Chapter Text
Lex’s reality comes to fruition, with one major aspect missing: Lena isn’t there.
He asks the butler where his sister is. The butler asks “whatever do you mean, sir? You’ve never had a sister.”
And the same goes for Kara. She goes to Lena’s office to tell her the truth all over again, and finds some nameless, unfamiliar man sitting behind the desk. No matter how hard she googles, the world has never heard of Lena Luthor. Kara is heartbroken, thinking that her Lena ended with the old reality. Alex does her best to comfort her, but is ultimately kind of crap at it.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Alex says. This way, there’s one less Luthor to worry about.
Months pass, and though Kara moves on, she never forgets. There’s a hole in her life where Lena used to be, a mountain of things left unsaid– things she’ll never have the chance to say again.
But then, one day, Kara’s in line to get coffee at Noonan’s when the barista calls out “flat white for Lena!”
Kara’s head shoots up, scanning the counter and the crowd reflexively. It’s happened a few times by now, and every time her hopes are dashed by an unfamiliar face, the wrong hair or an unknown smile. This time, however, she spies a flash of fair skin and dark hair near the pick up counter, and her heart starts thudding in her ears.
It’s too crowded for Kara to see the woman’s face. She shoves her way out of line and towards the counter, only to next see the woman slipping out the door. By the time Kara makes it to the sidewalk, the woman is gone, but Kara knows in her heart that it was her.
It was Lena.
She rushes home that night to tell her sister, only for Alex to poke holes in her certainty. Alex asks question after question that Kara can’t answer. She didn’t see the woman’s face, or which way she went. She doesn’t know the woman’s last name, nor did she have any other way to find the woman again.
All Kara can do is return to Noonan’s at roughly the same time the next morning, and hope that Lena comes again. She waits for hours, sipping on cold coffee and nibbling on a pastry she can barely taste. In the end, even Kara knows when to admit defeat.
She stands to leave, gathering her trash and sweeping her crumbs onto the floor. She’s so busy fighting tears that she doesn’t see the person entering as she barrels out to leave.
“Oh!”
Kara freezes, her arms hooked around a familiar waist to keep the other woman from falling.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” the woman says in a low, throaty voice. Kara blinks, then stares speechlessly into Lena’s eyes. “Please, excuse me.”
Lena extricates herself from Kara’s grip, straightening her sweater where it had gathered around her hips. Kara says nothing, her voice trapped behind the sudden lump in her throat. Lena’s brow furrows in confusion, but her gaze remains cool, without any sign of recognition.
“After you,” Lena says finally, taking a step back to hold the door open for Kara.
“Lena.”
Only then does Lena do a double-take, her green eyes widening before she scans Kara rapidly. “Sorry, have we met?”