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Kara’s aware of her front door slamming shut, the force causing the hinges to rattle and the wood frame to splinter, as well as the angry steps escaping down the hall. She hears her neighbor below ask What the hell was that? was to their bird before turning the TV up just as she smells the dinner another neighbor on the ground floor has burned for the third time that week.
She’s aware of it all. But it’s the last thing on her mind right now.
Did I just…while…Oh Rao.
Kara’s not sure how long she sits on the couch for, staring at nothing while what has to be the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to her replays in her mind over and over.
A hand traces the outline of Kara’s breast, squeezing as they settle above her on the couch. Kara’s head is thrown back, eyes closed and panting as kisses trail her neck and her hips jerk upwards as fingers move lower down her body, cupping her and groaning at the feel of Kara’s heat through her jeans. But Kara’s not a patient person, so when she doesn’t feel her pants being unbuttoned, she raises her hips.
She’s never been this aroused before. “Please, Lena!”
All movement above her stops. “What?”
Kara’s eyes fly open. That’s not Lena’s voice.
It’s not Lena’s voice because it’s not Lena above her.
It’s Mon-El. The person whose name she definitely did not moan just now.
Kara sits up just as he stands from the couch. “I-“
“Did you just say Le- unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.” He spits out as he grabs his shirt from the floor and angrily puts it on. She doesn’t even remember when he took it off.
Kara hugs her knees to her chest, feeling small under the look he’s shooting her. “I’m sorry, I can explain-“
“Oh you can? I really don’t see how.” He mocks. “All I wanted was to spend a little time with my girlfriend, who can’t seem to make time for me in her life lately.”
Kara frowns. “That’s not fair! You know these past few weeks have been busy at the DEO and at CatCo. I’m sorry if I’ve been neglecting you-“
“But Rao forbid you neglect Lena and visit me at lunch instead huh?” He stalks to the door. “I’ve always felt like I was the only one fighting for us and now I know why that is.” He opens the door but before he leaves, “Well I’m not gonna be selfish. You want to be fucking her instead? Go.” The door slams shut.
Tears burn Kara’s eyes as the shame washes through her because as much as she rather not admit it, it’s not the first time she’s thought of Lena like this. It’s not even the first time Lena’s popped into her mind when she should have been thinking of Mon-El and that’s why Kara feels so awful.
Because Lena is her friend.
Her best friend.
And Kara just pretty much used her to get off instead of saying “no” so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about Mon-El’s hurt look. And because imagining that it’s Lena she’s with instead is…she presses her thighs together as she shifts on the couch, the guilt mixing uncomfortably with the slight arousal she feels again.
How could I do that?
Kara lets the tears fall for a few minutes, head in her hands, before wiping them away and standing up.
She needs to talk to Alex.
But first, she really needs to shower.
//
Alex greets her with this, “Okay, for future reference, don’t send a text saying that we need to talk and to have pizza delivered in a hour and then just not respond.”
Kara locks Alex’s window behind her and walks to where the freshly delivered pizzas are waiting, taking two boxes for herself and practically feeling Alex eyeing her up and down, making sure she’s alright. She takes a huge bite from a slice of pepperoni and sighs in bliss before turning to Alex. “Sorry. I left my regular phone at my apartment so I could go flying for a while in peace.” She swallows and gives Alex a sheepish smile. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”
Alex looks vaguely nauseous and reluctantly impressed at Kara’s ability to talk clearly with way too much food in her mouth. Just like she always has. The one time Alex tried it, she started choking and Kara had been too scared to pat her on the back that she just started screaming.
Eliza loves bringing that story up on holidays.
“So…” Alex starts, standing next to Kara at the counter top and getting her own pizza before they move over to the barstools, Kara adjusting her cape over the backrest. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Kara nods. “Yeah, I am, it’s just…” She sighs. “We broke up.”
There’s a flash of something on Alex’s face, something that Kara’s seen more and more whenever Mon-El is around or even mentioned but it’s gone before Kara can finally ask about it. Instead, Alex’s hand is on hers and her voice is soft and concerned.
