Six Weeks Ago
"Well, Ms. Luthor, I think we've got what we need. I can't thank you enough for making time to come down here and go through this with me today." The chair squeaks in protest as District Attorney Leung pushes away from her desk and rises to her feet, cutting an imposing figure behind the solid mahogany, every bit as solemn and stately as one would imagine. "I know you are an incredibly busy woman, but you're doing the whole city a service here." Leung punctuates her words with a nod of her head before moving to round the edge of her desk, an unmistakeable sign the meeting has reached its conclusion.
Relief begins to trickle into her veins as Lena Luthor climbs from the depths of her sumptuous chair, subtly straightening her skirt as she stands. The DA's grip is cool and firm when she reaches out to shake her hand, each shake bearing the finality of a bell toll, and the dread coiled tightly in her belly eases inch by inch.
"Of course, I'm happy to help in any way that I can." The smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, stretches into her cheeks in all the right ways, but it fails to reach her eyes. It's the practiced response of the CEO, the winsome visage paraded about at public relations events, all sparkling teeth and perfect lipstick, a familiar facade obscuring the turmoil beneath.
That's not to say her statement is anything but genuine, however. When the District Attorney's office had called yesterday hoping to schedule a time for her deposition, she'd wasted no time firing off a string of apologetic emails and phone calls, clearing a few hours in her schedule today to visit the courthouse in person. If she's being honest, she initially expected to meet with an Assistant DA or one of their army of lower level staffers. Instead, when she had presented herself a couple of hours ago at the desk and made the appropriate introductions it was as if she'd uttered the top secret password - the ornately carved wooden door set far back into the interior of the room had opened as if on cue, and she found herself ushered into the DA's private office without further ado.
"As I mentioned before, you have nothing to worry about from my office. We're keeping your role in this as quiet as possible for now, taking all of the necessary precautions that are standard for such a high-profile case." The DA places a cool hand on her arm in emphasis, in support, but it does little to settle her frayed nerves. They itch and ache just beneath the surface, a hundred thousand live wires dancing along her skin. If Leung notices the infinitesimal tremble, she hides it well. "Your deposition will be treated with the strictest confidentiality, and only a limited number of staff will know it exists. You're our star witness, Ms. Luthor. We need you."
The smile remains plastered to her face. Her cheeks ache with the strain. But bile rises in her throat, sharp and hot, and she swallows harshly, wills her body to cooperate for just a little longer.
The DA escorts her to the threshold of her quiet office, and when the heavy wooden door swings open in a measured clip, the supportive hand drops unceremoniously from her arm, and she's left to navigate through the outer offices alone, adrift in an unfamiliar landscape.
Austere metal desks and filing cabinets are crammed every which way, every scrap of floor space claimed in one way or another. A phone rings, shrill and insistent, somewhere to her left, and the metallic slam of a filing cabinet closing behind her startles her into motion, picking her way carefully through the office, anxiety prickling along her neck. Snippets of conversations swirl around her in counterpoint, and beneath it all beats the steady staccato of fingers dancing over keyboards in a modern symphony.
She doesn't breathe until she pulls on the metal door knob, the secretary buzzing her through the door without fanfare. In sharp contrast to the office, the rotunda is bright, open in a way that soothes her nerves where they lay open, exposed, that wipes the beads of sweat from her brow with a cool, even hand.
Pulling the door closed with a final click behind her, when she turns her eyes are drawn irrevocably to the statue given pride of place in the center of the courthouse, the bronze radiant in the midday sun streaming in through the windows above. From her angle the figure is in profile, half of its features hidden from view. Her feet move of their own accord, pulled forward by the sight, and although she feels her heels striking the opulent tile, the impact vibrating through her calves, the sound is swallowed whole in the cavernous space.
It's a woman, clad in a mix of armor and robes, scales held aloft in her left hand. Justice. A blindfold winds tightly around her eyes, blinding her to status or name or money or any of the myriad classifications people like to ascribe to one another. All irrelevant. Her left leg is forward, planted solidly, her muscles bared, the artist showing particular skill in the definition of the sinews, the clear depiction of the power she holds. The conviction she carries in her fiber.
But as she moves around front, Lena sees what was hidden from view before - a sword held at the ready, its edge sharp with promise, shining brightly in the opalescent sun where it filters down through the domed skylight high above. Her eyes track upward, her head falling back as she gazes, past towering Corinthian columns, their marbled contours solid and unmoving. Past the second and third floors, their passages open to view, where groups of people move along - men and women in business suits, average citizens in all manner of attire, parading past the ornately carved balustrades, where the gilded woodwork glows warmly. And beyond it all, high above the comings and goings, the machinations of mankind, is a dome of translucent glass.
