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just-another-josh · 7 hours ago

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Totem

She remembered the first time it happened. “I got you, Miss Luthor.”

She was high up in the air, cradling a terrified Lena in her arms, listening to Corbon’s unstable kryptonite explode in the facility below. Lena - who had been falsely accused, and then kidnapped, and threatened - clung to Kara for dear life.

Kara could feel Lena’s heartbeat racing in her chest. “Can you get into your place through the balcony?” Kara murmured, and Lena nodded silently in response.

Kara landed, placing a terrified Lena down, the other woman clinging to her arms to steady herself. She’s gone through so much, Kara thought, taking in the terrified Luthor, when all she wants to do is the right thing. “We have the evidence to prove your innocence, Lena,” Kara said, “I’m going to take it to the police right now.”

Lena nodded, finally calm enough to look Kara - Supergirl - in the face. She straightened herself a little, taking a slow breath. “You said Kara still believes in me,” she murmured, her voice disbelieving and quivering, “I don’t know how that can be.”

Kara’s brow furrowed, and she gave Lena’s arm a gentle squeeze. “She’s- she’s your friend,” Kara said, the word feeling strange on her tongue - but what else would they be? “Of course she believes in you.”

Lena nodded, swallowing harshly.

“Are you going to be okay tonight?” Kara asked.

“Yes,” Lena replied, her voice finally becoming more firm, “Thank you, Supergirl.”

---

She remembered the second time it happened, walking with Lena on the way to lunch.

Kara hoped she wasn’t being too clingy. The incident over the reservoir - where Lena had begged to die, sparing the city - hadn’t been all that long ago. Of course Kara felt protective.

They were making their way down the sidewalk, chatting as they headed to a row of new restaurants, when Lena referred to Kara as her best friend for the first time. The words fell absentmindedly from Lena’s lips, causing her to jolt in realization and glance away sheepishly.

But Kara only smiled, grabbing Lena’s hand. “Well, I think my best friend needs to try the new Korean barbecue place,” she said, and Lena smiled.

Best friend, Kara said to herself, she’s my best friend. It was almost a prayer, chasing away uncertainty in the shadows of her mind, something prowling in the night that might wound her if she got too close.

---

She was choking on kryptonite air the third time it happened.

When Supergirl and Lena fell out - and she knew she was to blame - it was the beginning of the end. The friendship would die, and all she could bring herself to do was claw at the walls in the hopes of staving off loss just a little longer. But that time had come.

Hours passed in the Fortress in agony, as Kara’s mind cycled through every moment with Lena, every mistake. She was my best friend, Kara thought, feeling hope die in her chest, she was my best friend.

Whatever skulked in the shadows of her mind seemed to die, too.

---

But hope is hard to kill.

Through Crisis and Lex and the endless dreary dusk of the Phantom Zone, Kara finally found herself back on Earth Prime. Lena saved her. Lena forgave her. Kara counted her blessings and whispered them to a red star.

But she was far from healed. She was a mess of nightmares, throwing herself into Catco and defending the Earth in an attempt to sleep less, to dream less. Time heals all wounds, she would remind herself. At least, that’s what humans say, ever since that one playwright in ancient Greece wrote it.

Slowly, her tattered scraps of soul began to mend, and she did start breathing a little easier. The nightmares were still there, but she was starting to be able to control them.

Except for that corner. That corner with the beast she couldn’t look at.

Luckily, Nyxly kept her busy.

---

“What have you tried?” Alex asked.

“Everything!” Kara half-shouted, getting a comforting rub on her back from Lena, who sat next to her on the couch. Kara relaxed slightly, lowering her voice. “Everything. I save you, I save someone from robbery, I just keep saving people.”

Her eyes darted up to where Alex and Kelly were sitting, across the floor on the other Tower couch. Part of her noticed their mirrored positions - how Kelly curled up against Alex’s arm in the way that Lena was leaning against hers - but Kara pushed the thought aside, glancing down at the courage totem. “What am I doing wrong?” she muttered.

“A test of character,” Lena mulled, recalling the information they got from the Fortress, “One with a deep emotional toll.”

“That has to be one of the most courageous moments of your life,” Kelly said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms, “I just don’t understand why that day would be the test.”

