Chapter Text
“Fuck me,” Lena breathes.
“Yeah, I might as well at this point,” Kara replies.
Three years, they haven’t spoken, three years since Lena last saw her in person, and now here she is. Kara Danvers, clearly wasted, staggering in her doorway, complete with a novelty white veil and pink shirt that says bride .
“Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Stunned, Lena steps out of the doorway, letting Kara step inside.
“Wasn’t sure you still lived here,” she says, craning her neck to look around her surroundings, Lena’s familiar penthouse apartment, grown a bit less suitable for a stock photoshoot over the years, having more personality now, “imagine if you didn’t. Hell, that would’ve been awkward.”
And this isn’t? Lena thinks, and instead asks, “What brings you here?”
Kara flashes a ring in front of her face. It’s a nice one, clearly expensive with an intricate design and hefty diamond.
“I’m getting married,” Kara slurs, “tomorrow,” she pauses, eyes dropping down to the diamond, taking her voice with, “is my big day.”
“Then forgive me for being rude but what the hell are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d pay a visit. Got anything to drink around here?”
“Water.” Lena deadpans.
Kara frowns. Lena fills up a glass and hands it to her.
Kara takes it, shrugging. Fair enough.
“Why are you here, Kara? Really? It’s 3am, and as I understand, your wedding is tomorrow . We haven’t spoken in, what, three years? What the fuck, Kara?”
“Hey, easy,” Kara says, then nods in defeat. “Yeah, what the fuck, Kara? Come, sit.” She plops down on the couch and gestures to the spot next to her. Lena sits, back straight as an arrow. Kara sighs.
“I needed someone to talk to. Someone I could trust. And I do, I, yeah. Still. But someone who wasn’t so involved . Besides, I,” she hesitates, “I miss you.”
Lena sighs.
“Okay. What’s up?”
“Great question. Well, it’s like this: I’m getting married tomorrow except I’m not except I am because I really have to except, I really don’t want to.”
“Are you being forced?” Lena asks, concern spiking in her voice. Kara shakes her head.
“Nope. I said yes.”
“Then why’d you say yes?”
“Shit. Good question. Because he asked. Bertram-”
“Bertram? What is he, sixty?”
“Oh, save it,” Kara says, faking offence, then teasing, “you of all people, miss Luthor, should know better than to judge a man by his name. Besides, he’s your exact age. That’s how we met, actually.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. He was out to a bar to celebrate his birthday with his buddies and I,” she drags out the syllable, “was at the bar to drink. And he asked to talk to me, very nicely, and I didn’t want to be alone so I said yes. And then I just kept saying yes.” She smiles, looking at nothing in particular, the corners of her mouth pulling in opposite directions, forming a pained grimace. “When he asked me out and when he asked me to meet his parents and when he asked me to move in and then, there I am, three years later, and he’s on one knee and I’ve got a whole restaurant staring at me so, I say yes.” She tilts her head, looks at Lena as if she’s asking for forgiveness. “Public proposals should be considered hostage situations. Afterwards, everyone joked I was so shocked I forgot to smile in the photos. And now I’m a promised woman.”
Lena takes a moment to process.
“Well?” Kara asks.
“Well,” Lena replies, taking a deep breath and sighing, “shit.”
“Yeah,” she hangs her head. “And I don’t get it. I should want to marry him! Everyone says we’re so great together. And he’s great. He’s super nice, so nice, ” with an exasperated eye roll, “and he’s funny and has a good job, he’s a doctor, you know, he, he helps people, and everyone likes him, hell, I like him most of all,” she pauses, “I just don’t get it. Have you ever been with a guy and wondered why you couldn’t just,” she hesitates, “ love him?”
“Yeah, for sure. But then I realised I was gay, so, mystery solved.”
“You’re what now?”
“Gay.”
“Oh, okay. Well, that’s, that is new information,” Kara nods, blinking rapidly. Regaining her composure, processing the information, she lowers her eyebrows and says, “But I’m definitely not gay so I must be broken in some way. And, you know, that would be fine, probably, if I didn’t insist on dragging someone else down with me. I’m broken and, and I’m an awful person. For doing this to a perfectly good man. You know what it’s like to wake up every morning and think, today I’m ending this. I’ve been thinking of ending things ever since our first date. And every morning, I’d wake up and think, today’s the day. And then, he’d hand me a cup of coffee or say something nice or something bad would happen or something would come up and one of us would get busy and I just never had a moment when it felt right so I never said anything except yes over and over and over again and now I’m in this mess, on your couch, no idea what to do and nowhere to run except here.”
