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Alex’s moment of clarity comes during an ordinary game night at her sister’s apartment.
Playing poker had sounded way more fun than it turned out to be, who knew a single game could even go on this long? It’s down to Supergirl and the Last Luthor, everyone else having gone bust ages ago. Alex is sitting on the couch with Kelly beside her, both of them nursing glasses of wine. J’onn is in a chair on the other side of the coffee table dealing cards, and M’gann is talking with Nia in the kitchen, while the latter keeps an eye on Brainy who is trying to pop popcorn on the stove. Only Kara and Lena are still sitting on the floor, tucked next to each other at the far end of the coffee table and waiting for J’onn to finish laying down the final community card.
There’s a mountain of chips in the middle of the table already, and, from the looks of it, the end may finally be in sight. Lena is peering at her hand, glancing to where J’onn has just flipped over the river.
When Alex looks at her sister, she’s unsurprised to find that Kara is looking at Lena instead of her own cards. And that isn’t really anything special—Kara has spent most of the evening quoting Casino Royal (“you never play your cards, Alex, you play the man across from you”) and even though powers have been banned for the evening so heartbeats are out of the question, Kara has continued to make a big deal about looking for tells.
But.
The expression on her sister's face isn’t calculating. It’s soft. As if what Kara is looking for while she stares at Lena has nothing to do with cards at all.
Maybe it’s the quality of that look, because Alex suddenly re-evaluates how closely Kara and Lena are still sitting to each other. That proximity had made sense when there were eight of them packed in around the table, sure, but now?
Lena and Kara almost always end up sitting next to each other at game nights—so their proximity is nothing unusual in and of itself. Alex starts racking her brain, trying to figure out why the picture she’s seeing right now feels so different. It could be that, with Nia and M’gann deserting the group to babysit Brainy at the stove, and herself and Kelly having retreated to the couch, for once, Alex isn’t watching her sister and Lena in a group.
Instead, it feels as if she’s watching them while they’re alone.
There’s something—the word hits her and Alex sits up a little. There’s something intimate between the two of them. It’s in the way Lena playfully leans in like she’s trying to see Kara’s cards, and how Kara’s response is to let out a plaintive sounding Lena and to lean her own shoulder against Lena’s like she’s both trying to push Lena away and prolong their contact. They’re laughing, teasing each other as they finalize their bets. When Kara declares herself all in, she leans in towards Lena again, bumping their shoulders together and smiling so widely that Lena’s face blooms into a matching smile even as Kara reaches for Lena’s chips to push them into the middle saying, “if I’m all in, so are you.”
Let it not be said that Alex has never before considered the possibility that her sister and Lena have feelings for each other. Big feelings, even. Big, non-platonic, definitely romantic, more-than-best-friend feelings. It’s just that she’s never quite been sure.
For one, Kara’s never brought it up. Never even hinted at it. And this is one of those things, right? One of those things that, if Kara knew that she had these feelings, she’d tell Alex because they’re sisters and best friends and that’s what they do: they tell each other the big important things.
And Kara being in love with Lena? That would absolutely qualify as a Big Important Thing.
So, yes. Alex has considered the possibility before this moment, she’s just been inclined to dismiss it a little. The closest she’s gotten to being near-certain about Kara’s feelings was when that little fifth-dimensional twat had shown up to grant an apology wish: the idea that, of all the things in her life, of everything he could have given her, he knew that what Kara wanted was Lena back?
Yeah. Alex isn’t absolutely stupid, okay?
But when Kara told her about all the different timelines Mxy had taken her to, there wasn’t a single one where they’d been, well, together-together. And so Alex had wondered if maybe she was just reading into everything too much.
But watching her sister and Lena right now? Alex would have to be completely illiterate to dismiss this.
She looks over at Kelly, the question Are you seeing what I’m seeing already starting to form in her mouth, but she’s stopped by an absolute eruption of noise from the table. Apparently the hands have finally been revealed—Nia is shouting, Brainy is exclaiming at the low likelihood of Lena’s hand having been beaten (and where was that card shark acumen when he was playing, huh?) and M’gann and J’onn are congratulating Kara on her victory.
The night winds down about an hour after that, a quick round of Rapid Fire energizing and ultimately exhausting everyone until people start to yawn and pack up. Back in the group, Lena and Kara seem less wrapped up in each other, but there’s an undercurrent of something between the two of them that’s undiminished. Now that Alex has seen it for certain, it’s like she can’t unsee it. And although Lena is among the first to leave, the hug that Kara gives her is definitely longer than any of the others.
At the end of it all, Alex is really left with only two questions: How long has her sister had feelings for Lena? And is it possible that Kara somehow doesn’t know?
