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Lena paces on her balcony, lifting her phone to her ear and taking a deep breath as it begins to ring. She drums her fingers on the railing, listening as her nails clink rhythmically against the smooth metal. The air outside is still warm despite the waning summer, but the breeze that blows by carries the fall on its back, and Lena clutches her sweater a little closer. She isn’t sorry to see this summer end.
Things should have settled, after.
After Nxyly. After William. After Lex.
After being welcomed into a group of friends more wonderful than she’d ever dreamed of, still the uneasiness lingers. It’s a trepidation she can’t quite place, the way her joy catches in her chest when Nia laughs so hard she falls into Lena’s side, or when Esme crawls into her lap with a book she can’t stay awake for. Her life is the best it’s ever been, and yet it claws at her sometimes, like it’s too good, too perfect. It rises up into her throat and as the phone continues to ring in her ear, Lena casts her eyes around, as if looking for proof her world somehow isn’t as peaceful as it seems.
“Lena! Hey!” Kara’s voice comes pouring through the phone, and Lena feels her shoulders relax. “I was actually just about to call you. What’s up?”
It’s funny, Lena thinks then, how the knots in her chest ease around Kara. Her world has always been full of uncertainties, fleeting moments of happiness snatched away when she gets too comfortable. But with Kara, it feels stable, less lonely, like maybe one day she could allow herself to breathe, if Kara’s around.
“Oh yeah?” Lena can’t help but smile, pressing the phone closer to her ear as if it’ll help her absorb some of Kara’s warmth. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to come over for a movie night this weekend, I, um—” Lena pauses, rubbing her free hand over her sternum, “I could use the company.”
“Oh, that’s... kind of why I’m calling, actually,” Kara says, then falters. It’s soft, and it’s hesitant, and Lena’s shoulders sag, but then— “Alex and I are going to Midvale for a few days, and I thought maybe you’d like to come.”
***
The wind is barreling across Lena’s face; it whips her hair around her shoulders and roars in her ears as they shoot down the highway. Lena jolts her hand up to tamp her sunhat back against her forehead even as the brim ripples in the wind. The Danvers sisters are in the front, scream-singing along to an ‘N Sync song Lena hasn’t heard in ten years and shimmying in their seats.
Alex is wagging one hand to the beat and driving with the other, and Kara… Kara has her seat reclined, her head tipped back into the sunlight beaming down on the car. She has a radiant smile on her face as she sings every word, wiggling her shoulders until she tips her head back down to grin at her sister. She looks more relaxed than Lena’s seen her in years, and Lena gets it, why Kara wanted to come here, when she sees how it makes her so free.
The song shifts to Britney Spears and Kara shrieks, throwing her hands in the air in delight like she didn’t make this playlist herself, and turns to the backseat to beam at Lena. Lena’s pretty sure she’s already sunburned, pretty sure that her hair is irrevocably tangled, pretty sure that Alex hadn’t expected a tag-along on her sisters’ weekend, but the fresh air, the view of the ocean, and Kara’s exhilarated smile make it hard to remember why she cares in the first place.
***
The Danvers’ house starts to peek around the corner when Alex pulls off the road into a tree-lined driveway. Kara’s out of the car like a shot as soon as Alex parks, slamming her door shut and raiding the trunk to haul all three of their bags onto her shoulder. Lena eases out of the backseat, stretching her legs as she takes a look around. The house is beautiful— tall, broad, and stately in the golden afternoon sun. It’s set up on a hill overlooking the bay, and Lena lets the gentle sound of the waves settle into the very bones of her until she hears a door open and looks up to see Eliza smiling down at them.
Lena’s stomach flips, even as she squeezes out a smile back. Somehow the reality of this weekend escaped her; she didn’t think past the persistent, itchy need to not be alone in her apartment with her own thoughts. Didn’t think far enough ahead to realize that a weekend in Midvale with Kara and Alex also meant a weekend with Eliza.
She racks her brain trying to remember the last time she and Eliza saw each other, and her stomach clenches when she realizes that they barely spoke at Alex’s wedding, that the last time they really saw each other was Thanksgiving two years ago. Before Nxyly. Before Lex came back. Before she found out Kara was Supergirl and tried to brainwash half the world. Before she became the last person Eliza would want around her daughters.
The memories come back in flashes and harden in her stomach like ice: manipulating Kara and lying to her for weeks, convincing her to commit a felony. Trapping her in kryptonite and leaving her alone. It makes her feel ill, and as she looks up to where Eliza stands in the doorway at the top of the hill, Lena wonders if Eliza will even let her in.
A pit opens in her stomach and she feels her heart start to pound in her chest as she follows Kara and Alex up the front steps, slowing to a halt as Kara drops all of their bags to throw her arms around Eliza. She sinks into Eliza’s embrace, and Lena drops her eyes, tugging the front of her shirt down before running her fingers through her wind-tangled hair in a vain attempt to tame it back into something presentable.
“Hi sweetheart,” Eliza murmurs, giving Kara another squeeze before patting her sides. “I’m glad you’re home.”
It’s Alex next, and she relaxes into Eliza’s arms in much the same way, a soft hey mom escaping from where it’s muffled in Eliza’s shoulder. Lena bites her lip, clasping her hands together as she shuffles around, mildly aware of the way Eliza returns an equally soft hey honey, as she cups the back of Alex’s head.
“How’s Kelly?”
“Good,” Alex replies, smiling. “Taking Esme to see James for the weekend.”
“Good,” Eliza grins back at her.
Alex disappears into the house then, leaving Eliza to shift her focus toward Lena as Kara bounces on her toes off to the side. Lena forces as genuine a smile as she can manage onto her face as she holds out her hand.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Danvers,” she says.
Eliza cocks her head at Lena and raises an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth tugging into a crooked smile as she steps forward past Lena’s hand and gives her a brief hug instead.
“It’s good to see you too, Lena,” she responds. She squeezes Lena’s arm as she pulls away, and if she notices Lena’s stunned silence, she doesn’t say a word.