“Yeah, that’s,” she pauses, “that’s difficult. I’m sorry but I don’t know what you expect me to do about that. I mean, it’s been years since we’ve so much as spoken, and I’m no love doctor.”
Kara falls back dramatically on the couch with a huff. “I know. I know. I’m so stupid, Lena. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know why I’m here. I just want someone to fix it for me and, Rao, I don’t know why I want it to be you.” She drags a pillow over her face, muffling her voice somewhat, “at least give me some advice.”
“Don’t get married.” Lena deadpans.
“Yeah. That’s, that’s smart, keep going.”
“That’s it. Don’t get married. Tell your Bertrand you’re very sorry but you can’t marry him and then don’t marry him. It’s not fair to either of you.”
“You’re right,” Kara groans from underneath the pillow. “Everyone is going to be so mad at me. They’re all going to hate me.”
“Maybe. Not everyone but yeah, chances are, some of them will. Better than hating yourself for another three or thirty years until an inevitable, even more miserable divorce.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Of course you’re right. I just don’t know how I’m going to bring myself to do that.” Kara sighs and turns towards Lena.
“So, you’re gay now?” she asks with an abrupt change in inflection, doom turned curiosity.
“Well, I always was.” Lena says, a little taken aback.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know that’s how it works but like, this is new. How’d that happen?”
“I guess I just,” she pauses, “gained some insight.”
“Ooh?”
“Not like that,” Lena scoffs, although a lot of it was, in fact, like that , “I just did some introspection.”
“I mean, huge surprise, but I’m happy for you.”
“Really? Because in retrospect it was just so painfully obvious.”
“Was it? How?”
“Oh, that’s a long story.”
“Exactly what I need. Please give me an excuse to stay on this couch for a little longer before I have to go ruin my own wedding. How did you know?”
Lena puts her hands up in surrender.
“Okay, okay. I guess I’ve always known, on some level, that I liked women, I just suppressed it, pushed it so far down I didn’t have to deal with it. I just didn’t need another reason to be a pariah. Tried to date men, but… something was always missing. I used the first excuse I could find to break it off. You repeat that process enough times - pick a guy to be attracted to based on a list of qualities, and no matter how high you set your standards, even if he meets all of them, there’s just something missing, so, you find an excuse, any excuse, to break up, and eventually you’re just forced to ponder the definition of insanity. So you take a step back and evaluate because it’s clearly not working. Then I realised I liked the idea of being with a man but not the reality of it, and then I realised I just liked the idea of being in a relationship but not with a man. This sort of coincided with a time of self-discovery in my life, it was the first time I was truly not defining myself by the judgement of others- not my family’s, not the world’s. For the first time in my life, no one was watching my every move. I was out of the spotlight. That’s when I allowed myself to acknowledge my attraction to women, and it was like landmines going off in my head, like my whole life I’d been carefully avoiding stepping on them and then I just let myself fall. Looking back, a lot of strange feelings suddenly made sense. And eventually, I accepted I simply wasn’t attracted to men. Step 1: admitting you’re a homosexual,” Lena jokes, but Kara doesn’t laugh, and not because she doesn’t get the reference. Instead, she’s frowning.
“Say less.” Kara’s not having a crisis of sexuality, not the night before her wedding on the couch of her former best friend, she’s
not
. Change the topic,
swerve
, “so you’re seeing somebody?”
“No, actually. I was, up until a few months ago.”
“Oh, what happened?”
“Kelsey and I just weren’t right for each other. Wanted different things. Particularly she wanted to move to a farm in Nepal and I wanted to not do that”
“You don’t say?” Kara laughs.
“It’s more common a factor in lesbian break-ups than you’d think.”
“I see,” Kara says, still in a joking tone.
“No, I’m not even kidding. Everyone suddenly wants to live in a cottage. I’m sorry but I can do without being woken up by a rooster at 5am and walking ten miles to the store. I miss the bread, though, she made great bread.”
“And her, do you miss her? This Kelsey woman?”
“I did, for a miserable month. Now I just miss the bread. Don’t get me wrong, she was lovely but she wasn’t my soulmate. I could not be soulmates with someone that would voluntarily wade through chicken shit for eggs.”
“So you believe in soulmates, then?”
Lena scoffs. Kara nudges here goodnaturedly.