____
When they get home that night, Alex goes through the motions of getting ready for bed. She brushes her teeth and washes her face, changes into boxers and a loose t-shirt that Kelly thinks she looks good in, kisses her girlfriend goodnight, and turns out the light.
But she can’t sleep. Kelly turns over next to her, rolling away and snoring lightly, taking half the sheets with her, and Alex barely notices.
The questions just keep bouncing around in her brain, playing over and over again like the world’s shittiest earworm: now that she’s certain Kara has feelings for Lena (and okay, it’s been a long time coming, fine, but she’s here now), how long has she had them? And god, is it really possible that Kara hasn’t realized she’s in love with her best friend?
That second question is the crux of the issue.
It’s not that she isn’t running back through the last five years trying to figure out when her sister might have started falling for Lena, because Alex absolutely is and it’s going to drive her insane until she figures it out. It’s just, if Kara knew about her own feelings, she’d talk to Alex, right? They talk about everything. Kara keeps a lot of secrets from people, but not from her. So, Kara can’t know. Or, maybe, she’s figured it out but only recently, or is in the process of figuring it out...but that gets back to the first question again, which is how long has this been happening.
Kelly mumbles something that sounds like “doughnut.”
Alex squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath before letting it out slowly. There’s no sense in driving herself nuts, it’s not like she can figure any of this out on her own in the middle of the night. She’ll just need to bring it up with Kara at sister's night next week. She can do that. She can wait. She is a paragon of patience.
She starts running through the progressive relaxation technique they learned at the academy to help facilitate sleep.
Wait, Alex sits up. Progressive relaxation isn’t the only thing I learned at the academy.
She gets out of bed. It’s gonna be a long night.
______
When Kelly makes her way into the kitchen the next morning, Alex hands her a bear claw and a cup of coffee.
“How did you know I was craving sugar?” Kelly asks, kissing her on the cheek and blinking a little, clearly not yet awake. She takes a bite and makes her way over to the kitchen table to sit down.
“Call it intuition,” Alex says, smiling at her and then turning back to the five by six corkboard she’s leaned against the wall by the TV. She squints at it and then glances down at the picture in her hand. It’s one that Nia had taken at the first game night after they rescued Kara from the Phantom Zone. J’onn had hosted, everyone giddy with Kara’s return, but of all the pictures taken that night, this one is objectively the best. In it, Nia’s managed to catch Kara and Lena alone in the kitchen, Lena in the midst of ducking her head and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear while Kara leans into her smiling, one of her hands on Lena’s lower back. They look like a couple. God, how did Alex ever doubt this?
“Babe?” Kelly calls out across the room, but Alex is still distracted looking at the photo. “What on earth are you doing?”
“I’ll explain in a sec.” She pins the picture up on the far right of the board, then turns around in a circle looking at the rest of the pictures she’s printed off. They’re laying haphazardly in roughly chronological piles on the carpet. “Hey, can you grab that box of thumbtacks from the counter and bring them over here? I’m out.”
She kneels down to shuffle through the Year Four pile, a picture from the Pulitzer Party fluttering away from her.
She can hear Kelly get up and pick up the box, then walk over to stand in front of the corkboard. “I said, what on earth are you—Alex, is this a murder board of your sister’s relationship with Lena?”
“Don’t make fun of me,” Alex says, stretching out after the Pulitzer picture and standing up. “Whenever there’s something I’m having trouble putting together, this is an easy tool to sort it out, okay?
Kelly sets the box of tacks down on the coffee table and walks closer to the board—it’s covered in pictures. “I’ve never seen some of these.” When Alex looks over, dusting off her knees, she sees Kelly squinting at one in particular—it’s from the first Christmas Lena had joined them for the holiday party at Kara’s, dutifully filed under a piece of paper labeled Year Two. “This one is right before Lena and my brother got together, isn’t it? I remember him telling me about that party. Where did you get all of these pictures?”
“Kara’s iCloud password is my birthday.” Alex shrugs.
Kelly glances over sharply, one eyebrow raised, possibly in censure, but instead she asks, “And these are all from Kara’s phone?”
“Yeah.” Alex nods, grimly. “In fact—grab that pen? That fact goes in the column on the list to your right.”
Kelly turns to a piece of paper tacked up at the far right of the board, just beyond the recently added game night picture. It’s labeled in all capitals: “EVIDENCE THAT KARA IS IN LOVE WITH LENA.” Kelly turns back to Alex and rolls her eyes, but she writes the number one followed by the words Keeps photos of Lena on her phone.
Alex squints at it and shakes her head. “It’s worse than that—I happen to know she didn’t even take all of these herself. ‘Keeps’ doesn’t accurately capture what’s happening here.” She frowns, humming as she thinks. “Better change that to ‘collects.’”
