Given - casualsavant - Supergirl (TV 2015) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: The Ask

Chapter Text

Ultimately, it was all Ruby’s fault. She had technically started the whole ball rolling with her answer to an innocuous question.

Sam and Ruby were in National City for spring break in order to spend time with Lena. It was also the week that Lena was hosting game night at her penthouse, her new collection of board games neatly lodged on her living room shelves. Lena had been a bit nervous to host. It was the first time since the whole Non Nocere debacle and her rift with Kara that she’d had everyone over. Things were mending slowly, the pieces of what had been tenuously slotting together but not yet part of a whole. But Sam and Ruby were in town and Lena had always felt more at ease when she was with them, it was like she had back-up.

The evening was going well, or at least Lena thought so. She had never had so many people in her living area before. Their clothes and the blankets they brought with them and the game pieces on her coffee table were like a riot of color in the sterile modernity of her penthouse. The air was filled with the smell of popcorn, chips, and pizza. The laughter and heated (but good-natured) competition had died down. Lena was sandwiched between Kara and Sam, safe if not completely comfortable. Kara was laughing at a joke Brainy had made, and her denim-covered thigh was warm against Lena’s. It was the closest she’d been to Kara in months, and Lena was fighting the urge to lean on her shoulder when Alex asked Ruby that fateful question.

“So are you getting anything from your Aunt Lena as a gift for finishing middle school?”

Ruby paused and sipped her orange soda. “I don’t know yet. She can’t afford the thing I really want.”

A chorus of amused “ooohs” ricocheted around her, and Nia said: “Lena is the 30th richest person in the world. I doubt there’s something she can’t afford. What do you want, a small country or something?”

“No.” Ruby laughed. “For her to take a week off.”

A stunned silence fell over the group at that, and Lena flushed.

“What? You always say you can’t afford it.” Ruby said, giving her a confused stare.

“Oh Ruby,” Lena said softly, “I miss you too.”

The teenager shook her head. “I didn’t mean you have to spend it with me. I just want you to take a break, Aunt Lena. You’re always so tired and you never have time to do anything fun. I know you call Mom really late at night sometimes and she stays up so that you can relax and get to sleep… I just want you to be happy. That’s really what I want as a present.”

“Two weeks.” Sam said before Lena could stutter out a response. “My birthday’s coming up and that extra week is what I want as a gift.”

“Sam, that’s so much work for you. And with the latest acquisition-“

“Lena Luthor, you saved me from being completely taken over by an evil Kryptonian Worldkiller. You run the tech conglomerate with the best benefits and meritocracy in the industry. Half your time is spent in the labs anyway, trying to save the world from the latest cataclysm and to protect this one from getting so much as a paper cut.” Sam nodded towards Kara. “Plus, you keep finding new ways to give your money away and fund harebrained projects for the greater good. If you take two weeks off, you will actually make my job easier.”

“Sam-“

“You’ve built a good company with great people, Lena. Trust us to care about it as much as you do.” Sam smiled gently. “At the very least, do it for Jess. Since you don’t take a vacation, she doesn’t either.”

Lena continued to argue with Sam about how she could easily give Jess vacation time without taking any time off herself. The rest of the SuperFriends looked at each other pensively. Of course they’d known that Lena was incredibly rich, and they had a vague idea of how hard she worked, but only Kara had ever made sure the young CEO would eat regular meals or knock off work at a sane time. They also hadn’t realized how much time Lena had spent helping them and how that had also contributed to her already long hours.

“Fence with me.” J’onn said decisively.

“Excuse me?” Lena’s mouth hung open a little at the sudden request.

“Fence with me.” J’onn repeated. “You were a NCAA fencing champion. I have not used a sword since 1938, so I am more out of practice than you. It would be good to have a match.”

“Um, I would be glad to.” Lena replied.

“I’ll get some equipment and sensors together.” J’onn said. “You still have your sword?”

Lena nodded. “I can easily have my saber and my gear brought over from Metropolis, but-”

“Though I do appreciate the necktie you gave me last year, a match would make me happier.” J’onn smiled and Lena… smiled back. Not quite comfortable with how this was snowballing.

Nia piped up tentatively. “You give me beautiful Leuchtturm notebooks, but I’d really like it if you came with me to the Belmont Pier. We could eat junk food the whole day and go on the rides.”

“There is an arcade there and many games of skill. They would be interesting challenges, Comrade. Particularly Initial-D, Mortal Kombat, and Skee Ball.” Brainy observed. “I would like to accompany you. And perhaps Kara can join as well?”

Kara nodded with a smile as Alex spoke up gruffly. “Well none of you can come to my birthday outing. There’s that artisanal whiskey distillery upstate. We could do a day trip? And can I drive your McLaren?”

“You’ll be drinking.” Kelly smacked her girlfriend lightly on the thigh.

“What about your Maserati? Can we take it to the pier?” Nia asked hopefully.

“As long as you keep an eye out for bad guys, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Sam chimed in. “The Maserati’s bulletproof but it is a convertible and you probably want the top down.”

“How do you know that I have those sports cars? I always use the Rolls in the city.” Lena asked in surprise.

Nia blinked. “It was in that ‘Women of Power’ feature in Tatler… I think 2017?”

“And Nia loves fashion and cars. She wouldn’t stop talking about it.” Alex added.

Lena sighed. She knew doing that feature as a favor for Kate Reardon during her last year as editor was going to bite her in the ass.

“C’mon Lena, you had both cars brought over from Metropolis last year and I just know you haven’t made the time to take them out.” Sam nudged. “It’s not good for the engines.”

Lena sighed and nodded.

The conversation rose in intensity and Lena found herself accepting a home-cooked dinner by Kelly to cap a day of “reading fiction and taking time for yourself”, promising Brainy she would sleep from 6.5 – 7.5 hours for each night of her two-week vacation, and committing to a spa day for herself as Ruby’s birthday gift. Lena knew she owed all of them something – Sam and Ruby for shutting them out these last few months, and the rest of the group for plotting against them (even if they had lied to her first). If this was all that they wanted, well there was always a price to be paid and these were small things she supposed she could do.

But Lena simply couldn’t understand it.

She heard Kara’s quiet voice beside her. “We don’t need you to buy things for us, Lena. We just want you to relax and be happy.”

Lena nodded. She got that part. What she didn’t understand was why. It had been jarring enough when it was just Sam who would occasionally check on her well-being, to say nothing of Kara’s intrusions into her perfectly ordered life – cajoling and coaxing her into regular meals and getting out of the office to breathe. Now it seemed that Kara’s friends wanted to do the same, and that was insane after all that she’d done.

Lena was putting the last of the stoneware in the dishwasher, when she asked the question. The SuperFriends had gone home, and Sam had tipsily retreated to join Ruby in Lena’s guest room. Only Kara had stayed to help clean up.

“You didn’t ask for anything.” Lena observed quietly. “Isn’t there something you want?”

Kara paused as she fiddled with the trash bag full of take-out cartons. “I… I didn’t think I could.”

“You can.” Lena bit her lip as she turned the dishwasher on. There had been a time that she would have told Kara that she could always ask. A time when buying a multimillion-dollar media empire was nothing if it kept Kara happy.

“You’ve given me so much already.”

Lena closed her eyes at the words. She was still facing the counter, unwilling to turn around and see the earnest face framed by the finest gold. “Are you sure it’s enough?”

“Lena.”

She heard the sound of a trash bag being tied and placed on the floor, felt the heat radiating off Kara’s body as she stepped behind her.

“Turn around, please.”

Lena took a quick breath to steady herself and rotated in place. She fidgeted with her hands before folding them across her chest. No, that would seem closed off. She put them on her hips, but then that seemed combative. Lena finally settled on sticking them in the pockets of her jeans as her eyes nervously met those the color of a summer sky.

Kara’s hands had reached out for hers for a moment before falling to her side. She pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. “We talked about this… and we’re… I think we’re working on rebuilding our friendship.”

“We are.”

“That means so much, Lena. It… how could it not be enough?”

Lena shrugged. “I lied right back to you, Kara. I manipulated you. I even imprisoned you in kryptonite.”

“We said we would forgive each other.”

“We did.” Lena agreed. “But I… there should be some sort of restitution.”

“I don’t need restitution, Lena.”

“Then… then think of it as a gift? I… it feels wrong to give everyone else something and not you.” The youngest Luthor whispered. “You’re… different.”

Lena didn’t want to think about how different Kara was, how special, how deeply important her every smile and every breath was. Her eyes fell to her shoes, looking at Kara directly made all her emotions rise to the surface like magma.

“Can I think about it?” Kara asked.

“Of course.” Lena replied quickly. “Take as much time as you need.”

It had taken a while to sort out the details. It had been the first time in their long working history that Jess had ever broken her professional demeanor and let out an honest-to-goodness squeal. Lena had tried to sort out as much as she could in the two days before her vacation began but she soon found herself locked out of every server and even her emails.

“Two extra days.” Jess had explained firmly. “That’s my birthday gift, Christmas gift, work anniversary gift, and secretary’s day gift combined.”

“But-“

“Ms. Luthor, I have worked with you for a decade. You’re in the habit of giving me raises every quarter, and I’m paid more than most chiefs of staff even though my title is executive assistant. Some of those raises were well-deserved, but many of them were for the most basic acts of loyalty.” Jess replied. “And while I appreciate the extra income, it doesn’t mean that you have to pay me to care about you. Your well-being matters to me.”

Lena shut her mouth and tried to tamp down the emotion filling her chest.

“Go spend the day with Ms. Arias and Ruby.” Jess said, handing her a change of clothes and a pair of flats.

And that was how Lena found herself in red capri pants, a sheer white blouse, and black flannel jacket – splitting a large plate of fully loaded nachos with Sam and Ruby at the Presidium mall before the teenager met up with friends for a movie. It was a beautiful spring afternoon - Sam didn’t want to spend it indoors, so after Ruby had gone off with her friends, they headed outside. They eventually made their way through a park and began walking along the waterfront in a companionable silence. Lena breathed in the smell of the bay as Sam pointed out a nearby tapas bar overlooking the Girl of Steel. They sat down on the plush upholstered seats and ordered some wine as the waiter lowered the blinds, the angle of the afternoon sunlight was causing quite a glare as it bounced off the statue.

“They did a great job repairing it.” Sam said idly over their glasses of Rioja.

Lena nodded. “You can hardly see the seams.”

“Is it that way for you?”

Lena shrugged. “We’re getting there. I… I really hurt her, Sam.”

“She hurt you first.” Sam replied. “It takes a lot for you to open up like that, Lena. We were friends for a year before you even let me hug you. And even then, it was mostly because of Ruby. You were only ever open with her because it’s the affection that you trust completely.”

“That’s not true. I… I trust you too.”

Sam let out a melancholy smile. “There’s a part of you that still doubts me because you pay my salary.”

Lena looked away, unable to refute that statement effectively.

“I get it, you know? I catch you sometimes, I see that flash of envy that crosses your face when I snuggle my kid, or even praise her for something she’s done well. I’ve seen how Lillian treats you and how mystified you are on the rare times that you let me take care of you. And I was here Lena, I saw how your face would light up when Kara would walk into the room and how she made you feel safe enough to be yourself.”

“I’m happy when I see you too.” Lena said softly. “You’re… I don’t have a lot of friends, Sam.”

The taller woman reached over to place her hand gently on Lena’s. “I know. And you do realize that I have never lied to you, right? I have never intentionally hurt you. I’ve never misrepresented myself or taken a medallion that would have helped your brother.”

Lena nodded. “You’ve never let me down.”

“So why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” Sam asked gently.

“I was just… I was too wrapped up in my anger and pain. I made bad decisions. I let Lex manipulate me again.”

Sam took a sip of her wine and shook her head. “We’re going to come back to that, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”

Lena’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you realized you were in love with her?”

Lena felt blood rush away from her face as she pulled her hand away from underneath Sam’s. She placed her hands in her lap and entwined her fingers tightly, falling back on boarding school etiquette as she kept her eyes on her napkin.

“Are you going to deny it?”

Lena paused. Sam had never lied to her before, and Lena had always had the decency to be as honest as she could about her own life, even when it made her squirm. Sighing deeply, she shook her head. “How did you know?”

“Oh Lena, I always knew.” Sam said. “I knew long before I came to National City. You mentioned her so often, and almost overnight you became familiar with The Princess Bride and the Great British Bake Off. You talked about her all the time and you would have this bright smile on your face that I’ve never even seen you have with Jack.”

“She was my best friend.”

“I know.” Sam said easily. “I missed you so much in Metropolis, Lena. And while there was some remnant from high school that made me a little jealous, I was so happy that you had Kara – that you had someone here who you would let in even a little. And then I moved here, and I saw I had no reason to be jealous at all.”

“What do you mean?” Lena flushed, still refusing to meet Sam’s eyes.

“You bought CatCo for her. I know the press thought that was part of your continuing war with Edge, and that L Corp PR spun it as a strategic acquisition. And as your CFO, I know that it’s not that big of a deal as far as the acquisition price goes.” Sam replied. “But you didn’t have to run it. You used to dismiss CatCo as a fashion magazine that occasionally tried its hand at real journalism. You could have brought in half a dozen eminently qualified people to helm that magazine. And most importantly, I know that you hate being CEO.”

Lena’s head snapped up at that. “Of course I don’t!”

“Lena, you like investing in companies, you like starting companies. You hate managing them. You hate having to explain your decisions to a Board of Directors.”

Lena tossed her onyx hair away from her face and scoffed. “You make me sound like Elon.”

“The only reason you’re CEO of L Corp is because you want to turn it around. Beyond that, you hate every gala, you hate every board meeting, and you definitely hate every single time you have to discuss policy with legal, HR, and accounting.”

“Because it shouldn’t be so hard to treat people fairly and pay them a living wage! It shouldn’t be so hard to weed out assholes who don’t fit in with the culture I’m trying to build.” Lena said heatedly. “It does make a significant dent in our profits, but employee turn-over is down and productivity is high. That translates into better numbers long term and everyone else is just playing this… this myopic little game!”

“Exactly. Which is why you must have been thrilled to extend your already ridiculous working hours and run a second company in an industry you know nothing about and have often despised.”

Lena gawked.

“Admit it, Lena. I know you. You must have locked yourself in your home office and studied everything you could aside from pestering Cat Grant with calls. And I’m sure, if I looked at CatCo’s numbers under your tenure, I’d find that you raised salaries across the board – something you’ve been known to do at L Corp but oddly benefitting a certain junior reporter as well.” Sam said. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the purchase of a small Midvale bank at the same time you sold CatCo to Andrea. A bank that is absolutely unremarkable except that I might find that it has Kara’s student loan.”

For the first time since childhood, Lena stuttered. “I ju-just wanted to hu-hurt her like she hurt me. N-not anything permanent. I wasn’t going to… I di-didn’t...”

“You were in so much pain you wanted to mind-control humanity.” Sam said softly. “And you still thought of taking care of her. You can’t help it. You’re in love with her, Lena. It was only confirmed after we got shot at during that lead poisoning plot. Kara rushed up to the stage and held you, and you let her. You never let anyone see you scared. You had this look in your eyes when she did it, like you never wanted her to let go.”

Lena sighed deeply and had to admit defeat. She brought her fingers up from her lap and began to fiddle with the napkin she’d been staring at, quietly tearing the white paper into small shreds. Sam thanked the waiter as he dropped off their chorizo iberico and manchego.

“When did you realize you were in love with Kara?” Sam asked gently.

Lena gulped down some wine as she wondered how she could possibly answer that. Because Sam hadn’t asked how she had fallen in love with Kara – Lena knew how to answer that. She hadn’t so much fallen as grown into Kara’s light, reaching daily towards it in such innocuous ways until the entire course of her life seemed to have changed. Sam hadn’t asked when she had fallen in love with Kara – there was no answer to that. It had come so slowly seeping into her limbs and her heart and her very being like the gentleness of spring.

All Lena knew was that it was too late. For months she had tried to excise the Kryptonian who had betrayed her out of her thoughts and feelings as surely as she had banished Kara out of her life. Lena thought it would be like taking out an organ – an essential functioning part of her that had suddenly turned cancerous. It hadn’t been. Kara rushed around her like the cells in her bloodstream, dying and renewed involuntarily, pushed back into her heart without her consent or control.

“Was it when you were about to blast her?” Sam asked carefully.

The sharp bark of laughter clearly wasn’t what Sam expected. “I was wondering when you were going to ask about that.”

“I’m mentioning what happened, not asking about it. I know you’re not ready to talk about that yet.” Sam replied evenly. “You know I’m here for you when you are.”

“You have every right to ask.” Lena whispered. “I… I showed up at your door straight from Mt Norquay.”

“You were in a really bad place mentally, but you gave me what I needed to help you. Everything else can follow when you’re ready.”

And Sam had helped her, in that way she always had. Simply listening to the facts without judgment, allowing her to shut down emotionally, keeping everything and everyone away for weeks while Lena had holed up in her guest room, forcing her to take care of herself, running L Corp until she was stable enough to face things and then continuing to do so when Lena and the SuperFriends finally teamed up to put an end to Leviathan once and for all.

“You always seem to deal with the fall out of my stupid decisions and you never… you never change the way you look at me.” Lena said hoarsely. “I don’t deserve you.”

“You talk like you haven’t been there for me so many times.” Sam replied, the expression in her eyes fond but still haunted by flashbacks of Reign.

“This is different.”

Sam sighed and asked for the check. “Come with me.”

“What about Ruby?”

“Frank can wait for her and bring her to meet us later.”

Lena nodded as Sam cleared her schedule with a message to her assistant, paid the bill and took an additional bottle of wine with them. Sam put on her favorite playlist as she got in beside her in the back seat of the luxury SUV she preferred the car service to use when she came to National City. Lena dimly recognized David Guetta as the car pulled away from the bay and moved towards the city. When Sam gave the driver an address in Laurel Heights, Lena was surprised.

“Where are we going?”

Sam only smiled mysteriously and refused to talk about it even when the car came to a stop in front of a brick building on Belvedere St. The driver handed Sam a brown paper bag and a small cooler. Sam ushered her through the lobby, into an elevator, and inside a condominium. Sunlight streamed through the bay windows onto the hardwood floors. It was empty except for a gray three-seater couch that sat in front of the fireplace.

“Sam… what is this place?”

“Casa Arias.” Sam replied with a grin. “It got turned over to me yesterday.”

“What?”

“Ruby got into Harker Prep, which is only the next exit over.”

“What? But that’s a high school?”

“Lena, you know Ruby is 14 right?”

“You’re moving back?”

“Well, I do have to put in for a transfer with my boss, but I’m hoping she won’t be averse to the idea.” Sam laughed. “Ruby and I will be here after she finishes middle school in June. So I’ve got the rest of the week to furnish the place, I’m not taking a lot of furniture from Metropolis.”

Sam grinned at Lena’s gobsmacked expression and drew her to the couch.

“But I thought… what about Spence? It’s the best school in the country.”

“It is. But it’s across the country from you.” Sam said quietly. “Ruby and I want to be close to the only family we have. That’s you.”

Lena felt tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. “Sam…”

“She misses you, Lena. She doesn’t know the details of what went down before, but ever since Kara had to go full Supergirl in front of her when Gamemnae held the three of us hostage, well she’s put a few things together… and she’s worried about you.”

“This is the epicenter of all the insanity that comes with Supergirl.”

“I’ve lived in Metropolis since I graduated from college, Lena. You know as well as I do that’s the epicenter of Superman insanity. So I don’t see much of a difference on that front.” Sam replied. “It’s not like I’m moving to Gotham.”

“People will come after you because of her… or because of me.”

“So it’s pretty convenient that we’d be much closer so you can save us.” Sam’s voice turned soft. “And like I said, Lena. You’re family. You’re my ride or die. I miss you. I worry about you. I want to be here for you. We both do.”

“But…”

“We love you, Lena.”

Sam’s voice was so serious, so sincere, that Lena felt the tears she’d been holding back for hours spill over her cheeks. Sam gathered her into her arms and let her weep, rubbing her back gently until Lena pulled away. Knowing her best friend after all this time, Sam gave her a warm smile before fishing out two red solo cups and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos from the paper bag on the floor. She opened the cooler and put the bottle of wine she’d brought from the restaurant in the ice within it after she’d poured a serving into the plastic cups.

They sat sipping their wine for a few minutes. Only the muted sounds of the city that filtered through the bay windows broke their comfortable silence.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” Lena finally said, her voice low and hoarse. “I… I really f*cked up.”

“Oh, you f*cked up royally. But you’ve also gone a long way to putting things right.”

“Have I?”

“You helped put an end to an evil 2-million-year-old organization. You’ve even been good to Tesmacher.”

Lena snorted. “I overwrote her mind. Just because she has no memories past being kidnapped after work, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. She deserved to be in prison. She didn’t deserve to be violated like that.”

“She betrayed you. So did Kara.”

“You didn’t.”

Sam took a deep breath to steady herself. “No, I didn’t. I never have. Neither has Ruby. Yet, you were going to do that to us too, Lena. I know you were going to do it to everyone. But I’m sure you can see why I take it personally.”

“You should have kicked me out when I came to you that night… when I told you what I did and what I almost did.”

“But you didn’t do it, Lena. You pulled yourself back before you went over the edge.” Sam stated with finality. “Ultimately, you chose what was right.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten so close in the first place.”

“No. You shouldn’t have.” Sam agreed. “You should have come to me right after you killed Lex. After he told you about Kara.”

“Sam… why are you…? Why are you here? Why are you still my friend? After years of dropping my sh*t on your lap when I’ve f*cked up and it’s beyond complicated to fix it? Now that you know that I’m a murderer, now that you know how monstrous I can become, why are you here?”

“I already told you. Because you’re my family and I love you.”

“But why?”

Sam sighed and put a gentle arm around her shoulders. “Lena, I’ve personally witnessed Lillian sideline you and belittle you. I’ve held you while you were bleeding from your family’s assassination attempts. That's all you know. And with Jack dead, I knew I was the only one who you still trusted… as much as you can trust anyone anyway. Until Kara came along. If I had known that imploded… Lena, I understand why you spiraled. I just wish you had come to me, trusted me, when you found out. I… I’m sorry.”

Lena pulled back in surprise. “What? What are you sorry for?”

“I’ve… I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, Lena. I haven’t been present for you, not emotionally anyway. I was there professionally but I… I don’t think I loved you well enough. I’m really sorry for that.”

Lena shook her head vehemently. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You were trying to recover from Reign. And you had Ruby to think of.”

