Seeing Green Episode IV: Close Encounters

Chapter Fourteen

(several days later)

"Thank you both for coming," Ursa stated, tersely. She was sitting across from Kara and Oliver at her own kitchen table. Dressed in plain clothes and holding Zoe in her arms, one might mistake her for any ordinary thirty-something mother. Except now her skin had taken on a sickly green color. And her eyes, no longer brown but a strange, bright luminescent green.

Oliver eyed her suspiciously. Kara shifted uneasily in her chair. Zoe was blowing bubbles with her own drool. Chubby cheeks, warm brown eyes, dark curly hair—she was impossibly cute. It was the first time Kara had laid eyes on the child.

"I need you to do something for me," she began. She produced the Phantom Zone Projector from somewhere beneath the table, and set it between them. Kara's eyes grew wide as she stared at it with shock, then hope and longing. Kal. Bruce. Hal.

"As I'm sure you both know, I'm very sick. It's only a matter of time before I am..." She swallowed hard, each word sounding rehearsed ".....overcome," she forced out. "I can't let that happen. I won't let Zoe grow up without...." she covered her eyes with one hand for a moment. She quickly recovered, her eyes now moist and bloodshot.

"So I ask you this," she sighed heavily. "Put me in the Phantom Zone. I will no longer be sick there. You two will raise my Zoe. But you have to promise me...Promise me you'll bring her to me every mo..." she coughed and her hand flew to her mouth. Suddenly Zoe was in Kara's arms and Ursa was in the bathroom, tossing up her last meal.

Kara looked from the baby to Oliver, and back and forth. "Should we...?"

"I don't see any other way," he said. He rubbed his hand over his beard and furrowed his brow in concentration. "I feel bad for her. I shot the arrow. I did this to her."

"Don't blame yourself, Ollie. We all did it together. And she had to be stopped, one way or another."

"I know. I know," he said solemnly.

Ursa returned from the restroom, looking weak and pale. But she still had an air of importance about her.

"So. Will you do this for me?" she asked, and Kara could see how much this meant to her. That she would stoop to requesting the very ones who had been her undoing to help raise her only child.

Zoe stuck her fingers in Kara's mouth and pulled at her bottom lip.

"Yes, we'll do it," Oliver said.