“Come on,” she says to Kara when she turns around, placing a hand on Kara’s shoulder and steering her into the house. “And Lena,” she calls back over her shoulder, “once you walk through this door you start calling me Eliza.”
***
It’s homey, is the first thing Lena notices when she walks in. Spacious, comfortable, incredibly lived in, and homey. There are framed pictures of the family everywhere, deep, plush couches and armchairs, more throw blankets than they could possibly need. It’s warm and welcoming, and Lena immediately feels a little lighter when she walks in.
Kara and Alex have disappeared already, and Lena falters, glancing around for them until Eliza steps into view.
“They always fight over the—” a loud muffled thud sounds from somewhere upstairs, followed immediately by a ‘HEY’ from Alex, and Eliza just closes her eyes and smiles “—bathroom.”
Lena huffs out a laugh despite herself, and Eliza’s expression softens as she looks at Lena.
“They’ll be back. Tea?”
***
Eliza shoos them all away from the table after dinner, dealing out minor threats when Lena nervously tries to clear the dishes anyway. Lena’s just giving in, holding her hands up in the air when Kara appears at her side.
“Hey,” Kara says. Her voice is soft, low, and she looks a bit nervous, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and laying an open palm on Lena’s forearm. “Come outside with me before dessert?”
The sky is clear when they step out onto the deck. The evening has fully set in, the last vestiges of the sunset that shone so brilliantly during dinner are slowly disappearing into the horizon, and the crickets have begun to chirp.
Kara leads Lena to a couch and sits, shifting her hands in her lap and smoothing out her pants.
“I wanted to apologize for how I asked you here,” Kara begins. She watches Lena for a moment before her lips pull to one side and she ducks her head down to start picking at her nails. It makes her hair fall loose on the side of her face, glowing golden in the warm light shining from inside the house. Lena doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of seeing Kara’s hair down like this. “When I called you, it sounded like you had something else to say, something important. Your voice was… off, and I just barreled over you to invite you here. Were you okay? Are you?”
Kara picks her head back up and looks at Lena once more, her eyes roving over Lena’s face until Lena reaches out and places her hand on top of Kara’s.
“I was fine,” Lena says, but Kara’s raising an eyebrow at her before she even finishes.
Lena sighs, nodding her head and squeezing Kara’s hand when it turns over and grasps her own. It’s never been easy to talk about things like this. Two decades’ worth of Luthor upbringing instilled in her an aversion to the exploration of her own feelings but this, talking about this with Kara feels important in a way it hasn’t before.
“Dealing with Lex brings back a lot of… feelings for me, and I’m just… trying to handle it better than I did last time,” she pauses to look over at Kara, but Kara doesn’t smile at her joke. Her face betrays nothing but earnestness, and when she squeezes Lena’s hand again, Lena continues. “He toys with me, takes things I love away from me. He has this way of making me feel like none of the good things in my life are permanent, because he can take them from me whenever he wants. It’s… isolating, and even though he’s gone now, it still feels that way sometimes so, I called you because I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Lena—”
“Being around everyone makes me feel less alone, but being around you… helps. You help, and this is better than anything I had in mind, Kara. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“You’re welcome here anytime, Lena,” Kara says, and her voice, the look on her face is so genuine Lena finds herself holding back tears. “None of us are going anywhere, you know,” Kara continues, but Lena breaks her gaze, looking out into the darkness toward the water instead.
Kara squeezes Lena’s hand before taking a breath. She seems to start and stop her next thought a few times before squeezing Lena’s hand again and looking out toward the water as well. It’s dark now, and Lena can barely see it, but the sound of the waves crashing into the shore is soothing in a way she didn’t realize she needed.
“I, um,” Kara pauses again before she pushes on, “I’ve been having some nightmares. About the Phantom Zone. It was bad when I got back and then they went away for a while but now…” she trails off, refusing to tear her gaze away from the water. Lena knows how difficult it is, for Kara to talk about things like this, how hard she must be trying to be vulnerable like Lena was, and so Lena does her the courtesy of looking at the water as well. “Anyway, now they’re back, sometimes, and it’s— it’s not any less terrifying as an adult. When I first got here when I was a kid, I had nightmares about the Phantom Zone all the time, but eventually… being here with the Danvers… it helped. Alex thought it might help again now, too.”
It makes Lena ache for her. She wants to know what the dreams are about, what Kara sees when she’s trapped in them, wants to figure out a way to help, but she can see the tense set of Kara’s shoulders, the clench of her jaw, and she decides to not push her tonight. She runs her thumb over the back of Kara’s hand, squeezing at her palm until Kara’s shoulders relax a little and she finally turns to offer Lena a brief smile. Lena tries a different question instead.
“Why’d you bring me?”
“You help too.”
***
Lena’s original plan for this weekend had been an easy one: have Kara over for a movie. It was meant as a distraction for herself, to loosen the talons Lex always had gripped around her neck, to convince her, if only for a few hours, that some of the good in her life won’t fade away. If she was lucky, she’d be able to persuade Kara to stay over, have proof for herself the next morning, when Kara would stumble out of her guest room with a sleepy smile and a voracious appetite, that the warmth and security Kara provides isn’t fleeting.
It’s fitting then, that despite the complete upheaval of her weekend plans she somehow finds herself watching a movie with Kara anyway. It’s a romantic comedy from the 90s, generic enough that Lena’s found herself zoning out but charming enough to stir a warm feeling in her chest.
She’s curled herself into the corner of the couch, tucked under a blanket next to Kara, who sprawls lazily over two seats’ worth of space, one leg flung out to rest on the coffee table. Kara tends to stretch out, Lena’s noticed, when she’s in her own space. It’s a level of comfort Lena’s never allowed herself but one Kara wears so naturally. It makes sense, Lena knows, for Kara to be so loose and relaxed in her childhood home.