“I’m so sorry. That’s…what happened? How do you feel?”
“About us breaking up?” Alex looks confused at her clarification but nods anyways. “Actually, I’m okay with it. I’m a little relieved, to be honest.”
Alex smiles, small but genuine. “Okay, that’s good.”
“I just didn’t know what to expect with him, ya know? I mean, he could be funny and nice and it really did seem like he was enjoying helping people sometimes but…”
She pauses, the words she had never voiced aloud dying in her throat. She didn’t really even allow herself to think about it most days.
Alex squeezed her hand. “But?”
Kara swallows the sudden lump in her throat and looks at Alex, eyes taking in the concerned expression and Alex’s smile giving her the courage she needs to move forward.
“We would fight. A lot. That was like every other day of our relationship. And they would all somehow be my fault. Even things that he did and were obviously his fault, it was like I was getting blamed for it!” It felt good, really good, finally getting it off her chest. “And he would always find any excuse to insult me. Like he would say these things, and then he would laugh like he was joking, but I always felt like they were little digs at me or about being Supergirl.”
Now that she had started, Kara found every issue she had been avoiding about Mon-El coming to the surface and she was having trouble stopping herself. Even with the darkening expression on Alex’s face and crushing grip of her hand, Kara felt lighter.
“And he would never listen to me! He could get so insecure, both out in the field and in our relationship. It’s like I would ask him to do something and he would just ignore me and do what he wanted because he thought he knew better. And guess what? He didn’t! He would always make things worse. Rao, I’m pretty sure he never respected me?” The last part is murmured to herself as she grabs another slice and eats half of it before continuing.
“And don’t get me started on how he would go out of his way to make me feel guilty about things. Whenever I would say I was tired or that I really wasn’t in the mood right now, he would look at me all sad like and apologize for wanting to spend time with me because he missed me and suddenly, I’m the bad guy again! Shit, we didn’t sleep together that often but I can’t remember the last time it happened because I actually wanted to-”
Alex’s chair makes a demonic screeching sound as it slides roughly against the tile and Kara winces at the sudden noise only to be distracted by the murderous look on Alex’s face.
Wow, she’s furious.
“Alex, what-”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Alex nearly yells as she starts pacing back and forth in front of Kara, whose eyes widen. “That complete jackass! I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill him!”
Kara super speeds in front of Alex when her sister actually starts walking towards her gun on the entrance table. She puts her hands on Alex’s shoulder to keep her in place when she tries to move around her.
An admirable, if completely useless, attempt on Alex’s part.
“Are you okay?”
Alex’s laugh is high pitched and strangled and wrong. “Am I…Am I okay? God, Kara, are you okay?”
The question hits her harder than Kara expects it to. No one had really asked how she was for a very long time.
Except for Lena.
The name brings warmth into her chest quickly followed by guilt, and she realizes the conversation has gotten far off track from what she wanted to talk to Alex about.
“Yeah. Alex, I…yeah.” Kara trails off as Alex shrugs her shoulders, signaling to be let go. Kara obliges, a relieved sigh leaving her when Alex goes in the opposite direction of her gun.
Or at least the gun that’s out in the open. Kara is positive that a quick use of her X-ray vision would reveal a minimum of four more guns hidden strategically throughout the apartment.
She’s tempted to check, if only for her own curiosity, but Alex’s agitated shuffling draws her attention back. She can hear her sister grinding her teeth and her heartbeat racing and Kara’s positive this goes deeper than what she just confessed to her.
“Alex.” She says softly.
Alex paces a bit more before stopping in front of her, hands on Kara’s shoulders this time with a desperate grip.
“I had no fucking idea it was like this, okay? Please, please know that. I didn’t- this wasn’t what I…” She’s panicking. And Kara feels dread start to coil in her stomach because she has a feeling about what Alex is trying to say and it’s something she rather not think about.
Kara shakes her head. “Don’t. It’s okay.”