“And you were there for me, Lena. Every time I had a flashback. Every time I needed to talk.” Sam said. “It just somehow ended up being all about me. That was an entire year where all our personal conversations were about me and my issues. If I was just… I never let you feel that you had support, never convinced you that you had my loyalty. I let your emotional reticence give me an excuse not to make it clear that you were loved.”

“No.” Lena said firmly, brushing tears from her eyes. “It’s not your fault, Sam.”

“It’s not. But I do bear some responsibility.”

“You’re always there for me when I need you. I should never have doubted that.”

“I’ve always been there when you let me know that you need me.” Sam clarified. “You have to be better at asking for help. And I have to be better at being a part of your life. I’m moving back to do just that. Can you try to let me in? Give me another chance to be a better friend?”

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You have nothing to apologize for. Honestly, you shouldn’t even forgive me.” Lena said glumly.

“Well, not for the first time when it comes to you, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Lena inhaled shallowly. “I’m going to try… to let you in. More than I have.”

“Ok.”

“And for the record, I’m deeply sorry for not trusting you and… wanting to…”

“Use nanobots to infiltrate my brain and my daughter’s brain so that we would give you the loyalty we’ve already so clearly shown you and the love we have always wanted to give you of our own free will but you’re too emotionally constipated and suspicious to accept?”

Lena blinked.

“Oh, and mindf*ck all of humanity as well.”

“Yes. That.” Lena said. “I’m sorry for that.”

Sam shook her head as she smiled. “I forgive you.”

Lena shuddered as she sank deeper into the couch cushions. She hadn’t realized how much she had needed to hear that, and how much she had needed to hear that from Sam. The Latina left her to her thoughts as she refilled their plastic cups with wine and munched on more of the chips.

“It wasn’t when the bunker almost blasted her.” Lena said suddenly. “The bunker belonged to Lex and the defenses got triggered. I shut it down as fast as I could. I… I didn’t want to kill her. I just…”

Sam nodded. “You wanted to hurt her.”

“I did.” Lena sighed. “But it was right then, I realized that I… even if she hurt me more than anyone… ANYONE else has in my life… I couldn’t be in a world where…”

Sam wisely let Lena open up at her own pace.

“The look on her face. She was so afraid but it… it didn’t look like she was afraid for herself. Kara looked… she’s looked at me that way before… She looked afraid for me. She didn’t know I didn’t trigger those cannons. She still doesn’t know… I… just… she looked so frightened for me and the other times she’s done that was when I was grieving Jack or furious that I let Rhea betray me…”

“The times you were in danger of losing yourself.”

Lena nodded. “And that’s when I realized I was – losing myself, I mean. I still hated her. I certainly hadn’t forgiven her. But what I was doing… who I was becoming. Using people the way Lillian and Lex did, giving in to hatred … I knew I didn’t want that to be me even if the outcome would have… would have kept me safe… As usual, I shouldn’t have believed Lex.”

“Huh?”

“When he told me that Kara was Supergirl, before he died, he said that… he said that at least he wasn’t a fool. That everyone had lied to me and that I was left with no one and nothing.” Lena let out a sob. “And when… when I realized that I… what I was becoming… I didn’t know if I could turn back because I had done too much… and then I remembered you.”

Sam pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad you did.”

“I’m glad you’re here. For me.”

“Always.”

“I know I don’t… I’m no good at…”

“I know, Lena.” Sam said gently.

“I should say it.”

“You will.” Sam said, pulling away from her so that Lena could see the smile on her face. “You’ll say it when you’re ready.”

“But-“

“Lena, listen. Love is like farting. If you have to force it, it’s probably sh*t.”

Lena blinked rapidly in mystification before letting out a laugh. A real one. A laugh that made her stomach and her jaw hurt from the force of it. Sam joined her in the moment, more out of joy than at her own words. After the hilarity subsided and they caught their breath, Sam glanced at Lena and saw the young woman’s face creased in melancholy again.

“Hey.” Sam nudged. “You deserve to be able to laugh. We’ve talked about this.”

“It’s not that.”

“Ah.” Sam said before resuming her silence, knowing that it was about Kara and that Lena needed time to say what she needed.

“It was Foundation Day and the city was going to celebrate with fireworks since it was the 130th anniversary. I only knew about it because Kara burst into my office and dragged me out onto the balcony to watch. I told her the bay was too far away for it to really matter but she just… she said she wanted to watch it with me.” Lena shrugged helplessly. “We were waiting for the fireworks to start and everything was just… normal. The sounds of the city were normal. The lights were normal. The stars were normal. It was… I looked at her, she was looking out on the horizon with so much excitement for… for everything. For life in general. And I just… my stomach lurched, and my chest got tight and I… I just knew.”

Sam paused for a bit before stating the obvious. “You should tell her.”

“Maybe I should have then. I don’t know.” Lena sighed. “It’s too late now.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Ruby came through the door and plopped down on the couch between them, wrinkling her nose at the smell of wine before she found a can of root beer in the cooler. “What’s not true?”

“Hello to you too, young lady.” Sam rolled her eyes.

Ruby had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry. Hi Mom. Hi Aunt Lena. Thanks for having Frank bring me over.”

“You’re welcome.” Lena said with a smile. “And congratulations on getting into Harker. I’m so glad you’re moving back.”

“Me too. So what’s not true?”

Sam thought quickly. “That you’d find your bedroom too small. I was just about to show her around.”

“Ugh it’s been hours! Have you guys just been talking this whole time? I can’t believe you didn’t show Aunt Lena your room and my room and her room.”

“My room?” Lena asked in surprise as she let Ruby pull her up off the couch and down the corridor.

“Well, the guest room.” Sam smiled. “But you’re the guest we love the most so you’re always welcome to crash here especially after we host game nights.”

“Yeah, Mom measured it and everything so we can put a double bed in there. Just like, don’t do anything gross with Kara.”

Sam laughed as Lena sputtered uselessly and turned beet red.

Chapter 2: The Match

Chapter Text

Lena hadn’t anticipated the number of DEO agents who would be curious about her fencing match with J’onn. The piste had been set up in what looked to be a general training area with a few benches on the side. Benches now occupied by the Superfriends and chattering DEO agents.

Lena finished her stretches and then stared at her shoes. She concentrated on the intricate, off-centered lacing as they criss-crossed against the dark leather of her lucky Adidas Asymmetrics. Her heart was beating fast, just as it always did, before a match. It made her chest ache and her skin buzz, a constant itching sensation that ran along the back of her spine and into the base of her skull. Adrenaline was good, it drove her forward, but it was a double-edged sword. Too much and her movements would become shaky rather than strong, her thrusts uncertain rather than determined.

Unbidden, the memories flooded through her mind. A different time. Not simpler. Just… different shackles welded to her heart.

The beginning. Adults still dictating her life, peers spewing gossip with the intent to tear her down. It was only in the lab or on the piste that she was truly free.

“They want to put her on the team: Veronica Sinclair. She can’t parry to save her life.” Lena spat.

Andrea’s brows furrowed slightly. “No one can, against you.”

“Are you suggesting I should go easy on her?”

“Hardly, but I guess it does make a change from the other girls, right? Lots of them have attended practice and leave halfway through, usually in tears after facing you.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

Andrea shrugged. “It’s just what I hear.”

Better to be feared than to live in fear, Lena thought.

“I figured you’d be happy for her.”

“What? Why?”

“I heard she’s your friend, right? Or was.”

Lena shook her head. What could she possibly have to gain by starting fresh with Ronnie? Nothing was going to erase the memories or the wounds. No amount of civility was going to do that. Lena clicked her tongue. She doubted Ronnie wanted to be on the fencing team to compete or to better herself. Knowing Ronnie, she had a purpose - a scheme to implement and watch fester. Dropping her guard meant that Ronnie would win.

“She’s not a friend.” Lena said instead. “Not like you.”

…

“...not like you, Lena. Don’t f*ck this up.”

“Sure.” Lena nodded as she scanned the bleachers for her brother.

Mercy placed two elegant fingers on her chin, turning her face towards her. “Focus. Remember to keep your balance. Attack first – be aggressive, put Mendez on the defensive right away.”

“Right.”

“Don’t let her take the lead. You lead the entire way. You don’t give her the chance to take control.”

“Right.”

Mercy suddenly paused. She shook her head, and Lena could tell she was listening to something on her comms.

“He’s not coming, is he?”

“Look-“

“When he said he’d be in Boston to check out some tech I thought… God, this is so typical.”

“Lena!”

She locked eyes with her, green meeting fierce brown. “Yeah?”

“At 19, you’re not only the youngest and top fencer on this nerd team, you’re also the best in the whole country.” Mercy put two steadying hands on Lena’s shoulders. “f*ck everyone else who doesn’t see it. You’re strong. You don’t need Lex. You don’t need anyone. You’re going to win this. You’re going to walk out of this arena with the championship.”

“Yeah.” Lena replied glumly.

“You got this. You’re a Luthor.”

…

“Ms. Luthor? Ms. Luthor?”

Lena brought her head up to look at the dark-haired agent who was calling her attention.

“I’m the referee for the match. Everything’s good to go whenever you are.”

Lena squinted. “I’m sorry but… Have we met before?”

“Matt Uyemoto, Penn State. I was the 2013 men’s epee champion at the Northeast NCAA regionals in New York, you were the champion for women’s saber. A bunch of us hung out afterwards?”

Lena’s eyes widened when she remembered exactly who he was. “Oh!”

Agent Uyemoto grinned and offered his hand. “No hard feelings. Anyway, I’m the only off-shift agent who has any fencing experience so I’m the referee.”

Lena shook his hand. “Uh, nice to see you again. I’m just-“

They both turned when they heard the doors open to admit Sam and Ruby. They waved before taking their seats beside Alex and Kara. Lena smiled back, flushing a little as her eyes met Kara’s and the blonde smiled and gave her two thumbs up.

“Ok, everyone’s here.”

Agent Uyemoto nodded in understanding. “Let’s start in 2 minutes?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She could hear J’onn on the other end of the piste fiddling with the electronic sensors on his back. Lena took a deep breath and concentrated on her own, plugging everything in with encumbered hands. Her mask rested beneath her arm, the familiar weight of her old saber in her right hand as she plugged in the last of the sensors.

Lena took a few deep breaths and stepped up to the piste. J’onn nodded at her. He looked calm, almost serene, but there was a challenge in his eyes. Lena felt steadier then, like something had been lifted off her shoulders. There weren’t any stakes for this, it was really for fun. But J’onn clearly expected the best from her. And while Lena hadn’t done this in years, she didn’t like to lose.

They met in the center, smacking their blades together a few times to test the sensors. J’onn’s touch was casual but Lena could feel the tension in his blade, a promise of things to come. The sensors rung out, red lights flashing along the tops of their helmets to signal a hit. Stepping back from one another, Lena stood behind her line and bounced the handle of her saber in her hand to expel some energy. In front of her, J’onn stood perfectly still, his eyes downcast, brows furrowed in deep concentration.

Lena focused her breathing as she saluted her opponent, then the referee and the small crowd. Then she and J’onn stood at the ready, blades raised and eyes locked, before they swung their sabers down. The referee called “En garde” and Lena brought her mask up over her face.

A new sense of calm enveloped Lena, the bright lights and the sounds around her muffled and quieted. All that mattered was the feel of the blade in her hand and her feet beneath her weight, the subtle bounce to the piste and the sound of her own breathing, steady and measured.

Lena planned to make J’onn tense up, buckle under the pressure of her onslaught – to make him work for every single strike, every single point.

Three rounds, three minutes each, first to fifteen. It was as simple as that.

“Prêts,” the referee called. “Allez!”

Adrenaline, pure and fast and undiluted, rushed through Lena. She surged forward as she dove toward J’onn. He parried her blow but before he could riposte Lena found a small opening and plunged her saber forward. Red lights blared out across J’onn’s mask, and Lena pulled back as the point was given to her.

They returned to their places on the mat and she went back to the fencing stance, legs spread, hand raised with the saber in its grasp, the other stretched behind her to balance. Her breathing was coming out hard now, a steady white noise in an otherwise quiet space. It was just one point, she needed to keep her focus.

“Prêts… allez!”

J’onn struck first, aggressive and already wise to Lena’s tricks. She managed to parry and stop the first blow, but stumbled at the last second, allowing J’onn to get a hit.

That too, was only one point. One for one out of fifteen.

They traded blows for the first three minutes. Lena got one before J’onn came back with a surprise. By the time they’d hit the one-minute break between rounds, Lena was sweating as she sat down and chugged the water in her thermos, swirling it around in her mouth, trying to clear her throat and mouth of the taste of stress. Her towel appeared in her field of vision, and Lena looked up to meet Kara’s sky blue eyes. She mopped at her face and nodded her thanks before taking her place on the piste. She and J’onn knocked blades once more to make sure the sensors were still working, and again they resumed their stances at the appropriate spot on the mat, masks covering their faces.

“Prêts… allez!”

Lena came in hard again, securing two more points, but just as she managed to start getting a little co*cky J’onn came back and scored three. Shrugging it off, Lena rolled her shoulders as she went back to her place. Again and again they clashed, both attacking and defending, parrying and riposting. Their movements were quick and studied, footwork nimble across the numbered piste. Where one attacked, the other deftly blocked as if they knew where the other was going. A few times the referee had to call a stop, neither catching each other off guard.

By the end of the second round, she waved Kara away when she looked like she was going to tell Lena the score. Lena needed to block everything out.

When she returned to the piste Lena concentrated on the little hum that rang through her body, gliding over each muscle like warm water, lapping at her limbs and the edges of her mind, coaxing her towards a familiar inner-peace she hadn’t had in years. Here, standing on the piste and holding her saber with the mask over her face, Lena felt… like she was supposed to feel. All the anxiety and self-recrimination that itched below the surface, the urge to move and yell, the voices lurking in the back of her head that filled her mind with tangled thoughts – they were all put to work, made to exist with a purpose rather than just to make Lena go mad. The itch became a drive, the movements became graceful, the screams into a steady roar like the rushing of blood, and the voices coalesced into a single driven scream that was livid and oh so good to set free.

“Prêts… allez!”

They moved again, striking and blocking, the sound of their blades hitting rang out across the space. Quick strikes, the flash of red lights, the heavy and steady beat of Lena’s heart drowned out everything else except the anger flowing out of her heart into her arm and her blade. For a moment, she wasn’t the billionaire CEO - just the girl who was taught to fight and starved of the love she craved, the one with her soul drowning in the persona she’d carved to fit a cruel world. For a moment, the man across her wasn’t an opponent, he was an extension of Kara. Kara who had taken that girl within her and lulled Lena into a false sense of security with her care and affection before lying to Lena’s face. Kara hadn’t taken what she could afford to give, she’d taken all that Lena had been trying to keep safe - her softness, her heart. And damn if the Martian across from her hadn’t been the instrument of that too.

Lena struck out in her fury, a scream from deep within forced its way from her mouth, the banshee of the sadness and the scars that wouldn’t heal.

There was far more force than necessary to land a touch, and Lena only snapped out of it when the referee gave her a yellow card.

She shook herself as she returned to her stance. It was ok to be angry. It was fine. She just had to control it. Harness it. She didn’t know what the score was, but she was not going to get a red card and award another point to J’onn. Lena felt the anger moving through her again and focused that feeling. She’d use it to fuel her skills, not to burn with rage but to be cold and calculating.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Feet planted, hands steady, chin up.

Focus.

She closed her eyes and the moment the allez was given, she was on J’onn. Lunge. Miss. Recover. Feint. Parry. Counter-parry. Disengage. Don’t hesitate. Slash. Dodge. Feint. Lunge. She surged forwards deeper and lower than before while he parried, but it was too late – she had found an opening – and scored what turned out to be the final point.

13 – 15.

Lena heard the cheers then, crashing through the quiet her mind had made, sending her heart rate spiking. She was light-headed for a moment and ripped off her mask, the cool air rushing over her face. Her ankle felt a little sore, she had probably landed hard as she lunged further than her body was ready for.

Kara was the first to reach her, pulling her into a quick but fierce hug before she leaned away to look at her ankle. Because of course, Kara’s Kryptonian eyes could follow the speed of the match better than anyone else’s and she must have caught the moment she strained it.

J’onn came over before Kara could say anything, holding out his hand for Lena to take. He was covered in sweat, but he was smiling. Almost tender and… proud? Of what? Lena couldn’t place it.

“Congratulations.” J’onn said.

Lena’s eyes narrowed. “Did you want me to release my anger? Did you let me win?”

“I’d never do you such a disservice. You had me on my toes for most of that match. You took your time, you chose your openings carefully and decisively, and you beat me at my own footwork.”

Lena ripped off her glove and shook J’onn’s hand.

The Martian continued. “I haven’t had that much fun in years. I almost wish I could have been in the stands to watch you work. It must have been a beautiful sight.”

Lena grinned. “Thanks. I… if you wanted a rematch...”

“Absolutely.” J’onn eyed Kara as he spoke. “But you’d better get your ankle checked out.”

The Kryptonian was going to speak up when Ruby barreled into Lena. Sam and the rest of the SuperFriends fast on her heels.

“Aunt Lena! Oh my God, you were so cool!”

“Excellent match, comrade!”

“Good fight, J’onn!”

“You were both so fast, it was amazing!”

She felt Kara curl her arm around her waist, oddly tentative in a way Kara had never been before. Yet another mark of the strange rawness between them. Lena could almost see the crinkle between her eyes without looking.

“I’m fine, Kara.” Lena said. “Just landed on it a little hard.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up as Lena demonstrated how fine she was by testing her ankle. No sharp jolts of pain went up her leg.

“See? Don’t worry about me.”

Kara shook her head. “Put your arm around my shoulder.”

“I’ll take a look at it, Lena.” Alex added.

Sighing, Lena did as she was told and the whole group moved towards one of the benches. Alex examined her right ankle for swelling and bruising. “Does it hurt?”

Lena was about to shake her head when Sam glared at her.

“It’s a little sore.”

“She got hit on her shoulders and arms too.” Kara added.

“That’s what happens when you’re a sabreuse.” Lena replied patiently. “The saber is a slashing weapon. It stings a little, but it’ll be fine. I used to get bruises all the time.”

“But-“

Alex interrupted Kara. “It looks like your ankle’s alright, and I just saw you put weight on it without pain, but I still think you should put some ice on it and rest it tomorrow.”

Lena nodded. “I know the drill: RICE for a day.”

“Let me know if it starts hurting more.” Alex added.

“It’s a good thing tomorrow is ‘take some time for yourself and read fiction’ and then I’ll be by with a home-cooked dinner.” Kelly said with a smile.

“We’re going furniture shopping tomorrow so we can’t be there to make sure Aunt Lena actually rests.” Ruby said. “I think Kara should do it, right mom?”

Ruby looked up but her mother was a little distracted by Agent Uyemoto, who was lingering at the edge of the group surrounding Lena. Nia noticed as well and asked Alex – rather loudly – if it would be ok if Lena had a celebratory drink.

“Huh? Sure.” Alex replied.

Shaking her head ruefully, Lena followed Nia’s lead. “Agent Uyemoto.”

The man gave a wave as the SuperFriends parted like the red sea so he could shake Lena’s hand. “Ms. Luthor. It’s always amazing to see you in action. Team USA would have killed it at the 2013 Universiade if you’d joined us.”

Lena hadn’t been complimented on her competitive fencing in a very long time, and certainly not by someone who truly understood the intricacies of it and the skill behind it. She flushed a little and said that he was welcome to join them for a drink.

“It would be cool if you came along, Agent.” Sam said with a smile.

“Oh, you can call me Matt.”

“Nice to meet you, Matt.”

Alex grinned. “So are you coming along?”

The agent looked at Sam, and then at the other SuperFriends who were his colleagues from the DEO, and then at Lena. He let out a chuckle. “I’d better not, considering what happened last time I had a victory celebration with Ms. Luthor.”

Lena let out a little groan followed by a laugh as Uyemoto turned to Sam. “I’d love a rain check though.”

“Um sure, uh, let me just give you my number.”

The group moved away from Sam as Ruby rolled her eyes at her mom’s awkwardness. Alex encouraged the teenager to cut her some slack.

“How do you know, Matt?” Kara asked, finally getting to talk to Lena.

“College fencing competitions. I must have seen him around at so many invitationals and tournaments.”

“What happened the last time you had a victory celebration?”

“Um…” Lena paused mid-stride and once again her expression was torn between amusem*nt and embarrassment.

Kara’s face seemed to freeze for a second, she eyed Ruby then pitched her voice lower. Her tone was happy but somehow pinched. “Oh you um, ended up with him in the morning?”

Lena shook her head and grinned. “Not him. The girl he brought as his date.”

“Uh… oh. Oh! That’s…”

Lena looked at the strange expression on Kara’s face. It looked like every neuron in her brain was trying to fire in both directions at once. Her limbs moved as if some inexperienced person was controlling them remotely.

Lena was about to ask about it but was swept along by a very excited Ruby and a blushing Sam. She made a mental note to ask Kara about it later as she plunged into the happy chaos of the impromptu victory party.

Chapter 3: The Dinner

Chapter Text

Lena was resting in bed when she heard the doorbell. She padded out to the foyer of her penthouse and checked the video display. The sight of Kara in her v-neck peplum cardigan and tapered slacks made her smile despite the anxiety that accompanied the thought of the blonde heroine. She disengaged the lock and opened the door.

“Hi. Using the front door today, huh?”

Kara nodded, looking her over. Lena suddenly felt awkward in her black flannel pajama bottoms and her old MIT hoodie. She decided to play it off. “See, I do own comfortable clothing.”

Kara smiled. “Well yeah, I can see that but I was checking for injuries. Also, I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

“Oh. Uh.” Lena pushed at the light titanium rimless frames. “I had lasik to fix my myopia when I was 20, but I’ve since developed astigmatism. I should go get them done again, I just… I haven’t found the time.”

Kara shook her head. “You look great.”

“Thanks.” Lena said softly, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. She had never been this underdressed or unprepared for a visit from Kara. Not that they were a regular occurrence nowadays. Her connection to Kara had changed. They had been friends. They had been enemies. Recently they’d gone back to being colleagues – at least in name. In practice they… they weren’t friends. Just strangers with memories.

The way they were together – it was like probing at a broken tooth at the back of her jaw. It hurt but she couldn’t leave it alone. They weren’t fighting but they weren’t back to normal either, whatever normal had been. They were cordial. At least mildly personal conversation didn’t make either of them hesitate and game nights weren’t awkward or strained.

“Can I come in?” Kara asked.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Of course.” Lena stepped away from the door and turned to pick up her Kindle. She’d placed it on the console table by the door before she opened it.

Lena walked towards her couch and noted how Kara looked at her gait.

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting and icing your ankle today?”