It’s a stark difference from the Luthor mansion, which down to its very walls seemed designed to discourage comfort. The Danvers house is so much the opposite that it’s slowly settling the storm in her chest, and before it can do much damage, Lena forces away the thought of what she might have been like, had she grown up here instead.
Kara shifts next to her, stretching her other leg out sideways into Alex’s lap, and Lena watches her fondly, thinking idly about what Lillian might have done if she’d ever found Lena so reposed in the family living room.
She supposes a coronary isn’t out of the question.
The credits have barely begun rolling when Eliza stands from her armchair, yawning behind her hand and tightening her robe around her frame. It looks warm, old and worn-in with a slightly masculine cut to it that makes Lena wonder if it had been Jeremiah’s once. The thought makes Lena watch wistfully as Eliza crosses over to the couch, bending at the waist to cup Alex’s cheek and press a kiss to her forehead.
Eliza lingers just a beat, but the way Alex closes her eyes and tips her head up into it has something clenching tightly in Lena’s chest, and she turns her head away with a breathless exhalation.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Lena hears Eliza murmur.
She hears Eliza draw closer, and the couch cushions next to her shift as Kara leans up into Eliza’s embrace as well. It makes her thoughts return, unbidden, to how the Luthors would close out their days with a curt nod and a dismissive wave of a hand from Lillian, if she even bothered to glance up from her book.
It burns white hot behind her eyes, and for the second time that day, Lena paints a smile on her face to greet Eliza as the woman stands back up from where she’d been leaned over Kara. The movement takes her further away, and Lena raises her hand in a weak wave.
“Goodnight, Eliza,” she says quietly.
For the second time that day, Eliza smiles crookedly at her and tilts her head before reaching down to pat Kara’s leg. Kara draws it in toward the couch and Eliza shuffles past her before bracing her hand on Lena’s shoulder and brushing a kiss against the crown of her head.
“Goodnight, girls,” Eliza says as she stands, making her way toward the stairs. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Lena lets out a shaky breath, staring absently at the blanket in her lap. It goes blurry with tears and begins to swim before her eyes, and Lena inhales sharply and tips her head up to hold them back. Something warm blooms in her chest and spreads to the tips of her ears, and she’s breathless in its wake. Eliza’s footsteps retreat up the stairs and the blue glow from the tv settles over the room for a beat until Kara pipes up.
“Who wants to go swimming?”
“No,” Lena and Alex say together, and Lena finds herself smiling.
***
It’s still mostly dark when Lena wakes up. The room is cast in the silvery blue shades of early morning, and when Lena rolls over to look out the window she can just make out a light fog over the ocean. There’s a hushed chatter of birds in the distance, and Lena exhales as she watches the rhythmic lapping of the waves on the shore.
It’s a touch cooler here on the water than it is in National City. The early fall air wafting in from the open window feels crisp on her face, and Lena allows herself just another few moments warm under the covers before she slips out of bed. She throws on a sweater and slides into her slippers before easing the door open and tiptoeing down the stairs.
Lena pads softly into the kitchen, looking to quietly make herself some coffee, but as she rounds the corner she finds that she’s not alone.
Eliza stands at the stove with her back to Lena, but she looks over her shoulder when Lena walks in and smiles.
“Morning,” Eliza says warmly. “What would you like to eat, darling?”
Lena pauses in place for just a moment before she recovers, as she tries to remember if anyone’s ever called her darling before.
“Oh, good morning,” Lena falters, startled. “Um, I was just going to try to find some coffee, if that would be okay?”
“Way ahead of you,” Eliza steps to the side and turns around fully, leaning back against the counter and revealing a kettle on the stove and a french press ready on the counter next to it. “Kara and Alex sleep like the dead, but I’ve always been an early riser. Somehow I’m not surprised you are, too.”
Eliza is still smiling at her, and it makes Lena’s heart pound in her chest. She has always been an early riser. Growing up with Lillian ensured she never slept past six at the latest, a habit that stayed with her long after she left that house. She’s used to being awake long before anyone else, and she realizes she’d been expecting a couple hours to herself this morning, had wanted a couple hours to herself to clear her mind. The thought makes her feel guilty, unworthy of the company she’s in, even though she craves it at the same time.
Lena shrugs one shoulder. “The Luthors didn’t exactly believe in sleeping in. The habit stuck.”
If Eliza catches any deeper meaning behind Lena’s words, she barely lets on. She just holds her gaze on Lena a beat longer before breezing past it and reaching for a large canister on the counter. She takes the lid off and tips it forward until Lena can see the enormous stash of coffee it holds.
“You know, Lena, I knew you’d be a gracious house guest, but you realize a cup of coffee isn’t exactly an imposition?”
Lena chuckles and ducks her head, twisting her fingers together. She nods, but before she can respond, Eliza speaks again.
“You’ve been nervous since you got here,” Eliza states. Something hot flares in Lena’s chest and roils in her stomach, but when she forces herself to look up, Eliza’s eyes are gentle and questioning. “What can I do to make you comfortable, Lena?”
Lena sputters, caught off guard. Denial springs to her lips as she blinks and casts her eyes around the kitchen, but Eliza interrupts her protests.
“Give it to me straight, kid,” Eliza tries gently, and for some reason that does it.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me to leave.”
Lena’s tongue is thick in her mouth and the guilt thumps in her ears as her eyes prick with tears. Eliza’s gaze goes even softer, and she pushes herself off the counter but doesn’t step any closer.
“Lena—”
“I—” Lena forces out a breath and turns her head to the side to hide the tear that spills onto her cheek. She shakes her head. “How can you let me stay here? Surely you must know what I’ve done.”
“Helped save the world?”
“Helped brainwash it,” Lena corrects, turning her head back and watching Eliza from across the room. “Partnered with my brother, betrayed your daughter.”
“Unbrainwashed it, left your brother, single-handedly invented a device that saved my daughter. Twice,” Eliza counters, raising her eyebrow. “Once in outer space.”
Lena shakes her head again and crosses her arms tightly over her chest, digging her nails into her upper arm through her sweater.
