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Kara shuffles from foot to foot, suddenly regretting her decision. She's lucky she's Kryptonian, because it's freezing out here at midnight - it's so cold that she can see her breath, and it's fogging up her glasses. Standing in the grass, her sneakers damp from the dew, she curses herself that she would get all the way here before realizing this is a stupid idea. She's so impulsive and weird, she thinks. She shouldn't have snuck out, or risked being seen flying, or come here at all. But it's a little late now.
Right above her is Lena's window. It's slightly frosted over, but it's looking pretty dark in her room. I'm not going to wake her, she thinks.
Except. Lena never sleeps this early. Lena barely sleeps enough at all.
Maybe...
Biting her lip, Kara tilts her glasses a little down her nose, and lets her super-hearing decide her next move. Sure enough, Lena's heartbeat is not slow and regular like someone sleeping. In fact, Kara wonders if she's just had another cup of coffee.
Kara paces for another minute or so before deciding that it's even weirder to come all this way and stare into her friend's window and just leave than anything else.
Gathering her courage, she picks up a little pebble from the ground and throws it gently. The rock clatters against Lena's window quietly.
No answer at first.
Kara intermittently throws another pebble, then another, click, clack, click, clack, against the window pane. She gasps and covers her mouth when she accidentally throws one a bit too hard and it seems to nearly crack the window ledge, and makes an apologetic and stunned face to the wall in front of her even though no one is there to see her. Finally, she's about to throw another one when Lena opens her window.
"You know you can fly, right?" Lena hisses.
"So you can hear me," Kara says. As if on the breeze, she floats up to the second storey window to meet Lena's eyes.
Lena smiles. The curtains flutter back into the darkness of Lena's room a little in the wind, and she pulls her sweatshirt closer as she shivers. Kara thinks she's never seen anyone so beautiful.
"Me and the rest of the world, Kara. I thought the noise was hail outside or something."
"Sorry."
"Darling, I don't need any apologies when I get to see you." Lena says with a playful grin. Her green eyes are glimmering with happiness and excitement.
Kara blushes. "I was wondering, you know, if you were up-"
"I was just finishing an essay on my laptop, though I guess it's kind of in the dark now." She moves aside so Kara can see the computer on her desk, glowing white against the deep, shadowy room.
"You're going to get eyestrain." Kara warns.
"Scold me later. What brought you here, again?"
"Well since you're up, maybe, did you want to... go someplace?"
Lena raises an eyebrow, the way she always does, and Kara loves the familiarity of her gesture. "Go where?"
"The park, you know, or an ice-cream shop, or hot chocolate?"
Her smile widens. "Sure."
"Um... do you need help, getting down?" Kara asks, and quickly Lena remembers that the girl is floating in midair, her blonde ponytail defying gravity a little, and her sneakers a good 15 feet from the ground.
"Oh! Yeah, I do."
"C'mere," Kara says. She guides Lena to sit onthe ledge of the window, and wraps her arms around her waist. "Okay, I'm gonna go down now."
Lena will never get used to the feeling of flying.
It's only a short drop, and Kara is slow and careful - "humans are so fragile, Lena!" - but the momentary feeling of being in the air, no plane, no parachute, and floating just like magic... it's something out of a storybook. It's a fairytale, and it's both a jolt to her stomach and the most wonderful sensation in the world, all at once. The leaves of the tree beside them rustle in the breeze, and she reaches out to touch them. It's somehow impossible for her to believe, though she's seen it time and time again. She wants to pinch herself to check this isn't just a strange coffee-addled dream.
With a thud, her feet touch the ground. She carried down her fuzzy slippers in her hand, and the grass is cool and wet on her toes. Silently, with another glance at the house, she slips them on and she and Kara tread quietly around to the front of the house.
Neither of them talk until they're half a street away. The roads are dark, and the streetlights only illuminate a thin stretch of the path, though Kara can see a lot more when she tips her glasses down.
Best of all, she can see Lena.
The dark-haired girl is strikingly beautiful, even in the middle of the night with slight bags forming under her eyes. Her lips form a half-smile, and though it's small, Kara can tell it's more genuine than it ever is around her parents. Her pale skin and features are dappled by moonlight under the trees and clouds. The effect is ethereal, wonderful, awe-inspiring, and wholly Lena Luthor. She looks otherworldly, in a way that's oddly comforting. Like how Kara's home is otherworldly: just because it's far away, it doesn't mean it isn't familiar.
"So," Kara whispers eventually, "Where to?"
"Well it's freezing out, so maybe that hot chocolate place you mentioned earlier?"
"Okay. But no hot coffees - or mochas. You're gonna give yourself a heart attack." Kara shivers as though the thought of it is physically painful for her.
"That would be incredibly unfortunate," Lena says, and then laughs at Kara's crinkled-forehead expression. "No, I mean that literally, it's unfortunate because it's unlikely. It's exceedingly rare for someone under 20 to have a heart attack, especially if they have no underlying disease, like congenital heart defects or high blood pressure. And since I don't smoke and eat healthily, it's nearly imposs-"
"Don't say that! You're tempting fate," Kara huffs.
Lena laughs at her again. "Not when I have my own personal superhero to save me."
"But I'm not a doctor! And I'm not really a superhero. I'm a 17-year-old who saves kittens out of tall trees when no one's looking."
"You're also a 17-year-old who lifts cars off children and sees through walls and is bulletproof," Lena points out. "You don't have to have a cape to be special. Of course, you don't have to act like a hero around me, either, though."
She lifts Kara's chin softly, so she can only just see her face lit up by the warm, yellow glow of a streetlamp.
"I like Kara Danvers. Just the way she is. No superpowers required."
Lena kisses her cheek, then, lightly, her cold lips chilling Kara's skin, though it burns as she goes red a second later. In the moonlight, Lena takes Kara's hand and poises like she's about to dance. Her laugh rings too loud for the night, like silver bells.
Yes, Kara thinks, otherworldly, and just like home.