She gets such a classic exasperated Alex look in response that she could laugh. “It’s not okay!” Alex closes her eyes for a moment and when she looks at Kara again, they’re teary. “I pushed you towards him.”
Kara purses her lips. “You didn’t.”
“I did. That night of your Earth birthday? You were telling me something really important to you and I felt so guilty that I just made it about him so I wouldn’t have to think about how I let you down so bad. And of course by doing that, I let you down even more.”
Kara won’t lie: the memory stings. It was probably her biggest earth birthday since her first one –thirteen years, thirteen years spent now on both Krypton and Earth and Rao how could that possibly be?- and it had been brushed off. And then later, she had told Alex how scared she was of losing her and was just...so hurt when Alex made her feelings all about Mon-El. She missed her sister. Her feelings were clear on that. She was clear on that.
Alex did try to take the focus off of her and put it on someone else.
But Kara was the one who went along with it.
“I thought if you were happy with him, I could feel better about it. That maybe what I did was actually a good thing.” She roughly shakes her head. “But instead, I kept seeing how you two just didn’t fit. I knew there was something off between you two but I didn’t want to push you to talk about it if you didn’t want to. But dammit Kara, if I had known it was this bad and that piece of shit was manipulating you, I would have thrown his spoiled ass in a lead cell a long time ago.”
“Alex.” It’s a half-hearted admonishment, Kara knows. But she feels so drained that it’s all she can manage.
She didn’t come here to deal with these feelings. She didn’t want to deal with this. Not now, at least.
“I’m serious. He’d make you feel bad for not wanting to sleep with him?”
Alex looked like she was heading for her gun again so Kara instead tugged her close and hugged her, relieved when Alex’s arms were tight around her.
“If it makes you feel any better, I think I got back at him pretty well.”
Kara snaps her eyes shut. That wasn’t how she wanted to tell Alex what happened.
Alex pulls back from their hug, confused. “What do you mean?”
She sucks in a breath. Well, it was too late now. “That was sort of the main reason I came over? It was more about the why we broke up rather than the fact we broke up.”
“Okay, go on.” Alex gestured towards her. They sat down at the counter again in front of their now cold pizza and Kara gently uses her heat vision while deciding how to begin.
“We were about to, uh-“ Kara makes vague gestures with her hands and hopes that her awkwardness will tip Alex off as to what she’s referring to.
It works. “Oh, so after he made you feel guilty for not wanting to do anything when you weren’t feeling up to it.” It’s said with a surprising amount of venom for someone currently breaking their pizza crust into tiny pieces and popping them into their mouth.
Kara moves right along. “Yeah, so anyways, turns out I found a way around that.”
“What do you mean?”
Kara looks at everything but Alex. “I found a way to feel up to it.”
“Oh, uh, alright.” Alex taps her fingers on the counter a few times. “What did you do to- how?”
They don’t talk about sex that much. It clearly shows.
Kara clears her throat. “I imagined it was someone else.” She clears her throat again, despite knowing it has no effect on her. “And it worked a little too well, I guess? I, um, I said their name.”
Alex’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Kara’s blushing. She’s just waiting for Alex to ask-.
“Who?”
There it is.
“Umm…”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Alex hurries.
“No, I want to.” Kara fidgets with the end of her cape. “It’s why I came over. I need to talk about it.”
“Okay. Was it James?”
“No.”
“Winn?”
“No.”
“…Maggie?”
“Alex!” Kara laughs, swatting her shoulder. The tension thankfully dissipates at that.
Alex snorts. “I’m sorry! But I’m not getting much to go on.” Kara mumbles. “Oh yes, that’s very helpful because I too have super hearing.”
Here it goes. One, two, thr- “I keep picturing Lena.”
She waits a few seconds before looking up. Alex is…huh. Not as surprised as Kara thought she would be?
It takes a second before it hits her and Kara gives her a look. “You knew already.”
Alex has the grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, I did. I’ve kind of known for a while now.” She shrugs.
She, honest to Rao, shrugs.