“Okay, maybe just a little.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, you have to acknowledge that some people just feel like
home
. And when they’re not around, missing them, it’s like nothing else. It’s like being homesick for a person. Like when you’re in a crowd and your eyes meet and you realise,
oh
. There’s my person. That’s who I’ve been looking for in every crowd before this one. And then, when you don’t find their eyes, it’s even lonelier. It’s like being in a foreign country where no one speaks your language, really. I’m not sure whether those connections are made for us or by us- bit of both, maybe. What’s in a word, you know, if there’s a word for it, it’s a common enough experience in the human condition. It’s just different how we explain it, based on science or emotion or something else entirely, usually a mix of all of the above.”
“Yeah, that’s how I felt for a long time,” Kara admits, all quiet on the western front.
“With Bertrand?” Lena asks, giving Kara a soft, consolatory smile. It’s almost pity in the way water is almost hydrogen peroxide.
Kara looks at her. Her eyes drop, then she turns her whole head away, a quiver in her lip. She shakes her head. She wants to say it, because it’s like boiling water in her mouth, bubbling up and out, scalding tender skin. Because it’s been there the whole time, the way Mount Vesuvius was full of magma well before 79 AD, and Lena’s just brought it to the surface. But she can’t bring herself to say it. She buries her teeth in her lip like she’s trying to hold a live bird in her mouth, waiting for it to die, and it just won’t stop flapping its wings. The knowledge she’s been suppressing for so long, compartmentalised deep enough in her heart that she could pretend to forget about it all the way to a wedding, demanding to be acknowledged, refusing to be spoken out loud.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick. How much did you drink before you got here?”
Not enough.
“I’m fine. Excuse me just a moment,” Kara says, leaps off the couch and storms to the bathroom to hide and hyperventilate. Gripping the sink with both hands, so hard her knuckles turn white, she stares at herself in the mirror, simultaneously far too drunk and far too sober.
It’s like light bulbs going off in her head, one after the other, and she’s squeezing her eyes shut as hard as she can. She can’t look. Because it makes sense, because it makes everything make sense, the past three, seven years of her life if not her whole life. She puts her forehead to Lena’s mirror and shuts her eyes. This can’t be happening. Why’d she come here? Why’d she have to be so stupid as to come here, the one place where she knew she’d find the answers she so desperately didn’t need in her life, answers that were axes to the beams holding up the life she’s built for herself.
If she squeezes her eyes shut tight enough, maybe she can go back to ignoring it. Back to the bliss of ignorance. She could walk out of here as if nothing’s changed, she could go back to the life she’s built, back to Bertram. She could get married and stay married, maybe have a couple of kids down the line and live out that domesticity til death do them part. Til death.
Yeah, that’s not happening. Boil the rice and burn the cake, she’s not getting married today, and not tomorrow either, and not the day after that, her life and everyone in it be damned. They’ll want to kill her, maybe, probably, but if they won’t, then she will.
Okay. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Stand up straight. She opens her eyes. Stares herself down in the mirror. She looks deranged. Ruined makeup running down her face, frazzled hair, the purple swoopy letters on her shirt are particularly offensive.
She slams open the door.
Holding the shirt in her hand like a wet plague-infested rat/captured enemy flag, she asks, “You got a shirt I can borrow?”
Lena stares at her, dumb-founded, for a second. Blinks. Picks her jaw up off the floor, stands up.
“Yeah, I’ll find something,” and heads to the dresser. She returns with a plain white button-up and hands it to Kara, who eagerly puts it on.
“I’ve got a wedding to ruin.”
Lena nods with a smirk that is both confuddled and proud .
“I’m altruistic but no one should be that selfless.” Self-assured, she makes her way towards the door. Lena catches her before she can step outside.
“That’s great and all but how the hell are you getting home?” Come to think of it, how’d she get here ? She was barely standing upright at the door.
“I’ll fly.”
“Nuh-uh. Not in this state, you’re not. I’ll drive you.”
“I’m not going home, either.”
“Okay. Then I’ll drive you to your sister’s. What’s Alex’s address? Same as before?”
“Yeah, the same. I’m fine to fly, though.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I flew here.”
“And you clearly haven’t had the best judgement lately. I’m not letting you out unless you let me drive you, and that’s final.” She says it like she means it, as if she actually has the power to restrain this superhero.
“Fine, fine,” Kara puts her hands up in defeat. “Show us to the car, then.”
Lena’s not entirely sure what she expects from the drive over. An extension of the awkward yet endearing conversation they were having, probably. Instead, Kara is out like a light as soon as she turns the engine on. She’s sleeping so soundly, it almost breaks Lena’s heart to wake her up. She does it as gently as possible, and leads Kara up the stairs to Alex’s apartment. She has to ring the doorbell five times and knock quite insistently before any movement can be heard inside the apartment. A groggy Alex opens the door.
