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Part 1
The ice in Lena’s glass clinks rhythmically as she twirls her narrow black straw around and around. It’s the safest place to look when Lena’s top is taunting the metaphorical limbo chant (how low can you go), and her eyes are doing that. That being a slow crawl up Kara’s body as she shifts awkwardly in her chair.
“Are you going to order something, or shall I drink for the both of us tonight?”
Kara’s gaze flicks up, catching on the arch of one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, before settling on a far less daunting neon sign hanging above the bar.
“I—“
Kara swallows through the worst case of dry mouth she’s possibly ever felt since landing on Earth and assumes a more upright position. Confidence and feigned assurance has to be the answer here.
“I’m still deciding,” she lands on lamely.
She reaches across the table for the questionably laminated drink menu as Lena shifts forward in her chair and shoot—there’s that top again. Is Lena trying to kill her today?
It’s not that she disapproves of her best friend dressing how she wishes to dress. Kara’s not a prude. It’s just that the top’s V-neck is daring, leaving very little to Kara’s overactive imagination. To put it bluntly, the top is… distracting?
The word fits, but Kara can’t for the life of her understand why. They’re just boobs. Rather nice boobs, but that’s all. Another human feature that—while remarkable in what they do—are in no way as captivating as a meteor shower reflecting off the surface of her favourite emerald-green lake or like, every puppy, ever.
So yeah. Boobs. Lena’s boobs. Lena’s boobs—which she should probably stop staring at any second now.
“So?” Lena asks.
Kara jumps at the question, slamming her knee into the underside of the table and nearly falling out of her chair.
It hurts. It really hurts. Stupid humans and their stupid vulnerabilities.
“So…”
“So what have you decided on?”
Lena leans her chin onto the palm of her hand and stares up at Kara with the most innocent of smiles, yet there’s something off. Something behind her eyes that has tiny little alarm bells going off in Kara’s brain.
“I—I guess I’ll try whatever you’re drinking.”
Lena coughs out a stifled laugh, before her little smirks slides closer to confusion than allure.
“Whiskey on the rocks? I thought you said this stuff was—and I quote—worse than a battery acid smoothie. Whatever that entails,” she drawls, letting go of the straw and letting her hand float to the table between them.
“Why don’t you try some of mine first?”
She slides the glass over to Kara slowly, being careful not to tip it over as it maneuvers the uneven planks of lacquered wood.
“I couldn’t,” Kara says, as if she’s doing Lena a favour by not drinking that insipid devil’s juice.
“Oh, I don’t mind. I was probably going to order another anyway.”
Kara eyes the glass. It’s mostly ice now—hopefully melted down ice.
“Okay.”
She tries to instill confidence in her voice, but it comes out too high-pitched.
“I’ll just—”
Kara reaches for the glass and raises it to her lips. Before she can take a sip from the rim, she nudges the straw out of the way and… there. Sip taken. Still terrible. Terrible and cold.
Across the table from her, Lena is barely containing a laugh behind her hands.
“What?” Kara pouts, setting the glass back on the table.
“Nothing, darling.”
The casual pet name and the way Lena’s whole face lights up when she chuckles has Kara’s irritation quickly waning towards fondness.
“I still don’t understand how you drink that stuff,” she quips instead.
“And I still don’t understand how sharing straws is a no-go, but—“ Lena leans way over the table, a wicked smile on her face.
With her long, slim fingers, she beckons Kara closer, hand cupped beside her lips as if ready to share a tightly kept secret.
Maybe if Kara gives in her head will stop feeling dizzy, and she’ll somehow forget what the intricate lacing on Lena’s bra today looks like.
After another second of stalling, Kara gives in and scoots closer, still not as far over the table as Lena, but close enough to be surrounded by her perfume—Darjeeling with a hint of citrus and—
Kara’s in the middle of pinpointing the Earthy undertones of the fragrance when Lena’s whispered words reach her ears.
“—sharing spit in the middle of my office is perfectly fine?”
This time Kara does fall. Quite spectacularly, slipping forward too far with too much weight on the front legs of the chair until it careens back, thudding low against the floor.
“Are you alright?”
Lena’s out of her seat and hovering over Kara, a little too shocked to make any further moves.
Kara tries to right herself, and realizes that yes, she did whack her chin on the table as she went down, and yes, it is starting to become rather painful and uncomfortable. She stops mid-movement and presses against the tender skin with her palm. It’s warm and puffy, like all her blood has detoured from the rest of her vital organs to the site of her injury.
“Oh, Kara.” Lena starts to smile, like it’s some clumsy joke, but then her gaze flicks down to Kara’s chin and all the colour in her face seems to drain.
“Kara—you’re—you’re actually hurt.”
“It appears so,” she chuckles morosely.
Lena kneels down beside her—expensive pencil skirt be damned—and takes Kara’s face in her hands.
It’s not like she’s never been looked after before. Hell, Alex has had to attend to a whole litany of injuries since she donned the red and blue suit. It’s that she’s never felt so powerless, especially in front of Lena. This feeling of inadequacy and shame is so strong that it completely overpowers how nice it is to have Lena’s soft fingers sliding down her jaw, rubbing soothing circles over her skin.
“Well, you’re not bleeding,” Lena finally concludes, “but it is swelling up. We should get you some ice for that.”
Kara tries to reach out for her arm and tell her it’s not necessary, but she’s too quick. Somehow, she’s back on her feet and across the room talking to a bartender before Kara can even open her mouth.
They both decide to call it a night after the incident. On the street outside the bar, Lena calls her driver to pick them up and won’t hear any rebuttal from Kara.
Despite Lena’s attentiveness since they both arrived at the bar earlier, the drive home is drenched in silence. They’re just a few blocks away, passing by the alley where Kara used to change back into her civilian clothes when she first became Supergirl, when Kara remembers why she’d fallen out of the chair in the first place.
“What did you mean back there?”
Lena turns in her seat, legs still crossed towards the passenger door.
“Back where?”
“Back at the bar.”
There’s an urgency after totally humiliating herself that somehow enables Kara to just come out with it.
“You said something about sharing spit, and the whole time you were acting all—” Realization dawns on her just as Lena’s own expression shrinks away. “—flirty. With me. I don’t understand.”
“Kara.” Lena sighs, running her hands down the sides of her skirt. She fixes the hem, evening it out across her lap, before forcing her hands to still.
“I’d rather not get into it. I just… let’s just say there was a misunderstanding on my end, and I sincerely apologize for how I acted.”
“But why would you—”
Kara’s cut off by a disgruntled sigh. In her periphery, Lena is insistently combing a hand through her hair. She goes over the same section thrice, before muttering something unintelligible.
“What?” Kara asks.
Lena repeats the same string of murmured words, this time with a terse edge.
“Lena, I can’t understand you,” Kara tries again.
“I said that I thought you were someone else, okay?”
It’s more frustration than anger fuelling her tone of voice, yet the clipped words still sting.
“So it’s this other person and not me that you… kissed?”
“—hooked up with,” Lena tries to finish for her.
Kara’s been on Earth for over fifteen years and has never bothered to seek clarification on what hooking up entails. She really wishes she’d bothered to do so, now.
“That’s…” Kara wants to say something positive—at the very least, neutral—but every word that comes to mind is jagged and scornful.
“It’s embarrassing is what it is,” Lena mutters.
“And you thought I was this… oh.”
It suddenly occurs to Kara that while Lena’s reaction to her injury back at the bar was on par for the caring and nurturing person she is, what she’d said did stick out: you’re actually hurt.
“Lena,” Kara starts again. “Who did you think I was?”
Their eyes meet across the back seat of the car, but before either one of them can say anything else, the engine cuts off, and the sound of Lena’s driver filters in from the front seat.
“We’ve arrived at the first address Ms. Luthor. Would you like any assistance?”
“Thank you, Thomas,” Lena replies. “And no; we’ll be alright.”
Lena opens her door and slides out first to let Kara out on the sidewalk. It’s past ten o’clock, so the stores next to Kara’s building are closed, leaving the street darker and less welcoming than it had been earlier. It’s things like deserted streets at night that Kara had never thought twice about before.
When they’re both standing next to the curb, Lena closes the passenger door but makes no move to follow Kara up.
“You should probably ice your chin again tomorrow morning if the swelling hasn’t gone down,” Lena comments.
“Yeah, thanks. I will.”
They stand a few feet away. Kara shuffles her feet in place, not ready to part yet unable to find her footing again in this conversation.
Finally—thankfully—Lena takes a step toward her and pulls her in for a hug. It’s familiar and warm and is reminiscent of many other goodbyes between them. As Kara pulls back, Lena stops her, wrapping her hand around Kara’s wrist.
“It was her,” she breathes out. “Supergirl.”
There’s something oddly chilling about the name. The way it dissipates across the space between them. So familiar yet completely intangible to Kara now.
“I’d prefer you heard it from me than some trashy tabloid or social media post tomorrow,” she explains.
Kara nods her understanding, but Lena won’t meet her eyes. After Lena’s reluctant confession, Kara does the only thing she can think of. She reaches back, squeezing Lena’s hand in her own, if not to provide comfort then to ground them.
After a final goodbye, Lena slips back into her town car and disappears down the street into the darkness.
That night, as sleep pulls at the corners of Kara’s eyes, there’s only one thing keeping her awake. Not the fear she’d felt that morning—of being vulnerable—of being human, but the deepening sorrow of losing something she’d never believed to be so ubiquitous with who she was.
26 Hours before
“So, you’re saying it’s the screams that power their world?”
Kara rolls her eyes as she readjusts her perch. She’s a hundred feet off the ground—or more accurately, the National City harbour—arguing about a kids movie with Nia and Brainy.
“The screams of the children,” Brainy interjects.
Kara hears Nia huff over her earpiece and smiles.
“That’s fucked up,” Nia eventually adds, bluntly.
There’s silence over the line, before they break out in stifled chuckles.
“Alright, alright. That’s enough of that,” Alex’s chiding tone cuts through.
“Don’t act like you didn’t find the conversation at least a little amusing,” Kara teases.
Despite the lack of response from Alex’s com, Kara can still pick up the exasperated sigh from her sister.
“Just focus, please, Supergirl. We missed these guys last time, and I don’t really feel like writing up another dissatisfactory report.”
“Is that all this is about?”
Kara knows her sister has a date tonight and can’t help but needle her during this time of prevailing boredom. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate the work she does as Supergirl, but surveilling a large industrial site in hopes of catching an elusive alien presence is not how she’d hoped to spend her Friday night.
She had planned on seeing Lena tonight—dinner at the little Chinese place across from the sketchy bowling alley with the best claw machines, drinks at Lena’s favourite whisky bar, and maybe a detour back to the sketchy bowling alley to win Lena a prize. All of this would precede Night #3 of their H2O, Just add Water binge (an idea that was entirely Lena’s after Kara had introduced her to the masterpieces that made up her adolescent TV watching experience).
So yeah, Kara can see why Alex is bummed about potentially missing her own date… Not like tonight was supposed to be a date with Lena. They’re just—
“—Supergirl? Supergirl!”
“What?”
Startled, she almost falls from her spot, crouched on the beam of a container crane.
“I asked if you had eyes on the approaching vessel from the south-west?”
“Oh.” Kara scrambles, scanning the waters beyond the docks. Sure enough, a small feeder ship is chugging along through the darkness, at least a mile out. “I see it.”
“Move on my queue, then,” Alex speaks through the com.
Once the ship begins to dock, Alex gives Kara the signal, and her and Nia are moving. Kara takes the lead, approaching the vessel from the North while Nia hangs back in case anyone tries to sneak over the side.
Kara clearly makes out a rope winding its way around the pier, but the force mooring the boat is not visible. Not even Kara’s enhanced vision spots a physical entity moving about the boat as its secured.
“What’s going on?” Kara hears Alex ask in her ear as she approaches the ship.
She waits on a response, investigating the mysterious ship first. Aboard, there’s clear evidence that someone has been there recently. A chest in the cockpit sits open revealing extra rope and replacement parts. There’s even a half-drank bottle of water sitting in the cupholder.
“Supergirl, I need an update,” Alex tries again.
Kara backs up to the deck taking one last glance around the ship with her x-ray vision but spots nothing.
“It’s empty,” Kara explains. “There’s no one here.”
Her com is quiet for a moment before Alex’s hesitant voice crackles to life again. “What do you mean it’s empty?”
“Deserted.”
“Brainy, are you seeing anything here?” Alex asks. “How’s that energy signature?”
“Still strong,” Brainy replies.
Kara can imagine Alex’s frustration and bites back her own. Before Alex can ask her to check again, Kara’s leaving the deck of the ship behind and resuming her first look out point again.
“I don’t care what your reading says, Brainy. There was no one. Have we considered an alternative energy source? Maybe someone controlling the ship from afar.”
Nia clears her throat, like she’s bracing for an answer no one wants to hear, while Brainy just sighs.
“It’s possible,” Alex eventually mutters.
“Awesome,” Kara grumbles. “Permission to head back?”
She doesn’t even wait for Alex’s confirmation before she’s flying to the DEO.
It’s late by the time Brainy finishes surveying the area. The boat is still the only entity around emitting the strange energy signature. Kara tries to hide her frustration, but her feet are quite literally creating small trenches in the floor where she paces behind his desk.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” Brainy whispers, just loud enough for her and her alone to hear.
Kara bites at her bottom lip before dipping her chin in acceptance of his apology.
“It’s fine,” she says, before heading for the debriefing room.
Alex is already waiting for her there when she arrives.
“Don’t,” Kara says, holding a hand up the moment she enters.
Alex doesn’t appear to be too pleased about being shushed but lets it go this once.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
“Kara–”
“Alex,” she warns.
“It’s no one’s fault.”
Kara’s resulting laugh is sour, tainted with frustration and despair.
“Maybe not,” she ends up admitting, “but cancelling on Lena for the fourth time sure makes it feel like mine.”
Alex reaches out like she’s going to comfort Kara but changes tactics at the last second.
She lands on a listless, “I know,” before pulling up an empty report. “Let’s just get through this, and maybe you can at least call her before she heads to bed.”
Kara just shrugs as she takes a seat in one of the standard issue DEO office chairs and prepares herself for the long hour ahead.
Kara wakes the next morning to the vague memory of unanswered texts to Lena and a cold sensation enveloping her body. It’s probably why she wakes snuggled up in her sheets and duvet instead of finding everything kicked to the end of her bed.
Her phone is thankfully not dead when she pulls it out from under her pillow, though it’s riding the fine line between a green and red battery percentage. The string of messages she’d sent Lena late last night are still unanswered which yeah, she probably deserves, but it still doesn’t feel good.
Kara plugs her phone into the cable held to the top of her side table by a strip of tape and pads toward the bathroom to get rid of the foul taste of morning breath.
The first sign that something is off hits her before she’s even cleared her bedroom door. The world around her—at least most things—have a fuzzy quality to them like she’s forgotten to focus the lens on her phone’s camera before taking a photo. Rubbing her eyes does nothing, and still, panic doesn’t sink in just yet.
She makes it to the bathroom with little issue, washes her face, and brushes her teeth before the next hint makes its presence known in an annoyingly painful manner. Her mouthwash—the one she’s used since college—burns the moment it hits the back of her mouth. Gripping the edges of the counter, she leans forward and spits out every last drop until it’s just saliva hitting the sink basin.
“What the heck?” she asks out loud.
She shoots the offending thing a spiteful grimace, before stumbling back to her bedroom in search of her phone. When she picks it up from the table, letting the cable hang loosely from the end of it, there are two new messages. Two new messages she’s somehow missed despite only being a room away.
That is when it finally sinks in. The apartment. Her world. It’s eerily quiet. Quiet like back on Krypton. Quiet like the times she’s solar flared.
Forgoing the voice that’s telling her to open the new message from Lena, Kara taps her sister’s contact and has the phone pressed to her ear in seconds.
“Alex!”
The line is quiet before Alex’s voice comes through, confused.
“Kara, what’s wrong?”
“Did I flare last night?”
“Did you what?”
“Solar flare,” Kara clarifies.
The silence is even harder to bear, not picking up on changes in Alex’s breathing.
“Kara,” Alex begins slowly. “You’re not making any sense. Is something actually wrong?”
“What do you mean?” Kara shoots back, affronted.
“I’m right in the middle of an important case for work, and I don’t have time for your theatrics.”
Kara squeezes at the feeble plastic of her phone case and feels conflicted when it doesn’t even bend under her hand’s pressure.
“Look, can you just come over as soon as possible?” Kara replies.
“I can maybe meet for lunch. Is that okay? If you’re really in trouble though, I can leave now.”
Kara exhales, wishing for the cathartic release of at least a small bit of crumbling plastic.
“No. I’m not–I’m not in trouble. Do you want to meet at the DEO around noon?”
“The DEO?”
A sharp plunging sensation rips right through her at the possibility she’s somehow been transported to an alternate dimension from her own. She has no time to deal with something of that magnitude. Thankfully, Alex doesn’t leave her panicking for too long.
“Kara, I told you before that we don’t mention that place. In fact, I could be in serious trouble just from you knowing about it.”
So maybe this is an alternate dimension after all.
“Why wouldn’t I–” Kara holds the rest of that thought to herself. She can’t get into this over the phone. “Look. I still need to talk with you, but lunch is fine. Meet me at Noonan’s?”
This, at least, does ring a bell for Alex.
“Yeah. 12:30 work for you?”
Kara hums a quiet approval, before Alex is wishing her a good day at work and—
Work.
“Shoot!”
Without her superspeed, Kara greatly underestimates the time it takes her to get dressed and out the door. There’s also the very inconvenient reality that she can no longer fly anywhere either. With the most disgruntled glower, Kara pulls up the bus schedule on her phone and makes the three-block journey, now already ten minutes late.
By the time she’s seated on the #10 headed downtown, her hair is a mess, and her light blue cardigan smells vaguely of both sweat and floral deodorant. It’s a rather unfortunate combination, but thankfully, no one around her seems to notice. In fact, no one is paying her any attention at all.
Sighing, Kara leans back farther into the plastic bus seat and takes out her phone. The text she’d received this morning from Lena sits unopened in her Messages app, so she taps over to read it.
Don’t apologize for having to miss our night out. I understand things come up. How about we try again tonight?
Kara reads the text once, then a second time, tapping at the side of her case with her thumb.
She understands? Kara really doubts she does. Once again, Lena’s propensity to give Kara a hundred and one chances leaves her feeling both warm and guilty. How does she even deserve Lena?
Sounds great! Kara replies, though her countenance is anything but chipper.
A minute later she sees the text bubble pop up above Lena’s name, indicating she’s writing back, when the bus comes to a sudden halt. Kara pays it little mind, focus narrowed in on Lena’s incoming reply. It’s not until another rider jumps up from the seat across from her to stare out the bus window that Kara tucks her phone back into her slacks’ pocket and turns as well.
Though she can’t see a thing from her vantage point, the sound of grinding metal is impossible to mistake. Her hand flies immediately to her glasses, feet already turned toward the exit doors, when reality comes crashing back in on her. It’s her own shaky hand that adjusts the glasses back on her face as the world comes back into focus.
She can’t help anyone right now. All she can do is sit there and wait and hope and try to slow down the moisture gathering at the corner of her eyes.
Unable to watch what appears to be an armed robbery going down at the bank on the other side of the avenue, Kara looks out her own window. Half of the pedestrians around look unfazed by the commotion while the rest head for cover in nearby businesses.
Their own bus driver has finally come to his senses and speaks out to the half-full bus, asking everyone to remain seated while the city attends to the situation at hand.
The line sounds rehearsed, like he’d sat through a presentation at work and has thus far, recited the line over a dozen times. Amidst the commotion, Kara wonders how many daily routines her heroics have changed since she’d donned the super-suit years ago.
She doesn’t get to stew with the thought for much longer, because her bus starts to move again, just seconds later. With all the other cars backed up on their way to work and school and other errands, the bus crawls by the scene of the robbery slowly. Soon, the road narrows to one lane as traffic cops begin to block off a destroyed bit of pavement closer to the median.
It’s only when she’s turned away from the majority of the destruction and has cast her gaze toward the modern city skyline that she catches a blur of red and blue passing just beneath the clouds.
“Is that Kara Danvers making the walk of shame at thirty minutes past the hour?” a familiar voice chimes out the minute she’s stepped off the elevator at Catco.
Kara swings her attention toward the break room where Nia stands, leaning against the wall beside the coffee maker. The junior reporter has the most shit-eating grin on her face as she takes her time, sipping her tiny cup of water.
“There was this thing,” Kara explains, still a little out of breath.
Nia chortles. “Well, there must have been if you’re this late coming in. The team was this close to calling 911 in fear you’d been kidnapped by an overly friendly man handing candy out of his van.”
“Really?”
Kara runs a hand through her hair, waiting for the rest of the joke to drop, but Nia only stares back at her with mild concern. She takes a final swig of her water before dropping the cup in the trash.
“We probably would have called you first,” she adds on her way past, “but emergency services were a close second.”
Beyond the odd interaction with Nia, the rest of Kara’s morning is unusually boring. She responds to all the emails sitting unopened in her inbox by ten o’clock, has time to edit her piece slated to appear in the magazine’s next issue, and even makes idle chit chat with two of the new hires for the first time. They’re friendly and ask her about her week, and one of them even has photos to share of her recently adopted puppy. It’s all so nice. So idyllic in fact that Kara almost forgets about meeting her sister for lunch.