“That doesn’t make up for—”
“Lena,” Eliza interrupts. Her eyes are still so gentle Lena can barely look at her over the roaring in her ears. “Our first instincts are always a reflection of how we were raised. It’s what we do after that that’s a reflection of who we really are.”
“It’s not the same,” Lena argues. The need to vomit her sins at Eliza’s feet wars with the white-hot shame that rockets through her. It pulls her muscles taut and winds chains through her ribs, and she stares in disbelief at Eliza’s serene smile. “I hurt people, I went back to my brother, I did things I’ll never be able to take back. I don’t know how you can just act like you’re fine with me being here.”
There’s an urgency to Lena’s voice, even as she tries to keep her volume low. The last thing she needs is to wake Kara up for this. The last thing she needs is to have an outburst in someone else’s kitchen at six in the morning. What would Lillian think of her now?
“Wouldn’t you say Kara betrayed you first?” Eliza asks, as if she’s inquiring about the weather.
Lena gasps, mouth parting wordlessly while Eliza raises her eyebrows in question.
“Are you still harboring resentment for Kara? Do you hate her a little bit, every day?”
“What, no—”
“So you’ve forgiven her? Moved on?”
“Of course, a long time ago.”
Eliza pauses for a beat, watching Lena calmly as one corner of her mouth lifts into a smile.
“Why?”
Lena freezes, lips parting before she clicks her jaw shut. Why did she forgive Kara? She realizes, with a modicum of disbelief, that she doesn’t have an answer. There isn’t a day she can pinpoint, no moment of clarity that begot forgiveness from betrayal. All that comes when she thinks of Kara is tenderness and affection so overwhelming her chest swells with it. She never thought about it, didn’t make a conscious decision to forgive her or not, all there was was Kara and the knowledge bone-deep that none of their transgressions mattered in the face of having her back again.
Lena blinks and refocuses her gaze to find Eliza smiling at her, eyes twinkling with something Lena can’t place.
“I don’t know,” Lena whispers. “I just… did.”
Eliza’s smile widens as she tilts her head at Lena.
“Was there something Kara did to earn your forgiveness?”
“No,” Lena shakes her head. “Just, at some point none of it mattered anymore.”
“And are you waiting for her to make a mistake again?”
Lena shakes her head once more.
“So what makes you think that Kara or any of us is sitting around betting against you?”
Lena just stares, her heartbeat thumping in her ears. She has no logical answer for that, she realizes, aside from her own self-flagellation. She thinks of Alex and Kelly asking her to be Esme’s godmother, thinks of Nia gesturing at everyone and saying, “Good thing this is our family now, huh?,” thinks of Kara saying, “It’s only because you're on the team that I’m here.” And would any of them really do that if they didn’t really mean it?
When she blinks those thoughts away, her cheeks are wet, and she jerks her hand up to press the cuffs of her sweater to her face.
Eliza hums, turning in place to flip off the kettle and pour the now boiling water into her french press.
“When people are really important to each other,” Eliza says, “they don’t need to exchange one act to barter for another. Love is not a series of transactions, Lena. No one is keeping score or waiting for you to trip up. We’re not holding back and waiting for some grand gesture. We’re just happy you’re here.”
It’s too much.
The tears spill over before Lena can even think to blink them back. A crumpled, wet sob lurches out of her, and her hands fly up to cover her face again.
“Oh, honey,” she hears. The embarrassment licks through her like flames, but then there are arms sliding around her, and suddenly Lena understands how easy it was for Kara and Alex to sink into Eliza’s arms yesterday. Eliza gathers her in and squeezes, and the firm pressure has her melting, sobs softening into hiccups she finds herself stifling in Eliza’s shoulder. Eliza’s rubbing a palm over Lena’s back and whispering assurances in her ear, and Lena can barely fathom that this, this is what it’s supposed to be like.
The cuffs of Lena’s sleeves are already damp and useless when Eliza gives her a final little squeeze and pulls back, but Lena presses them to her eyes anyway. Eliza brushes the stray hair from her face and catches the last of Lena’s tears with her thumbs before she ducks her head to meet Lena’s eyes.
“Okay?” she whispers.
“Okay,” Lena nods, not knowing what else to say but, “thank you.”
Eliza smiles, then turns to open one of the cabinets above the counter. She spins back around to face Lena, smiling at her so warmly Lena’s tears nearly start anew.
“Now,” Eliza murmurs, gesturing to the cabinet, “which mug is yours?”
***
It isn’t until hours later that Kara and Alex finally make their way downstairs. Kara comes in first. She smiles brightly at Lena and drops down onto the couch next to her, tossing her feet back up on the coffee table. Alex moves more slowly. She sinks down into an armchair and tips her head back against the cushions, closing her eyes.
“Good morning… barely,” Eliza says, raising an eyebrow and lifting her wrist to look at her watch. “Who wants breakfast?”
Kara whips her head away from Lena to look over at Eliza instead and shoots her hand into the air. Alex grunts from her chair.
“Alright,” Eliza says, standing from her chair and patting Alex on the leg. “Come on. Up. Come help me.”
Alex whines and scrunches her face up after Eliza disappears into the kitchen, but she picks her head back up and rubs at her eyes, yawning. “Alright,” Alex mutters to herself. “I’m up. I’m up.”
She pushes herself to her feet and narrows her eyes at Kara.
“You coming?”
Kara grins cheekily at her.
“When you’re done making breakfast.”
Alex sticks out her tongue. “Not if I eat all of it.”
“Couldn’t if you tried,” Kara counters, sticking her tongue out at Alex in return. “You’re not me.”
Alex scoffs. She walks behind the couch on her way to the kitchen and reaches over it to flick Kara in the forehead, leaping out of the way when Kara swats back at her. Lena watches, amused, from next to Kara and smiles when Alex gives her a salute.
“Lena.”
“Alex.”