“Right?” Kara said, “I feel like I was the most courageous then.”

“What’s even the point of doing something brave in a simulation?” Alex said, “You know it’s not real. There’s gotta be something more.”

Kara frowned.

---

She stopped trying. The price was too great, riling up the city, causing everyone to feel “bravery” - enough “bravery” to punch someone that mildly annoyed them.

And it was making J’onn really weird.

So Kara sat on a step in the Tower, mulling over her options. If I keep going, I endanger the city, she lamented, and if I stop, Nyxly might get control of the courage totem first-

The elevator door opened, and Kara glanced up to watch Lena walk in.

“Hey,” Lena smiled, “Any luck with your trials?”

Kara laughed dimly as Lena took a seat next to her, and they mulled over their findings. Kara’s failed attempts at the totem, Lena’s frustration in trying to contain something magical, the kryptonian witch that Lena would soon be questioning.

They’d try every path, Lena affirmed, and they’d figure out a way. Kara hoped she was right.

Kara glanced up at Lena, taking in the soft waves in her hair, the almost relaxed bearing of her body. Things were so different a year ago, Kara thought, feeling a warmth in her chest at who Lena was becoming - who Lena was allowed to become now, that she never could with the Luthors.

But there was another question on her mind. “Do you really not believe in magic?” Kara murmured.

Lena demurred, uncertainty rising on her face as she hesitated. She glanced down at her hands, trying to form words. But after a moment, she smiled softly, glancing up at Kara. “I believe in you.”

Kara felt her heart skip a beat.

Not long after, Lena excused herself - she had an interrogation to get to. “Have fun,” Kara laughed, watching as Lena turned to give her one last smile before walking out the door.

Kara could feel a faint blush come to her cheeks as she mulled over how Lena looked at her now. Because now, Lena saw all of her - the house of El, Danvers, Supergirl, the goofball in between - every fragment of Kara. And somehow, Lena still wanted to be her friend.

Kara closed her eyes, tracking Lena’s heartbeat through the Tower, mulling over how it sounded identical to the day they met. Kara could feel a sort of fullness in her throat, a small stinging in her eyes. All those years ago, when she imagined what they could do together, she never imagined all of this. Not the pain along the way, not the sense of completeness at the end.

Except…

Kara’s brow crinkled in surprise, and her eyes fluttered open. With a wave of realization, she realized what she had been afraid to know all along. There had never been a beast in the corner of her mind.

Now, she was ready to shine that light.

What lurked in her mind surprised her, but only in a quiet, muted way. Less of a but this is impossible and more of an of course. She knew it now, what lay in the shadows, and she was done living in the darkness of her own lies.

She wasn’t strong enough to confess it to Lena. But she was no longer so cowardly and confused as to hide it from herself. “I wish we were more than friends,” Kara whispered in the empty room.

A voice boomed. “You have performed admirably.”

---

An hour later, Kara stumbled into the main room of the tower, catching the superfriends’ attention as she walked in - with a red shard in her hands. “Whoa!” Alex said, jumping up from her seat, “You got the courage totem?!”

“Yeah,” Kara said weakly.

“How?” Nia asked curiously.

“One more trial,” Kara murmured, trying not to catch Kelly’s discerning expression, “We can move forward now.”

“Ok,” Brainy said, turning to the Tower computer. “According to my scan, tomorrow we should target-”

Lena sent Kara a curious look, and Kara brushed it off.

---

Lena didn’t push.

They spent their evening unwinding at Kara’s place, baking cookies and quietly chattering between oven rounds, packing away some for the Tower the next day. Kara was glad for the distraction.

But… but maybe she wasn’t done with honesty for the day. “I think the totem was trying to remind me,” Kara murmured, after putting one more cookie sheet in the oven, “Of a time I was brave.”

“So you didn’t save the plane again?” Lena asked curiously.

“No.”

Lena’s eyes lingered on the cooling sheet of fresh cookies, giving Kara space to untangle her words. “I’m not sure it’s the same for everyone with the totem,” Kara said.

“How so?”

Kara shrugged. “The courage I had trouble with was the courage to face the truth,” she said, “To stop lying to myself.”

Lena glanced up, surprised - but understanding. “I’ve been there before,” she said.

