Alex had met Sara Brunson in college. They had many classes together over the years and had stayed in touch after college. Sara ended up becoming a therapist and mainly dealt with couples but also specialized with individuals who had dealt with trauma and grief. Alex had spent the next day after Kara and her talked looking into Sara and found nothing concerning in her file. Alex knew she could trust Sara with her life and because of that she trusted her with Kara's real identity. The next morning, she woke up and pulled out her phone to place a call to Sara. Alex knew that Sara had just recently moved to the city but the two hadn't had a chance to meet up yet.
"Hey Sara, this is Alex. I had a question for you," Alex said as she sat down in her office at the DEO. She had talked to J'onn and he had approved to bring Sara here and pay her if she agreed to come in and help.
"Hey Alex, it's been awhile! We need to get together soon and grab lunch, but what is it that you wanted to ask me?" Sara replied.
"So, I have sort of favor to ask of you, but I was wondering what your schedule was like in terms of work right now?" Alex asked as she flipped through her paperwork on her desk.
"I actually am sort of open in my schedule for the next few months. I lightened my client load this year to spend some more time with my family," Sara responded.
"Alright well I wanted to see if you had any interest in picking up another client," Alex said.
"Are you and Maggie doing alright?" Sara asked thinking that Alex was talking about herself.
"Yeah we are doing really well. I was actually asking for my sister Kara. Her and her wife Lena are having some issues and I didn't really trust anyone but you to help out. The case needs to be really confidential, but I was wondering if you had some time today to come into my office and talk about it," Alex said as she didn't want to discuss this over the phone.
"Oh yeah, I remember you used to always tell me about your sister. I can come by in about an hour if that works for you," Sara said as she checked her watch.
"Yeah that would work. Look the place I work is pretty high security so when you get here just let them know you are meeting me, and I will come out and get you," Alex said as she finished talking to Sara and hung up her phone. Alex spent the next hour filling out paperwork and was just about to get up when she heard a knock at her door. She saw J'onn standing outside of it with Sara and waved her in. Sara thanked J'onn and walked in hugging Alex before they both sat down on her couch.
"Alright so you said it was a pretty confidential case, is that right?" Sara said as she looked at Alex.
"Yeah so for a couple reasons. First off as you know Kara's wife is Lena Luthor. Obviously, her name carries a lot of weight with who her family is. However, the more pressing matter is that Kara needs to feel like she can be completely honest if her and Lena are going to do therapy. In order to do that I need to tell you something about Kara. So, as you know we adopted her when she was younger, but you don't know the real reason. I told you her parents died in a house fire but that wasn't completely honest. Her parents did die but it was because her whole planet exploded," Alex said as she saw the confusion then understanding appear on Sara's face.
"She's Supergirl isn't she," Sara said as she suddenly understood everything and why Alex had called her in. She had seen pictures of Kara and after Alex had said her planet was destroyed, she made the connection.
"Yes, she is. Obviously, you can see why I was limited in options about who I could ask for help. Sara, I trust you and because of that Kara trusts you as well. I know you wanted more time to spend with your family, but it would mean a lot to me if you would agree to see them," Alex said as she waited for Sara's reaction.
"Alex of course I will meet with them. I wouldn't have gotten through college had it not been for you and you can trust that I will keep her secret. Why don't you give me Kara's number and I will call her later and see if we can set up an appointment," Sara said as she pulled out her phone to give to Alex to enter Kara's number.
"Sara, thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me. It might be better if you do the appointments at their apartment just to keep things under wraps," Alex said as Sara nodded her head.
"Of course, I can do that. I will give Kara a call later and talk to her and hopefully we can set something up this week," Sara said as she talked to Alex for a few more minutes before she headed back to her office.
00000
Kara had spoken to Sara on the phone and had set up their first appointment for Saturday morning. Kara and Lena both got up early so they could get showers and get ready for the day. They heard a knock at their door around 9am and Kara went to answer it. She saw a woman around Alex's age with blonde hair that she recognized from pictures. She stood aside and opened the door more to let Sara in.