“Yes. And I’ve been reading fiction, as ordered.” Lena replied as she sat down. “I iced it when I woke up and I haven’t been doing jumping jacks or anything remotely strenuous. Honestly, I’ve been a complete bum, and I don’t even remember the last time I did this. Maybe I never have.”

Kara smiled. “Then I’m glad this is your gift to Kelly.”

Lena nodded and indicated the space beside her, encouraging Kara to sit, but the reporter just shook her head.

“Um, can I check out your ankle?”

“Ok.”

Kara put down her bag as she sank to her knees on the hardwood floor in front of Lena and reached for her right foot.

They used to touch each other: casual, friendly. A hand on the back steering the other person, catching the inside of an elbow, Lena tugging gently on Kara’s wrist, Kara grasping Lena’s hand and leading her. But that was before.

This seemed… different. This was deliberate, even more so as Kara’s palm pushed an inch higher under the cuff of her flannel pajamas and her thumb began to stroke gently over the bones of her ankle. Lena’s awareness narrowed to Kara’s hand on her leg and eyes on her face.

It felt so intimate she felt heat creeping up to her face and desire rushing south. It was positively Victorian. How could a simple touch thrill her like this? How could the soft and tender expression on Kara’s face make her heart ache this way? How was it that she could sense Kara’s warmth right now, right after the hero had sat down on the couch – neatly compact and half a foot away from her.

Lena cleared her throat. “Satisfied?”

“It seems ok.” Kara answered. “But maybe we could still ice it? I brought an elastic bandage too and maybe we could elevate it while you’re reading?”

Chapter 4: The Pier

Chapter Text

The beach was such a romanticized place, often painted with watercolors, a pretty backdrop of films, and the desired location for everyone sick of their nine to fives. The reality of the beach, however, was hot sand sticking to sweaty bodies, sunburn, obnoxious seagulls trying to steal someone’s sandwich, and salty seawater. It was a messy place, not the picturesque experience most visitors hoped for, but Nia seemed to like it nonetheless. Spring, she said, was a great time to be at the beach since it wasn’t sweltering hot.

They had come in Lena’s black Maserati Grancabrio, which thankfully seated four. Brainy knew Nia would want to take shotgun so he happily climbed in the back. Nia had squealed so much about the features of the car, even pointing out the Maserati Intelligent Assistant that pretty much acted like a butler. Lena hadn’t even needed to say anything as Nia babbled on about the engine, chassis, and overall design. What neither passenger expected was that it would be so comfortable.

Lena had simply smiled, put the top down with the push of a button, and put the powerful V6 engine to work. By the time they had pulled into a space in the concrete parking tower, Nia was wind-blown and breathless.

Now standing at the start of the Belmont pier, Nia bounced on the balls of her feet before throwing her arm around Lena’s shoulders.

Lena couldn’t help letting out a smile as Nia steered them towards the little shops.

“This place is… a lot.” Lena laughed, gesturing at all the shops and the carousel in the distance, all packed with tourists with selfie sticks and kids with ice cream.

“What, you didn’t think I’d drag you somewhere boring, did you?” Nia chirped. “You really need to get out more.”

“I get out!” Lena protested.

Nia just gave her a deadpan stare. “Just not anywhere really fun. Come on, let’s check out some of these shops.”

Nia bounded over to the nearest one. It had a blue awning and boasted sunglasses and beach wear in the window.

“Lena, you look like you’re about to go on a yacht. We gotta get you better duds!” Nia tossed a souvenir shirt at her, and Lena caught it adeptly. The youngest Luthor was now squinting at the shirt, grimacing at the highlighter yellow color.

“But-“

“Leeeeenaaaaa, come on! This is the full experience!” Nia said, looping an arm through hers. “Brainy’s going to get some new stuff too.”

“I am?” Brainy blinked in surprise. “Oh. Oh yes, I am. Absolutely.”

A few minutes later, Lena was clad in the yellow “Beach Babe” t-shirt, denim shorts that hugged her figure, and two-toned beach shoes that were surprisingly comfortable and made of sustainable hemp. Brainy handed her a bottle of sunscreen and she sprayed it on her legs and arms.

“What about your face, comrade?” Brainy asked.

“My primer is SPF 45.” At the look of confusion from the Coluan, Lena hastily added. “It’s what people put on before make-up.”

Nia grinned. “Also, cheap Coppertone is never getting near Lena’s face.”

“Accurate.” Lena smiled back. “So, what did you want to do first?”

She hoped it wasn’t going to involve sand in her shoes.

“Are you hungry?” Nia asked in return.

Lena shook her head.

Brainy finished spraying his face and stated that he had researched the day thoroughly: the most efficient thing to do was to postpone lunch while everyone else flocked to the restaurants. “I suggest staying indoors while the sun is hottest. The arcade would be best at this time.”

“Lead the way.” Lena said with a smile. It wasn’t that she was looking forward to the arcade - lots of other students at MIT had crowded around the PS3 and she found it loud and distracting. She could only assume the garish lights and sounds of an arcade would be worse. But Nia and Brainy looked so excited that she couldn’t help but smile.

If I can do an insipid gala with vapid snobs, I can do this for them. Lena reminded herself. Just smile and be happy that they’re enjoying themselves.

“There are three main types of arcade games.” Brainy explained to Lena. “The redemption games which are games of skill that reward you with e-tickets to redeem a prize. Merchandiser games allow you to win a prize directly from the machine such as this claw game.”

Lena looked over at the “Plucky Ducky” machine that promised a “prize every time”, it looked like it had hundreds of rubber ducks inside. Moving closer she saw that the multi-colored ducks were not hom*ogenous. Some had patterns like tiger stripes or giraffe print. Others had costumes like ninjas or princesses. Inexplicably a few had an inflatable swim ring. Why would a duck need a swim ring?

“The third type of games are the video games. There are no tickets or prizes and they use card readers instead of tokens.” Brainy continued.

“And I got us some tokens so we can try a few of the prize games before moving to the video games!” Nia said as she came back from the central desk. “Do you want a duckie?”

“Sure.”

Nia gawked at her as she handed Lena a token. “Wow. Really?”

Lena nodded. She examined the joystick before she put the token in. It seemed responsive and the key simply seemed to be lining up the claw with a desired prize then hitting the button to drop the claw. Then she tried and failed to retrieve a duck. “It lied.”

“No, no… you can play until you win one of the ducks.” Nia explained.

“Interesting.” Lena tried to gauge the mechanics involved. She moved the joystick experimentally, lowering the claw around a likely duck - but it didn’t catch. The next one gripped the duck but did not hold it as the claw moved towards the catch bin. She won one after the 4th try.

“Oooh Lena you got a garden gnome duck!” Nia said. “You should call it Gnomeo!”

Lena chuckled and put “Gnomeo” in her purse. As Brainy stepped up to the game she observed a few other patrons using similar machines, only the other machines seemed to have plush toys. Lena noticed that they did not say that there would be a win every time.

“Aww, it’s a surfer duck!” Nia crowed. “What are you going to call it?”

Brainy paused. “It is a yellow duck so I suppose Anas platyrhynchos domesticus.”

“You can’t call it that!”

They continued to argue until Lena let out a cry of satisfaction and the couple turned to her in curiosity.

“I know how they make money! It’s in the grip strength of the claw. It must be set at varying strengths so that the payout occurs only after a certain number of people have played. That’s why they can have a prize like the plush toy. In the duck game, where you win every time, the margin between the token price and the actual cost of each individual duck bought in bulk must be pretty good.”

“Intriguing!” Brainy replied. “Perhaps the arcade staff also pack the prizes lightly. After all, if the machine is too full, one could simply tip the toy into the bin.”

“YESSSS!”

Brainy and Lena looked over and Nia held up a duck with a red dress and a string of pearls around its neck.

“Got it on my first try.” Nia said proudly. “Her name is Miz Waddles. We should take a photo with Gnomeo and…”

“Ducktape.” Brainy replied.

Lena groaned at the pun but brought out her rubber duck for a photo alongside the others.

“So where are the games of skill?” Lena asked Brainy.

“Ah I think they should have my favorite…” Brainy said as the two women followed him deeper into the arcade. “Perfect! This is Skee-Ball. You roll the balls up the inclined plane and over the ball-hop hump which propels the ball into one of the concentric rings. The goal is to score as many points as possible, which will be collected on the arcade card as E-tickets and redeemed for a prize.”

Nia grinned. “Can I just say that this is the nerdiest arcade visit I have ever experienced?”

“You already have.” Brainy declared with a bewildered look.

Nia only laughed. “Well, we need arcade cards to play this and the video games. This is a chain of arcades, so Brainy and I already have our cards. We just have to load them with cash. I’ll go do that and get you one, Lena.”

“Oh no.” Lena placed a hand on the young Naltorian hybrid’s arm. “This is your gift. I’ll do it.”

The couple handed her their cards gratefully as Lena made her way to the counter in the center. She was happy that Sam had reminded her to bring cash for this outing. Lena looked up at the LED screen above the counter that showed the corresponding prices. She asked the clerk to load the cards with $50 each and to give her another one for herself.

The clerk shook his head. “The welcome cards are a minimum purchase of $10. These other two are Blue Elite.”

Lena frowned. “I want the same as my friends.”

“You’re a noob. To hit Blue Elite is a cumulative spend of $50.”

Lena had no idea what a noob was, but she definitely knew that tone of voice and she refused to be classed as one.

The clerk scanned the blue cards and added. “If you load both of these up with $75, I can upgrade them to Gold which is a minimum of a hundred. They can be used in any of the Exhilarama branches in the country.”

Eyeing the credit card terminal beside him, Lena pulled out her platinum card and placed it on the counter. “Do it.”

Nia’s mouth gaped open as Lena handed her and Brainy their new gold cards. “Lena! OMG do you even know how much it costs to play one of these video games?! This is way too much!”

“But we can use it in the Exhilarama Barcade near CatCo.” Brainy said. “That is an arcade with a bar. Hence the portmanteau.”

“Thank you very much, Lena.” Nia added.

“Don’t worry about it.” Lena fished out her Blue Elite card and placed it into the Skee Ball slot, before turning to the surprised couple. “What? I didn’t want to be a noob.”

Nia let out a peal of laughter before the three of them played Skee Ball beside each other. Brainy beat both of them handily.

“You have to aim for the 40 point hole, not the 100 point ones.” Nia advised.

“Also, it is best to stay low to maintain a flat trajectory as well as having a consistent release point.” Brainy added. “Keeping your wrist straight increases both accuracy and precision.”

Nia rolled her eyes but they both scored better in their second round.

Thankfully, the other games like Pinball and Air Hockey were ones that Lena had played before in college. After Brainy trounced her at Air Hockey, she looked around to find Nia standing in line behind a video game played by four teenagers.

“That is Initial D Stage Zero, Nia’s favorite video game.” Brainy explained. “You can race against other players or play against the computer.”

Lena stood beside Nia and observed. The game seemed to have a realistic steering wheel, pedals, and a 6-speed gear shift. The players themselves were using primarily Japanese cars and street racing on mountain passes. It seemed quite realistic, and the teenagers were good drivers. Lena looked on in growing interest.

“What are the different cars?” She asked Nia.

“You start with either the Nissan Skyline GTR, the Mazda RX7, Subaru Impreza, Honda Civic, or the Toyota Trueno.” Nia explained. “The story is based on a comic book in Japan where the hero delivers tofu to resorts at the top of the mountain for his family business every day, so he’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve. The Akina Speed Stars are a street racing team that the hero wants to join.”

The race ended and the pink-haired girl to Lena’s right was flipping through a menu of car parts.

“What is she doing?” Lena asked.

“She is upgrading her car.” Brainy replied. “You can do that with the points you earn when you win at races. Then if you get an Aime card at the desk, you can save your car for the next time you play the game. This enables players to customize their cars as well as save their progress for future sessions. Otherwise, their game progress is deleted.”

“And there are a lot of these video games around?”

“It’s really popular.” Nia said. “There’s always a long line for it at the Barcade after work.”

One of the teenagers left and a seat freed up.

“Why don’t you try it, Lena?” Nia encouraged.

“Oh no. You were in line first and you love this.”

“I’ll take the next one.” Nia assured her.

Lena put her card in the slot and acclimated herself to the seat. The screen showed the first scene of the story and then details about the course before asking her to select a car. She tapped her finger on her lips thoughtfully. “Which one has front wheel drive?”

“The Toyota, Honda, and Subaru.” Brainy replied immediately.

Nia grinned. “If you’re asking that question, I think I’m going to be glad I gave you a chance to play first.”

Lena only raised an eyebrow in response as she flipped through each car's stats before choosing the Toyota. She signified that she was done and began to drive. Lena used the first few seconds to get a feel for things. She was impressed by the response time of the controls. As she focused on trying to beat the computer, she came to the first turn. As she entered the tight bend, she slid the car sideways then pulled the handbrake to lock the rear wheels before flooring the gas. The car came off the turn at high speed just as she had intended.

Hmmm.

At the next turn, she pumped the gas, lifted her foot, tapped the brake, then put her foot on the gas pedal again as she steered. Again, the car’s front wheels pointed in the opposite direction of the turn and came out of it with a minimal loss of speed. The next part looked like a straightaway, so she floored it and barely beat the computer.

Lena huffed as her mind came back to her surroundings. She turned around in her seat to find her friends stunned and excited. “How do I challenge the others?”

The tow-headed boy beside her smirked as Nia taught her how to do it, and he and the other two teenagers beside her all accepted the challenge.

Lena selected a downhill racecourse. It was short but the mountain road had a lot of hairpin turns that would cause the car to slow down. Still, Lena was not the type to back down from a challenge or be beaten by teenage boys.

“You got this, Lena.” Nia said with confidence. “I can’t believe you’re drifting so well. I wouldn’t use the hand brake turns here though.”

“Sure thing, coach.” Lena quipped.

As the race began, Lena navigated the first hairpin turn by fluttering the gas like she had before but the other cars pulled ahead of her. She furrowed her brow and chased after them, closing with them at the next turn. This time she stepped on the clutch as she approached the turn then rapidly lifted her foot off the pedal before stepping on it again while she was in mid-drift. She pulled ahead of the other two cars to take 2nd place.

But second place only meant you were the first loser.

Grimly she varied her tactics to make the angle of her oversteering smaller but couldn’t quite pull ahead for very long. As the last hairpin turn approached, she realized that this wasn’t a real car, so it didn’t have real rims. Lena grinned and threw the car sideways, putting both the left tires into the gutter on the side of the road to prevent the centrifugal force from pushing the car outward. The car leapt forward. Lena kicked it into high gear and floored the gas for all she was worth.

She crossed the finish line two seconds ahead of her nearest opponent.

Lena came crashing back to reality with Nia almost pummeling her shoulder in victorious ecstasy.

“Oh. My. God. Gutter Run! You did a gutter run just like the anime!!!” Nia screamed.

“Well played, comrade!”

The towheaded boy beside her turned around and looked at her, as if for the first time. “GG. Never thought I’d be beaten by an old… I mean… older lady.”

“GG means ‘Good Game’, Lena.” Nia added.

“Good game to you too.” Lena replied to the teenager. “I had fun.”

He grinned shyly. “You’ve got some points so if you wanna keep the AE86 you should upgrade it and grab an Aime card for when you play again.”

“Should I get you one?” Brainy asked.

“Eh, why not? I have so much money left on my Exhilarama card so I might as well.”

The boy beside her looked awkward but spoke up anyway. “You could also save the points and upgrade your car later… I hope you do play again. Um, I’m VicRex420. My gaming handle I mean. So if you play online um, that would be, uh nice.”

“What’s a gaming handle?”

“Oh we don’t use real names and um it’s just for leaderboards or maybe chatting – if you like.”

“Like high scores?”

“Uh sure. Yeah.”

“Oh well then mine will be Ice Queen.”

“Just Ice Queen? A lot of people might have that handle already. You should add a few numbers.”

“Oh. I suppose… Ice Queen 1870.”

“Um, great… catch you around… sometime.”

Brainy handed her the card and Lena saved her game, opting to hoard her points until she could add more internal upgrades that would increase speed and handling. She got up and Nia loaded her arcade card and her Aime card so she could take a turn.

When they walked out of the arcade after Nia’s win, the towheaded boy gave her a shy wave.

“Someone’s got a crush on you.” Nia nudged her as she giggled. “Or should I say, on IceQueen1870.”

Lena laughed, the sound easy and free, as she followed Nia to the restaurant. She was getting very hungry. “He probably thinks I was born in 1870.”

“Where is that moniker from anyway?”

Lena paused. “The 1870 is the date when Luthor Corp was founded. The Ice Queen… It’s from college. I wasn’t anti-social or anything, there was just a limit to how close I’d let people become.”

Brainy nodded sagely. “It is who you are. Very apropos, comrade.”

“I… it’s not…” Lena paused. “Well, I suppose it is apt. After a few years I decided to lean into that reputation. But I didn’t think I was like that to you before I found out about… before everything that’s happened.”

Nia hastened to assure her. “You weren’t cold or unfeeling. Just guarded with everyone except Kara. And it’s ok if you feel that way again now. It’s totally valid that we have to earn your trust back.”

“I am prepared to prove my allegiance.” Brainy said seriously.

“Oh.”

Nia stopped walking and turned to face her. “I wanted to come here with you so you could have fun, but I also wanted to – well, just to hang out together. Kind of start again.”

“Ah. Um. That’s not strictly necessary.” Lena flexed her fingers nervously, picking at the bandaid covering her blisters. “I’m not innocent of wrongdoing.”

“It’s just… we don’t really spend any time together aside from Game Night. At least you hang out with Brainy in the lab. And I thought… well… never mind.”

Lena caught Brainy’s worried expression over his girlfriend’s shoulder and she reassured the young woman. “We can. Hang out, I mean. I wanted to give you this gift, Nia. And I am having fun. Sorry, I… I’m just not used to any of this.”

“Perhaps the point is that you can get used to this.” Brainy chimed in.

“It would be really cool if you did.” Nia nodded. “And I’m having fun with you too.”

Lena smiled at both of them as they got a table at Chowda. It had a mascot out front with a sign that read “Send in the Clams” and Lena smirked at the pun. She eyed the spiny lobsters in the tank appraisingly, wondering how different they would taste from the ones on the east coast. Lena decided to have a lobster roll with a side of baked parmesan zucchini. Brainy had the crab and shrimp sandwich, while Nia had ordered what was clearly their special: clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.

Both of them seemed determined to drive away any iota of melancholy from her body as Nia plied her with questions about how she had learned to drift and Brainy kept up a steady stream of observations about the physics of intentionally oversteering with loss of traction while driving through a turn.

The sun was warm, but the sea breeze was crisp. The lobster had just the right amount of sweetness. The conversation was light and interesting. Lena couldn’t help but take deep breaths and relax into it all.

They had just about finished the meal when Nia started waving. Lena turned around and almost choked on her zucchini. Kara was truly lovely in her faded check shirt and tan shorts. Her sleeves were rolled up against lithe biceps and unbuttoned to reveal a gray Snoopy t-shirt. Her blonde hair was tied in a half-ponytail to keep it off her face, but tendrils still escaped the band as they were caught by the wind. In the sunlight, her eyes were as calm as the Adriatic and just as blue. And her smile, God her smile, so innocent and warm as she took the seat beside Lena.

Lena chastised herself as she resumed chewing, knowing her heart rate had kicked up and that she had looked completely f*ckstruck. She tried to focus on the conversation that had just started.

“Oh, we had a great time at the arcade and Lena picked up a few teenaged admirers.” Nia told the Kryptonian.

Lena scoffed. “One is hardly a few.”

“That was just the one who didn’t waste his shot.” Nia teased. “You didn’t see the boys, and frankly a few girls, who were watching you play.”

“Well, it’s only because they don’t know I’m a Luthor.”

Kara nudged her gently. “It’s because you’re awesome… and stunning.”

She felt her face grow hot and her eyes drop to the table. She never knew what to say when Kara said things like that, especially when she said them in front of other people. And definitely when she said them now, after everything that had happened between them.

Kara’s arm brushed over hers as she reached over to finish off Brainy’s fries, much to the Coluan’s displeasure. Thankfully their argument changed the subject, though Nia was looking at her thoughtfully.

After Lena paid the bill, the group decided to head towards Pacific Park near the end of the pier to check out the rides. She gulped at the oceanfront steel roller coaster that seemed to drop at an 80 degree angle before looping completely at 50 mph. Intellectually she knew, she really did, that the coaster was safe. The net force would most likely be much less than 4 Gs.

“You don’t have to ride it, if you don’t want to.” Kara said quietly. The reporter’s pillowy tote bag bumped gently against Lena’s arm as she moved closer.

Lena shook her head. “I want Nia to have a good time.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to have a bad one.”

Nia nodded in agreement as she and Brainy caught up to them. “The Tsunami’s not for everybody. Since I knew Kara could only leave CatCo after lunch, I thought you two might want to do a few things together. Brainy and I booked a trapeze lesson for an hour and a half. But it would be really cool if all of us could ride something together before then.”

“Um, what about that one?” Lena pointed at a neon ride with padded metal cars in the shape of open-mouthed sharks.

“The Hungry Shark tilt-a-whirl is for kids though.” Nia replied.

Lena took in the other rides, dismissing a few that were clearly for children and the Atmosfear which was a tower that rose high in the air and then plunged the riders over 44 feet down.

“Perhaps the Go Bump?” Brainy suggested. “They are electric vehicles with rubber bumper tubes that you purposely collide for entertainment.”

Kara added. “The Seaside Swing is great too. Everyone sits on a long bench side by side and it sways over the bay. It’s got great views.”

“That one?” Lena balked. It looked like the wooden ship moved in a 180 degree arc and people were screaming. Loudly.

Kara put an arm around her waist and gently turned Lena until she saw the ride she was talking about. “That’s the swing. It’s really nice.”

It seemed to be swinging relatively slowly in a 45 degree arc, and Lena saw that there were a few small children too.

Lena nodded. “We can do the bumper cars and the swing. And maybe the planes?”

Lena pointed to the colorful crop duster-style seaplanes. They could be rotated while the planes rushed up and down around the ride’s axis.

Her suggestion was met with “Aw yeah!” and “Let’s do this!” as they moved towards the rides. Lena found herself laughing so much that she could feel the slight strain on her abdominal muscles that usually came with Pilates. Chasing after the others on the bumper cars that were surprisingly fast, feeling safe even as Nia spun their plane around madly because Kara had put her arm around her waist, and then looking over the San Carlos peninsula and the peak of Mount Hoffman in the distance as she sat between Kara and Brainy as the ride swung over the bay… Lena had to admit that she was… she was happy.