Kelly caps the pen and places it on the coffee table, picking up her mug again. “Are you really making a list of things that point to your sister being in love with Lena?”
“Yes, why?”
“Don’t we all already know this?” Kelly takes a sip of her coffee and gestures at the board with her other hand. “Isn’t this pretty much the biggest open secret left? It’s, I don’t know, one of those things nobody talks about but everyone knows. I think I knew about this before I knew Kara was Supergirl.”
“What?” Alex splutters. “No! I mean. Look. I’m certain Kara has feelings for her, okay? I’m a lot less certain that Kara’s aware of her own feelings. And I’m going to ignore the fact that you just said you knew Kara was in love with Lena before I did, okay?”
“Okay.” Kelly smiles sympathetically. “So the list should really be titled ‘Evidence that Kara knows she’s in love with Lena.’”
“It was too long for the paper. Are you going to help me figure this out or not?”
Kelly just laughs, then nods at the board. “Why is there no list about Lena?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re starting a list of evidence pointing to Kara’s awareness that she might be in love with Lena, where’s the list of evidence that Lena knows she’s in love with Kara?”
“I’m not worried about Luthor—she knows.” Alex shakes her head. “She practically confessed to me when Kara was stuck in the Phantom Zone. She wanted to pick Kara over the whole world, remember?” She walks over to where Kelly is standing and prises the mug out of her hands to steal a sip. “No, I think she knows how she feels and she either thinks Kara doesn’t feel the same, or that Kara doesn’t know, and she’s never gonna rock the boat with something like this, not after the year they’ve had. Not unless Kara rocks it first.”
“And is that what we’re doing? Trying to figure out if Kara is going to rock the boat?”
“Yeah. Or figuring out how hard we need to rock Kara first.”
Kelly sighs. “Have you considered asking your sister?”
Kelly’s smiling when she asks, but the question reminds Alex of the anxiety that’s driving this. She glances at the board and then back to Kelly.
“I’m kind of operating under the assumption that Kara isn’t aware of her feelings. Or, if she is, it’s new.”
“Any particular reason for that?”
“If she knows and hasn’t told me...”
“Oh honey,” Kelly says, taking a step closer to Alex and holding out her free hand. Alex grabs for it. “Is this really about Kara’s feelings for Lena, or is this about you being worried that she’s keeping something from you?”
“Can it be both?” She winces a little at her own question. “Look, I wasn’t sure about Kara’s feelings until last night. The way she looked at Lena, the way they were together, you know?” Kelly nods. “I’ll ask Kara about this, I swear. But.” She pauses trying to figure out the best way to put it. “I want to figure out what I missed first.”
_____
By the time she finishes the board, and the list, Alex has come to the conclusion that she's missed a lot. But she’s equally certain that Kara’s missed even more.
The pictures under years one through four are mostly a lesson in how Lena Luthor looks when she’s pining for someone—no wonder Kelly thought this was the last open secret. It’s pretty clear that no one can argue that Lena Luthor hasn’t been pining after Kara for years.
But Kara? It’s harder to tell.
In the dozens and dozens of photographs that Alex has put together from the moment Lena showed up in National City to the moment everything fell apart between them at the Fortress, Kara mostly appears overwhelmingly content (if Alex has to pick a word). Prior to their fallout, the way Kara looks at Lena is full of love, sure, but what kind? She beams in every photograph, and there’s something bubbly and unrestrained in the way she looks at Lena, but beyond pictures from the James and Lena dating era where Kara looks mostly like she has some sort of indigestion in all of the group shots, there’s nothing to suggest any of the feelings that might come along with realizing she’s in love with her best friend and being either unable or unwilling to do anything about it. She looks as if she has everything she wants—as long as Lena’s around.
All of that changes in the pictures of the two of them from after the Phantom Zone.
Alex will admit that it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions given that Kara’s only been home for a few weeks and the depth of material is therefore so much shallower in comparison, but there’s an unmistakable change in the way her sister looks at Lena, especially in photographs where Lena is looking somewhere else. There’s an undercurrent of longing that wasn’t there before.
“So Kara probably knows,” Alex sighs out, running through the evidence over pork lo mein later that night.
Kelly hums, nodding like none of this is a surprise. It probably isn’t to her. “And you should probably talk to her.” She gives Alex a warm, understanding smile.
“Yeah.” Alex swallows the bite she’s just taken. “Yeah. I probably should.”
The week drags on almost interminably after her revelation, but this isn’t the sort of conversation that Alex wants to rush. She’s not about to text Kara and be like, Hey I noticed you’re in love with Lena, why haven’t you told me? Because that’s a) a little aggressive, and b) not likely to encourage Kara to open up the way Alex wants her to.
