When they had planned the wedding, Kara and Alex taken it upon themselves to find the safest venue for the party afterwards, leaving Lena to ultimately pick the venue for the wedding itself. That being said, it was Alex who found this venue and when she explained to Kara that a nearby hotel was shut down for major renovations Kara understood what her sister was suggesting. The majority of the work was being done to the guest rooms, but their ballroom had been the first thing to be updated and finalized. Alex had thrown her badge around a bit to get the manager to consider them using the space. Then when that failed, Alex did something she swore she would never do: she threw Lena's name out to see if that would pull the string. And in a sense it did, but it wasn't Lena's name that got him to agree to allow the party before the hotel was open; it was Kara's. The manager had read the article Kara had written about the Holocaust survivor and was moved by the piece, having already been a fan of Kara's work. He quickly offered Alex the space and whatever assurances she needed to keep the names of those involved out of the press.
The end result was more than Alex expected and was more than Kara ever dared hope for. The ballroom was stunning and offered them more room than they would ever need, but this allowed for a large dance floor, a full bar and plenty of room for the guests to mingle and enjoy the party. They had set up a table for Lena and Kara to sit at, allowing Alex to sit with her mother and girlfriend, along with Cat. Before food was served everyone mingled and Lena had been talking to Jess, only to find her way over to the bar. While the bartender poured her drink she felt someone stand next to her and she wasn't surprised to see it was Alex.
"That was something else you pulled off with the star maps. I don't think I have ever seen her that happy."
"I was glad to do it. Not anything close to getting her home back, but it was the best I could do given the circumstances."
"Oh come off it Lena, even you have to realize what you gave her was something no one else has ever been able to give her. My dad tried to find it with Clark's help. I tried to find it with more technology than my father could have ever dreamt of and we never even got close to the right system. You did that and as a wedding present I will admit in public that you did something that I couldn't do."
"Alexandra Danvers admitting that she fell short on a mission: a rare moment indeed." Alex elbowed the bride gently and they both laughed as the bartender handed Lena her drink.
"I know what it meant to her so trust me I know I pulled off something that before had been impossible. Still, I guess in my head it wasn't anything Kara wouldn't have done for me."
"Yeah there isn't much my sister wouldn't do for you. In fact, I am not sure such a thing exists: you are both so freakin helplessly in love with each other." The bartender handed Alex a beer and they both turned around to see Kara chatting with Cat.
"There are worse things Alex." Alex and to give her that point: being in love at the level Kara and Lena were wasn't a bad thing at all; everyone should be so lucky.
"Fair enough. Well, we should go eat I suppose or Kara is gonna be grumpy soon." Lena knew this to be true so she quickly joined Kara by slipping behind her and wrapping her arms around her waist and resting her head on her shoulder.
"I hate to interrupt, but Alex suggested we let them feed us soon so we avoid National City's hero becoming hangry." Lena punctuated her sentence with a quick kiss to Kara neck which made the blonde giggle and made Cat roll her eyes.
"Christ, you two are worse than I was after my second marriage. For god sake Kara I taught you better than to giggle like that in public." Lena smirked and kissed her wife's neck again, just to mess with Cat.
"You called Kara the right name. Must be because it's a special occasion." Cat waved her hand dismissively, "it won't happen again I assure you. Now please let's eat. Kara become positively insufferable when she is hungry." In an effort to avoid a grumpy Kara, food was served quickly once the couple sat down and for about 30 minutes everyone seemed to be perfectly content to just relax and enjoy their food. Kara appeared to perk up with more energy after being fed and she asked Lena multiple times when they would have dessert. Lena promised that once Alex made her speech and they had their dance, that it would then be time for cake. Alex seemed to be painfully aware of what time it was because she was speaking to the DJ as he handed her the microphone.
"Hi, everyone. I am gonna steal your attention for a quick minute and even though this is a small party I don't feel like projecting my voice so I will be using this mic regardless of how many of you there are. When I started writing this speech I thought about writing two separate ones: one to focus on Kara and one to focus on Lena. But that seemed to go against what we are here today to celebrate so what I ended up with and what you all have to endure because I have a microphone is a combined speech. It is no real secret that when Kara came to live with us, I was, less than enthused about having a sister. I didn't want to share my parents, my room, my life with some random person who literally showed up on our porch one day. It wasn't because Kara isn't loveable or that she was somehow less of a bundle of sunlight back then. I was just being a brat: I didn't want to share what I felt was mine. Of course over time things changed and I fell in love with Kara's personality just like everyone in this room has done. I felt that pull to protect her and be a big sister to her and that bratty attitude was replaced with a very committed dedication to protecting my sister from the nasty things this world has to offer. I had sort of hoped I could protect her forever and let her live a somewhat average life. Of course, that is not what happened and in a twist, she ended up saving me which allowed her to embrace the person she had always been, but who we had begged her to hide away. I will always feel a little guilty for asking her to hide that part of herself, because it wasn't fair, it was more than a little selfish and all these years later I can attest that hiding any part of who you are sucks and I wish more than anything I could give Kara that time back, but since I cannot do that, I am hell bent on making sure that the rest of her life gives her all the room she could want in which to be herself."
