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He can’t help but feel out of step, dropping in from the future, waltzing in on the middle of a situation. Mon-El tells himself that it’s okay, that he was invited. Still he feels like he’s on the outside looking in.
The woman he has come to learn is named Andrea walks, barely held up by Lena and Kara. Her body is shaking, her face a twisted grimace torn between grief and rage.
Mon-El puts his hand on Brainy’s shoulder, but his eyes wander, meeting Kara’s gaze. Her eyes are large and worried and Mon-El’s stomach twists. He hates that he is here, hates that he has come to take yet another thing away from her.
“Are you alright,” he blurts out.
“What? Yes. Lex, Andrea,” Kara gives up. Her shoulders slump. Her eyes distance, absentmindedly she rubs the back of one hand with the other. A worried frown mars her lovely forehead. “It’s complicated,” she says with a sigh.
“We’ll do anything to help,” he vows. Right now, there is nothing more important. Nothing more important than her, the haunted look in her eyes, the sharpness of her movements. Collecting himself, quelling his emotions, he tilts his head gently towards that woman, Andrea. “Take care of your friend.”
Kara opens her mouth as if she is about to object, but then she stops herself and nods. Her gaze skids over to the other two women, talking to each other in hushed tones, lending hurried comfort.
“Yeah, I should do that.” Straightening her pose she turns and stalks over to the two figures dressed in black.
Mon-El follows her with his eyes. A strange ache spreads across his heart. He remembers. Remembers that time he told her that she was beautiful with the weight of the world on her shoulders. He forgot to tell her how that made him want to be there, to help her carry the weight, ease that burden on her shoulders.
*
“What was he like?” he asks. “The one who died. William Dey.”
Kara stops, somewhat distracted. “He was nice.”
Hands on her hips, she tilts her head in the most adorable manner. “I almost dated him, you know?” A frown wanders upon her face as Kara sucks in her lower lip. “Well, technically, I guess we did date. One date.”
Mon-El smiles. “Sounds interesting. What happened?”
Kara sighs. Melancholy returns to her comet eyes. “Life, I guess. Hero stuff. I was gone for many months and when I came back he had moved on. Found somebody else.”
“He sounds like a fool.” The words come out too quickly. Too fast for Mon-El to bite his tongue and remember not to speak ill of the dead. Kara catches it too, throwing him a judging look, only to relent.
“No, it’s okay. I wouldn’t have been a very good girlfriend anyway.” There is defeat in her voice.
“I don’t believe that.”
She turns around. “Really, why not?”
He wants to tell her that she is being too hard on herself. That what she struggles with doesn’t make sense to him. Not when he knows how amazing she is, how loving, how good. Not when, where he comes from, many heroes are together, are in love. It’s normal for them. That it doesn’t have to be as hard as she makes it for herself.
Except it’s not his place anymore. Not his place to tell her anything. Not his place to argue with her and try to peer into her soul and make sense of both their eternal contradictions.
“He was honest. He fought for what is right in his own way.” She looks at him from the side. “I learned a lot from him.” Her gaze grows steely, more determined. “I will keep him in my heart,” Kara vows. “And do my best to live up to his example.”
Mon-El bites the inside of his cheeks. What he wants to tell her is that he might not have known this man, but if anything Kara says about him is true, he would have understood what privilege it is to be remembered by a hero like her. To leave a mark on the spirit of Supergirl herself. To live on like this forever, within her gracious and heroic heart. Instead, he opts to stay diplomatic. “He sounds like a really great guy.”
“He was. He deserved better. Deserved more.” Kara pulls away from the balustrade and rolls her shoulders. “You know,” she adds. “I think you might have liked him.”
“You think so?”
“I really do.”
Mon-El frowns. He isn’t sure why her saying that makes him happy, but it does.
*
The fifth-dimensional imp gloats below her bangs. Her arms are long around a very mugging, very bald man, whose evil grin is so big it could swallow the moon itself.
“Well,” Nyxly announces, “You are just in time. We are getting married!”
“Do, do I have to get that?” Mon-El asks Kara, leaning in, in a hushed voice. “Am I missing something?”
Kara stares, her eyes wide as she shakes her head. “No. We don’t get it either.”
Relief washes over him and he takes his place at Kara’s side, ready to taunt the strange supervillain couple in front of him to provide the distraction for Lena Luthor to finish laying her magic trap.
“Stand down, Princess,” he announces. “It’s not too late to surrender.” Unsurprisingly he soon finds him strung up in a web of vines. Of course. Imps. Always imps.
