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It was, by Kara's rough count, the four hundred and twelfth Friday that Lena Luthor had spent in her apartment without saying anything important.
She did not mean this unkindly. They were very good Fridays. There was always takeout, usually potstickers, and always a movie, usually picked by Lena, and always a particular configuration of the couch: Lena in the left corner with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her, Kara in the middle with the bowl, and a gap between them exactly eleven inches wide.
Kara had measured it. Not on purpose.
"You're not watching," said Lena.
"I'm watching."
"You're staring at the remote."
"It's a, a very nice remote."
"It's gray," said Lena, "and has three buttons."
"It's minimalist."
"Kara."
"I'm watching," said Kara, and made a great show of turning to the screen, where a man in a trench coat was shouting at a helicopter. She had no idea what the film was about. She had been, for the last forty minutes, entirely occupied with the fact that Lena's knee was very nearly touching hers.
It was a thing that happened a lot.
They had been circling each other for two years. It was, Alex said, the longest and most agonizing slow dance in the history of the human species. Nia said it was adorable. Winn had started a betting pool, which James had been quietly instructed to confiscate. And every Friday, in the warm yellow light of the lamp, with a bowl of popcorn between them, Kara resolved, absolutely and without reservation, that tonight would be the night.
Say it, she thought. Just say it. Three words. You've said them in your head, like, a hundred thousand times.
"Lena," she said.
"Hm?"
"I, um."
"Yes?"
"Do you want more popcorn?"
Lena looked at her for a very long moment.
"No, thank you," she said, in a voice that sounded very faintly strangled.
"Okay."
"You've, you were going to say something else."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I was going to say popcorn."
"All right," said Lena, and turned back to the screen. And Kara sat there, with her heart hammering in her chest, and the bowl in her lap, and a distinct and growing conviction that she was the single stupidest person on any planet.
Beside her, Lena let out a very small sigh.
She was going to say something, thought Lena, miserably. She was going to say it, and I made her say popcorn. I'm a coward. I'm a very good CEO and a terrible human being.
Say something, she told herself. Anything.
She opened her mouth.
"Kara,"
"Lena," said Kara, at the exact same time.
They both stopped.
They looked at each other.
The silence stretched, and stretched, and rang.
And with a very small, very bright, very smug little pop, the TV turned itself off.
"FINALLY!"
It came from the ceiling.
It was a smooth, silky, carrying voice, a voice with an English accent and absolutely no humility, and it was followed by a flash of purple smoke and a shower of sparks. Both women leapt off the couch. Kara landed in a half-crouch, hands raised, in the middle of the carpet. Lena grabbed a lamp.
"WHO'S THERE?"
"Me!" said the voice.
The smoke cleared.
Lounging in midair above the coffee table, one ankle crossed over the other, as if reclining on an invisible chaise, was a man. He was tall, dark-haired and impeccably dressed, in a slim plum-colored three-piece suit with a pocket square that cost more than Kara's rent. He had a perfectly sculpted smirk, and the expression of a person who has been waiting at a bus stop for two thousand years and has decided to be charming about it.
"Mxyzptlk," breathed Kara, in horror.
"Ah! She knows me!"
"What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" said Mxyzptlk, and flung his arms wide. He drifted in a slow, theatrical circle, trailing glittering smoke, without a single hair out of place. "I'll tell you what I'm doing here! I am bored! I have been bored for two years! I have been watching the pair of you, from the Fifth Dimension, with my feet up and a bag of popcorn, and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED!"
"Nothing's supposed to,"
"Two years!"
"We're friends," said Lena, coolly, lowering the lamp. "Is that a problem?"
"FRIENDS!" cried Mxyzptlk, pressing a hand to his chest. "Oh, friends! She says friends! She's holding a lamp at me and she says friends! Do you know how many Fridays I've watched you two sit there, with the little, the gap? The gap! Eleven inches! I've measured it!"
"So did I," said Kara, in a small voice.
"I KNOW YOU DID!"
"This is a private,"
"There's a betting pool! I'm in it! I put fifty dollars on 'Christmas!' It's October!" He pressed the back of one hand to his forehead, with an expression of exquisite anguish. "It's like watching a pair of snails trying to share a carrot!"
