Chapter Text
“We have to get those kids out of that house.” Kelly leaned against one of the desks in the tower.
Kara nodded. “I agree. They deserve the same chance I had, to grow up in safe and loving homes. They don’t deserve to be stuck in that house with power blockers.”
Sure, they’d managed to get Joey out of that house, but what about Esme and the other eight kids who lived there.
“I’m working on getting a list of everyone in Miss Hoschild’s care along with their backgrounds so we can find them suitable permanent placements.”
Kara nodded. “Good. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“With your knowledge, it might help us to get an idea of what types of powers the kids have,” Kelly suggested.
“Sure, what do you have so far?”
With Lena still in Ireland, Kara would take any job to keep her mind off how weird it was not having her around. Especially with her lingering symptoms from the place she didn’t like to think about.
“Well, so far I’ve managed to get information on two of the girls I met Esme and Marta. Neither have families on Earth and nobody seems to have much idea where their birth parents are. Marta is six and she’s a Carggite.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of those. If I remember rightly, she should have some kind of power to multiply herself. I don’t think she’s technically an alien though. I thought Carggites were native to Earth.”
Kelly shrugged. “You’d know more than me.”
Kara nodded. “And Esme?”
“Her file says she’s half human.”
“And the other half?” Kara asked, leaning on the desk, a donut halfway to her mouth.
“Apparently she’s from somewhere called Daxam.”
Kara froze, the donut slipping from her fingers and landing on Lena’s keyboard.
“Did you say she’s half Daxamite?”
Kelly nodded, looking curiously at Kara. “Should that mean something to me.”
“Mon-El was a Daxamite. I sometimes forget you weren’t in the city for the Daxamite invasion.”
Kelly looked thoughtful for a moment. “I remember the news coverage. The timeline is right. She’s right around four years old. Do you think some Daxamite could have had a relationship with an Earth woman?”
Kara’s mind lit up with the possibilities. None of them were good. “What does she look like?” Kara asked.
Kelly slid a photo across the desk and Kara came face to face with a little girl with the cutest little pigtails that ended in brown ringlets. Her stomach somersaulted.
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Kara, what is going on?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” At Kelly’s curious look, she decided to elaborate a little. “The way I see it, there are three possibilities here. Option one,” she said, ticking it off on her fingers, “some human and a Daxamite had a little fun time during the invasion. Honestly, seems a little unlikely. If you’d met them, you’d understand.”
She paused, leading into the more likely and far more unfortunate scenarios. “Option two, Mon-El had quite a bit of… fun when he first arrived here. It’s possible he impregnated someone and we never knew about it.”
Kelly nodded. “Okay. Well, that’s not ideal, but easy to test. And what is option three?”
Kara sucked in a deep breath. “You can’t speak a word of this to anyone, even Alex, not until we’re sure.”
“I…”
“Not a word,” Kara urged.
Kelly nodded. “Okay.”
“The third option… Rhea, Mon-El’s mother, she kidnapped Mon-El and Lena, she had some twisted notion of marrying them and making a royal baby.”
“And you think she did it?” Kelly asked.
Kara shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I know she took their DNA, sperm, eggs, whatever. I thought she died before she got a chance to do it, but this world isn’t our world, so maybe things were a little different here.”
Kelly leaned closer. “You’re saying, there’s a chance that child is Lena Luthor’s flesh and blood?”
Kara nodded. She glanced at the photo again. There was more than a passing resemblance.
“What do we do?”
“We need proof. I don’t want to dredge all this up again if it’s not even hers. We need to know for sure and if it is… if Esme is Lena’s daughter, I’ll talk to Lena.”
“Okay, I’ll sort out a court order for Esme’s DNA, you figure out how to get Lena’s.”
Kara shot out of the open door of the tower, making a quick trip to Lena’s high-rise apartment. Though Lena wasn’t home, Kara had promised to keep an eye on things and Lena had left her with a key to the apartment and balcony door.
Something about sneaking in and searching for Lena’s DNA left her feeling like a complete criminal. They had promised no more secrets and this felt dangerously close to a secret. But, Kara reasoned, Lena was out of town and there was no point bringing up her past trauma if it wasn’t necessary.
She found what she needed in the bathroom and thanked Lena’s constant state of travel readiness for leaving behind both her regular toothbrush and hairbrush in favor of her ready packed travel essentials.
Kara snagged the hairbrush and headed back to the tower, calling Alex on the way.
“I need you to do a DNA test for me. I’ll explain why later, just… meet me at the tower when you can.”
“I’m just heading there now,” Alex replied. “Kelly wanted to talk to me.”
An hour later, Lena’s DNA stared at them from the computer screen. They just needed something to compare it to.
It took another two days for Kelly to get a blood sample from the little half Daxamite girl by which time Kara was getting antsy about keeping this potentially huge thing from Lena.
“That DNA you got me to run the other day, and this one, they’re a match. Mother and daughter as best I can tell. You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Shit,” Kara swore under her breath. “Yes, but there’s someone I need to talk to first. Just… give me an hour. I promise I’ll explain.”
Alex shrugged and Kara zoomed from the tower, heading east for Newfoundland and the woman whose life she was about to change. Lena Luthor had a daughter.