The sunset in Midvale wasn’t something Kara was ever supposed to want. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t home. Just like the glimmer of warmth in Lena’s eyes wasn’t hers to bask in.
So when it happens at an old Bed & Breakfast, on a trip that’s supposed to be strictly business: Kara tells herself it’ll be the only time. They’re just friends who had a slip up - a really incredible, life changing, slip up - and when the sun rises again, they’ll go back to who they were before.
She says it to herself more times than she can count; repeating the mantra like an old car radio stuck on a loop. She says it until the words sound like alphabet soup because Lena was clear: this can’t become a thing. It can’t ruin the friendship. She says it until the phrase loses all meaning.
And still, Kara stays up trying to keep the notion from slipping through her fingers until Lena wakes beside her. She watches as she grumbles something incoherent and uncomfortably adjusts to the light shining through the curtains. It makes Kara smile when she looks down at her to take in her features once more.
On Krypton or on Earth - Lena’s still the most perfect woman she’s ever seen.
“Good morning.”
Lena hums. With her eyes closed, Kara allows herself one last second to stare.
She just can’t help it. She loves Lena’s porcelain skin and the constellation of freckles spread from her neck to her back. She loves her soft, dark hair and how it always smells like lavender shampoo. But more than anything, Kara loves her smile. She could watch for hours the way that it scrunches up to Lena’s nose and crinkles around her eyes. She could hold it in her chest forever - safe and secure next to the knowledge that she’s one of a select few allowed to see it.
“How long have you been up?” Lena asks. She furrows her brow and pushes a mess of hair away from her eyes. “And why’d you let me sleep in?”
“Not long,” Kara says.
Lena raises her brow, seeing right through the lie.
“You just looked so relaxed,” Kara says. “And you’re never relaxed.”
Lena laughs through a yawn. She squeezes her eyes shut once more then slowly reopens them. After a moment, her gaze lands on Kara. Green eyes swirl with something like admiration and Kara can’t help it - she feels her heart swell all over again. It’s pure and aching because this can’t be real, it can’t continue, and—
“I know what we said,” Lena says, her voice thick with sleep. “But I think we were wrong.”
“What?”
In all the years they’ve known each other, Kara can count on two fingers the times Lena has admitted to being wrong. (To her credit, she can’t think of a single instance more where the admission was warranted). Today was not supposed to be the third.
“I don’t want this to just be a one off. I don’t want it to be just… a blip.”
Kara stares. The certainty in Lena’s voice is so firm that for a second, she feels like she could reach out and grab it.
“Don’t you feel the same?” Lena asks.
Kara nods.
“I do,” she says, without an ounce of hesitation.
“Then let’s stop fighting it,” Lena says. She rolls onto her side, swimming through the blankets to get closer. “Don’t you want to stop fighting?”
Her fingers comb through Kara’s hair as Lena pulls them closer.
“I…” Kara swallows. Their lips are mere millimeters apart and for the first time in her life, there’s not a flicker of doubt in her mind. “I don’t want anything but you.”
“I think you might like this one,” Lena says. “It’s kind of like a cherry soda.”
Kara perks up at the promise of that. They’re at a new, trendy Kombucha place downtown that has it on tap. So far, the tasting flight they’ve been sharing has left Kara extremely underwhelmed. But it’s not a total bust. Lena’s wearing Kara’s NCU sweater that she borrowed (stole) on one of their movie nights that makes Kara’s heart do a flip every time she sees her in it, and her hair is down past her shoulders in loose waves, and the warm sunlight streaming through the windows hits her eyes at just the right angle, and she does this appreciative little hum when she tries a new flavor and it’s all just making Kara’s chest squeeze.
Lena hands Kara the glass, finger tips brushing. Kara tries not to fixate on the smudge on the rim left behind by Lena’s lipstick. Resists the temptation to fit her mouth directly over it because maybe, just maybe, it would make up for the horrendous beverage she’s about to taste. She takes a measured sip.
It’s terrible.
She schools her grimace into a squinty smile. “Not bad.”
Lena looks at her like she knows Kara’s lying but appreciates it anyway. Smiles fondly. “Thanks for coming with me. I know it’s not really your kinda thing.”
Kara shrugs, and blurts out without thinking, “Anything with you is my kinda thing.”
Lena’s eyebrows raise at that, but recovers quickly, rolling her eyes. Still, there’s a hint of pink in her cheeks. “Charmer.”