"I think," said Lena, "that's quite enough."
"No!" said Mxyzptlk. "No, no, no. I've had enough. I have been patient. I've been so very, very patient, and I have decided that I am going to take matters into my own hands."
He rubbed his hands together, with a delighted, malevolent smile.
"Behold," he said, "the Great Electric Intervention!"
"Don't," said Kara.
"Too late!"
He snapped his fingers.
A bolt of purple lightning shot out of the ceiling, hit the TV, bounced off the screen, and struck both of them squarely in the chest. Kara had time to think oh, that's actually rather bright, and then a high, humming, crackling electric buzz ran through every nerve in her body, and the room folded, and the carpet tipped, and the whole world went white, then purple, then a flickering shade of gray.
The last thing she heard was a smooth, delighted voice, saying:
"Enjoy the show!"
-----
CHANNEL 3: Hearts of Mercy General
"Previously, on Hearts of Mercy General*..."*
Kara opened her eyes.
She was lying on a gurney, in a gleaming white corridor, under a ceiling of bright, humming lights. She was wearing blue scrubs. There was a stethoscope around her neck, a pager on her hip, and a name tag on her chest that said DR. DANVERS, CARDIOLOGY. Somewhere in the distance, a soft, dramatic piano was playing.
"Kara?"
She sat up.
Lena was standing beside the gurney, in a white lab coat, with her hair in a bun and a clipboard in her hands. Her tag read DR. LUTHOR, CHIEF OF SURGERY. She looked, in the harsh fluorescent light, extremely tired and extremely annoyed.
"Where are we?" said Kara.
"It looks," said Lena, "like a hospital."
"Are we, did we, is this the TV?"
"I would say so, yes."
"MXYZPTLK!"
"Please," said a smooth, plummy, extremely pleased voice, from nowhere. "Just call me the Narrator."
It was a very intense episode.
They were rushed down a corridor to a trauma bay, where a screaming patient was strapped to a table. Lena took one look at his chart and said, in a low, ringing voice, "It's an aneurysm. We need to operate immediately." Kara said, "We don't have the time." A nurse said, "Doctor, he's crashing!" Lena said, "I know he's crashing, Danvers, that's why we're here."
"We can't operate," said Kara. "Not without a, a second surgeon. You said it yourself. It's a two-person job."
"Then we'll do it together."
"Lena."
"Dr. Luthor."
"Lena," said Kara, with great feeling, and grabbed her hand. "I can't."
A great and tragic swell of strings rose from the ceiling.
"You can't what?" said Lena.
"I can't, I can't operate on a man when my heart is in, in turmoil! It's you! It's always been you! I, I thought it was a murmur, but it's not, it's, it's a rare, incurable,"
"Is it lupus?" gasped a nurse.
"It's love!" said Kara.
The piano crashed.
"Cut!" said a tinny voice. "Cut, cut, CUT! That's not the line! Danvers, you're supposed to say, 'I can't operate, it's lupus!' That's the entire show!"
"It's love," said Kara, firmly.
"It's lupus!"
"It's love!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Lena, and put her head in her hands.
There was a long pause.
"Fine," said the Narrator, sulkily. "Fine. Go with it. The ratings'll be dreadful."
------
CHANNEL 9: Frost Your Feelings
The second channel was a kitchen.
It was a very large, very bright, very pink kitchen, with a glittering countertop and a pair of gleaming ovens and an enormous banner overhead that read FROST YOUR FEELINGS: THE BAKE-OFF OF THE HEART. A studio audience clapped politely. A tall man in a tuxedo, holding a golden whisk, strolled up to them with a wide, toothy smile.
"Welcome, bakers!" he said. "Tonight's challenge is very simple. You will each prepare a cake that expresses, in frosting, the one thing you have never been able to say to your partner."
"We're not partners," said Lena.
"You are today," said the host. "You have ninety minutes. Begin."
A klaxon blared.
It was a ridiculous ninety minutes.
