Something soft grazed Lena's stomach and the feather-light touch sent shivers down the inside of her pelvis. After remembering what they'd done last night—on the living room rug no less—Lena was almost sad to have to open her eyes to a new morning.

Although the sun had shined during Kara's absence, this morning was the first in which Lena felt the light. The pale rays slipped through the rustling curtains, bringing the scent of pine and leaves on the crisp air. Mornings were getting cooler, and normally that fact would renew Lena's grief, but she hadn't woken up cold and alone this morning.

Lena glanced down at her stomach where Kara's hand hung idly across her hip, fingertips barely touching her skin. She shifted so she could see Kara behind her, but her wife's face was buried in hair. Careful not to wake her, Lena turned, sweeping away an idle blonde strand from her face with a finger.

In sleep, Kara looked at peace. Not haunted, angry, or fearful. Peaceful.

And Lena would risk the world to allow Kara the gift of feeling that every time she slept. Perhaps that was a selfish thing to want, but after all Kara had done—not just for the people of National City, but the world—she sure as hell had the right to wish it for her. God knows Kara would be too selfless to wish such a thing for herself.

Lena smiled and stroked her wife's cheek. "Always the hero," she whispered.

"Until my last breath." Kara opened her eyes, a smirk playing on her lips.

Lena frowned.

"Super hearing, remember?"

"How could I ever forget?" Lena said, planting a soft kiss on Kara's top lip.

Kara returned Lena's frown, the semi-haunted look returning to those blue eyes. Her hand lifted, cupping Lena's jaw, her stare troubled.

Lena couldn't tell what thoughts were swimming behind those eyes, but she didn't let Kara think them alone. She held her wife's gaze, even as Kara's thumb, brushing back and forth along her cheekbone, grew more frantic.

"You're real," Kara whispered, nodding her head. As if that was to convince herself more than Lena. She licked her lips and nodded again. "You're real."

Lena pulled herself closer to Kara's body, let herself meld into her, feel her skin, her bones, her heartbeat. With both her hands, she clasped Kara's face and nodded right back. "I am real."

Kara closed her eyes. Breathed. After a minute of them just holding each other, she said, "On Krypton, we had something called Dream Walking. My Aunt Astra told me about it." She smiled, though the happiness in it was phantom. "When some dreamt, they had the ability to control their dreamscape and experience it as if they were awake."

"Like lucid dreaming."

Kara nodded. "Similar, yes. But Dream Walking was more. Once a person mastered walking in their own dreamscape, some were able to assist others in walking theirs." She shrugged, waving away a loose hair from her face. "Astra said it was achievable through meditation and prayer, and for the longest time I didn't believe it was possible.

I managed to Dream Walk once and it scared the hell out of me. It felt like I had woken up the next morning, but everything was not quite right. Colors were different, sounds were tangible, and even though Krypton was as beautiful as it had always been, it was…darker. Wrong, almost. I desperately wanted out. Luckily, Aunt Astra pulled me from my Dream Walk and back to reality, but I didn't believe her for nearly an hour. I thought she had been part of my dreamscape. Once she calmed me, we came up with a code of sorts. If I ever wished to Dream Walk again and I wasn't sure if I had woken up or not, I simply asked."

'Am I Walking?' I would ask her, and Aunt Astra would reply with, 'You've run off, it seems.'" The ghost of a smile bloomed on Kara's lips. "If she said that, then I knew I was back home, in my bed, safe from my dreamscape."

"Why was your dreamscape horrible?"

Kara shrugged. "I'm not sure. I tried to research Dream Walking after that, but there wasn't much on it in our archives. The little I found vaguely mentioned that unresolved fear or trauma could influence one's dreamscape. How, it didn't say."

Lena watched the glaze of remembrance fade from Kara's eyes, along with the pain, anger, and love for her aunt. Her own mind had never been manipulated. She'd never even used recreational drugs or hallucinated from anesthesia. She couldn't imagine being taken advantage of in such a way that she eventually began to question which of her worlds was reality and which had been fabricated.

"Sud-Aletheia—" Lena began.

"He tried to convince me of many things," Kara said, her voice soft, but firm. "Not at first, though. He used brute force at first. Peeled back layers of my mind like pages in a book."

Lena squeezed Kara's hand, hoping to provide some sort of comfort, even as her stomach twisted.

"At first, I tried to create walls around my mind to keep him out, but everything he did broke through them." She exhaled. "I decided to fight fire with fire. He wanted to try and manipulate me into revealing my mind, so I gave him what he wanted. I just changed the narrative a little bit. I fed him memories I had fabricated, ones which I convinced him I was trying so hard to not let go.

For a while, it worked. But he caught on. Whatever he was looking for—" Kara sighed. "He realized it wasn't part of the memories I had given him. So he flipped my tactic back on me. He altered the bits in my head until I couldn't tell my own memories from his. My mind became so…screwed up that I no longer knew if I had woken from another chemical-filled nightmare or if he still had me prone with my mind open to his hand."

"God, Kara," Lena breathed.

"I still don't know what he was looking for." She leaned her brow against Lena's. "But it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters but you."

Lena chuckled. "Except you haven't contacted Alex yet."

Kara flopped back against her pillow, a hand over her face. "Oh, Rau. I completely forgot. She's going to kill me."

Lena slid her hands under Kara's back and pulled herself on top of her. "I think she'll probably forgive you once she sees you. Besides, we both got a little carried away last night."

Kara bit her lip. "Several times."

Another chuckle rumbled in Lena's chest. "Why don't we get dressed and then fly over to Alex's?" She lowered her lips to Kara's, kissing her several times.

Kara nodded. The depths of her blue eyes swallowed Lena as if she were diving headfirst into a cresting wave. "There are moments when I still can't believe you're real."

Lena pressed one last kiss to her lips and then breathed, "Are you Walking?"

Kara smiled against Lena's mouth. "I've run off, it seems."