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There is that moment, when Clark leaves her on the balcony to go home to Lois, when she hears J’onn and M’gann talk intimately behind her, when Alex tells her she’s proud of what she did and in return, she tells Alex to never let Maggie go. Kara pushes off the balcony and just wants to soar higher and higher, break through the atmosphere and chase that damned pod, bring him back down to earth, back to her. She can’t do that.
The only other option right now seems to be to take a dip in the bay and never come up for air again, but she can’t do that either. She’d afflict the same pain she's feeling right now on the people that love her. No way in hell does Kara want that.
One option remains, always remains. The supersuit doesn’t matter, neither do the missing glasses or ponytail. She calls Lena and all she can get out is a broken plea.
“Please, can I come over”
And of course, sweet, beautiful, concerned Lena agrees in a heartbeat, says she’ll be waiting. Unsuspecting of her best friend arriving in 5 seconds on her balcony instead of the door. It clicks into place then, because tears streak down Supergirl’s face, twisted in a kind of pain that Lena knows all to well, but it’s Kara and she tries to apologize and explain simultaneously in between sobs.
“- I’m so sorry I haven’t told you sooner.”
“- I’m so sorry you have to find out like this.”
“- I never meant to lie to you.”
“- I had to send him away with all the others and now everyone is happy while I feel like I’m ripping apart.”
It hadn’t occurred to Lena to be mad about the secret identity. Three months is a short time for someone to trust her. She would be falling on her knees in gratitude if Kara wasn’t already on the floor weeping because she just can’t keep it in anymore.
She cradles her best friend in her arms, tear stains appearing on the kaki brown of her satin blouse. She loses all feeling for time, only knows that Kara stops crying around the time both her legs have fallen numb. She uses that opportunity to get them to her bedroom and change Kara from the supersuit into some soft sleepwear, changing herself and slipping under the covers with her. Kara clings to her in agony, and Lena hates herself for thinking she’s glad that she is the person Kara came to and felt safe enough to break down in front of. Was important enough to reveal her secret identity. She vows to be that person for Kara always.
That’s how it comes to happen for a long while. Kara doesn’t go home to her own apartment. Only once, to get a bag of clothes. When she leaves it’s for work, the DEO or to save somebody, but never to go home. Lena’s apartment becomes her home, her save place, her haven. She can feel her emotions here without being judged, and Lena is there for her without fail.
Some nights they don’t even talk. Kara lays on Lena’s chest like a kryptonian-shaped weighted blanket, crying into her sweater, or paralyzed by silence. All Lena can do is rub her back and card her fingers through golden hair.
No one but Lena gets to see her like that too. She’s still Supergirl, maybe sometimes a little short and snappy, a little bit more aggressive than usual, but still efficient, still helping wherever she can.
She’s still Kara Danvers, a little mopey at work and not talkative towards anyone anymore, not even Alex, but still polite, still doing the bare minimum of what is asked of her.
When she gets home, Lena is there. It’s her permission to crumble like a blown up building. She sometimes falls to her knees in the hallway, just like all the walls and the facade she had to hold up during the day. Lena can’t pick her up, can’t make her pain go away or make it stop hurting, but she can sink to her knees right next to her, hold her, sooth her.
She’s there for her, a presence in her life branded by abandonment; and Kara latches on to her like she’s drowning without floats in the ocean.
The nights they do talk they drift from topic to topic without a straight line or even a connection. It’s whatever comes to mind, whatever needs to be let out for Kara to process it, whatever she needs to talk through in order to understand her own emotions.
“- I feel like I’m grieving a dead person.“
“- it’s probably best that I sent him away, otherwise I would’ve hated whoever did it, and that would be just unfair.“
Sometimes, there are questions, general or specific ones, and Lena always does her best to give satisfying answers.
“- Do you think we should hope for an afterlife or rather that it all ends?“
“I’d hope for an afterlife only if it were a happy one, better than this one without pain. If not I’d want everything to end because what’s the point of living on if it’s not good.“
“- Do you think you can love more than one person romantically at the same time but in different ways?“
“Of course, darling, you’re describing polyamory. I don’t know what you mean with the different ways though, I feel like that’s highly individual.“
And that’s when Kara explaines that her love for him felt like a lightning bolt. The imagery of it is beautiful, sublime. If you got too close, it hurt, burnt, set everything aflame with the sheer intensity of the electricity cursing through. It was amazing for a short period of time, until the feelings vanished and all that was left were charred remains and ash. Lena thinks she'd never forget the beauty in this metaphor, the smartness in the comparison.
