Chapter Text
April 12th 2017
She’s spent the past five days agonizing over how to tell Kara about all of this. She knows they’re friends. She knows that’s what this thing between them is. The warmth. The hugs. The softness: Friendship. But that doesn’t mean she knows a lot about how to do any of this.
Whenever she thinks about it, the moving, the leaving, she feels her fingers shake with the vulnerability of asking something like this and it scares her. It scares her to think that the answer could be no. It scares her even more to think that the answer could be yes.
How do you ask your best friend, Oh I’m going to Europe for a month, would you like to come?
How can she ask something like that?
She knows Kara has a family. She knows she has a job. She knows the bit about Supergirl as well, even though Kara doesn’t know that she knows and it’s all confusing and complicated and thrilling at once.
She knows that she can’t ask her to move away with her.
But it’s a Business trip and the company wants a journalist with her.
And she wants Kara.
It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
(And she really doesn’t know why it is making her chest hurt like this or her hands so shaky. It’s just a month. It’s just Europe.
It’s Kara.)
April 14th 2017
It’s Wednesday evening and Lena still doesn’t know what to do. It’s Wednesday evening, which means, Kara’s evening.
It has become a tradition of sorts now, their own special Wednesday-evening-ritual. It usually entails watching TV shows way into the night and baking, or (if certain people didn’t set the oven timer) ordering in.
They had slipped into this routine rather quickly but it had all started a year ago, with a smoke detector, a phone call and Mary Berry.
March 9th 2016
She is in her office when her phone lights up with Kara Danvers’ name. She feels the familiar tug at her lips, the way they curl upwards into the soft smile that has become a regular occurrence around Kara.
When she answers the phone however, she is greeted by a high-frequency and clamorous beeping sound and Kara’s voice hissing, “Just please stop beeping, nothing is on fire anymore.”
“Kara?” She asks, concern laced into her voice. “Is everything alright?”
“Lena, hey…hi,” Kara replies and Lena can hear vague moving sounds from the other line as Kara tries to find a place in her flat in which the noise isn’t as blaringly loud.
“So funny story,” Kara laughs nervously and Lena can just picture her on the phone right now, playing with her hair in that way she does when she gets nervous or embarrassed. “I kind of, might have possibly set my kitchen on fire a little bit.”
“Define little bit.”
“So you know I was baking and for some reason it started burning, so I took it out of the oven and well by the time I got it to stop fuming, the oven had caught on fire somehow and-“ Kara is rushing through this at about a thousand words a minute and needs to take a second to breathe, “it’s all under control now but the stupid smoke detector won’t stop beeping and- you’re good with technology right?”
“I’m coming over,” Lena laughs and just manages to catches Kara’s relieved sigh of “oh thank you so much,” before she hangs up.
They’ve tried everything. They removed the batteries, disconnected every single cable, tried reattaching it to the wall. And. It. Still. Doesn’t. Stop. Beeping.
It’s loud and annoying and cuts off every single one of their sentences and now they are crouching in front of Kara’s coffee table, trying to find whether there are any buttons they can press or literally anything they can do to just make it stop.
“I feel like Phoebe Buffay in the one where they’re up all night,” Kara laughs a vaguely desperate kind of laugh.
“Who?” Lena asks, still focused on the machine on the table. When Kara doesn’t immediately answer though she glances over at her to find her dramatically clutching her chest, eyes wide and shocked.
“Oh Lena,” there is a true kind of sadness laced into Kara’s voice. “Phoebe Buffay from Friends, the most iconic show to ever be on television?”
Lena shrugs but she feels the words pierce away at her chest anyway. She wasn’t allowed a lot of television during her childhood and subsequent years of living with the Luthor family. Lex occasionally snuck her into his room to watch Superhero movies but that is about the extent of knowledge she has, surrounding pop culture.
Kara is still looking at her though and so she forces herself to shrug again and musters a tight kind of half-smile before focusing back on the task in front of her.
Kara seems to understand though, even without her speaking, has always understood her in a way that she was never quite able to comprehend. The way she had always seen her, like she was able to climb underneath her skin and had decided that there was still a softness there, something worth protecting.
“We are so having a Friends marathon. I cannot believe that I can’t ask you who your favorite friend is right now. It determines so much of your personality.”