Kara bit her lip. “I should tell you,” she said, “I’m just afraid it might break us.”

“We won’t break, Kara,” Lena said firmly, “Whether or not you say what’s on your mind. We’re going to be ok.”

Kara turned, glancing up to Lena. Her first instinct was to ask how - how Lena could be so sure. Kara had hurt Lena so badly that she lashed out by poisoning her and trying to brainwash the world. How could Lena believe they wouldn’t get there again?

But as Kara watched Lena - her soft expression, her gentle smile - she could feel the tension leaving her shoulders. They had come so far. How Kara felt might not be reciprocated, might even be awkward. But it couldn’t compare to what they had been through before.

They simply weren’t those people anymore. “I’m in love with you,” Kara said softly, watching Lena’s eyes widen. “I wasn’t able to admit it to myself before.”

Lena didn’t respond, instead staring at Kara in astonishment, mouth open as though she wanted to say something, but couldn’t.

Kara bit her lip nervously, glancing away. “I don’t expect- I know you don’t want-”

But she felt hands cup her face, and she again turned Lena’s way. Before she knew what was happening, she felt Lena launch towards her, planting her lips firmly on Kara’s, causing Kara’s mind to fritz out at the warmth where they met, instinctively wrapping her arms around Lena’s waist to pull her closer.

They didn’t notice as one of the cookie sheets brushed off the table and clattered to the ground as Kara tilted her head, pushing Lena back into the counter to deepen their kiss. Lena pulled tightly at Kara’s sleeves as they pressed almost desperately to each other-

Only to be rudely interrupted by a beeping timer, indicating the final batch of cookies were done.

They broke apart, panting, as Kara reached for the dial to turn the oven off, glancing at Lena bashfully. “You too?” Kara grinned.

“Years,” Lena gasped, “Years.”

Kara laughed, tilting her head forward to press against Lena’s. The two paused for moments, catching their breaths, letting their thoughts settle into a quiet hum of contentment. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” Kara murmured.

Lena smiled. “Better late than never,” she murmured, just before Kara leaned forward to capture her lips again.

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just-another-josh · 2 months ago

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North

Supergirl. Supercorp. Lena Luthor x Kara Danvers.

Word Count: 4.5k

Notes: loosely inspired by Clairo's song 'North'.

The key sticks in the lock.

Of course it does. The house has been abandoned for years—so long Lena forgot it even existed until she needed somewhere no one would think to look.

The door groans open, and stale air breathes out like something exiled and forgotten. She doesn’t step inside. Not yet. Just stands there, one hand still on the key, trying to summon something—anything—from this place.

If she stares at the couch long enough, maybe a memory will surface. Lex and Lillian playing chess. Lionel with his whiskey, some heavy book cracked open on his lap. Maybe a younger version of herself curled by the fireplace, small and shadowed, just trying to be unnoticed.

But nothing comes. Not even when she forces it.

Her mind is playing tricks on her, because the only voice she hears—the only presence she feels—was never here.

Kara Danvers doesn’t even know this house exists. And still, Lena swears she can hear her, “Hey Lena, come snuggle on the couch and watch a movie.” She shakes her head as if to shake the voice inside her brain off.

The place smells like dust and old wood, varnish gone sharp with time, a ghost of lakewater and damp earth. But when Lena breathes in, it’s Kara she feels in her lungs.

That’s why she left. That’s why she ran. Because everything in her penthouse smelled like Kara. Like sunlight and laughter, like warmth that creeps in on you. It smelled like sweet nothings and heavy comfort. Sun-warmed cotton, bare skin, and smooth-talking.

It clung to her pillows. Her couch. Her clothes. It haunted the house with invisible hands, brushing over her shoulders, curling against her spine.

Kara stayed over.

Just like that. No excuse. No justifying why she didn’t go home. She curled up on the couch with Lena like she belonged there. Head on Lena’s thigh. Gentle fingers tracing the seam of her trousers. Not sexual. Not not, either.

“You always smell like lavender. It's my favorite.”

Lena didn’t know what to say. Her heart was already beating too hard. Kara had looked up at her with those wide blue eyes and smiled like she’d just said something innocent.

In bed, later that night, she pushed it further.

