Chapter Text
Kara is sitting on the couch. The sun is setting over her hunched shoulders, and her hair covers most of her face from Lena’s vantage point by the bedroom door. Lena can see her hands moving—fidgeting with her cape. She’s got her dirty red boots on. An old fight. A common one. But Lena can’t find it in herself to argue again today. She steps quietly into the room, and Kara calls to her without looking up,
“I can’t decide if I should take it off to sleep or be prepared as soon as I wake up.”
Lena approaches the couch with measured casualness. “Like it takes you time to get ready in the morning.”
Kara laughs. It’s short, and a little too airy to be real. She goes back to fidgeting with her cape. “I was thinking about what I said this morning.”
“Kara, that’s not—”
“It is important. It is. It was a stupid thing to say. And mean. And—and vindictive. And I didn’t—I didn’t--”
“I know.” Lena says. She sets a hand on Kara’s knee.
“I love you.” Kara says suddenly, finally looking up at her. Her eyes are wet but firm. “I’ve always loved you. I always will, and even if—”
“Don’t.” Lena hisses, jerking back her hand. “Don’t give me your goodbye speech. It won’t come to that. You make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
Kara hesitates, lips twitching with unsaid promises. Then her gaze softens. “Okay.”
Lena wants to slap her. It isn’t agreement. It’s acquiescence. She’s had to learn the difference. “You remember what to do?” She asks.
Kara rolls her shoulders and scowls.
“You remember I can only give you five minutes?” Lena continues, ignoring her. “You have five minutes to get him into the circle and get yourself out.”
“I remember.”
“The timing is important, Kara. I can’t give you anything more. If you’re still in the circle when the spell ends…”
“I remember.” Kara isn’t looking at her again.
She shouldn’t.
It’s a horrible idea. Patently ridiculous. Dragging a creature of his size into the circle without disturbing the chalk is hard enough, keeping him there while Kara herself flees from a bolt of arcane energy so powerful that Lena’s books had only described it as “smiting” was beyond reasonable belief. It’s stupid. It’s mad. It’s the plan.
Kara brushes a lock of hair behind Lena’s ear she hadn’t realized had fallen. “It’s a good plan,” she says.
Lena should be insulted that Kara can read her like a book. Instead, she leans into the hand and scoffs. “It’s a desperation play.”
“Isn’t it always?”
Lena knows what she’ll see before she looks up. Kara is grinning at her, eyebrows raised in challenge. How many times is she going to do this? How many times is she going to have to see that stupid, hopeful, completely bullshit grin that Kara only puts on for her benefit?
How many times does she send her wife out to die?
“You aren’t going to get any rest like that,” Lena says, trailing a finger across the hidden seams of Kara’s suit. Lena’s hand follows the contours of Kara’s shoulder up her neck, resting to cup her jaw. “Come to bed.” Her thumb traces the corner of her mouth.
Kara takes Lena’s hand, and follows her away. She has her for one more night. Whatever happens at sunrise, Lena has her for one more night.