As if she didn’t just drop a bomb on Kara and is making her reconsider every interaction she’s had with Lena because if Alex has noticed, who’s to say that Lena hasn’t?
“How?”
“Well, for starters, you do kind of stare at her-” Alex gets this lewd look in her eyes as Kara goes rigid and she almost clamps a hand over Alex’s mouth to stop the words that she knows are about to escape because honestly? It would be more embarrassing than Kara admitting she moaned Lena’s name, “You stare at her boobs pretty much all the time.”
“It is not all the time.” Kara doesn’t outright deny it. They both know that would be a lie and Kara would like to leave with a little bit of her dignity intact.
Alex’s next words assure her that that won’t be the case. “Kara, I would compare you to a teenage boy but I’m pretty sure even they have better self control.”
Kara wants to die. She wants to find that secret piece of kryptonite that she hides in a lead box in the far reaches of her closet –her little piece of home- and die.
She’s so embarrassed and only the tiniest bit relieved when Alex finally takes pity on her and stops laughing. “And there are other less obvious signs. Well, obvious to me because you’re my sister and I’m awesome-“ she yelps when Kara nearly tips over her chair with a toe, “not funny! Anyways, there are things that tipped me off but I doubt would for anyone else.”
Kara looks at her, blush still prominent on her cheeks. “Okay? But like what?”
Alex sighs. “You treat her differently than you do everyone else. You’re very… protective over her.”
“I’m protective of everyone.” She is. You don’t lose everything and not be grateful for what you’ve gained since.
Alex’s eyes crinkle with affection. “Yeah, you definitely are.” She grabs Kara’s hand and holds it between her own. “But there’s a certain…fierceness? Yeah, there’s a fierceness when it’s about her that until now, has only been reserved for Mom and I. You always rush to defend her against even the slightest comment-”
“Because everyone always expects the worst of her when she has literally done nothing to deserve it! She’s only been kind and sweet and generous and a hero!” It’s an old argument, a tiring one that Kara has had a thousand times and will have a thousand more if that’s what it takes for people to finally see the genuinely good person Lena has always been.
Alex squeezes her hand and she deflates at her sister’s amused smile.
“Okay, I see what you mean. What’s next?”
“You make it seem like I have a list prepared.”
Kara furrows her eyebrows and Alex laughs. “Do you not?”
“I have a life.”
“Sure, sure.”
“But if I did,” Alex gracefully ignores Kara’s tease, “there’d be only one thing on it.” Alex looks at her, serious now. “She makes you really happy, Kara.”
The feeling in her chest that Kara calls Lena burns brightly at the words. And it feels so strange to finally bask in the warmth without feeling guilty about it.
“She does.” Kara agrees softly, a slow smile spreading. “She’s… she’s amazing, Alex. She’s a genius, like absolutely brilliant, and she cares about everyone. All she wants is to make the world a better place. And she’s gone through so much, everything with Lex and Lillian and the company, but she still never stops trying. She’s…” Kara’s only aware she started tearing up when she has to wipe a lone tear from her cheek. “She’s beautiful. Inside and out, she’s so beautiful. I- Rao, I want to be with her, Alex. I do. I have for a long time now.”
Alex has one of the sappiest smiles Kara’s ever seen on her face and her eyes aren’t exactly dry either. Alex reaches out for her hand and she meets her halfway.
“As someone who deserves all the happiness in the world once told me,” Alex brushes another tear from Kara’s cheek, “go get the girl, Kara.”
//
Kara touches down on Lena’s work balcony, unnoticed by the woman inside. After her talk with Alex yesterday, she had been all set to fly over to Lena’s and was just about to until Alex thankfully grabbed her cape and reminded her that it was almost midnight.
She’s positive that Lena was still awake though. The CEO might even still be working and if Kara did a quick fly by around L Corp to make sure the woman wasn’t there and was hopefully getting some rest…well, that’s Kara’s business.