Kara, who could cook approximately four things, all of which were fried, made a lopsided chocolate sponge with a small and slightly tragic layer of potsticker-shaped fondant. Lena, who had a degree in chemical engineering and a deep, sublimated fury, produced a four-tier, precision-engineered, gravity-defying structure, with a glaze that shimmered like glass. They worked in silence, on opposite sides of the counter, not looking at each other. It was extremely, painfully tense.
"Time!" roared the host.
They stepped back.
Kara's cake had, in tiny, wobbling icing letters, the single word HI.
"Hi?" said the judge.
"I got nervous."
"It's very moving."
"It's hi."
"It's so honest," said the judge, wiping an eye.
Lena's cake was a masterpiece. It was a crystalline white tower, gleaming under the lights. And on its topmost tier, in small, neat, cursive sugar script, was a message, in elegant gold:
I'VE LOVED YOU SINCE THE DAY YOU FELL THROUGH MY WINDOW AND SAID YOU WERE FROM THE PRESS.
The studio was silent.
Kara read it.
Her face went through a number of colors.
"It, I," said Lena, and her ears had gone scarlet. "That's, that was, I didn't, I was aiming for a lattice, it was, I got a bit carried away,"
"Lena," said Kara.
"It's frosting! It's, it's fiction, it's a, a category, it doesn't count,"
"Lena."
"It doesn't count!"
"Cut!" said a very distant voice, in a thin, faintly dismayed tone. "No, no, no, no. That's a good line. That's a great line. But you're meant to say it to her. Not on a cake.*"
"Oh, shut UP," said Lena.
-----
CHANNEL 14: The Sleeptight Mattress Hour
It was a commercial.
It was one of the long ones, the sort that plays at three in the morning, with a man in a bad shirt and a laugh track and a lot of cheerful gesturing. Kara and Lena were both in bed. They were both wearing matching pajamas. Between them lay a vast, shining, sinister expanse of memory foam.
"Are you tired," said the voice-over, "of sleeping alone?"
"We're, we're not,"
"Are you tired of lying awake at night, wishing the person you care for was lying next to you, only to realize that she's sleeping eleven inches away?"
"Oh, my god," said Kara.
"Introducing the Sleeptight Dual-Zone Contour Mattress! With patented Closeness Technology, it gently rolls you toward your loved one, whether you like it or not!"
The mattress hummed.
Slowly, steadily, and with a small, whirring, mechanical noise, the whole bed began to tilt.
Kara slid. Lena slid. They rolled, with undignified yelps, down the long gentle slope of the mattress, and collided with a thump in the middle. Kara landed on top. Lena landed under. They stared at each other from about three inches away.
"Hi," said Kara.
"Hello."
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
"Do you want me to,"
"In a minute," said Lena, very softly.
There was a short, breathless silence.
"Perfect!" cried the voice. "Another satisfied customer! Call now, and we'll throw in a free pillow!"
"MXYZPTLK!" yelled Lena. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Operators are standing by!" said the voice, happily.
-----
They finally got a moment to themselves in a stairwell.
It was a very ordinary stairwell, in a very ordinary building, which had apparently been placed between Channel 14 and Channel 21 as a kind of intermission. There was a small, dim light on the ceiling. There was a bench. And there was a vending machine, which, when Kara put in a quarter, produced a bag of potstickers with a small, cheerful ding.
"This is insane," said Lena.
"I know."
"We're in a television."
"I know."
"We have been forced to confess our feelings in a cooking competition."
"I know," said Kara, in a very small voice. "I was there."
"I'm going to destroy him."
"How?"
"I don't know yet."
"Lena."
"I'm thinking!" She began to pace, up and down the narrow landing, with her hands behind her back. "He's a fifth-dimensional imp. He's, he's incredibly powerful, he can warp reality at will. But there's one rule, there's always one rule. The name."
"His name?"
"If he says it backwards, he has to go back to his own dimension. For ninety days. I read about it in a, a field guide." She glanced at Kara. "You know this."
"I know this."
"So all we need to do," said Lena, "is to trick him into saying his name backwards, on camera, in front of an audience."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"That's very complicated."
"I know," said Lena, with an expression of terrible, glowing, almost religious joy. "That's why it's perfect."
She drew it on a napkin.
