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It started with a kiss. Or maybe, it ended with one. Right now Kara isn’t so sure.
She’s circled the Earth three times already, and it still feels like she just left: Lena; The kiss; The silence that followed; The whole mess she made.
She can’t go home. That’s where Lena is. Or was. Either way, the place is still full of her—her laugh, her scent, the warmth she left behind. Kara can’t bear it.
Rao, she should never have kissed her best friend. Not after years of keeping her heart at bay. Not when she knew what it would cost. Why couldn’t she just stop herself? Now she's ruined everything right after she’s been so good for so long.
Well—except for that time. Right after Lena pulled her out of the Phantom Zone. Leaning in like that was… stupid. But she remembers the way Lena’s hand had clung to her arm, the way her own breath had caught. She wanted to kiss her then too, and maybe that was when she knew this want wasn’t something she’d ever outgrow.
Deep down, she's always known. She tried to fake, tried to pass it as friendship, tried to not feel jealous that Alex had had the courage to come out and live her truth. Tried too hard, failed even harder.
Kara has locked her feelings behind bars, scolded them with a frown like they were misbehaved children, repressed her human side even more than she's ever repressed her alien one. For years Lena was her best friend and it was better than nothing.
She lands in Midvale, which is funny, because she doesn’t remember making this choice. She wasn’t thinking of a safe place to go, she just knew she needed one, and then… here she is, on a porch that still smells of lilacs, with the sound of cicadas in the air.
Eliza opens the door. There’s a flicker of confusion in her eyes, quick as lightning, but she smooths it away for Kara’s sake. “Hey, honey.”
And Kara—she doesn’t even know if she remembers how to talk, if she’d even know what to say. But the words fall out anyway, cracked and small, “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Eliza doesn’t hesitate. She just folds her arms around Kara, steady and warm, grounding her like the earth itself. “Well,” she murmurs, holding her close, “you’re home now.”
Which is fine. It's great. She is home. But not the home she wanted to be in. She's inside an embrace that makes her feel safe and loved, and yet, again, it's not the one she wanted to be inside.
She makes an excuse and slips into her old bedroom, the door clicking softly behind her. The room smells faintly like childhood, but it doesn’t matter. Kara doesn’t notice. She collapses onto her bed and stares at the ceiling.
The stars of Krypton gleam down from her poster, cold and distant and beautiful, reminders of the world she left behind and the journey she’s fought to make this planet feel like home. She’d built a life here, piece by piece, trying to make Earth hers in ways that didn’t erase who she was, ways that made her feel… safe. Accomplished. Whole.
And then she kissed Lena.
She had ruined it. Every careful step, every quiet effort to balance her alien with her human, every moment of claiming this world as her own, of building her family—it had been undone in one impulsive, desperate second.
Her eyes close. The silence presses down. And the memory hits like a shockwave. Panic, adrenaline, the tang of fear and desire all tangled together.
Lena hadn’t left. Everyone else was gone—games packed, dishes cleared, laughter fading down the hallway—but Lena stayed. Lingered. Hung close, barefoot tapping Kara’s tights with a teasing rhythm that made her pulse spike.
“I can't believe we lost the game with you having the winning card.” Lena joked, under the blankets, looking comfortable as if she was home.
“Excuse me, how was that my fault? You had horrible cards!” Kara grinned, easy. Always so easy when Lena was around.
“You could've told me yours!”
Kara's face turned serious, “Lena, that's against the rules.”
Lena’s eyes softened, holding Kara in a gaze that made her chest ache. Fond, so fond she couldn't have imagined it. “Yeah, you know… that's one of the reasons why I love you.”
Kara's heart stopped. Lena had told her that before, and yet, she doesn't think she'll ever get used to the feeling of hearing it. How it sounds full of possibilities, full of things unsaid.
She thought about answering, tracing every corner of Lena’s words in her mind. All the reasons she loves her too, all the little things—the tilt of her smile, the way her laughter catches, the quiet strength in her hands and heart. The list would run too long. Too deep. Too honest.
