Chapter Text
Kara wakes to the sound of her doorbell.
She’s never had a doorbell— before. She’s never had one before the one she clearly has now.
She pads through the house in bare feet. It’s Alex at the door, Alex in her combat suit with bright eyes and an extra-large caramel macchiato in hand. “You still look like crap,” her sister states in lieu of a greeting. “But you’re better? J’onn said you were better.”
“Better than what?” Kara narrows her eyes though the open door. Since when has she had a four car driveway?
Something feels— off. There’s a sense of urgency in Kara’s muscles, adrenaline spiking hot through her veins. It’s like she was in the middle of something, something important, before she woke up.
One of Alex’s eyebrows arches, unperturbed. “Wow, that fever really did a number on you, huh?”
Alex’s demeanour is calm. Normal. Surely if something big was going on, her sister would know about it? Wouldn’t show up just to bring her coffee? Maybe it had just been a nightmare.
Her sister nudges the cup into her hands. “At least you recovered in time for Solstice. I know it’s your favourite holiday.”
Kara blinks. She’d never told Alex that. But— but she must have, or else how would she know?
She takes the coffee, the first sip hitting her tongue like a heavenly chorus. Alex nudges a sippy cup off the stool so she can take a seat at the kitchen island. “What time are your parents arriving?” she calls. Kara blinks herself out of her sugar-and-caffeine-induced daze.
“Huh?”
“The Argo shuttle changed its timetable last month. I’m sure that’s all Zor-El will complain about while they’re here.” Alex helps herself to a peach from the fruit bowl.
“Zor— Alex, why would you say that?” The tightness in her chest is as familiar as it is suffocating.
Alex holds up her hands. “Okay, touchy. No joking about the birth parents, got it. I promise I will be charm itself when they get here.”
“When they—?” It’s second nature now to quell the tears that almost spring to her eyes. “Alex, my parents are dead.”
Her sister’s face contorts in worry. “What? Kara, is this the fever talking?” Alex lays a cool hand on her forehead. “They said you were hallucinating, but I didn’t realise—”
Kara squirms as Alex presses her fingers against her pulse, eyes on her watch. “Your temperature and heart rate are normal. I guess you’re still shaking off all the mental stuff?” Alex’s hands land squarely on her shoulders. “Kara. Your parents are not dead. They survived on Argo with the rest of your city. You guys visit them every summer, and they come here for holidays.”
Kara blinks hard. At Alex’s words, she can see it. Argo, her parents’ smiles, their clasped hands around the Solstice flame. But she can also see a wave, an antimatter wave, see the blinking dot of the asteroid blotted out in its shadow. “Argo’s gone.”
“I should hope not,” Alex chuckles. “Ruby’s at boarding school there, and Conner will be starting in the fall.” Kara closes her eyes as a wave of dizziness washes over her.
Alex tilts her chin up. “Are you sure you’re okay to go back to work today? I can call Cat—”
Her eyes snap open. “Cat? Cat Grant?”
“Uh, yeah?” Alex is back to chuckling. “It’s still customary to let your boss know if you’re not gonna make it in, even for hot-shot journalists.”
“But— but Cat left—”
“For a business meeting in Metropolis, Kara! She was only gone a week.” Alex raps her knuckles against Kara’s forehead, lightly, lest she break her hand. “Man, you’re really out of it. I’m gonna call Clark, get him to meet you at the shuttle station. You probably shouldn’t drive your parents home.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” It’s just that none of this makes sense.
Alex’s gaze is critical. “Okay,” she says eventually, tone only half-convinced. “You’d better finish getting dressed, then. You’re gonna be late.”
She’s not late.
She’s standing in her office, at her desk, staring down at the small black plaque. Kara Danvers, Editor-in-Chief.
“Hey.” She jumps. “I thought Cat gave you the day off?” James’ smile is wide, his hand warm on her shoulder. Kara blinks. Her head feels like it’s filled with cotton wool.
“You’re picking up your parents soon. Are you just doing a half-day?” he asks. Kara latches on to the certainty in his tone, nodding. James grins. “Well then, since you’re here…”
She spends the morning critiquing articles, vetting sources, approving layouts. Everything is familiar yet not, like riding a bike on Mars. Muscle memory from a parallel universe.
Sirens go off somewhere across town as James drops another coffee on her desk. Kara flinches, fingers twitching instinctively towards her glasses. James’ hand on her wrist stops her. “Hey, hey, Winn and J’onn have it covered. They still want you to rest, remember?”
And then she does.
As she’s carrying the approved layouts down to the art room, a commotion at the entrance catches her eye. Two burly security guards are all but carrying a slim figure out of the building, a head of dark hair struggling between their massive forms.
Kara stops, intrigued, just as someone screams her name. It’s familiar, like an echo, a memory that would once have propelled her into action. She starts towards the doors but then James is there, broad shoulders blocking her view. “I can take those,” he gestures to the copies in her hands. “You can head back up to your desk.”
“Who was that?” she asks, trying to see past him, but the guards and the person are gone.
“Oh, no one. Someone who got the wrong building, probably.”
Kara frowns. It didn’t seem like no one. It seemed like— but surely it couldn’t have been—
“Kara.” James’ voice is firm. “You should go back upstairs. Cat wants to see you.”
“She does?”
She’s in Andrea’s office. No, Cat’s office. Why would she think of that name? She doesn’t— she doesn’t even know anyone called Andrea.
“Keira.” Her boss doesn’t glance up from her laptop. “I’d thought your immune system was made of stronger stuff. The others have been struggling without you.”
“I’m— sorry?” she says, a knee-jerk response to the familiar disapproving tone.
“Apology accepted,” Cat says coolly. “Don’t get sick again.”
Kara’s just about to ask about the wall of screens behind Cat’s head, to ask if they’d always been there. To ask why her eyes blur when she looks at them and she can almost see a huge logo, a black circle on a white background instead. But then the whole building begins to tremble beneath her feet and Kara forgets about everything else.
“What was that?” she asks once the world stops shaking. She’s halfway to the window when Cat’s sharp voice calls her back.