“Who is yours then?”
“I’m not telling until you’ve seen the show.”
Lena feels a real smile tugging at the corners of her mouth at this, feels the softly tilted curve of a smile break them apart. This is just like the time Kara found out that she had never had the whole birthday cake ordeal, with candles and making a wish and all. It had been three months before her birthday and the next day Kara had brought her a giant chocolate cake with as many candles as she could possibly fit on it to make up for it.
“So what does Phoebe do to make this stop then?” Lena gestures to the smoke detector again.
“She doesn’t.”
“Well, that’s incredibly unhelpful.”
She tilts her head a little then to get a better look at the machine and starts a seriously intense staring contest with it for a couple seconds before reaching for one of her shoes and hitting the detector repeatedly with the back of it.
It works. There is finally peace and quiet.
“So this is what you technology experts do,“ Kara laughs on a visible sigh of relief.
“Yes, it’s taken me years of university to grasp this complex mechanism,” Lena replies, cleaning up the mess of broken plastic and coil springs on the table.
“Well, I’m glad I called you.”
“Me too.”
They just sit on Kara’s living room floor for a couple minutes then, shoulders touching ever so slightly, knees bumping against each other, enjoying the peace.
“So you know, my original plan for tonight was to watch Great British Bake Off and eat as much sugary food as I possibly can. Do you want to stay?”
“Oh I wouldn’t-“
“I’d really like it if you stayed,” Kara’s voice is soft and genuine and Lena can feel the back of Kara’s hand just barely grace hers for a second.
“We can watch it together and I can tell you about my favorite contestants…” Kara glances at her for a brief second, “Unless you think that’s lame or have other things to do, oh my goodness, am I keeping you from something? I didn’t even-“
“It’s fine Kara,” it’s Lena’s turn to interrupt her this time and there is a small smile playing on her lips while she speaks. “I’d really like to stay and there’s never anything that could make me too busy for Mary Berry.”
The look on Kara’s face is almost comical at that, the way her eyes widen, the way her lips form a perfect “O”.
“So you’re telling me that you’ve never seen Friends but you’re watching Bake Off?”
“I do know some things,” Lena laughs and relishes the look of absolute glee that is taking over Kara’s entire face.
“That’s so cool, you know we could bake what they bake and make a whole thing out of it?”
Lena glances over to the kitchen, the oven that is still fuming ever so slightly, the dust swirling in the air, the coal-like substance on one of the baking trays.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Kara grumbles softly at that and Lena feels that soft laugh tickle at the back of her throat again. It’s becoming a familiar sensation nowadays.
“Tell you what, next week when it’s on and you have a less soot-blackened kitchen, we’ll bake.”
Lena didn’t know any of her words would ever have the power to make Kara’s face light up like this. But they do.
“Ohh yes,” Kara nods enthusiastically. “I am going to get us matching pastel-colored aprons so we can look as fancy as them.”
“Make it fire-proof ones.”
“Hey,” Kara exclaims and Lena laughs at the offended expression on her face. “This is the first time this has happened.”
“Liar,” Lena laughs.
“Okay maybe not the first time but the smoke detector was a first.”
Lena just shakes her head softly and leans back against the sofa at her back.
“So if I promise I won’t cook, will you stay? We can get pizza?” Kara’s eyes are big and hopeful and it makes something in Lena’s chest feel warm and soft soft soft.
“I just want to thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Lena gives a short laugh at that and thinks about the amount of times Supergirl has saved her, has brought her back to safety, has stayed by her side. But they don’t talk about that. So instead she just says, “Pizza sounds great.”
And so their Wednesday evening tradition of watching Bake Off and baking had been born. There’s still nothing Lena can do to teach Kara how to bake. She remains horrible at it and there have been a fair share of catastrophic baking incidents that may have involved a fire extinguisher and several ruined baking trays.
But Wednesday evenings are always fun, full of light and laughter, full of takeout and falling asleep on Kara’s sofa. And once Bake Off had finished, they had moved on to marathoning friends and other TV shows Kara had deemed absolutely iconic and necessary. And Wednesday evenings had become theirs.
April 14th 2017
Kara notices it the moment Lena steps through her door: the way she is making herself small again and it hurts.
