Always Someone Marches Brave Here Beneath My Skin

Chapter 6

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF PREVIOUS SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, SUICIDE ATTEMPTS AND THOUGHTS OF SELF HARM, RAPE, IMPLICATIONS OF RAPE, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, AND ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSES.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I HAVE THE UTMOST RESPECT FOR FOSTER PARENTS AND THE CONTENTS OF THIS CHAPTER IN NO WAY ARE TARGETED TOWARDS THOSE WHO FIND THEMSELVES UNABLE TO PROPERLY CARE FOR THE FOSTER CHILDREN PLACED IN THEIR CARE! ANY PORTIONS OF THE STORY THAT MAKE IT SEEM OTHERWISE ARE SIMPLY INCLUDED FROM KARA'S PERSPECTIVE TO SHOW HOW SHE FELT BEING "RETURNED" BY HER FOSTER PARENTS, NOT A REFLECTION ON THE PARENTS THEMSELVES OR IN REAL LIFE FOSTER PARENTS FACED WITH THE SAME ISSUES.

The sounds and smells of the hospital weren't exactly unfamiliar to Kara. In the months that followed the death of her parents, Kara had spent weeks at a time under suicide watch after either threatening - or attempting - to take her own life. Each time, the foster family she'd been living with at the time had decided that they couldn't handle a troubled teen such as her and she was left alone over and over by adults who were supposed to care for her. It wasn't until she'd been sent to live in Midvale with the Danvers family that things started to improve for her.

Eliza Danvers was a psychologist who'd come to care for her dearly. She'd been there each time Kara was brought in by her foster parents because she'd taken too many pills or threatened to slit her wrists. Each time, Eliza watched them request that she be placed elsewhere because they couldn't help her. It wasn't that they were bad people, by any means. The couples that Kara had been placed with had genuinely cared for her as best as they knew how, but she was a teenager who had just watched her parents die on national television. If anything, admitting that they were ill-equipped to help her was their way of helping her.

Kara had gotten close to Eliza each time she was brought in. She'd reminded Kara of her mom in many ways, which made it both easy and hard to talk to her, but it also made the comfort and affection she was shown by her all the more powerful. The last time Kara was brought in - after being found standing on the side of a bridge in her pajamas in the middle of the night - Eliza had asked if she'd like to come live in Midvale with her and her family. Initially she'd said no, afraid that she'd end up being too much for Eliza and then losing the person she'd grown closest to.

In the end, Kara DID go live with the Danvers family. It wasn't always easy, Kara was STILL a teenager struggling to cope with the loss of her parents and the fact that she'd been - in her mind - abandoned by several different families making her feel like damaged goods. It had been Alex who helped her through the nightmares and the panic attacks that came after them. Alex who found Kara sitting on their bathroom floor staring at a bottle of pills and a bloody razor blade and called for Eliza to help. Alex who had sat with her on that same bathroom floor many nights when she just didn't want to go on anymore. And now it was Alex sitting in a chair beside her hospital bed, her head resting on Kara's hand as she slept.

From the time they'd brought her into the hospital, neither Alex nor Sam had left. It was Lena who, as the owner of the hospital, insisted that they be given access to Kara regardless of any protocols they had in place. Although Kara always said she was a doctor - which is what she'd told Lena - Alex was actually a Paramedic, or at least a former one, and had brought in and assisted with many overdoses in her career. She knew exactly what Kara was in for and how hard it would be to watch. Even still, she stayed by her side as they pumped her stomach, hooked up machines, and gave her charcoal pills. She was unconscious for most of it, so Kara wouldn't know that it had happened, but the memory would never leave Alex, no matter how much she wanted it to.

James had been blowing up Kara's phone for the last hour trying to find where she was, and had left several voicemails and text messages that - had Alex been willing to leave Kara's side - would have gotten him thrown out of a moving vehicle off a cliff. The tamest of them being ones asking if she'd gotten on her knees for the "Luthor Bitch" or if that position was reserved for him and wanting to know if Lena had gagged when she tasted her like he'd done the one and ONLY time he'd gone down on her. Alex and Sam had looked to Lena who was as shocked and angered at both his accusation and the way he spoke to and about Kara as they were. Lena barely knew Kara, but she was ready to fight for her!