Thank you so much to the Anon who suggested this fic!

Kara's first Chanukah with the Danvers, ft. a very angsty teenage Alex.

Alex had been sullen the first time Jeremiah and Eliza tried explaining Chanukah to their new daughter: to her new sister. The sister she's always wanted, except this girl… wasn't.

This girl got her even more teased than she already was; this girl made Alex's own strangeness – which until then had been somewhat passable because at least she was stellar in the classroom and on a surfboard – more noticeable, less acceptable.

Less human.

And here this girl was, this girl who asked "Santa who?" in front of the entire junior class, now not even knowing about Chanukah, about family and about light in the midst of oppressive darkness, and hell, not about dreidels and latkes and homemade donuts made from eating holes into those Pillsbury biscuit dough things.

And, worse – Alex had a chemistry project she had to be working on, Mom, come on, I thought you cared about my grades – her parents were making her sit through their explaining it all to a perpetually confused-looking Kara, who'd asked, wide-eyed, if the Jewish god was one of the deities who served under Rao.

"Well, honey," Jeremiah was saying, "maybe it matters less the name we call a deity – Yahweh, Allah, Hashem, Rao – and maybe it matters more the kinds of good things we do because of our faith in them."

"Like what?" Kara was all big eyes and eager curiosity, and Alex, on the couch adjacent to Jeremiah and Kara's love seat, was all rolling eyes and impatiently tapping foot. Eliza shot her a look and she stilled her foot, but not her eyes.

"Well, what would you and your parents do, on Krypton? For Rao, or because of Rao?"

Alex burned to hear the answer; burned to know about other planets, other lives, other possibilities, because this one, this life, these possibilities? Were self-destructing every moment.

And yet the fact that Kara had all this knowledge, that Kara and Kara alone had entire encyclopedias worth of information that Alex could never ever hope to have, just because she grew up on a different planet – and that was to say nothing of what she could do with her body – made Alex cross her arms over her painfully growing chest and wish she didn't long so badly to just have a regular sister.

"Um… Rao was named for the sun, and the sun was named for Rao, so that's where we get… got… our light. And we're... we were... always supposed to pass it on to one another. For the good of the planet, and all the people living on it."

Eliza nodded slowly and Jeremiah did, too. Alex watched Eliza's keen, doctor eyes and knew she was wondering what a passing on of social light must have done for scientific progress, medical progress, on Krypton. She was looking at Kara like Kara had so many answers, like she had so much to give: Alex remembered when Eliza looked at her that way, when she'd come home with an idea for a new experiment, a new painting. Now, the only looks she got from Eliza were oh Alex, how could you let Kara turn on the oven with her heat vision, I thought you were smarter than that? and Alexandra, Kara is new to this planet, I would expect you to be able to warn her about everyday school occurrences like school bells so she doesn't think they're alarms and Alex Danvers, stop squinting so, you're human and you're not going to develop heat vision like your sister.

"Great Kara," Alex smarmed, "so the lesson here is that the Jewish god wants the same thing that your Rao god does, hope and good for everyone, so just celebrate Chanukah with us so I can get back to my project."

"Alex – "

"Alexandra!"

"I'm sorry." She tossed up her hands but rolled her eyes, waiting for the disappointed in you speech from her mother.

But her father held out his hand to indicate to Eliza that he would handle it, and he just looked at her long and hard, with soft but burning eyes. He crossed the living room in a single step and crouched in front of her, putting his hand on her knee as she glowered down at him with half-hearted defiance.

"Actually, Alex, what I was going to say to Kara was that we'd love to welcome her into our celebration of Chanukah, but she doesn't have to participate if she feels it's disrespectful to her beliefs. And, I was going to say that we'd love it if Kara would like to share with us any customs from Krypton to honor Rao and her people that we could integrate into our own celebration."

His tone was calm and his tone was kind, and it did nothing but infuriate Alex.

"Good. Great. A very Kryptonian Chanukah. Like celebrating Chanukah wasn't enough of a thing to get made fun of for, now it's alien Chanukah."

"Alexandra – " Jeremiah swallowed hard and considered letting his wife light into Alex like he knew she was ready to, all furrowed brow and How could you say such a thing speeches. But Alex had a steely look on her face that he recognized too well; the look that said, snarky as her remarks were, that it was taking immense strength to contain the depth of rage, of pain, of hurt, that truly underlied her comments.

He glanced back at Kara's wide, teary eyes and heaved a sigh, trying to figure out what to say to Alex before realizing he didn't have to say anything at all.

Because Alex, too, had noticed the wobble of Kara's chin, the twitching of her bottom lip. The water in her reddening eyes.

And suddenly Alex was up, scrambling over Jeremiah, and across the room, pulling Kara into her arms and holding her close.

"I'm sorry, Kara," she said, and Eliza closed her eyes and sighed, looking like she was either counting to ten in her head or sending up a silent prayer of praise for her elder daughter. "I'm so sorry I said those things. I… hey. Why don't I make you some latkes while you tell me some stories about Rao? Okay?"

Alex pulled back from their embrace and wiped Kara's nose with her own sleeve.

"I'm sorry," she said again, and her heart wobbled.

She'd seen other kids at school put that look – that abandoned, hurt, rejected look – on Kara's face before, and she made up her mind, then and there, to refuse to be that person, that person who made Kara look like that. She was supposed to protect Kara from the people who made her lip tremble like that.

And she would. She would do better. She would be stronger.

Rage and hurt still coursed through her blood like fire, but she watched Kara's face – as she wiped her tears and swept blonde hair out of her sister's watery eyes – transform from grief into hope, and it soothed her boil into a mere simmer.

"What's a lat kah?" Kara asked with a sniff, and instead of groaning, Alex grinned, standing up and wiggling her fingers down toward Kara, who took her hand gingerly, desperately trying to avoid the first time she'd held Alex's hand and broken two of her fingers.

"Let me show you."