She shows up after work on Friday at Kara’s apartment, a six-pack and takeaway in hand, and pretty much no plan except to try to feel her sister out. There’s always a chance that Kara is just waiting to be asked, but has been afraid to bring it up for whatever reason.
‘For whatever reason.’ Alex snorts at herself as she knocks on the door, feeling a tiny sting of shame. A reason like maybe how less than a year ago I was ready to blow Lena up with that Claymore satellite.
Sister’s night gets off to a great start, Kara asking about Kelly and moving in together and how everything has been going. They settle in with dinner and drinks on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other with plates in their laps. Kelly is easy to talk about—she’s probably Alex’s favorite subject—but Alex has a goal she doesn't want to lose sight of, and after a suitable interlude, she pauses, searching for a way to bring up Lena without dropping it like a bomb in the middle of the living room.
“So,” she twists the beer bottle in her hands and decides to start off easy. “What’s new with you? Anything I should know?”
“Um, not really?” Kara laughs, putting the last bite in her mouth so that her next words come out mumbled. “Like what?”
Maybe Kara just needs a little nudge. “Like, in the romance department?” Alex tries.
It’s fast, and if Alex didn’t know Kara better than anyone else in the world, it would be easy to miss, but she sees her sister freeze for the briefest of moments.
“No, things never really panned out with William, you know,” Kara says, recovering quickly and wiping her hands on a napkin, but she’s looking at her plate and not at Alex. “So, nope! Nothing new there.”
Shit. Alex takes a second to recalibrate. “What about something not so new?” Jesus, she wants to smack herself.
Kara furrows her eyebrows, looking genuinely confused and making eye contact with Alex for the first time since she said the word romance. “Something not so new?”
Alex has already decided that she won’t ask about Lena directly. Maybe she’s wrong, maybe Kara hasn’t gotten there, maybe she just needs a little more time. If that’s the case, Alex can wait.
But she’s got to give it one more shot.
“Well, not something,” she says, floundering a little bit. “More like someone not so new?”
Kara’s reaching for her glass on the coffee table in front of them when Alex says that, and she freezes again. This time, though, it would be obvious to anyone watching. When she recovers, Kara finishes grabbing for her glass, wrapping a hand around it and sitting back on the couch, staring at the condensation on the outside of it.
Neither one of them says anything for a long moment.
The fact that Kara isn’t denying it, isn’t laughing and asking what she’s talking about, but instead is sitting motionless on the other end of the couch speaks volumes.
So Kara does know.
Alex tries to keep her breathing even. It’s hard not to let the way this hurts get out in front of wanting to know what’s going on with her sister. Neither one of them have said Lena’s name, but it doesn’t take scientific deduction to understand which elephant is sitting in the middle of the room now.
“Hey,” she says at last, once it’s clear that Kara isn’t going to say anything, because as much as she does want to discuss it? If Kara really doesn’t want to talk to her about this, Alex isn’t going to make her. “You don’t have to tell me anything, I just—I want you to know that you can tell me, if you want. That I’m here and I want to hear about it and I’m sorry for anything I’ve done to make you think twice about that.”
She can see the breath Kara takes. “It’s not you, Alex.”
“Can I—” Alex places her empty bottle on the table next to her. She tries to keep her tone as soft, as safe as possible. “Can I ask why you didn’t tell me?” She barrels on before Kara can comment, her anxiety finally getting the better of her. “Is it because you were worried I wouldn’t be happy for you? I know last year was rough on everyone and I know I didn’t give Lena the benefit of the doubt after she used Kryptonite on you, but you were right about her and I know that. I’m over the moon for you—”
“Alex…” Kara starts, looking inexplicably nervous.
“Really, I am, I promise! If you have feelings for her, I think that’s amazing. God knows—”
“I’m in love with her, Alex,” Kara shouts, “and I wish I’d never figured it out!”
“What?” Alex is a little taken aback by the anguish in Kara’s voice as much as the volume. Whatever she was expecting in response, it isn’t this: Kara, clearly upset, and looking like she might be about to cry. “I’m happy for you, Kara, this is gre—”
“No, Alex, it’s not great!” Kara bites it out. “I didn’t even know I could want someone like this. Not until recently and it never—” She takes a deep breath, and oh, Alex didn’t see this coming at all. “I’m so scared, Alex.”
Kara puts her glass back on a coaster and tugs a blanket into her lap instead, wipes her hands on it and starts picking at a loose thread.
“Is it…” Alex takes a deep breath of her own, “is it about her being a woman?”
