Chapter Text
I drink too much coffee and I think of you often
In a city where reality has long been forgotten
Are you afraid? 'Cause I'm terrified
But you remind me that it's such a wonderful thing to love
- Florence and the machine // Patricia
The Luthor mansion isn’t any less intimidating now than it had been when she was a child. Lena’s been standing by her car for the past five minutes, sipping coffee from a takeaway cup while staring at her childhood home. It looms in front of her, dark brick stone, imposing gables and the two towers she’d found ridiculously pretentious even when she was little.
She remembers being four years old and walking up the pathway to the mansion for the first time, remembers feeling like the house could reach out and swallow her up. She had nightmares for weeks, involving houses with teeth and windows that never opened and cold, stern faces that never once smiled at her.
It still has that nightmarish quality now, 21 years later, offset against a faded grey sky. Clouds hang over everything, a grey immensity that blots out the sun. It seems fitting, she thinks without humor, that even the sky feels claustrophobic tonight.
She takes another sip of coffee and notes that there’s a slight tremble to her hand. She wonders, not for the first time, whether she’s made the right decision in agreeing to this deal.
A month prior:
“You will come to dinner.”
Lena startles up from the contract she’d been reading and looks at her mother, sitting at the opposite end of the table. Her hands are folded in front of her, expression carefully blank, which only makes the request seem even more absurdly out of place than it already is.
“Dinner?” Lena asks for lack of a better response.
“Yes, every Friday,” Lillian says simply, like they are the kind of mother-daughter-duo that does this regularly. Like she expects Lena to just whip out her planner and confirm dates with her and maybe ask her whether they want to watch a movie on Tuesday while they’re at it.
“Why?” Lena asks after a moment of incredulous silence.
Lillian sighs. “If you’re going to take over LuthorCorp and be involved in the family business, the least you can do is make an effort to actually be a part of this family.”
If it had been any other day, Lena might have laughed at the notion of them being a family. Instead she continues to stare at her mother in quiet disbelief. Lillian, for her part, retains a perfect poker face and seems entirely unfazed by the absurdity of the situation. She looks back at her with an almost unnerving air of calmness and so, mostly to avoid having to look at her unblinking eyes, Lena eventually returns her attention back to the contract laid out in front of her. The contract that effectively makes her the CEO of LuthorCorp - the multi-billion dollar tech company her father had built and her brother nearly destroyed with his recent xenophobic delusions and megalomania.
She’d been reading the fine print up until now, looking for any hidden clauses or conditions that would make her step back from the position. She hadn’t expected her mother to deliver it verbally though. She had expected a dinner invitation even less.
“Do we have a deal?” Lillian presses at Lena’s lack of reaction.
Lena swallows, eyes darting to the fountain pen lying next to the stack of papers. She knows it isn’t an unreasonable request, that weekly dinners are a relatively harmless condition. But it still means spending (at least) two uninterrupted hours with her mother… every week. She doesn’t know how to say hello to her mother, much less how to converse politely.
She doesn’t know whether she even wants to run the company in the first place.
LuthorCorp was always going to be Lex’s inheritance. She thought she might work in the labs one day, spent much of her childhood dreaming about working with her brother and saving the world. She never thought she’d have to take over as CEO at age 25 when the company effectively had the reputation of being a slaughterhouse; she’s not sure she’s really cut out for it.
The one thing she is sure of is that she doesn’t want Lillian to take over instead.
And then there’s that small part inside of her that still wants LuthorCorp to be a force for good. The part of her that spent hours upon hours crammed in her friend’s garage trying to find a cure for cancer and that tried to build a first aid robot when she was ten years old (The part of her that wants to be good more than anything).
“But you’re an hour away from National City,” she argues in a last ditch effort to escape the sentence of spending every Friday having dinner with her mother.
“So, you’ll drive,” her mother replies, raising her chin in a way that allows no further argument.
Lena hesitates for one more second. Then she signs the papers.
It’s 6:59pm. The first Friday after the takeover.
Lena finishes the rest of her coffee in one big gulp that makes her throat burn before discarding her cup into the backseat of her car. Then she takes a long, only half-steadying breath, and walks towards the doorway, wrapping her black coat a little tighter around herself as she goes.
She reaches out for the brass doorknocker and lets it rap against the wooden door, which swings open almost upon contact. The maid that greets her seems new, an innocence in her eyes that never lasts long in the household of Lillian Luthor.
“Good evening,” she greets, “may I take your coat?”
She hands the garment off to the maid, who rushes off before Lena can even as much as thank her. She seems to almost disappear into the house, black shoes silent on the dark, marble floor. Lena remembers how important it had always been to her mother that the maids be silent and invisible. She fired more than one maid for making a sound while walking or lingering in doorways for too long.
She sighs. She’s already reminded of all the reasons she hates it here and her mother hasn’t even arrived yet.
She remains standing in the foyer, which has large, vaulted ceilings and dark wood paneling on the walls that always make it seem like the place was bearing down on her. A family portrait hangs to her side, showing off the family, sitting poised,serious and unhappy. A chandelier dangles above her, decorated with real diamonds just in case guests missed the whole we’re-super-wealthy-memo and there’s a staircase in front of her, leading up to the first-floor landing, which is where her mother appears now with a moderately happy exclamation of, “Lena. Welcome.”
She walks down, or rather, she slides , hand gliding along on the railing, back straight - the goddamn debutante dream. She’s smiling in a way that Lena recognizes from fundraisers and charity events: toothy, yet highly affected and lacking any real kind of warmth. She feels a matching smile appear on her face and nearly cringes with it. It feels like a grimace. It feels Luthor.
“Hello, mother,” she says as soon as Lillian reaches her. She comes to a halt a few feet away from her and gives Lena a quick but noticeable once-over. She frowns ever so slightly and Lena has to resist the urge to reach up and smooth out non-existent kinks in her hair or to tuck down her dress. She reminds herself that this is what Lillian does: she creates doubt. And so, she remains standing perfectly still and forces herself not to flinch under Lillian’s critical eyes.
“Well,” Lillian says, sounding like Lena has somehow already managed to disappoint her at this first hurdle of their greeting, “I’ve had Claire set up for the aperitif in the drawing room. It’s through here.” She needlessly gestures down the hallway like Lena didn’t spend her entire childhood in this house.
“I’m aware.”
“Well I just assumed since you haven’t been here since Christmas, you might have forgotten,” Lillian says flippantly.
And really, this one is on her. She could and should have seen that one coming. She refuses to enter into the argument, however, and silently follows her mother back into the drawing room.
They’ve called it the “drawing room” ever since she can remember. The name and décor make it seem more aristocratic than an ordinary living room, which seems just about right, since there’s no living being done here anyway. Its only function has always been to greet people and have them sit on terribly uncomfortable sofas while serving aperitifs in crystal glasses that cost more than the average person’s monthly rent.