With the strong midday sun shining overhead, a sparkling column of light filters down from the ceiling, its rays catching the rails, reflecting and reverberating in the opulent space, reaching down to the very center of the courthouse, bathing the bronze statue in ethereal light, Justice ordained by the heavens themselves.
Clank. Clank clank clank.
It starts off softly, a jingle, a susurrant whisper, barely audible amongst the echoed conversations ricocheting off the walls around her. But the noise builds and crescendos until it's unavoidable, and Lena snaps out of her reverie, turning away from the statue to see a line of inmates, their belly chains clanking and rubbing in disjointed rhythm. Men of all descriptions, some fresh-faced and terrified, others hardened, indifferent, all shackled and shuffling, presumably to await their time before the judge.
Two guards escort the inmates, and the one bringing up the rear has a gloved hand placed securely above the elbow of the last man in their sad march, the black leather a stark contrast to the institutional white of the National City Detention Center jumpsuit. Where the guard's uniform sleeve rides up, the tip of a tattoo becomes barely visible, dark against his skin. When Lena looks up, she finds the guard watching her, his eyes a piercing gray.
It's unsettling.
She returns his stare with one of her own, her gaze unblinking, unwilling to give ground, and after a moment he passes her by, the train of inmates slowly disappearing from sight around the corner.
Even still, her skin crawls.
Turning, she angles herself toward the exit and begins to move, jostling along through the crowd, their voices echoing along the hard surfaces, conversations drifting down from the floors above. Attorneys in sharp suits stand huddled together, their laughter sharp, out of place, while people sit anxiously on the benches around the exterior, their legs jangling with unspent anxiety.
They watch her as she passes, and by their frank stares, their narrowed eyes, she knows they recognize her. Her chin tilts up, her jaw steels, and she passes them by without a second glance, walking swiftly past the metal detectors and into the shadowed entrance foyer, crossing swiftly through the oblong panels of light cast by the transom windows nestled atop the ornate arch door.
The early afternoon sun is bright overhead, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. When she sees her car waiting at the curb, Daniel standing watch, relief floods into her veins, quick and cool.
"Everything alright, ma'am?" he asks as she nears the street, holding the car door open.
Ducking her head, she slides smoothly onto the back seat, the leather refreshingly familiar against her back. "As good as can be expected, all things considered," she mutters, her voice subdued. A knowing nod of the head, he closes the door behind her before making his way around the bumper to the driver's side.
"Office?" He asks the question without looking once he's buckled into his own seat, his attention instead focused on the stream of traffic outside his door, gauging the gaps, waiting for his chance to pull away from the curb.
Lena checks the watch on her wrist before sighing, "I suppose I must." His eyes flicker briefly to the rearview mirror before returning to the road. The resignation is plain in her voice, and it annoys her to hear it, annoys her that she allows it to be so transparent.
But it doesn't surprise her. Not in the least. The deposition took up her entire midday, right through lunch. Today's the first time she's missed a work day lunch date with Kara since they started, what...a week ago now?
Reaching for her phone, she opens her calendar, noting the meeting with the board in...Christ, forty minutes. There'll be no time to eat today at all, it seems. A sigh passes her lips, carrying the weariness of an ancient on its wings. The loneliness of one, too.
Distracting herself with email and missed calls, seeing how the world kept spinning while she stood still, she misses the warm eyes watching her in the rearview mirror, misses the minute nod of his head as Daniel makes a quick decision, bypassing the intended turn lane and setting them on an alternate route back to the office.
When she glances up again, casts her eyes to the city outside the car, she's surprised to see the imposing facade of Catco coming into view, its towering heights looming large over the busy city street.
Kara's in there. Probably stewing about something Snapper said. Or did. Or even something she only thinks he said or did. In her mind, she can see the crease forming in the middle of Kara's forehead, the one she gets when she's annoyed or worried, when the world isn't fully cooperating with how she thinks it should be, like it's the physical manifestation of her stubborn streak.
As the building passes by, in the back seat of her car Lena's face relaxes, the scowl she wasn't even aware she was wearing fading into nothing, the stress bunching in her shoulders, wrapped tightly in her belly slowly loosening its grip, retracting its claws one by one.
