Bella MacLeod's Twilight Fanfiction

Reborn

By BetterInTexas

Chapter 11: Repressed memory

Leslie had been warned by Alex about what to expect, that she could lose herself in Kara’s mind if she wasn’t careful. She had been warned by Bruce, told that she had no idea what being inside Kara’s darkness would feel like. J’onn had all but told her the experience could shatter her mind.

She had listened but moved forward anyway. Leslie would stand by Kara, help her work through her traumatic memories, come to peace with them.

Right now, she regretted it. She had no idea who she was. It was as if she and both versions of Kara had somehow merged. She couldn’t separate their emotions because she suspected they felt the same sheer, unbridled terror.

Leslie tried to look for her Kara or her younger self, but instead found herself holding Alura’s hand, being dragged along the shaky floors that seemed to be crumbling beneath her feet. The explosions outside were deafening. Members of the House of El were running from their rooms screaming, not knowing where to go. Everything was hot, as if the complex was on fire somewhere, below her, above her, she didn’t know.

“Mother! What is happening?” the voice of a young girl asked.

“Just come with me Kara. There is no more time… I thought we would have more time.” The woman answered steadily.

Despite Alura’s calm voice in the face of so much destruction, Leslie picked up on the dread and grief she tried to hide.

“We have to get Kal El!” the little girl’s voice all but screamed.

“He will be waiting for us.” Alura told her. Leslie realized they were moving in a hallway that descended. The outside was glass and the glass was shattering. The woman looked outside and saw small ships, what Kara had called skimmers, crashing into one another, turning into fireballs in the air.

An explosion above caught her attention as a burning body dropped, along with pieces of the ship he or she had been in, before hitting the already shattering glass and window ledge then bouncing off, continuing a long fall to the ground far below.

Leslie’s eyes watched it all, even as her small hand was being pulled by the strong grip of her mother.

Then the two moved into an interior hallway, away from the clear view of the destruction outside, well-lit and thankfully empty.

Then the lights were gone, and the hallway was plunged into darkness.

She felt herself lifted in Alura’s strong arms and held bridal style, the mother running into the darkness.

“Is it Daxam? Are they attacking us? Is Aunt Astra okay?” The fear in young Kara’s voice matched the fear bubbling in her own gut as they raced along the passageway.

“Astra is safe, Little One. I made sure of it. We are not under attack. Our planet is dying, but you will not.” Her mother told her emphatically.

“Mother?” Kara’s voice was raised in fright, but Alura didn’t respond.

No more questions were asked, but Leslie felt caught in a maelstrom of emotions, none of them good. Her heart was beating so fast she could hear it as she was lost in the horror that surrounded her. The ground was moving violently as she clung to Alura’s neck in total darkness.

Then a light appeared. Leslie could see a runway of some sort, a vision she could only have imagined in a sci fi movie.

Abruptly, Leslie was on her own feet when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Kara, her Kara, watching her younger self. The look on her Kara’s face was solemn, tears streaming down her face, but she was not afraid. Why would she be? Kara had lived this moment once before and dreamed of it hundreds of times, maybe thousands.

“That’s not you, Leslie.” her Kara told her in a whisper that somehow Leslie heard over the explosions.

The doctor looked at the pod on the runway and saw a baby in the back and a woman climbing into the front.

Then the image changed, and young Kara was in the front of the pod.

“Stop!” Kara yelled and it was if time stood still. Alura was frozen in place about to put a necklace around her young daughter’s neck as she was strapped in.

Kara walked over to her younger self. “That’s not what happened is it?”

The young girl was shaking her head too frightened to even cry, in total shock at the destruction going around her.

“Show me what happened. Something is missing. Show me.” Kara whispered.

The little girl shook her head.

“You have to. I need to know. This isn’t right, is it? What happened?” Kara insisted.

“Mother said to forget it. I did. I did what she told me to do. She said to forget, that everything would be okay and to not remember. I did as I was told.” The girl was rambling, her voice small and broken.

Kara stroked her younger self’s cheek. “I need to know. We need to know. We need the truth. We weren’t just placed in this pod, were we?”

The girl closed her eyes and shook her head frantically. “I don’t want to remember. It doesn’t matter. We must protect Kal El. That is all that matters. Nothing else. That’s it. I won’t disobey my mother.”