I’m running late but I’ll see you shortly, Alex texts her a few minutes before their scheduled meeting time.
Kara slams her laptop shut and is powerwalking to the door before anyone can intercept her.
The ride down to the lobby is quiet, interspersed with the periodic ding of the elevator. She’s almost reached the bottom floor when another text comes in—this time from Lena.
I don’t regret a thing.
Okay... Kara fumbles with her phone, opening a message to reply, when the sound of the lobby filters in. Kara looks up to see three people waiting to get on, so she pockets her phone and steps out.
The building is abuzz with activity this time of day, so Kara has to keep her head up to avoid bumping into anyone. After a few close calls, she reaches the front doors and finally breaths in the tepid spring air. After three hours of key tapping and whispered chatter, the hubbub of the city street at lunch is a welcome reprieve.
Kara walks the short distance to Noonan’s and spots Alex headed there from the opposite direction. A smile springs up, unbidden, as she recognizes the familiar face.
“Alex!” she declares, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
Alex blinks back at her, face scrunched like she’s just been forced to sit through one of Kara’s favourite MTV music videos that she adored as a kid (and Alex pretended to dislike).
When they meet, Kara pulls her sister into a tight hug, hanging on even when the other unwinds her arms and begins to lean back.
“You sure you’re all right?” Alex asks as Kara grabs for the door handle to the restaurant.
Kara purses her lips and refrains from answering, instead shifting their attention to the board above the counter.
“I was thinking of getting a tea today,” she comments.
Alex holds a hand up to Kara’s forehead like she’s taking her temperature before she’s slapped away.
“Hey, hands off,” she chides.
Alex sticks her tongue out at her and for a second, everything feels normal.
They find a table by the window after placing a lunch order, then it’s just the two of them in a face off playing the waiting game until their food arrives.
“So, are you going to tell what’s up or am I supposed to guess?” Alex says.
“It would make this so much easier if you could, but I guess I will try to explain.”
Alex motions forward like she’s giving Kara the floor.
“So...”
Gradually, Kara leads Alex through the events of the morning, stopping at each detail that feels especially foreign to her. By the time she makes it to the bus anecdote, Alex’s lack of a reaction is all Kara needs to know this isn’t the Alex she’d argued with the night before. Hell, it’s not even the same world as far as she can tell. The only thing that doesn’t seem off is Lena.
“So was the bank robbery this morning why you’d called me in a panic?” Alex asks.
Kara scratches at her nose, lifting her glasses so she can run her nail over the skin between her brows.
“Sort of,” she admits.
A waiter arrives then with their drinks, and Kara takes advantage of the brief reprieve to organize her thoughts. It’s not like she’s not aware that her senses feel less bombarded today. In fact, most moments just feel like a little vacation from the Supergirl part of her life. It’s only when the little anxiety monster pops up just beneath the surface of her conscience and ponders, “I wonder if anyone is in trouble?” that the dread strikes again.
With the liquid courage of her peach tranquility tea (mixed with four pumps up simple syrup), Kara cracks open the delicate shell of a false reality she’s been tiptoeing around.
“My panic this morning wasn’t just from the robbery or arriving to work late. Alex, I think I’m from an alternate dimension.”
“You’re from where?” Alex replies, nearly choking on her own coffee.
“A different reality,” Kara reiterates with a tight-lipped smile.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought I heard.”
Alex takes another sip of her drink, blowing over the surface absentmindedly.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Kara admits, shifting in her chair.
She wishes they’d picked a stroll through the park or Alex’s living room for this conversation so it would have been socially acceptable to pace.
“It is sort of crazy,” Alex agrees after a minute.
She leans forward, bracing her elbows against the table, and studies Kara’s face as if the answers to her questions lie within the creases.
“So, let’s say you are from a different reality; what is it about this one that’s different from yours?” Alex asks, humouring her.
“It’s less about what’s different about everyone else and more about what’s different about me. I–”
“Hold that thought,” Alex says, flicking Kara an apologetic smile, before she flicks open her work phone.
“Yes?” Alex answers.
At least this reality’s Alex wears the same exasperated expression when work bothers her.
“I know,” Alex follows up. “We’ll–we’ll discuss that with her tonight.”
Alex’s eyebrows shoot up a second later, before she’s biting down hard on the inside of her cheek and nodding along to whoever is on the other end of the line.
“Of course, Sir.”
So, J’onn most likely.
“I understand. Of course, Sir,” Alex says once more, before hanging up.
“Sorry about that,” Alex tells Kara after she’s dropped her phone to the table.
She takes a long sip of her coffee, closing her eyes against the steam rising above the rim. When she opens them, Kara is waiting expectantly across from her.
“Work?” Kara asks, hoping to get more than a simple affirmation.
She’s rewarded with an eyeroll from her sister before a long sigh.
“Sometimes my colleague’s ego is a bit much to handle, and I get snippy. I’m sorry about this morning, by the way.”
Kara nods, chewing on her bottom lip. The vagueness of her shared information is probably on purpose. Still, Kara needles her for more.
“Is this colleague also a superior?” she asks.
Alex’s resounding laugh is not expected at all. Alex even pounds once on the table, drawing the eyes of nearby patrons, before she’s able to get her reaction under control.
“Oh, absolutely not,” she finally manages to get out.
So not J’onn.
“She’d like that though,” Alex follows up, and it’s that specific pronoun coupled with the mirth evident across Alex’s face that finally slots the final pieces together in Kara’s brain.
Whoever—wherever—she is, Kara Danvers and Supergirl are not the same person.
“So, what’s this about alternate dimensions?”
“I think I’ve been watching too many late-night sci-fi movies,” Kara replies.
It's an obvious lie considering how urgent Kara’s call had been this morning, but Alex doesn’t get the chance to push. Their food arrives, and by the way Kara digs into her sandwich, the subject is all but forgotten.
Present
However mucked-up this alternate reality had been at first, the days that follow are much, much worse.
It’s hard to explain, even to herself, why Lena being in a relationship with this reality’s Supergirl is worse than losing her powers. It just is. For every moment that her loss of powers hits her like a punch to the gut, recalling the way Lena had admitted to hooking up with Supergirl has her nearly writhing on the ground.
She learns over lunch in Lena’s office two days later that a false alarm from L-Corp's security system had been the catalyst for Supergirl landing on her balcony just before noon that day.
Bravo, technology. Another win for humanity.
She’s actually nauseous as she stares down at her partially eaten lunch, trying to look enthusiastic as Lena retells the story of their first kiss with nervous hands and frantic eyes.
“I just–I just told her straight up that I was tired of pretending there was nothing between us. And I really thought she was going to let me down, because you–I mean–she’d never explicitly said anything. But then she just stepped into my space, cradled my chin with her long fingers and—”
Lena’s exhale is drawn out as she sinks back into the couch, half-eaten salad abandoned. Kara does everything she can not to grit her teeth, while she studies her own fingers.
It’s not just this simmering, noxious feeling within her gut that's exhausting. It’s the feeling deep down that everything unfolding here is somehow her fault. She’s not even sure why or how she’s ended up in the situation, but whose fault it is she knows for certain.
It takes another week for Kara to eventually identify the culprit of her terrible appetite and almost constant stomach aches. She’s jealous of Supergirl spending so much time with Lena. Even after the truth is written out as plain as day, there’s still a nagging question underneath the jealousy. Is this pain just because of the circumstance or is there something else at play?
Life as a civilian continues just as Kara might have imagined it could be—would be like if she ever got the chance. She finds more time for work, friends, family, and even pulls out her old sketch pad from her university days. When Alex and Nia are busy with what Kara guesses is DEO work, she finds herself adding new posts to a blog that hasn’t been updated since she quit her assistant job at Catco to become a reporter.
As blessed as Kara feels for having this abundance of time, the person she wishes she could spend most of it with is coincidentally always busy. And sure, Kara knows this is how couples behave during the honeymoon phase; understanding this fact just doesn’t do anything to lessen the blow.
Finally, a text comes into Kara’s phone just after 5 p.m. on Thursday night; for once, it doesn’t make her frown.
Dinner tonight? Lena’s text reads.
Kara responds immediately with a yes in all caps before she realizes that may come off as desperate. She pulls her phone out a minute later and follows up with a much, much chiller, Whatcha thinking?
The Asian fusion restaurant they decide on is a safe choice with decent sized appetizer portions and reliable dumplings. Tonight, Kara sticks with a single order of their Dan Dan noodles and splits a plate of gyoza with Lena.
If Lena notices the overall smaller portions of food that Kara orders, she doesn’t bring it up.
“I read your article published online this afternoon,” Lena comments as they wait for their food to come out.
“Mm?” Kara replies as she takes a sip of her drink.
She’d never drank much alcohol before—never saw the purpose when most of it tasted terrible and never got her even a little bit tipsy. She laments that decision now as she takes another sip of her delicious saké cocktail.
“Did you enjoy it?” Kara adds, setting her glass down.
“I was a little surprised Andrea approved the topic, but I will never complain when it comes to hard-hitting journalism like that.”
Kara almost spits out the next sip of her drink as her eyes go wide.
“What?” Lena asks, feigning ignorance.
Kara tries to slap at Lena’s hand, but she’s too quick, tucking it underneath the table.
“I don’t appreciate being teased, Miss Luthor.” Kara sticks her tongue out and folds her arms in front of her chest.
“Is Best Dog Breeds (based on fluffiness), not hard-hitting journalism these days?”
Kara searches the table looking for something to throw and finds her straw wrapper near the edge. Unfortunately, even balled up, it falls short, landing in Lena’s lap.
“It was a puff piece for the site,” Kara tries to explain through Lena’s laughter.
Kara may look put out by this turn of events, but she’s honestly thoroughly enjoying the way this dinner is playing out. There’s a lightness to their conversation that’s been missing since the incident at the bar.
The night is still young by the time they’ve paid for their meals and stepped out in the cool spring night. After fiddling with her phone, Kara turns to Lena, just as Lena opens her mouth to say something.
“You–”
“No, you go first.”
Kara blushes and adjusts her glasses.
“Please,” Lena adds, giving Kara the floor.
“I was… Do you want to get a drink? Another drink?”
Kara hates the way her words get all mixed up in her brain. Thankfully, Lena doesn’t seem to mind and nods enthusiastically.
“Great. I think I know a place near here.”
They stroll side by the side the block and half to the bar nearby. Lena’s a fast walker for someone who spends most of her days and nights in no less than a three-inch heel. Tonight, they’ve both traded in their work shoes for weather-appropriate boots that crunch quietly against the sidewalk beneath them.
When Kara’s pace slows and she diverts into the parking lot of the bar, Lena staggers, not expecting this to be their final destination.
“We’re drinking here?” Lena asks in disbelief.
Kara halts in place, observing the building for something she didn’t notice at first.
“Is it not okay?”
Kara hates the way she seems to shrink in on herself. This is Lena. Even if it wasn’t okay, this isn’t a personal attack on her.
“I’m just surprised,” Lena comments. “It’s not the typical place we’d usually try out.”
“I’ve been here before actually,” Kara confesses as she starts off again, winding her way around the cars parked haphazardly in front of the bar.
The parking lot is mostly gravel with grass creeping in at the edges. Little clouds of dust drift up behind Lena as she leads the way.
“You have?” Lena asks, disbelieving. She gives Kara a once over before whistling through her teeth. “I never would have taken you for a dive bar regular.”
“I’m not exactly a regular. Alex wanted to get shots one evening after a particularly bad date, and the first place we hit up didn’t do shots apparently.”
“Where’d you go?” Lena asks, pausing to let Kara catch up.
“That outdoor barbecue place off Davie Street.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t go there then.”
“Why’s that?” Kara laughs, before reaching for the front door and toeing it open further with the front of her boot.
“I was thinking about doing shots later tonight, but...” Lena waves her hand in a blasé manner as she steps into the bar past Kara.
There’s a moment when their eyes meet—Lena’s full of mirth and levity and Kara’s so connected to the woman beside her—that the low hum from the other bar patrons and staff fades away. It’s like they become physically sequestered in their own world. A world without expectations, lies, complications.
Without thought, Kara reaches out. Her hand lands on Lena’s hip just below where her blouse is tucked into a pair of work slacks, and it brings Lena to a halt. Kara sways on the spot, partially moved by the weight of the bar’s front door and maybe even the cocktail she’d drank over dinner. Mostly, she’s moved by Lena. By her laugh. By her dimples. By the overwhelming, all-consuming realization that for short, punctuated fragments of time, Kara is Lena’s world and she, hers.
“–but maybe you’ve already pre-gamed, and we should stick to something less lethal?” Lena finishes.
Kara’s eyes drops to her hand on Lena’s side; she feels the heat there suddenly like she’s just laid her hand over a burner set to high.
“Maybe,” Kara agrees.
As she pulls her hand away, she takes notice of the proximity of the rest of her body to Lena’s—of all the places that seem to flare with heat, even those left untouched.
Her scan up Lena’s body is cut short by the subtle clearing of Lena’s throat.
“Bar or table?” she asks, looking everywhere but at Kara.
“Table’s fine.”
They find a table in the back and order a round of drinks. Conversation doesn’t flow as smoothly as before, though. Kara blames her odd behaviour on the alcohol. She’s never had to deal with being affected by it like this before, which is probably why the world starts to spin the moment she stands up to excuse herself for a minute.
She stands in front of the bathroom mirror for a good five minutes, perplexed.
“Do you think people really get it on in the bathroom?” Kara asks when she returns.
She has no idea where that thought came from, but barrels on anyway.
“Because I was thinking how obvious that would be if two people went in together, then came back all… mussed.”
Kara laughs to herself, imagining the scenario in her head. She leans forward towards her drink and has trouble grasping the straw with her lips.
Across from her Lena has gone uncharacteristically quiet.
“Have you ever done that?” Kara adds.
Lena’s saved from answering the question as her phone starts buzzing on the table. She glances down to look at the caller ID, before letting it go to voicemail. Kara’s brain latches onto Lena’s reaction, but she can’t discern the expression on her face.
Ten minutes and one persuasive argument for Kara to drink a glass of water later, Lena’s phone goes off a second time. Once again, she checks the caller ID before tapping the power button on the side to dismiss it.
“If you need to get that…” Kara motions to the phone.
“I don’t,” Lena’s quick to reply.
Kara doesn’t believe her, but why would she lie?
When it goes off again, less than a minute later, Kara looks over and catches the text that comes up on screen. Except, it’s just digits—seven plus an area code.
“Please answer it,” Kara all but begs.
Lena watches her closely, before she gives up and picks up the phone.
Maybe it’s work, Kara thinks.
“Hey,” Lena says into the phone.
The greeting is way too informal to be work.
“I’m out.” A pause. “I didn’t think you’d be done this early.”
Definitely not work then.
“I would but–yeah. We’re grabbing drinks,” Lena replies over the line.
Supergirl?
Kara reaches across the table, grasping Lena’s hand in her own. Lena moves to jerk away at first, before her eyes flash up to Kara as she raises a brow in question.
“One second,” Lena says into the phone, before muting her end.
“Is that her?” Kara asks; even in her inebriated state, using 3rd person for herself still feels icky.
Lena takes way too long to respond. Eventually, she nods her head in confirmation.
“Then go spend time with her,” Kara suggests.
“No, I’m here with you,” Lena tries to argue.
Ever the chivalrous one, even to her own detriment, Kara won’t take no for answer.
“Lena,” she starts. Her head feels foggy and it’s a wonder any of her words leave her mouth in the right order. Still, she pushes through the daze, choosing her next words carefully. “She’s a busy individual. You should take advantage of all the time she can give.”
It must be the right thing to say, because a moment later, Lena relents, and they start discussing where to meet.
Kara senses that she’s done the right thing, so why does it feel like she’s punishing herself, too?
As Lena steps away to call them both cabs, Kara remains at the table, aggressively tapping the side of her empty drink. She’s avoided her own phone for most of the night, so when she checks it and sees there’s another message from Alex, she’s not surprised.
“You ready?” Lena asks, returning to their table.
Kara slips her phone back into her pocket, ignoring the text.
The whole cab ride home she knows she’s sulking, but she doesn’t have the mental capacity to care right now.
The following morning, Kara experiences another new part of the human experience: hangovers. She’s had too much alien liquor on more than one occasion over the years, but those never lead to splitting headaches or debilitating fatigue.
Through words of advice from Nia and helpful searches on the internet, Kara manages to get herself out of bed and out the door in time for Lena’s presentation that morning.
She finds Lena backstage twenty minutes before its set to start looking a bit frazzled. Kara knows she hadn’t drank too much at the bar, so it must be the usual suspect today.
“Hey, Lena,” she says, before pulling her friend into a quick hug.
Lena’s dressed in a black pencil skirt and matching blazer today. It’s her normal armour for events like this, yet it doesn’t seem to be doing its job. As Lena steps back from Kara, she notices her posture shift as her shoulders hunch.
“How are you feeling?” Lena asks, concerned.
I should be asking you the same thing, Kara thinks.
“I’ve had better days but water and ibu–ibu–”
“Ibuprofen?” Lena interjects.
“Yeah, that. It’s been a life saver today.”
“That’s good to hear,” Lena replies.
She runs her hands up the side of arms, squeezing until all her energy seems to drain at once.
“Do you know what you’re going to say out there? You ready? You can practice with me if you need the distraction.”
Lena’s smile is wan, and it tears at Kara’s own resolve to stay strong.
“Does it even matter what I say? I know the only reason half the people out there are here is to see me screw up.”
“Lena, that’s not true.”
“No?”
Lena barks out a self-deprecating laugh. “Then why is it that ninety-percent of the articles published about me are criticisms, and of those ninety-percent, half seem to be more concerned with my personal life than the quality of L-Corp's products or the fact that since I took over, we have spent more weeks in the black in one year than LuthorCorp ever did in five—not to mention with a commitment to sustainability? How come that never comes up?” Lena says, voice close to breaking.
Kara rubs her hands up and down the sleeves of Lena’s blazer, stopping just above the elbow before repeating the gesture over again. Beneath her hands, Kara can feel the shivers running through Lena’s body. It’s like she’s freezing in sixty-degree weather.
“Hey,” Kara soothes, before drawing her into a tight hug.
Lena is frigid at first, arms stiffly circling Kara at the waist. In heels, they’re nearly the same height. Kara usually prefers the height difference so she can tuck Lena’s face against her shoulder but being even isn’t bad either. In fact, Kara can pinpoint the moment Lena’s exhales turns from stuttering gasps to steady breaths.
The hair not pulled up into her own ponytail flutters to a stop as Lena pulls back far enough to meet Kara’s eyes. Hers are still glassy, but she’s no longer a second away from completely falling apart.
“I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like this matters—like the whole endeavour is futile.” Kara refolds the collar of Lena’s button-down before tucking it underneath her blazer. “But trust me when I say not everyone out there is waiting for a slip up. I have it on good authority when I say that many people are genuinely excited to see what’s next for you and L-Corp.”
“And would one of these people be you?” Lena asks. She huffs at her own joke before dabbing lightly at the corner of her eyes.
“Oh, no. I’m just here for the eye candy,” Kara replies.
She smiles for a good ten seconds, then it’s like a switch is flipped and her brain catches up with her mouth. The corners of Kara’s lips melt at the sides until her former smile is convoluted, stretched at the edges, and drooping by the minute.
“You just–you pull off those suits very well, I mean,” she stutters.
Lena is a bit stunned. If there’s another emotion behind that, she does a good job of hiding it. “Well at least you’re still in my corner.”
“Always, Lena. Always.”
“Thank you, Kara.”
They face each other for a final few seconds before Kara is squeezing Lena’s hand in hers and wishing her good luck.
“You’ve got this,” she whispers as she backs up toward the rope blocking off the backstage area.
When she feels the rope at her hands, Kara spins around and reorients herself. The backstage area is a maze of security, assistants, and various important people that seem to have no use except to stand in the way. When she’d arrived, she’d used Lena’s directions to come in at the back. Now, she has no idea how to find the press area.
“Le–” Kara turns, ready to call back to her friend, when a whoosh of air steals the final syllable from her lips.
Up until this point she hasn’t seen Supergirl up close. It’s not startling how similar she and Kara look, which makes sense. It’s the differences that hide in the nuances that gets Kara. It’s like staring at a photo of yourself that you don’t remember being in. From a distance, it’s you, but there’s a disconnect that will always exist.
Kara watches a smile spread across Supergirl's face as she approaches Lena—watches as this alternate reality of her takes Lena’s hands in her own, pulls them to her waist, and leans in.
Logically, Kara should have prepared for this moment. As it stands, she’s completely caught off guard. With an ease that tells Kara she’s done this many times before, Supergirl leans down and captures Lena’s lips in hers. It’s not just a peck. It’s a full-on kiss with adjustments and varied intensities as Lena responds in kind, looping her arms around Supergirl's neck.
When Supergirl dips Lena, she squeals—actually squeals like a teenager—before Supergirl is standing her back up and wiping at the dark red lipstick that’s accumulated at the corners of her lips.
Kara can only watch so much of this and the intimate conversation that follows. Turning back to the maze of people, she doesn’t even care who she bumps into—doesn’t even care if she wanders somewhere she’s not supposed to go.
It’s not until her vision goes blurry and her balance wavers, that Kara realizes her cheeks are wet. She lifts her glasses from her nose and brushes the tears away, not caring if her mascara is running now.
When she’s replaced her glasses there’s a man in a sharp suit blocking her way.