Whispered as a secret in the quiet of the night, under the same darkness, surrounded by the same blanket, “Goodnight, my heart.”

And Lena's heart, god, it screamed. All of the sudden there were flashing lights. Sirens in her bloodstream. Every nerve buzzing like something terrible was about to happen—because something always does. When she lets someone close enough to touch the parts of her no one should reach—awful things happen to everyone involved.

She’d said nothing. Turned her back to Kara and stared at the wall like it might save her.

But it didn’t. Because Kara stayed the night. And in the morning after, she made coffee like it was her kitchen. She danced around in socks, humming some stupid song under her breath, calling Lena love like Lena had earned it. But…

Did she?

Lena could feel herself splitting down old fault lines. Cracks she’d plastered over years ago beginning to open again.

So she ran.

No note. No goodbye. Just a bag thrown together in ten minutes and a car aimed north.

Now the lake stares back at her through tall windows like it knows the truth.

This wasn’t supposed to be her story. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who fell first. She should’ve had the upper hand. The control. The distance. All the things she learned in this very house—maybe, probably—to wield like weapons.

But Kara had gotten under her skin. Sweetly. Softly. Like honey. Like flowers growing under your feet. Like something that gets you before you even notice it's there.

And somehow, impossibly, Kara is still here. In the creak of the floors. In the way the light moves across the walls. In the ache behind Lena’s ribs that won’t subside.

How is it that Kara's warmth seems to have followed her all the way here, when it should be a place filled with nothing but resentment and expensive art?

Lena drags herself upstairs. The bed is enormous. Cold. Blinding white. Too Luthor.

She strips it bare.

The old sheets go in a pile on the floor. She buys new ones. Drives an hour into town to make sure they’re not satin, not high thread count, not something Kara would sink into with a smile. These are scratchy. Beige. Soulless. That’s what she needs.

She buys too much food. A way to tell herself that she is here to stay. That, this time, she won't shake this feeling in two to three business days. No. This time, it's deep. Nestled inside her like marrow and she knows she will need weeks to get over her love for Kara Danvers.

Maybe— maybe she even knows she will never truly get over it. She just needs to be functional before going back to National City.

There's a text on her phone, when she glances down at it. Kara’s name. That stupid heart Lena had added next to it. Pink. Soft. Mocking.

It’s not the Luthor way, she tells herself. Then again, perhaps it’s the most Luthor thing she’s ever done—this brand of operatic madness. Because she’s out the door before she can stop herself.

Underwear and a T-Shirt. Nothing else. Not even shoes.

She runs and runs—through grass, down the slope, straight to the edge of the lake. Breath ragged, chest burning. She keeps running.

And then, she stops just short before the water meets her toes and flings her phone so far into it, she knows she will never get it back.

She doesn't even know what the text said. It doesn't matter. A hello at this point could have killed her.

She stares at the lake for about ten minutes until it dawns her, whoa—that was dramatic. And completely unnecessary. The superwatch is still perfectly fastened to her wrist, of course. Because while she may have lost her mind for a second, she’s not insane enough to throw that into the water.

She draws a breath and turns toward the house. Resigned. She walks back up the slope with wet grass clinging to her ankles and mud drying on her calves. Every step heavier than the last. By the time she makes it back inside, she wants to scream.

Because—what was that? What was all of that?

The sleepovers. The touches. The pet names. The way Kara looked at her in the mornings like it was already theirs, like Lena was something she could keep.

And then—nothing.

No explanations. No confessions. No kiss.

Never a kiss.

Was it all a game? Was she just… practice? A warm place to land until Kara figured out who she really wanted?

Lena knows Kara. Knows her heart, or thought she did. And she wants to believe that Kara wouldn’t play with her like that. That she wouldn’t be cruel.

But what if she is just too good at it?

That’s the part Lena can’t stand—the possibility that none of it meant anything. That Kara can smile and touch and whisper like that, and still walk away unscathed. That she can call someone my heart like it’s nothing.

And maybe Lena was foolish for believing it. For letting herself think that this could be different. That Kara—sweet, sunny, ever-loyal Kara—could see her, really see her, and still stay.

