Kara wasn't distracted-she wasn't. In one hand, she held her lukewarm coffee, hardly touched since she bought it a half an hour ago. In her other, she pressed a pen to her lips. Every once and awhile she'd tap it and shift position, but she found no relief in it.

"-Kara?"

Kara awoke from her hazy thoughts. She'd been sleeping standing up, thinking about something totally different than the world around her. She blinked and focused to see a woman's face close to hers and covered with concern, looking into her eyes and standing extremely close to her in the CATCO elevator.

"You alright?" The woman asked.

"Oh-yes." Kara laughed nervously, straightening her glasses.

The woman nodded and face forward again.

"How are you?" the woman looked over her shoulder at Kara again.

"I'm good," Kara nodded, smiling again she made an excuse, "I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Ah," the woman smiled, "stressed?"

" Oh yeah. Big time." Kara nodded vigorously, glancing down and touching her glasses again.

"I didn't get much sleep last night either," the woman said wistfully, "we got a newborn at home and the mrs. has the flu so I had to get up every time Jamie cried."

"Ooh," Kara grimaced, "sorry about that,"

The woman smiled over her shoulder, "He was particularly distressed last night."

"How's, uh, you're friend?" the woman asked and Kara tilted her head slightly, "Mike, was it? Has he found another calling?" she smirked, obviously trying to make a joke.

"Oh, yeah," Kara scratched the back of her head, "he's uh, he's good."

"Good," the woman smiled kindly.

The elevator landed and the woman smiled one last time, "Nice to see you Kara."

"You too!" Kara called as the woman walked out of the elevator, taking a sip of her coffee.

She felt as though her cheeks were burning. She was thinking about it again. Those few moments; the conversation she'd had the day before; the kind eyes she couldn't help but keep coming back to as they stared into hers; the touch she kept feeling. The thing that had kept her up so late last night. The guilt of keeping it to herself; her selfish and scared heart not sure how to deal with what she was feeling.

Something behind her eyes began to burn and she felt herself beginning to sweat. She needed to get out of this elevator and to her office. Needed to be alone where no one could say anything to her that would even make her think about anything remotely related to what she kept thinking and dreaming and imagining over and over and over again.

Two other women stepped onto the elevator, about her age. One was tall and broad with short bleached hair in a pixie haircut and the other was a brunette with piercing green eyes. They smiled cordially with Kara and stood in front of her, closest to the door.

The blonde one pulled out her phone, "Oh god."

"What?" The other one looked up.

"It's Eve again," she said, "I have to go back downstairs-it's my turn for coffee and I forgot."

"How is she doing?" The green-eyes girl asked in a concerned voice.

"Is something wrong with Eve?" Kara accidentally butted into their conversation before she could stop herself.

"Oh," the blonde woman shook her head, "no, she just had a breakup though and she's a bit upset."

"Overall though, she's doing much better than I expected." The other girl said, "Apparently he was really nice about it."

"Who broke up with her?" Kara said, kicking herself because why did she care? Why was she asking when she already knew the answer.

"Some guy named Mike," the girl said off-handedly, then noticing Kara's distraught face she continued, "do you know him?"

"Wha-no...I-uh...don't know him." After stumbling through the minefield of that sentence she forced an extremely awkward smile and the two girls looked at each other confusedly.

"Well this is my stop!" Kara fumbled her way out of the elevator as fast as she could.

She walked down the hall at a hurried pace, the two girls looking baffled behind her. She stumbled into her office and slammed the door unintentionally behind her. She fell against the white frame and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and tried to forget about it- forget it! She told herself, everything will work out fine, everything will be fine.

And yet the words still echoed in her head, soft-spoken and kind, filling her heart with a warmth that was almost unbearable. It was so filling-but she cursed herself and pushed it from her mind.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, making Kara jump violently and clutch her chest. She scuttled over to her desk and fixed her hair clumsily.

"Come in!" Kara said, twitching around and trying to look natural.

James opened the door, "Hey, Kara,"

"Hey, James," she smiled, "what's, uh, what can I do for you?"

"Oh nothing, I was just checking to see how you were doing," he said, putting his weight on the doorknob.

Oh, thanks," kara smiled gratefully, "I'm alright-interdimensional travel is a bit stressful to say the least."

"I can imagine," he laughed gently. "How's uh," he scratched his temple, "how's Mon-El?"

"Oh, he's, uh," She nodded, swallowing and touching her glasses, "he's better."

He nodded and there was a pause. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded, smiling warmly, "I'm good."

"You're sure? Nothing happened that you wanna talk about?"

She swallowed hard.

"Nope!" she said, forcing a smile.

"Alright," he smiled, "keep up the good work, Kara."

