Chapter Text
“Right there, Kara!” Lena’s voice echoes around the now-slightly-less-empty warehouse and her cheeks and neck tinge red as a few of the construction crew members fail to hold back small bursts of laughter and sheepish smiles. They’ve all Known for a while now. Nobody says anything. Sometimes, words aren’t necessary to define a bond that’s grown over so many years into something so deeply cherished that your entire world revolves around it...and Lena really needs to stop spending so much time with Nia before this waxing poetic about Kara thing becomes a regular occurrence, because unfortunately, while everyone knows that everyone knows…words have somehow failed them both. Her mind makes beautiful poetry, of course. It just becomes frustrating when her mouth only makes sounds more akin to a fish popping bubbles between moments of pursed tension as her mind draws blanks in that adorable crease between Kara's eyes. Especially when she wishes her mouth could be doing other things.
Every time they’ve come close to giving in, every time it seems like the tension between them is so thick nothing could cut it…it is. It’s too thick. It’s like hitting a wall and both of them bounce back and pull away before they even know what hit them…or what they hit. They haven’t been able to spend any time alone for days because it’s so overwhelming. And the worst part is, Lena – the certified genius – is at a complete loss as to what that wall is. She has half a mind to ask Kelly, but she's never really talked about her feelings like this before. She's never really talked about her feelings much at all.
During the several weeks of reflection that followed their reconciliation, it had seemed pretty obvious: their history. They’d agreed to move past it but had never really talked about it. The night of Alex and Kelly’s wedding had fixed that monstrous tear right up, with many tears sewing the seams between the sharp-edged words they'd snapped at each other in those moments of immense pain and desperate misunderstanding. Lena had been sure – SURE – they’d end the night with perfectly slutty wedding sex. After all, when you finally declare your undying love for your best friend of seven years, you’d think it would lead to the place you both openly and honestly agreed you wanted it to go after admitting the tension had been there since the moment you met. And then…it hadn’t gone. They’d sat there on the couch in Kara's apartment after the reception for what felt like hours. Inches away and clearly entranced by each other but completely frozen. Chests heaving, breath pulling them closer, then pushing them apart again inexplicably. No words, no pain or anger, just desperation, confusion, and frustration as they struggled through this mysterious mist of tension. After hours of trying to talk about whatever this was and coming up speechless, they’d gone to bed. Together…but Alone.
Now, after a few more days of dancing around each other and trying their best to talk and process between work and rest, it's begun to feel like kind of a duh: their pasts. Everything had been such a whirlwind since they fell apart and came back together that they’d never had time to actually talk about their lives before each other, before their respective worlds had been turned upside-down. Kara had grown up on Krypton. Lena grew up with the Luthors. Kara came from complacency and royalty and grew up to be worshiped as a god. Lena came from privilege and madness only to find that her true roots were magic. Their entire world and everyone else's had, in some small part alongside the rest of their friends' and family's superhuman rivalries, revolved around the Super-Luthor feud for decades. In more ways than either of them had realized until long after they met, their fates had always been intertwined. But the mistakes of those generational bonds are in the past, and they're all committed to forging a new future now. Kara had done something no one had ever thought possible: trust humans with the truth. Now, Lena has to learn to trust Kara with hers.
Kara hadn’t realized it at the time, though secretly Lena had, but that decision was a game changer. Things in their world had started shifting fast after the announcement, and Lena has already found herself struggling to keep up emotionally. It's a lot of pressure when the whole world knows the private and precious details of your life. She'd thought her years as a Luthor had prepared her, but something about Kara's presence at her announcement of the Lena Luthor Foundation - dedicated to bridging the gaps in understanding between Humans and Aliens and the coinciding gaps between Science and Magic - had caught the public's eye, and now their interactions are daily news. As the chuckles around them die down, Lena takes a moment to soak in the simple comfort and safety of calling Kara's name as she flies above Lena and the human members of her building crew that are moving things on the ground (and also makes a mental note to make Andrea pay for their next lunch considering it was Supergirl's Notable Exit from her loft earlier that morning that surely has everyone in such unabashedly immature spirits). Her own blush dissipates, and she decides that this has gone on long enough. She'll talk to Kara as soon as they get home.
Then, after another few weeks of it being enough, when the Foundation's International Coordination Office is finished and their efforts start becoming more organized and she's so horny she thinks she might explode, she decides facing the past might not be such a bad thing. She sits Kara down on that damn couch and they talk through it all for so long it feels like their heads might fall off. Hour by hour, as the parallels and divergences between each of their memories and experiences unfold, their world and their understanding of it opens up to them, and they gain a perspective of it they’d never imagined. They’re so excited about all they learn, brains buzzing with infinite and youthful joy, that acting on their feelings isn't even a thought. Especially with family game night starting in T-minus 15 minutes. They couldn’t have not-planned better, because fun and games turns into discovering overlapping themes between their lives, the stories they've just shared, and the games they're playing. Slowly, they start showing their family how they can uncover the evolutionary truth of their world and every other, together. Every version of their truths - and their plans to explore, develop, and build the one they believe would be best for them all - comes together just 3 game nights later. When their heads do finally hit the floor (cushioned by pillows once they call it a night after everyone leaves and pop in their Friday Movie Night special), it finally makes sense. Clark and Lex had gotten it wrong at the start, that they had known. But now they know how to get it right. And they also recognize the work to be done. So, they prep to get started. Foundations to create, support to be provided, battles to be won…and without fighting. Or Losing. Themselves or Each Other. Their relationships takes the back burner, but Lena knows it's for the best as they discover a world beyond the everyday mundanity of domestic superhero life. Sex can wait. As long as it needs.
