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Chapter Text

Kara and Lena are in Lena’s apartment in National City.
Kara finally made good on her promise to visit after grad school ended.
The air is thick with silence. Comfortable silence.
One that Lena is going to break.
Lena looked over, voice quiet.
“I still think about your senior speech.”
Kara groaned. “Oh god, please don’t. I was shaking the whole time.”
“Yeah. I know.” Lena’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “You said my name like it hurt.”
“It did.”
She turned to look at Lena then. Her eyes were glassy but steady. She wasn’t letting her run from this.
“It was one of the best nights of my high school life,” she added, softer now. “I felt so loved, so accomplished. I never wanted the night to end. I didn’t want to say goodbye. Because I knew when it was over, I wouldn’t have an excuse to see you every day after school. I wanted to live in that moment forever. You and me, always. Not fighting for once, but still undeniably ourselves.”
“I cried,” Lena said. “I made fun of you after, but I fucking cried.”
She was already tearing up again, just saying it. Then her voice dropped like she was back there, back in that moment, in that place.
“You said my name like it cracked something open in you. And then you ended on me too.
Kelly turned to me after and went, ‘Why’d she end on you? She’s not even the closest with you.’
And I didn’t know what to say but it’s always been me and Kara. Always. So why wouldn’t it be me?”
She laughed a little like she was still pissed about it.
“I came up to you and hugged you so hard I couldn’t breathe. It was like you were waiting for me, like you knew I couldn’t not gravitate to you. I threw myself at you like a goddamn movie cliché. Crying into your arms not caring who saw because for me? At that moment, they all became background characters to us. Even though our season was ending. No more Kara and Lena show. Lucky to maybe be given a guest appearance in your next new season.
And I whispered that thing to you, remember?
About Kelly asking why.
And I looked at you and said, ‘Why would it be anyone else?’ And I told you I wish I was graduating with you.”
“I remember,” Kara said softly, almost a whisper. “And I told you I wish you were too. But I was glad you weren’t first. Because if you left first if you were the one walking away, I don’t think I could’ve taken it. Like I couldn’t have taken it if you didn’t come to me after the speeches ended.”
Lena was getting worked up now, voice shaking, acting like she barely heard her.
“Because it was you.
You still left.
You asshole.”
She said it just like she had then, echoing the moment, trying to hold back tears.
Kara opened her mouth to say something, to bring up how it was inevitable her leaving, she was older. But Kara knew it was just not about graduating.
And the next lines Lena said? Kara was glad she had kept her mouth shut. Because how do you argue with the truth?
“You said my name and I knew.
And then you acted like we were just teammates. Just friends.
Like you didn’t break my fucking heart every time you didn’t say it out loud, and you were going away.
Every time you walked away like it didn’t kill you too.”

