Lena watches through the window, her hand warm where she is holding her tea cup. Her eyes flick across the figure of her wife wading through piles of leaves in their garden, a little girl excitedly clapping as she sits on Kara's shoulders.
The heat in her hand is nothing compared to that in her heart. In all honesty, she never really believed that she would have this; a happy family who does things like have Easter egg hunts and gathers leaves to preserve for craft days.
It's truly magical and it fulfils every wish that she ever had growing up about what she wanted to have in her own family and all the things she missed out on by living with the Luthors, she gets to do now.
Kara reaches down periodically into the piles of leaves, handing particular ones up to Lori who then drops them into her little Disney princess tote bag.
Lena's unsure of how long she watches them for, but she grins down at them when she sees them making their way back, staring up at her and waving to her.
She stands from her window seat in the bedroom to head downstairs to meet them at the kitchen table, where Lori is already dumping out their treasure and holding them up to show her parents with a proud, toothy grin.
Lena takes her seat at the table on the other side of Lori, happy to tell her daughter how amazing the gathered leaves are and how she must have the eye of an artist, Kara agreeing with her immediately.
"I'm an artist like Jeju!" Lori says excitedly as she filters through the leaves on the table, trying to figure out which is her favourite.
Lena helps her, pointing out the ones she likes most and Kara, being the menace she is, points at different ones to try and convince Lori to take her side.
"We're the artists, aren't we? We can see this one is the best one." Kara places one particularly large leaf in front of her daughter.
Lori appears to eat it right up. "We are!" She grabs the leaf out of her hand but then puts it back down onto the table and grabs one of the leaves from in front of Lena. "But Mommy is always right!"
Kara face drops into an expression that is somewhere between shock and betrayal whilst Lena begins to laugh hysterically, kissing Lori on the top of her head and high fiving her.
"Yes, that's my girl!"
Kara holds a hand to her chest, dramatically making a show of being betrayed, all the while she has a grin on her face. "Betrayed by my own daughter! How can I ever recover?"
Lena smiles at her fondly, pushing the knife in a little deeper and giving at a sharp twist. "We both know that I'm always right, darling. You can't argue our daughter's points."
"I wish I could argue with that." Kara leans back into her chair with a huff and crosses her arms.
Lori ignores her mother's behaviour, aware of how dramatic she is and familiar with it. She simply chooses one of the leaves from in front of Lena and holds up her winner. "This one, let's save this one."
"Well, alright then, you've made your choice, so I'll go and grab the iron. Babe, will you grab the wax sheets?" Kara gets up to go and grab the iron so they can preserve the leaf.
Lena hums an affirmative and gets the wax sheets ready, having Lori place the leaf between them and then passing it to Kara to iron down. Lori watches with rapt attention as kara does so, Lena wrapping an arm around her, so she doesn't get too close.
They let it cool for a few minutes before Kara and Lori make a show of pulling the sheets apart and holding up the now wax covered leaf, perfectly preserved and ready to be taped into their book of leaves, something they have done every year since Lori was born, this one being their seventh year.
As soon as it's done, Lori is sent to put the book away and play while they tidy up the mess and throw the leftover leaves outside into the piles, which she happily does, glad that she gets to avoid tidying up.
Lena watches Kara as she throws out the used wax paper and puts the iron away back in their cleaning closet. "You know, this is one of my favourite traditions we have."
"It is? Not Christmas?"
Lena shakes her head, stepping into Kara's space so she can wrap her arms around her waist. "No, I like our leaf gathering and preserving. It's something for just us. The other holidays were always such a disappointment when I was growing up, a time for appearances and pretending to be a happy family. This is something that we get to do for Lori and for us that reinforces that everything we do is because we love each other, not because we are trying to prove anything."
Kara drops her head onto Lena's shoulder. "I've never thought about it like that before. I like it though, it makes it more special than it already was."
"I take it your favourite is Christmas?" Lena asks, based on Kara's earlier assumption.
"Yes, most of the year I can't treat our family because we surround ourselves with stupid selfless people that don't let you give them anything more than buying dinner every once in a while, so I like the opportunity to treat everyone without them being able to reject it. I love gift giving and seeing everyone's reactions."
Lena chuckles into Kara's neck. "I already knew that by the way you fill half of our living room with gifts for Lori every year, even when I ask you to tone it down."
"Hey! I got less last year, they were just bigger items. Lori asked for instruments, so I got them for her, it's not my fault they happen to be quite large."
"And you didn't think that one or two would be plenty rather than buying out a music shop."
Kara shrugs. "Well, I can do that now, my wife is super rich and should know better than to hand me her credit card by now. It has been a decade since we've been married now."
Lena can't help it, she leans up to kiss Kara. "I guess this year your wife won't give you the card then." With that she takes off running through the house, Kara hot on her heels shouting indignantly.