Kara.

That's the only way she can describe herself. A person from many places, living the ghosts of many lives and pursuing the things she isn't sure she deserves. A person called Kara.

Kara doesn't often know how to define herself. Does she do it by her morals? Her beliefs? Her actions? Perhaps it's a mixture of everything.

It's always been a conundrum, her unwavering desire to figure out who she is as a person and be able to come to terms with it, accept herself and potentially, even love herself.

Kara doesn't often love herself, barely even likes herself, but there are glimpses of times when her soul sits within her chest, perfectly content. Strangely enough, those times are when she is with one particular person. She finds herself in the presence of someone who is so different from her that her own edges are defined perfectly in the light of her close proximity and when they part, the lines become blurred once more.

Realistically, Kara knows it's not fair to use Lena as a crutch for finding herself, even if it isn't actively harming her, it still feels like she's putting too much responsibility on her as well as bringing up deep dreaded feelings regarding her own worth when she is demanding so much time with someone as wonderful and important as Lena Luthor.

There is no particular time that Kara can pinpoint, no particular day, nor season, nor year. Some days are just worse, she can go days or weeks without questioning her worth or her sense of self during a good period, even come to believe that she truly belongs within her own life, but when it's bad, it can be really bad.

Sometimes she spends days on end working just to come home and tear herself apart, praying that when she puts herself back together again, she'll be a different shape, something that more resembles a person than whatever form she tried the day before.

Then the cycle was broken.

It got absolutely shattered the day Lena asked her out to dinner one night, declaring their shared time together as a date.

Nights alone in misery and indistinct blurs turn into playful nights with a full heart and beaming clarity that she's never had before.

She loses all the time she used to have to tear herself to pieces and instead only has time to listen to Lena, her best friend turned girlfriend, as she stares deep into her eyes on early mornings and late nights to tell her how much she loves her.

There is one day in particular that changes everything. The day they come back from their honeymoon and Lena dumps her suitcase in the bedroom and flops onto the bed, tearful words tumbling out of her mouth. "I think I'm going to start therapy, to be the best person I can be for you and myself."

That was the first time Kara ever truly considered therapy, dealing with everything that she has been through and forming an idea of who she is outside of vigilante/journalist/wife. That was the day she finally asked for real help, allowed someone else to see the mess she stores behind her mask.

They book their appointments on separate days, being sure that they never overlap so there is always someone with a strong shoulder to cry on for when they get home and even now, three years later, they have never once overlapped appointments, never missed out on their duties of taking care of the woman they love more than anyone on this planet.

After decades here on Earth, after hundreds of hours of work with her therapist and endless vulnerable conversations with her wife, Kara can now firmly say who she is.

Her description is still the same as it has always been but now she can hear the difference when she says it, can feel the depth and consistency that lies beneath the syllables.

She is Kara, and Kara is everything she every was, is and will be, and she's fine with that.

Now, she can look at her wife and openly gaze at the beauty she is without feeling guilty or selfish for spending her life with her, for making her wife put up with being married with a mess, because now, while still a mess, she's a real person, one with capabilities for a real relationship and can give Lena all the love she could ever want and more.

Now she can be who she needs to be for herself and for Lena, and Lena can be same for her.

"You know, I wouldn't be half the person I am today without you." Kara blurts out one day, sat on the couch between Lena and their sleepy puppy, Krypto.

Lena looks up from her snuggled spot at Kara's side with doubt clouding in her eyes. "I think you would have gotten here on your own without the added little push I gave you."

"No, I wouldn't. You not only opened my eyes to what I needed but also gave me the space to save myself rather than flying in to try and save the day when I needed to do it by myself, there's nobody else that could have given me the levels of support I needed whilst doing that. It's one of the many things I love about you."

When Kara reflects on their relationship and their growth as a partnership and as separate people, she gets this proud little glint in her eye that Lena falls for every time, that glint is what keeps Lena going when her own struggles seem like too much and she can't go on much longer.

Together they have become better versions of themselves, and even the years they spent together before starting their own official journeys to bettering themselves were spent in better mental states than they had ever been before, the support they shared within the relationship became a natural crutch, one that has provided more groundwork for their futures.

"Well, I think you could have done it, but I'm really glad that I was there to see it all and be there with you. I'm really happy with everything we've done and can't wait to see where we'll be ten years from now because who knows what else we will do, but I do know that wherever we'll be, it will be together." Lena mutters, earnest and warm.

"You're my greatest love, Lena Luthor."

Lena takes Kara's lips between her own, pressing herself into her with a tender intensity. "You're my greatest treasure."