“Nothing more important than the reason I called you here. Sit down, Keira.”
Kara wavers, hesitating in the middle of the office. But the physical weight of Cat’s gaze boring into the back of her head tips the balance. Kara sits down.
“I want to confirm what time you’ll all be arriving tomorrow night. As Catco’s editor-in-chief I really need you there to mingle with the early arrivals, though I do appreciate the difficulty of punctuality when one bears the— responsibilities you do.”
At Kara’s blank look, Cat snaps her fingers twice in front of her face. “The gala, Keira. Please do wake up. I would hate to be forced to have Olsen take over your role.”
Kara still has absolutely no idea what is going on. But if there’s one thing her years as Cat Grant’s assistant have taught her, it’s never to let the other woman smell her fear.
“Of course,” she says with a confidence she conjures from thin air. “I’ll be there early.”
“Good.” Cat clicks her tongue. “You’re more useless than normal today. You might as well leave, Keira. The longer you are in my sight the more Xanax I am going to be forced to consume.”
“Leave, Miss Grant?”
“Your parents are arriving today, are they not?” Cat asks in a tone which conveys that she could not be less concerned by Kara’s answer if she actively tried. “You’d better get to the shuttle station.”
She’s at the shuttle station.
It’s a bright, clear day. Her cells are singing in the sunlight, glowing. Great black doors slide open and figures begin to emerge from the ship. Kara sucks in a breath so sharp it hurts.
“Mom? Dad?” If this is a dream she never wants it to end. Her parents are smiling, her mother’s hands smoothing the blue of her robes, her father rolling his shoulders in a contented stretch.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she whispers into her mother’s shoulder, lets the comforting scent of home wash over her. Alura smooths a hand over her hair and Kara is seven years old again, safe from the world in her mother’s arms.
“We were only here at Christmas,” her father chuckles, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “We spend half our time on this planet, it seems. Longer still with this dreadful new shuttle schedule—”
“Oh, hush,” her mother chides. She cups Kara’s cheeks in her hands. “You’ve been struggling with the fever, haven’t you? Not to worry, you’re better now.”
Kara can do nothing but nod mutely. Her parents, real and solid and here. Whatever is responsible for this can’t be bad, can’t be evil. Not if this is the result.
“Now,” her mother says. “Enough with the pleasantries. Where’s my granddaughter?”
Kara’s mouth drops open. “Your— what? You don’t have— I don’t have—”
“Here she is.” A voice at her back, and Kal-El is there. “Sorry we’re late.”
Two dark-haired boys charge past Kara, tackling both her parents at the waist. Zor-El laughs, swinging the smaller of the two into the air as Alura presses a kiss to the elder’s head.
“Conner, Jon, ease up,” Kal laughs. He nudges Kara, who forces her eyes away from her nephews.
Her stomach drops. There, in Kal’s arms, is a tiny little girl. Golden curls cascade down her back; clear, verdant green eyes sit above high cheekbones and perfect pink lips. The child’s arms are wrapped tight around Kal’s neck but as she meets Kara’s gaze she lets go immediately, reaching towards her. “Yeyu!” she calls, high and musical.
Every last atom of oxygen is squeezed from Kara’s lungs as she stares at the girl. Tiny hands stretch towards her, insistent, but Kara is frozen. It can’t be—
Kal chuckles, adjusting so the child doesn’t topple out of his grip. “She’s been a little fussy today.”
He steps towards her and Kara doesn’t react quick enough. Before she can back away the girl is in her arms and Kara feels a piece of her heart, a piece she hadn’t even known was missing, slot into place.
Her mind cannot comprehend the situation but her body moves on autopilot, shifting the girl to her hip and running a calming hand down her back. She’s still reeling. “Kal— who—?”
Her cousin’s smile is warm and knowing. “Your daughter, Kara. Elle.”
“Elle?”
The little girl’s head pops up from where it had found a home in the crook of Kara’s neck. Green eyes meet hers expectantly and Kara is overcome with the urge to press a kiss to her forehead, to bury her nose in a crown of blonde curls. So she does.
She inhales deeply, arms tightening around the girl. Perhaps she’ll have to find another adjective for her mother because this, right here, this is home. The smell of this child, the warmth of her against Kara’s chest, this is everything she’s been searching for since she was first sealed into that pod.
“Elle,” she says again, the sound familiar now as the child nuzzles into her shoulder.
“Must we go over the name every time?” her father grumbles from behind them. “You know my thoughts on not following Kryptonian naming traditions—”
“Hush,” Alura says, running a loving hand over the small girl’s back. “Sometimes traditions can be upgraded. It’s a beautiful name, given for beautiful reasons.”
“What reasons?” Kara asks absently, absorbed by the weight and press of this tiny being.
Her mother chuckles. “Well, you’ve always said that she’s your brightest star. Elle for the House of El, of course.” Of course, Kara thinks. Alura’s eyes are soft and kind. “And Elle, the letter L. The first initial of every member of your wife’s family.”
The dizziness sets in again. “Elle Luthor-Danvers,” her mother says, voice hazy behind the sudden ringing in Kara’s ears. “Every part of who you both are, in one. Remember?”
And then she does.
“Let’s go home,” her mother says, and then they’re home.
Back in the house with the doorbell and the fruit bowl and the four car driveway. All day, Kara has been feeling that she’s missing something. Something isn’t quite right, something doesn’t add up. Her own confusion, the apparent memory loss she’s suffered, the details about her life that she can’t quite recall. Every niggling peculiarity in the corner of her vision that doesn’t make sense, they’ve all been building into a headache that sits heavy now behind her eyes, makes it hard to think straight.
She carries the child – her child – into the house, following her parents on autopilot as they move comfortably around the space. The ringing in Kara’s ears gets worse as she sets the little girl on her feet, a wave of dizziness overcoming her as she straightens again. She wonders for one sickening moment if she’s about to pass out, and then—
“Darling!”
A blinding smile, long fingers reaching out towards her. The white spots in Kara’s vision disappear instantly. She lets out a heavy breath and suddenly everything feels right with the world.