Lena looks around the room for a moment, while heading over to one of the sofas and sitting down. Lillian has turned her back to her, fixing drinks on a little cart, which gives her enough time to take in the, entirely unchanged, appearance of the room. There are the same heavy oil paintings on the wall that used to scare her as a child, depicting scenes of war and dark landscapes. A fireplace sits to her left, unused since 1865 and heavily ornated with brocade. Several golden frames stand on the mantel, filled with photos of ancestors that still mean nothing to her. In front of the fireplace stands the chess board where she and Lex used to play endless tournaments as children. Some of the figures are still standing there, mid-game, and the sight of them makes her chest feel tight. It’s like time stands still in this room, a family left in limbo.
“So, tell me about your investment plan,” Lillian tears her out of her thoughts. She turns away from the drinks cart and heads over to the sofas. “I heard that you were looking into buying shares of Spheerical Industries?”
Lena knows that of course the dinner serves the main purpose of checking up on the company, but the introduction to the inevitable checkup is still so abrupt, she nearly laughs at it.
“And I suppose you heard that completely by chance,” she says dryly, accepting the glass handed to her. She suddenly regrets not asking her driver to take her to dinner so that she could have gotten stupidly drunk on aperitifs rather than remaining sober to drive. It’s definitely one of the more crucial mistakes she’s made lately and that’s saying a lot. (Then again, she’s never been the type of person to leave her driver waiting in a parking lot for hours, so at least she’s got that going for her.)
“Oh please Lena, just because I stepped back from my position as a board member doesn’t mean I don’t still get to be involved in this company. LuthorCorp is as much my heritage as it is yours.”
Lena takes a sip from her drink and leans back ever so slightly, feet crossing at the ankles.
“Of course it is, I was merely surprised. I was under the assumption that this was a family dinner. Had I known it was business related, I would have brought some binders.”
Lillian sighs, she’s sat down on the sofa opposite Lena’s with her back straight and one leg perfectly crossed behind the other. “There’s no need to be offended, Lena. If you’re really so uncomfortable discussing LuthorCorp, you may suggest a different topic.”
Lena doesn’t have an immediate comeback for that. She’s never really spoken much to her mother, aside from dinner-time inquisitions about her grades and performance in school. There was no small talk in the Luthor Mansion, there weren’t any how was your days or do you have plans on the weekends . She wracks her brain for something to talk about but comes to the (truly frightening) realization that there’s really nothing in her life worth talking about. She hasn’t seen any movies recently, hasn’t read any books or done anything other than lending every inch of her soul to the takeover of LuthorCorp. She could tell her about what she ate for dinner last night, she muses. She’s confident she could make a discussion of her garden salad last quite a few hours if she really tried.
While Lena ponders this, silence continues to stretch out between them. It feels stifling, like it’s become a physical thing that presses down on them, and with every second that passes, Lena grows more and more anxious to find something to talk about. She takes a long sip of her drink and glances over at Lillian, who looks entirely unfazed by the discomfort of this situation. There’s a reason, she thinks, her father used to call her “the queen of the silent takedown.” She’s always been excellent at waiting people out, eyes cold and calm. There’s something unsettling about being looked at by her. It almost feels like a staring contest. Blink if you wish to discuss your every failure in handling the family company. Lena looks away.
“Yes, I’m planning to buy shares of Spheerical industries,” Lena breaks the silence. “I want LuthorCorp to branch out its nano-tech division and ideally delve further into advancing medical sciences.”
Lillian’s eyes gleam at Lena’s answer. Lena knows she’s lost whatever silent contest they’d been having. She knows that Lillian knows this, too. (She also knows that she’ll have to google “conversation starters for you and your emotionless mother” when she gets home.)
“Whyever would you do that?” Lillian asks and Lena sighs. They haven’t even made it to dinner yet and she can already sense the sweet, sweet sensation of regret and defeat wash over her.
It’s going to be a long evening.
The dinner, unsurprisingly, is even worse and by the time Lena finally makes it into her car and back on the highway, she feels like she’s been hollowed out. Like her mother has slowly and agonizingly dismantled her over the course of a three-hour meal.
Her hands are clutching the steering wheel so tightly it’s almost painful. Knuckles go white with the strain she has on them; still she doesn’t relent her hold. It feels good to be in control of something, however insignificant, while her mind replays every miniscule detail of her conversation with her mother.
“You need to realize that your idealism has no place in the business world, Lena.”
“Sit up straight, dear, your posture reflects poorly on your intelligence.”
She shakes her head, tries to focus on the highway and remind herself that it’s over, that she gets to go home now.
The thought might be comforting if her home consisted of more than an empty apartment and its white walls and blank spaces.
When she moved to National City a couple months ago, she’d had every intention of making this place a home. She chose an apartment with large windows so there’d be a lot of light, picked out nice bedding - soft silk in softer hues - and packed the cupboards full with food to cook from scratch. She even bought herself a cactus as a housewarming gift, went to the garden center to get succulent soil and a watering can, a nice striped pot for it to sit in. She really tried.
And yet she sleeps in her office most nights, eats whatever food her secretary puts down in front of her, and the cactus didn’t make it beyond two weeks of living with her.
It still sits on her windowsill though, decaying slowly as it waits for her to return home.
She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the highway starts to go blurry. She reaches up to try and swipe the tears away, but she can feel the way a sob climbs up her throat and knows that she’s about one step away from having a full-blown panic attack over a dead cactus. She pulls her car over almost on instinct and takes the next exit without checking where it goes. Wherever it is, it’s not National City.
A short drive later, she ends up in a town called Midvale. It’s tucked into the countryside, surrounded by forest and fields and the sign that welcomes her has a little cartoon pumpkin drawn underneath the writing that’s just tacky enough to be charming.
She pulls her car over and lets her head fall back as soon as the engines hum out. The tears come unbidden now and she’s just too tired to do anything but let them fall and stare blankly at the town outside the window.
Midvale seems to mostly consist of one large road and a town square. The buildings surrounding it look like someone cut them out of a postcard and dropped them here – quaint and colorful and unlike any place she’s ever lived in. Her eyes fall onto a café at the corner of the street. There’s a sign dangling above the door. It’s shaped like a coffee cup and reads Kara’s in looping cursive. She can’t make out whether there are people still inside, but the lights are on, illuminating the place against the darkness.
She hadn’t really thought beyond getting off the road and this café feels like someone is giving her a way out, like maybe this could be her reprieve – however liminal - from this Friday night of hell. If nothing else, coffee will make her feel better.
She takes one long, steadying breath. She’ll be okay.
She quickly checks her appearance in the mirror compartment of her sun visor, touches up her face until she’s painted on a version of herself that manages to resemble the taller-than-life CEO she recently tries to embody. Then she squares her shoulders against her own reflection and opens the door.