As it goes, the grind quickly gets overwhelming again. Tensions grow between her and Kara as the world's tensions begin to alleviate, and Weight of the World soon becomes Weight of The Worlds as the Multiverse catches onto their changes and begins implementing them. Naturally, many seek the guidance and advice of the two women who had pioneered the process with a complex conversation before an Atypical string of game nights when and where it's relevant. The stress has them sleeping in separate beds after 2 months of constant arguing at night, but Lena aches with the separation. Thankfully, Guardian has unsurprisingly been at the helm, since most of their plan for Unity and Cooperation depends on emotional honesty and stability, which helps take the stress off. Kelly rarely wears her mask anymore and the local communities all know her by name. Unfortunately, this means Lena still hasn't worked up the courage to ask her if it's weird that her and Kara still haven't even kissed, let alone slept together. They truck on for another few months, but – god and magician, hero and witch, or not – they, like all Beings, have limits. So, they take a trip. Argo is more beautiful than Lena had ever imagined.
Their frequent visits to Argo in the months prior to Kal and Lois’s decision to have another kid after her cancer is completely cured teach them all a lot about biology and the potentials of the human body. Kal and Lois can have kids whenever they want, and even when she goes back to Earth, Lois now ages like a Kryptonian. Strangely enough, Lena has a slightly different genetic code than most humans, so she was already unknowingly aging at a slower rate, but Kara gives her a few Timmunizations during their first few visits just to be sure of the same whenever they go back. They grow to love it so much that 4 months later and 10 visits later, their trip becomes a full-on move. They make a home there together in such a short time, it feels like a new kind of magic. Earth will always be their Ground Zero, but Argo is their hope for the future. After all, with Kal and Lois and the kids – the twins, Jonathan and Jordan, and their youngest…a little girl named June – so close after healing the rift between Mirrorverses and moving there themselves, nothing seems impossible anymore. She and Kara still don't really talk about the fact that they're in a relationship even though everyone knows they're life partners, so now that they're on Argo long-term, the baby discussions stay centered on June and the other Argonauts' kids. Kara actively dodges Kelly and Alex's questions about intimacy every time they visit, and even Lex and Nxly start to test the limits of Lena's patience with her magic. She strains with the effort of not atomizing them one night when Lex starts singing about the joys of healthy partnership to the Mister Rogers-esque tune auto-strumming from the ukulele that Nxly summons from the 5th dimension. Her and Kara may not have a typical relationship, but they're happy traveling and living together, and that's enough for them. So much of her wishes people would let it be what it is, even and especially since she's still a bit unsure. She knows how she feels, and she knows how Kara feels, but neither of them seems to know how to act on it. Every night on Argo, their bodies get closer, but they never touch. Lena's starting to wonder if the friction between them might explode something, so the Multiverse is helping them keep the distance until the stars align. At this point, she can only hope.
Since their last visit, Alura and Zor-El had found and united with Astra and Non to combine the versions of Argo they’d unknowingly created while split between the Phantom Zone and Earth’s Atmosphere, as Astra and Non had ended up the unwitting leaders of a stranded race of mystery humans after the birth of the new multiverse on a rock with resources similar to Argo's. Finding out about the healing they'd done together sparks a side of Kara she's never seen before, and they spend the whole way there talking about Myriad, Astra, Non, and how this trip can fully heal the pain of their past. Lena warns her that she should take time to focus on her family first, then shift to their relationship. So, upon arrival, Kara dives into her family's healing journey and Lena's inspiration for the LLF connections becomes endless. She lets herself get lost in her work again to avoid the remaining uncertainty while Kara finds herself in her family, commending herself every day for the patience and comfort she's developing with the unknown. After a few weeks, Kara slowly helps Lena find herself in her work and life again. Now that she's had time to heal with her family, Kara's light shines brighter than ever, and she insists that now is the time to focus on sparking Lena's light and keeping it shining so they can be the power couple they were always meant to be.
They talk about Lena's family and the various opportunities for healing with combined VR and magic, growing in their understanding of the balance between life and death as Kara becomes determined to help Lena reconnect with all three of her parents. Lena slowly and steadily becomes more comfortable as part of Kara's family, and their incredible ideas for the future draw out her nerd side in no time. Their bond grows stronger as they share their love of science and tech and energetic unknowns, and each night in the lab together only increases the tension between them, but the Mysterious Mist finds them again every time they go to head home, like a wet, heavy blanket that saps all of the sparks between them out of the air and redirects them elsewhere. By the time they reach the bed, the awkward tension is back and they're stuck apart again. Then, after a few years spent in a constant state of active happiness in this new and magical home where they're able to enjoy every single second, with little time or need for rest, it begins to seem too...unreal. When they go to bed every night, there's still space between them, and the peace and comfort they'd thought Argo would give them to discover their relationship has only seemed to take them away from it. As individuals, they're thriving, but together they're still lost. So, they decide to go back home with a newly awakened hope and faith in the dreams they’d chased there and the knowledge that they have much more to do before they can find the depth of true happiness their families have in their relationships within that dream. Their last night on Argo, Kara has to leave to help Naltor install an interstellar satellite. As if the stars are calming that fearful voice in the back of her mind once again saying they might never find it, Lena wakes up in a panicked, cold sweat feeling like a piece of her is missing. She notices for the first time how badly she needs Kara physically close to her. When they leave the next morning to go back to Earth, Lena makes Kara promise to never leave her. Kara doesn't hesitate, but she does cry a lot. Somehow, everything and nothing has changed.
They spend a few months back home seeing all kinds of healers and therapists, enjoying simple time together in nature, and healing their bodies from all the stress and strain of fighting as their multiversal healing efforts finally started to pay off in the form of a near absence of crime or major threats. Turns out when resources are shared equally, scarcity isn't a problem, and everyone has opportunities to grow and thrive in their own ways, a lot changes. During the day, they relish their successes and soak in the benefits of down time, but at night there's a sense of satisfaction that still seems lost. After many talks and many confused professionals, they'd started to think they didn't want or need sex to be intimate, and that had been true for a while. But with each step forward their relationship was taking, Lena's perceptions of her sexuality took ten steps back. The worst part was knowing they were deeply attracted to each other and not knowing why they couldn't act on it. Kara had thought it was her fear of her strength. Lena her control of her magic. But as they each grew in their confidence and abilities, that wall still refused to move.
