One pm arrived and Kara grew nervous, it's a fake date she kept telling herself, not a real one, just for show. She was so focused on her thoughts and over thinking everything she nearly missed him. Nearly, not totally, because she looked up to see a group of the assistants surrounding someone, like a swamp of excitable birds. They moved aside to reveal Eve linking arms with him and ushering him towards Kara.

"Hi" he smiled bashfully, the attention was clearly making him a bit uncomfortable. He was polite enough to just smile but looked as though he would rather be anywhere but there.

"Kara you didn't tell us how dreamy Mike was" scolded Eve. No thought Kara, because he's not dreamy, he's just Mon-El. That said he did look good today. She rarely saw him when he wasn't in his training clothes and a bit sweaty. Today he was in fitted Jeans and a plain white short sleeved T-shirt, which was teasing his muscles. His dark hair softly spiked. He was wearing thick rimmed glasses, clearly Alex or Winn decided that he should have a human identity much like Kara did. The glasses were a common thing he worse when out with them socially.

"Ready?" asked Kara rather too business like. Eve gazed at Mon-El and Kara grabbing his arm dragged him away, "see you later" she glanced at Eve, who was far too interested in watching Mon-El with a broad smile on her face.

As they walked out of the building a leggy blonde, brushed Kara out of the way and grabbed Mon-El's arm "if you get bored and want some fun, here's my number" and pressed a card into his hand. Kara glared and the blonde smiled a sugary sweet smile at Kara and rubbed her hand down Mon-El's arm over his barely covered muscles. Uncharacteristically Kara felt annoyed.

Lunch was better than she expected they chatted with ease. Which lead her to question why they didn't hang around more. He was charming and showed a lot of interest in her life, as well as her life before Earth. Once they had eaten he offered to walk her back to the office, but she didn't want to deal with the women chasing after her pseudo boyfriend. Or the possible fake shows of affection, they hadn't spoken about that. She wasn't sure how to talk about that, she wasn't good with talking about anything like that with people she wanted to date. The party was 5 days away so they had time to cement this fake relationship and ground rules


The next few days Kara and Mon-El made a point to be seen together at least once a day by people at her office. Kara to her surprise found herself enjoying the time they spent together, this resulted in teasing from Winn and Alex. They both found the whole situation highly amusing, Kara was painfully bad at dating normally, pretend dating with an Alien who didn't really understand Earth was funnier.

It was the night before the Party, and they were sat in Kara's apartment, on the sofa. She was cuddled up to him again, she wasn't sure why, they just seemed to be cuddled up a lot of the time. He was stroking her hair softly with his thumb as they watched a film with cartoon dragons and Vikings. He was chuckling and smiling and they were chatting about the dragons they played with on their home planets. How he had a pet dragon as a child and used to fly on it, and how it looked just like Toothless. She looked up at him and smiled, "Mon-El" she nearly whisper, he turned his gaze to meet hers.

"Yes" they paused for a second his grey eyes locked on to her light blue eyes. Time almost stood still.

"Do you think we will be friends after this?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" he questioned, stroking a strand of hair from her face, and smiling slightly.

"Maybe because I've got used to this, and when you don't have to be my boyfriend anymore this will stop" She felt very sad about losing his companionship.

"Our relationship has always been on your terms" He smiled, "If we are not friends it because you decide we are not friends. Kara I respect you a lot everything you do, the way you have connected to the people of this planet. It's inspiring. But I also understand how you feel about Daxam, and how you feel about the Royal family. My family" his voice cracked a little as he answered her.

"Ok" she said in a slightly disconnected tone. Half her head screamed at her to stop being difficult. He may be Daxamite Royalty but he didn't act like the horror stories she heard. The other half whispered he was putting on the charm to get into her pants. She stared at him a while longer unsure which voice would win out. They held eye contact. The air tensed between them. The uncomfortable feeling when you think you are both about to kiss but not sure if you are reading the signs wrong. Her stomach flipped as she glanced at his lips, then back to those every changing grey eyes. Silencing most of the doubt she glanced at his lips and moved in for a kiss.

He moved to stand, breaking the moment and nearly sending her flying, clearly she misread the situation. Or at least she felt she had. She was dismayed.