A little bell chimes when Lena enters the café. The place is empty - some of the chairs have already been turned up and a dishwasher runs audibly in the background. The only person still occupying the space is a barista, who pops up from behind the counter at the sound of the door. She’s wearing a green flannel shirt and an apron with the Kara’s logo embroidered on the front pocket. Her blonde hair is tied up in a slightly disheveled ponytail, strands of hair having come loose and framing her face.
As soon as her eyes land on Lena, her expression turns into one of polite regret.
“Sorry, we’re actually just closing,” she says. She genuinely does sound apologetic and holds up a pink cleaning cloth as if trying to corroborate her statement with it.
“Oh.”
She really shouldn’t be surprised anymore. Of course her one reprieve from this night would close just as she was about to enter. That’s just how her life is these days.
To her mortification she can feel tears prick at her eyes though and her lips begin to feel suspiciously wobbly again. She cannot start crying in this place. There’s been a lot of low points to this night and she’s not about to add bursting into tears in front of a stranger to the mix. She bites down on her tongue instead, hard enough to make her wince.
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” She’s already backing away, blindingly reaching behind her for the doorknob, when the barista seems to catch on to the state she’s in and a quick look of concern flashes across her face.
“Are you okay?” she asks, eyebrows knitted with worry and cleaning momentarily forgotten.
“Yes, clearly I’m great,” Lena snaps and immediately flinches at her own tone. She knows it’s a product of her discomfort, but for a second, she can hear Lillian in her voice and she hates it. She hates the look it puts in the barista’s eyes even more though; it reminds her of the many maids she’d seen Lillian fire over the years. It reminds her of her employees at LuthorCorp shrinking away from her whenever she enters the room.
“Sorry, that was a stupid question,” the barista mumbles. She’s looking at her hands now, at the cleaning utensils scattered around the counter, anywhere but Lena’s face.
“No, it’s just-“ Lena starts, then breaks off. She wishes she knew how to apologize, but words fail her. She shrugs kind of helplessly and tries again. “I-“
“Long night?” the barista supplies. She dares to meet her eyes again and Lena is surprised to find them shining with sympathy instead of blatant anger or frustration. It’s more than she probably deserves and she swallows hard to make herself bear it.
“You could say that,” she sighs.
She stands there for a moment, awkward and unsure of herself, hands knitted together in front of her. “I’m really sorry,” she says, hoping that her voice will convey her honesty. “I didn’t mean to snap at you; you were just being kind and I’ll just-“ she gestures to the door, “get out of your hair.”
“Wait,” the barista calls out just as Lena turns towards the door, “I just started tidying up, so if you don’t mind the chaos, you can stay for a while.” She shrugs like it’s nothing. Like it isn’t the most kindness anyone has extended to Lena in a while.
She lingers by the door for a moment, hand wrapped around the doorknob, feeling uncharacteristically unsure of herself. She’s learned to navigate social situations as the all-powerful Lena Luthor, heiress of the world’s most notorious tech conglomerate. She’s learned to exchange pleasantries and to always look perfectly poised, just aloof enough not to be approached by too many people. Now she’s standing in a doorway and doesn’t know what to do with herself.
It would help, she thinks, if she could find any sign of an ulterior motive in the eyes of the barista. She didn’t think she recognized her, but people have surprised her before with unexpected requests for favors or money, or just by taking her picture to share it on social media for a second in the limelight. Try as she might, she can’t find any of that in her eyes though. Instead she just looks kind. (Somehow that makes it worse.)
“Honestly I’m fine, I should probably be getting home and-” she trails off as she runs out of reasons to leave. Her hand tightens around the doorknob, almost as if looking for resolve. The barista tilts her head a little and smiles and whatever resolve she had been trying to scramble for turns to dust. So what if she’s too tired to ward off the comfort of this place? So what if wants to spend a couple minutes in a place that is bright and warm and smells of sugar and coffee?
“You really don’t mind?” she asks in a voice more timid than she is used to.
“I don’t,” the barista smiles. “I usually take closing hours as they come anyway.”
“And your boss is okay with that?”
“Well, since I’m my own boss I would say so,” she laughs. Lena’s confusion must show, because next thing, she points to the sign above the counter reading Kara’s. It’s the same sign as from outside the building, little coffee cup and looping cursive. “I’m Kara,” she clarifies. “The café is mine, so I can kind of do what I want.”
Lena thinks about her own company and how she seems to be rarely, if ever, doing what she wants. How her every move is dictated by her brother’s mistakes or her mother’s influence.
“That sounds nice,” she says.
“It is,” Kara confirms with an easy smile. “So honestly it’s fine, sit wherever you like.”
“You promise to kick me out when you’re done?”
“Absolutely.”
Lena feels strangely reassured by that and, after a quick look around, chooses a table by the window front. The café seems to consist of essentially one grand room, with a window front spanning two of the walls. Lena sits down opposite the counter, which runs along the left-side wall. There’s a large apothecary shelf behind it, showcasing all kinds of different mis-matched mugs in all different shapes and patterns. The remaining wall is almost entirely covered in photographs and shelves filled with magazines, little figurines and other kinds of memorabilia Kara must have accumulated over the years. It’s very homey, in a thoroughly charming way and Lena feels something inside her finally ease.
“So, what can I get you?” Kara asks once Lena has sat down.
“Just a coffee, black please.”
Lena notes the brief flicker of surprise on Kara’s face before it settles back on what Lena has quickly identified as her polite, customer smile.
“Sorry is it too late for coffee?” Lena asks hastily, eyes already darting around the shop for a menu or anything that could point her to something else to order. She probably does tea, right? Not that she’d know which kind to order. She’d be fine with tap water as well to be honest.
Before she can spiral further, Kara laughs and interrupts her trail of thought. “No,” she says and reaches behind the counter for a large, red coffee mug, which she holds up for Lena to see. “Even if it might be too late for coffee by some standards, I’m not exactly in a position to judge.”
Lena smiles a little. “Guess I’m not the only one with terrible coffee habits.”
“At this point it’s less of a habit and more of a lifestyle,” Kara quips with a smirk that makes Lena laugh. It’s a short, bursting thing of a laugh and the most surprising part about it is that it feels genuine. She can feel a matching smile spread on her face and has to resist the urge to touch her fingers to it.
“So, do you want just the regular house blend or the Kara Danvers special?” Kara asks. She’s standing at the far side of the counter, holding up two, identical looking pots for her to choose from.
“The Kara Danvers special?” she asks with a skeptically raised eyebrow.
“Yes, it’s like the house blend but the coffee to water ratio is 90 to 10 and it’s brewed with a dash of cinnamon.”
“How very avant-garde of you,” Lena replies. It comes out with a slightly teasing undertone that she can’t remember ever having used before. Kara smiles at her though and so she decides that she likes it.
“It’s my favorite drink.” Kara says. “I firmly believe that every cup of coffee should taste a little bit like comfort and Christmas, even if it’s just a regular night in mid-April and you’re chucking down your third cup in a desperate attempt to stay awake long enough to finish your shift.”
Lena laughs again. “That sounds like a very specific scenario, but I think you’ve won me over.”