“Excuse me,” Kara mumbles, not even recognizing her own voice.
She tries ducking around him when he steps back in her way.
“Excuse me,” she repeats, adding a bite to the end of it.
“I was wondering if you could maybe help me out,” he says with a smarmy grin.
“I don’t think I can,” Kara snaps.
“Well hold up now. Let’s not jump to conclusions.” He flashes her a pearly-white smile and extends his hand. “I’m Paul.”
Kara eyes his hand, before grimacing back at him.
“I actually need to be somewhere right now.”
“For Miss Luthor’s speech?”
Kara nods.
“Then maybe you’ve seen where she went.”
It’s not even a question.
This piece of shit, Kara thinks to herself.
“Oh, Miss Luthor. She hasn’t arrived yet,” Kara replies, shrugging. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Kara tries to move past the memory of Lena in Supergirl’s arms. She tries not to dwell on the way Lena had rested her forehead against Supergirl’s shoulder after the kiss or the sound of her laugh as Supergirl had whispered something in her ear. Over the next half-hour she does her best to focus on Lena’s speech and take notes for her article and not picture Lena’s dark red lips parting under familiar pink ones.
She really does try. It doesn’t mean she succeeds.
When the presentation finally concludes, Kara breaks away immediately. Her head is a mess and her stomach rumbles beneath her sweater. She hasn’t eaten a proper meal since dinner with Lena. Her hangover is partially to blame, but her constant anxiety is probably the bigger culprit.
She feels her phone buzz inside her pocket, and she draws it out with a groan.
Alex doesn’t like to be ignored in either reality. Except the texts awaiting her are not from Alex.
What did you think of the presentation?
Are you still here? I looked for you after the closing remarks, but I didn’t see you anywhere.
Kara can’t deal with this right now, so she ducks into a corner bodega across the street in search of food. The aisles are crammed close together, but there’s plenty to catch her attention. She pulls a personal sized bag of chips off a shelf, before turning back towards the front of the store, eyes trained on the small cooler displaying prepackaged sandwiches.
She’s just checking the expiration date on a loaded Italian meat sandwich when voices from the magazine rack nearby drift over to her. It’s a group of girls no older than sixteen standing in a circle with their heads bowed.
“I am not well,” one of the girls says.
Kara ignores the concerning comment (neither am I) and goes back over the sandwich dates again.
“Head empty, only Supercorp,” one of the girls adds, catching Kara’s attention this time.
There’s something about that word that niggles at the corners of her brain. She’s been trained over the past fifteen years to perk up whenever she hears Super preface anything, but it’s not just that first part that is peculiar.
Shifting forward onto her tiptoes, Kara tries to get a better look at what they’re crowded around without being too obvious.
The younger girl’s friend snickers beside her, before snatching up the shiny exterior of some magazine for herself.
“I need more of this brain rot; like right now,” the girl says, flipping it open to an inside page and subsequently shrieking at whatever she’s witnessed. “A super and a Luthor. Oh, it’s perf.”
Their commotion has garnered the attention of the shop owner who shoots the group an aggravated scowl and mumbles something to himself from behind the counter.
“Let’s just go,” the tallest of the group says, plucking what appears to be a less than reputable tabloid from her friend’s hands.
They make a show of placing the magazine back in the rack before stumbling out the door.
Kara could play this cool. She could casually glance at the magazine on her way out. Instead, she carelessly drops the wrapped sandwich back into the cooler and paces over to the publications rack in the corner.
She doesn’t even need to get close to see what had caught the teenager’s attention.
This is some cruel joke, she thinks offhanded, before a power within her reaches out, grabs the flimsy excuse for a magazine, and flips it open.
The next thought that enters Kara’s mind is not an observation on the surprising quality of the paparazzi photos nor a comment on the look of awe across Lena’s face as Supergirl cradles it in her hands.
No.
With startling clarity, the only thought the crosses Kara’s mind is, that’s supposed to be me.
“Kara, this is your sister calling again. You know, the one that’s been by your side since you were thirteen—in case you forgot. Anyway... call me back. ‘kay?”
“Kara, I know you’re not dead. Nia saw you at work this morning, so you have no excuse at ignoring my calls and texts. This is Alex. Call me!”
“Kara! Seriously? You’re really starting to scare me. I just want to talk. Just... call me.”
Kara drops her phone onto the cushion beside her and sinks back into her couch. It used to be way more cathartic to go through multiple pints of ice cream than a single tub. Still, she’s proud of how much her human body can put away when put to the test.
Flicking over to a different streaming service, Kara finds one of those candid prank shows and settles back, ready to laugh. If it fails to do so, she’ll just find something else. Sort of like how Lena has found someone else.
Who is she kidding? Lena was never hers.
Kara falls over into the arm of her couch and smothers a scream into her pillow. It smells like Chinese food which only makes her feel worse.
“Why am I like this?” Kara calls out to her apartment, face still buried into the crook between the cushions.
“I don’t know, why are you?” a voice asks from the foyer.
Kara springs up and grabs for the abandoned spoon on the coffee table.
Alex, standing at the open entryway, eyes her and her chosen weapon closely before closing the front foot behind her.
“Besides being very poorly equipped to handle an intruder, what are you doing?” Alex asks.
Kara drops the spoon back to the empty pint of ice cream but finds she’s too restless to sit down.
“I don’t know,” she admits, rounding the back of the couch.
She plays with the edge of the cushions, running the stitching between her fingers, before flopping forward in a dramatic fall.
She hears Alex’s laugh first before her footsteps as she makes her way further into the apartment. She stops on the other side of the couch and hoists Kara up until she can at least meet her gaze.
“Kara,” she tries.
Kara just grumbles to herself, a dead weight in Alex’s hands.
“Kara, I will drop you,” Alex warns.
With a petulant groan, Kara pulls herself upright and starts pacing again, this time headed for the kitchen.
Alex is no longer pestering her to explain, but she does follow Kara, close on her heels.
After pulling a carton of cubed cheese out of the fridge, Kara comes face to face with her sister. Alex glances down at her odd choice of snack, before grabbing a few cubes for herself.
“If you aren't going to talk, that’s fine,” Alex says, popping one of the cheddar pieces in her mouth. “But I’m not leaving.”
Kara places the carton on the centre island, before dropping into one the chairs pulled up beside it.
After getting down a tangy cube of mystery cheese, Kara glances over at her sister and asks, “If I explain will you leave me be?”
Alex rests a finger against her chin, considering for a moment, before she smirks and shrugs.
“Maybe. It depends.”
“Depends on what?” Kara starts, louder than she’d intended to be.
“Well...” Alex braces her elbow on the counter in front of Kara and steals another piece of cheese. “It depends on how concerning this explanation is.”
“I see,” Kara replies.
They manage to get through half the carton of cheese before Kara’s resilience starts to crack. She may not feel comfortable trying to explain how just a week ago she’d been a super powered alien, but maybe sharing other details could be helpful.
“There may be some things I have been holding back recently,” Kara begins.
Alex doesn’t roll her eyes or reply with some sarcastic comment. She simply nods and motions for Kara to continue.
It’s all momentum after that—a bike picking up speed on a steep hill as Kara starts at the beginning.
“This is about Lena?” Alex asks after Kara has depicted the events of their initial meeting and the lunches that followed.
“Mostly,” Kara concedes with a sheepish shrug.
Alex purses her lips and her gaze glosses over. Eventually, her eyes return to Kara, and she steeples her hands under her chin.
“I’m guessing by mostly you mean Lena’s new relationship with Supergirl and the place that leaves you as Lena’s best friend?”
“How do you know about Supergirl?” Kara asks in disbelief.
She of course is referring to their relationship, but Alex misreads the exclamation and scratches the back of her neck.
“You know I work with aliens at work sometimes.”
Which, sure... that may not have been where Kara was going with this, but it does explain why Alex may be privy to this information. Work gossip is a very real thing that exists in all jobs. Even top secret, we don’t exist jobs, Kara supposes.
“Yeah. It may have something to do with her.”
Alex nods along, a soothing slow nod that lulls Kara into a place of security.
“And has this affected your relationship with Lena?”
Kara balks, before burying her face into her hands. She runs her nails across her scalp, fingers catching on the copious tangles that have accumulated there since she’d collapsed on her couch early that afternoon.
“This is normal, Kara. It’s hard to adjust to having another person occupying your best friend’s life. Believe me, they may be all over each other now–”
Kara groans loud into her palms.
“–but all honeymoon phases end and soon you two will find a good balance again. Just be thankful she doesn’t have a kid. That ends friendships.”
Alex chuckles at her own joke; Kara can’t find it within herself to laugh—not when Alex has consequently missed the entire reason behind Kara’s agony.
“That isn’t why I’m so upset,” she admits to a dried-up stain on her counter.
“What?”
“That isn’t the reason I’m so upset,” Kara repeats, this time lifting her head high enough to meet Alex’s gaze.
Her determination must be strong enough to sway Alex because she takes a seat across from Kara and listens intently to what comes out next.
“I’m jealous,” Kara grits out. “I’m jealous of Supergirl.”
“Jealous?” Alex repeats.
“Yes.”
“Of Supergirl?”
“Yes.”
“Because she’s spending so much time with Lena?”
Kara shakes her head.
“Because she’s... with Lena?” Alex clarifies.
It’s clear the possibility surprises her.
“Yes,” Kara admits, resigned.
“You’ve never...” Alex trails off, voice going quiet.
“I’ve never showed any interest in Lena like that?” Kara guesses.
Alex nods. “Yeah, I mean... you’ve never showed any interest in any woman before. Are you sure this isn’t about sharing–”
“I know what I know,” Kara snaps.
She feels guilty the moment the words leave her mouth, but it’s the truth.
For her part, Alex doesn’t look hurt by the outburst—only nods again.
“When?” Alex asks after a moment.
“When did it start or when did I realize I was in love with my best friend?”
“In love?” Alex blinks. “In love,” she repeats under her breath, digesting the words on her own. “And this isn’t a platonic love? I’ve heard that’s a thing,” Alex adds tactfully.
“I see Supergirl kissing Lena and all I want is to be in her place. All I want is to be the one holding Lena in my arms, running my hands up her body, kissing her, biting her–”
“–I got the picture, Kara.”
Somehow, it’s Alex that appears the most bashful. In fact, it’s somehow freeing for Kara when she puts words to the thoughts that have been duking it out inside her brain for the past week. And now that she’s giving those thoughts leg, they’re running amuck, playing out more and more scenes, faster than Kara can keep up with.
She blinks away toward the coat rack by the door and suddenly it’s not a pair of work slacks that Kara’s gripping but bare skin, exposed to her fingers, warm under her palms. It’s dark red lips, piercing eyes, and a neck Kara could get lost in.
She’s suddenly warm—too warm to be sitting only a few feet from her sister. Catching Alex’s alarmed stare is enough to douse that fire pretty quickly.
“So...”
“Yeah...”
Kara sighs, running her hands through her hair again.
“Not to sound cliché, but it’s not over yet,” Alex says.
Maybe not, but it sure does feel like it is. Who would want regular Kara Danvers when Supergirl is there to literally sweep Lena off her feet?
“Hey.” Alex reaches across the counter and lays her hand atop Kara’s. “All it takes is a little initiative.”
“Sure,” Kara concedes.
She forces a smile for her sister’s sake, but it doesn’t feel the least bit convincing. Her thoughts shift back to the texts Lena had sent after her presentation and into the early evening. Each additional message was harder to ignore, yet Kara couldn’t find it within herself to text back.
“In the meantime, I say we turn this into a sisters’ night and binge some crap TV. How does that sound?”
It sounds great to Kara. Still, she doesn’t miss the pity that’s hidden beneath Alex’s excitement.
By the end of the night, Kara does reach a resolution, but it has nothing to do with Lena and Supergirl’s relationship. Something has placed her in this alternate reality, and she’s going to get to the bottom of it. If it just so happens to fix her other problem, well that’s a bonus she’ll happily welcome.
Part 2
Over the next two weeks, Kara commits more time into figuring out what happened to reality as she knew it. Although reluctant to admit it, pouring her free time into past occurrences of body swaps, illogical wish fulfillment, and even parallel universes is the easiest way to distract herself from Lena’s new relationship (is that what it is?).
Despite investigating every avenue possible, her endeavour still ends up fruitless by the time her next coffee date with Lena rolls around. It’s a standing afternoon appointment for them both—strategically scheduled on the last Friday of the month when most of Lena’s colleagues and clients would rather be finishing the day early than sticking around for a 2 pm meeting. It had also worked out well most weeks for Kara with her Catco deadline always falling on the Thursday before and crime syndicates and alien threats alike seemingly taking Fridays afternoons off. Everyone, she’d supposed, needed a little me time.
On this Friday afternoon, she beats Lena to their regular coffee place and has just begun to scan the crowded shop for a table when a deafening blast sounds from the street outside.
At first she thinks everything is going to be okay. Not because she was once a super powered and invincible alien, but because of blind hope. Surely, given her bad luck as of late, nothing else can go wrong.
Oh, how naïve she is.
She feels fine for the first few seconds after the blast, before realizing her world has gone sideways, and she can no longer hear anything. It’s a startling kind of silence, much different than when she woke up that morning to a quiet apartment with only the whirring of her air conditioning and the low hum of traffic outside her window.
This silence is panic inducing. It has her scrambling to try and get to her feet, but those don’t seem reliable either. Her vision starts to go blurry too. It’s just as she sees Lena come into view, safely sequestered in this other Supergirl’s arms that she realizes nothing she felt as a teenager or even as a precocious child when she first arrived on Earth, can compare to the humiliation and sheer helplessness she feels now.
That should be me out there, she thinks over and over again, as blue and red lights flare in the background, and her whole world goes dark.
Kara’s woken up in plenty of hospital beds in her time, but none of them have been in an actual hospital. It’s the smell of a cleaning agent that breaks Kara from her half-sleep, much more pungent than the DEO’s ever was.
For a moment, she doesn’t even want to move. Someone has cocooned her in multiple blankets and maybe even a heating pad tucked around her feet, leaving her cozy and pleasantly sleepy. It’s when she wriggles her arm, trying to free herself from a weight at her side, that she realizes her left arm has an IV taped to her wrist. The tube snakes out from under her blankets, against the back of her bed, and over to an IV pole where clear liquid drops rhythmically.
“Alex?” Kara calls out.
She blinks away from the IV tubing to the rest of the room, blurred and out of focus.
She’s alone.
An empty bed sits a few feet from her own. Beyond that, the blinds of a long window are half-closed, revealing the dark night sky.
How much time has passed?
“Hello?” Kara calls out again.
She shifts in bed, attempting to get up, when a woozy feeling overtakes her whole body. She feels both weightless and cemented to bed as if Earth’s atmosphere has increased tenfold since she’s been asleep.
Gosh, what happened?
Kara tries to think back to her last memory, but all she can remember is the IM exchange between her and Nia that morning at work—something about covering for the junior reporter again after she’d missed a deadline the day before.
Just then, she hears footsteps out in the hall near her room, and Kara looks up, expecting Alex or maybe a nurse.
It’s the voice she recognizes, before the woman even enters the room.
“That was the same answer you gave me two hours ago,” Lena berates to some unknown person.
A moment of silence passes before Lena huffs and ends her call.
A second later she’s walking into Kara’s room in sneakers and a yoga outfit Kara’s pretty sure she would have remembered if she’d ever seen Lena in it before.
“I didn’t know you did yoga,” Kara comments.
Lena jumps a little out of her skin as she glances up from her phone. Her scowl quickly vanishes before she’s pacing over to the bed and throwing her arms around Kara’s shoulders.
“Oof,” Kara responds, less because it hurts and more because she’s never understood the feeling of having one’s wind knocked out of them. It’s not bad when it’s Lena doing the wind-knocking.
“Sorry, sorry,” Lena whispers into her shoulder. “You’re awake.”
Her breath is warm against the exposed skin above Kara’s hospital gown. Kara squeezes back, before Lena leans away to take her in fully.
“You look…”
Kara shrinks under her appraisal, seemingly more concerned by how messy her hair must be than the apparent injuries she’s sustained.
“Better,” Lena decides on.
Better than what? Kara refrains from asking.
“Well, I’ve felt better,” she jokes instead.
Lena sighs before smiling down at her.
Kara opens her mouth to ask about the yoga clothes again when she feel Lena’s hand at her temple.
“I’ve never seen you without glasses before,” Lena ponders.
Her fingers slip over Kara’s brow and up to her hairline, before tucking a few loose strands behind her ear.
“I do need them,” she chuckles, nervously.
“Of course,” Lena replies by rote.
She studies Kara for a moment longer, before her gaze darts away in search of the visitor chair in the corner.
“I’m glad Supergirl was there,” Kara comments, before scooping out the last spoonful of her chocolate pudding.
Lena is ready with another snack before she’s even set her spoon down. She’d been hush-hush when it came to where she’d acquired all the food, but Kara doesn’t question it.
While Lena busies herself removing the plastic top on a fruit cup, Kara fiddles with her used spoon, lining it up so it sits perfectly perpendicular to the edge of her built-in hospital bed tray. Anything is better than meeting Lena’s eyes when they talk about her.
Though Lena’s sounded normal every time their texting or phone conversations have veered toward her superhero girlfriend, there’s a catch in Lena’s voice that’s only present in person—an uncertainty that bleeds through her encouraging smile and pinched eyes.
So far, any attempt to prompt Lena into opening up about the subject has led to more doting over Kara. After a second empty bag of chips hits the trash can, Kara puts a stop to Lena’s never-ending supply of snacks with a hand on her forearm.
“Lena,” Kara pleads.
“Finally not hungry?” Lena jokes.
When Kara doesn’t reply in jest, Lena’s perpetual chipper smile drops, and the exhaustion that must have been plaguing her for days takes over.
Sagging back in the uncomfortable hospital chair, Lena comes clean about her so-called relationship with Supergirl. It’s almost midnight in a nearly deserted wing of National City hospital and finally—finally—her and Lena are talking like normal. Well… almost normal.
“It’s not that I don’t find her incredibly sexy in a powerful and confident way,” Lena explains.
Kara nods along, trying not to linger on the way Lena enunciates sexy or how her cheeks turn a little pink under Kara’s attention.
“How could I not?” Lena adds.
“Of course,” Kara struggles out, feeling as if those last chips she ate are still lodged in her throat.
“It’s that she doesn’t feel real. Or at least, she doesn’t feel like a real person to me.”
Kara’s brows furrow and she leans forward in her hospital bed. Obtaining insight into the innerworkings of this pseudo-Supergirl is one of the key parameters of this situation that she’s been missing.
“What do you mean, she doesn’t feel real?”
“I don’t know.” Lena hums, casting her gaze to the corner of the room. “Real people are complex. They have faults.”
“And Supergirl doesn’t?” Kara asks.
Lena shakes her head.
“None,” she replies, exasperated. “It’s really frustrating. Plus, our conversations…”
She blows out an exaggerated breath, before shifting forward in her chair to rest her elbows on her knees.
“They’re very surface level. Nothing ever hurts. Nothing ever feels difficult. Nothing ever feels like—”
She looks up to Kara at that moment, catching them both off guard.
Us hangs in the air—suspending them both, tying them to that moment, until it’s finally cut, and they both fall back, released.
“So, she’s not perfect then?” Kara replies with a grin.
Lena shakes her head with a smile.
“Definitely not. You know me; I need stimulation—mental stimulation. Not just sex… you know?”
Kara gulps.
I really don’t, she wants to say. Instead, she just nods.
Out in the hall, a loud beeping begins to sound from a neighbouring room. Kara and Lena’s eyes meet in alarm, before a grumbling nurse passes outside the door behind them.
“I’m surprised they let you up here. It must be well past visiting hours,” Kara comments.
Lena’s smile is wicked as she says, “Well, I have my ways. Plus, they wouldn’t let me leave the scene without getting checked out as well. By the time I was discharged, you’d already been taken back.”
“Oh, I guess it was bad.”
“They were worried about a brain bleed and swelling. Alex was nearly forced to leave the waiting area twice, because she kept trying to sneak back while they had you in the OR.”
“How is she?” Kara asks, wishing she could have woken up to her sister like she always did before.
“She’s a force to be reckoned with; I assume you mean, how is she handling the situation.” Lena takes a deep breath, centering herself, before pushing on. “I don’t know... You know how she is: tough on the outside but a pile of mush underneath. Kelly dragged her home around 9 p.m. after waiting with you for over six hours.”
“Wow,” Kara says through a rush of air. “I was out for a while then?”
Lena nods.
“You really scared us, you know?”
Kara tries for a reassuring smile, but the pain that’s been slowly blooming across her face causes her to strain. She imagines the sight of it isn’t much better.
At 11 p.m., a nurse comes in to take Kara’s blood pressure and vitals. The whole time the nurse can’t seem to look away from Lena, but she doesn’t say a thing about her presence.
“Shouldn’t you be getting home soon?” Kara says once they’re alone again.
Lena shrugs, but she can’t hide the dark circles under her eyes or the delayed response times to Kara’s questions.
“Usually I’d be…” Lena trails off, suddenly bashful.
The word stimulation comes to Kara’s mind and based on the way Lena won’t meet her eyes, she’s hit the nail on the head. Kara can’t force herself to say the word or any allegory for it—there’s just something so off-putting about someone who looks like her, but isn’t her, getting to be the one providing all that… stimulation.
