Alex POV

"This is hell, we can barely handle a Supergirl, and four show up. They must be rolling in a bed with the demon of the light by now." Galiard, at the commander's table. Fort Lion new young commander. A brat capable of drive Manson nuts, and the man was already insufferable on his own. And the milky-smelling blonde spat more shit out of his mouth than if he wore a diaper.

"So there'll be five problems," replied Aioan, another baby boy at the vacant outpost of Fort Primordial.

God in heaven, this was hell, putting up with a bunch of aging teenagers. Fort Lion, Pick, Primordial and Ell, all with new commanders, as the previous ones did not withstand Rainer's attack. Alex limited herself to just passing the data they had, and yes, they didn't know the whereabouts of Krugger, nor the four supers, after the fight. Which yielded at least another five theories of the bananas in pajamas. Occasionally, she shared Anri's embarrassed, pained look of embarrassment. Even Arlet didn't want to open his mouth, and he was always the one to put an end to the most fervent arguments, but that wasn't an argument. It was pure bullshit with bad taste.

Please, Krugger, come here and kill us all. It's better than listening to this bunch of idiots. Alex thought.

End of meeting, and each commander left the broadcast. Manson, Arlet, Anri and Sigmeyer stayed at the table for an extra word with the head of the Warhammer.

"Now we can talk without a shit truck jumping out of those brats mouth." Said Manson, for the first time without the need to be censored. "General Danvers. Why Commander Luthor didn't attend an emergency meeting like this?"

"Commander Danvers," cleared Anri's throat.

"No Anri, it's okay." Asked Alex, too tired to fight. "Commander Luthor was unwell today. As you know, they shot her in the Rainer attack."

"So, all of us too, but we are here to save the world; what's left of it." Manson replied, indifferent to a gunshot, or family losses like those of Sigmeyer, who still kept silent with his swollen eyes. Or Arlet, contained in his thick eyebrows.

"Holy fuck, man, she got shot!" Shouted Anri.

"Fuck you crasher..."

"ENOUGH YOU TWO!!!" How good it was to hear Arlet's wisdom.

"I think we'll get old doing this." Alex laughed, even if it wasn't room for it, and even though they were in hell, it wasn't so bad to see the commanders' humor and their silly catchphrases. Their repeated jokes. Like a hero sitcom, where amid the last battle, the villains are caught by a bunch of phantoms, because they are bad and sad, so they will lose for the heroes. She could live with those silly, repeated jokes which were the best world at the worst.

***

The best at the worst. Do you know how difficult it is to see something like that? Alex knew, knew well the intimacy of pain, of hate, like an addictive passion. The redhead finished the shift on the bridge, dismissing everyone. The day had been a long one, with at least 25 hours of meetings and conferences with intelligence, both from the fort and from other facilities, all trying to understand how four supers had sprung up there. But the answer didn't seem all that important. After all, the only Supergirl she cared about was now with Lena, and sincerely she wished that her sister and her wedge... ah fuck!

My sister, and my FUCKING sister-in-law!!! Make up for the love of God. She thought.

Hard is life, but often it's even worse when you stick your foot in a hole and don't get out of it before you continue. Dragging unfinished business is the worst sentence. Where you don't live, you survive. And that's not life, not for rational and complicated beings like humans. Rule that applies to everyone, regardless of the planet of origin, the entire universe complies with this clear rule.

"You can go. I'll turn the rest off. Have a good rest, Jena." said to the hacker, rubbing her shoulders shyly.

"You're the one who needs to rest," Commented Jena, lifting her glasses, before leaving the room. "Good night, Commander Danvers." The brunette left the bridge with a notebook in hand and a twinkle in her eyes.

Alex turned off all the appliances and went to the corridor in front of the main hangar. She leaned against the balustrade, rubbing the base of her left ring finger, as if something was missing from there. After a few seconds, she let herself be carried away by a memory. One that sometimes hurt, but sometimes made her smile.