Kara practically beams in response. It’s different to her customer smile; it loses the carefully practiced politeness and instead splits her face open and crinkles her eyes at the edges. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful, Lena realizes.
Her cup of coffee lands in front of her a minute later. Kara has chosen another large mug for her, but this one is white with a large smiley face on one side and the words Have a Lovely Day , written on the other. The mug is large enough for her to wrap both hands around it and she sighs a little as warmth seeps into her hands. The scent of coffee mixing with faint cinnamon is comforting already and when she takes her first sip, she knows that Kara wasn’t kidding. The coffee tastes like comfort and holiday spirit and Lena knows that she will savor every moment of it.
Kara leaves her to it and returns to her cleaning, humming along to the soft music wafting from the speakers. There’s something oddly comforting about it and Lena finds herself relaxing for the first time that evening.
The quiet is ultimately broken when a crashing sound from behind the counter causes Lena to startle up. It sounds like metal screeching against metal, a biting, goosebumps-eliciting sound, followed by a loud clang of metal hitting the counter.
Kara is standing behind the large espresso machine, positioned in the center of the counter, and peeks around it with a sheepish expression as Lena grimaces at the sound.
“Sorry,” she winces, “this espresso machine is just beyond difficult to clean,” she explains, while trying to get another part that seems to have gotten jammed to loosen. “It’s so old and half of the parts get stuck whenever I try to take it apart for cleaning.” There’s another screeching sound as the stuck part finally comes loose, surprising Kara and sending her stumbling backwards from the machine with comically widened eyes.
“Really? You make it look so easy though.”
Kara looks up at her, hand still wrapped around a piece of metal and lets out a startled laugh.
“I know I should probably just replace it; everyone keeps telling me so.” She places the last piece on the counter and reaches for the cleaning bucket to get to work.
“So why don’t you?”
“It used to belong to my foster parents.” Kara’s too focused on cleaning the parts in front of her to notice the way Lena’s attention snaps up at that. “Eliza, that’s my foster mother, gave it to me when I opened the café and I know it’s stupid, but I just haven’t had the heart to replace it yet.” She wipes down another part and sets it aside to dry on a towel. Lena notices how gently she touches each part of the machine, even though it’s metal. There’s an almost solemn precision to her moves and it makes Lena think about the few things she still has of her own mother, how few things she has with meaning. She wouldn’t give them away for the world either.
“I don’t think that’s stupid at all,” she says quietly. Kara looks up at her serious tone and surprise transitions into a small, genuine smile that Lena doesn’t know how to act around. She forces herself to smile back and hopes it comes across as equally genuine. Then she looks at her coffee cup again, twists it in her hands once so that the slogan is now facing her.
“So, you’re not from around here, are you?” Kara asks after a moment of silence. Lena looks up from her coffee but keeps her hands wrapped around the cup.
“Did my liberal attitude towards your espresso machine give that away?” she asks and there’s that teasing undertone again.
Kara laughs. “No, I just would have noticed you,” She says simply and Lena’s glad that she seems to be too preoccupied with her cleaning again to notice the way she honest to god blushes at the words.
“I’m from National City,” she replies eventually, causing Kara’s head to whip up as she stares at her with an expression of utter incredulity. “And you came to Midvale for coffee?”
“I was visiting my mother in Hartford and this place was sort of midway.” She tries to maintain a neutral tone, but something in her eyes must give her away, because Kara doesn’t pick up her cleaning again. Instead she looks at her, really looks at her, as if inquiring silently. Lena doesn’t meet her eyes. Instead she fiddles with the cup in her hands, twists it in slow circles, just to have something to do. She really doesn’t want to discuss her mother right now.
“So you decided to stop for a 10pm coffee in the best town in the world,” Kara says. Her tone is light, but Lena can tell that she’s giving her a deliberate out from that line of conversation and tries (she really tries) not to feel too stupidly grateful right then.
“It is the most essential of coffees.”
“Oh definitely, how many times have I told my customers that coffee just doesn’t taste quite as good if it’s not consumed in the middle of the night and served with that slight premonition of ruining tomorrow.”
Lena chuckles. “You should use that as a slogan.”
“Might be a bit long, though I’m sure it would look great on a T-shirt.” She ponders this for a moment. “Or maybe Kara’s Coffee - guaranteed to ruin your tomorrow.”
“Sinister, I like it,” Lena laughs, then, after a moment of contemplation, she suggests, “Kara’s coffee, for all your late-night needs.”
“That sounds like I’m offering way more than just coffee,” Kara points out and Lena giggles in response. She fucking giggles . Apparently she’s the type of person who giggles now. Splendid.
“Kara’s Coffee – Better Latte than never!” Kara offers. The pun makes Lena groan, but still she can’t help but smile.
“That one was almost painful.”
“Made you smile though,” Kara says, looking far too pleased with herself but well….she can’t really argue there.
“I might smile, but your puns mocha me very mad,” she says with an entirely earnest expression. She has to try very hard not to preen at the delighted laugh that escapes Kara at her joke.
They go back and forth like this, spitballing slogans and coming up with increasingly stupid coffee-related puns. Time passes easily, almost imperceptibly, and eventually Kara has cleaned everything away, the espresso machine is assembled once again and every chair in the café is turned up. Lena knows, even though Kara is too nice to say so, that it’s time to leave and so she gets up and carries her mug over to the counter, where she hands it off to Kara. At closer proximity now, she can make out that her eyes are blue and that there’s a faint spatter of freckles over her nose and cheeks. She doesn’t really know what to do with that information, but files it away nonetheless.
“I should probably…“ she gestures vaguely in the direction of the door.
“Oh.” Kara follows her eyes to the door and Lena’s sure she imagines the hint of disappointment that washes over her face for a split second. “Yeah, I guess you still have a bit of a drive ahead of you.”
Lena nods. She’s going to get home for roughly midnight at this rate. A fact she’s likely going to curse the second her alarm goes off at 4am sharp. She can’t bring herself to regret it though.
“How much for the coffee?” she asks.
“Oh no, don’t worry about it, it’s on the house.”
“What, no, I- “ Lena tries to protest, but Kara interrupts her immediately. “It’s fine, honestly, you kept me company while I cleaned this place and I don’t have a register anymore anyway.” Lena is still skeptical and it must show, because Kara adds, “besides, you really looked like you needed it and there’s no prize on comfort coffee.”
“I feel like that’s a terrible business strategy.” Lena shakes her head, but Kara just shrugs, seemingly nonplussed.
“Can’t be too horrible if you’re feeling better now.”
“I do,” Lena says, softly enough that she would have worried if Kara had heard her at all, had she not rewarded her with a smile. “Thank you,” Lena adds, “I had a really nice time.”
Her words feel insufficient somehow, like they’re barely enough to convey how much this evening meant to her, but she doesn’t know what else to say and so she lets them hang between them anyway.
“Me too,” Kara replies.