Lena starts animatedly explaining the Kombucha making process and Kara’s not listening so much as she’s watching how Lena’s mouth wraps around each word, her emphatic hand motions that only happen when Lena’s really passionate about something, even if it’s something as nerdy as Kombucha fermenting, how Lena can manage to make that sound interesting is beyond Kara, and suddenly it hits her all at once. A warm knowing unfurls in Kara’s chest as she realizes she could listen to this woman talk about anything and everything, and Kara would hang onto every word. She’d follow Lena anywhere, do anything just to see that smile—that real, unguarded smile that feels like it’s only for Kara.
It’s in that moment that Kara realizes with terrifying certainty that she’s in way over her head.
A/N: Okay, so… this is my first attempt at writing after a three year break. I just want to preface these with that. Please excuse the rust.
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The skyline of National City is one of Kara's favourite sights in the entire world. Which might seem strange to anyone else, considering that she actually has been all around the world and could name hundreds of breathtaking landscapes; a concrete jungle such as this wouldn't make most people's top ten lists. And it doesn't just make Kara's either. It takes the top spot. Because for all of its sprawling industrial set pieces, she knows that in between those towering skyscrapers is Home.
The first summer Lena ever spends with the Luthors is the summer they move from their mansion in the countryside to a new home in Metropolis. It’s tucked away in a neighborhood full of brownstones and trees, about twenty minutes away from the heart of the city.
Lillian had called it cheap. She hated the idea of living so close to so many strangers– surrounded by second-class citizens. Lena, however, falls in love with the community instantly.
The new house reminds her of a castle; with the fancy archway around the front door and the bay windows stacked together like a princess tower. The walls are brick and surrounded by greenery just like the ones in the fairytales she’d read with her real mom, and Lena can’t help but imagine herself leaning out every morning to watch the birds like Cinderella.
But the most fascinating part was that Castle House seemed to mirror itself. There are two front doors, two towers, and two protruding attic windows.
Lex explained that this was because they only owned half of the building; another family must’ve lived on the other side of the mirror. A different Cinderella of sorts.
Hearing this only made Lena’s curiosity grow. In the old mansion, she hadn’t had anyone to play with. There were no houses nearby, and the halls– all creaky and filled with old paintings, were too scary to wander alone. If this building was inviting enough for another family to want to live in it– that meant their half must’ve been too.
The week of the move, Lena spends in a world of her own. Lillian’s too occupied with interior designers and Lionel too busy with contractors to care that she spends hours sprinting up and down the halls– convinced the carpet will give her Super Speed. She races herself and the friends she creates in her head and when that gets tiring, goes up to the locked attic where she tries to peer through cracks in the door. She imagines what’s inside– maybe a locked treasure or artifacts from a hundred years ago– before climbing back down the stairs on her butt.
Lena’s always been good at occupying herself that way. She remembers what her mom used to tell her about how you’re never really alone if you still have your imagination. So she pretends elves live in the vents and fairies are in the tree branches tapping against her bedroom window. She searches for their dust on her dresser and stays up past her bedtime every night, hoping to catch a glimpse of a real one.
Five marvelous days of made up fairy tales and hallway racing go by before Lillian finally gets angry at Lena for making too much noise and tells her to cut it out.
Lena obliges, the same way she always does, and does her best to make do with quieter activities.
After all, it isn’t like she’s a loud kid. She’s just a kid who loves to explore.
So she knocks on Lex’s bedroom door each morning, looking at him silently with one of her favorite books to see if he’ll read with her. Most times he tells her no; he’s too busy but maybe later. Except later never comes and by week two– Lena gets the door slammed in her face for the first time.
She finally starts to understand that fourteen-year-old brothers are too cool to hang out with their five-year old-sisters. Especially when those sisters are as weird and annoying and whiny as she is.
Still, she does her best to persevere. The house may be losing its magic but she knows she has to find a way to be okay. She has to be the strong girl her mom made her believe she once was.
It’s just so much harder than she knows how to handle all alone. She doesn’t have her nurse Casey anymore and Casey was the first person to make her believe that fun could still exist with her sadness. She tries to play with the nanny Lionel hired, but she’s much more interested in getting Lena to practice Latin than in making potions and mudpies. And Lillian is so sharp that each time she speaks it feels like she’s only a word away from yelling.
Lena continues to do the only thing she knows how and dive deeper and deeper within herself. She lives in the worlds that now only exist in the crevices of her mind– ones without Monster Trees, angry pokes, and yelling. But it isn’t the same. She misses her mom. She misses the old park. She misses the joy.
