2015-12-25 - To All a Good Night

It's the end of a long week for Supergirl. In the Magellenic cloud, a meteorological event was astounding astronomers from here to Alpha Centauri, as a major asteroid belt shifted under the effects of a sun going supernova, altering its course by nearly five million miles and sending it passing through other areas of space. The sight from a telescope was astounding, I'm told.

The sight from the planet directly in the new path of the asteroid belt's temporary deviation was less so. More terrifying and world-ending than astounding, one would assume, as for an entire week the asteroid belt sent hundreds of thousands of rocks and chunks of ice, large and tiny, toward the populated planet of Taui Seven.

Supergirl, with the help of the Legion of Super-Heroes who were able to get there fast enough, have been working tirelessly, deflecting and destroying asteroids, but most of them have slept once in a while.

Kara has always said that she doesn't really need sleep. She was given the opportunity to prove it, and with the planet's cheering still in her mind, she floats home toward her apartment with her mind still racing, still working even though the job is over, and flat-out exhausted.

Leah, cosplayer extraordinaire and roommate to the incoming tired hero, is currently sitting on the couch petting the cat. Which would be a wonder and a surprise, if Kara was mentally up to dealing with it. Especially since nobody's bleeding.

Kara Zor-El remembers when, on Krypton, she really loved sleeping. Positively lazy sometimes. Ever since leaving Krypton and discovering her powers, she almost never felt tired or fatigue. She thought it would be nice to actually feel tired or hungry or stuff like that again, for a little while.

Rao, Kara.... that was a moronic thought to have. Because being exhausted sucks.

Kara finally makes it back to Earth and to her apartment. She hadn't been able to leave Leah much reason why she was gone, except that note she hastily put on the refrigerator. 'Got call from people from future. Have to save planet in Taui system. Be back in a week or so. - K'

She opened the door to the balcony and came inside.

Correction. Trudged inside. Floating around took too much effort.

She sits down by Leah and Streaky on the couch. Then rests her head on Leah's lap. 'Move aside Streaky. I need this' she thought to herself. Talking took too much effort. Tough. Streaky was going to have to learn mind-reading.

In her oversized Hello Kitty Zombie shirt, Leah takes in Kara as she flumps onto the couch and into her lap. "Hey, you!" she starts to say, then blinks. Even the cat seems subdued, only getting off her lap and hissing at Kara from the floor and not trying to actually slash at the Kryptonian at all!

With Kara's head in her lap, she frowns and brushes Kara's hair out of her eyes, then looks at her face. "Wow. Tell me the other guy looked worse and I won't believe it. You okay hon? What can I do?"

She looks, then realizes she's never seen Kara like this. It's not just the tiredness. She almost looks...twitchy? Yeah.

Kara Zor-El mumbles something, waving her hand at wherever Streaky went off to. Then looks up at Leah. "The other guy was a few hundred thousand asteroids and comets and I think a few small moons that were all trying to smash into a populated planet in the Tau system. For one. Straight. Week. Nonstop. Me and a bunch of other superheroes from the future were trying to stop it but I'm the one who doesnt need to sleep so I was doing it the whole time. And it finally stopped after one of them figured out how to shut off whatever was causing it to happen. And they're like... going to set up some sort of assault soon. Like probably in a day or two and need me back but I needed to get some chocolate and hot dogs and stuff. They don't have those in the Tau system. I mean... all those guys eat on that planet are like..... tree bark or something."

Leah leans down and kisses Kara on the forehead, then says, "Something I can do," as she tries to slip out from under Kara's head. Putting a couch cushion under Kara's head in place of her lap, she's off to the kitchen quickly, but as she works she's thinking.

"I know that you don't NEED sleep, hon," she says as she tosses together some food that Kara will actually eat. "I'm kind of thinking you'd better try though. You look like your brain is still on the job, and if you need to go BACK?" She comes back into the room, carrying some sandwiches with hot dogs warming on the stove for seconds, and her secret chocolate stash on the side of the plate.

"Yeah, after you eat...do you think you can sleep yet?"

Kara Zor-El looks up at the ceiling while lying on the couch. "Leah, I could have gone to sleep while I was flying back from the Tau system a .998 C.... The only thing keeping me from sleeping right now is I want hot dogs and chocolate and whatever other junk food we have."

Leah smiles her warm smile, happily handing the food over and going back for more. "I'll have hot dogs hot in two minutes. You can time me if you want. Don't worry, I know how you like them by now. In large quantities without being interrupted." She blows Kara a kiss and goes for the dogs, the pot starting to boil on the stove.

Leah is back just over two minutes later with a big plate of hot dogs, hoping to see Kara passed out over the first plate. Seeing her still conscious, she schools herself to calm and presents arms. Which means that she puts the food within Kara's reach and backs away carefully. She's still worried about Kara getting the rest she obviously needs.

Kara Zor-El reaches over haphazardly to get a hot dog and puts it in her mouth while her eyes are closed. "mghsooo nmeeended thsnms" she says with a full mouth as she goes to get another one, or at least reaches in the general vicinity of the hot dogs.