Then, Winn had come home. And everything had changed again. The future was still a mess. Things still needed fixing. There was still…something missing. Lena struggled for days not to think too much about the ways her and Kara's therapeutic journey were mirroring the many social issues Winn warned them of. Then, just as she was about to break down and tell Kara they should go back to being friends, that their lack of intimacy must mean they weren't meant to be after all, it clicked: the future. They had spent so much time planning and putting things into action on Argo that they had never just sat down and…talked. They'd had so much vision and so many options, they’d forgotten to plan and choose. It had been such a delightful rush on Argo, all go-go-go in a way that was more productive than Lena had ever imagined. But they’d missed their couch. So, once Winn had given them the run-down and they'd finished the immediate damage control, they sat back down and talked some more about the future; what they wanted from their lifestyle and how they wanted to build it. They’d soon happily agreed they were prepared to bring their friends and family together so they could share with and learn from each other and build it all up together one more. The breath of relief they’d shared when that conversation had ended and they’d finally talked through their visions for their place in the new world in a way that allowed the beginnings of a plan to formulate between them pulled them into each other in a way that neither of them really understood. Their foreheads touched, and after a moment they seemed to be sharing breath. Lena had been absolutely, positively certain that this time she would finally get to taste the kiss of the woman she loved.
And then…she hadn’t. They had simply…touched. For hours, their hands had roamed over each other’s bare skin, which they had slowly and gently exposed without so much as a thought to lean back and watch the clothes peel off as their foreheads had stayed magnetized against each others' and they’d shared and traded soft, gentle breaths, letting their hands do the work. Lena could have sworn she saw tendrils of purple and green floating in her periphery like wisps in the air-conditioned wind, but…confirming that would have required taking her eyes off Kara’s, and she’s pretty sure neither even closed them to blink for a single moment. She doesn’t once remember losing sight of those eyes.
But they still wanted more. This was something they couldn’t talk about in words, especially with a stranger, but something they both knew to be true. They wanted everything. The kind of future that used to be called The Dream, but in a way that had grown into something that could make any dream come true anywhere and everywhere they went. So, in the absence of the physical expression of their love, they went after the future of it. Spent their weekends traveling far and wide, going everywhere they could possibly think or hope to go in search of seeing something they might be able to learn from that would help them understand what they were missing. After all, Kelly and Alex had found it. And now they were ready to go after it. They decided after a couple of really rough public school years to take Esme out into the Multiverse and let her learn and explore full-time among Nature’s Ultimate Playground. It had taken a lot for them to overcome their fears about all that could happen to her, but they had learned to just live in the moment and not take anything for granted and were teaching Lena and Kara to do the same. When they told Kara they were leaving, she was devastated that their long-term communal living plan was taking such an unexpected detour, but she stayed strong. Sort of.
As the last tears dried when Kara had drifted off to sleep after bidding them goodbye (even knowing they’d still see them next week), Lena had become unwaveringly certain: it’s the present. They had been so caught up for so long talking about all the shit from their past and plans for the future that they’d forgotten to talk about what they wanted and needed from each other right here and right now. Surely, that’s why their bodies wouldn’t let them act on it for so many years. Why, no matter what worlds they visited, that wall between them still seemed as solid as ever while the desire to tear it down only continued to grow.
So, when the Dawn came, they talked. And talked. And talked. Even more. They decided to Travel full-time, too. But they had seen so much already. Gone so far and done so many things since Argo. At Home, Abroad, and Galactically. And yet, it still wasn’t enough. But then Brainy and Nia came to them with an idea. Simple, terrifying considering their past, but…full of Hope and Potential. This could start a New Revolution. Things had been getting pretty tense at Home – with the worst of it culminating in the very same school Esme had left her literal World to escape – and this could, at the very least, relieve some of the pressure. If not change everything entirely.
Alternate Reality Contacts. The ability to shift your sight to any place in any galaxy at any time with lenses you could take in and out. They'd start with using light codes to project astral forms so people could surprise someone they know in another world, then expand by allowing people to share the body and consciousness of another consenting being who's wearing them. Of course, that would require you to learn to share that consciousness and body, but that could be half the fun! People could figure it out together, one way or another. So, they got started. Lena could see so much potential for connection and Kara was obsessed with the idea of going anywhere anytime without having to leave home. It would be perfect for kids who couldn’t afford to travel once the LLF got the go-ahead to disperse them to schools as a learning tool. There was so much to do with all the turmoil lately, she’d been feeling trapped anyway. This was the absolute perfect way to escape and problem-solve at the same time. Surely, nothing could go wrong.
But, of course, it did. Something…happened. Kara meant for it to be a prank. She was just gonna sneak up on her and say boo like she always did, pretending to scare her even though Esme could always feel her power in the room. But she wasn’t in the room. She wasn’t thinking. So, she Shifted into the room with the beta version of the ARC lenses. She tiptoed up to Esme where she was coloring at her desk with her back to her Aunty K. And she…said ‘boo.’
But before she could even see Esme’s eyes go wide as her scared little head snapped to the hand that was only sort of on her shoulder…poof. They were both gone. And Lena died inside before she even knew why.
In the kitchen, Lena felt a chill run down her spine and her chest turn hollow. She ran back into the living room of the new home her and Kara had bought with the fresh lemonade she'd squeezed in her hand and those little mini potstickers Kara loved so much still sitting on the counter just in time to watch the love of her life dissolve in a cloud of green smoke. She heard glass shatter. She felt her knees hit the floor. And then she saw purple.
She became smoke. What was a world without Kara, anyway? Nothing but Smoke and Mirrors. So, that’s what she would become.
