Lena knew her pulse was racing, but Kara was either pretending not to notice or too tired to care. They were curled together tightly under the blanket, Kara’s head resting on Lena’s chest, the pair of them curled into each other with a desperate intensity.
An outside observer would see no difference between the way that Nia was tucked and folded neatly into Brainy, his head lolling against hers as they slept on the other side of the couch. Nor would they see any discrepancy between the way Kelly and Alex were stuffed together in the armchair next to it, curled up in one another like a pair of cats tucked in against a cold night.
The outside observer would see three couples who’d begun with a game night and progressed to an unplanned movie marathon and started to crash out and fall asleep, full of wine and mirth and too tired to get home.
One couple wasn’t. One of these pairings was just friends, and the knowledge of it was like a ragged gaping hole in her chest, where something had crushed and torn through her and left a gap that would never be filled.
Lena was terrified.
Alex and Kelly were married now. Nia and Querl were getting very serious. They were going to start building lives.
Kara’s coming out had gone well. She was truly growing into herself in a way that frightened Lena as much as it warmed her heart. The Girl was growing to equal the Super, Kara becoming more and more herself even without the crutch that her suit provided. She was uninhibited, free.
In her secret heart, Lena hated it. In the end, Kara had been right, damn her. The Secret had meant something. They once had a space that was uniquely theirs, where Kara was a person only Lena knew, that not even Alex ever experienced. Yes, the Secret frequently intruded, but in those moments where it hadn’t, where their mutual pining to be normal met and they used it to build a space all their own, the real Kara came out.
That space had been shattered by their falling out but rebuilt stronger, its foundations laid the day that Kara came home from the hell outside the multiverse, the first brick laid when Kara had leaned in as Lena broke their hug and stared at Lena’s lips.
God damn me, Lena thought, why didn’t I make the move? Why didn’t I do it?
The moment was lost.
She looked down at Kara now, purring away on her chest. Kara had begun embracing her alien self, slowly stripping away all the ablative secrets that she’d layered onto herself to pass for human. Lena was delighted to discover that Kara could do that; that if she relaxed it would happen on its own. It made Lena contented and sleepy, especially when they were close in like this.
God, she was so beautiful. Lena had never laid eyes on Kara’s equal and never would, and when she walked tall and smiled and flashed her easy, invulnerable confidence, the sight of her was almost unbearable. Looking at Kara left marks on Lena’s heart the way that looking at the sun left burnt streaks in her vision.
Fear, cold and merciless, clenched in her chest. One day it would happen. Someone would succeed where James and William had failed and Mon-El had come so close. They’d snatch her away and Kara would throw herself into it with abandon and Lena would lose her.
Lena pressed her eyes shut to fight back tears. She willed herself not to mourn a loss before its time, to savor the soft weight propped on her chest and the tangy scent of Kara’s skin but she couldn’t help herself.
“Lena?” Kara whispered.
With all the guilt of a thief found red-handed, Lena froze, her mouth dry.
“What’s wrong?”
Lena glanced around the room. The others were all sleeping soundly, passed out in each others arms. Lena wondered what that was like, to sleep with the joyful comfort of assurance that they would not wake alone, that the others would stay.
“Nothing,” Lena lied.
Kara knew. In the dark, her blue eyes seemed to emit a faint light, another peculiarity of Kryptonian physiology that Lena honestly just hadn’t noticed before The Secret was revealed.
Kara turned slightly, shifted, and tucked the blanket in close, wrapped tightly round them. It was chilly in her loft and Kara was like a living furnace, warming Lena’s cold bones. When Kara slipped a hand free, her skin was fever hot on Lena’s cheek. She leaned into the touch, greedy for it.
“It’s okay,” Kara murmured. “Nobody’s gonna get you while I’m here.”
Lena smiled sadly. Kara knew about the night terrors, about her fears and how she sometimes hated the dark, because the barriers of their friendship, the walls that defined it, were so bent and strained that they’d never return to shape, even as they refused to yield.
“That’s not what I’m scared of. I’m scared of when someone gets you.”
Kara blinked.
“Sooner or later you won’t have as much time for your best friend. You’ll find someone else.”
“Why would I want someone else?” Kara said, almost too loud. “I want you.”
Oh God, that hurt so much. It made the frayed edges of that hole in her ache, at once raw and fresh and old and desiccated. She couldn’t go on like this. Why did Kara say things like that?”
“Were you going to kiss me the night we got you back?”
Kara flinched, and now she looked the thief.
They were both silent. Kara stared.
“I was scared to. We’d only just… I was afraid everything would break.”
Lena swallowed hard.
“Kara, what the hell are you waiting for?”
She blinked a few times more, a storm of emotions clouding her angelic features. She flushed, eyes wide, and was looking directly, openly at Lena’s lips.
She tasted like cherry lip balm and red wine. Kara’s kisses were like Kara herself, ardent and gentle in equal measure, the chaste softness of pressed lips smoldering with the same alien fire that burned under her lushly warm skin. Lena moaned softly, and that from little more than a soft peck on the lips.
She was an addict who’d just tasted the ambrosia of her dreams and her head was spinning. In an instant everything had changed, though Kara had barely moved. There was something new in the way Kara’s arms snaked around her. A slight shift and Kara touched her forehead to Lena’s before kissing her again, deeply this time. Lena let her eyes drift shut and savored it.
“I. Am not. Going. Anywhere.”
There was a heavy, almost oppressive silence. A sob of relief choked out of Lena and she hugged Kara fiercely, freely, joyfully free to crush herself against her unbreakable love.
“I mean,” Alex said, “you could move to the bedroom. I think we’d all prefer that.”
Lena almost jumped out of her skin. Kara let out an equally surprised yelp, as they both realized that everyone else was awake and watching them get lost in each other.
Lena cleared her throat. Kara sat up. She was beet red, and Lena was sure she was, too.
“Guys,” said Kara. “Get out.”