Kara cupped the girl by her chin and forced her to meet her eyes. “I beat Non and I beat Zor El’s monsters. I went through hell to do it and I am reliving this hell now. You will remember. I know something isn’t right here. I can almost see it! I can handle it, but I must know what happened. Show me now. Mother isn’t here. I am. Do as you are told.”

The young girl blinked rapidly then turned to look past Kara.

Leslie watched, mesmerized despite her fear. Young Kara was no longer in the pod. The front seat of the pod was empty. Instead, the younger girl stood next to Alura, watching as Lara prepare to enter the front seat.

“What are you doing? We had an agreement!” Alura shouted, at her husband or Jor El, Leslie wasn’t certain.

It was Zor El that spoke. “We have decided Lara will go. She is more qualified than Kara to recreate the Genesis chamber in the Fortress and use the Codex to recreate our race. Kara is not fit for the duty. As for our deal, Wife, I give you my permission to tell the council of our crimes.”

Alura moved her young daughter behind her, but the girl still peaked around. She saw everything.

“I feared you would betray me, husband.” Alura told him, standing straighter and reaching inside her robe.

Leslie watched Alura pull out some sort of gun, aim at Lara and fire, striking the woman in the head, burning a clean hole between her eyes.

She saw Jor El rush Alura, making it two steps before being felled by the same wound that killed his wife.

Alura then pointed the gun at Zor El, his eyes widened. She exclaimed, “ My daughter will live! “

Zor El had no time to respond as Alura shot him in the chest and then the head before he crumpled to the ground.

Leslie watched Alura pull the young girl to the pod and lift her up, placing the shocked child inside.

“Oh Rao.” Older Kara whispered next to her.

Leslie stood transfixed as Alura instructed young Kara. “Listen to me, Kara, forget what you just saw. It isn’t important. Do you understand me? Kara! Do you understand me?”

The little girl met her mother’s eyes and nodded.

“I forgot,” Kara whispered next to Leslie. “I did what mother told me, didn’t I?”

Leslie had no answer, her eyes never leaving the distraught woman and her daughter whose angelic little face was nearly catatonic in shock.

“I am so sorry, my love. I thought we would have more time. I was told we would have more time. Listen to me. It is important that you remember what I am saying now. Our planet is dying, but you will live. You and Kal El will be going to a planet far away called Earth. The destination is programmed in and you will go into stasis. Do you remember what I told you about stasis?”

The young girl nodded. Alura took her necklace off and put it around Kara’s neck.

“I want you to have this, so I will be with you… I will always be with you, Kara. Now, listen, okay? The Earth revolves around a yellow sun. The energy from the sun will give you great power. You have a bag in the back of the pod that you will need to keep with you. In it, you will find the answers, but when the time comes you will need to make a choice. I know you will make the right choice, just follow your heart.”

“What choice?” the little girl answered frantically, her blank face morphing back into one of fear.

“You will know. Kal El is yours now. Protect him, until you can protect each other. Survive, my Kara. Find happiness. I love you. I love you so much.”

“I will protect him, mother, I swear… I love you.” The little girl told her in a small voice.

Alura looked away from her daughter to her side. The young girl stared in front of her, too afraid to move. Leslie could not see what Alura was watching but she did see the woman pick up the gun from the ground. “Zod is coming. You must go. I am so sorry, Kara. I love you, more than you will ever know.”

Kara watched her mother type a command into a small standing console with one hand while her other held the gun to her side and fired, then kept firing.

She stopped watching when the cockpit slid down and the engines launched the pod quickly, too quickly to turn around and see who her mother was shooting at.

Leslie found herself in the cockpit, staring out at the city they were flying over. Buildings were sinking into lava pits and sinkholes opening from the ground but there was no sound. Then she heard it, the scream.

Young Kara, her Kara or maybe Leslie herself was screaming. Kal El was shrieking in the back of the pod.

The pod twisted, rolled over but continued to fly, gaining altitude quickly. She had never felt so out of control, a passenger strapped into a rocket.

A missile flew past her as the pod rolled away a split second before it would have been destroyed. Another thruster kicked in and the stars in the distance shown brighter, becoming trails of light.

She stared, unblinking, until the breath was knocked out of her by a tremendous force that would have thrown her through the front of the cockpit had she not been so securely strapped down.

Despite the soundproofing of the pod, the explosion was deafening, a sound she might have seen on television but never imagined in real life, only a million times louder.

The pod began to tumble. Up, down, right and left had no meaning any longer. The stars were gone, and the woman saw a dim cloud of light in the space that had previously been nothing but darkness.