Leah gives Kara what she needs. Which is, for now, freedom from being attacked by the cat and ten minutes alone with her food. She turns off her music in passing so that won't be an issue, and grabs her christmas chocolates that she was already opening early because Leah has no self-control and knows it, and puts that in front of the exhausted young lady as well without a word. When Kara is ready, she'll let her know.

"You'll let me know if you need anything, right?" Leah asks, ignoring her own thoughts. No self-control, remember? "I can probably whip up some ice cream and donuts too but for anything more I'll need to do a store run."

Thank goodness that Kara has that Kryptonian metabolism going for her so she always looks like... well.... like Kara looks. Because she eats those hot dogs mighty fast. When Leah offers ice cream and donuts, Kara just puts a thumbs up motion with her hand. Then pauses. "Forgot to ask um... how's astronaut training going?"

Leah frowns as she gets the entire litre bucket of ice cream and a spoon. With the donuts she was planning to use for other more nefarious purposes under her arm, she drops that load just as Kara's finishing the hot dogs. All twelve of them.

"Don't worry about me and my stuff, I'm okay hon. Most of the force is going on vacation for two weeks so there's only homework and studying, which I can do in my sleep though it's not recommended."

She winks at Kara, grinning, and adds, "I do keep getting compliments of how I'm such a placid, gentle, calm and level-headed person shut the hell up. I have to assume that they're not paying attention. Apparently I'm being trained for some solar biology experiment that they need someone to run and totally isn't important right now. Eat your donuts."

Some might say what Kara was doing being a glutton. Kara might say until you've punched or redirected hundreds of thousands of asteroids and small moons trying their hardest to collide with a planet when those objects were travelling at tens of thousands of miles per hour EACH... that they can just go suck an egg.

She starts on the ice cream as she forces herself to sit up for that. This looked like a job for Supergirl.

Kara starts eating while she looks over at Leah. She didnt even get to say something about being 'placid, gentle, calm and level headed before being told to shut up, so she fills her mouth with more ice cream instead. "Solar body experiment?" Leah smiles. The fact that Kara's mis-hearing what she's saying is worrying her even more. She sits, crossing her legs, and says, "We'll talk about it later. I'm gonna help you relax so you can crash, mkay? I'm a nurse, part of the job. Just don't ask me to sing, I sing like a drunken cow on acid."

A complete lie, she's joking a bit to let Kara wind down and puts her hands in her lap so she's not giving a panty shot. Kara doesn't need that either right now. "Have you tried meditating? I meditate sometimes when I need rest."

Kara Zor-El looks over at Leah. "Tried that once. It... didn't work out well." Leah looks thoughtful, her face crossing from concerned into more productive territory. "Maybe your teacher wasn't the right one for you, or it was a bad time. Who was it?" She gives her head a little shake, knocking her hair into her face which she blows out of her eyes reflexively. "We can try again if you want. No pressure though, the whole point is to try not to think of anything at all."

Kara Zor-El looks over at Leah. "Batgirl. Technically Batman too I guess." She pauses. "I don't do well at just staying still and quiet."

Leah pushes over a bag of doritos, seeing as how Kara's nearly polished off the food that she's got, and gets up to go nab some chocolate milk and some more from the fridge. "Batgirl. Huh. Well, hey, how about music?" She's grinning, coming back in with the jug of choc milk. "Crank up the music and drown out the world for a while. Works like a hot damn for me." She keeps subtly feeding Kara as they talk, plying her with the rest of the shortbread cookies with the milk.

Kara Zor-El shrugs a little. "I guess maybe? I usually just like music for dancing to it. I don't think it would be like... you know.... relaxing except for it being a break from superheroing." She eats some doritos. It's evil that she still has that figure. Positively evil.

"Plus I'm pretty sure once the people I'm teamed up with from the future find out the source of the problem they're doing to need me to come back. They said they'd 'let me know' within the next day or so."

Leah nods, letting Kara have time with the bag and the jug of chocolate milk. "Right. Well, it sounds like you don't need me keeping you awake any longer," she says, then pushes the button in the kitchen to start the kettle. "Oh hey, you want an herbal tea? They help people relax, since I doubt my sleeping pills would have any effect. Hey, would they? I actually don't know."

Kara Zor-El pauses. "Pretty sure it won't really affect me. Yeah... sleeping pills won't work. Plus I'm fine with being able to sleep right now."

Leah comes into the room then, holding a cup of tea for herself, and smiles. She leans on the door frame, looking at the empty plates and bags and ice cream buckets and the absolute devastation that Kara's made to their food supplies, and lets that be enough. "I think so too. Come on, little one. Let me get you to bed."

So Kara finds Leah's hand taking hers, and her smile and honest affection waiting. "C'mon. Saving the world will wait for tomorrow, my little hero." If Kara allows it, Leah draws her up and toward the room with a pillow that's prepared and waiting.

Kara Zor-El gets up to take Leah's hand, then pauses, grabs the Doritos, and heads to the room to get a good night's super-sleep.

And with a hug from her family and a kiss on the head, Kara Zor-El found herself snug in her bed. Leah tucked her in, and gave her a smile, and she whispered "It's good to have you home," as she'd known all the while.

And Kara heard her whisper, as Leah turned out the light. "Merry Christmas, love," to the sleeping girl, and to all a good night.