The effect is instantaneous, and Lena marvels at it. The weight of the morning is gone, held suspended, at least for the moment, and in its place is a flutter she dares not analyze, a headiness she doesn't name.
In the front seat, Daniel cracks a smile and moves his eyes back to the road.
When the elevator doors open onto the top floor of L-Corp, she exits into a veritable hive of activity, an easy smile gracing her features and a warm greeting for the employees she passes on her way to her office, including Trey, who passes her with an empty coffee mug in hand and a glazed look in his eyes, clearly in need of a jolt to get him through the afternoon.
Jess sits outside her office with an unsettling smile on her face. "Ms. Luthor, I've left your messages on your desk as usual."
"Thank you, Jess," Lena responds, her eyes narrowing, trying to divine the reason for the Mona Lisa smile on her assistant's face. With a shake of the head, she moves on, opening the door and shucking her coat, hanging it on the rack nearby. Walking toward her desk, however, her pace falters, and her brow wrinkles in confusion. There's something piled in the center. That definitely wasn't here when I left…
As she narrows the distance, however, her features change, and her eyes crinkle at the corners in unabashed amusement. A plastic take-out container from one of her favorite restaurants sits squarely in front of her chair, a variety of beautifully made sashimi and sushi on display within. A note sits next to the box, plain and unadorned.
"I finally got to buy you lunch. Don't work too hard. - Kara"
The handwriting belongs to Jess, clearly Kara's woman on the inside. Laughter erupts from her lips, echoes off the walls in a tinkling cascade, shimmering and sparkling along the surfaces of the room, a note of audible sunshine.
This...thoughtfulness isn't something she's used to, isn't something her life has conditioned her to expect or experience. The warmth suffusing her veins, circulating through her system, touching every part of her, every cell, every molecule - it's a heady feeling, and she quickly pulls out her chair, seats herself indecorously for fear of losing her balance.
Pulling out her phone, she types out a text, hitting send before she can second guess her choice of words.
"Kara, I could kiss you - you're a LIFESAVER. - L"
Lid opened, chopsticks in hand, she places a Tiger Roll on her tongue, her eyes closing in unabashed bliss.
Kara's response comes in short measure, Lena's phone buzzing animatedly along her desk. The text is nothing but a string of emojis, entirely unintelligible and yet so perfectly Kara that she laughs out loud again.
The grin remains as she continues to eat, more content in this moment than she would have thought possible today.
With a glance at the clock, she reluctantly unlocks her computer and pulls up her email, intent on responding to one in particular she noticed on the car ride over here but knew would require a more detailed answer than what she felt like hammering out on her phone en route. While it loads, her eyes drift, landing on the stack of notes on the corner of her desk. Her missed calls and messages.
Might as well.
She flips through the notes while she chews, scanning their contents, prioritizing them efficiently in her head, already working them seamlessly into her busy afternoon schedule.
Her entire body stills when she reaches the last message - a missed call from the National City Detention Center.
Mother.
Her smile cracks, shatters at her feet, and the laugh bubbling in her chest is sharp, a thing with claws. The call came to L-Corp. Not her cell.
She never could be bothered to learn my personal number.
The ahi sours on her tongue, and it takes a herculean effort to finish chewing, to force it down her throat where it sits like lead in her belly. When she looks at the remaining food on her desk, her gorge rises, and she quickly replaces the plastic lids with a resolute snap, moves them to the trash can, her appetite thoroughly spoiled.
Switching back to her email, she pulls up her notes and prepares for the looming board meeting. A cloud passes in front of the sun, and the shadows grow along the corners of her office, silent and legion.
Lena drums her fingers along the keyboard, searching for the right turn of phrase for the speech she's outlining, the cursor taunting her from the screen with its unending blinking. The rhythmic tapping acts like a kinetic jolt, jarring something loose in her brain, and she begins typing once more, her fingers moving with frenetic speed, her lips twisting as she mouths the words silently to herself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she notes movement, sees the door to her office swing silently open on its hinges.
It's Jess, and Kara is in tow, her arms loaded down with bags bearing the name of the Italian restaurant at which she'd placed an order half an hour ago. Her mouth waters at the sight.
She doesn't linger on why.
Her hands still over her keys as she calls out, "Hey you...I'll just be a minute longer." A soft smile plays at the corner of her mouth.