It was a very elaborate napkin. It had arrows, and columns, and sub-columns, and, in the margin, a small, neat flowchart labeled PLAN A. There was also a PLAN B, a PLAN C, and a smaller, subtler, more desperate PLAN D, which consisted of a single word, underlined three times: WING IT.
"Okay," said Lena. "Plan A. We get him on a game show."
"A game show."
"We pitch it. We find a channel with a category. We make sure the answer is his name. We rig the clue. We make it so that, in order to win, he has to say it. Backwards."
"Why would he play?"
"Because he's vain. He loves to win. He'll take any challenge, if you tell him he can't." She flipped the napkin. "Plan B. We find a soap opera. There's always an identity reveal. If we write him into a role, a role that requires him to announce himself,"
"Backwards?"
"It's theatre."
"I don't think that's how soap operas work."
"Plan C," said Lena, and her eyes were shining. "We build a machine."
"What kind of machine?"
"A mirror machine. We reflect his voice. We fake the acoustics. We get him to say it normally, and the machine flips it. It'll be seamless."
"Lena," said Kara.
"Yes?"
"You've been in here for eleven minutes."
"Yes?"
"And you already have four plans."
"I'm very motivated."
"I know," said Kara, softly, and a small, fond, helpless smile tugged at her mouth. "That's what I love about you."
Lena froze.
The napkin dropped out of her hand.
"I mean," said Kara, her eyes going wide with horror, "like, I mean, as a, as a friend, as a very close, personal, general, it's not, I don't, this is not,"
"Kara."
"It was a figure of speech!"
"Kara."
"I'll, I'll get the, I'll go look for the next channel,"
"It's fine," said Lena, and bent, and picked up the napkin, very slowly. She did not look up. "Plan A. Let's go."
"Okay."
"Let's go."
"Okay," said Kara, and thought, I am going to throw myself down a flight of stairs.
----
CHANNEL 21: Guess That Feeling!
It was a game show.
It was, as it happened, exactly the game show Lena had been looking for. It was bright, and loud, and covered in flashing lights, with a spinning wheel and a glittering stage and a tall, glossy host in a sequined jacket. A huge banner read: GUESS THAT FEELING! A giant scoreboard rose behind them, labeled BEST FRIENDS on one side and SOMETHING ELSE on the other.
"Welcome," boomed the host, "to the show where YOU, the contestants, must guess what your PARTNER is feeling right now!"
"This is perfect," whispered Lena.
"It's terrifying," whispered Kara.
"It's a category. We can use it. We tell him we want a bonus round. We make the final question, 'What is the name of the fifth-dimensional being who put you in this show?'"
"And he says,"
"Mxyzptlk. And then we say it backwards, and he, no. He has to say it. He has to say it backwards. How do we,"
"Oh!" said Kara. "We make it a spelling bee!"
"Brilliant."
"Spell the name of the host!"
"The host doesn't have a name."
"Then we, we make the answer be his,"
"Contestants!" cried the host. "Round One!"
They were pushed onto the stage.
They were given buzzers. A bright spotlight swung down. The host, with a flourish, opened a large golden envelope.
"Contestant Danvers!" he said. "Your partner is thinking of someone right now. Who is it?"
"Easy," said Kara. "It's, um. It's a CEO. Probably busy. She's thinking about, I don't know, shareholders."
"Incorrect!"
"What?"
"Contestant Luthor! What's Kara thinking?"
"She's thinking," said Lena, "about a, a potsticker."
"Incorrect!"
"It's always a potsticker!"
"Wrong! Danvers is thinking," said the host, and the lights dimmed, and the audience hushed, "of a dark-haired, green-eyed, impossibly brilliant woman, who once let her sit on her couch for six hours in the rain because she'd forgotten her keys."
Kara went white.
"And Contestant Luthor is thinking," said the host, "of a blonde reporter in glasses, who made her a sandwich at three a.m. when she hadn't eaten in two days."
"That, that's not," said Lena, and gasped, and clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Fifty points each!"
"Stop it," said Lena, in a thin voice.
"It's the Love Round!"
"Stop it!"
"Let's ask the audience!" shouted the host. "Audience! Do you think these two are in love?"