“No.” Kara shakes her head. She looks frustrated, her forehead is creased and her gaze won’t settle anywhere, darting around the room like she’s looking for an anchor. “That’s not it. On Krypton it was about the Matrix rather than individual attraction. And then I came here and it…” She blows out a breath. “I spent a very long time trying to fit in.” She shrugs, her tone slipping into something close to resigned. “It was so important to everyone that I fit in, and at some point—I don’t know if this makes any sense—but at some point it’s like, the ways I worked to fit in, they became a habit, you know? I mean obviously some of it was conscious, like, don’t use your powers, but some of it…”
She trails off for a moment and looks out the window. Alex follows her gaze. It’s getting close to sundown out; the buildings in National City’s skyline twinkling unevenly, everything awash in the golden, low-angled light. Kara’s voice breaking the silence pulls Alex back.
“You remember Midvale. Normal girls didn’t...Normal girls liked boys. So I liked boys. And I did!” Kara’s still twisting her hands together. “I do! And once I realized I liked boys, why would I spend any time thinking about the alternative? I never, never questioned it, I never wondered. It wasn’t until you came out that I had a moment of, what if I—”
Alex has a lot of memories from the earliest days after meeting Maggie—how it felt like the whole world had been turned upside down. She remembers breaking down on this very couch, telling Kara how she was feeling, what it meant. She’s been so wrapped up in the excitement of all of this detective work, and the anxiety of what Kara keeping something from her might mean, but seeing Kara teetering on the edge of tears right now, Alex has a sudden horrifying thought: had she missed that Kara might have feelings for Lena back then because she had been so wrapped up in what had been happening for her at the same time?
She opens her mouth to try to put words to the idea, but Kara cuts her off.
“No, no, Alex. This isn’t on you.” And how does Kara already know where Alex’s guilt has gone? “I’m not saying what I mean. I don’t even know what I mean. I’m just saying that maybe it took me a long time to figure it out, but it’s not the queer thing that I’m upset about.” The smile she gives Alex is small, but genuine. “I guess for me, it was like you before you met Maggie: it just never occurred to me.”
Kara looks down and away, doesn’t keep going, so Alex takes a chance. “...But it occurred to you about her?” Because the thing that coincided with Maggie entering Alex’s life was Lena entering Kara’s.
Kara nods. She seems on the verge of saying more, but it’s as if she’s not sure how. Watching her sister fidget on the couch, Alex suddenly realizes something else: Kara has never talked about this before, with anyone.
She remembers what it was like to have that experience with Maggie—this tidal wave of feelings and thoughts and not knowing where to begin and...and if she missed that this was happening for Kara in real time, the thing that Alex can do now is make space for her sister, the way that Kara made space for her.
“How did you figure it out?” She asks gently. “When did it start?”
She knows these are the right questions when Kara looks up at her with an expression of such relief it makes Alex’s heart clench in her chest.
“I can’t ever stop thinking about her, Alex.” Her fingers go still for the first time since they sat down. “I’ve never been able to. It’s obvious now.” Kara lifts the corner of her mouth in a small half-smile, her eyes unfocused somewhere in the middle distance, and Alex can see the memory of confusion in her face. “I didn’t understand it for so long, I don’t think I really wanted to. I had like, one moment of wondering when you told me about Maggie and then I just…I wrote it off. But, looking back?” She shrugs, then looks up at Alex.
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to be around her all the time. I’d make stupid excuses to go to her office to get a quote, I pitched absurd articles to Snapper that would require contacting her. I invited her to game night even when she told me she wasn’t here to make friends.” She gives a self-deprecating chuckle, shakes her head a little. “She was never anything but polite and professional and I couldn’t control myself. Even as Supergirl, any time she was in danger, it was like I couldn’t focus on anything beyond getting to her.”
Alex can remember those days well. Hell, Kara’s recitation pretty much matches the list Kelly had helped her come up with point for point. And hearing Kara recount it, Alex really can’t believe she never stopped to wonder what was drawing her sister in with such gravity in those early days. That it took her so long to consider attraction as a possibility seems impossible.
“It didn’t help that the first year she was here, I was dealing with Mon-El,” Kara says, looking back down at her lap. “Things were never easy with him, but at least they were obvious, you know? I didn’t have to think about it. He pursued me and maybe it took a minute, but I did love him—I cared so much about him by the end.” She fidgets with the blanket and then relaxes her fingers, smoothing out the wrinkles. “But when he and Lena were on the Daxamite ship? I told Cat that there were two people up there that I loved and I never even stopped to disentangle my feelings about the two of them, I was just so focused on getting there. And then I was in so much grief when I lost him…” Kara looks up at Alex, bites at her lower lip. “Do you remember who pulled me out of it?”
“Lena.”