Lena.
This is her wife. How did she ever get so lucky?
But any question or doubt no longer matters because suddenly Lena is there, the delicate scent of jasmine and honeysuckle all-encompassing. And then Kara is wrapped up so completely in the other woman’s embrace that there’s no room for anything else in the universe.
She breathes Lena in, wraps her arms around her. Wonders absently if it would ever be possible to climb inside her, to be with her always. Lena has long since felt as vital to her as oxygen, as sunlight – she’d like the reverse to be true as well. To be certain of her own intrinsic importance to this woman. To know that they complete each other utterly. That they were made for one another.
“I’m sorry I had to leave so early this morning.” Lena’s soft breath tickles Kara’s ear and she thinks it might be her favourite feeling in the world. “But I’m glad you’re finally feeling better. I’m so happy to have you back.”
“Me too,” Kara breathes, a weight behind the words that she doesn’t intend. It feels loaded somehow, like they’ve been apart for much longer than just the workday. Like something has prevented her from holding Lena like this for far too long, and only now has the chasm between them been breached.
Lena pulls away just enough to reach down between them and lift Elle into her arms, holding their daughter against both of their chests. The two look at each other with identical green eyes for a moment before Lena bumps her forehead lightly against the small girl’s, drops a kiss to her brow, and it’s like Kara’s world has been set spinning on its axis again after being off-kilter for so long.
Time passes in a blur. They’re sitting at the breakfast bar, she and Lena and Alex and Eliza and Clark and Lois and her parents, the three children racing through the house with a tiny puppy hot on their heels. She thinks Alura and Zor-El are talking about the holiday home they want to give to Kara and Lena on Argo for their visits, but she only half hears it. Clark cracks a lot of jokes that she doesn’t absorb. Alex might talk about Nia and Brainy, about their upcoming wedding, but Kara can’t be sure.
At one point she thinks there might even be another one of those awful tremors, the house – their house – shaking down to its very foundations.
But Kara’s not worried about any of it, not really taking anything in because through it all, Lena’s fingers are tangled with hers, her thumb stroking back and forth across Kara’s knuckles. And compared to that, to the sensation of it, the implications – what else matters?
After a lunch of breads and meats and cheeses and the sweet moonflower jam her parents brought with them from Argo, Lena opens the wall of sliding doors so the kids can spill out into the garden.
Kara stands in the doorway, basking in the sunshine. Watches with a smile as Alex and Clark and Zor-El let themselves be tackled to the ground again and again in a rowdy game of football.
A pair of arms slide around her waist from behind, a chin coming to rest on her shoulder.
“It’s good to see your parents,” Lena murmurs. “They seem well. Zor-El has been very restrained on grilling me about L-Corp’s latest developments.” Lena presses her smile to the side of Kara’s neck. “And he’s only complained about us shirking Kryptonian naming traditions twice so far.”
“Three times, actually,” Kara chuckles. “I had it as soon as they got off the shuttle.”
The quiet huff of laughter that hits her neck has goosebumps erupting all over Kara’s body. “Marry me, marry my family,” she grins, stroking the hands clasped over her stomach. Lena slips around so they’re face to face, her fingers tracing feather-light over Kara’s hips.
“Best decision I ever made.”
Lena is barefoot, soft and loose in the sunshine. She has to tilt her head up slightly to meet Kara’s gaze, eyes wide and sincere. The moment feels heavy and suspended in blissful eternity; Lena’s lips part, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as the distance between them becomes non-existent and then—
Whatever small details have felt strange or wrong or off ever since she’d woken up this morning are counterbalanced – no, outweighed – by this.
Lena’s lips press against hers and Kara feels for a shining moment like she’s never known pain, never known sorrow. She’s never been lost or, if she has, she’s found now. She’s home.
Lena’s tongue traces the seam of her lips and Kara opens without hesitation, licking in hot and insistent. Lena’s hands are wandering, skirting her hips, ribs, collarbone. Fingertips trace her jaw and Kara shivers, tugging her wife even harder against her. She can’t get close enough to Lena. Never close enough.
“Really? In front of the kids?” Alex groans from her position laid out on the grass, three children piling onto her stomach. “Never mind that, in front of me?”
Lena laughs, pulling back enough to rest their foreheads together. “Your parents, I can handle,” she whispers, breath ghosting over Kara’s kiss-swollen mouth. “Your sister, on the other hand—”
“Let’s get rid of her,” Kara mutters, resolute. Single-minded in her determination to get Lena’s lips back on her own. “Whip out your best boardroom stare. Kick her out.”
“Have you ever known Alex to listen to a word I say?” Lena chuckles, tucking her head beneath Kara’s chin and resting her cheek over her heart. Kara wraps her up in her arms, twisting a lock of dark hair around her finger as she sways them gently on the spot.
If being at work was like riding a bike again after a decade away then this is as easy, as natural, as fundamental to Kara’s existence as breathing.
“Will somebody—” Alex pants, flat on her back with an overexcited four year old using her abdomen as a trampoline, “—take these kids and tire them out before they put me in an early grave?”
Her family laughs even as no one makes a single move to help her sister. “Why don’t you take the children to the park?” Lena murmurs, her soft voice reverberating through Kara’s chest. “Elle’s missed spending time with you while you’ve been ill. We’ll start the preparations when you’re back.”
“Mmm, good idea,” she hums, nuzzling the crown of Lena’s head. “You always have the best ideas.”
“Perks of marrying a genius,” Lena smirks, dropping a last kiss to her lips. “Off you go.”
They’re at the park.
Conner and Jon run ahead as soon as Kara gives them the green light, shimmying their way up the climbing frame and disappearing inside in a burst of giggles. Kara slides Elle’s little legs into one of the swings. Strokes a hand down her daughter’s back every time she pushes her higher. Every shriek of laughter that falls from Elle’s lips is like a balm on all of Kara’s scars, on the wounds that still ache from injuries she can’t in this moment remember suffering.