“Really?” she sounds a lot more incredulous than intended and she feels her neck grow hot with embarrassment for a second.
“Don’t look so surprised, you’re easily one of the most interesting people to ever come in here.” Lena finds that rather difficult to believe. “I mean I now know that you have terrible coffee habits and love puns even though you pretend you don’t, and you still haven’t told me your name.” She accompanies the unspoken question with what can only be described as puppy eyes over the rim of her glasses.
Lena looks at her - considers her, before eventually deciding to reply. “It’s Lena.” She leaves it at that, hoping that Kara will too.
“Well it was nice meeting you, Lena,” Kara says.
“Yes,” Lena agrees and means it.
Then she leaves. She does manage to slip a 50-dollar bill into the tip jar on her way out though.
Lena would be lying if she said she didn’t think about Kara all through the next morning. She’ll chalk it up to sleep deprivation later. That and the fact that the alternative is thinking about her bottomless to do list for the day or recounting just how horrible dinner had been.
So really, it’s completely understandable that she’d rather think about Kara when she’s in line at the coffee shop, waiting for a cup of coffee that’ll taste like water compared to Kara’s. There’s a blackboard standing by the entrance with the words I can’t fully espresso my excitement written in looping cursive. She thinks about the way Kara might laugh at the pun.
She arrives at work at 6am, still bleary-eyed, blinking against the bright, fluorescent lights in the lobby as she heads for the elevator. Her coffee’s gone cold rather quick - a fact she notices with a wince as she steps inside and presses the button for the top floor. That’s when she hears someone call out her name, “Lena”, and – still tired and barely lucid – reaches for the door on instinct to hold the elevator.
It turns out, because of course it does , that the woman meant another Lena. A Lena who greets her with a hug and a smile as she watches the elevator doors close on the scene and the coffee in her mouth turns bitter.
She doesn’t know why she reached out in the first place. She knows that not a single person in the building would call for her to hold the door. It isn’t that the elevator is private per se, but it might as well be, since every time she steps into it, people immediately filter out, faces downcast and demure. And even in the unlikely case that someone did get past their fear of her, they’d never call her Lena. No one calls her Lena anymore. She’s always Miss Luthor or Ma’am or that Luthor woman and she’s sure to have a number of less polite names behind her back. Her mother calls her Lena occasionally, but it’s always said with enough disdain to make it sound more like an insult and less than her name.
She watches as the numbers on the elevator climb higher and thinks about the way Kara had said her name last night, thinks about the freckles on her nose, thinks about Lex and LuthorCorp weapon manufacturing and 73 people dead. She thinks about hundreds upon hundreds of unanswered calls, about reporters lurking by the front doors, about people sitting away from her in public places. Then she shakes her head.
This is why she came to National City: to rebuild the company her brother had nearly torn to shreds, she reminds herself. She didn’t come here to make friends.
And even if she’d like to pretend that she could stay last night’s Lena for a bit longer - ordinary Lena, cinnamon coffee Lena - she’s lived out this exact scenario too many times to act like her last name doesn’t matter.
She discards her coffee cup as soon as she enters her office and gets to work. It’s what she does best after all.
And so, she reaches Tuesday: Working almost non-stop, spine so rigid she feels her shoulders ache with it, voice like steel, and a constantly looming migraine she can’t seem to shake. She works through Monday night, falls asleep at her desk sometime past 4am and wakes up two hours later, a piece of paper stuck to her chin and filled with the knowledge that this is going to be a very long day.
It gets to Tuesday afternoon and she’s pretending to look at some spreadsheets, emphatically not thinking about Kara. (She’s even drinking tea in some kind of last ditch effort to get her out of her thoughts. Her secretary had looked at her like she’d lost her mind when she’d asked for a green tea. Perhaps she has. Perhaps this is going to be what pushes her over the edge and into the pit of Luthor-madness – this cup of green tea that does nothing to wake her up.)
She doesn’t quite know how she ends up googling Kara’s coffee shop. At some point she closes the spreadsheets she’d been working on and the next, she’s on a website called karascoffee.com and stares at a picture of the blonde smiling at her. She’s wearing her apron, though it must be an older picture since it’s still green rather than the black one she’d worn the other night. She has her hands on her hips in a kind of Superman pose. Her hair is down, long and wavy, and she is beaming at the camera. Her smile is so wide it fills her entire face, eyes crinkling, nose scrunching and all. Lena stares at it for a long time as if trying to commit it to memory.
She’s so preoccupied with it, she doesn’t hear the door open and her secretary enter until she’s standing right in front of her desk, audibly clearing her throat.
“Sorry, Jess, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I could tell,” Jess smiles a little. Out of all the things that have come out of LuthorCorp so far, Jess might be her favorite. She’s had three secretaries so far, who were either too incompetent (read: didn’t know how to use Microsoft word despite their CVs stating otherwise) or rude (read: was actually working with one of Lex’s henchmen and tried to kill her on her second day) to stay with her for very long. But then, along came Jess. She completely reorganized her files within 24 hours, always gets her coffee order right and best of all, she isn’t afraid of her. Not even a little.
“I have the files you wanted,” Jess says and places a stack of papers on her desk. “And your mother is on line one.” Sure enough the red light indicating a call on hold is blinking away on her telephone.
“Thanks, Jess.”
She turns to the stack of paper, reaches for the first file, and flips it open in front of her. The red light of her phone line keeps blinking away, yet she doesn’t make a move to answer it and keeps her eyes trained on the file in front of her instead.
“This is the third time she’s called today,” Jess says, still standing in front of her desk with her hands clutched in front of her.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“I actually wasn’t feeling quite so masochistic today, so probably not,” Lena replies, looking up from her file and at Jess with an inquiring look.
“Right,” Jess says, popping her tongue on the t. “It’s just that she’s been calling all morning,” she says, “and she seems to be under the impression that it’s somehow my fault you don’t answer her calls and so every time, she berates me a little more harshly and I really love working for you but unemployment is beginning to look really good right now.” Jess finally inhales after rushing out her sentence in pretty much one breath of jumbled words. She’s still clutching her hands in front of her, twisting the wedding band on her ring finger nervously and Lena feels herself flush with sympathy for the woman. She knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of Lillian’s tirades. She should have never made it Jess’ obligation to deal with her mother’s moods.
“I’ll deal with it,” she says.
She watches as Jess leaves the office, not without turning around in the doorway to flash her a grateful smile, before she reaches for the phone and lifts it to her ear.
“Could you please stop harassing my secretary,” she says instead of a greeting. “She’s the only one who’s stuck so far and I can’t afford to lose her.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to bother poor Jessica, if you hadn’t been so exceedingly difficult to reach,” her mother replies. Her tone is cold as usual and - also as usual - it makes Lena feel like she stepped into a cold puddle. “I’ve been ringing your office for the past two hours now.”
“Really, you had no felonies to plan instead?” Lena asks dryly.
“Must you be so crass all the time, Lena.”