"Yes sir." she saluted goofily and then turned around and made a face at herself.

For the first time that day, she took a seat. She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back and beginning to doze. And then-of course-her phone rang.

She frowned at the caller ID and picked up, "Winn?"

"Hey, Kara we need you." He said anxiously.

"What's up?" Kara stood.

"Armed robbery downtown." Winn said.

"On my way." She said, pulling off her clothes to reveal her suit. She walked into the abandoned hall and opened the window, flying out into the city. She put the comm into her ear.

"Is James going to get there okay?" She asked.

"I told James to sit this one out and Mon-El is already on his way." Winn said as though it were nothing.

"What?" Kara stopped dead in her tracks, floating above the city.

"What?" Winn asked, frown evident in his voice.

"He isn't ready, he needs to rest! "

"Kara, it's been days since Eliza gave him the all-clear," Winn said exasperatedly, "and I wasn't about to try and stop him."

"Winn," Kara said pointedly, "he's not an animal he listens to reason-"

"-No, he listens to you," Winn interrupted, "sometimes."

"Winn!" She said angrily, putting her hands on her hips. "You could have at least-"

"-I mean, have you seen the guy?!" Winn yelled incredulously, "He could flick me and I'd be done."

She huffed and began to fly again. There was a short silence that was a bit too long for Winn to bare.

His voice softened, "He'll be fine, Kara, he's doing a lot better than when he first got here."

She swallowed and looked down at the city below her; beautiful and broad and full of color. How easy it was to get lost here, to become someone else-to become something else.

"You can't keep him cooped up in here forever." Winn said gently, and she knew he was right.

Kara sighed angrily and landed in front of the bank. "I know."

"I'm surprised he even stayed in here this long!" Winn said.

Kara smiled and walked through the double doors.

Immediately as she entered, Mon-El slid across the floor, hitting a wall and shattering the glass door she'd just gracefully walked through. She looked from his crumpled body to the huge crater in the floor across the room. People screamed and next to her. She swallowed.

"You okay Mon-El?" She asked, trying to expel all intimacy from her voice.

"Yep." He forced out, nodding vigorously.

She nodded, still not looking at him. She jumped into the air and went after the men.

"Kara wait-!" Mon-El yelled, but she ignored him, going into where the robbers were.

She landed gracefully as ever and marched towards them. "Hey!" She bellowed, making them turn. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Leaving," one of them sneered, pulling out what looked like a small grenade, complete with a quaint ticking noise and a soft, blinking, blue light.

She used her ice-breath and froze it from across the room and then continued to march towards them. Bullets bounced off her chest and she barely blinked. She grabbed the first man's gun and bent it to the left. She turned and used her heat vision on the other gun, making the robber drop it. She threw the fourth man against a wall as gently as she could, knocking him out quite completely.

Behind her she heard sirens. She sighed and put her hands on her hips. The usual rush of adrenalin and the feeling of satisfaction that usually came after solving a problem like this was nowhere. She scrunched her nose and turned on her heel, almost running over Mon-El.

"Woah," he said, jumping back slightly, "I guess I have a lot to learn."

She smiled stiffly, avoiding his eyes, "I guess so."

She brushed past him and he watched her, frowning. "Kara-?" but before he could finish his sentence she was out the door and jumping into the air.

He let out a short sigh of anger and sped out after her. He jumped up onto a building and called her name again. She stopped flying and lowered herself down so she was floating a safe ten feet away and above him.

He raised his eyebrows, "Please your highness could you come down from the heavens and grace me with your presence?"

The sentence had a sharp bite to it, one that wasn't as playful as he usually was. This made her extremely nervous. He knew something was up-she had to think of an excuse.

She bit her lip and landed, but kept her distance. She crossed her arms and just did a generally terrible job of hiding how uncomfortable she was.

"Kara," he said, "I don't bite."

"I know..." she said.

He looked around pointedly. "So...why're you standing all the way over there."

"I...don't...know..." she said, grimacing slightly at herself.

"So then... why don't you," he pointed at her, "come over here?" he pointed to the ground right in front of his feet.

"Well that's a bit close-" she began.

"-Kara!" He said exasperatedly and she gave him her token "Kara-Danvers-wants-to-give-you-a-satisfying-answer-but- just-doesn't-know-how-to" face.

"You're being ridiculous and..." he searched for a word, "...weird!"

"I don't know what to say!" she said, stepping closer without thinking.

"You could explain." he suggested, throwing his hands in the air.

"I don't know where to begin-"

"-Is it about Alex?"

"No-"

"-Work?"

"No, I-"

"-Winn? James? J'onn?"

"No, Mon-El-"

"-About that guy Barry?"

