Alex pushes back on Kara’s shoulders, stopping her from trying to sit up and get out of bed for at least the sixth time in less than two hours. “She’s got a lot on her plate and I think she needs some time to come to terms with everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sat by your side for five days straight, Kara. She spent most of that time doing nothing but worrying about you and hasn’t taken the time to properly process what happened with and to Lex. Her brother just died and that will impact her life massively.”
Kara closes her eyes, trying to get the image of Lex’s corpse out of her mind. “Yeah. That’s a lot. Is she mad at me?”
Alex looks down at her sister’s panic-stricken face. “No, no, of course not. She understands, and she actually told Kelly that she’s grateful it wasn’t her that did it, even if she hates that you now have to carry that burden.”
“So she’ll be back?”
“I’m sure she will be,” Alex confirms. “I’ll text her soon and see if she has an approximate time, but hopefully she’s decided to get some proper sleep in her own bed. She’s been pushing herself to the limit to be with you while you were unconscious. I think it’s probably all just caught up with her now.”
Kara nods slowly. “I get it. I still wish she was here, but she should look after herself.”
“It’s ok to want that, Kara. There’s no shame in wanting things. It’s only when you push someone else’s feelings aside for your own that you’re being selfish. Hell, sometimes we deserve to be selfish. As much as I want to push you to do that right now, Lena needs some time. She really does.”
“Ok…just,” Kara pauses momentarily, trying to find a nice way to word her next sentence. “Can you keep everyone away from me for a while?”
“Everyone or Mon-El?” Alex raises her eyebrow at her little sister.
“Both. I don’t want to deal with Mon-El right now and I don’t want to be interrogated by Winn either. I just want to rest for a while and try to wrap my head around everything.”
Alex squeezes her hand softly. “Ok, I can do that. I’ll tell everyone you’ve gone back to sleep. You should actually do that.”
Shaking her head, Kara snuggles into her pillow. “I don’t know if I can do that. I’m pretty achy and my mind is just everywhere. “I might read for a while. Can I borrow your tablet?”
Alex grabs it and swipes away all her open windows before handing it over. “I’ll leave you to it because you’re obviously not ready to talk yet and I’d be wasting my breath trying to get you to. Shout me if you feel weird. We’re pretty sure the kryptonite is all out of your system, but you’re not fully healed yet. It’s important you do.”
“I will, I promise.”
“Good. Now, I’m going to go and entertain everyone so they stay out of your hair. You owe me one.”
“I think I owe you more than one.” Kara smiles at her softly. “Thanks for taking such good care of me.”
“Always,” Alex promises, backing out of the med bay.
“Oh, and Alex?”
“Yes, Kara?” Alex sighs fondly.
Kara clutches the tablet to her chest as she peers over at her sister, her hair falling in her eyes and blocking her vision somewhat. “Are Sam and Jack coming?”
Alex shrugs. “I don’t know, why?”
“Lena should have her friends here to support her. Especially now. I know Sam works at Luthor Corp, so there’s probably a huge mess for her to clean up now Lex is gone, but surely at least Jack can come?”
“I’ll give them a call.”
“Thank you.”
“Now rest.”
“Ok,” Kara replies softly as Alex finally retreats out of the room.
With her sister gone, Kara leans back, not even turning on the tablet in her grasp, too preoccupied thinking about the mess Lena has to deal with now. Between Lex’s death, the destruction of the city, the deaths of all the civilians and dealing with Luthor Corp, Lena’s plate is so full it’s overflowing. She just hopes Lena will let her be there for her through it all.
-
Lena pulls the duvet around herself more firmly, then takes a moment to flick her damp hair out of her face. The shower was nice, but trying to reach over her shoulder to coat her healing wounds with anti-septic cream afterwards wasn’t. It’s done now though, even if it did wear her out. She really wants to be back at Kara’s side, but now that she knows she’s awake, she doesn’t feel as panicked. There’s not the same pit in her stomach or the little voice in her head telling her that Kara might not wake up. She just feels lighter. Lighter but tired.
She knew as soon as she made it back home that she would end up in bed for a while before going back to the Tower. She just needs a breather. It doesn’t help that she knows that when she does go back, she has to fight against Kara’s ex, who apparently hates her. The revelation that Kara once bitched about her family is neither here nor there. She couldn’t care less really. After all, who hasn’t bitched about her family at this point? What bothers her is that Kara’s ex decided it was alright to try and start a fight over Kara’s bed right after she just woke up from a five-day coma. That she can’t overlook.
Personally, she’s got nothing against the guy. He can say or think whatever he wants about her. What he can’t do is make Kara’s life harder or make her uncomfortable in any way. Who even comes to visit their ex after a near-death experience anyway? Someone who wants to worm their way back into her life, that’s who. Like hell is Lena going to sit back and let that happen. They might not have had the chance to make it official yet, but she’s pretty damn sure they’re at least seventy percent of the way there.
Allowing her eyes to droop closed without resisting the urge to sleep for the first time in days is a kind of bliss Lena can’t describe. It’s been long awaited just as much as she dreaded it. She doesn’t get to enjoy it for long though because she barely lasts five minutes before she’s off into the dream world.
Her mistake comes with not silencing her phone before going to bed. She should know by now that if Sam and Jack can make her life worse in any way, they’ll do it.
“What do you want?” A groggy Lena answers her phone, pissed that she’s barely slept at all and she’s already been awoken.
“That’s not very nice.”
“What’s not very nice is being awake for almost five days straight with only crappy naps between. I just got to sleep. I’ll call you back when I wake up again. Good night.”
“Oh no, the fuck you don’t.” Sam harshens her voice. “As much as I hate that you’ve barely slept, this is important.”
Lena huffs and rolls onto her back, kicking her legs against her mattress like a stroppy teen. “But Sam…” She whines.
“No, this has to do with Luthor Corp. Lex’s death certificate has been filed now. That means that legally, the company is now yours. You just have to come and sign on the dotted line. You’ll have to come to Metropolis though.”
“And you couldn’t have waited a little longer for me to sleep before asking me to come to another city in the midst of nobody being able to get anywhere due to the fact that National City’s airport literally got flattened by the weird-ass leg of Lex’s spider ship?”
Sam clicks her tongue and sighs down the line at her. “Lena, I appreciate that you’re not having a good time right now, especially knowing your brother is dead. I know you cared for him even after everything. I’m sorry for that. I’ve bought you as much time as I could with Luthor Corp, but there’s already talks of your mother trying to find a way to get her hands on the company.”
“Let her have it, Sam. I don’t want it.”
“I know you don’t, but you can’t let your mother have that power. She’s just as bad as Lex was, and look at what he did.”
Sam can practically hear Lena’s brain whirring down the phone.
“I just don’t know if I can do it, Sam?”
“Not even just for as long as it would take for you to find someone you trust to run it?”
“I trust you.”
“I can’t run it, you know that. I have Ruby.”
Lena sits up with a frown, propping her pillow up behind her haphazardly. “I know. I just…I don’t know how to run a company. I can build things, I can fix things, I can give a mean right hook. I don’t know how to run a company.”
Lena can hear the shuffle through the line as Sam shrugs. “That’s why you’ll have help. I know you’ve got a damn good team on your side back in National City, but you’ve also got a pretty good one here too. I’m with you, Jack is with you, and you’ve got a whole team of literal superheroes with you. You can change the world for the better now, Lena. Don’t waste your shot.”
There’s a brief silence on the line.
“Ok, fine. I’ll figure out how to get to Metropolis as soon as possible.”
“I’d say just use Super-air. I can say first-hand that she offers a first-class experience.”
Lena clears her throat. “I’ll ask J’onn. She’s…”
“How bad?”
“Pretty bad. She only just woke up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Lena sniffs quietly. “I’ll text you when I’m leaving.”
“Good. I love you.”
“Love you too, Sammy.”
-
Lena rubs her eyes, still awfully tired but feeling at least a little better compared to when she went to sleep.
Grabbing her phone, she sees that she managed to get almost six hours of rest, and that’s much more than she was expecting, so she is happy with that. She just has to get through her list of things to do that’s a mile long.
She squints at her notifications and sees that she has a handful of texts to answer, most of them from the Superfriends just checking in with a couple from Jack too, telling her that if she doesn’t let him know when she’s in town so they can get drunk together, he’ll throw a hissy fit.
Alex’s text sits right on top, so she figures she can answer her and she’ll let the others know. Jack takes days to answer texts so he can’t say anything about a bit of tardiness in responding. She can handle him later.
She drags herself out of bed, stretching out her stiff back and dripping her jaw to let out a yawn that makes her jaw crack. “Ok, so I just have to make sure Kara is alright, potentially fight her ex and take over an entire company before coming up with a way to help rebuild the city. That’s only four things. That’s not too bad.” Staring at her reflection in her bathroom mirror, she sighs. “Who am I kidding? This is going to be hell.”
Lena rolls her shoulders, trying to get rid of some of the stiffness there, and then she nods at herself in the mirror. She’s got work to do and moping won’t help anyone.
She gets dressed as quickly as possible before brushing her teeth and washing her face. The quicker she can get to the Tower, the faster she can get things rolling, and the quicker it’ll all be over.
As quick as she wants to get there and sort everything though, she still has a lot on her mind and she needs to take a moment to take everything in. Walking to the Tower, she stares at the damage left on the city. Damage that definitely wasn’t there when she moved here. Damage that she is partly responsible for. If she hadn’t moved here then none of this would have happened. If she hadn’t moved here, her brother would be alive. If she hadn’t moved here, Kara wouldn’t be hurt.
“Lena, I’m so glad you’re here.” Nia bumps into her as she walks out of the front door to J’onn’s P.I. firm. “Everyone is upstairs. We’ve spent the past hour or so figuring out the best way to help with the clean-up of the city. I think your big brain could do us some major favours in figuring out the best place to start.”
“Sure.” Lena nods. “Where are you going?”
“Just grabbing coffee and breakfast. You want me to grab you some too?”
Lena forces a smile onto her face. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
Nia grimaces. “I absolutely won’t do that. Alex gave me a very colourful threat because she’s caffeine-deprived and hangry. It’s better for everyone if I hurry.”
Lena chuckles and the fake smile turns genuine, just for a second. “That’s probably for the best then. See you soon.”
“Bye.” Nia waves, the door clicking shut softly behind her.
Lena’s shoulders sag as she wanders across the room and watches the elevator appear before her, glancing behind her for a moment before she steps inside.
Peering through the elevator doors, she realizes it’s in full view of the front window. She should really tell J’onn to do something about that. Anyone could walk past at the wrong moment and see something none of them want some randomer to see.
She sinks against the back wall as the doors close, letting her eyes fall shut as the gentle motion reminds her of the sleep she missed out on. Now, she kind of wishes she’d tried to get a couple more hours of rest before coming in, but she figures there’s no rest for the sister of the wicked.
Alex and Kelly are sitting in the main area as she steps out into the space. “Hey.”
“Hey, how are you?” Kelly asks, nothing but kindness and sincerity written across her face.
“I’ve been better. I managed to get a few hours of sleep so I’ll count that as a win.”
Alex frowns at her, her arms folding. “Why am I sensing a but?”
“Because there is one.” She shrugs. “With Lex dead, Luthor Corp is now mine, as we already knew. What I didn’t realize was how little time I have to get over to Metropolis to handle it all.”
Kelly’s eyebrows lift in shock. “You have to go to Metropolis?”
“Unfortunately.” Lena sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, stressed at the very thought. “I’ll have to see if J’onn is willing to fly me over. Sam called and told me there’s already talk of my mother trying to take the company. The only way I can stop that is by going over and making the switch official. My mother might not be quite as bad as Lex, but I can assure you that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She’s trouble and shouldn’t be in control of a multi-million dollar company.”
Alex uses her foot to nudge out the seat beside her. “Come on.”
Lena does as she’s told, plopping down gracelessly. “Sam is doing everything she can to buy me time; that’s pretty much all she’s been doing for the past few days. Luckily, she’s CFO, or else I’d have had to try and find a way to Metropolis even sooner.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
She shakes her head softly. “I doubt it. Just…take my mind off it, just for a few more hours. I saw Nia downstairs, and she said you’re trying to figure out how to handle the destruction. Let me see your plan. I can help with that.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Trading bureaucratic destruction for city-wide physical destruction doesn’t seem healthy.” Alex challenges.
“And running around the city in masks fighting bad guys with alien technology is the healthiest thing a person can do, right?”
“Touché.”
“Can you guys go ten minutes without arguing?” Kara staggers into the room, one arm wrapped protectively around her middle and the other using the doorframe to help her balance.
Alex shoots up to her feet immediately, rushing to her side, Lena not far behind. “You’re not meant to be up yet. You’re still healing.”
“But Alex—”
“No buts, you need more rest and more sunlight. You might be out of the woods kryptonite-wise, but you still have some pretty gnarly wounds that need to heal. Look at you, you can barely stand without wincing.”
Kara pouts at her, hoping to win her sister over, but all she gets is a hard stare in response. That’s not going to get her anywhere. She changes tactics, pouting over at Lena, hoping to garner her sympathy and protection. “I just want to come and sit with you guys.”
Lena shakes her head. “We won’t be long. Why don’t you head back to the med bay and we’ll come and join you soon?”
“If you’re going to be done soon, I might as well just hang out with you guys until you’re done.” Kara bats away the two sets of hands attempting to steady her and usher her back towards the med bay.
Shaking her head, Lena sighs. “Come on. We’ll be ten minutes tops, and we’re just doing boring planning anyway. We just want you to heal as quickly as possible.”
“I know.” Kara swallows harshly and lowers her voice, talking through gritted teeth. “I just don’t think I can heal very well when my ex is busy talking shit about all of our choices right outside the med bay where I have to listen to him bitching.”
Alex rolls her eyes. “Of course he is. Kara, what did you ever see in him?”
“A partner whose nose I wouldn’t accidentally break.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Lena’s eyes widen.
“It doesn’t matter.” Alex waves her off nonchalantly. “I’ll handle it, Kara. I’ll walk you back to bed and then you won’t have to worry about him, ok?”
Kara’s shoulders drop and she catches Lena’s hand. “Will you come sit with me when you’re done?”
“Of course I will. I won’t be long.”
Kara’s pout disappears, her face brightening like she’s just stepped outside on a sunny day. “Good, see you soon.”
“See you.” Lena waves her off, worry building in her chest when she notices just how unsteady she is on her feet as Alex guides her away.
-
“Just keep your mouth shut, Mon-El. Now isn’t the time for you to come waltzing in acting like you know everything because you’ve been in the future for a whole five minutes.”
“I just happen to have read the history books, and I know that Luthors just happen to be on the wrong side of history.” Mon-El’s indignant tone cuts through the air and into the med bay, making sure that Kara won’t get any rest today.
“I’ve literally never seen you read a book before.” Winn’s confused voice at least brings a smile to Kara’s face. She’s missed the guy, even if he can be a little annoying and is terrible at keeping her secrets.
Mon-El’s offended gasp rids her of that momentary joy. “I once read Romeo and Juliet. Just ask Kara. There’s your proof, and so what if I haven’t read any history books? I still know that the Luthors aren’t good people. Why are you people acting so dense?”
A loud slap rings through the air, the sound making Kara wince. That was definitely an Alex slap, and Alex slaps are spicy, to say the least.
“What was that for?”
“For one, I know you’ve read that book, and you defiled it by writing nonsense all over the pages, and secondly, we’re not the ones acting dense. You’re the one being prejudiced against someone you don’t even know. You’d think the prince of Daxam would know that your family doesn’t define your beliefs or your morals. That is unless you’ve gone back to your slave-owning ways?”
Kara can just picture him shaking his head cartoonishly and backing away from Alex, trying to escape her harsh words. “Of course not! I would never do that.”
“But you did. Does that mean you’re still a bad person? Does that mean that because of who you are, you’ll forever be a bad person?”
“No! I’m good! I saved the world.”
“So has Lena, but you’re too busy calling her out for actions that aren’t hers that you can’t see that you’re only hurting the people around you. Kara is still healing. She got very badly hurt by Lex and Lena is the one that saved her. Lena protected her. Lena is the reason she’s still alive. You’re just the person stressing her out so badly that she keeps leaving the med bay just to get away from you and your incessant whining. Pull yourself together before I send you back to the future by whatever means necessary.”
If Kara were a betting woman, she’d put money down saying that Mon-El is quivering in a corner looking like a kicked puppy right now. She’s not entirely sure what she saw in him before. Sure, he was kind of like having an excitable border collie around. Cute at times but so energetic and chaotic, he leaves nothing but damage in his wake. Unfortunately, what she saw was his potential to serve the herd. The herd being the people of Earth.
“Let me go apologize to her.” She hears him say, sadness coating his words.
“She does deserve an apology, but you’ve kept her up long enough with your bullshit. Move into another room away from here where you’re bothering her and let her rest. She needs to sleep and recover, not listen to you acting like you know best for everyone around you.”
“But—”
“No buts, get your ass up and get out of here. I don’t care where you go, but you’re not going anywhere near either Kara or Lena unless you have my permission. Understand?”
A silence follows that makes Kara nervous, anxiety bubbling in her chest.
Alex clears her throat. “Understand?”
“I got it.”
“Good.”
Footsteps echo as the three of them filter out of the room and further away from her until she can’t hear them at all. She kind of wishes that her powers weren’t still gone. Clearly, the kryptonite caused a lot of damage if she solar flared, but she’s kind of grateful. There’s no impending crisis right now, which means she has to be on edge without them. She can just enjoy the moment without overthinking it too much. That’s something she doesn’t get to have often, and she intends on basking in the glow of not having the pressure of the world sitting heavy on her shoulders.
She lets her eyes slip closed, but just as she starts drifting off with the warmth of the sunlamps keeping her nice and toasty, she hears footsteps return and with those footsteps comes dread. She knows those footsteps.
“Kara?”
She keeps her eyes closed, praying he’ll get the hint and leave her alone.
“Psst, Kara.” He tries again.
Still, she makes a conscious effort to keep her face relaxed to not give away the fact that she’s awake.
Then her shoulder is grasped and she’s being shaken hard enough to make her gasp out in pain, her eyes finally popping open.
“Ah, fuck!” She grabs at her wounds, now thoroughly pissed and in pain. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I just need to talk to you.”
“Like fuck you do.” Lena’s sharp voice comes from the doorway. “I don’t know what was running through your obviously pea-sized brain, probably nothing of substance, but you’ve got some wires crossed. You just hurt her and woke her up for no good reason when I know that Alex just kicked you out of this part of the Tower.”
“With all due respect, this is between Kara and me.”
“Kara and I.”
“What?”
“It’s Kara and I, not Kara and me. If you’re going to start talking shit, at least be grammatically correct about it.”
Mon-El’s fists clench, and he turns fully towards her, standing directly between Kara and Lena. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? You’re just like him, and you’re only going to hurt her.”
Lena’s eyebrow raises, her face nothing short of icy. “Like you just did?”
“You didn’t see what happened. She’s not hurt because of me.”
“So she just yelped in pain from what? Just lying there?”
“Must have done.”
Lena shakes her head as she lets out a short laugh. This guy is a piece of work. She takes a step back and turns her head towards the door. “Alex!” She shouts at the top of her voice.
Just like that, Mon-El turns white. He might be a lot stronger than the average human, but if there’s one person he’s scared of, it’s Alex, and he just went behind her back to do exactly what he’d been told not to do.
Lena can hear Alex’s hurried footsteps getting louder and louder as she approaches, drawing closer rapidly as Mon-El gets visibly more anxious with each step, his hands gripped into tight fists. At the same time, his eyes dart around the room in an attempt to find a way to escape.
Alex storms into the room, not knowing what’s waiting for her but intuitive enough to know that whatever it is, it’s not good.
She spots Mon-El facing off with Lena and knows right then and there that this isn’t going to be a pretty fight. “Who wants to tell me what in the actual fuck is going on?”
Lena clenches her jaw, remaining silent. She wants to see what kind of shit this complete and utter asshole is about to spout.
Mon-El does something Lena wasn’t expecting. He squares up to Alex, his shoulder back, his spine straightening and his fists held firm at his sides as he glares down at the redhead. “She’s dangerous and Kara’s not safe around her. I was doing what I had to in order to keep her safe. She can’t be here if you’re allowing someone like that to be around her. Look at what her brother just did; she could kill her at any moment, and the only one to blame would be you because you let it happen.”
Alex doesn’t hesitate to react. Using her Hand of the soldier, she summons up a boxing glove lined with lead and hits him squarely in the face, knocking him back and right onto his ass.
He cries out in anguish when blood starts to pour from his nose, not broken, unfortunately. “What the fuck, Alex?”
“Stay the hell away from us, Mon-El. I told you to stay away, and yet here you are, coming back where you’re not welcome to accuse someone you don’t know of something they’re incapable of doing. You’re a mess. You’re dangerous. Get the fuck out.”
“You’re not going to ask her what happened?” He throws his hands in the air. “You don’t want to ask her what she did? You seem to like attacking me, but you haven’t even got the full story.”
Alex sighs, dematerializes the boxing glove and folds her arms before turning to Lena. “Is there more to the story, Lena?”
“Yes, he grabbed her and hurt her.”
Alex’s eyes darken instantaneously. “Brainy!”
The Coluan comes scuttling in quickly. “How can I help?”
“Get this piece of shit out of the Tower now before I kill him.”
There’s the barest hint of a nod before Brainy pulls Mon-El off the floor and ushers him to the door.
The Daxamite doesn’t go easily though, pushing back against Brainy’s hands to turn back. “I was getting her out of here because you’re not keeping her safe.”
“I suggest you leave very quickly because I estimate that the next weapon Alex materializes won’t be a boxing glove.”
Mon-El snarls before huffing his way out the door, barely turning his head to spit out one last line as he leaves. “You’re going to regret this when she turns out to be exactly like her brother, just you wait.”
Lena shakes her head at the man, infuriated by his saviour complex and need to villainize her when he doesn’t know a single thing about her other than her last name.
Her gaze meets the side of Alex’s face and she’s shocked by the amount of pure rage she sees there before she remembers that she just told her that he hurt Kara. Kara, who she needs to check on. She turns quickly, rushing to Kara’s side, panicking as she finds the woman on her side, her back to the door. She’s curled in on herself, her hands thrown over her ears protectively and her knees to her chest.
“Kara?” Lena round the bed, crouching next to her so her eyes are in line with Kara’s closed ones. They’re shut so tightly little lines are spreading across her face from the force.
She reaches out carefully, her fingertips just barely brushing against the cowering woman’s wrist. The tiniest bit of pressure causes her to rear back and pretty much fling herself off the bed, landing on the floor in a pile of useless limbs.
“Kara!” Lena cries out, rushing to get to her side. Her eyes instantly rake over Kara’s body in search of injuries. “Are you ok?”
Kara’s hands remain over her ears, but now her eyes are wide open, looking like they might pop right out of her skull at any moment.
“Kara, you’re ok. I promise you, you’re ok.” Lena creeps closer, afraid to touch her in case she reacts badly again.
Alex sprints into the room, and it takes Lena a second to realize that she must have made sure that Mon-El really left this time, or else she would have been in here with them a lot sooner.
“Alex, I don’t know what’s happening. She was on the bed, but when I touched her wrist she threw herself off the other side to get away from me. I don’t know what to do.”
Alex holds her hands out in front of Kara, moving slowly so she can clearly see her intentions. Her hands slowly descend to land on Kara’s forearms, and Lena watches with rapt attention.
Alex’s eyes flicker between Kara’s and Lena’s for a second before she addresses Lena whilst looking deeply into Kara’s eyes. “She’s alright, Lena. She’s going to be just fine. She’s just panicking and overwhelmed.”
Kara stares back at Alex, unblinking and seemingly frozen. Lena can’t help but find it a little odd. Her breathing appears normal, if not a little deeper than usual, but she’s not gasping for breath, not struggling against whatever is happening. She’s just embracing it and riding her way through it.
“What’s happening, Alex?” Lena whispers.
“She’s fine,” Alex responds in a hushed voice, carefully prying her hands down and away from her ears. “She’s just fine.”
“Alex?” Kara whimpers.
“I’m here,” Alex reassures, taking that as her cue to pull her sister into a hug. “Both me and Lena are here and we’re not going anywhere. I promise.”
Lena nods despite the fact that Kara can’t see her face. “We’re not leaving, Kara.”
Tentatively, she reaches out to press her hand to the centre of Kara’s back and lets out a heavy breath of relief when she doesn’t shy away.
They sit like that for several long minutes. Alex holds her tightly while Lena strokes her hand up and down the centre of her back in a slow, purposeful rhythm, completely predictable. Then, Kara leans back, sniffling a little and wiping her eyes before tears can fall. “Thanks.”
“Are you ok?” Lena murmurs.
Kara nods shakily. “Yeah, sorry. It just…I was…I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know,” Alex says, standing up and pulling Kara with her, urging her to get back on the bed. “Lie down. I’m going to have to check you over.”
“I’m good.”
“I’m sure you are, but I’m not going to stop worrying until I’ve seen it for myself, so just humour me, alright?”
“Ok.” Kara doesn’t put up a fight, and it’s clear that she isn’t in the right state of mind to be able to for some time yet. “That’s ok. Lena, will you stay with me?”
Lena moves to her side, taking her hand. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Kara hums. “Can you stay with me tonight? I don’t want to stay here alone, and I don’t think Alex will let me out of here yet.”
Lena had to stop herself from agreeing, guilt already building up in her chest, heavy and uncomfortable. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
A heavy silence fills the room.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, Sam called and she can’t put off everything going on with Luthor Corp any longer. I have to go or else the company could fall into my mother’s hands, and she’s just as bad as my brother.”
Kara blinks slowly before tightening her grip on Lena’s hand. “You have to go then. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Just call me?”
Lena’s eyebrows pinch together in worry. “I’m sorry, Kara. If I could stay, I would. I don’t even want to go. If I could just leave it and not have anything to do with Luthor Corp or anything to do with the Luthor name at all, I would. I really would.”
“I know.” Kara forces a smile, one that both Alex and Lena can see through.
“I’ll look after her and stay with her.” Alex squeezes Lena’s arm, seeing the conflicting emotions hiding behind emerald eyes. “You do what you have to do and then come back to us, alright?”
Lena hums her agreeance and raises Kara’s hand up, kissing the back of it softly. “I promise I’ll be as quick as I can. This is my home now. National City is my home and I don’t really want to leave.”
Kara holds their joined hands on her belly, her free hand holding onto Lena’s wrist, preventing her from leaving, and Lena’s not about to pull away. Sam can wait a while longer.
Inevitably, she’ll have to go, but she’s happy to stay for as long as she can in the meantime.
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Kara stares at the lifeless body slumped across the floor.
It’s an odd feeling that’s settled deep into her bones. She just killed a man. A man who murdered a crazy amount of people, but a man no less. A man who has caused immeasurable pain in the lives of countless people, including the woman standing just behind her.
Her gaze falls to the gun where it lies on the floor, discarded not by choice but shock. She can’t believe she just killed Lex Luthor. Her sapphire blue eyes flinch up to look at Lex’s face. What she can see of it anyway. With a hole in his head, the blood and brain matter seeping out covers his face, a veil of a dark, natural kind. Despite that, a sneer is still fixed in place. He was a bitter, malicious monster until the very end.
Her legs are throbbing with pain, her veins still assaulted by kryptonite. It makes her feel awful that a man has just died because of her, but her focus is instead on herself because, to put it bluntly, it hurts like a bitch.
“Kara?” Lena calls out, her voice soft and delicate, like she’s speaking to a child that has tripped on the schoolyard and is two seconds away from crying because of their scraped knees.
An unwelcomed flinch ricochets through Kara’s body at Lena’s first touch. It’s a tender caress to the back of her head, her open palm taking the weight, solid and sturdy despite the barely perceptible quake in her fingertips.
Lena doesn’t retreat at her unconscious, harsh reaction. She just keeps the pressure there. Kara leans into it, happy to take her touch's comfort and the distraction it presents from the searing pain.
“Kara?” Lena tries again. “We have to go.”
This time, Kara responds. She tilts her head back to see that Lena is crouching behind her. She’s not looking at her now-deceased brother. She’s not sparing him so much as a quick glance. Green eyes remain pinned on Kara, worry and anxiety swirling in pools of jade.
“Come on, put your arms around me.” Lena urges, helping her by physically wrapping one of Kara’s arms around her shoulder.
Kara plants her feet on the floor, trying to help gain some leverage to assist Lena’s attempt at getting her standing up, but the soles of her boots slide in the rapidly growing pool of Lex’s blood. She grits her teeth, biting back a cry as she fights against the rapid increase in pain taking over her.
“Lena, I can’t.” Kara breathes heavily after spending far too long trying and failing in the task. “You should find a way to get to the others.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Lena continues, trying to get her up. Except with Kara not even trying, she’s got no chance of succeeding. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here together. You’re not staying here next to my brother’s corpse.”
Kara’s eyes dart back to Lex’s body at the mention and she can’t help but feel a strange kind of peace at seeing him this way. She doesn't have a guilty bone in her body after all the pain he’s caused to not only herself but to her family, to Lena. That’s scarier than the prospect of waiting next to his body for a while as Lena goes to get help.
“I’ll be ok. Maybe go and see if you can find whatever is jamming out comms so we can get J’onn to get here.” Kara pants, the pain in her legs growing with each passing moment. They’ve begun to feel heavy like they’re made of lead, and it feels like even a passing breeze could take her out, any shift in them making every muscle in her body tense up.
“No,” Lena states firmly. Kara slips further onto the floor as Lena unhooks her arm from around her shoulders, but it’s short-lived as she takes up her earlier position and deftly squeezes her hands beneath her armpits to start dragging her down the hall and away from Lex.
Kara tries her very best to contain her cries and whimpers, but the waves of agony engulf her, the current much too strong to swim out of.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lena mumbles out, her voice strained because of the effort she’s exerting. “I just want to get you away from him, ok?”
It’s phrased as a question, but based on how she’s being manhandled, Kara’s guessing she doesn’t actually get a say in anything. “Ok.”
Lena pulls her into a side room and it’s not until they’re fully inside that they see what it’s used for.
“Tools. That could be helpful.” Lena sets Kara down with her back to some shelves, giving her something to prop herself up against. She allows her shoulders to drop with Kara’s weight off her and Lex’s body out of her direct eye line. Just like that, the adrenaline keeping her going wanes.
She’s once again aware of the searing pain of her own injuries where the shrapnel sliced her where the armour doesn’t cover and winces, hissing between her teeth.
“Oh, fuck.” A trembling hand attempts to reach over her shoulder to smooth her hand over the painful spots, not that a single hand could cover them all; there are far too many for that.
Kara’s head shoots up at the sound of her pained curse. “Lena? Are you hurt?”
“Just a little. Please remind me never to set a bunch of robots to self-destruct beside us again. That wasn’t a great idea.” Lena’s attempt at humour falls flat, the pained edge to her voice making it impossible to jest.
“Will you still be ok to find a way to get out or at least get a message to the rest of the team?” Kara questions. She’s concerned about Lena, but her main focus is on getting them both out of here as soon as possible. When Lena set the Lexo-suits to self-destruct, the ones closest to them did so, but they have no confirmation that any outside of their direct radius did, and that needs to be a top priority.
“I'll be fine, I swear.” Lena closes her eyes and takes a few grounding breaths. “You just stay here and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Ok.” Kara lets her head loll back to rest against the sharp ridges of the metal shelves. “But, Lena?”
Lena pauses for a moment. “Hmm?”
“Please be careful.”
“I will.”
Kara doesn’t look convinced. “Promise me…please.”
Taking Kara’s face between her hands, Lena presses a lingering kiss to the centre of her forehead. “I promise I’m coming back, Kara. I’ll be just fine.”
With that confirmation, they part ways, Lena sealing the door behind her to keep Kara safe the only way she can.
-
Lena rests her head on the edge of Kara’s bed in the med bay. Her eyelids are heavy and her bones are tired but she just doesn’t have it in her to sleep. She’s been stitched up, and loaded up on pain meds, courtesy of Alex, but even without them, she’s half convinced she wouldn’t feel anything anyway. Everything just feels…blurry.
She got lucky. She had no clue what she was doing when she left Kara in that room, and with how frazzled her brain was and still is, she has no clue how she would have figured her way through that predicament.
With a few hours between her time on Lex’s ship and his death, Lena feels like she’s yet to come back to herself. Perhaps sleeping would fix that. She’s not about to test that theory. Sleep feels like it’s a mere step away and thousands of miles all at the same time. Not tonight.
If anything, seeing Kara lying there unconscious in front of her makes her push away her exhaustion even more, her desire to watch over her much too strong. She was only alone in that room for maybe three minutes. Four at a push. Still, it was enough for her to lose consciousness, and she’s yet to regain it.
Alex has meticulously extracted all of the shards of kryptonite from her skin and sewn up every last cut she could find. She’s sure she got it all, but Lena’s seen her recheck the kryptonite scanner more than a dozen times, not convinced even with the countless confirmations. Lena understands. Of course she does. With her hand in Kara’s, every once in a while, she lets her fingers trail up to her wrist to press into her pulse point there so she can feel the steady beating of her heart, the rhythmic beeping from the heart rate monitor not enough to soothe her nerves alone.