“Yeah. Lena.” Kara shakes her head and lets out a shrill, painful laugh. “I still didn’t question our relationship, or at least how I thought about our relationship.”
It hits Alex then, what happened next. “And then she dated James.”
Kara nods. “I was happy about that at first. I mean, it’s James, he’s great. And Lena is…I don’t know, I got so excited. Except…” Kara swallows and Alex can hear it.
“Except?”
“I started feeling weird, like, physically weird.” Kara puts a hand on her chest and presses her fingers in as if to illustrate her point. “And irritable whenever they were around together. And it never happened when it was just Lena, but then we were fighting and it all fell apart anyway.” She drops her hand back to her lap. “I knew there was something wrong with me when I asked James to check out her lab—I think, I think I wanted him on the same footing as me. I wanted him to be lying to her, too.” Her voice is small, a defeated curve to her shoulders now. “It was getting hard and horrible to be fighting with her as Supergirl and still be her best friend as Kara, and I just wanted him on an even playing field. If he was hurting her, too, then it wasn’t just me, you know?”
“But he didn’t lie to her.” Alex keeps her voice soft. “He told her you’d asked.”
“Yeah.” And if it’s possible, Alex watches her sister fold into herself even further. “That’s when I knew I was losing her.” She pauses and then corrects herself. “Had lost her. We were heading to Sam’s, I think, we were in an elevator and I hadn’t seen her in what felt like forever as Kara and it felt so good to hug her. I don’t remember who brought up Supergirl, but I thought we’d fixed things. I’d made so many mistakes with her when I had the suit on and I thought she’d forgiven me, but in the elevator she told me nothing was fixed, not really, because she was never going to trust me again—” Kara stumbles, “not me Kara, me Supergirl. And I knew, I knew if I told her who I really was…”
“And then Lex told her anyway.” Alex can see Kara start to struggle not to cry.
Kara nods again, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands, pressing them in hard as if the force will keep her feelings from pouring out. She takes a deep breath. “I thought by then maybe that I had a chance. Do you remember, after he told her but before we knew, when I was trying to confess about Supergirl?”
Alex nods and Kara mirrors it unconsciously.
“I’ve never been so scared of anything in my entire life, Alex. Not of dying, not of being powerless, not of any of the things I’ve ever had to do as Supergirl or as Kara—nothing was like facing the possibility of losing her.” There’s pressure to Kara’s speech now, a clear undercurrent of lingering regret and confusion and hurt. “And I still didn’t understand why nothing had ever felt that way! I didn’t even think about why it was!”
Alex wants to go back in time, to help Kara face it, to make things play out differently, even though she knows that there’s nothing that would have changed this trajectory. Kara knows that, too. Her sister lets out a wet sniffle and Alex does the one thing she can do right now, other than listen: she hands her a tissue.
Kara takes it gratefully, blows her nose and balls it up, tossing it on the coffee table.
“After I told her and I thought we were okay, it was like being able to breathe again. I felt so free, so happy and I spent so much time with her.” She stops,then reaches for another tissue on her own as her eyes start to well up again. “I thought, I really thought everything was okay.”
“That’s when I started wondering, actually,” Alex says to break the silence.
“What?” Kara blows her nose again and looks at her sister.
“The identity thing. You were terrified to tell her. And I couldn’t figure out why.” Alex runs a hand through her hair. “I mean, I knew she was important to you before then, but Kara, you were on another level. I’d never seen you like that. And then after? You flew all around the world getting her favorite foods, you were over at her apartment like, every day. You should have heard yourself talk about giving her the signal watch.”
“Well, I still didn’t know.” Kara starts picking at the tissue in her hands. “All I knew then was that being around her felt like the sun and I was so grateful that I hadn’t lost her. And I really could be around her all the time. I didn’t have to lie about anything any more.”
“And then everything went to hell again,” Alex says, her voice gentle, and Kara nods, not looking up from the tissue she’s reducing to uselessness. Alex can still remember the look on Kara’s face after Lena confronted her at the Fortress, the weeks of deepening depression that followed.
“Yeah.” Kara finishes shredding the tissue. “And then everything went to hell again.”
They’re quiet for a moment.
“You know,” Alex says, “I might have wondered how you felt starting then, but I didn’t start really suspecting that your feelings for her might be a little beyond friends until Mxy showed up with that wish and you spent it trying to figure out how to make it so you’d never lost her. And even then, I couldn’t be sure.”
“It still took me a bit longer.” Kara twists her lips together, then balls up the pieces of tissue and places them in the growing pile on the table. “I didn’t put it together it until we were at the Fortress, after she’d come to me wanting to help with Lex and the lenses, and I thought I was going to die.”