Afterwards, Brainy and Nia left for their trapeze lesson, but not before the group agreed to meet at 5:30pm at the iconic Ferris Wheel, just to catch the sunset. And now she and Kara were alone, walking in a silence that seemed physically present between them. It was awkward more than it was companionable. Nothing like the way they used to be.

Maybe never again. So Lena stayed within herself, matching Kara’s pace.

Lena had never realized how fast people walked in Metropolis until she had moved to National City. Especially in a tourist trap like the Belmont Pier. Though the term “walking” seemed generous. “Ambling” may have been a better fit. Or “dawdling”. Still, Lena couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed today, since Kara sauntered along just as slowly as everyone else, often pausing to lean over the railing and admire the expanse of golden sand and blue ocean and colorful beach umbrellas before her and snap away with her Instax camera. More than a minute seldom passed where Lena didn’t hear the click of the shutter.

“Why the plastic camera and not your phone?” Lena asked.

Kara paused, tilting her head as she formulated her answer. “I guess because with the Instax each image is unique and special. I mean with digital photos you can just delete them or edit, crop, fix, and filter them but this… it’s one and done. There are no second chances. No do-overs. Kind of like life. I think that’s precious.”

Lena let out a hmmm as they started walking again. She realized that to Kara, even though she was practically immortal, this time was precious. There hadn’t been an emergency she had to zoom off to yet, nor was there a high stakes cataclysm… it was one of the few times that Kara could just… be. She looked over as the blonde admired the instant photo she had just taken of rainbow-colored kites dipping and bobbing and twisting in the sea breeze.

It really didn’t matter if everyone in California walked so goddamn slow. It was a small price to pay when Lena got to watch Kara beaming in her National City Sharks cap as she snapped photos of shore birds and gulls.

“That’s a lot of bird photos.” Lena observed as Kara tucked a pile of 10 instax photos in her tote bag and reloaded the camera.

“We didn’t have them on Kryp- where I grew up.” Kara lowered her voice to a whisper. “I mean not birds exactly but flying animals were extinct by the time I was born.”

The blonde took a photo of an ice cream stand with bright, striped awnings; a little boy was in the foreground happily licking the droplets of strawberry ice cream that were dripping on his cone. Lena wondered what Kara was like at that age, marveled at all she had lost and all she still remembered.

When Kara’s fingers suddenly found hers as they walked, pointing out the sights and sounds with her free hand, Lena remembered what Kelly had said – that she was denying Kara the opportunity to experience these things with her.

“Oooh! The carousel!” Kara gasped, and Lena watched as the blue eyes took in the sign on the brick building to their left. “Let’s go in and see it so I can take pictures. Or I’ll buy you a ticket. I bet you’ve never been.”

Kara towed her through the crowd.

“I think I’m too old to ride a carousel.” Lena commented. But Kara seemed to know her well enough to tell that she actually wanted to try.

“What if I bought one for myself, too?”

“Then I suppose I could be convinced,” Lena said nonchalantly. Kara looked pleased with herself. As if she was happy that, even after everything that had happened between them, she could read what Lena truly wanted. Most of the time, anyway.

“Come on, then,” Lena said, and Kara all but dragged her over to the ticket counter. With two tickets in hand, they watched the horses spin around and around while jaunty music played as they waited for the ride to stop.

“I haven’t ridden one of these things since I was a kid,” Kara said, thoughtfully. “There was one at the Midvale Mall. Just a small one. And then there was a really old, fancy one like this at this botanical garden museum sort of place near Jeremiah’s hometown in Colorado. We went for my Ear-birthday. We went for my birthday once.”

“That sounds wonderful.” Lena said gently. She thought for a moment how it was getting easier for Kara to mention these things – true things about her life - without Lena’s chest growing tight.

“It was,” Kara said. She steered Lena towards the gate as the carousel jangled to a stop and the previous group of riders - a mix of children, parents, and couples, clambered down from their horses. “Come on. We’re up next.”

“We should make sure your horse is awesome.” Kara added. Once she’d handed her ticket over to the ride attendant, Kara cheerfully inspected the wooden horses with their jewel toned saddles adorned with gemstones and gold leaf.

“You choose for me.” Lena said softly, jostling Kara gently with her elbow.

“Okay.” Kara replied. She surveyed the horses with mock seriousness and settled on a golden colored horse with a cream-colored mane and tail. It sported a blue, bejeweled saddle and bridle and it was posed frozen in a powerful, athletic leap. “This can be your horse. And this one’s mine,” she added, swinging aboard the horse next to it, a black and white spotted one prancing in a grenadine red harness.

Lena climbed onto her horse just as the music started. She recognized the tune as “My Darling Clementine,” but played on a calliope it sounded far more carnivalesque than she was accustomed to.

Then Kara held up the camera. “May I?”

“Ok.”

If just about anyone else ever tried to take her photo, she’d have moved away. But she didn’t mind with Kara. It was amazing, in a way, how easy it was to fall into this rhythm with her. How beautiful it was that ultimately, Lena trusted her again. Kara could take her photo as many times as she liked, and she knew that the second she said she wanted Kara to stop she would.

The first few times Kara had photographed her with her phone, it had made her skin prickle. But she hadn’t felt that way in a long time. There were bad days, of course, but Kara would never even dream of turning a camera on her then.

When she was dating James he always tried to cajole her out of her reticence, praising her beauty or the light or the scenery – taking her photo even when she was asleep and most vulnerable.

Kara was different. Kara had always been different.

Now the heroine’s laugh was full-throated while she tried to take photos as the horses rose and fell opposite from each other. With her arm hooked around the pole, Kara contorted herself for the sake of getting the angle and the lighting how she wanted it. Kara’s phone rang suddenly and she had to reach down at super speed to prevent her Instax camera from falling to the floor.

“I can hold it.” Lena offered.

Kara nodded and carefully handed the camera over, making sure Lena had a secure grip before she let go and quickly shot off a text that she couldn’t take the call. The horses continued to bound up and down.

“Smile,” Lena said, locating Kara in the small viewfinder.

“No fair!” Kara pretended to grouse but Lena heard the fondness in her voice. A fondness she hadn’t known she’d been missing for almost a year. Kara flashed a peace sign and pulled faces as the carousel spun around. Though Lena was no photographer, she was pretty certain she’d managed to get a few shots of Kara smiling and laughing between the dorky expressions she’d offered up.

“Let’s try and take one together,” Kara said and took the camera back. They both nearly toppled off the horses trying to get themselves in the frame together. When the ride operator caught sight of them he yelled at them to cut it out, and they sat back down, snickering and not entirely contrite as the ride slowed and stopped.

A kind woman with two little kids in tow offered to take one for them. First though, Kara’s gaze met Lena’s, looking for confirmation that Lena was fine with it. Lena wasn’t delighted by the concept, but she nodded her assent. It would be worth it to be uncomfortable for a few moments to get the resulting photograph – she had destroyed all the others that they’d taken before. And somehow, since it was still Kara’s camera even if she wasn’t the one wielding it, it seemed like it could be tolerable.

Kara handed the woman the camera after explaining that what was in the viewfinder wasn’t entirely accurate so she’d have to keep the two of them in the center.

Lena, not having done this in a while, couldn’t quite figure out how to pose. But Kara, forever a natural, reached out and grabbed Lena's hand. She leaned as close as she could, accounting for the gap between the horses. Following suit, Lena angled her body towards Kara and felt surprised that her smile didn’t feel forced. Kara’s grip on her hand felt grounding and comforting and the photo was taken before she even had too much time to worry about it.

“Okay, that should do it,” the woman said and passed the camera back to them. “Enjoy your date, ladies.”

It was a testament to Lena’s well-honed boardroom skills that she simply turned to a very red-faced Kara and said: “Shall we try some of those carnival games we passed by?”

“Yes! Games! Games are fun!” Kara babbled as she took Lena’s hand and pulled her out of the building and onto the boardwalk.

Kara kept up a steady chatter as she kept hold of Lena’s hand. She explained each wooden or fiberglass booth that they passed. She had seen some of these on TV shows or movies before: “Whack-A-Mole'' with its foam mallets, “Beach Bash” where you hurled beanbags against a stack of blocks, “Hoop Mania'' where two players tried to score as many baskets as they could within a time limit... but she listened to Kara anyway. Her hand was cradled firmly in the Kryptonian’s as they made their way through the throng of people. It felt safe and familiar.

Lena noticed that even though it was cooler now and most people were outside, very few were playing. When she brought this up with Kara, the blonde explained that some of the games needed at least 4 players as they were races. “That’s why the staff are yelling so loud. Sometimes it just takes one person to break the seal and get a race going. Or there are people already waiting and they need a few more.”

A particularly loud staff member saw them and motioned at Kara, something about winning a teddy bear for her pretty lady. Lena pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows as she looked at Kara, and the twitch of blonde’s lips told Lena that she knew exactly what the CEO was thinking.

“You want to show him you’re perfectly capable of winning your own teddy bear?” Kara asked, amusem*nt in every syllable. And while it wasn’t quite an invitation, Lena didn’t have to be asked twice.

The two of them made their way to the fiberglass game that was labeled “Top Glow”. Aside from the gleaming metal tubes that appeared to shoot water, the entire stand was a riot of color. The shelves and walls were laden with plush toys, some of them even hung between the LED bulbs that dotted the rafters. But they were in colors that Lena had never seen before: a purple bear, a fuchsia unicorn, an aquamarine giraffe, and then monkeys and sloths that looked like they had been tortured on a rack to stretch their limbs to ridiculous lengths then hurled through a rainbow. All in all, it looked like a very bad acid trip.

There were three other people who were standing in front of their water pistols – a father and son pair, a teenage boy with shoulder length hair and a nose piercing, as well as a preppy looking co-ed.

“Alright folks, now we’ve got a race! It’s $6 to play. Go ahead and take your seats.” The attendant announced as he took Lena’s cash. “All you have to do is squirt the water into the hole in the disc. The more water that goes in, the higher the lighted tube goes up. The first player to the top is the winner.”

Lena focused on the garish target. The disc was painted with the words “Shoot Here” in neon letters. She could clearly see the hole that led to a water receptacle which must trigger the movement of the tube.

“Everybody ready?” The attendant asked.

Kara put her hand on Lena’s shoulder and flashed her a smile.

“In 3… 2… 1… Let’s gooooooooooo!!!”

Not five minutes later, the attendant handed her the least objectionable stuffed animal from behind the stall – a royal blue Pegasus with a white horn and white wings. Lena presented it to Kara as she tried not to look smug.

“Here,” she grinned, “I won this for you.”

Kara threw her head back and laughed, accepting the stuffed toy with a flourish. She didn’t thank her with words but enveloped her in a hug that seemed to say so much more. Lena felt the too-warm-to-be-human arm wrap around her waist and they stood there for a couple of moments; leaning on each other, letting the crowd flow around them.

After a moment Kara broke the silence asking, “what should I name it?”

“Well, um, you could always go with the classics and call her Amaltheia.” Lena suggested.

Kara wrinkled her nose. “It just doesn’t seem right. She doesn’t look like an Amaltheia.”

“Jewel from the Chronicles of Narnia?” Lena suggested.

Kara pulled away and lifted the unicorn-pegasus plush toy up to her face, looking into its eyes. Lena couldn’t help the way her mouth wreathed into a smile at the sight.

“Her name is Starlight.” Kara said after a moment. “She’s magic and she can help you find your way home.”

She turned the toy around and took the toy’s right… forelock… and made its hoof wave at Lena. The engineer quickly squelched the impulse to wave right back.

“I love it, Lena.” Kara looked her in the eye with such gentle warmth. She opened her mouth to say more but then something over Lena’s shoulder caught her eye. “Let’s go get some cotton candy!”

Lena turned, catching sight of the vendor she was talking about. “Ok.”

They wandered over, weaving in between other people. Once they were in line, Kara asked “Do you want to get your own or split with me?”

“Are you sure you want to split one?” Lena asked back, poking the Kryptonian in the stomach and blushing as her finger connected with abs so firm they might have been sculpted by the gods.

Kara only nodded. “I know it’s too sweet for you.”

“Mmm. Ok. Sour apple?”

“Sure. I can get a few hotdogs for us too.”

As they waited in line, Lena let her eyes wander the pier. Eventually they landed on a family that was just getting ready to leave their bench by the railing. Lena pointed it out to Kara, “give me your bag and Starlight and I’ll wait over there while you get the cotton candy and the hotdogs.”

Lena hurriedly secured the bench and took the opportunity to check her phone. She was still stunned that Jess had locked her out of her email and that the only messages were from Sam and Ruby. They had apparently gone to Six Flags with other moms and kids from Ruby’s old school when they lived in National City. Ruby had sent her photos of several types of roller coaster kits, asking which one she and Lena could build together. Whereas Sam had peppered her phone with various texts ranging from boredom to annoyance. Lena shook her head. She supposed that just because the children got along didn’t mean that their mothers did.

Lena made a quick call to “rescue” Sam, ostensibly for work. However, once Sam found out that Kara had joined her at the pier, she insisted that Lena enjoy their time together. By the time she hung up, the Kryptonian in question had plopped down beside her.

Without speaking about it, they seemed to have agreed to savor the relatively quiet time. Though there were a lot of people moving behind them, the ocean looked lovely and the sound of the waves caressing the shore wasn’t drowned out by the crowd.

They passed the cotton candy back and forth until it was gone, chatting contentedly. Kara had picked up some strawberry lemonade as well, which Lena sipped at while she took lazy bites of her hotdog.

At times like this, Lena always waited to feel something. She was always watching, suspicious, for the first stirrings of a dangerous sentimentality. It was always quiet moments like this that did it to her - the moments that made her want to hurl every instinctive reticence out into space and just surrender to her… to this gorgeous woman with eyes that sparkled like the finest sapphires. It was moments like this that made her want to give herself completely to Kara in a way that would be truly dangerous.

Perhaps there had been a chance before. But now, well, Lena should count herself lucky that she had the chance to rebuild their friendship at all.

She suddenly felt the pad of Kara’s thumb drag slowly across the velvet swell of her bottom lip. She felt the heat spike low in the cradle of her hips as her mouth opened around a silent gasp.

“Ketchup.” Kara explained, hastily withdrawing her hand. “Sorry, I…”

The Kryptonian handed her a rough paper napkin and Lena nodded her thanks, dabbing at the remainder on her mouth and trying not to look as flustered as she felt. Lena breathed a guilty sigh of relief when a familiar look came over Kara’s face. Wordlessly, she took Kara’s things as the heroine stuffed the remaining hotdog in her mouth and ducked behind a building. Moments later, Supergirl flew off into the bright blue, her cape billowing behind her.

Left alone, Lena meandered over to the shop windows, peering at the dizzying array of trinkets, sunglasses, beach wear, and bric-a-brac. She stopped at one of the hipster looking boutiques that seemed to have an array of trendy cameras made of plastic. Curious, she walked in and asked the staff if the cameras took Instax film. After finding the ones that did, Lena selected one that had three shooting modes, had 4 apertures, and took 4 AAA batteries. It was in a nice cappuccino color as well and she thought Kara might like it.

When Lena walked over to the place they’d all agreed to meet at, she found Nia and Brainy breathless from their trapeze lesson. They chattered happily, easily, in a way that made Lena feel included and valued. Almost as if telling her about their experience was important to both of them. Perhaps it was.

“You and Kara should definitely try it!” Nia chirped.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Lena replied. “I think she might find that a bit boring considering what she does normally. Besides, I’d probably be really bad at it.”

Lena felt a gentle hand at her elbow and turned to see the woman in question with a smile below her brilliant blue eyes. “If you reach out to me, I’ll always catch you.”

Heat rushed up to Lena’s cheeks at the unintended intimacy of it, at how Kara could always blurt out these things so freely. She cleared her throat as Kara took her bag back. “How was the work thing you had to take care of?”

“Pretty average.” Kara said, placing her hand on the small of Lena’s back as if to guide her towards the end of the line for the Ferris Wheel. The hand lingered, warm and sure, and Lena could feel Kara’s touch through the thin cotton of the cheap t-shirt. When Kara finally moved to use her hands to gesture as she tried to copy Brainy’s hands when he had caught Nia, Lena felt as if all the warmth had left her body.

As they got closer to the ride, Lena looked on apprehensively. She didn’t like that there were no seatbelts and that the emergency door seemed too easy to open, but she’d already gone this far. Plus, everyone and their grandmother had ridden this thing at some point, and Lena felt like she’d know about it if someone had died.

When it was their turn to board, she was surprised that Brainy and Nia chose to ride separately when the pod could easily fit 6 people. Nia turned and raised her eyebrows, just the way Sam always did when she wanted private time with a guy. Lena winked back then pressed her lips together.

Kara was with her. Kara would keep her safe if the worst happened.

“Are you afraid of heights?” Kara asked quietly as they boarded. The blonde sat right next to Lena as just a small but perfectly unreasonable twinge of fear rose in her stomach.

“Not really.” Lena fibbed, then thought the better of it. “Sometimes.”

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay.” Kara turned to her, eyebrows knitted in concern.

Lena placed both hands on her lap. She tried not to look out at the ground below as the wheel began to move. It seemed a little fast. Was it supposed to be this fast? Wasn’t it supposed to be a leisurely turn?

Kara scooted closer to her, brushing her leg against Lena’s. Lena shut her eyes, focusing on the comforting feeling of Kara’s physical touch, reminding herself to breathe.

After a moment, she felt confident enough to open her eyes. She expected Kara to be looking out at the shoreline below them, but Kara’s eyes were trained on her, wide and full of worry.

“Sorry, I’m probably ruining the ride for you.” Lena tore her eyes away and looked down at her lap.

“Lena…” Kara whispered, almost chiding. She didn’t have to say it, but Lena knew it was silly of her to have thought like that. She felt a hand on her shoulder as Kara continued. “I care more about making sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay now.” Lena breathed, putting on a brave smile. “Is it pretty out there?” She asked, still afraid to look out at the world below them. They were just about at the top of the wheel’s path now. The lights on the spokes were currently a cool blue, contrasting the warm sky and sending wild shadows across Kara’s face.

Kara turned to look out behind her and nodded. “It’s really beautiful.” Her enthusiasm was mellow, and Lena could tell Kara was trying not to add any stress or pressure to the experience as the wheel continued to take them around another time.

Feeling emboldened, Lena peeked over the wall of the pod, finally catching a glimpse of the houses dotting the hills overlooking the beach and the flock of seagulls flying low over the sand. With the sun fading, the beach was more open and a few bonfires had been lit, small circles of people hovering around them, perhaps roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. It was pretty like a postcard, even though it made Lena’s stomach do another little cartwheel.

“I guess it’s silly.” Lena breathed softly. “Illogical. You could easily save me.”

“I would.”

“I know.”

Kara tilted her head a little. “Do you?”

“Of course, you’d save anybody if you could.”

“I’d save you.” Kara emphasized. “I always will.”

Lena shivered and shook her head. “You’ll always try. Sometimes, I… there are things you can’t save me from, Kara. Things that I’ve done. Things that I am.”

Fingers that could split the planet in two were on her chin now, tilting it towards those blue eyes with a gentleness used only for flowers.

“Then I’ll help you save you.” Kara said firmly.

“What if I don’t want to be saved?”

“Then you’ll hate me, but you’ll be safe… alive… whole.” Kara whispered. “That’s what matters most.”

The sea breeze tousled her golden hair and for a brief moment she was silhouetted by the blue of the ocean and Lena fought the overwhelming urge to kiss her. But the wheel turned towards the ground and Kara’s touch left her bereft once more.

They rejoined Brainy and Nia, and all four of them walked to the very edge of the pier. Fishermen were packing up, parents were carrying their young children and herding the older ones towards their cars. Only a few couples were left, and they were either making their way to the beach or to the restaurants.

Brainy slung his arm around her shoulders suddenly. “I know this is Nia’s gift, but spending time with you in this way has been joyous for me as well.”

“It’s better than anything else you could have bought me.” Nia agreed. The young woman reached out a hand, then pulled it back. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m going to come in for a side hug, if that’s ok?”

Lena felt tears, sentimental and unexplainable, push towards her eyes but she kept them in. She nodded instead and opened her arms a little before being sandwiched in a side hug by the couple.

She heard the click of Kara’s instax camera as the Kryptonian flashed her an apologetic grin. “Sorry. It was too good to miss.”

Lena shook her head. “It’s ok. Can I… can I have that? I’ll scan it and send it to all of you, if you want.”

Nia and Brainy nodded as Kara handed her the photo with a smile. They turned towards the ocean. The orange gold of the sunset stretched far and wide, the color of hearths and tangerines. It was just the reflection of the dawn, the promise of the rising sun that came after the blackness would have its way and the land had rested once more.

Lena glanced at Kara then, her beauty framed by the dying glow. She wondered if Kara would have looked like this if Krypton had survived, if she would be this exquisite under Rao’s light. She looked lost in the rhythmic percussion of waves on sand. Her eyes were steady on the horizon, face aglow with the last deep reds before twilight beckoned the stars. Her lips bore the semblance of a smile, just enough to show that she was enjoying her thoughts.

Lena couldn’t resist moving closer, but she did stay quiet, hoping to let Kara stay lost in this moment of peace a while longer.

When the recumbent light faded, they started walking back towards the pier entrance. Brainy and Nia’s fingers intertwined, Kara looking out over the railing at the ocean. Lena shoved her hands in her pockets to stifle the urge to reach out to her. With the sun gone, most of the street performers had left the pier and the shops had closed up, leaving mostly vendors and tourists - who were all looking a little chilly now.

Nia turned towards the two of them. “We’re going to call an uber. Thank you for a wonderful birthday gift, Lena.”

“It seemed more like a gift to me than to you.” Lena replied. “So it truly is my pleasure.”

Kara waved at the retreating couple before looking at Lena beseechingly. “Wanna walk down the beach for a bit?”

“Sure.” Lena agreed, glad that Nia had made her buy the beach shoes.

Kara shucked off her sandals, and they left the pier for the soft sand that still held some of the warmth it collected from the sun during the day. Kara looked like she was enjoying the feeling of sand between her toes and the distant sound of an Italian restaurant’s music mingling with the gentle roar of the waves.

A short lady in a brightly colored dress was selling churros on the beach, so they stopped to buy some. When she handed one to Kara, it was still warm and she could smell the cinnamon and sugar. Kara closed her eyes, as if to let the smell fill her lungs for a moment before biting into it. They continued down the beach again, churros in hand. Kara finished hers in a heartbeat, but Lena took her time.

Kara reached into her bag and unrolled a blanket on the sand. “Sit with me a while?”

