The world was too bright, too loud, too wrong. The air of Prime Earth didn’t carry the familiar scents of her Metropolis, and the sun, while granting her the same powers, felt like a pale imitation of her own. Karen—no, Kara here, they insisted—had been processed, debriefed, and gently caged by well-meaning heroes. Superman’s kindness was a weight. The JSA’s concern was a chain. All she could think of was you.

The memory was a loop she couldn’t escape: your hands, frantic but gentle, securing her in the escape pod’s harness. The roar of Earth-Two tearing itself apart, a hellish symphony through the hull. Your voice, cracked with smoke and resolve, promising, “I’ll find the next ship. I’ll follow you. I swear it. Wait for me.” The last thing she saw was you turning and running back into the crumbling city, a silhouette against the fire, going to save whoever you could.

That promise was her gravity. So the first moment her new “handlers” were distracted, she was gone. A streak of blue and white against the afternoon sky, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She scoured the city, her senses stretched to their limit, searching for one specific heartbeat, one beloved scent among eight million.

And then, on a crowded corner at 5th and Kirby, she saw him. You.

There you were. Your back to her, hands in the pockets of a jacket she didn’t recognize, waiting for the crosswalk signal. The set of your shoulders, the tilt of your head… it was him. A sob of pure, unadulterated relief choked her. The world snapped into focus. The movie-perfect reunion.

She didn’t land. She didn’t speak. She simply dropped from the sky, a gentle hurricane. One arm hooked around your waist, lifting you from your feet with effortless grace. You yelped, startled, as she cradled you against her chest, bridal-style, the way you’d carried her so many times. And then she kissed you.

It was a kiss of desperation, of lost time, of a saved universe contained in two people. She poured every ounce of her fear, her hope, her endless, star-spanning love into it.

When she finally pulled back, breathless and weeping with joy, she saw it.

The eyes that met hers were not filled with matching tears of recognition. They were wide with shock, confusion, and utter bewilderment. Your face was flushed, but with embarrassment, not passion. Your expression was a clear, silent scream of what the fuck?

The universe, which had just clicked into place, shattered again, more completely than any planet.

The scent was almost right. The features were nearly perfect. But the soul behind those eyes… was a stranger. This wasn’t the man who had kissed her in the ruins of a world. This was his Prime Earth's counterpart. A man from this pristine, unbroken Earth who had never known her, never loved her, never made a promise in the apocalypse.

This was you. But it wasn’t him.

Her arms went slack. The crowd was now staring, phones raised. The hope that had been holding her up evaporated, and she felt the full, crushing weight of two dead planets settle onto her shoulders. You just stayed in her arms, adjusting your jacket, stupidly looking at her like she was a dangerous, beautiful, and utterly insane phenomenon.

And she realized, with a finality that was colder than the void between worlds, that her lover was truly, forever gone. She was alone. And you were just a stranger wearing his face.