"YES!" roared the audience.
"Do you think they should say it?"
"YES!"
"Do you think they're being absolutely RIDICULOUS?"
"YES!" screamed the audience, which had, by now, begun to wave signs. One of them said KISS ALREADY. Another said WE HAVE MORTGAGES. A very small old lady in the front row held up a banner that read, in sparkling gold glitter, HURRY UP, I'M 94.
"I hate this," said Lena, faintly.
"Me too," said Kara.
"Is it working?"
"It's a little working."
"Oh, God."
----
CHANNEL 27: The Bold and the Beautiful and the Slightly Confused
It was, mercifully, a soap opera.
It had everything. It had a vast, gleaming mansion, with a sweeping staircase and a chandelier. It had a pair of extremely tall extremely handsome men, fighting a duel in the drawing room. It had a long, slow, lingering shot of a woman fainting on a divan. And in the middle of it all, in the shadow of a huge, gilded mirror, stood Kara Danvers, in a green velvet gown, with a feather boa and a look of total despair.
"I'm sorry," she hissed. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I'm doing."
"Just follow the script," said Lena, from behind a potted palm.
"What's the script?"
"I'm your long-lost twin!"
"I thought you were my sister!"
"That's the twist!"
"I thought it was a, a, a mysterious inheritance!"
"That's the other twist," said Lena, and stepped out from behind the palm in a stunning black dress, a veiled hat, and a pair of long satin gloves. She was glowing. She was, in every way, a figure of great dramatic intensity. She swept across the room with a slow, imperious stride, and the soap opera music swelled around her like surf.
"Darling," she said, in a husky, throbbing voice, "I have returned from the dead."
"Lena!" cried Kara.
"My name," said Lena, "is Lenora."
"It's, you, you're Lena."
"I am Lenora! The evil twin!"
"But you look exactly like my,"
"Yes! That's why I'm so very evil!" She grabbed Kara by the shoulders and shook her. "You've been in love with me for years, and I never once told you,"
"I haven't been in love with you!"
"Liar."
"I'm not!"
"You're a terrible liar," said Lena, and her voice cracked, just a little, in the middle. "You always have been."
Kara stopped.
She stared at her.
There was a long, quiet, delicate beat, and the swelling music paused, as though uncertain. The two men in the drawing room lowered their swords.
"Okay," said Kara. "Okay. Maybe a little."
"I know."
"Since the day you gave me that coffee."
"I know."
"And I've never,"
"Neither have I."
"Cut," said a voice, very quietly, from somewhere far up in the rafters. "Oh. That's, hm. That's rather good. Don't tell them I said so. Keep going. Go on. Don't let me interrupt."
"You're interrupting," said Lena.
"I'm so sorry."
---
They slipped away from the soap opera after that, and found, behind a convenient wardrobe, another stairwell.
It was getting a little worn. There was a stain on the floor. There was a vending machine, which gave them each a cup of lukewarm coffee, and a smaller vending machine for pamphlets, which dispensed a leaflet titled YOU ARE IN LOVE: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE. Kara folded it into a paper airplane and threw it into the vent.
"This is going very badly," said Lena.
"I think it's going kind of well."
"It's going terribly. We're meant to be setting a trap. We've been in here for six hours, and the only thing we have done is blush."
"We've talked."
"We've said things."
"That's progress," said Kara.
"It's not progress, it's sabotage!" Lena pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I'm sorry. I'm, I'm sorry. I'm being unreasonable. I just, it's, I can't think when you're, I can't think."
"Lena."
"What?"
"I think it's working," said Kara.
"What is?"
"Whatever, whatever he's doing. I think it's supposed to be like this." She bit her lip. "I think he's trying to help."
"He's trying to humiliate us."
"Maybe. A little."
"He's a fifth-dimensional menace."
"Yeah," said Kara. "But he's got a point."
Lena stopped.
"What?"
"He's got a point," said Kara. "I've been in love with you for two years, and I've sat on your couch, every single Friday, and I've measured the gap. With a ruler. And I've never said a word."
"Kara."
"Because I was scared."
"I know you were."