"Sorry I didn't notice the time, my shift starts in 15 minutes" He grabbed his jacket from the chair, a little too urgently, and jumped out of the window. Kara watched as he vanished wondering if this pretend relationship was clouding things. Hoping it was only the false relationship was confusing her feelings. She really didn't want to have feelings for him. That would be too messy.


So the day of the party arrived, Kara was nervous, her recent lunch dates had eased the looks of pity that were sent her way every time James was near. Now she just had to get through the party. Then hopefully, she would have publically put to rest the ghost of her relationship with James. She could move on. Date anyone she wanted, the world was her oyster. That was scary, where to start looking. There was no hurry, just the freedom from pity.

She was at the DEO, sat on one of the seats based at a monitor that wasn't being used. She was watching J'onn Winn and Mon-El talking about how to communicate with an alien race who were close to Earth air space. They didn't speak English, Mon-El was rusty on their language and Winn was insisting he would learn it, to the horror of J'onn.

She chuckled slightly when Winn learnt Kryptonian he had spent a while very passionately reassuring her that he was a beetroot. He was meant to tell her that he meant no harm. She smiled slightly at the memory of Mon-El trying to teach him her language and mouthing I'm sorry at her as Winn carried on earnestly sprouting gibberish at her.

"Having second thoughts?" Alex appeared behind her, causing her to jump.

"No" lied Kara

"You like him" Alex stated in her big sister tone.

"What?" Kara was shocked at the suggestion.

"Mon-El, you like him" Alex reiterated. There was a confidence in her voice to clarify.

"No I don't" she protested but felt a lot less sure than she sounded.

"I believe you," Alex scoffed "but you have been watching him for 20 minutes now" her sisterly teasing meant she got away with quizzing Kara.

"I don't dislike him" she turned to Alex, "Do you think he will be ok today? There will be a lot of people around, what if he starts talking about Daxam or using his powers?"

"Give him some credit. As goofy as he is around us, he's a seasoned diplomate, brought up to talk to other races. What are you really worried about?"

Kara looked at her sister sadly. "I guess I'm not ready for it to be over"

"What do you mean?"

"Just, I don't want to go back to just training and not talking, I like watching films with him, and he can cook really well, you need to taste his cookies" There was affection in her voice.

"Kara this is going to be radical and out there, but talk to him. I mean you will upset Winn, who is already complaining that with you stealing his 'Bro'. He's had to live on takeaways and make his own lunch, (no idea what their domestic set up is,) but Winn is not happy with you." Kara laughed, Winn did like to be looked after. If it wasn't Alex and J'onn caring for him he now had a roommate who made his lunch.

Kara stood up and made her way to Mon-El, "Hey can I have a word?" she asked quietly standing next to him, bumping shoulders with him.

"Oh no you don't!" demanded Winn, "You have had him all this week, and you get him this evening. He's mine this afternoon. We have a fifa session planned" Alex laughed, Mon-El shook his head.

"Guys before you fight over me, I'm getting some sleep" Mon-El chuckled. "I only had 2 hours sleep last night and Daxamites need sleep as much as humans, or Kryptonians" he shot her a glance for a second she swore it was slightly flirty. "Sorry Kara, Winn and I need some 'us' time" he smirked at the ridiculous situation of Winn getting bossy. "Are we finished?" J'onn nodded, "Catch up with you later, Kara I promise, I'm all yours tonight" he zoomed away, and everyone looked at Kara.

"What did you do?" Winn asked looking accusingly at Kara, who shrugged totally at a loss as to his reactions, she moved to go after him, J'onn grabbed her arm, and indicated that she should follow him.

In a quiet room J'onn turned to look at Kara, sternly, he always made people unsettled with his cross look. "Whatever is going on with you two fix it." He wasn't sugar coating anything.

"But I don't know what is going on!" she almost stuttered, "I like him, I thought we were friends, we hang out, we watch films." She suddenly felt overly defensive.

"Ok, well the DEO could benefit from having an additional super-powered field agent. SuperGirl working with a Daxamite would send a message of hope for compromise to our extra-terrestrial brethren. Remember that when you are playing mind games with him" J'onn walked off, leaving a confused Kara stood alone. Mind games, she would never play mind games.