[In no particular order; blame it on Barry, he won't stop picking at the timeline.]

[i]

Kara had to hand it to Mon-El. He absolutely got into the holiday spirit. He baked a great-tasting dinner of traditional foods. He bought everyone presents. He even got into costume.

She just has no idea why he thought they all celebrated Kwanzaa.

[ii]

"Happy Martin Luthor King Day, everyone!" Mon-El proclaimed, handing out presents.

Kara opened hers barely short of superspeed. She liked getting presents; sue her. "Lethal Weapon?"

"I got Die Hard With A Vengeance," Alex reported.

"Blazing Saddles," Jimmy said.

"Rising Sun," said Winn.

"Oh, I get it!" Kara cried. "Movies about interracial friendships! That makes sense! Mon, I think you're getting the hang of this!"

"Maybe," J'onn said dubiously, holding up his Blu-Ray.

Kara looked at it. "Little White Chicks And Big Black… oh dear." She looked around for Mon-El, who had left to deliver his gift to M'gann, and rushed to catch up with him.

"So, uh," Winn began, "J'onn, are you not going to be using that?"

[iii]

"Ooh, presents!" Kara cried, seeing Mon-El once more approaching with his literal gift bag. She didn't have the heart to tell him that red bags with white fur trim weren't really used outside of December, even as overnight bags.

"And all of them prudish and in denial of humanity's nature as sexual beings, in accordance with societal convention," Mon-El reported happily.

Kara wheedled her hands together, shoving them down around her waist as if trying to hold down the bops that were knocking her shoulders up and down. "What'd you get me, what'd you get me?"

"Nothing, sorry. Not today." Mon-El hefted the bag. "These are for the hard-working secretaries of the DEO, seeing as it is National Secretary's Day." Kara's brow furrowed and Mon-El stared at her, as if checking for an iota of approval. "People celebrate National Secretary's Day, right?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely!" Kara assured him. "It's just we don't call them secretaries. They're executive assistants, or administrative professionals…"

"What's wrong with calling them secretaries?"

"Oh, it's just, you know… offensive."

"Right," Mon-El said. "Gotcha."

(It is possible that Mon-El was overheard saying "Take that, you sprocking secretary!" while punching Metallo the next week. It's also possible that Kara is still laughing about that well into July.)

[iv]

"Happy Columbus Day, everyone!"

"Dude, no. Trust me on this. No."

[v]

"So we are eventually going to tell him that not every holiday is…" Alex paused. "Well, a holiday, right?"

"It's sweet," Kara protested. "These days are holidays because they're meant to be observed. Why should we get in his way just because he doesn't take them for granted?"

"He tried to get Winn to celebrate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People."

"Pumpkin pie for the whole office, with whipped cream, on January 5th, National Whipped Cream Day," Kara countered.

Alex folded her arms. "I still can't believe how appropriate that one turned out."

Kara held out her hands. "See? Just a nice little break from the everyday routine." She sat back in her chair smugly, a perfect smirk plastered on her lips. "I, personally, can't wait to see what he does for Valentine's Day."

"What?" Alex asked.

"What?"

"What?" Alex repeated flatly.

"What what?" Kara insisted.

"Are you hoping he's going to make some big romantic gesture on Valentine's Day?"

"I, I… Mon-El can do what he wants. He'll probably declare his love for Amy Adams or something." Kara dug into her pocket. "It has been so long since I checked my voicemail…"

"Do you want him to declare his love for Amy Adams?" Alex asked suspiciously.

Kara's nose was buried in her smartphone. "Amy Adams is a great actress and she seems like a really nice person. I mean, so did Johnny Depp before… all that, but I think Amy Adams is the real deal and yeah, she could do a lot worse than Mon, they'd probably be really happy together."

Alex's crossed arms were as tight around her chest as a straitjacket. "So you'd rather he took Amy Adams out on a date than, say, you?"

"You know what, I think Amy Adams is married, so I don't know if it's fair to answer that. It could be a sham marriage, but I don't feel comfortable speculating—"

"You like Mon-El."

Kara daintily spread her hands to her sides. "I like everyone."

"Oh, don't give me that, there's you liking Lena Luthor and then there's you liking Jimmy Olsen… I mean, there is…"

Kara was checking her cell phone once more. "Oh, turns out Amy Adams is married and has a kid, so I definitely wouldn't want Mon-El to be a homewrecker. And I'm a little proud of myself for not knowing intimate details of some celebrity stranger's life."