“I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Well, your humor has always been rather questionable.” Her mother tsks, like Lena’s lack of situation-appropriate humor might just be her greatest shortcoming as a daughter.
“I guess it’s a good thing I never had high aspirations for a career in comedy anyway,” Lena drawls.
Lillian sighs, a long-suffering sigh that Lena has heard a million times before and always makes her feel five years old again, having just crushed an expensive Christmas ornament.
“What did you want, mother?” Lena asks eventually, before the silence in the receiver can become unbearable.
“Can’t a mother just check in on her daughter from time to time?”
“Sure, a hypothetical mother could, but we both know that you’re not the type for casual check-ups, so please-“
“Fine,” Lillian bites out. “I wanted to discuss the recent budget cuts you made.”
Lena sighs.
The phone call is short and painful and by the end of it, it takes everything out of Lena not to slam the phone back on its station. Her head is pounding and so she reaches up to massage her temples, waiting for the Lillian-induced-headache to fade. She’d been ignoring the fact that she’ll have to go back to the mansion on Friday to sit through this torture for multiple hours - that she’ll have to go back there again and again and again. She groans. Work certainly had been a great distraction from this particular fact. ( Kara had been a great distraction from this particular fact.)
Her eyes fall back on her screen then. On the website of the café still open and her cursor still hovering by Kara’s photo. Her smile still feels bigger than the frame and Lena sighs, almost in resignation to it.
She knows she’ll be going back there come next Friday.
“Lena,” Kara exclaims as soon as she enters, “you came back!”
Kara’s standing behind the counter, which is scattered with cleaning utensils. Her cheeks are slightly rosy, and she looks so happy to see her that Lena decides right then and there that whatever happens, she’s made the right choice in coming back.
“I was in the area, so I thought I might as well stop for coffee.” She shrugs casually like she didn’t spend the entire week thinking about this exact moment. “That’s if you’re still open?”
“Not officially, but I’ll make an exception.” Kara says and winks at her. She winks . And it’s honestly too much for Lena to handle first thing. It’s also apparently too much for her to react to, because she tries to form a reply but gives an approximation of a laugh instead – a startled sound accentuated by the way she unnecessarily reaches to smooth her hair down. It’s embarrassing really, how easily Kara gets to her.
She decides to forego the reply and instead moves to last week’s table by the window front but is halted by Kara. “No, come sit here.” She motions to a set of stools in front of the counter. “It’ll be easier to talk to you when you’re not half-way across the room.”
There’s a moment of silence during which Lena doesn’t move. Kara must take it as rejection, because she says, “that’s if you want to talk to me, gosh I-“
“I didn’t just come back for the coffee,” Lena says to interrupt her inevitable descent into apologetic rambling. She’s already moving across the room and sits down on one of the stools, places her clutch down on the counter and offers Kara a reassuring smile. (It’s funny really. Being the one doing the reassuring. It’s almost laughable that Kara can’t tell that she came back for her.)
Kara mumbles something that sounds, “Oh okay,” in reply and smiles at her, a slight blush creeping into her cheeks. Lena finds it very endearing to watch her fumble with her glasses for a couple seconds until she catches herself and addresses her again. “So, coffee?” Kara holds up a pot with still steaming coffee.
“Please,” Lena all but sighs.
“That was a very emphatic please.”
“I did just spend the entire evening with my mother, so I really need something to combat that slightly sour taste that always lingers afterwards.”
“That bad?” Kara gives her a sympathetic smile while pouring coffee into two large coffee mugs and passing one over to her. Her mug is large and pumpkin shaped, bright orange with a dorky, cartoon face grinning on one side. She accepts it gladly.
“You know, until tonight I didn’t realize that green beans could taste like disappointment, but it only took an hour with my mother to convince me that even the side dishes were judging my life choices.”
“Well, beans are famously a tough crowd,” Kara says seriously and a startled laugh escapes Lena at her straight-faced delivery. She does choke on her coffee a little, but even the burn of hot liquid down her throat feels like balm after an evening with her mother. Kara gives her a moment to recover before continuing their conversation.
“So, you see your mother every week?”
“Yes, we have dinner every Friday.”
“Oh?”
“It’s part of a rather unfortunate deal we made,” she edges, voice stealing away behind her familiar guard. Kara doesn’t press though, just looks at her patiently and for a second Lena entertains the thought of telling her. Of letting her know her. Company, last name, and all. Then she looks down at the coffee mug in her hand, at the bright orange, kind of ridiculous mug that is somehow the sweetest thing she has ever seen. She looks back up at Kara, who chooses just that moment to blow a loose strand of hair out of her face. (Okay, maybe the mug isn’t quite the sweetest thing she has ever seen.)
“At least she served a kale salad today,” Lena says instead. Kara, bless her, takes the change of topic in stride and doesn’t react to it much at all aside from wrinkling her nose at Lena’s kale-comment.
“Must have been a tough evening if kale is held as the saving grace.”
Lena sighs. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Kara looks at her expectantly. She’s busy folding menus and stacking them on a pile next to her and she seems genuinely eager to hear about her evening. Lena supposes there’s nothing wrong with telling her about dinner or her mother. There’s plenty she can tell her without giving herself away. It only takes her a split second and some Kara-Danvers-puppy-eyes to decide.
“One of the maids trembled today while she was serving the main course – no doubt because she was absolutely frightened out of her mind by the fact that my mother had just sent the meal back four times because the temperature wasn’t just right - and she fired her, right there on the spot.”
Kara shoots her a look of absolute incredulity that definitely makes the whole storytelling decision worth it already. Oh the Luthor stories she has to tell.
“For a tremble?” Kara asks, voice slightly pitched with disbelief.
“Yes, it is no sign of good service,” she accompanies the statement with air quotes to mark the verbatim reasoning her mother had given her earlier when she had asked a similarly disbelieving question.
“Geez, I think I’m running my business the wrong way.”
“As long as you do the exact opposite of what my mother is doing, I think you’re fine.”
Kara grins a little. She finished her pile of menus and has stacked them away under the counter. She brings out a small laundry basket of dish towels next, plops them out on the counter and starts folding them.
“What else happened?” she asks.
And so, Lena tells her. She tells her about dinner and the way Lillian’s eyes never cease to watch her critically. How she’s always ready to pounce on every slight imperfection. Her elbows too low, too high, her fork not laying in her hand perfectly enough, her pinky not quite in the right place.
She tells her about the dessert Lillian served in outrageously expensive (and ugly) crystal bowls and how she had nearly lost her mind when she heard Lena’s spoon scrape at the bottom.
She tells her how her mother had discussed funeral arrangements for a family member that hasn’t died yet. How she had discussed their will and inheritance orders and whatnot for long enough to make even Lena think that it was a bit morbid.
She tells her everything safe for company-related topics, which are much easier to steer around than she previously thought.
