Hope and Destiny

If I Could || No Place Like Home

"Kara?" Came a whispered voice, then Ray's hand gripped her arm and gave her a gentle shake, as concerned features finally were brought into focus and she took a deep breath. "I was just telling Allura how shaken you've been since the attack after she offered us some Oregus mint tea."

After the attack. . . Kara had to remember her story she'd told to Zor-El about the hrakkas, how Ray was referring to that and not the sickening notion someone was trying to end her cousin's life before it even began. She offered a wan smile and nodded, "Yes, it has been difficult.  I would love though, some of your tea."

Her mother nodded and glanced toward her younger self, sending the young Kara off to fetch it from the kitchen while insisting they rest in the parlor.

"I couldn't help but notice the Sapphire Guards about. . ." Kara says as she and Ray move toward the smooth tufted modular sofa, facing a low glass circular center table with its twisting gray marble base. Something that no longer existed in the Argo that survived, much like other things that surrounded them. The sculpture she made for her father when she was eight, that sat on the stand Kara fell on when she was five and cracked the edge of and got the scar above her left brow. Both of her mother's greenhouses in all their glory, flyers, skimmers, Sapphire Guards, her father. . . So many people, so much history, gone because of ignorance.

"Yes, just a matter of council business. It shouldn't keep Zor-El long." Young Kara returned and gave out the tea, which both thanked her for.

Kara took a sip of hers and a hum of content slipped past her lips as the warm liquid traveled down spreading throughout and lingering, while Ray gagged and coughed, clearing his throat trying to cover up his displeasure. "Hot," he manages to get out after Kara shoots him a look. How could anyone not like Oregus mint tea?

"I should have warned you, I'm sorry. Perhaps a stroll in the terrarium after tea, before I go to prepare supper would be a better setting that you can regale me and Kara with your travels. Maybe by then, Zor-El will have returned." It was a terrible idea, but how were they supposed to get out of it without arousing suspicion? Knowing what the aberration was, that her father was more than likely there with Krypton's most elite warrior's right now, if they tried to make a move toward it there would be more of an impact than what she was sure they were supposed to be making.

"Sounds wonderful," Kara answers for Ray.

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She had forgotten what a good Kryptonian meal tasted like, more or less what her mother's cooking tasted like. She knew that their Kelex helped, but it was her mother's recipes and guiding hand that did the trick. Just as skilled in the kitchen as she was in the greenhouse, Kara's father always said.

Zor-El didn't appear for supper, and the pair waited a few hours after for him to show, but he never did. Allura tried to brush it off as his work, and Kara knew that her father had often spent hours holed up in his lab working, but managed to pull himself away and make it back home. It was the difference between Jor-El and Zor-El, one could spend days to weeks holed up in a laboratory, but the other had responsibilities that extended beyond the will of science.

She could see it in her younger self's face, the worry that didn't appear anywhere but her mother's eyes. Something was wrong. Something was wrong, and yet Allura was sending them off to bed as if Christmas were the next morning and they couldn't stay awake or Santa wouldn't come.

They'd been placed in the guest quarters, separate rooms of course and though lights were off and night had fallen over Krypton, Kara couldn't sleep.

She was back home, in a place she knew the fate of. Someone out there was trying to erase her cousin and she could feel it in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong with her father.

She wasn't sure how long she laid on that foam weave bed, clutching one of the pillows to her chest as though it had the ability to do the same for her, but she was shaken from her trance quite literally when the whole world around her began to tremble.

Ray appeared so suddenly she wondered if he hadn't been there the whole time and rushed to her side, "Some sort of earthquake--err Kryptonquake?"

The covers are thrown back as she grabs onto him for support to steady herself in her feat to stand, hurrying out of the room with him in tow, both dodging falling debris. They weren't the only members of the house awake and alert. Outside, they found Allura and younger Kara on their way toward the guest quarters, but it's not what stopped Kara.

Looking up, she saw a difference in the sky. It must have been early morning, or would be, but Rao's light was darkened by the gathering of spoiled clouds that had blanketed Krypton's skies. Angry skies that Kara recognized and she began to piece together what this meant.

She grabbed Ray's arm and pulled him back, "Ray, you have to go." He gave her a puzzled look and her eyes came down from the sky, looking at Allura and young Kara through blurred vision as they finally reached them. "This is the day Krypton dies." Kara chokes out.

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It took a few minutes for the quake to subside, once it did Ray and Kara were able to more easily excuse themself to be on their way, promising to stop by the city hall and tell Zor-El a message should they see him; Allura was taking young Kara to the launch bay.

Ray tried getting through to Sara, but Kara explained that the clouds were a solar storm and it would be a miracle if their comms worked, that said he insisted they returned to the jump ship to boost the signal.

Compared to the quickness of the land skimmer, the walk took longer and allowed for them to see the damage caused by the quake, as well as time for Kara to give Ray a brief insight of what would happen today. Krypton would experience different catastrophic phenomenons in nature, ending in one final long-lasting quake that in the midst of Kara would be sent off the planet and it would implode.

He didn't seem too thrilled by her story, in fact he looked nervous after she told him and when they got to the ship he asked Kara to wait outside it while he went in to make the adjustments and get into contact with the Waverider. It was close to half an hour before he emerged, wringing his hands and told her that Sara and the rest of the team were on their way.

"And, I'm sorry."

Her brows furrowed at the apology, but before she could figure out what it was even for, his hands fell away only to reappear with some object she had no time to make out before it was connecting with the side of her head painfully and her vision went black.