Kara nods in response, offers her own sweet smile before sitting comfortably on the couch, the bags deposited unceremoniously on the coffee table nearby. And as she does every time she enters Lena's office, she leans forward to admire the petite flowers set into a simple glass vase in the center of the table, her fingers reaching out to trace a delicate petal with a gentle touch, her shoulders rising slightly as she inhales.
Lena herself can never seem to smell anything, god knows she's tried.
Kara hasn't actually said anything about the flowers since that first time last month, but her admiration for them is unwavering, and Lena finds she can't help herself. She watches Kara's ritual surreptitiously, her breath held, her eyes wide with wonder.
A smile as finespun as gossamer blooms on Kara's face, soft, private, and Lena feels unworthy of the light it emits, unsure she should even be allowed to witness it. There's something hauntingly beautiful about it, and although she wants to know more, wants to dig and analyze and know the meanings and the memories, she remains quiet. She remains still.
She's afraid. As if calling attention to it will cause it to fracture, a spiderweb of lines radiating across the space with a thunderous crack until a masterpiece lies shattered at her feet.
So she watches. Every time.
And like clockwork, a new bouquet of plumeria arrives at her office every Monday morning, a promise of wonder curled into their fresh buds.
The moment passes, and Kara sits back, pulls impatiently at the bags of food on the table, the plastic crinkling a steady crescendo. A few more notes on her outline, an added comment to circle back to later, and that'll do for now. Unable to resist the dinner bell, Lena pushes back from her desk and crosses the office to join Kara for lunch.
Apart from the lone exception the other day when Lena spent her midday at the courthouse, Kara joins her at L-Corp practically every day for a lunch date. Sometimes the reporter will pick something up from Noonan's or Vino's along the way, always ordered and paid for ahead of time, while other days the pair have their food delivered to their doorstep.
The moment her legs hit the couch, a container appears beneath her nose, and when Lena opens it, sees the pasta, dusted with parmesan, dotted with capers, she barely manages to suppress a moan. The muffled giggle bubbling from her companion is not lost on her, and with a roll of the eyes, she picks up a fork and digs in.
The first bite down, she turns to Kara. "You're so indulgent with me, coming all the way here every day while I'm on house arrest, so to speak. Why won't you let Daniel pick you up in my car?" Kara begins to deflect, the conversation one they've had a handful of times over the past week. Before she can be interrupted, however, Lena amends, "C'mon, he adores you. You've clearly worked your magic on him already."
A beaming Kara shakes her head demurely. "I promise, it's not necessary." Lena pulls a face, disbelieving, but Kara continues, "Really! It's such a short distance, I mean I can practically fly here." The smirk that follows sparkles with amusement, and Kara's eyes fall to her lap while she reaches up to adjust her glasses along her nose.
Grinning at the deflection, Lena says, "I do owe you an explanation, though, for why I'm cloistered here at the office all the time. I mean I know I mentioned it briefly the other day, but you deserve to know the why." She stirs her pasta idly, the strands twining themselves gracefully around the tines of her fork. When Kara looks up, she continues, "I wouldn't dream of putting you in danger unknowingly. You are one of the few who knows what really happened a couple of weeks ago, what I did. But that circle has grown."
There it is. The telltale line on her forehead. She presses on.
"Apparently, my mother has seen to it that her associates in Cadmus know, and, well, I'm not exactly winning popularity contests with the rest of National City, either, if we're being honest."
The line deepens, and Kara opens her mouth, begins to protest, but Lena simply shakes her head, continues to twirl her pasta. "Look, this isn't my first rodeo. And besides, our friend in the cape is watching out for me, right?" Her grin feels forced, the attempt at levity coming off sharp, discordant.
"Still, Lena, that's gotta be hard on you."
When she smiles this time, it bears a shadow of sadness. "It is what it is."
Kara's voice is low, her words measured and clear. And when she speaks, the words crawl beneath Lena's walls, etch themselves onto her skin. "Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's easy."
"There's always a price," she responds, her voice barely a whisper, a shadow covering the words like a veil.
They echo in her ears like a warning.
Straightening her back, she smirks, pivots in her seat, and pitching her voice low, she continues, "I guess it's a good thing I've got lunch to look forward to isn't it?" Punctuating her words with a quirk of her eyebrow, she takes another bite of her pasta, and Kara does the same.
Bzzzzz.
Lena's cell phone vibrates noisily against the table, the sound too severe, almost unnatural in the cottoned cocoon surrounding the couch. She reaches to silence it.