Looking up at Kara’s face now, she can scarcely believe what Kara did for her and she can’t believe she let her.
Kara killed her brother for her.
Kara killed Lex.
Lex is dead.
She’s free.
A hand on Lena’s shoulder startles her and makes her wince all at once, the pressure directly on her freshly sewn cuts.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot.” Nia says, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Here, you need to drink.”
A warm mug of coffee is pressed into her free hand. “Thank you, Nia.”
Without waiting, Lena takes a healthy sip from the mug. “I wouldn’t have thought you would be one to promote caffeine this late at night. Shouldn’t you advocate for everyone getting eight hours of rest per night?”
“It’s decaf.” Nia shrugs as she pulls up a chair beside her.
Glaring down at the mug, Lena sniffs harshly. “That’s smart but I’m also upset it won’t help keep me up.”
Nia leans back in her chair, her eyes dancing over Kara’s face. Seeing her look so hollow and worn is strange, a complete loss of her usual sunshiney demeanour that usually coats every aspect of her mind, body and soul. She sighs before looking back at Lena. “You can rest, you know. If you want me to watch her so you can do that, I will.”
“That’s not why I’m not resting,” Lena admits before she can think to stop herself.
“So you’re punishing yourself?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lena argues.
Despite the harsh tone she’s expecting to be subjected to, Nia’s voice remains soft. “Sometimes, you don’t have to say anything.”
Lena momentarily pulls her lips into her mouth, letting out a shaky breath as she releases them. “It was my brother that caused this, and when it came to it, I didn’t even do it myself. She did it. She was protecting me when I should have been the one protecting her. She couldn’t even stand and she shot him so that I wouldn’t have to and I should have insisted. I could have taken the gun off her physically if that’s what it came down to. She wouldn’t have been able to stop me. I let her kill my brother and now I don’t know what to do.”
“You move on.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
“But it’s right.”
Lena shakes her head. “How is that right? How am I meant to just move on from this like it never happened? Like he didn’t murder all of those people, destroy a city and try to kill us. How am I meant to move on when I feel less guilty about all those people who died than I do about Kara having to live with what she did for me because I was weak?”
Nia takes a deep breath. “A lot of those questions are out of my pay grade. I would suggest Kelly as the go-to woman for that kind of stuff, but just for the record, Kara wouldn’t have done what she did unless she truly felt that what she was doing was the right thing and as long as she knows that, I don’t think she’ll struggle as much as you think she will.”
“What do you mean? She’s Supergirl. The woman with the strongest morals known to man.”
“And she’s Kryptonian. She might not believe in killing, but she knows why it’s necessary, and if you talk to her about Kryptonian history and culture, you’ll see why I know she can handle what she did.”
The corners of Lena’s lips press down as she frowns, her head dropping down until her chin is to her chest in a motion that is usually much more synonymous with one Kara would do, a fleeting thought Lena has and has to push away to stop her frown from deepening even further.
“I have a lot to learn about Kara, don’t I?”
“You do, but that’s ok. I think she’s got a lot to learn about you too.” Nia nudges her shoulder with hers. “You have a lot to learn about yourself as well. You’ve lost the monster that’s always been lurking over your shoulder. You have to figure out who you are when you don’t have to watch your back every hour of every day; you might be surprised at what you’ll find.”
“I think the day of his death might be a bit too soon for the ‘find yourself’ speech.”
Nia hums half-heartedly. “Well, that’s all I’ve got. There aren’t exactly written instructions for how to make your friend feel better when she just watched her girlfriend shoot her brother.”
“I suppose not.” Lena barks out a laugh. It’s cold and harsh but there’s something else buried deep inside it—the tiniest speck of gratitude. “And just for the record, we’re not official.”
Nia rests her hand on Lena’s forearm, nodding down at her mug to remind her to drink it before it goes cold. “Not yet, but I’ll leave you to it for a while. You look like you need time to think.”
“I do, but you don’t have to leave.” Lena hesitates before asking her next question. “Would it be inappropriate to ask you to sit with me? I know I’m not technically alone in here, but I don’t want to be by myself.”
Nia keeps her tush firmly planted in her seat. “I’m right here.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re all here for you, Lena. You’re not alone anymore. Not like you were before you found us.”
“I’m glad I did.” Lena mumbles. “I wouldn’t have managed to get out from under my family’s thumb if it wasn’t for you guys.”
Nia shakes her head. “You would have. It would have looked a lot different, but you would have done it. You’re much stronger than you give yourself credit for, and we’re lucky to have you on our team.”
Lena scoffs. “My maniacal brother followed me here, destroyed the city and murdered people.”
“Yeah, that’s bad. We didn’t sign up for your brother, but we did sign up for you. Having a crazy family comes with being a Superfriend though. Just ask Kara about hers. She had family try to mind control the entire planet, so she understands better than most.”
“Why am I learning all these things from you and not her?” Lena’s eyebrows furrow. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
Nia shoots her an exasperated look. “Between missions, crises and calamities?”
“Good point.” Lena gives in. “I’ll ask her when she wakes up.”
Nia nods. “You do that.”
-
“This is the third day you’ve spent sitting in that chair. Don’t you want to go and stretch your legs?” Kelly squeezes her shoulder softly as she lowers herself down into the chair beside her. “You know we can take it in turns sitting with her. We’ve made that more than clear, so why are you taking on that burden alone?”
Lena’s eyes flick up to Kelly’s cold and sharp. “Kara’s not a burden.”
“I never said she was,” Kelly replies, her voice no less soft, her calming demeanour setting Lena’s raised shoulders back down. “However, sitting anywhere for a long period of time is a burden, so if you would like to go and stretch your legs or go home to shower, there are people here more than willing to sit here for a while so you can do that.”
“I stretch my legs when I go to the bathroom and J’onn has been letting me shower here. Alex gave me Kara’s spare clothes to change into.”
Kelly covers Lena’s hand with her own. “Why are you so insistent on being the one to sit with her all day? Even Alex, who has been spending hours here every day, goes home each night.”
Lena turns her head away from her for a moment, and Kelly braces herself, ready for whatever reaction may come her way.
Lena’s lips are quivering when she turns back around, her eyes straining to hold back her tears. “I don’t know. I guess I just don’t want to leave.”
“What do you mean by that? You’re scared to?”
Lena shrugs half-heartedly. “Kara just tossed away one of her greatest morals for me. The least I can do is sit with her while she recovers.”
“So you’re paying her back?” Kelly tries to pin down Lena’s thoughts.
With a heaving sigh, Lena shakes her head. “I don’t even know. I just know that I want to be here, and as nice as it would be to go home and rest in my own space, I can’t bear the thought of her being here and me being somewhere else. I just know I wouldn’t be able to relax, so instead, I’ll sit here and watch over her so if something happens, God forbid, I can get Alex here as quickly as possible.”
“And while you trust the rest of us to watch over her, that anxiety and restlessness won’t fully disappear.” Kelly finishes for her.
Lena nods solemnly.
“Ok then, we’ll see if we can find you a comfier chair. We were going to pull one of the better ones in here, but Alex thought you would be more likely to go home if you were uncomfortable here.”
“You guys let me sit here in this devil of a chair for three days before realizing I wouldn’t give in?”
Guilt coats Kelly’s face. “Sorry.”
Lena doesn’t have it in her to be mad. “No, I get it. I appreciate you guys trying to give me a kick in the right direction. It’s just one that isn’t going to work. I’m staying here. As soon as she’s awake and stable, I can get back to my life. I have all of the business stuff to deal with at Luthor Corp once she does. With Lex gone, the company goes to me. I’m sure my mother will try and take over it, but she always did love Lex the most, so she’ll probably go into a grieving period for a couple of months before she comes after me.”
“That’s awful, Lena.”
“That’s my mother, for you.” She brushes it off without much thought.
Kelly frowns, her eyes locking onto Kara’s slack hand that is cradled between both of Lena’s, her thumb brushing over the back of it as though she’s trying to bring comfort to her, even in her unconscious state.
Clicking her tongue, Kelly leans back in the chair, already annoyed at how uncomfortable it is and wincing at the thought of how much pain Lena must be in after three days. “Is there anything we can do to help with that part while you’re here? Alex and J’onn both used to run the DEO and are used to bureaucracy. I’m sure they can handle some stuff for you, and the rest of us can help too.”
Lena shakes her head. “No, no. It’s fine. Sam is covering a lot of that for me and Jack…well, I assume he’s attempting to help but really slowing Sam down.”
“That’s nice of them.”
“Yeah, they’re the best.” For the first time today, Kelly has seen a hint of a smile grace Lena’s lips.
Kelly’s glad to see it. She’s seen people completely shut down in situations like this, but Lena is pretty aware of herself and her emotions. It’s impressive. Usually, people end up acting out of character or making dumb decisions. “So, Lena. If you don’t mind me asking, do you see you and Kara dating long-term?”
Lena’s head flies to the side to look at Kelly, shock written over her face. “That’s the question you’re going with?”
Kelly shrugs.
“Do all therapists start out with those kinds of questions?”
Kelly eases off. “I’m not here as a therapist, Lena. I’m here as your friend. It was a question that has more to do with what I’ve been wondering about your budding relationship rather than me trying to psychoanalyze you.”
Lena takes a few beats to think over her answer, taking Kelly’s claims of simply being her friend at face value. She hasn’t even got the energy to let her self-doubt have a voice, so she will blindly believe her.
“I would like to see where my relationship with Kara goes,” Lena says with a firm nod. “I had a discussion with Nia the other day and realized that I don’t know as much about her as I initially thought, so that will be my first point of action when she’s well enough. I need to learn more about her. It’s not until we get to know each other better that we can fully commit to each other.”
Kelly tilts her head, her eyes pinned on the side of Lena’s face. “Interesting.”
“Don’t do that.” Lena recoils away from her, her cheeks flushing.
“Sorry. It’s just not the answer I was expecting. You guys have been all gung-ho about following your emotions that seeing you putting logic to your relationship is a little odd.”
“Well, I realized I don’t know much about her as a Kryptonian, and that’s a very large part of her life. I can’t be with someone if I don’t know everything about them.”
Eyebrows furrowed and lips tilting down, Kelly frowns. “You know, you don’t have to know everything about the person you’re with. In fact, I would recommend you don’t.”
“Doesn’t that take away from the whole spiel therapists usually drone on about, the one about open communication and talking at every opportunity?”
Shaking her head, Kelly replies. “Not at all. In fact, I think it’s good for couples to have privacy within the relationship. To have their own private space in the far back corner of their hearts.”
“Really?”
“If you don’t have that, where will you grow? Every person deserves to not only grow with their partner but to grow within themselves. We adapt, we overcome, we change. To do that, we need our own space, and it’s not wrong to have that. That private space is what gives us the space to become who we need to become so while, yes, you should know about all of the important parts of each other’s lives, it’s ok if you never fully learn every last thing about one another. Holding yourself to that standard would be as good as you walking away right now.”
Lena’s brain can barely wrap around the words. “What?”
“I’m saying that yes, there’s plenty for you to learn about each other, but if you add the caveat of you needing to know everything about each other into your relationship, you’re setting yourself up for failure.”
“Oh. Ok.” Lena nods, her brain too tired to fully follow exactly what Kelly is saying, but if there’s anyone who does know the healthiest thing for her relationship, it’s the therapist who is happily married with a gorgeous little girl at home. “I’ll think about that.”
“Good. Now, are you sure I can’t talk you into a nap on the couch in the other room?” Kelly asks, shifting her weight.
Lena shakes her head. “Bring the couch in here and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“You know what? I’ll take it. I’m going to get J’onn and Alex to help me.”
-
It takes five days in total for Alex to determine that Kara has recovered enough from the kryptonite poisoning to come out of her coma and let the sunlamps finish the job of getting her to heal, and when she does wake, it’s with every member of the team crowding around her and two Legionnaires hovering about in the other room waiting for an update.
Upon being informed of what is happening by Brainy, they all hustled back to come and check on her. Mostly at the insistence of Winn, but Mon-El didn’t exactly put up a fight either.
Lena is right there beside her in the same place she’s spent the best part of the week but she’s in a much comfier chair than the one she started in.
Kara wakes slowly and it’s a lot less anticlimactic than the group was expecting, except for Alex, who knows how this stuff works – thank you, med school.
Lena’s hands are sweaty around Kara’s, but she can’t seem to force herself to let go, especially when her eyes start flickering open. She stands, leaning over the prone Kryptonian. “Hey, Kara.”
“Hi,” Kara mumbles out, her throat dry and scratchy.
Alex rushes to do her tests and checks. All the while, Lena is talking softly to her, easing her back to the land of the living. As soon as Alex clears her, Nia, Brainy and Kelly move over to wish her their best before leaving to give her some privacy and also give the others a chance to come in and see her.
Lena doesn’t move.
Winn and Mon-El make their way in once the others file out, both of them unsure of themselves, not only because Kara isn’t in the best of shape, but because there’s a woman they’ve never met before at her bedside looking at her like she’s just hung every star in the sky with stands of her own soul to declare her love for all the universe to see.
They round the bed to stand on the opposite side to Lena and end up beside Alex, who simply rolls her eyes at them and joins Lena on the other side.
“How is she?” Winn asks, directing his question at Alex despite Kara being awake.
“She’s good,” Alex says. “She could have told you that.”
Chastised, Winn meets Kara’s eyes. “Hey, you. Long time no see, best friend.”
“You’ve been demoted.” Is the first thing out of Kara’s mouth, followed by a round of giggles that everyone has to suppress a smile at. “Lena’s taken your place, ex-best friend.”
Winn’s mouth drops open. “How? I’m the coolest person I know. I made your suit for you.”
“I made her a suit too. It has anti-kryptonite capabilities and doesn’t have a skirt that will accidentally flip up and give the enemy an eyeful mid-fight.” Lena raises a challenging brow at him, a deadly smirk in place that disappears when she turns back to Kara, her expression instantly softening.
Winn huffs a little, but a nudge from Mon-El has him refocusing. “That’s rude, but I’ll debate it with you when you’re not high on sunlight.”
Kara scoffs. “Whatever. Thanks for coming, guys, even if it’s not necessary. I’m fine.”
“You were just in a five-day induced coma. You don’t have a good sense of what ‘fine’ is,” Mon-El says with a boyish grin. “We wanted to see if you were ok with our own eyes. It’s not every day that you defeat your greatest rival. How do you feel?”
Kara and Lena share a look, and Lena does her best to sense what Kara is thinking, but it’s impossible, the cluster of emotions running wild and free behind those bright blue irises making it a task and a half even to try.
Kara swallows harshly. “A lot. I feel a lot.”
The mood dampens and Mon-El shies away from the group a little, realizing he just made a mistake. “Sorry, that was a poor question to ask. It’s just that we used to speak about the Luthors when we were dating, and there wasn’t much positivity around that. I thought you would be happy to have him gone.”
Lena freezes. Partly because she never realized that this is Kara’s ex and another because he said ‘Luthors’. They spoke about her entire family, probably including her. She understands why she would be lumped in with them; it is her surname after all, but it’s not information she would have liked to have learned in this situation, with Kara’s ex spilling the beans.
“Mon-El, shut up.” Alex hisses.
“What?” He asks.
Lena takes over, her face once again cold and unfeeling as she lets go of Kara’s hand with one of hers so she can offer it to the man. “Lena Luthor, pleasure to meet you.”
His eyes grow wide and his jaw practically drops to the floor.
Winn is the one who saves the day, jumping in to shake her hand in an overexaggerated manner in his excitement. “Oh my stars! You’re the Lena Luthor. I can’t believe I’m meeting you; this is insane! Your work with…I don’t know if you’ve done it yet, so I can’t say anything, but your work is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen. It’s unbelievable! Can I pick your brain about your ongoing projects?”
Lena shakes her head. “Perhaps another time. I would like to spend some time with Kara. As you can imagine, I’m not in the best state of mind given that Kara is hurt and my brother just died.”
Mon-El seems to wake from his stupor at that. “You’re letting a Luthor be in here? You’re letting her touch Kara?” He briefly pins his eyes on Alex before they dart to glare at Kara and Lena’s joined hands.
“Stop, Mon-El. You’re acting like an asshole.” Kara jumps in, the words taking more effort than she has to give.
“I’m the asshole?” He asks, his voice coming out in a whine, his eyebrows practically meeting his hairline, which is quite the task.
“Stop. Just stop.” Kara pleads, her free hand coming up to cover her face, a headache sinking in. “Can I just please have some time to rest? I can’t deal with this.”
Alex jumps onto Kara’s request, using it to get everyone out. “Alright, you heard the lady, everyone out.”
Winn goes easily, looking pissed at Mon-El and grabbing him by his arm to pull him out of the room. Lena watches them go before she stands up too, leans down to press her lips to Kara’s forehead and then moves to leave.
“You don’t have to go, Lena,” Kara says, clinging to her hand.
“I won’t be too long. You rest. I’ve got a few things to handle, and then I’ll be back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise I’ll come back. Go to sleep.”
Check out the next couple of chapters on Patreon here!
Here's my piece for this year's SCBB! Read it on AO3 here!
You can see the incredible associated art by CorpseCollector here!
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Summary - A series of events leading up to Lena’s realization that Kara’s alien side is a different person from the one everyone, including herself, has been allowed to see.
-
Lena’s heels click against the polished floor of the DEO in a stern rhythm that sets every agent’s teeth on edge. Nobody is more on edge than Lena though because she has a worry that’s been keeping her up at night and making her paranoid. One that she is here to get rid of as soon as she finds the subject of said worry.
“What can we do for you, Ms Luthor?” Alex greets her, not at all happy that Lena is using her recent save of Supergirl as an opportunity to get access to the DEO headquarters whenever she sees fit.
Lena thinks it’s great, honestly. She’s never been able to get in here without a million passes through security and only ever when they want to bring her in as their last option because they still, even after all this time, doubt that she’s doing anything without ulterior motives.
“There’s someone I want to speak with. I think you know who.” Lena states, her voice cool and sharp.
Alex’s hands find her hips and her spine straightens even more, if that’s even possible. “Supergirl isn’t here right now.”
“Really?” Lena’s eyebrow raises dangerously.
“Really.”
“I don’t believe that you’re being completely truthful, Director. What exactly do you think I’m going to do to her? I didn’t build her a suit to protect her from kryptonite radiation just to make sure I’m the one that gets to kill her.” Lena’s arms fold over her chest, her voice getting more and more hostile as she speaks.
This is getting out of hand already. Alex can see that simply by looking around her at all of the agents that are pretending that they aren’t trying to listen in and watch the show as it unfolds.
Alex steps closer to Lena and lowers her voice. “I’m not accusing you of anything, she really isn’t here.”
Lena doesn’t look like she believes her, not one bit. “I have already checked everywhere else so where is she?”
Now Alex is just confused. “What do you mean? She should be at work or if not, her loft. If she’s not there then I have no idea. Supergirl hasn’t been needed today, and I’ve been busy so I haven’t spoken to her. Why can’t you just text like a normal person instead of storming into government buildings like you own the place?”
Lena ignores the last jab at her. “I’ve tried CatCo and her loft. She hasn’t answered any of my messages or calls either. I asked James if he knew where she could be when she wasn’t at CatCo and he said it’s her day off so she should be at home. When she wasn’t there, I figured she would be here.”
A frown sits squarely on Alex’s face. “That’s really strange. She never told me she had the day off; she’s usually working on Thursdays. Let me try to call her, she might just be avoiding you.”
“Hey!” Lena scolds her but she’s already been tuned out so Alex can attempt to make her call.
Alex half-turns away from her so she doesn’t get distracted by Lena whilst on the phone and the action leaves Lena huffing and trying to inch closer discreetly in the hope that she will be able to hear what Kara says on the phone if she actually picks up.
When Alex sees her moving out of the corner of her eye, she just takes a step further away from her, a half-hearted glare shooting out of her eyes at Lena all the while that prevents Lena from trying to get closer again.
It takes a long time for the call to go through and by the time it does get answered, Alex is tapping her foot impatiently and her voice is sharp with Kara despite her not being the one to put her in a mood. It makes Lena feel a little bit guilty but overall, she thinks it’s Alex’s problem if she can’t compartmentalise and be nice to innocent people.
Alex’s tone is hushed and since she can’t hear Kara’s side of the conversation, Lena doesn’t bother trying to decipher what’s being said, more inclined to just wait until the call is over so she can annoy Alex further by asking a million questions about what was said.
Lena’s gaze lazily roams around the large open space within the DEO. She watches the agents rushing back and forth doing things she can’t comprehend and the computer screens over on one side of the room holding statistics, maps, and personnel files. She doesn’t linger on those for too long, the last thing she wants is to be tackled because they think she’s stealing intellectual property from the government or some bullcrap like that.
Alex clears her throat once the call ends and she looks less annoyed and more smug. “She’s at the Fortress of Solitude so unless you can magically appear in the Arctic, I’d say you’ll have to wait another day to do whatever it is you’re apparently thinking of doing. Sucks to suck.”
“That’s perfectly ok, Director Danvers. I have a lovely little piece of technology that can take me right there.” Lena smirks whilst holding up her wrist to show off her watch, which has been purposefully modified to create a portal to wherever she wants to go as long as she has the coordinates, which she does in this instance. She’s very glad she noted them down when she was last in the Fortress of Solitude, right after the Daxamites kidnapped her.
“Oh really? Let’s see it then.” Alex folds her arms, disbelief radiating out of her pores.
Lena just shrugs and presses a few buttons on her watch. A portal opens to the sound of dozens of agents gasping because a literal purple swirling portal just opened up in the middle of their workplace.
“That’s really going to take you to the Fortress of Solitude?” Alex asks, doubt still lingering, but overall, she’s a lot more convinced now and also clamouring to know how the watch works so she can build her own because she could seriously cut down her commute to work with one of those bad boys. She could sleep for an extra twenty minutes.
Lena shakes her head with a wry smile. “No, this is going to take me home. I believe that it would be in my best interests to collect my winter coat from my closet before heading to the Arctic. I’ll see you later, Director. I have business to discuss with Supergirl that cannot wait any longer.”
“Wait, what’s so important that you can’t wait for her to return? She only ever stays there for maybe two or three hours at a time.”
“I don’t believe that’s any of your business. Have a great day, Director, and please, don’t hesitate to pick your jaw up off the floor once I’ve left.” Lena makes an about-turn and promptly struts into the portal, which disappears right after she steps through it.
Alex stares at the spot where the portal was just a few seconds ago, her jaw hanging loosely for a moment before snapping shut with a click.
-
Despite the massive coat secured around her, Lena has to wrap her arms around her waist to try and fend off the cold as she steps out of the portal and into the Fortress of Solitude.
Vast walls of ice surround her, and statues of people that are long gone glare down at her, their heads the size of cars because they are so large. “Hello to you too.” She whispers up at them, half impressed, half intimidated.
Taking a look around, she can’t see any signs of life. There’s just ice, random control panels and random shelves made of yet more ice with weapons and different types of technology stacked on them. As much as she’d like to take a good look at all of that, it’s not what she’s here for. She’s here to look for one specific person. One yet to be located.
She starts walking. This isn’t exactly the kind of place to have signs up to point anyone in any particular direction, and if there is, they are all in a language that Lena doesn’t speak. Not that she wouldn’t mind learning. She just has to wander and hope she’ll find her way at some point.
Hallway after hallway of the same freezing design takes her nowhere except in circles. She’s got her ear out for any sign of movement but all she can hear is her own thundering heartbeat, staggered breaths, clicking heels and the odd crackle from the ice—nothing to give away anything helpful. Something helpful that does give Lena a clue is the lighting.
Everywhere is lit by a faint bluish tinge except for one place. From beneath a door that she doesn’t know how to open, she can see red. Not harsh, nor foreboding. A pleasant red, a dulled crimson, one that reads as comforting.
There’s no apparent door handle or button to push to get the door open, but she can see the light around the edge of the door, which she isn’t entirely sure is actually a door. The doorway is arched at the top, creating a beautiful outline that she wants to commit to memory for no reason other than to admire it when she’s not so cold her toes feel like they might snap off. She should have changed out of her heels into boots before coming here. The coat isn’t enough.
Her bare hands press against the ice in search of a way to open it, but nothing happens apart from her fingers getting cold. Next, she tries the ice around the outside of the door. No dice. The final option is something a little more hands-on. She tries pressing her hands into the door and then pushing it to one side to see if it will shift any.
It does shift but she was pushing in the wrong direction because she closes up the gap on one side of the door, blocking the light. She pushes the other way and with a little heaving, the door cracks open enough to peek through the gap and wrestle her fingers into it to move it easier.
Lena takes a look through the steadily widening gap, her green eyes hungrily drinking in the sight that greets her.
The door is shuffled open just enough that when she turns on her side, she can just about force her way through it and stumble into the room, her eyes never once leaving the form of the woman inside, the woman she came here to see.
So desperately, Lena wants to call out to her, a little worried that she hasn’t reacted to her presence because while she hasn’t been particularly loud, she’s made enough noise that a superpowered alien should be able to hear her, especially her loud footsteps, the heels of her shoes taking no prisoners with the harsh clip-clop that accompanies each movement of her feet.
Kara is sitting on the ground, her legs crossed and her hands reaching out behind her to keep her propped up as she leans back, her head tilted towards the light in the ceiling, the one emitting the red glow. Her eyes are closed and a tiny, relaxed smile graces her face. Lena’s not so sure as though she’s ever seen someone look so comfortable and beautiful. The grace she’s exuding is powerful and it almost knocks Lena back off her feet.
“Kara?” The name falls from her lips in the most hushed of voices but somehow, it’s mightier than any other noise she’s made, more compelling.
Kara’s head whips up and she wrestles to her knees in a flurry of frantic limbs and wild panic. There’s no grace or regal stature to her now. It’s all gone with that one whispered word and now Lena is staring into the frightened gaze of a woman that wasn’t here when she arrived. This isn’t the person she was just looking at; this is someone else and Lena isn’t sure why.
She’s not sure why Kara is acting so panicked. She’s not sure why she was sitting on the floor and looking the way she was. She isn’t sure why Kara is now looking guilty and she isn’t sure why she’s now feeling guilty for making Kara feel guilty.
“Kara, are you ok?”
“What are you doing here?” Kara ignores Lena’s question, her arms folding over her chest protectively, her shoulders hunching forward and her voice small in a way Lena has never heard from her. At least, not whilst she’s wearing her suit.
Lena moves closer and sees the muscles across Kara’s body ripple as she resists the urge to move back away from her so she stops a couple of paces away. “I couldn’t get hold of you and I was worried. You never showed up for lunch so I went to CatCo and your loft. When you weren’t there and still weren’t answering your phone, I went to the DEO. I was worried you’d been hurt, but then Alex called and you answered. She told me where to find you and I came.”
A hand slides across Kara’s forehead, the stress behind the action abundantly clear. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought that was tomorrow. My phone was set to do-not-disturb, but Alex’s number is set so she can still call me in emergencies. I thought I had the day to myself so I came up here. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Lena nods, the action slow and precise enough that it only serves to increase the anxiety building in Kara.
“Ok,” Lena says. “So, what were you doing?”
Kara shakes her head. “Nothing much, just going through a few things.”
“You were on the floor though, Kara. Why?”
“Just…” Kara’s eyes flicker around the room for an explanation to draw from, “…resting.” She winces after she says it. That was the worst thing she could have said. No other word is more transparent than that.
The sound of Kara’s increased breaths fills the air and the rise and fall of her chest is the most prominent movement in the room, letting Lena in on the secret that whatever it is that Kara was doing, it was important to her but shouldn’t be spoken about. Not if she would like Kara to continue her streak of never having a heart attack.
“Ok then. Well, do you want me to leave you to it or do you want to come to lunch? I haven’t eaten yet so I’m thinking of either heading to Noonan’s or picking up Big Belly Burger and heading back to my place. Either option is good if you’re feeling up to it. I don’t want to mess up your plans for a relaxing day away from everyone if you don’t want to come.”
Kara shrugs. “I guess I am hungry. Want to head back and I’ll clean up and meet you there?”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Lena replies, noting that was the wrong thing to say when Kara’s unease grew. “How about I find my way back to the main room, the one with all the statues, and wait there?”
Kara’s shoulders slacken. “Sounds good. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Lena forces a smile, her own curiosity and bafflement taking a backseat to Kara’s overwhelming rollercoaster of emotions. With one last look around the room, the red light of particular interest to her, she turns around and heads out of the room, taking the next right.
“Wrong way! Take a left and then the fourth right. You can’t miss it!” Kara yells behind her. As casually as she can, Lena turns back and follows her instructions.
-
Lena never pushes the topic of finding Kara on the floor of The Fortress of Solitude. She doesn’t push it at lunch or the many other lunches that follow. She doesn’t discuss it with anyone but doesn’t forget it. Instead, she logs it in the back of her mind and keeps it hidden away for moments when she can only think about Kara. It’s a mystery she wants to solve but one she doesn’t know how to approach.
It’s something still sitting in the back of her head though, even as she’s heading up the stairs to Kara’s apartment, the elevator sitting dead in the water with caution tape across the doors. It’ll probably be like that for a while, it took over four months when it broke down last year.
There’s a sense of calm for Lena though. A little bit of the anxiety she’s felt surrounding the situation with Kara has gone because tonight, she’s not spending time with her alone. It’s game night so she couldn’t bring it up with her if she wanted to because it wouldn’t be fair to Kara and she gets to enjoy her time without spending every second trying to figure out if it’s a good idea for her to ask about what happened at the fortress.
She’s slowly stomping up the stairs, her bag weighted down with half a dozen bottles of wine. Not all for tonight but because she’s recently learned that Kara with her stupid, big heart has been stocking up on her favourite wine so she can offer it to her when she’s over and spending much more money than she should be for someone on her salary just because her best friend has expensive taste. She’s brought a couple of bottles to be shared tonight and then a few to stay here for the nights she visits. Also a bottle of nice champagne she knows Kara likes but rarely indulges in because she thinks it’s weird to drink it when it’s not in celebration of something so refuses to buy it for herself. That certainly doesn’t stop her when Lena pours her a glass as a treat though.
The clunky pattering of flurried footsteps fills the echoing space of the stairwell. Lena turns her head to look behind her and see who it is.
Alex appears at her side, eyeing up the bag in her hands. “Oh, that’s a decent bag of drinks, please tell me there’s something in there for me.”
“Nope. It’s your turn to get the good scotch, this is just me restocking my wine in the loft.”
“You keep wine in Kara’s loft?”
“Yeah, your idiot sister buys it for me if I don’t.”
Alex’s head tilts to one side. “She is kind of dumb at times when it comes to hospitality.” She sniffs. “And quite a lot of other things too.”
Lena uses her free hand to swat at Alex’s arm. “Be nice, that was an unnecessary jab. Kara is plenty smart most of the time.”
That garners a snort. “Most of the time,” Alex repeats.
Lena shakes her head and carries on upstairs, more bothered about getting to Kara’s loft so she can put this heavy bag down.
The door opens before they could knock, Kara grinning at them. “Hey!” She wrangles the bag from Lena’s hand and wraps her up in a hug, her eyes falling closed momentarily. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“And I’m here too.” Alex huffs, pushing the pair to get by because they’re blocking the doorway. It makes Lena lose her balance slightly but Kara stands firm, a steadying hand wrapped around her waist and another around her back.
“Ignore her, she’s being insufferable today.” Lena quips when Kara pulls away and looks over at Alex, who has already splatted on her couch, limbs spread in every direction and her eyes closed. “I think she must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“No, I just didn’t get much sleep because I worked late last night getting paperwork done because a certain someone demanded access to files on a certain caped Kryptonian.”
Kara closes the door softly, taking a quick peek down the hallway and using her super hearing once more to see if any of the others are here yet. She can hear Nia and Brainy just outside but there’s no point in her keeping the door open when it’ll take them a couple of minutes to get up here anyway. Then she clues into what Alex just said. “You wanted files on me?” She turns to Lena with a questioning eyebrow lifted in her direction.
Lena shrugs it off like it’s completely normal. “Of course, I did. How else am I going to keep up to date on you and build you a better suit? I think Winn is great and all but I think it’s time to ditch the skirt. It does make your legs look incredible but that’s yet to help you in a fight.”
“You’re going to build me a suit?” Kara’s eyes light up and she bounces on her toes a little in excitement, her hands balling up beneath her chin and twitching as she fights to keep in control of herself. “I’m so excited! Can I help?”
“Of course, you can, anything for my favourite person.” Lena grins, her sparkling eyes tracking each barely contained movement from Kara and it’s when she watches her like this she sees it – the way Kara has to fight to stay in control of her own body, the way her muscles ache to be freed from the cage she forces them into so she doesn’t destroy anything around her or cause harm to anyone. It’s so easy to forget the power she holds and Lena forgets just how lucky she is.
She’s followed this line of thinking many a time and each time it does nothing but bum her out and make her chest feel tight, an empathetic response to the claustrophobia Kara must experience within her own body. The difference between her and Kara though, is that she forgets. She forgets how strong Kara is and the effort she puts into keeping everyone safe. That’s a luxury Kara can never afford.
“You’re the best, Lena!” Kara, now finished with her physical display of pure pleasure, pulls her into another hug. They sway with the force of it and Lena’s hands splay across the muscles of Kara’s back, the tension there still palpable.