So now here she is, on the balcony at 8 o’clock at night after she had to cancel lunch for a Supergirl emergency upstate, and food from the Thai place they both love across town in one hand as she knocks with the other.
Lena startles and turns in her chair, smiling wide when she sees Kara and that feeling in Kara’s chest sings louder at the sight.
Lena’s gorgeous. Hair down with a red blouse and a black pencil skirt, heels taken off long ago and the buttons on her top opened just one point past professional, showing a teasing amount of-
Kara’s staring at her boobs again and she would hit her head against the wall if not for, well, breaking it.
I’ve been here for all of two seconds. Alex is right, I do have a problem.
“Kara!” Lena comes up to the balcony door and to her delight, makes a show of unlocking it.
It took far too many conversations of Kara insisting that Lena lock that door because What if it’s not me? What if it’s someone who wants to hurt you?
Supergirl, if someone has the ability to get up here in the first place, I don’t believe a locked door would be the major obstacle you think it is.
“I wasn’t sure I would get to see you today.” Lena says, ushering her inside.
Kara holds up the food. “Well, I wanted to make up for cancelling earlier. So surprise dinner it is.”
“That’s hardly your fault.” They settle on the couch, the setting familiar after eating countless meals together, especially in Lena’s office. “I saw your interview on the news. What happened?”
Kara smiles as she thinks about the I’m glad you’re safe text she got from Lena earlier and starts distributing the food. She’s happy to note the restaurant didn’t forget the forks this time. “They don’t think it was arson but they can’t rule it out completely until they finish going over the entire scene. I would’ve stayed to help but-“
“The bus crash on Baker Street. You’ve had a busy lunch hour.”
Kara bites her lip to stop herself from smiling and is internally thrilled when Lena can’t help but glance down. “Have you been keeping tabs on me, Ms. Luthor?”
Lena raises her eyebrow, a move that Kara should not find that hot but does. “I like knowing what National City’s hero has been getting up to. I’m a very big fan of hers.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Lena’s smile is playful and Kara’s heart beats harder at knowing she’s the only one who gets to see Lena like this.
It saddens her too. More people should get to see how great Lena is. More people should want to get to see how great she is.
“Well, she should know I’m a very big fan of hers too. Her number one, in fact.”
The look on Lena’s face is worth everything.
They eat after that. Lena with her one appetizer and an entrée looking lonely surrounded by her own seven dishes.
Kara offers some to her, of course. And Lena politely declines, saying she knows Kara needs the calories, especially after all the superheroing she did today. She also knows that Kara has probably already decided the order she’s going to attack the dishes in and changing it now would only throw Kara’s plan into chaos.
Kara smiles. Lena gets her.
They talk about everything under the sun: Lena’s meetings today, Kara’s latest article, a new idea Lena has, how J’onn is scarred from catching Alex and Maggie hardcore making out, if Lena left her favorite coat at Kara’s place the other night when she left in a hurry the next morning.
The food is long gone by now and they’re laughing at something really dumb but just so funny when Kara notices the soft smile Lena is giving her.
She tries to stifle her chuckles and is mostly successful. “What?”
“Hmm?” Lena doesn’t seem to realize Kara spoke. Which is…strange since she’s looking right at her.
“You’re staring at me.” Kara tells her lightly. Lena snaps out of whatever trance she was in and there’s a small blush while she cleans some nonexistent lint off her skirt. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, just…” Lena looks at her again, a curious yet pleased expression gracing her features. “You seem happier today. More carefree than you have in a while.”
Kara lights up. “Oh yeah?” She grabs Lena’s hand that’s resting between them on the couch, grin widening when Lena squeezes back.
“Yeah. It’s really nice. You haven’t been like this for a few weeks." Lena looks down. "I…I’ve missed it. Has something changed?”
Kara would never get a better opening than this. She takes it.
“Well, just one thing.” She braces herself for Lena’s reaction, whatever it may be. “Mon-El and I broke up.”
