Chapter Text
When she wakes up, the first thing Kara does is check the date on her phone.
It’s still yesterday, or however she should say that. She’s not really sure what the correct language around being stuck in a time loop is. Is today yesterday, or is tomorrow today?
It’s an interesting thought experiment as she gets ready for the day, debating on how she should handle things this time. Part of her wants to skip work and head straight to Alex, but that seems a bit extreme. After all, the tests didn’t show anything the last time, why would she think they’d be different today?
So instead of heading to the DEO, Kara heads into CatCo to prep for her interview. She wants to get a good list of her questions ready so she’s prepared and can make sure she covers everything she remembers covering before. And she wants enough time to settle in before the morning meeting, that way no one notices if she’s a little preoccupied.
After all, it’s got to be better to avoid drawing attention to herself, even if time is looping. She doesn’t know when it will stop, after all. What if she does something she can’t take back, and then doesn’t get a do over?
This time no one seems to notice anything, and Kara makes it through the morning meeting, her interview, and the fight with the alien without any problems. Business as usual all around, and remarkably low pressure, really. If the day repeats, anything she does today doesn’t matter. And if it doesn’t, she’s got this day figured out.
Cat stops by her office in the afternoon to go over the interview, and Kara answers her questions easily, already halfway through preparing her article. Kryptonian memory makes it easy to remember what she’d already done the day before, so with the help of slightly faster than human typing speeds the article was pretty much done by the time lunch rolled around. Now she’s just editing, hoping to turn in a solid first draft with as few corrections needed as possible.
“It sounds like you’ve got this covered,” Cat says when Kara finishes rattling off some of the interview responses and what she thinks of them. “I’ll have to let Carter know you’ve got this much figured out already, he was so disappointed when construction didn’t start up on the museum. At this rate he’ll be in college by the time they break ground.”
“There's always the new museum in Central City,” Kara points out again. “It has an excellent robotics wing. It just opened last weekend, but I'm sure you could get tickets for an evening tour."
"He's mentioned as much," Cat says with a small smile. "His birthday is next month, so I was planning to take him then. At least he'll get the experience somewhere, even if not National City.”
It’s weird having the exact same exchange, Kara decides as she practically quotes Cat’s response as she says it. A little unsettling, but nothing more than that. And at this rate, she probably needs to get used to it. Who knows how many times the loop could repeat?
***
A week of the same days later, Kara’s starting to get tired of this day. She hasn’t gone back to Alex since that first time, not really bothered by repeating such a low-stress day multiple times. By the time she figured out a pattern, it was almost relaxing, really. No big attacks or looming pressure, an interview she can conduct on autopilot, and an article she practically has written before the interview even happens.
It’s almost relaxing.
But the longer it goes on, the less relaxing it is. She knows what will happen, at least in the general sense of things. She’s not quite brave enough to make any big changes, so for the most part the day is the same each time.
Over and over again.
Finally, Kara decides she has to go to Alex. It’s still probably nothing serious, but it’s starting to drag on her. And who knows, maybe after a week in the loop something will show up on scans.
The first day after her decision, Kara chickens out.
Instead of taking the day off from work, using one of her multiple sick days she still has accumulated thanks to CatCo's generous 'don't you dare bring germs into my building' sick policy, she goes back to following the same script she's followed for weeks now. Surely a little boredom is better than worrying Alex about something that might be nothing, right?
But at the end of the day, Kara knows she's got to figure this out. She might be able to live through the same day dozens of times. Maybe even hundreds, if she's smart about it. But there's no guarantee. Not when the days are already dragging at her, one blurring into the next to the point she's struggling to track the numerous tiny differences that stack up.
After all, no matter how closely she sticks to the script, she can't recreate it exactly every day. Maybe she asks a different question, maybe she's a minute early or a minute late. Even her Kryptonian memory can't keep track of everything, and sooner or later she's going to slip up.
And unfortunately, without knowing what caused the loop, there's no way of knowing whether that slip will be a slip that sticks.
