Lena casts a silent glance around the room. It looks, for all intent and purposes, like something's exploded in it ; but it's just her family. There is food on every available surface, clothes, drenched from the rain, drying beneath every window, and Alex lies on the couch, her head on Kelly's lap and her feet on Sam's, an ice pack pressed to the massive bruise on the side of her face. Brainy is busy explaining the apparently complex mechanics of Mario Kart to one of Ruby's friend, Lee, polite and unsuspecting, while Ruby tries not to cackle loudly a few feet away from them, and Nia is busy arguing with the pizza place on the phone. Only Kara is missing, but she's not far, only upstairs trying to remove rainbow coloured goo from her hair, the only damage she sustained from her latest Supergirl endeavour, a party at the Children's Hospital.
"The pizza's on its way," Nia says, letting her phone clatter on the coffee table after she's hung up, "and we're getting a discount."
Upstairs, the water stops running. Lena briefly closes her eyes, pictures Kara stepping out of the shower, god-like, water trickling down her naked body. When she opens them again, Alex is groaning and pouting exaggeratedly.
"I'm huungry."
"There's food everywhere baby," Sam says, softly running her thumb up and down her ankle.
"I want pizza."
Kelly leans towards Sam, conspiratorial. "Is there such a thing as pre-pregnancy cravings ?"
"I can hear you," Alex snuffs, "and you better not answer this question." She wiggles her finger shakily in Sam's direction then continues ; "you ate nothing but pink marshmallows during your second trimester."
"That's not true."
"You attacked me because I bought the wrong brand," Alex huffs.
"That's not-" Sam begins, "okay. That's a little bit true. But you are not pregnant yet."
"I'm injured," Alex whines, then quieter, she adds, "God, we're gonna have a baby."
Lena hides her smile behind her glass and chuckles to herself. Alex sounds loopy from the medication, but to be fair, she did hit her head pretty hard when she got the phone call from the hospital confirming that her and Kelly's eggs are compatible and they can start the process as soon as next month. Lena feels like the occasion calls for some sort of congratulation, a generic saying or another, but telling them they'll be great mums seems redundant when they already are, all three of them ; Ruby is the most thriving kid she's ever seen.
Kara bounces down the stairs just then, cutting her sister's spectacle short. Her hair is wet from her shower, and she's changed out of her suit and into grey sweatpants and a worn blue flannel shirt ; Lena's brain short-circuits at the sight. Kara makes an immediate beeline for her, grabbing a beer on her way and twisting the cap off before she's even reached the couch. She sags against the cushions, sighs, and wordlessly motions for Lena to come closer so they can cuddle ; Lena doesn't need to be invited twice. Alex makes a face at her when she buries against Kara's side, face tucked in the crook of her neck, but it could also be because she's removed her glasses and can't see them properly.
"Long day ?"
Kara hums quietly, takes a sip of her beer. "I'm knackered. But happy." She pauses, lifts her bottle to her lips again and hesitates. "Is it weird that I'm just glad people like me again ?"
"It's not," Lena reassures softly. "Not at all."
She thinks about the newspaper clipping, stuck to their new fridge in their new kitchen of Kara's first Alien of National City interview after the fallout, she remembers Cat Grant calling to tell her how proud she is of her, and she has memorised, by heart, all the footage of Kara in her supersuit helping rebuild what Lex made her destroy, like the picture that now hangs in their entryway of Supergirl sharing a water bottle with a volunteer, a safety helmet resting lopsided on her head.
"You're doing so much good," she whispers just for her, "it's okay to want a little love in return."
Kara smiles softly, eyes crinkling in happiness, but just when she's about to lean in for a short kiss, a crisp hits her straight in the forehead.
"Hey !"
"Stop being gross," Nia says, "the pizza guy is here and I'm not rich."
Kara makes a rude gesture and kisses her anyway, and Lena allows herself to melt into the kiss for a few second, tasting the sharp beer on her lips, before she gets up and goes hunt for her credit card.
The rest of the night doesn't deviate much from this. Sam and Kara compete to gauge who can eat more pizza. Kara wins, but then proceeds to lose spectacularly at Monopoly because she's drunk too much and insists on "redistributing her wealth." Alex falls asleep mid-game and rolls off the couch, startling everyone into near cardiac arrest. Ruby and Lee fail at inconspicuously holding hands under the coffee table. Brainy breaks out the karaoke machine and leads Nia into an infernal duet. It's a mess, but tucked into Kara's side, body and soul vibrating with her every time she laughs, Lena is okay, content.
They'll clean everything up in the morning and do it all over next week and Lena is assured to find Kara doing the dishes in their kitchen that is still yellow because it's a happy colour, and maybe Alex will have a new gash on her head from hero shenanigans, and she might have to tune Kara's prosthetic again because she'll have punched the big gooey alien of the week a little too hard, but it's okay, she thinks. Everything is okay now.
And she knows, she does, that it's a simplistic and silly way to put things, but in this moment, when Kara lifts her hand to kiss her knuckles and she smells of ozone and lavender, and Alex is smiling crookedly and Sam is laughing at a joke Kelly made, Lena knows no other way to put it. Because sorrow, and pain, and fear, and anger, are temporary, and they made it through ; they are okay.