Chapter Text
The message arrived on a warm, clear Tuesday in early May, and really there was no choice at all.
Things had been so quiet that only J’onn was in the Tower when the transmission came through.
Lena recalls stopping dead in her tracks, not two steps out of the elevator; paralyzed by his fathomless brown eyes, imploring, apologetic, determined, resigned. And—thinking back on it now—curiously focused on her.
Kara was spreading crumbs and drips of coffee, her expressive hands caught up in whatever story she’d been telling Lena on the walk over. Something about a nine foot tall alien, or a cute puppy in the park. Lena can’t begin to remember.
What she remembers is thinking: Wait. Wait, Kara, stop. Don’t finish the story. Don’t turn around. Don’t ask what’s…
“J’onn, hey, what’s up?” Kara asked, and Lena tensed for impact.
She watched Kara process the seriousness of J’onn’s expression. Watched her spine straighten and her chin draw back. Watched all the easy joy of the morning—all the hints of springtime promise she’d been feeling (but not naming) these last months with Kara—be swallowed by the kind of silence that could only herald duty and sacrifice.
Lena remembers every step of the dance Kara’s emotions took across the lines of her face and planes of her body. Every blink, every flex. But, she couldn’t recall a word of what was said if all their lives depended on it.
There must have been explanations for all of what followed. The intricacies of time travel and the fate of the future, laid out like CliffsNotes for the entire universe, and Lena’s brain hadn’t taken in a word.
But, whatever words were spent and forgotten, the result was branded into her entire self: Kara was going to the future. Kara was going to the future, alone.
[There would be no way to communicate.]
Look at how the sunlight sparks in her eyes when they glisten.
[There was no way to know how long it would take.]
Does she know she fists her hands against her hips when her fingers start to tremble?
[There was no guarantee they could send her back.]
How she chews on her lips when she’s holding something in?
[It had to be her...]
I wonder...
[And she had to leave now.]
Could she bite her own skin hard enough to bleed.
“Lena. Lena, are you listening to me?”
“Hmm?” Always. Until now.
Lena stared at the crinkle forming between Kara’s eyebrows. If she’d had any control over her body right then, she thinks she might have reached to smooth it out with her own fingertips. Instead, she stood and didn’t even blink.
Alex squeezed Kara’s shoulder and the contact broke Kara from her thoughts. She turned and pulled her sister into a bone-crushing hug. When they parted, Alex kept hold of Kara’s hand as each of their friends stepped into the hero’s space, sharing whispered goodbyes and too-brief embraces.
She has no idea how long she stood, frozen, silent, before startling at the “Lena” that escaped from pink lips bruised by restraint.
Hard enough to bleed.
Lena shook her head, willing the motion to jumpstart her brain, and glanced around the room to find only she and Kara remained. Her eyes returned to Supergirl’s face and she straightened her spine. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t.”
“Lena.” Kara dipped her head slightly, but kept their eyes locked. “I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
Lena gripped her coffee to hide the shake in her hands. She could barely force her eyes to stay open, as she felt fingers that could crush a planet catch the tear sliding down her jaw.
It was too much. She shook her head again and took a step back, watching Kara’s hand drop to her side, shoulders straightening. Lena clenched her jaw and willed her shoulders to do the same. “There’s always a choice.”
Kara crossed her arms and fell back on the overconfidence that hid her fears behind the crest. “Lena. I have to go. You heard them.”
In fairness, she hadn’t. “It could take years. Decades.”
“I’ll just do my save the multiverse thing, then make them send me right back to now.”
“What if they won’t?”
“Pfft. I’ll make them.”
And well, Lena must have heard a little, because: “And what if they can’t?”
Kara stiffened, almost imperceptibly, but kept her voice light. “Trust me. It’ll be like no time passed at all.”
Lena despised the tremor in her own voice. But she hated the ice even more. “Not for you.”
There was no victory watching Kara finally falter. “No.” She dropped her eyes and held her breath, then stepped toward Lena again. When Lena didn’t pull back, Kara gently prised the mug from her fingers and set it on the table beside them. “No, not for me.”
Lena watched the superhero breathe air back into her posture and shake away the threat of tears. “But, Lena, I’ll be fine. And you? Well, I’ll be back before you can finish that irredeemably unsweetened coffee.”
“Kara…”
“And I’ll still be me. And you’ll definitely still be you. So whatever else... whatever else, we’ll be fine.”
“Kara…”
“You’ll see, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Lena watched Supergirl’s hands find her hips, betraying those pointedly easy words.
It all felt too familiar: Lena the last to say goodbye as they sent Kara alone into unknown dangers. The last time, Lena held Myriad like it needed two hands to carry it, just so she wouldn’t forget herself and reach for Kara. Or worse, give Kara the opening to reach for her.
“It’s not the same this time, Lena.”
She didn’t waste a moment wondering how Kara knew what she’d been thinking. Lena closed the last small distance between them and wrapped her arms around steel shoulders, gripping red fabric from a dead world so tightly her hands ached.
Kara squeezed back, fingers and voice whispering through soft hair: “It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s worse. This time there’s nothing I can do to bring you back.”
* * *
Kara left for the future.
Kara left for the future, alone.
Lena stood beside the table in the center of the Tower and finally tore her gaze from the empty balcony before her. She turned and placed a shaking hand against the smooth, solid wood, her fingers landing next to her abandoned coffee.
She glared at the wisps still rising from her insulated mug. Her entire world was different when that cup of coffee was brewed, and the steam mocked her. She stood, and stared, and waited for Kara to stride back in, seconds later and who knows how much older. Her heart clenched with each passing second, and when the last tendril of steam gave way to the chilling effect of time, she walked out of the Tower without looking back.
She seriously considered never drinking coffee again. Suffered through two days of migraines and made it to the other side with a determination to live on black tea and (optimistically) better sleep habits.
But, halfway through an all-nighter with her R&D team when a prototype exploded three days before launch, she realized she'd been sipping from someone else’s mug for hours.
She spared a thought for this second wave of surrender, another wisp of steam lost to time, and went back to work with dark coffee and fractured hope bitter on her tongue.
* * *
Kara left for the future.
After 5 months, Lena stopped counting the days. Why keep track when there was no destination, no expected end? Why try to count past infinity? No. After 5 months, Lena stopped counting.
She just happens to know that she stopped counting exactly 26 years, 7 months, and 19 days ago.
Kara left for the future, alone.
And Lena has known this for a very long time. What Lena doesn’t know yet, is that it took 27 years and 18 days to save that future.