Survivors

Chapter 36: Truths and Lies

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The father and daughter walked hand in hand, bare feet barely in the cold water but neither seemed to mind the temperature. They hadn't said a word, both lost in their own thoughts but knew one of them would have to break the silence.

"Can I see your eye?" Jeremiah finally asked.

Kara slowly took the sunglasses off and looked at him with a bit of embarrassment.

"The swelling is gone. Only a bit of yellow. You should be completely healed in a few hours."

The blonde shrugged her shoulders. "I wish it would stay for a couple days. It would remind me of how stupid I am, every time I look in a mirror."

"Don't do that." he told her softly. "You are not stupid. You are impulsive and reckless but not stupid. Never that."

"Thanks." she whispered, though she didn't believe him. "I screwed up last night, and the night before. I shouldn't have broken into the DEO. I shouldn't have flown off last night..."

"Kara, please stop. I think we covered that at the house. I wasn't innocent in the whole thing either. I didn't bring you out here to talk about that. I just wanted to set some things straight. You seem to have gotten it into your head that I am not proud of you."

"I didn't mean that." she told him quickly.

"Don't lie to me, Kara. We have always been honest with each other, right?"

"Yes, I guess so. You have anyway. I've kept some things from you over the years, things I have done to myself, things I wanted to do...I never lied but I haven't told you everything."

"And you think I don't know when you are holding back? I can read you like a book. A favorite book I enjoy reading over and over again. I didn't know Zor El obviously. I can't speak of him. I don't know what it was like growing up there for you. I have formed some ideas over the years but I have no real way of knowing. What I do know is since you came into our lives, you have been mine. There has never been a time I haven't been proud of you."

Kara laughed softly, but there was no humor in it.

"What about when I tried to kill myself? When I was snapping my fingers? Cutting myself, burning my arms and sometimes my legs? All the times I lost my temper, or didn't get out of bed for days because I let depression beat me? You were proud of me then? When I couldn't sit through a storm, no matter how small without having a panic attack?"

"Yeah, even then, because I knew you were fighting. You never stopped fighting. I knew you would get back up. Its who you are. You never stay down, Kara. You have been to some very low places in your heart but you always come back. Do you know the first night you slept at our home, when we slept on the roof, I didn't sleep at all? I lay there and listened to you breathe. I knew my life would never be the same. Not just because of two new children either. I suddenly had this daughter next to me, another girl I would kill and die for. You kind of came out of nowhere and blew me away. You changed all our lives. I also knew you were going to have so many challenges. I had a pretty good idea from the rock demonstration of how terrible what you had gone through had been. I knew it would not be easy, for any of us. Nothing worth having is ever easy. You mumbled in your sleep a few times, and I told you it would be okay. I told you that I would protect you, that no one would harm you. You were safe."

"I slept all night. It was the first time since I arrived on Earth that I slept all night with no nightmares." she remembered. "I couldn't believe you were there with me when you laid down."