Lena nodded, gingerly getting on the blanket. Her bag was getting a bit heavy and Lena suddenly remembered why. “Oh, um, here… I forgot to give this to you earlier.”

The blonde let out a gasp when she took the new camera out of its plastic bag. “Lena! This is a Lomo San Remo!”

“Is that… good?” She asked. “It’s still made of plastic but it has a bunch of features that-”

“It’s perfect! You’re perfect!” Kara’s excited smile lit up the twilight and rivaled the stars that were just beginning to peek out. “Thank you for always thinking of me, Lena.”

And then suddenly it was there, that soft embrace that she’d been longing for - the one she dreamed that Kara only gave to her, the inexplicable tenderness that seemed to slice every raw and aching part of her.

Never before had Lena noticed how time was so much like water; that it could pass slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. People said it was measured and constant, tick tock, part of an orderly world; they were wrong. The last few months had passed like thousands of camera frames shown one at a time. In this slow time-bubble the birdsong was louder, coldness was colder and colors were brighter. All the while her insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing left, nothing to value.

This… this moment with Kara felt dangerous… and completely undeserved.

Lena choked back a sob and tore herself away, busying herself with the innards of her bag. Kara’s hand covered hers, stilling them gently.

“What is it?” Kara asked. “What’s wrong?”

What could she say? How could she possibly explain that this all felt fraudulent? The firmness of Kara’s body, so close to her now on the old beach blanket; her warm breath chasing the chill of the eventide; an arm reaching out now to drape loosely over her waist, pulling her closer.

But Lena knew.

Lena knew that this intimacy meant something different to her than it did to Kara. Lena knew that Kara was trying to rebuild a friendship, trying to comfort her even if she didn't understand. And Lena knew that she wanted to prolong the experience, to sit still in this softness just for a little while. She knew that she wanted to pretend.

“Lena?”

“It… It’s ok. I’m ok, Kara.”

Kara hummed, clearly not believing a word of it but willing to let it slide. She tucked Lena closer to her side. “You do, you know, think of me. Sam was right when she said that you’re always thinking of ways to help me or protect me. No matter… no matter who you thought I was. You always think of me.”

It may come as a shock to you, but I don’t think about you while I’m doing it.

“Kara, I -”

“Please don’t.” The heroine interrupted. “Please don’t say something bad about yourself.”

“But-”

“Lena, please!”

She shut her mouth abruptly at the plaintiveness in Kara’s voice, the same desperation she heard filtered through a hologram in Mount Norquay. Lena knew she’d see the same expression on Kara’s face, that look on her face when the Kryptonite cannons were pointed at her. Her life on the line, and Kara’s only fear that Lena would come to hate herself.

“I know what I want to ask for now.” Kara said, her voice hoarse in the growing darkness. “If I still can.”

“You can.”

“I… Can I have one night, Lena? One night without all of this between us. Please. I just want to be with you.”

She closed her eyes. So it had come to this.

Lena was good at this sort of thing. Better than good. She knew when a touch or a look said “Let’s f*ck.” If she was interested, she spared strangers the necessity of having to say it aloud. She knew how to take a woman in the stall of a ladies’ room. How to tell if she wanted to be f*cked or if she wanted to come. Sometimes both. She had done it so often throughout college that she was great at knowing when a stranger was going to need more than a darkened passageway or a stairwell.

She had a good body. It was natural, biological, for people to want it. Strangers. Sometimes friends. It wasn’t personal. It was probably nothing more than the fact that however proficient one’s own hands became at self-satisfaction, sometimes one wanted the consideration that came with a partner.

And some women were curious. Straight women had played this game many times with Lena, the touches that pretended to be innocent, the curious inquiries, then either the courage to find out or a retreat back to known territory.

Though, in Kara’s case, she was also probably trying to f*ck something loose – something destructive that had embedded small vicious hooks inside her, tearing at her until everything tasted like blood.

Not that Kara knew that. But Lena did. She’d been there. She’d been that. Too many times in her life.

Lena was unprepared. With anyone else, she would have gone along with it and seen where things led. Normally it didn’t matter. Everything about Kara mattered. So everything about this would hurt Lena.

Here it was at last.

Restitution.

“Lena?”

She nodded. “Yes. One night.”

It would sear itself into every molecule in her body and be the worst form of self-harm, but it was just. It was fitting. Lena threw self-respect and self-preservation at Kara’s feet, knowing that for every night thereafter she would twist like she had swallowed glass - longing for even a single moment of it to be real.

Chapter 5: The Road Trip

Chapter Text

It was convenient that the spa day that Ruby had requested had been scheduled for today. Lena hadn’t let herself go per se, but she hadn’t really prioritized looking good naked either. The Rolls took her to Cavallo Point, the historic estate had been turned into a spa and housed an excellent restaurant to boot. Lena had called them up herself once she’d gotten back from the pier last night just to book some extra treatments.

She took a shower and soaked in their meditation pool. Lena tried to relax, but she couldn’t quite take her mind off the enormity of what was going to happen with Kara and the “one night” she had promised. Had Kara meant that literally? Surely she’d only meant the standard sapphic hour or so? And Lena didn’t even know exactly how to satisfy a Kryptonian. She’d tried to look up the biology of it the night before and had come up with nothing. Lena had tossed and turned the whole night. The lack of sleep, more than anything, had probably been the reason she dozed as she was getting the Signature Clinical Massage - which was rigorous and deep.

Lena stretched after the massage therapist woke her after the 90 minutes was over. Her body felt better, looser than it had been in ages. After getting herself waxed, she ate a light meal at Sula: the fresh local ingredients complemented by a vintage Californian wine from 1972. Lena brooded as she looked out the windows at the sweeping view of the bay and the National City skyline.

Lena was distracted throughout her mani-pedi, she almost forgot to dread the trip to the Mission Distillery the next day. It only dawned on her when she finally checked her phone on the way back to the penthouse and saw that the groceries she’d ordered for the trip had been delivered.

Kara had always tried to get Lena and Alex to bond, swearing that they’d love each other if they knew each other. It wasn’t like Lena couldn’t see it, she and Alex had the same scientific interests. They had the same taste in liquor. And, as far as Kara was concerned, Lena and Alex cared about her exactly the same way. The fact that this last point was a farce did not occur to the heroine at all.

Either way, spending extended time alone with the very protective older sister of the woman she was pining for was about as relaxing to Lena as a colonoscopy in the woods with a dull stick.

But Alex had simply declared it with such finality - and with an air of familiarity that stunned the youngest Luthor. Alex had stated that they’d take a trip to the distillery with a confidence that bordered on entitlement, something Lena hadn’t heard since… well, since Mercy Graves had taken her under her wing. And that alone gave her the same cautiousness that made her check for traffic before she crossed a road.

Alex was late. They were supposed to start off half an hour ago. Lena had put the small cooler with bottles of water and cold brew coffee on the floor behind the driver’s seat and the bag of snacks right beside it. After 15 minutes of sitting in her car, she popped the hood. The onboard computer told her it had enough water, oil, and gas but she was bored enough to check for herself anyway.

The growl of Alex’s Ducati echoed through the garage before she took it into her head to take the car’s engine apart to take a closer look at everything. Alex’s bike was a beautiful machine, though impractical and complete overkill for National City. Lena wondered if Alex had used it on the open roads near Midvale, or if it had simply been a way to vent her latent queer-ness when she hadn’t yet realized she was gay.

“Sorry.” Alex said as she took off her helmet. “Traffic on Castro and Hayes Circle was terrible.”

“No problem. I’m glad the city is repairing the roads, but it really makes things back up.” Lena replied. Small talk was safe. It was fine.

Alex had brought her own chips, which she tucked with her backpack at her feet as she made herself comfortable in the front seat. “Damn, so this is how the 1% live. Panoramic roof, cushy leather, and oh my God, is this memory foam?”

“Yes. It’s very comfortable for long drives.”

“How far have you taken it?” Alex asked.

Lena shrugged. “Not as far as I wanted, but I did drive from Metropolis to Rockport once.”

“Nice!” Alex replied as they pulled out of the building’s garage. “What did you do up in Maine? Sailing or something?”

“I was… hoping to meet someone.”

“Hoping? You didn’t get to meet them?”

Some days I think I never will. Lena deflected. “Something like that.”

The trip had been an unconscious compulsion, a mindless submission to instinct with no notion of what she might find at the end or whether there would be an end at all. She could have kept driving forever, never finding herself, and she wouldn’t have cared.

Drag racing down the empty and unpoliced streets of the Gold Coast on all those angry summers when she had to be at the Luthor Mansion - the Maserati had sated that. The McLaren was the car of her adulthood - it was Sam and Ruby, it was Jack, but mostly it was her… just Lena, just driving.

And one day she’d pulled out of Luthor Corp headquarters to drive back to Boston and she just… kept going. Even though Jack was waiting for her. She just drove past her life. At first it was like driving to work or a mall, it was so quotidian, what with the traffic and innumerable billboards for Starbucks. It was once she'd turned toward Maine that she began to feel she was really going somewhere. The cloak of civilization slipped away, the towers of cities vanished beneath the horizon, and she was gone. Maybe this was how knights felt when they set off on random quests.

On that trip, she'd felt her old self slipping away mile by mile. She'd left it behind, like her startup, her side job at the accursed family business, her apartment in Boston, her boyfriend, and her family. All her thoughts and desires melted from her in the moonlight until she was a cipher, an undifferentiated sack of protoplasm waiting for genetic instructions. Those hours on the unfamiliar highway, barely stopping except for gas, armored for her quest in cheap jeans and flannel she’d bought at a Walmart along the way, following the enormous late-summer moon as though nothing else existed — it had been Joseph Campbell's night-sea journey if there ever was one.

She had never read Campbell before that trip. Aside from a few excerpts in college, she’d basically just known the highlights. She'd been a pretty focused student, and comparative religion was about as far from mechanical engineering as you could get. On that trip she read a few passages from a dog-eared copy of “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. It had been a gift from Sam, not a new book but a well-loved one, more meaningful that way. Lena often thought of her best friend with a fond smile on that drive. Between the scrawled notes, and underlining, there were some pages she could barely make out. Her own annotations were now in a little blue notebook, and sometimes she read from that instead. It helped her think about things she’d just read.

The book seemed to disgorge new revelations every time she opened it. Before, the books she read had meant one thing, without changing, and although she'd sometimes questioned that meaning, her questions had never been answered. It hadn't occurred to her then that the same words could mean everything at once and sparkle in a different light every time she read them. Words were like the auroras — constantly in motion, morphing and rippling, changing their colors, but always made of the same stuff.

So Lena read, and learned new things about what she believed, and she drove. She wondered at the places she’d pass. Lena had decided to get off the blandness of the interstate and meander. It turned what should have been a 6 hour drive into one that took 3 days. She supposed the small towns she drove through were normal enough to those who lived there — it was her perceptions that rendered them wild and otherworldly.

Often, the road before her was completely empty. Her headlights picked out the looming figures of trees that emerged from the darkness as graceful shadow shapes before suddenly becoming real and then disappearing again. There were no other cars.

She felt like a lone astronaut, moving through the darkness and silence in her little metal box, illuminated only by the lights of the dashboard instrumentation. Traversing vast distances. In space, it took so long to get anywhere from anywhere… except the moon. The moon was only three and a half days away. It took less time to get to the moon than to get to Alaska. In the early days of space travel, returning astronauts had been quarantined in an Airstream trailer in case they'd brought back alien diseases from the moon. Lex had shown her pictures of the trailer once. Nobody ever got sick, and eventually the practice had been abandoned.

But people who went into space did come back different, if they stayed long enough. They got too used to floating, lost muscle mass, and had to be reintroduced to the world. She'd read once that a child born in space might never be able to live on the Earth, because of the unfamiliar strain of gravity on the heart. She'd just have to stay out there, floating, forever.

Now Lena wondered if that was how it had been for Kara: what remained floating? What weighed her down? What was she searching for now, after she had lost everything?

“So…How fast can this thing go?” Alex asked suddenly.

Lena realized she’d been on autopilot, numbly following the GPS directions, and leaving Alex sitting with the quiet instrumental playlist she’d put on while she’d been waiting in the garage.

“Oh, it’s a 560 horsepower v8 engine that can hit 328kph. I’ve never opened her up that much though, life always seemed to get in the way before I could take her to a track.”

Alex let out a low whistle. “Nia said you’re an incredible driver, at least in that video game that she’s obsessed with.”

“Ah that’s a product of my wonderful adolescence with Mommy Dearest.”

“Why am I not surprised that you had your own arcade?”

Lena scoffed. “We didn’t. Lillian believed such things dulled the mind, and she made it very clear that my mind was already substandard. No, I used to street race with some other kids in the neighborhood.”

Kara would have immediately responded that she was anything but substandard, but Alex merely gritted her teeth and looked out of the window. At least one Danvers had an accurate assessment of her.

Lena gave a little nod. This was good. She could work with this. She was used to this.

Lena's hands shifted their grip on the steering wheel as the mile markers whipped by. The only sound was the hum of the powerful engine. Their wordlessness proved unbearable after a while. She changed the playlist without thinking and her fingers slipped and tapped on the algorithm recommended songs. Synth-pop blasted through the car for a moment before she hurriedly turned it down. She braked a little from her flinching and glanced over at Alex in the passenger seat.

A little gambling is fun when you’re with me (I love it)
Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

Lena got a scared look in her eye. Deer in the headlights. The song took her back years. She froze. She wanted to just enjoy the song, but the ice in her veins burned her from the inside. Fall 2008. Her thoughts were short and her hair was long, a freshman at MIT at 16, barely at her dorm room at McGregor because she was either at the Mech Engineering lab, fencing, or f*cking. All those unknown ceilings, all those women in all those stairwells and beds. RAs, grad students, undergrads. All to forget Veronica’s roughness and Andrea’s face over hers crying out that this didn’t make her gay, none of it made her gay. Losing herself in an unending series of one night stands until Luthor Corp had to hire a specific PR agency just to hide it. Lex’s snide remarks about her whor* era and Lillian’s stinging backhand, the 3 carat diamond leaving a gash on her cheek that had to be fixed by a discreet plastic surgeon.

I won't tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you '
Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin
I'm not lyin', I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunnin'
Just like a chick in the casino
Take your bank before I pay you out I promise this, promise this

She didn't realize that the old emotions had overwhelmed her until she felt something wet sliding down her cheeks. She wiped the tear on the back of her wrist, stubbornly refusing to look at Alex. Her eyes fixed instead to the thin horizon. She didn't want the agent’s pity, but she swore she could feel it on her side, sliding up her neck.

Alex reached over to change the playlist.

“Don’t touch my phone.”

“But this song sucks.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think.”

“But it’s terrible. I’m gonna die if I have to listen to more Lady Gaga.”

“Lady Gaga is fine.”

“Can we listen to something else?”

“No. Driver picks the music.” Lena gritted her teeth and stared straight ahead, ignoring the pangs as Poker Face ended and the algorithm picked a song by the Black Eyed Peas.

Alex sighed before asking. “You hungry?”

She shook her head. “I just ate breakfast.” A Hot Pocket counted as breakfast in her book. “I’ve brought some snacks though, they’re behind my seat. Help yourself.”

Alex reached back behind her seat, surveying the options before picking the Korean BBQ beef jerky. She tore open the pack and started speaking. “So this place we’re going to, the Mission Distillery, they say their process is innovative and completely sustainable.”

“Words that can cover all manner of sins.” Lena said with a raised eyebrow.

“They distill whiskey, bourbon, and rye whiskey using the waters of the Pacific and some new tech that lets them make the liquor in days instead of years.” Alex continued. “They say they’ve totally eliminated evaporation and they use less wood and energy.”

“They’ve eliminated the ‘angel’s share’? That’s 20% of the product. Maturing the liquor in days also means cost reduction and market agility.” Lena mused. “But what truly matters-”

“Is how it tastes.” Alex finished.

Lena nodded. Cut with the Pacific or not, she didn’t think anything could compare to the smoky and peaty goodness of a scotch, but she was a little curious now. “How’d you hear about this place?”

“From M’gann and Al, they’re always on the lookout for new drinks.” Alex replied between bites. “Been wanting to go for a while.”

“Why haven’t you?”

Alex shrugged. “You’re the only other person who likes whiskey.”

And I went full Luthor and killed that idea.

They lapsed back into wordlessness. Lena changed the music to her Hard Driving playlist - Evanescence, Massive Attack, Hardstyle remixes of Pink, Sting, and Matchbox Twenty. Alex didn’t say a word.

At the request (demand) of her passenger, Lena made a brief detour to the Mailliard Redwoods State Natural Reserve and the Navarro River State Park because “what’s a road trip without visiting nearby tourist locations right?” Lena herself was a first-time visitor, and she didn’t mind so much thanks to the scenic route. They didn’t do much more than drive along the available roads with acres and acres of massive trees and forests surrounding them but it was a nice experience, and Lena could understand why people had cabins or cottages out in the woods to get away every once in a while. She said as much.

“Maybe you can get one for yourself,” Alex says. “Take a break once in a while.”

Lena already had a million reasons why she could never take another break. Besides, with all the chaos that came with being a Luthor she’d most likely die before any plans for the future came to fruition. She just shrugged. “Maybe.”

If Alex heard the lack of agreement in her answer, the agent didn’t mention it.

The long, solitary stretch after Whitesboro on the Shoreline Highway had a certain mellow anticipation, it made Lena feel focused and dreamlike at the same time. The California spring morning was crisp and sunny and she drove with the windows down despite the chill. She played the Beatles Revolver album to fill the silence as Alex snacked on nacho cheese Doritos. Lena shook her head, what was it with the Danvers and their appetites?

When the playlist ended, she drove on in near-meditative silence. The humming of the tires was like a mantra. At the rest stop, she felt a little bit disconnected from her body, and she stretched out while chugging at her cold brew coffee without speaking to anyone, including Alex.

The agent didn’t seem to mind, almost as if she was willing to take anything that Lena would give without comment. She and Alex had been in each other’s orbit for what, a few years now? They’d barely scratched the surface of who they were but these Danvers… They kept barging in and making a way. Kara and her incessant affection, Alex with this request and this solid accepting silence. It made her itch behind her teeth. It was uncomfortable. It got on her nerves. People like the Danvers… they just brought up things inside her, and there were just too many things she’d rather not look at too deeply. No one needed to know the kind of crap she had in her head.

A road trip to a whiskey tasting of all things.

Lena remembered the first time she had scotch, she had called it her father’s “mean juice” as a child. It sat on a small table in his office, fine single malt aged for decades and the Glencairn glasses. She had taken the bottle one night and hurried back to her room before anyone could stop her. They couldn’t tell her she couldn’t have this. The hypocrisy would have been wild. The drink was bitter and while she managed to get it down she sputtered and coughed and shivered after. Her eyes watered as she tried again. Her father guzzled this stuff down like it was nothing, Lena never would have guessed it burned the way it did. The more she drank, the nicer the burn became and the less it made her cough.

And wasn’t that the metaphor for her life? Always adjusting to the burn and the bitterness.

After weeks of dissociating after Mt Norquay, when she finally allowed Sam to let Kara in, there was no time to make peace. Her brother and Leviathan had made their move and she was needed. In between battles, all of Kara’s friends were walking on eggshells, sharing nothing but knowing glances and muffled comments when she came out of her lab.

It had been agony. They were still coming apart at the seams while racing to stitch themselves up in time. Lena could feel the burden of what she’d done and what they’d done, and above all what they were trying to do, all weighing on her shoulders. She could feel the unbearable heaviness of it in the conversations they had.

Those days… Lena had poured a shot of scotch into a mug of freshly brewed coffee and returned to her thoughts, her hand pressed to her lips and her eyes hardly blinking.

Sometimes, she’d come out of her reverie and Kara would be sitting on the floor, with her back against the couch in what had been designated “her” lab at the DEO. Her legs had been stretched out straight in front of her, crossed at the ankles of her knee high red boots. She would pick at the edge of the government issued couch. She had found a loose thread to unravel. She never said anything, just sighed sometimes and looked at her.

Sometimes it would be Alex. She never said anything either. Alex would just twirl on one of the metal stools, and hold up a bottle. Lena would tilt her head to indicate the importance of what she was doing. Alex would let her long legs cross one over the other in a willful display of defiance and glare back pointedly. Lena would lower her chin. If she had been wearing her glasses, she’d be looking over their rim at the government agent. Eventually she’d relent and set aside what she was working on.

Then Alex would twist off the cap and press the mouth of the bottle to her own lips, shaking her head a bit before taking a swig. Then she’d extend her arm and offer her the bottle. After taking a swig of her own, Lena would pass the bottle back. She’d throw her head back as the whiskey burned down her throat. With closed eyes, she’d let out a long, controlled breath.

Then Alex would cap the bottle and walk off. And she’d be alone again.

“Our exit is coming up.” Her passenger said suddenly.

Lena nodded and focused on the directions as she moved off the highway and onto the surface roads. They were at the parking lot of the distillery with ten minutes to spare. She unbuckled her seatbelt and would have gotten out of the car but Alex handed her a clear ziplock-ed bag with a sandwich.

“You should eat something.” Alex said. “You can’t drink on an empty stomach.”

Lena was annoyed that it was so logical that she couldn’t refuse, which had been her knee jerk reaction. “Thank you.”

She took a dutiful bite. A burst of apple, sharp cheddar, a hint of mustard, and a generous helping of some American school lunch ham she couldn’t place. It was tasty. It shouldn’t have been but it was.

“Good?”

Lena nodded.

“Thought you’d need it after the long drive… I used to make a dozen everyday for Kara when we were teenagers.”

It had been said in such a blasé fashion, so matter-of-factly, as if she hadn’t just purposefully made this for the woman who had imprisoned that same sister in the only thing that could kill her, the thing that felt like shrapnel rushing through every capillary.

But Kara had betrayed her, they all had.

Lena could feel something growling inside her once again, clawing up her throat, threatening to burst through her mouth in some thrashing flurry of crimson anger. How quickly those pensive memories vanished in the heat of her fury. She almost laughed, thinking of what Sam would say about her temper.

Alex was looking at her, not judging, just… looking. As if they both understood that some things were too complicated, too personal to explain. Maybe in a few years, they’d talk about everything that had happened in the past few months. Eventually, when the wounds weren’t as fresh, they would talk about it.

“Thank you.” Lena said, remembering her manners at least.

“No problem.” Alex shrugged. “Figured you wouldn’t let me take a turn at driving so this was the next best thing.”

Jess had booked them a private tour with the Head Distiller, who was a stocky non-binary person with full sleeve tattoos. They introduced themselves as Ridley, and took the pair through a thicket of equipment. The large mill for dried and malted grains, the giant stainless steel “pot” where purified water from the Pacific ocean was added to create a mash with the grains and cooked, the gleaming fermentation tanks that converted the sugars to alcohol to create beer, and the massive copper stills that glistened and gave off intense heat as they distilled the high proof “white lightning”.