After tutoring, Lena spends her afternoons in the empty backyard where nobody bothers her, pushing dirt around with a stick.
She draws faces, bumblebees, and butterflies, all in the spot that one day, is going to be a garden. And when that gets boring, which it does rather quickly, Lena begins to pace the strip of grass. She walks back and forth with her eyes fixated on the ground, using her stick like a cane.
Sometimes, she’ll look up over the top of the fence. There, Lena can vaguely see into the yard owned by the other half of the building. From the ground, there’s not much to look at except red metal bars and the four gray chains that hang off them.
Lena knows that together, they make a swing set. She can see the full thing from her bedroom window. It has two swings even though only one kid lives next door.
Lena isn’t sure if she’s supposed to know all this. But sometimes when she’s meant to be working on her flash-cards, she stares through the glass, at the blonde girl playing below.
She’ll see her hop off the swings and try to climb the metal poles like a monkey. There– she throws her head back and shakes out her hair before jumping down and landing on her hands and knees like a superhero. Other times, she hangs from the middle of the bar and swings back and forth. She knows how to hook her legs over the metal and dangle upside down with her arms swinging behind her.
A few times, she’s gotten stuck like that, and Lena’s watched her mom pull her down.
She replays the memory in her head as she turns the corner of her yard for what feels like the millionth time.
Dropping her stick, Lena releases a frustrated huff. She’s sure she’s been walking for hours by now. She has no idea when her new Dad will be home from work or if he’ll even want to talk to her when he is. Lex has already pushed her out of his room, and the nanny is inside cooking dinner– something French and gross sounding that Lena already knows she’s going to hate.
Turning her head, she lowers her brow and gives the wooden fence separating the yards a good hard stare. It’s made out of old wood with stains and mossy green stuff. On multiple occasions, she’s heard Lionel talking about hiring someone to tear it down to replace it because it’s just another eyesore in this ugly, old home.
Lena doesn’t think the house is ugly but it certainly is old. Maybe more than a thousand years. And the fence is probably even older. One of the boards has a hole in it, about a foot from the ground, exposing a glimpse of the flowers on the other side.
Curiosity piqued, Lena kicks her stick away and makes her way over to the fence. She squats down in the dirt and squints her eyes, then presses her hands into the wood. She tries to see as much as she can through the hole but the blobs of orange and red block her view.
She thinks for a minute, brow furrowed, before scooting away just far enough that she has room to stick her index finger through the hole. From there, Lena wiggles it around and wonders if she should call out to get someone's attention.
Back home - at her real home in the country, she wouldn’t have thought twice before yelling. She used to yell with her mom when they played in the garden all the time. Sometimes, her mom would even yell with her – just not in the scary way like other grown-ups do.
No, Lena’s real mom would call out pretend spells from their favorite fairy book while Lena shrieked with excitement, bouncing around and flapping her hands because what if a real fairy found them? She’d cackle with laughter when her belly got tickled after a bath, wrapped in a fluffy white towel made for someone five times her size, and jump through mud puddles in her favorite sparkly rain boots.
Her clothes were soft and always felt nice on her skin– all bright colors with different patterns and shapes. She used to wear her favorite shirt, the one with all the dinosaurs on it, almost every day. And when her mom let her pick her outfit, Lena would always pair it with the pink tutu that made her feel like a ballerina, her fairy wings for when it was time to play in the garden, and, of course, her sparkly rain boots.
Here, things were different. Grown-ups were quiet and they didn’t play games. The yelling only happened at night and when it did, it was the kind that made her want to hide in the closet. The closet that was filled with itchy, boring clothes without dinosaurs or glitter.
As Lena looks back at the fence, she frowns. If she yells and Lex hears her, he’ll tell the nanny and she’ll get another consequence. So she continues to stare through the hole, zoning out as she wiggles her finger until she hears a:
“Hello?”
The voice is high-pitched and followed by a fierce giggle. Lena pictures the blonde girl from the swings on the other side and wonders how long she’s been there.
Without warning, a bright blue eye appears in the center of the hole.
Lena scrambles backwards and her own eyes grow wide. Her heart pounds, her mind rushing a mile a minute. She hadn’t thought this far ahead- she wasn’t prepared, she doesn’t know what to say!
This girl could be mean like Lex, she could be laughing at her. She could yell at her for poking her finger through the hole or worse, she could tell her mom who would tell their nanny who would tell Lillian who–
“Are you a spy?”