"No, Barry's great-"

"-Someone else from that other dimension?"

"No, no, I just-"

"-Me?"

She quickly shut her mouth. Her excuse was going to be the other dimension. She'd thought it out before. She'd planned for this. She couldn't be the one to make their friendship weird, she couldn't make him feel ashamed for doing something while he was high. She knew how embarrassing those things could be, she wasn't about to put him through that.

But she couldn't keep a secret.

"It's nothing-" she tried to laugh it off.

"-Well it's obviously something." He put his hands on his hips and she couldn't help but feel like he was imitating her.

She quickly crossed her arms, forcing her face into a scowl. "It's nothing-it doesn't matter."

"Oh so that's what a kiss means to you?" He snapped, stepping closer to her, "Nothing?"

Her lips parted, "You-you know?"

"Well I was there wasn't I?" he snapped and she looked quite taken aback.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked and he rolled his eyes,

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"What do you mean?" she asked incredulously, "you were all-I don't know- dying and full of medication and-and-I didn't want to embarrass you!"

"Oh, so my feelings for you are embarrassing, are they?"

"What?!" She spluttered, "That's not-that is not what I said."

"Oh really?" He snapped, "Because that's what it sure sounded like."

He turned on his heel and jumped into the air. He soared through the sky and landed on a skyscraper four buildings away.

"Mon-El!" she bellowed after him, but he only jumped further away.

She flew up into the air, speeding after him. He finally stopped and jumped onto the DEO's balcony, straightening his jacket and walking down the steps. He walked very fast, and so after she landed she had to jog to catch up with him.

"Mon-el!" She called, "Mon-El, wait!" She grabbed at his coat sleeve but he avoided her and walked around the other side of the circular table.

"Hey guys," Winn turned around in his chair, "nice job out there."

"You should just be thanking Kara," Mon-El said bitterly, "she did all the work."

Winn looked back and forth between the two of them. "Somehow I don't think that was as much of a compliment as it was supposed to be-are you guys arguing again?"

"Mon-El-" Kara began in a warning tone, but he didn't care.

"-No," he interrupted, keeping deadly and heated eye-contact with Kara from across the table, "Kara just saved me from embarrassing myself again because she's just that much of a saint."

"You know that's not what I meant!" She said defensively.

"No, I know that you like to do, Kara Zor-El: ignore personal problems by concentrating on your work-"

"-Oh really?" Kara looked at him like he was full of crap.

"Yeah." he said venomously, "you spend all your time helping other people as an excuse for not solving the problems with the people you supposedly care about."

"I see you have it all figured out don't you!" She snapped and he nodded.

"Yeah, I do." He said, "Unlike you, I know what I want, and I know how to deal with my problems."

She scoffed. "Is that so?"

"Yes!"

"That is the funniest thing I've heard all week-if you're so high and mighty then why didn't you tell me that you knew about the kiss when I wanted to talk about it the first time?" She said haughtily, crossing her arms, and raising her eyebrows.

"Wait- you guys kissed?!" Winn said incredulously, and the two ignored him.

"I wanted to see if you were going to tell me."

"Liar!" She yelled, making Winn flinch.

"Oh really?"

"You-high and mighty Daxamite who has everything figured out-was afraid. " She said, "You were scared and embarrassed and that's why you didn't tell me."

He laughed, crossing his arms, "Yeah right."

"You couldn't stand the idea of a woman rejecting you, and so you kept it to yourself." She said, "You wanted to forget all about it, so you didn't mention it and now you're distracting from your fear and shame by coming after me when the truth is you're a coward."

Suddenly, she felt the back of her eyes burning again, and her face felt flushed and her heart ached. His breath hitched in his throat.

"Any cowardice I have," he said slowly, "I learned from you."

She was almost unsurprised that those were the words he chose to finish the conversation with. The slight variation on the phrase that had filled her heart with something reminiscent of a sort of pride she'd never felt before, filled her with a sense of regret she'd only felt a few times in her life.

He tapped the table gently and then turned to walk away. She swallowed and watched him, unable to get herself to call out to him and ask him to come back. He stopped in the doorway that lead further into the DEO and turned slightly to look at her.

"If I hadn't known," he said calmly, staring at the ground, "would you have ever told me?" He looked up at her and she searched for an answer.

She shook her head, "I-I don't know."

He nodded, "That's what I thought."

She stuffed his hands in his pockets and then disappeared, running away from her yet again. Kara swallowed and then looked down at her folded hands on the table.

"What the hell was that about?" Winn asked softly and she shook her head.

"I don't wanna talk about it," she sniffed, realizing that she was crying. She turned quickly away and then flew back out the way she came.