The joyous leaps of a little girl screaming: Mommy, Mommy. Until her little arms wrapped around her neck, and taken in the redhead's lap. The short walk to find her wife's warm lips in the middle of the room.

It was the most terrifying and beautiful memory she had. Things change, and thankfully they do. And amid that chaos called past, it brought the sincerely smile of the warm little joy of the moment, remembering how funny it was when that little one pulled Lena and Kara by the hand to play wedding, or how ridiculous it was to see their expressions of: Nothing happen here.

Then the bogeyman of tragedy approached, taking a seat beside her, murmuring what happened, and those responsible for it. On the other side came the alluring and sweet hatred in the form of the perfect lover, with her gentle voice and passionate kisses of revenge, whispering the obscenities as a voluptuous creature. But they realized that somehow they were speechless, even if they opened their mouths. Alex threw her head back, and the only thing she could hear was her wife's laughter at the slapstick time bride's kiss with Aunt Kara and Aunt Lena. And how much Esme complained they didn't play right then.

"How can you adults not know what a married kiss is?! Mom, show them how it's done!"

Said the little one, dressed as a priest with angel's wings, facing the two kneeling women, redder than a clown's nose.

The redhead smiled, turned around, and left the two mute monsters there. She made her way to the bedroom alone. She ran her pulse over the reader, and her ears were filled with the shower's sound. Laughing a little at the visitor's habit of always dropping her clothes along the way, she gathered them up and placed them on the armchair with her pistol belt. She sat up in bed, staring at her worktable, which was crammed with half a dozen reams. Being a commander was slightly heavy.

"Enough of work for today, Commander." Jena said with the door closing behind her, leaving the weapons belt on the floor.

"Alex," she said, there was no need for the formality of uniforms inside that room.

"Come on, not every day you go back to your original position," Jena said slyly, in front of the redhead. "I like to call you that way." she opened her blouse halfway so that Alex could finish the zipper.

The redhead opened her blouse and tugged at her belt, letting her pants slide down. She was thrown onto the bed, and the hacker's thighs wrapped around her waist. Assaulting her under the uniform while the other hand ripped the belt off her silenced pistol.

Jena's short brown strands made a curtain around the redhead's face, taken in a kiss. It didn't really matter how they started, it always ended the same way. Her uniform tossed around somewhere, and her shirt had quickly taken off. Remaining only the black bra, but that would probably have the same fate as the rest of the uniform.

They both chuckled at each other's lips as the commander sat on the edge of the bed with Jena on her lap, struggling with the bundle of the last piece of clothing. When the sound of the shower ended, and the beam opened at the fingertips of the woman above her.

"Tonight, we'll have a commander in this bed." Mara at the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel that emphasizes her breasts, her dark hair wet on her damp skin.

"Destroyer," sighed the redhead, just before being pulled to the hacker's lips.

***

Krugger POV

It wasn't a common rain, for a world reduced to ashes, water falling from the sky was something rare. But that place was special, so everything wouldn't be all that normal. Especially with such a resident, the one responsible for bringing out a hero's worst nightmare.

In the ruins of a city lost in war, four newly closed graves flanked her. Letting the rain wash her hair, and pale uniform, dyed red. Face hidden between her knees, which pressed a little closer to her chest. Sored; punches, kicks, powerful blows from the supers, but they barely reached the pain inside, the regret, the lack she felt.

Four tombstones rose from the tombs, the shovel abandoned on top of them, soiled with the same earth, staining their arms with mud. The same name engraved on them: KARA DANVERS.

And the nightmare tightened in the lonely embrace.

"I promise I'll kill them all; Kara." said she, with a tear running down without permission, to the memory of the ones she had buried with her own hands.

***

Keep goning Alex. And this ending...does the devil cry? Supercorps, tell me what you think, a big thank to you for come till here, and a huge wolf hug from the author, see you all in the next Within.