Kara swallowed heart hammering. She wanted to speak, but the words felt like fragile glass in her mouth, impossible to hold together. She tried to smile, tried to keep her voice steady. “Oh yeah?” Her throat trembled, and her blush betrayed her. “What are the other ones?”
Lena’s eyes had light up, bright and steady, and she shifted closer. Her fingers brushed Kara’s arm, fleeting but deliberate, sending a thrill up Kara’s spine. “You’re too precious for this world. Too determined. Too… you,” she whispered, teasing, soft, but there’s a weight behind it too. “You always make me feel like the world is bigger and smaller at the same time. Like… I'm home whenever you’re near.”
Kara’s chest was hammering. Her throat was tight. Every rational thought about boundaries, friendship, self-control—kissed her goodbye. She could feel the heat rising, the impossible pull in her chest that had been drawing her closer for years.
Don't do it. Don't do something you can't take back. Don't kiss her.
She wanted to tell Lena everything. All the daydreams, all the tiny moments she’d obsessively thought about her, all the longing she had tucked away behind her glasses and smiles and fidgety hands. But words failed her. Air did too.
She stared at Lena’s lips. And she was sure. So sure. Never in her life had she been so certain. Lena was looking at her mouth too.
Don't kiss her.
But Lena's heart was racing and her own heart had already quit her entirely and Rao, it wasn't even a decision, it was just fate. She was just obeying the universe, the signs, the truth.
She kissed her.
It was impulsive, yes, desperate, yes, and yet inevitable.
The world shrank to the curve of Lena’s lips, the warmth of her skin, the gentle pressure of her hands on Kara’s shoulders. For a heartbeat, the universe seemed perfect, and Kara thought maybe everything was finally fitting into place.
And then…
Lena froze. Pulled back.
Kara’s pulse pounded in her ears, and panic coiled in her stomach. Lena hadn’t kissed back. Her mind screamed: You’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything.
She got away from Lena as fast as she got close. Eyes wide, heart hammering so loud it was the only sound she could hear.
“I'm sorry,” She stood up, put distance between them because otherwise she would feel tempted to kiss her again, and again, and again. She didn't know if she could stop kissing her.
“Kara,”
“I'm sorry.” She continued, cheeks burning. “I don't—I don't know what happened, I—”
“Kara.”
“God, Lena, please forgive me.” And maybe Lena was saying something, maybe she wasn't mad, but Kara wouldn't know. Couldn't hear it. Her own mind was so loud, it was impossible to stop it.
It hadn't been enough. The apologies, the backpedaling, the pleading. Lena was still looking at her as if she was a stranger, as if this Kara wasn't the one she loved. And stupid, stupid Kara did the only thing she could think of in those desperate times. She flew out the window as if she was an encaged bird who just got its freedom. But it was the opposite, really. She had never felt so trapped as she did then.
When she opens her eyes, there’s a text. A few missed calls too, Lena’s name all over her phone, all over her mind.
Lena: Please, come back. Let’s talk.
But she can’t. How could she go back only to hear the love of her life say she doesn’t love her back? She’s always known Lena didn’t feel that way. Rao, Lena hated Supergirl with the fire of a thousand suns for years. Hated Kara too—for the secret, for the betrayal. And then she forgave her. She let Kara back in. And Kara went ahead and ruined it.
She closes her eyes again. Sleeps, or doesn’t. Dreams, or remembers. She isn’t sure.
The weekend bleeds together in Midvale. The hours dragging in a blur of cicadas and silence. Kara moves through the house like a ghost, her feet soft against floorboards that remember her better than she remembers herself.
She tells Eliza she’s fine. Smiles that brittle smile she’s been perfecting since she was thirteen while hiding her bruises. But Eliza’s no fool. She watches her daughter pace, watches her curl up on the couch only to stand again five minutes later, unable to stay still inside her own skin.
On Saturday morning, Eliza brings her a mug of coffee and sits across from her at the kitchen table, the sun slanting through lace curtains. “You know,” she says gently, “sometimes what we run from is the very thing that wants us back.”