Even now, knowing that Kara survives, Alex’s heart freezes in her chest. She reaches out a hand, places it on the couch between them and Kara leans forward, squeezes her hand and holds Alex's gaze.
Eventually, she lets go and leans back.
“There was—” Kara looks down at her lap, picking at the cuticle of her left thumb. “This is going to sound really stupid.”
Alex shakes her head to reassure Kara, but her sister doesn’t look up and Alex isn’t sure if she sees. It doesn’t seem to matter either way because Kara doesn’t stop.
“There was this moment. I’d just hugged you and you left, and I turned to her and Alex,” Kara looks up, her hands going still, “I couldn’t say goodbye to her. The words wouldn’t come. I suddenly knew that if I, if I held her,” Kara’s voice breaks a little on held and Alex’s heart does the same, “I wouldn’t be able to go. I’d never thought about kissing her before, but I wanted to right then, more than anything in the world. That’s the moment I finally understood that it isn’t just friendship—I’m in love with her.”
Kara lets that hang in the air.
“She didn’t sleep while you were gone.” Alex says at last. “Hell, she almost traded the world for you. I know we haven’t talked about it much, but Kara, that’s when I knew just how big her feelings for you are. She didn’t leave the lab, she wouldn’t talk to us about anything except for getting you back. I thought she was going to work herself to death.”
“Brainy told me a little about it.”
“So then, you’ve got to know she feels the same, Kara. Why would you say,” and Alex’s confusion is genuine because this doesn’t make sense, “why would you say you wish you’d never figured it out?”
“What if it doesn’t work out, Alex?!” Kara’s upset again in a flash. “We barely survived the last time around. I can’t lose her again. What if I take this chance and it doesn’t work out?”
There’s something about how Kara references the last time around and that’s when Alex finally sees what her sister is so afraid of. “What if it does?”
“You can’t know that,” Kara bites out, voice elevated.
“Neither can you!” Alex practically shouts back. Kara opens her mouth to protest again, but Alex has to get this out. “You’ve both devastated each other in so many ways, but you’ve come back from it every time—no matter how hard it’s been or how long it’s taken, you’ve gotten through it. I’ve never seen you work towards anyone the way you work towards her, and as far as I can tell? The same is true for Lena. So wanting to avoid having to go through it again? I get it, I promise. But Kara,” Alex shakes her head gently, “there are no guarantees you won’t hurt her again, and vice versa, no matter what shape your relationship takes.”
Kara looks away from her and Alex knows she’s hit the right nerve. She almost leaves the conversation there to give her a break, but finds she can’t. “Kara?”
Her sister looks back.
“How would you feel if Lena started seeing someone else again?”
“Devastated. But if she’s happy—”
Alex cuts her off. “And how do you think she would feel if you started seeing someone?”
“Alex, you don’t know—”
“But I do! We all do!” Alex wants to shake her sister. “Kara, unless the two of you just never date anyone else ever again, you’re each going to be in pain—and god, for that matter, even if neither of you ever does and you just, I don’t know, exist in this terrible fucking stasis...Do you know how I figured out that you knew you had feelings for her?”
“Because I’m crappy at lying?”
“No, kiddo, that’s not how.” Alex takes a deep breath. “Pictures. Pictures of the two of you, together and in groups, ever since you met.”
“I’m that obvious, huh?”
“Actually no,” Alex can’t help letting out a soft laugh, “you look absolutely oblivious for the most part.” Kara stretches one leg across the couch and kicks her thigh. Alex shrugs, unapologetic, before getting serious again. “It’s because since you got back from the Phantom Zone, in every picture I could find of the two of you where she’s not looking at you, you’re staring at her like she’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Alex waits to see if Kara will try to refute that, but she’s silent, looking back down at her lap.
“And yet,” Alex ducks her head to catch Kara’s eye. “You’re here, and forgive me, but you seem absolutely miserable. So I’m just, I’m trying to understand. Tell me how not acting on these feelings, how not taking this leap is saving you from all that potential pain.”
Kara doesn’t answer right away and when she does, it’s with a question of her own. “You really think she feels the same way?”
“I do.”
Kara fidgets, pulling at a thread on the blanket.
“I’m scared, Alex.”
“I know you are.”
‘You’re saying I should tell her anyway?”
“I’m saying—” Alex stops, thinks about what she really is trying to say. “I’m saying that I don’t know anyone in the universe who deserves to be happy more than you. And I think she makes you happier than I’ve ever seen.”
______
When Alex eventually leaves to go home, she hugs Kara for a very long time at the door. “I’m sorry if Sister’s Night wasn’t the relaxing evening you’d imagined,” she says when she pulls back, giving Kara a half smile.
“Don’t be,” Kara says. She scuffs her foot on the floor. “I’m glad you made me talk and I’m...I’m going to think about what you said.”