Throughout her detailed account of a typical Luthor dinner, Kara cleans the counter and the machinery behind, loads and unloads the dishwasher, and places all the coffee mugs in their dedicated slot in the apothecary shelf. She always looks up when Lena tells her an especially outrageous comment her mother had made or some detail of the evening that is too ludicrous to believe. She always reacts with the exact right amount of confusion or outrage and it’s nice to see that Lena isn’t merely overreacting in these situations but that they are truly as horrible as she perceives them to be.
Sometimes Kara has to stop cleaning to laugh at more ridiculous parts or to give Lena a look of utter incredulity. That’s one thing Lena quickly learns about Kara: she is very expressive with her emotions – something that is as foreign to her as anything else in this café. She’d grown up learning how to hide her feelings, how to always wear the perfect poker face. It’s almost unsettling to see Kara wear her emotions on her sleeve, to see her gasp and the way her eyes widen. She quickly becomes obsessed with it though, starts to pause before getting to the punch line just to savor Kara’s reaction to it.
Her favorite part might be that Kara laughs easily. It’s a carefree kind of laugh that seems to come as naturally to her as anything and Lena delights in it every single time. There’s something about knowing that she was able to put that laugh there, that she was the one who managed to elicit it. She wants to do it again and again and again.
Lena can’t remember having ever spoken for this long, but Kara doesn’t seem to get bored of it. She always follows up with more questions, asking for more details or clarifications. Though she never pushes and somehow always manages to give Lena an out when she doesn’t want to recount a particular fact.
It’s so easy. It’s almost scary how easy it is and so the night passes with coffee and stories and smiles that come with increasing ease even to her. It’s already past midnight when it finally draws to a close – albeit with great reluctance on both ends. The café is cleaned though, chairs put up, floors wiped, and every surface so spotless that even her mother could not possibly find a flaw anymore.
“So,” Kara draws out the sound and purses her lips at the end. Lena can tell she’s shuffling with her feet behind the counter, hears her clicking the toes of her shoes together. “You’ll come back next week?” she asks. She pushes her glasses up with her index finger and refuses to look at Lena directly and Lena flushes as warmth spreads all the way through her when she realizes that Kara is nervous – She’s nervous about asking her.
“Yes,” she says quickly. Maybe embarrassingly quickly, though she’s not about to question it. Especially not when Kara smiles at her in response. The eye crinkle smile, the one she gets whenever she’s genuinely excited about something. Whenever Kara smiles at her like that, she has to resist the urge to turn around and check whether someone else is standing behind her, someone that would make a more worthy recipient of that smile. But it’s all for Lena, however difficult it may be to believe.
“Good,” Kara says, and Lena knows she means it.
Lena reaches for her wallet then and starts to open it. “Oh, absolutely not,” Kara says, stopping her in her tracks.
“Excuse me?” Lena asks.
“Don’t think I don’t know who left the absolutely ludicrous 50-dollar tip last week.”
“You didn’t let me pay.” Lena sounds incredibly accusatory even to her own ears and she cringes a little at the sound of it.
“Well I do apologize for the inconvenience,” Kara laughs. Lena laughs as well, but it comes out forced and airy and she looks down at her wallet for a moment as she becomes aware of just how out of her depth she is in this situation. Most of her relationships (okay, all of her relationships) have only ever been transactional - her money and connections a means to a certain amount of politeness and kindness. She doesn’t really know where to go from here.
“I haven’t had much practice with this,” she admits quietly.
“Free drinks?” Kara asks.
Kindness, Lena thinks. But out loud she says, “Any of this,” hoping it’s just evasive enough not to make her look like some sob case while still being true enough to make Kara understand.
“Well, you’ll have to work on it, because there’s no way I’m letting you pay,” Kara says. Her tone is jokey, but she undoubtedly means it.
Part of her wants to fight her, to throw some money at her and make a run for it. But a bigger part of her wants to try and see where this goes. Who she can be separate from her wealth. She’d very much like to try.
And so, she gets up and heads towards the doorway, hovers there for a moment, awkward and unwilling to leave, and turns back. She’s holding the door open with one hand, half outside in the darkness, half inside the café.
She hesitates a moment before she calls, “Kara?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
They slip into this routine easily from here. So easily that Lena wouldn’t be able to tell you later when they went from being strangers to being friends. Drinking coffee at Kara’s just becomes part of her week, like the dreadful dinner and the Wednesday meeting with her investors. Unlike those two, she actually looks forward to Friday nights with Kara though. She looks forward to them a lot.
It’s not even that they’re doing anything special. They’ll mostly drink their nightly cup of cinnamon coffee from increasingly larger mugs and make fun of each other for their caffeine consumption. Lena will sit on the bar stools and watch her clean her appliances and restock the cupboards. At some stage or other Kara will complain about the coffee machine and Lena will suppress a smile whenever she swears, using words such as “golly” and “fiddlesticks”.
The best part is that whenever she enters, Kara’s face lights up and she greets her with some version of “so what happened today” or “what did Lillian do this time”. Lena has long since stopped overthinking how much her chest swells with it every time. Every Friday, it’s like their conversation has never stopped and they just pick up where they left off. It’s the knowledge that at the end of each Friday night dinner someone is waiting for her and wants to know about her day. That in the end, someone will be happy to see her.
She always tells Kara about the dinners, careful to avoid any mention of her company or last name and steering clear of any potentially upsetting subjects, but it’s enough. It’s enough to hear Kara laugh at her Lillian impersonations and to see her outrage at a particularly nasty thing her mother said this time. It’s enough just to be known as Lena here. Lena with the horrible mother, who drinks coffee at midnight and gets to make Kara laugh. (It’s enough for her.)
They exchange phone numbers one day, Kara looking stupidly nervous to ask her, playing with the strings of her apron and eventually mustering up the courage to ask her whether she could possibly, perchance have her number. Like Lena would know how to say no to her. She gives it to her. Obviously. Her private number. The one that only her secretary really knows, so that she can reach her whenever she can’t bear to look at her business phone. Kara starts texting her afterwards. The occasional picture of something she baked for the café or a coffee pun that made her laugh. Sometimes it’s just a random 3pm text to ask how her day is going and every time it makes her glow.
They settle into this routine so easily that when Kara one day makes a throwaway comment about them being friends, Lena almost startles with the realization that they are. She’s never really done much of this. Friends and routines and see you next week . And she doesn’t know how she ended up in this place, sitting in a small café while Kara is cleaning plates, wearing her apron tied around her neck like a cape, already on the next subject while Lena’s mind still replays the word “friend” over and over again.
So no, they don’t do anything special. But maybe that’s the point.
When she arrives at the cafe this Friday, there’s a note stuck to the door. It’s scribbled on the back of a receipt and secured with two strips of tape. It’s difficult to read with the print of the receipt shining through against the light from the café, but when she steps closer, she’s able to make out the words.
Lena: I’m just taking out the trash, will be back in a minute. You can go inside, there’s coffee in the pot.
Everyone else: We’re closed.