So the minute she wakes up again and verifies that it is indeed the same day, Kara calls out before she can change her mind. There's no backing out once you've called out of work at CatCo, another part of the sick policy. She'd need a doctor's note at a minimum to get back through the doors, and Kara wouldn't put it past Cat to require three different doctors to sign off that she's fine and not contagious.
So since she'd need to see a doctor to go in anyway, she might as well actually take the day and go see Alex.
***
“You’re experiencing the same day multiple times.” Alex says flatly when Kara first tries to explain. “Kara, if Winn got you to watch old movies-"
"For a prank, just say so. The labs are still on half-capacity after you threw that escapee through them last week," Kara says at the same time Alex finishes her sentence, trailing off when her sister stops in shock. "It's not a joke, Alex. I don't know what it is, but I've lived through this day almost a dozen times now."
Alex is convinced a little easier this time, and Kara breathes a sigh of relief. At least until she insists on going through the same tests as the last time, just for them to turn up nothing. Then it's a sigh of defeat, wondering what she's doing.
"It's not even that big of a deal," she tells Alex when the last test has come back. "Maybe this is just a really good day for someone else, so they keep repeating it."
"And you're the only one who lives through it with them?" Alex asks, not even trying to hide her skepticism. "Have you asked your cousin if he's repeating the day too? You're both Kryptonian, so if you're somehow immune then he should be too."
"I haven't asked him that exactly," Kara admits. "But I did call him the sixth time I repeated today. Just to catch up, and check whether anything strange was going on in Metropolis. He would have mentioned a time loop if he was repeating the day."
Alex looks like she wants to protest the vagueness of Kara's check, but she can't quite bring herself to say the words. She's always been wary of saying too much about Kara's relationship with her cousin, knowing how much of a sensitive subject it could be. But they both know that Kal-El wouldn't hold something back that could hurt Kara. At least not now that she's grown into her powers and superhero persona.
"Well then, we're going to need more in-depth testing than we usually take," she decides instead. "We won't have baselines to compare them to, but we should be able to determine whether they're in range based on the rest of the data we've collected since you started working with the DEO."
Resigning herself to being a pincushion for the day, Kara settles back on the medical cot. "And what if the tests don't show anything? Last time I came to you, nothing came back weird so you sent me off with a dozen sensors. Sensors that showed nothing by the end of the day, I might add."
"We'll find something," Alex promises, stopping what she's doing at the computer to rest her hand on Kara's. "I know you're worried, but we'll figure this out, I promise."
"I'm not worried," Kara says immediately. "It's not like it's a bad day to repeat, really. It's getting boring, but it's not bad. So it's not that big of a deal."
From the look Alex gives her, Kara knows she'd said something wrong. What it could be, she has no idea. But she'd said something, that much is clear.
"You're not concerned that you're experiencing time differentials despite not knowing what caused them or why they might end?"
Well, when she puts it that way...
"I mean, I don't want them to continue indefinitely," Kara says as she thinks about it. "And if they ended suddenly, without me knowing why, then that could be bad. But they're just days, Alex. I fight off an alien- wait, what time is it?"
When Kara gets a look at the clock, she groans and flies out of the hospital bed with a muttered Kryptonian curse. She's late, and by now the alien will have made it into the more crowded street that makes fighting it a pain. Kara's gotten better about defeating it quickly over the last however many days she's been in the loop, but it's always easier if she can take it down while the streets are a little wider. Otherwise she has to be careful in how she dodges, or she might take out a building corner or two.
Thankfully each time she's accidentally caused a few salaries in property damage fighting this thing, the day resets and the buildings are back to normal the next morning. Same morning? Either way, the buildings aren't damaged and Kara has the opportunity to be a little more careful in the fight.
Today is one of the harder fights, with Kara trying her best to lure the alien back to the wider streets and getting tossed around a little in return. Not the best outcome, and despite her best efforts one building takes a good amount of damage before Kara can take them down. At this point she's definitely hoping for another redo, or she'll feel very guilty about getting distracted and showing up late to the fight.