After a while the little girl asks to be let down, running off to join her cousins. Kara watches Conner lift her daughter carefully onto the climbing frame, watches Jon hold Elle’s hand as he points out the different birds pecking at the grass, and feels warm all over.
A sound from the clump of trees to Kara’s left draws her attention. Rustling, branches snapping. Kara tugs her glasses down, x-rays through them to see a slight figure fighting through the bushes.
A quick glance confirms that all three children are still playing happily. She makes her way over curiously, just on the human side of fast. Stops short when she sees— Lena?
It’s Lena, she really thinks it is, but it’s not her wife. It’s not the woman she’d left in their kitchen, brewing Kryptonian tea for her visiting parents.
This woman is younger, maybe. More agitated, definitely. Instead of her wife’s immaculate appearance this Lena is dirty and smudged, face and clothes streaked with ash. Her tight black pants and fatigue jacket are a far cry from her Lena’s usual tailored suit. Her long hair is twisted back into a French braid but strands are escaping haphazardly, soft tendrils curling at her temples. Kara’s fingers itch to reach out, to touch, even as her brain screams at her that this cannot be possible.
Green eyes light up when they land on Kara.
“God, finally.” This woman, Lena but not Lena, is breathing heavily, hands braced on her thighs. “I was starting to think I was never going to get close enough to talk to you. This thing is persistent, I’ll give it that.” The woman’s wide eyes dart over Kara’s shoulder to scan the park but they’re hidden from view of the playground now by the copse of hazel trees.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kara says. “Who are you?”
The familiar stranger stops dead, stares at Kara with an expression that can only be described as pure dread. “You don’t know me?”
“No. I mean, yes? Maybe. I think so.” Kara takes a deep breath. “You look— you look like Lena.”
“Oh, thank God,” the woman exhales, a hand pressed to her chest as she sags in relief. “I do not have the time to SparkNotes our entire history for you right now.”
Kara shakes her head. “No, I mean, you look like Lena but you’re not—” she cuts herself off as her superhearing picks up on the now-familiar patter of tiny feet heading their way.
“Yeyu!” a voice calls a split second before Elle launches herself at Kara, landing in her open arms. She hoists the girl higher on her hip, her eyes fixed on the woman now staring at the two of them slack jawed. Kara’s brain tells her to move backwards and away, keep her daughter protected from this stranger, but her body doesn’t react.
Instead, something in her bones hums in recognition. In greeting.
“Kara.” Not-Lena’s voice is guarded now, strained. “Who is that?”
Kara drops her lips to Elle’s forehead, noses into her soft curls. “My daughter.”
“But—” not-Lena stutters, her brow furrowed. “Her eyes are—”
“Aiahv Kara!” Conner shouts just as Jon bowls into her side, nuzzling his head against her stomach. Both her nephews press against her, staring at not-Lena who’s staring back just as suspiciously. Kara ruffles Jon’s dark curls as Conner tugs on her sleeve. “Aiahv, who’s that lady?”
“Can we go home now?” Jon pipes up. “Please, Aiahv?”
“It’s okay,” Kara soothes as Elle starts to whimper into her shoulder. “It’s okay, el’kir.” The Kryptonian endearment trips off her tongue without thought. She doesn’t feel right, leaving not-Lena here. But her daughter starts crying in earnest, both boys pulling her backwards so she shrugs at the other woman apologetically.
“Kara, no, wait, please—” not-Lena says, reaching out towards them but Jon shrieks at her approach, hands scrabbling at Kara’s waist as Conner pulls harder.
“Okay guys, okay,” Kara says over the riot of all three children starting to lose it for real. She wants to reach out to not-Lena, to touch her maybe, but she can barely even think now over the noise.
“Okay,” she says, struggling to meet not-Lena’s eyes as she’s tugged away. “Okay. Let’s go home.”
They’re home.
The children calm immediately once the front door shuts behind them. Conner and Jon toe off their shoes and go flying into the living room, catapulting themselves onto the couch beside their parents. Kara shakes her head, smiling as she drops her keys on the hall table.
“Did you have fun, love?” Lena – real Lena, her Lena – asks as she emerges from the kitchen, lifting their daughter into her arms and pressing a kiss that feels like adoration against Kara’s lips.
Her run-in with not-Lena has left a deep unease thrumming through Kara’s veins so she does the most natural, the most instinctive thing in the world. She wraps Lena up in a hug.
Lena doesn’t hesitate to provide what she’s seeking and Kara melts into it, into her. Slides a hand up to thread into the dark waterfall of her wife’s unbraided hair, tugs her closer. Strokes a hand over the soft curve of Lena’s waist, thumb rubbing at the jut of her hipbone. “Mmm, yeah,” she hums against plush lips, her disquiet melting away with every second they’re pressed together. “I missed you.”
Lena smiles against her mouth, cups her hand to Kara’s cheek. “I missed you too, goofball.”
“Ugh, get a room,” Alex groans from the kitchen.
“We did,” Lena shoots back, her eyes never leaving Kara’s, smile big and radiant and beautiful. “In fact, we got a whole house. You’re just always here.”
“Can you blame me?” she hears Alex ask petulantly over the sound of her parents chuckling. “Even a DEO director’s salary can’t buy me digs this sweet. Biggest perk of having you in the family is your hot tub, Luthor.”
“We’re still searching for your biggest perk, Danvers,” Lena calls over her shoulder. She nuzzles a kiss against Elle’s temple, the tiny girl’s eyelids beginning to flutter against her mother’s neck.
“Why don’t you put her down for a nap while we start the Solstice preparations?” Lena says as she hands the sleepy child back to Kara. “We can wake her up for the good stuff later.”
Kara adjusts automatically to the little girl’s weight as Lena finger-combs blonde curls back from where they’re falling into their daughter’s face, fashions a quick braid and secures it with a daisy-patterned hair tie from her wrist. Kara watches the interaction with so much love and affection in her heart that she feels like she might split in two from the force of it.
“You’re such a good mother. I’ve always known you would be,” she murmurs to Lena who bites her lip, green eyes filling with tears.
