Work Text:
Kara coaxed her out of her jacket and out the door, both stripped down to PJ shorts and sports bras.
Lena was pulled by her arms down the steps of their back porch, flinching at the wet cold and blinking the raindrops off her eyelashes.
It was the Tuesday of Lena’s dreams; cold and rainy hot chocolate and book weather. On a day like today, she would normally be curled up next to Kara on the couch with a blanket trapping and radiating her Kryptonian wife’s warmth. The cat would be on Kara’s lap, a bit like Lena in his attempt to stay cozy. She would have a warm drink in hand, reading the new science journal Kara had picked up as they listened to the rainfall.
Today though, her drink was forgotten on the counter, the cat making do with some blankets and pillows as she and Kara made their way to the porch, Lena managing to stay under the awning.
“Catch me if you can,” Kara grinned her goofy smile and stuck her tongue out before running off the porch.
“Why should I even bother miss superspeed,” Lena laughed back at her.
“That’s Mrs. Superspeed Luthor-Danvers to you”
“Fine Mrs. Superspeed Luthor-Danvers. Can we go inside before I freeze to death,”
“C’mon, love, it’s great out here.” Kara was now standing on the soaked pavement, waterlogged clothes and drenched hair, still smiling that stupid perfect smile.
“It’s also cold out here, darling. I have work tomorrow and I don’t want to get sick,” Lena made an attempt at the signature Danver’s puppy eyes, but Kara looked unimpressed.
“Just a minute or two, come out here with me and then we can go inside and take a bath and cuddle on the couch some more with Streaky,” Kara said, pulling her own set of much more convincing puppy dog eyes.
And who was Lena to refuse that face?
She slowly made her way out from under the porch awning, shivering but smiling as she walked quickly over to her wife, mindful of the freezing pavement.
“Maybe this isn’t s- so bad,” Lena smirked, her teeth chattering.
“Okay okay I get your point,” Kara giggled, her eyes suddenly turning soft as Lena came into her arms.
Despite the frigidness, Lena instantly felt warmer next to her, and she wrapped her arms around Kara’s neck.
The mood shifted in a split second, and Lena surged forward for a kiss. Kara’s lips were soft and the kiss tasted like rainwater and hot chocolate.
Kara was the one to deepen it as the sensual kiss turned warmer, and it had quickly become a full-blown teenage make-out session in the rain.
Lena had always wondered how incredible this felt in the movies, and as much as it made her heart tingle, whenever couples kissed in the rain, they neglect to mention how damp it was. Nonetheless, she enjoyed it, enjoyed being cold and wet and muddy because she was right where she was supposed to be with exactly who she was supposed to be with.
A few moments later, Kara was the one to pull away as she scooped up Lena in her arms and carried her back into the house.
After a joint shower, they joined each other on the couch, Lena with a science journal and a warm drink, Kara with Streaky in her lap.
And just as Lena was about to doze off, her eyes groggy with sleep, she felt soft lips whisper in her ear.
“I love you Lena Luthor, forever and always”
-------------
The first rain after Kara died was one of the hardest days of Lena’s life.
It used to be the Tuesday of Lena’s dreams; cold and rainy hot chocolate and book weather. Kiss your wife in the rain weather.
Now it was snuggle Ivy and cry weather.
Everything had started to get a little more okay. She was laughing again. Talking with Sam and Alex more. Movie nights with Nia and lab sessions with Brainy. Her open wound had faded to a scar. Still vast and achy, but not sharp to the touch.
But the drips of water that turned into sheets of rain outside today, well, they took a sledgehammer to her superglued heart.
She couldn’t even manage to get within eye line of the couch, knowing Kara’s favorite blanket and their hot chocolate maker would be waiting for her when she got there.
She stayed in bed, Ivy curled into her side as she bawled and bawled until her throat was sore and her chest was screaming. She just missed her wife. Missed that they would be outside right now, chasing each other and laughing. Missed the feel of lips she would never kiss again.
A few hours in, she managed to pull herself together long enough to pad to the back of her dresser and pull out a soft folded National City hoodie. It smelled like the perfume she had gotten Kara for her last birthday. Petrichor. Like the rain.
She gave herself the luxury of burying her face into the fabric, soft and warm and still Kara.
And it prompted the desire to go.
Despite how each step felt a little more like betrayal, she kept going. She left the bedroom, and kept going past the couch and past the hot chocolate maker, and past the porch.
In and out of the florist’s door, a single bouquet of sunflowers now tucked under her arm.
She went past the gate of the cemetery. Past dozens of marble headstones and bouquets of roses and lilies. Past Streaky’s grave. And for the first time since the funeral, came face to face with a headstone engraved with her wife’s name.
Kara Zor-El Luthor-Danvers
Loving friend, sister, and wife.
El Mayarah.
Her breath caught and her heart felt like it was being crushed. She shouldn’t have come here alone, but it was too late now.
Lena let herself sink to the muddy ground. She let herself gingerly place the flowers at the foot of a widowed grave. She let herself curse Kara out for leaving her to do this alone. She let herself forgive. She let herself tell Kara that she missed her more than anything else in the universe. And then she lets herself, with tears in her eyes and a broken heart nowhere near mended, whisper eight words:
“I love you my darling, forever and always”