A life consumed by work, the seconds building to minutes, amassing into hours, the grains of sand spilling freely from their hourglass, bearing down upon her shoulders in a constant avalanche. It's the life she's chosen. The mantle she willingly bears. But there are days she chokes with it.
These minutes, these singular moments are ones she's carved out laboriously, and while the sand seeks to slither around the dam, take back its due inch by inch, she guards it jealously.
When she picks up the phone, the caller ID comes into stark relief, and she huffs out an impatient breath. "I've got to take this, unfortunately. Sorry..." she trails off, all apologies, putting her fork down and crossing the room to her desk. Kara simply nods, takes another bite, tracking Lena's movements.
"Hi, Jacob, what can I do for you?" When a member of the board calls, it behooves her to answer. Even during lunch, unfortunately.
During the first minute, she amuses herself by making annoyed faces at Kara from across the room, delighting in the easy grin reflecting back at her from the couch.
During the second minute of incessant talking, her blood pressure begins to rise, and there's a moment where a vivid fantasy plays out in high-definition in her mind - she opens the balcony door, pulls her arm back in a wind-up straight out of the major leagues, and expertly pitches her phone right over the side of the building. She imagines the voice on the other end talks the entire way down.
Her lips twitch at the thought.
During the third minute, her ears begin to bleed, absolutely full up of Jacob's soliloquy on quarterly performance measures. She tunes him out completely. The phone to her ear, she leans against her desk, her back to the room, watching the clouds track across the crisp blue sky. A particularly large one crosses in front of the sun, its edges billowing suggestively, its ceiling soaring far beyond sight into the stratosphere. It's the kind of cloud a kindergartener might recreate with cotton balls, a piece of art destined for the family refrigerator.
The window darkens for a moment at the eclipse, and Lena sees her office reflected in reverse. She wears her annoyance in neon across her features, a fact that only serves to vex her even more. Shifting focus, her eyes find reflected Kara. She sits in her place on the couch, her glasses pulled low on the bridge of her nose, and she's surveying the room slowly from side to side, top to bottom. It's methodical, her movement, and Lena's brow furrows, puzzled.
Something familiar tickles in the far reaches of her mind.
"Ms. Luthor," the voice in her ear drones, and she snaps back to attention, chastened.
It's a matter of another minute or two before she can smoothly extricate herself from the conversation, and when she returns to the couch, she finds that Kara has turned on the TV, its volume muted so as not to disturb.
"Addict," Lena teases, settling in close enough to Kara to needle her gently in the ribs.
"Work hazard," Kara responds around a mouthful of pasta as a pastiche of video clips play across the screen in dizzying flashes - scenes of vandalism, angry crowds shouting in the streets, an anti-alien protester getting punched in slow motion.
National City at its finest.
Lena cuts her eyes to Kara, sees the tell-tale line forming on her forehead. She raises her eyebrow but says nothing.
On screen the violence fades from sight, the picture turning to canned footage of a campaign rally, the shaky camerawork replaced by a professional hand, all practiced sweeps and purposeful zooms, the hallmark of the political candidate. Councilman Drummond stands amidst an adoring and energetic crowd, his image as polished as ever, his suit immaculately tailored. He grins roguishly and shakes a closed fist over the podium, his audience whipping into a frenzy at his feet.
A ticker scrolls along the bottom edge of the screen. Mayoral candidate asks for calm; Questions incumbent's priorities; Promises Humans First.
Her lips pucker unconsciously, her teeth chewing holes along the inside of her lip. When she turns her head, she finds Kara's face pinched, her lips pressed into a tight line. Without preamble, Lena leans across her and grabs the remote off of the table, plunging the screen into darkness. "That's enough of that, I think." When Kara looks at her quizzically, Lena's eyes flicker to her brow, to the way it smooths, flattens once more, and she continues, "How was your morning? Did Snapper make anyone cry yet, or is the day still too young?"
The reporter scrunches her mouth to one side as she thinks.
It isn't until Kara speaks that Lena comes to her senses, manages to tear her eyes away from the sight. Even then, she misses the first few words, her brain slow to turn to another subject.
"A mother came by the office. Her daughter's gone missing, and all she wanted was some help looking for her. And Snapper...it was like he didn't even care." The scowl returns, but it's colored by something else this time.
"It didn't phase him at all. I don't...I don't understand how he could just stand there like that. Like he's made of stone."
Kara talks, vents. She works through it backward and forward, shifting from anger to confusion, from confusion to passion to righteousness in the span of minutes.