Alex disappears around the corner into the kitchen, and Lena turns back to look at Kara. She doesn’t look at all like she just woke up. She’s stunning in the morning light, like she is all the time, and Lena is transfixed, like she is all the time. Kara always seems to catch the light. It’s like she soaks it up and radiates it back out, like everything is a little brighter, when she’s around. A wide smile spreads across her face as she looks back at Lena, and blinding, Lena thinks. Breathtaking.
“Hey,” is what she says instead, watching as the light catches a couple flyaway blonde hairs when Kara tilts her head.
“Hey,” Kara answers her, smiling. “How’d you sleep?”
“Really well, you?”
Kara’s smile falters for the first time. The eagerness fades from her eyes just a little, and her face turns pensive. Her lips pull to one side before she shrugs. “Kind of.”
Lena watches Kara’s shoulders sag, watches her start to tense, start to avoid eye contact again, and she has to press this time.
“Is it nightmares again? Do you want to talk about it?”
“I—” Kara trails off, turning her body away from Lena on the couch to face forward, and Lena lets her. She lets her have the space but rests her hand palm up on the couch between them. Kara looks down at it, then picks it up and holds it in her lap. She squeezes Lena’s palm and starts playing with her fingers until she collects herself enough to keep talking.
“It feels like being there again,” she whispers, focusing on Lena’s hand. “It’s pitch black, and I can’t see a thing, and there’s this feeling… it’s cold and hopeless. It feels like every good thing I’ve ever known is gone, like it’s been taken away from me. In the dreams it’s like I’m stuck there all alone in the dark, and I can’t get out. Then I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s dark outside, and I— it feels like talking about it makes it real.”
She trails off again, shaking her head quickly and biting her lip, and Lena squeezes her hand.
“You’re here,” Lena whispers back. “You’re not there anymore; you will never be there again. This is what’s real,” she squeezes Kara’s hand until Kara looks at her. Kara’s eyes are watery, but she holds Lena’s gaze, open and inquisitive. Lena squeezes again, hoping to convey the grounding comfort she so wants Kara to feel but isn’t quite sure how to verbalize. She doesn’t know the Phantom Zone, doesn’t know the cold dread that creeps like frost until all the warmth is gone. Doesn’t know how it feels to have all the good memories sucked out of you, but she can relate.
“This is what’s real,” she says again, swiping her thumb over the smooth skin of Kara’s hand and then gesturing around. “This is your house. You have Eliza, you have your sister. You have me,” she murmurs, stroking Kara’s hand. Kara holds onto her. Her eyes are still watery, but the tears don’t fall. She just looks wide-eyed at Lena, and it feels important, the way Kara’s looking at her, like she’s the one tethering Kara home. She dips her head briefly to lock eyes with Kara, and Kara knows, nods at her and leans in, dropping her head to Lena’s shoulder and sagging against her. Lena winds her arms around Kara’s back and closes her eyes.
She can hear Eliza and Alex clanging around in the kitchen, can hear music playing, and she knows, somehow, that she needs to table this for later.
“And it smells like bacon,” she says. “They don’t have bacon in the Phantom Zone, do they?”
Kara's whole torso rocks with a laugh, and it presses Lena into the cushions. Arms wind around her waist as Kara’s head shakes its answer into her shoulder. They sit there a moment, content, and Lena scratches her fingers over Kara’s shoulder blades.
“This is what’s really yours, and nothing can take that from you anymore.”
***
There’s a hush that falls over the Danvers house at night that’s different from the quiet of the double-paned windows in Lena’s penthouse. It’s quiet here, but the quiet is alive. The waves rumble in the distance, the leaves rustle in the breeze, the house creaks, just a little. It’s quiet, but it’s a warm quiet. Everything about the Danvers family is warm.
She feels full of it, that warmth.
Lena hasn’t had a day like this in as long as she can remember. There were no work calls, no superhero business. It was just Lena and the Danvers women eating lunch on the deck and walking by the beach. She watched Kara and Alex fight over who could skip a stone more times (Alex) and who could climb higher in the tree in the backyard (Kara) (she cheated).
It was warm. That’s how Lena feels. Warm.
It’s not a feeling she’s used to.
Lena lays in bed and stares up at the ceiling, reliving the day and trying to process the fluttering in her chest. Her house was never this way growing up. She used to dream about growing up in a house like this when she was young, what it would have been like for everyone to cook dinner together, to have a family game night, to sit around and laugh with each other until it was time to go to sleep.
Once she got to a certain age she stopped dreaming about it. But now… she could get used to this, if she were allowed. Now that she knows the classic Danvers family card game and the Danvers family climbing tree, now that they’ve made dinner and sat around laughing all night telling stories. She could so easily weave this into her life, could come here for holidays and long weekends, or simply because she and Kara want to.
It’s a dangerous way to feel— hopeful.
The floor in the hallway creaks, and Lena blinks, pulling her stare from the ceiling to the closed door to her room. They’d all gone to sleep, she’d thought, but she hears footsteps walk past her door and stop in front of Kara and Alex’s. Eliza, Lena thinks, as she hears a light tapping followed by the sound of a knob turning.
“Goodnight, girls,” Lena overhears Eliza say, her voice muffled through the walls. “Love you.”
And oh, Lena thinks, as tears spring unbidden to her eyes for what feels like the hundredth time this weekend, what must that be like.
She hears the indistinct murmuring of Kara and Alex responding in kind and blinks back up at the ceiling again as tears trickle hot down her cheeks. She remembers meeting Sam’s mom, how kind and hard-working she was and how completely enamored she was with Sam. A little piece of Sam clicked for Lena that day. She feels the same way now. It makes sense, how Kara can be so enduringly optimistic, how Alex can be so brave, how Eliza can be so sure of the good in life, when this is the ground their roots grow from.
She’s so caught up in it, in the what-ifs of her life, that she misses the tapping at her own door. It cracks open, and soft, dim golden light spills in from the hallway. Eliza pokes her head in, her face dark and backlit, but she smiles and tilts her head when she looks at Lena.
“Goodnight, Lena,” she says. “Love you.”