It has been well over a year since the first time Lena had come over, before Wednesday night Bake Off and sugar-induced karaoke nights. She had worn that same shyness then, held herself in the same way, like she was purposefully trying to make herself smaller, as if she was trying not to take up space. And it had broken Kara’s heart.
Ever since then things had started to change, slowly but surely. Lena had become less hesitant around her, started laughing more freely, carelessly even, in that way that casts her entire face alight and makes her eyes crinkle at the edges.
With every week that passed Lena seemed to learn to trust this a little bit more. (This meaning, this friendship. This meaning, this promise to always be her friend. This meaning, whatever this thing between them is that makes her fingers shake and her lips smile so much.)
And Kara had gotten used to this Lena, her Lena, the Lena that was all soft edges, curly hair and a terribly, terribly hopeful heart. The Lena that wears pink penguin pajamas to bed and sings ABBA songs in the shower. Her Lena.
So it hurts to see her sitting at the kitchen table like this again, fingers fidgeting in her lap, hair nearly concealing her face. Small small small.
“So I was thinking we could make cinnamon rolls today and have a 90s movies marathon?”
“Sounds good.” Her reply sounds absent and Lena’s hands still haven’t stilled so Kara narrows her eyes at her before speaking again.
“I was also thinking I could use to blow torch to make us Crème Brulee.”
“Okay.”
This was all it took for Kara to turn around and practically march back to the kitchen table, pull back a chair and drop down right in front of her friend.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“Huh?” Lena is looking up now but there’s still a sole strand of hair falling into her eyes and she narrows her eyes at it before blowing it out of her face.
“You never let me use the blow torch without giving me a ten minute lecture on safety measurements and fire regulations by what time I usually choose to do something else.”
“And why is that?” Lena smirks.
Kara rolls her eyes before training them on the floor. “Because I might have burnt your oven mitts a little bit,” she replies before looking back up at Lena again and exclaiming, “that is an entirely different story though and was also not my fault, they should really be fire-proof but what’s actually of matter here is why you are so quiet today and won’t even look at me.”
She watches as Lena’s teeth trap her lower lip between them and the way her hands play with the salt shaker on the table and before she knows what she is doing she is reaching out for her, gently taking her hands in hers.
She tries to ignore the slightly awkward way in which they are both holding the salt shaker now and instead focuses on Lena’s hand between hers. They’re so soft. She’s always been this soft.
“What’s going on, Lena?”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay, anything, you know that.”
“I need to move to London for a month,” the words rush out and there is a slight quiver to them that makes Kara squeeze Lena’s hands ever so slightly.
“Oh.” It’s all she has. Lena is leaving. It’s just a month. But still, she is leaving.
“I am merging L-Corp with a company overseas and they want me there to oversee the process.” Her voice sounds calmer now, more gathered and Kara is glad for it because it makes her feel less like her chest is going to knot itself up at any second.
“There’s something else,” Lena says then and Kara takes a small intake of breath before pushing her chair back and moving to the fridge.
“I think we are going to need some ice cream for this conversation,” she declares and is glad to see Lena nod in agreement because she really needs the movement to gather her breath for a second.
“Half baked?” She hears Lena ask behind her and turns around briefly to hold up the container and smile.
“Yeah, you get the Chocolate fudge brownie, I get the Cookie Dough, everybody wins.”
She rummages through the kitchen for a few minutes before settling back down at the table, placing a bucket of Ben and Jerry’s in their middle, two spoons sticking out as always.
“So… the other thing?”
“First of all, I’d like you to know that you can absolutely say no, I know you have your family and friends and a job and other…obligations and I absolutely understand if your answer is no and-“
“Lena-” Kara almost laughs, interrupting her. She isn’t usually the one to ramble and frankly it’s kind of endearing that for once it’s not her losing absolutely all sense of syntax around the other.
“Right. So they also want a journalist to accompany me and report about the new and advanced technologies and the events surrounding the merge and I asked whether that journalist could be you.”
Kara just stares at her blankly for a couple seconds and Lena seems to misread the situation entirely because she immediately starts explaining to her how much she’d understand it if she said no once again.
“Lena-“ Kara cuts her off again, dropping her spoon on the table. “I would absolutely love to come!”
“Oh.” It’s Lena’s turn to stare now. “You would?”