Before she could scream again, she felt herself falling asleep, being forced to sleep as the air became colder and stasis set in.

Leslie suddenly woke to a needle being placed in her chest. She saw Alex standing over her, injecting some serum into her body and wanted to vomit.

Dr. Thompkins wondered if she were dying. Her head rolled to her left and she saw Kara had fallen off the table. She was vomiting on the floor, Clark trying to hold her.

“Leslie! Can you hear me?” a voice shouted above her.

“Alex?” Was that her voice? She sounded terrible.

“Yes, I want you to lay still. I just gave you a dose of adrenaline to get your heart started again. You had a heart attack. Do you understand me?” Alex questioned, sounding extremely concerned.

The woman tried to nod but couldn’t.

“I have you stabilized but we have to take you to a hospital. We are moving you to the Hangar door in Raleigh and an ambulance will be waiting outside. Dad and I will be with you. Just try and relax.” Alex said.

“She killed them. For me. She killed them so I could live.” Leslie mumbled, trying to clear her head, trying to differentiate her memories from Kara.

“Relax. It wasn’t real. You are here, okay? You are with me?” Alex continued to question her, attempting to help her focus.

It was real. Alex had no idea how real it was. “Kara?” the woman asked. She felt an IV in her arm and Jeremiah was placing her on a rolling cot. He then held a bag she recognized as saline over her head while Alex pushed her bed.

“Kara is fine. She is shocked but she will be fine. Mom is giving her the sedative band.” Alex assured her. “Kelex, I need an EKG on her and you are my EKG, so move with us. I knew I shouldn’t have let her go. I should have done it! Damn it!”

“Stay calm, Alex. She needs us now. We have to get her to a hospital in case she needs surgery.” Jeremiah’s ever calm voice told his daughter.

Despite Alex telling her to keep her eyes open, Leslie couldn’t.

When she woke again, the woman was in a hospital room. She could hear the beeps of a heart monitor, feel the sticky EKG leads on her chest, the multiple IVs in both arms and the incredible ache in her chest.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse and throat scratchy.

“You had a heart attack, you idiot.” A familiar voice told her. She raised her head slightly and saw Bruce Wayne standing next to her bed, Jeremiah next to him.

“My heart is fine.”

Jeremiah cleared his throat. “Actually, you had a ventricular fibrillation leading to a Demand Ischemia. Too much adrenaline was pumped into your heart at once. Your heart needed more oxygen than was in your blood leading to cardiac arrhythmia. We had to administer more adrenaline to start your heart…”

“In short, you were scared to death.” Bruce interrupted, cutting off the long-winded medical explanation. “I told you not to do it.”

Leslie shook her head. “How long have I been out?”

“Three days.” Bruce told her.

“And you have been sitting there. For three days. Just waiting to say, ‘I told you so’?” Leslie asked incredulously. “You are such an asshole, Bruce Wayne. How is Kara?”

Jeremiah took a deep breath and answered. “When we were forced to bring you out, she began vomiting and mumbling in Kryptonese, but Clark was able to somewhat pacify her while Eliza placed the sedative band on her. She slept for the first day and was a bit catatonic on the second but is now eating and speaking. She hasn’t told us what she saw, and I don’t suppose you want to either right now. We’ve all been taking turns staying with you while the rest of us stay with her in the Fortress. If anyone asks, we told the doctors you got lost in Raleigh trying to find the University and called us from an abandoned hangar. When I arrived, I found you on the ground and called an ambulance.”

Leslie sighed. “I need to get to Kara. Get me out of here. You can monitor me at the Fortress.”

“Not going to happen. They are going to want to observe you for a couple days to make sure there was no lasting damage.” Bruce told her. “After that, you can see Kara, but you are never going into her mind again.”

“Someone has to.” she argued. “No one should have to face that alone. I have a new respect for Dr. Ryan now. Kara had a repressed memory, Jeremiah. She had made herself forget what happened when she left Krypton.”

Jeremiah disagreed. “Kara has always remembered what happened when she left Krypton. Of course, it was horrible, but she always remembered it, even told details…”

Leslie stopped him. “She made herself forget. My mother… her mother told her to forget. She…”

Leslie laid her head back, very tired.

“I’m going to get you a mild sedative.” Jeremiah told her. “Work on getting your memories separated from hers, okay? This was a bad idea. We never should have tried it.”