Kara can’t answer. Her throat is too tight. She stares into the coffee until it goes cold, and when Eliza touches her hand, she flinches—not because she doesn’t want the comfort, but because it’s not the hand she’s aching for.
Night falls, heavy and long. Kara lies in her childhood bed, staring yet again at Krypton’s stars on the ceiling, the old poster’s corners curling with age. They used to feel like hope. Tonight, they look like accusations. Each point of light whispers the same question: How could you be so reckless with the only thing you’ve ever truly wanted?
She replays it again and again—the warmth of Lena under the blanket, the softness in her voice, the unbearable pull when their eyes met. The kiss that wasn’t careful, wasn’t measured, wasn’t planned. And then the freeze. The flinch. Kara’s mind makes it worse with every replay, stretching that split second until it feels eternal, until she convinces herself she saw rejection written into Lena’s very bones.
Every memory turns against her. When Lena looked at her—flat, honest, small—and said, “Supergirl might have saved me, but Kara Danvers, you are my hero.” Kara remembers the blush, the dizzying want that made her laugh and run. Now, in hindsight, it feels like nothing more than gratitude. A kindness. Not an opening.
The gala comes back to her, Lena’s hand warm at the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd. That touch had burned into her skin, electric with possibility. But what if it was just politeness, a meaningless gesture disguised as something more because Kara had wanted it so badly.
Maybe when Lena said she’d never had a family like Kara, she’d meant only that Kara had been kind in a way the world had denied her. It was nothing about building something with her, nothing about folding their small, messy lives together.
And every time Lena laughed in that soft way, seemingly just for her, maybe that was just a normal laugh, and not a map to her heart.
Perhaps all of her memories were ordinary moments between friends, and none of them was leading them to love.
The thought is a cold thing that slides under her skin and settles there. It contorts the memories until they look like proof, until every tender thing becomes a question she can’t answer. She holds the phone as if it were alive, Lena’s missed calls like small knives. She tells herself she’s protecting Lena by staying away, that this is noble, that Lena is better off without her.
But beneath the lie is the raw, unedited ache that refuses rationality: she wants Lena. She wants her like oxygen, like home. And that want makes the replays taste like acid, because the only thing worse than not having Lena, is knowing that Kara herself pushed away the person she loves with her own lips.
By Sunday, she is hollow. A body on autopilot. Eliza asks if she wants to go for a walk. Kara shakes her head. Alex calls, but she only lets it ring. She curls on the couch and lets the world go over her.
Kara was never one of those people that hated Mondays. But this one in particular presses down on her like gravity. She stands outside the Midvale house for a long time, Eliza’s arms warm and steady around her. The hug feels final in a way that terrifies Kara, like she’s about to walk off a cliff. But she can’t stay here. She has a job, a life, responsibilities. She has to go back. Even if the thought of stepping into her apartment feels like inviting the knife in deeper.
The flight is short, too short. The skyline of National City rises like a question she doesn’t know how to answer. Her chest tightens with every mile until landing feels less like returning home and more like falling.
The door clicks open, and immediately her lungs fill with something that doesn’t belong. Not scent exactly, not sound either, but presence. Lena is everywhere. In the half-empty wineglass on the counter, in the sweater draped over the back of the couch, in the way the air feels warmer than it should. Kara tells herself it’s just memory bleeding into reality. Ghosts of the weekend she’s been replaying on a loop.
She rubs her eyes, snaps back into herself thinking about responsibilities. She needs to change before work, to pretend she’s functional. She pushes into her bedroom and freezes.
Lena.
Curled beneath Kara’s blanket, tangled in sheets that still smell faintly of laundry soap and sun. Wearing Kara’s old NCU sweater like it belongs to her. Breathing steady, soft, like she’s never known a world outside this room. She looks like she lives here. Like she’s been here forever.
Kara’s throat closes. Her knees nearly give out. The word slips out before she can stop it, raw and loud:
“Lena?”