“So why don’t you want to?” she asks.
Lena bites at her lower lip, staring off into space.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy that right about now… I guess you could say my heart just isn’t in it. Maybe if I was younger—”
“You’re not old Lena,” Kara tries to get out, but Lena has a finger held up, asking for a moment to continue.
“—Maybe if I was much younger, I’d be into casual, but that’s just not me anymore. Something has changed. It’s not what I’m looking for anymore, and it’s just too draining on my emotional resiliency.”
“Then why don’t you just stop? I’m sure someone as non-confrontational as Supergirl wouldn’t get too upset about that.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about what Supergirl would say. I actually have the feeling we’re on the same page about this... relationship—if you could call it that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Kara asks.
“It’s more a who than a what?” She cocks her head to the side with a grimace.
“The media,” Kara murmurs. Of course.
“My PR team would have a field day if word got out that a Luthor dumped a Super. Could you imagine it? I’d be right back at square one. Persona non grata. The most despised woman in National City.”
“You know that’s not true,” Kara reasons.
“But a lot of people wouldn’t see it that way, including L-Corp stockholders.”
“Huh.” Kara steeples her hands under her chin as she sinks back into bed. “What if Supergirl did the dumping, and not you?”
“Do you really want National City’s icon of all that is true and good betrayed like that?”
I don’t care what they think about her—as long as it’s not you, Kara thinks.
However, she knows deep down that even if she’s never to return to her own self, the city—heck, the world—needs someone to look up and rely on.
“Well, this is a mess,” Kara states bluntly.
A snort of a laugh escapes Lena’s throat, before they’re both laughing in disjointed harmony.
“You could say that, yeah.”
The following morning, Kara’s doctor—an older woman with sandy-blonde hair and large glasses that remind Kara of her 11th grade English teacher—comes by to check on her.
She explains all of Kara’s injuries, starting with the less serious bruising and ending with the tests they’ve run to ensure her brain hadn’t gotten too jarred from the explosion.
“The worst of your abrasions are on your left leg and midback. You might need someone’s help replacing the bandages until the bruising on your arms go down,” she explains, while a nurse cleans up a large gash down Kara’s thigh.
For someone who’s been in countless fights, the sight of her own wound is nauseating at best.
“Do you have someone who can check on you regularly?” the doctor continues.
“I’m sure my sister will have some time.”
Doc doesn’t look too pleased by the answer but breezes on, bringing up Kara’s MRI on a computer cart beside her bed.
“Nothing of concern came up yesterday, but we would like to keep you here another day for monitoring. Any questions?”
Kara has no shy of a hundred but is pretty sure her doctor can answer none of them.
With a tight lip, Kara shakes her head no.
Before a hospital attendant can deliver Kara’s breakfast, Alex arrives with Kelly in tow. It looks as if Kelly has to restrain Alex from barrelling into Kara, much like Lena had the night before.
“The hospital called and told us you’d woken up late last night,” Kelly says as they enter the room.
Kara smiles with a short nod, before straightening up in bed.
Alex, meanwhile, is at a loss for words. Eventually, she takes larger steps into the room and approaches the bed to take Kara into her arms.
“You really had us worried,” Alex says when she finally pulls back.
Behind her, Kelly chuckles. “And by that, she means you had her ridiculously worried. I knew you’d pull through.” Kelly winks and nudges Alex’s shoulder.
“Well at least someone had faith in my resilience.”
While Kelly steps into the hall for find another chair, Alex takes the seat next to Kara’s bed and starts to catch Kara up on what she’s missed. She wasn’t out for that long, so Alex is quick to run out of topics.
“I hope you weren’t too bored sitting in here all day by yourself.”
Kara shrugs.
“There was a lot of sleeping mixed in there, and I wasn’t alone the entire time. Lena came by and visited last night.”
“She did?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” Kara accosts.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m glad she came by.”
Alex starts to fiddle with the papers on Kara’s side table when Kelly finally returns with the extra chair.
“You know,” Kara mentions once Kelly is settled next to Alex. “This hospital visit doesn’t feel too different from all the other times Alex has had to nurse me back to life.”
“Really? Did that happen a lot growing up in your house?”
Alex laughs, before her expression wipes clean, and she stares out toward the window, motionless for a moment. Kara’s fingers grip the sheets tucked in around her legs, and she wonders if this finally the first crack needed to break apart this reality.
Just as quickly as the blank stare had come though, it goes. Alex turns back to Kara with a patronizing grin and snickers.
“This one was such a klutz when she was younger,” Alex regales. “Do you remember when you tried riding my motorcycle in college and ended up splitting your knee open? How did you manage that anyway?”
Kara stares blankly back at her. It’s a memory she doesn’t have so she answers truthfully, “I don’t know.”
Her sister and Kelly stick around well past breakfast until Kara starts to feel sleepy again, and they leave her be to get some rest.
It's just past dusk the next time a visitor arrives at Kara’s 3rd floor room. As much as Kara appreciated Alex’s visit earlier, her afternoon nap was sorely needed—if only the day shift nurse hadn’t woken her up for vitals again. She’d been tempted to jump up from the bed to demonstrate how much she really wasn’t dying but decided against it. These walls had ears—ears that could get a hold of Alex anytime they wanted to.
“Knock, knock,” Lena calls from the hall with that familiar lilt that never fails to squeeze Kara’s heart a little bit tighter every day.
“You brought food,” Kara points out the second she comes into view.
“—she says with surprise in her voice.”
“Sorry.” Kara can’t help the nervous chuckle that slips out under Lena’s coy grin. “Thank you for bringing me dinner.”
“Well, I figured it was time to reciprocate after all the lunches and dinners you brought me. Besides, who actually wants to eat hospital food?”
Lena’s tongue pokes out from behind her teeth briefly as it clicks against the roof of her mouth. Kara’s nodding before she even realizes it.
“Not me,” she finally gets out in a much higher pitched voice than normal.
“So, what are you feeding me tonight?” she asks.
Lena sets down four cartons on Kara’s bed tray before pulling up her designated visitor’s chair again.
“Italian. I brought three choices because I wasn’t sure what you were feeling.”
“Then why are there four containers?” Kara points sceptically at the stack of food, now leaving rings of condensation on the laminate table before her.
Lena shakes her head like she can’t believe Kara’s antics and scoots forward to open the one on top. The smell of fresh bread quickly pervades Kara’s senses, along with the heady scent of Lena’s perfume.
“Mm,” Kara hums, barely resisting the urge to dart out and take a whole piece of ciabatta for herself.
“Go ahead,” Lena says, motioning to the container, before sitting back in her seat.
Kara resists that carb temptation for a moment—long enough to take notice of how close Lena is seated to her bed tonight. If she closes her eyes and focuses on her favourite things in the world (warm food and Lena), she can almost trick herself into believing it’s just the two of them lying back on the couch in Kara’s living room.
The thought is nice, but she’s not at home right now, and their relationship is not like that—not anymore.
“What’s this?” Lena asks, interrupting her wandering thoughts.
Kara blinks her eyes open to the magazine sitting open on the table beside her bed.
“Oh, that’s just—Alex brought it earlier.”
Lena picks up the latest issue of Catco magazine, flipping to the page with Nia’s latest article. It’s not the piece on carbon emissions that catches Lena’s attention though. Smack across the front page is that shot of Lena and Supergirl—the one that seemed to be everywhere these days.
“I didn’t know Catco covered these types of things anymore,” Lena comments, barely giving the photo the time of day.
She quickly turns a few pages in, past an ad for perfume and an op-ed piece by a visiting journalist.
The silence is maddening. Kara wishes she could read Lena better these days, but her unwavering brow and tight features give nothing away.
“Huh,” Lena mutters a minute later.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
Kara sucks in a strained breath and turns her attention to the food currently cooling before her. Inside the second container is linguine in meat sauce; the next has some sort of white sauce with shrimp, and the final one on the bottom is a whole slice of lasagna. Kara sets the first two aside and is just beginning to rip open the plastic cutlery package when the undignified sound of Lena snorting forces her to look up.
Kara delicately sits the cutlery down on the tray and asks, “Is it that bad?”
Lena’s eyes are piercing as her gaze shoots up to meet Kara’s.
“You didn’t read it?”
Kara’s throat bobs, and she does her best not to choke on her words.
“I—no. I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t?”
Well, fuck.
“You couldn’t or you didn’t want to?” Lena presses.
“Both, really.”
Lena sucks in both cheeks. The flaps of the magazine hang limp in her grasp before she slaps it shut and drops it back onto the table.
“Enough of that.” She forces out a smile and turns her attention back to their dinner. “Now tell me—which dish did you decide on?”
They both make quick work of their own dishes before deciding to split the final container of Bolognese.
“Has the hospital stay been messing up your appetite?” Lena asks as she dangles a long piece of linguine over her open mouth.
Her lips close around the noodle, and slowly it disappears behind a puckered expression.
“Huh?” Kara asks, setting her own fork down on the edge of container.
Lena swallows before nodding to their final container.
“Your appetite—has being in the hospital affected it? No offense, but you’re usually very adamant on not sharing food. Not even for me.”
She pouts before taking a sip from a bottle of water beside her chair.
“Oh,” Kara blanches. “I guess so. That must be it.”
Lena nods mid-sip, but Kara barely pays attention; instead, her thoughts linger on all the little details Lena’s potentially been paying attention to and how many inconsistencies she’ll notice now that Kara’s not herself anymore.
Like the night before, Lena shows no regard for normal patient visiting hours. Even after taking a heated call in the hallway at just past eight-thirty, she returns to Kara’s room with no indication she’s planning on heading out soon.
“What are you watching? Anything good?”
Kara looks up to the small TV mounted on the wall across from her bed. She’d flicked it on just to stop herself from listening in on Lena’s call. The program is on one of its commercial breaks, but Kara is pretty sure she’d recognized the first bookstore scene from You’ve got Mail when she’d first turned it on.
“That depends,” Kara grins.
She turns the volume up as Lena walks back over, slipping her cell phone into her purse.
“On what?”
“If you’re a fan of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.”
“Sleepless in Seattle?”
“You’ve got Mail.”
“Hmm.” Lena rubs her chin as she rounds the bed to the other side by the window.
“Is that a good hm?” Kara asks.
Lena closes the blinds so the glare from the streetlights outside no longer casts a singular path of gold across the screen.
“It’s a… neutral hm,” she says like she’s not entirely convinced by her own answer.
“Well, I for one am a fan.
“I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly,” Kara says, quoting the film’s titular line as she holds her hands tight against her chest.
Lena chuckles. “So, you’ve seen it before?”
Kara looks around her for something to toss at Lena for her sarcastic remark, but IV tubes and her heart rate monitor are both not viable options.
“I can see why you’d like it,” Lena comments. “You’ve definitely got Kathleen Kelly energy.”
Kara’s face warms, taking the observation as a compliment. Maybe it’s that little injection of happiness that causes her next reply to leave her mouth without much thought.
“And you’re totally a Joe Fox.”
Lena smiles, but then something passes over her face, and suddenly it’s unreadable.
“So Joe Fox, because he’s also the owner of a successful company,” Kara stumbles to add.
Lena looks up from where she’s been staring off into space and forces a small smile. “I can see that, although, I’m a majority shareholder, not the owner. Semantics.”
She waves off her own comment before turning back on Kara and heading for her visitor’s chair.
Before she can reach it, Kara’s arm is shooting out to cover its armrest. There’s brief shock disturbing Lena’s smooth features, but Kara’s quick to shoo any negative thoughts from Lena’s mind.
“Those chairs—they’re so uncomfortable. If you wanted to stay and watch the movie with me, I could scoot over and share the bed. You’ll just need to get in on the other side because tubes.” She raises her left her arm as if Lena can’t see the IV or the wires snaking under her hospital gown.
“Oh,” Lena replies.
“I promise I don’t smell… too bad.”
Lena snorts, and Kara knows she’s won her over. So what if it’s a very tiny bed and visiting hours are over and there are about a million commercials? That image of the two of them relaxing on Kara’s couch hasn’t left her mind all night and suddenly, having Lena sitting even a few feet away is too far.
At Lena’s subtle nod, Kara’s pulling at the sheet tucked under her legs and shifting to one side of the bed. As big as the bed feels every time Kara gets back in, it suddenly feels child sized the moment the vacated side dips at Lena’s weight.
Somehow, despite her professional blouse and pencil skirt, Lena settles back onto Kara’s singular pillow with an air of poise. She waits until most of her body has relaxed against the mattress—positioned upright since Kara ate lunch earlier—before reaching down to take off her heels. She learns quickly, just as Kara had that first day, that these hospital beds have a way of sucking you in like an old and overused couch.
After two futile attempts at trying to reach her feet, she exhales loudly.
“You think this funny?” Lena asks when she notices the overt grin plastered across Kara’s face.
“Just a little,” she admits with no less than a ruby red tinge covering her cheeks.
Sometimes Kara forgets how much attention Lena pays her.
“How do you manage to get up?” Lena asks.
She’s about to swing her legs back off the bed, when Kara’s hand lands on her thigh. It’s positioned high enough that she only makes contact with the smooth polyester blend of Lena’s skirt but not quite low enough not to earn a quiet gasp out of both of them.
“I can help if-if you just stay there,” Kara stutters out.
Lena doesn’t actually answer, just stares across the bed at Kara like she’s seen a ghost.
Still, Kara shifts forward on her side and easily reaches Lena’s heels.
Now, Kara’s taken off her own shoes more times than she can count and on more than one occasion has helped an inebriated, college-aged Alex. However, none of these situations have been from this angle, and more importantly, none of these people have been Lena.
Kara’s hand make contact with the foot closest to her just fine; it’s the whole process of pulling the heel off that becomes an issue. Kara laughs nervously as she tries to wiggle the heel back and forth to slip it off, but it’s being difficult.
“Cinderella really made this look easy,” Kara comments, unable to look back and face Lena directly.
She tries once more before frustration gets the better of her, and she switches up her grip, laying one hand over Lena’s ankle as the other grasps the back of the shoe. This tactic proves much more successful, and the heels comes off with just one yank.
“Thanks.” Lena’s voice comes out hoarse.
Kara turns over her shoulder and smiles sheepishly.
“No problem.”
Lena’s throat bobs under Kara’s gaze, the pale of her long neck contrasting with the black collar of her shirt. Kara follows the dip of her throat down to where it meets her collar bones, before being shadowed by the billowy, partially opaque material covering her chest.
“Can you-”
Kara blinks up to Lena where her eyes are focused beyond Kara’s face to the end of the bed.
“Can you get the other one too?”
Kara looks back to Lena’s feet, only to realize she’s still holding the discarded heel in one hand and Lena’s leg in the other. Kara quickly releases both before reaching over to help her with the other shoe.
On the TV in front of them, the movie has returned from its commercial break, and Kara takes refuge in the distraction, choosing to pretend like the whole interaction had been completely normal and not laced with the tension of one of those Jane Austen period movies.
Within a few minutes, Lena seems to have relaxed as well. Kara can feel the full weight of her body settling back against Kara’s pillow. Despite the sterile smell in the air and the intermittent beeping from the room across the hall, Kara decides this is nice. This is how things between them should be. This is everything soft and warm and pleasant. It’s also mostly Lena, Kara admits to herself.
They make it to another commercial break, before Kara feels Lena shift beside her. It’s not a small shift, like she’s just getting comfy. It’s purposeful.
Kara’s eye flicker to her side, trying to catch Lena’s in the low light of the TV. Kara can see Lena’s lip moving as if preparing to form the right words, but she doesn’t say a thing.
“Lena?” Kara asks.
The unfocused image of a fast-food commercial is a swirl of colours and enticing images in her periphery, but Kara only has eyes for the woman beside her.
“I–”
It doesn’t even sound like a full sound.
Lena’s hands ball the sheet next to her legs. Her eyes look a little glassy. She takes a breath before drawing her bottom lip into her mouth.
When it looks like she’s ready to come out with it finally, her words surprise Kara.
“It’s back on,” she says, pointing up to the movie.
It’s the worst kind of surprise, because Kara knows that was not what she was going to say, and no amount of prodding is going to change that.
Instead of actually watching the latter half of the movie, Kara spends the next half hour wondering what unvoiced thought had Lena looking so broken. Even if Kara has no evidence that this alternate reality is her fault, she still feels guilty. The events of the last few weeks have really pushed all the lies she’s ever told her best friend to the forefront of her thoughts.
With the warmth of Lena’s leg pressed into her side, Kara thinks about an alternate universe in which she’d been able to tell Lena she was Supergirl from the beginning. Would she have been surprised? Disappointed? Surely, she wouldn’t have expected someone as plain as Kara Danvers to be National City’s hero.
If Lena had been the one to walk into that café to meet her friend Supergirl and had seen Kara sitting there instead, would she have approached anyway or pretended to have never gone in the first place?
Kara shakes the thought away.
How ridiculous, she tells herself, even as her chest sinks as Joe Fox walks away from Kathleen on the TV before them.
By the time Kara is mouthing along to the final lines of the movie, the apathy that had overtaken her earlier has finally faded to a dull ache. She sniffs, trying to cover the tears tempting the corners of her eyes with an innocuous brush of her hand. She looks down to where Lena had curled into the pillow earlier and finds her best friend sound asleep.
On the sleeve of her powder blue hospital gown is a dark spot of drool; Kara chuckles, before covering her mouth with her free hand and quieting down.
She waits until the credits roll, and the channel moves onto its next scheduled program before waking Lena.
“Lena,” Kara whispers, nudging her with the arm currently trapped under Lena’s head.
Lena’s still at first. Kara nudges her again, causing her head to loll even further forward. She thinks Lena is completely out, when suddenly, her head jerks up and a set of intense eyes are staring right back at her. Usually such an intensity would make Kara turn away or find some distraction that calls for her attention. Being the sole focus of Lena’s attention is not only a blessing but also the most intimidating thing Kara’s ever encountered—twenty-foot aliens included.
Instead, she locks eyes with Lena and holds on for dear life.
Neither of them blink.
A strand of hair that had come loose from Lena’s bun slips down in front of her, partially obscuring her face. Goaded by some invisible force that may just be the pain medication the nice nurses have her on, Kara lifts her hand to sweep the hair back and tucks it behind Lena’s ear.
When she looks back to Lena’s unobstructed face, something shifts—or maybe something has already shifted and Kara’s just slow on the uptake.
Lena’s hands have left her lap; one presses into the bed between them while the other lands on Kara’s leg with only the thin fabric of the hospital gown to suppress the heat between them.
Two sets of eyes simultaneously downcast before jumping back up just as quickly. Kara’s pretty sure Lena’s gaze had fallen to the same place Kara’s had gone. She isn’t one-hundred percent certain, but she’s damn close. Unable to resist temptation, she looks back down to a pair of lips that she knows better than her own. This time, the effect Kara’s feels from their presence is tenfold—they’re not just there, more pink than red from faded lipstick. They’re parted.
Kara gulps, and her hand stalls in mid-air. She can’t remember what she’d been planning on doing with it. It’s just hanging there between their bodies. Finally, she lets it fall to Lena’s leg, close to where she’d touched her earlier. This touch is more hesitant, and somehow that just makes the whole experience more intense.
“Kara,” Lena whispers to the space between them.
Her hand tightens around Kara’s leg, crumpling the hospital gown. Kara can’t help the barely audible whimper that leaves her own lips. She knows Lena’s heard it though, because her hand fists more of her gown, and her already hooded eyes seem to sink even further into an abyss darker than the depths of every ocean.
Kara exhales, slow and practiced, before her gaze dips again. She spares one final thought—a hope that it’s her own inhibition that’s spurring this on and not some concoction of pain medicine—before she leans down into Lena’s space.
If Kara had still had her super hearing, she would have heard the hospital room door opening and the soft set of footsteps making their way in. As it stands, she does not, so it’s a rather unfortunate scrambling of limbs and bumbling of sounds that leave Kara’s lips as she finally hears the clearing of the night shift nurse’s throat.
“Vitals check,” the woman in light pink scrubs says.
Kara makes eye contact with her from over Lena’s shoulder, before both women in the small hospital bed are straightening up. Kara nearly pulls an IV out while Lena practically jumps to the floor in one coordinated motion. It’s not like they’ve been doing anything particularly sordid. Even so, their cheeks take on a rosy hue, and Kara even thinks she hears Lena swear under breath.
Thankfully, Kara’s nurse chooses not to comment on the situation she’d walked into, probably having walked into much worse, and pulls up the cart to take Kara’s blood pressure and blood-oxygen level.
For her part, Lena waits for the nurse to finish her work, standing on the opposite side of the bed with her hands gripping the straps of her purse. After one final glance at the both of them, the nurse wishes Kara a good night before excusing herself.
The impulse to reach out for Lena the moment the door closes is strong. Unfortunately, Kara’s just out of reach and mentally, possibly worlds away by now.
“Lena–” Kara begins just as Lena clears her throat.
Lena huffs like she’s heard something funny but doesn’t have the energy to produce a proper laugh. It’s perhaps an inside joke that Kara’s unaware of, but when she looks up to Lena’s face, it’s completely impassive.
“I should get going,” Lena finally says with a waning smile.
When Kara tries to rebut, Lena jumps back in. “You need your rest, Kara.”
She can only nod at that, accepting Lena’s silent plea to leave. It’s not surprising that Lena wants out. What was Kara thinking? Lena might not be thrilled with her current relationship, but that doesn’t mean she needs rumors of infidelity spreading to the press.
