COPYRIGHT: The following is a work of 'fan-fiction' and no copyright infringement is intended against those who own the rights to Supergirl and all related characters. All original Characters are the possession and copyright of The Rainbow Writers.
Please note that while we are big fans of the TV Show, we are not up on every nuanced bit of history and lore, so if we get something horribly wrong... we're sorry in advance.
Pairing: Supercorp Set: Post Season Six Episode Seven fix it fic. Branch from Canon from this point out.
Karaoke Song Credit: 'Blue Eyes' by Sir Elton John
Miracle
By: The Rainbow Writers
Alex settled herself more comfortably on the chair beside Kara's semi upright position in the 'Sun chair' that J'onn had installed in the tower. The Kryptonian's father was in a similar seat, the martian having thought to install two, if there was ever a case of both Kara and Kal to need the specialized treatment at the same time.
It was fair to say that since they had successfully extracted Kara and her father from the Phantom Zone, Alex had monopolized the younger woman's time. She'd been the one to settle Kara in the chair and adjust the level of sunlight and radiation, she'd also immediately pulled up the most comfortable chair she could find along side the bed so she could be a monitor to both aliens.
Everyone had had a moment to greet the blonde, with short words of thanks and relief but Alex had very quickly slipped into her 'care for Kara' mode and had moved her away from them all to the special zone in the ship.
That had been over three hours ago and the brunette didn't show any signs of easing up on the level of monitoring and isolation.
For her part Kara had drifted off to sleep under the welcome warmth of the sunlamps, both Kryptonians obviously exhausted from all they had been through while lost. Her father was also sleeping, more due to the examination and repair that had been done on his leg than just natural draw but it was for the best.
Alex had shifted in her seat because she'd seed the soft crinkle come to the middle of her sister's brow, and the soft flutter in long eyelashes, that told her that Kara was waking up. By the time blue eyes had opened up and focused on the brunette Alex was sat up, a bright smile on her lips and soft happiness filling dark eyes.
"Hey there." There was so much tenderness and compassion in her tone that it almost made the blonde cry.
"Hey." Kara managed to push the word out as she swallowed at the same time. Her eyes staying on her sister, cataloguing the little things that tried to underline to her this wasn't a nightmare forced upon her by one of the phantoms. Alex's hair was a little messy, the braid she had running through it was starting to unravel at points from all of the movement and exertion, around her eyes were the tell tale signs that the brunette had been running on fumes, most likely for days, and the soft dark hollows in her cheeks underlined this fact even more.
"Lena told me the first thing I should tell you is that this is real. You're home." Alex stated carefully as she reached to put her hand on Kara's that was slung low over her stomach. She gave the warm hand a small squeeze.
"Thank you." Kara gave another swallow as her sister seemed to read her mind as to what she was grappling with. "Telling what was real, what wasn't... it was hard." She made the soft admission.
"Believe me the brief introduction I had to the phantoms powers told me that." The brunette admitted easily. "I was about to jump out of an air lock to save the day." She rolled her eyes. "You don't tell me enough but I'm an extremist aren't I?"
"You're extreme to the extremists." Kara's face lit up just a little into a soft smile. "Though... how are we in the Tower? And why does it feel like we're moving?"
"Well that's a little complicated but the short version is that the Tower is a spaceship and we decided not to make the full journey home until you and your father were stabilized." The brunette smiled slightly. "I gave J'onn the heads-up to start heading slowly back to Earth about half an hour ago."
"Right, the Tower is a spaceship." Kara made a face that expressed how simple this answer should be and then gave a head-shake. "Alex..." Blue eyes moved to look over the brunette's shoulder to the main area of the ship where everyone was in their respective chairs in front of console screens. "You brought Lena to space?" She finally asked the question that had been burning in her mind since she'd had her brief moments seeing everyone when she'd first made it back.
Alex also glanced over her shoulder to look where her sister was focusing.
"You think we could leave one of us behind?" The brunette offered with a warm soft smile. "She's family, once I'd convinced her that this is where she belonged, I couldn't draw the line on a little Space trip now could I?"
"She is family." Kara underlined immediately and she pursed her lips as emotion seemed to overtake her for a moment and blue eyes became glassy with tears. "I didn't think I would see her... you... any of you again. I... the phantoms... you all came to try and save me, you all died." Her voice hitched on the last word.
"And we might have if Brainy and J'onn hadn't have been too strong for them. With their intervention we broke any hold the phantoms had over us to get to you." It was Alex's eyes that turned down to look at the floor this time. "I'm just sorry it took us so long."
"No, Alex..." Kara shook her head immediately. "That you found me at all." She pointed out the simple plausible fact. "Though I knew, you'd never give up." She moved her other hand to squeeze the one her sister had on hers.
"Never." Alex vowed looking back up. "A couple of things have changed since you've been gone though." She went on. "Things that have changed dynamics a little..." She paused briefly. "Kelly moved in."