And then she woke up standing somewhere…beautiful. Somewhere that…felt like home. Looked like home. She was in a field, a meadow, by the home she shared with her mother. Then, with the thought of Elizabeth, she Shifted as if she was wearing her own set of ARC lenses. The fear of such sudden changes in her perspective paralyzed her, and she felt herself stuck between her new home with Kara and her very first room in the very first home she'd shared with her mother. She was so overwhelmed with energy, her body moved her toward the overlapping beds of its own volition. She lay down and closed her eyes, and sleep was as much a dream as it was an illusion. She was still in bed, and she was resting, but some form of her body had never truly stopped moving. For a moment, she woke again in her childhood bedroom in the Luthor mansion. Then, when she panicked a bit at the thought that it had all been a dream and she would have to spend another lifetime watching what happened between her, Lionel, Lex, and Lillian play out a third time, the room shifted again.
She saw a few things she recognized: a dresser, a crib, a rocking chair, and a mobile. There was little else but a baby doll in the crib, and somehow she knew its name was Alex. But the familiarity of the room was a mystery to her. She didn’t understand how she had come to be here. She didn’t understand why or how it Felt just like the home she had watched leave her in a cloud of smoke. And with that thought, the room shifted again. One by one, she saw every room she’d ever had. Every space she’d ever made or found and learned to love for herself and the people she’d dared to care about. Her Spaces moved before her eyes like a life-size, 4-D film reel in full-color, High Definition clarity, and she watched in awe as they came to life and showed her meanings beyond her previous imagination. Each and every thing in each and every one of her spaces had meant something to her, yes, but it had also meant something to the world. Something to her memory and those of everyone she’d ever met or not been able to meet. Strings of Light connected each item in rooms all over the world she'd grown up in, and black tendrils reached out from the edges of each memory into the darkness beyond, where she somehow knew the rest of the Multiverse connected itself through a similar system and Light and Shadow.
Every moment of her childhood had been connected to every moment of her future, and each of those moments was connected to someone else’s existence. She watched it all play out in front of her in living memory. But at the realization of what it all meant for her world, another shift happened. Suddenly, she could see outside of the room through a door that didn’t even exist because she was outside on Argo with Kara laying on a blanket looking out at the Stars. She thought of Brainy and Nia and the ARC Lenses they had brought her not that long ago, focusing on feeling them in her eyes, and she shifted focus. After a second of a flash of blinding, yet painless, light, she could see a million different versions of herself in a line.
A literal Lena Luthor character lineup in the sky. On instinct, she looked to her right side, her first thought to ask Kara which she wanted to explore, and found herself alone. So, she took a deep breath. She had lost her more than once before. She would find her again. So, she dove. From the blanket on the ground, right into the sky, she closed her eyes and pictured herself melting into the black and being carried to whichever moment in the film reel she needed to go. After all, without Kara, she didn’t know how to want anything for herself. Might as well just…go with the Flow.
She never could have imagined it...what she saw. Her body was Purple Mist. She stood just inches away from Kara but somehow knew she couldn’t touch her and didn’t dare try for fear of watching her, once again, go up in smoke. Lena could never be the one to make her do so. The last person she expected to see with the love of her life was Mxyzptlk. They hadn’t heard from him in years. Some kind of accident?
She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because the shock of what she was seeing was almost too overwhelming to bear. Kara was in tears. Her voice reached Lena’s ears.
“No, Lena, no! How could you ever think that?” Then she realized…this wasn’t Kara. At least, not the Kara she knew. Except…this was her apartment. Mostly. A few details were off, but there was no question about the similarities. She thought, very simply, ‘hold on’. And…it did. Like a living memory that wasn’t hers with her own brain as the remote, she realized more in feeling than thought what was happening. The scene had paused. She'd paused it. Which meant she was in control. So, she hit mental rewind. Because…what the fuck is happening right now?
And there was Kara. For just a split second, Lena was looking into her eyes as Kara looked through hers - a feeling, she realized with a haunting yet reassuring thought, that she had never felt before - and then she heard the whoosh of fifth dimensional magic. Kara turned away from her and toward the TV screen that had just turned on as Lena heard Mxy say “I will snap again, at which point, it will become reality.”
And then she watched. She watched as Kara tore apart worlds and put them back together again in search for the perfect way to tell Lena her secret. At first, she watched from the safety of Kara’s apartment. Four attempts where Mxy “helped” Kara pick a moment to reveal her secret and they all found themselves shocked and shattered at the outcome, though Lena could appreciate how hard Mxy tried to cover it up with humor. He clearly knew nothing about Kara and how seriously she took her love for her family and friends, but he was trying in his own way. She knew it would take lifetimes to process the endless stream of emotions that surged through Lena with each attempt, but she wasn't surprised when she saw that a world without their friendship ended in her demise and the destruction of their world. She wasn't sure anything could surprise her anymore. Until Kara gave up.
She was emotionally exhausted. Lena understood. And she was almost upset until she heard Kara call it the most emotionally exhausting experience of her life and, knowing the traumas Kara had suffered prior, she finally began to understand why Kara had kept her secret for so long. But surely, there had to be a reality where she’d told her in the early days of their friendship and it turned out okay. Or maybe they’d even met as children and grown up helping each other discover and develop their powers. She’d have given anything to know Kara longer if it had been an option in their lifetime.
And with that thought, she shifted and kept going. More times than she could even begin to count, Lena watched a million different versions of Kara - each looking and acting just a bit differently while sharing that same Kara energy - try and fail to share the Kryptonian side of her with each of those versions of Lena in any way that didn’t get her or them or anyone and everyone they loved killed. She unconsciously skipped each world where they never met, as she'd already seen that ending once and didn't care to witness it again, but she knew somewhere inside she'd have to reckon with each of them someday. The only world even close to the one they'd shared was the one where they'd been partners and Lex had never restored her memories from the previous multiverse. The cycles went on for eternities until she reached the first four attempts again, and she could tell she was almost at the end once more when she saw the rubble and heard the Hope robots in the distance. Kara was sobbing and screaming in agony. To call her a wreck would have been generous. Her skin was webbed with green and a version of Lena that couldn’t be saved floated above them like the Kryptonite Heart inside of her was trying to lift her into any other lifetime and it was all her body could do to contain it close enough to try to aim the fire of her overheated soul at the already defeated hero on the ground.