Lena rips open the fridge. The door bounces back from the force of it. She stares inside like it's supposed to offer her answers, and then laughs—a bitter, hollow sound that barely makes it out of her throat.

She’s angry now. And it’s better than being sad.

Because it hits her—how pathetic she must’ve looked. Curled up on the couch with Kara. Letting her lay there, tracing lines onto her trousers like that didn’t mean anything. Like she wasn’t branding Lena at that moment. Whispering things no one had ever said to her before and expecting her to survive it.

And what did Lena do?

She smiled. She let it happen.

God, what kind of Luthor was she? A bad one. One that would be scrutinized if anyone else from her family had seen.

She was twelve. Sitting in the lounge of this very house, legs tucked up under her as she watched Lex play chess against their mother. Lillian didn’t even glance at her as she moved a rook and said, flatly, “People who are soft don’t get to win.”

Lex had chuckled, cruel and easy. “People who are soft get turned into weapons.”

Lena had pretended not to care, pretended it wasn't about her they were talking about. Had pretended her heart wasn’t cracking just a little when Lionel looked up from his whiskey and said, “See, Lena. You have to learn that no one will like you if you’re soft.”

She stares at herself on the nearest shiny surface. Her hair’s a mess. Her eyes are red. She looks like someone who didn’t learn.

Kara had walked right into her life with sunshine and sweetness and meant it, and Lena still managed to fall for it like a fool. Like a Luthor desperate to believe she could be loved.

No. No.

This was her mistake—thinking she could be soft. Thinking she could lay back and let someone like Kara hold her and stay the night without consequences.

She grips the counter tighter.

If she’s going to break, she’ll do it on her own terms.

The wine doesn’t even taste good.

She finds it in the cellar, one of the few things in this house she vaguely remembers liking. Dusty bottles, stupid labels, vintage worth more than most people’s cars. She doesn’t care. Just pops the cork with shaking hands and drinks straight from the neck, mouth tilted, jaw tight.

She finishes and starts another bottle in the same breath. Manages to get halfway through it, before she stumbles her way upstairs again. Leaves her clothes in a trail behind her like she’s shedding everything Kara ever touched.

The sheets are beige. Soulless. Chosen for their lack of memory. And yet…

She throws herself into the bed—and freezes. The scent hits her before she’s even fully underneath. That fucking smell.

Not Kara, not exactly. Not like her skin or her perfume. It’s subtler. But it’s there. That warm cotton softness, that trace of vanilla from Kara’s shampoo. The smell of safety. Of being held.

And Lena chokes on it.

“No,” she whispers, fists already twisting the pillow, dragging it out from under her to throw across the room. “No—no—no.”

She tears the blanket off, throws it down, tears at the sheets like they’ve betrayed her. Which they have. Which everything has.

“I bought these. I chose them,” she says, voice rising, cracking. “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be anywhere near me.”

But Kara always was good at sneaking in.

Even now, even here—hundreds of miles away, behind locked doors and miles of dirt road—Kara got in anyway.

That’s what breaks her.

Not the wine. Not the bed. Not the house or the lake or even the fucking text she never read.

It’s the realization that no matter how far she runs, she still brought Kara with her. Kara Danvers is in her blood now. Every breath tastes like her. Every ache leads back to her.

She sinks to the floor beside the bed, knees drawn to her chest, arms around them like a cage. And then the tears come. Angry. Humiliating. Loud.

Not the elegant kind that slides down cheeks like poetry—no, these are the kind that rip their way out. Ugly. Shaking. Snotty.

“I hate you,” she sobs into her own arms. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—”

But she doesn’t. God, she doesn’t.

And that’s the worst part.

She presses her face into her arms and tells herself it’ll pass. That she’ll wake up tomorrow and feel nothing.

But the ache only gets louder.

Because right now, she doesn’t believe Kara ever meant it. Not really. Not the hand warm on her tight, not the pet name, not the staying over, not the never leaving.

And that’s the part Lena can’t forgive.

She cries until her throat hurts. Until she’s gasping more than sobbing. Until her body is wrung out and her skin feels too tight for her bones.

Eventually, she drags herself into the bed again—not because she wants to, but because the floor is cold and she’s shivering. The sheets are still warm from her outburst, but the smell lingers. She hates that it’s in the fabric, hates that it’s in her. That even now, Kara feels closer than anyone else ever has.