"Now in wanting to give Kara space to be herself, whatever form that took, meant swallowing some things that as a big sister I was not wild about. It meant not standing in her way when she wanted to embrace her family heritage, it meant being her boss as work, but not accidently being her sister at work and it meant being the quiet supporter of the girl who had filled that role for me our whole lives. What I was not prepared for and what I was most shocked by was that I never thought I was going to have to invite the enemy to dinner. Ouch! Jeez Kara that hurt." Alex turned her head to see Kara getting a little fired up and reaching for her other shoe, the first one having hit Alex between her shoulders. Alex watched as Lena put her hand over Kara's and whispered something soothing in her sister's ear, causing her sister to drop the shoe in her hand and relax her shoulders. Lena turned back to Alex and nodded for her to continue.
"See in all fairness, I deserved that shoe to the back. However, if Kara had let me finish…everyone here knows that contrary to popular belief: the last name Luthor is not synonymous with evil. When I say I deserved that show that Kara threw it is because back when I first found out they were dating, I reacted badly. I said things with the intention of them hurting. I said things I KNEW would cut to the core of Lena's heart and would make Kara mad at me. I did everything I could to shame my sister into making some other choice because I, like many people, believed only what I had read. I saw the name Luthor and assumed Kara was in danger and over my dead body would someone hurt Kara. What I did not realize right away was that once again I was demanding that my sister hide part of who she is to make me feel better. It had nothing to do with Lena being a woman, clearly. I saw danger when I looked at Lena and I swore to keep Kara safe from danger. What I had not planned on, was that I could be so very very wrong about this situation and about Lena. The night I learned they were dating, I said some of the meanest things I could to Lena and she just stood there and took it. She didn't fight me and she held Kara back from fighting me on her behalf. She instead stood in front of me and told me that if I wanted to attack her to get on with it. This of course made me look like the biggest asshole alive. I, of course, was not willing to admit this, instead I told Kara to bring Lena to the office first thing the next day."
"When we got there the next day, I sent Kara to train and she begged me not to do what I was about to do. Lena called her off and said that this had to happen. Kara, true to form, allowed Lena the chance to prove herself and as she walked away she told me that if I ever loved her at all I would realize that I did not need to do this, that Kara could love both me and Lena. It was one of the few times Kara ever spoke with no emotion in her voice and it is so scary when she does that. In that moment, I knew…I knew that if I forced Kara to choose between me and Lena, she would pick Lena and it would be no one's fault but my own. So I put myself and Lena in a training room and I tried to punch her, I tried to get her to punch me back. I insulted her, her family, almost everything else I could think of and all she did was duck my punches or block them. She took A LOT of abuse from me and she never fought back, until I said something against Kara. I ended up saying a lot of things about Kara, none of which were true and I did not mean a single word of it, I was just trying to make her mad. It worked. She punched me harder than I ever remember being hit and then while I was shocked she pinned me to the wall and with tears running down her face she defended my sister's honor when my sister was nowhere to be seen. She got in my face, screaming about how wrong I was, about how much she loved my sister and how I had no idea that pain my sister carries with her always. There was no big bad CEO, there was no Luthor legacy, there was no intimidation present in that room. Lena Luthor had me by my neck against a wall and behind all the tears running down her face I saw the same pain I know Kara has. The pain of having lost everything you thought meant something to you and finally, after what felt like forever, finding someone who knows that pain and wants to shoulder the burden with you. I never wanted to be the person who made Kara's pain worse or add to the pain she holds, but that is what I did that day."
"I learned everything I needed to know about Lena that day. I learned that I did not need to protect Kara 24/7 anymore, because I was not the only person who wanted that job. Someone else wanted it and was ready to defend Kara, even if that meant decking her big sister. Over the last few months I tried to write down things I know or have learned about Lena, but it did not seem like this was my place to share those things about her. Instead, I would like to focus on one of the beigest things I noticed in the time my sister and Lena have been together." Alex turned her back towards the small group of guests and looked at Lena.