Suddenly, the eyes of this evil version of her began to glow, and before she could process what she was seeing, Lena got lost in a flash of memory. She was watching from inside her own body like her eyes were closed and the backs of her lids a screen, but she could feel that her eyes were still open. She could still feel herself in that moment with Kara and her worst self - her angry, cold, dead heart waiting for blast to do its deadliest. And yet, she was also seeing another memory from outside that Space and Time and Body, like her eyes were the cameras of a drone recording a different scene from an odd angle. She remembered this. Somewhere, somehow, deep, deep, deep down…she remembered this. She remembered standing there with James watching as Supergirl had fallen to the pavement after Reign had…Reign. Sam. Supergirl…Kara. Her brain short circuited and the memories in and around her both cut to a stop like someone had pulled the film reel right out from the sky.
This was from before she knew. Before the antimatter wave. Before her memory…
Her memory. The Split.
This was why.
Kara hadn’t told her about her travels with Mxy. But some part of her also knew she had known. That they had talked about this in some other life. She'd thought it was just one body with two versions of her. For years, she and the superfriends had agonized over the mental healing of just two versions of themselves. Now, she knew, there were infinites. Each solar system holding the potential for each person in each world throughout all of existence, with every individual soul simultaneously experiencing every moment and aspect of existence. She could feel the new multiverse holding each current potential inside planetary cores and each past potential in the atomic structures of the stardust and particles in the space between. All at once, everything everywhere made sense to her. And her love for Kara was at the center of it all.
Lena tried not to let the heartbreak and awe and frustration overwhelm her as she struggled and strained to process. Kara had spent millions, maybe billions of trials trying to find a way to tell Lena her Truth. It was understandable how desperate she was to begin with. After all, how do you tell your best friend you’re the cousin of the alien who sent her brother to jail for almost destroying the world? But this…
Lena could almost feel the antimatter wave.
She could feel it.
Deep Down.
Like a nuclear reaction waiting to swallow her whole. The same way it had felt just before she ran into the living room to see Kara become a cloud of green smoke.
Lena snapped back to the split memory she’d left, floating strangely above a beaten and bloodied Kara with a possessed Sam flying home to make Ruby pancakes like she hadn’t just dropped their mutual best friend off the rooftop of a 10-story building. She shook the thought off, reminding herself that Reign was gone, then shifted back to that broken, hopeless world where the rubble surrounded Kara not on the ground where she'd landed but outside the building where she lay collapsed in agony, refusing to fight Lena and awaiting the death she believed she deserved for abandoning her best friend. The scene was still paused, and now she could move, but she didn’t dare. Not when she saw and felt the color of these eyes on the backs of the eyelids that still weren't closed. A violet flame so bright it was mostly white shone from the depths of Nightmare Lena’s soul as she felt Kara's body start to give in to the last of the kryptonite blast, and Lena fell to her knees again as the guilt and blame tore through her and she thought the worst of herself for all of a second…
Nia.
Soft tendrils of bluish white energy snaked up under her armpits to keep her from crushing her kneecaps against the floor of the high rise, and next thing she knew, she was back on Kara’s couch. The bed looked cold without Kara in it, so she blinked her eyes in the direction of the curtain, and Nia’s dream energy drew it closed so all she could see was the hand-dyed tapestry her and Kara had woven together. The tie-dye pattern, which captured the colors between the stars on their trips across the galaxies, comforted her as she drifted off to sleep with the smell of Kara’s perfume wafting up from the blanket that tucked itself under her chin just like Kara used to before she’d carry her off to bed…
Lena jolted awake again at the thought of the bed, but she felt inexplicably and completely well-rested. She was right where Nia had left her…somehow…the night before, but she ached to finish what she felt was a yet-incomplete journey. So, she pushed herself up off the couch and walked out the apartment door and into the night sky, fearlessly traversing the same colors her and Kara had created and drank and danced to for years when the cabin lights of The Tower had been dimmed enough to see the connections they’d helped build among the stars. She stopped as soon as she saw the eyes. She did not want to watch this final blow land again, but something in her told her it was important to return.
But when she did, the scene had changed. Gone were the ruin and rubble and in its place was a hospital where that worst version of her was being tended to and cared for by not just the superfriends, but an entire team of doctors, nurses, and other professionals waiting to lend a genuine helping hand. Tears brimmed the Luthor’s eyes as she felt some of her guilt and shame dissolve, and she silently thanked Mxy as she watched and listened to the 5th dimensional magic working its way through her other self’s system. They would save her. They would save them both. Because Kara was right next to her. Asleep in her own bed but pushed so close they might as well have been sharing one. Lena suspects that, if such a hospital bed existed, they might have been. Kara’s green-webbed hand is resting gently over hers, and Lena can see and feel the Kryptonite in her own veins working overtime to pull back the poison she’d blasted into Kara. Something tells Lena no one had to do anything to motivate her to do that. It was just natural.