But they’re happy tears, and her wife presses another lingering kiss to her lips. “It’s a learning curve,” Lena concedes, pulling back from Kara to drop a final kiss to Elle’s head. “But there’s no one in the universe I’d rather be doing it with.”
“Me neither,” Kara hums, chasing Lena’s lips with her own. She could do this forever. A goofy smile breaks over her face as she realises that she can, she will do this forever.
Lena presses a finger to Kara’s lips to halt her advance, laughing sweetly when Kara nips at it. “Get going,” she chuckles, landing a light smack to Kara’s ass and letting her hand linger for long enough that Kara’s glad her parents’ backs are turned.
“Yes ma’am.”
She’s in Elle’s bedroom.
It’s soft and warm and inviting, painted the palest purple like the first kiss of sunrise, every surface covered in cosy throws and teddy bears. Her eyes catch on a framed photo on the dresser; she, Lena and Elle are at the beach, bright sun beaming down and turquoise waves crashing in the background. Lena’s head is bowed, her eyes filled with affection as she points out some feature on the shell Elle is clasping between her tiny fingers. Kara’s arms are wrapped tight round the two of them, her gaze locked on her wife’s face.
For a moment Kara struggles to recall the memory, the exact moment this picture was taken. She can’t remember the feel of the sand beneath her bare feet, can’t summon the taste of the ice cream leaving traces around her daughter’s mouth.
But as she studies the expression on photo-Kara’s face, the confusion ebbs and dissipates into nothing. She can feel the emotion that is captured in this snapshot, the habitual outpouring of love.
There’s nothing unfamiliar about it. She’s always looked at Lena like that.
She’s just pulling the blankets up to the sleeping child’s chin when the window at her back slides open. Seconds later a dark shape drops heavy onto the floor with a groan.
“Haven’t had to do that since boarding school,” mutters a familiar-but-not voice, the lump uncurling to reveal not-Lena looking even more dishevelled than before. More of her dark hair is now escaping her braid than is contained in it and she sighs, tugging out the hair tie and finger-combing it back into a more manageable state. “Please don’t disappear again,” she mumbles around the tie between her teeth. “This place was a nightmare to get into and I’m too damn old to be shimmying up drainpipes.”
Kara should flinch. She should be startled, afraid even. She should call for help.
She doesn’t.
Not-Lena rights herself with a huff. Her gaze flits in quick succession from Kara’s face to the sleeping child in the bed and then, typical, directly to the photograph Kara herself had just been ogling.
The young woman sucks in a breath so sharp it sounds almost painful as she takes in the picture. “Right. So when you said she was your daughter, you really meant—”
Not-Lena blinks roughly a few times, shaking her head. Presses her teeth hard into the plush of her bottom lip. She staggers backwards, sinking into the low armchair in the corner of the room.
“God, Kara,” not-Lena says into the silence between them, her head in her hands. She sounds like she’s holding back tears and something twists inexplicably in Kara’s chest. “Everywhere you’ve been. Everything, everyone you’ve lost.” Not-Lena’s hunched shoulders are trembling. “The whole entire universe at your fingertips and you choose to dream of—”
She chokes off into what sounds like a sob.
Kara feels like she should say something. She wants to say something, to ease this strange woman’s pain if she can. But she doesn’t know what to do. This whole situation is so bewildering.
Who is this woman? She’s not Lena, she’s not Kara’s wife and the mother of her child because she is sitting downstairs making small talk with her parents and hiding the expensive scotch from her sister.
And yet— and yet she is Lena, somehow. Of this, Kara is unshakeably certain. On some level she thinks she would know Lena anywhere. Would find her in the midst of anything.
Lena-not-Lena is sucking in deep breaths, her fingers clenching tight into fists. She looks up at Kara with tear-filled eyes. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Kara, furiously unsure of exactly what it is she is supposed to have divulged, stands silent and confused in the middle of the room.
Not-Lena shakes her head, blinks away tears as something like comprehension passes over her features. “Of course,” she says suddenly. It doesn’t seem like she’s talking to Kara. “That’s why he targeted the DEO. To keep Alex occupied so that I would be the one to follow you in here. To have to see this.”
She laughs then, the sound almost hysterical before she claps a hand over her mouth. “My God, Lex has really outdone himself this time,” not-Lena says, almost to herself. “Talk about two birds with one stone. The sadistic fuck.”
Trying to make sense of not-Lena’s outburst, to slot the words into her tenuous understanding of the world is making Kara’s head spin. “Listen, Lena,” she says, careful to keep her voice low enough to not disturb the sleeping child across the room. “You are Lena, right? A Lena, anyway. This has got to be some kind of mistake. A joke, or an accident. You can’t be real.”
“Kara, I’m real,” not-Lena says, and the conviction in her voice is captivating. Or maybe she’s just always been captivated by this woman. “You and I are the only real things in here.”
Kara shakes her head, brow furrowing. Instinctively she backs up toward the small bed. Lays a hand on Elle’s back through the blankets to feel the steady rise and fall of her breathing. This is real. This is one of the realest, best things Kara has ever known.
The younger woman’s eyes linger on the two of them. Her gaze is sad, almost wistful. There’s a yearning in her expression that knocks the breath from Kara’s lungs, then suddenly it’s gone. The woman’s delicate features harden in resolve. She stands up, squares her shoulders.
“Kara, this isn’t your life. This isn’t reality.”
Elle mumbles in her sleep and Kara holds her breath. One of the small girl’s hands snakes out from her cocoon, grabbing at empty air until it finds Kara’s. Tiny fingers wrap tight around her thumb as the child settles again and every molecule of Kara’s body is singing out that this is good, this is right.
Not-Lena is watching them carefully. She shakes her head. “Wow. Alex warned me it would be intense, but this is just— God.” Not-Lena sighs so heavily, so sadly, that Kara’s fingers twitch with the urge to reach out.
The dark-haired woman crosses the room slowly. Stops a few feet away from Kara, palms out as if she’s an animal likely to bolt at any moment. “Kara, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I can’t do this for you. You have to decide for yourself.”