Whatever he expected to find when they returned to the twenty-first century, being surprise witnesses to a super villain wedding was not amongst his guesses.
The blink of an eye later and Kara finds herself in a similar predicament, hanging upside down within a magical spiderweb. Her eyes find his and she mouths to him to keep the ruse going and so he struggles and curses the imp princess under his breath.
*
The venue is welcoming and tasteful. Mon-El is not surprised. Kelly Olsen seems just like the type, though he does not doubt that much of what he sees comes from the hands of Alex, giving form to her wife’s dreams.
He really thought he would feel more out of place, but it’s hard to be when everyone is so welcoming. Not to mention it would take a stone not to be moved by Kara’s song.
The sun sets over the gardens, playful music and the laughter of guests fill the air. Nursing a glass of club soda, he strides across the grass. Unsurprisingly, Mon-El’s feet draw him closer to Kara. He spies her standing under a beautiful willow tree, on the verge of sending off James and Winn from their conversation. She shoos them off towards the buffet and Mon-El can’t help but crack a smile.
Before he can make a decision, Kara turns and catches him looking, their eyes finding each other across the evening meadow. She waves him towards her and Mon-El can’t help but follow.
As he approaches Kara, he hopes that it’s not too noticeable on his face just how tongue-tied he feels. Every cell in his body rebels with how much he wants to tell her that she looks beautiful. Because of course she does.
“Beautiful… beautiful ceremony,” he stutters.
Kara smiles and it’s as lovely as the birth of a new star. “Yeah, isn’t it?”
“Thank you for inviting me.”
“Of course. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“So… do we dance?”
To dance with Kara again… Mon-El feels like he is floating. Like both of them are. To be that close to her again. It’s intoxicating, it’s exhilarating. To be with her again. To be allowed to have her hand in his, his hand splayed over the small of her back. To see the soft sheen of red on her cheeks as she avoids his eyes.
He feels like he’s hanging on a thread as she tilts her head and eyes him down. Evaluating what they should do. And just like that, the decision is made.
She grabs his hand. “I guess we do.”
*
“It’s not a wedding,” Nia clarifies.
“Not remotely,” Brainy affirms as he squeezes his beloved’s hand.
“Yes, it’s just a party. For us. For all of us.” The young heroine’s eyes shine as she looks at her circle of friends, one by one. “For our victory.” The half-Naltorian can barely contain herself, her excitement radiating from her face, her very stance. Nia Nal, the original Dreamer, Dream Girl’s very ancestor claps her hands together as the words sputter from her mouth. “There is something I want to show you.” Once more, she looks over to Brainy, her eyes full of love. “It would mean the world to me, if you would come. All of you.”
Kara is the first one to step forward and sling her arms around the younger heroine. “Of course, we will come, silly.”
And so they find themselves here, stepping through a portal into an endless dreamscape, a rocky blue desert with violet skies.
Kara leads their little expedition, over to a small set of white lawn chairs, in front of which the young superhero couple stands. Dreamer above all is beaming, nervous, in a shimmering dress of white and blue, Querl standing stoically by her side.
Kara gently cups the younger woman’s face. “You look beautiful, Nia,” she says, full of reverie, and she gets caught in Dreamer’s emotional embrace.
“You guys, thank you, thank you all for coming.” Without letting Kara out of her grip, Dreamer waves them in and towards their seats, as Kara laughs and wipes the tears from the younger woman’s cheeks.
Mon-El might not know this Dreamer, he’s heard only faint rumblings of a tragic family life, but even he can tell that she has found a second family, a family of love among these people. A gift she decided to pay forward with a certain emerald Coluan. Not wanting to disturb the established dynamic, Mon-El chooses a seat on the far side, but their group is small enough that their view on the action is unimpeded.
Up in front, Supergirl has finally torn herself away from Nia.
Kara plops down on the seat next to him, as in the front, the overjoyed young lovers turn to each other. Around them, a flock of dream specters swarm, called in by their champion. Their bulbous turquoise and dark purple bodies circle them like a family of translucent whales. And almost like their material brethren, their song fills the air, rejoicing, celebrating the arrival of the new Dreamer, having bloomed into her full power. Mon-El wonders if they know, if Dreamer knows, if Querl told her, that one like her is born and matures once in every century, if at all.
In front of them, Nia bares her soul, bares it the ancient Naltorian way, through her dreams, for all of them to see, flickering around them, a swirl of pictures, symbols and emotions.
It’s infectious, impossible not to be moved.