And that’s when it clicks again. Kara had kept trying to find ways to help the truth come up naturally. She'd kept hoping that dancing around it would keep her from stumbling into it. She’d been so sure that easing into it would be a necessity, and Lena knew because it was all she’d tried. Each time, she’d tried to start the conversation with something related to what was going on with them at the time, and each time that thing had come to get them before she’d had the chance to say it and was forced to show it instead. And this time was no different. She shifts inadvertently back to Kara’s first attempt to watch herself change things at the moment the alarms go off just as Kara was about to get to the point. No rest for the wicked, Lena confirms. It was closer than she’d ever been, but still so far away. Lena craved nothing more than watching them get to heal and be together and Kara wants to badly to finally learn to share her truth. But the version of her that had sat watching in her loft in National City had been at a loss. Watching it happen again and again. No clue what she was doing wrong or why she couldn’t get it right. And it startles Lena how much her own life has started to feel like a game show no one can win. But game shows are always a scam.
That must have been why Lena got pulled to a version of the future separate from the ones Kara saw in her loft. Something had happened to Mxy…Mardi Gras. 1780s. That’s where he’d said he was going when he’d told her that magic can’t be forced…it has…to be found. And if Lena thought yesterday was a whirlwind, she was kidding herself.
Their first life flashes before her eyes like a bolt of lightning, but all around it there are millions of other streams of light carrying images of them in more ways than Lena could have ever hoped to imagine. She gravitates toward the blue of Kara’s supersuit and isn’t at all surprised when she’s back in her own body standing next to James as Alex runs toward Supergirl and somehow manages to stop short of climbing over the rubble. Some part of her is frozen in fear like the helpless version of her that stood there all those years ago unable to do anything to help. But as this version of her that looks through new eyes that know the truth sees her love lying there, bleeding, the scene stays exactly the same as something inside of Lena shifts. She can feel it. Kara is so close to becoming smoke, and Lena can’t watch it again. So, she shifts the scene, too.
Except…she’s in the same spot. So, thinking her brain remote jammed, she’s about to shift again when a voice she doesn’t quite recognize calls out “CUT!”. And, even though she isn’t quite sure what that means, her fear of losing Kara by not following this flow in case it does really lead back to the version of her that Lena most remembers takes over. She feels something click, stopping Kara's energy from slipping into smoke. And it’s different this time. It’s…completely unexpected. Kara gets up like nothing was ever wrong and James walks away like he can’t be bothered to check on her at all, but Lena just…loses it.
She runs over to Kara like a woman possessed and grabs her by the shoulders, checking her up and down to make sure she’s okay until the look in her eyes and the way she pulls her body away shakes Lena out of her trance.
“Are you…okay, Katie?” Lena’s brain stutters and she shifts again, her lack of ideas as to how she might begin processing the well of emotions coursing through her dragging her back to where she started once again. Back in this world’s version of Kara’s apartment, but somehow Lena can feel…something else. Like her body is vibrating with Kara as she knows her, but she is now also understanding the perspective of someone named Melissa. The same someone who had just asked someone named Katie if she was okay. Thankfully, this Melissa is also thinking about Kara. So, she shakes the twinge of confused jealousy off and tunes in as closely as she can without losing herself again.
As Lena hears Melissa's thoughts mix with Kara's, she begins to understand each attempt in a new way. There are strong emotions driving Melissa's connection to these thoughts, but she respects the privacy of the person clearly somehow sharing a consciousness with Kara too much to pry. She wonders idly how this stranger ended up with ARC Lenses, but who's to say someone else didn't develop similar technology and the wavelengths didn't somehow overlap. And just the thought of overlapping wavelengths made it make sense. Everything was subconscious. For years, Kara had been trying to tell Lena without words. Showing her as Supergirl that she was still Kara in every way she could think to without actually saying it. Showing her as Kara that Supergirl was trying her best and deserved to be trusted despite their issues. Lena could feel the knowing of a future where Kara kept telling Mxy - insisting - she was sure this was the way to do it running all along those wavelengths, and the self-doubt that plagues everyone was like a deep, dark line that both Melissa and Kara had drawn down the center, right between their needs and their fears. How could Kara possibly tell Lena the truth? Kara didn’t have the confidence. Supergirl was her real power, and Supergirl was the one Lena didn't believe in.
But Lena knows that isn’t true. Whatever these worlds are, whatever Kara was doing or had done, whatever piece of her this Melissa may be feeling and thinking about, and for whatever complex reasons, the Paragon of Love’s true power has always been her Hope (hence why she and Barry had needed to co-pilot the Destiny’s Kin into the new multiverse so many years ago, before Winn had arrived and told them something was missing and they'd realized the Book of Destiny had switched Kara and Barry's Paragon identities to counterbalance Lex inserting himself as the Paragon of Truth). Somehow, Lena – the Paragon of Life…even if she doesn’t quite yet understand what that means or why she’s thinking of herself in that way – had perceivedly failed to help Kara realize the connection between that hope and that humanity. Lena feels it slipping again. She shifts. And now, it's finally making sense.
She's back in the apartment, remote in her hand, sitting on the couch – a plain white curtain where their tapestry should be – and the moment she sees the VCR tapes, she understands. And then, with nothing better to do, she starts again.
Kara tells the truth. Lena dies. Kara cries. Lena hits rewind. She watches Kara try to find the words. She watches her search and search and search. Until Lena has watched Kara try to fix them so many times, she feels herself starting to break. So, she swears to herself she won’t let any of these failures stop her. No matter what any of these failures have said, she won’t let them stop her from finding Kara again. In fact, Lena Feels and Thinks in Unison…I know just where to find her.
And just like that…she's back on the blanket. And Kara is next to her. And there are the Stars. She's too tired for words, so she falls asleep in the light and hope of Love’s arms. And when she wakes up, she isn’t scared to find herself alone in their bed. She knows Kara will find her again, and her Kara. So, she decides to explore outside the actual door. She stands up feeling much lighter and awake than expected after the couple of nights she’s had and walks to the door, expecting to grab the handle and open it. Instead, the room dissolves and she finds herself back in her Lab at their Summer Home on Argo.