“Thank you for stopping by,” Kara mutters into the fists pressed against her lips.
She waits for the sound of retreating footsteps, but instead they get louder. Kara has less than a second to look up before Lena’s leaning forward and wrapping her arms around Kara’s waist.
The hug is so familiar, but there’s a weight to it that has nothing to do with Kara’s loss of powers. She feels Lena tighten it for another few seconds, breathing into Kara’s mussed hair, before pulling away.
With a fleeting smile, Lena wishes her a good night and leaves. For the third time that day, Kara’s feels as though her chest may finally burst.
Two hours before Alex is supposed to pick her up the next morning, Kara is wheeled back down to the 2nd floor for a final scan. It doesn’t take long before the friendly lab technician is helping her back off the table and over to her wheelchair to wait. She recognizes the attendant that comes to pick her up—a woman around her own age with bright red hair that reminds Kara of Ariel. They share a smile of recognition as the woman releases the breaks on the wheelchair, before pushing off to the elevators.
“I saw that you’re checking out today,” the woman says, making conversation. “How did you enjoy your stay, Miss Danvers?”
In the reflection of the elevator walls, Kara catches her little smirk and plays along.
“The service was great, but I found the accommodations plain and the lack of activities disappointing.”
“Hm. I see. Well, I’ll be sure to pass that onto management,” the woman replies.
They make eye contact once more, sharing a light laugh, before the doors are opening to the busier halls of her own floor.
“So,” the woman begins, a more serious quality to her voice. “Radiology should have the preliminary results back for your scans before noon, and if nothing looks amiss, you are free to head out.”
Kara breathes a sigh of relief. “No offense,” she says, “but I was getting a little stir crazy.”
“Million-dollar question then: what are you eating the minute you get out?”
Kara balks out a laugh. “Oh, an ungodly amount of Chinese food. Hands down.”
The woman hums in appreciation as they turn a corner passing the nurses’ station.
“Bump,” the woman warns as the wheelchair thuds over an uneven floor tile.
When the wheels touch back down, Kara feels her heart plummet with it. She thinks to correct her earlier statement, realizing that may not be so accurate anymore, when the woman resumes her even tone again.
“In the meantime, while we wait for those scans to come back, I can get started on your discharge forms so you’re ready to go when we get the call.”
Kara nods.
“I caught your girlfriend up on all your post-op care, and I can probably snag you some more bandages, so you won’t run out and have to buy more,” she adds, before skidding them both to a stop in front of Kara’s room.
“My–”
Kara’s next words die on her lips as she spots Lena shuffling through a duffle sitting on Kara’s unmade bed.
“Oh, she’s not–”
“Not what?” Lena asks, spinning around on the spot.
Kara blinks up, finding it both hard to look her in the eye but unable to completely turn away. She knows this isn’t the first time she’s been rendered speechless by Lena’s presence alone, but there’s something heart-stopping, breathtaking, electrifying about this specific moment.
Lena makes a drab hospital room feel like the set of her own photoshoot, framed by the morning sun shining through the far window.
“Not been here long,” the woman supplies for Kara.
She brings the wheelchair to a stop in front of the bed and flips up the feet rests. As she helps Kara up and over to the bed, Kara catches the tail end of a silent, mouthed sorry, before they’re both turning to look back at Lena.
She’s dressed in a dark aubergine waist coat, and the sleeves of her white, long-sleeve button-down are rolled up, just shy of her elbows. Her trousers are the same bold colour, accented with a stripe of black down the sides. Though the whole outfit makes Kara buzz, she doesn’t revel in the feeling long. Her countenance sours as she remembers what Lena had disclosed to her months ago—the reason she’d last donned a power suit like this.
“I didn’t know you were coming by,” Kara finally says, once she’s found her voice.
“Oh, yeah.” Lena rubs the back of her neck where baby hairs play against the side, escaping her tight ponytail. “Alex had something to take care of this morning, so I volunteered to bring you a change of clothes before I head into work.”
Kara’s lips purse, sceptical of Lena’s excuse, but she doesn't push.
“Well, let’s see what my dear sister has chosen, shall we?” she asks, putting on her best light-hearted smile.
Lena nods along with Kara’s suggestion as the attendant backs out of the room with the wheelchair, catching Kara’s gaze and throwing her a final smirk, before slipping out.
As Lena shows Kara her clothing choices, that unsettling observation from earlier continues to gnaw on her brain.
Lena may look amazing, stirring thoughts in Kara’s brain that she much prefers no audience for, but the power suit has an unfortunate purpose.
Lena’s expecting a fight—not a literal one, although Kara wouldn’t put it past her if one of those pig-headed, brain-dead bozos on the L-Corp board crossed her just right. No. Lena’s expecting a verbal sparring match and is preparing for battle the only way she knows how—the only way that’s effective.
“I also bought some deodorant on the way—not saying you’re smelly—in case you want to get the hospital smell off.”
“Lena?”
“Oh, do you already have deodorant? That would make sense...” she rambles.
Kara grinds her molars together as she tries not to let her face completely give her away, but there’s something extremely worrying about Lena’s behaviour. Lena is confident. Lena is sure of herself. More importantly, Lena does not ramble.
“Lena?” Kara tries again.
The flick of her gaze from the open duffle at the foot of the bed to Kara’s face happens abruptly. Kara must have given her concern away with the tone of her voice, but frankly, she doesn’t care if she sounds sad or pathetic.
“What’s wrong?” Kara fights out.
Lena laughs, shallow and half-hearted.
“Nothing,” she lies, before pressing her lips together and clearing her throat.
“Lena,” Kara prods, trying to evoke conviction, even when their current difference in height makes her feel so small.
“I’m fine,” she tries again, looking less certain. “Just work.”
Kara nods slowly, encouraging Lena to continue.
“There’s this meeting,” she rattles off, blasé. “Complete waste of time, but you know how these things go.”
“How do they go?” Kara asks in her softest tone.
“You know,” Lena replies, voice scratchy. “They start with actually important information before quickly veering off into the utterly banal.”
She clears her throat again, catching on something lodged deep within, and sets the shirt she’s been twisting around her hand down on the bed. When she looks up, Kara has shifted forward onto her knees and is waiting for permission to make contact.
At the curt nod of Lena’s head, Kara starts small ministrations up and down the skin exposed on Lena’s forearms, only stopping when Lena goes to speak again.
“It’s not fair.” Her voice breaks as she chuckles morosely. “I’m sure none of those men cared who Lex slept with when he was CEO. You’d think sleeping with a superhero was much better than actively trying to kill one.”
Kara bites her lip, pushing past the image that enters her mind, unbidden, and moves the duffle behind her.
“Hey, come here,” she says, pulling at Lena’s wrists until they’re meeting in a hug—Lena leaning forward, thighs pressed into the side of the mattress while Kara balances on unsteady knees.
The hug is stiff and doesn’t suddenly make everything better, but when Kara pulls back, the pallid effect has left Lena’s face, and she looks at least a little bit better.
“I wish I could throw every single one of those assholes off the L-Corp rooftop,” Kara jokes, for once not feeling jittery at how close she skirts the truth of her own abilities.
“I do too,” Lena admits quietly.
Kara wishes she could do something. Even if she doesn’t have the power to stop a speeding bullet anymore, she still wants to come to Lena’s rescue some way or another.
And maybe she can. Maybe...
“Lena,” Kara starts, taking Lena’s hands back in her own and flipping them over so she can rub circles into her palms.
“Mm?” Lena mumbles, eyes unfocused towards the back of the room.
“What if you could publicly end your relationship with Supergirl–”
“–Kara.”
“And no one would be the bad guy?”
Lena bites her lip and refocuses on Kara. She tilts her head and Kara takes that as the sign to explain.
“You’re helping Lena with what?” Alex asks later that day as she helps Kara back into her apartment.
“I’m going to help them break up.”
Alex snorts as she drops Kara’s bags on the floor beside the front door.
“You know, most people don’t usually broadcast that information—especially looking as jazzed as you are right now.”
Kara waves off Alex’s comment but still turns away in hopes her expression won’t giveaway how accurate the observation is.
“Look,” Kara says, settling back onto her couch before grabbing the blanket slung over the back. “They both want out. Lena told me herself.”
“And you play what part in this?”
“I’m the planner—the mastermind.”
“Uh huh.”
Kara grabs one of the pillows at her side and whips it across the room. Alex catches it easily despite facing the opposite direction just a second prior. Kara really misses her super speed.
“You see, they both want out of this relationship, but with it being so public, neither one of them want to walk away looking like the bad guy.”
“And they can’t just do the break-up privately and come out with a statement?”
Kara levels Alex with a piercing stare, and Alex shrugs.
“Fine, that’s unlikely. So, what’s the plan?”
As they both wait for lunch to be delivered, Kara explains the plan to Alex—how she’d seen posters strung up around the hospital announcing the impending ceremony celebrating a new hospital wing. It’s scheduled the following Saturday giving them just over a week to solidify their plan.
“It’s simple,” she parrots to a less than convinced Alex. “Before I lost my–”
“You’re what?”
“Um, nothing.”
“Okay...”
“Anyway.” Kara swallows. “Last month I was on my way to visit Lena at work when I overheard her and her assistant on a phone call. Lena was telling Jess to arrange a second donation for the hospital—after the already 10 million she’d donated. This time she explicitly stated that she wanted the donation to be anonymous, which sure. Lena isn’t in it for the attention, but I found the detail still odd.
“But then a week later while I was talking with Jess, waiting for Lena’s meeting to end, I figured it out.”
“Oh, did you, Sherlock?”
Kara glares but chooses not to engage with her sister’s teasing.
“Donating another 10 million would make Lena the highest donor by a longshot and then the hospital would make a big deal out of it, and you know Lena.”
Alex’s eyes narrow like she wants to argue but she lets Kara continue.
“I Know Lena,” Kara amends, “A donation that big to the hospital would garner a lot of attention. Too much. And while good press is good press, that much money means big speeches and hospital wings named after her.”
Alex nods along. “So, you think going public with this information will overshadow anything negative with Supergirl?”
“I–” Kara raises a finger, before sinking back into the couch. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she finishes, as Alex rolls her eyes.
“What were you thinking of doing then, Mastermind?”
“They’re still going to break up,” Kara prefaces, “but they’re going to do it publicly, in front of all the attendees at the hospital ceremony.”
Kara’s quite possibly never seen Alex leave her apartment faster than she does a few days later on Sunday. She’s glaring at her sister from the couch the moment Alex just about takes out the side table on her race to the jacket slung up beside the door.
“I didn’t realize I was such terrible company,” Kara comments with a glare.
Alex doesn’t even pretend to feel bad about it, shooting Kara a wink as she fumbles through her coat pocket for her keys.
“What are you complaining about?” Alex counters the moment her face splits into a grin. “You have your dear friend Lena on her way up right now.”
Begrudgingly, and mostly against her will, the scowl on Kara’s drops at the mention of Lena’s name.
“See?” Alex says, as if that will win her back some sister points. When Kara’s frown returns the moment she stops staring off into space, Alex sighs. “Look, Kara. I love you. I do. But you are the worst patient. Ever.”
“Just get out of here,” Kara says, shooing her away.
“Love you, too,” Alex replies.
The door opens a second later where a laughing Alex coming face to face with a frantic Lena.
“Oh, hey,” Alex says, watching Lena closely. “I was just on my way out, but please come in.”
Lena nods at Alex’s frenzied words like she’s processing them one by one.
“Thanks,” she finally mumbles.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Kara greets her from the couch.
In the few days she’s been home from the hospital, a lot of the bruising has eased up, and it’s no longer excruciating to do simple tasks anymore. Still, she’s slow to rise and walk over to where Lena stands just inside the foyer.
“Would you like me to take your coat?” she asks.
Lena blinks at her as if she’s spoken a foreign language—one she doesn’t know—before she’s waving away Kara’s extended hand.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m able bodied.”
She begins to unbutton her light blue trench coat, deftly flicking the lapels back to reach the final two. From behind her, Alex gives Kara one last wink before she slips out the door.
“Alex–” Kara tries to call her sister back, but she receives no response. “I–huh.”
“What?” Lena asks from beside her.
She must have gone home to change after work or never bothered going into the office at all that day (which she should every Sunday), because her outfit tonight is much homier than her usual attire. Without thinking, Kara reaches out and runs her fingers over the three-quarter length sleeve of Lena’s Henley. She’s barely had a second to feel the soft cotton between her fingers, before Lena is clearing her throat.
“Hm?” Kara releases the fabric quickly and takes a step back.
“I asked what you needed your sister for. Maybe I can help.”
“I–I guess you could. She just usually helps me with my nightly post-op care. I’m beginning to think she escaped so quickly just to avoid helping me with it tonight.”
“Well, I don’t see why not. Like I said, I am able bodied.”
She motions down her body in a slow sweep that has Kara stuttering on more than one place, specifically the very top where the undone buttons on her shirt have left the entirety of Lena’s clavicle exposed.
“That you are,” Kara eventually murmurs.
They decide to finish the movie Kara had been watching prior to Lena’s arrival before jumping into the break-up planning. It takes a while for Lena to appear comfortable moving around the small space, but before long she is flitting back and forth from the kitchen for snack and drink refills.
“Sorry I don’t have many options,” Kara calls to her from the living room.
“Oh, it’s no problem, Kara,” Lena replies.
She appears a moment later with two bottles of ginger ale balanced in one hand and another bowl of chips in the other.
“It wasn’t like I was going to drink without you.”
She hands Kara the bottle of Canada Dry with a smile before sinking back into the couch beside her.
“Alex is taking this post-op recovery very seriously, including picking up every possible grocery list item Eliza would have bought when we were kids.” She holds up her bottle as evidence before twisting off the cap with a satisfying pop.
“Did you get sick a lot when you were younger?” she asks when they’re both settled.
“Alex more than me,” she replies after a moment of hesitation. “I had a strong immune system.”
“Well, that’s lucky.”
“Why? I thought kids liked staying home sick from school?”
Lena’s smile drops behind the opening of her soda. Kara doesn’t miss the cringe, though.
“Let’s just say there were never any lazy sick days in front of the TV—not for as long as I can remember.”
Kara frowns, before her hand shoots out to cover Lena’s. She understands that perspective–maybe not for the same reason as Lena—never being able to pull that excuse out in front of the Danvers, even when school was the very last place Kara wanted to go some days.
She can’t voice this though, so she settles for the weight of her hand against Lena’s cooler skin.
“But hey,” Lena speaks up. “I’m my own boss now; I can take whatever sick days I want.”
The furrow of Kara’s brows conveys she doesn’t believe the statement one bit, but she lets it slide.
Once Kara’s movie finishes, it’s down to business for the two of them. Kara’s sleep schedule has been out of whack since her time at the hospital, so even though it’s only 7 p.m. now, it’s probably best that they start now rather than later.
“Did you call the hospital today?” Kara asks, tapping the pad of paper in her lap with her pen.
“Yes, I did. They were more than thrilled to hear I would be attending after all.”
Lena rolls her eyes as Kara draws a check mark next to that line item.
“And the speech?”
“I have five minutes to fill, although I still have no idea what I am supposed to say.”
“Well, that’s why I am here: orchestrator of all.”
Lena snorts into her hands. When she looks back up, Kara’s eyes are on hers, gleaming. It’s the slow shake of Lena’s head though that pulls Kara away from her list.
“What’d I say?” Kara quips.
“Nothing, darling,” Lena replies, dragging her fingers across the hand that has gone limp atop the pad of paper.
The pet-name pulls at Kara’ conscience, begging to be examined, but they’ve got work to do and not even the heady scent of Lena’s perfume or the way she seems to gravitate toward Kara at every opportunity is going to distract her from—
“–this just reminds me of when we met is all.”
Lena’s been talking—whispering something to the quiet of Kara’s living room—amidst Kara’s wandering thoughts.
“The interview?” Kara clarifies.
“Yeah,” Lena confirms with a shrug. “You had your little pad of paper and were spinning a pen just like that one between your fingers.”
Kara huffs. “It was a fairly regular sized notepad.” She doesn’t know why the comment brings up her defenses. This is Lena. She’s not one to ever belittle Kara.
Maybe she’s reading the interaction wrong, then.
“What else do you remember?” she pushes.
Lena clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and lets her gaze roam across Kara’s features.
“Well,” she begins. “Your hair was pulled back like it is now, albeit a little less messy.”
Kara catches the lazy way Lena’s tongue pokes out of her mouth, before she’s continuing, eyes flicking down to the comfy sweatshirt Kara’s been relaxing in since Alex got her up and moving this morning.
“And you had on one of your classic cardigans.”
“They’re comfy and I get cold,” Kara whines, though the reaction is all for show— purposefully dramatic to hide the overwhelming need to preen under Lena’s attention.
“But most importantly and despite appearances,” she continues, brushing back Kara’s complaints. “I knew by the end of that conversation that you weren’t someone to underestimate.”
“And was I? Someone not to underestimate?”
“Well, now...” Lena chuckles, low in her throat. She pulls her hand away from Kara’s lap and leans back against the couch cushions. “Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”
After they make it through the rest of the items on Kara’s to-do list, Lena unmutes the TV still playing across from them. Without the need for a verbal discussion, they settle back in for another movie—this one not even twenty minutes in thanks to an abundance of commercial breaks.
As Kara could have predicted, by the time 8 p.m. drags around, she’s slouching so far back that she can barely make out the people moving across the screen.
“Kara,” Lena prods, poking at Kara’s shoulder when her name alone isn’t enough.
“Mm?” Kara mumbles into the pillow at her side.
“You can’t fall asleep, hon.”
Lena’s soothing words float over her like a dream. Kara clutches the pillow harder until she’s shimmied it up against her face.
“Kara.”
“I’m here.”
“Not for much longer,” Lena replies with a sigh.
“Kara, you can’t fall asleep yet. We have to get through the post-op routine Alex sent me.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Kara, you’re not moving.”
“I totally am mo–”
She can’t finish the sentence, because Lena has yanked her pillow away and is actively trying to sit Kara up with a hand at either shoulder.
“Come on,” Lena grunts.
Kara hears her complain under her breath about Kara being deceptively heavy, before Kara’s eyes flutter open, and she smacks her lips together.
“I’m up,” she announces to Lena’s annoyed face.
“Wonderful.”
Lena leaves her propped against the back of the couch while she pops over to the bathroom to retrieve the medication and medical supplies Alex had texted her. Kara is handed the pill for inflammation first, then the smaller one that keeps the pain at bay overnight. There’s still enough ginger ale in her bottle to take both, but by now it’s rather flat.
“Okay, that should be the only pills you need to take.”
Lena scans the list on her phone. When she looks back down at Kara, her brows draw together.
“You good?”
Kara’s lips purse together like she’s in pain, but she nods anyway.
“You act like you’ve never taken pills before,” Lena comments under her breath. Then, “all that’s left is for you to change out two of your bandages and apply more antibiotic to the scrapes on your arms. That sound right?”
Kara nods and takes one of the tubes Lena had brought out in a baggy.
She’s just finished applying the sticky ointment to her right arm when she feels the couch sag beside her.
“I don’t know why Alex made such a big deal about this. You haven’t been that terrible of a patient.”
“Oh, ha ha.”
Kara caps the tube and sets it down on the side table before even considering humouring Lena’s comment.
“She’s dramatic, okay?”
Lena smirks.
“I’m sure that’s it.”
“It is.” Kara nudges Lena with her good side. “Now grab that large package there and help me.”
As Lena picks up the sealed bandage that’s almost bigger than her hand, Kara rolls up her pant leg until it’s high enough to uncover her knee.
“Does this one need any cream?” Lena asks, peering forward to watch.
Kara shakes her head no, before flipping the tab up on the packaging and tearing it right down the middle.
“I just need to keep these areas as clean as possible,” she explains.
“Oh, okay.”
If Kara weren’t so concentrated on replacing the old bandage with the new, she might have looked deeper into that reply. It’s the type of knowledge Kara would assume Lena to know off the top of her head. So, if she really didn’t need that question answered, why ask? To distract Kara? To distract herself?
These larger abrasions are much worse than her other scrapes and bruises. Kara rolls the old bandage into a ball once she’s peeled it back from her leg, avoiding direct eye contact with the fluids and dry skin that’s accumulated since last night. As soon as she’s applied the new one, she drops all the trash into the can Alex had left beside her couch the first day she got back from the hospital.
“Okay,” Kara says, slapping her hands against the top of her thighs. “Time for the big one.”
“That was the small one?”
Kara can’t tell if the waver in Lena’s voice is from nerves or surprise.
“Comparatively,” Kara shrugs.
She finds the last bandage in the baggy and turns in her seat to hand it to Lena.
“You’ll want to use these tab-thingies on the side and–”
“–I think I can handle it,” Lena cuts her off with a grin.
“Right.”
Kara sucks in her cheeks, before she bends to the side to shift the end of her large cotton tee out from under her butt. After a couple tugs, it comes free and there Kara is, revealing the lower half of her torso to Lena. The cold immediately prickles Kara’s skin, and she sucks in a breath deep from within her diaphragm.
Kara’s so preoccupied, preparing for the sting that always accompanies the removal of this larger bandage that it takes Kara a good ten seconds to realize Lena hasn’t moved a muscle beside her.
“Lena?”
Kara looks over her shoulder to see what has Lena so motionless, but her friend’s eyes are lost in space—completely glazed over.
“Lena?” she tries again.