Dreamer’s voice is elated, carrying high as she puts her hands on Brainy’s shoulders. Her eyes shine as she declares, “Querl Dox, from the Legion of Super-Heroes, I will love you forever!” Mon-El finds Kara’s eyes and they both can’t help but share a secret smile. Oh, to be young and in love and idealistic like that, swelled up by love, on the cusp of something new and great.
It’s not what he expected to find here when he planned to pick up Brainy, but now that he sees it, it just feels right. Querl has never seemed more comfortable within his own skin than he does now and Mon-El can’t help but feel that it is well deserved. A shimmer of guilt travels through him, that Querl never felt like that with them.
Maybe it was fate, that Brainy had to come here, live this life, be with these people to truly learn to be himself.
He leans in and whispers into Kara’s ear. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“That you transform everything you touch.”
*
“What a day,” he says as they arrive back at the tower, Kara’s new home, her secret lair.
She nods in agreement. “Not every day that you attend a wedding in the dream realm.”
“Unification ceremony,” he corrects her and they both laugh. “So, how are you?” he asks.
“Fine. Mostly fine. Better now that Nyxly has been defeated.”
Mon-El shakes his head. “That was quite a trip, wasn’t it?”
“It sure was.”
Mon-El grins at her. “You know what I always say about imps,” he teases.
Kara puts her hands on her hips in mock protest. “They are not all bad.”
“I know,” he relents, handing her the little victory easily, without resistance. “I think a certain Kryptonian superheroine taught me that.”
“Did she now?”
“I think she did.”
“I hope you remember that, then, out there, in the future.”
“I do.” It is easy for him to admit it. He’s at peace with what she did for him. How much of his life, his outlook, he owes directly to her.
“Whatever happened to her anyway?” Kara mumbles.
Mon-El smiles softly. “I like to think that she’s doing alright for herself.”
Kara’s face crumples, as if she had bitten into an unripe lemon. Mon-El can’t help but raise an eyebrow in concern. She pushes out her lower lip. “What if she isn’t?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Dunno. It, it has just been a long time. A long fight. Grueling one could say, even.”
Mon-El looks at her wide-eyed, resisting the urge to look around and check whether there is somebody else, anybody else she could be telling this to. Anyone but him. He’s not indifferent to her plight. He could never be.
“It gets better,” he tells her softly.
“I know,” she says. Her shoulders slump. She seems … unhappy. Unsatisfied with that answer, with its simple finality. There is more coming, more that she wants to say. Kara’s gaze is unsteady, swaying back and forth, till she arrives at a decision. With a sharp tug Kara throws her head back and pins him down with her eyes.
“What if I told you that I miss you?” The undertone in her voice is stubborn, almost petulant, almost annoyed that she has to say it. Annoyed that it’s real. His heart races as he waits for what she will say. Kara sets her chin on her palm. She lets out a sigh, her eyes unfocused and far away. “Because I do. I miss you.” She looks at him. “I miss love. I miss your love.”
“Why would … You have it, always!” Once more, the words slip out too fast, too eagerly. Seems like the years of yearning or missing her, of knowing that she was out there, of dreaming of that look within her eyes, have loosened his tongue past whatever he can control. He feels guilty that he ever made her doubt it.
A coy and adventurous twinkle gleams in Kara’s eyes. “Is that so?”
Mon-El, founder of the Legion of Superheroes, former prince of Daxam, Earth’s representative for the United Planets, stands mouth agape. The brightness of her cheeks would shame those stars.
“You can’t be serious,” he insists.
Kara shuffles, gripping her own wrist behind her back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. That little spark in her eyes is still very present. The hint of her pink tongue darts out and there is a breathless, hoarse quality to her voice when she peeks out from behind her lashes and says: “Try me.”
The little hairs on his arms, on the back of his neck, stand on end. The tension between them is crackling. He lowers his voice. “You want me to say it?”
Kara grips her wrist tighter. Her nod is slow, hesitant at first, then deliberate. “Yeah. I think I do.”
To his own surprise, he’s only too ready to comply. Pulled to her as if dragged by an unseen force, he steps up to her and searches her eyes. Desperate to find the answer there that Mon-El knows he’s not going to get from her lips. At least not any time soon. “I love you.”
The first one sounds like a surprised sigh, a weight that has been resting heavy on his chest for a long time, lifted at long last. It’s something that he has carried within his heart for so long, he thought he was used to it. What he isn’t used to is to let it fly free, to offer it up once more, to the world, to her. It stuns him a little when it leaves his mouth. He repeats it. “I love you.” It seems like a miracle to let it flow beyond his lips once more.
