Home is Where the Heart Is
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine. I’m just borrowing them for a while and will return them when I am finished.
Author’s Notes- I’ve seen a few people theorizing about a time difference between the alternate dimension and this one and Kenjkat’s beautiful heartbreaking headcanon on the subject, but I started thinking about and went “what if it was the opposite?” What if time moves quickly for MC and not everyone else? Kind of a Chronicles of Narnia scenario. This was immediately born.
Paring- Grayson/MC
Rating- PG
Summary- Each day Lexi spends away from her loved ones feels like an eternity and as days becomes months and months become years, she wonders if she’ll ever find her way home.
Words- 1652
It takes over a year for her to stop crying every night.
A year of restless nights, dreaming of the man she loves and wishing for Grayson’s strong arms. A year of thinking about Poppy and Dax and Kenji and Eva and wondering how they fared after the battle. A year of desperately trying to find a way home.
“If it was that simple, we would have come for you years ago.” Her mother tells her over and over, her voice vaguely reproachful.
Lexi simply nods, but that doesn’t stop her from hoping or for exploring every possibility. She gets to know her home, except it’s not home. This is not her place, these are not her people. They call her daughter, granddaughter, sister, but she doesn’t know any of them. But in time she grows to care for them.
She learns to answer to “Staria”, but still thinks of herself as Lexi. She learns to laugh and smile again, but her heart always aches.
Her parents push her towards a nice young man, “you were chosen for each other as infants” and that’s nice, but a little intimidating. Besides he’s not Grayson and she knows she can never love anyone else.
A year becomes two and she starts to wonder if she should move on. She wonders if they’ve given up looking for her yet. Maybe they think she’s dead.
She learns more about her family and her home, though her parents are vague about certain things and she feels there is still so much that she doesn’t know. She has no special abilities here, no strength or flight, she is just a normal girl. She figures it’s a Krypton/Earth thing.
By the beginning of the third year, she tries to stop thinking about Grayson, because when she does, she wonders if he’s moved on. She begins to drift towards that nice young man because maybe she can grow to care, even if it’s not the deep love she felt for Grayson.
Year three is also when she begins to lose hope and accept that this is her life now. This is the world she was born in and maybe it’s where she belongs. Maybe her other life was nothing more than a brief interlude. She smiles more and makes an effort to be part of the family, part of the village.
She accepts more invitations from that nice young man, though she still keeps a polite distance because every time she thinks about turning friendship into romance she remembers the kindest eyes she’s ever seen and she can’t do it. She can’t make herself stop loving Grayson, no matter how hard she tries. Even if she never sees him again, she has come to realize she will always love him.
It is her father who comments on her misery. “You left someone behind, yes? Someone you really love?”
“Yes.” She answers immediately. Her relationship with Grayson had been new, or at least the romantic element, but she had already been sure she loved him. Three years apart doesn’t change that, if anything it shows her how strong those feelings were and it makes her ache for everything they could have had.
Her father is quiet for a long moment. “I must think on this,” he says suddenly and leaves her.
Weeks later, he approaches and motions for her to come with him, telling her it is quite urgent. He leads her to a field.
“This is where we lost you,” he tells her.
She has heard bits and pieces of the story, how it was a family picnic and she crawled away only to disappear from their sight and was then lost to them for years.
Her father looks like he has suddenly aged decades as he hands her a crystal. “This will open the gate,” he tells her. “Though I cannot guarantee when and where you will go back to. But I believe that if you focus on the one you love, the heart will guide you.”
Lexi takes the crystal. She has a million questions. How long had they known about this? Why were they only telling her now?
“Because your heart does not belong here,” her father says quietly, “your mother hasn’t accepted that, but I now know that our Staria was lost to us many, many years ago.”
“I love you,” Lexi whispers, the words coming out on their own power.
He smiles sadly, “and I love you, my daughter. Enough to let you go.” He pauses. “We have found that, barring extraordinary circumstances like those that brought you back to us, the portal only opens every few years and always after the green moon.”
Which had just passed, Lexi realizes, thinking of the spectacular sight she had witnessed the night before.
“So this is my one shot,” she says quietly. Unless she wants even more time to pass.
