The Proposal
There was a stack of mail on the coffee table that Lena just didn't have the energy or desire to go through. She'd had a long day which had started at CatCo, threw in a board meeting with Sam at L-Corp, and ended with a few hours of R&D at the DEO. All she wanted to do now was spend a quiet night in with her family. So as soon as she'd gotten home she changed into jeans and an old CatCo softball raglan t-shirt. She'd padded around her kitchen in bare feet as she made dinner with the help of her two year old son. Though most of Andrew's help consisted of repeating the names of things before throwing them somewhat into various pots and bowls. After dinner and cleanup Lena settled on the sofa under her favorite throw, the one that seemed to permanently smell of Kara, and watched her son as he picked up the latest issue of CatCo magazine. She smiled as he looked over the cover before bringing it over to the sofa. Andrew threw the magazine onto the sofa and then climbed up himself. Lena laughed as he helped himself to her lap and then pulled the large magazine over to them, plopping it down on his lap.
"K. A. R. A." Andrew recited as he poked at each letter on the glossy surface of the magazine's front cover. He looked up at his mother and said, "That's Mama's name."
The look he was giving her was almost an accusatory glare and Lena had to stop herself from laughing. She would read him Kara's articles all the time as long as they were appropriate, and apparently he felt as if she were remiss in not reading this one. Though to be fair, Lena hadn't known Kara would have a featured article in this month's issue. "That's right, little man. That's Mama's name, K. A. R. A. Kara."
"Read Mama's art car, Mommy." Andrew said and then after a moment of thought added, "Please?"
Lena smiled, she kissed her son's temple and then opened to the page listed for Kara's article.
What Science and Literature Tells Us About Love
An Editorial by:
Kara Danvers
Love. For as long as we've had the ability to comprehend the idea of love we've been debating if it truly exists and if so what is it exactly. Prose and poetry would have you believing that yes, love is real and it's one of the most powerful forces on Earth. While science attributes love to hormones and the physiological needs of being human; companionship, reproduction, safety and survival of self and society. Personally I think both camps are right. There are scientific articles stating the human brain takes anywhere from ninety seconds to four minutes to have a chemical reaction to someone, and then those chemicals spend the next however long wreaking havoc on your life. Poets talk about love as a force both uplifting and destructive, both strengthening and weakening, a power unlike any other.
So let's take a closer look at the science behind love. According to an article published by Gotham University, falling in love has more to do with physical interactions and chemical reactions. The study breaks it down like this. 55% is done in body language. A beautiful woman walks across her office with confidence despite her underlying insecurities. She sits in her office chair as if it were a throne and smiles, and a young woman finds herself at a loss for words. 38% is all in the voice, the tone, speed of speech, timber of the voice. The beautiful woman's voice is confident, slow and precise, it reflects her passion and conviction. It's soft, husky, a mix of honey and aged whiskey. 7% is in what is said. The beautiful woman asks, "Who are you anyway?" The young woman thinks, who was she? Who did she want to be? When she says, "I'm just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside her family." The young woman feels like shouting, Yes! Yes, me too! I understand that! Mercifully the young woman manages not to make a fool of herself and quietly agrees that she can understand what the beautiful woman is saying. After this first interaction, this initial meeting, the young woman is 100% sure that the beautiful woman is someone she wants to get to know, someone she would very much like to see again.
The Gotham article also talks about the chemical responses that come along with the above mentioned equation. There are a lot of hormones that play into falling in love according to the research. Adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are the chemicals science attribute to what we call feeling as if we're in love. Since science is all about getting repeat outcomes every time a hypothesis is tested let's see if the equation holds up, and see if the chemical responses match. Body language, the beautiful woman smiles, bites her lip, and her eyebrow raises, and the young woman has no idea what the beautiful woman just said because there's a spike in her adrenaline, her heart races a bit, and suddenly she's wondering if a person can be attracted to an eyebrow. Voice, the beautiful woman's voice is soft, gentle and a little unsure. The young woman realizes that she's just been told something the beautiful woman has never admitted out loud before, and the young woman feels honored and protective. The beautiful woman says, "You are my hero." and the young woman feels as if her world has suddenly filled with sunlight. Dopamine rushes through the young woman leaving her feeling pleasure in having become someone the beautiful woman can trust, relay on, and feel safe with.
