires still stand and the sun glows red and true.
“Oh kid,” he sighs. He reaches towards the other side of the bed, unable to hide his disappointment when he finds it empty. That woman Kara saw yesterday, the one from work. She understands that the space in the bed is usually filled by her. “You and I? We don’t get those here on Earth. I didn’t understand what people were talking about for the longest time, but it’s something to do with our powers I guess.”
“Okay.” Kara shuffles back towards to the doorway. She hesitates, wonders if he’ll realize. Kal smiles weakly, before pulling a pillow back over his head. He’s not a parent, Kara tells herself again. He doesn’t know that after a scare in the middle of the night, he should take her back to bed and watch until she falls asleep, maybe stroke her hair just a little to help her do it.
In the morning, he tells her about a place called Midvale. A family called the Danvers. Three days ago, Kara would have resisted with every fiber of her being. Instead she nods, and goes to pack her few belongings into a small bag.
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