"I thought, if I said it, and you didn't, I'd lose this. I'd lose the whole, the Fridays. The popcorn. Your feet on my knees." She took a small, shaking breath. "And I couldn't. I couldn't stand it. I thought, I'd rather have half of you than none."
"Kara."
"But it's not half," said Kara. "It's never been half. It's all of it, it's always been all of it, and I'm sorry, and I'm just, I'm so tired of pretending that it isn't."
Lena had gone very still.
She was standing against the wall of the stairwell, in a black satin dress and a veiled hat, with a cup of cold coffee in her hand. She looked, in the weak yellow light, exactly like a woman who has been hit very gently with a sledgehammer.
"Say it again," she whispered.
"Which part?"
"All of it."
"I love you," said Kara.
The words dropped into the stairwell like a stone into a pond.
"I'm in love with you. I have been, since, I don't even, since before. And I don't need a game show, or a soap opera, or a mattress commercial. I just needed to say it. To you. In a, in a, in a stairwell. With no script." She laughed, shakily. "And I'm so, so sorry that it took me this long."
Lena put down the coffee.
She took off the hat.
She walked, very slowly, across the little landing, and took Kara's face in both hands, in their satin gloves, and held it.
"I love you too," she said.
It was very quiet.
"I've loved you for two years. I love your awful sweaters. I love the way you eat. I love that you can't lie, and that you tried anyway, for six hundred and fifty days. I love how you laugh at your own jokes, before the end of the sentence." Her voice was shaking. "I love you. I love you. And I don't need a mattress, either."
"No?"
"I only need," said Lena, "this."
She kissed her.
It was a clumsy, nervous, breathless, absolutely perfect kiss. It tasted of lukewarm coffee and potstickers. It lasted a very long time. When it finally ended, they stayed where they were, foreheads touching, with their eyes closed and their hearts racing, in a cheap, dim, vending-machine-lit stairwell, and for a moment, neither of them said anything at all.
"Well," said a smooth voice, from the landing below.
They jumped.
He was standing on the bottom step.
He had one hand pressed against his chest, over the pocket square. His perfect hair had, for the first time in two thousand years, come slightly loose. His eyes, dark and unbelievably bright, were shining with tears, and his whole elegant face had crumpled into an expression of such pure, helpless, radiant joy that Kara did not, for a moment, recognize him.
"Finally," he whispered.
"Mxyzptlk," said Lena, in a low, dangerous voice. She had snatched up the napkin. She was holding it like a weapon. "Don't move. I've got a plan."
"Of course you do."
"I've got four."
"I'm sure they're brilliant."
"I've got a spelling bee."
"I'm certain," said the imp, and sniffed, and dabbed at the corner of one eye with a knuckle, "that it's the most elaborate, thoroughly clever, extensively cross-referenced scheme anyone has ever drawn up to be rid of me."
"It is!"
"And I do not need it."
Lena froze.
"What?"
"I don't need it," said Mxyzptlk. "I'm done."
"You're what?"
"I'm done! My work here is finished! You've said it! You've said it all! Two years of waiting, two years of watching, two years of sitting in my little cloud, eating my little popcorn, wondering whether I'd have to do something drastic," He choked. "And you did it. In a stairwell! With a vending machine!"
"We didn't," said Kara.
"You did!"
"We were planning,"
"You were kissing!" he wailed. "It was lovely! It was the loveliest thing I have ever seen! I'm going to, I'm going to need a minute,"
He blew his nose, loudly, on a silk handkerchief the exact shade of his suit.
"I have been," he said, thickly, "in the business of meddling with mortals for four thousand years. I've sent people to the moon. I've turned them into ducks. I've given them the wrong shoes. And in all that time, in all that time, I have never, not once, had the chance to do something that actually mattered.*" He sniffled. "And now I have."
"You tortured us," said Lena.
"Affectionately."
"You put us in a mattress commercial."
"It was a very good mattress!"
"There was a tilting bed!"
"It tested well in focus groups!"
"Mxyzptlk," said Kara.
"Yes, my dear?"
"What happens now?"