“Goodnight,” Lena whispers, an instinct.
Eliza taps her palm against the doorframe, smiles and whispers goodnight again, and the door closes behind her. Lena looks back up at the ceiling and cries.
***
A door creaks. The sound of it is foggy, ten rooms away or right next to her ear, Lena can’t tell, but the tiny hairs on her arms stand up and the skin behind her ears prickles, and Lena squints her eyes open. It’s dark. It’s very late or very early, but the heavy haze of sleep dissipates like smoke when something shifts in the room. She shoots upright, whipping her head toward the door and wishing vainly for the pistol she keeps in her nightstand back in her apartment.
There’s no need.
“Kara,” Lena breathes. She presses her palm to her chest to try to slow her heart rate as she takes in the figure just inside the doorway.
Kara’s floating just off the floor, shoulders hunched in with her arms curled around her stomach, and she flinches with Lena’s sudden movement. Lena lets her spine relax again, taking a deep inhale to try to soothe the adrenaline rocketing through her bloodstream.
“I’m sorry. I was trying not to wake you,” Kara whispers, letting her feet touch the ground again. It’s barely Kara’s voice. It’s raspy and warbly, and Lena lets her arms fall to her sides, turning fully toward her friend to take her in as she continues. “I just— um. Never mind, actually. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
She turns, reaching out for the doorknob when Lena stops her.
“Hey,” Lena whispers, and Kara turns back. “Did you— did it happen again?”
Kara inhales sharply, her face scrunching up for a moment before it smooths over again. She nods once.
“Yeah,” is all Kara says in response, but her eyes dart toward the bed, and before she even knows she’s moved, Lena’s reaching out to pull the covers back. Kara sighs in relief and slumps forward until she’s spilling into the bed next to Lena. She wiggles her feet under the blankets and Lena tugs them back up over her before laying back down herself.
She’s just able to make out the shape of Kara in the dark, can just see the whites of her eyes and the curve of her nose in the faintest light from the window. They lay on their sides facing each other, and Lena tries to remember any budding thoughts she had this morning on how to comfort a kryptonian about an alien hellscape worlds away. She wishes she had Kelly’s soothing way with words or her instinctual way of knowing exactly what to ask.
It occurs to her then, that Kara had to creep past Alex to get here. That out of the three other people in this house, two of them have comforted Kara through this exact fear before, but here she is, climbing into Lena’s bed and looking at her like she can fix everything, and it’s breathtaking, that she could be the person Kara wants through all this. It makes her heart pound in her chest, pricks her eyes with tears she manages to hold back this time, and she reaches out, touching her fingertips to Kara’s temple and stroking her fingers into her hair.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Lena asks.
Kara looks down. Her hands find Lena’s free one under the blanket, and Lena feels Kara start to play with her fingers like she did this morning,
“I usually sleep so well here,” Kara murmurs. “That’s why Alex and I come here when one of us is having a hard time. She thought it would help, but— anyway, I didn’t mean to disrupt your sleep.”
“Kara, it’s okay,” Lena soothes, scratching her fingers lightly over Kara’s scalp. Kara’s eyes flutter closed at the sensation, and Lena’s heart swells. She’d wake up every night if it meant helping Kara. “I’m glad you woke me, okay? Was it the same dream? Did it feel like you were there again?”
Kara shakes her head, and it makes a swishing noise against the pillowcase. There’s a wide space between them, but Kara scoots a little closer, tugging Lena’s hand closer and tracing her finger over Lena’s palm. She knows Kara’s stalling. She won’t push her, but she feels a little like she did when she was a kid standing at the edge of a diving board for the first time, anticipation and dread bubbling in her stomach as she waits. She watches Kara quietly, waiting for her to work up the courage to say whatever it is that’s troubling her.
“It was about you this time.” Kara finally looks back up and meets Lena’s eyes in the dark. She’s squeezing Lena’s hand, pulling it against her abdomen, and Lena lets her other palm rest against Kara’s head, thumb stroking over her temple. “You were stuck in the Phantom Zone, and I couldn’t get to you, and I thought—”
She cuts herself off, breaking eye contact again and pressing her face into the pillow.
Lena lets out a breath, her heart lifting into her throat. She remembers how she felt when Kara was gone, how she couldn’t sleep either until she was sure Kara was safe, how all she could think about every minute of every day was bringing Kara home. She’d felt like a madwoman, just as ready to sacrifice the world to get Kara back as she was gripped with panic that she wouldn’t be able to. If Kara was feeling a hundredth of that concern for her…
“Hey,” Lena murmurs, stroking her thumb over Kara’s temple until Kara peeks out from the pillow again. She’s sniffling, watery eyes catching the glow of the moon, and Lena feels like her heart flips over in her chest.
“It wasn’t real,” Lena murmurs, squeezing Kara’s hand back and hoping Kara can see her in the dark. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara whispers again. “I just had to check on you.”
And Lena knows, she knows because she would have had to check on Kara too.
“It’s okay,” Lena urges. “I’m okay. Come here.”
Lena cups her hand around the back of Kara’s head and tugs gently, and it’s immediate, the way Kara’s arms wind snug around her. Kara lets out a shaky breath, folding forward and tucking her head into the crook of Lena’s neck. She’s warm, Lena thinks, and her heart pounds against her ribs as she wraps her arms around Kara in return. She’s warm and she smells like soap. Lena feels Kara settling against her, her tense muscles softening like butter, and all Lena can do is hope that Kara can’t hear how her heart is racing.
“You’re okay,” Lena murmurs again. “Okay?”
Kara nods.
“Lena?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I stay?”
“Yeah.”
***
It’s brighter this morning, is the first thing Lena realizes as she turns her head to hide her face in the pillow. She can still hear the waves in the distance, can still hear the birds chittering away in the trees outside the window, but the light of the room is coaxing her awake. Her limbs feel heavy with sleep, so relaxed she’s loath to move, but her focus is pulled to a small press of warmth at the middle of her back— a hand, she thinks—and Lena blinks her eyes open.