“I know,” Lena responds, smirking when she pulls back because Alex is here and she’s not willing to look like a complete sap in front of her, that’s a surefire way to make sure she gets teased for the rest of her life and that’s not something she’s signing up for right now.
Alex swipes the bag out of Lena’s hand, pulling out one of the bottles and turning it in her hand so she can take a good look at the label. She whistles as she reads it. “Oh yeah, we are totally drinking this tonight.”
Kara frowns. “Why did you bring wine? I’ve got a bottle in the cupboard already.”
Lena pats her on her arm tenderly. “Because I’m a billionaire, darling, and you’ve got a massive food bill to contend with without me adding an extra expense to your monthly outgoings. I’ve got the wine, there’s no need for you to put yourself out to get it for me.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Lena holds up a finger and snatches the bag with the rest of the bottles out of Alex’s loose grip before opening the cupboard and beginning to put the bottles away next to the one already sitting there. It wasn’t there the last time she was here because they finished the bottle so Kara must have already restocked. She was hoping to have gotten there before her but since she bought so many bottles, that won’t be an issue again, that’s the last bottle Kara will buy for her.
Behind her, Kara frowns at her back, discomfort bubbling in her chest. It goes against the conduct she was raised with. A good host should always provide for their guests and to not do so is deemed disrespectful. Lena doesn’t know that, Kara’s fully aware that she doesn’t, but there’s still a discomfort there. She’s going to have to find a way around that, maybe she’ll have to start stocking up on Lena’s healthy snacks and disgusting green smoothies she likes even though she swore to never let any of it into her apartment.
It doesn’t solve the issue but it does calm her internal discomfort by a small margin. There’s only so much she can argue without her insistence looking strange, especially since Lena has the advantage of having a logical argument for why she should pay for her drink of choice.
The door flies open just a millisecond after a rush of rapid knocks fill the air, Nia walking in with Brainy right on her heels. “The party is here so change out of your granny panties and get your party thongs on!”
“What is wrong with you?” Alex questions, her face blank.
“So many things.” Nia shrugs and slings herself onto the couch, Brainy following her and taking a more civilized approach to sitting down.
“Hello, everyone.”
“Hey, Brainy. Hey, Nia.” Kara greets them both before turning to Alex. “Is this everyone for tonight or is Kelly showing up too?”
Alex’s lips turn up into a hint of a smile at the mention of her girlfriend. “She’s working late so she’s going back to her place to shower and will show up in a little while. She said to go ahead and order food, just save her a couple of slices of pizza.”
“What makes her think we’re ordering pizza?” Lena’s head tilts.
Kara shrugs. “Well, we always order pizza.”
“Not always,” Lena argues.
Alex snorts. “Can you remember the last time we didn’t order pizza for game night?”
Lena’s mouth opens and she goes to reply but she very quickly realizes she can’t actually remember the last time they didn’t have pizza. Even when they order from different places or have different cuisines, they always order pizza too just so they are certain they won’t run out of food. “Touché.”
“So, pepperoni?” Kara inquires, her phone in hand ready to place their order.
“Get a veggie one too. I’ll order Chinese as well.” Alex starts barking her orders. “Lena, find a game for us all to play while we wait for food.”
“Aye aye, captain. Whatever you say, captain.” Lena rolls her eyes but moves anyway, pleased when she sees Kara giggle at her little quip.
Lena purposefully chooses a couple of games that won’t take too long to get through so Kelly will be able to join right in when she gets here, that way she won’t have to just awkwardly watch while the rest of them play. Besides, if she had chosen something like Monopoly, there’s a strong likelihood that fewer people would be leaving the apartment alive than how many came in.
Food ordered and games underway, they find themselves all gathered around Kara’s coffee table. Brainy and Nia have taken the couch, Alex has taken a chair and Lena has taken the other. Since the last thing Kara wants is to be squeezing herself into the gap left next to the young lovebirds, she’s taken a cushion and is sitting on the floor and leaning back against Lena’s legs.
Since Lena felt how tense Kara was before, she’s taken it upon herself to gently massage Kara’s shoulders and try to ease out the tension one heavy pet at a time. The more her hands work, the more Kara ends up leaning against her and rolling her head forward between turns to give her more space to work.
The pair are in their own little bubble right up until Alex decides she’s done listening to the rather disgusting sound of Kara’s sighs. “Can you two not? I’m sure this could be classified as lesbian porn.”
“You would know.” Kara mumbles, not lifting her head and bringing her hands up to cover Lena’s to make sure she doesn’t stop.
“You’re gross.” Alex’s nose wrinkles.
Lena shrugs the whole thing off. Kara holds a lot of weight on her shoulders, that cape is filled with the sorrows and pain of not one but two planets so if she has to do a little maintenance every once in a while, she’s not going to complain. Even steel corrodes.
With the position they’re in, she can only reach her shoulders without it being uncomfortable for the pair of them having to move so eventually the shoulder massage just turns into head scratches and Kara is flush against her legs by that point and has given up on even pretending she’s interested in the game.
Kara whines when there’s a knock at the door because she knows she’s got to get up and lose the soothing sensation of nails dragging across her scalp but gets up anyway because if she’s not quick enough then Lena’s likely to rush over and pay for the food when it’s not her turn.
The pizzas are here first but only just, the Chinese arriving only moments after they get it all set up on the counter for everyone to take their fill so it’s easy enough to dish out everyone’s meals.
As always though, they ordered way too much food, even with the extra orders of pizza so what starts as a civilized meal as a group very quickly descends into a free for all, everyone piling their plates high with so much food there’s no way they will be able to finish it all. Well, there is one woman that will definitely finish all of her food and even then she’s probably going to go for seconds.
Kara’s food is piled so high that Lena holds her breath as she carries it across the room to set it on the coffee table because it’s teetering and could very well end up all over the floor but alas, Kara makes it and begins to demolish the food in record time, a hint of superspeed definitely doing the trick in getting it down her before anyone else has managed to so much as make a sizable dent in their plates.
She’s up again and heading back to the leftovers ready to grab another plate when she’s stopped in her tracks by Alex. “Hey, make sure to leave enough for Kelly, she might not have an appetite the size of yours but she still deserves to have a good meal.”
“I know, I’ll be sure to leave her plenty of pizza but there are potstickers with my name on them.”
Nia sighs from the couch. “I wish I could eat like that but apparently my alien genes don’t give me the power of an epic metabolism. It’s so unfair, I want some of Kara’s alienness.”
Kara has zoned out, too busy piling her plate up again but turns back to the group when she hears her name being mentioned. “What was that?”
“We weren’t bullying you, don’t worry,” Alex answers. “We were just saying that you’re a lucky alien for your metabolism. I wish being a human would give us the power to eat whatever we want but the Kryptonians have to hog that power to themselves. Selfish.”
Lena starts chuckling along but stops abruptly when she takes in the look on Kara’s face. She’s smiling but there’s an emptiness to it she doesn’t think she’s ever seen so prevalent in Kara’s eyes before. She’s laughing but there’s no joy to the sound, just an undertone of something sad.
Then though, Kara is sitting back down and the conversation changes and with it, so does Kara’s mood. She’s smiling again, this time more genuinely but it’s not the same. Lena saw something, something she’s got to file away with what she saw in the fortress because once again she has no idea what to do with it except spend a few sleepless nights taking the scene apart and replaying it until she finds some sense in it.
-
Lena’s fingers dig into her scalp as her face scrunches up in a healthy mixture of annoyance and exhaustion. The piles of paperwork surrounding her feel very much like they are increasing in size by the second and every time she tries to look at a new bit of paperwork or another email, her eyes blur.
Her scalp stings from the sharp stabbing coming from her nails and she pulls her hands away. That’s a habit she’s been meaning to break but just never got around to. It only happens late at night when her work is too overwhelming for how truly tired and rundown she feels. By morning, once she’s had a good rest and is refreshed, she can barely remember the night before and the bad habit is forgotten.
She tries to look at her laptop to see the screen but her eyes blur so she rolls up her shirt sleeve to look at her watch instead. It’s well past midnight. Definitely time to call it a day and pray that sleep finds her easily.
There’s no way she can leave her desk as it is, that’s a surefire way to ensure that she’s overwhelmed from the second she arrives tomorrow. She needs to pack up a little, maybe organize the files so they make more sense as it could make or break her day tomorrow.
She lets out a sigh of complaint and stretches her arms out in front of her, pushing out as much tension as she can before she rolls her neck, wincing when it cracks in two separate points. Her tired eyes fall over the mess on the desk from this new angle and it doesn’t look any better than it did before.
Lena jumps right into it, moving the files into categories and shifting some of them off her desk, mostly the less important ones, so it isn’t so cluttered. In her process of organization, she has to open up some of the files to see exactly where she should stack them. A lot of them are making her wish that she hadn’t, she’s got so much work to do because of a lot of incompetent people.
One of the piles she’s created is just all the stuff she’s got to fix tomorrow because of screw-ups, specifically one guy with connections to a major board member who feels it’s appropriate to block new technologies being created in the research and development department. How does this idiot think this company is going to run if they never create anything new? She’s going to have an uphill battle reprimanding him too because the board member he’s the grandson of holds a lot of power. In fact, there’s a good chance she’s going to have to find a way to get that board member out of the company altogether because of this.
She’s not going to be sad to see him go but it’s going to be a lot of stress and arguing. She’s going to have to hold a meeting with the board that is going to last far too long and she’s going to have to endure a bunch of stupid, rich people that don’t actually have a clue about how to run the company talking down at her like she’s only got half a brain cell.
That’s going to be fun and it’s totally not going to drain her very will to live.
Her head falls into her hands when she finishes up and sees the pile she’s got to tackle in the morning. There’s a lot more to fix than she thought and it could have all been avoided if this guy actually did his job properly instead of trying to sabotage the company. Actually, that’s a good point, why is he trying to sabotage the company?
“What are you trying to do?” Lena murmurs, sitting back down and going through the employee files in search of him to figure out why he, and probably his grandfather, are trying to stop the company from focusing on new projects.
She comes up empty from the initial searches but when she decides to look into the projects he’s been approving or pushing to be approved, she gets her answer. He wants to make weapons again, specifically, the weapons Lex was pushing when he was running the company.
Lex’s fucking cronies are at it again.
Her nails travel back up to her scalp and she puts enough pressure into the clawing that she makes herself wince but that’s not what her focus is on. Her focus is on the fact that no matter how much good she does and no matter how hard she tries, she’s never going to be able to be free of her psychopathic brother. God, she has to get out of here.
She grabs her purse and shoves her phone into it before making a beeline for the door. This is a problem for tomorrow for sure, she can’t cope with it any more today. She needs to leave because while organizing is great for her workday tomorrow, it’s ruining her mental health today.
As Lena waits for the elevator to take her down, she pulls her phone back out of her purse and debates whether or not it would be too inconsiderate to call Kara at this hour. It’s pretty likely that she’s already asleep, she does have work tomorrow after all, and everyone is stupid enough to deprive themselves of their full eight hours the way she does most days.
Ultimately, she decides it’s not a good idea. As much as she would love to hear her voice and let herself be distracted by her soothing tones, it would be selfish to do that and it would make her want to go over there purely to be on the receiving end of one of Kara’s hugs. They’re magical, both soft and firm at the same time, like hugging a teddy bear that is as protective as a guard dog. She never feels safer than the moments when Kara hugs her.
The parking garage is almost empty, just a few cars over on the far side that belong to the late-night security guards and her fancy Mercedes off on the other side. Usually, she would just call her driver but she always feels guilty having him on call when she knows she’s going to be in the office late.
She clambers into the driver’s seat and sets off toward home, her eyes heavy and her movements sluggish. It reminds her of the time she saw an article detailing how it’s more dangerous to drive when you’re tired than when you’re drunk and feels a little guilty but there’s not a chance in hell she’s going to wake up Frank, her driver, just because she’s feeling a little dozy. She’ll drive as carefully as possible and keep her fingers crossed. There aren’t many cars out at this time of night anyway and it’s a pretty simple drive.
She gets to the exit of the parking garage and looks both ways but stops despite the lack of traffic. She should turn right to go to her penthouse. If she turns left though, she can go to Kara’s loft.
A while ago, back when she found out about Kara’s alter ego, Kara gave her a key to her apartment. She told her she can go there whenever she wants, she’s always welcome, even if she’s just stopping by for the sake of it. She would have given her a key long before she did if she had been brave enough to reveal her secret, but she was too afraid that Lena would have figured it out on her own otherwise.
She’s only used the key a couple of times and always with a purpose. Usually dropping something off, picking something up, or waiting for Kara to come home so they could go out somewhere. She’s never just dropped by for the sake of it, yet tonight she’s considering it. Even just being in Kara’s space tonight sounds exactly like what she needs to calm her nerves from the shitstorm brewing tomorrow at work. Even if she gets there and Kara is asleep, she’s fallen asleep on Kara’s couch before and it was pretty comfortable, she can sleep there and leave in the morning before Kara even wakes up. Plus, she can get Kara some coffee brewing as a thanks, even if she won’t know that she’s helped her out.
No, she can’t just let herself into Kara’s apartment like that. That would be creepy.
But Kara did offer.
Screw it, she needs this tonight. She’ll feel guilty about it tomorrow but just for one night, she’s going to do this and allow herself the opportunity to have a good night’s rest feeling safe and secure.
She turns left.
It only takes her half the time to get to Kara’s place from L-Corp than usual because the roads are practically empty. Lena’s glad because with every turn she makes, she’s already losing the stress of the day on the road behind her, Kara’s pull bringing her in.
With shaky fingers, she rifles through her keys and picks out the one to Kara’s apartment, smiling at the little heart keychain that has a little smiley face on it. It’s all very Kara. As quietly as she can, she slides it into the lock and opens the door, doing her best to keep the noise levels down so she doesn’t alert Kara to her presence and wake her up.
The door clicks shut behind her and she winces, afraid that she’s going to wake up Kara. However, when she turns around to make her way to the couch to set up camp for the night, she realizes that she wouldn’t have woken her because she’s already awake.
Kara is sitting on the floor, legs crossed and a flickering candle in front of her. Her eyes are closed and her head is ducked but Lena knows she’s not sleeping because her lips are moving. She’s murmuring to herself, the words foreign and indistinguishable.
It brings her back to the memory of her walking in on Kara at the fortress, except this time she can see what Kara is doing clear as day. She’s doing some kind of meditation, Kryptonian meditation.
Lena carefully pulls her heels off, sets them beside the overflowing shoe rack, and leaves her purse on one of the chairs beside the kitchen table. She wanders slowly towards Kara, her face lit up by the candle, the only light in the room. She looks beautiful but there’s something bothering her, a crinkle between her eyebrows that gives away as much and her lips are turned down as she talks as if she’s trying not to cry.
The light shows off the sharp curve of her jaw and the line of her nose. All Lena wants to do is stare. Her eyes flit over every part of Kara that is illuminated and the light golden shine of Kara’s hair might just beat out the blue of Kara’s eyes as her new favourite. Though she’s sure it wouldn’t come close if Kara had her eyes open so she could see them in this light.
She keeps moving closer, her eyes never leaving Kara’s form, her brain struggling to comprehend anything other than how beautiful she is. It’s times like this when she isn’t even mad about her ongoing feelings for Kara. She truly never stood a chance. Her heart hopped right out of her chest and into Kara’s hand from the first time they met. And honestly, Lena’s not mad about it at this point because having Kara in her life, even if she’s doomed to stay single and pine for the rest of eternity, is worth it.
A floorboard creaks beneath her foot on one step and Kara’s head whips up so quickly that it makes Lena jump and stumble back. Kara just barely catches her as she trips and starts tumbling to the floor.
“You scared me,” Kara whispers, setting Lena back on her feet but keeping her close so she can pull her into the hug Lena’s desperate for.
“Sorry. I just…” Lena ponders lying but when Kara is looking at her with imploring blue eyes, she can’t. “I just wanted to be here.”
Her honesty is rewarded with a tiny smile and a faint pink glow to her cheeks, one Lena can only just make out in the dim light. “I’m glad you came then.”
“Me too.” Lena breathes, holding onto Kara tightly and taking everything she needs from the hug. She prays that she’s giving Kara just as much comfort because from what she saw, she’s not the only one with struggles. She just wishes Kara would open up to her about them. “Can we turn on a light?”
Kara squeezes her tighter. “In a minute. You’re warm.”
Lena sinks into the embrace even deeper, leaning completely into Kara and not caring that she’s setting so much of her weight into her. If anyone is going to catch her, it’s her Kryptonian best friend and she wouldn’t have it any other way, not when it feels like this.
“Bad day at work?” Kara mumbles into her hair after a minute.
“Terrible,” Lena replies. “What about you? Bad day at the office or at the DEO?”
“Both.” Kara mumbles. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lena almost had her there, almost got her to open up. The floodgates are always so firmly sealed that Lena’s kind of shocked she even got Kara to admit to being upset but she’ll take it. “Me neither. I just want to sleep, can I stay?”
Kara nods. “Always.”
When they finally part, Kara vanishes from in front of her with a burst of super speed. By the time Lena blinks away her confusion the candle is nowhere in sight, a lamp has been turned on and Kara is standing beside her with a spare set of pyjamas in hand, held out in offering.
-
“Why not?”
Lena folds her arms across her chest. “If you think I’m going to let you fly me into the children’s hospital and make a spectacle of both of us because you’re too impatient to travel by car like every other person on this planet, you’re sadly incorrect.”
Kara deploys a pout she thinks will have enough power to crumble Lena’s resolve. “But we will be able to spend more time with the kids if I fly us there. Don’t you want to make the kids' day?”
“It’s because you know there’s going to be cake there since you heard me on the phone with the caterer the other day. Don’t pretend this is for the children. Sit down, we’re waiting for Frank and he’s driving us there whether you like it or not.” Lena puts on her CEO voice, the one she usually reserves for the boardroom, and raises a single commanding eyebrow at Kara.
It’s a relatively new thing, her using that persona with Kara, but it’s immensely effective at getting Kara to do what she’s told, a fact that Lena is being especially careful not to take advantage of. It’s really cute though, the fact that all she has to do is be a little commanding and Kara gives in. The mighty Girl of Steel gives in just because she’s being bossy.
Kara makes her way over to the couch following Lena’s demand and pulls her cape to one side before lowering herself down. She sets the material across her lap so her fingers have something to fiddle with while she waits.
Lena holds back a smile and joins her after double-checking that she has everything she needs to take to the hospital. Kara tilts her body towards Lena when she sits beside her and Lena finds her fingers reaching out for the cape to pinch the edge of it, running the pads of her fingers over the stitching. “I don’t think he’ll be long.”
“Ok,” Kara simply answers, still gazing at her softly. “I can’t wait to see all of the kids, they’re always super sweet.”
“I know, I’ve heard they’re already clamouring to see their favourite superhero in action but I have to admit something.” Lena takes a deep breath. She hadn’t wanted to bring Kara along under false pretences but she really needs her help. That being said, she doesn’t want Kara to get there and be blindsided.
Kara’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t just ask you to come along because the kids want to meet Supergirl, although that is also true, they can’t wait to meet you. I asked you to come along because we’ve just had our first round of aliens come into the hospital as staff and some of the kids are struggling to adapt to it, they are scared or nervous. I don’t know, just not comfortable. I was hoping that maybe by making the comparison between the staff and Supergirl, they could overcome it slightly. I don’t want it to get bad enough that I’m forced to only have human staff because the aliens are great at their jobs. Trust just needs to be built.”
Kara’s expression doesn’t change throughout her explanation and it takes her a moment to speak. It makes Lena nervous, watching Kara as she watches her. Letting Kara think everything through is her best chance at Kara still coming to the hospital willingly rather than just to keep the kids happy. Kara won’t back out now because she doesn’t want to disappoint them.
“I get that. I would have appreciated more of a heads up but I get it. Why didn’t you just ask me though?” Kara is more confused than mad.
Lena’s fingers continue scraping their way along the seam of the cape, her gaze dropping down to watch them travel along the material. “You’ve always stayed away from anything too political if possible, I wasn’t sure if you would put this in that category and want to sit it out.”
She winces when Kara makes a squeaky sound with her lips as she sucks on her teeth. “That’s dumb. I do try to stay out of politics but this is different. This means the jobs of a lot of well-deserving aliens and the care of kids. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You didn’t have to try and trick me into it.”
“I’m sorry.” Lena chances a glance up towards her face, darting her eyes away sharply when she locks eyes with Kara for the briefest of moments.
Kara’s fingers play with the edge of her cape as well, but seeing the way Lena looks away so quickly and the shame spreading across her face instantly, she drops it to cover Lena’s hand with hers. “I forgive you, just please don’t do it again.”
Lena’s teeth find her bottom lip. “Do you really or are you just saying that to be nice?”
“We’ve gotten past the part of our relationship where I forgive you just to be nice. I have no issues telling you when you’re being mean or when you’re crossing a line. This is something forgivable. Next time, it won’t be. We live and we learn. Are you planning on doing it again?”
“Well…no,” Lena responds sheepishly.
“Cool, then stop pouting, that’s my forte.” Kara nudges her with a shoulder, sending her off balance. The movement tears her hands away from Kara and her cape, making it impossible to catch herself on the couch.
“Are you sure?”
“Are you dramatic?” Kara counters.
Lena folds her arms, her eyes shifting to one side out of annoyance. “I resent that.”
“I’m sure you do.” Kara nudges her knee against Lena’s and splays her cape across them both more evenly.
Now accepting that she’s been forgiven and has gotten a pass she hadn’t been expecting, Lena takes advantage of the cleared air to rest her head against Kara’s shoulder. “I can’t wait to see you with those kids, they’re always so happy to see you.”
“That’s because every kid wants to be a hero. Every kid wants to grow up to save the world, the cape proves to them they can.” Kara explains, ridding herself of the pressure of being the guest of honour at the hospital. She flaps the edge of the cape up at Lena. “You could just take this with you and they’d be happy.”
Lena shakes her head against Kara’s shoulder, the material of her suit a little scratchy against her skin. “I don’t think you realize how truly loved you are.”
Kara scoffs. “I think you need to see the hypocrisy in that statement.”
“Hey, I’m working on my issues, just ask my therapist. I don’t see you going to therapy.” Lena digs a sharp finger into Kara’s side, making her squirm in response.
“Yeah because that would work.” Kara sarcastically replies. “Hi, I’m here to fix my mental health, please help me forget the image of my entire planet exploding. Please and thank you. Oh, and I also fight bad guys as a side gig which often leads to me getting my ass kicked or almost dying. Do you think that’s healthy? What do you mean it isn’t?”
The entire time Kara runs through her imaginary conversation with a hypothetical therapist Lena gets a sinking feeling in her chest. “Kara, a therapist isn’t just someone to help you forget the bad shit in your life. It’s someone to help you work through it.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to work through the death of an entire species, Lena.” Kara answers back sharply.
Before Lena can answer back and try to reassure Kara that she didn’t mean it in that way, Kara is standing up, jolting Lena in the process and stalking away with an excuse of using the bathroom before they go.
Now that Kara has gone, her lap is cold from the lack of a warm cape and her chest is tight. Kara advocated for her to see a therapist when she was first deciding but when it comes to looking after herself she’s completely unwilling to tolerate the conversation. It’s not the first or last time Kara will put her own well-being on the back burner but this feels like more than that. Kara has some serious trauma and she’s not willing to touch on it more than vague comments here and there. Lena doesn’t know how to help her when Kara doesn’t want help.
Not knowing what else to do, she checks her phone and figures that Frank will be there to pick them up very soon. They might as well head downstairs to wait for him. Lena leaves her office, closing the door softly behind her and giving a tight-lipped smile to Jess. “Is she in the bathroom down the hall?”
“Ms Danvers headed toward the one on the other side of the floor. She looked upset.”
“She is. I’m going to go check on her and then we’re heading out. You’re free to leave and take the rest of the day to yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jess shakes her head. “That’s not necessary, Ms Luthor. I can keep working without you here.”
“You work just as hard as I do, have a rest and come back tomorrow with those stress lines on your forehead gone.”
Jess’ hand shoots up to her head. “I don’t have—” She sees Lena’s smirk. “I’ll go.”
“Good, enjoy the rest of your day,” Lena says, already walking away down the hall to the other bathroom to check on Kara. Talking with Jess helped ease her worry about Kara but it hasn’t dissipated completely.
Coming up to the bathroom door, Lena slows and takes a deep breath before pushing her way inside. “Kara? Are you in here?”
“I’ll be just a minute,” Kara calls out from inside one of the cubicles.
“Are you ok?”
A second of silence follows the question before a sniffle can be heard. “Fine. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Kara answers, her voice wobbly.
Lena leans back against the sink and waits for Kara to come out. When Kara does, she aims right for the sink to wash her hands whilst refusing to make eye contact with Lena. However, Lena won’t let it go unaddressed. “Kara, what happened back in my office?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go and see those kids, ok?”
“Kara—”
“I’m fine, I promise.”
She doesn’t believe her and Kara knows it but now isn’t the time. Frank will be here any second and they have a pretty important day ahead of them. “Ok. Are you ready to go? I was thinking that we could move downstairs to wait.”
“Sounds good.” Kara meets her eyes in the mirror and offers a strained smile.
-
Lena watches from across the ward as Kara is swarmed by kids, all of them scrambling to get to her as fast as they can and tugging at her cape when she’s in arm’s reach. She has to give it to the woman, if she were the one being used as a jungle gym, she wouldn’t be grinning like a madwoman the way Kara is.
She didn’t dare bring up what happened in the office while they were on their way. Instead, she opted for small talk and generally observed how Kara mentally pumped herself up. It was a sight Lena had never been privy to before; one where Kara sits with her eyes clamped shut for a solemn moment, her lips pressed tightly together in a stiff line, and her eyebrows furrowed before slowly, as they got closer to their destination, her entire face eased. Her lips parted into a gentle smile, her eyebrows lifted and her eyes opened to reveal glistening blue irises hiding all the pain Kara has endured throughout her life.
A part of her is jealous that she doesn’t get as much attention as Kara does. It’s a short-lived feeling when Kara occasionally turns her head towards her to show off a dopey grin usually followed by a jaunty wave. She has the attention she craves from those interactions; she doesn’t need it from anyone else.
For the most part, Lena ends up talking with the hospital staff and management to get feedback on the facility and to see how she can improve the place going forward. However, the issue of treatment resistance keeps popping up when the alien doctors are the ones working. The kids just don’t trust them.
Lena looks up when she hears Kara gently ushering the kids back to their rooms. It’s clear she’s getting worried about them worsening their conditions because they’re pushing themselves too much for a chance to be close to her. She’s especially worried about the kids who keep trying to climb onto her since most of them have IVs. She certainly doesn’t want them to get snagged or caught on anything.
“Go back to your cubicles and rooms, I’ll make sure to come and speak to all of you before I have to go.” Supergirl’s powerful yet calming tone gets them all moving, their jaws still dropped in awe at seeing their city’s official hero and unofficial mascot in person.
Kara strides her way over after the last child has returned to the safety of their hospital bed. Lena greets her with a smile. “Hey, you looked busy over there.”
“I was five seconds away from being a permanent climbing frame for those little guys.” Kara jokes. “I think I got them to trust me enough that we can talk to them about the alien doctors now. I thought about speaking to them privately or in small groups.”
“I think they already trust you, Supergirl.”
“Well…yeah, but I want to just reaffirm that I’m a person, not just a flying, world-saving superhero. I think getting them to see that each alien is a person too will help us immensely in our plight.” Kara’s hands naturally fall to her hips as they always do when she’s in her Supergirl outfit, the cape bringing her confidence she hardly manages to find when she’s dressed as just Kara.
Lena’s hand reaches out to rest on her arm but she catches herself. She can’t do that in public, rumours form way too easily. Her hand taps Kara’s arm lightly before dropping back down to her side awkwardly. The embarrassment lights up Lena’s cheeks in a pale pink that Kara has complimented when she’s seen it in the past.
She feels awkward and doesn’t know what to do with her hands now. With an ungraceful motion, she brushes back a non-existent hair that doesn’t exist since she has it slicked back into her signature CEO ponytail.
“Ok, yeah, sure, that makes sense.” She rattles off. “Um... shall we start talking with them?”
Kara nods. “Yeah, are you ok though? You seem nervous.”
Lena shrugs noncommittally. “This is an important message to get across. I’m a little apprehensive, to be honest.”
“Understandably.” Kara soothes her worries, taking her words at face value. In reality, Lena is more concerned about what happened in her office earlier. With that outburst to add to her list, Lena is finally getting a general idea about why Kara has been acting strangely. She can see that it all relates back to her life on Krypton. She fears she will never get enough detail on it to be able to help in any lasting way because of how closed off Kara is about her previous life. Understandably, she has some very large, very raw wounds about Krypton but Lena’s sure something has happened recently to trigger this. Surely she would have noticed something before now, right?
Lena clears her throat. “Let’s go.”
They go to a ward first, one that holds four patients. A nurse, a human one, opens all of the curtains so they can speak to all four kids at once. They all look to be between ten and fourteen so they have to try and cater their speech to them.
The nurse stays inside the ward. An alien doctor joins him and stands at his side, her purple splodged skin and six-fingered hands on full display. Kara nods to the pair and starts speaking. “Hey, guys.”
She receives a bunch of greetings in response, all of them managing to at least squeak out an excited ‘hi’ to their favourite superhero.
“I came here to see you for a couple of reasons today. One is just because I like hanging out with you guys, you’re all kind of awesome.” She says with a dorky smile. “The second reason is to see how you’re all feeling about some of the new additions here at Luthor Family Children’s Hospital.” She gestures to the nurses at the edge of the room, not picking either out.
None of the kids offer up an answer to her gentle inquiry, their gazes fixed on their hands and blankets.
“Come on guys, nobody is going to get mad at you for telling us how you feel. I already have an idea of what you’ve been feeling anyway. Nobody in this place is very good at hiding it.” She keeps a smile on her face even though her heart is aching for the new doctors and nurses that are just trying to help and fit in after moving to a planet that isn’t ready to accept them.
The oldest kid takes it upon himself to speak for the four of them. “It’s weird.”
“Thanks for being honest.” Kara jumps on the opportunity to have an actual conversation. “Can you elaborate?”
He shrugs a little. “I don’t know. It’s just…” His eyes dart to the alien nurse before returning back to his fidgeting hands. “It’s weird.”
“Is it their looks that are making you feel nervous or is it because they are aliens?”
The kid looks terrified, obviously afraid he’s going to give Supergirl an answer she doesn’t want to hear. “I don’t know much about aliens.”
“So it’s the uncertainty that is making you nervous? You don’t know anything about them so you’re not sure what to expect?” Kara reads between the lines.
“I guess so.” He shrugs again.
Lena steps forward. “Perhaps some educational programs would be helpful. We could set up a system or a book perhaps that everyone could read to get to know a little about their doctors. I personally love learning about all of the cultures of each planet and the different ways species adapt to their planet’s natural environments.”
“It’s true, she questioned me for weeks about my planet and the differences in our bodies because I’m an alien.” Kara jumps in.
“That’s different.” He responds quickly before ducking his head again, well aware he just put his foot in his mouth.
Kara and Lena share a confused look before Lena turns to the boy. “How so?” She keeps her tone light in an attempt to genuinely understand.
All the other kids stay quiet, content to let the boy talk for them. “We know you. You protect the city.”
Kara tilts her head dramatically, her eyes finding the ceiling as her eyebrows furrow. It’s clear she’s thinking and the room is dead silent as everyone awaits her response.
“Do you think firefighters protect this city?”
“Of course.” The boy answers.
“And the police?”
“Yes.” He’s getting nervous, seeing where this is going.
“And doctors?”
“I guess so.”
Kara has made her point. “So, if we’ve established that doctors protect this city, why don’t you believe that an alien doctor is protecting this city?”
“I guess they are.”
Kara’s fingers dig into her own hips as she sways to a beat nobody else in the room is privy to. “I think that there’s a lot of apprehension towards the new doctors and that’s ok. You’re allowed to take some time to get used to it. It is a big change for a lot of people and we want to make that change easier on everyone. Aliens are becoming a larger part of our society. There is an influx of new immigrants every day. Fortunately, Earth is kind enough to allow them to seek refuge. This planet gave me a safe place to live when my planet couldn’t and the way I pay back the kindness is by helping. The new doctors are paying you back by helping too, they just do it in a different way. We’re all aliens working to make society a little better the only way we can.
“I know a lot of the times when you see aliens, it’s on the news doing bad stuff. Then you see me stopping them but what you don’t see is the vast number of aliens aren’t bad. We all come from different planets and backgrounds and cultures but we all have the same goal in mind; we want to make this planet as great as it can be.”
“Well said.” Lena places a hand on her shoulder.
“But you’re not an alien really.” The boy doesn’t hold his tongue. “You’re one of us. You look like us and you think like us. You’re only an alien because you can fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes, you’re basically a human otherwise though. You’re not like them.”
“Thomas.” The girl in the bed next to him hisses. She looks to be around 12 and is much more open to what Kara was trying to say.
Lena, seeing Kara reeling from the words spoken to her, words that hit her harder than any alien ever could, steps up to take over. “I think a bit more explaining is in order. “
Kara nods passively at her side as she steps forward, therefore, shielding Kara.