“Lena?” she asks, immediate confusion in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
Lena pulls Kara into the doorframe.
“This one showed up at my place, drunk and upset. I drove her here. You’re welcome, by the way. You two need to have a talk.”
“I, thank you? What’s this about, Kara?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I don’t think I should be here for this. And I’d quite like to get some sleep tonight.”
“Of course.”
“Hey,” Kara interjects, “thanks.” She gives Lena a weak smile. “I wouldn’t have had the courage to ruin my life without you. You might have saved my life. Get home safe, alright?”
“Goodnight, Kara.”
“Goodnight.”
Lena turns to leave, and Alex shuts the door behind her.
“Now I’m really confused.”
“Yeah, I’ve got some explaining to do. I think it’s best we sit down.”
Before they can, Kelly walks out of the bedroom.
“What’s all the commotion?”
“Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep, darling,” Alex says, sitting down. Kara sits next to her.
“What are you doing here, Kara? Before your big day, you should be getting some rest,” Kelly says.
“There’s not going to be a big day.”
“What? Did Bertram break off the engagement? But you guys were so excited-” Alex is interrupted by Kara.
“No. No, he didn’t. And no, we weren’t. He was.” He
is.
“You broke up with him?” Alex asks, the confusion growing in the furrow of her brow. “I can’t believe this. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet before your wedding.”
“Alex,” she sighs. She can admit it. She can say it. Real quiet, she does, “I’ve had cold feet the whole time. I don’t want to get married. I never did.”
“But,” she pauses in disbelief, “why?”
It’s taking everything to say it. To not take back what she said and keep lying. She trembles, eyes lowered in defeated shame. But she can’t go back. And she can’t keep lying. So, breathing fear in and courage out, she confesses.
“Because I don’t love him.” Silence chokes the room, like the lump at the back of her throat chokes Kara. “I never did. Not the way he loves me. And I can’t. I can’t love him the way he loves me, the way he needs me to love him, so, I can’t marry him. Because he is a good man, and he deserves someone that can.”
“Oh, Kara. Of course you’re good enough for him. You guys are wonderful for each other.”
“You’re not hearing me.” She looks up, “I don’t love him, not the way a wife should love a husband. And I never did, and I never will because I can’t. And I’m sorry that I can’t, I am so genuinely sorry,” tears sting her eyes, “because in a way, I do love him. I love him so much I want what’s best for him. But I can’t give it to him. I can’t keep faking for his sake, not til death does us part because I can’t keep living like this.”
“I just don’t get it. He’s such a wonderful guy. And you guys always seemed so happy together. What’s not working out?”
Kara looks down, averts her gaze so she doesn’t have to look at anyone, maybe that’ll grant her the courage to say it. What she’s known, the way Lena always knew, perhaps, all along, but refused to acknowledge, to say out loud even to herself, until the crucial moment.
“I think,” she pauses, hesitates. The bird flaps its wings. And bursts out. “I think I’m gay.” And flies free.
The room absorbs the impact, the way a person absorbs the impact of a truck coming at him 50 miles per hour. Silence chokes Kara as it happens, and once it’s gone on too long and she’s beginning to suffocate, she bursts out, “Somebody please say something!”
“Are you sure about this? Where is this coming from?”
“Yes. I don’t know. I think so. Look, I don’t know. I haven’t exactly had the time to hash out the specifics here, I just know that I’m not getting married today.”
Another prolonged painful silence.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that!”
“I’m not trying to be judgemental, I just don’t know what to say to that.”
“Well,” Kara takes a shuddering breath, “try, you don’t hate me and that you won’t hate me when I ruin my wedding even when everyone else does hate me because I am being a selfish asshole but I really have to be a selfish asshole just this once to save my life and I need my sister to back me up in that, even if no one else will. And maybe say that you accept me, no matter what, and that you’ll always be my sister?”
The wide-eyed confusion on Alex’s face mellows, her features soft if sad.
“Of course I don’t hate you,” she smiles, putting her hand on Kara’s, “I could never hate you. You’re my sister. I will always have your back. Even when you,” she pauses to find a nice way to phrase it, “find ways to surprise me. I want you to be happy. And if you think this is the thing that’ll make you happy, then,” she takes a deep breath, “then I think you should do what makes you happy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Kelly, who’s been standing off to the side, too dumbfounded to say anything this far, chimes in with, “You’ll always have our support. Alex’s and mine. We’re on your side, no matter what. You have to put your own happiness first.”