Kara bites her lip. She wants intuitively to help this woman, but how? “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Not-Lena sighs, scrubbing a dirty hand over her face. “Think about it, Kara. Really look at this world. You need to see it for yourself. You need to choose—”
“Kara!” Alex’s voice echoes through the open door. “Your wife is being ridiculous.”
“Come down and settle this, darling,” Lena-her-wife adds with a chuckle. Not-Lena’s eyes widen and she reaches out for Kara again but her wife is already calling up the stairs. “We need you in the lab.”
She’s in the lab, and not-Lena is nowhere to be seen.
Alex and her parents are hunched over a workbench, listening intently to Lena’s instructions as her wife carefully combines different chemical compounds behind goggles and gloves.
Kara takes her place at their side, lets Lena’s soothing voice melt away her unease like the brightest of sunshine on snow. Her heart feels warm and full again as they set about constructing the Solstice flame, or as close an approximation as Lena can conjure within the confines of a non-Kryptonian atmosphere, ready for the ceremony they will perform tonight.
Solstice had always been Kara’s favourite of the Kryptonian traditions she’d inherited; the gathering together of loved ones, the songs and prayers to remember and bring safety to all those far from home. Here, now, preparing to celebrate it with everyone she holds dear, she couldn’t be happier.
“Darling, would you fetch the keys to the chemical store?” Lena asks sweetly, her eyes fixed on the pipette she’s carefully positioning. “They’re hanging in my coat pocket outside the door.”
“Of course,” Kara smiles, dropping a kiss to Lena’s temple as she goes.
She finds the keys easily even in the dim light of the hallway. Is just turning back to the home lab when she senses a presence behind her.
“God, I wish you’d stop doing that.” Not-Lena is panting again, as if she’d been running. “Don’t you think this is weird, Kara? That you decide to go somewhere and suddenly you’re there? Someone tells you to remember something and suddenly you do?”
Kara bites her lip, conflicted. Confused.
“I know you can see it,” not-Lena presses. “You can feel that this isn’t right.”
Kara shakes her head. “No, it’s— I’ve been, I’ve been ill. Maybe this is just—”
“You’re not ill. You’re dreaming. Kara, this has happened to you before.”
“No, it—”
“It’s a Black Mercy.”
The words send a bolt of dread down Kara’s spine, though she can’t for the life of her remember why.
“It’s Lex’s,” not-Lena says to what Kara is sure is her expression of bewildered fear. “We were— we are fighting him. He wanted to incapacitate you so he hit you with a Black Mercy. You created this world, Kara. All of this is in your head.”
Kara flinches, the words striking her like a physical blow. Not-Lena winces in sympathy. “I know. I know it’s a lot to take in. Believe me, I am going to kill my brother for doing this to you,” not-Lena mutters, shaking her head. “Again.”
She takes a step towards Kara, fingers outstretched. “But I can’t unless you decide to end this. I came in after you to get you. To bring you back.”
A flare of recognition shoots through her chest at the words but then Kara thinks of her parents, her wife, her daughter. They’re— they’re real. They have to be real.
If they’re not, what is she left with?
“Why are you saying these awful things?” Kara asks, fear and a growing sense of panic pushing the words from her mouth. “Why can’t you leave me alone? I’m happy.”
Not-Lena closes her eyes, presses her lips together. “I know. I know, and I’m sorry.” When she opens her eyes again, they’re filled with tears. “Kara. I want you to know that if I could, I’d— I would leave you here. I wouldn’t take this from you again.”
Kara shakes her head, the sense of foreboding in her stomach growing. None of this makes sense.
Lena’s gaze loses its heartbreak, turns resolute. “But there are people depending on you out there. The world needs you. Alex needs you. I need you. So you have to come back.”
“No. No, Alex is here. Lena is here. My family is safe, and I’m staying with them.” She reaches out for the heavy metal lab door, fingers closing around the edge.
“If you don’t decide to come back, you and I will be dead within the hour. This thing, it’s killing us.”
Kara shakes her head again. “I don’t believe you.”
“Kara, please—”
Whatever else not-Lena was going to say is lost as Kara slams the door in her face.
The lab is still warm and cosy, still utterly untouched by the uncertainty twisting in Kara’s gut. She wills it down, secures it with an iron resolve, and turns back to the workbench.
It isn’t long before the pale lilac flame flares to life beneath the pressurised dome Lena hastily seals over it. The others begin to amble away, Alura murmuring something about getting started on food for the feast later on but Kara remains, staring transfixed down at the flickering Solstice flame.
She doesn’t have the words to express what it means to her to have this piece of her heritage, her culture, preserved here in front of her. To be able to share it with her family. With her daughter. To know that the knowledge and the customs and the essence of Krypton won’t die with her, will endure.
She doesn’t have the words, in English at least. But she can also feel the harsh pauses and rolling curves of Kryptonian phrases warming her throat, sliding welcome and familiar across her tongue. A soft, pliant body tucks itself against her side then, a face pressed against the side of her neck, and one word shines bright and irrefutable and gleaming above all the others. Zhao.
“Thank you for doing this,” Kara murmurs against a crown of dark hair, tugging Lena to her so they’re chest to chest as they both gaze down at the flame. “For figuring out how to recreate it. You have no idea what it means to me.”
Lena rises ever so slightly onto her tiptoes, her body sliding hot and delicious against Kara’s own. She presses her lips to the underside of Kara’s jaw. “Anything,” she whispers ardently, reverently. “Anything I can do, just say. I want— I want you to feel like you still have your home.”
“Lena,” Kara breathes, pulling her gaze from the lilac glow to rest their foreheads together gently, her eyes sliding closed. “I’m already home.”
She doesn’t know how long they stay like that, breathing the same air. Lena’s nose nudges her own on every inhale, her breath whispering against Kara’s lips at each exhale. Kara fancies that she can feel the heat of the small flame, though she knows the thick pressurised glass renders it impossible. But she fancies that she is warmed by it still, basking in the radiance of the Solstice celebrations on Krypton, joyful and unscathed and whole.