“I would, “Kara grins, chest blossoming with excitement. It’s London. With her best friend. She’s going to see Buckingham Palace and Big Ben and explore a different country. With her best friend.
Before either one of them know what’s happening, Kara has rounded the table and flings herself at Lena, successfully causing her to lose her balance on the chair and sending them both spiraling down onto the kitchen floor. Kara just holds onto her tightly though, all mess of legs and arms and hair and she can feel the low rumble of Lena’s laughter against her chest as she just holds her in a breathless kind of embrace.
“What was that?” Lena asks on a laugh once Kara loosens her embrace and they both scramble to sit back up on the floor.
“A hug,” Kara says, sounding a little sheepish. “I got excited, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Lena laughs and Kara already misses the sensation of feeling this laugh so close to her, to feel Lena’s mouth just inches apart from her neck, breath ghosting across her skin, laughing like this. Like it’s been easy.
“So when do we leave?”
“June,” Lena replies, “But I can push it back if that’s too early.”
“June is fine. I’ll speak to Snapper and sort the details tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Kara,” Lena’s words are full of softness and they make Kara feel kind of breathless again. She looks so earnest so stupidly grateful, sitting there on her blue-tiled kitchen floor and Kara reaches out for her again, takes her hand in hers and squeezes it just light enough to elicit a soft shiver from Lena.
“Well, you really can’t leave me here. Who else would eat the other half of my half-baked ice cream?”
“Speaking of which, one of us is going to have to get up and get it before it melts.”
“But I’m comfortable now,” Kara whines, causing Lena to smile that smile that makes her eyes crinkle at the edges.
“Well, you’re the one who caused us to be all the way down here in the first place.”
“You are cruel to use my actions against me.”
“Well, I am a Luthor.”
(Kara does get up to get the ice cream eventually and she also gathers a couple blankets. They stay on the kitchen floor all night then, making plans for London, mapping out their month of adventure ahead of them. )
June 14th 2017
Two months, countless phone calls, google searches, and late nights watching British Television (“It’s the only way to really prepare for the country, Lena.”) later and Lena is finally sat in her bedroom, opposite a packed suitcase, ready to fly out on the next day.
She considers calling Kara to check how packing is going. (Also to check whether she really, really still wants to come because she absolutely hasn’t asked her that every day since the day Kara has agreed to come with her.)
But she knows it’s Kara’s and Alex’ last sister night tonight and she would never do anything to tarnish that.
But it’s a Wednesday and it’s 7pm and she is always at Kara’s on Wednesdays and so she doesn’t really know what to do with herself other that watch random episodes of Friends while flicking through one take out menu after the other. (Surprisingly un-fun without a certain someone sitting next to you exclaiming, “Oh but we definitely need to order that” and “But if just for one second you pretended that healthy eating wasn’t one of your main concerns, which pizza would you choose?”)
Her phone lights up with a new text message and she is surprised to find that it’s from Alex.
Packing unsuccessful so far.
Lena smirks and shakes her head softly. Kara.
It only takes another ten minutes for her phone to light up again.
Would you please tell my sister that I absolutely do need several rain jackets because we are going to a rainy country.
It’s Kara this time and the message definitely shouldn’t make her smile as much as it does.
Define Several. She types back.
3.
Take one, it’s June , it won’t be that bad. She sends back, adding a little umbrella emoji at the end.
Thank You. Comes a text from Alex only seconds later and Lena laughs openly at the added cringy-face -emoji.
She wants to take a creative break from packing now. Another text, only a minute later.
Would you mind just coming over, this could take all night and she keeps telling me she’ll need to ask your opinion on everything anyway?
I’m on my way.
It takes a collective effort from Alex and Lena to manage Kara’s packing situation and when they finally have her suitcase all packed and ready it’s already past midnight.
“Alright Lena, listen,” Alex says. They all fell back onto Kara’s bed after they finally finished packing and while Kara left for the kitchen to get some tea for everyone, Alex and Lena had remained put, staring at the ceiling in peace.
She had gotten along with Kara’s sister better than she would have anticipated. They both like science and so when Kara started bringing Lena over for game night, they had bonded talking about electromagnetic induction and energy fields.