“Thanks, guys. I really needed to hear that.”
“Of course,” Alex says, pulling Kara into a tight hug.
“So, how did Betram react?” Kelly asks the dreaded question.
“I haven’t told him,” Kara admits. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. Can I stay the night here? I don’t want to go home. I just, I want to sleep on it before I tell him. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Alex says. “Take the guest bedroom, get some sleep.”
And Kara does. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep but she underestimates how tired she is. She sleeps well through what’s left of the night and wakes with the sun, before anyone else, even the cats. She tip-toes out of the guest bedroom, washes her face and brews coffee. She fries a batch of pancakes, and satisfied with the heap, goes to sit by the window.
She sits, sipping coffee and watching the sun finish its ascent as the house begins to wake. Five pairs of footsteps, in descending order of speed, first the cats’ pitter-patter to their bowls Kara has taken upon herself to fill, then Esme, shortly followed by Kelly, and last, Alex.
“Can we keep her?” Kelly mutters into a bit of pancake.
“I know,” Alex replies, as Kara is entertaining Esme.
“Normally, I would say this seems like anxious avoidance but…”
“Right there with you,” Alex sips her coffee.
Kara’s phone buzzes on the counter next to them.
“Can you check it for me?” Kara asks from across the room, preoccupied with a lively game of barbies.
“Sure.”
The screen reads: “Messages: Betram: Good morning, my beautiful bride. Cannot wait to see you walk down the aisle today.”
“It’s from Bertram.”
“Oh. He’s not at the venue already, is he?”
“I don’t think so, he didn’t mention it. Probably getting ready at home. Do you want me to text him back?”
“No, leave it.”
The phone buzzes again.
“Him again?”
“No, it’s Lena.”
“Oh, what’s it say?”
“Morning, are you alright?” Alex reads off the screen.
“Write back for me, tell her I’m fine,” she hesitates, “and just, thank you.”
Alex types something into Kara’s phone and puts it down.
“So, when are you going to tell him?”
“I want to do it in person,” Kara says, avoiding eye contact still.
“Okay, but when?”
“I have to see him before he gets to the venue.”
As if on command, her phone buzzes.
“Too late. He’s already on his way.”
“What?! Why?”
“He says he’s going to finish getting ready there and make sure everything’s,” her voice drops, “perfect, for when you get there.”
Kara groans, “Perfect.”
This would be so much easier if he was a scumbag. It would be so much easier if he was mean to Kara or rude to customer service or if he hated dogs or if he loved Kara any less than things love to go wrong.
“Alright, who’s accompanying me to ruin my wedding?”
“I’ll go with you,” Alex says.
“Right. Let’s get this show on the road, then. Kelly, will you take over for me here?” she asks, gesturing to the barbie in her hand.
“Of course.”
The drive over is quiet. Alex drives. Kara texts Lena. It’s over too soon. The car pulls up by the venue. Kara stares out the window and takes a deep breath, her hand hovering over the door handle.
“I should,” she swallows, “go alone.”
Alex nods and squeezes her shoulder.
“I’ll be right out. You can do this.”
And Kara can, much the same way a surgeon can tell a patient’s family they lost him, a standard procedure, a one in 200,000 chance, an allergic reaction to anaesthesia.
Sound filters out. She’s staring at her hand, laser-focused. Slowly, she opens the door and steps out. The sun hits her face. The weather forecast was right for once. It’s a beautiful day to get married.
She takes the final steps to the door and through, an unexpected certainty in her body, no tremble in her knees or hands. The door opens with a creak, its old complaint. No day like today.
“Bertram?” she calls out. No answer. She walks through the halls, past the doors. This is where she was going to finish getting ready, don her off-white gown and get her makeup done, champagne glass in hand. Through there, where they’d cut the cake and have their first dance. And through here, here,
“Kara?”
She turns around.
“Bertram?”
He takes her hands. “What are you doing here? We’re not supposed to see each other yet! It’s bad luck.”
She shakes her head. Takes a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”
He laughs good-naturedly, taken aback, “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s just superstition.”
“No it’s not,” Kara chokes.
“What’s wrong?”
Kara turns her gaze up. Enlisting the help of gravity to keep her tears from falling. She was supposed to walk through these glass doors and down the aisle.
She swallows hard, allows a warm tear to roll down her cheek as she meets his gaze once more.
“I can’t marry you.”