“Yes,” her father answers, “this has been the first green moon since we lost you.” So they must come every twenty-eight or so years, Lexi theorizes. Definitely, more time than she wants to wait. Suddenly the sky begins to crackle.
“Go!” Her father urges, “the time nears.”
Lexi nods and hurries to the spot he points to, the crystal clutched in her hand. Suddenly the crystal is alive in her hand and she can feel herself being pulled away.
“Goodbye Staria,” she can hear her father call out as the world begins to spin.
She finds herself landing on a hard surface, staring up at a bright blue sky for the first time in too long.
“Starstorm!”
She hears her name being called and sees Talos running towards her, Minuet right behind him. “We thought you were gone!”
Lexi blinks, looking around and seeing the aftermath of the battle. It’s like no time at all has passed. She asks them hoarsely how long she was gone and Minuet shrugs. “Maybe 5, 10 minutes? Enough to make us all fear the worst.”
10 minutes.
Not three years.
10 minutes.
The reality hits and she falls to the ground, suddenly overwhelmed.
“We need to get to the Clock Tower,” Talos tells her as he helps her to her feet. “So Dax can check out you.”
She nods, knowing he’s right, but… “I need to see Grayson,” she says adamantly, “I need to tell him…”
Talos and Minuet both look alarmed, but after studying her face, Minuet nods. “I’ll get him,” she assures her, “you just get to the Clock Tower.”
Lexi nods and concentrates on flying because it’s been so long since she’s done it, but in no time she’s in the air. She’s a little disoriented, no longer familiar with her city after 3 years away. She lands at the Tower and as soon as she’s inside, Poppy throws her arms around her.
“Don’t scare me like that!” She cries. “We thought you were gone.”
“I was,” Lexi says quietly, “for three years.”
She fills them in briefly on what happened. “
Time must work differently there,” Dax theorizes, “but your parents looked like normal age?”
“Yes,” Lexi says slowly, thinking of how everyone avoided the topic of time. She thinks of her mother’s defensiveness and her father’s sadness and suddenly wonders just how long they waited for her return.
“I’m not immortal am I?” She asks in horror.
“I have no idea,’ Dax tells her, throwing his hands up, “I’m working blind here. But we can figure that out later.”
Lexi nods. “I want clean clothes,” she tells him, heading to the bathroom. She dresses quickly and then studies her face, trying to see if three years have changed it at all, though she doesn’t think so.
She goes back to the main area, just as Eva, Kenji, and Grayson enter. Lexi can see the relief on his face as soon as he sees her.
“I thought…” He whispers, running to take her in his arms. “I thought you were gone.”
Maybe she should be surprised that he figured it out, but after all that has happened nothing surprises her. Besides, she’s spent three years longing for him and he’s finally right there and that is all that matters.
Lexi presses her lips to his, kissing him with a force that seems to surprise him, even as he kisses her back. “I love you,” she whispers against her lips, knowing she’ll explode if she goes a minute longer without saying those words. Though as soon as she says them, a wave of panic hits her. She knows how she feels, has had three years to be sure of her feelings, but for him, this is still new…
“I love you too,” he tells her immediately, “I think I always have.”
Those are the sweetest words she has ever heard and she kisses him again, wanting this moment to last forever. A loud cough finally reminds her that they are no longer alone and forces them to break apart.
“As touching as this reunion is,” Eva comments, “I think we all want to know exactly what happened up there.”
Lexi nods, pulling out of Grayson’s embrace, but grabbing a hold of his hand and leading him to one of the couches.
“I don’t know where to start,” she begins, glancing at Grayson, “your father…”
“Is dead, right?” She nods. He sighs, “I figured as much. I… I’m sure it’ll hit me later.”
Lexi squeezes his hand.
“I’m just glad you’re ok,” he tells her, “and that you are here with me.”
“Me too,” Lexi says and then begins to tell her tale, her thoughts turning briefly to her parents, especially her father. She feels a wave of sadness at the thought of how long they must have mourned her and a feeling of gratitude for the father who had loved her enough to let her go back to the place where she belonged.
The place where her heart was.
- End
