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Alex was the Danvers sister who drank more than she should. Kara was the one who laughed because Earth alcohol did nothing more to her than orange juice, and cried when she had to take the bottle away from Alex, again.
It had been happening less, since Maggie. But still, it happened. So now, Maggie and Kara tended to tag team making sure that Alex wasn’t drinking herself into oblivion.
But this year? This year, Kara stocked up on that stuff from the bar that usually made her floaty and bubbly. It usually made her floaty and bubbly because she didn’t have that much.
This year, Kara had just this side of way too much.
She wouldn’t open the door for Maggie, and she would barely look at Alex when her sister knelt in front of her and tried to soothe her mind.
It helped. Having her sister there. But her sister would always be there.
Lena, on the other hand… she’d just been getting used to having Lena, having a sense of always with her.
And now, just in time for the holidays, she had… nothing.
Lena wouldn’t return her calls, or her texts. She’d even left voicemails, for crying out loud.
And she was crying out loud.
She should have known better, than to get attached. She should have known that she destroyed everything she touched, that Lena would have been better off if she’d kept her distance.
That everyone would be better off, keeping their distance.
But there she’d gone, being selfish again. Loving too much again.
Drunk on her living room floor, suddenly understanding the appeal of the bottom of the bottle.
She almost screamed when Alex gently took it out of her hands. But Alex was smart, and she positioned her fingers so that if Kara resisted with superstrength, she’d hurt Alex. Badly.
And Kara could never be drunk enough for that.
But she was drunk enough not to register that Maggie was calling someone from just outside in the hallway, that she was apologizing and asking and apologizing again, and then thanking and apologizing some more.
Lena has taken Alex’s place next to Kara, on the floor, within fifteen minutes.
Kara thought, at first, that the alcohol was making her see things. Who knew how it affected Kryptonian biology.
But then Lena, all skeptical eyes and stiff posture, touched her hand.
And Kara would know that touch anywhere.
Lena didn’t say anything, not for a long while. She just studied Kara with a critical eye, and though Kara could practically hear the brilliant gears turning in Lena’s mind, she still had no idea what she was thinking.
Until she blurted the question out loud, because yes, that was what alcohol made you do.
“I’m wondering why you’re drinking alone on Christmas Eve when you have such a big family that loves you and wants you near them,” Lena said, barely keeping the bitterness out of her voice.
“You do, too,” Kara said, and she wondered if she always slurred like that. “And anyway, I don’t have a big family. I mean, I do, you know, an Earth family. But my planet’s gone. My whole planet, Lena. Again. Everyone. Again. It keeps happening. It keeps happening. It keeps -”
And then she was sobbing, hard, and it shouldn’t be Lena’s responsibility to hold her, to comfort her, because she’d shredded her right to go to Lena for any sort of help at all, but there she was anyway, her arms around Kara, suddenly more protective than skeptical, more sad than angry.
“I know,” Lena said, and Kara knew that she didn’t, but she also knew that Lena knew that she didn’t mean it that way. That she just meant she knew what it was like, to sob like this, drunk and the world spinning and every fragment of happiness shattered and burned.
“And I’ve lost you too,” Kara pushed away gently, vaguely surprised that she could stay this gentle, this drunk. “And I can’t explain what I did to you, or how sorry I am, or -”
“You don’t have to explain anything,” Lena said, her voice still skeptical but her eyes sure. “Not right now. Right now, you can drink this.” Lena held out a glass of water - Kara had no idea where it came from, but she always had suspected that Lena was capable of miracles.
Because, saving the world as often as that woman had? She was.
The last thing Kara wanted to do was put water anywhere near her lips, but speaking of lips, Lena’s looked perfect, and no, no no no no, she’d lost every right to think things like that.
But she accepted the water and drank obediently, because what else could she do?
Kara wasn’t sure, later, when exactly she fell asleep. But when she realized that she was slumped over in someone’s lap, she assumed it was Alex’s.
She blinked her weary eyes open, adjusting to the dark almost immediately. But no, she wasn’t in Alex’s lap, because Alex was curled on the floor nearby, hand extended toward Kara’s - like they’d fallen asleep holding hands - with her other arm draped around Maggie’s waist.
Kara had fallen asleep on Lena’s lap, and when her eyes found the clock on the microwave in the kitchen, it read 12:01.
Lena must have seen it, too - Kara’s heart nearly flopped out of her chest when she blinked upward to see that Lena was awake, to realize belatedly that Lena had been stroking her hair, was still stroking her hair - because she leaned down, then, and kissed Kara’s forehead.
Kara blinked incredulously, but Lena just sighed softly.
“Merry Christmas, Kara,” she whispered, because maybe all wasn’t forgiven, or forgotten, but maybe there was a path forward.
She squeezed Lena’s hand - somehow, somewhen, their fingers had become interlaced - and fell back to sleep, safe in the arms of a woman with the biggest heart Kara had ever encountered.
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