It reads in Kara’s surprisingly neat handwriting. Lena smiles and reads it twice, then she reaches out to peel it off the door, carefully folds the tape back to create a clean edge and slips it into her wallet as a small keepsake. Then she steps inside the café.
She’s never been inside without Kara and it feels weirdly empty somehow. Like this place only comes to life with Kara in it. It’s even weirder to step behind the counter though. She’s never really crossed that boundary before and she feels acutely out of place as she reaches for her favorite red mug and pours herself some coffee. She doesn’t sit down yet. Sitting at the counter without Kara feels too foreign right now and so she wanders along the back wall of the café, the one that’s taken up almost entirely by blue shelves that touch the ceiling. They’re filled with magazines, pictures and other nick-nacks Kara has collected over the years and that Lena’s never really had much of a chance to look at until now.
She moves along the shelves slowly, sipping coffee as she goes and finally lingers in front of a photograph. It’s tucked into a brass frame and shows Kara and a woman with red hair beaming into the camera. Their arms are slung around each other and both of them are smiling widely into the camera. She lets her attention linger on that photograph for a moment and only turns around when the bell chimes behind her and announces Kara entering the café.
Kara’s face lights up immediately when she sees Lena. That, specifically, is something she still hasn’t gotten used to, even after months of coming here. She’s so used to people looking at the floor whenever they encounter her, to see the way they scuttle away and hope she doesn’t approach them. On the other end of the spectrum there’s business people glaring at her, immediately checking her for any sign of weakness. And then there’s Kara. Kara who beams at her whenever she sees her. Every time. Without fail.
“I see you found the coffee,” Kara says instead of a greeting.
“Yes, was that okay?”
“Yeah of course.” She laughs, “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your 10pm coffee.”
“It’s the most important coffee of the week,” Lena says as a joke…even though it isn’t.
Kara smiles and moves to sidle up next to her. “You’re looking at the pictures?”
“Yes, I can’t believe I’ve never seen them before.” Lena returns her attention to the shelf and tilts her head a little. She shifts the mug into one hand, freeing the other to point at the picture in the brass frame. “Is that Alex?”
“Yes,” Kara says. Her voice is undeniably fond even just looking at her sister. “Eliza took this the day I opened the café.”
“You look really happy.”
“I was,” Kara says simply. There’s more pictures, tucked into the corners of the shelves. Some of them are placed in frames, others are tacked to the wall or suspended on strings and attached with little pegs. They show various scenes of Kara hanging out with her friends or her family. Some of them seem to have been taken inside the café and show people sitting at the tables, grinning with a cup of coffee.
“They’re really nice pictures,” Lena says.
“Yes, you can never mention that around Eliza tough,” Kara laughs, “she has photo albums with roughly 1000 pictures worth of Alex and me growing up and she will make you look through all of them at even the slightest hint of interest.”
Lena laughs and shakes her head fondly. “That’s nice though. I wish I had more photos of happy memories to look through.”
(She wishes she had more happy memories, too. Memories she could stack in photo albums and return to on gloomy days. It seems like a great comfort somehow.)
“I take it Lillian wasn’t big on photos when you were little?”
“No.” Lena shakes her head. “We were more of an oil painting family ourselves, you know, full 80 inch canvas, because we clearly have some delusions of aristocratic grandeur to resolve.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Kara admits.
“I wish I was.” Lena chuckles a little. “We still have that family portrait up in the foyer. It glares at you whenever you enter and reminds you that we’re better than you.” She thinks about the painting for a second, the dark background. The serious family portrayed. She’s always hated it. “Come to think of it, I think it was the first family activity Lillian had us do together once the adoption went through, because, you know, nothing says family bonding than sticking a 4-year-old in a 17th century brocade dress and to then not talk to her for four hours while sitting still.” She takes a sip of coffee. “But I guess if anything it was a perfect introduction to my life in the mansion with Lillian as a mother.”
Kara is quiet for a moment and Lena wonders, as she always wonders, whether she’s said too much. Whether one day Kara is just going to be too freaked out by one of her stories.
“You’re adopted too?” Kara asks then. It’s not really the question she had expected to follow her story. She’s gotten so used to people already knowing every single detail of her upbringing and biography from the start that it never really occurred to her to mention her adoption before. Kara seems excited by it though; to learn this about her, to share this with her.
“Yes,” she replies, “Though Lillian did try to keep that particular fact very much under wraps.” She chuckles without humor. “We wouldn’t want Lionel’s illegitimate daughter to tarnish the family’s stellar reputation.”
Kara grows serious at that and Lena notices the crinkle on her forehead that always appears whenever she’s upset or worried about something. It makes her chest feel tight to see it there because of her. For her.
“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Kara says. From anyone the words would seem empty, but Lena knows she means it.
“It’s okay.” Lena tries to shrug it off. “I may not have any happy photographs, but I did rip my fancy dress while sliding down the bannister right before the picture was being painted.” She laughs a little at the memory of Lillian throwing a complete fit in the hallway about it. “Lillian spent ages draping it just right, but if you look closely, you can still make out the tear. How something about it doesn’t quite fit.”
Kara grins as well. “It’s the small acts of defiance.”
“Exactly.”
“And you know, the whole picture thing is easy to fix,” Kara says, reaching for her back pocket and producing her phone.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” Kara counters, “I still need a profile picture for your contact anyway, come on.” And with that she steps closer to Lena, flicks open the selfie camera and holds the phone an arm’s length away to get a good picture. Suddenly their faces are smushed very close together and Lena can feel the way her heart starts to beat out of her chest at the sudden proximity. She tries not to let it distract her too much though, tries to smile when Kara tells her to, while she’s taking pictures in rapid succession. Kara is changing her poses up a bit, alternating goofy expressions with bright smiles and throughout it all, Lena looks at her on the phone screen and smiles.
“There we go,” Kara says contentedly once she has taken enough pictures for her liking. Lena watches as she opens her contacts and saves the picture under her name. She manages to sneak a glance at her phone as she does so and finds that she’s saved as Lena with a heart and a coffee cup emoji next to her name. She looks away quickly, but the knowledge of it still makes her smile.
“There, I sent it to you, too,” Kara says before she puts her phone into her back pocket. Then she turns to walk back towards the counter, looking over her shoulder to ask, “so what happened at dinner?” And Lena follows her, sits down on her usual stool, and starts telling her.
Later that night, when Lena gets back into her car, she opens her phone and looks at the picture Kara had sent her. She accompanied it with a single red heart emoji and Lena takes a long time to look at it. Their cheeks are close together, almost touching, and she can feel her face burn with it, even hours later. Kara’s face is warm and open with happiness. She beams straight into the camera, nose slightly scrunched and eyes crinkling. She, herself, is smiling a softer smile, though it is no less genuine. Her eyes found Kara’s instead of looking at the camera though.
And she thinks that she likes being this Lena. The Lena Kara has saved in her phone. Lena no-last-name. Lena with a heart.