Slowly, she rolls over, taking care not to jostle the bed. Kara’s still asleep on the other side, soft and beautiful in the glow of the early morning light. Her arm is stretched out toward Lena, fingers curled loosely with sleep and brushing warm against Lena’s stomach. She looks peaceful now, unburdened of her worries from the night before. Lena hopes she stays that way.
It would be so easy, Lena thinks, to fall into something with Kara, the most natural progression of every feeling she’s had for years. But how could she, when she and Kara are finally back to normal, when Kara is the linchpin to every single good thing in her life. Could she really risk it, when one wrong move could make it all disappear?
She lays there a little longer, admiring how the sun is starting to catch in the blonde strands of Kara’s hair, how it highlights the softest dusting of freckles high on her cheeks as she sleeps. It’s not until her fingers start to itch with the urge to card through Kara’s hair that Lena slides slowly, carefully out of bed.
The house is quiet and still as Lena descends the stairs, but when Lena tiptoes around the corner into the kitchen, she finds Eliza sitting at the island with a cup of coffee. Eliza lowers her newspaper when Lena walks in, a one corner of her mouth pulling into a smile as she raises an eyebrow.
“Good morning.”
“Morning, Eliza,” Lena says with a smile. She realizes with no small amount of surprise how comfortable she is this morning, being here.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Really well.”
Eliza hums as she takes a sip of her coffee and gestures behind her at the mug she’d left out for Lena on the counter. It’s the one Lena picked out yesterday, and it makes warmth bloom in her stomach like a sunrise.
“I thought so, you slept later than yesterday,” Eliza notes.
Lena smiles over her shoulder then moves to sit across from her. Her mug clinks against the counter when she sets it down, and Eliza smiles at her, leaning forward on her elbows and raising her eyebrows.
“Or does that have more to do with the sleepover you had?”
Lena sputters, dripping coffee onto the counter as her throat seizes in a cough. Eliza smirks, sliding a napkin across the island countertop and waiting calmly for Lena to collect herself.
“No no no,” Lena stammers, wide-eyed. “That’s not— we didn’t— she just… she came in to talk,” Lena finishes lamely. She winces even as she says it, hearing in real time how unbelievable it sounds. She’s reluctant, though, to share Kara’s inner fears, even with someone already so familiar with them.
Eliza softens, reaching out to pat Lena’s hand.
“I’m teasing you, honey,” Eliza says. She pauses, her face growing more serious as she looks at Lena. “It’s the nightmares, isn’t it?”
Lena only hesitates for a second, but Eliza seems to take it as confirmation. She sighs, losing herself for a moment in a gaze somewhere over Lena’s shoulder. Lena wonders how many nights Eliza has comforted Kara through a nightmare instead, what platitudes she was able to offer a traumatized alien child without any experience to relate. Lena wonders if she, herself, was able to do the same for Kara last night.
Eliza blinks herself back, refocusing on Lena with a resigned smile.
“That was so hard for her when she was a kid,” Eliza murmurs. “I never thought she’d have to go through that again. Thank you for being there for her. I’m glad she has you.”
She straightens on her stool and folds the newspaper back up before taking another sip of her coffee, and the knot in Lena’s stomach loosens with the realization that Eliza isn’t going to press her further.
“I’m glad I have her, too,” Lena agrees quietly.
“Lena, not to pry” Eliza drawls, leaning forward on her elbows. She tilts her head and smirks at Lena again. “But to pry… don’t you think it’s about time you did something about that?”
Lena freezes and forces out a breath, like her heart has tripped in her chest and slammed into her ribs. She swallows thickly around the sudden lump in her throat. “What do you mean?”
“I have eyes, Lena. I think you know what I mean, don’t you?”
Lena takes a couple deep breaths, trying to calm the way her heart is racing so fast she can feel it in her ears. She thinks about denying it, about assuring Eliza that all she feels for Kara is friendship and nothing more, but Eliza is waiting patiently for her, a knowing smile on her face, and somewhere deep underneath her momentary panic Lena realizes the meaning behind what Eliza’s suggesting.
“You— you would want that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Lena thinks about it, the way she plotted her revenge against Kara, how she had every intention of revealing her identity and selling her out a hundred times. She hadn’t been able to go through with any of it. But she’d wanted to.
“Because I’m not good enough for her,” is what she responds, and Eliza just cocks her head at her. “I did so many bad things. Maybe it’s forgivable and we can stay friends,” she says, and she knows Eliza’s thinking about the conversation they had yesterday as well. “But it’ll never be enough–”
“Lena,” Eliza interjects gently. “You acted out of unbelievable hurt, and you still came back to yourself and did what was right. We all know who you really are,” Eliza brings a hand up to tap her fingers against her own chest. “In a family you don’t punish someone forever just because they made a mistake. You don’t toss them aside. You keep them, always. Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough? Isn’t it time you forgive yourself and let yourself be happy?”
Lena can’t speak. She just watches Eliza across the counter and tries to settle the way her skin feels like it’s vibrating.
“I want Kara to be happy,” Eliza continues, and the way she looks into Lena’s eyes keeps Lena frozen in place. “It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that she’s happiest around you.”
Eliza raises her eyebrows, standing from her stool and rinsing out her mug before putting it into the dishwasher. Lena sits, staring unfocused at the empty stool. Her heart pounds a drumline in her ears and she’s only vaguely aware of Eliza rounding the kitchen island and coming to stand at her side. She pauses next to Lena, gently cups the back of her head, and presses a kiss to her temple.
“And I want you to be happy, too.”
Lena blinks unseeing at the far edge of the kitchen island, vaguely aware of Eliza squeezing her shoulder before heading into the living room. The footsteps fade and nebulously, as if she’s underwater, Lena hears the door to the deck open and close. She sits there at the counter for longer than she keeps track of, playing Eliza’s words in her head. When she thinks about it, about what letting herself be happy would look like, all she can see is Kara’s face.