She stares at the ceiling in the dark, blinking through the leftover tears, and lets the silence press in around her. No phone. No noise. Just her, alone in the bed she tried so hard to make sterile.

She wants to hate her. But Kara never gave her a clean wound. Only the kind that keeps reopening.

She kind of wishes Kara had kissed her and then disappeared. Slept with her and then laughed. Lied, cheated, done something she could hold like a weapon. But Kara hadn’t done anything like that. She’d just stayed. She’d lingered.

She’d said things like goodnight, my heart.

And Lena—idiot, idiot—she’d believed it.

That’s what gets her again. The punch of it. The humiliation of how deeply she let herself believe. Like some wide-eyed farm girl in a high school movie, not someone raised by wolves in thousand-dollar suits.

“Luthors weren’t built to be this stupid,” she mutters bitterly into the mattress.

But she was. Somehow, she was.

Because when Kara smiled at her like that—when she touched her hair like it was silk, and called her love like it meant something—Lena believed her.

And now she doesn’t know how to stop feeling Kara in her bones.

She’s surviving on tears. And anger. And wine, obviously.

Usually, by now, she would’ve gotten over it. She would’ve reasoned with herself—told herself it was ridiculous. That having this many emotions about one person is not only unhealthy, but maniacal.

She’s not Lex. She’s not about to become the kind of person who spirals over Kara Danvers like he did over Clark Kent.

Only… Lex didn’t want Clark to kiss him breathless and say he was in love.

Or maybe he did. It would explain a lot more.

Maybe Clark played with Lex’s feelings the same way Kara plays with hers.

Kara leaned in too close one night, in the penthouse. Close enough that Lena could see her own breath stutter in Kara’s glasses. Close enough that when Kara whispered something—I swear this lipstick drives me insane—and then kissed her cheek like it was nothing. She thought she would die.

But her hands had stayed on Lena’s hips for a second too long. Her eyes had dropped to Lena’s mouth like they’d meant to.

And Lena, like a fool, had tilted forward.

Just slightly. Just enough to ruin everything.

But Kara only smiled. Like Lena had misread the whole thing. Like they were playing some game Kara never agreed to start.

And then she’d left.

Went home like she hadn’t just lit Lena’s entire ribcage on fire and walked out before watching it burn.

Maybe it wasn’t even romantic. Maybe it never was.

Maybe Kara’s just doing that thing people do—keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Whispering sweet things to keep her soft. Keeping her roped in, just in case. For leverage. For safety. So she’ll always know where to find her, if she needs to.

Maybe that’s all Lena ever was. A safety net. A contingency plan with good taste in wine and a huge bed Kara liked sleeping in.

Because how else do you explain it?

How else do you explain the way she keeps coming back? The way she touches Lena like it’s second nature and then pulls away like she didn’t mean it? Like Lena imagined the whole thing?

God, maybe she did.

Maybe that’s the real Luthor curse—not the madness or the ambition or the name carved in stone—but the delusion. The desperate, pathetic hope that someone like Kara Danvers could ever mean it when she calls her love.

Before she realizes, it’s been a week.

Look, Lena is a pathetic mess when it comes to Kara Danvers. But she’s better than that. She’s smart. Resourceful. Half a Luthor—for whatever that's worth.

So she comes up with a plan. A damn good one.

She keeps herself busy with the stupid house. Cleans it. Throws things away. Hides others in the basement. She gives herself a clean slate. Somewhere she can almost see herself living for real. After all, she does have a portal.

But when her mind plays tricks on her, she has a contingency plan.

She runs. Down the slope and straight into the freezing lake, until her body is fighting just to survive. Until the cold shocks her brain quiet again.

It isn’t a perfect system, but it helps.

Until it doesn’t.

It works until she’s dragging herself out of the lake, soaked and shivering and breathless—only to see Kara standing at the edge. Just waiting. Her mind is either powerful enough to conjure Kara here, or she’s been found.

She freezes.

Literally and figuratively.

Kara says nothing at first. Just looks at her like she’s not cold, not dripping, not trembling from the inside out. Like she’s something Kara’s been watching for a long time.