Since she had told the Mission Distillery that she and Alex had a science background, Ridley was able to delve into a few intricacies without going into proprietary tech. Lena had figured out there had been several material science innovations, probably in the maturing and proofing of the whiskey. Instead of a row of barrels there was a lab with impressive security. When Lena asked about the lab, Ridley merely turned to her and asked her if they could send her an investment prospectus.

She couldn’t help but grin. “That depends entirely on how your whiskey tastes.”

She and Alex were ushered into a private room with a plate glass window overlooking the entire distillery. A long balsa vintage surfboard adorned the other wall above a large flatscreen TV which showcased the slides of the whiskeys they were going to be sampling.

Ridley started them off with the bourbons. They placed four fine Waterford crystal glasses in front of Lena and Alex, each with a large ball of ice. In each glass they poured a shot of the different bourbon whiskeys - twice-toasted corn mixed with either rye, barley, or wheat and finished with oak staves. The different bourbons had notes of apple berry crumble, fig butter, toffee, and toasted almond and vanilla. One of them even tasted vaguely like a cookie.

Lena had never developed a taste for American bourbon, but she had to admit that this was probably going to appeal to a younger generation and would probably make interesting co*cktails.

Alex didn’t look particularly moved either. She seemed more focused on the Kettle-style potato chips, candied pecans, and small bits of kielbasa that they’d served with the bourbon.

The rye whiskeys were very woody and ripe with notes of spice, dark chocolate, caramelized plantain, and citrus. Ridley served the liquor in a fresh set of glasses along with a board of tangy goat cheese, salted peanuts, and onion rings.

After they had tasted a little of each, Ridley brought out twelve tulip glasses and a small glass of ice cold water with two droppers. “Up next are our single malts, we’re very proud of our distinctly American whiskey. It tastes a little like it was aged in sherry casks, but we’ve balanced that with mesquite-smoked barley and finished with twice-toasted oak staves. I suggest you taste it neat first, then add a little bit of water to integrate the flavors and lessen the burn to your taste.”

“Now we’re talking!” Alex grinned, rubbing her palms together in excitement.

Ridley pushed small plates in front of each pair of tulip glasses. “We suggest you have a little of the food on the plate in front of each whiskey to tease out the liquor’s nuances.”

There were little bites of aged cheddar cheese, roasted almonds, focaccia with rosemary and olive oil, as well as a few bites of smoked trout.

One of the single malts had a strange note of jalapeňo cheddar that wasn’t unpleasant but still very surprising. Lena put a few roasted almonds in her mouth and it mellowed it out to a flavor that she had to admit, was distinctly Californian. The unfortunate thing was that as someone from the East Coast, she found it too odd to enjoy.

Gingerly she sampled the other single malts, they were ripe with notes of gingerbread, butterscotch, smoked barbeque, and the last one reminded her of dark cherries and smoke for some reason.

“I really liked the last two.” Alex opined.

“I did as well.” Lena admitted.

Ridley smiled. “Well, our retail brands appeal to the mass market. But since we can make whiskey quickly, we whipped up a unique one for you, Ms. Luthor.”

They presented an unmarked bottle with a light golden brown liquid that reminded Lena of Kara’s hair at sunset. Ridley also put out four small plates, two for each of them. “The first plate has Devils on Horseback, which are cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. The second plate has a few slices of Genesee Valley Ranch wagyu, it’s the only 100% grass fed wagyu in California. We’ve cooked it medium rare with only some salt and pepper as seasoning.”

They poured a full shot into both clean tulip glasses.

“We know you love your scotch, Ms. Luthor.” Ridley smiled. “I do too. But we’d love it if you gave Californian whiskey a chance.”

Lena tilted her head in gratitude and took a glass of water to clean her palate. She put the glass to her nose and smelled… sweet California citrus, sea-water, both dominated by a smoke that should have only come from peat. She paused and looked at Alex, who was similarly stunned.

“We don’t have peat in California.” Alex pointed out.

“Don’t we?” Ridley asked. “Isn’t peat basically decomposed organic plant matter that’s been compressed in the ground for thousands of years? It’s essentially coal as a pre-teen.”

“How did you make that taste?” Lena asked, eyebrows raised.

“If you invest, I’m sure the founders will let me tell you.” Ridley replied. “Try the whiskey.”

Lena took a small sip and found that underneath the smoke was the sweetness of a California Bartlett pear combined with a vibrant and deep spice. When she swallowed there was a huge, long, warming cracked black pepper finish that burned in the most delicious way.

She ate a bit of the dates and took another sip, discovering a hint of what tasted like toasted walnut. Lena added a few drops of water and took a bite of the steak before taking another sip, and the whiskey was more intense - rich as story, smooth as memory.

It made her think of combustion in the darkness, of the bright bonfires that had littered the beach beside the Belmont pier the other day, of the precise heartbreaking singe of Kara’s gaze, the sweet taste of churros still in her mouth.

It was as if the whiskey had sat beside her, hair loose and limbs splayed, before punching her in the gut.

“We call it the Phoenix.” Ridley said quietly, as if respectful of her pensiveness.

“It’s f*cking amazing.” Alex breathed as she poured herself another shot. “Do you have more of this?”

Ridley spoke up. “We made a small batch but-”

“Bottle it all and ship it to me at LCorp.” Lena said decisively. “And send your business plan to my executive assistant.”

It had been so tempting to finish the bottle, but Alex had made sure to ask about alcohol content and it was 90 proof. After a quick calculation to estimate their blood alcohol they had grudgingly cut themselves off. They took tall glasses of ice water and ate the remainder of the food.

Alex had fortunately steered the conversation towards what Lena was working on at L Corp, Sam and Ruby moving back, and her dinner with Kelly. All topics she could talk about without too much trouble or emotion. If the words between them were shallow, they were at least flowing swiftly.

Lena smiled as Alex began to sweep her hands excitedly while she talked about the first time she’d taken Kelly out on her Ducati. She found herself looking at Alex with contentment, as if she hadn’t been furious with her months before. Her company was amusing, even if this entire outing was confounding. Maybe it was the whiskey but her mood was turning inexplicably better. She found herself having…fun?

After a few hours and with a few bottles in the trunk of the McLaren, they were cruising through Mendocino county on Highway 1, Yoyo Ma and Sungha Jung mellow, wordless again but comfortable this time. The sun was descending from that hazy middle between noon and twilight, when the car began to act up. It started slowing down significantly. They were near Albion, about 15 miles from Fort Bragg, when the engine quit. It seemed like they’d run out of gas, which was illogical because the gas gauge was reading full.

Lena and Alex climbed out of the car and popped open the hood. After checking multiple potential trouble spots, they found that the vent on the gas cap had gotten blocked with dirt, probably from months of not driving the McLaren, so as the gasoline was pulled from the tank by the fuel pump, no air could get in to replace it. The drop in pressure inside the tank caused it to be squeezed by outside air pressure which forced the float valve upwards - making it look like the car had plenty of gas when it was actually empty.

By the time they’d diagnosed the problem, the sun was like the orange glow creeping from the end of a cigarette.

Lena cursed a blue streak before sighing. “I guess Kara will have to fly us and the car back to National City.”

“She can’t.” Alex shook her head and blew out a long puff of air. “There was an earthquake in Peru a few hours ago, she’s probably still helping with the rescue efforts. J’onn’s in Singapore cleaning up a stray Leviathan cell we found yesterday. Maybe you could call that fancy Helicopter uber place?”

Lena closed her eyes. She didn’t want to get in another helicopter ever again, especially with Kara so far away, not after… not after…

Sealing the Anointed One in a parallel dimension while Kara killed Gamemnae with the Anti-Life Equation, the helicopter doors blown off… Lena sliding, tipping outward, over the edge. Heart scrambling against her ribs like it was reaching for a handhold, like it was trying to grab onto something. Kara, she thought, Kara. Through the ringing silence in her ears she heard Kara’s friends yelling.

Lena squeezed her eyes shut.

She didn’t want to see no one looking back as she fell.

Screaming and twisting and the beeps of monitors. The wails of machines and Alex’s terse voice. “It’s ok. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Fear. Savage. Wild.

And then Sam… Sam’s voice was calm and factual, grounding. “You’re here with me. Nobody’s leaving. Do you hear me, Lena? Nobody’s leaving. I’m here.”

Lena snapped out of the memory, squeezed her hand around the key of the McLaren in her jacket.

You’re here. You’re here. You’re not there.

Alex was speaking, voice low, hand reached out to her as if she was a wild animal. “... be fine. I’m going to call a tow truck, ok?”

Lena nodded.

Alex had insisted that it was too late to drive back, even if they were only 4 hours from National City and they had a full tank of gas now. The weather report said a storm was coming in. It was too late. Too late.

So here they were. The room had two full beds. The walls were a clean white color. The carpet lacked questionable stains. It seemed like a pretty decent motel even if the bed covers were in this hideously-patterned fabric. There was a window with an actual view framed by deep blue curtains. A small round table sat in the corner with two plush chairs.

The bed was so ridiculously soft when she sat down on it that she had to resist the temptation to lie down and stretch out. Damn it.

Lena heard a thud and a creaking mattress. For a while no one said anything. Lena was on her phone updating Sam. She sent off her text and clicked on her messages with Kara. She paused at the last message, one she had replied to with a smiling emoji so she didn’t have to find the words. It said: “See you tomorrow.”

She remembered those nights after Mt Norquay, when she had slept in fits. There weren’t nightmares exactly, they weren’t flashbacks either - just glimpses of the past. Snapshots of her life, mostly innocuous, flying through her head for only a moment or two before they were gone. Sitting on the couch in her office and eating lunch with Kara, late nights laughingly defending her title as Jenga champion on game night, and then a flash of her brother’s menacing face. She didn’t wake up scared, just more exhausted than when her head hit the pillow.

And when she couldn’t sleep, she’d spend hours turning her phone over in her hands: thinking of how easy it would be to unblock Kara’s number, wondering if the Kryptonian thought Lena was still worth keeping around, worth holding onto.

She’s a liar. You are too. She’s a hero. You’re just pathetic.

The truth is that she doesn’t need you. None of them do. Not like you need them.

She had lain in the darkness, in Sam’s soft guest bed, and pressed her thumb against the screen until it cracked. Because while she could build anything she wanted, with people all she knew how to do was break… break them, or let them break her.

“I’m hungry,” Alex said, and Lena had to resist scoffing at that same Danvers appetite.

Lena looked over at the lanky agent, sprawled face down on the bed she had claimed. “You’d better get up then.”

“Yeah, I’ll grab some food.” Alex said with a groan.

“No it’s…”

“You’ve been driving all day. Lie down instead of sitting there so properly. Just relax.” Alex rolled off the bed onto her knees and stood up.

“Alex, nobody drives-”

“Going on foot.” Alex interrupted. “Need to stretch my legs anyway.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Lena, you’re exhausted. You were exhausted when this whole thing started and the point of all this is to get you to relax.”

Lena tore her eyes away from her phone and looked up at the agent. She had to stifle a gasp. Alex was looking at her that way… the stern-fondness that she’d only ever seen Alex give to Kara. Lena swallowed and fished out her credit card from her wallet, holding up the platinum colored plastic without a word.

Alex shook her head. “You don’t have to pay for everything, Lena.”

Oh yes I do. I always do.

“You really don’t.” Alex repeated softly.

Lena simply stubbornly pushed the card towards her.

Alex rolled her eyes, but swiped the card from her hand with a sigh. “Don’t complain when I come back with a hundred bucks worth of food.”

Lena shook her head and gave a slight wave.

“A hundred bucks!” Alex repeated as she left through the door.

Lena sighed and went to take a shower. She hadn’t expected to be spending the night anywhere and when Alex had been adamant about staying off the road and Lena had acquiesced but refused to sleep in her clothes. She’d pulled into the nearest Walmart and purchased a few items. Alex had gawked a bit but Lena just shrugged. It was a little surprising that Kelly hadn’t briefed her girlfriend on Lena’s stories about her startup years… And Lena wasn’t about to talk about how being in a Walmart without a young Ruby scampering all over the place felt strange, because of course she’d honed her skills in the art of finding bargains with Sam.

When she came out of the bathroom with a towel around her head, her hair smelling vaguely of Pantene, clad in a loose t-shirt and pajamas, she found Alex laying out the fish tacos on the little table with some cans of co*ke. A bottle of whiskey from the car was on the table as well.

They sat down to eat, silent for the most part. After a few moments had passed, Alex turned to her thoughtfully. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. The whiskey tasting was worth the drive.”

“Not just about this road trip, or even this whole thing of taking time off. I mean… just… in general.”

“Fine.” Lena shrugged. Why ask? Didn’t she know that if you kept a mask on long enough, it would become your face?

“But what are you actually feeling? I mean, are you angry, are you conflicted, are you depr-”

“I’m fine, Alex.” Lena retorted, then took a breath. “You don’t have to worry about me, ok? I’m not a danger to anyone any more. I’m not plotting anything.”

“Jesus, Lena, that’s not why I’m asking.”

Lena averted her eyes, focused on chewing.

“Back there, when I suggested the helicopter, listen… I’m sorry, I didn’t know that it would trigger you, ok? I didn’t know you were scared of heights, I mean it makes sense because you got thrown off the roof at LCorp and that plane almost crashed into the reservoir with the chemicals… I think the first time Kara saved you was a helicopter too. Sorry. I didn’t put these things together.”

It’s not the height I’m afraid of. It’s your sister.

“I’m fine. About all of it.” Lena lied. “I’ve screamed, and I’ve cried, and I’ve punched a few bags in the gym… I even worked out my anger by trying to mind control our entire species.”

Lena let out a breath as she looked out the window to avoid making eye contact. The clouds overhead looked tense and bunched up, she wouldn’t be surprised if thunder started rolling in soon. She didn’t look at Alex as the agent came over and bent down, interlaced her fingers with Lena’s. The fingers were rough and calloused. Their entwined hands were on her knee, Alex’s thumb was exerting gentle pressure against the fabric of her pajamas. Lena would have interpreted this gesture as an attempt at flirtation, but it felt very different. More like… more like the comfort of a fellow soldier who had never asked to have any of this thrust upon her either. And in a way, Alex hadn’t. Lena supposed that Kara had just barged into her life as well, changing it forever.

“It’s ok to not be ok with it, any of it, all of it… alright?”

Lena flinched as a bolt of lightning flashed through the sky. It colored the trees an assaulting green. Vibrant leaves were clinging to their branches valiantly as the wind blew around them. The grass glistened as the rain started to fall. Under different circ*mstances, she might have thought it was beautiful.

“I’m safe now.” Lena said.

“Yeah, of course you are.”

“No. I mean. I won’t hurt anyone.” Lena wrenched her eyes away from the window. “And if I do try… you’re there.”

Alex tilted her head. “That doesn’t quite seem like a ringing endorsem*nt.”

“It is.” Lena said. “You’re always going to be there for her.”

“For her?”

“For Kara.”

“I will, but we’re not talking about Kara.”

“Aren’t we?”

“I wasn’t.” Alex said gently. “I wanted to talk about you.”

“Why?”

Alex adjusted her position, settling on the floor at Lena’s feet. Her other hand rubbed the back of her head. “Because we haven’t really ever talked to each other, just sort of… near each other. But everytime, we needed you, you came through.”

There seemed to be more to it, and Lena just knew… She felt deep in her bones that this was some heartfelt thing she’d have to endure. “Say what you want to say, Alex.”

The agent sighed and reached wordlessly for the table. Lena moved to hand her the soda can but immediately felt it was empty when she lifted it.

“The bottle.”

Lena grabbed the bottle. Then, unlacing her fingers from Alex’s, she sat down on the floor beside her. They leaned back against the foot of Alex’s bed.

“Finish your taco.” Alex nodded gruffly.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Try.” Alex amended. “Please.”

And so she did, not really knowing why. Tired. She was probably too tired. She passed the bottle to Alex, who wrenched it open and took a swig. They passed the bottle back and forth, as Alex watched her finish her food.

“I wanted… I figured out something, like a f*cking epiphany, something I should have realized a long time ago. You always came through.”

“You said that already.”

Alex went on, as if she didn’t hear her. “It was when you got back from Metropolis, from holing up in Sam’s house… when we were suddenly supposed to play nice and work together. Kara said that you wouldn’t get any better until we trusted you. And I told her that I wouldn’t trust you until you got better.”

Lena exhaled hoping it would take the guilt out with the breath. “That was the right move.”

“No. I don’t think it was.” Alex admitted. “I’m sorry-”

“Please.” Lena held her hands up. “Don’t.”

“Lena-”

“Don’t ok?” Lena choked out, her tone more brittle than she wanted it to be. “Don’t say that. Don’t be sorry.”

“But-”

“Don’t lie to me! Please just stop lying to me!” Lena snapped. “Don’t say you’re sorry for not trusting me in the beginning. I’m the sister and daughter of murderous psychopaths. Don’t say you’re sorry for lying to me and don’t say you’re sorry for pointing that Claymore satellite at me!”

Alex moved a comforting hand toward her and Lena felt inexplicably afraid. She pushed away from Alex and up from the floor. She staggered towards the door but didn’t make it, Alex’s hands were on her shoulders turning her around. Alex’s voice was calling her name.

“Don’t! Just don’t!” Lena yelled as she tried to move away. “Don’t apologize because you’re not sorry and you shouldn’t be!”

She felt arms go around her waist, Alex’s chin on her shoulder, the rise and fall of her breath pushing against her skull, strong arms pulling her close like Alex was worried she would slip through her fingers. Lena shut her eyes.

“Lena.” Alex spoke, her voice heavy with emotion. “Listen to me! I’m not lying. I’m not going to say something that I don’t believe isn’t completely true.”

Alex held her gently, as if to let her know that she could extricate herself if she needed to but that Alex wanted to hold her.

“It was for Kara. All of it was to protect Kara.”

“It was.” Alex agreed easily. “And you’re right, I’m not sorry for protecting her. I’m not sorry for being suspicious of you in the beginning. I’m not sorry for lying to you, I just feel bad that I lied for so long. I’m not sorry I was ready to kill you. It was for the greater good, and it was to protect Kara…. But Lena, no one was protecting you.”

Lena pressed her hand to her throat. Her fingertips grasped at her own neck. “Don’t.”

“You had no one, Lena. We lied to you for so long about so many things, even when it was clear that we could trust you.”

“It’s alright. I get it. I’m evil.”

“Why do you call yourself that?”

Because it hurts less if I say it before you do. Lena chose to deflect instead. “It’s fine, Alex.”

“It’s not. We made you seem like one of us but we kept that from you, even when you came through. You always came through. Not just for what was expedient or efficient, not just for what you thought was right… for Kara. You always came through for Kara, even when you didn’t know, you always came through.”

“No.”

“Yes. Yes, you did. And when you found out the truth, you had no one.”

“Stop.” Lena said faintly, clutching at her throat tightly.

“You didn’t even have hope. You had to build an AI and call it that.”

“Please. Just stop!”

“I should have cared about you too.” Alex whispered. “That’s what I’m truly sorry for. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that no one was protecting you, and that someone should have.”

“No!”

“I should have seen that the only thing we were protecting was Kara’s comfort, at the expense of your trust.”

“You should have pushed that button! You should have burnt me off the face of the earth!”

Alex shook her head. “No. And I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad, Lena.”

“You don’t understand.”

Alex’s fingers were at her throat, prying her hands away. “Lena.”

She heard herself sob.

“Lena,” Alex’s tone was gentle as she firmly took her fingers from her throat. “It’s ok.”

Air rushed into her lungs as she gulped and she felt wetness on her cheeks. Alex was bringing her to the floor, slowly, arms still around her. “It’s ok.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Alex said firmly. “It is ok. Lena. It’s ok for you to still be in pain. It’s ok for you not to trust us.”

“It’s not. It’s not that.”

Alex’s voice sounds impossibly softer, gentler. “It’s ok for you to love her, Lena.”

The loud crack of a branch breaking in the storm outside sounds like the breaking within Lena as she felt herself crumble and feelings she didn’t know she even had burst through like it had been released from a dam.

She woke up to the darkness, sweat and tears on her face. A warm weight on her ankle. It was startling enough that she froze, because she was so used to waking up alone.

A glance showed Alex sitting on one of the plush chairs next to Lena’s bed, asleep with her head on one arm on the bed and the other arm stretched out to hold Lena’s leg.

Lena blinked and thought about moving her ankle away. But that would only wake Alex, and Lena wasn’t sure she wanted to face her just yet. She reached for her phone, which Alex seemed to have plugged in to charge.

It was 4am. No longer night but not yet morning. Outside the window, the storm had passed. Everything that should have been black was bathed in deep blue. Everything that was bright in the glaring light of day was muted, calmer, kinder.

The weight and the warmth shifted a bit, and that brought her attention back to the woman who inexplicably was still holding on to her. Maybe she thought I’d run. Maybe I should.

Alex Danvers. The type of person to talk you off a cliff and then convince you to go skydiving the next day. Each decision she made seemed like measured recklessness. Lena had watched as her engagement with Maggie had ended, something that Alex hadn’t seen coming. Lena had watched as Alex chose to roll the dice with Kelly.

Alex Danvers… always thinking that the reward was bigger than the risk, always acting as if she knew precisely which risks were worth taking - which gold rush was worth the heartbreak, and which battles would be worth the scars.

Lena had to admit she’d envied that. She had to admit a lot of things since re-integrating herself into Kara’s circle, like some sort of recurring character in Law and Order. There was a part of her that admired Alex, a part of her that feared her, a part of her that was curious about what it would be like to have an older sister - hell, an older sibling that truly cared. And yes, a part of her that wanted Alex’s approval.

Somehow, she’d been given that. Lena couldn’t help but shudder. She had been vulnerable, laid bare and weak, and she had never wanted to show that to anyone. Not even Sam.

Her trembling woke Alex up. Warm brown eyes met hers in the dark blanket of the almost dawn. Alex said nothing. Perhaps there wasn’t anything left to be said. But her face did soften in understanding.

Lena looked away, choking back emotion.

“It’s ok, Lena.” They were words that Lena was familiar with, words that had been repeated to her countless times when things had definitely not been ok. The Gardai who had turned her face away from the bag her mother’s body had been placed in. Andrea when she held her hand tightly in the corridor outside the Headmaster’s office after they told her that her father had died. Sam when she’d found her after the first assasination attempt.

And last night, Alex had said those words over and over. Simple, sincere, stupidly profound.

