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When Kara looks over as the last string of “I’ll be gone…” plays out over the speakers, she notices Alex and J’onn’s embrace. She also intimately recognizes the wounded look in J’onn’s eyes as he lifts his head and makes eye contact with her.He sets his mouth in a sad smile as he lets Alex go, and Kara rises. She doesn’t say anything, just hugs him close, pressing her face more firmly against his when she feels his arms tighten, squeezing her in a way that only J’onn can. After a quick flurry of goodbyes and reassurances, they go for a walk. Kara looks up at the sky. “Sometimes,” she says, “it’s nice to just… walk. I love to fly, but there’s something about walking that really makes you feel like you can take your time and just be.” She looks over at J’onn and their gazes meet. “Sometimes, I feel a little more connected when I walk.”J’onn smiles, genuinely and gently. “Me too. Especially when it’s with you,” he replies.They walk a bit further before J’onn stops, illuminated softly by a street lamp. “My father told me today that he has za’ahnet .” He pauses, staring up at the sky for a moment before looking back at Kara. “Roughly, it means, ‘decay of mind.’ He didn’t want to tell me, because he didn’t want me to lose him. Again.”The idea of losing someone twice, this Kara understands with profound clarity. “J’onn…” she grips him tightly in a hug, “I’m so sorry.” Besides going over to visit more frequently, Alex treats M’yrnn exactly the same. “It’s how I would want to be treated.” And Kara tries to follow her lead. But she can’t help feeling the pressure of time. If she had known there was a countdown before losing her parents... there are still so many questions that she wished she had asked them. Sometimes she thinks that might be the worst part of goodbyes – the uncertainty of never knowing.It’s small stuff that she wonders, like what was the name of the song that her grandfather always hummed while he cooked? Where did her mother get that vase that she always proudly displayed out front? What was her father’s favorite food? How did her mom feel when she found out her father was her match?She knows that there will always be unanswered questions, but she can’t stop asking. Every little piece of information from M’yrnn sharpens the image of him in her mind. Decay of mind. She can’t possibly save it all, but she can carry as much of him forward as she can. This time, J’onn won’t be the only to remember. This time, they can share the load, and remember together.“M’yrnn?” Kara asks, “what was your favorite thing to bake?”M’yrnn is silent in thought. “I do not remember the name,” he says with a frown, “but I can describe to you the taste. It was a cake-like dessert that tastes most similarly to your cho-cos here on Earth.” Kara grins with excitement. “Chocos?! That sounds delicious!”M’yrnn chuckles at her enthusiasm. “It was very tasty. J’onn would very much agree with you. It was his favorite.” Kara cups her face, watching M’yrnn with a fond look as he reminisces. “He used to beg me to make it for him every birth-day. He never wanted anything different. And he always insisted I made it because even his mother could not make it the same way that I could.” M’yrnn grins widely before leaning in with a whisper, “I had a secret ingredient that she didn’t know about. Passed down, from generation to generation.”Kara smiles at him wistfully. “I wish I could have tried it.”M’yrnn studies the sadness that lingers behind Kara’s eyes. “What do you say we give it a try?”“What?” Kara’s eyes light up, hopeful. “Do the ingredients even exist on Earth?”“No,” M’yrnn says truthfully, “though beautiful, this planet does not have the food of my people.”Kara’s brow furrows. “Oh.”M’yrnn smiles kindly and rests a hand over Kara’s. “This may not be Mars, but there are wonderful things on this planet too. Perhaps it will not be exactly as it is on Mars, but I have a feeling J’onn will enjoy an Earth cho-co cake just as greatly.”Kara turns her hand over, gripping M’yrnn’s tightly. “I know he will,” she says earnestly.They agree to keep it a secret, a surprise for J’onn. Luckily, in the kitchen, M’yrnn is Kara’s exact opposite. M’yrnn encourages Kara to try her hand at first, but after her disastrous turn that resulted in a flaming oven, some freeze breath, and a oven that is still thawing, she’s relegated to tasting duty.(She’s not complaining.)M’yrnn, on the other hand, is a tour de force. Despite not being from Earth, he still seems to possess that special touch that all Earthly grandmothers seem to possess. M’yrnn pours in perfect proportions without measuring cups and bakes each cake to golden brown perfection. Each cake is more delicious than the last, but none seem to be the one.