Lena swallows. She shakes her head and draws her legs in close. She should’ve just kept walking. The kids at her new school aren't as nice as at her old one and she isn’t sure she can handle another bully.
Silently, Lena watches as the other girl mimics her by poking her own finger through the hole, then giggles once more.
“Are you playing a game?”
Lena shakes her head. She pulls back even further and hugs herself as tight as she can.
“Well, do you want to play a game?”
“Um…” She isn’t sure why she says anything. She’d just wanted to get a look– maybe touch the air on the other side. But now the girl is talking and she isn’t being mean. She’s aggressive with her excitement, sure, but the scariness it ignites isn’t like the scariness Lena’s used to.
“What game?”
The girl goes silent for a second. She’s no longer holding her eye to the hole so all Lena can see is a flash of blonde hair and the blue on her shirt.
“I dunno,” she says. “Why were you poking your finger in here?”
Lena shrugs. She leans forward and rests her chin on her knee. The girl's voice is high and soft. It makes Lena think of caramel.
“Just, um… got bored.”
“Don’t you have any toys?”
Lena shakes her head.
“I can’t see you, silly!” The girl exclaims. “You gotta talk!”
“Just… um… chess,” Lena says. “But I had-a play it a lot.”
“Ummmm, well, I could play a game with you,” the girl says. “And we can be friends! My name’s Kara and I’m five and three-quarters! What’s your name?”
“Lena.” Lena removes her arms from around herself and puts them on either side of herself, her heart rate finally starting to even out. “‘m five.”
“Hi, Lena,” Kara responds, smiling bright like the sun. “Your voice is funny. I like it.”
“Oh… that’s ‘cause I’m from Ireland.”
“Where’s I-ruh-land?”
“Far ‘way.”
Lena leans forward and tries to look through the hole again. She hugs herself tightly as she moves, her fingers moving up and down her torso the way her mom’s used to.
“I flew on a plane,” she says. “But… I was only um… four. A long time ago.”
“Was it scary?”
“Yeah… but…” Lena looks down, knitting her brow with thought. “I was small. And now I’m kinda scared of planes but, ‘cause I’m a lot bigger, it’s not as much. But… so… when I get really big, like, when I’m ten, I wouldn’t be scared at all. ‘Cause I’d be big.”
Kara hums and nods knowingly.
“I’m scared of volcanoes,” she says.
“There’s no volcanoes in Top-o-lis.”
“Yeah, that’s what my mommy says.”
“But… then why are you scared?”
“I dunno.” Kara laughs. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Um… green?”
“Mine’s blue. Did you know I can do a cartwheel?”
Lena furrows her brow. “How would I know that?”
“‘Cause I see you watching me in your window,” Kara says matter-of-factly. “I tried to watch you too but all you do is walk in circles with a stick.”
“Yeah! ‘Cause I already told you, I don’t have any toys!” Lena frustratedly retorts, any remnants of her anxiety having been forgotten. “Don’t you pay attention?”
“Well, then, why don’t you just come to my house?” Kara asks. “We could go on the swings and I have lots of toys and a dollhouse we could play with.”
Lena’s about to answer when a door creaks open loudly behind them. It’s followed by the sound of Kara quietly groaning and mumbling something unintelligible to herself.
“Kara, love, come on, it’s time for dinner,” a voice calls out. It’s an older woman– her mom, Lena figures.
“No!” Kara cries. “I’m talking to the girl in the other house– just gimmie five minutes and I’ll come inside!”
Her voice is shrill and high– it makes Lena want to cover her ears.
Somehow, she resists the urge and instead, pulls her knees back into her chest. She considers leaning over to tell Kara through the hole not to talk back because, maybe she doesn’t know yet, but if you’re disrespectful, you get consequences. You have to listen so the yelling doesn’t start.
But if the woman notices Lena whispering she might get mad at her too. She’ll tell Lillian that Lena was being distracting and Lillian will get mad again.
“Kara–”
“Please!” Kara begs, the word long and drawn out. “Pleasepleaseplease just five minutes?”
“Honey, I already gave you five minutes,” the older woman responds. “It’s time to come in now before your food gets cold, okay? I made mac-and-cheese like you wanted.”
She says the last bit in a sing-songy voice like the one Lena’s pre-k teacher would use when she called the class over for circle time. She isn’t loud or angry, she's just… she’s nice.