Lena licks her lips before her eyes flash up towards Kara’s face.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” Lena reassures, though there her eyes go, dipping down again.
Finally, Lena’s hands reach out, fingertips hesitantly landing near the dips of Kara’s waist.
“Cold!” Kara yelps nearly jumping off the couch away from Lena.
“Sorry,” Lena says, withdrawing her hands from Kara’s side.
She brings them to her face before breathing heavily into her palms. As Lena repeats the process a few times for good measure, their eyes meet over the tops of Lena’s fingers. Kara’s the first to look away, blushing as she fidgets with the hem of shirt.
“Can you hold it uh–higher?” Lena asks.
Kara acquiesces, raising the cotton shirt with one hand as she twists towards the arm of the couch to give Lena more space. This time, Lena waits for Kara’s nod before her hands return to her.
Lena trails her fingers up the side of Kara’s stomach, stopping when she reaches the first ridge of her ribs. Her thumb hooks around to the soft skin of her waist, and she holds Kara still. She’s cautious with her touches, making sure to avoid all the red, purple, and yellow skin that dots her back as she pulls off the old bandage.
With the methodical movements of an experienced scientist, Lena’s continues by ripping open the new bandage’s outer packaging and removing just one end of the backings covering the adhesive side. Kara is acutely aware of the moment the first side of the bandage contacts her sensitive skin. She doesn’t mean to worry Lena, but a small groan slips past Kara’s lips.
“Sorry,” Lena apologizes again.
Kara can hear Lena’s laboured breathing at her side. If Kara’s hands weren’t currently occupied, she would have reached out to her in reassurance.
“Don’t worry. You’re ten times gentler than Alex ever is,” she settles for instead.
Kara thinks she hears Lena huff out a laugh, but she can’t look over without potentially messing up the bandage’s application. A moment later, Kara feels the rest of the bandage land against her skin. She sucks in a quiet breath, swallowing down the flare of pain, before finally it subsides once again.
“You’re good,” Lena breaths out.
Lena feels so close, like the words are being whispered in her ear.
“Thanks,” Kara replies.
Belatedly, she drops her shirt back, covering her torso once more, yet the prickling feeling does not dissipate.
Despite being a few minutes from sleep earlier, Kara’s body feels recharged. As soon as Lena returns from the bathroom, Kara pulls her legs up onto the couch cushion in front of her and rests her chin on her knees.
“What?” Lena asks, suspiciously.
“What would it take to watch one more movie with you tonight?”
Lena’s brows narrow and she shakes her head. Unlike Alex, her reproving look is much less intense and possibly even cute.
“What?” Kara’s subsequent laugh is masked by a yawn the moment her mouth opens.
“That’s what.” Lena points an accusatory finger at Kara but still drops into the seat beside her.
“So, one more movie?”
Kara’s gotten away with a lot since returning from the hospital, but this may finally be the breaking point. Lena is silent for a second, toying with a piece of bandage packaging they’d missed.
“Unless you have somewhere else to be,” Kara offers.
Lena looks up, studying Kara’s face. Kara has her best puppy dog eyes displayed for full effect. Lena’s frown starts to crack under Kara’s attention, before something goes off in Lena’s brain—a thought nestled behind everything else cycling through—and the frown returns five times stronger.
“You do have somewhere else to be,” Kara guesses.
Lena stands to pace Kara’s living room, clasping her hands together in front of her body.
The answer seems to float across the space Lena’s created the moment their eyes meet.
“It’s not what you think,” Lena’s quick to correct. “I mean…” Her face scrunches, leaving a trio of wrinkles between her brows.
Kara waits expectantly from the couch. She’s squeezing her legs to her chest so hard; it feels like she may cut off circulation.
“She said she’d make time to call me tonight so we can over the break-up plan. She is a vital part of it, after all.”
Kara grumbles, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
Lena may have a point, but it still feels like she’s purposefully hiding another part of her life.
With that thought weighing on Kara, she relents pretty quickly and goes about turning off the TV and the lights in the kitchen. She can’t help but notice how uncomfortable Lena looks, waiting in her living room with only the rings on her fingers to mess with.
When Kara moves to the living room, intending to clean the mess left over from their movie snacks, Lena stops Kara in the hall.
“Don’t worry about that stuff. I’ll clear it away before I leave.”
Kara wants to argue with her. She’s not some helpless, powerless, fragile—
“Kara?”
The tension building in her jaw releases upon hearing her name so delicately released from Lena’s lips.
“Let me?”
Kara bites her lip. She supposes there’s not much to throw out or put away.
“If you want, I can leave right now; I understand, but honestly… I don’t mind helping out.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” Kara admits, wearily.
How she’s so irritated one second, then dejected the next, she’ll never understand.
With a shy smile, Kara excuses herself to the bathroom to get ready for bed. As she stands in front of the mirror, washing off the light makeup she’d bothered applying before Lena came over, she hears the crunching of plastic and then a sink turning on.
Kara rolls her eyes. Of course, she’s doing more than a little clean up.
By the time Lena has finished up in Kara’s kitchen, Kara’s breath is minty fresh, and she’s changed out her sweatpants for a pair of light cotton shorts. Kara hits the overhead lights and moves toward her bed.
“It’s funny actually,” she hears from over her shoulder.
“What?” Kara calls out as she feels around for the side of her mattress.
She looks back to where Lena stands, bathed in the light spilling out from the other room. Her hand is stalled on a floor-lamp next to Kara’s dresser, and she scratches at the side of the switch like she’s not sure whether she wants it on or off.
Finally, she flicks it on, causing Kara to blink harshly at the sudden change.
“Lena?” Kara tries, still posed next to her bed.
“Nothing, I just–” She shakes her head like she’s trying to shake off a thought.
“You what?”
“I have this feeling like you’re the one that usually helps me to bed.”
“What’s odd about that?”
“You carry me.”
“Oh,” Kara replies, mouth opening and closing like the guppy Kara’s college roommate managed to hide in their dorm room for three months.
Her next movements as she gets into bed are on autopilot. This information takes its time, pervading all crevices of her brain. It’s the first indication since that morning that maybe her entire existence as Kara Zor-El wasn’t some elaborate illusion.
Kara doesn’t realize Lena’s moved from her post beside the floor lamp until she feels a weight against her leg. Kara flicks her gaze over to Lena’s hand, watching as it runs up the side of Kara’s duvet like she’s mesmerized by the texture—an observation Kara knows cannot be even close to the truth considering it’s at least five years old and from the highly bespoke retailer, IKEA.
“I have an early morning, but I should be free later on if we need to… you know, plan more,” Lena says, seeming more unsure about her statement by the time she utters the final word.
“I know.”
“Good,” she replies.
Her thumb makes slow circles over the duvet covering Kara’s hip. There’s a reverent nature to her movements that Kara’s too reluctant to interrupt. Eventually, her gaze returns to Kara’s face, but the smile Kara’s met with is forlorn.
“I’ll let you sleep,” she whispers, more to herself.
Kara feels herself nod, but oh how she wishes that she had the courage to say no. They’ve fallen asleep next to each other on the couch more times than Kara could keep track of but inviting her to stay now feels too close to overstepping.
Plus, there’s a superhero out there waiting for her, Kara’s mind so rudely intervenes.
“I’ll see you soon?” Kara asks instead.
Lena nods, before ducking down and pulling Kara into an awkward hug. It’s quick and not nearly enough but, Kara supposes, nothing ever is these days.
“Goodnight, Lena.”
“Goodnight, Kara,” Lena whispers against her cheek as she pulls back.
It’s not a kiss, but the ghostlike press of Lena’s lips has Kara wideawake for the next hour, well after Lena finally slips out the front door.
Kara doesn’t see Lena again until the night before the hospital ceremony. They meet at Lena’s office. It’s neutral ground, not just for the two of them, but also Supergirl, who is scheduled to stop by once she gets a break from her Superhero duties.
Kara had stared at the text from Lena for a good ten minutes. If this was a week ago, she might’ve been tempted to throw her phone. This morning, she’d just stared down at their meeting plans with a hollowness akin to what Woody must have felt like when Andy had outgrown the want to play with him.
“You good?” Alex had asked her. “You nervous about getting back out there?”
“What?” She’d snapped, jerking her head up.
“You know, back out in the real world.”
Kara had only hummed in acknowledgement if only to move on from the conversation.
“Tough day?” Kara asks, approaching Lena’s desk.
She has her laptop closed with one hand cradling her forehead. The moment she hears Kara, her gaze flicks up, and a small smile spreads across her face.
“No,” she says shaking her head.
Kara doesn’t quite believe it—the ability to hear Lena’s heartbeat present or not.
“Just long,” Lena amends. “Here… take a seat over at the couch; I’ll be over there in a minute.”
Kara snaps her mouth closed and follows Lena’s directions, spinning on the spot and pacing over to the small nook.
Trying not to be too obvious, Kara watches Lena out of the corner of her eye as she pretends to scroll through her phone. On the surface there’s no sign of timidness or awkwardness. Maybe Kara had just imagined the cheek kiss. She’d been on a lower dose of pain medication, but there could have still been residual effects.
It’s a lie, but the alternative—that the moment had not affected Lena in the same way—spurs a panic in Kara’s chest that doesn’t feel containable.
“How have you been feeling?” Lena asks as she crosses the room towards Kara.
She’s prim and proper in her normal business attire, though the baby hairs at her ears have come loose from her bun and stick out in all directions. Lena seems to sense the target of Kara’s attention, and she attempts to tuck back the hairs on both sides.
“I’ve been feeling much better, actually. I can even stand up at a normal speed now.”
Kara drops her bag at her side and moves to stand when she feels a hand at her shoulder.
“Oh, I believe you Kara.” Lena chuckles under her breath and her cheeks go pink under Kara’s unwavering gaze. “I’m happy to see you back on your feet, though.”
Kara tries not to straighten under Lena’s praise, but there’s that pull again, strong and addictive.
“It uh–it wasn’t that bad of an injury,” Kara supplies, adjusting her glasses.
“You were blown up, Kara,” Lena says, a protective tone encasing her voice.
Kara nods, because it’s true. There’d been an explosion just on the other side of the café wall. It still feels odd to treat something so miniscule as such a big deal.
“Lena–” Kara shifts in her seat and wishes she’d worn pants now that the underside of her thighs is sticking to the cool leather.
“Kara–” Lena interrupts.
The next time Kara shifts forward, the side of her knee connects with the side of Lena’s hand and they both go quiet. Lena’s fingers curl around the cushion and yet, she doesn’t back her pinky away. Even with her sub-par human eyesight, Kara notices the slight shake to Lena’s hand. If she had any semblance of control over her own body, she would have reached out, if only to calm her best friend.
The click of a door opening on the other side of the room finally jars them from their stalemate. Kara is the first one to draw her attention away from the couch. In an outfit that looks so familiar, save for the small imperfections she’s collected over the years, Supergirl strolls over to them from the balcony.
“Good evening,” she announces with a cheery lilt to her voice.
Her attitude makes Kara want to march her back outside and over the edge of the railing.
If only she couldn’t fly, Kara mutters to herself.
Lena doesn’t catch it, but from the way Supergirl’s attention has focused solely on Kara, she has.
“Supergirl.” Lena’s found her voice for the first time in at least a minute and beckons her over. “Wait here and I’ll grab you a chair.”
“Of course, Ms. Luthor,” Supergirl says.
She stands up straight with her hands clasped behind her back and waits. The same ridiculous smile doesn’t leave her perfect face once.
“Now that everyone is here,” Lena begins, retaking her seat beside Kara. “Let’s run through the night.”
“Your speech is scheduled to start at 8:15, giving you plenty of time to mingle with other guests and draw attention to Supergirl’s presence,” Kara says.
“Oh, I don’t think she’ll need any help with that,” Lena replies.
“Um. Yeah.” Kara feels her muscles tensing up and takes a deep breath, reminding herself for the tenth time that day why she’s here. “The important part is where Supergirl will be during the speech.”
“Or more so where she won’t,” Lena adds.
“Exactly. When you get to the end of your speech where you’re supposed to thank Supergirl for being there as a partner and a support, she will have jetted off somewhere to save people,” Kara explains with the last part in quotations. “I’m hoping guests will notice her departures throughout the night as well just to emphasize that she can’t be there for you when you need her to be. No offense,” Kara says, glancing over at Supergirl as she sits in the extra chair bouncing her legs up and down.
“I’m happy to help in any way I can,” she replies with a blinding smile that would be unsettling if it was anyone else.
Lena breezes right past Supergirl’s addition, and with her focus trained back on Kara, she adds, “I’m thinking I can try to point out Supergirl in the crowd as an inspiration to be a little less selfless in life but then be unable to find her.”
“Perfect.” Kara grins, clasping her hands together. “And really play up that pout when you can’t spot her too.”
“What pout?” Lena asks, batting her eyelashes like some innocent damsel.
Kara snorts. “Please. What pout? Lena…” Kara shoves her playfully, before leaning back against the couch with a sigh.
Across from her, Lena hasn’t dropped the look of confusion from her face.
“Lena,” Kara whines, dragging the name out. “That pout. That one right there.”
She jabs her finger into Lena’s cheek until the other woman’s resolve crumbles and she’s leaning away from Kara’s touch toward the arm of the couch.
“Fine,” Lena playfully snaps. “I’ll play up this elusive pout you speak of.”
“Good.” Kara crosses her arms and looks smug.
“You really do pout when you don’t get your way,” Supergirl speaks up with a twinkle in her eye.
Kara and Lena both twist in their seats. It’s not that Kara’s forgotten she was still here… it’s just faded from the forefront of her mind.
“I–that…” Lena’s cheeks are burning up, resembling the same ruddy complexion that would adorn her cheeks when they used to work out together.
Her gaze falls to her lap where her fingers play with the hem of her blouse.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Lena,” Supergirl steamrolls ahead. “Being open about what you want is one of your most attractive qualities, especially when–”
“Okay!” Kara jumps in, almost springing out of her seat. I think we should move on. Yeah?”
Though she’s more so addressing the room at large than any individual person, Supergirl readily agrees. “Yes. So, what happens after that?”
“Well.” Kara clears her throat, trying not to tune into Lena’s stilted breathing or the way that blush has migrated downward since Supergirl’s outburst. “I need you to come back to the ceremony—soon enough that everyone’s attention is still on Lena, but long enough for the waiting to become awkward. Maybe like a minute or two?”
“A minute or two. Got it.” Supergirl shoots Kara a thumbs up, and she resists the impulse to bury her head in her hands.
Is this what I was like in Supergirl mode? Kara wonders.
“Once that time has passed, you’ll burst back into the hall but by then, it’s too late. Lena will deliver her speech about wishing you were there for her, and you’ll admit that because of who you are, it’s simply not realistic or fair to Lena—that Lena will always come second to the people of National City.
“It will be amicable and bittersweet and hopefully neither of you will be looked down on because of this implied decision to end things.”
“Gee, that’s rough,” Supergirl says, rubbing at her edge of her skirt.
It’s the first time Kara has seen this version of the hero display anything beyond excitement or rapt attention.
“It’s the harsh reality,” Kara replies shrugging. Maybe if she forces an air of indifference, she’ll actually believe it.
Beside her, Lena clears her throat. Kara tries to meet her eyes to make sure she’s also okay with the plan so far, but her gaze is frantic and refuses to settle.
“I need to check on something,” Lena mutters after a moment, rising from the couch.
She steps out of her office and is out of her earshot a moment later.
Save for the tapping of Supergirl’s boots on the office floor, the room is quiet. Not even the air conditioner that used to spring to life at all hours of the day saves Kara from the quiet now.
“So…”
“So…”
After successfully avoiding Supergirl’s gaze since Lena stepped out, their eyes lock.
Kara’s almost expecting something cosmic to take place. She’s seen the body switching movies, so a world-altering event isn’t out of the question. Unfortunately, stilted silence is all that greets them.
“You really are close with her then,” Supergirl comments, offhanded.
“Who? Lena?”
Supergirl nods as her feet swing back and forth. It’s nice to know Kara’s not the only one harbouring this nervous and easily excitable energy. If this Supergirl turns out to be a part of her after all, it only makes sense.
“Well, yeah,” Kara replies, as if it’s common knowledge. “We’ve been through a lot.”
Supergirl’s eyes narrow as she studies Kara, before all thoughts seem to leave her brain at once, and she smiles.
“Well, I’m glad she has you then. I can’t always be there for her.”
That little green monster is apparently still very present as Kara grinds her molars together. She has multiple barbs on the tip of the tongue, ready to be fired at will, when the expression on Supergirl’s face makes her take pause.
“You really are okay with ending it with Lena,” Kara says. It comes out more as a declaration than a question.
“Of course,” Supergirl replies. “It’s clear I’m not what she wants.”
A line forms between Kara’s brows, and she’s three seconds away from asking what that means when the door to Lena’s office opens once more.
“Sorry about that,” Lena calls out.
Kara hears the words in her periphery, but her focus hasn’t left Supergirl.
“And what does she want?” Kara whispers in Kryptonian.
Supergirl blinks are her but utters nothing in response, brows drawn together in puzzlement.
“Everything all right?” Lena asks, spreading her arms over the side of the couch before sitting down beside Kara.
“Yep,” Kara replies, though her eyes never leave Supergirl.
There’s something behind those familiar eyes, but it’s still out of reach.
With all the planning behind Lena and Supergirl’s break-up, Kara almost forgets to set out what she needs for the ceremony. An hour before the ceremony is set to begin, Kara’s on speaker phone with Alex, pacing back and forth in front of her bed.
“Which one do I go with?” she asks, quickly switching over to Facetime.
Kara turns the camera around and pans across the three dresses spread out over her bed.
“Kara you’re moving the camera too fast,” Alex complains. “Go back to the first.”
Kara scrambles back to the far side of her bed and hovers over a light-yellow dress with a long skirt.
After humming to herself for a moment, Alex responds, “No. Too summery.”
“Okay,” Kara drawls.
She moves onto the second choice, her favourite of the three, and waits impatiently for Alex’s opinion.
“That’s cute,” her sister finally replies.
“Cute?”
“Yeah. It’s cute.”
“Alex!”
“What?”
Kara rubs her nose with her free hand and does a quick lap to her dresser and back.
“I’m not going for cute.”
The call chooses that exact moment to freeze up on her; when Alex’s voice returns—no longer choppy—and she’s more than a mix of Picasso pixels, her resulting smirk almost makes Kara hang up.
“Kara,” Alex chuckles.
“No.”
Kara dops the phone on the bed, before quickly picking it back up again. She doesn’t have time to give her sister the cold shoulder tonight.
“You minx.”
Kara groans.
“What does the last choice look like then?” Alex asks.
Kara moves onto the third dress—a dark blue A-line with a flowing skirt and a deep plunge right over her sternum. She doesn’t remember if it’s even hers but had appreciated how it showed off her shoulders and was daring, but not too risqué.
“What do you think?” Kara asks, before turning the camera back on herself.
Alex looks a little dumbstruck and it takes her way too long to clue Kara in.
“Kara.”
“Yeah?”
“I haven’t seen that dress in like, four years.”
That’s right. Now it’s all coming back.
“It was always too long for you,” Kara says as an excuse. “Plus, you hate heels.”
“Wear it.”
“You sure?”
“You want to steal Lena?”
“I’m not–I’m not stealing her, Alex,” Kara replies, feeling way too warm all of a sudden.
“Wear it.”
It turns out the dress is much more daring than Kara remembered it being, now that’s she’s standing in the brand-new hospital lobby surrounded by a group of people whose median age is tipping towards sixty-five. It also doesn’t help that she can’t wear a bra in this—not with all the skin the dress reveals.
Kara’s takes a deep breath, probably her tenth in the last five minutes and scans the room for Lena. She’s planning on arriving late with Supergirl on her arm. It’s already an hour into the ceremony though, and both of them showing up is sort of a requirement for this plan to work.
A minute later, Kara finally spots Lena coming through the doors at the back of the lobby, looking disheveled and out of breath. As far as Kara knows, the back doors are off limits, leading to a stairway that’s still under construction.
“Lena!”
Kara raises her hand, calling Lena over.
The moment they make eye contact, another figure moves through the doors at the back. She doesn’t slip in so seamlessly—with her long red cape flowing behind her, it’d be nearly impossible.
“Sorry we’re late,” Lena says.
Kara feels something lodge in the back of her throat.
They’re not together anymore. Lena said so herself. Lena said she wasn’t interested in that anymore.
It doesn’t matter what mantra Kara chooses; she can’t move past their entrance.
“Something wrong with the front door?” she hears herself mutter.
Lena’s brows shoot up into her hairline before an easy smile slides across her face, and she shakes her head.
“We uh, didn’t want to cause too much of a scene,” she explains. “Landing tends to have that effect no matter the hour.”
Kara nods, biting her lip.
Good. Good.
A waiter passes by as Supergirl sidles up beside Lena and they all take a flute of champagne.
“So, when are you leaving?” Kara turns her attention to Supergirl whose hand on Lena’s waist has not gone unnoticed.
Lena nearly spews out her first sip. Supergirl stares back unfazed and looks like she’s taking the time to consider Kara’s question.
“When do you think?” she asks Kara. “We want most people to notice that I’m here first, right?”
“Oh, they’ve noticed,” Kara mumbles into her drink.
Lena’s eyes narrow at Kara, so she relents and shrugs.
“That sounds like a good plan to me.” She smiles brightly at Supergirl, before excusing herself to the bathroom.