Curse him- curse him. She flipped over and kicked her blankets off. This was all his fault! Why did he have to go on and ruin what they had?

Why did he care?

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself not to cry again. She let out an animalistic groan and, sitting up, threw a pillow over her head and across the room. It knocked over a lamp and she hated herself more. She Plopped back down and pressed her cheek to the pillow. Her body began to shake and she couldn't help it.

She felt so ashamed of herself; so confused and so lost. She couldn't stop thinking about it-about him.

The words he said to her always had much more meaning in them than they should. The way he'd sighed "absolutely beautiful" didn't make her heart flutter. The feeling of his hand on her cheek and lips and the way she knew exactly where he was in relation to her at all times didn't make her feel that fuzzy kind of uncomfortable she usually understood so well. The way she found his hands often so close to hers felt so natural and yet new and unusual, but not like there was this electric tension between them. She didn't know what to make of him, she only knew the rush she felt being around him; looking at him-arguing with him.

She'd always hated crying. She could never do it quietly. She felt so obnoxious and loud and like she was bothering everyone, even though she was alone. She took a few shaky breaths and then opened her eyes again. She released the pillow from her death grip and looked up at her wall.

She didn't have many-couldn't be more than fifteen or twenty-but she had a few pictures up there. Most of them were of her and Alex, but over the past year or so, Winn had made it up there quite a bit and James made a few appearances. She had no photos of Mon-El. It seemed silly to her rational mind, but for someone who's mentor she was supposed to be, she felt ashamed that she had no picture of him.

She sat up and put her feet down on the floor. That was it; the last straw. She couldn't let this go on any longer. She ran into the living room, picking up the trench coat she'd thrown half-hazardly as she'd come home this afternoon. She snatched up her glasses off the counter and her keys off the floor. She pulled her soft blonde hair out of the collar of her jacket and speed-walked to the door. She yanked it open. She felt so ready, so fueled up. She-she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Mon-El?" She asked.

He didn't look up at her from where he sat on the floor next to her door. He had his knees up and his forearms resting on them. His head was bent. She pulled the door closed slowly and tucked her keys gently into her pocket.

"Where are you going?" He asked with a gentleness she'd rarely heard him use, "Maybe I can walk you," he said hesitantly.

Kara smiled, "Would you believe me if I said I were going to see you?"

"Yeah," he laughed humorlessly, "you're a better person than I am."

"Mon-El," she chastised gently, sliding down the door to sit next to him, "that's not true."

"Kara," he looked up from the floor, "yes you are. You were right before, I am a coward, I'm a coward and I can't stand it-"

"-You are not a coward." Kara said firmly, putting a hand on his arm reassuringly. "You are one of the greatest people I know. You've grown up so much since you've gotten here-I mean it!" she said when he laughed and shook his head, "To be going through what you're going through right now without losing it is amazing.

I shouldn't have said all that stuff before. You're not a coward, and I'm not ashamed, and I should've told you, even though you already knew." She swallowed, touching her glasses. "Plus, you left the house first; I was just leaving to go see you."

He smiled and looked at her again, heartbroken eyes trying to repair themselves before her. "Thank you."

She nodded, "Of course."

"But, uh," he laughed slightly, "I have to disagree."

"Ugh, Mon-El-" she sighed.

"-I've been out here for a half an hour." He said suddenly and she looked up at him. "Before, I walked around the building four times, rode the elevator twice and in fact missed three buses before I finally got here.

I was standing out here, getting ready to come in and talk to you. I kept almost knocking and then stopping myself-I'm pretty sure you're neighbor across the hall was spying on me,"

"-yeah she does that." Kara waved it off.

"Well anyways," he smiled, "I'm finally about to do it, when you start crying." he swallowed and she closed her eyes for a long moment, cheeks flushing.

His voice cracks as he speaks again, "And I can't do it."

"Mon-El..." She rubbed his arm, "it's okay,"

"No," he said gently, shaking his head, "it's my fault-I know it is-but I couldn't get myself to grow up and apologize."

"You're doing it right now," she suggested an he looked at her.

His eyes were so full of something she'd never seen before. It was a brilliant aura of something inexplicably kind and inviting and almost innocent.

"I guess so," he laughed nervously, looking up at her, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." She said, reaching over and running her knuckles gently along his hairline and down to his jaw. "I'm not ashamed. I'm not embarrassed. I was just nervous."

"And what are you now?" he barely managed to get out, his eyes flickering down to her lips.

She smiled, and her hand splayed out across his cheek. She reached up with her other hand and pulled him to her. Their lips met gently in the middle, and his arm went absent-mindedly to her arm. The kiss lasted for a few long moments, before it ended just as gently as it began.

"Sure." She smiled and he beamed back at her. "Very sure."