All eyes are on Lena now. “An alien is anyone that wasn’t born on Earth. Each species has its own culture and way of life. We have to find a balance between their cultures and ours. Sometimes, they overlap. One of the ways they overlap here is that they have doctors and so do we. They bring so much more knowledge than humans could ever have alone and they can heal people in ways we can’t. They are here to do that and we must show them the same love we give to human doctors because they are just here to help.”
Thomas looks a little chastised but not overly convinced. The other three kids are now curiously glancing over at the alien nurse, a little less apprehensive with the reassurance that she is here to help.
The girl in the bed closest to her holds out her hand and the nurse cautiously steps towards her and takes it. “I like your purpleness.”
“I like your pinkness.” The alien responds, making the girl giggle.
Lena watches the interaction closely. They aren’t about to win all of the kids over but some kids, they can and this is proof. Her lips quirk up into a smile and she turns to share the moment with Kara but finds her blankly staring at the wall.
“Supergirl?” Thomas calls out nervously.
Kara snaps out of it, her face returning to its regular happiness. “Yes?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You’re ok. Sometimes all we need is a little hand in learning new things. Part of learning new things is making conclusions and testing them. You didn’t do anything wrong; you just need more research. I bet Ms Luthor can help you with that.”
Thomas looks between them, bobbing his head up and down in acceptance.
-
Lena feels guilty about leaving Kara out on her balcony but she previously cancelled the meeting with this shareholder three times and couldn’t make it four. It would set off alarm bells in the company that would take far too much work for her to make it worth blowing it off again.
Kara showed up right as she was about to head into the conference room and she can still envision the little sad puppy-dog pout she got on when Lena told her she couldn’t stay in the office.
To be fair, Kara took it like a champ and didn’t try to persuade her to stay. She just accepted it with a face of dissatisfaction and acceptance. It’s just a shame her dissatisfied face involves a pout that makes Lena want to rearrange her entire schedule just to make it go away.
She’s just finished the meeting, spending the entirety of it watching the ever-ticking clock out of the corner of her eye, and hurriedly rushes to her office, all too eager to get to Kara to enjoy a nice lunch together.
After what happened at the hospital, she hasn’t been able to reach Kara on a deeper level. The blonde keeps her guard way up at all times and changes the subject when the topic comes up.
Following their first attempt at explaining to the kids how the alien doctors are just there to help in the same way the human ones are, Kara let Lena do most of the speaking, clearly affected by the young boy’s words that were spoken out of ignorance.
The interaction keeps replaying over and over in her head. Now that she’s a few days out from the conversation, she’s thought of literally thousands of things she could have said that would have been better and perhaps more impactful in the moment but there’s nothing she can do now.
They made a huge difference though, that much they can’t deny. A lot of the kids have made attempts to connect with the alien staff since their visit. They are getting daily progress reports of the improvements so at the very least, they have made some of the changes they set out to make.
Lena opens her office door distractedly. She’s clearly not paying attention to what she’s doing, too caught up in her thoughts about what happened at the hospital and Kara’s strange reactions to different scenarios in the past few weeks.
She snaps out of it when she gets to her desk and drops the files she was carrying on top of it. It takes her a second to get her bearings, a little confused about what she’s doing due to her lack of paying attention.
A frown makes its home on her face as she takes a look around the room, Kara nowhere in sight. She was certain that Kara said she’d wait here but maybe she got called away on Supergirl business. That’s certainly not something Lena can complain about. Kara wouldn’t be Kara if she didn’t help those in need after all.
With a heavy sigh, Lena falls back into her office chair and lets it rock from the momentum for a few seconds before doing a dramatic spin. As she spins, something blue and red catches her eye for a millisecond before it’s gone. She pushes off so hard she has to do a double take and half-spin to look back out at the balcony. Sitting there in all of her primary-coloured glory is Kara.
She’s sitting in a position Lena has seen her in before and her lips are forming words that are not known to the English language. They aren’t known to any language from Earth.
Lena watches in wonder as Kara allows her blonde hair to curtain her face as her head tilts forward. A soft breeze caresses through it periodically, a whisper in return to the words Kara is barely murmuring.
It truly feels like she’s watching something magical. It’s enchanting in a way she can’t describe. The pinch of Kara’s closed eyes is a locked door to the wonders and pain within that Lena longs to see but has been barred from ever encountering. The fingertips that rest atop the blue material stretched over Kara’s knees have turned white from the strength of their grasp, the only hint Lena feels she may ever get of the power of the feelings Kara endures day by day.
Lena just can’t stop looking. It feels like if she looks away, even for a moment, the moment will be broken and she’ll never get an opportunity like this again.
She blinks and the moment is gone, a breath in the wind.
Kara’s eyes open, her hands move from her knees and she floats her way onto her feet. She moves from the balcony, letting herself into the office and awkwardly scratching at the back of her head. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Lena croaks back, her throat dry, probably from having her mouth hanging open in her frozen, enamoured state.
Kara trills her lips together, creating a little vibrating buzzing sound. “Uh… how was your meeting?”
“It was ok. I tried to hurry so you wouldn’t be out here alone for too long. I actually thought that you might have shot off to rescue a cat out of a tree or something.”
“Not this time,” Kara answers, pulling out one of the chairs on the opposite side of Lena’s desk and taking a seat. “I was just…”
“Meditating?”
Kara hesitates, clearly not wanting to confirm what she was doing despite being fully aware that Lena saw her. “Yeah.” Her voice is small and Lena can’t help but imagine that’s how Kara sounded when she first arrived on Earth as a traumatized, orphaned twelve-year-old.
Lena’s tired of this though. She still has no idea what’s going on with Kara and at this point, it’s crystal clear that she’s not going to get any answers by just sitting around and watching from a distance. She only has one choice if she’s ever going to find out what’s going on in Kara’s mind and it’s a really risky option. It’s either going to reward her with all of the answers she’s been clamouring for or she’s going to continue to receive The Great Kryptonian Avoidance Technique, also known as Kara telling her there’s an emergency seconds before flying out of the window.
“Kara?”
“Yeah?” Kara asks, her voice quiet, seemingly foreseeing what’s coming.
“We need to talk about it.”
Kara looks down at the white desk and the thin layer of dust gathering across the surface. She focuses on that, distracting herself with the thought that Lena really needs to allow janitors in her office because she always forgets to dust and then complains when she gets allergies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lena shakes her head tiredly. “We both know that’s not true. I’ve been seeing hints of it for weeks, Kara. I don’t pretend to know what’s going on inside of your head and I know that I will likely never be able to understand the pain you feel every day but keeping that pain held so tightly it burns you from the inside isn’t healthy.”
“Lena, drop it.” It’s a demand. One filled with undertones of desperation and agony. It’s followed by a strained, “Please.”
“You know I’m not going to do that. I can’t.” Lena reaches across the desk to offer her upturned palm to Kara, something stable to hold onto if she decides to take down her walls brick by brick.
Kara’s head shakes and she pushes her chair back, the legs scraping against the carpeted floor harshly. “I’m sorry, I… there’s…I can’t.” Kara stands up and starts marching towards the balcony.
“Kara Zor-El Danvers, don’t you dare take another step.” Lena jumps to her feet and shouts her order at Kara’s back. “Don’t leave.”
Kara looks back over her shoulder, her face scrunched and her lips trembling. “Someone needs help.”
She leaves.
The Great Kryptonian Avoidance Technique won out. She’s gone.
-
Lena’s phone vibrates beneath her thigh where it’s trapped under her leg as she sits on the couch. Her reaction is instantaneous. She snatches it up and checks it to see who the message is from and her shoulders droop in disappointment, it’s from the wrong Danvers sister.
Two more days of silence from Kara will mark three weeks with them not speaking and that’s the longest they’ve gone since they’ve been friends. Kara’s been completely avoiding her since she attempted to confront her in her office and now Lena’s left regretting that decision immensely, perhaps more than she’s ever regretted anything before.
The worrying thing is that Alex hasn’t been able to get in touch with her either and neither have any of their other friends. Lena skipped out on the past two game nights when she found out Kara had already cancelled, so the loneliness is kicking in.
Alex has been a godsend though. She doesn’t have much detail about why Kara has started avoiding everyone, all she knows is that something went down between Kara and Lena. She hasn’t turned her back on Lena though and for that, Lena is grateful. She was expecting her to show up at her door with her gun raised for hurting her sister but instead, she’s sending her texts every morning telling her to have a good day and keeping her updated on her communication status with Kara.
Every update is the same though. Radio silence. Upon checking her most recent message from Alex, Lena learns that hasn’t changed. They know she’s physically fine, she’s still been showing up to work and helping people as Supergirl. However, she hasn’t been to the DEO and if anyone tries to approach her at her desk, she makes a swift exit and doesn’t go back until the coast is clear.
Lena’s been to Kara’s apartment four times already and every time she’s been, Kara either hasn’t been there or she’s pretended not to be. It’s frustrating and Lena’s getting tired of it but almost all of her frustration is drowned out by worry.
If their brush with the big conversation has told her anything, it’s that Kara is struggling in a major way and she needs help. How is she supposed to help when she hasn’t been able to get anywhere near Kara? Even if she does manage to get close to her, it’s not like she’s had much luck getting the truth out of her, so what is she meant to do?
Lena is a nervous wreck over the whole situation and she can’t let it go on much longer. Jess keeps sending her home early and when she tries to protest she makes a show of pointing out the stress lines across her forehead, which is both unprofessional and effective. She can barely focus on work when she is there and since she’s working on some very important new medical technology, she needs her head in the game.
This technology could save lives and it can’t be put off because she’s too busy fending off a panic attack thinking about the chance of her best friend doing something stupid because she’s struggling. Kara has never been the best at handling her emotions and it wouldn’t be the first time she’s made silly mistakes in fights because she’s working through her feelings. She needs to fix this today.
That’s it. Lena pushes herself out of the comforting hold of her stupidly expensive couch. It usually makes her feel better when she’s sad, in no small part due to Kara’s constant insistence that she’s going to steal it one day because it’s so comfortable. Right now though, it doesn’t feel as comfy anymore, it feels suffocating and she needs to get out of its restricting grip.
Before she forgets, Lena responds to Alex with a simple thumbs-up emoji and moves on with her next task in mind.
Lena snatches her keys off the hook.
-
Lena hoped that she would come up with some idea of what to do by the time she got here but no dice. Now she’s just standing outside Kara’s apartment door in the same way she has done several times before, still no new plan on how to get Kara to answer the door.
She knocks softly at first but when it goes unanswered, her knocks get firmer. She knocks so hard that her knuckles begin to ache from the force of her hand against the wood and turn an alarming shade of red.
No answer.
Ok, so Kara doesn’t want to open the door, Lena will do it herself. She has never used Kara’s key when she specifically knows Kara doesn’t want her there. She barely even uses it when she knows she does. Lena carefully picks Kara’s front door key out from her keyring and hesitates for only the briefest of moments before slotting it into the keyhole with a definitive push. This is for Kara’s own good and besides, it's not like Kara ever asks before showing up on her balcony.
Following a deep breath, she turns the key. It doesn’t unlock. Kara has the door deadbolted. Awesome, another problem for her to try and find a way around. Just what she needs.
Lena’s never been one to describe herself as desperate but she’s willing to be anything to help Kara. After all the ways Kara has brought love into her life and the evenings spent reassuring her that she’s not only a good person but someone she should be proud to be, she owes it to her to stand up and drag her out of the darkness. To fight away all of the demons that haunt her dreams and nightmares alike.
She slams the side of her fist into the door thrice.
“Kara? I know you’re in there. Let me in!” Lena yells through the door.
The silence that follows doesn’t increase her worry, nor does it increase her annoyance. It only serves to exacerbate her panic. Her best friend is in more pain than she can comprehend and she has seen what happens to people when they can’t handle their pain. She will exhaust every option she can before she allows Kara to do anything that could take her away from her. Lena will never let her go, especially when she knows there’s something she can do to help, even if she’s not sure what that is just yet.
“Kara, I’m not leaving!” She whacks the door again, only stopping when a neighbour pokes his nosy head out into the hallway with a frown. He ducks back into his apartment when he finds himself on the receiving end of the classic Lena Luthor glare, the one that has been proven many a time to bring arrogant assholes to their knees.
“If you don’t answer then I’ll go and get some tools and take your door down! I promise I’m not bluffing.” She finishes her threat by pressing her ear to the door in an attempt to hear if there is any movement inside.
A tiny squeak from one of the floorboards gives Kara away and now that Lena has managed to confirm that Kara is inside, there’s no way she’s giving up now.
“Ok, I guess I better go get those tools then. If I find out you’ve left by the time I get inside then I’ll camp out in there for as long as I need to. You’ll have to come back at some point.”
Lena is much calmer now that she's confident Kara is inside. She never managed to get that confirmation the other times she showed up and from what Alex has told her, she never did either.
She steps away from the door, fully intending on heading back to her car. Her tools are all back at her apartment and L-Corp. Alternatively, there’s a hardware store five minutes up the road. Is she about to buy a bunch of tools she already owns so she can see Kara sooner? Yes, she is.
It doesn’t come to that though because a solid click reaches her ears just as she turns away. It’s followed by the rattling of the door as it’s just barely pulled open.
Lena has never turned her head so fast and for a moment she wonders if she might have just given herself whiplash. She didn’t think that the threat would work.
“Kara?”
Kara stares at her silently, her head held low and her lips turned down. She looks a far cry from her usual happy self and there’s only one thing Lena wants to do.
Kara doesn’t resist as Lena pushes the door further open, taking a step back so it has space and won’t get caught against her legs. Then, she’s pulled forward again, this time into Lena’s waiting arms.
She’s held so tightly that Kara is certain that even with her strength, there is no way she could break out of Lena’s hold, not even if the planet were at stake.
“I’ve got you,” Lena whispers into her ear and Kara nuzzles her nose into Lena’s neck, the comforting scent of her perfume helping her muscles relax so she can sink further into the embrace. “Thank you for opening the door.”
Lena is grateful to have gotten this far but she is under no illusion that anything that follows this hug will be easy.
Lena pulls back slowly and finds that she almost has to peel Kara off her. It’s a fast transition, Kara not even opening the door to start with, to her being pressed so tightly to her front that it feels as though they are sharing every hollow breath they take.
First things first, she pushes the door shut with finality. She’s staying.
Lena takes in Kara’s appearance and the hardened line of her brows softens, her resolve to force Kara to talk weakening upon seeing the state Kara is in. She wouldn’t say that Kara looks a mess because she always looks beautiful but she doesn’t look great.
Honestly, Lena had no idea that Kara was capable of getting dark bags beneath her eyes and her skin is so pale that it makes her worry that she’s come down with something. She hasn’t seen anything on the news that would suggest a big enough fight that Kara would have blown out her powers but since she’s been so out of the loop for the last few days, she can’t know for sure.
“You look like crap.” She says, her mouth working before her brain can tell her that saying something like that to someone struggling might not be her brightest idea.
“Thanks.” Kara murmurs, her voice raspy, a clear sign she’s been crying.
Lena reaches out and takes one of Kara’s hands between both of hers. “Have you solar flared?”
“No, not this time. I’m just…” Kara’s eyes drift down to her feet as she finds the right word. “I’m just drained.”
Accepting that answer, Lena guides her over to the couch. Drained is exactly how Kara looks and she’s pretty worried that she doesn’t have enough in the tank to talk about what’s going on. Her worry is that Kara is going to let whatever is eating at her consume her whole.
“You do realize that we have to talk, don’t you?” Lena latches her gaze onto Kara’s, moving her head when Kara tries to look away to keep the eye contact, rebuilding her connection to Kara one step at a time.
Kara just barely nods, her chin wobbling and her teeth gritted. She knows she can’t avoid this forever, she just wishes she could avoid it for a little longer. “Can I get water first?”
“Yeah, sure.” Lena allows Kara to pull her hand free. It’s obvious that Kara’s thoughts aren’t actually on water, she’s just trying to buy herself some time. It’s less clear whether that’s because she’s trying to compose herself or she’s trying to buy more time, even if it’s just a few measly seconds.
Kara’s hands shake as she reaches up into the cabinet to grab a glass. Attempting to quell her impatience, Lena tries to guess which glass she thinks Kara will pick since none of them match. She guesses wrong. Rather than a large, blue-tinted, bowl-shaped one she often chooses because it’s always at the front, she chooses a clear one, plain and regimented. A glass with no personality.
Each movement Kara makes is tracked dutifully by Lena but the blonde doesn’t notice. She’s too caught up in her own thoughts, having already filled the glass and started mindlessly sipping, her expression completely vacant.
Lena takes this as her moment. This is as calm as Kara is going to be and she thinks gentle reassurance is the answer to getting her to open up with less resistance. She pushes herself off the couch and moves slowly towards the kitchen, keeping her movements obvious. The last thing she wants to do is startle Kara.
“Kara, before I say anything else, I want to tell you that whatever it is you’re going through and whatever feelings you’re dealing with, it’s alright to feel weak. You are allowed to feel weak and feel whatever comes your way. It doesn’t mean you aren’t strong and capable. Talking about what’s bothering you doesn’t make you weak. You are one of the strongest people I know.
“Earlier, I was thinking about something you told me once. You told me that on Krypton it was considered brave to express your fears, that hiding them serves no purpose. I think that’s something us humans could learn from your people and I’d like to start practising that myself. I feel that if anyone could show me how it’s done, my alien best friend who is the strongest person I know could provide a good example.”
Kara scoffs. She gets why Lena is trying to come from that angle, an attempt to entice her into talking by incorporating Krypton into her speech. Lena’s smart enough to realize the feelings she’s hiding stem from her home planet. “Feeling weak isn’t the issue.”
“No? Then why are you hiding? I can see that you’re protecting yourself from something but that protection isn’t doing its job, it’s suffocating you. I just want to help, Kara. You might be a mighty Kryptonian and have a whole bunch of powers that us delicate humans don’t, but I can still help. I can’t hear a raindrop from miles away or lift a car but I can listen and lift some of the weight from your chest.”
Kara shakes her head, her lips tightening and her jaw clenching so tight it’s painful. “You really don’t get it.”
“Get what? Tell me so I can understand.” Lena presses and goes to take a step closer to Kara but she’s out of reach and pacing through her kitchen before she can make any significant progress.
“You don’t get it. I’m not an alien because of that.” The words are harsh, almost spat at Lena and coated in a thick layer of hatred.
To her credit, Lena does try to make sense of the sentence, mentally dissecting it, flipping it, and studying it in as much detail as she can in the short space of time before Kara gives up on expressing herself. Unfortunately for her, her brain just can’t figure this one out. “What do you mean?”
Kara’s lips wobble, a wet anger overtaking her as her eyes fill with unshed tears she stubbornly refuses to let slip. “You think I’m an alien because of what I can do. Everyone does. None of you understand.”
Lena frowns so deeply her face aches, her mind buzzing away trying to fully understand the half-explanations she’s getting. “Kara, I–”
“You know what? It’s fine. You’ll never get it.” Kara throws her hands up, her pacing stopping so she can pick up her glass and take another sip. It’s the angriest sip Lena has ever seen and she’s seen herself in a mirror taking a drink after an eight-hour board meeting.
“You’re right, I’ll never get it if you don’t explain it to me. Come on, I know you’re smarter than I am. In fact, you’re smarter than pretty much everyone on this planet, right? You were the youngest member to ever be accepted into the science guild. You told me that. You have to give me a minute to catch up.”
For a fraction of a moment, it looks like Lena has slightly won Kara over. The glass isn’t released but it’s resting on top of the counter, Kara’s hand still surrounding it. It’s short-lived because Lena makes the misguided mistake of continuing.
“You’re our smart, strong Kryptonian and you always know how to help us humans out when we need a hand. You use your strength to help when we need it, or your speed, or in cases like this, your intellect.”
The glass flies across the room and lands in a shattered heap in the sink. “For fuck’s sake! You still don’t fucking get it!” Kara’s never raised her voice to her like this before. She’s practically screaming, her eyes held wide as though she’s prepared to turn her to dust at any moment. On top of that, she can’t remember the last time she’s ever heard Kara swear at someone. She’s sworn before, of course, but it’s always because she’s dropped something or knocked something over, not screaming at someone she loves in pure unadulterated rage.
“Kara…” Lena trails off, frozen in place. She knows Kara would never hurt her but there’s something about the look of pure, barely restrained anger and having the knowledge that she would be dead in seconds if Kara lost control even for an instant.
Kara sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes slamming closed and her palms covering them. Lena spots a faint glow lighting up the flesh and her breath stutters when it clicks in her head that Kara is firing her heat vision off on her own hands. That or it’s happening on its own and she’s attempting to protect Lena from it. She’d much prefer to believe the latter.
The glow fades and Kara’s hands fall from her eyes, the palms singed black. “This is why you should have stayed away.” She snaps.
“I’m not leaving.” Lena states, clenching her hands into fists to stop the unwanted shake from being visible.
“I’m not safe to be around.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, I’ve been in more dangerous situations and I’m going to stay until I understand, Kara. One way or another, I will understand and I will help you.”
Kara’s head shakes and tears finally fall. “You can’t help me, Lena.”
“Try me. Tell me what you meant when you said that you’re not an alien because of what you do.”
Kara’s head drops forward, a violent sob wracking her body. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Lena hurries forward, taking Kara’s burnt hands carefully into her own. She avoids touching the centre of each, afraid of hurting her.
“I…Supergirl is…I don’t.” Kara attempts the start of her explanation a few times, her face scrunching up and her head shaking each time she rejects the explanations.
Lena stays close, refusing to let her go, her thumbs caress Kara’s wrists carefully. “Take your time, I’m not going anywhere.”
Kara sniffs loudly. “I’m not an alien because I’m Supergirl.”
“I know that, silly.” Lena tries to joke but Kara’s not laughing.
“You don’t.”
“Of course I do. You’re an alien because you’re a Kryptonian.”
Kara bites her lip hard enough that Lena winces at the sight. “I don’t get to be myself as an alien because of Supergirl. She’s not an alien. Not really.”
“I’m kind of following but I’ll need more of an explanation.” Lena admits. “Can we sit down and talk more?”
Kara pulls her hands loose and cradles them to her chest. She starts pacing again. “I can’t sit. I have too much in my head. I can’t–” She loses her words and loses her temper again. She roughly combs her fingers through her messy golden locks and brutally digs them into her scalp.
“Hey, hey. You’re ok.” Lena holds her hands out in front of Kara, not touching her but making sure she’s close. “You have too much energy and too much to work through to calm down enough to sit, it’s ok. I’m not in a hurry, just think about what you want to say and speak when you have found the right words.”
She doesn’t get a verbal response but Kara’s hands stop clawing at her head and her pacing is less agitated. Lena assumes she’s getting through to her little by little. There is one thing that is abundantly clear though, Kara has been struggling with this for a lot longer than she realized and something tipped her over the edge.
Kara swallows down the lump in her throat. “When people think of me as an alien, they think of Supergirl. They think Supergirl is the alien in this scenario, but I disagree. I think Supergirl is as human as they come.”
Lena’s face scrunches in confusion. “How so?”
Kara shrugs, her anger starting to dissipate the more she shares. “She was born on Earth. Her powers are made from the Earth’s yellow sun. Supergirl can fly because of your sun and the optimal gravitational pull of this planet. Sure, physiology comes into play but Supergirl has never and would never have existed on Krypton.”
A sudden dawning recognition hits Lena with the force of a freight train, her eyes widen and she lets out a soft gasp. “Right, because Krypton had the red sun, Rao. You didn’t experience any of that. You’re an alien because of your memories and experiences of Krypton, not the ones forced on you living beneath a yellow sun.”
“My culture makes me an alien. My life on Krypton makes me an alien. The life I lost makes me an alien. Anything that’s happened on Earth? That makes me human and I’m not a human. I don’t feel human, but I have all of this humanity in me that just feels…wrong. I feel like a fraud, Lena. I’m living a lie and I don’t know how to cope with that.”
Lena wants to reach out so badly, to take Kara into her arms again and never let her go. “Do you feel like a fraud as Supergirl or Kara?” She’s almost afraid of the answer, one being significantly worse than the other.
“Both.” Kara’s lips wobble, her eyes close, and her chest heaves with a sob she won’t let escape.
“How can I help?”
Kara’s head shakes from side to side, the movement starts off slow but gets quicker until Lena can’t take it anymore. She walks right up to her and stops the motion with a hand on either side of her face. In response, Kara’s hands fly up to her wrists, but they don’t try to push her away. Her trembling fingertips rest gently against her skin, the shake of them vibrates the flesh because, in her attempt to keep her strength contained, her superspeed activates against her will.
It tickles and Lena has to suppress a smile despite herself. “I’ve got you.”
“I don’t think I can live like this, Lena. How can I live this way when I hate who I am?”
If Lena’s heart wasn’t broken before, it is now. In fact, it shatters into so many fractals that even a world-class jigsaw master couldn’t piece it back together again. “You—” Lena isn’t sure how to build off that. How is she meant to provide any level of meaningful comfort in the face of such a bold, gut-wrenching admission? “Kara…”
Kara sniffs loudly and turns away from her, leaving her standing with her arms held up in the place Kara’s face was. Lena takes a second to reanimate herself, her body slowed by the empathetic agony ravaging her brain.
Kara stalks around the loft before settling in the living room. She stands there for a second, her hands clenching and unclenching as she tries to make a decision that should be simple. However, in her current state, it is the hardest she’s ever been faced with. Her eyes dart between the couch and the chairs several times. Lena notices. Of course she does, her eyes haven’t left Kara since she moved. She takes the decision out of Kara’s hands by meeting her in the living room and guiding her onto the couch with a gentle hand on her waist.
“There’s nothing I can say to take the pain away, Kara. I wish there was.” Lena says, her voice barely more than a whisper as she piles herself onto the couch beside Kara. She pulls her legs up beside her as she sits at an angle.
“I’ve spent so much time hiding who I am that I can’t remember which parts of me are real anymore. I do know that I’m not what everyone thinks I am, and that makes me so…mad.” Her teeth grit and her hands clench once more. She turns her head away from Lena, terrified that she’s going to scare her off and then she’ll truly be alone. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore.
Lena closes a hand over the clenched fist that is closest to her. “It’s ok to be angry.”
“I just…” Kara’s head drops down, her gaze settling on their joined hands. “I’ve been trying to figure out who I was and who I am, but I didn’t expect to feel so ashamed.”
“Ashamed of who you are or who you’ve become?”
“All of it,” Kara admits, finally looking up into the comforting green of Lena’s eyes. “I’ve been pushing my true, Kryptonian self aside for so long that it feels wrong to try and live authentically. It feels like I’m doing something dirty. I can’t just be Supergirl because she’s a whole other mess that I loathe. I love being able to help people, and the powers can be cool, but I want to feel normal again. I want to feel the same way I did as a kid when I got to wake up in the morning and my first thought wasn’t about being careful so my feet didn’t go through the floorboards. I want to feel that again.”
Lena goes to speak but Kara’s not done. Now that she’s started, she can’t stop.
“Supergirl is everything I thought I needed to be because of what happened to Krypton and what happened to me when I came to Earth. My parents sent me here to protect my cousin, but that wasn’t possible. Instead, I protect everyone. My powers, the ones I never asked for, make sure I can do that. It just fuels this need inside me to prove that my existence outside of Krypton isn’t worthless. That my carefully scripted future, the one torn away from me, means something. I was supposed to be one of the greatest scientists in the Andromeda galaxy. I wanted to be.”
“And what about Kara Danvers?” Lena asks, terrified to hear Kara shred that part of herself to pieces too.
“She’s a lie,” Kara matter-of-factly states.
“How so?”
Kara sighs, “She’s the person I created so I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life alone.”
“Why would you be alone?”
Kara looks at her like she’s just asked the dumbest question on Earth. “This planet doesn’t accept different.”
Lena can’t deny that. “Ok, carry on with your Kara Danvers explanation.”
Kara’s eyes roll as she remembers the point she was making and continues her explanation. “She is a big part of me, I can admit that, but fundamentally, we couldn’t be more different. The hard part is that I’ve spent so long pretending to be her that the mask is a reflex. I respond to situations and questions as her, but I can’t tell where she ends and the real me begins anymore.”
“You don’t think there’s an overlap? That you’re both part of Kara Zor-El?”
“I don’t know who I am. How am I meant to figure that out? What kind of pathetic person doesn’t even know who they are?”
“Hey.” Lena scolds. “I don’t care how upset you are or how much you’re struggling, nobody calls my best friend pathetic. You hear me?”
Kara nods dumbly, more to humour Lena than anything else. “Ok.”
“Good. Since you want to figure out who you are, we’ll do it together.”
“How?”
Lena shrugs. “I’m not exactly sure, but that’s ok. We can figure it out together. Maybe we can start by talking about the person you remember being back when you were on Krypton. If we figure out who you were then maybe we can figure out who you want to be now.”
Kara nods, but it’s apparent that she’s entirely uncertain. Not just about the method but also talking about Krypton. She lets little droplets of information out during conversations when she’s exceptionally relaxed or at ease, but usually only with Alex or Lena. Still, she never has a full-blown conversation with anyone about her past life. The thought alone brings the pain bubbling back to the surface, the fire that took Krypton melting her skin from the inside out.
Lena can sense her trepidation; it’s written all over her face. “We can take it as slow as you need. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
As though she doesn’t really believe her, the hand closest to Lena starts moving and searching until she finds the edge of Lena’s sweater. Her fingers hook into it and close tightly around the fabric. Lena looks down at the knuckles that have whitened with the pressure and briefly thinks that Kara might rip her sweater. Internally, she quickly reminds herself that her sweater is the last thing that matters right now.
Lena scoots closer to Kara so their legs touch and she wraps her arm around the back of the couch, her fingertips almost brushing Kara’s opposite shoulder. Within a few seconds, she subconsciously starts playing with strands of blonde hair and Kara fully leans into her, soaking in the pure comfort of Lena’s embrace.
“Tell me about Krypton, Kara.”
Those words are everything Kara has wanted to hear for years and also everything she doesn’t right now. The duality of it confuses her more than anything, she’s at war with herself and it’s one she can’t predict the outcome of.
“Please.” Lena rests her head against Kara’s.
A stuttering breath.
“Ok.”
“Were you a happy kid?” Lena asks.
It’s definitely not the question she is anticipating. She expected Lena to ask about science or technology, maybe a question or two about the school system or healthcare on Krypton, but this one? A question solely focused on her, not Krypton? It catches her off guard. This isn’t a selfish question, not at all. The fact that she thought so little of Lena, to think she would use this opportunity to quell her curious mind, makes her feel guilty.
“I was.” Kara nudges her head closer to Lena’s, readjusting to find the comfiest spot. “The happiest. I barely remember any time when I was really sad, more than just dumb kid stuff.”
“Like what?”
“When I was eight, I was playing with my Aunt Astra. I was chasing her and I tripped. My forehead smashed against a table in the living room and I knocked off some fancy decorative vase my mom had just bought. I felt so bad because my mom had been raving about that vase all week.”
Lena winces at the thought of a tiny eight-year-old Kara flying into a table face first, her little face quickly dampening with her tears. “Were you alright?”
“I was mostly ok. That’s how I got this scar on my forehead.” Kara places a finger atop her scar and turns her face to show Lena. “I guess the yellow sun doesn’t heal old wounds.”
“I guess not.” Lena frowns, trying to figure out the science of how that works.
“Anyway, my mom was more concerned with the blood pouring down my face, as any mother would, but even at that age, I could see how sad she was about the vase. I tried to pick up the pieces so I could fix it.”
Lena’s lips quirk up. “Let me guess, you cut yourself?”
“Oh, big time. Aunt Astra practically ripped my hand off pulling me away from the shards but it was too late, I cut the palm of my hand. It didn’t really scar since it was a shallow cut. It hurt like a bitch though. It was the first time I ever swore. It was also the first time my mom spanked me so hard I couldn’t sit down for at least an hour after.”
It’s unavoidable at that point, Lena can’t hold back her laughter. Her chest shakes and her free hand comes up to cover her mouth in a solid attempt to stifle her laughter. It doesn’t work well, and Kara ends up side-eyeing her for laughing. It only lasts for five seconds before she admits that it’s funny and starts smiling along to the melody of Lena’s giggles.
“Sorry.” Lena reduces her laughter down to nothing more than a smile. “It’s just funny to think of a baby you swearing and your mom setting you over her knee.”
Kara rolls her eyes at her. “Well, I never went over her knee. She just lifted me off the ground by my elbow with one hand and then took aim. One spank and it was over, but it was a good one.”
Lena just barely managed to hold in her laugh this time. “And what happened after that?”
“She hugged me and told me not to worry about the vase. My aunt and mom cleaned me up, got a bandage on my head and hand, then we carried on about the day like nothing happened. The next day though, my aunt came to pick me up and took me to this sculpting class held by the Art Guild. She helped me create a sculpture of a H’Raka. It’s sort of like a dragon with four wings, an animal native to Krypton. My uncle Jor-El actually had one that I rode once. It was incredible and I remember wishing that one day, I’d be able to fly every day. I guess my wish came true in a way. Now, I wish it hadn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Lena snuggles closer, her fingers still gently twisting Kara’s hair in loops.