Serotonin makes the young woman think of the beautiful woman when certain songs come on the radio, or when she smells lilies, or when the person she's meant to be interviewing is wearing a piece of jade jewelry. Oxytocin or the cuddle hormone makes the young woman want to stay in the beautiful woman's embrace and forget about the world outside, and vasopressin, like oxytocin, helps to physically reinforce the emotional. Perhaps when Stendhal said, "Love is like a fever that comes and goes independently of the will…" He was onto something, linking the scientific explanation of love to the more romanticized version of it portrayed by poets and writers throughout the ages.
I am certainly not the first to try and put into words the phenomenon known as love. There are countless number of traditions and stories about true loves, lovers, and soulmates. I've heard that when you have a mysterious bruise you can't explain or a phantom pain it's because your soulmate was hurt. Ancient greeks believed that humans were created as matching sets and were separated by the gods which forced them to spend their lives looking for their other halfs. Countless fairytale princesses wake up after being kissed by their true loves. Poets across the ages put ink to paper trying to tell someone special how they felt, about loving them or losing them, or longing for them. Thousands of high school students all over the world suffer year and year because Catherine is torn between what she wants, Heathcliff, and what she could have with Edger.
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen writes, "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." The young woman struggles with how she feels because she's afraid. She treasures the beautiful woman's friendship and would be lost without it, but she wants more, her heart demands more. The beautiful woman feels the same way. Finally they give in, they take the risk and find it was worth it. For the first time the young woman understands Tolstoy, "He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking." Because the beautiful woman was her sun and even when she wasn't looking at her she could feel it, the beautiful woman's warmth, her love. And she hoped that she left the beautiful woman feeling the same way.
So what is love? Wasn't that the point of this article? Well, love is everything and more. It's a wonderful explosion of hormones, and a powerful push from the metaphorical heart that leads to rainy nights when the young woman pulls the beautiful woman away from the mountain of work she brought home with her to dance to a song that proclaims, "Your love is like a river peaceful and deep. Your soul is like a secret I never could keep. When I look into your eyes I know it's true. God must have spent a little more time on you." It's mind, body, and soul and lazy sunday mornings with several newspapers and coloring books spread out across the bed, the morning news replaced by animated pony friends, cups of coffee growing cold on nightstands, and half eaten donuts tossed back into the pink bakery box. It's hectic weekdays where anything, litteryly anything can happen because we live in National City and in a world where the impossible happens everyday.
The impossible, like a shy and awkward young woman from Midvale falling in love with a beautiful, confident, intelligent woman from Metropolis and asking a huge favor of her editor to include a secret article in this month's issue because it was that young woman's very first article about the beautiful woman that started this wonderful, amazing, super thing between them.
"And who are you excatally?" The beautiful woman asks.
I am the woman you will fall in love with, the one who hopes you want to share the rest of your life with her. The woman who loves you with everything she is, every fiber of her being, every cell of her body, ever beat of her heart. I am the woman who promises everyday to love you, to support you, to protect you, and to always believe in you. I am the woman risking the wrath of Cat Grant for using my position as a reporter for personal gain as I ask...
Lena Luthor, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Will you marry me?
Lena sat there with her mouth agape, her heart racing, and her mind wheeling. Did she really just read a marriage proposal from her girlfriend in her magazine? She read it again, and this time shock gave way to tears. Kara wanted to marry her? Lena knew she could reply right now, sitting there on their sofa with their sleeping son in her lap and Kara would hear her. But what fun would that be?
Kara had been distracted all day. She knew that the new issue of CatCo came out today and that Lena would be getting the real issue and not the dummy mockups that hid her special article. She'd been listening all day and for a moment she heard Lena's heart rate pick up. She listened for some kind of response, for Lena to call out her name or for her to say yes, but there was nothing. They'd exchanged a few nondescript texts but that was it. No mention of the article or the question it held.
As she walked into their shared home Kara was feeling really nervous and a little afraid. What if Lena didn't want to marry her? Maybe Lena didn't want to get married at all? Or maybe just not to her? They did share a life together. Kara had moved into Lena's penthouse a few months ago, and Kara was a mother to Lena's son. Honestly getting married would just make it all official. Setting her bag down by the door Kara called out, "Lena? Lena are you home?"