Lena doesn’t say anything but her actions are loud. The heartbeat Kara has grown familiar with starts to race, a sharp sigh is let out involuntarily, the hand Kara isn’t holding scrapes against the fabric of Lena’s skirt into a fist.
It’s quiet. But Kara can’t hear anything else.
“You…oh. That is new. Are you okay?”
Kara smiles, nods, and runs her thumb over Lena’s knuckles to relax the tension in her hand. “Yeah, I am.”
Lena looks like she’s about to say something, having picked up on Kara’s habit of denying what she’s really feeling long ago –which, hello? Look who’s talking, Lena- but the longer she looks at Kara, the more she softens. “You…you don’t seem shaken up by it.” Lena’s eyes go wide and Kara can’t help but snort at the panic on her face. “Not that there’s any way in which you should be feeling. God, I’m not trying to tell you how to react to your own breakup. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“Lena.” Kara intertwines their fingers in an effort to calm her down. “It’s okay. I get it.” Lena only nods so Kara continues. “I’m glad it happened.”
“You…you are?”
“Yeah, I…it should’ve happened a long time ago.” She makes a face. “No, actually, I never should have been with him to begin with. I’m not sure why I was. I…I don’t think I ever had those feelings for him. And yet-” There’s a burning feeling in her chest, a burning she’s felt before except this time, she’s unable to push it down. “I don’t know why I was with him, Lena.”
Lena has a strange look on her face and nods as Kara goes on.
“It wasn’t…good? Or healthy. Yeah, it wasn’t healthy. For me.” Kara runs her hand through her hair, growing more uncomfortable and not sure why. “It didn’t, um, it didn’t feel good to be with him. I didn’t feel good.”
She doesn’t feel good, even now, and she doesn’t understand it because 10 seconds ago, she was happy. Kara was happy and she thought she was over what happened to her and she was going to confess to Lena how she felt and now-
Now her stomach hurts and she feels nauseous and it’s becoming harder to breathe and oh no, is this a panic attack?
Can she even get panic attacks?
Is she still rambling to Lena about Rao knows what while having a possible panic attack?
Lena’s clearly noticed that something’s going on because she’s gripping Kara’s hand so hard that she’ll have self-inflicted bruises in the morning, her other hand is rubbing Kara’s knee and though Kara can’t focus on what Lena’s saying, she can tell that Lena sounds on the verge of panicking herself.
And somehow Kara is still rambling.
“I didn’t like it, Lena. I don’t know why he treated me that way. I don’t think I deserved it?” The hand on her knee tightens and she can hear Lena’s heart pounding away. Or is that her own? Kara’s not really sure what’s happening anymore. Why every negative thought that has been building up inside her has chosen this exact moment to come out and screw up what could have possibly been one of the happiest moments in her life.
“Why didn’t I leave? Or stop it? How could I let him do that to me? Maybe it really was my fault, maybe I did deserve it and-”
She’s crying again. She’s so tired of crying.
Kara’s just so tired.
And then Lena’s boobs are in her face and it's jarring and Kara’s breathless for a reason other than her on going panic attack and oh, it takes her far too long to realize that it’s because Lena’s straddling her, hands cupping Kara’s cheeks as Lena frantically tries to get Kara to look at her.
Kara does. And she starts crying harder.
Because Lena’s crying too. And Lena Luthor never cries.
Kara’s seen her shed a few tears, sure. But the Lena in front of her is outright weeping, leaving her own tears unattended as she so carefully wipes away Kara’s as if she’s made of glass.
The irony isn’t lost on her. But she’s too focused on Lena’s words, soft on her lips, telling her breathe Kara, in and out, with me, in, out…
Kara’s eyes are closed as she follows Lena’s instruction, hands wrapped around Lena’s wrists to ground herself. It’s a loose grip, she’s not 100% confident in her ability to measure her strength right now, but it works.
In…out. In…out. In…out.
It takes a few minutes but her breathing has finally calmed down and whatever panic she was feeling is gone, leaving humiliation in its wake.
She shakes her head, mindful of Lena’s hands still on her face.