“Sorry.” Lena croaked out.

Alex raised her eyebrows. “What are you apologizing for?”

“The emotion… the inconvenience and uh -” Lena paused, suddenly making the connection about how she had gotten from the floor to the bed.

“Carrying you like a princess?”

Yeah, Lena did not want to think about how pathetic that was.

“Shut up, Alex.” She said instead, her throat tight.

“Buy my silence with breakfast. Blue plate special.” Alex retorted as she stood up and stretched. She got into the other bed and burrowed underneath the covers. “And don’t say ‘sorry’ when you mean ‘thank you’.”

Lena turned away, faced the wall. The significant lack of real friends meant that she wasn’t exactly familiar with how this was supposed to work, the optimal algorithm or API… she’s not even sure she knows the source code for stuff like this. The kind of care and display of… of affection? Whatever one was supposed to expect within this particular dynamic. She did have Sam. Sam had stories about hanging out with friends, helping each other with homework or tasks, doing favors. It had just become part of the Latina’s blueprint, just how Lena seemed to have simply become incorporated into it.

Sam understood her but Lena didn’t really understand any of this. And things that she didn’t understand made her anxious. It made something wretched sweep through her.

Alex had been ready to kill her, and rightfully so. This road trip should have been perfunctory, a performance just like those interminable galas. All of these “gifts” were supposed to be penance of some sort. None of Kara’s friends were meant to… to somehow fit once more into the scheme of things.

She had been afraid of this; frightened that she would find something she had thrown away only to realize that she did want it; terrified that she would feel something again for people who wouldn’t stay.

“Is it supposed to feel like family?” Lena blurted.

“Is what?” Alex asked.

“When everyone cares, is it supposed to feel that way?” Lena whispered. “I don't know, really. To me, family is just… obligatory and… f*cked up.”

An emotion crept into her heart, giving it a little twist, and she refused to look too deeply at what it might be.

She heard Alex sigh as the older woman got out of bed. Lena felt a hand, warm, comforting on her forehead as Alex sat down on her bed. The tender soothing as Alex brushed her fingers upwards, as if she were gently sweeping away Lena’s thoughts.

“It’s not an obligation, Lena, it’s a choice. That’s why it matters in a different way. That’s how it’s supposed to feel. It’s supposed to feel like you matter.” Alex said. “It’s ok, Lena. It’s ok for you to trust that.”

It never is. Lena wasn’t sure how to explain that, or if she should. “There are reasons I don’t want people in my life.”

“The problem isn’t the people in your life, Lena. The problem is that you won’t admit that we’re in it.”

“It’s not safe.”

“For us or for you?”

“Both.” Lena shivered. “Look at what Kara and I did to each other. We had… I broke it. I always break the things that matter.”

“You always will if you keep coming back to your mistakes. You can trust that you matter to us, Lena. You can trust that we care.”

“You’d feel differently if you knew what Kara asked for.”

“I do know what she’s asked you for, and… ” Alex took a deep breath. “Listen, Lena, my sister… Growing up together, the first few years were really hard. But Kara’s the most loving person, and over the years, I’ve tried to shield her from things… to keep the brightness and happiness that she found despite everything she’s lost, to keep that intact. She’s just as emotionally vulnerable as she is powerful, and I’ve always been afraid that people would end up breaking her.”

“I won’t hurt her again, Alex.”

Alex scoffed. “Oh you definitely will. And you’ll punish yourself for it too. But Lena, she doesn’t care about that. You’re vital to her. Kara might not have told you who she really was, but saying how much you mean to her? Lena… she’s told you and told you and told you and you don’t hear her.”

The tears are falling again. She didn’t try to wipe them away.

“Why aren’t you listening, Lena? When are you going to stop and listen?” Alex continued. “I know what she wants tonight, and I can imagine what it’s going to cost you to give that to her but-.”

“It doesn’t matter what it costs. I’ll do it. You said all this… it’s a choice. And I’m always going to choose Kara.”

“I know.” Alex’s voice was cotton and tea, soft and warm. “You always have in the end.”

Chapter 6: One Night

Chapter Text

The drive back had actually been oddly… comforting. Alex hadn’t mentioned their little late night talk, just pulled her into a brief side hug and thanked her for the road trip. By the time Lena had gotten back from upstate, there wasn’t a lot of time to do anything but get ready. Maybe that was a good thing, just so she wouldn’t keep obsessing. After all, Kara had found her attractive before… she wouldn’t have thought of this night otherwise. All Lena had to do was pick out a nice set of silk lingerie to wear under skin tight jeans and an off the shoulder blouse. She wasn’t oblivious to the way Kara couldn’t resist ogling her the few times she’d worn outfits like this.

Still, the anxiety grabbed her by the tongue and dried her mouth as the driver took her to Kara’s place. When the car door opened, a few people in the street noticed her as they always did - and she took comfort in that. The judgmental glances, the intimidated looks, and the quickly averted eyes - it helped. Being thought of as a dangerous, morally abhorrent threat was better than being seen as a brainless puppet for Luthor ambition, a pretty face to put in magazines while her mother and brother ruled from the shadows. At least as a threat she was perceived as competent and credible. At least she was taken seriously. Only Kara had seen her for what she was - a young woman trying to do what was right. At least Kara had thought of her that way before she had become a murderer and then a megalomaniac.

Lena’s hands shook as she stepped out of the elevator on the 4th floor. Not from the weight of the supplies in the bags she was carrying, but from the thought of what she was about to do. The door opened quickly, Kara having dispensed with pretending she couldn’t hear Lena walking down the corridor several game nights ago. Like a sudden ray of light bursting through the clouds, Kara was there - faded jeans, wide-necked teal cotton shirt, and gray socks with little racoons on them - her usual state of rumpled comfort.

“Lena! Wow, that’s a lot of snacks and water!” Kara said in confusion, hurriedly taking the bags from her. “Why all the sugar? And… wet wipes?”

Lena smiled a little, unable to help herself. Seeing Kara always made her feel better. “Oh well, um, you know if you wanted the whole night I… well, I’d probably need it to keep up with you.”

Kara’s laugh warmed her as she put the bags down on her kitchen island and Lena turned to lock the door behind them. “I already ordered all our favorites. Even that kale and sausage grilled cheese sandwich you like from the deli around the corner. The scones and eclairs, I understand completely but how kale became one of your favo- Oh Rao! What happened to your neck?!”

The wind from the burst of super speed nearly knocked her coat off the hook as Kara was suddenly beside her, one hand on her arm and the other gently touching her throat.

“I’m fine, Kara.”

“There are marks on-”

“Alex wouldn’t shut up.”

“Alex did that?!”

“No. No. I did.” Lena said soothingly. “It was either this or… well, I don’t know what I would have said or done, but it wouldn’t have been good.”

“Lena…” The tone in Kara’s voice made Lena’s heart ache, because it wasn’t pity, it was sadness. Both hands were on her neck now, as if Kara was trying to gently rub away the marks that very few human eyes would catch.

“I’m alright.”

This was no way to begin the evening. She wanted it to be good for Kara and this was setting a terrible mood. This was about Kara. This was about making her feel good.

So Lena stepped forward, into Kara’s space, and she would have started caressing the blonde but Kara’s arm wound around her protectively. The blonde’s fingers were in her hair and the other hand was rubbing Lena’s back gently. Kara smelled like sunshine, wildflowers, and something indescribable. It was utterly intoxicating and so ineffably safe all at once that Lena couldn’t help the little sigh that escaped from her mouth. Lena had to cover it by repeating herself. “I’m alright. I’m alright, Kara.”

“I hate it when you hurt yourself.” Kara whispered.

But I’m doing it right now and you can never know.

Lena dammed the tears in her eyes and tried to speak, but Kara had already broken the embrace, taking her hand and pulling her deeper into the apartment.

“Kara… Kara, wait.”

“Oh sorry, did you need one of your snacks already? The food doesn’t get here until 8pm. Sorry, I guess I got used to the time we used to eat and I didn’t-”

“That’s fine I… but I think we should talk first.”

“Yeah, me too.” Kara smiled, tugging her hand again in that excited way that spoke of the many movie nights Lena had spent in the past. Another time. Another life.

They came to the living room and Kara sat down on the couch, letting go of her hand to turn off the TV that had been streaming yet another episode of Bake-Off. Lena’s breath caught in her throat as the neckline of Kara’s shirt dipped and strands of lustrous golden hair fell against the moon-polished skin. The last moments of twilight poured from the large windows framing all that Lena loved most in the world.

She trembled and it shook her entire body, as if she could somehow shake her nerves out onto the floor and simply sweep them away and toss them out.

Kara turned to her, soft sapphire above pink lips, as she reached out a hand once more to Lena. “Sit with me?”

“I… Kara, listen,” Lena shifted her weight to another foot. “It’s really important to me that after this we… we keep being… we keep trying to…. We can pretend it never happened if that’s what you want but-”

“Is that what you want?” Kara said softly.

“I… I want whatever’s best for you.”

“Well, right now, what’s best for me is if you stop pacing.”

Lena hadn’t even realized she’d been doing that.

The Kryptonian reached out her hand again. “Come here.”

“But-”

“We can talk on the couch, right?” Kara asked. “We used to.”

Lena nodded and finally took the other woman’s hand, letting herself be pulled down to the couch. The pull was a little stronger than she anticipated, and she ended up sitting beside Kara, their denim-clad thighs pressing against each other and Kara’s arm around her shoulders, steadying and holding her close at the same time. She felt warmth and knew that a blush was tingeing her cheeks.

“Lena, I don’t want to pretend tonight didn’t happen. I understand if you wouldn’t want to talk about it afterwards, but I don’t want… I don’t want you to forget about it, ok?” Kara said. “I… I remember so many things, Lena. I remember the first time I made you laugh, and the first time I complimented you and you didn’t really know how to react. I remember every single time you’ve talked about the tech you’re building, whether or not I’ve agreed that it would be a good thing for humanity or not. There’s always a glow in your eyes that I won’t ever get tired of… a glow that I missed.”

“Kara, you don’t have to say this.”

Blonde wisps waved as the heroine shook her head. “I do. I want you to know. I want you to know how much I remember, what I think I’ll always remember. Like dragging you to that fundraiser at the NCU soccer field and sitting under the stars, watching an old Katherine Hepburn film. I remember convincing you to eat outside on your office balcony. I remember talking about zombies and poetry and the worst drunken advice that we’d ever heard from other people.”

“Kara-”

“I remember that day in the Farmer’s market when that Labrador puppy was playing with my shoelaces while I was carrying the bag of blueberries we bought. The laces came undone and you bent down to tie them for me. I remember baking together, or at least trying to, and you growling at me because I didn’t follow the recipe exactly so I made those blueberry muffins too dense and too sweet. You ate them anyway.”

“Kara, no-”

“Then there was the time you had three donuts with only one bite in them, because you knew I was coming over for lunch at LCorp and you saved them for me because you thought I’d like the flavors.”

Lena was shaking now and she couldn’t stop it, her hands were bunched up into fists. She tried to stop the flow of words but Kara just kept going.

“Before… before you found out… you used to pretend to fall asleep on my shoulder on movie nights just so you could snuggle because you were a little embarrassed but Lena, I always wanted-”

Lena wrenched herself out of Kara’s arms and nearly leapt across the living room. “Stop! Kara, stop! You don’t…. You don’t have to do this, ok? I don’t need this.”

“But you promised that-”

“I did and I’m going to do it. I’m going to give you what you want. Just… you don’t need to do this!” Lena couldn’t help trembling. “You don’t have to say these things, ok? I know you think you do but Kara… You’re not… You’re not the first straight girl who’s wanted to experiment. We can just talk about what’s on the table.”

Kara’s eyes went wide as her words came out as a shocked hiss. “You think I want to sleep with you and pretend it didn’t happen the next day?”

“It’s fine, Kara.” Lena replied, trying to keep her tone even. “Like I said, you’re not the first and I… I’d be good. I’d make you feel good.”

The kryptonian pushed off the couch and strode to the other side of the room as if she was wearing her Supergirl boots instead of socks. She looked like she was shaking too.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything.” Lena hated how plaintive her voice sounded. She needed to take control of this, take control of herself. She pulled the hem of her blouse up and tossed it on the couch. She stood in her strapless balconette bra. Kara turned around just when she was undoing her jeans, and the hunger in those cerulean eyes felt like a reward, like having won something she had fought very hard to achieve. But the hunger shifted into fearful arctic blue - that same fear she had seen at Mount Norquay. That same pain.

Kara made a sound; a small sad sound that shook as it left her lips. It chilled Lena to her very core - Kara should not sound like that. Lena would give anything, do anything, to make sure Kara would never make that sound again. It took her a while to realize that sound was her name.

“It’s alright.” Lena said gently. “You can take what you want from me.”

“Lena, no! You can’t think… I would never make you have sex with me just to make up for what you did. I told you I don’t need restitution. I wouldn’t just use you for a night!”

Lena let out a harsh laugh, digging her nails into the newly healed blisters on her sword hand. “Why the hell not? You used me for years!”

“No, I -”

“You don’t get to disagree about how I felt!” Lena spat. “You told me at the Pulitzer ceremony that you didn’t want to lose the only person you could be ‘Just Kara’ with. You said you were sorry and you said you were selfish. And that was the only reason I didn’t reveal your secret to the world! But then you told me it was to protect me. God! Kara, can’t you see how you gaslit me? You just swooped in even when I didn’t want any friends. You made me care. You made me stable, and then you pulled every little thing from beneath my feet and you called me a villain when I couldn’t stand. Every day, all those years, Kara… You had my boyfriend break into my lab. You manipulated me and put me in danger. You had your friends lie to me. I tried to keep your trust - Kara Danvers’ trust. I never betrayed you, I never abandoned you. I tried to be stalwart. I showed over and over that I would do anything to be there for you. I didn’t know you were Supergirl, but I thought you knew who I really was.”

Kara looked like she’d been stabbed with a kryptonite blade. “I should have. I… I told you the truth the first time, I kept my secret because I was trying to protect what we had. I knew how wrong it was and how hurt you would be, but I chose to protect myself from the fall out. I was protecting myself more than I was protecting you. I’m so sorry. I never meant to let it go that far.”

“But you did. Instead of trusting me enough to choose you - to choose to brave the danger and fight alongside you - you used me. You used me to take a break from being Supergirl and you used me to help you. Even when you came to Metropolis after the bunker, it was because you needed my help against Leviathan… At least if you use me now, it’ll just be my body. That matters a lot less.”

“Everything about you matters to me!” Kara yelled in frustration. “Almost from the day I met you, Lena. You have no idea how much you came to matter to me, how much I’ve tried to… I got so used to lying to everyone that I didn’t realize I was lying to myself too. I don’t think of Supergirl as a separate person, Lena. I really did think I was just caring for you every day. I kept trying to show you how much I... I tried to get you to stay healthy and keep you safe. I tried to pour as much affection into your life as you could take, even when you’d lash out at me for it or went cold on me for no reason. Whether I was acting as Kara Danvers or Supergirl, I was simply doing my best to take care of you.”

Lena felt the inside of her, all of it, contracting and cold while her heart felt like it would explode in her chest. “You gave up on me.”

“I stopped choosing pain, Lena. I never stopped choosing you.” Kara said hoarsely. “Every time your words struck like a wrecking ball at the very building blocks of me, I chose you. I learned to tense up when it came, to try and figure out what trauma caused it and mitigate the effects. Even after you manipulated me, made me steal for you, hurt me in every way you could… I still chose you. When a 5th dimensional imp came to offer me a ‘do over’, to change the universe, I chose to try and fix us. In every reality, I was willing to risk my life and identity just to make sure you were happy and whole. And all those months apart, I still checked on you. I’d still listen for your heartbeat, and every single night after the bunker, when you were at Sam’s… every single sob I heard cut me to the core. But I kept choosing you, Lena. I tried to stop but it hurt. It still hurts. It hurts worse to stop choosing you, than it hurts to love you.”

Lena’s stomach dropped as though she had fallen over the rise of a roller coaster.

“I keep trying to love you, Lena. That’s all I do. I’ve made terrible mistakes and I’ve been cruel. But all that time we were apart, my heart beat against a chest that felt hollow. My eyes still saw but the world seemed so far away. Everything felt empty.” Kara was gasping past quick sobs. “I just want to love you. Please. That’s what I wanted, Lena. Just one night where I could tell you how much I love you.”

“Don’t.” Lena begged. “It’s not… It’s not…”

“It’s not what? True? It is, Lena. On some days, it’s the only thing that I know is true.”

The words tore out of her chest with teeth and claws. “You don’t love me the way I need you to!”

“You won’t let me!” Kara sobbed. “I don’t want sex, Lena. Not like that. Not as a transaction… I want to run errands on a Saturday morning, lie down with you on your incredibly uncomfortable couch on a Sunday, eat lunch with you on a Monday, escort you to one of those social events you hate on a Tuesday, drag you out of your office in the name of self-care on Wednesday, save the universe together on Thursday, and argue on a Friday because I couldn’t resist binge-ing new episodes of the Netflix show we were watching ahead of you. And then I want to do it all over again. Don’t you understand? I want to fall asleep beside you every night, I want to show you that you deserve dates and sappy little notes and all the little things that make life on Earth beautiful. I want to hold you, Lena. I want to love you.”

Lena didn’t trust that she had heard that correctly, that she had understood.

She didn’t want to blink, she didn’t even breathe.

She looked at Kara, really looked at her. Kara looked back, chest heaving from the admission. It was the first time in years that they both saw each other. Maybe it was the first time they’d ever truly seen each other.

Kara crossed the room and took her hands.

“I want to love you.” Kara repeated. “Please let me love you.”

Kara’s fingertips reached up to touch Lena’s cheek – whisper-soft and tentative. Lena turned her face into the caress, nuzzling into Kara’s palm and forgetting to be ashamed of how much she craved this – not just the feel of Kara’s skin against her own, but her tenderness. Lena struggled – wanting to say things, but feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the words.

“Can I show you what I had in mind for tonight?” Kara whispered.

Lena nodded as she continued to hide her face in Kara’s hand. The Kryptonian led her back to the couch, using her other hand to set up the pillows against the arm of the couch in a way that would allow her to sit up comfortably. Then she gently lifted Lena into a hover, lowering them down against the couch and the pillows with a sigh. Lena was flush against Kara, slotted between her parted legs, her head resting on her shoulder, just above Kara’s breasts. The blonde wrapped her arms around Lena, as if to pull her even closer.

“This is the way I want to love you.” Kara murmured. “A little closer than how you always used to be when you’d pretend to fall asleep. Do you know how I knew you were awake?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I know what it sounds like when you’re sleeping because I listened to your heartbeat so often. I learned its rhythm long ago. And you actually did fall asleep a few times. You looked so small and peaceful and lovely against me. I used to dread the moment you’d wake up, because your walls would slam down. Sharpness would slip back into your eyes and your limbs would go all stiff.”

Lena trembled at that. It went against her natural instinct, to be seen that way… to undo a lifetime of learning how to hide all the sensitive softness for fear of being hurt again.

“Is this ok?” Kara asked, and there was a slight quiver in her voice that made Lena come undone.

Suddenly Lena was full-on crying - failing entirely to choke back sobs that shook her to the core. She didn’t seem to have control over her emotions. Under normal circ*mstances, such a situation would have terrified her, but then Kara touched her face again - warm fingers tenderly wiping the tears from her flushed cheeks - the sorrow ebbing away with every caress.

“It’s ok. It’s ok, zhao .” Kara whispered, gently stroking her hair. “Just let me hold you for now. Everything else will work itself out in time. Just let me love you like this, ok?”

Lena nodded and swallowed, allowing herself to sink into the embrace. Kara began to run her fingers along Lena’s scalp, while her other hand caressed circles on the skin of Lena’s back, bare except for her lacy bra.

Lena still didn’t feel like she could speak. There was so much inside her, all her little boxes. She needed those little boxes. She liked how they made her feel unencumbered and strong. She knew they were bad for her, that eventually the boxes would cost her more than she wanted to pay, but that never made her stop packing them full. Because that was how it was supposed to work.

Lena had wanted things back to where they were before, neat and tidy in the foreground of her thoughts, the attics of her mind practically bursting with boxes. She knew she shouldn’t want that back, because it was complicated. Because it was hard. Because all the things that Kara was to her could never be put into a box.

If anything Lena was a box herself, shut away somewhere dark where no one was ever going to look. She never thought that would change. But then Kara came and she was the opposite of contained.

Lena had been prepared for the excruciating intensity of touching Kara everywhere she had fantasized about, but not this. Never this. Not this warmth. Not this brightness.

She imagined this was how pyromaniacs felt - wanting something dangerous, intoxicated by the unobtainable, the things that can’t be contained or controlled. The things that burn when you get too close. The things she can’t turn away from.

Now with her cheek against the soft cotton jersey of Kara’s shirt, crying so hard that it was beginning to hurt, the contents of all her little boxes exploded and strewn across her mind and soul… she felt afraid but free. Free and safe in the arms of the woman she had vowed she would never give another chance to betray her.

Held close, in this way she had always longed to be, she heard Kara’s heartbeat for the first time. She moved in sync with Kara’s breathing. Lena’s tears slowly began to stop on their own as she let herself slip into the steady cadence, as she let herself drink in the warmth of Kara’s embrace.

Lena could hear the thrum in Kara’s chest when she broke the silence. “When I first met you, zhao , I thought you were perfect. I thought you were the most exquisite, the most fascinating, the coolest woman I’d ever met in my life. And as I got to know you, I saw the clothes, the make-up, the distance, the solitude… never letting anyone in… it was armor, all of it. And I wanted to know what you’d fought if you felt you needed that much armor.”

Kara’s hand was still cradling her head, but the hand on her body was comforting, running down her side. Lena couldn’t help but shiver.

“And then after my first article on your alien detection device… The sun was setting, light was coming in through the bullet-proof windows in your office, the smell of your favorite white plumerias permeating the space. You’d taken off your blazer and you were just lounging on the couch in this sleeveless green top that matched your eyes. Your hair was loose. You were so beautiful you took my breath away.” Kara murmured, lost in the memory. “You told me that some people are just bad, and that there isn’t anything you can do to change that. You could only learn to protect yourself…. Do you remember that?”

“No.” Lena spoke at last. Her voice was still hoarse from crying.

“You looked so sad when you said that - that some people were just bad. And I think that’s when I knew that you sometimes thought about yourself that way.” Kara said. “You can think the world of someone without telling them so, but I wanted you to know that you weren’t bad. I started openly telling you that you weren’t. Then the plane was crashing into the reservoir, you told me to save the chemicals instead of you, because you weren’t worth it. And from then on I set out to prove how worthy you actually were. Even when you encased me in Kryptonite and ice at the fortress, I still insisted that you were good. That there’s so much good in you. To the bitter end, Lena, I kept trying. And I don’t want to ever stop trying.”