“Is that really what my ass looks like from the back?”
It’s Lena’s voice but it’s not Lena who speaks. Kara knows because her wife’s mouth is so close to her own that their lips would touch at the first syllable, and neither of them have moved. Her eyes snap open.
“Who are you?” her wife asks, her temple pressed to Kara’s cheek as they both turn to stare at the intruder. Lena’s arms tighten around Kara’s ribs. “Darling, who is that?”
Not-Lena is staring at the two of them from the other side of the workbench. She’s pink-cheeked and breathing heavy and— is that a crowbar in her hands? Not-Lena tuts, chuckling a little as she shakes her head. Her eyes lock onto Kara’s, her voice soft and almost resigned. “We look good together, I’ll give you that.”
“Kara, we need to call security,” her wife says, hands twisting anxiously into the back of Kara’s shirt.
“No, she’s not— she won’t hurt us,” Kara says with a conviction she can’t quite explain. Lena’s heartbeat is thudding wildly where their chests are still pressed together and Kara strokes reassuring hands over her back, comforting without thought. “It’s okay,” she soothes automatically and Lena bobs up on her toes to press a kiss tinged with frantic desperation to her lips, a hint of teeth scraping over willing flesh.
“Christ, I am going to need so much therapy after this,” not-Lena mutters darkly from the other side of the room. “I’ll definitely be billing my brother.”
“Kara, she’s using an image inducer,” Lena whispers urgently as their mouths part. “We’ve had problems like this with impersonators before, remember?”
And then she does. Or— or she might. A snippet of memory flares to life at her wife’s words but it feels flimsy somehow, ephemeral compared to the steadfast burn of not-Lena’s eyes.
Kara turns to face the strange woman but her wife doesn’t relinquish her hold, hands pressing warm into Kara’s stomach as she moulds herself to her back. “I’ve told you I don’t want to listen to what you have to say,” Kara says firmly despite the way her heartrate ticks up, despite her increasingly clammy palms. “I think you should leave, before you get hurt.”
Why does it matter to her, the wellbeing of this woman? Kara can’t even begin to fathom her own reasoning and yet it does. It does.
“I’m not leaving without you,” not-Lena says instantly.
“Kara’s not going anywhere,” her wife hisses over her shoulder with a viciousness that shocks her. “This is our house, our life. We’re happy. The only thing wrong here is you.”
“I get it,” not-Lena says, ignoring her doppelganger’s words as she meets Kara’s eyes. There’s a desperation to her voice, to her gaze, that Kara can’t look away from. “I get why you would rather stay here. I know things have been hard between us recently—”
“No they haven’t.” Lena’s shaking her head, grasping Kara’s hand. “We’re great.”
Not-Lena looks close to tears. “We’re not. We’re not, Kara, and you know it. I know you want to escape the pain, forget all the awful things we’ve done to each other—”
“We would never hurt one other, darling,” Lena murmurs, breath sweet in her ear. “How could I hurt you? I love you.” Kara shivers, unconsciously pressing back into the body curled around hers.
“Kara, please.” Not-Lena’s tone is heavy with infinite sorrow. “You and I both know it’s possible to hurt the person you love.”
Kara’s brow furrows.
“You have to remember the truth.” Not-Lena’s face twists in something akin to agony. “Remember the Pulitzer party, when you told me you were Supergirl. Remember the Fortress, our fight. Remember the crisis. Myriad, Obsidian, Leviathan. Come on, Kara, please. Please.”
Things are flickering in the dark of Kara’s mind like glowing embers choked under too much ash. Memories flare and fade at not-Lena’s words, too fast for her to grasp them. Something deep begins to stir in her gut. Anger. Regret. Fear. And above all, a sadness so profound it aches in her jaw.
“We were making our way back, Kara,” not-Lena whispers. “Don’t undo that. We’ve left so many scars on each other but we’re still here. We’re still trying.” The strange woman takes a step towards Kara and her wife’s arms tighten possessively around her waist.
“You and I have never been perfect. We’ve never been easy. But it’s always been worth it.” Not-Lena’s voice is rising. “It’s a choice. Life is so full of pain, but we choose to carry on anyway. I need you to keep making that choice with me.”
“I’ve heard enough,” her wife snaps, fingers tightening at Kara’s waist to the point of pain. Lena shouldn’t be strong enough to do that, should she?
“Clark, Alex!” Lena calls and suddenly they’re all there. “This person is using an image inducer; she’s trying to trick us. She wants to hurt us.”
Her family’s eyes turn cold and before Kara can blink not-Lena is being restrained by Kal and Zor-El, screaming and struggling as she’s dragged up the stairs.
The two men force not-Lena to her knees on Kara’s living room floor, pinning her arms painfully behind her back so that any attempt at escape would dislocate her shoulder.
Kara winces, though not even a finger has been laid on her own body. She and Lena had talked about quantum entanglement once, hadn’t they. Hadn’t they?
“Kara, we have to get out of here,” not-Lena pants just as another tremor, the strongest yet, rocks the house. The windows rattle in their frames, photographs and trinkets vibrating off their floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to smash on the ground.
Her family steadies themselves as best they can; her wife has one arm wrapped tight around their daughter, the other snaking its way around Kara’s waist. She can feel Lena’s pounding heartbeat pressed against her back and her own arms come up automatically to comfort, to hold.
“We’re running out of time,” not-Lena half-yells, wincing as the tremors cause her captors to wrench her trapped arms painfully. “If we die in here we’re dead for good. Decide, Kara! You have to decide, please.”
The world finally settles to a dull rumble beneath their feet and Kara straightens, shaking her head. These tremors— something bad is happening here, that much is clear. But is the evil invading her world, or has it come from within? Does she need to defend her family, her life, or escape it?
Her gaze settles on not-Lena’s face and Kara can feel her forehead crinkling in indecision. Something is wrong, yes, but— but the stakes of this choice are impossibly high. Lena’s hand is soft and warm beneath Kara’s own, her wedding ring digging reassuringly into Kara’s palm. If she chooses wrong, she could lose this. She could lose everything.