Chapter Text

“You said it enough for both of us,” Kara says. “‘I love you,’ like it was nothing. Like it was just something you could throw around. Like it was something people like us could say.
“And I—”
She shrugs, trying to play it off but failing. “I never said it back. Not really. Just ‘love you’ or nothing, or to other people in front of you on purpose.
I wanted your anger. I wanted your anger to make you claim me.
And when you didn’t… I wanted to hurt you. It hurt me.
So I pretended doing all that made me strong. Or showed I didn’t need you. Or less fucking obvious.”
“It didn’t,” Lena says.
She leans back, swiping under her eyes roughly. She’s not hiding how wrecked she is, hasn’t been since that hug at Kara’s senior speech.
“It made you infuriating.”
“You know how many nights I’d stay up pissed off just hoping you’d say it first? “I’d say ‘I love you’ like a dare. “Like, ‘Go on. Prove me wrong. Show me I’m not the only one dying over this.’”
“You were a bitch to me half the time, you know that?”
Lena rolls her eyes, but there’s a sad smile tugging at her mouth. “Yeah. “Because it was the only power I had. “You had everything else. My heart, my loyalty, my pride. I gave it all to you without even blinking.”
“And I never said it back.”
“You did. “You just didn’t know how to say it.”
Silence. Heavy. Honest.
“Would it have changed anything?” Kara asks.
“Maybe,” Lena says. “But maybe it would’ve hurt more when we still couldn’t make it work.”
She looks at Kara softly this time. Not angry. Just tired and still so full of love it aches.
“Is that why you’d sabotage my boyfriends?” Kara says.
Lena freezes barely even blinks.
“Is that why Mon-El hated you so much? “I thought I loved him. I really did. “But you god, I picked you over them every time, didn’t I?”
Lena looks away. Guilty. Not denying it.
“You became a fight. With Mon-El.
Lena couldn’t help herself, the name still made her grimace. “How? You liked him. You dated him. He called you his girlfriend. Nothing I could ever do. He said you guys were in love. All the time, especially to me. What shot did I have then? Until he ruined it. Lena couldn’t help but smirk slightly. He caged you. All you ever wanted was to be free. I knew that. I used to know you.
“Kara ignored Lena’s outburst. “He’d say your name like it was poison. And I’d still defend you. Still go to you.” I’m your boyfriend,” Mon-El would say to me.
“I was more,” Lena whispered, almost instinctively. Kara’s face conflicts.
“I felt like your puppy, Lena. I followed you around like I couldn’t breathe right if you weren’t looking at me.”
“You think I didn’t know that?”
“You started the touching. You were the emotional one. You’d hug me, cling to me, look at me like I was the air. “And then go cold. Hot, then cold. Again and again. “I felt like I was begging for scraps of your attention and acting grateful when you gave them.”
Lena looks like she’s about to argue. Kara cuts her off. She shakes her head, biting down the next part, but it breaks loose anyway.
“But god, didn’t you like it? “Didn’t you love it when even other teams called us an old married couple and told us to shut up? They barely even knew us. Barely spent time with us. But it was obvious. Didn’t you love knowing you could wreck me with a look?”
Silence, then very quietly, Lena says, “Didn’t you?”
Kara breathes, “Yeah. I did. “Because I felt alive with you. Intense. “Like nothing else in the world could touch us, I didn’t need anyone if I had you. They faded away.”
She pauses. A long breath. The hardest truth comes next.
“We were both homophobic. “Not like hateful. But scared. Repressed. Conditioned. Confused. “We couldn’t name what we were feeling. Not where we were from. Not how we were raised.”
“I didn’t have to worry about a boy with you,” Lena says. “Even then. “You’d pick me. You always did.”
“Except Mon-El. “And maybe that’s why you hated him. “Because he was the only time I didn’t.”
Kara sees it now.
Lena on the pool deck after practice, perfect hair soaked, eyes scanning the crowd. That smile just for her. She always hoped it was just for her.
But then Mon-El was there, pulling Kara in with his arm around her waist.
And Lena pivoted away. Smile gone. Gone so fast Kara almost thought she imagined it.
Back then, she told herself Lena just didn’t want to see her that badly. That she could wait for the girls and boys to break into stretching groups.
But now?
She knows better.