Everything around her is labeled in a way that’s a bit hard to describe. The labels are almost…balancing over their respective objects. Somewhat like a projection coming from the thing itself, but also like it's being held up by a million little threads like spider webs that Lena can feel more than see. There's a small glint in the air, a Silver Lining that passes between each floating label, but that's it. Until she touches the first thread. Her eyes roll back in her head in a way that is absent of fear or pain or confusion – like it was something natural, something she’d done her whole life – and she could See…Everything. Infinite lifetimes at a speed that, if she had been at Home, she knew, would have been Beyond her Comprehension and Understanding. She didn’t process it all by any means, at least not consciously, but some part of her could feel all of those different things she’d been through with Kara, and she knew without a doubt what their issue had been: Attachment.
Lena had never known her mother. She’d always felt her out there, but had never understood how or why she’d died the way she had. Why Lena had Suffered the way she had without her. She’d known – felt – all her life that she didn’t deserve to suffer forever as she had known she would from the moment Lionel took her away from her home. She'd known that she was meant for more than the version of her that felt nothing but loss. But the world had always told her she was wrong for having been born a Luthor. Hell, the MULTIVERSE had told her she was wrong for it the day Lex finally went to prison. She had tried time and again to find her way in the world, but it had only ever made sense in her head. Until she met Kara. Until she learned what love really was. Until they'd lived a beautiful life so full of that love she almost couldn't stand to think about it. Until her Dearest Love had found her again on that blanket by the stars, After Life. Even if they still hadn’t spoken and Kara had been more of a Presence than truly There.
So, she knows now it's true. That, in some way, her life has ended. But in every other way, it is just about to begin.
And with that thought, her body shifts. And There's Kara. On top of her. With a look in her eyes that could quite literally melt worlds. If she was letting her heat vision out right now, Lena would be dead. She isn’t afraid, she trusts the eyes of the woman above her beyond reason, but as soon as that thought crosses her mind, something in Kara’s eyes changes. She's worried. She looks down. And then Lena finally feels where she is like a bolt of lightning so powerful, she’d never even thought to experience it before. She’s had plenty of sex in the past, but never with Kara. And never since. Now, she realizes, she's about to. Everything else goes out of her head. Her own eyes take on a hunger she didn’t even know she possessed, and the fire in Kara’s returns.
Suddenly, Kara's teeth are on her neck. It should hurt. By gods, it really should hurt. But Lena has never, ever, ever felt pleasure like this. Her hands come up to claw Kara’s back and she feels her nails dig in. Kara hisses. Wait. How can her nails dig in? Lena’s hands yank back on instinct.
“Are you okay?” They ask in unison.
Lena feels a reassuring presence. Then hears it.
“This is normal. Keep going. Don’t question it.” A friend. Who, she has no idea. But she trusts them.
“Sorry, yeah, fine…keep going,” Lena pants, already out of breath with the feeling of Kara's teeth still lingering. Kara’s smirk returns, the edges of it still her most loving, adoring smile, and then she's back at it. Lena feels the Truth sink into her neck like the bite of a vampire who sucks up your pain and gives blood when you need it instead of taking it. It flows through her like fire in her veins. She is not alone. Not in this bed with Kara, not on that blanket under the stars, not even back in that apartment as the puffs of smoke waiting to be returned to form.
She is infinite. With Kara, she has Learned Infinity. They have done this before. A million times, a million ways, Lena has felt Kara’s touch in and on and around and under and above every inch of her. Now, she can Feel Kara Inside and Outside of her. As her. Not just part of her heart, but…part of her. Entirely. She is herself and Kara and all of their feelings and emotions all at once, and she has spent so long wanting Kara after losing her so many times to all of the losses throughout all of their lives that she can’t bear it anymore.
She doesn’t just want Kara, she needs her. In every way. She can not live, can not exist, can not breathe without her. Can not Be without her. She pulls back. Into herself, into the moment, into this Space. But only so she can look Kara in the eyes before diving in. She kisses her. Lena kisses Kara.
In all of the dreams, all of the fantasies, she has ever had, and in every single life she's feeling in that Truth that courses through her…Kara has always been the one to kiss her. The White Knight to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away into better days and happier memories. Every lover she’s ever had, all of the power and aggression she’s shown, every ounce of dominance she’s exerted in the bedroom for so many years before meeting Kara and forgetting how to want anyone else. She’s been so tired. She’s just wanted her big, strong Kryptonian to wrap her up and take care of all of her needs. But she’d held that want so deeply in her mind for so long, her body forgot how to let her make a move for it when she knew she needed it and wasn’t getting it. Kara had so many chances to kiss her and couldn’t. Maybe if she’d kissed Kara in their lifetime, things would have been different. Maybe Lena wouldn’t have lost her.
So…she takes the shot she knows she can't miss. Right there, in that bed, with the indents of Kara’s teeth still burning her neck, she lets go of every ounce of Control she’d taught herself as a young Walsh-turned-Luthor and gives in. It's wild. Untamed. All scraping teeth and swirling tongues and swollen lips and Need. Just pure, unadulterated need. And she lets herself have it.
Letting out her inner beast is a feeling she has never imagined could lead to something so…pure. Suddenly, she's standing upright. Alone, but…not. In fact, she feels the complete opposite of alone.
She feels full.
She feels…Kara. And then she calls to her. And calls. And calls. And for what feels like an eternity, she hears nothing. But eventually…the Silence Calls Back.
And there is Kara. Laying in their bed. The one they’d shared without Sharing for so long, it felt like a lifetime. And then, Lena realizes, it had. It had been a lifetime. And suddenly, she's overwhelmed in the best way.
Because Kara opens her eyes. And the same way she had when they’d met by complete chance that day at Noonan’s - just before that first attempt on Lena’s life when Kara had heard her heartbeat before she'd even realized she’d had it memorized and raced to save her from that death trap in the sky (well that’s new. That’s lovely, dear. I love you) - her world shifts.