Lena wants to scream.

Instead, she walks right past her. Leaves a trail of lakewater and bruised dignity all the way up to the house.

“Wait—”

Kara follows. Of course she does.

“I’ve been texting. You just disappeared, and I had no idea—”

Lena slams the door behind her like it might keep the words out. Like it might keep her out. Even though she knows Kara is strong enough to break it open if she wants to.

“Ever think I didn’t want to see you?” Lena snaps through the door. Her voice shakes more than she means it to.

No way—no fucking way—she’s letting Kara into this house. It’s been hard enough trying to scrub away the smell of memories, the echoes of touch, the look Kara left her with.

“Lena.”

It comes out in that stupid, pleading tone Lena hates. Or loves. The one only Kara ever uses. The one no one else would dare use. The one she’s addicted to.

Kara’s at the window now. Hand pressed to the glass like she could reach through it.

Lena blinks hard. Maybe she’s still hallucinating. Maybe Kara’s just a trick of the cold.

But when she opens her eyes again—

“Lena, please. Let’s talk.”

It makes Lena laugh. Sharp. Bitter. It bounces off the clean walls she’s spent a week pretending weren’t the ruins of her heart.

“Why are you running?” Kara asks. “Why were you half-naked in a freezing lake all the way up north, alone? Why are you acting like I’m the reason for all this?”

A shiver crawls down Lena’s spine.

She realizes, belatedly, she’s still mostly naked—and freezing. She grabs the robe by the door, perfectly placed from all the other times she’s had to defibrillate her emotions back into submission.

Still, the shiver doesn’t stop.

Because Kara is right there on the other side of the glass, asking all the questions Lena thought she’d buried. The ones she thought they’d both already answered.

“Let me in?” Kara says. So softly it nearly undoes her. It’s the gentlest thing Lena’s ever heard. It makes her knees shake.

“I have let you in. So many times.”

Kara’s lips part like she might argue—but she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. She just stands there, blinking like she wasn’t expecting that.

Lena laughs again. Bitter. Broken. “You want to talk? Now? After all this time pretending there was nothing between us?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were,” Lena cuts in. “You always were. Pretending it didn’t mean anything when you looked at me like that. When you touched me like that. Like it was nothing when you whispered things no friend would say and left before I could answer.”

She’s shaking again. Robe clenched in both fists like armor.

Kara’s eyes go wide. “That’s not— I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“No,” Lena says, stepping forward, voice low and sharp. “You were just trying to keep me. Keep me around. Keep me wanting you so you’d never have to decide if you wanted me back.”

Silence falls. Heavy. Too big for the room.

Kara looks down. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” Lena agrees for an entirely different reason. “It isn’t.”

They stare at each other through the glass. Kara looks like she might cry. Lena already is—but the tears are stuck somewhere between fury and ache.

“You don’t get to show up here like this. You know why I ran. You’ve always known.”

Kara presses her forehead to the glass. “Baby. Please. This isn’t how we should talk.”

“Like what? With something between us?” Lena huffs a laugh. “This is the only way I can talk to you—so you don’t sneak in again and tear down all my walls and make me love you like I’ve never been hurt.”

Kara doesn’t flinch. She just watches her. Tender and unflinching. Like Lena's breaking along the same fault lines Kara has traced with her hands a thousand times before.

“I never snuck in,” Kara says quietly. “You let me. Every single time.”

Lena’s breath stutters.

“And every single time, you ran. When it got close. When it got good. You ran.”

Lena stiffens. “Don’t turn this on me—”

“I’m not, I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying I knew. I saw this coming.”

Lena blinks fast. Her voice drops. “I thought if I stayed gone, you’d stop caring.”

Kara shakes her head. “I thought if I gave you space, you’d come back when you were ready. Like you always do.”

Lena just stares at her, like seeing her for the first time. Like something she believed is quietly cracking apart inside her.

“I keep trying to reach you, but every time, you disappear. You know it’s not just me, Lena.”

A breath catches in her chest. She follows Kara’s eyes to the door. "Please?”

And that does it.

With trembling fingers, she unhooks the latch. The door creaks open like even the house is holding its breath.

Kara doesn’t move.