“Keep me posted?” Alex can’t help asking.
“I promise.”
________
Over the next several weeks, Alex can’t help watching her sister closely whenever Lena is around, looking for some sort of change. To the untrained eye, it probably doesn’t seem like anything is different: Kara still watches Lena like she’s the only person in the room whether they’re at game night or out in the masses at the National City Zoo, and if it didn’t sound so fucking maudlin, Alex would have to describe the quality of all that staring as something akin to yearning.
But Alex can tell that something has started to shift. Kara’s always been tactile with her friends, and with Lena in particular, but it’s as if she’s testing the waters. The fingers that used to briefly touch Lena’s back when they stand next to one another start to linger. When making their way over to the panda enclosure, Kara grabs Lena's hand to navigate the crowds and doesn’t let go until Brainy pops up between them with a guidebook and starts reading aloud.
It’s hard to resist bringing it up again, but Alex has to trust her sister. When Kara’s ready, she’ll let Alex know.
Six weeks after their talk, Kara texts Alex at five in the morning, asking to grab coffee with her before work.
She waits until they’re both sitting on stools facing out of the window at Noonan’s before saying, simply, “I’m gonna tell her.”
Alex nearly falls over, but does her best to keep her face and voice neutral so that Kara can get out whatever she needs to without extra pressure. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Kara is smiling, looking down at her drink. “You, um,” she spins the mug around on the counter that runs along the window in front of them, “you were right. She makes me happy. And—” Kara draws in a big breath and lets it out in a whoosh, “I think I make her happy too. And maybe there’s no guarantee we won’t hurt each other somehow, but I can’t imagine my life without her in every part of it. And if she wants that, too? Then it’s worth the risk.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Alex can’t control the size of her smile. She knocks their shoulders together as Kara grins into her drink. “So what’s the plan?”
“I don’t have one yet.” Kara looks over at her, her own smile growing to match Alex’s. She’s glowing and Alex realizes that this is the most weightless she’s seen her sister in god knows how long. “I only decided this morning, I haven’t gotten that far.”
At the admission that this decision is so recent it probably only occurred moments prior to the text asking Alex to grab coffee, Alex wants to cry with relief but that would be weird and also she doesn’t cry in public. Or ever. She decides to be practical instead. “Well, do you want help coming up with a plan?”
“Gosh yes,” Kara blurts out. “Please.”
_______
“Babe,” Kelly sighs out for maybe the twentieth time, “stop checking your phone. She’ll text.”
“I know, I know,” Alex says, checking her phone again just in case. “I’m just nervous, are you nervous?”
“Nervous about what?” Her girlfriend laughs. “Are you worried Lena is going to, what, reject her?”
“No! I just, I wanna know how it’s going!”
“Oh, I think the radio silence tells you how it’s going,” Kelly says and Alex whips her head up at the suggestive undertone in Kelly’s voice.
“What?” She looks back down at her phone. Kara had gone over to Lena’s about two hours ago after a pep talk from Alex and Kelly. “Why would…” Her eyes widen as the implication sets in.
Kelly hums, smiling. “You there yet?” She asks brightly.
“Oh god, you think, you think they—that they—that Kara…” Alex trails off, absolutely unwilling to give voice to what Kelly’s implying.
“They could be talking,” Kelly offers, shrugging like she thinks that’s not at all what Kara and Lena are doing at this moment. “Or they could be—”
“Don’t say it,” Alex puts up a hand. “That is my baby sister. They have a lot to talk about and I am sure that they are absolutely taking things slowly and oh god I just made a huge deal about wanting to know everything.” She looks down at the phone. “I’m gonna have to hear about them having sex, aren’t I?”
“Maybe, but as long as you look that constipated I’m sure Kara won’t bring it up again.”
Alex puts her face in her hands. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe they’re just holding hands.”
“Yes,” Kelly says in a voice so insincere that Alex looks around for a pillow to throw at her but can't find one, “they're holding hands. Because that’s what we did after I told you I was in love with you, we held—”
Alex cuts her off with a groan.
______
Alex gets woken up by a text close to midnight and luckily there’s no sex mentioned at all: IT WENT WELL!!!! Can’t wait to tell you everything. Sis Night this weekend?!
A picture comes through right after.
It’s a selfie of her sister and Lena on Lena’s couch, Lena’s arms wrapped around Kara’s middle and Kara with her own arm slung over Lena’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to Lena’s cheek. The two of them look marvelously happy.
There’s also a very visible hickey on Lena’s neck. Alex sighs. Sometimes being a good big sister is really difficult.
I’m so happy for you! Yes! Can’t wait, she types back.
And she means every word.