Chapter Text

Kara crossed her arms, angry. “And then the next year? You pulled that BS with James. James, Lena.”
Lena didn’t look at her. Her jaw was tight. Guilty. Defensive.
“Was that punishment?” Kara kept going like a dam bursting. “For me finally staying with a boy for, what, nine months? When literally everyone knew if I made it to month three I was ready to say ‘boy bye’?”
“You did say that,” Lena muttered. “Repeatedly.”
“Yeah, but I stayed. I stayed with Mon-El. And then you pulled that.” Kara’s voice caught a little. “But then you still picked me at prom.”
Silence fell. Thick tension hung in the air like a chandelier about to fall.
“But my senior year you pulled away,” Kara said quietly. “Over a boy your mother forced on you. And we both know how she is. We both know why you did it. I knew then. I know now. You were scared. You needed to be normal. You needed to be straight.” Kara quirked her lips, bitter. “Which we weren’t.”
Lena opened her mouth, then closed it.
And Kara went for the jugular.
“And you hated Coach Lois.”
Lena actually flinched at the name.
Kara’s voice softened. “Did you know? Did you know how I felt about her?”
“I didn’t have to,” Lena said. “I saw your face around her.”
“You were fine when I liked Winn. You even liked that. It was safe. It didn’t threaten you. Lena scoffs. “How could Winn threaten me? The nicest guy, but you crave intensity.” Kara plows on. But Coach Lois? She was there all season. She was confident. She was older but not by much. She touched me when she talked to me, and you would blow up. I didn’t even know how I felt back then.”
Her voice cracked quieter now, more vulnerable. “I didn’t know what her attention meant. I didn’t know why it made me feel… nervous and seen and ashamed and flustered all at once. Instead of doing anything to get your attention, I started to do it with her. I wanted her smiles. Kara almost tauntingly said, “After all, they were more freely given. With her I didn't have to guess if I mattered or not. Everyone knew I was her favorite.”
Lena still didn’t speak. Her eyes were glossy, her jaw clenched.
“But you knew, didn’t you?” Kara asked after that hadn’t gotten a reaction out of Lena.
“Yes.” Lena’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it landed like a punch.
Kara swallowed. “After the 800 at Smallville… when I could barely walk and I was so sick I thought I might pass out… Coach Lois wasn’t there. She always saved me from Head Coach Cat, but that night? It was you.”
Lena looked up quiet. Still.
“You handed me your own water bottle. With that gatorade mix you wouldn’t share with anyone. Put it to my lips and commanded me to swallow. Like I didn’t follow your orders already. Say it and I would. Simple as that. Then you told me I swam awesome and gave me that stupid smile of yours that meant nothing, but also the world to me to get you to give me that. You said, ‘You still beat people. Sick as you were. Don’t let anyone take that from you.’ And then you walked away.”
Lena gave a sad little laugh, eyes down. “I knew you hated when people said they were proud of you. You never believed it. Always felt like you had to earn it ten times over. Always felt you had to be everyone’s superhero.”
“Still do,” Kara said softly. She paused. “But with you… I always knew you were proud of me. I didn’t need the words. I could feel it. What I felt I had to earn was your attention. So I would pick fights. Be a brat. Do anything to make you laugh. Talk about you to everyone until they told me to shut up. I was always infatuated with you.”
Lena’s eyes flicked up sharper now. Honest. “You didn’t. You always had it.”
“You could always read me. Even then. Even when no one else could see I was breaking, you’d just know. You’d even cut part of class to come check on me.”
Another pause. Softer.
“I don’t think I ever said thank you. For that day. How much it meant, or how much you meant to me. My speech then wasn’t enough.”
Lena shifted like she was going to brush it off, but Kara held her there.
“I’ll always be grateful. Because after that? I never let anyone take something from me again. Not like that. You taught me that.”
Silence settled between them weighty. Kind. Lena was looking at her like she was still the swimmer with something to prove and she was still the girl who knew when to push and when to walk away.
Kara took a breath. “Why did Coach Lois make you so jealous?”
Lena shifted. That classic Lena deflection, the scoff, the crossed arms, the what are you talking about face.
But Kara didn’t let her off the hook this time.
“Would you have even said that to me after the 800, if Coach Lois was there?” she asked. “Or would you have blown up instead? Still cared, but harsher. The way we acted around others because we couldn’t act softer. Softer meant they would talk even more. I knew your mom already thought we were too close.”
Lena’s face dropped. She didn’t argue. She didn’t have to. They both knew Kara was right.