She'd never forget that entire moment either, because it leads up to Kara confessing that loving Lena feels like the sun and the moon. A steady presence, you know is always, always there, even if they are covered by clouds, or god forbid by a thunderstorm. They guid your way, day and night, and, in Kara's case are literally the source of her strength, her powers. It knocks the wind right out of Lena.
Because Kara hasn’t planned on saying any of that which makes it all the more meaningful to Lena. But she can't even react because Kara is crying into her shoulder again, the lightning bolt had burnt her all up. Pain isn't an easy thing to overcome, especially when you need to heal from toxicity simultaneously.
Lena is scared to ask more on that topic, even when Kara seems to be doing better after a couple of weeks. If love by the sun and moon is attainable. If that’s something Kara would ever want. Because it’s too soon and it’s tactless as fuck and Kara basically moved in with her. She feels like she is taking advantage even asking for a hug.
She should probably say something, communicate her feelings so that Kara can let her down easy. She should let her know that the sun and the moon love her too and would never burn her to the ground. They would try to give her strength whenever she needs it and light her path in the dark when she needs guidance. There isn’t anything Lena wouldn't do for Kara.
It’s scary. And it’s precisely the reason why she can’t say anything. Not until Kara brings it up again.
It’s been three months and Kara’s still living with her. It’s veering towards her birthday. She’s still sad sometimes, muted in her grief, but it’s rare.
It’s the only reason why Lena decides to do some kind of something.
The jewelry box with the red ribbon is placed on Kara’s night stand while she is still asleep, breakfast already set up in the kitchen. Lena usually wakes her when they have to go to work, but not on the weekends. Kara always sleeps in when there are no emergency, but Lena’s anxiety kind of starts to feel like an emergency itself the longer Kara sleeps.
Maybe she hears Lena’s racing heart in her subconscious, maybe it’s the sun that wakes her mind. Whatever it is, Lena is grateful when blue eyes finally blink open and land on the box immediately.
“Happy earth-birthday,” Lena whishes and hands her the box with a squeez of her shoulder. There is too much riding on this, so she leaves the room to check on the coffee.
When Kara doesn’t come into the kitchen after half an hour, her anxiety piques once more, and Lena is forced back into the bedroom by her insecurities.
There is Kara, laying in what Lena now calls in her head ‘their bed’, crying into her pillow once more.
The wave of sadness crashes over Lena too, because grief is not a linear process and maybe she triggered it back to the surface with her present. Or it’s the day. She doesn’t want to be the cause for it. Still, she crawls onto the bed and snuggles against Kara from behind to hold her like they’ve done for the past three months.
She mastered the art of understanding every word Kara utters in-between sobs now, so it’s a shock really when she hears them.
“- I hate that I gave him my mother’s necklace.”
“- You remembered what I said.”
“- My sun and moon.”
“- You remembered.”
Kara wears both necklaces every day from then on out, both with the sun and the moon pendant, one gold, one silver. Lena loves to see the simple chains vanish under her shirt collars. She hates that they don’t talk about them though. About what they mean.
Lena only realizes in hindsight that Kara had needed all this time to process everything when she gifts her the moon necklace back. It’s when she says those three words without anything obscuring them, no other words no tears or pain. Just.
“I love you.”
Lena lets her clasp it around her own neck, watches Kara watching her, waiting for her reaction.
Lena can’t help but say it back.
“I love you too. So much!”
Kara hugs her then. Without the now usual desperation, but with a gentleness, a gratitude that shatters Lena’s composure and she has to cling to her with everything she has.
“Thank you. For waiting for me and for picking up my pieces. Even when I was broken, you didn’t give up, you just made a mosaic out of the mess I was. Thank you!”
It’s whispered against her neck with lips brushing her skin. Again, the beautiful words floor her. So stunned that she almost misses their first kiss. Only almost though. Kara is grounding her into the presence like Lena did all those times ago and she couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to give that gift back, even if Lena doesn’t want anything in return.
It’s them, and it’s balanced. Forged out of tears and agony, breaking hearts because one suffered and the other had to watch. A foundation so strong, they are now brave enough to let someone close again at the risk of loosing everything.
But Lena knows it’s worth it.
Kara knows it’s the best decision she ever made to fly to Lena’s instead of that dip in the sea.
Thunderstorms always pass, but what remains is the important part. The sun and the moon, as reliable and steady as they come.