***
Kara finds her later that morning sitting down by the water. It’s something Kara has mentioned to her several times over the years, how comforting the water is here. She’s right, Lena thinks. The sound and the rhythm of the waves, the salt air, everything about this weekend has been a balm Lena hadn’t realized she’d needed. It’s odd, knowing they all came here for Kara, and Lena’s the one who feels fixed at the end of it.
“Hey,” Kara says, dropping down to the grass to sit next to her.
Lena turns to her. Kara’s still got her pajama pants on, a long cardigan covering her frame. She looks soft and comfortable, and Lena smiles warmly at her.
“Hey. Did you get any sleep?”
“Yeah, for the first time in a while,” Kara responds softly, wrapping her arms loosely around her knees and laying her head on them to look over at Lena. She worries her lip for a moment, then gives Lena a small smile. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Lena replies genuinely, and she finds she’s never meant anything more in her life.
Kara bites her lip again before picking her head up and looking out at the water.
“It’s hard to talk about it,” Kara whispers. “It sucks everything out of you, being there. It makes you feel like none of your memories are real, like every good or happy thing you’ve ever thought about never existed at all. I remember being stuck there as a kid for years, thinking I was never going to see anyone or anything other than that endless expanse of blackness for the rest of my life. I thought I’d never have to feel that way again.”
Lena’s holding back tears by the time Kara’s done, stubbornly refusing to let them fall. It’s not her place to cry, she thinks, when she’s not the one who went through it, when her brother was the one responsible for putting Kara back there.
“Kara, I’m so sorry,” she says. It feels flat, but she doesn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t be,” Kara says, turning to look at Lena again. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of there without you.”
Lena huffs out a chuckle, looking down at the way her fingers have wound around each other.
“The yellow sun bomb is a neat trick,” she jokes, but when she looks back up at Kara, Kara’s not smiling. She’s looking at Lena seriously, searching between her eyes for something Lena hopes she can find.
“I’m not talking about that,” Kara shakes her head. “Whenever the Phantom Zone got to be too much and I would start to feel like everything I knew was slipping away from me, I’d think about you.
“You were the thing I could hold onto to bring me back to myself, whenever it felt like I was slipping away.”
“Kara,” Lena whispers. Her mouth opens and closes but she has no words.
Kara shrugs, adjusting her grip around her knees. “Your technology might have saved me, but without you there wouldn’t have been anything left to save.”
Lena sucks in a sharp breath, her vision going a little blurry as her eyes fill with tears. It steals the breath from her lungs, what Kara says to her, because isn’t that how she feels, too? Whenever she’s too close to the edge, doesn’t she think of Kara to bring herself back? She wants to be with Kara whenever she’s scared or unsure or sad. She wants to be with Kara whenever she’s happy…
She thinks about it again, as she has been for months, what would happen if she told her. If she could climb over the mountain of her trembling heart and make the words spill out of her like sand, what would Kara do? She’s played it out in her head a million times, how in the best case scenario Kara would chuckle awkwardly and fumble out a nice, gentle, Kara way of saying she’s not interested, how things would be stilted, a little absent, but manageable. In every other case, she’d never see Kara or any of her friends again.
But it’s different now, Lena thinks, with the weight of Kara’s words sinking deep into her bones, with the way Kara’s looking at her– soft and tender, like she treasures her. There’s nothing about what Kara said that’s temporary. There’s nothing about the way she feels about Kara that’s temporary. She thinks about it, how Alex and Kelly gave her a goddaughter. How Nia and Brainy and Alex and Eliza call her family. How she would call them family too. There’s nothing temporary about any of that, either, and there’s nothing Lex can do about it now.
“I was really alone before I met you,” Lena murmurs, and Kara’s eyes lift to watch her carefully. “My whole life Lex and Lillian took everything I loved away from me: toys, pets, friends, lovers. For fun or for spite, I don’t really know, but it became easier to pretend I didn’t love anything, so they wouldn’t have anything to take from me.
“It’s made everything feel impermanent, like there’s always something hovering behind me ready to snatch everything away from me if I got too attached to it. It’s lonely and isolating, which is exactly what they wanted, I think.”
When Lena pauses, Kara’s eyes are watery. Her brows are drawn together, and Lena can see the muscles in her jaw flexing. She looks like she wants to say something, looks a little like she does just before her eyes glow red, but she blinks herself out of it and softens as she holds Lena’s gaze, waiting. Lena takes a deep breath.
“I’ve been scared for a long time that that would happen with you.”
“Lena–”
Lena shakes her head once and Kara clicks her jaw shut, but she unfurls her arms from around her legs and lets her knees fall to the side, turning to face Lena fully. There’s an open, plaintive look on Kara’s face, and Lena watches as her fingers curl into loose fists and open again. It makes the skin behind her ears grow hot.
“I don’t think I have to be afraid of that anymore,” Lena whispers.
“You don’t,” Kara whispers back, shaking her head rapidly.
Kara shifts closer. Her palm lands on the grass near Lena’s knee, her eyes darting between Lena’s and then dropping. It makes Lena’s whole body ripple, makes her ears go hot. It feels like flowers are blooming inside her, weaving their stems through her ribs and tugging her forward. She follows, leaning in and pressing her lips to Kara’s.
Kara’s skin is bulletproof and her hands can crush steel, but her lips are soft under Lena’s, and the plush of them gives under her own. Kara makes a soft noise into her mouth, curling her hands around Lena’s waist and tipping her chin forward to keep their lips together, and Lena feels like she’s the one who can fly.
When they part, their foreheads touching and eyes squeezed shut, Kara lets out a breath that puffs against Lena’s cheek.
“This isn’t temporary,” Lena whispers, and her forehead moves with Kara’s as Kara shakes her head.
“Not at all,” Kara answers her, tugging her in even closer. “You’re not alone anymore.”
“I’ve never felt alone when I’m with you.”
Kara sighs happily, stroking her thumbs over Lena’s sides.
“How do you feel?”
“Happy.”