Chapter Text

“You say I didn’t name things,” Kara says. “Fine. But I gave you my feelings. In actions. In showing up. In every stupid little thing I did to get your attention. You just had to give me a look, I came. You never had to guess with me. ”
Lena’s voice drops low, honest. “That’s exactly why it scared me.”
“What did?”
“That you meant it,” she says. “That you looked at me like I was someone worth all that… love. That I had that power over you. That I could lose that power over you. And Coach Lois? She was everything I wasn’t. Confident. Calm. Out of reach. You looked at her like you looked at me. And I couldn’t handle that. I couldn’t handle not being your favorite person.”
“You always were.”
Lena breaks. Just a flicker, but it’s there. Her taken aback. Like she couldn’t believe someone loved her that much. Her mother always loved her brother more.
“But you wanted me to say it,” Kara says. “And I just… I didn’t know how I could. I gave you everything else. My time, my secrets, my loyalty, me. I was whipped. But I couldn’t say the words.”
“Neither did I.”
“Yeah. But you punished me for it anyway. I gave you my feelings, Lena. You say I didn’t say the words, but I showed you. I was always showing you.”
“Oh, you were showing me?!” Lena snaps. “You think you had a monopoly on unspoken feelings? You always treated dating like a game. A game where only you were the winner. I always told you that. Someone was going to get hurt one day. And you made me apart of that game.”
“I never made you guess how much I needed you.”
“Bullshit!” Lena fires back. “You think branding you ‘Supergirl’ wasn’t me saying it? You still get called that—my name, my name for you. You think I didn’t mean it when I said I loved you even when you told me not to, or you laughed it off?”
Kara goes quiet, stunned. “We said we couldn’t… We said it was gay. And back then? That was the worst thing we could be.”
“And I said it anyway,” Lena breathes. “I watched after you like it was my job. I made you a damn legend on that team. I told you no guy was good enough, but I could never say who was. You think that wasn’t me saying it? Screaming it? Screaming it was ME? God, you were so thick sometimes.”
Kara’s voice cracks. “You could’ve just said it.”
Lena softens. “And what would you have done if I had?”
A pause.
A real pause.
The kind that hurts.
Hurts both.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know,” Kara says. “Said it back. Or maybe not. How would I know? I couldn’t afford to ever think like that.”
Lena looks like she’s about to argue, but stops herself. Just… breathes.
“But I do know,” Kara continues, voice quieter now, “we were a fight. Always a fight. But I would’ve fought for you.”
“You did,” Lena says. “Every time. Even when you were with someone else. Especially then.”
“I gave you my feelings in actions,” Kara says. “Every stupid little thing I did every inside joke, every late night, every time I picked you over a boy you knew. You always say I didn’t name things, but you never let me, Lena. You punished me for being scared while pretending you weren’t.”
“Punished you?!” Lena snaps, hot and fierce and not backing down. “Are you serious right now? You had the whole team root for you and Mon- El. Such a cute, good couple, they said. ”
“Yeah. I am,” Kara says, fire flashing through her hurt. “You got jealous. You pulled away. Sorry, I liked others. Others who gave me their all. You made me feel like I was chasing scraps. Like I had to earn being yours.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lena throws back, voice dripping with sarcasm, “was I supposed to be calm and well-adjusted while watching you flirt with every boy on the West Coast and act like it meant nothing?”
“Because it did mean nothing!” Kara says. “They were just friends. You knew that.”
“Then why didn’t you just say it?!” Lena demands.
“Because we couldn’t, remember?!” Kara’s voice cracks now, but she’s still fighting. “Because you told me your mom said she’d rather be dead than one of those. Because we were raised to believe we’d go to hell for even thinking it.“And I believed her. I believed all of them. That it was wrong. That I was wrong.”
“And you, you said ‘I love you’ anyway. And I didn’t say it back. So yeah, I’m the asshole. But don’t act like you weren’t in your own way.”
Lena’s eyes flash. Her voice breaks not with weakness, but with that sharp, bright rage that only comes from being hurt.
“I did say it,” she says. “I said it when I called you Supergirl and made you bigger than life so no one else would dare hurt you. I said it when I told guys you were too good for them but never said who was good enough because that who was me.
“I said it when I watched over you every meet like I was your goddamn bodyguard. I said it when I told you I loved you, and you laughed.”
“I didn’t laugh because I didn’t mean it,” Kara says softly, guilt threading her voice. “I laughed because I meant it too much. So what else was I supposed to do? Playing it as a joke was all I had left.”
Lena swallows hard. The heat is still there but so is the hurt. The kind she never really lets surface.
“You always think I was the strong one,” she says. “That I was so bold and secure and sure.
“But I was terrified, darling. Because you were the only thing I ever wanted that I couldn’t explain. And I didn’t know how to want you without breaking every rule we were taught. So instead I broke my heart.”
Silence. Tension. And under it love. The kind that never had the safety to bloom. Just survive.