"When our dad died, she stopped singing, which is a shame because she has a stunning voice. She stopped singing when he died and then one day when she was making popcorn for movie night, I heard it. For the first time in YEARS, I heard her singing in her kitchen. It was only a few bars of a song, but I heard it. Then two weeks later, she had to shower at my place because her water heater was broken and I heard it again. This time she sang the whole damn song. I didn't know why she was singing, but I knew it was because she felt happy. And months alter when I knew when you had started dating I could piece things together. That night I heard her singing in the kitchen was the night you asked her out on a date after everyone had left work for the night. The day she sang in the shower, was three days after she returned the gesture and asked you out: only to fly you to another country for the date. And now: she sometimes still hides when she sings, except of course, if you are playing the piano. If you play, she will sing, its like she can't stop herself. And maybe to everyone here, this seems dumb, but let me tell you something that other people in this room don't understand because they aren't us. I HATE it when Kara is quiet, and I know you hate it when Kara is quiet." Lena nodded her head to acknowledge that Alex was correct.
"Why do we hate it when she gets quiet?" Alex held the mic close to Lena and the heiress swallowed her tears and answered simply. "Because it means she is sad."
Alex nodded and turned back to the guest, "because it means she is sad. Losing her home caused her to be quiet, and then our dad died and I didn't hear her sing for years. Sure she talked, but she was never the same. Then out of nowhere, there she was, singing again like she had never stopped." Alex looked back at Lena, "when she stopped singing my heart broke harder for her and after a few years I was certain I would, we would, never hear her sing again. Then you asked her out on a date. Because of you, she isn't quiet anymore. And there is nothing on this, or any planet I can give you to thank you for that. So let me make this very clear: I never once hated you, I was scared for Kara and I let that blind my reason and for that I am sorry. I never hated you and I never can because, yes, you make her happy and you love her all that, but what matters to me and what I will always love you for is that even when I was giving you 1000 reasons to leave, you didn't. You didn't leave, you stayed, you fought for her, and because of that, everyone in this room gets to hear her sing at holiday parties, at karaoke nights and one day I bet you'll get to hear her sing to your kids. So, thank you, because I hate it when she is quiet and when she is around you, she never shuts up. Lucky us."
Alex grabbed her bottle of beer of the table and raised it above her head and everyone around the room followed suit. "So I would like to propose a toast to my sister and my sister in law. When Kara is quiet she is sad and when Lena is quiet she is usually scared or angry. In any event, I hope your lives together are loud and I hope more than anything else that we all get to hear every single moment of it. To Kara and Lena." This was met with echoes of the toast and just as Alex put her beer down she felt like she was being tackled by a line-backer. Kara had, of course, wrapped her sister in a tight hug and was only barely allowing Alex room to breathe.
Alex returned the hug and offered Kara a quick kiss on her forehead before she was released from her sister's arms. Of course, right behind Kara, Lena stood with eyes full to the brim with tears and playing with her hands. Alex knew that Lena would likely never reach out for a hug herself, so Alex held out her hand to her sister's bride. "Come here kid." Lena sort of fell into Alex and instantly Alex felt her shoulder become more and more wet with Lena's held back tears. Kara backed off a few feet to give Alex and Lena space. She didn't ever like it when Lena cried, but she liked giving Alex and Lena opportunities to support each other and sometimes that meant letting Alex be the one to wipe away tears.
Lena eventually pulled away and tried to pull herself together, "that was a very lovely speech. I really appreciate how much work you must have put into it. I know Kara loved it too." Lena smiled and Alex nodded.
"Well, Kara has heard me say nice stuff about her most of her life, you deserved to get in on the party too. You both deserved that moment Lena and I was glad to give it to you."
Lena smiled, "well thank you. It was not ever something I really expected to have so I appreciate you taking the time to say all that about me and about Kara."
"Yeah, well I meant it Lena. She stopped doing a lot of things when dad died. Then she met you and little by little those things came back and I like this Kara better than quiet, sad Kara." Lena nodded, "I love any version of Kara, but her happy always makes me happier for sure. Anyway, we should get cake cut so Kara can get her sugar boost before we dance." Alex nodded and began to walk away, when Lena quickly leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek.
"Thanks again Alex." Lena walked away to join Kara and Alex smiled to herself.
"You're welcome kid."