“You should hate me.”

“I tried. I tried to hate how your trauma explained but never excused your sudden coldness. I tried to hate how you could get so imperious and arrogant. I tried to hate you when you laughed with James that way, the way only I ever got you to laugh. I tried to hate your lies, your tricks, your cruelty. But Lena, there was only ever one thing I ever truly hated.”

Lena prepared herself for the blow. “What was it?”

“I hated trying to hate you.” Kara replied. “I know we’ve hurt each other. I know you’ve done things you’re ashamed of, but Lena… you still deserve hope. You still deserve me wanting to help you after all the pain we’ve shared. You still deserve compassion as you heal from that.”

Hope, help, and compassion for all. Lena shook her head.

Kara sighed. “Tonight, I really just wanted to tell you all the things I’ve been dying to say all these years. All the things I kept inside me and everything you made me feel. I just want to hold you this way and say everything, and for once, I don’t want you to refute it.”

The look in Kara’s eyes made her feel girlish and shy. Kara’s face was so close now, the instinct to turn away - almost as if Kara was too bright to look at directly - was unbearable. Lena squelched it and made herself steady her gaze. “Do you… do you mean it? What you’re going to say?”

“Yes.”

“And did you mean what you said before, about… about little notes and… and dates?”

Kara’s eyes were deep pools of imperial blue. “Yes. And the part about sleeping beside you every night. I meant it. I’ve always meant it. I’ve fallen in love with you, Lena.”

Lena never expected this, not the rawness in Kara’s voice or the desire in her eyes. Not the tight feeling in her own stomach just before she felt the first touch of Kara’s mouth. Not the moist warmth of exhaled breath against her skin, or the heightened smell of jasmine, sandalwood, and vanilla close to her nose.

The kiss was soft and sweet and unhurried – promising that all the words were true. They traded that promise back and forth for long moments, embers warming slowly. Kara’s lips caressed hers over and over… and then the merest touches of her tongue. It was all so tender and sensual, asking nothing from her but pulling a need from deep inside her nonetheless.

Lena responded without thinking, her lips parted and Kara deepened the kiss. She touched Kara’s face, meaning to brush her hair back so they could make out more freely – and then she felt it.

There was a single trail of moisture that streaked down Kara’s fine cheekbone. It dampened Lena’s fingers and she stilled for a second, shocked.

It set something off inside of her – something deep and protective and almost feral – and then she was clasping the heroine close, closer… so close Lena could feel the pounding of Kara’s heart against her own.

“What is it?” Lena breathed fearfully. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know… I didn’t think you felt the same way.”

“Oh Kara, I’ve been in love with you for years.” Lena admitted, the weight of it lifting off her chest at last. “I’ve longed for you, ached for you… with everything that I am.”

“I need you.” Kara whispered.

Lena felt the heat of Kara’s face against her skin as the Kryptonian’s tears traveled down her cheek as well. “You have me, darling. You always have.”

She felt Kara’s hands move to her shoulders and realized that Kara was clinging to her as gently as she could, conscious of hurting her. Then she felt Kara’s hands traveling down her shoulder blades, to the lines of her bra, her bare back, to the waistband of her jeans.

“Lena… Lena… Lena…” Kara chanted it like a mantra between kisses, and Lena opened her mouth once more, accepting what Kara offered with every deep kiss. She felt the first touch of Kara’s tongue against her own, and she knew they could do this for hours. It was all she wanted to do, it was all she had ever wanted… and now she yearned for even more.

Kara let out a moan as Lena broke the kiss and put her mouth on the heroine’s neck, running along her jaw towards her ear, then down the pale column of her throat. She dipped lower still and tasted the hollow where collarbones met sternum. She wanted her, wanted her so badly. Years of telling herself that she couldn’t kiss Kara were tossed aside by the floodwaters of desire that were raging through her body. She pulled the deep neck of Kara’s t-shirt aside. Each new inch of skin Lena’s mouth gained access to, just made her want the next more.

“ Zhao , wait.”

“I can’t wait any longer.” Lena whimpered.

“Please.”

Lena dragged her mouth away from the swell of Kara’s breast and it was like being torn away from the only home she had ever known. Kara placed their foreheads together as their breathing began to even out. “You set every nerve ending I have on fire, and Rao, I want you so badly. But Lena, you do deserve dates, lots of them. You deserve romantic vacations and quiet nights at home, and movie marathons wrapped in blankets.”

“We can have all of that later.”

“But I want you to feel loved, Lena, not just desired.” Kara said. “I want to make love to you, Lena. I want to discover what makes you quiver with arousal, to learn what makes you moan… what makes you wet for me. I promise I’m going to learn to love you and do whatever I can to make you feel good. You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed about the sounds you would make. What you would taste like. How you’d feel against me naked, panting, and begging for more. But when that happens, I want it to be after I’ve told you everything in my heart and shown you how much I value every single thing about you.”

Her voice had turned to a whisper and Lena’s expression had changed into an awe-struck shyness. Lena had always fallen into bed with people, no one had ever really taken the time to… to go slow. She didn’t know what to do.

“What are you thinking, zhao ?”

Lena tilted her head. “What does zhao mean?”

“There isn’t a direct translation to English.” Kara smiled. “The closest single word would be ‘beloved’, but it means more than that. It’s a very old word, dating back millennia. It means deep commitment and proud surrender, giving everything you are with reckless abandon. It’s longing and adoration. It’s eternal and for always… and it’s the way I feel about you.”

“Eternal and for always?” Lena repeated, finding she couldn’t meet Kara’s eyes.

“It is for me.” Kara said. “I belong to you, Lena Luthor. And I want to spend every moment I can showing you the meaning of that word, if you’ll let me.”

Lena nodded as fresh tears came to her eyes. “I belong to you too. I always have.”

Kara kissed her again, softly and lovingly. With eyes closed, Lena lost herself in her full, sensual lips. Lena had wanted more, but this wasn’t a kiss that demanded consummation. Rather, it was the promise of a future. Lena had never believed in such things, but under the spell of Kara’s kisses - each brush of Kara’s mouth against hers felt like the caress of Kara’s soul.

Once more, Kara’s hands found their way to her shoulders, and Lena’s to the heroine’s waist. Delicate kisses gave way to a tender embrace. As they came apart, Lena moaned softly, unable to contain her aching need.

“Can I love you the way I wanted now?”

“Al…alright.” Lena shook with nervousness and desire.

“Are you cold?” Kara seemed to raise herself a little and Lena let out a plaintive cry. “I was just getting a blanket.”

Lena shook her head, moving her hands to clasp Kara to her. The Kryptonian chuckled softly and told her to hang on. To Lena’s surprise they levitated off the couch slowly, and Kara floated them off to her bedroom. Lena hadn’t really been in there much except when she was on the way to use the bathroom. Kara kept one arm around Lena while the other reached for the throw at the foot of her bed. The blonde shook out the blanket with one hand as she lowered them onto her bed, draping the soft microfleece around Lena.

“Better?” Kara whispered.

Lena nodded, relaxing her hold on the heroine. She could feel her warmth through the covers, and the contrast was shocking. She couldn’t keep herself from moving a little closer to Kara’s warmth.She’d been doing it for years now - inching a little closer to Kara’s warmth, Kara’s light.

The woman who held all her devotion tilted her head up gently, and Lena focused on the sweetness of her face and the depths of her eyes.

“First, I loved the moments where we were wrapped up in each other’s presence, having conversations that weren’t forced. Spending time with you quickly became my favorite part of every week.” Kara said softly. “I loved drinking coffee together. I loved the way you’d use your fingers to tear a little bit off a cinnamon roll but you’d tear into a burger with gusto.”

Lena swallowed thickly as Kara reached behind her head and removed her ponytail gently, tucking the cloth covered elastic band under the pillow.

“I love your hair like this.” Kara whispered as she carded her fingers through it. “I remember that time I came with you to the charity ward at the Luthor Family Children’s Hospital. It was the first time I’d ever seen you in jeans and sneakers. Your shirt had a little fuzzy teddy bear under your right collarbone. You carried some of the younger kids and they played with your long hair while you watched me lift four of the older kids who were hanging on to my arms. Do you remember?”

“I’d seen you hold up entire buildings and punch through concrete, so I knew exactly how gentle you were being with them.” Lena said with a smile.

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“Smile.” Kara said softly. “I love discovering every kind of smile you have. Even the ones that are just for armor and for show, because that’s a part of you too. But your real one… the one that reaches your eyes. That’s my favorite. The soft smile you keep just for me, where both of your dimples come out, just here. ”

Kara traced her face at the right places, and Lena reached out as well, bringing her hand up to Kara’s face and the cupid bow of her lips, stilling her litany for a moment. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the softness beneath her thumb. “I love your smile too. And everytime you laugh, you’re so free and unrestrained. I… I wish you could understand how it’s truly my pleasure to make you happy. Hopefully, your pleasure too sometime soon.”

She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face as Kara blushed.

“I love how you say flirty things because you like the way it flusters me. You always know exactly what to say, and how to say it, and it throws me off. You always look so pleased with yourself when you’ve done it.” Kara continued. “I love the passion behind your words and the warmth in your voice when you talk about the things you love.”

“Kara.”

“You promised you wouldn’t argue.”

“I’m not. You said ‘all the things I love’ and then I said your name.”

Kara’s face was aglow and her cheeks were pink. She pressed another soft kiss to Lena’s lips. “I love this too, zhao . You’re fierce and intimidating, brave and brilliant. But that’s all that most people see. I love that with me you’re quiet and tender… and sweet.”

Lena squirmed a little at that.

“I know you have a reputation to keep up. You’re this badass force of nature. You never take anything at face value, and you taught me that the truth is often complicated. I love how you make me think and keep me on my toes, and how.. when we’re alone and just… cozy… you fit just here.”

Kara took Lena’s hand and put it on her own heart. “You’re always here. I love you. I love you for everything you are, even if I know you’re still putting together what that is. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I can’t wait to show you that every day.”

“What would you do?” Lena asked shyly.

“Drink coffee with you when the day begins, even if it doesn’t really do anything for me, because you’re so snarly without it and I want to share that time with you. I’d smile when you play with my hair while I’m lying on the sofa with my head on your lap and my nose in a book. I’d fill the tub for us and bathe with you. I’d sketch you while we lie on the roof of the house in Midvale, I’d draw you smiling at the stars like they know all your secrets. I’d cheer for you while you fenced with J’onn or beat Nia and Brainy at that driving game at the arcade. I’d text you how much I miss you while Alex and I are having sister nights, maybe you and Kelly will go out too.” Kara paused to take a breath. “I’d take walks with you, take care of you when you were being bratty because you were sick, listen to your stories about the places you’ve been.”

“Do you want to go see those places, Kara? Eat at the best restaurants? Go to the theater and have the best seats?”

Kara smiled. “I want all of it - all the wonderful, breathtaking, quiet moments with you. There’s so much magic in the simple things, Lena. I know you can buy me the best and the most lavish stuff, but the little things… they’re so much bigger to me than surprises and gifts. Those little moments are just between you and me, and that makes them bigger than anyone could ever understand. Entire buildings filled with flowers couldn’t compare to the little things we have together. It’s all magical. Because there’s magic in every little thing you are too.”

“But Kara,” Lena said with a kiss, “I want to take care of you too. I want to protect you, make you feel safe when you’re afraid and be there for you when you’re consumed by sorrow. I want to be the person you need, the person you crave when everything gets too much. I mean I… I’m your girlfriend now… I think?”

Kara grinned and rolled them over, pressing Lena on her back as they brought their lips together once more. She took her time, tracing her fingertips along the bare skin on Lena’s chest and her ribs. She began to map every freckle that she came across, as if she loved them too and wanted to know exactly where they stood out against Lena’s alabaster skin. Kara was reverent and intent all at once, and it was intoxicating. It left Lena breathless with need. She felt lost in the curtain of thick, golden hair that fell around their faces and trapped her in a world of Kara’s touch and taste and scent.

“I can’t believe that it’s finally true.” Kara whispered. “You’re my girlfriend. I’m your girlfriend.”

“Are you going to let me love you too?” Lena asked.

Kara nodded.

Lena pushed at Kara’s shoulder gently, encouraging her to lie on her side. The blonde complied, entwining their legs together but not pressing her thigh against Lena’s center. The youngest Luthor slipped her hand beneath Kara’s shirt and began to caress her back, wondering where to begin, how to put it into words.

“I wasn’t looking for friends when I moved here, much less love.” Lena murmured. “I wanted clarity and my schedule was a breakwater against the waves of chaos and whims. But you changed all that… the earnest cub reporter who would have the crinkle in her forehead above her soulful eyes and adorable pout. You were anarchy and delight. You upended things and made my thinking crowded.”

Kara beamed at her, chest puffed out in pride, as if that was a rare accomplishment. Lena kissed the tip of her nose before continuing. “I tried valiantly to keep you at arm’s length, tried not to let you in. I was worried that you’d move on just like everyone except Sam did. But you’d smile at me, just like you’re doing now. And I would just start feeling… nice. The kind of nice that makes your chest ache a little and gives you tingles. I remember thinking that all I wanted to do was to make you smile like that again. It’s… addicting to make you happy. I can’t stop myself.”

“You always make me happy.” Kara replied, running her fingers down Lena’s arm. “It wasn’t just when you filled my office with flowers, it was the colorful little blooms that would show up randomly because you thought of me or passed a florist’s shop. It wasn’t just buying CatCo, it was your time - usually spent so carefully and deliberately - that you squandered wholeheartedly on me. I know you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. It wasn’t just inventing ways to keep me safe as Supergirl, it was the way you used to hold my hand whenever I had a bad day at work.”

Lena kissed her softly. “I plan to love you better, all the ways you want and ways you don’t even know you want. You don’t know… How can I tell you…?”

Kara nuzzled her jaw but stayed silent, reassuring her that she was listening.

“I’ve been to hundreds of cities. I’ve seen proteins fold. I’ve made portals that could transport an entire armada of spaceships and nanometer sized machines that crossed the blood brain barrier… none of that compares to the beauty of the moment when my love for you burst from my heart like the sun over the horizon. It wasn’t like anything I felt before… Usually I could decide whether to embrace the feeling or close my eyes. With you… Kara when I finally realized I was in love with you, it was like I met myself - a part of me that had been lying dormant my entire life. I suddenly understood the meaning of every poem I had ever read, because I felt it for you. You were the sun that woke that part of me from its solitary hibernation. You showed me how much more there is to life by being a part of mine.”

Lena took a shaky breath as Kara’s hand cradled her face, thumb moving slowly across the plains of her cheek.

“Kara, you showed me what a real hero is. That compassion is strength, and selflessness is bravery. You made me... you make all of us better just by knowing you. Whenever things felt bleak, the power of your hope was a beacon, reminding us that the future was something we could create, not something that was just going to victimize us. You’re never willing to give up on a better tomorrow, so neither do we.”

Kara scooted up a little and placed a tender kiss on her forehead. “You know you’re just as much a hero as I am, right?”

Lena scoffed.

“It’s true! You carry so much and you do it all alone. You’re just as strong as I am, sometimes maybe stronger than I am. You know what it is to fight for something with every fiber of your being.”

“But Kara, I -”

“Ah ah ah,” Kara waggled a finger at her with a little stern glare. “What did I say?”

Lena sighed. “I’m not supposed to argue.”

“There’s so much good in you, Lena.” Kara said, the chastisem*nt soft, but there. “And the good always wins out.”

“I want to believe that’s true.”

A soft sadness came over Kara’s face before it seemed to be chased away by a new thought. “Well, I’ll just have to keep telling you until you believe it.”

Lena blushed. “You don’t have to.”

“You have my heart, zhao . I’m going to keep telling you how wonderful you are because I want to. And I do have to, not out of obligation, but because I need to tell you - the feelings would burst out of my chest otherwise.”

Lena shook her head, she tried find a way to change the subject, and settled on smacking the Kryptonian’s shoulder lightly. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m struggling to tell my girlfriend how much I love her.”

Kara laughed and offered a chaste kiss in apology.

“I love… I love the way you remember presents I can never remember giving. I love you for the way you say my name, like it belongs to no one but you.” Lena attempted, groping for the words she needed. “For years, I… I loved you beyond hope. Beyond reason. Beyond any concept of dignity.”

“And now?” Kara asked quietly.

“Now I… I’ve never felt happiness as pure as this. I think maybe this is joy… the kind of happiness that doesn’t fade. I didn’t know I was so empty before, now that I feel so full.” Lena’s whisper turned forthright. “Now I love you beyond words, beyond thoughts. Beyond the world itself.”

She shook from the enormity of the emotions coursing through her. Lena took Kara’s hands and placed them on her heart, leaning close so she could speak in her girlfriend’s ear. “Here. This is for you, Kara. I’ve never given it to anyone before. This is for you.”

The tears that she felt on her cheek spoke of how Kara understood the frightening magnitude of this, Lena’s greatest gift.

Chapter 7: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Now her days began with the warmth of Kara’s voice, a voice note if they weren’t together, a quiet ray of sunlight if they were… because Kara always kissed her forehead and handed her a cup of coffee first, waiting until she had booted up to speak.

This morning she had looked up over 200 shades of green to find the exact shade of Lena’s eyes. Kara told her that she had found colors that she could identify with each mood, and she’d spoken almost rhapsodically about the engineer’s sparkling eyes and her long lashes.

Now her lunches were never hurried perfunctory affairs at her desk. In between cataclysms, she usually caught lunch with Kelly near social services, with Nia at Noonan’s, or with Brainy, J’onn, and Alex at the DEO. Whenever Kara was free she’d come along as well. It got so ridiculous that Sam had cornered her and flat out demanded her own slot. “You’re having lunch with me at least once a week. I’m your best friend and CFO. I get Tuesdays. Everyone else can get in line.”

Now she was waiting for their friends to arrive. Her girlfriend was off on a last minute save - something about a kitten who had been up a tree for more than a day because it kept climbing. Kara had explained she knew all about that sort of horror because of Streaky, her childhood pet. Lena had smiled and told her to go save the day.

And so she was ensconced in the softness of Kara’s couch, leafing through one of the reporter’s poetry books. She’d spiked her mug of russian lapsang tea with a splash of the smoky artisanal whiskey. The sounds of the city were muted by Kara’s windows, but the lights glistened as the day came to a close. Even the words on the page were creamy and mellow.

Aware of all the gifts she could endow,
Aware, as women are, of all her powers,
As startling as a bunch of winter flowers,
She tricked from me my childish, sacred vow

The doorbell rang and Lena used a take-out receipt to mark her place before opening the door for the young Naltorian hybrid.

“Wow.” Nia’s mouth hung open.

Lena turned around, wondering what she was looking at.

“You’re beautiful.”

She shrugged and looked away in mystification. She was in gray leggings, Kara’s striped boatneck, and cozy socks with little pandas on them.

“No like really, Lena, an old person could see you and have a heart attack, you’re so pretty.”

“Thank you.”

Nia finally stepped in and gave her a side hug. “It’s your smile, not your clothes.”

“It’s because you look happy.” Ruby added as she and her mother came to the door.

Sam pulled her towards the kitchen island. “Trusting that you’re loved suits you.”

“By Kara?”

“By all of us too.” Sam added. “And knowing that you’re capable of returning that love.”

Kelly and the rest of their friends from the DEO arrived together. The balm of J’onn’s quiet regard contrasted with Brainy’s excitement, Kelly’s laughter, and Alex’s grousing.

“Lena, do I really have to go to the Mission Distillery shindig you’re hosting?”

The CEO tried to contain her fond exasperation. “No you don’t, but you were the one who brought me there so you’re technically responsible for my investment. Besides, I’d appreciate it.”

“You’d better appreciate it.” Alex wrinkled her nose. “Having to watch all those rich asshats play pompous olympics is gonna be torture.”

“Hey!” Lena exclaimed. “Is that a prediction or an indictment?”

“Yeah well, you’re my favorite rich asshat.” Alex nudged her companionably as she opened the fridge and got a beer.

“How does one’s ass wear a hat?” asked Brainy.

Kelly smirked. “You have to have your head so far up your ass that you’ve permanently impaled yourself and become obtuse and oblivious.”

“I’m really flexible that way.” Lena added.

“At least you and Kara have finally figured it out.” J’onn said. “The two of you were giving me a headache.”

“Pffft.” Alex replied. “I don’t know whether to throw a party or throw up.”

“You could always do both, like the last time you hosted game night.” Lena laughed.

“God, you’re annoying.”

Lena smirked. “I assure you, it takes years of practice. The fact that it seems effortless is a testament to my craft.”

Nia crossed the room since Brainy had called her over. He wanted her to differentiate between an asshat and an asshole. Ruby was interviewing J’onn about how he could phase between solid objects. Sam and Kelly were chatting as they pried their slices of pizza from the box.

“You ok?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, I guess I’m just… grateful.” Lena answered. “For everything. For everyone.”

“Guess you can go from wry to charmingly serious at the drop of a hat too.”

Lena shrugged. “It’s a skill.”

“Lena,” Alex said quietly, “we’re grateful too.”

There was a rush of cold air and the click of the window shutting, then the feel of Kara’s arms around her and the briefest touch of her lips. Lena blushed, still shy at the small yet public display of affection.

“Zhao, nim zehdh.”

From the context, anyone would have interpreted it as “Honey, I’m home”, but Lena knew it meant more. That zehdh meant oneness and unity, that it wasn’t the physical space of her apartment that her Kryptonian girlfriend was talking about. And Lena felt the importance of it, the sentiment that came from the woman who had lost her entire world - the weight of that and the incredible responsibility that came with the depth of that love.

Now Lena looked around her with wonder.

These were the gifts of the spirit.

These were the gifts of the heart.

Like the fencing calluses on her hand in the deep mine of her pocket, the bottle of whiskey on the bar, the plastic duck on her shelf, the scheduled Friday night dinner to eat chicken wings, the post-its on her headboard with a little heart and a hastily scrawled K… touchstones among the daily disorder.

She had never even dared to dream of these presents and this presence.

Now it had been given. It wouldn’t be taken away.

Now it was a given. It was an established fact and it would only grow and deepen.

Now, Lena knew without a doubt, she had it all.

Given - casualsavant - Supergirl (TV 2015) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: The Ask

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Chapter 2: The Match

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Chapter 3: The Dinner

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Chapter 4: The Pier

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Chapter 5: The Road Trip

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Chapter 6: One Night

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Chapter 7: Epilogue

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References