Leslie lifted her head. “It’s the only way. She either sees them for herself and makes peace or they will come back in nightmares. Some may remain buried unless she unlocks them. The repressed memory? She recognized that she was forgetting something and made herself remember. Kara must do this, and someone needs to be with her, but it can’t be Alex. Please don’t let Alex do it. They have too many shared traumas and Alex has her own. They can’t stay impartial, they can’t separate themselves. They are too connected.”

With those words Leslie drifted off into sleep again without needing the sedative. Thankfully, she did not dream.

At the Fortress, Kara was sitting up in a bed, she felt no need to stay in, surrounded by her mother, brother and sister.

“Leslie just woke up. Kelex is monitoring the situation. It doesn’t look like there is any lasting damage.” Alex told her little sister, rubbing her back. ” Kara, we need to rethink this approach. Leslie can’t go back into your head and I’m not sure you can handle unlocking your memories this way either. Maybe I can tell you everything and we talk about it with her as we go?”

Kara shook her head. “I know how it works now. I can go back in alone. I need to see. I need the feelings behind those memories, Alex. If I don’t, how can I come to terms with them?”

Seeing her sister’s hesitation, she continued. “I need the truth. I discovered something… I remembered leaving Krypton. I remembered what a cold bastard Zor El truly was and I remembered something Mother told me to forget. I made myself forget it. I wasn’t just placed in a pod and sent off, feeling the blast before being lost in the Phantom Zone. It was worse. I saw something I never should have.” Kara told her.

“What did you see?” Alex asked carefully.

Kara looked at her surrounding family then reached for Clark’s hand. “Do you want to hear this? What I learned is very disturbing.”

“I can take it.” he assured her confidently.

Kara took a deep breath. She had spent the last 24 hours trying to decide if she should share this new information with Clark. Weighing everything out, she knew she couldn’t keep this a secret from him. In fact, she decided she wouldn’t keep secrets from him any longer. She wouldn’t keep secrets at all. Kara did not remember much after leaving Krypton, but she knew secrets had torn her apart, even secrets she kept from herself.

Kara looked at Alex who took her hand. “Can you ask Dad to come back? I don’t want to tell this twice.”

Twenty-two minutes later, Jeremiah walked back into the Fortress. He greeted them and kissed Kara’s cheek. “Leslie told me you had a repressed memory.”

Kara nodded as she glanced to each member of her family. Feeling a bit apprehensive, she leaned into Alex, hoping to draw on her sister’s strength as she recounted what she had learned, giving Clark her full attention.

“Clark, your parents and my father… they betrayed Alura. When mother and I got to the launch bay, Lara was about to get into the pod with you. Zor El and Jor El told Alura that Lara was going with you instead of me. The intention was for her to create a new Genesis Chamber to extract the Codex from you and create a new line of Kryptonians. They apparently thought I was too stupid to do it, or I wouldn’t do it.”

Kara saw the horrified looks on her parents’ faces and could feel Alex tensing as she was suddenly wrapped securely in her sister’s arms. Clark remained motionless, a stunned look on his face.

Kara took a couple of thought-clearing breaths before she continued, a small smile on her face when she remembered the fierceness her mother displayed as she rescued Kara from the planet’s death throes and the hands of her wicked family. “Unfortunately for them, my mother was prepared for their betrayal. She pulled a gun from her cloak and shot Lara point blank, before shooting Jor El and Zor El. She never hesitated… she killed them and put me into the pod with you. I was supposed to forget that. She wanted me to forget and I told her I would.”

Clark’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly.

“Wow.” He finally said. “The House of El was more screwed up than the Skywalkers.”

His expression softened as he looked at Kara. “Do you realize, if Lara would have come, I would probably have been stuck in some chamber in this Fortress my whole life while she took what she wanted? I would have been a prisoner, I wouldn’t have my sisters, or my Mom and Dad. I would just be a living Codex.”

The family saw Clark shiver at the thought and look around the Fortress with new eyes. Looking back at Kara, his voice broke as he reassured her in almost a whisper, tears sliding unchecked down his face. “You may be my cousin by birth, but you are my sister by choice… and you have always been my biggest supporter and fiercest protector. Lara didn’t love me, Kara, but you did. Alura showed you how to love and I’m the one who benefited because you took care of me when we landed here… when it would have been so much easier on you if you’d left me.”