“But Mommy, I was just asking if Lena can come over, maybe, this weekend or a different day like– like on my birthday or after school so we can go on the swings and play in my room.”
There’s a moment of silence before Kara’s mom sighs.
“Okay, you can ask Lena and then it’s time to come inside. You understand?” She asks.
Kara nods eagerly and scrambles back to the fence, pushing her face right up against the hole.
“Lena!” She exclaims. “Do you wanna come to my house on a different day for a playdate?”
Lena doesn’t say anything. She’s too focused on Kara’s mom and the sound of her voice. How soft it was, like it’s never been raised before– not even a single time. How even when Kara whines, she doesn’t change. She stays kind and soft, like the kind of mother who means it when they say I love you.
Lena hugs herself tighter as her mind begins to wander.
She wants mac-and-cheese too, not gross French food from her nanny. She wants the orange kind that comes out of the box that her mom used to make, sometimes three days a week. She wants to eat it on the couch with the TV on, watching cartoons after a long day of running through puddles and reading books about dinosaurs and the ocean. She wants her mom to talk to her in the soft voice that Kara’s mom uses; so quiet and gentle, without an ounce of anger to be found.
She wants joy.
Lena’s face feels hot as she thinks about it, her eyes welling up with tears. She can still see the old house in the back of her mind– the grassy overgrown lawn and her little playhouse in the back. Her sparkly rain boots and closet with clothes that don’t itch– clothes she actually liked, that her mom would help her pick out.
Why does Kara get to have it and not her?
“Lena?”
Lena’s lips pull down into a frown. Her chin quivers and quakes– eyes stinging like they’re on fire.
She wants to run right back to her mom.
Sometimes she still thinks maybe when she comes downstairs– she’ll be there in the kitchen making breakfast. She’ll have tracked down the new house after months of searching and when Lena runs to her, she’ll pick her up and hold her so tightly– tighter than she’s ever been held before– then tell her it’s time to go home.
The hole in Lena’s heart will get stitched back up. Her aches and pains won’t be gone but she’ll be able to live with them because finally, they will have been tended to. She’ll be scarred and stapled, sure, but at least she’ll have been pieced back together.
Lena does all she can do to keep from crying in front of her new friend but the effort isn’t enough. The tears are falling– hot and furious. They make her want to scream because it isn’t fair. None of it is fair and gosh, she just wants to go home.
Determined not to let Kara see her, Lena scrambles to her feet and brushes the dirt off her thighs. And as Kara calls her name again, Lena sprints right back to her house.
She'll never admit it, never let it show, but she is.
She can feel it in her bones; strong as steel, yet weary as the wind. Can feel it in her heart, even as it beats the same continuous oath to protect against her ribs. Feels it in her soul as it absorbs all the anguished cries the city night brings with it.
Dawn breaks like a quiet miracle, spilling the sun's rays across the recently tilled earth of the Danvers' family farmland. Jeremiah is already working the fields as the new light of day fills the sky overhead, the well-worn tractor chugging along beneath him and drawing lines in the soil.
Inside the house, Eliza makes the morning coffee over the fire as her daughters rise from their beds. She reminds them that today will be busy. That Kara will need to go into town for supplies while Alex helps in the fields.
"You know Kara will get that stuff done twice as fast as me," Alex gripes, pulling on her boots after breakfast.
According to a recent CatCo Magazine article, the people of National City consider these ten things, in no particular order, so as not to rile the readers, to be those that give them the most joy:
Dogs
The purr of a cat
Being with friends
Hearing a favourite song play on the radio
That first sip of coffee in the morning
The feeling of sun on your skin
Belly laughing with friends/family
Seeing Supergirl flying through the city
Cosying up inside and listening to the rain
A good book
And it's a fine list, Kara thinks, reading over it as she sits alone with a mug of tea in her apartment one night after its publication, it just isn't exactly her list.
A/N: And now we're back to our regularly scheduled non-smut installment, but thank you for reading/commenting on the last chapter if you did!
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When she was a child on Krypton, Kara's mother possessed a small, golden statue of a Torquat, a creature native to Kara's home planet. Closest in description to a mix between one of Earth's big cats and a porcupine, the animal's feline-like body boasted a blanket of quills that covered its back and surrounded its face like a lion's mane. They appeared fierce in photographs and videos but Alura had told Kara that the Torquat were actually peaceful creatures. Like most animals, they only became aggressive when threatened. If they were simply left alone, then their true beauty and gentle nature could be easily admired by all those lucky enough to bear witness to them.