“I’m sorry, Lena. I didn’t mean to just lay all of this on you. I’m so sor-.”
“Look at me, please.” Lena’s voice is firm but Kara can hear the pain in it too.
She looks at her, relieved to find that Lena’s tears have stopped as well.
Lena’s thumbs brush over her eyelashes, gathering the remaining traces of tears. “You, Kara Zor-El, have nothing to be sorry for. Absolutely nothing. Not to me and certainly not to him.”
The last word is nearly spat at her. Cautious of her strength, Kara’s hands tighten over Lena’s wrists and Lena immediately softens.
“It is not your fault. Not in the slightest. You don’t deserve any of the blame. You don’t deserve any of this.” Kara drops her hands to Lena’s waist as Lena tucks blonde hair behind her ears. She crosses her wrists behind Kara’s neck. “And I know it doesn’t seem like that now. I understand how hard it is to accept that people can just do these things to you for no reason. That it’s something that can just happen and not something we caused.”
They both swallow hard.
“But Kara, it’s not your fault. And I will be here to remind you of that for as long as it takes you to believe it. You are so brave. You’re so kind and selfless and breathtaking and- I hate him. I hate him for ever doing this to you and I hate myself for not coming to you sooner and-.”
Kara tucks her head in Lena’s neck and nods, wrapping her arms around her. She sighs when she feels Lena placing kisses on her head and rubbing up and down her back.
It’s nice, feeling Lena against her like this. It’s pleasant and calming and for the first time in a long while, Kara feels like she’s at peace.
The peace doesn’t last when Kara starts laughing, Lena’s hand finding that spot on her back where she’s ticklish.
“Something funny?” She can hear the smile in Lena’s voice.
“You tell me.” Kara pokes at Lena’s right hip, causing the woman in her lap to jerk. She smiles at the quiet cuss that escapes her. “This position can’t be comfortable for you in that skirt.”
“Do you want me to move?”
Kara shakes her head, nuzzling further in Lena’s neck. “I didn’t say that.” She sighs. “This is exactly the opposite of what I thought would happen tonight.”
Lena hums. “What did you want to happen tonight?”
Kara pulls back and looks at her.
Here goes nothing
“I came here to tell you I have feelings for you and that I want to be with you.” Kara gives a self-deprecating laugh. “But recent events are telling me that I need to take some time for myself. To heal.”
Lena’s smile is adoring and her eyes just so understanding that Kara almost tears up again.
“I think,” Lena’s hands cup her face again and she gives a quick kiss on Kara’s forehead, “that you should take all the time you need. We don’t have to rush into anything, Kara.”
Kara’s still uncertain. “You’re okay with this?”
“I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.” The words bring a smile to both their faces and Kara feels emotional whiplash coming on because now, she’s so thankful for this amazing woman in front of her.
“I…I do need some time but,” Kara squeezes Lena’s waist, “I don’t want that to mean that we don’t see each other. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose that. Ever.”
“We won’t.” Lena’s adamant. “And I’ll be right here, in whatever capacity you need me to be.”
“Thank you.” Kara whispers. She glances down at Lena’s mouth and licks her lips. “Lena, could I maybe…?”
Lena gasps. Nods.
Kara kisses her.
It’s sweet and soft and over far too quickly and Kara has half a mind to forget whatever time she needs for herself and almost kisses Lena again if it weren’t for the fact that starting their relationship now wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
“That was…”
Lena bites her lip. “Yes.”
Kara laughs. She laughs and laughs and she thinks about the last 24 hours and almost cries again before she laughs some more.
Lena’s looking at her with such fondness that Kara blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“I can’t believe yesterday I accidentally moaned your name and today I finally got to kiss you.”
Kara bangs her head so hard against the back of the couch that it almost breaks in half.
But as Lena fails to hide her laughter, as well as the deep blush on her cheeks, Kara can’t help but smile.
Because her newfound inability to control what she says brought her here. And that’s worth any embarrassment she feels.
Lena touches their foreheads together.
Definitely worth it.