Closing her eyes Kara listened and could hear Lena's heartbeat. She was home. It sounded like Lena was up on the rooftop patio. As Kara made her way through the penthouse she kept looking to see if the magazine was lying around anywhere. It wasn't. Maybe Lena hadn't seen it yet? Maybe the messenger got lost or dropped it in a puddle? Climbing the stairs Kara continued to listen. The only heartbeats in the house were Streaky's, her own and Lena's. Where was Andrew?
"Lena?" Kara called out once again as she approached the doors to the rooftop. The french doors were open but the off white curtain was down and closed and blowing gently from the breeze. Kara stepped through the curtain and gasped softly.
Their rooftop garden sparkled in fairy lights and candles, and Haley Reinhart's version of Can't Help Falling in Love with You was playing softly from hidden speakers. The sky was red and orange from the setting sun, which peaked just above the horizon behind the woman standing near the french cafe style table in the center of the space. When the sky was this color it always took Kara's breath away because it reminded her of looking out her bedroom window as a girl. But the beauty of the sunset had nothing on Lena. The fading sun brought out the rich red highlights in Lena's long, loose, dark hair and all Kara could think about when it looked like that was running her fingers through it. The low cut green maxi dress Lena was wearing made her eyes that amazing perfect jade color that Kara loved so much, the color she had told Andrew was her favorite that night on Lena's couch. Lena smiled that big beautiful smile that made Kara feel everything and Kara smiled back.
"Lena?" Kara whispered not waiting to break the magical spell the other woman had cast on her.
Lena's smile brightened if that was possible. "Yes."
Seeing Lena standing there more beautiful than anything Kara had ever seen before had completely shook Kara and it took a moment for her to register what Lena was saying. "What?" The blonde breathed as she moved closer.
Lena chuckled softly, happily. "Yes, Kara."
It took a second but Kara finally caught on. Her eyes went wide with realization. "Wait, really, yes?"
"Rao, you're just too damn adorable sometimes." Lena teased as she reached out to pull Kara closer. "Yes Kara, I will marry you."
Kara's hands had naturally settled on Lena's hips when Lena drew her closer. When she realized Lena just said yes to marrying her, she squealed and in her excitement picked Lena up and twirled her around before drawing her in for a long passionate kiss that left them both breathless. When they pulled apart Kara pressed their foreheads together while reaching up to unclasp the chain she wore around her neck. "I know it's not a ring but… My father gave this to my mother the day he asked her grandfather if he could marry her. She never took it off, not until the day she put me in my pod and she took it off to put it around my neck." Kara reached behind Lena's neck to fasten the chain and then gently pulled Lena's hair up so the chain would settle against the warmth of her neck. "I've worn it ever since and now I'd like it very much if you would."
Lena knew how special, how important her mother's necklace was to Kara. She felt the weight of it instantly and reached up to press it against her chest as she gasped softly in surprise. "Kara." When she looked into Kara's eyes she could see that this is what Kara wanted and just how much it meant to her. "I'll never take it off."
Kara kissed her future wife tenderly at first but then with all the excitement and passion the moment called for.
After a quick change at superspeed, Kara teased Lena that she felt incredibly underdressed so she zipped down to their bedroom and returned wearing an off the shoulder blue dress that she knew was one of Lena's favorites on her. A bottle of very expensive champagne was opened and the rest of the evening was spent holding Lena close and dancing to a playlist of songs that they'd each added to over the years. Kara had put Ellie Goulding's Love Me Like You Do on it because the line "I'll let you set the pace 'cause I'm not thinkin' straight" always made Lena giggle. Lena had added Meghan Trainor's Like I'm Going to Lose You because there were times when they both felt like 'd both lost so much that they understood just how much loving one another meant to the other. There were severals songs from Rachel Platten because at some point she'd become the soundtrack to their romance, and of course there were NSync songs.
And of course before Lena couldn't take it anymore and pulled Kara to their bedroom to make love to her future wife there had been a slow dance to Kara singing the song she sang only to her and Andrew.
"I feel, I hear, your pain, your fear, but I'm here." Kara sang into Lena's ear. "You don't have to go through this alone. You have more love than you know."