"What the hell," Alex snaps as Kara walks back into her lab, looking about ready to develop heat vision of her own. "We were in the middle of tests, Kara!"
"And an alien was attacking National City," Kara points out, hopping back up on the table. "We can do the tests tomorrow, if tomorrow is still today. And if it's not, then problem solved. But if I don't fight the alien and time doesn't reset then if someone gets hurt I can't change that."
Alex looks like she wants to argue, but Kara's right. Until they know why time isn't moving past this day, she has to act like any day might actually be tomorrow. Otherwise Kara would never be able to live with herself.
And neither would Alex, Kara knows that much for certain. For all that Alex is far more protective of her family than random citizens, that doesn't mean she doesn't care about the people of National City. She just doesn't like knowing something is wrong with someone she cares about, especially if she can't fix it or figure it out.
"Just, maybe warn me next time," Alex grumbles, knowing she can't argue any further. "When you show up tomorrow, tell me what time you need to leave to fight that thing, and I'll make sure we aren't in the middle of any tests."
Kara nods her agreement at that, knowing it's simple enough. There's every chance that tomorrow will still be today, and she's not certain that Alex will find any answers in the hours they have left. She hadn't last time, so why would that change this time?
She does take careful mental notes of what tests Alex runs, knowing that if she keeps coming to see her sister for testing, she'll need to know what they can rule out ahead of time. With only a limited number of hours in the day before things reset, the fewer tests they have to repeat, the better. She'll probably have to set through them again tomorrow, just to make sure things don't actually change from day to day, but after that she can list them off and tell Alex not to bother with them. That'll save some time so they can try something else instead.
"What do you think it could be?" she asks after Alex check a few more things. She can tell her sister is getting more frustrated with every test that comes back. Maybe talking it out will help her reach a breakthrough.
After all, it's worked several times before.
Eyes glued to one of the monitors as results are spit out, Alex takes a moment to answer. "I have no idea," she admits eventually, making a face at whatever the readout is telling her. "Scientifically, it shouldn't be possible. I mean, I know your cousin has gone back in time thanks to superspeed, but this isn't really the same thing. You're not making an actual attempt to change things, you don't even know what's going on. And no one else is affected, so it's got to be centered on you somehow. But there's absolutely no sign of it."
"Have any of the people I've fought in like the last month had any strange symptoms? Maybe it's not centered on me, I'm just pulled along for the ride." Kara doesn't really believe that, she can remember every battle she's fought just fine. None of them were worrisome, and none of her opponents should have the ability to cause her to enter a time loop.
But stranger things have happened, and it's another easy thing to rule out while not taking too much time.
Alex has access to all the records from her workstation, and it takes no more than a few minutes for her to skim through all the action reports for the last month. It's been remarkably quiet for several months now, with only a few actual threats popping up to be quickly settled. Mostly Kara's been on 'assist local departments' duty for run of the mill crimes, and none of those offenders have access to any kind of super villain technology that would be needed to pull this off.
None of the tests or records they review for the rest of the day are particularly helpful, and Kara resigns herself to another few days of testing the same things over again, just to make sure everything is the same.
By the end of the week, Kara is tired of being poked at and studied. None of the tests have come up with anything, and being stuck at the DEO is just as mentally draining as repeating the same day at CatCo over and over again.
So instead of going in and letting Alex run her tests, Kara starts calling her each morning. Every time she does, Alex insists she come in for testing, but when Kara rattles off the list of things she’s tried it’s enough to end that particular argument.
Alex still wants her to come in, of course, but Kara’s not interested in spending every day at the DEO going over the same things any more than she is spending them at CatCo having the same conversations. She rotates a little between the two and taking time to do something different with the day to maintain her sanity, never living the same day for more than a week at a time before mixing it up. It’s easier than it had been, but Kara still finds herself losing days and details.
When this started she knew the exact count of times the day had repeated, now she can’t be sure. She thinks it’s been about two months, but with every day the same as before, or at least one of three basically identical options, it’s hard for her to keep track. And while she’s still not particularly worried about it, calm as the day is, it’s starting to grate on her.