Lena breathes in, sharp and shallow. “I hate you for being right.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I still—” Her voice breaks.

“I know.”

Kara steps in. Slowly. Carefully. Like approaching a wounded animal, unsure if it’ll bite or collapse.

“I didn’t come here to win,” she says. “I didn’t come to pull you back.”

“Then why did you come?”

“To be here. If you want me to leave, I will. But I couldn’t let you think I didn’t care.”

Lena’s lip quivers. She stares at Kara like she’s trying to find all the parts of her she’d rewritten as apathy. As abandonment.

“I thought you didn’t want me,” she whispers.

“I’ve always wanted you.” Kara says it so fast, so sure, there’s no room left for doubt. “But you have to want it too. You have to want it enough not to run when we’re close. When we’re almost there.”

Lena looks away—and this time, the tears come. Quiet. Unstoppable.

“I know you’re scared,” Kara says, softer now, each word wrapped in care. “I know they taught you to question everything—especially love. But you don’t have to question mine.”

And something in Lena breaks. She exhales like there’s a crack in her chest—like something old and heavy has finally given way.

“I thought you were playing with me,” she whispers. “Because it was convenient. Not real.”

Kara flinches, her face folding like the words physically hurt. “Lena, you’ve always been real. I want to give you everything. I just need you to stay when it gets real. We have to stop doing this to each other.”

Lena wipes her face and finally meets her eyes. “I always thought it was you pulling away… but maybe it’s been me. This whole time.”

Kara steps closer. Still not touching. Just there—radiating warmth like sunlight through winter glass, soft and sure.

“Let me stay?” she asks. “Let me in again?”

Lena’s voice is barely a breath. “And if I want you to stay forever?”

Kara’s smile is huge, warm, uncontainable. Like the sun breaking into the house, rewriting its history. It reaches the darkest, dustiest corners. And it does even more in Lena’s heart.

“It’s the only way I know how when it comes to you, my heart.”

Lena doesn’t speak. She just breathes Kara in like she’s been underwater for days and only now found air again.

Then, quietly, like the words might break her even more than silence already has, “Hold me?”

Kara doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to.

She steps forward and wraps her arms around Lena, careful at first, like she still might be pushed away. But the second their bodies meet, Lena exhales, a choked sound against Kara’s shoulder. She’s still shivering, damp and cold, but Kara’s warmth is immediate, all-consuming, the kind of heat that sinks into bone. And so she just melts.

Her arms circle Kara’s waist like she’s anchoring herself to something real for the first time in days. Maybe longer.

Kara pulls back just enough to cup Lena’s face, her thumbs brushing the tears away like they don’t scare her, like she wants to touch every part of the pain and still stay.

Lena’s eyes flutter shut, then open again. Steady now.

“No more waiting,” she says, voice raw. “No more running. Make me yours in a way none of us can deny anymore.”

Kara’s breath catches. Her gaze flicks to Lena’s lips like it’s instinct—like she’s been holding back for years and suddenly can’t remember why.

She kisses her.

Soft at first—reverent, trembling with everything they just said. But Lena makes a sound, a tiny, desperate thing in the back of her throat, and Kara deepens it without hesitation. Her hands slide into Lena’s hair, pulling her closer like she’s trying to fuse them together. Like there’s no world beyond this room, this kiss, this moment.

And Lena burns. From the inside out. With just a kiss, Kara surrounds her again. The warmth creeps in slow and steady—the smell of vanilla, sun-warmed cotton, and bare skin. It’s everywhere. It wraps around her like a weighted comfort, like coming home.

And Lena wonders, dazed and breathless, why she ever ran from this. Because this—this feeling, this touch, this one person—is the best she’s ever had.

When Kara finally parts their lips for air, Lena already knows what’s coming. Knows it like a vow. A promise etched deep into something eternal.

“No more dancing at the edge of us,” Kara murmurs.

And Lena, heart thudding, voice barely more than a breath, answers with her own vow—soft but certain: “No more hiding our feelings.”

Kara lifts her like it’s easy, like it’s always been meant to be, and Lena wraps her legs around her without hesitation. She’s laughing through her tears now, breathless, alive.

She used to think love like this would ruin her—but it’s the only thing that ever made her brave enough to stay.

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