Chapter Text

“You know,” Kara said quietly, “they asked me.”
Lena glanced up, arms crossed, face unreadable. “Who did?”
“People. After I came out.” Kara swallowed. “They didn’t ask if we were close. Or if I had feelings. Just ‘so you and Lena?’ Like it was already an answer.”
Lena’s voice was cool. “So what’d you say?”
“I laughed.” Kara gave a breath of it now, humorless. “I said, ‘No. We were just…’”
She trailed off.
“I don’t even know what I said. Because I didn’t know. Not really. Not then. But they laughed anyway and winked at me. Said they were always rooting for us. Could wait a little longer until I would admit it. I guess they were right. I didn’t figure it out ‘til way later. College. And by then it was like… too late to name it. It felt like something I made up in my head.”
“Bullshit,” Lena said, softer than she meant but sharper too. “You felt it. You just didn’t want to say it. That’s not the same as not knowing.”
“No, I mean it.” Kara looked at her. “I didn’t get it. I thought we were just intense. Obsessive. I mean we always called it a relationship. Because we never felt friendship was deep enough. Girls are like that sometimes, right? I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what it meant when I couldn’t stop staring at you at homecoming. Girls always think their best friends are so pretty. Right? We hype each other up. I didn’t know why you kept on dragging me away to be alone. I didn’t know what you wanted.”
“It’s not like you stopped me then. You followed, like always. And we kissed,” Lena said, quiet but direct. “Twice.”
Kara let out a dry laugh. “Yeah. And we called them accidents. Like I slipped on the pool deck and landed on your mouth.”
“You let that narrative win.”
“You could’ve asked me,” Kara said. “You could’ve said something. You pretend like it didn't even happen. Like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing”
“I was scared!”
Kara’s voice cracked. “Of what it meant. Of what it would break. And you, you knew before I did. Don’t lie.”
“Not at first,” Lena admitted. “But yeah… I figured it out before you did. Didn’t make it easier. Didn’t mean I had the guts to say it either.”
Kara looked down. “The others knew. The captains weren’t mad about the vibes. They were tired of the drama. The fights. The clinginess. The way we’d go from shoving each other in warmups to laughing hysterically to not speaking the entire ride home. They said it was like babysitting a divorced couple.
It even carried into work. Our lifeguarding managers had to tell us to knock it off how many times?”
“Because you always had to have a boyfriend,” Lena bit out.
“You gave me the cold shoulder every damn time I did,” Kara snapped. “And yeah, sometimes I picked them. But you? You always picked me in the end. Even when you were pretending you didn’t.”
“You think I didn’t notice how you waited for me outside the locker room after every meet?” Lena’s voice trembled. “How you sat with me at every team breakfast like we couldn’t breathe apart?”
“You think I didn’t see how you looked at me when Coach Lois touched my shoulder?” Kara shot back. “You hated her. And I didn’t even know why then. I didn’t know how I felt about her. But you knew how you felt about me.”
Silence.
A long one.
Thick with years of love and ache.
“Yeah,” Lena whispered. “I did.”
Then, rising with a sudden edge, “You think I didn’t want to say it? You think it didn’t kill me watching you fake it with boys who didn’t know the first thing about you? I had to sit there, next to you, pretending like it didn’t wreck me. Like I wasn’t in love with the loudest, stupidest, most frustrating, infuriating, bravest girl I’d ever met.”
“Lena—” Kara started.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7
Lena didn’t give Kara a chance to speak.
“No. Shut up for once,” she steamrolled. “You want to talk about me being jealous? Of course I was jealous.”
Her voice shook, but her words didn’t.
“Coach Lois? She got ten minutes with you and suddenly you’re laughing and soft and glowing like she hung the goddamn moon. I built you, Supergirl. I gave you that nickname. I made you shine. And she walks in with a clipboard and perfect hair and suddenly you’re hers?”
“She wasn’t mine,” Kara shot back, not yelling but wrecked. “I didn’t even know how I felt.”