Thankfully, Lena doesn’t follow to lecture her; by the time she’s composed herself, Supergirl is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Lena though.
“Huh,” Kara muses under her breath.
It’s not until twenty minutes before Lena’s speech that Kara sees her out across the crowd again. She looks nervous. More nervous than she’d usually be about a speech to this size crowd.
Kara weaves around the other guests until she reaches Lena. She’s on high alert with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. Kara had been so distracted earlier by her entrance that she’d barely given Lena’s evening gown the attention it deserves. Kara’s sure she’s seen Lena in it before, but the way it accentuates all the best places still blows Kara away like it’s the first time.
There’s a compliment on the tip of Kara’s tongue—in fact, there’s probably a whole list—but Kara never voices any of them.
“Is something wrong?” Kara asks.
Lena raises the phone in her hand and taps a button on screen. Instantly, the line crackles to life. Kara catches her sister’s name on the call screen.
My sister?
“Kara’s here,” Lena explains to Alex. “I need to get backstage soon, but while we have a second, I’ll let you explain.”
Explain what?
“Kara?” Alex’s says.
“I’m here,” Kara replies, leaning closer to Lena. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
Kara’s gaze flicks up to Lena, wondering if her expression will give something away. Her face is an unwavering façade, already in speech mode.
“There’s been attack downtown.”
“What happened?” Kara rushes to say.
“We think it’s a dispute between two alien groups, but that’s not the important part.”
Kara’s feels the sinking ball of dread fill her chest before hearing Alex’s words.
“It’s Supergirl,” Alex sighs, resigned. “She’s been hurt.”
“I can still do the speech,” Lena is telling Kara after they’ve finished their call with Alex. “Supergirl will still be nowhere in sight, and although we won’t be able to do the public break-up like we planned, it may still be enough.”
She doesn’t look at all convinced, yet she continues to climb the stairs backstage.
“Lena!”
Kara brushes by an audio tech, nearly tripping over a line of cables running across the floor in her haste to follow.
“Enough for what?” she asks as Lena fixes her makeup in front of a small compact mirror.
“I’ll call my assistant tomorrow morning and prepare a statement. Hopefully talk of tonight will reach the press and provide some sway.”
“That’s not enough,” Kara replies, gripping her dress’s skirt in her fists.
“It’s my best shot.”
Lena recaps her lipstick just in time. A man with a clipboard approaches them a second later and looks between the two.
“Which of you is Miss…” He rubs at the stubble of his beard, before glancing down at the clipboard and finding what’s he’s looking for. “Luthor. Lena Luthor?”
Lena raises her chin, head held high. The man nods, sparing Lena a brief glance before checking something off.
“You good to go?” He doesn’t look up this time and barely acknowledges Lena’s confirmation.
“And you.” He points a pudgy finger at Kara. “You are?”
“I’m–” Kara blinks up at him before a wide smile overtakes her previously downturned features.
“I’m–I’ve… got to go.”
“Kara?” Lena calls out.
“I’ve got this handled!” Kara yells back.
“You’re crazy.”
Alex stands in front of one of the DEO SUVs parked a few blocks from the hospital wing. She’s kitted out in her fake FBI windbreaker and standard issue black pants. Kara can still tell she hadn’t been anticipating being here tonight as her usual dark, intimidating make-up is absent.
“I’m a genius,” Kara rebuts with hands on her hips.
She’ll admit she’s far less intimidating in a long gown, but her hardened glare is in full force.
“No, you’re crazy.” Alex shakes her head.
“Come on, Alex,” Kara whines. “It’s Lena’s only hope.”
“To what? See you as a potential lover?”
Kara actually growls under her breath and marches past Alex toward one of the larger vans. Alex is slow to react and doesn’t reach out in time to stop her. There are other agents nearby, but thankfully none of them seem concerned with her presence. Kara guesses there are some benefits to being Alex’s unassuming little sister.
“Kara, you can’t go back there,” Alex calls out.
She’s too late as Kara whips open the back door to one of the vans. Kara’s been in this very van one too many times not to remember. Inside, sitting up on a stretcher is Supergirl. Her movements are sluggish as she raises her head and takes notice of the woman in the floor-length ball gown stepping into the van beside her.
She’s still all smiles as she registers who it is, though.
“Hi, Kara,” she says through a cough.
“Hi.”
Kara scans the back of the van, looking for—
“A-ha!” She does a little dance before unzipping a duffle kicked under the seat.
“What are you–”
“Is that my duffle?” a new voice calls from the back of the van.
“Hey Vasquez. I need to borrow this.”
The agent is too dumbfounded to say anything at first. Alex comes into view on the other side of the vans backdoor; upon seeing Kara pulling out a gym outfit from Vasquez’s bag, Alex joins the other agent in her befuddled silence.
“Is anyone going to ask?” Vasquez finally speaks up.
Alex buries her face in her hands and sighs.
“Kara–”
“I’m actually going to need you to close those doors,” Kara says to the two of them, standing just outside the van.
“Kara, this isn’t going to work.”
“What’s not?” Supergirl asks.
Kara gets a good look at Supergirl’s injury, running up the side of her body, and cringes.
“Do you think you’re in good enough shape to change out of the suit?” Kara asks.
“Maybe.”
“Kara, she’s not changing,” Alex cuts in.
The van shifts as Alex steps inside the small cabin outfitted like an ambulance and closes the doors behind her.
“Kara, put down Vasquez’s clothes.”
She does as she’s told, dropping them onto the bed beside Supergirl’s legs.
Alex doesn’t look impressed yet doesn’t move to snatch them up. After levelling Kara with a stern stare, she sighs.
“I know you want to help Lena–”
“I can help her. I can go there now if you’ll just let me.”
“And you think everyone will believe you’re her?” Alex’s gaze shifts over to Supergirl. “I don’t know.”
Kara snorts. The hilarity of this situation is lost to everyone else. Kara wishes she had more time to explain, if only so she wasn’t the only one privy to the irony of this solution.
“Fine,” Kara grumbles, facing her sister’s immovable stance. “I won’t go if I’m not passable. Just give me a chance first.”
Alex gnaws at the side of her lip before, finally, she exhales a long breath and turns to Supergirl.
“Do you mind?” she asks.
Less than two minutes later, the DEO van swings into the hospital’s nearly empty back parking lot. Alex is at the steering wheel; Kara’s in the passenger’s seat beside her; and Supergirl is strapped into the stretcher behind them looking a little worse for wear in matching Adidas gym shorts and tank top.
“I still can’t get over how weird this is,” Alex mumbles as she slows the van to a standstill in front of the building’s side doors.
Kara runs her hands down the familiar fabric of her suit. She’d never imagined missing the skin-tight technical fabric or its lack of functional pockets.
“You have no idea,” Kara laughs.
The door unlocks as Alex pulls the van into park and then it’s all Kara.
“You go this,” Alex says, resting her hand atop Kara’s.
“I hope so,” Kara replies.
The still unnerved expression on Alex’s face is the last thing Kara sees before she’s pushing the passenger door open and running for the doors to the hospital.
“Kara!” Alex calls out right before she’s about to yank one of them open. “Your glasses.”
“Right. Thanks.”
She pulls them off her face, folds the ends, and tucks them into the side of her boot. The motion sends tingles through her body, and she has to actively force herself to breath unless she wants to start hyperventilating.
“I’ve got this,” Kara tells herself, even as the once crisp outline of the van now blurs around its edges.
The heavy weight of the hospital’s side door is Kara’s saving grace as she barrels into the ceremony moments later. No one notices her at first; the slam that follows a second later though garners the attention of the entire room, including Lena.
At first, kara thinks that she’s somehow tricked Lena, just like the rest of the crowd. Even though Lena had been informed of Supergirl’s condition just half an hour before, Kara really believes it at first. Then Lena’s countenance changes, and it’s not a monumental shift, but there’s definitely something there. Frustration? Confusion?
Kara tries to discern the change from her spot, but her subpar vision is doing her no favours today.
To Kara’s relief, Lena steps down from the stage and comes to Kara, microphone still gripped in her manicured hand. Kara can finally discern Lena’s expression when only feet separate them.
Understanding, Kara realizes.
“What gave it away?” Kara whispers when Lena’s close enough to touch. “Have I been squinting?”
Instead of pointing to where her glasses no longer sit, Lena reaches out and cradles Kara’s chin with her hand. Lena’s eyes are so green under the lowlight—green like the sunlit forests of New Genesis and the deep pools on Tethys.
So green they’re magical, pulling foreign words from a language that’s nearly dead.
“Rao,” Kara breaths into the diminishing space between them.
There’s a moment where Lena looks like she might fall apart, stroking her thumb over the skin below Kara’s bottom lip.
Somehow, she pulls her mask back over her face, and then she’s reciting the speech they’d come up with together.
“You weren’t here,” Lena says over a choked-up sob.
She’s a wonderful actress, is all Kara can process for a moment, before she wills her head to nod.
“I know,” Kara whispers. “I’m sorry,” she adds, louder.
This may be an intimate conversation, but it won’t do any good if no one can hear them.
“Lena—”
“I know,” Lena interrupts, resigned.
The hurt is so palpable, Kara’s momentarily shocked into silence by her best friend’s expression, despite being aware this whole thing is a farce.
The words that leave her next are not pre-planned. Hell, Kara isn’t even aware they are coming until she feels her mouth forming each one, piece by piece, truth by unyielding truth.
“You deserve so much more than me, Lena Luthor.”
Kara feels her own fingers find Lena’s face, sliding down cautiously—carefully—until her thumbs pass over reddened cheeks and finally the sharp cut of her jawline. It takes little effort to tilt Lena’s head up to meet her gaze, yet the effect knocks almost everything out or her. These eyes that Kara’s always seen—always adored but never paused a moment to fully take in—are all encompassing. Kara believes that maybe, just maybe, if she’d taken the time to truly see Lena, then maybe she wouldn’t be here now.
Wouldn’t be standing across from this amazing woman, pretending to be someone she’s not—at least in this reality.
“You deserve someone who can always put you first. Who will be there at your side.”
Kara feels a tear forming at the inner crevice of her eye, and she blinks it back.
“You’ve been there for me for years,” she continues, “and never once put anything ahead of me. But I can’t do that for you. I will always be Supergirl, and I will always be there for this city. Though try as I might, being in two places at once is not a super-power of mine.”
A low laugh slips from Lena and Kara reciprocates, chest heavy and full.
“I cannot say with conviction that I will always be able to be there for you—at least not in the way that a partner should be.”
Lena nods and her eyes leave Kara’s. The desperation to put a stop to this is almost too much, but Kara must finish this. She can’t provide much for Lena in her current state, but she can do this.
“This night and many nights before have shown us that,” Kara musters. “I think we both know that deep down.”
Lena nods, still not making eye contact. When Kara ducks down, she notices the tears at the corners of Lena’s eyes.
“I will always be there for you as Supergirl, but that is all I can give,” she finishes.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” Lena finally replies.
She dabs at her eyes with the pads of her fingers, trying not smear any of her makeup. It’s futile at this point. Kara grabs a napkin out of a nearby waiter’s pocket and hands it over.
“Thanks,” Lena murmurs through a muted laugh.
Kara’s smile is weak as she waits for Lena to collect herself.
“I could never lie to you, Lena. You’re—you’re—”
“I know,” Lena interrupts.
“No, that’s not…” Kara fumbles, shaking her head, before reaching forward and taking the soiled napkin from Lena’s hand.
After dropping it awkwardly on top of an occupied table behind them, she moves back to Lena’s side and take her hands in her own.
“You’re the most genuine person I know. You’re incredibly smart and caring and kind-hearted. You’re beautiful in every way that matters and every way that doesn’t. Its why I fell—”
A camera flashes behind them, halting Kara’s runaway thoughts.
Damn.
“Ka–Supergirl?” Lena pleads.
Kara wishes, more than any other moment these past few weeks, that she could fly—take off, leaving her problems behind.
Another camera flashes behind her and Kara tenses.
“I have to go,” she murmurs, stepping away from Lena.
The resignation behind Lena’s eyes almost causes Kara to break down again. She wishes everyone else would disappear, because leaving Lena right now feels like the hardest choice she’s ever made.
“Go,” Lena says, nodding her head in understanding.
Kara knows that the longer she stays, the more likely it will be that she’s outed as a fake. With her hands in fists at her side, Kara strides back out the side doors, not looking back once.
Alex is still waiting for her in the van out in the parking lot. She unlocks the door so Kara can slide back in. After tucking the cape into the van, Kara closes the door, and finally, finally gives in.
She’s crying, and it shouldn’t be like this. None of this should have happened. How is it that in a universe where she’s not even Supergirl, she still has to feel the burden of it all?
Alex reaches down and hands Kara her glasses.
“Here,” she says softly.
Kara nods her thanks but holds off on sliding them back on until the tears have slowed.
“Can I do anything?” Alex asks.
Kara shifts her attention from her sister to the superhero still resting in the back of the van.
“Take me home?” she asks, uncertain.
“Yeah. Okay,” Alex replies, before shifting the van into the gear.
Kara doesn’t remember peeling the super suit off her body. She doesn’t recall how she’d made it to bed the night before or who’d led Alex in at some point. Maybe Alex had let herself in. All Kara knows the next morning as she sits up in bed to the sun already high in the sky is that nothing has changed, yet everything has.
“You’re finally awake,” Alex says, crossing into Kara’s room. “Here,” she adds, tossing Kara some clothes. “You were especially difficult to deal with last night, but I figured you’d want to wear something besides that to breakfast.”
Kara glances down at her clothes under the sheets, or lack thereof. She doesn’t recognize the sports bra she’s wearing, only the barely there underwear she’d worn under her dress to the ceremony last night.
“This isn’t mine,” she says, pulling at the fabric of the bra.
“No, it is not,” Alex agrees.
More events from the night before come flooding in, and her cheeks redden from the memory of stripping out of her gown, only to remember she hadn’t worn a bra. She pulls the sheets up to her chin and sinks back against the headboard.
“Tell Vasquez thank you,” Kara says, voice muffled against her duvet.
“Already have,” Alex winks. “Now get ready.”
“Wait! Where are we going?”
“Breakfast.” Alex smiles. “You have some explaining to do.”
Kara pouts down at the clothes sitting in her lap.
“But I’m sad,” she says, turning her best puppy dog eyes on Alex.
“And my sister is a super-powered alien that’s been lying to me for weeks.”
Kara blinks dumbfounded at Alex.
“Oh, are you surprised I figured that one out on my own?”
Kara shrugs.
“I’ll forgive you if you can get dressed and out the door in the next five minutes.”
“But I’m sort of lacking the super-powered part,” Kara counters.
“Then you better get moving now.”
“So how did you figure it out?” Kara asks over the rim of her mug.
Alex cuts off a piece of her omelette with her fork and cocks her head to the side, noncommittedly.
“How did I not figure it out sooner?” Alex replies once she’s swallowed her last bite. “You look like just her in the suit, for one. Then there’s the knowledge of the DEO, and Supergirl herself that you shouldn’t know, but do. Not to mention our short conversation on alternate dimensions. I almost spit out my drink when you said that.”
“But you acted so normal!”
“I work for the DEO, Kara. Why would I react to that?”
Kara scratches her chin. “I guess. But weren’t you even a little surprised it was me saying it?”
Alex grins around a mouthful of egg.
“It’s also my job not to give away tightly sealed government secrets. We don’t all have terrible poker faces.”
Kara glares across the table.
“Eat up.” Alex points to Kara’s plate of waffles with a smirk. “We have things to do today.”
“Really?”
“Kara.” Alex levels her with a piercing stare and even drops her cutlery to her plate. “Your identities have been split in two for over three weeks and only you remember. I think it’s highly imperative that we get to the bottom of that.”
Split in two?
Kara’s shocked she’d never looked at it that way.
“So, what do we do first… besides finishing breakfast?” Kara adds when Alex’s eyes shift back to her plate.
“Well, I am going to the DEO to talk to your cousin.”
Kara runs her hands down her face and groans.
“And you are going to L-Corp.”
“Is Lena going to help?”
Alex shakes her head as she swallows a big gulp of her orange juice.
“Then why–”
Kara’s face goes pale the moment she realizes Alex’s intention behind the order.
“Alex, you just said getting to the bottom of this identity split was the priority.”
“And you’re useless in this sad, yearning, puppy dog state. Plus, your girlfriend’s quite clever. Maybe she can help after all.”
Kara tries to refute Alex’s claim, but her attention is back on her breakfast. She points one last time to Kara’s food with her fork, and Kara knows arguing is futile.
“Fine, but she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Not yet,” Alex replies.
Part 3
Most of the time, mornings are Lena’s favourite time of day. People are more alert in meetings, coworkers are easier to reach, and on especially good days, mornings mean she’s just hours away from seeing her favourite person in the world for lunch.
This morning, however, is not her favourite. It’s far from it and crawling by slower and slower by the minute. Last night had been a lot. Lena doesn’t really know how else to describe it, and because of that a lot, she’d gotten maybe an hour of sleep. Maybe.
She’s not usually the kind of person to shot gun espresso in the morning either, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Is my coffee here yet?” Lena asks over her intercom.
She’d sent one of her assistants down to the coffee cart in the business plaza next to L-Corp ten minutes ago and he’s unsurprisingly, not back yet.
“Hello?” Lena tries again.
“Huh.”
Maybe she’ll just have to get it herself.
She’s up and moving towards the doors to her office, when the handle turns, and a shadow appears under the door.
“Please remember to knock next–Kara!”
Lena freezes in place and holds her hands up to her chest like she’s the star in some dramatic telenovela.
“I wasn’t expecting–I mean… hi.”
God. What has this past week reduced her to? More than three years of friendship and suddenly, she’s a shy teenager in front of her best friend.
“Hey,” Kara waves, ducking her head.
Lena warms at the familiar gesture and closes the door behind Kara.
“You know you’re always welcome, so forgive me for being surprised.”
Kara waves off her concern, but her eyes are still skittish, avoiding Lena’s gaze.
“I can’t imagine you’re here for an article…”
Kara confirms her assumption with a nod.
“So, what can I do you for? I have a meeting at eleven, but I’m yours–I… I’m free until then.”
Kara adjusts her glasses and rubs at the scar above her eye. It’s oddly familiar in a way that surprises Lena. Not because she’s failed to notice it before—she has. But because it’s not Kara’s face she remembers it on.
Heat flares up Lena’s cheeks, and she turns away from the door to stand in front of her desk, leaning against the side in her skirt.
“So…” Lena repeats.
“I don’t really know where to start,” Kara says, finally.
She steps forward like she’s going to walk toward Lena, then changes her mind and diverts to the sitting area.
“Do you want me to…” Lena trails off, motioning towards her couch.
Kara shakes her head. “No, no. I need to do this over here.”
“Okay.” Lena holds up her hands in surrender and rests back against her desk again.
“Right. So.” Kara laughs nervously, pulling on the end of her ponytail. “About last night…”
So, they’re going there. Okay. Lena can do this.
“I think I have some explaining to do.”
“Me too,” Lena jumps in.
Her hands shake against the side of her desk, and she wills her breathing to slow down. Years of maintaining composure around investors and Lex’s goons have not prepared her for this.
“So…”
Kara eyes flicker up, and this time, Lena’s thinks she depicts the hint of a smile.
“Last night, when I was pretending to be Supergirl and giving that speech… there wasn’t a lot of pretending involved.”
Lena feels the confession deep in her bones. She thinks she can handle a witty or charismatic reply, but apparently self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t a hundred percent effective. No matter how many times she’s envisioned this conversation in her mind, she’s never been rendered silent. Immobile.
“Lena?”
Kara meets her gaze across the room and its imploring but also so hopeful. Lena feels her own smile broaden and she nods. It’s not a reciprocating confession, but it feels like a start.
It’s as Kara’s standing from the couch, moving quickly to Lena that the unthinkable happens.
Lena’s always assumed that lightning never striking twice applied to more than just the weather but watching as Kara gets thrown across the room again has her doubting that insanely out of nowhere thought immediately.
One second, Kara’s all nervous smile and bright eyes, and the next, her eyes are shut and she’s immobile on the floor by the window. Lena hears her own shrill yell through the impacts that follow, blowing pieces of her door and coffee table and wall hangings in all directions.
She manages to take cover behind her desk just in time as the next explosion rocks her whole office, sending chunks of the wall separating her office from the hall toward the opposite windows. It’s with such a great force that the impact forms cracks in the bullet proof glass.
She’s not forced to wait long before two figures storm into Lena’s office, both wearing full body suits of contrasting colours. The first is frantic, like he’s not the cause of all this destruction around her. The second moves with an assured purpose, and the moment she locks eyes with Lena, a murderous glower forms across her sharp features.
“You have got to be kidding me!” the second intruder says, turning her attention toward the other.
“Honey,” he tries settling her down.
Now that she’s gotten a good look at the first intruder, Lena’s knows it’s a face she’s seen before.
It was weeks ago. Late. Everyone including her assistants had gone home for the night. She would have been gone as well if she hadn’t been staying up, waiting on a follow-up message from Kara.
She’d just picked up her phone, about to try calling Kara again, when the unmistakeable sound of the door opening had her on her feet in seconds.
“Who’s there?” she’d call out.
Despite the empty office around her, Lena had pulled the pistol stored in her drawer out and held it in front of her—more of a warning than an actual solution for this invisible intruder.
