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Linda Danvers was haunted. A corpse in the corner of her eye, the voice of the dead drowning out her thoughts. A dead girl from a dead earth, begging for her life. A daughter that never was, and a mother that could never be.
“Please,” Her voice was broken, rough from hours of begging, sobbing, all to fall on deaf ears. “Please don’t make me go die.” Linda almost wished it was Ariella. Most days. To hear her daughter beg, knowing she’d done all she could, that she’d protected her as well as she was able. It would have been preferable to listen to Ari, even if it would feel like losing her all over again. “Linda, please, you said you would protect me! Don’t let them kill me!”
Linda dragged her eyes up, to look at the specter head on. Blue eyes filled with tears, blonde hair slightly windswept, the beginning of a bruise blossoming on her cheek; And a red cape wrapped around her shoulders like a death shroud. Kara Zor-El, a girl who, as far as the world was concerned, had never lived at all. She was still so young, she looked younger the older Linda got. Linda had turned thirty-two last month. Kara hadn’t had the chance to hit twenty-two.
“You’ll protect me won’t you?” The girl Linda had all but killed looked back at her, eyes full of an unearned hope. “You said you would, so you’ll save me, won’t you?”
Linda took a breath. She didn’t like talking to Kara. It made her feel like she was losing her mind. God, she probably was. Holed up in a cabin like a hermit, with no one for company but the ghost of Supergirls’ past.
“Linda?”
“Kara.” She looked away, kept her eyes down as she spoke. “You know I can’t. You-”
“Yes, you can!” Kara was smiling now, the unshed tears glistening in her eyes, but her young face so, so full of hope. “You’re Supergirl! You ca-,”
“No! Kara, listen!” Kara flinched back, smile shrinking. “Kara. You’re already dead. You know that. There’s. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do. I want to help you, you have to believe that, I really do. But. You’re dead. You’re dead, and I’m talking to myself.”
Kara’s face shuttered, an emotionless look overtaking her features. “That’s not nice, Linda. I just wanted to help people. And have fun.” Her eyes bore into Linda’s. “Why couldn’t I have that? It isn’t fair.”
“I know. It isn’t.” Linda reached out. Wrapped her arm around Kara’s shoulder. Kara leaned in, mask breaking, as she began to sob again.
Linda held the air around her, as a dead girl’s pleas filled her ears.
“Please, please. Please…”