“And yet I knew.” Lena’s voice softened, dangerous. “I knew I’d never stand a chance if you figured it out. You were always gonna choose what was safer. What made sense. I wasn’t that. I was chaos.”
Her voice cracked, but her eyes didn’t flinch.
“But you loved it. Don’t lie to me now.”
Kara’s breath caught. Her voice was quiet, broken. “I did.”
Lena’s walls crumbled, tears racing fury to the finish.
“Then why didn’t you fight for it?” she demanded. “You let me hang there. You let us rot in almosts and what-ifs. We kissed twice and you looked at me like I lit up your whole damn world—”
She laughed bitterly.
“—and then you laughed it off like I was a joke.”
“I didn’t know how to name it,” Kara said, cracking open. “I didn’t know I could—”
“Bullshit,” Lena snapped. “You didn’t want to deal with what it meant. You could give your everything to me in a swim lane or a midnight text or a post-race hug, but never what I really wanted. Never with the words. And you think I’m the coward?”
“No,” Kara whispered, wrecked. “I think we both were. But maybe you just… weren’t hiding as well as I was.”
Lena just stared. Her face was soaked. Her arms were wrapped tight around herself. She was trying to shrink, but she never could stay small.
“I wanted you to say it,” she said, barely audible. “Just once. Even if it meant everything else falling apart.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“Five years too late.”
“Three years late, Lena,” Kara corrected quietly, jaw set. “Not five. But still too late, huh?”
“Don’t say it like I didn’t feel it too.”
“Did you?” Kara asked, eyes blazing. “Because you played hot and cold so well I thought I’d lost my mind. Meanwhile, I had boyfriends thinking I was in love with someone else, and I was. You. And you knew it even when I couldn’t name it.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did. You said no guy deserved me, but you never said who did. You kissed me twice and we both pretended it didn’t happen. But if we are going to name names now, you were the one who pretended first.”
She stepped closer.
“Then you’d lose your mind when Coach Lois touched me. Or when I laughed too long with Mon El. Or when I dated that girl. Or even Andrea, God help me.”
Lena’s eyes went ice-cold. “Andrea? She treated you like shit.”
“Yeah? And you didn’t?” Kara shot back. “You made me beg for your attention. I was your puppy. Your shadow. But you got to keep your hands clean because you never said it. You just… acted like I was yours.”
“You were!” Lena snapped.
Kara froze.
“Then why didn’t you say it?” she asked, breathless. “Not me responding to you calling me mine, saying yes I’m yours, but saying it. Saying it.”
Lena’s voice dropped. “Because we couldn’t, like you said. Where we were, how we were raised we couldn’t say it. You know that.”
“But I did,” Kara said, trembling. “So don’t just blame me. Even if it was eventually. You know what it took to say ‘I like girls’ out loud? What it took to stop calling everything an accident?”
“You dated three,” Lena said, trying to stay angry. “You dated all of them and just… moved on.”
“Yeah. Because you were never an option,” Kara said, fuming. “You made damn sure of that.”
“You left,” Lena whispered, voice breaking.
“You pulled away,” Kara said. “My senior year over that boy your mom liked. Over whatever that James mess was. But even at prom, you picked me. You always did. So why couldn’t you just own it?”
“I was scared.”
“I was too. But I still loved you my way. With my loyalty. In standing beside you at every swim lane, in every weight room fighting, in every time someone asked if we were something and I hesitated. Calling it an intense relationship, not a friendship. A relationship.”
Lena blinked tears down her cheeks. “And I said ‘I love you’ when you wouldn’t. I named you Supergirl and made you a legend and never let a single guy close enough to make me forget you.”
Kara gave a teary smile. Bitter. “But you still won’t call it what it was.”
Lena’s voice flared again. “And you will? After college? After Mon El? After the other girls and guys, and Andrea? Suddenly you’re brave and it’s all my fault?”
“No,” Kara said. “But I am brave now. Brave enough to admit you broke me and built me and that I still don’t know how to feel about it. Once upon a time, you were my everything. You always have driven me crazy.”
Lena’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Then say it. Haven’t I?”