Mon-El frowns. He remembers the first time he told her. Spoken honestly, yet without thought by a desperate, foolish boy. A boy who regretted that he hadn’t said it earlier. Who had thought that maybe if he had done it, if he had gotten her to say it back, that maybe things would be different. That maybe she wouldn’t leave him.
A foolish prince who hadn’t learned yet that that wasn’t the important part.
“I love you.” For this one, he lifts his eyes to meet hers. This one’s for her at least, rather than just for himself. It is gruffer and more unsure than he intended. She stands tight, expectant, her fingers twisted in the folds of her cape. Like a startled woodland creature listening for a thunderclap.
Worried by the effect of his long-buried confession, his voice grows softer - “I love you.” Mon-El feels a smile forming on his lips. “I love you.” It grows joyous and more jubilant.
His eyes water.
“Kara.”
He says her name. Over and over again, like a litany. His soul feels like it’s bursting. ‘I love you’ and ‘Kara’, ‘Kara’ and ‘I love you’, there is no distinction, they are interchangeable. The same. Forever linked. There is no love without Kara. No Kara without love. He knows it, has known it for a long time.
He could tell her that her eyes are like the stars, that he never stopped loving her, that he couldn’t forget her if he tried. That he lied to himself when he pretended that that love could change, could shift into something that was only chastely reverent. But does it matter? Could any of those words outdo the stark and simple truth of those three little worlds?
“I love you,” he says and his soul roars with joy within his chest.
“I love you.” He tries to infuse it with all the love he feels for her, tries to form it gently, teasing, like a siren’s song. To his joy, it works. He loves, he loves the way it drives a rosy warmth to her cheeks. The way her white teeth glint and the corners of her mouth begin to form the shadow of a smile. Her hands tremble and he repeats his call. “I love you.”
Her eyes are wrought with emotion, sadness, joy and fear, all intermingling on Kara’s lovely face. At last, she comes to him, stepping closer.
“Kara.”
He wants to scream it from the rooftops. Torturous, buried emotion unleashed at last.
He takes her hand and brings it close to his lips. “I love you,” he tells the gentle, soft fingertips. “I love you,” he whispers to the dexterous, elegant digits, and again to the bare knuckles. Those hands that can move the world. He tells it to Kara’s warm palm, to her slender wrist. He wants to tell them that he remembers, every moment, every second that he could hold her hand in his.
Kara’s fingers tremble in his grasp, tremble on every word. He looks up, looks at her lips. Mon-El’s heart aches like it is growing, expanding beyond what his chest can hold.
Kara.
“I love you. I love you.”
Her eyes are shining wet. He wishes he could tell her that it’s okay. He doesn’t need her to say it back. Not when he can see how her response is fighting, urging, wanting to break out from between her lips.
Kara opens her mouth, “I…”
He holds her close, forehead to forehead, his wrist still encircled by his fingers. “It’s okay,” he whispers back, “I know.” Kara’s eyes overflow with emotion and with a strangled squeak she throws her arms around him and buries her face in the crook of his neck.
“It’s you,” she whispers. “It’s always been you.”
Part of him wants to apologize for that, but most of him is just glad. Glad to be here, here with her, his heart open wide and honest for the first time in so long it feels like he can barely remember. Now there is only one thing left to say. To say it over and over.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Kara.
Is he worthy? He doesn’t know. He might never know. All he does know is that it’s not his place to argue with her now. Not when she is like this, fragile and tender in his arms.
Her fingers curl around his, as she looks up, seeking his eyes. “We, we are forever, right?”
Oh, Kara. Her heart. Her beautiful heart. Broken and harmed so many times and yet still so strong, so ready to forgive and try again.
For as long as you’ll have me, that is what he wants to tell her. At the same time, he knows that that’s not what she wants to hear, knows that he has to be more, has to be stronger than this. All that time they spent apart, that time he waited and had thought her lost, it has to count for something, doesn’t it?
“Yes,” he tells her, “Always.”
And she rewards him with a kiss.
It’s a simple gesture, shared every day amongst trillions of intelligent creatures all over the universe. Kisses of love, kisses of comfort, valediction and seduction. They are only one of many, just two fools finding each other again, in Kara’s apartment, one warm summer night in National City in the year 2021.
To the universe, there is nothing special about this kiss, neither the first nor the last.
To Mon-El, it’s enough to split fate and time itself.