It’s been easy really. And it had never been easy for her before. Kara had introduced her as Lena and that’s what she had been ever since. Just Lena. Just someone’s best friend. She never had to prove herself even once.
“Yes?” She replies, angling her body so she is facing Alex on the big mattress.
“Right. Listen… you are the responsible one in this relationship so-“
“Alex, Kara and-“ Lena tries to interrupt but Alex holds her index finger up in this big-sister-way and Lena falls silent.
“You are the responsible one and I am going to ask you to look out for my little sister while you are in London now. I know she can look out for herself. I know she is an adult. But she is still my baby sister and if anything happens to her-“
“I guess you know enough about science to make me disappear.”
Alex smirks at that and pats Lena’s arm. “I see you understand what I’m saying.”
“I’ll look out for her.”
“Thank you,” Alex says sincerely. “And Lena?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad she’s going. And I’m glad she’s going with you.”
June 15th 2017
She hates flying. She absolutely hates it. The second the engines spring on she can feel the way her chest constricts with the sound of it, feels her breath stutter, feels the way her ribs tremble with holding all of this inside.
They start rolling. She closes her eyes. She can do this. She can breathe. But her heart is beating somewhere in her throat, climbs into her mouth and it’s. All. Too. Tight.
Her fingers close around the cold metal of the arm rest. She can feel her knuckles going white. And then, feels someone place a soft hand on top of hers. Kara.
She is dimly aware of the gentle weight on top of her hand, feels the way Kara’s thumb feathers the softest of touches against her index finger. She forces her eyes open against the stark light of the cabin again and glances at Kara, hopes that the smile she is giving her looks reassuring. That it says something like, “I’m fine. I’m okay being in a plane. Please don’t worry.”
Kara just smiles at her in return, a soft thing of a smile, and keeps holding her hand.
“Back when the Danvers’ had just adopted me, Alex took me to the ocean.” Kara’s voice reaches through the noise of the cabin. “I had never seen anything as vast and when we went to dip our toes in, I was terrified. I thought that any second it would reach out and swallow me up. But Alex took my hand and we walked together and when I had learned how to swim we went in to swim together as well. It’s been one of my favorite places ever since.”
Lena turns her hand slowly underneath Kara’s, releases her grip on the armrest and allows Kara to lace her fingers with hers. She feels her chest unknot a little bit, feels the way her fingers stop shivering. She’s gotten used to Kara’s touch, has gotten used to its strength, to its softness too. Has learned to find comfort in this small point of contact.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Kara says then, voice barely audible over the hum of the accelerating plane. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Lena knows that logically she couldn’t be safer than sitting next to Supergirl in a plane. But her fear is rooted somewhere deeper than that, is ingrained somewhere deep down in her bones.
“I was on planes a lot when I was little,” Lena hears her voice underneath the rumble of noise, feels the hesitance seep out of her words. “Lilian didn’t… understand my fear. She’d yell at me to stop crying but I didn’t know how. So Lex showed me programs on the board computers to distract me and it always worked.”
It hurts to think about her brother like this. In soft memories. It’s hard to have soft memories when they’ve all been tainted with betrayal.
Kara nods though and keeps on holding her hand while the other reaches for the board computer and searches through the movies. They’d been a doing a lot of this. Sharing. Knowing. Staying. Kara has always seemed to understand her best of all. And Lena has always thought that there is an intimacy in being known like this.
“So how about a Disney movie marathon, their selection is amazing?”
She doesn’t remember slipping off to sleep but she is pulled back into awareness by a board announcement, saying that they’re expecting to land in an hour.
Her head is leaning against the window, singular strands of hair have gotten stuck to her cheek and she can feel the familiar weight of Kara’s head resting on her shoulder. She blinks down at the sleeping woman next to her, hair fanned out across Lena’s chest, lips slightly agape, nose scrunching every couple seconds in this way that makes Lena’s chest feel soft in all the right places.
Her eyes fall to their intertwined hands on the armrest and the paused Disney movie on the screen and she allows her thumb to grace over Kara’s skin for just a second.
It’s going to be a good month. She is going on a trip with her best friend. She is going away with a person that is all light and sunshine and big smiles. She is going on a trip with the person that’s currently drooling onto her shoulder ever so slightly.
She allows her head to fall back against the window and closes her eyes.
It’s going to be a very good month indeed.