Not-Lena reads her hesitation like an open book. She leans forward despite the heavy hands restraining her, her voice hushed and fervent and impossibly earnest.
“We— we could have a life like this. One day. Maybe we could get here.” Not-Lena’s eyes are beseeching. “But Kara, even if we did, it— it wouldn’t be this.”
Kara sucks in a sharp breath. Not-Lena glances around the room, one eyebrow arching. Her expression shifts into a Lena Luthor classic that’s long held Kara enamoured; the dry wit the young woman digs up specifically in times of adversity. Sass in the face of a hurricane.
“I mean, we’re really going to have to talk about getting a puppy,” not-Lena starts. “We’re both so busy, would we have time? And I’ve always been more of a cat person anyway.” She purses her lips. “And why on earth would we need a four car driveway? You can fly.”
The gentle ribbing is so familiar and comforting and lovely that Kara finds herself inexplicably wanting to cry. Not-Lena’s eyes turn solemn, teeth digging against her bottom lip. “And Kara, we wouldn’t have your parents,” she says quietly and Kara swallows hard against the knife-blades in her throat. “We wouldn’t have Christmas visits and summers on Argo. That’s, they’re— they’re gone.”
She blinks rapidly against the sudden hot sting of tears. Not-Lena notices, strains towards her even harder. “But we’d have the family we chose, Kara. The family we made.”
Not-Lena tries to push up on her knees, struggling hard against Kryptonian strength. Zor-El clicks his tongue in irritation and casually, dispassionately, brings his knee up hard into the young woman’s stomach. Not-Lena drops down, gasping painfully for air.
Kara flinches at the sight, at the sound, pulling away from the warm body pressed to her own to take a step closer to the kneeling figure. Her wife’s firm grip on her waist holds her back.
Not-Lena looks up at her through the tears that have gathered in her eyes. “Maybe we could get here, Kara,” she gasps. “I— I want to get here. But first you have to come back. Come back to me.”
Stubbornly, she pushes once more against the strong arms restraining her. Earns a swift foot to the kidney for her trouble and doubles over, wheezing. When her eyes meet Kara’s again her face is scrunched up, twisting in pain. The wispy curls at her temples are matted with sweat, her breaths stuttering out unevenly. “Please,” she whispers, begs. “Let’s do it together.”
And Kara— Kara wants that. She wants what not-Lena is proposing, wants the world she can envisage at her words. She doesn’t want gaps in her memory, no confusion or missed steps.
She wants to do it together. Wants to remember every second of Lena. With Lena.
She takes another step towards the kneeling woman. “Kara,” her wife calls at her back and her voice is so anguished Kara can’t help but turn. “Don’t do this,” Lena pleads, her beautiful eyes filling with tears. “Don’t leave me.”
“I— I’m not,” Kara manages, though it comes out as more of a question than a statement. She isn’t. Is she?
“Everyone leaves me, Kara,” her wife says, voice thick and choked. “You promised. You promised you never would.”
To her right, not-Lena’s hunched form is fighting for breath, her expression twisted in anguish. To her left, Lena-her-wife blinks and two tears track diamond paths down her cheeks. Kara feels utterly, utterly torn in two. “I won’t,” she whispers to one or both of them. “I won’t leave you, Lena.”
“Kara,” not-Lena whispers, and now Kara can see that she’s crying too. She takes another step towards the kneeling woman, unable to withstand the sight of her pain.
“Think of our family,” her wife entreats desperately and Kara pauses again. “Think of our child. What about us? What about you and I?” Lena bends, lifts a distressed Elle into her arms. Two sets of identical green eyes are swimming with tears. “Don’t you love me?”
“I do,” Kara says, because it’s the truth. “I love you so much, Lena. I always have.”
Across the room, not-Lena chokes out a strangled sob.
Kara turns once more toward the kneeling woman. “But I think— I think I have to—”
“Yes, Kara, yes, please—” not-Lena gasps desperately even as tears flow freely down her face, struggling ineffectually against the powerful grip of her father and cousin.
“I will hear no more of this impostor’s poisonous words,” Zor-El roars suddenly, other-worldly in his fury. “I will not allow my daughter to be taken from me again.”
And Kara watches in abject horror as her father twists a rough hand into not-Lena’s dark hair and slams her body face-down onto the ground.
Everything seems to go into slow motion, then. Her wife’s fingers scrabble desperately for purchase against her body but Kara barely feels it, barely even registers the nausea creeping up the back of her throat or the thundering staccato of her heartbeat. Her mother and sister are shouting. All three children are crying. And Kal and Zor-El pin not-Lena to the ground and raise their iron fists above her unprotected head.
Not-Lena screams and something in Kara just— stops.
Not her heart, that’s still thundering away in her ears. But something, something else vital to her continued existence just stutters to a halt and Kara can feel herself begin to disintegrate in response.
There’s no world Kara could create, no world she could accept, that would force a sound that anguished from Lena’s lips.
“Lena,” she gasps as the room begins to shake apart, shoving away from the dark-haired woman still clutching at her and throwing herself towards the prone body on the floor. She smashes into her cousin hard, slamming them both sideways and away but she’s not quick enough to intercept the heavy trajectory of Zor-El’s fist, can only watch in sickening terror as it finds its target.
Not-Lena – no, just Lena, real Lena, brave beautiful vulnerable Lena, her Lena, hers – crumples instantly. Her eyes roll back into her skull at the impact, eyelids fluttering closed. Kara thinks she might be screaming. The house is shaking so hard that chunks of brick and mortar are crashing down around them as Kara reaches desperately across the floor from where she lies, straining to get a hold on Lena’s buckled body even as her family looms over them with jet-black eyes and snarling mouths.
Her fingertips are inches from Lena’s limp hand. All there is now is agony; Kara feels like she’s been rent in two. And then the sky, the very air around them flashes white, then blood-red; a high thin sound like the echo of a scream stretches out into infinity, and everything goes black.