Lena stirs, lashes fluttering as she wakes. Her gaze finds Kara, heavy with sleep, and for a moment Kara thinks she’s dreaming. Then Lena’s lips curve in the faintest smile.
“Hey,” she whispers, voice rough with sleep. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”
“You’ve been here all weekend?” Kara manages, though her voice cracks in the middle.
“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d be gone that long.” Lena’s gaze dips, and she tugs lightly at the hem of the sweater she’s wearing. Kara’s sweater. “I had to borrow some stuff. Hope that’s okay.”
Kara doesn’t answer. Her mind can’t process it—Lena here, in her bed, tucked into the scene as if it’s routine. As if this is normal. As if this is real life.
Her heart pounds, too loud for the silence that stretches between them. She wants to step closer, to reach out and prove Lena isn’t just another hallucination born of sleepless nights and wishful thinking. But she’s afraid—afraid that if she moves, if she speaks too loudly, the fragile thread tying this moment together will snap and Lena will vanish.
So she just stands there, staring.
“I—” Kara swallows hard, the word snagging in her throat. She has to break the silence before she does something reckless, before she reaches out, before she confesses the love she’s been hoarding like a secret for years. Her chest heaves with the effort. “Lena, I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t have—”
“Kara, wait.”
The word stops her in her tracks. Lena sits up against the headboard, her hair falling loose around her face, the sweater too big on her frame. But her eyes—they’re wide awake now, sharp and impossibly soft at once. She looks perfect, just like a dream, Kara still can't believe she isn't indeed dreaming right now.
“Please. Don’t apologize.”
Kara shakes her head. “But you—”
“I flinched,” Lena cuts in, voice low but steady, “not because I didn’t want it. God, Kara. I’ve wanted this for longer than I know how to admit. I flinched because for one impossible second, I thought I must have dreamed it. That you couldn’t possibly want me like that. That if I blinked, you’d be gone.”
Her gaze flickers down, then up again, braver this time. “You terrified me, Kara Danvers. Not because I didn’t want you to kiss me, but because I wanted it so much I couldn't even believe it was real, that it was finally happening.”
Kara’s eyes sting, her chest tightening as every hour of self-doubt from Midvale evaporates in a breath. “Really?” she asks, the word breaking small, almost childlike, because she needs to hear it once more, just to be sure.
Lena smiles, slow and certain, and there’s no room for misinterpretation. No hesitation. No lie. “Come here,” she whispers, her voice thick with something that sounds like relief, like longing finally answered. “Let me show you.”
Kara doesn’t think. She just moves. One step, then another, until she’s standing close enough to feel the warmth radiating off Lena. Her gaze drops helplessly to Lena’s lips, her throat working as she swallows hard, trying to summon the courage—
But Lena doesn’t give her the chance. She surges forward, fingers curling into Kara’s shirt, pulling her down as if she’s been starving for this. The kiss is fierce, unrestrained, nothing careful or cautious about it. Kara’s world tilts as Lena climbs into her lap, straddling her, holding her as if daring to ever doubt this again.
By the time they part for breath, Kara is dizzy, her lips tingling, her heart pounding so hard she thinks it might burst. Lena’s forehead rests against hers, breath hot, dangerous smile.
“If you ever run away after kissing me again,” Lena whispers, “I’ll hunt you down and go full Luthor on you.”
Kara laughs, joy spilling out of her in bright, breathless bursts. She peppers kisses along Lena’s cheek, her jaw, the curve of her neck, unable to stop touching her, tasting her. “Oh, trust me, baby,” she murmurs against Lena’s skin, “I’ll never be away from you again.”
It hadn’t started with a kiss. No. This had been years in the making.
It started with a tentative smile across a desk, a voice softer than it should’ve been, words heavy with hope. It started with, “I hope this isn’t the last time we talk.”
And Kara remembers the way her own heart had stumbled, how she’d answered, “I hope not either.”
Now Lena is here in her arms, soft and perfect and real, and Kara knows without a doubt…
This is only the beginning.