“I love Alura.” Eliza whispered and wrapped her son in her arms tightly, Jeremiah’s arms surrounding both as he obviously struggled with his emotions.

Kara felt Alex shaking, heard her sniffling quietly. Kara’s smiled as she basked in the love of her family and finished her story. “Mother told me I would have a decision to make and to make the right one. I think Zod was trying to stop us from launching but Alura held him off until we were gone.”

“She made the right decision, Kara.” Alex told her, her voice breaking also. “She protected family first and to hell with the rest of the world. Isn’t that what we have always said we would do?”

Kara nodded in agreement. Yes, that had always been Alex and Kara’s number one mandate. Family first.

“And you made the right decision,” Alex assured her, “for Clark and for all of us. You could have done what Jor El’s hologram told you, but you told him to go to hell.”

Alex must have felt her sister’s hesitation, so she reiterated, “You made the right decision, Kara, and so did Alura.”

Pulling away from Alex so she could see her face clearly, Kara smiled sadly. “Yeah, she did, didn’t she? Thank you, Alex. Now, I need to see Leslie. I need to make sure she is alright. I put her through literal hell. In a few days though, you have to send me back in, alone this time.”

“No, Kara. You can’t do this alone. I’m going with you.” Alex’s expression left no room for misinterpretation.

“Leslie said that is a bad idea.” Jeremiah told his older daughter. “She said your experiences are too similar, that you can’t be impartial, and you have your own traumas to deal with.”

Alex shrugged her shoulders. “Leslie has been wrong before, you all have.”

There was no mistaking Alex’s meaning when she looked at Kara then stared pointedly at the other three in the room. “Leslie thought she could handle it and literally got scared to death. She wasn’t prepared for this. I am. Kara and I have fought worse. Nothing is going to scare me. I won’t let her go back alone so this is the only option.”

“No, it isn’t. I’ll go with her.” Jeremiah said quickly.

“No, you won’t Dad.” Kara told him immediately before Alex could say something she probably shouldn’t. “You and Mom… I’ve put you both through hell and reliving it, knowing my feelings… I felt everything. I saw myself… as a young girl. Sometimes I was me and sometimes I was her, but I felt everything. Leslie did too. You can’t see that. Mom has severe anxiety already. I don’t want you to have a heart attack as well.”

“I can go.” Clark offered.

“No!” both Kara and Alex answered loudly enough that Clark flinched.

Jeremiah hated this. He was much younger and healthier than Leslie, not that Leslie was in bad health for her age, she was actually pretty fit. At least her heart had been. He looked towards his wife who met his eyes for a moment then went back to holding Clark and staring at Kara.

“If you go into her head Alex, she could see into yours as well.” He threw that out knowing how much Alex hated anyone knowing her business, much less what was going on in her head.

The two girls looked at each other and to his surprise smiled.

“We have been in each other’s head for the past 14 years.” Kara admitted, smiling at her sister. “As much as I hate to say it, she is right. If I can’t go alone, Alex is the only one who can go with me.”

“And if she sees your memories, Alex?” Eliza asked, hoping to prevent what she feared could send both her daughters into a tailspin. “If she sees and feels what you have felt over the past year…”

“I want to see.” Kara interrupted her. The blonde turned to her sister, placing a hand gently on her cheek. “No matter what, I need to know what our separation did to you, among other things. So are you sure?”

Alex leaned into her touch, relaxing for the first time since Leslie nearly died. “We go together. As you said, nothing good has ever come from us separating. We will face the past and we will beat it. Together always, right?”

Kara smiled wider. “Together always.”

That decided, the two girls and Clark stood up.

“We need to make sure Leslie is okay. We are also probably going to need someone to talk to if she can’t do it. I don’t want her in danger anymore.” Kara said, looking around. “After remembering Krypton, I am really tired of this red sunlight light. Somebody grab me a bracelet. We do this again in four days. For now, let’s go to the hospital and then home. We need to be together, all of us, on the same page. In four days, Alex and I go into my mind. No matter what Bruce or Leslie says, this is happening. They are going to tell us it’s a bad idea, but we stand strong, together, right?”

The parents and Clark looked at each other, wondering if Kara could heal or Alex would come out of this experience worse. The three did know one thing for sure. The two girls were always better together than alone. Always.

“We stand strong.” Eliza assured them, looking straight at her oldest daughter who grinned despite herself at the approval. “I agree with Kara. Let’s get out of here.”