"So you'd rather Mon-El be in love with you than Amy Adams?"

Kara daintily spread her hands again. "Aren't we all a little in love with Amy Adams?"

Alex groaned and walked away. Time to play big sister.

[vi]

"No holiday today?" Alex asked.

"January fifteenth, International Fetish Day," Mon-El replied. "I gave Kara five blackballs and that was one of them."

"Really? Anything else she used them on?"

"Something about steak and vacuum cleaners on March fourteenth. I prefer beef anyway."

"Uh-huh, fascinating." Alex dropped into a chair. "Listen, you're planning something for Valentine's Day, right?"

Mon-El leaned back into the pillow of his joined hands. "Nah, I'm free that day. Why, you and Maggie planning to spice things up with a threesome?"

"What? Ewww, no!"

"I completely understand. All my research shows that Valentine's Day should be about the two of you. Birthdays, on the other hand…"

"Do you have any idea what a lesbian is?"

"I tried to look it up on Google, but Winn said it was a bad idea."

"Figures," Alex said, rolling her eyes. "I'm just asking if you have something special planned for Valentine's Day. With Kara. Not… Ellen DeGeneres, you…"

"With Kara, yeah… yeah… I'm going to harvest some sweet-smelling Earth lifeforms and present the corpses to Kara to enjoy before they inevitably rot."

"Yes, flowers, good, that'll work." Alex stood. Then sat back down. "We're talking about flowers, right?"

Mon-El mustered up the little sheepishness he had in him. "Beef sirloin."

Alex hung her head. "You son of a bitch."

"It's the same principle and which one can you eat? Which one can you eat?"

Alex sighed explosively. "Okay. I don't like this. You're not going to like this. But I'm going to teach you all about Valentine's Day before you wreck my sister's life with your complete misunderstanding of romance. Bad enough when that happened to the prequels…"

[vii]

"Homework!" Alex announced, slamming the stack of Blu-Rays down beside the TV. "The BBC adaptations of just about every Jane Austen book ever written, plus Downton Abbey; every movie Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan co-starred in; a few Sandra Bullocks; The Mummy, because I'm taking pity on you; and a few others that are just… from the eighties."

Mon-El sorted through them. "A Disney version of Robin Hood where everyone is a talking animal?"

"Don't ask me, it works on straight girls."

"Maybe I should ask someone else for romantic advice," Mon-El ventured. "As I recall, your seduction technique was to keep telling some woman you were gay until she made out with you."

"She made out with me, though. Who would you go to for advice?"

"Winn."

"Ha ha, no."

"Jimmy."

"Let me tell you something. Jimmy and Kara used to be a sure thing. Five minutes later, she wanted nothing to do with him. You call that game? Because I don't."

[viii]

"Why would she take him back?"

"Because he went through the whole… thing to apologize to her."

"He still did it, though!"

"She took him back because it's the end of the movie and if they don't get together, we just wasted two hours."

"Why couldn't the movie have just not had him cheat on her in the first place?"

"Because then it just would've been two people getting together because they liked each other and wanted to make babies."

"Seems more realistic than a bunch of dumb contrivances arbitrarily keeping them apart."

"Not in my experience."

[ix]

"Are you crying?"

"What? No? I'm gay, I opt out of this stuff working on me."

"It is kinda sad. They really seem like they would make a good couple…"

"Why can't she see that he is perfect for her!? She's going to end up alone and unhappy and all because she listened to her dumb friend!"

"Do you need a tissue?"

"Yes. Fuck you."

[x]

"Ummmmm…" Maggie said, the moment she was through the door.

"It's not what it looks like."

"It looks like you're crying on Mon-El's shoulder while watching While You Were Sleeping."

"They just make each other so happy!"

[xi]

"We watched romantic comedies for fourteen hours and that's what you came up with for Valentine's Day? A teddy bear?"

"A big teddy bear!" Kara cried, cuddling it. "And so fluffy! Look, it has a little heart!"

"I just expected something more elaborate," Alex said.

"Yeah, but they're always doing those elaborate things because they mess up," Mon-El pointed out. "I figure if I just don't mess up, I can get away with a little simplicity. It's still a really big teddy bear."

"So big!" Kara agreed, squeezing the bear until the stuffing nearly came out. "Come on, let's go have dinner. We can have the table set for three."

Alex watched them go, shaking her head. "Why can't someone get me a big teddy bear?"