Chapter Text

The silence was thick now. Tense, but calmer the kind of calm that settles after a storm, when everything’s wet and bruised but still standing. Kara’s breathing came unevenly. Her chest rose and fell like she was still fighting off aftershocks.
Lena hadn’t looked away once.
“I loved you,” Kara said finally, voice softer than before. “I probably still do. But you made me feel like I had to earn it. Every look. Every touch.”
Her hands clenched and unclenched.
“And the worst part is I would’ve. Every single time.”
The room stilled. Lena blinked, but didn’t flinch. Then she spoke, voice edged with guilt but steadier than before.
“You think I don’t know I messed it all up?” she said. “I do. I knew it when you left for college and we didn’t say goodbye like we should’ve. I knew it earlier when you started dating boys who weren’t even half of what you needed, and I just watched. Sat back, arms crossed, like I wasn’t the reason you even had walls up in the first place.”
She looked down, just for a second, then met Kara’s eyes again.
“You say I made you beg for attention. But Kara, I didn’t know how else to keep you looking at me. I didn’t know how to hold you without grabbing too hard. You were sunlight. Loud and golden and terrifying. And I was terrified. Of wanting it. Of wanting you.”
Her voice cracked, just slightly.
“I didn’t say it because I didn’t think I was allowed to. Not in that town. Not in our families. Not even on our team. You and me we were too much. People said it like a joke, but they meant it. I couldn’t handle how right it felt, so I kept you close by pushing you away and pulling you right back. Because losing you completely? I couldn’t.”
She paused, eyes glimmering, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
“And yeah, I was jealous of Lois. Not just because she touched you. But because you let her. And I’d been trying for years to get that kind of ease from you. That softness. But I taught you to be on edge with me.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard.
“I never hated your boyfriends because they were boys. I hated them because they got parts of you I didn’t have names for yet. And that girl on your college swim team? What’s her name? You smiled different with her. You looked free.”
Lena leaned back slightly, trying not to cry.
“I gave you Supergirl, yeah. My girl of steel. But you gave me feelings I never asked for and couldn’t turn off. You made me feel like I could be someone’s world, if I just got it right. But I never could. Because I couldn’t say it.”
Her voice dipped, barely above a whisper.
“You want the truth? I knew after the first time we kissed. I knew it wasn’t an accident. But I called it that because I thought I’d lose you otherwise. And I couldn’t lose you. So I played dumb, mean, dramatic whatever it took to keep you coming back.”
Another breath. One she almost didn’t take.
“But I didn’t know you’d stop wanting me back.”
Lena’s words hung in the air like smoke. Kara didn’t move. Not right away. It was like she was letting herself feel all of it every jagged, aching piece.
Then finally, she spoke. Quieter. But still Kara wry, fiery, raw.
“You didn’t lose me, Lena.”
Her gaze burned.
“I just… I stopped knowing how to stay. I felt I had to cut you off, so I could learn to live without you. The scraps weren’t enough when I was starving. I was slowly killing myself off on you. But, still if you reached out first, I was always, always there.”
She shifted her weight. Not angry. Just full of years.
“I was in love with you. You know that now, right? I didn’t know what to call it back then either. I thought it was obsession, or competition, or some ride-or-die bestie thing people joked about. But none of them made my heart race every time you looked at me like I was your favorite thing.”
A small smile ghosted over her lips, sad and sharp.
“Remember in A&P lab, you had me as a test subject? I wasn’t even in your class. My heart started spiking as soon as you looked at me and lowered when you looked away. You saw the physical effects you had on me.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Yet, you say you pushed me away to keep me. And maybe you did. But you pulled me first. And I chased you there for years. Through your moods, your silence, your perfect hair flipping while you laughed at something I said like it was the best thing you’d heard all day.”
Her eyes glistened, even as she laughed dry, knowing.
“You made me crave being chosen.”
Her voice cracked.
“So yeah. We kissed. Twice. ‘Accidents,’ right? But who accidentally leans in with their eyes already closed?”
Kara’s breath hitched.
“And maybe I was the one who left. College. The boyfriend. The college swim girl who didn’t need me to decode everything just to say I liked her.”
She met Lena’s gaze again, straight on.
“But you never said stay. You never said go. You just… were there. And I didn’t know if I was supposed to fight for you or set myself free.”

Chapter Text

She leans back slightly, then almost like she’s letting herself admit something out loud for the first time she adds:
“That’s why I loved Lucy.”
A beat. She sees Lena’s look.
“Don’t give me that look. You like her. Everyone does.
And don’t you dare out her she’s not brave like that. But after you, and after whatever-that-wasn’t with Coach Lois… Lucy was safe.
She was grounding. I never had to fight for her attention, or her love, or her approval.
She was my anchor.
And eventually, she became more, until I couldn’t handle being a secret, again.
But we worked our way back to friendship because it wasn’t all-consuming like you and me. There wasn’t that push-pull, that ache. It was warm, not wild.
And maybe that’s why it didn’t last. But maybe that’s also why it didn’t destroy us.”
Kara shifts slightly, then keeps going.
“And I know you hated Andrea.
Don’t worry—I hate her now too. A lot of people do.
But part of why I couldn’t let her go, even when she bit—yeah. She left marks like trophies, showing I was hers. Oh, don’t wanna hear that? Too bad.
She was petty. Obsessive with my attention. Gaslight me. Mean in a way that wrapped around my ribs and squeezed until I thought it was love.
And yeah, Lena. Some of her reminded me of you.
The worst parts of us.
I knew she was wrong for me. I knew it when she yelled at me for checking my phone too much. Claiming she wasn’t enough for me, and she should just leave. I had to demean myself and beg her to stay. I knew it when I started lying to my friends about where I was. But I stayed. Everyone told me to go. But I held on. I chose to. Because maybe somewhere in my shattered heart I thought hurting the way she hurt me would feel close enough to you.
That same whirlwind energy. That same way she pulled and pushed and made me beg to be seen.
She mirrored you.
Even if it was subconsciously. Even if it was poison.
But she crossed lines too many, too far. She hurt people I loved, and that was the line. Done. I know you never would’ve done that.
I would’ve let her break me just to feel like I was back with you.
But I finally chose to leave.
And I stayed out. Not like when you call me back- like I’m eternally damned.”
She finally, finally breathes.
“But, I never stopped looking for you in every girl I liked.
And none of them were you.
So maybe we didn’t have the words then. Maybe we still don’t. But we had something. And it mattered. A tragedy wrapped in love, and a love wrapped in tragedy. Even if we ruined parts of it. Even if we can’t go back.
I loved you. In the way I could. In the way we were allowed. And in the way we weren’t.” For a moment, Lena doesn’t move. Her throat tightens. Her voice is low when it finally comes out.