“Don’t be. It’s not something anyone can control.” She clears her throat before getting back to the story. “So, we made the H’Raka sculpture and I gave it to my father. I remember being really frustrated because I couldn’t get the wings right, but he told me it was perfect, and I felt so proud. My mom told me it was the perfect thing to replace the vase and it was much better because it was made with love for my father. She never moved it. She used to rearrange that room every few months when she got bored but the sculpture? She never moved it.”
“They really loved you.” Lena brushes Kara’s hair back out of her face, revealing red blotchy skin from crying.
“I loved them.”
“So, you were a creative little perfectionist and obviously a daddy’s girl.” Lena deduces. “That’s something to build from.”
Kara smiles sadly. “I guess so.”
Lena nuzzles closer. “You’ve always been creative and I know that you still paint so that’s all you. That’s not something that you’ve done to fit in, that’s Kara Zor-El.”
Kara nods, her smile brightening. “I suppose it is.”
“There’s more of you still lingering than you think, Kara. You think you suppressed yourself when you came here and while that’s true to some extent, nobody can bury their true self indefinitely. The real you will always shine through. It’s time for you to find those pieces and reconnect with them, fully and truly.”
Kara bites the inside of her cheek. Self-doubt is already gnawing at her again. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“Live as your true self? Why not? Because you’re unsure you can find her again or because you can’t imagine allowing yourself to live authentically?”
“I think it’s because it would be difficult to dredge up the parts of myself that I buried long ago. Plus the added pressure of fighting with everyone in my life telling me I’m being selfish and putting others in danger simply by being Kryptonian. By being who I really am, an actual alien and not a superpowered human.
Lena’s eyebrows scrunch up in confusion, causing lines to form across her forehead. “Who would say that? Our friends only want the best for you and Alex is the most protective older sister on the planet. She’d never let anyone talk badly about you.”
“Alex is protective. That’s the point. She’s so overprotective that whenever I’ve tried to introduce a part of my culture into my life, she’s told me I’m being reckless. She’s constantly telling me that I need to ensure I’m not displaying any signs of my alien heritage because it might get someone hurt. I understand where she’s coming from, I do, but I need to have a connection to Krypton. I need to feel that tether back to my true self. I’m afraid if I don’t, if I continue to listen to others, I’ll lose myself forever. And that scares me the most.”
Lena knows Alex has always been a big advocate for Kara keeping her identity a secret, but she never realized that her protective nature is a large part of why Kara feels disconnected, lost. Thinking about it now though, she can see why it has affected her so deeply. Kara looks up to her big sister. She’s always relied on her for advice, so in Kara’s life, Alex’s word might as well be law.
“What are some of the ways you’ve tried to introduce your culture into your life? I think focusing on your culture and adding it back into your life is a great way to reconnect with yourself, to remember who you are.”
“You saw some of it.”
“The meditation?” Lena asks, her mind suddenly replaying all of the moments in the past few weeks. She thinks back to all of the times when Kara behaved strangely before darting off or suddenly changing the subject.
Kara nods. “Yeah. There’s that, and I am trying to do it regularly. I recite ancient Kryptonian meditation rituals meant to help strengthen the mind. I’ve also been making frequent trips to the Fortress of Solitude. I use a red sun emitter to recreate my physiology on Krypton so I can relax without my powers getting in the way.”
“If you’re only practicing the meditation and rituals at the Fortress, you’re not truly bridging your life and your culture. Do you think, even subconsciously, you’re restricting the meditation to that place in an attempt to hide what you’re doing?”
“Yeah. I think there’s a part of me that’s ashamed and that’s why I hide it. Maybe?” Kara’s voice is small as she admits it. She nervously bites her lip before finding Lena’s eyes. “It obviously didn’t work with you, huh? You found me anyway.”
Lena shifts so the hand hanging over the back of the couch rests directly over Kara’s shoulders. She pulls her in closer. “You know I’ll always find you. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re hiding from or what you’re struggling with. You can’t keep me away for long.”
“Clearly.” Kara teases half-heartedly. “You threatened to take my door off like I’m a stroppy teenager grounded by an overly strict parent.”
Lena snickers, pressing her lips to Kara’s cheek without thinking too much of it. “Sorry, it was the only thing I could think of to get you to open it and I was getting worried. I am worried.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you.” Kara looks genuinely remorseful and presses herself ever closer to Lena, taking the comfort she craves as Lena willingly hands it over. “I didn’t want you seeing me like this. I was hoping to get my head straight before showing my face again.”
Lena sighs softly. “I think it’s high time you stop trying to handle everything on your own and let me share some of the weight you carry on your shoulders. I want to help, Kara. Please let me.”
“But—”
“No buts, I’m here and so are our friends. I’ll talk to Alex and get her to back off. She probably doesn’t realize the pain she’s caused you.” She pauses. “Besides, you deserve to explore your culture, to rediscover it again. And, if it’s ok with you, I want to explore it with you.”
“Really? You would really want to do that?”
“I would absolutely love to.” Lena confirms.
Kara ducks her head, her lips just barely curl into a smile and her cheeks flush red. “Thank you.”
“Always.”
Kara’s tongue darts out to wet her dry lips. “So, do you want to hear more about Krypton?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Lena nudges her with an affectionate smile on her face. The arm wrapped around Kara’s shoulders stops her from moving away. “I want to hear more about you, silly.”
“What do you want to know?”
The answer comes easily to Lena. “Anything you’re willing to share. Everything you’re willing to share. I want to know everything, and I want to help you piece together every part of yourself until you feel whole again.”
All at once, Kara realizes that the chaotic energy that is running amuck through her body has dissipated. Her overwhelming need to keep moving is gone, and the stiffness in her neck from the stress has loosened somewhat. All of this is from one conversation with Lena. It’s just the start, that much is evident, but a start she so desperately needs.
“Do you think I’ll ever just wake up and feel like I’m living my truth instead of a lie?” Kara asks, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows as she awaits Lena’s answer.
“I don’t think that’s something anyone can promise, but I can promise that whatever you feel or whoever you are, I am with you. You’re a mixture of three people right now, and you might not know how to navigate your way through it, but I know who you are, Kara. I think I’ve always loved the person you are, even when you didn’t. I see you clear as day, and I love who I see.”
“You do?” Kara’s heart pounds and her breath catches in her throat. She thinks those words might be the most unexpected thing Lena has said all day.
It’s not something Lena set out to admit today, or ever for that matter, but taking it back would only cause Kara more pain. If putting her own heart on the line spares Kara some pain, she’s willing to do it. “I do.”
Kara looks nervous. It’s something Lena picks up on with no difficulty. The fingers still entwined with her sweater push through the material. Kara still maintains her grip beneath the gentle, blanketing weight of Lena’s hand. A thin layer of sweat forms between them but neither wants to move nor pay it any mind.
“You don’t have to say it back or feel any obligation to return my feelings. I need you to know you are still as loved and accepted as you were before you came to Earth. You have at least one person that looks at you like you’re the brightest star in the sky, someone that sees you for exactly who you are, Kara. Even when you don’t see it yourself.”
“Why?” The word comes out in a broken crack. The disbelief in Kara’s voice is a vice crushing Lena’s ribs, making it hard for her to breathe.
Lena adjusts, her arm unwraps from Kara’s shoulders, the hand covering Kara’s moves so she can shift, and she looks directly into Kara’s eyes. Her hands cup Kara’s face with a delicacy that Kara hasn’t experienced since she felt those first beating rays of the warm yellow sun that makes her practically invincible. Now, it makes her feel like that tender touch is all that is keeping her from shattering into a million pieces.
“How could I not?” Lena whispers. “You’re my everything.”
“I’m not. I don’t even know—”
Lena’s thumb cuts her off as it rests across her lips. “No. You don’t have everything worked out, and you’re only beginning your journey of figuring yourself out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see your beauty. It doesn’t mean I can’t look at you and see you for exactly who you are. My Kara. My alien from Krypton. A woman who is a little bruised but not as broken as she thinks. My best friend, someone that I will never leave to face the journey alone, I promise.”
Kara’s lips wobble beneath Lena’s thumb, the warm skin has moved from pressing to stroking over her bottom lip in precise strokes, only exacerbating the desire to do one thing.
She leans in and presses her lips to Lena’s. It’s needy and desperate. Lena is her life raft in the middle of a raging ocean. The waves tower twenty feet overhead and crash down on her but Lena braves the storm and keeps her afloat.
Lena pushes her back slightly as they break away from the lingering kiss to breathe. “I need you to be sure, Kara. I love you and I will be by your side no matter what, but don’t do this if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it.”
Kara presses back in and this time, there’s no resistance. Her hands, still cupping Kara’s face, start to stray. One entangles in messy blonde hair and the other stokes at a damp cheek, wiping away tears as they come and making a promise to do so forevermore if that’s what it takes.
Kara separates their lips just enough to murmur words that make Lena feel like the luckiest woman walking the Earth. “I love you too. I may not know much right now, but I know that and I’ve known it for a while.”
There’s a brief attempt for another kiss but it’s impossible around the smiles they’re now sporting. Smiles more genuine than any that have ever graced their faces before. Lena leans back to take in the moment, to fully commit Kara to her memory. The tears do nothing to dampen the happiness of the moment. Tears Lena is well aware will make their way down her face.
Kara sucks in a deep breath, attempting to calm the hummingbird flutter of her heart. “So, where do we go from here?”
“We do exactly what we already said we would.” Lena answers in a low murmur. “We will explore the things you need to do so you can live your life as your most authentic self, and we keep doing it until you look in the mirror and see what I see. We keep going until you can’t take your eyes off yourself because you truly love what you see. Every time you look, I want you to find something about yourself that you thought was lost forever. I want you to stare and search for that certain something that will catch your eye and make you realize something even more profoundly and perfectly, Kara.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll be here every step of the way.” Lena leans up to press a chaste kiss to Kara’s forehead, avoiding the dampened cheeks, tears glistening against tan skin. “I’ll be here on the days when the first thing you think about is being careful not to put your feet through the floor, and I’ll be here on the days when you rediscover something new to love about yourself. It’s going to be a slow process. You won’t find yourself overnight and you won’t find the peace you seek without a long slog through your trauma, but I’ll still be here. Every step, every fall, every triumph, Kara. I’ll be here.”
Kara’s sobs break the intensity in the air from Lena’s speech. She topples forward and buries herself into Lena’s chest, her head falls beneath Lena’s chin and her hands scramble for fresh purchase in the back of her sweater, balancing the holes she already created in the front. “You’ll really wait for me to do all of that?”
“I’m not waiting for anything, darling. Whether you’re struggling or thriving, happy or sad, angry or loving, I’m here and I’m ecstatic you’re letting me be. You give me so much more than you realize, not just as Kara Danvers or Supergirl. Hell, not even as Kara Zor-El. You give me so much as the woman who shows up at my office to bring me food because you know I’ll work through lunch otherwise. You’re the woman that happily sat through hours of board game practice with me because I was nervous to meet your friends. You let me put all my anxiety into the actual games of game night because you knew that wasn’t what I was actually scared about. You’re the woman that shows up at my place with a bottle of wine and open arms when you know I’ve had a bad day. And you do it all just because you care.”
“That’s how I know I’m not waiting. I get to be with the kindest, most loving, nurturing woman, no matter what else is going on. Some parts of you show through no matter what mask you wear, and those are the parts I love the most. The parts that made me fall in love with you in the first place.”
Kara weeps into Lena’s chest and allows Lena to hold her so tightly that it feels like her handprints will be tattooed over her spine tomorrow. Lena does her best to hold back her own tears, but today’s emotional drain takes its toll. The pain she feels for Kara heavily outweighs the joy of knowing that Kara loves her back in ways she’s never spoken aloud.
Above all, the hope outweighs the pain.
Lena always sees Kara, but now she can see her more clearly. She’s been granted a peek into Kara’s soul. Her alien, Kryptonian soul.
A lesson has been learned today, an important one. Supergirl is not an alien. Supergirl is merely a vessel for humans to selfishly take the help Kara offers without acknowledging who she is, or rather, what she is.
Kara is a Kryptonian and Lena will help her rediscover what that means. Every part of it if that’s what Kara’s heart desires. She’s barely gotten Kara to scratch the surface of her life on Krypton, and tomorrow they will make another scratch. Every scratch will bring them closer to the answers they seek. It’s a shame that the deeper they scratch, the more Kara will bleed. Her pain is inevitable in the search for who she is, but Lena is here to hold her through it, to kiss it better when all is said and done. That’s her promise and she has no intention of ever breaking it.
-
“It kind of feels full circle, doesn’t it?” Lena asks, smiling at the sparkling beauty around them.
“What do you mean?” Kara questions, the back of her hand brushing against Lena’s as they walk through the cold air swirling through The Fortress of Solitude.
Lena vaguely gestures around her. “Being here. This is the first glimpse I got into the actual alien you are, where I got to see a tiny snippet of your culture, and now here we are again. I see you so clearly. You’re sharing a part of yourself with me in the same place I first realized there is more of you to see.”
The words carve themselves deep into Kara’s soul. It’s everything she spent years longing to hear whilst simultaneously being everything she was once afraid of. Now though, it’s not something she’s fearful of but something she cherishes and embraces.
“I’m glad you see me.” Kara’s smile is wide and bright, something that she hasn’t felt in a long time.
“I’m glad you let me see you, and I’m honoured you feel safe enough to be so open with me.” Lena fully entwines her hands with Kara’s, annoyed by having her hand so close and yet so far.
Kara’s fingers press lightly into the back of Lena’s hand in response, the gentle squeeze saying everything she can’t find the words to say aloud.
“Well, if you’re ready to see a little bit more of me, come right this way.” Kara smiles, pulling Lena with her as she veers off to the entrance of one of the many hallways of the fortress.
Lena’s eyes darken and her lips quirk up into a smirk. She has no issues following Kara’s lead through the unfamiliar space. After all, there’s probably a bedroom through here, right? Her eyes trace the soft curve of Kara’s backside, exposed thanks to Lena’s spare hand purposely holding the cape out of the way so it doesn’t obscure her view.
Kara feels the tugging on her cape as she rounds the corner and looks back, ready to unhook it from wherever it’s gotten stuck. She sighs dramatically when she sees it’s just Lena, but a twinkle in her eyes lets Lena know she secretly loves the attention.
Lena giggles to herself all the way down the hall. Her smile drops when she sees where Kara has taken her because there is no bed in sight, and that’s a real problem. “Wait, we’re not finding somewhere to…” Lena trails off and wiggles her eyebrows at Kara, who can only suppress a smile in return. The silly motion makes her want to bundle Lena up in her arms and head somewhere to fulfil her request.
“Maybe we can revisit that idea later if you’re good.” Kara teases, closing the door to give Lena a chance to properly take in her surroundings and let the disappointment from the lack of a bed settle.
“I’ll have you know that I’m always good.” Lena mumbles, her eyes tracing over several large closets. She touches the edge of one and it activates. A panel slides across and out of the way to reveal what’s inside. “I knew it would do that.” She claims, earning herself a laugh.
“Wow, two lies back-to-back. How did I get so lucky to end up with you?”
Lena’s head turns to her so fast that Kara wonders if she’s somehow absorbed some of her powers as she stumbles back from the force of the glare. “Hey! That’s mean.”
“Woah.” Kara’s eyes widen as she takes in the sharp look Lena’s sending her way. “Ok, so that’s how I will end up on the couch. Got it.”
Lena can’t hold the look for long, Kara’s shocked expression breaking her out of her charade. Her face softens, and a triumphant grin replaces the harsh lines of the patented glare. She raises a finger to Kara’s face. “Be nice to me.”
“Wait, weren’t you the one lying?”
“That holds no bearing on this conversation.” Lena dismisses with a wave of her hand, refocusing on the closet.
Kara is left standing behind her with a lasting case of whiplash, wondering what just happened. She’s sure that argument was hers to win, but somehow Lena came out on top. Something tells her that’s going to be a staple in their relationship. Something else tells her that she doesn’t mind at all and she’s grateful she’s the one in a relationship with her.
Moving closer to Lena, Kara wraps her arms around her waist from behind and rests her chin on her shoulder. “These are all Kryptonian clothes. I had Kelex recreate them a few weeks ago when I first started meditating again. I figured they might make me feel closer to home but I struggled with the thought of wearing them. I think that there’s a better chance of me finding the courage to do so if you wear them with me.”
Lena turns in Kara’s arms, meeting her eyes. “You want me to wear Kryptonian clothes with you?”
There’s a vulnerability lurking just behind Kara’s eyes. She’s trying to hide it, Lena can see as much in the tension of her jaw, but she can’t hide it from her.
“Please.”
“As if you even have to ask.”
“I don’t just mean here, Lena.” Kara clarifies. Lena’s face scrunches in confusion so Kara explains further. “I booked a slot at the local museum; they’re allowing me to give a talk…about Krypton.”
Lena looks up at Kara, her lips curl into a proud smile and her eyes glisten with adoration. “Are you sure you’re ready? That’s a really big step. A public one at that.”
Kara shrugs. “I don’t know, but how will I know if I don’t try? I booked the time slot for their quiet period thinking that not many people will show up. I booked it under ‘Supergirl’ though, so I can’t say for sure. I don’t want my culture to die with me, Lena. If I don’t talk about it and educate people, even if those people are human, not Kryptonian, then all my knowledge will be lost, it’ll be worthless. I want to share my planet's celebrations, festivals and history. I want to show off the incredible scientific feats and technological advancements. I want everyone to see Krypton's art and beauty, and I have the power to do that. I have to do that.”
“Then I’ll be beside you while you do.” Lena presses a reassuring kiss to her lips. “When is your talk?”
Kara manoeuvres Lena’s wrist and peels back the sleeve of her shirt to look at the time. “In about…two hours.”
“Two hours? Kara, that’s barely any time. We need to hurry up and get ready.” Lena scrambles out of Kara’s embrace and starts rummaging through the closet to assess her options, only to be immediately confronted with the fact that she has no idea what kind of Kryptonian garb is appropriate for such an event. She turns back to Kara to whine, “Help me.”
“Ok, ok. I’m coming.” Kara saunters up to her side, but not before she melts a little at how cute Lena’s being.
-
Lena is proud. Extremely proud. The proudest.
Looking up at the tiny stage Kara stands with a proud smile that could outshine the sun, she’s never been prouder.
It’s only a small step above the rest of the floor, but between Kara’s squared shoulders and everyone being seated as they watch her talk, Kara looks fifty feet tall. Lena can’t take her eyes off her, not for even a second. She’s completely mesmerized and has no intention of moving from her spot, front and centre.
Lena runs her fingertips over the felt-like texture of her dress. She originally wanted to go for the most alien design in the closet, partially to prove to Kara that she is accepting of every aspect of her culture. However, Kara swayed her from that idea, probably seeing through her intentions and wanting her to be comfortable.
Kara pushed her towards a dress, one that isn’t really Lena’s style but she admits it makes her look phenomenal. It’s also an incredibly beautiful, artistically designed article of clothing, one of the most stunning she’s ever seen. Kara made a good choice, even if it’s not something Lena would choose for herself.
It’s an asymmetrical design where the material sweeps up over her left shoulder and tumbles into a cape down that side. It has soft pleats with three of the tiniest, most delicate chains intermingling with the fabric. The tiny links attach to the belt, which is beautiful in and of itself. Gold chains bracket the edges. The centre is obsidian, carved into refined hoops lined with microscopic leaves, looking almost like wreaths. The belt is made up of the finest details and sits steadfast against her waist, a marvel that perfectly contradicts the dress's colour and pattern.
The dress is pale gold, dulled but still striking. The pattern is what really catches Lena’s eye. It’s a symphony of shapes and lines. She can’t decipher exactly what it’s meant to be, a mixture of vague floral swirls and shapes that depict a language she’ll never understand, not Kryptonese but something more profound—a language that enfolds everything about Krypton and nothing all at once.
It hugs her body tightly down to just below her knees, a hug from the softest material she’s ever had the pleasure of wearing and based on Kara’s roving eyes since she put it on, she looks sexy as hell in it.
Despite the beauty of Lena’s outfit, Kara firmly believes that the most beautiful part of Lena is the smile she’s worn since the moment she took her place on the stage to share her culture.
There’s a much bigger crowd than she expected but none of that matters. She can look into Lena’s eyes and tell her all about the parts of Krypton she’s always wanted to share, the parts that aren’t overshadowed by death and destruction. The happier times.
She teaches the group everything she remembers about the festivals from her childhood and the education system she learned from. Afterwards, she takes questions. The first is from a little girl, barely nine, curious about her clothes. A question she’s more than happy to answer.
“Usually, for an event like this, Kryptonians wear robes, but I thought that since my best robes are red and blue, I’d give your eyes a rest and go for something a little different.” Kara smiles at the wide-eyed enamoured expression on the little girl’s face. It’s clear she’s drinking up every word. “It’s also common for Kryptonian speakers to wear a single colour so they don’t draw attention away from the topic they’re discussing. I decided to follow that tradition today.”
Kara gestures down to her dress, a bronzed orange number, relatively simple but no less spellbinding. It’s loose, but not baggy. Just snug enough to show off her curves without hiding them. It flows with each subtle contour of her body, and the fabric trickles down in a waterfall of woven splendour. The fabric is knotted over her shoulders, giving the impression that it’s one single sheet carefully curated to embrace her.
“As you can see, my dress is aligned with my culture but also shares many similarities with clothes found here on Earth. Given that humans and Kryptonians are similar in shape and stature, the similarities are expected.” She smoothes her hands over her midsection until her fingers reach the metal adorning her waist. “This would be considered a belt on Earth, but for me it’s a declaration. It’s a family heirloom bestowed upon my family many generations ago. A waist chain given to my grandmother’s grandmother after she won a great battle against the Daxamites a very long time ago. It has been passed down through my family and is commonly worn in moments of personal triumph. Today is a triumph for me because I get to share this information with you.”
Everyone’s eyes fall to the metal around Kara’s waist. It clutches to the fabric, bunching and trapping it in place without inhibiting the stylistic flow of the dress. It’s a shimmering, shining gold, recently polished and well-kept. The thin chain is made of fine links that aren’t visible to those sitting away from the stage. Gently hanging from the chain are intriguing symbols. Lena tries to decipher them but the characters aren’t of the Kryptonese she knows. Like Earth, Krypton had many languages. Her knowledge of one doesn’t give her an understanding of them all. She makes a mental note to ask Kara to translate it later, her intrigue growing as the symbols sway with Kara’s movements.
“I have a scarf here too.” Kara holds her arm up to display the garment bound around her bicep and the way it twists down her forearm. The fabric almost resembles a shawl. “It’s a shade darker than my dress if you look closely. That’s purposeful too. We Kryptonians don’t often do things without reason. Back in the old days of Krypton, long before I was born, scarves were worn as a symbol of peace. As long as you wear a scarf, it means you seek peace. It’s a shade darker than my dress so it’s easy to see without standing out too much. If someone doesn’t wear one, it means they are openly opposing someone, usually another Kryptonian household. If it escalates to that point, they will be escorted to the council to work out their differences.”
Kara purposely leaves out the extra information about sword fights and only one person leaving the council meeting. There are a lot of kids in the audience.
“Finally, my shoes.” Kara lifts one foot and rejoices in the strange looks she gets; her feet are not adorned by any shoes Kara’s ever come across on Earth. She’s unsure whether it counts as a shoe since half of her feet are hanging out. “They are designed to be worn outside, despite what you might think.”
Kara continues holding her foot up so everyone can see the shoe. It’s made of a thick fabric, not leather because it’s too soft to be anything of that kind, but still sturdy. They’re a dull orange-red to match her outfit and only cover the top of her feet except for a thin strap that circles around to keep them on.
Thin lace-like straps are wound from the sides of the shoes up around her ankles and tied in the same bow used for tying shoelaces on Earth. “Now, I can understand why you all look so confused. You’re probably wondering why Kryptonians would wear shoes that don’t protect the bottom of the foot, right?”
She receives a collective nod from her audience, causing her smile to widen. She’s loving the experience of teaching everyone about Krypton’s culture and heritage. It’s bringing her much more peace than she ever dreamed.
“That’s because they were used for walking on sand. A large portion of crops on Krypton were grown in sand, so these were worn to prevent the sand from getting inside our shoes and the tops of our feet from getting sunburnt. Because so many crops were grown in sand, it was everywhere and well, much like here on Earth, trends catch on. We wore them for stylistic reasons too.”
A couple of people laugh at her quip, making her chuckle along with them. “Any more questions?” Several hands shoot up into the air and Kara’s heart thuds excitedly. She’s having a field day with this.
Lena watches Kara with pure amazement. The way she’s so beautifully opening up and finding joy in the knowledge that only she, as an alien from Krypton, holds is incredible. Every time Kara’s smile widens, Lena finds her own smile broadening and she has to fight to keep her hand steady while livestreaming the exhibit to L-Corp’s social media.
She got Kara’s permission beforehand, albeit a little reluctantly, but she’s glad Kara agreed to it because there are over two thousand people watching. That’s two thousand more people learning about the wonders Kara is sharing.
Careful to keep her phone in focus, Lena gives Kara a thumbs up as she answers another question, this one about Kryptonian crops following her explanation about her shoes. She’s glad Kara decided to take the leap. This is good for her and now a growing number of people will look at her as not just an alien but an actual person. Her true self.
-
Lena wobbles as she peels her heels off her feet but she’s not afraid of falling. Kara’s arm is wrapped around her waist tightly, keeping her steady even as she tosses her shoes away.
Their lips don’t separate, not even for a second, as they move through Lena’s penthouse apartment towards the bedroom. Each of their movements is a push and pull of equal force, all give and take that only serves to prove why they work so well together.
Lena gasps against the blonde’s mouth as Kara’s teeth sink softly into her bottom lip. A precise movement with far too much certainty to be accidental. A mischievous little trick that never fails to weaken Lena’s knees, something that’s always in Kara’s favour.
“You play dirty.” Lena mutters, her lips barely parting from Kara’s.
“Mmhmm.” Kara hums, unwilling to break the kiss, especially to state the obvious.
Lena reluctantly moves her hands away from Kara’s biceps. Her desperate need to get out of this damn dress and into bed is far stronger than the desire for a simple groping session. Awkwardly throwing her arm over her shoulder in an attempt to find the clasp, she continues to struggle through her refusal to relinquish her hold on Kara’s lips.
“Hold on.” Kara mumbles as they stumble into the bedroom. Her strong arms untangle from Lena’s waist as her hands entrap full hips instead. “Can I take it off?”
“My dress?” Lena pants.
Kara nods, breathless and wanting. “Please.”
“Whatever you want.” Lena rasps breathily, allowing strong hands to turn her body away, exposing her back. Broad, warm palms carefully scoop Lena’s hair up and place it over her right shoulder exposing the bunching of fabric over her left. As her fingers bury themselves into the fabric searching for the clasp, her seeking lips descend on the pale expanse of Lena’s neck.
She places a series of chaste pecks just shy of the nape of her neck, slowly tracing her skin as far as she can reach before tilting Lena’s head back to pull her into yet another smouldering kiss. The dress is unfortunately no closer to being discarded than when she started.
Lena leans back into Kara’s chest, enjoying the closeness and comfort. She’s grateful she took off her heels. With Kara wearing the Kryptonian half-shoes, the height difference would have made kissing like this awkward.
“Aren’t you meant to be undressing me?” Lena smiles against insistent lips.
“Oh yeah.” Kara breathes, still in disbelief that she gets to do this. “Stop being so distracting. You’re making me forget things.”
Lena smirks as Kara buries her face into her neck. The feeling of Kara panting against her skin in an attempt to calm herself simply from kissing makes Lena feel like a god among men. She relishes the feeling and if this is how Kara feels on a good day, she’s jealous. More than anything though, she wishes Kara only ever good days. She’s seen how the bad ones can make her crumble, if she can help prevent them, she’ll do this every day.
After a few centring breaths, Kara is back on task. She unhooks the dress and belt, sliding it off with a level of grace and tenderness that makes Lena swoon. Kara gently collects the fabric and places it on the small couch next to the window. As she places it there, she turns her back to Lena to return the favour.
Lena earnestly tries to make things sexy, unclipping the waist chain to gently sit it atop the dress. However, it only serves to make them both laugh. Kara’s sweet giggles only make the moment more real, more tangible.
This is their first time sleeping together and with a bit of luck and all of the effort Lena has to give, this will be her last first time with anyone. She has no doubts that Kara is going to be her last person. It’s something she knows with every fibre of her being. She can feel it in her bones.
As she slowly, carefully unclasps the dress one hook at a time, Lena presses soft kisses to the centre of Kara’s back. And as an aside, she knows she will absolutely get Kara to admit that humans one-upped Kryptonians because they invented zippers.
After a childhood of such attire, Kara steps out of the dress with ease as it loosens. Her muscle memory is a stark reminder that she will never truly forget her life before Earth. It will always be part of her.
Lena sweetly pulls Kara’s hand and twirls her around so they’re facing each other They share a tender smile as their nearly naked fronts softly press against each other for the first time. “You’re so beautiful.” She whispers, enamoured.
“You’ve barely seen me.” Kara laughs shyly as a pink blush spreads across her cheeks.
“I don’t need to look to know.” Lena’s eyes are half-lidded as she pushes Kara backwards until her knees hit the side of the bed. Green eyes never straying from blue, Lena slowly guides her down as she kneels in front of her. Kara’s legs instinctively part, desire engulfing her body. Witnessing the shift in Kara’s body makes it hard for her to stay on track, but she’s damn sure not letting her first time with Kara consist of cumming with soleless shoes on. She loves Kara’s culture. Truly. However, she is drawing the line at that.
Lena’s movements are both frantic and particular as she unlaces Kara’s shoes and slides them off her feet. She tosses them over to the couch with less attentiveness than the dresses. She’s impatient and there’s no time for that.
Taking full advantage of her position, she lovingly kisses her way up Kara’s muscular legs to her soft inner thighs. Each press of warm lips against even warmer skin makes Kara’s skin tingle with ever-growing desire. As soon as raven locks are within reach, Kara’s hands bury themselves, not to guide her, simply to hold. She readily relinquishes complete control to the goddess between her thighs. Willingly allowing her to explore every inch of flushed tan skin, taking her time with each caress as their combined contented sighs fill the air, the perfect background music.
Between each burning kiss, green eyes gaze up, watching as Kara’s head tilts back exposing the majestic, long neck she wants to mark as her own. She shakes those thoughts aside, her main focus on truly giving Kara the tender and loving touches she’s dreamed of for so long. Her hero deserves to be savoured rather than treated as a rushed and fumbled tryst.
Pouty pink lips don’t linger as they finally reach the edge of delicate blue lace panties. A single, deep kiss is pressed to the damp material as Lena takes a deep breath to breathe her in and continues her exploration. She has an internal battle to continue now that she tastes the blonde’s desire on her lips.
The blunt edges of white teeth playfully nip at a pronounced hipbone as Kara’s back arches. Sensitive, she thinks.Lena repeats the move, this time on the opposite side, and slides a trembling hand under her arched back to unclasp Kara’s bra, tossing it carelessly to the floor.
Having Kara laid out for her, nearly naked, gasping and moaning, Lena’s sure she’s entered her greatest fantasy or an afterlife she doesn’t believe in. There’s no other explanation, no other fathomable way she’s this lucky.
The wide palms buried in dark hair urge her to move up and away from where she’s thoroughly bathing those glorious abs with her curious tongue. Lena’s more than eager to deliver everything Kara craves. After the bravery she’s shown today, Kara can have anything she yearns for, whatever she desires.
“Move up for me, darling.” Lena urges softly, her voice raspy and throat dry from her slack-jawed awe at the sight of the ethereal goddess in her bed. Her ethereal goddess.
Lena’s insistent hands smoothly shift underneath athletic thighs, guiding her further up the bed and shifting her weight to make it easier. Kara smiles when her head hits the pillow, instantly pulling Lena down on top of her. Her legs bracket the ravenette’s hips as her restless hands trace their way along the ridges of Lena’s spine. When shaking fingers reach the delicate material of the tasteful strapless bra, she unclips it and carelessly tosses it aside, discarded and forgotten.
Lena makes good on her earlier desires, attaching her wanting mouth to Kara’s neck as she attempts to leave marks she knows will instantly fade. “Mmm, what I wouldn’t give to mark you up so everyone can see you’re mine while you fly around in that cape of yours. My mighty Kryptonian with hickeys for days.”
“Rao, Lena.” Kara husks out a moan, desperately attempting to turn her head and recapture those alluring lips for the thousandth time.
Lena roughly twists her fingers into silky blonde locks, snatching her head back to continue her fruitless endeavour. “Stay still.” She sternly commands.
“Wait.” Kara moans out in response, enjoying the particularly hard bite on her neck. She can’t really feel pain but the sensation of teeth pressing deliciously into her skin? That is a feeling that makes her infinitely wetter and ensures her panties will be sufficiently ruined by the time they come off, if they aren’t already.
The single word stops Lena’s movements instantly. She quickly sits up and starts moving away, but Kara’s legs tighten around her waist and prevent her retreat. “What’s wrong, my Darling?”
“Nothing, nothing. I just…there’s…I have something. Something, I, um, want?” She says, slightly bashful.
“What do you mean?” Lena asks, confused and a little out of it now that she is pulled away from her heavenly task. “Like a sex thing? A fantasy?”