She's waking up next to the love of her life. Looking into Kara’s eyes the same way she had each morning for years. But she's…satisfied. No more searing tension pulling low at her gut, making her mind spin with questions as to why and how they’ve struggled to express their desires in the one way they couldn’t seem to let themselves the first or second time around. No more anxious rumbling in her stomach from any and every food she’s ever tried to eat. No more pounding aches behind her eyes that keep her head in place no matter how desperately she’d once longed to close the distance. So, she does.
Or at least, she tries to. But as she leans in, Kara’s eyes go wide like she hadn’t been expecting it, and she pulls back. Lena’s mind and vision swim with confusion as she tries to reconcile the versions of Kara she had felt wanting and needing her in all those same ways for what felt like Endless Eternities since the moment she’d woken up in the Luthor mansion…and with that thought, something else Clicked.
The bedroom.
That room with the crib that had felt so familiar but looked so foreign. In an instant, she's back there. And there's Kara. In the rocking chair. Gently cradling a baby tightly swaddled in a Cyan blanket. Except…the baby’s name had been Alex. And hadn’t it been a doll? But as Lena hears a small giggle and raises her eyes again to see the smile on Kara’s face at what she feels to be their baby…it's Eliza. And yet…she still Felt like Supergirl. So, why does Lena keep hearing the name Linda roaming around her head?
“Hey El?” she feels herself say, and if it had been a shock to have found herself underneath a naked Kara not long before, she doesn’t know the appropriate word for the realization that Jeremiah’s voice is coming out of her mouth. But Eliza…Linda…SuperWoman (no, wait…that was Lois. But this is…also Lois? Somehow? Ah, right, in Jeremiah’s eyes. That Love isn’t Trade-Marked, After All) looks up with the softest of smiles and a silent, inquisitive look and barely blinks when Lena feels that Love Speak from Depths that go beyond her, Jeremiah, or any of the names that have blipped through her mind as Eliza’s eyes gently slide to his like an untold key fitting seamlessly into a hidden lock. “Our Family’s gonna help save the world one day. You know that, right?”
Eliza’s gentle smile grows into one of knowing.
“Of course, my love. It’s been Written for Ages. And I can’t wait to watch our girls change everything. Promise me you’ll never leave my side?”
And the words flow from Jeremiah’s mouth as Lena feels her heart crack and finally realizes the Truth of why she and Kara have struggled so long to Be Together.
“I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.” Jeremiah’s body moves as his knee gently presses into the carpet beside the rocking chair, then his arm wraps around Eliza’s shoulder as he gently kisses baby Alex’s forehead – just as Kara had once kissed hers long before they’d had enough time to even begin to figure out why it’d felt so natural in the chaos of her having sacrificed Jack to save Supergirl. And the words are different, but it feels the exact same as she smiles inside and out with Jeremiah’s easy confession, understanding now why Kara’s had taken so long. “I will always love you. And I will always protect you. I promise.”
Lena shifts, but not far. She stands back in the doorway, seeing them now as she’d remembered them all those lifetimes ago before her dreams of a full life with Kara had gone up in smoke. And then there's a hand on her shoulder. She leans her head onto it as it squeezes gently, and Jeremiah’s voice doesn’t startle her at all. Instead, she allows herself to sink into the gentle breeze of it.
“Are you ready to bring her back?”
She doesn’t even need to answer. Their Bond is answer enough. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, she's four years old again. Her mother is drowning. Lillian is there. Why is Lillian there? And when a red-eyed Lex trudges, panting, out of the water as her mother goes under for the last time, Leviathan’s name rumbles through her like an earthquake caused by an infinite array of silent thunderstorms. So much makes sense now. And she knows exactly what to do.
Kara isn’t gone. She's Trapped in Savior Mode. Somewhere, somehow, she's Alive. And once Lena finds her mother, she can bring them all home.
So, she watches in silence as Lillian and Lex walk silently to the car. Doesn’t flinch when Lionel grabs her hand and drags her away from the scene, grumbling something unintelligible about the future and collateral damage and the ends justifying the means – things that hadn’t made sense to Lena at any point in any of the lives she’d lived since her actual birth in her first life but that make perfect sense now. Doesn’t cry or scream or fight or any of the things you might expect a little girl to do after having just watched her mother murdered.
Because she doesn’t need to. She knows exactly where she needs to go. And she’s had Lifetimes of practice finding patience in riding out the Storm that is the Luthors. She falls asleep on Lex’s soaking wet shoulder as he silently lets his tears fall down a face which displays no emotion at all. But she's at ease as his hand moves without their parents’ knowledge to rest on hers in silent apology for something she knows he had been expected and forced to do, so she lets herself slip into unconsciousness and eventually feels herself carried from the car to their private jet, then from the jet to her bedroom in the mansion. As soon as she hears the door close, her eyes shoot open.
Here. Every answer she has ever needed is here. She goes to work.
Her body moves on its own, rearranging the space in a way she had never been allowed to as a child. And unlike in her first and second lives, when every noise outside her door had made her flinch with the expectation of being faced with the Luthor Wrath once again, she ignores the false world outside which she has already chosen to leave behind for better days and watches her little hands move on autopilot to restore the memories she's lost. As her energy wears down and she moves the last pieces into place, she hears the door open behind her. Lex comes in, closing the door softly and secretly behind him, and she feels his eyes bug in surprise. She can feel the pending warning rolling off of him, but this time she doesn’t let his Luthor instincts scare her into doubting her light. She simply points.
Lex steps next to her and squints his eyes, looking at her in confusion. She takes his hand. His eyes widen gently like they're opening for the first time and his face slackens with relief. "You can save us. Just remember: You are the Orange." He nods, his understanding like a trance, then his face returns to its normal impassiveness and he shakes his head a bit like a dog with a fly on its nose before giving her a small smirk.
“Thanks, Lee. Love you too.” She smiles. it's time.
She feels him leave the room, eyes never leaving the framed picture she'd drawn. The door closes, and she vanishes.