"Hey, you must be Sara come on in. I'm Kara and this is my wife Lena," Kara said as she pointed to her wife who was standing in the kitchen. Sara walked in and introduced herself to both women before they moved into the living room. Lena and Kara sat down on the couch as Sara sat in a big chair across from them. Kara and Lena had quite a bit of space between them on the couch as both were nervous and things were still tense between them. Sara pulled out a notepad and a pen and looked back up at the two women across from her.
"Alright so I just want to start out by telling you that everything you say here is between the three of us. I will not tell any of this to anyone including Alex. Also, I want both of you to know that this is a safe place. I want both of you to feel free to share your honest feeling. Even if you are worried you might hurt each other's feelings it is most important that we get everything out in the open. Lastly if there is something that you don't feel comfortable talking about don't feel like you have to. You don't have to answer any questions that you don't want to," Sara finished as both women nodded their heads that they understood everything. "Alright so to start can one of you tell me how long you have been together and how long you have been married for," Sara asked.
"Sure, we have been married for three years and together for about five years," Lena replied as Sara scribbled something down on her notepad.
"Alright and when did the big problems start in your relationship?" Sara asked as she looked back up.
"I would say a few months ago but I am not totally sure," Kara said as she looked at Sara.
"Alright thank you. To start out I just want each of you to write down what you want to get out of this experience. I am going to take both of them from you and we won't talk about them right away but will eventually," Sara said as she handed both of them a piece of paper and gave them a few minutes to write down their answers and then they both handed them back to Sara. She grabbed the papers and put them in her folder. She looked back up and noticed how tense and nervous both women looked sitting on the couch. She saw the distance between them on the couch as well and knew she had a lot of work ahead of her.
"Alright so I don't want to get really in depth today since it is our first session, but I just want to know what was the incident that led you to realizing something was wrong," Sara said as she looked at Lena shifting around on the couch.
"Umm I guess it was a few days ago. Kara had gotten injured as Supergirl and didn't tell me about it at all. That was something that she used to always tell me about right away and I think that night was the first time both of us realized how bad things had gotten and how far we had let things go," Lena said.
"Yeah we got in a fight after that and I ended up leaving during the fight and spent the night with Alex. I mean we have barely been talking during the past couple months and have both been working a lot. Even when we are home though we usually really didn't talk to each other," Kara said as Sara nodded her head.
"Alright so I know both of you have really busy lives which obviously will cause some strain on your relationship, but it sounds like there is a chance that you might have started using work as an excuse as to why you two started drifting apart. Is that possible?" Sara said as she saw Kara look down. They both stayed silent. Alex had told Sara that both women were closed off and she realized at this point how right Alex was. Sensing this was something that both women wanted to avoid talking about for now she decided to move on from that topic.
"Alright so I know that both of you have had difficult lives growing up and I wanted to see if either of you wanted to talk about your past," Sara said not sure how either women would respond.
"No offense but isn't this supposed to be about us as a couple and not about our childhoods," Lena said defensively as she didn't want to get into her past with a woman she had never met.
"It's true that this is about you as a couple but you both have to understand that the two of you as individuals combined is what makes you a couple. You would be surprised about how much a person's childhood can impact their relationships when they grow up. Look I said at the beginning that I wasn't going to force either of you to talk about anything that you didn't want to, but you also need to understand that the only way I can help you is if you both open up and let yourselves be vulnerable. The choice is yours but if you really want this to work, I suggest that you give it a shot and see what happens," Sara said as she watched both women look at her with intensity in their eyes. Kara nodded her head and cleared her throat before she began speaking.
"I guess I can start. I was adopted by the Danvers when I was 13. It was hard at first adjusting to a new world and a new family but over time I started to feel more comfortable with them and more comfortable on this planet. Jeremiah and Eliza treated me like their own daughter and Alex became my sister. I definitely got lucky that Clark put me with them," Kara said before Lena suddenly interrupted her.