“Hmmmm…” M’yrnn taps the countertop as Kara happily licks frosting off of a wooden spoon. “I wonder if there is an Earth version of my secret ingredient.”“What is it?” Kara asks.“They were red and full of juice. We liked to say that they tasted as beautiful as the soil of the planet looked.”Kara taps her chin thoughtfully. “I am a horrible baker, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s food! I think I know something we can try.” “This. Is. Amazing!” Kara exclaims through bites of cake. “This is my second favorite dessert ever!”“Only the second?” M’yrnn says with a teasing smile.“You have to try Eliza’s chocolate pecan pie, it’s the best dessert in the galaxy!” Kara reminisces with a languid smile, still shoving cake into her mouth. “But this is AMAZING.”M'yrnn beams. “Thank you, Kara. I could not have done this without you. After all, you were the key to the secret ingredient.”“M’yrnn, truly, the pleasure was all mine.” She looks to the single remaining slice of cake. “What Alex doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” she whispers before grabbing the other slice and digging in once again. “You’re going to make this again, right?”M’yrnn looks at her contemplatively. “No,” he says, “next time, we will make it together.” Kara shoots him a horrified look. “This cake is meant to be passed down to my grandchildren to remember for the next generation. And here I have one who already knows the secret: Earth beets.”Kara stops eating. “M’yrnn…” She puts the cake down with a clatter as she moves to hug him. “I would be honored to learn from you. But I can’t promise that the oven won’t have to be thawed out after I set it on fire again.” They both laugh. They practice. A lot. Ovens are set on fire, frozen, and de-thawed eight times. M’yrnn records the most precise instructions he can think of, adding more as he notes where Kara experiences difficulty, and under his patient eye, she gets better. Baking, Kara learns, is about patience – besides a secret ingredient, the true secret to baking is having the patience to precisely weigh ingredients and mixing for just the right amount of time.She doesn’t know how to bake anything else, but after attempt number 19, M’yrnn declares it perfect. “I knew you could do it,” he says, clapping Kara on the shoulder. “Though it is still only the second best cho-co cake I have tasted.” Kara and M’yrnn manage to keep the Martian-Earth cho-co cake a secret from J’onn until his birthday. M’yrnn and Kara proudly carry it out with candles littering the surface of the cake. “Happy Birthday!” they exclaim.J’onn appears flabbergasted. “Is this…?” He looks to M’yrnn.M’yrnn nods eagerly. “Your favorite! For your birthday, my son. Just like all the ones I had made in the past.”Tears well in J’onn’s eyes as he smiles and blows out the candles. Before the smoke even starts to rise, Kara immediately grabs the platter and starts to slice the cake. “Try it, try it!” she demands, placing a piece in front of J’onn.Alex laughs, “Nothing gets between Kara and cake. I’m surprised half of it wasn’t already missing.”Kara blushes as M’yrnn responds, “She already ate half of the extra one we made.”Alex rolls her eyes affectionately as she reaches for a fork, “Now that’s more like it.”“How do you like it?” Kara asks J’onn eagerly, her own fork still laying down, unused.J’onn’s smile lights up his entire face. “It is perfect. It tastes just like home.”“We did it!!!!” Kara screeches, picking M’yrnn up and spinning him around.“Thank you, father. This is the best gift I could have ever gotten,” J’onn says standing up to give his father a hug.“This is fantastic, M’yrnn,” Alex adds, “you’ll have to make it again.”“Actually,” M’yrnn says with a grin, “Kara made it.”“What? Kara? She burned down my kitchen!”“Hey, you burned it down with me!” Kara protests. “That wasn’t my fault!”“There may have been a few ovens sacrificed,” M’yrnn concedes, “but it was all Kara.”“Thank you, Kara,” J’onn says, enveloping her in a tight hug before turning to face M’yrnn. “I can’t believe you told her the secret and not me!”M’yrnn laughs, “I have choosen my successor, son, you are too late.”“But father!”“This cake is special because it is baked for you,” M’yrnn says seriously, placing a hand on J’onn’s shoulder.Kara places her hand on J’onn’s other arm. “I promised M’yrnn that I would make this cake for you, every year, for as long as I can. That’s why he passed on the secret to me.”J’onn eyes are wet as Kara and Alex move to envelope him in a hug. He wraps his arms around them both tightly, “Thank you two for being here with me.”“Always,” Alex says.“El mayarah,” Kara adds, “we’re always with you.” “As long as we remember a person, they're not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us.”- Justin Cronin, The Twelve