"Do you think they're all in there right now?"

"I didn't see anyone leave."

"What if some of them can go invisible?"

"Shh, look, the door's opening."

Nora groaned and tried to drown out the noise. Focus, said the voice in her head. She was thankful to have Kara around at all times, in part because it meant that she had far better control over her powers. She remained quiet, squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sunlight, and rolled over onto her side. She threw the covers over her head and covered her exposed ear with her right arm.

The other voices were new. She didn't recognize any of them, but from what she could discern so far, there were lurkers near the house, presumably wanting to catch a glimpse of the different cast members as they went about their day. What people might've found so interesting about Nora and her housemates was still lost on her. Super powers be damned, they were just ordinary people who happened to be able to do extraordinary things, but tried not to do so in public for fear of revealing their secret identities. But with enough screen time, those identities were bound to be made public eventually whether done so on purpose or otherwise.

Nora's own identity was now out in public. Though she hadn't confirmed it herself, the rumors were out there. The occasional email she got from another fellow or resident at work checking in on her that cheekily called her Supergirl. The many, many comments that she had regrettably seen on Instagram when she had snuck online while she was at her parents' house for Rosh Hashanah dinner the other evening. The whispers that were happening on the edge of the property right now. They all thought they knew; she just had to say anything on her own but had no plans to, ever, if she had her way. She knew that she couldn't keep her secret self...well, a secret, for much longer, but part of her was foolishly hanging onto it for as long as she could, deluding herself into some semblance of normalcy when the world around her was anything but.

Her parents were not who she once thought they were. Peter and Elena Saylor, professors of engineering and political science at the University of Virginia. Caring but dysfunctional parents, divorced circa fall of 2016. It was straightforward until it wasn't, and suddenly they were both associate professors at the University of California at Berkeley while holding down other, fancier, higher paying jobs as a biomedical engineer and political consultant, respectively. And married and cohabiting once again, as if the split had never happened. Because it didn't.

Their life in Virginia was no more. Timelines had been adjusted. Locations had been changed. The thoughts swirled around in Nora's mind as she struggled to get back to sleep, not wanting to give into the hour just yet. If people were already snooping around outside, then it couldn't be that early in the morning, could it?

"Look, the front door. I think I saw something move!"

"What? Let me see! Move, Katie! I want to see Supergirl!"

"God, why? She's such a garbage person. I still can't believe she slept with him."

"You think she did? Hang on—awwww, it's nothing. Just a camera guy. Nevermind, false alarm. But the side door, is that someone over there? Should we stake out that part of the yard?"

Her eyes flew open at 'garbage person' and Nora groaned once again. It was one thing when the comments and gossip were limited to anonymous, tiny profile pictures and ephemeral usernames on Instagram. It was another thing when they were standing outside the house. It was too close for comfort. Too much to handle. But just exactly how much was too much? How much worse would it get?