"You shouldn't have done this," she whispers the words and hates him just a little. He's standing behind her, she doesn't turn but she thinks he might look just the slightest bit stricken. "You shouldn't have brought me here."

The temptation is great, so very much so and she doesn't know how she'll be able to resist it. She just knows it was a mistake to come here, she doesn't trust herself and she should never have asked.

"You wanted to come here," his hands land on her shoulders and his touch warms her down to the toes, grounding and reminding her. "You asked and you were right to."

She closes her eyes against the sights, imagines she can feel the ground tremble beneath her feet. "I was wrong; this is wrong."

People are walking past them, hidden by the alcove's shadows. All she has to do is reach out, tangle her fingers in the fabric of one passing sleeve. They might believe her, perhaps her mere presence will be enough to make them see. Maybe this time it will be different.

"Open your eyes, Kara, open your eyes or you'll miss it." His voice is sympathetic; she knows he understands her turmoil. Perhaps envies, even this simple torture is denied him but she suspects he might really be relieved. He can't go back, ever, and although he's masochistic enough to wish he could...too many ghosts would be waiting to greet him that she's not sure he could leave behind. "Come on now," he coaxes, seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, squeezing her shoulders in a gesture of support, "there's a girl."

She opens her eyes and there they are. Smiling, laughing, happy. The newly minted family; mother, father, and son out for a walk on a sunny Kryptonian afternoon.

"Rao," the ancient name is on her lips and gone before she's even aware of the wish to speak it. Whether she's given voice to an oath or a prayer to a long-dead deity is mystery.

The Doctor is silent behind her, perhaps as caught by the moment as she is. On this journey she's learned history can be a peculiar companion, full of odd little stories and amusing anecdotes that feel so distant until an era is made real with something as simple as an infant's plaintive cry.

She shakes, pressing one hand over her own mouth to hold back the sob that is in answer to her infant cousin's. She knows what she wants to do, knows why she can't and that her heart is not interested in the why not.

His grip tightens, holds her in place, he knows what she wants to do, has wanted to do it himself and she understands that. Kara lets them pass without comment, the young family heading home to their estate on the hill. In the coming days she knows what will be, Jor-El will receive the data that is the first sign of trouble and will begin the research that will consume his life and herald his world's fate.

"I want it to be different," it's not so much a statement as a moan of grief, "I want it to change. We've changed so much everywhere else, why not this? Why not here?"

She knows why, he doesn't have to tell her but he's the Doctor and so he does.

"All things have their time, Kara," he speaks the truth as gently as he ever does but each word is still a knife to her heart. "This is their time and what is meant to survive will, what is not we accept as the end and we grieve."

She draws a breath, releasing it into a deep, soul-shuddering sigh. "We don't accept it, we never accept it. It is what it is, that's true, but we don't accept it." She can't accept it and she never will, billions murdered by ignorance and arrogance is something she can't understand.

He considers this as he does everything she says. She doesn't turn to know, to see the furrow in his brow, she just waits to hear what he will say. "Perhaps we don't," he agrees finally and she knows it's Gallifrey in his mind now, not Krypton. "Perhaps we're not meant to, we bear witness and we are never truly happy but we may hope to find peace with it somewhere along the line." Now he turns her, and she doesn't want to, knows she can't face that look in his eyes. It's not sympathy, sympathy's too superficial a word for this, and she can't bear to see it but she looks anyway. This is not something which she will see from him frequently, not something she's seen from anyone, and she knows if she doesn't now she might never again.

The Doctor is the most extraordinary person she's known and that is no easy thing to say. Kara's time on Earth, with Clark and the Justice League, introduced her to so many people who defy description but somehow none of them quite measure up. None of them, except possibly J'onn, have shared a moment like this with her and Kara thinks her heart might be breaking because they're not done yet. She's faced the fact the inhabitants of Krypton were real, she's seen Jor-El and Lara and knows what Clark lost, but now she's got to see the end.

"I don't want to do this," she confesses and wishes they were anywhere but here, what progress she's made fading fast. "Don't make...I can't do this." She wants to tell him to take her back to Earth, to show her World War II again, maybe flick forward to see what becomes of the Justice League and if Clark ever grows out of his eternal stick-in-the-mud phase. She wants to see anything but this. She can't save them and she's spent too much time with the League, she'd rather be dead than helpless.

But yet she is.

*

The explosion slices through her.

Protected as she is by the TARDIS, Kara logically shouldn't feel a thing of Krypton's destruction, but it feels as though it might tear her heart from her chest. One of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, at least to hear Metropolis tell it, and she feels as fragile as a paper doll. It used to be just a story, an event she barely remembered, but...

It's real now, story no longer. She walked on Krypton's soil, heard the babbling chaos of it's society, imagines she can hear their screams of terror still.

"It's not fair," she grits out, hugging her midsection tight and turning away from the sight on the tiny screen. "They didn't..." She cuts off her words, knowing there's no point in saying them. The cruel and horrible things which happened to people on every world, no matter where in the galaxy, rarely had anything to do with fair play in any way shape or form. A relief, she knows on some level, if things like this happened because they were deserved... "I'm sorry," she knows, again, he's standing there, watching her with that look in his eyes.

"No need for that," his voice is surprisingly soft, somber and she remembers, he's seen this before too. Been the cause of it with his own kind and he understands her guilt better than she does. "Witnessing something like that's never easy to take in, not even for the strongest girl in all the world."

Kara laughs, it feels strange to laugh having just witnessed the deaths of billions but it's a comfort too and she turns to hug him, pressing her head against his chest. The rhythm of his hearts is another strange comfort, one she's caught herself listening for in the night. Sometimes the TARDIS dampens her hearing, she's not sure how, but never then. Never when she needs to hear the sound.

If her need to hug him surprises the Doctor, he doesn't let on for a moment and she smiles into his chest when he hugs back tightly. He doesn't do well on his own, he's admitted as much and maybe that's why they get on like they do. She doesn't either.

"We're going to miss it, you know," he murmurs into her hair, echoing their conversation on Krypton.

"Miss what?" She asks, pulling back in confusion.

He smiles, turns her back to the screen, and she sees them.

Argo City, protected by its shield for now, spinning off in one direction and, in the other, a tiny little ship streaks toward the stars.

Clark's ship.

"Someone lives," he's utterly delighted to speak the words, she can almost feel his delight wrapping her up like a warm blanket. "This time, not everyone but...someone."

And from that someone, countless human lives...and she smiles.

"Someone lives."

 

Everything in this story, save the words themselves, belongs to either DC or the BBC, perhaps other parts of the alphabet as well.

 

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