“Kind of.” Kara tilts her head down, a delicate pink spreading across her cheeks as she releases Lena and climbs off the bed. She scrambles back to her dress, searching for something. “But also kind of…not.”
Lena falls onto her back onto the still-warm spot Kara’s body recently vacated, a curious and perplexed smile on her face. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
Kara shakes her head, ignoring her as her fingers dig into the discarded dress in search of a hidden pocket between the folds of the flowy material. Her face lights up as she pulls something barely bigger than her palm from its hiding place and holds it up in celebration.
“What is that?” Inquisitive green eyes implore.
“It’s a red sun emitter. I took it from the fortress when I saw how upset you were after I took you to a closet instead of a bedroom.”
Lena shrugs, her eyes shining with mirth. “You should know better than to take a lesbian to a closet.”
“That was bad.” Kara shakes her head, her amusement evident.
“Sorry.” Lena responds, still grinning at her joke. “Well, are you going to turn that thing on so I can make you mine, Kara Zor-El?”
Kara’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the eagerness in Lena’s sultry voice. “You really want to?”
“What? Make you mine? Why wouldn’t I want to?” Lena frowns, sensing Kara’s internal battle with self-doubt in a moment when Lena only wants her to feel loved, cherished, truly coveted.
Kara sits the device on the nightstand beside Lena's unopened water bottle. She grabs it, taking a quick drink since it’s there and they will undoubtedly be here for a while. “You felt my superspeed on your wrist before. I thought that might have intrigued you to see where else you could feel those vibrations.”
Lena holds her hand out for the bottle once Kara’s finished with it and takes a generous gulp before responding. “While that is a very intriguing thought, I just want you. I’m not here for Supergirl. I’m here for Kara.”
“Do you really mean that?” Kara ducks her head as she blushes at the bold statement. It’s really cute. If there’s any reason to blush, it’s because she’s sitting in front of the woman she loves in nothing but a pair of sodden panties.
“Always.” Lena replies, pushing the device closer to Kara. “Turn it on.”
Kara presses a few buttons and in an instant, the room is coated in a soft red light, bringing Kara a sense of physical and mental peace. Lena watches how the weight gradually drops off her shoulders as the red sun radiation affects her.
“You’re so pretty.” Lena says, enamoured with everything that Kara is.
She pulls her closer, slowly nudging her ruined panties down long legs, leaving Kara bare before her. In turn, Kara grabs the waistband of her underwear, pulling them down swiftly and tossing them away, long forgotten before they even hit the floor.
“Let me prove how much I love you.” Lena pulls her fully onto the bed until Kara is kneeling over her. In a skilled move, she topples them over, positioning herself on top of the blonde. Once again, Kara finds herself flat on her back, her head nestled into the pillows. “Can I love you? Let me love you, Kara.”
Lena leans in so close their noses brush, waiting for one single word giving her permission. “Yes.” Kara breathes, then lifts her head to get a taste of those delectable lips.
Taking the answer for all its worth, Lena devours her.
For the first time in her life, Kara is entirely free to experience not only pleasure but an unbridled love without fear. She can barely control herself, her need for more is overpowering, yet she’s not afraid to lose control, she doesn’t have to be. She gives it all up and knows in the end, everything will be as it should. She can finally let go.
Lena’s hands explore every part of her, taking extra time to palm at her breasts. Her fingers find pretty pink nipples and give them the extra attention they deserve. The kind of attention Kara’s never felt there before, given her usually high pain tolerance. There’s none of that now. It’s barely painful, more pleasurable than her time with any of the men she’s been with.
“Dear Rao, Lena…” Kara gasps into her mouth, making Lena grin so wide it’s impossible to go in for another kiss. “Lena, fuck.”
“Shh, just feel. I’ve got you, my Kara.” Lena traces her lips down her neck and back to what is becoming her favourite spot as her fingers make their way down the expanse of tan skin.
Her nails rake their way down defined abs before she turns to a softer touch, pausing just before she reaches the place she knows Kara wants her most.
“Look at me, Kara.” Lena demands, pulling away from her neck. Kara’s eyes remain closed, even as Lena’s fingers make their way between sodden folds, seeking out her clit like they’ve been there a thousand times before. Kara gasps but won’t meet her gaze. “Look at me. Please”
Upon the second round of urging and the feeling of Lena’s fingers circling her clit in and driving her insane, sparkling blue eyes finally open. Lena notes that her eyes look several shades darker, now an enchanting midnight blue, and it has taken the lead for the sexiest thing she’s ever seen.
“Lena…fuck.” Kara gasps, her eyes locked on Lena’s now, unable to do anything other than clutch at her shoulders and let herself enjoy the ride.
Lena pushes her forehead against Kara’s, her hand diligently working away. “I love you, Kara.”
“I love you.” Kara moans out. “But for the love of Rao, get inside me before I do it myself.”
Lena’s eyes twinkle, happily doing as requested. Two fingers push inside as they maintain eye contact until Kara can’t take it anymore. Her head flies back and her eyes slam closed as Lena uses her other hand to rub her clit, still pumping her fingers at a relentless pace.
Lena reattaches her mouth to Kara’s neck, continuing her quest to leave marks she hopes will last long after the red sun emitter has been turned off. “I’ve got you, darling. My Kara.” Lena whispers against her ear.
Kara shudders beneath her, nails digging into pale shoulders as she clings to the only solid thing she can find. “Lena…”
“I love you.” She repeats once again, nailing it home with one last kiss to the latest mark before shifting down Kara’s body to do what she’s been longing to do for years. She takes Kara’s clit into her mouth. All the while, her fingers are still working away, driving her higher with every passing second.
Kara bucks up into her mouth, her hips shifting of their own accord. Lena pins them down with an arm slung over her waist and keeps going, one goal in mind.
“You’re safe. I’ve got you,” Lena says directly into her pussy. The vibrations from her words are the final push Kara needs to let go. Her body relaxes as she comes, her bucking hips ceasing their fight against the arm holding them down as if she’s not the strongest being on the planet.
Lena guides her through it, her fingers slowing to a stop and easing out of her when aftershocks wane, when she’s truly done. She’s drenched and tired but so damn proud.
She pecks Kara’s clit one more time as she runs her hands over twitching legs, her fingers leaving a trail of wetness behind. Climbing back up to Kara’s face, she waits until her favourite blue eyes open and teasingly licks her fingers clean.
Kara’s pretty sure Lena just fucked her into a dream state because the image she has just accosted with is so fucking sexy that there’s no way it’s real.
“Hey, darling.” Lena cups her cheeks, kissing her delicately, her tongue parting Kara’s lips and pushing inside to giddily share the sweet taste of her desire.
“You just killed me.” Kara mumbles.
Lena giggles and shifts to cuddle into her side. She tucks her head beneath Kara’s chin, content to lie there for a moment until Kara recovers from what is undoubtedly the best orgasm of her life. “Well, that wasn’t the goal but I’ll take it.”
“What was the goal?” Kara pecks the top of her head, the feeling in her arms coming back enough that she can wrap Lena up into a well-needed cuddle.
Lena snuggles deeper into her chest. “To make love to you, Kara. I wanted to love my Kara, and I did.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“My Kara?” Lena husks, well aware of what she’s doing.
Kara nuzzles her nose into the top of Lena’s head, breathing in the comforting scent of her coconut shampoo. “Yes.”
Lena pecks the nearest bit of skin available to her, Kara’s collarbone. She knows the answer but she’s not opposed to hearing Kara explain anyway. “Why is that?”
“Because you see me for who I am. I love how you make me feel when you look at me with so much certainty in your eyes. It’s almost like you can see into my soul and when tell me you love me and I can see how much you mean it.”
Lena grins, pushing herself back up to look into Kara’s eyes. “I love you.”
Kara’s never felt more at peace, as she replies. “I love you too.”
“That’s good.” Lena chuckles before a sly smirk finds its way onto her face. “Now, I think you’re meant to return the favour.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kara teases, her hands finding Lena’s ass and squeezing.
As it turns out, sharing privileged information about vampires is a dangerous affair.
None of them could have expected this, not when they’re in Lena’s apartment, one of the safest places on the planet, and none of them know how someone has managed to get to them.
As soon as Sam had opened her mouth to start answering some of Kara’s questions after she had woken up, something hit them. Lena, Sam and Kara keel over, their hands clutching their ears in an attempt to block out the agonizing noise attacking them.
Kara drops to her knees, the least experienced with her advanced hearing, thus unable to try and cut off the incessant high-pitched ringing that is assaulting her from seemingly every angle.
Soon enough, the noise turns to words, or rather, one word.
“Hush.”
The way one single word can make a vampire’s already cold blood turn to ice is horrifying, terrifying, and everything in between.
Lena and Sam’s eyes lock onto each other as the noise stops, freeing them from the prison of pain they’ve found themselves unexpectantly trapped in. For the most part, Kara is just trying to catch her breath, stunned by what just happened and barely holding herself together as the fear catches up with her, her brain processing that she was just in a considerable amount of pain, and now she’s not.
“What the fuck?” Sam had just about curled over out of the chair she was sitting in when it happened, and now, she leans back, making a conscious effort to rid herself of the tension that wound up around every muscle in her body.
Seeing Sam compose herself and ease the strain out of her stiff shoulders, neck and spine, Lena follows suit. With the tightness there, she almost wonders if she got rigor mortis a few centuries too late.
“We need to move somewhere else, somewhere safer.” Lena pants out, barely catching her breath.
“Like where?”
“I’m not going to say, clearly, we’re being listened to,” Lena says, not bothering to lower her voice. It won’t do any of them any good.
Kara is still on her knees, her eyes firmly fixed on the carpet, her mind reeling. Her panic, anxiety and fear are scuttling around under her skin like a thousand tiny bugs burrowed away inside her. It makes her itch but she can’t seem to make herself move; she doesn’t have the energy after that.
Alex rushes to her side. She and Ruby were giving the three of them some space by sitting in the kitchen while the vampires and hybrid have their discussion, but upon hearing the pained gasps and grunts, they gave up on their stations in favour of making a beeline for their loved ones.
Dropping down before her sister, Alex’s hands brace along Kara’s jaw, cradling her head in her soft, worried embrace. “Kara? Kara, are you ok?”
Kara nods weakly against her palms, very obviously not ok.
“We can’t go anywhere yet, it’s too light out. What do we do?” Sam asks, her eyes darting between Lena and Ruby. “If it’s not safe here, I don’t want Ruby here. Maybe you can get Frank or Jess to come and get her so we can send her somewhere she’ll be better protected.”
“Sam, nothing is going to happen to her. We all know that a hundred vampires could break in here right now and nothing could come remotely close to hurting her because we would rip them to shreds if we had to. Besides, for us to be heard, that means another vampire knows where we are, and they must be strong. However, no vampire can walk in the light of day unscathed.”
Sam shakes her head before pointing at Kara, raising an eyebrow at Lena.
“No, a hybrid wouldn’t have enough power to hear us from the ground, and there’s no way they’re inside the building; the security is too tight. I built this place, and I have safeguards in place to prevent outside ears from listening in. I have no idea how they got around it, but I need to figure out how they did it so I can stop it from happening again.
Alex manages to shuffle Kara up and get her on the couch. It’s clear she’s not doing well, and while she’s doing her best to remain stony-faced, unshed tears are making her eyes glisten and her clenched jaw gives away just how disturbed she is by what just happened.
Her breathing is ragged; Lena can hear it clear as day, and her hands are clenched into fists atop her knees. Lena reaches out to unclasp it, hoping to relax her somewhat, but she tears herself away, stretching her back out until it clicks and shrinking in on herself.
“Kara?” Alex tries again, and seeing the way Kara winces at the sound of her sister’s voice, Lena realizes what’s happening.
“She’s overwhelmed. I fear the audio attack we’ve just faced may have momentarily tipped her over the edge. There are headphones on the nightstand in my room. They’re noise cancelling and should help her regain her senses once again, would you mind fetching them for her?”
Lena barely gets her question out before Alex is on her way to get them. She’s grateful to be given a task, something to do to make her feel useful because, quite frankly, she hasn’t got a fucking clue what just happened. All she knows is that they’re being listened to and that means she has to be careful with what she’s saying. Given that she doesn’t know what is classified as dangerous, she’s opting to say as little as possible.
She grabs the headphones and rushes back to the living room to fit them over Kara’s head, ignoring the blonde’s hands as she reaches out to take them from her. Once they’re firmly in place, she tucks a few stray curls out of her face and sits beside her, her brow furrowed in worry.
“I don’t have a clue what is going on but I need answers as to what just happened and I need to know that you’ve got a plan.” She stares into Lena’s eyes for a brief moment before moving over to lock eyes on the chestnut brown ones of the other vampire, who has her daughter tucked beneath her arm protectively, the younger girl’s head resting against her arm.
“You’ll have to let me figure that one out for myself before I can answer that, Alex.” Lena huffs, annoyed that she’s out of the loop. If there’s one thing she hates more than being threatened by a mysterious voice that is paired with the audio equivalent of being stabbed in the ears repeatedly, it’s not knowing something. Lena has to figure this out.
-
Lena’s senses are going crazy as she ushers everyone into the back of Frank’s car, and she has no doubt that Sam is just as on edge as she is.
They have been waiting all day for the chance to leave, waiting for the sun to go down just enough for them to get out of the apartment and get to L-Corp. At least there, they’ll know they’re safe. The only problem with that is their relative certainty that the person who sent them that message is a vampire too, a strong one at that. That means they could show up at any time, and all they can do is cross their fingers and hope they can get to L-Corp without meeting them.
“Frank, don’t dawdle. Take the fastest route and be on guard. If you see anything suspicious, you must let us know.”
“Of course, Ms Luthor.” Frank drones, his foot hitting the gas pedal before they’ve even had a chance to put their seatbelts on.
A horn sounds from behind them as they cut off some poor soul who’s probably on their way home from work. Kara flinches at the sound, and Lena pulls her into her side more firmly before making sure the cups of the headphones are over her ears properly. “Keep them on. You’ll be on edge for a while so it’s best to leave them on until we at least get where we’re going.”
Kara presses herself into Lena’s side more firmly, taking comfort in the tight grip she has around her shoulders. It’s steadying and makes her feel like nothing can touch her. Her right hand reaches over to grab Alex’s, who looks just about ready to jump into Sam’s lap with how wide her eyes are, constantly searching for the threat they can’t see. The only reason she hasn’t already done it is because Ruby is huddled so tightly to Sam already, Kara’s certain.
Frank makes the judgment call not to take the fastest route but the most populated, figuring that if someone or something is after them, then it’s best he uses the public as their safety blanket. No vampire wants to be exposed to the world, and no vampire is going to risk attacking them on Main Street, he’s pretty sure of that. Not unless the vampire is dumb or overly cocky anyway.
Lena takes note of Frank’s choice but doesn’t say anything. She understands why he did it, but she would still prefer it if he followed her instructions. Fighting over it now isn’t going to help anyone though. It’s already tough keeping everything moving smoothly when they’re all on edge. If she makes a fuss about it, that will scare everyone even more.
Closing her eyes, Lena listens out for any sound that could be coming from someone who wants to hurt them, her ears working overtime to try and find footsteps that aren’t matched by a heartbeat or the telltale sound of some supervillain cackling malevolently in some dark, abandoned building.
Frank pulls up around the side of L-Corp, bringing them to the same side door that Kara was first brought through by him long ago when Lena had him bring her to her. This time, nobody needs to get threatened by a gun to go inside, although Kara wishes she had one stuffed in the waistband of her pants so she could whip it out like she’s in an action movie and get her revenge on Frank.
They all scuttle through the door, their heads swivelling as they duck inside, trying their best to spot anyone down the alley.
The door clangs shut behind them, but none of them lose any tension from their shoulders. None of them release the breath they’re holding. Something doesn’t feel right.
“Everyone get down to the lab,” Lena demands, her ears straining to find anyone who isn’t meant to be here and coming up empty. Diving for her phone, she calls up the new head of security, someone she hired after Vasquez was murdered. She’s not sure if she likes her just yet but doesn’t get any negative feelings from her. “Ms Lane, I want a full head count and a list of everyone in the building please. Anyone who isn’t security is to be taken to the second-floor conference room. Once I’ve reviewed the list and checked on the staff, I’ll decide on further steps.”
“Of course, Ms Luthor. Is there anything you’d like me to prepare for?”
“Just be ready. We might have to move fast.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lena shuts the lab door behind them firmly before heading straight for the safe room. “I know it’s not your favourite place in the world, but please just go in here for now. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I’ll be able to handle it better knowing you’re safe.” She swings the door open and gestures inside.
Ruby is the first to pass through the door after a not-so-gentle nudge from her mom and Alex is right behind her, quickly followed by Frank.
“You too,” Lena says softly, squeezing Kara’s hand. “You’ll be more protected from an audio attack in there, and I’ll feel better knowing there’s someone powerful in there to protect Ruby. I know Sam will too.”
“I will,” Sam confirms.
“Is Jess still here?” Kara asks, backing into the room. “Are you going to bring her down here?”
Lena’s eyes widen. “Oh shit. Sam, can you go and get her? I imagine she’s either already been rounded into the conference room or at her desk.”
Sam takes a second to enter the safe room, duck down to press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, and then whisper a gentle reassurance to her before she darts off up the stairs, much quicker than the humans in the room were expecting, all of them left shell shocked by the causal display of power.
Kara moves into the room and waits just inside the door. “She should be back in just a moment, right? No point in shutting the door until Jess is here.”
Lena nods but looks around nervously. “I guess so, but it’d still make me feel better.”
“We all saw how quickly Sam just ran off, she’ll be back in no time.”
“They’ll be longer than you think. The day Jess lets anyone make her move that quick is the day a janitor is mopping up her puke from every step in the stairwell. It’ll be like a breadcrumb trail, except it’s just the regurgitated sub she had for lunch.”
Kara pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers, wincing as she tries not to picture that. “Yep, thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome,” Lena smiles playfully, although it doesn’t feel completely genuine, the unease in her eyes overtaking the brief moment of joy.
“It’ll be ok.” Kara tries reassuring her but knows her thunderous heart is giving her away. She almost died the last time they were in a situation like this. Now someone else is threatening them, and she’s got to somehow not freak out.
Sam comes barging down the stairs at full speed, practically throwing Jess into the saferoom before barging Lena into there too before she slams the door shut behind them, locking them all in.
“What are you doing?” Lena exclaims.
“Shut up.” Sam commands, barely glancing back at the group, which now includes a very green-looking Jess. “They’re here.”
“What?” Lena whispers, almost inaudibly.
Not a moment later, a long, deep scratch can be heard from the other side of the door, trailing across it with a noise that makes them all raise their shoulders up in an attempt to protect their ears.
Alex notices Ruby quivering against the back wall and tucks her arm around the girl, noting how she immediately clutches her arms around her waist and buries her head into her chest.
Jess takes the other side of Ruby, joining in on the impromptu hug, a familiar figure for her to draw comfort from.
Frank just huddles in the corner, his necklace pulled out from under his shirt, the little cross held tightly between his clenched hands as he mouths the words to a prayer that won’t protect him.
“I hear you.” A dark voice sing-songs from outside. “I can hear your fear.”
Lena turns to everyone, a finger pressed to her lips to warn everyone to be quiet.
“If you think this adorable little room will protect you, you’re wrong. I know who you’re hiding in there. I know what you’re hiding in there. A beat. “Hybrid.”
Kara’s eyes are so wide she’s confident they might just roll right out of her head. Her hands clutch at the headphones, and to stop herself from accidentally breaking them, she shoves them back onto her head, regretting ever taking them off when they got down here.
Lena holds her hands out to her, holding her palms out flat to reassure her that everything is fine. She’s not going to let anyone hurt her.
“Give me the creature and I’ll leave. Nobody has to get hurt here.”
A snarl rips itself free from Lena’s throat, her protective side coming out in spades as she thinks about what someone could possibly do to Kara. Obviously, whatever she is planning isn’t good. Nobody who has good intentions with someone calls them a ‘creature.’
“Ah, so someone in there has a pair of balls. I like that, and I’d recognize that sound anywhere. You made that sound back when we first met too. So feisty, Ms Luthor.” A sinister laugh travels through the door, muffled by the metal but no less terrifying. “Or should I say, Lenetta Kieran? I bet you don’t even remember; you low-levels never do.”
Lena’s lip curls dangerously. She knows that was her name. Her first name. It’s changed many times across the centuries, often whenever she moved from city to city, or even across the minimal number of countries she’s been to, but that’s one she’ll never forget.
Only one person she met during that time was a vampire too. One person who definitely shouldn’t be here. Someone that she was sure died so long ago. Someone who paid the ultimate price for their crimes but apparently managed to duck beneath Death’s scythe.
“You know me, don’t you, Lena?” The voice taunts, and all of a sudden, Lena is back in her chambers in England. She’s human again, her last moments of being a normal person. The final moment before her life is robbed of her.
Lena’s hand moves without her consent, reaching forward to open the door.
Sam grabs her wrist, fighting against her, shocked by the amount of strength Lena is using to reach forward. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Open the door for me, Lena. You know you want to.”
Kara wraps her arms around Lena from behind, trapping her arms at her side as much as she can, knowing full well that this isn’t a fight she can win. Lena has to resist for them to win this battle.
Sam clings to her wrist, a flame burning deep inside her. She won’t let her do this, not when Ruby’s safety depends on it.
“Don’t make me stop you, Lena.”
“Lena, open the door.”
Lena feels as though something has nestled deep into her brain, changing the wiring and drawing her closer to the person on the other side of the door, pulling her like they’re magnets attracting. She has the desire to resist it but also feels like her wants are not her own. A part of her wants nothing more than to open the door while her logical brain screams at her that it’s a trap.
“Lena, don’t,” Kara mutters in her ear, her arms pressing deep into her stomach as she pulls back on her. Her warmth is steadying against her back and helps guide Lena through the fog.
“I won’t,” Lena says, her tone lacking its usual bite. “You might as well go, you can’t hurt us in here and we’re not handing anyone over to you.”
A cackling laugh travels through the thick metal of the door. “Interesting. You’re stronger than I imagined you to be. Nowhere near strong enough, but you’ve got a little bit of bite to your bark. I like that.”
“Just go!”
“I can’t do that. Give me the hybrid and I won’t harm the humans you’re hiding. That’s the deal. I can smell them. I can smell you all. You have three…no, four. There are four humans in there, two vampires and the hybrid. One in seven isn’t a bad loss. Hand it over.”
Kara bites her lip and winces as nails once again scratch against the door, causing an obvious amount of damage. The door won’t hold forever. Lena made this one of the safest places on the planet, yet here they are, sitting piglets as the big bad wolf slowly taunts them as she blows their house down. “Maybe I should just—”
“Absolutely not.” Lena cuts her off, turning around in her arms and taking her muscled arms in her hands, holding her tightly as though she’s about to open the door after begging her not to do it just moments before. “You’re not doing that. We’re fine, we’re safe in here.”
“Not forever.” The voice singsongs. “How long do you think it’ll take for me to get through this door? A few minutes? An hour? A day? I can wait you out. I have nothing but time.”
“Are you a vampire?” Lena asks, unsure if she actually wants to know the answer, but in a much better state of mind than she was before, clearly the woman has stopped controlling her for now.
“You could say that.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Telling me.” Lena smiles through the darkness, pulling out her phone and tapping the screen with her fingers faster than the flap of a hummingbird's wings. She then shoves it back in her pocket and presses Kara’s headphones against her ears more firmly. “Sam, Kara, this is going to hurt. I’m so sorry.”
The loudest, most ear-piercing ringing booms through the entire building, ten times worse than the audio attack they suffered at the hands of the mysterious woman and strong enough that it knocks not only the vampires to the floor but also causes the humans to cover their ears. It’s not enough to hurt them, but it’s not comfortable.
They hear a piercing scream on the other side of the door, demonic sounding undertones to it reaching forth and battering the lab. They hear the faint smashing sound as beakers and test tubes shatter from the mixture of the scream and Lena’s defence system.
It pauses, and all goes silent.
They relax against the floor, loosening their stiff limbs from their foetal positions. Lena swallows harshly. “It’ll just keep going. The system will take short breaks every so often. It’s random too. It gives anyone affected a chance to leave. I’ll leave it on for as long as necessary. We can endure longer than you. We’re more protected in here than you are out there. We have the upper hand. Get out while you can.”
“No!”
The noise starts up again, and Kara cries out in anguish, the least able to deal with it out of all of them. Lena knows that, at least she does when she’s not also being assaulted by the noise. She just hopes that the woman doesn’t call their bluff. If she does, they really are screwed.
They tighten back up into their foetal positions, their hands covering their ears, and their eyes slam shut.
Another scream from outside the door.
Silence.
“We can do this all day if we have to. We’re not opening the door.” Lena pants. “Give it up.”
Silence.
“You can’t win.”
Silence.
“Why do you want her so badly that you are willing to endure this pain?”
“I’m not. I’ll be back, don’t worry. I’ll find you again, not that it will be difficult; your name’s on the building.”
The door slams.
Silence.
The screeching starts up again, and as much as Lena wants to text security and have them shut off the noise, she can’t make herself move at all through the assault. They have to wait for the next break in the noise.
It does come eventually, but it feels like it takes an eternity. As soon as it stops, Lena dives for her phone and submits the order. It’s over for now. If she’s really gone, that is.
They all unravel from their positions, slowly sitting up.
“Is everyone alright?” Sam asks, her eyes pinned on her daughter. “Ruby?”
“I’m ok, mom. Is she gone?”
Sam turns her ear to the door, listening for the woman.
Silence.
“She’s gone.”
“Are you sure?” Alex asks, her eyebrows furrowed and fear written across every inch of her face.
Lena wraps her arms around Kara’s shaking body. “We’re certain. I think you should stay here while Sam and I go out there and secure the building properly. We’ll come and get you once we’re sure that’s done.”
Nobody puts up a fight. Nobody wants to leave their little sanctuary, fear still coursing through their veins and taking over them.
-
Kara is still shaking over an hour later and it has everyone worried about her. She’s sure it’s just adrenaline, but Lena and Alex have forced her to lie down on a gurney—a new one. Lillian really did a number on the last one when she escaped from being bound to it.
“I’m ok.”
“I’m sure you are, but you’ve been through a lot today, and you were practically tortured by not only her but also my defence system. We believe we only got one over on her today because a person like that doesn’t think that people below them can have similar ideas to them. I installed the frequency emitters after the Lillian thing. I wanted to be sure that I have something to rid the building of vampires should the need arise.”
“Smart.” Kara shifts, moving to take the headphones off.
Lena gently bats her hands away, keeping them in place and instead connecting them up to her phone and offering it to her so she can play some music instead. “Find something relaxing, maybe try to rest for a while. Even if you can’t sleep, you should just try to relax your body and close your eyes.”
“What about you?”
“I have work to do.”
“You should at least take half an hour to yourself, maybe sit down and try meditating or something. You can’t think if your head is everywhere at once.”
Lena leans down and presses her lips to Kara’s forehead softly. “I’ll be fine. I’ll rest once my work is done.”
Kara sighs. She already knows she’s not winning this one right now, so she turns her head until she spots Jess. “Hey! Can you make sure she rests soon, Jess?”
“You got it.” Jess gives her a thumbs up, pausing her sweeping to do so before going right back to cleaning up the broken glass.
“Thanks,” Kara calls out as she settles back down, turning on some soft music and trying not to think about how there are six people milling about the room around her.
Lena shakes her head at her softly, amused but also slightly annoyed by her actions. This woman is something else. Even after suffering through something that is definitely traumatic, she’s still trying to make sure she’s looked after too. If she could blush, she would be beet red.
“She’s not so bad,” Frank admits from his place on a random stool near to where Lena is standing.
“She’s not bad at all, and I’m just happy she didn’t try to have you kicked out of the room before she settled down.”
Frank hums softly. “She doesn’t like me very much.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
“I stand by what I did.”
“I know you do, but you cannot deny that what you did traumatized her deeply, just as my actions did the same to her. Our relationship has flourished since then, but it has not come without its trials and tribulations, of which I’m certain are not completely finished.”
Frank nods slowly. “I know what I did. I know what harm I caused. I know it’s not rational that I dislike her for not wanting to help you that day; she had every right and reason to refuse, but I care about you. I’ve been your driver for years, and you’re like family to me.”
Lena looks down, forcing herself to hide the tiny smile the old man just forced onto her face. “You’re like my family too. I just…can you try and get along with her? She’s lost a lot because of me and having you guys at odds just adds unease into her life that she shouldn’t have to deal with.”
“As you wish.” Frank nods. “I’ll be nice to her.”
“Thank you, that’s all I ask.” Lena squeezes his arm gently. “Now, why don’t you go and get Jess to find you somewhere to lie down too? You can call your family and let them know you’ll be home late and try to relax. At your age, you have to take it easy after something like what happened today.”
“Cheeky madam. I’ll be fine, but I suppose I should let Mandy know.” Frank grins at her before standing up and shuffling over to Jess, who eases the broom down before leading him upstairs so he can rest and call his wife.
She moves to her station where she was working on the synthetic blood, eager to see if any of her experiments she was working on have garnered any results, but her cold, unbeating heart shatters as she takes in the sight of it all strewn across the station and ground broken, her notes ripped to shreds. Whoever that woman was, she doesn’t want her to be working on this, and if she could tell what the experiment was just from her notes and the experiments, then she’s smart. Smarter than Lena would like her to be.
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Sam and Alex both wander over to come and look over her shoulder.
“Oh crap,” Alex mutters. “Is that the artificial blood experiments?”
“Yep, I guess this means I’ve got to start all them over again. Fuck. At least I remember what was in the notes, so I don’t have to start completely from scratch.”
Sam squeezes her shoulder reassuringly. “I’m sorry, Lena.”
“Me too, but it’s not the end of the world.” She ducks her head. “I’d rather it just be this than any of you.”
Sam nods. “Me too. Need a hand cleaning up?”
“No, I’m good. Why don’t you and Ruby go and hang out in my office? Ruby can nap there if she wants to. I’ve got this covered.”
“Translation: you want us to scarper so you can try and make sense of everything that happened.”
Lena rolls her eyes. “Yes, that. Now scram.”
“You’ve got it.” Sam turns on her heel and eases Ruby up from where she’s sitting to take her upstairs and away from here.
“Oh, and Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s another safe room in my office; use it if you have to.”
Sam nods at her one last time with a reassuring smile before the mother-daughter duo leave the lab, leaving only Lena, Alex and Kara.
Alex finds a box of gloves nearby, washes her hands and snaps a pair on before helping Lena clear up the mess left all over the place.
“You don’t have to.”
Alex shrugs, not stopping for even a second. “I know, I want to. You protected us today and this is what I can do to thank you. I don’t know what that woman wants with my sister, but I know you’re not going to let her do anything either, not to Kara.”
Lena’s lips quirk up. “That’s true. I won’t let anyone hurt Kara. However, I do have to figure out who that woman is. She had a hold on me that I’ve never felt before, and I need to know exactly how and why she was able to do it.”
“That sounds smart.”
“It means I won’t be able to work on my artificial blood project though. I can’t do both, but I need to.” Lena sighs. “If I don’t work on the blood, the supply will run low again. I can’t risk becoming as starving as I was when I met Kara. If I work on that and put the research into this woman on the backburner then I’m opening us up to an attack. What do I do?”
“You’re a billionaire, right?”
Lena frowns, pausing to look over at Alex in confusion. “Yes, why?”
“Just pay someone to do it.” She shrugs. “You have a load of scientists in this building during the day. Just get a few to work on the blood.”
“But I can’t let anyone know I’m a vampire. That’s the problem.” Lena shakes her head.
“Do you really think only vampires need blood?” Alex laughs, amused. “The hospital is always in need of donations. Believe me, I would know.”
Lena’s eyes grow wide. “Oh, shit. I forgot you’re a doctor. How are you having so much time off?”
“They’ve been trying to get me to take my vacation time for years. So has Kara for that matter.”
“Sounds like something Kara would do,” Lena admits.
“Yeah, but as much as I like resting. I love the feeling of helping people and saving lives. Sometimes, I like to work with patients, and sometimes I do lab testing. I love it.”
Just like that, a metaphorical lightbulb shines brightly over Lena’s head. “Lab work, you say?”
“Lab testing. It’s different.”
“But you’re familiar with bloodwork?”
“No. Nope. Not going to happen. No.” Alex shakes her head. “I like my work at the hospital.”
“And you can still do that, I will just have you come here and also be part of the team working on this.”
Alex sighs. “How big would the team be?”
“Two?”
Alex’s eyebrows raise so high they almost merge with her hairline. “Are you nuts? Only two people?”
“Me and you.”
“Definitely not. The hospital needs the extra help with the testing, so I won’t stop doing that.”
“I’ll start up an initiative to train and send some more people their way then. That means you’ll have time to come over and help.”
Alex shakes her head at Lena. “Why do you want me so bad?”
Lena ducks her head, shuffling her feet against some broken glass. “Surprisingly, I trust you and know I can speak openly around you. I don’t have that a lot of the time and I’ve never had the opportunity to work with anyone in the lab on something so personal. I’d like to know how it feels to work with a friend.”
“We’re friends?”