Lena observes the process, presses now and then, pokes and prods and provokes, a scientist watching a volatile element react to an array of forces. But she lets Kara make the steps on her own.
Until it happens. Kara's brow smooths, her face clears, her eyes focus with startling clarity. Millions of micro-expressions cascading in a fraction of a second.
Resolution. She is steel, and anyone standing in her way doesn't stand a chance.
Lena doesn't notice the soft smile on her own lips, the way her eyes turn wistful at the sight. Not until it's too late.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Because you are a force of good in this ugly world. Because you have a kind heart. Because being around you makes me want to be a better person.
But the only answer Lena supplies is a coy smile and a minute shake of her head. After a beat, she says simply, "Be careful, Kara," her head inclined to the darkened TV looming ominously over her shoulder. "There are dangerous elements at work in National City these days."
An unreadable look crosses Kara's features before she nods, and they continue their lunch. Stray clouds pass outside the window, eclipsing the sun, covering the office in dappled shadow. When they move out of sight, the shadow cast by the vase on the table shifts subtly, tickles Lena's knee where it rests near the table's edge.
As Kara retrieves their dessert from the plastic take-away bags - two servings of tiramisu - Lena chews on her lip, glancing up under her lashes. Swallowing quickly, she starts, "I actually have something I wanted to ask you before you have to go." Standing, she crosses to her desk where she grabs a stack of items from their perch on the corner and returns, her steps measured and even, her nerves masked with practiced precision. When she sits, she settles a little closer to Kara on the couch, her knee bumping Kara's in the process.
When she hands her a card from the top of the stack bearing the title Ms. Kara Danvers in elegant script, Kara's confusion is plain, her head cocked adorably.
The first words of explanation are colored with nerves, and Lena's eyes widen in panic when she hears herself, but it's gone in a fraction of a second, swept away with another grain of sand, and the casual confidence suffusing her words now settle the anxiousness fluttering in her veins.
"So, you said something last week that inspired me, and I've kind of set things in motion…"
The envelope opened, the invitation sits gingerly in Kara's hands.
"It's a fundraiser for a local organization that provides after school programming for girls focusing on science and technology." When Kara doesn't speak, Lena fills the silence. "This part is, well, it's kind of a secret, but I trust you won't tell, right? L-Corp is establishing a college scholarship fund to be awarded to five girls in National City interested in pursuing degrees in STEM fields."
The past week has been a whirlwind - the calls, the meetings, the coordination involved in trying to pull something like this together on short notice, but it's been enlivening, and when she lays down in her empty apartment at the end of the night, the sheets cool around her, there's a warmth in her chest radiant enough to heat the room.
The invitation still hovers in mid-air, but Kara turns, her mouth open, her eyes wide. And still, she doesn't speak.
A silent Kara Danvers? Something must be wrong.
Lena feels her confidence stutter and falter, wilting like a bloom past its prime. "Too much?" she ventures quietly, eyebrow raised in question.
She's afraid of the answer.
"Oh my god, Lena...I...you…" Kara trips over her words, searches desperately for one that will work before ultimately giving them up in favor of something akin to a squeal, the delighted shriek sending a delicious shock of warmth tingling through Lena's veins, the smile pulling widely at her cheeks.
"I hope you don't have plans. I was really hoping you'd go with me. It was your idea, after all."
Kara squeals a little again, her body practically vibrating, and she leans over to hug Lena quickly, unable to contain herself.
"Wait, is this safe for you? Do you want me to invite Supergirl again?" Kara pulls back, her hand sliding down Lena's arm before coming to rest beneath her elbow, where her fingers wrap securely along her forearm.
Lena's skin tingles like a live wire, and when she responds, the word comes out stronger than she had intended, her system surging unexpectedly. "No! I mean, she's welcome, she's always welcome, and god only knows she'll probably be there anyway." Guilt crosses her face briefly as she clarifies, "I have a feeling I'll be in hot water for doing something so public. But, as an incredibly intelligent woman told me recently, 'Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's easy.'"
When Kara ducks her head, Lena presses, and the tone that comes out of her mouth now is one she's still not used to, one that's only found an outlet in recent weeks.
It's her own voice.
"So, what'll it be? Care to throw caution to the wind and come with me to the charity fundraiser, Kara Danvers?"
A blush like the sunrise climbs across Kara's features as she responds, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
For a moment the shadow cast by the bouquet of prim white flowers hesitates, recedes, pushed back by the sun.