"Oh," said the imp, and straightened his cuffs, and drew himself up to his full, considerable height. His whole face softened. "Now I get to rest. That's the, that's the rule, you see. Once a job is done, I'm released. For a few centuries, at least. I can sit in the sun, and have a nap, and eat all the popcorn I like." He smiled, a genuine, slightly crooked smile, with none of the smirk in it. "I'm so tired."
"But the plan," said Lena, faintly.
"Is wonderful," said Mxyzptlk. "Truly. I'd frame it, if I could. But, my dear Ms. Luthor, you've won. By being sincere. There's no one left to trick."
"I made a flowchart."
"I saw."
"It had footnotes."
"I saw those too." He patted her hand, kindly. "I'll treasure it always."
He snapped his fingers.
The world rippled.
The vending machines dissolved. The stairs went soft. The harsh yellow light brightened into a warm, familiar glow, and the cold air turned warm, and there was a carpet underfoot, and a lamp, and a very, very familiar couch, and a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. In the corner, a television, with a black screen, buzzed softly, and went dark.
They were home.
Kara stood in the middle of her own living room, in her own clothes, with the smell of takeout in the air and the sound of rain on the window. Lena was standing three feet away, with her shoes off, one hand still wrapped around a crumpled napkin.
They looked at each other.
"Well," said Lena, after a while.
"Yeah."
"That was."
"Yeah."
"Unfortunate," said Lena, "that I didn't get to use the machine."
"Which machine?"
"Plan C."
"Oh, no."
"I had a mirror array."
"Lena."
"It would have worked,"
"It's over," said Kara.
"I know it's over," said Lena, and sat down on the couch, in the left-hand corner, with a long, theatrical, exhausted sigh. "I just wanted to use it."
"I know."
"I spent nineteen minutes on the diagram."
"It was a beautiful diagram."
"It was a masterpiece."
"It was," said Kara, and sat down beside her, in the middle, in the usual spot. And then, very deliberately, with a small, giddy, shaky smile, she scooted exactly eleven inches to the left.
There was no gap.
Lena's shoulder was pressed against hers. Her knee was pressed against hers. Her hand, which had been lying on the cushion between them for a long, long time, turned over, palm up, and waited.
Kara took it.
They sat there, for a while, without saying anything.
"I'm very happy," said Lena, after a time.
"Me too."
"And I'm very annoyed."
"Me too."
"It was supposed to be," Lena gestured, in a wide, helpless arc, "harder."
"I know."
"There was supposed to be a climax. A showdown. I had a mirror."
"I know."
"And instead we just said it."
"I know."
"In a stairwell."
"I know."
"That's," said Lena, and began, helplessly, to laugh. "That's ridiculous. That's the single most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me. And I've been kidnapped by a cult."
"It's a little funny."
"It's so funny."
"I think," said Kara, "he did it on purpose."
"I know he did it on purpose."
"I think he wanted it to be easy."
"I think," said Lena, "I'd like to throw him through a window."
"I think," said Kara, and laughed too, and tucked her head against Lena's shoulder, "I'd like to thank him."
They sat there, in the lamplight, with the rain at the glass and the popcorn getting cold, laughing, and laughing, until it hurt.
-----
Three days later, in the bullpen at CatCo, Winn Schott slid a crisp fifty-dollar bill across a desk to James Olsen, with a look of deep, personal betrayal.
"October," he said. "I said Christmas. I had Christmas."
"Everyone had Christmas."
"Who had October?"
"Nobody."
"Then who won?"
James nodded, very slowly, toward the corner of the room, where a tall, plum-suited man was sitting on the edge of a desk, ankles crossed, with a bag of popcorn in his lap, a smug expression on his handsome face, and a thick fold of banknotes sticking out of his pocket square.
"I'm retired," said Mr. Mxyzptlk, with great satisfaction. "I'm just here for the residuals."
Behind him, on the TV above the bullpen, someone had left the remote on a very particular channel, and in the soft blue glow of a late-night rerun, a blonde and a brunette, in a stairwell, in the cold yellow light, were kissing.
"Aww," said the laugh track.
"Aww," said the whole room.
And somewhere, far above them, in a small, warm, purple cloud in the Fifth Dimension, a very tired, very well-dressed imp curled up in the sun, and sighed, and fell asleep.
Fin.