Lena clears her throat. “Not to make it weird or anything. I just…you’re my girlfriend’s sister, but I also kind of like you. You’re not bad for a human.”
Alex smirks at her, her hip propped against the nearest surface. “You’re not too bad for a vampire, I suppose. You should definitely roll out that initiative for the hospital.”
“You’ll do it?” Lena’s head snaps up. “Really?”
“I’ll think about it, but helping the hospital is a great way to inspire me to agree.”
Lena grins. “I look forward to working with you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up and clean, then we can get some of these experiments going again and you can rewrite those notes.”
Lena lifts a few of the ripped sheets of paper and tries to jigsaw them together. “Do you think that if we get some tape—”
“Rewrite them.” Alex cuts her off. “You’re going to be a pain to work with. I can see it now.”
Lena smiles up at her smugly. “Yep, but you can’t back out now.”
“Of course I can.” Alex disagrees.
“Nope, because I’m going to tell Kara you said yes, and you can’t say no to Kara. That would be like kicking a puppy.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Alex glares at her.
“Probably not, but it’s a good threat.”
Alex’s shoulders slump. She hates that she actually kind of likes Lena now. She still gets the odd spark of rage when she thinks about Lena back when she first met Kara and the harm she caused her, but seeing the pair so lovey-dovey and the way Kara grins when Lena’s around has done wonders for making her come around to the vampire woman.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
They silently keep cleaning, Lena getting tired part way through and using her speed to run through the rest of the lab quickly.
Alex shakes her head at her, but it doesn’t last as her eyes focus on her sleeping sister. “Promise me you’ll focus on that woman. I’ll handle the blood; you just keep her safe.”
“I’ll do my best. I promise.”
“Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear.”
“Just for the record though, I’m not leaving the blood just to you. I trust you, but not enough for you to do it alone.” Lena bumps her shoulder into Alex’s, almost sending the redhead flying.
This is the sequel to 'Back To Krypton'. If you haven't read that yet, the full fic is available on AO3 here!
-
“Not much longer,” Lena announces, her gaze set firmly on Earth as it grows larger. “Probably another hour or so before we meet up with the fleet.”
Kara hums, sliding off the bed to join Lena. She wraps her arm around her waist and leans into her, their heads resting softly against each other. “I’m glad Brainy decided to take this last stretch slow so we can see it like this. It’s beautiful.”
Lena snorts. “We’re hardly going slow; we’re just going slow enough to not need a seatbelt.”
Bumping her hip into Lena’s, Kara giggles. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Lena sighs. “I do.”
“It’s not usually his style to be sentimental when practicality works so much better though. I wonder why he planned this.”
Lena grimaces. She's the keeper of Brainy’s secrets and she’s already folding before Kara has even pressed for more information. “Yeah, that is...odd.” Her voice wavers the tiniest amount, but it’s enough to give her away.
Kara squints at her. “You know something. Tell me.”
Holding her hands up, Lena makes a futile attempt at getting Kara to drop it. “It’s Brainy’s business.”
“And yours too, since you’re keeping secrets for him. Spill.”
Lena shakes her head, trying to figure out the best way to lay this out without upsetting Kara. “There are a few reasons he decided to slow us down. The main one is that he’s been away from Nia for a long time and he wants to woo her a little. He also wants to check over our device one last time. We’ve both triple-checked it to make sure it’ll do the job we need it for, but since it’s made from the schematics of multiple devices, he’s nervous.”
Kara’s eyes narrow when she stops talking. “And the third reason?”
“He’s worried about you. We all are. You’ve been through a hell of a lot, so we thought that you might appreciate a slow return to Earth. Some time to wrap your head around things before we’re officially back on home turf.”
“So it wasn’t Brainy’s idea. It was yours.” Kara doesn’t sound mad. If anything, she just sounds defeated. “I’m ok, Lena.”
Lena faces her fully, the light reflecting from Earth shining on them both, the planet they’ve sworn to protect watching over them in this vulnerable moment. “I know, but you don’t have to be.”
“I can’t. Not until we’ve stopped Lex.”
“If our plan goes smoothly, the device will be activated as soon as we’re through Earth’s atmosphere. Lex won’t see it coming and everything will be fine. You can breathe, Kara. We both can. We can live.”
Kara sinks into Lena’s arms, her head turned so she can look out over Earth. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It is, and it isn’t,” Lena says, her voice soft, barely more than a whisper. “There’s so much hatred down there, but from up here, it’s nothing but beauty. This is how I think you look at people. You see the good even when they’re capable of such horrors. I love that about you, and I wish I could do the same. You see the best part of people rather than judging and mistrusting them for something they may never do.”
“Your way is smarter.”
“Your way is kinder.” Lena rebuts. “I like to think we balance each other out pretty well.”
“I know we do.”
There’s a knock at the door a second before it slides open, but neither woman turns to look to see who it is.
“God, seeing you two stare at each other like that is worse than walking in on you doing…things.” Alex’s voice is coated in a thick layer of disgust. “Anyway, we’re going to strap in and take the last part faster so Lex doesn’t notice another ship joining the fleet. We’re going to stop by J’onn’s ship first to let him know the good news before we make the last stretch back home.”
Lena traces her fingertips down the length of Kara’s arm before finally looking at Alex. “Sounds good. We’ll be there in just a minute.”
Alex nods, her eyes now fixed on her sister, who is avoiding eye contact with her. “Are you ok, Kara?”
“Yeah, I will be.” She musters up a smile, looking between Alex and Lena. “I have a lot of emotions going on, but I’ll be just fine.”
“Good.” Alex’s face softens. “You will be. We’ll all be with you while you get there.”
“I know.”
There’s a brief moment of softness between the sisters before Alex ducks out of the room, leaving Kara and Lena in their little bubble of peace.
Lena rests her forehead against Kara’s for a second before brushing her nose against hers. “We’ve got to figure out how to explain to everyone on Earth that we went back in time and fell in love.”
“I’d argue that we were already in love.” Kara grins before pressing her lips firmly against Lena’s.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I think everyone will be happy for us.”
“Me too.”
They cling to their moment of serenity for a couple more minutes before they regretfully pull away from each other to go and join the others. They’re all waiting for them, strapped into their seats and ready to go when they walk in. They roll their eyes at their team when they cheer at them sarcastically.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Brainy announces. “Hold on, everyone.”
They prepare themselves and close their eyes for the quick blast of speed that sends them shooting through the universe, only slowing as they approach the back of the fleet, manoeuvring through the ships to slide in right beside J’onn’s ship.
“J’onn. Can you hear me?” Brainy speaks aloud, trying to contact J’onn’s ship.
“Loud and clear. How are you all?”
“Tired,” Kara calls out, “and ready to get home.”
“I bet.” J’onn chuckles. “Did you get what you need?”
“We sure did. We’re going to land and activate the device as we pass through the atmosphere. We’ll signal to you when it’s safe for you to bring the fleet down.”
There’s the faint sound of applause from the background of J’onn’s ship. “Good work, team. I’ll see you down there soon enough.”
“We look forward to it,” Brainy says, and Nia leans forward just a touch so she can get a better look at the grin spread across his face. She’s missed him and his dorkiness, and she just can’t get enough of it now that they’re back together again.
Brainy preps the ship for atmospheric entry and then gives everyone a brief warning before he starts their descent, his fingers poised on the switch to their new device so he can flip it on as soon as they’re close enough to the ground to do so.
The moment the device turns on is a little anticlimactic. All it does is light up a little. Nothing else is meant to happen; that’s the point. No exploding ships, just a pretty little blinking light and peace.
“All systems confirm that the device is working and it has deactivated Lex’s weapon,” Lena says, her eyes pinned on the control panel in front of her. “Mission accomplished.”
“Mission accomplished,” Kara whispers to herself with a tiny smile, one that is both genuine and not. She’s thrilled that all of their hard work has paid off. She just wishes that she didn’t lose so much in doing so.
The ship levels off as they come to land in front of the Tower and Kara takes that as enough permission to take off her seatbelt to look at her family. She might have lost one family on Krypton, but she’s gained a whole new one. One that understands her so much more thanks to this mission. That’s something she’ll hold dear for the rest of her life.
“So, I’m thinking pizza.” She announces to the room. “It’s been far too long since we’ve had pizza.”
“And Chinese.” Alex pipes up. “We need potstickers too, and you’re going to share them.” She points an accusing finger at her sister.
“We better order extra then. I want at least a dozen to myself.”
“I’ll get you some, darling.” Lena appears at her side. “I’ll also be getting myself some because listening to you ramble on about them for months has had me craving them like crazy.”
Kara shrugs. “I’m not sorry.”
“That’s not surprising.”
Squinting at Lena playfully, Kara scoffs. “What’s that meant to mean?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Lena plays into it.
“I think I found something to worry about.” Brainy joins in the conversation, his tone clipped.
They all huddle around the control panel where Brainy is working, their eyes peering at his fast-moving fingers before darting to the device as he keeps pressing switches on the side of it.
Lena’s eyebrows furrow as she figures out what’s happening. “Oh, I see.”
“I don’t. Mind filling us in?” Nia questions, her hands resting loosely on Brainy’s shoulders.
Kara figures it out next, quickly followed by Alex.
“Lex is trying to set off the machine now.” Kara starts.
“And every time he does that, the machine is stopping him, but it has to be reset each time it works or else Lex can still make the fleet self-destruct.” Alex finishes. “We need to tell J’onn to keep the fleet where it is until we figure out how to make the device reset itself. If we can’t do that, someone will have to keep resetting it manually each time it goes off until we can stop Lex for good and destroy his device.”
Everyone’s shoulders drop. They might have won the battle, but the war isn’t over. Not while Lex can still try to set off his device.
“Do you think he’ll figure out that we’re stopping him manually, or will he give up?” Kelly asks, her hands twisting in front of her.
Lena struggles to swallow past the growing lump in her throat. “I’d guess that he’ll rage for a while first, and then he’ll look into it to see what’s happening. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes that we have to stop each attempt and tries to use that to his advantage. That or he’ll try to find a way around it.”
“He won’t be able to do that. There’s less than nought point three percent chance that he will find a way.”
Kara’s completely lost her smile. “So we just keep manually stopping him for now?”
Brainy nods solemnly. “Yes. For now, that’s all we can do.”
Kara sighs, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose tightly. “Rao, it never ends.”
Lena’s hand rests on her forearm, gently urging Kara to take her hand away from her face. “Hey, it will. We just have a couple of extra steps. We’re all good though. We can take shifts with the device, which we should probably name so we don’t have to keep calling it ‘the device’, and once we’ve figured out how to spruce it up and make it so it resets itself, we’ll all be peachy.”
Kara stares deeply into emerald eyes. “Since when do you use the word ‘peachy’?”
“Since I started dating a dork.” Lena deadpans. “Now, how about we get off this ship and into the Tower?”
Kara nods but then falters. “Hold on, we have to call J’onn.”
“He’s not going to be thrilled by the news,” Alex adds.
“No, he’s not.” Kelly bumps Esme up onto her hip more firmly, having just lifted her up. “But he needs to know.”
Lena leans over to call J’onn back and they all wait impatiently for him to respond.
“Have you arrived down there safely?”
Alex clears her throat, opting to be the one to tell him the bad news. “Yes, we have, but there is something you need to know.”
“Nothing good ever followed those words.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” Alex shuffles her feet as she starts explaining. “The device works and stops Lex from causing all the alien ships to self-destruct. However, we have to manually reset it each time he makes an attempt, so it might be best to keep the fleet off Earth until we have managed to make it repeat its defensive actions without there being room for human error.”
They can practically hear J’onn’s teeth grinding as he processes. “I think a lot less people will be willing to stay up here. There are still a lot of aliens that stayed on Earth anyway, but telling the ones that did leave to stay up here for longer than they already have just won’t work. I can ask, but I will not take away their right to make an informed choice. We will monitor the device in pairs to ensure there will be no errors. We can take shifts.”
“J’onn, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kara asks.
“No, but we can’t keep these people in limbo indefinitely, and we don’t have the resources to stop them from going anywhere.”
“Ok. Do you want us to tell them?”
“No, you’ve done plenty. This is my burden to carry. I’ll meet you down there soon.”
The call ends with a click, and the whole group just deflates. “I guess we better get inside, then.” Kelly ushers them to the door.
“Nia and I will remain for a little longer to stabilize the device for transit into the Tower.” Briany declares, waving them off, his eyes fixed diligently on the control panel to monitor any need to reset the device once again.
Lena takes Kara’s hand as they walk ahead of Alex, Kelly and Esme. “I’m going to order a boatload of food and have a nice hot shower, then I’m going to put on the softest clothes I own and sleep forever.”
“Rao, that sounds so good.” Kara has to resist moaning at the thought. “I bet we can convince someone else to take the first shift with the device.”
Lena smirks at her devilishly. “I bet we can.”
They pass the H’Rakas, both of them sleeping soundly in the cargo bay. “I can’t wait to see these guys out in the open again. I think they’ve kind of restless being stuck in here.”
“Yeah. We’ll get them out of here as soon as possible.” Lena agrees.
The door opens, and Kara basks in the immediate power surge she gets from being beneath Sol’s rays once again. It’ll take a while for her powers to come back fully, most likely a couple of days, but she already feels stronger.
“Welcome home.” She grips Lena’s hand tighter, taking her first step out of the ship and officially onto Earth.
She crumples.
Lena’s hand is dropped as she falls to her knees, her hands grasping at her head as she cries out in pain.
“Kara?” Lena falls to her side, her hands desperately cupping her face to try and get her attention. “What’s happening? What hurts?”
Kara can’t answer. All she can focus on is the acute pain in her head.
“Kara?” Lena keeps trying to get her to look at her, but with her eyes shut so firmly and her pain drowning out the sound of everything happening around her, Kara is oblivious.
Kelly rushes past them with Esme, the little girl peering over her mom’s shoulder with wide, terrified eyes. She has no idea what’s happening but it’s clear that it’s not good.
Alex and Lena sit on either side of Kara, flipping her onto her back so she’s leaning against Alex, nestled in her sister’s embrace, while they try to figure out what’s happening.
“You’re going to be ok,” Alex whispers to her, her face the epitome of terror because she knows that whatever has caused this, she can’t stop.
Kara’s in a world of her own, her brain on overload as she’s hit by memory after memory that she never lived. Her past is being rewritten, merging with her true memories to create a messy collage of old truths and new truths she can barely differentiate.
It’s all moving so fast that she can’t keep up. All she can do is try not to focus on the stabbing pain in her head and the overload of information hitting her as she’s dragged along for the ride. She can’t stop it; she must simply endure.
It slows eventually, but not before Nia and Brainy come stumbling out of the ship to find them on the floor.
“Oh no, that’s not good,” Brainy says, understanding exactly what is happening. “Her past is changing. I should have accounted for this.”
“What do you mean?” Lena presses for answers. “Why now? We left Krypton days ago.”
“Her return to Earth solidified the timeline. As soon as she stepped foot out of the protection of the time ship, she was exposed to the changes. She’ll be in pain for a while, but it’ll pass.”
Brainy’s relaxed demeanour calms both Alex and Lena, but Alex isn’t completely satisfied. “How long will she be like this?”
He shrugs, careful not to lose track of the device in Nia’s arms as they await a possible need to reset it. “That depends on how much has changed for her. Given her pain threshold and her current reaction, I’d say that some fundamental parts of her life have changed, and that’s something we shall have to thoroughly review when she’s recovered.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Lena asks, her hands clutching at Kara’s, keeping her from digging her nails into her scalp as she tries to overcome the immense pain she’s in.
“We wait it out.” Brainy is no happier saying it than Alex and Lena are hearing it.
Kara’s eyes fly open. The pain is still strong, but it dipped suddenly enough for her to regain some of her senses.
She focuses on the balcony, but she doesn’t see the present. She’s seeing ghosts of memories walking and standing and drinking and hugging, each one overlapping and merging, each false but true. They weren’t, but now they are.
“Kara? Can you hear me?” Lena tries.
The memories fade away until one remains. A kiss on Earth that never happened, one right before they climb aboard the Legion ship with bags that got carried across Krypton. Then, that fades too, taking the pain with it.
“Holy fuck.”
“Kara?” Lena’s eyes glisten with unshed tears.
“I’m ok.” She stumbles over the words but leans up without assistance, proving her statement to be at least somewhat true.
Both Alex and Lena are quick to wrap their arms around her waist to support her weight as she stands, and then they start directing her inside slowly, conscious of keeping their assistance light but stabilizing.
“Let’s get you to a chair,” Alex says, mostly to herself. “You need to sit down.”
“I really am alright. I promise.”
Lena scoffs. “With all due respect, you were just wiped out by some pretty severe pain brought on by your timeline being rewritten, so pardon us if we don’t take your word for it.”
Kara gives in. She can’t argue with that. “That’s fair.”
The pair lower Kara into the nearest chair, their worry and uneasiness evident to everyone who bothers to look. Kara, for the most part, seems to be ok. She’s managed to steady herself again and is now just trying to piece together the memories she lived compared to the memories she gained just a few seconds ago.
“Are you sure you’re feeling ok?” Lena asks, tenderly tucking a wayward lock of blonde hair back behind her ear.
Kara nods slowly. “Yeah, I’m just trying to make sense of things.”
“Brainy?” Alex waves at him to get his attention, leaving Nia to watch the device, the fate of every alien who owns a ship lying in her hands.
“Alex.” He replies.
“Why aren’t we having the same reaction as Kara? Surely a change in her timeline means that there will also be a change in ours.”
Brainy hums and tucks his arms behind his back, his spine straightening. “While that is true, Kara has had a massive shift in her timeline and the change in events leading up to and following the destruction of Krypton will have a much stronger effect on her than any change in events for you. You are correct though. You will experience a few changes; how many is unknown at this time, so you’re likely to experience the merging of memories in one of two ways.”
“Which are?” Alex tries not to sound nervous.
“Either you will gain them when your mind rests, or you will gain them slowly as the days pass, perhaps partnered with a headache or a migraine, depending on the severity of the changes. Kara’s happened so quickly because of her direct impact on the changes and the confirmation of those changes happening when she stepped off the ship.”
“So we’ll either wake up with them or have a headache and get them?” Alex confirms.
“Precisely.”
“Well, that’s just swell.” Lena drones out. “Hey, Kara?”
“Hmm,” Kara hums, leaning her head into Lena’s side as the brunette perches on the arm of the chair she’s sitting in.
Lena wraps her arm around Kara, her fingernails brushing up and down her arm soothingly. “Are there any changes we need to be aware of?"
Kara shrugs helplessly. “I’m still sort of trying to piece together what’s what. I feel like I’ve just watched fifty movies at once, and I’m trying to figure out whether Cindy Lou Who is meant to be in ‘The Grinch’ or ‘Jaws’.”
“That’s...ok.” Lena doesn’t fully understand what that means, but she figures that it’s best to leave it well enough alone for now.
“We kissed though.”
“I’m well aware, darling.”
Kara shakes her head, looking up at the underside of Lena’s jaw. “No, we kissed before Krypton. I saw it.”
Lena’s eyes widen. “We were in a relationship on Earth?”
“Not really. We kissed right before getting on the ship to go on the mission. Rather, you kissed me.”
“Makes sense; you wouldn’t have the balls.” Lena smiles.
Kara’s mouth drops open. “Rude! I was just informing you of the details of our first kiss and you decide to bully me in return.”
“I wouldn’t call it bullying.”
“Oh?”
“Of course not.” Lena leans down to press a kiss to the top of Kara’s head. “I was just telling the truth.”
All Kara can do is roll her eyes at her. “Sure, sure.”
Lena chuckles into Kara’s hair. “If we kissed before we left for Krypton, does that mean that our actions on Krypton changed and, therefore, the future we changed has been changed again?”
“No.” Brainy answers. What happened on Krypton has become a fixed point in time. It’s hard to explain but because you changed a fixed point in time to begin with, it’s like you mixed the pieces of two jigsaw puzzles together. Even if all the pieces fit and lock together smoothly, the picture may never look perfect.”
“So our past is now a little jumbled but our future should be fine, just a little different than we anticipated?” Kara asks.
“Exactly.” Brainy points at the pair. “This is why I told you to limit interactions with people there. You can cause a real mess, just like this one.”
Kara grimaces as she thinks about all of the people she talked to and the lives she may have changed because of her actions. “Yeah, we did talk to quite a lot of people.”
“You beat one up.” Lena snorts.
Brainy sinks his head into his hands. “That doesn’t shock me. Kara, we don’t know the full extent of the damage yet, but it’s not looking good.”
“I know.” Kara leans back and closes her eyes, her brain flicking through all of the people’s lives she knows she definitely affected in some way, whether it be in big or small ways, it all matters. She keeps getting stuck on one person though. Someone who she now has new memories of.
Astra.
They were never on the rooftop.
Astra didn’t die on the rooftop.
Astra didn’t die.
“Oh...” Kara breathes. “Oh no.”
“What?” Alex turns to her, dread building up inside of her.
“Um, I might know what one of the changes happens to be.”
That catches everyone’s attention. Everyone except Nia focuses on her, their eyes scanning her face for any hint of a clue as to how bad this is going to be.
Alex squeezes Kara’s hand. “What is it?”
“It’s Astra.”
Alex freezes, the memory of Astra dying in Kara’s arms haunting her as it so often does, not that she often tells anyone that. There’s something different about this recollection though. It’s foggier than usual and a little frayed at the edges.
“She’s alive.” Kara finishes.
Alex’s mouth opens and closes, words sitting on the tip of her tongue but none strong enough to pass her lips. Eventually, she manages to stutter one out. “How?”
Pressing her lips together and rubbing her hands over her thighs, Kara thinks, trying to uncover more pieces to the puzzle. “I’m not totally sure. Something about her not believing in the cause anymore. She disagreed with Non and…” She pauses, hit with a surprising amount of clarity. “She killed Non to protect us. She saved Earth and lived here peacefully with us ever since.”
Kara can’t help it. She knows a massive change in the timeline like this shouldn’t be celebrated. It shouldn’t even be acknowledged really, just something to be dealt with, but this is a good thing. It’s a brilliant thing. Her aunt is alive.
“My aunt is alive.” Kara grins. “She’s alive.”
“Please tell me you’re just randomly celebrating the fact I’ve somehow managed to keep all of us alive as long as I have and not that your aunt Lara is somehow miraculously alive too. She was always a pompous bitch.”
Kara’s head whips around to see Astra leaning up against the doorframe, a startled Kelly at her side and Esme perched on her hip.
“Aunt Astra, you’re really here.” Kara’s voice is filled with wonder. She pushes herself up and walks over to her, stopping just shy of her, too afraid to actually touch her, too scared that this is nothing more than her confused, traumatized mind playing tricks on her.
Astra’s eyebrows pinch together before she hands Esme off to Kelly and closes the gap between them to press the back of her hand to Kara’s forehead. “Kara, are you ill?”
Kara shakes her head. “No. I’m just…” She gives up on trying to formulate words. Instead, she leans into her aunt’s touch before dragging her into a tight hug, her hands clutching at the back of Astra’s shirt so tightly it would rip if her powers had returned.
Everyone appears to be frozen in place as they stare at the scene and Astra catches on to the fact that she’s missing some pretty crucial information very quickly. “So, what have I missed?”
“What do you know?” Kelly probes.
Astra pulls out of the hug but lets her hands trail down Kara’s arms until she finds her hands, holding them securely in hers with no plans on dropping them until she has to. “That you’ve just come back from a mission to Krypton, and I now have the world’s biggest migraine, but this hug is definitely doing wonders to help it. I was hoping Alex would check me over though. I don’t usually get migraines due to my biology, as I’m sure you understand.”
Brainy sighs, getting ready to recount the same information he already gave everyone when he should be helping Nia monitor the device. Lena saves him though. “I got it, Brainy.”
“Thank you, Lena.”
“You got it.”
Astra looks at Lena expectantly. “So?”
“So, you have a migraine because your timeline is changing in a pretty major way. You’ll be able to remember everything soon.”
“Do you know what the changes are?”
Lena hesitates but nods. “I do.”
“You don’t want to tell me.” Astra gathers from the way Lena’s arms are folded tightly over her chest, and one foot is facing out as though she’s ready to run at a moment’s notice. “Is it really that bad?”
Kara blurts out the truth before Lena can find a tactful way of delivering the news. “You were dead.”
“What?”
“You were dead.”
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Kara rushes to take a box out of Alex’s hands. Despite being told that she shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting, she’s still doing her best to make the day more difficult by having everyone keep an eye on her so they can snatch boxes out of her hands as she tries to carry them into the new apartment.
“Alex, can you please stop? This is hard enough without us having to babysit you. I know you don’t like to feel like you’re not pulling your weight, but you can still do plenty of work just by pointing your finger at where everything can go.”
“So you can rearrange it later? No thanks. I’m going to go and start unpacking Lori’s things.” Alex hands over the box to Kara and stalks off with a scowl. She really does get grumpy when she can’t help out the way she wants. At least the others didn’t hear her little tantrum because they are outside getting more boxes and furniture from the van that Lena so kindly arranged for them to get so they can move everything into their new apartment.
Kara sighs and sets the box down atop the coffee table so she can find the label scratched onto the side of it with a sharpie. ‘Kara bedroom’. “Ok.” She mumbles to herself, heaving it back up and heading to what is going to be her new bedroom.
This is only the third box set down against one wall and the second she’s taken in there herself, but her heart flutters as she steps inside. It’s been a long while since she’s had her own space. Of course, she loves her sister and her daughter, and she can’t complain about their living situation before, but having this room will be hers, just hers. That feels like magic.
Not to mention the fact that she’s going to have her own bed too. They have had to take out another loan so they can get beds and furniture, but even Alex wasn’t too stressed about it, and that’s telling. Having stable jobs has done wonders for calming her anxiety. Kara is keeping the old bed so Alex can have a nice, comfy new mattress to help ease her back on the harder days, something firmer with more support.
“Hey, you. Are you hiding in here?” Lena’s voice breaks her away from her train of thought.
“Sorry, no. I was just thinking, is all.”
Lena sets another box down on the pile, one aptly labelled ‘Kara’s clothes.’
“Penny for your thoughts.” Lena leans against the doorframe idly, her arms crossing over her chest and her eyes dazzling in the light streaming in from the window.
Kara’s lips curl up into a tender smile. “I was just thinking about how far we’ve come. From that other apartment and struggling to so much as put food on the table and the fear that we would be kicked out at a moment’s notice, which I guess did happen, to us getting lucky and finding this place. We both have jobs, Lori’s happy, I’m happy, I’m going to have my own space for the first time in god knows how long. I have my good luck charm of a girlfriend. I couldn’t be happier.”
Lena glides forward, wrapping her arms around Kara’s waist and resting her forehead on her shoulder. “For the record, you make me very happy too. I’m so proud of you guys for doing all of this.”
“Lena, you caused all of this. We couldn’t have done it without you. We owe it all to you.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I might have helped a little, but you would never have gotten this far if you didn’t have the drive and the love you do. Hell, you got the job at Reign yourself. Sam would have never hired you if you didn’t fit the bill for the staff she needed, and I wouldn’t have hired Alex without her expertise. You’ve got to give yourself more credit.”
“I can give myself credit whilst acknowledging how much you’ve changed my life for the better and being immensely grateful that I met you.” Kara nuzzles her nose into Lena’s hair briefly before leaning back and pressing her lips to Lena’s for a brief moment. She can scarcely believe that she can actually do that now.
Lena shakes her head at her fondly. “One day, I’ll get you to take a compliment.”
“I look forward to that day.” Kara presses another kiss to soft, red lips before pulling Lena to the door by her hands. “Come on, let’s go grab the rest of the boxes, I want to hurry so we can go furniture shopping.”
“I thought you were going to wait and do that in a few days once you’ve unpacked a bit.”
Kara shrugs. “Originally, yeah. We were going to wait until after payday, but then we realized that we still only have one bed and we want to get everything set up so we took out a little loan that we think we can pay off within a couple of months. Lori is super excited about having her own room, so it felt harsh to move in but tell her she can’t stay there because we haven’t bought her a bed yet.”
Lena nods along. “You don’t have to justify anything to me, but I think that sounds like an excellent plan. Besides, it’s probably a good idea to get it all while you have the van at your disposal. I dread to think what it would look like trying to fit anything more than a nightstand in Winn’s car.”
Kara points her finger at Lena. “That’s a very good point.”
“Ok, let’s go and get the rest of the stuff inside so we can go and do that.” Together they start heading out of Kara’s room, but as they pass Lori’s room, Lena spots Alex sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Hey, I’ll catch up in a minute, ok?”
“Sure,” Kara replies.
Lena ducks inside, taking up a similar position against the doorframe to earlier. “What’s up, buttercup?”
“I’m just taking a minute.”
“Whilst pouting?”
Alex heaves out a sigh, leaning back into the wall and letting her head thump back into it. “I just thought I would be happier.”
Lena swings the door behind her until it’s almost shut and slides down the wall until she’s seated next to her. “Why aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t know. I expected to be all excited to actually move in and have a bed to myself. To have a proper space again and be back on my feet. Instead, I feel kind of…numb, I guess.”
“That’s ok, you know? Sometimes it’s the expectation that ruins a moment for us.”
Alex tilts her head towards Lena, her mouth twisting to one side as she thinks. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been too preoccupied thinking about what I could do, all the plans I had for getting everything set up and decorated, that I let my mind run wild, so when we got here and my back and legs started playing up, it kind of burst my bubble.”
Lena rests her hand on Alex’s shoulder, squeezing briefly. “It’s ok to be disappointed, you know?”
“I know. I guess I’m just angry that my disappointment is greater than my joy.”
“Then let’s get your joy levels up.”
“How?”
“We’re going to get the couch out of the van, then you’re going to sit your ass down, get the website up for whichever furniture place is closest and start picking stuff out. We’re going on a shopping spree on my dime. You can put your wallet away and let me help you spruce this place up.”
Alex looks at her, exasperation practically dripping out of every pore. “You know I’m not going to accept that, right?”
“Well, I’m already going to take Lori around the store and let her pick out what she wants. You might as well get in on the fun.”
Raising her eyebrow at Lena in challenge, Alex questions her. “Has Kara said you can spend money on Lori like that?”
“Of course not.”
“And If I was to offer a proposal of you getting Lori’s stuff and one item for me and Kara, would that stop you from trying to buy us more?”
Lena shrugs. “That depends on the item.”
“Dining table?”
“Done. I love having dinner with you guys but I have the cramp I get in my calf when I have to sit around that table.”
Lena stands up and offers her hand to Alex, who takes it and uses it to heave herself up off the floor. “Kara’s going to be pissed when she finds out.”
Brushing her off and throwing a cheeky grin over her shoulder, Lena calls out, “She’ll get over it.”
-
“Where have Lena and Lori gotten to?” Kara looks around, heaving her cart that has precariously balanced flatpack boxes stacked inside it that are too long and overhang the edges.
Alex shrugs casually. “How would I know?”
“Do you think we should pay for these things first, get them in the van and then come back in so we’re not lugging them around the entire store?” Kara questions.
“That’s a pretty good idea. We can do that and then find the others. I’m sure Winn, Sam and Ruby are meant to be helping us with this stuff too. Everyone got a cart so we could get everything but they’ve all disappeared.”
They go and pay for the one double bed they have stuffed into the cart and a pair of cheap nightstands. There’s still a lot more they could do with getting but this cart is full.
They get it loaded into the van, careful to stack it nicely so everything will fit when they come back with more, before they go back inside with their fingers crossed that they’ll be able to find the rest of the group. The group that they will never go furniture shopping with again.
“I think Lena might have taken her to find a bed and a set of drawers for her room so let’s head over that way.” Kara points in the direction of where she guesses they might be.
“Or we could just keep getting out stuff first. I’m sure they’re fine.” Alex tries to stall her.
Kara ignores her though, not even processing what she just said. “I have a feeling Lori will pick out the most expensive bed there is. We’ll have to deal with a pouty kid later on.”
“I don’t think so. I think she’ll be happy to sleep in her own room so she’ll forget all about it once we’ve got her set up.” Alex taps her arm as she spots something on the end of an aisle. “Hey, glow-in-the-dark stars you can stick onto a ceiling. Shall we get a pack for Lori? I think she’d like them, and it might ease her nerves if she gets anxious sleeping alone for the first time in a long time.”
Kara picks up a pack, checks how many are in there and determines that one pack is plenty. “That’s a really great idea, Alex. I hadn’t even thought about that. Now that you mention it though, I’m expecting her to wake me up, but I’m sure a little cuddle time will be enough to calm her down enough to get her back to sleep.”
Kara is both looking forward to sleeping alone in a real bed and dreading it. In reality, she thinks that she might be the one that is going to struggle with it. She’s not going to admit that to Alex though, she’ll call her a wimp and tell her to enjoy the privacy, which she will also be doing.
Tossing the stars into the cart, they get going again and luckily find Lena and Lori pretty easily. They’re hard to miss with the gigantic cart filled to the brim with stuff and a second cart behind them that Winn is pushing. One is filled with boxes of furniture, and the other holds a mattress and a bunch of smaller items.
“What in the world is going on?” Kara announces her presence with an exclamation of pure shock. “Lena, what’s happening right now?”