"You mean abandoned you with them," Lena said with anger in her voice. She and Clark had gotten along pretty well but she hated that Kara never seemed to understand that Clark just left her with strangers as soon as she arrived onto Earth.
"Alright Lena why don't we let Kara finish talking," Sara said as she made a note to revisit that topic later on. Sara nodded her head for Kara to continue talking.
"Umm, so I guess I felt lucky to have been put with such great people because I know that it could have gone differently had I not ended up with them," Kara said nervously as she finished talking.
"Alright Kara thank you for sharing. Now I am curious why when I asked you to talk about your childhood you went right to when you arrived on Earth and not before that," Sara said as she noticed Kara's body tense up. She also noticed how Lena seemed to be worried for her wife before Kara started speaking.
"Look I know that I need to open up and stuff for this to work but I don't want to talk about Krypton or anything involving that," Kara said with a bit of sadness and anger to her tone. Sara knew enough to not push the girl on their first day, so she backed off. She turned towards Lena who was still looking at her wife before she turned and saw Sara staring at her.
"What do you want me to say. I mean I was adopted by the Luthors, Lex went crazy and went to prison and my mom followed him not too long after," Lena said as she kept her face clear of any emotions.
"I mean that must have been hard for you to really never have a family unit growing up," Sara said as she waited for Lena's reaction.
"I guess but that is just how life is sometimes. I don't talk with any of them so there is really no need to get into any of that," Lena said as she tried to keep the anger in her voice in check.
"Alright, I want to ask if the two of you ever really open up with each other about your pasts and your childhood," Sara asked even though she knew what the answer might be.
"I mean we don't go around sharing sob stories with each other, but we know enough," Lena said as she was starting to regret agreeing to do these therapy sessions. This woman sitting across from her didn't know anything about how hard her or Kara's lives were and Lena didn't like that she kept trying to act as if she did.
"Alright well we are almost up with our time for today, but I wanted to give you two some homework to do before our next session. What I want is for both of you to share one memory you have from when you were growing up. It can be something really simple and I don't even need to hear what it was, but it is important that you do this before the next time we talk," Sara said as she waited for both women to nod their heads before she got up and walked out the door. She knew as soon as she left that this was going to be one of her hardest cases yet. She was only with those two women for an hour but could tell that they were both deeply hurt by their pasts and had a lot of baggage that was weighing down their marriage.
000
After Sara had left both Lena and Kara had been pretty quiet. Lena knew that her wife had shut down ever since Sara had brought up Krypton. Lena really didn't know much about Kara's life before she came to Earth, but she knew better than to ask. Lena was pretty sure that Alex didn't know a lot either and that was saying a lot since she tended to know everything about Kara. Lena kept an eye on her wife for the next couple hours wanting to make sure she was okay. Kara mostly kept to herself but after a few hours she came and sat down next to Lena on the couch and both of them watched tv in silence. Lena waited for 30 minutes before she reached her hand over to her wife's and held it tightly. She heard Kara sniffle quietly and knew that she was crying. Not wanting to make Kara feel uncomfortable she just continued to hold her hand and rub her circles on her back until the tears stopped. Neither of them needed to say a word to each other to know what was going on and Lena was grateful that they could still do that even with how disconnected they had been the past few months. They sat like that for a while longer until Kara spoke up.
"Hey, do you want to get out of here and get some air," Kara said as Lena nodded her head and they two stood up and got their shoes on before they walked out onto the street. It was nearing sunset now and the two walked in mostly silence around the park by their house before they stopped and got some ice cream and eventually headed back into their home.
"So, what do you think about Sara?" Kara asked as the two sat down on the couch.
"I think that she is a bit noisy and pushy," Lena replied, and Kara softly laughed.
"I kind of felt that way too. I mean I know she has a job to do but I felt like she just kept pushing us to talk about stuff that we really didn't want to," Kara replied and saw her wife smile back at her.
The two continued to talk about their dislike for Sara for the next hour. For the first time in a long time they were just talking without any disagreement or uncomfortable pauses. Things still weren't great but both of them went to bed feeling closer than they had in months.