But after minutes of nothing but silence, Lena started to question her own sanity. It was late. She was exhausted. It was possible she hadn’t shut her door properly earlier, and the pressure from the air conditioner could have pushed it open.
Just then, her phone had buzzed on the desk, and she briefly lowered the gun to read it.
Sorry about tonight, but I need to reschedule.
“Again,” Lena had tacked on, murmuring to herself.
To her empty office, she’d exclaimed, “why does she have to be Supergirl?”
Because she’d known. At least, she thought she’d known her best friend’s secret identity. There’d been too many coincidences over the years to look past. Regardless of the situation and the understanding that these circumstances were out of Kara’s hands, it still hurt to come second every time.
Lena had secured her gun back within the drawer of her desk after that and decided to call it a night. As she was packing up, a security guard working the night shift showed up at her door.
“Can I help you?” Lena had asked, suspiciously.
She wasn’t as familiar with the after-hours staff and couldn’t afford to let her guard down.
“Sorry Miss Luthor. I didn’t realize you were still here.”
Lena had narrowed her eyes at a him and he stuttered out, “An alarm was tripped a few minutes ago and I came to investigate.”
“Well as you can see, I am okay,” she’d said sourly.
It wasn’t like her to be this terse; she just didn’t have it within her to fight back against the aggravation right now.
Huddled behind her desk, bearing witness to probably the most destructive lovers quarrel she’s ever seen, Lena bites back a curse.
She should have known the alarm and invisible intruder were not a coincidence. If she’s not mistaken, the same alien that had been captured leaving the back stairwell that night is the same man standing on the other side of her desk now.
Lena paws around for her phone still sitting on top of her desk and is finally able to locate it.
L-Corp. Come now.
She shoots the text off to Alex and prays it gets to her in time. The explosions will have alerted her own security, but it will take them investigating the situation first to call in much more capable back up.
With that taken care of, Lena peeks around her desk to where Kara had been thrown earlier. She’s still out cold. There’s a nasty gash at her hairline, causing blood to pool above her eyebrow.
Lena opens the side drawer of her desk and pulls out that same pistol, relieved she’d had the forethought to keep it loaded after the last attack months before. Slowly, she starts to crawl toward Kara, kicking off her heels in process. She’s halfway there when she feels two sets of eyes on her.
Lena turns, scrambling back against the window as the second intruder points a weapon towards her. It’s nothing that she’s ever seen, and she deduces both intruders must be aliens—though of what race, Lena can’t figure out.
“This doesn’t concern her,” the first argues, trying to lower the weapon.
The other shrugs him off with a snarl and shouts something in a language Lena knows is not of this Earth.
“If you’ll just–” The first intruder grabs the weapon from the second this time.
Now that she’s caught off guard, he’s able to knock her to the ground. He fusses with the stolen weapon as the other scrambles toward him, going after his legs. She’s just grabbed onto him, causing him to stumble, when the weapon goes off, shooting a bright white light at her.
She drops immediately.
From her spot against the window, Lena gapes.
“Is she…”
“Stunned,” the first intruder explains.
“Oh.” Lena’s at a loss for words.
The first intruder walks toward Lena as she pushes herself to her feet with own pistol trained on him.
“I wouldn’t come any closer,” Lena warns, though her voice is wobbly at best.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he confesses.
Lena doesn’t lower her gun even a millimeter.
“Explain that to my office and my… friend,” she replies.
It must be adrenaline keeping her on her feet by now. Lena chances a glance toward Kara, and upon seeing her in the same state as before, steadies the hand gripping the gun.
“I’m sorry about all of that,” the intruder says. “Truly.”
He looks sincere but Lena can’t afford to take any chances—Kara can’t afford it.
“Why are you here?” Lena spits out from behind gritted teeth.
“Something happened. Something that wasn’t supposed to have happened, happened the last time I was here.”
“Oh, I remember,” Lena replies.
The intruder flexes his fist and nods.
“Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry about what?”
He continues to shuffle his feet. The longer he stalls without saying anything, the more Lena worries.
“What are you sorry about?” she practically shouts this time.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to hear his answer as his counterpart slams into him from behind, taking them both to the ground. Lena takes the opportunity to rush to Kara’s side. She’s still breathing, but her skin has gone clammy and there are more cuts Lena hadn’t seen before, including a wide gash to her leg where a sliver of wood is embedded in her calf.
“Kara,” Lena pleads, pulling the top half of her body into her lap and rubbing the blood away from her eye.
Kara still doesn’t stir. It feels like Lena herself can’t breathe.
She tries to move them both out of further danger, but all those chemicals that had been keeping Lena moving before aren’t working their magic anymore. In her arms, Kara’s a dead weight.
“Please,” Lena whispers against her temple.
There are so many cuts, so many wounds—not to mention all the internal bruising. Lena doesn’t know where to start. Giving up on moving them both behind the desk while the aliens fight it out with each other seems like an inevitability now, so Lena raises one of her sleeves to her mouth and bites down. In one fluid motion, she’s able to tear the flimsy material at its seam until the fabric below her elbow is completely detached.
Making a split-second decision, she pulls Kara farther into her lap so she can reach the calf with the embedded wood. It’s bleeding the most profusely of all her wounds and unlike the cut on her forehead, has shown no signs of clotting.
She’s just tied the impromptu tunicate with her free hand when the sounds of heavy footsteps grow louder above the incomprehensible shouting. In a blur of black uniforms, at least ten DEO agents swarm the destroyed office. Alex, in her ‘FBI’ uniform brings up the rear.
The next ten to twenty seconds are a blur as the intruders hit the floor. Lena tries to meet Alex’s gaze, but she’s not spotted them in the corner beside the couch yet.
“Alex!” Lena tries to shout over the din.
She can hear Kara’s breathing growing more laboured beneath her. Her own legs are numb. Her whole body feels numb.
Lena looks across the floor and into the eyes of the first intruder. His face has been ground into the floor by the DEO agent above him and he’s clearly in pain. The overwhelming expression on his face though is not hurt; it’s guilt.
Why? Lena wants to ask, but she knows it’s no use.
Her focus returns to her best friend lying immobile in her lap.
“Kara,” she tries again, tucking a sticky lock of hair behind her ear. “Why couldn’t you just have been Supergirl?”
The moment the words leave Lena’s mouth, Kara’s eyes fly wide open. She takes in a gasp of air like her heart’s just been restarted, and she begins to move, shifting in Lena’s lap.
“What happened?” Kara asks, blinking up at Lena.
“I–you.”
It’s frankly a lot to process.
Lena runs her fingers over Kara’s hairline and realizes that although she’s still covered in blood, the cut has magically healed in the span of a few seconds. Sure enough, the gash in her calf has healed too, leaving the wood that Lena now recognizes as a sliver from one of her picture frames, sitting on the floor at Kara’s feet.
“I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly,” Lena says through muffled snivels.
Kara’s concerned face shifts into a hesitant smile. “Hey, that’s my line.”
“I think we can share it,” Lena concedes as she lowers her hand from Kara’s face.
Kara intercepts it before Lena can drop it completely, and Kara tangles their fingers together. After a contemplative exploration, running the pads of her fingers up and down Lena’s palm, Kara eyes flick up to meet Lena’s.
“What happened?” Kara asks, glancing down at her ripped sleeve.
A heavy whoosh of air passes by Lena’s lips as she sighs.
“So much,” she replies.
Despite being an integral component of this…situation, Lena is still forced to wait in a segregated area of the DEO as Alex, the other agents, and Kara debrief. She supposes it’s a miracle that Alex let her travel back to the DEO with them, considering the scale of this predicament and the fact that she wasn’t supposed to know about this top-secret government operation or the identity of their greatest asset.
Speaking of that asset, Lena still hasn’t the slightest clue as to why she’d lost her powers, or more accurately, why her alter ego had become a separate entity.
There’s a thought, buried deep underneath the relief of Kara not dying in Lena’s lap, that keeps wondering if Kara has retained Supergirl’s memories of the past three weeks or whether those thoughts have vanished along with that corporeal body.
Lena’s saved from stewing in her own ignorance by an agent appearing at the entryway to the room.
“Agent Danvers would like to speak with you,” he says, standing at attention.
He crosses the long room quickly, before scanning his badge in front of another sensor on the other side. The door unlocks and he opens it, waiting silently for her to follow.
“Okay then,” Lena grumbles, gathering her purse and phone from the conference table she’d been seated at.
Now they want to speak with me?
Instead of returning to the main floor, the agent leads her to an elevator at the end of the hall. From there, they descend at least ten floors, before the doors open to subfloor L where Alex is standing just to the side of the elevator waiting.
“You’re free to go,” Alex says to the agent. She then turns to Lena and motions for her to follow.
The hallway is long and aggressively lit. Lena’s usually fine for hours in her heels, but after the events of the today, her feet are killing her, and she wishes for nothing but to kick her heels off one by one.
“Pretty secretive place you got here,” Lena comments amidst the uncomfortable silence.
Alex spares her a glance, then nods.
When they reach the end of the hall, Alex produces a card from inside her jacket pocket, and waves it in front of sensor imbedded in the wall. After a moment, the sensor glows green and large metal door begins to slide back, uncovering a cavernous room on the other side.
“Watch your step,” Alex warns as they enter the space.
It’s noticeably cooler in this room—if Lena can call it that. While the rest of the DEO is all uniform grey walls and smooth concrete, this area looks undone with exposed stone walls and dirt floors.
They round a corner to where a slab of concrete sits just above the ground. There are bright overhead lights and a raised metal platform, but beyond that, the space is rather barren.
“Where are we?” Lena asks.
“I thought you already knew,” Alex quips back.
Her stone-faced expression has eased up since they’ve left the main thoroughfares of the DEO. Lena thinks she even spots a fraction of a smile on Alex’s face.
“I was referring to this room in particular,” Lena clarifies.
“Ah, I see.”
Alex is definitely smiling now, though as she turns her attention to the platform before them, her countenance grows serious.
“It’s less about this room specifically and more about how far underground we are.”
“And why do we need to be this far down, may I ask?”
Lena crosses her arms over her chest and continues to scan the room with an air of scepticism.
“Because any closer to the surface and other sources of this… energy source would be picked up, and therefore, throw off the test.”
“Why do I get the feeling I am a part of this test?” Lena asks.
Alex chuckles. “You’re clever; I knew there was a reason L-Corp has been doing so well.”
“Well, they don’t let just anybody run multi-billion-dollar companies or they wouldn’t be multi-billion-dollar companies anymore.”
“Touché,” Alex concedes.
They study each other from opposite sides of the platform, before Alex steps closer and draws a small device from her pocket. Lena’s tempted to move back, but the less time they spend playing cat and mouse, the sooner they can return to the surface—a place much less anxiety inducing than Alex’s little secret lair.
“It won’t hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Alex says.
“I’m not.”
“Not what?”
“Worried.”
Alex looks surprised by her bluntness.
“Why do you look so shocked?” Lena asks. “Do I not look like a very trusting individual?”
Alex shrugs, before setting the device down on the platform and taking a step back.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” Lena repeats.
“Not even a pinch.”
Most of the time, mornings are Lena’s favourite time of day. But on this late spring day, at just past three in the afternoon, Lena supposes anytime she gets to spend time with Kara is her favourite time of day.
They’re sitting at Kara’s centre island for once. A bountiful spread of food from four different restaurants across the city covers the counter in front of them.
“Why am I not surprised that this is the first thing you use your powers for?”
Kara’s head jerks up from the carton of fried rice and she smiles through a full mouth of food.
Once she’s swallowed down a heaping amount of rice, she replies matter of fact, “Because I needed to make up for all those lost meals.”
“And flying to four different restaurants solved that problem?”
“It’s making a dent,” she replies with a wink.
Lena feels her cheeks heat and scoops up a spoonful of her own dish.
“I really thought she was you… or you were her?” Lena scrunches up her nose as she tries to figure out how to word this. “I–”
“No, I understand,” Kara interrupts, saving her from any further explanation or embarrassment. “And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Do you… want to talk about it, that is?”
Kara blows out a long breath, before scratching at the side of her nose with the end of her fork.
“Not really,” Kara admits. “It was already really weird to live through—hearing about a part of yourself from the outside.”
“I can’t imagine what it must have felt like.”
“Torture,” Kara replies, bluntly. “I’m still curious, though.”
“About what?”
“Was she good?”
Lena almost chokes on her food but somehow manages to get down the dumpling previously lodged in her throat.
“Let me rephrase,” Lena states, once her normal body functions have resumed. “Do you want to talk about anything that doesn’t pertain to… that?”
Kara hums, deep in thought, before eventually shaking her head.
“No, everything sort of has to do with that.”
Lena doesn’t know what to say, so she goes back to her food and doesn’t bring it up again.
Eventually, even Kara’s alien stomach is satiated, and they both find themselves on her couch one again. Lena scrolls through endless movie options, indecision not the only thing plaguing her thoughts.
“You realize I can’t just forget,” she blurts out.
“Forget what?”
Lena lowers the remote to her lap, movie choices forgotten.
“You told me you loved me.”
“I told you I fell for you,” Kara corrects, before her eyes go wide, and she sinks further back into the couch.
Lena can’t help the grin that steadily grows across her face.
“To be fair, I was pretending to be someone else the night of the ceremony.”
Lena narrows her eyes at her, and Kara takes the opportunity to pluck the remote from Lena’s grasp.
“And who were you pretending to be?” Lena presses.
“I…”
Lena’s resulting smirk is coy and completely earned. She steals the remote back from Kara and resumes flicking through their never-ending options.
After a minute of sitting in relative silence—save for the steady clicking every time Lena moves to the next show—Kara’s brain seems to have rebooted, and she sits tall in her seat.
“Regardless of how I feel, it would still be incredibly unfair to put you in that situation.”
Lena pauses her scrolling and hums as she stares straight ahead at the TV. She can see Kara in her periphery, antsy as she plays with the loose threads on the pillow by her side.
Finally—
“You said last night that in addition to being smart—”
“—incredibly smart,” Kara amends.
Lena flicks her gaze to Kara, eyes never straying until Kara mimes zipping her lips and smiles patiently.
“You said that I’m the most genuine person that you know.”
Kara nods along.
“So wouldn’t you trust that I’m being honest with you?”
Kara hesitates long enough for Lena to jump back in.
“Wouldn’t you trust me to tell you if I ever felt slighted or treated unfairly?”
Kara is speechless.
“Just because people see you—the Supergirl side of you—as this unattainable figure does not mean you need to hold yourself to unattainable standards.”
Lena feels for Kara in the space between them and shifts over until their thighs brush. Kara’s eyes are glossy, with the bright lights of the TV reflected off the surface.
Even though this warp of reality was at no fault of Kara’s, Lena realizes the whole mess did shed some light on how much stress and responsibility Kara handles on an everyday basis.
“Despite what you might have convinced yourself to believe, Kara. I’m not perfect.” Lena laughs morosely. “I don’t always get to put you first. I can’t always be by your side, either. I can try. Every day I can try to be there for you just as I know you’d want to be there for me. But we’re human—well…”
Kara’s eyes grow bright, reflecting the levity between them.
“You know what I mean. We’re just people who have faults and make mistakes and no matter what those people out there tell you or what that voice inside here says—”
Lena holds her hand up to Kara’s temple—feels the way her heartbeat pulses under the pads of her fingers: strong and steady.
“—even Supergirl can’t save the day every time.”
Kara nods into the touch, and her eyelids flutter closed. Lena feels Kara sway closer, leaning even more into Lena’s hand until her whole palm is caressing Kara’s cheek.
Looking back, it’s not one particular thought, one particular feeling, one particular moment that turns Lena’s light touches to Kara’s face into purposeful movements.
One second, she’s comforting her best friend and the next their faces are so, so, so much closer until Kara’s breath is against Lena’s cheek and her fingers are in Lena’s hair and her lips are suddenly everywhere.
They’re soft as she whispers Lena’s name into her skin. Languid as they take their time kissing a path from Lena’s ear to the corner of her lips. Firm as they finally draw a gasp from Lena’s own.
While Kara is impatient with almost everything else in life, there’s a novel sense of calm with every slow kiss. It’s as if she’s trying to engrain the feeling of Lena, the smell of her, the taste, until everything is second nature—muscle memory.
It’s as Kara makes another pass up the side of Lena’s chin that this sense of tranquility dissolves into desire. Lena likes to take her time, but after the tainted memories of the last few weeks, she’s craving to create new ones.
“Please,” Lena hears herself whimper as Kara’s mouth reaches the dip between her jaw and ear.
She’s not sure what she’s asking for entirely, only that there’s a need present that she isn’t above begging for.
She’s rewarded a moment later, when teeth scrape against her ear lobe before migrating down her neck, sucking and biting and soothing.
Kara pulls back for a second and Lena whimpers, eyes flying open, wondering why she’s stopped. She’s not prepared when her gaze meets Kara’s. There’s a determination present that’s more synonymous with the superhero side of her than anything else. But as Lena studies those eyes, the jut of her lip, the slant of her brows, Lena discovers that maybe that’s been Kara the whole time. It’s only her own preconceived notions that have influenced this perception of her.
“Lena, you’re not breathing.”
“What?” She blinks out of her own thoughts, taking in a shaky breath.
“You didn’t look like you were breathing for a second there,” Kara explains.
“Oh. Well, maybe I wasn’t.”
Kara’s tongue darts out from between her teeth, and she huffs out a quiet laugh.
“Well, maybe you should not do that, seeing how I’d like to keep kissing you. Is that… is that all right with you?”
Lena’s a bit embarrassed by how fervently she nods.
“Good,” Kara breathes out against Lena’s neck.
Lena has maybe half a second to digest that voice—that hoarse, gravelly, unearthing of a thousand new fantasies voice—before she’s being lifted in the air and settled firmly in Kara’s lap.
“How’s that breathing coming along?” Kara teases.
“It’s been better,” Lena admits, before leaning back in and capturing Kara’s lips with her own.
She takes advantage of the small height difference sitting in Kara’s lap affords her. She teases Kara, nipping at her bottom lip, drawing her higher and higher until she’s forced to grab onto Lena’s shoulders and pull Lena against her.
The action has them both panting.
Lena feels the rough texture of Kara’s jeans through her pants, and the rigid leather of Kara’s belt as it rubs back and forth against the front of her blouse. Lena’s bothered by the friction—by the uncomfortable heat of it—until she’s very much not.
Memories of Kara’s abs flash back to Lena like a dream, and it’s the reminder that she’s healed—that she’s no longer this injured, human version of herself—that has Lena’s hands fumbling beneath Kara’s shirt to feel her properly this time.
“Not too cold?” Lena whispers against her lips.
Kara smiles against her mouth, before drawing Lena’s bottom lip between her teeth and letting it go with a satisfying pop.
I’ll take that as a no, Lena thinks, before even short, simple, insignificant thoughts like that become too much.
When Kara tilts her head up again to capture Lena’s lips with her own, her tongue makes contact first, swiping at the faded outline of her lipstick. Lena briefly remembers applying it that morning, wondering whether Immortal Red would be bold enough for the day ahead.
”I knew your lips would be my downfall,” Kara says a moment later as she takes in an unsteady breath.
Bold enough, indeed.
”I assumed it would’ve been a different asset, but I’ll take that into account.”
Lena bites at her lower lip as a smile overtakes her face. Kara looks so in awe, like she doesn’t quite believe she’s here, holding Lena’s thighs as she she shifts forward again in her lap.
“Well, those are rather magnificent, but they’re not the first or second thing I’m drawn to.”
She blinks slowly up at Lena. Her eyelashes are mostly dark behind crystal-blue eyes.
”I’d love to hear your whole list,” Lena whispers, rocking into Kara as her eyes slip closed.
”Mm?” Kara responds, with little more than a hum.
Lena nods.
Even though Kara can’t see her any longer, she wastes no time, sliding her hands up Lena’s hips, before resting them underneath her shirt.
Where Kara’s hugs have always been warm, her hands set Lena on fire—white hot and flushed. They’re a juxtaposition of tender and rough, soft and firm. They’re timid before they’re sure and imperfect in all the ways Supergirl—the other Supergirl—wasn’t .
They’re real, though—this is real—and Lena’s knows she’s never felt this sure about anything before.
They continue making out like teenagers alone at home for the first time until the glow from the screen behind them dims considerably.
“That would be my TV timer,” Kara explains, before picking the remote up from where it had fallen in between the cushions.
She goes to turn it off when Lena reaches out to stop her.
“You want to watch a movie?” Kara asks, a little skeptical.
Lena shrugs. “Who says we can’t multitask?”
Kara giggles into Lena’s neck, making her squirm until she finally slides off, legs numb and tingly.
“I think I’m really going to like this,” Kara admits as Lena snuggles into her side.
Lena cocks one brow. “Which part?” she asks.
“All of it.”
They’re only twenty minutes into their selected movie, when Kara looks over at her. Lena can practically feel the curiosity flowing off Kara in waves.
“Yes?” she asks, turning to look at her.
“I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it…”
“Kara,” Lena warns, pausing their movie so she can sit up and face her. “If this is some weird egotistical, voyeuristic intrigue—”
“No!” Kara exclaims, face turning red. “That’s not it at all. It’s just… when you two kissed, was it me—or you know, Supergirl—who made the first move?”
“Kara,” Lena whines, aghast.
“What? I need to know that I have more game.”
“Kara, darling, love… I mean this in the kindest way possible, but you will never have game. Period.”