Lena looks back at her with her usual calm, suave attitude that isn’t currently doing much to calm Kara’s rapidly beating heart. She can’t afford all of that stuff. Half of it isn’t even necessary, it’s just random bits and bobs that Lori probably picked up on a whim.
“We’re getting stuff to decorate Lori’s room with, and before you panic, it’s on me. I’m determined to become her favourite person and I’m not above using money to take that role.” The joke falls flat with Kara, but everyone else chuckles at the quip.
“Lena, it’s too much.”
“Nope. It’s not and this is going to help some of my favourite people in the long run so I don’t regret it even a little bit.”
Kara shakes her head. “I can’t let you—”
“You’re not letting me do anything. I’m doing it and you’re going to either accept it and be mad at me or accept it and help us build this stuff when we get back to your place.”
“Have you always been this bossy?”
Lena smiles proudly knowing she’s won. “Yep.”
Kara doesn’t want to give in so easily, but Lori is perched on Lena’s hip with a massive grin while Lena smiles down at her like she’s the most adorable thing on the planet, which is kind of is. “Show me what you’ve got then.”
Lori wiggles to get down from where she’s being held so she can run over to Kara and drag her to the first cart. “Look, Mama. Lena’s getting me a princess bed!”
Kara looks down at the picture on the side of one of the boxes and her eyes just about bulge out of her head. “Are we sure this is going to fit in her room? This looks massive.”
Lena reassures her quickly. “Yes, I measured her room before we left. I actually measured all of the bedrooms because I figured you guys would forget.”
“We did,” Alex announces proudly, clapping Lena on the back as she passes her to peer into the cart Winn is leaning over while he yawns, not caring much for the shopping trip and wishing they would have let him wait in the van.
“I was going to get a normal bed, but given the fact that it’s a small room, I thought this would be better.”
Kara takes another look at the bed and has to admit that Lena has a point. It’s a raised bed with storage built beneath it on one side and empty space beneath it on the other side that is covered with a curtain that makes it look like a princess’ castle. It’s perfect for Lori and will solve their space issues. It completely negates their need for any other storage because there’s a wardrobe on one side with a couple of drawers. They can get a toy chest or something to go in the empty space and maybe a little set of shelves or something too. It’s perfect and very very expensive. It’s definitely out of her price range. “You’re sure?” Kara checks again.
“Certain,” Lena confirms. “I think we should get a little beanbag chair for beneath the bed so she can hang out in there.”
“That’s a good idea. I’m getting that though. Plus more storage for the thousands of toys you’ve got in that other cart.”
Lena shakes her head. “No, you’re really not. I’ve got Lori’s room covered.”
“Lena.”
“Kara.”
“Lori!”
Both women look down at the grinning little girl who just wants to be included and burst into a round of giggles. Lena swings her back up onto her hip and wriggles her fingers against her smile to draw a burst of laughter out of her. “Hey, Lori? You don’t mind if I spoil you a little, do you?”
Lori shakes her head quickly and Lena pins Kara with a look that screams, ‘I win’.
“That’s not surprising.” Kara’s shoulders sink as she fully gives in to the fact that Lena is about to buy everything Lori could ever wish for just because she can.
They keep going, Lori occasionally pointing at things and Lena offering up others before the little girl even sees them. Half of this stuff will end up in the living room because there’s no way all of these toys will fit in her bedroom.
Once they leave the kids' section, Kara sighs in relief. Alex already had to go and get a third cart for the storage unit Lena insisted on getting, the beanbag chair, and a bunch of other random things.
“This is it, right?” Kara asks, sounding almost desperate. “No more?”
“Well…” Lena trails off, now feeling a little guilty at seeing that her buying all these things makes Kara feel a little uncomfortable. “I promised Alex a dining table, but I swear that I’ll stop after that.”
The desperate look is replaced by one of confusion, her eyebrows pulling together and her lips curling down. “Alex asked for a dining table?”
“Well, I offered. I love having dinner with you guys.”
“But?”
“But my legs hurt sitting on the floor. I need a proper chair. I don’t care if that makes me stuck up either.” Lena goes straight into defence mode, only stopping when she sees Kara trying to hold back her laughter. “It’s not funny.”
“it is a little bit.”
“No.”
Kara pinches her fingers together but leaves a tiny gap. “A little?”
Lena opens her mouth to argue but doesn’t bother. She copies Kara’s hand movement before turning and pushing the cart away. “Hey, where the hell are Sam and Ruby?”
Kara shrugs. “I think they ditched us to do their own thing a while back.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. I was hoping they would come join us with their carts.”
“I already bought some stuff. Alex and I took it out to the van and then came back in so we wouldn’t be lugging it about.”
Lena nods approvingly. “That’s a good plan. Let’s go do that, and then I can fill these carts back up.”
“You can what?”
“Stand by and not buy anything else.” Lena huffs. “Except maybe—”
“No.”
-
Kara runs a hand down her face, harsh and uncoordinated. If she thought going shopping with the group was stressful, then she was sadly very, very wrong. This is stressful. Putting together furniture when someone else is trying to put together something else next to her, messing up her screws with theirs, and getting mad when they can’t find the screwdriver they tucked into their pocket ten minutes ago is one of the worst experiences of her life.
She’s certain that Lena had the right idea when they got back. She immediately had everyone help her take Lori’s bed into their room and then promptly banished everyone out of there so she could work on it herself, the door only opening so she can occasionally toss out the boxes when they’re empty or to use the hallway as extra space when she has particularly large parts floating around that she doesn’t need yet.
“Kara, have you taken my—”
“Under your knee. Stop accusing me.” Kara cuts Winn off, trying to figure out if the sweat dripping down her temple is more annoying than being accused of theft for the sixth time in a two-hour window.
“Oh yeah, thanks.” Winn grabs it, no hint of an apology in sight.
Huffing a little, Kara pushes herself to her feet. Stretching out her back as she stands and limping away because of the rush of pins and needles to her foot, she heads for the kitchen so she can grab a drink. She needs a minute away from the group before she throws something at them, something she’s only preventing herself from doing at the minute by reminding herself that they can’t afford to have to repurchase anything if it breaks.
Letting her eyes lazily wander over the drink options, she freezes when she sees a six-pack of beer sitting front and centre. She has no idea who bought it or when it got put in there, obviously sometime today, but she can’t pinpoint when, but she needs to know who did it so she can make sure they don’t do it again.
There are three missing from the pack, so she decides to do a little snooping and stealthily eyes the room of people in search of the bottles. One is found easily, right next to Alex, and another is on the floor just a few feet away from Winn, but the other is nowhere to be seen. Dread sits heavy on her chest.
Grabbing two sodas, she aims right for the hall to find out for sure.
Kara has to climb over the mountain of cardboard to get to the door of Lori’s room, and when she gets there, she knocks firmly. She doesn’t want to just open the door in case there’s anything on the other side that she could potentially knock over, so instead, she takes caution in her stride and waits for a response like a civilized human being.
The door cracks open a second later and when Kara sees Lena’s face, she has her answer.
“Lena?”
“I’m so sorry.” Lena turns away from her, her hands covering her face as she stoops over, tears freely running down her cheeks. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Lena.” Kara tries to get her to turn back around, but Lena is too busy sobbing into her hands and visibly despising herself.
Kara clicks the door shut behind her, careful not to close it too harshly so she doesn’t startle Lena. She looks ready to be pushed over the edge into a panic attack as it is, which won’t help anyone.
The bottle is half empty and has been propped on the windowsill. Kara stares at it for a moment, debating on whether or not she should go and take it out of here, but the chances are that doing so would make the situation worse, that it would make Lena believe that she’s judging her.
“Lena. It’s ok.”
“It absolutely is not.” Lena swings around to look into her eyes. Teary green meeting worried blue. “I shouldn’t h-have done that.” She loses her words to a sob.
“I should have made sure nobody brought alcohol here, I’m sorry.” Kara tries, moving forward to gently skirt her hands over Lena’s forearms.
Lena shakes her head with a ferocity Kara isn’t expecting. “It’s not your fault. If I were strong enough, this wouldn’t have happened. I should have been able to resist it. I should have—”
“You shouldn’t have had to do anything.”
“I didn’t know he was going to bring me beer, I swear.” Lena diverts the conversation, proving that her mind is whizzing at a hundred miles per hour, a million thoughts ricocheting through her mind as she tries to catch up with the situation and figure out what to do now.
Kara frowns. “Who? Winn?”
Lena nods. “Yeah, It’s not his fault though. When he asked if I wanted a drink, I didn’t know he meant alcohol or else I would have turned him down, but when he put the open bottle in my hand and left before I could say anything, well…I couldn’t resist. I was halfway through it before my brain kicked in and I realized I had just ruined weeks’ worth of work. I was doing so well and just ruined it for half a bottle of cheap beer that tastes like ass.”
“Lena. The fact that you stopped says a lot. Come on, you started this whole thing because you didn’t like relying on alcohol, having half a beer whilst hanging out with friends and building furniture isn’t relying on it.”
Lena sighs. “I understand why you would say that, but I don’t think I ever really told you the extent of my drinking.”
Lena moves to sit down, choosing the only properly clear space in the room, the area beneath the bed, which is pretty much fully constructed, just the doors to the built-in wardrobe left to be added along with the little steps up to the bed. Kara follows her, sitting beside her as their backs press against the wall.
“It was worse than I said originally. I was too embarrassed to tell you how bad it got. I was drinking a lot. As soon as I got home, I was drinking. If I ever had the odd day off, I was drinking. Hell, sometimes, I was drinking at work. I had a cart there and everything. Jess got rid of it for me, but I know that if she didn’t, I would have kept drinking.”
“So, you’ve come a long way. That’s a good thing.”
“Kara, if I can’t resist it when it’s offered, I won’t be able to be sober. I just spent weeks just about keeping myself together, and I gave up too easily. In your four-year-old’s bedroom no less. You should be mad.”
Kara shrugs. “Sure, I’m not particularly happy anyone is drinking in Lori’s room, but I don’t blame you, Lena. I’m not mad. Maybe a little tiny bit disappointed if you really want the honest truth, but this is a journey for you. A little setback isn’t going to stop you, and now you know how terrible it feels to fail, you can use that to keep you from doing so again.”
“It’s not that easy.” Lena angles her body away from Kara, ashamed and downtrodden.
“Addiction never is.” Kara scoots closer until their thighs touch. “I’m not about to condemn you, Lena. You should know that I will support you in whatever way I can. Yes, I have Lori to think about, but you’ve made it very clear that I don’t have to worry about you putting her in danger. If the time comes when I do become worried about that, that’s a conversation that will have to happen, but at this moment in time, I think you’re trying your best and just need a little more help to reach your goals.
“Stay tonight, and tomorrow we can look into what could help. Maybe therapy or AA meetings. This is your journey and we have to find a system that works for you, not one built out of shame or anger. Instead, we’ll build one out of compassion and support. That’s what’s going to help.”
Tears openly roll down Lena’s face. “Thank you.”
“Any time.”
“I just feel so dumb for doing that. I thought I was better than that.”
Kara reaches over and tangles their fingers together. “You are better than that. One action doesn’t define a person. What defines you is what you do now.”
“I’m not drinking again.”
“And I’ll be here supporting you. So will Alex and Sam and everyone out there. You just have to let them in. If you don’t want to tell them, that’s fine too. Either way, this apartment has a new blanket rule: no alcohol allowed.”
Lena sags against the wall, leaning over and resting her head against Kara’s shoulder. “That’s not fair to the others, especially Alex. She deserves to be able to drink in her own home if she wants to.”
“I’ll speak to her. She doesn’t drink often anyway, so I don’t think she’ll mind only drinking at Winn’s place instead.”
“I’m so glad I met you.” Lena nuzzles in closer.
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”
-
“Are you ready to see your room, Lori?” Kara asks cheerfully.
“Yes!” Lori jumps up excitedly and goes to run to her mom but Alex catches her, stopping her from doing so because there’s still a mess in the living room she doesn’t want her to trip over. Instead, she picks her up and sets her on her hip until they are in the hallway, which Kara and Lena have already cleaned up.
After their conversation, Kara sent Lena to clean herself up a little while she started tidying up before they finished the bed and the rest of Lori’s room together.
Kara didn’t know the true extent of all the things Lena bought for Lori until they were putting it all up and she’s been a cross between horrified and amused about the whole thing ever since. Logically, she knows that buying all of these things isn’t going to set Lena back any. She has more money than Kara can even fathom, but there’s still a level of guilt there. She isn’t with Lena for her money and she doesn’t want Lena to ever feel like she is. On the other hand, this is for Lori, who deserves the world. Kara can see how wonderful of an opportunity this is for Lori and can’t turn down Lena’s generosity when it helps Lori. Not that she thinks Lena would let her turn it down if she tried.
Lori grabs Lena’s hand as she passes her, which visibly eases the tension in her shoulders, and Kara is glad for the fact. She may have been able to help calm Lena a little and to reassure her that she’s not going anywhere, that she’s here for her, but there’s just something about the unconditional love a child can bring that Kara can see is healing Lena’s soul.
“Come on then, Ms Lori. I think you’ll like it. We’ve done our very best to make it a room fit for a princess such as yourself.” Lena pins a smile on her face, one that just barely reaches her eyes, but Kara doesn’t care. It’s progress and she’ll take it.
Kara grins as Lena opens the door annoyingly slowly to get Lori to pout a little before she opens it fully and allows her to see her new room. The space that is all hers, something she hasn’t had since before the accident, something she barely remembers, if at all.
“Do you like it?” Kara asks, already knowing what the answer will be.
Lori squeals. “I love it! Mama, I’ve got a castle bed!”
“Yes, you do, baby.” Kara strokes her hair, watching as Lori dives onto her bed, climbing the steps at a pace she didn’t know she could manage.
“Mama, Lena, look!” Lori bounces gently, peering down over the raised side that’s made to protect her in case she rolls in her sleep. “Look at the pretty stars!” She points up at the ceiling, the glow-in-the-dark stars already starting to shine as the daylight fades, marking how long they’ve been working on the apartment.
Lena moves closer to the edge of the bed, looking up at the stars. “Don’t tell your mama I said this, but those are my favourite, and she got you those.” She stage whispers, making Lori giggle.
“Me too, me too.” Lori laughs, holding her arms out for Lena to lift her off the bed so she can get to exploring the underneath part of the bed where the beanbag chair and toy storage is. Lena even managed to find a kid’s bookcase in a soft pink that matches the curtain perfectly for all of her books.
Kara wraps her arm around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer as Lori switches to completely ignoring them in favour of her new toys. She was unhappy when she was told earlier that she would have to wait until her room was done to play with them because they needed the space to build, so she’s making up for lost time. Kara does not doubt that she’ll have to pick Lori up off the floor, where she’ll pass out in a river of toys later.
Lowering her voice, Kara rests her head against Lena’s. “I know you think today has been a bust but look at her. Look how happy she is. You did that. I’m hoping I can make you as happy as she is one day. With how much crap we’ve faced since we’ve known each other, I think we’ve got a pretty solid foundation so far.”
“Me too, but just for the record, we might have only just started dating but so far, you’ve made me very happy.”
“Come on, you won’t feel any better if you just sit and wallow alone in your loft.”
Lena pulls Kara through the bar by her hand, her grip tight so she doesn’t lose her through the crowd that seems to be getting thicker by the second.
“I won’t have to sit and wallow alone in my loft if you stay and hang out with me. I’d much prefer to be there than here. This isn’t my scene, Lena.”
“I know, but what better time to push yourself and enjoy everything life has to offer than when you’re feeling a bit shitty?”
Kara sighs and lets Lena pull her through the tightly packed space. She’s not a big fan of it, and people are standing too close for comfort. She keeps her grip on Lena’s hand tight, afraid that a single moment of distraction will cause them to be separated and then her buoy in this ocean of people will be lost.
Lena pulls her to the bar and wraps her arm around her waist to keep her close, the bare skin of her forearm pressing against the small of Kara’s back, the skin there deliciously exposed by the crop top Lena insisted she wear mainly for her selfish enjoyment but under the guise of making her look hot as hell to get back at her loser of an ex.
Kara watches Lena closely as she orders for the pair of them, her eyes lingering on the sharp curve of her jaw and the confidence held in the stiffness of her neck. She trails her gaze down that neck, and then she settles on her collarbones before flicking her gaze away abruptly when she realizes how much she wants to lick them. Totally not appropriate.
She shouldn’t be thinking about Lena like this, not when she’s being a good friend and getting her out of her loft and away from the pity party she’s been throwing herself since finding out her loser of an ex was cheating on her.
Mike was by no means a great boyfriend, but he was sweet, and he was someone Kara could always laugh with. There might not have been the greatest level of support, but she was always able to look past that because while he wasn’t there for her, he was more than she had without him, and somehow, that was enough.
It made it sting all the more when she found out what he was doing behind her back. He wasn’t even making up for being shitty behind her back when they were together. He was cheating on her with multiple women for the entirety of their relationship and still had the balls to complain when she made him pick his socks up off the floor or take his feet off the coffee table. It would have been nice to find out a different way though, because finding her boyfriend and a random woman getting steamy in her shower in the middle of the day was not fun, and she’ll never look at her bathroom the same way.
Mike admitted to what he did after a little pushing but it was probably just to hurt her after she kicked him out of her place and made it clear they were no longer together. She can’t even understand how he managed to get with so many girls though; he’s nothing special in the sack.
Lena touches her arm and it makes her jump. “Hey, you ok?”
“Yeah, just thinking.” Kara plasters a smile on her face, one that is faker than the one the bartender is currently giving a drunken patron down on the other side of the bar.
“About Mike?”
“Yeah, just thinking about how much of a douche he is,” Kara admits. “Mostly just wondering how he managed to find so many other women to sleep with when he was so mediocre. They must have all been one-night stands because there’s no way anyone was coming back for more.”
Lena snickers from her side. “Now that’s the attitude you should be having. You’ve gotten past the part where you’re just sad and missing him. I’m so proud of you.”
“Yeah, but it’s making me realize how pathetic I was to date him in the first place.” Kara shrugs, taking a large gulp of the drink Lena ordered for her. She winces when it reaches her throat. Whatever Lena got for her is strong.
A frown covers Lena’s face and she takes a second to look around the bar, her focus drawn to an empty booth across the room. She grabs Kara’s hand again and rushes them over to it before it gets snagged up. It’s still covered in empty glasses from the last group that was here, but she just pushes them into a little pile on one side of the table and tucks herself and Kara into the opposite side of the booth.
“Now that we’re not surrounded by a bunch of sweaty people, I can tell you that you’re the least pathetic person I know. I might not know what was going through your head when you decided to date the human embodiment of that one fork you always avoid in your cutlery drawer because it has weird vibes, but I do know you, and I know that you’re not pathetic.”
Kara shakes her head. “I think I was just using him.”
Lena’s eyebrows furrow. “I don’t think you could use someone if you tried, no offence. You’re too nice.”
“Not on purpose, I don’t think. Looking back at it though, I’m sort of realizing that I wasn’t with him for the right reasons.”
Lena covers Kara’s hand with her own and shuffles close to her side so their thighs touch and she can pull their joined hands into her lap. “How so?”
“I was only with him because it was better than being alone.” Kara’s voice is small but the words are so sure. “I don’t want to be alone, Lena.”
Kara hadn’t intended on being so direct, but there’s just something about the sudden onslaught of emotions, Lena’s caring face and her soft voice that draws it out of her like it’s the easiest thing on the planet.
Lena wraps her arms around her, pulling her close so Kara’s head rests against her shoulder. “You’re not alone, Kara. I’ll never leave you alone, I promise. “
Kara clings to Lena, her fingers digging into her back like she’s afraid Lena will pull back and make a break for it at any minute despite her being blocked in the booth.
The fingers in her back hurt, but Lena’s not letting go for anything. Not until Kara is secure enough to do so and believes every word she says. “I got you. I’m not going anywhere, I swear it. I’m right here and you’re not alone.”
“Lena,” Kara whispers, adjusting her grip but staying just as close. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Am I a bad person for using him like that?” She whispers her question.
Lena just barely shrugs, but being so close to her, Kara feels the tiny movement. “I don’t think so. I think that people do silly things when they’re scared, and I think he’s enough of an ass that he deserved it anyway.”
Kara nods against her. “I’m sorry I’m ruining the night. We haven’t even got through one drink yet and I’m already a mess.”
“That’s ok. I brought you here to help you move on. It seems as though my idea of a boozy night isn’t what you need. It’s an emotional chat kind of day.” Lena cards her fingers through Kara’s hair, fully aware of the way Kara always relaxes when she does that.
“Can we get out of here?” Kara asks, her eyes begging until she spots their still full glasses. “After our drinks though.”
Lena sighs. “Yeah, sure.” She’s disappointed that her plan hasn’t worked and made Kara feel better, but she can see that Kara is getting uncomfortable being here when she’s so emotional and by the way she keeps turning her head towards the crowd, she must be self-conscious.
“Are you upset?”
“No, darling. I’m not upset. We can leave whenever you want.” Lena is quick to reassure her, so she doesn’t have time to filter out the pet name before it leaves her mouth.
Kara doesn’t mind it at all though, her cheeks flushing. Nobody has ever given her a pet name outside of her family before. Even past boyfriends only ever called her by her name. Her head ducks forward, her eyes closing as she follows through with the movement. She lifts it again after a moment, keenly aware of Lena’s gaze on the side of her face, probably focusing on her blushing cheeks.
“Ok.” Kara breathes, her fingers circling her glass before bringing it to her face for a healthy sip.
“Ok,” Lena repeats, following Kara’s lead and taking a sip of her drink. She scoots back to give her a little more space to breathe but stays close nonetheless, her knee resting against Kara’s.
There are several moments in which Lena thinks about starting up a conversation, but each time she opens her mouth, she sees the distant look in Kara’s eyes and the way she’s lost in thought. It’s better just to let her work out her feelings before pushing her to talk again.
Their glasses get steadily emptier and emptier as the minutes tick by, and once they are both empty, Lena pushes them across the table to join the other empty glasses over there. The movement breaks Kara out of her distant staring and she looks up to meet Lena’s eyes. “Sorry. I’m not exactly making this a fun night for you, am I?”
“That’s not what tonight was about. Tonight is about you; we can do whatever you want.” Lena bumps her shoulder into Kara’s gently. “If you want to sit and stare, we can sit and stare.”
“And if I want to dance instead?”
Lena rolls her eyes good-naturedly but is worried that Kara’s just saying that because she feels bad that all they’ve done for the past few minutes is sit in silence. “I suppose I can make that happen but I must warn you, I don’t know how to dance properly in a club.”
“Me neither. I don’t think I know how to dance outside of a club either, so we’re as bad as one another.” A smile sneaks its way onto Kara’s face, and Lena’s worry ebbs away with it.
Lena shakes her head, offended that Kara has no faith in her dancing skills. “Hey, I can dance outside of a club, just not in one.”
“Really?” Kara sounds genuinely surprised and Lena shoves her arm in response.
“Yes! Why is that so shocking?”
Kara shrugs. “I don’t know. You just don’t seem like the type. What kind of dancing do you do?”
“I can dance ballroom,” Lena says casually, although her cheeks flush. She’s just grateful the dim light hides it somewhat.
“Really?” Kara’s eyes light up. “Where did you learn to do that?”
Lena tilts her head, cracking her neck and making Kara wince before she answers. “I’m a Luthor. I didn’t get a choice. Lillian made sure I had the training she deemed necessary. Being a trained ballroom dancer was never a choice I would have made for myself.”
“So if you had professional training, does that mean that you’re good at it?” Kara’s grin is growing larger by the second, and her eyes are getting predatory in a way that shows her true intentions.
“When have I ever not been good at something, Kara? Of course I’m good at it.”
“Can you show me?”
There it is. Lena could see that coming. “Perhaps we should head out then, huh? I don’t think even my skills can work with club music. I’ll call my driver and get him to come and get us, and then we’ll go to my place.”
“Yes!” Kara hisses in celebration, her fist pumping in the air. “I’m so excited.”
“Whatever. You better get ready though because you’re about to have a ballroom lesson when we get back to my place. You might want to go and grab some water before we go so you’re not dancing on wobbly feet.”
“Ok.” Kara dives out of the booth with no more prompting necessary. “I’ll get you one too.”
Lena watches her go, her eyes pinned on her retreating form. She’s not a big fan of ball dancing. She wasn’t lying when she admitted to being good at it, but it’s never been a passion of hers. However, she needed a way to wipe the sad look off Kara’s face, and she succeeded. It’s insane what she’s willing to do with that woman.
She truly doesn’t understand how anyone could be as stupid as Mike. How could he cheat on Kara when he had the world’s most beautiful and wonderful woman to himself? Lena can only imagine what that would feel like.
Kara is leaning up against the bar, and it takes a moment for Lena to come to her senses and get in touch with her driver, Frank, so he can come and get them.
She tucks her phone away as Kara comes back with two glasses. “He’s not far away, only ten minutes.”
“We better hurry then. We’ll go and wait outside for him in a minute. Drink your water.” Kara instructs her, already chugging hers out of excitement to get out of here so she can see Lena dance. She hasn’t been as excited about anything in a while.
Lena sips her water, not particularly bothered about leaving it half-finished by the time Kara has finished hers and instead ushering Kara out of the booth once more and towards the door.
Together, they fight their way through the crowds, and Lena questions why she ever thought a club was a good idea since neither of them goes to clubs regularly and are much more inclined to stay in for a quiet night. She supposes she thought a change would get Kara out of her funk. It might have worked to an extent, but it’s not something she would do again.
They clamber into the back of the car in a mix of unruly limbs and Kara settles beside Lena without a care of how much she’s leaning into her, not that Lena minds. They spend the entire journey so entwined they might as well be playing Twister.
Kara almost pulls Lena’s arm out of its socket as she drags her up to her penthouse, the blonde impatient to see her dance.
“Slow down, slow down.” Lena chuckles as Kara taps her foot while she unlocks the door.
“Lena,” Kara whines when she makes a show of opening the door extra slowly.
Lena giggles to herself. “Come on. We’ll have to move some of the furniture out of the way.”
Kara nods quickly, following her inside before heading right to the middle of the room. “What do you want me to move?”
Kara’s impatience makes Lena shake her head again. “You do know that ballroom dancing is about grace and poise, right? Maybe a little bit of patience will get you in the right state of mind for learning. We have all night, Kara, just relax.”
The words hit Kara deeply, and she drops her head forward for a second while she takes a deep breath, making a conscious effort to let go of all the tension in her shoulders.
She looks back up at Lena afterwards with a much more relaxed expression, and Lena smiles at her. “Much better. Let’s move the couch and coffee table first.”
They each grab an end of each piece of furniture and shuffle it as far back as they can so there’s a large empty space in the middle of the living room. Lena crinkles her nose at the rug. “That thing is heavier than it looks, but if we want the true ballroom experience then we need the hardwood floors.”
“I got it.” Kara offers. “I’ll roll it, and then we can drag it away together.”
“Ok. I’ll set up the music while you do that.” Lena grabs her phone and connects it to her speakers. She has to find a decent playlist, so it takes her a few moments to set it up. The music rings out gently, all slow and delicate to start with.
Kara is waiting for her with the rolled rug, so she grabs the opposite end and they heave it out of the way and prop it against the nearest wall.
“Ready?”
Kara nods. “Show me what you’ve got.” She gestures to the empty space in the living room and takes a step back.
“Ah, ah. We’re in this together. You’re dancing with me, just follow my lead.” Lena pulls Kara into the middle of the room and guides her hands to where she wants them, one hand clasped in hers and the other on her shoulder while Lena places hers on Kara’s hip. “Follow my feet.”
Lena starts them off as slow as she can, not paying any mind to the rhythm of the music while she’s just showing her the basics, but as Kara gets the hang of it, she speeds them up to match it until they are turning and stepping in time with the melody.
A couple of songs in and Kara finally garners enough courage to look up rather than at her feet because she’s afraid she’ll step on Lena’s toes.
Their eyes meet and Kara’s mouth is split into a toothy grin that toothpaste commercial actresses would be jealous of.
Lena’s not focused on her smile though. Not when she’s got a close-up view of the blue eyes that haunt her dreams and nightmares alike, the ones she sees every time she closes her eyes and the ones that inspire the majority of decisions she makes.
Unbeknownst to her, Kara is having the exact same thoughts, her mind buffering because she can’t handle the emerald-green eyes staring back at her. She clears her throat when her brain decides to start functioning again. “You’re really good at this.” She whispers.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.” Lena continues guiding her, flicking her into a spin and then dipping her low, their faces so close they can feel the ghost of each other’s breaths against their lips.
Kara is pulled back up, and whether it’s the closeness, the heat of their bodies, Lena’s hand on her bare waist or a mixture of all of the above, she can’t stop herself. In a movement that is much more confident than any she’s made whilst dancing, Kara leans in and moves her hand off Lena’s shoulder to cradle the back of Lena’s head as she pushes her lips into Lena’s.
A gasp is released between their lips, but neither knows who it originated from. However, neither is about to start investigating, the kiss taking precedence over everything. Their lips move together and it’s getting rougher and more desperate by the second. Kara’s hand fists Lena’s hair, messing it up from her usual neat style, and Lena’s fingertips press into the small of Kara’s back, pinning her in place.
Their hands are still clasped together but are no longer held aloft, instead just swinging by their sides softly in time with the motion of their lips.
Oxygen becomes a problem though, and far too soon, Lena has to pull back for a breath, her forehead remaining pressed against Kara’s because she can’t bear to move away. Kara probably wouldn’t let her move away anyway though, because her hand is still in her hair and scratching softly. “What are we doing?”
“Something I’ve wanted to do for a while but never had the balls to admit,” Kara whispers. “Not even to myself.” She adds.
“Me too.” Lena smiles, pushing back in for another frantic kiss, her tongue making itself known as it slides between Kara’s lips.
Kara jumps. “You have a tongue piercing?” She leans her head back to look into Lena’s eyes.
Lena presses harder against Kara’s back, unhappy with the sudden distance. “Yeah, want to feel it?”
“Definitely.” Kara allows herself to be pulled back in, and Lena allows her to experience that piercing close-up. She gets lost in the sensations of it and the music that is still marching on in the background, and now that she’s tuned into the endless rhythm, she’s aware of the way Lena is dancing her tongue to the beat of the music, completely dominating her mouth and claiming it as her own with the poise and grace of a ballroom dancer.
Kara would have thought the next step would be obvious; they would head somewhere soft, and they would become considerably more naked, but instead Lena just lifts their dangling arms once more and begins pulling her around the room again in a slow, gentle wave, their dancing continuing with their lips pressed together.
There’s no escape from Lena. She’s all-encompassing and the only steady thing in the room despite being the thing moving the most. Kara doesn’t want to escape; she wants to be closer.
They somehow gravitate even closer, so close there’s no room for even the strongest of breezes between their bodies. Lena’s lips retreat for a moment, but only so kisses can trail across Kara’s cheek and then down her neck where those lips attack her vulnerable flesh.
Kara happily leans her head back to give Lena all the space she wants, and she’s made even happier when Lena presses a leg between her own, bringing them impossibly closer. The hand on her back slides down to grip her butt and push her hips into the thigh nestled between hers, and the sound that comes out of her mouth in response is nothing but guttural.
The moan breaks Lena out of her Kara-induced spell and she releases her neck to ask, “What about Mike? Is this a rebound thing?”
Kara peers at her through half-mast eyelids. “Who?”
“Good.” Lena smiles, forcibly rolling Kara’s hips into her thigh. “Very good.”
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“You must like high-maintenance women. She is quite the handful,” Astra quips, as though this is a normal statement to say to the partner of one’s niece.
Lena snorts and goes back to her laptop. “She’s worth it.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“So, how did that happen?”
“Kara and I?”
Astra hums her confirmation.
Lena looks up to the ceiling as she thinks. “I’m not totally sure because according to Kara and the change in the timeline, we had our first kiss right before boarding the ship to the Krypton mission, but according to my memories and how it went down originally, we admitted our feelings in a Kryptonian accommodation in the middle of the jungle after Kara’s meddling aunt decided to give us a not-so-gentle push in the right direction.”
Astra’s eyebrows raise in surprise before she closes them quickly and drops her head into her hands as an immediate headache takes over her.
Lena shoots to her feet, approaches the woman, and crouches next to her. “Astra, are you okay?”
“Damn timeline shifts.” Astra forces out from between gritted teeth. “Thanks for the memory, Lena.”
“Sorry.” Lena backs off as Astra leans back in her chair, hanging her head over the back of it as the sharp headache dulls into a thrum of manageable pulsations of pain.
“Don’t be. I love that memory.” Astra manages to smile, but to Lena, it looks more like a grimace.
“You really made us grow a pair and get our feelings out there. I love that memory too.”
“I think my time with Kara and the rest of the team is what changed my timeline,” Astra announces thoughtfully. “I think Kara did what she’s always able to do; she made me soft.”
Lena chuckles lowly. “Yeah, she’s really good at that.”
She made me see that what the Rebellion was doing wasn’t right. The council wasn’t doing right either, but when people started dying, I should have put a stop to it all. I guess that’s why Non and I ended up on opposing sides when Fort Rozz landed on Earth. Kara made me see reason.”
“For someone who doesn’t always make good decisions, she’s awfully good at inspiring other people to.”
Astra smiles widely at that. “You’re very right there, Lena.”