Chapter Text

“God, Darling…
You think I don’t know?
You think I didn’t see it in every girl you tried to love after me? You think I didn’t notice how they never got your whole heart because I hope some of it was still buried with me?
You want me to say I knew? Fine. I knew.
I knew before you did.
And I hated it.
Not because of you, not because I didn’t want it—God did I want it, and God said I couldn’t.
Because we were who we were, where we were.
Because every time I got too close, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head calling me disgusting.
Because I could feel God breathing down my neck with a ruler and a threat. So to confession I went. And for my penance? For the sin of loving you? I was told by the priest to pray the gay away and do a Hail Mary.
Her voice wobbles. She clenches her fists, but not in anger in memory.
“But I kissed you first, didn’t I?
And I didn’t stop. That’s not what good Catholic Girls do.
I said ‘I love you’ when we swore we couldn’t.
I picked you over every boy who tried to pretend they mattered. I never could fake it like you. I held you like you were the last piece of something I couldn’t live without. Like you were my salvation. And I made you beg for my attention because I didn’t know how to say the real thing.
Because ‘I love you, really I do’ didn’t feel safe, but pulling you in and pushing you away did.”
Lena’s eyes shine. She blinks hard.
“You were always so brave. Even when you thought you weren’t.
You were brave when you left.
When you loved others.
When you kissed girls and didn’t pretend it was an accident.
And yeah, I was jealous of Coach Lois.
Because she saw you when I had to hide seeing you.
Because she touched your shoulder and got to mean it.
Because you lit up for her, and I’d already decided I wasn’t allowed to be your moon.”
She breathes in, once, slow and shaky.
“You want the truth?
You always made me feel alive and terrified all at once.
Like if I let myself have you fully, the world would send us straight to hell.
But I wanted you. I still do.
And I’m sorry it took me this long to say it like I mean it.
I loved you.
I love you.”
Lena steps forward. Just slightly.
“So if you’re still standing here—
If you haven’t walked away yet—
Tell me you’d stay. Just once.
Tell me in this world, in this version of us, I’m allowed to want you out loud.”
Kara doesn’t hesitate. Her voice is hoarse, but certain.
“I’ve always been yours, you stupid idiot.
Isn’t that what we said even back then?
You called me mine when you were mad.
I said I was yours when I was tired of pretending I wasn’t.
You called the shots.
I followed, even when it broke me, even when it didn’t make sense.
Because part of me always wanted someone to be in charge.
Not because I didn’t know where I was going—
But because I trusted you to know me better than I knew myself.
Even when I had boyfriends, even when I said I loved Mon-El, even when I let myself fall into Lucy…”
Her voice breaks. Her heart doesn’t.
“You were it.
You were the infuriating infatuation I couldn’t explain to our friends.
The laugh I wanted approval from.
The girl who could wreck my mood with one look.”
Kara looks at her. Eyes full. Voice steady.
“You hurt me, Lena.
But I think I let you, because it still meant being close to you.
And I hurt you too when I walked away, when I didn’t call it what it was, when I tried to rewrite the past without you in it.”
She steps in just enough to close the gap.
“But I’m here now.
Saying it.
Letting it be real.
You’re the person who made me feel most me. You get me.”
She swallows. A breath. A truth she’s finally brave enough to hand over.
“So if this is still something you want, if this world is one where we finally get to be brave together.
Then let’s finally call it what it is.

“We were each other’s first loves. A lost love. Not because it ended. But because it never got to begin. And no one gave us the space to do that safely. Not even ourselves.”
Together, they were two girls raised to believe love is something you win or withhold. Always earned. Never freely given.
But this time around would be different. It had to be.