"Wow, that is a dynamic change." Kara smiled at her. "Not that I'm surprised, that woman has your number." She squeezed her sister's hand again. "I'm glad you let someone take care of you, even just a little bit." She admitted her voice heavy with emotion again. "Though... that makes me even more surprised you took her to the Phantom Zone."
"Oh yeah about that... she knows... everything and it's not like she would be left out any more than Lena would." She gave a bright smile. "Oh and before you question..." Alex somewhat nervously raised her hand to graze over the bright blue braid in her hair. "I became The Sentinel." She offered with a goofy smile and a shrug of her shoulders.
"The Sentinel?" Kara's smile widened again. "I'm away for a few days and suddenly you're a superhero too?" She leaned up and moved to open up her arms for another hug and Alex instantly moved to embrace her sister.
"Weeks Kara you've been gone weeks and it feels like years." She admitted in a hushed whisper against Kara's shoulder.
"You've always been my superhero." Kara held her back tightly, feeling more of her natural strength in her arms then she had even after the sun bomb.
"Yeah, well there is more..." Alex eased back to look at her sister. "M'gann is back." She gave a wide smile. "Really back, I don't know about now you're home but she's made looking after National City so much easier." The brunette gave the next detail.
"I'm glad, J'onn needed the support." Kara nodded that she could understand why the other martian would have instantly come home if she could have. "And Lex?" She asked the question in a soft hiss.
"I was getting around to that... Lex was released, found innocent on all charges." Alex swallowed hard.
"What?" Kara's voice became steey. "How?"
"Humanity." Alex rolled her eyes. "They destroyed Eve's testimony as the words of a vengeful woman with a deep seated unrequited love for Lex." She offered up the facts. "So Lena took up the challenge, and he played the martyr and turned her into the bad guy." She breathed out. "So much so he pushed the Prosecutor to prepare a case against her."
"You're telling me Lena testified against Lex, he still got off and then he tried to make the Prosecutor go after Lena instead?" Kara felt the world wobble a bit underneath her as she tried to take in all of the information.
"Yeah." Alex eased back fully to sit. "He set fire and tried to burn down the Luthor wing in the children's hospital, suggested it was Lena's fault, that she was the one in charge of upkeep and maintenance." She frowned as she remembered the salacious news coverage of the event.
"When we get back I am going to pick that man up and fling him into space!" Kara's voice hissed the angry point.
"No, no you're not." Alex shook her head. "Lena left him." She let a proud smile pull at her lips. "Stopped playing his games and walked away." She explained more.
"She left Luthor Corp?" Kara's anger was momentarily disrupted by the almost impossible idea. "She's finally just ours..." She said the words softly and then seemed to catch up to herself. "Finally just a Superfriend?"
"I think the way she's going she'll be a regular super hero before too long." Alex's smile was still bright. "The ony one stopping her right now, is Lena."
"We'll work on her." Kara smiled back at her sister. "How is my Father doing?" She glanced to side where the older man was asleep and seemed to be more comfortable then she'd seen him until now, his leg covered in a light bandage but she knew with the sun lamps around him it wouldn't be long till even that wound was healed.
"I'd like to be in the shape his in when I'm that old." Alex grinned. "He's going to be fine. His leg was a tiny bit problematic, not having much experience with fifth dimensional wounds. How did he get that by the way?" She frowned a little.
"I found another Imp trapped in the phantom zone, Nyxly." She revealed the name softly. "She was as helpful as she was hurtful in the end, the Zone turned her mad, that and the fact her father had banished her there eons before to punish her for simply being talented and alive." She made a soft sour face. "I tried to save her Alex, but... she was too.. tainted by her own nightmares."
"I can't imagine how you wouldn't be." Alex was honest. "Brainy and Lena came up with a way to treat your father's leg though and with the level of healing the yellow sun will give you both, he'll be up before you know it." She revealed the underlying good news.
The soft sound of the large Martian's boots coming up the stairs to the med bay area, made Alex pause and turn around to look at who had broken her 'order' to leave them alone, immediately seeing J'onn standing at the edge of the area.
"I just wanted to ask, Big Belly Burgers or Chinese?" Soft eyes accompanied a smile that was focused on the blonde. "We're close to home and I was going to just fly out to get food for our arrival."
"Both!" Kara looked up at him, her eyes bright as her tongue came out to lick her lips almost as if she could taste them already. Her reaction made J'onn laugh brightly and look at Alex.
"If you don't mind taking my place at the helm Alex?" He asked of the brunette. "If Kara and her father can be left alone that is."
"Of course." Alex pressed up to stand.
"Actually, can you spare Lena for a minute? I need to just... talk to her." Kara saw the way the both of them were nodding before she could even finish the sentence and it suddenly dawned her on that she could ask them to all do handstands and they would without a thought right now. It was the all encompassing feeling of being back with the people who would, and literally had, risked everything for her... the people she would do the same for in turn.
"I'll send her in." Alex closed her hand around the blonde's arm as she stood up straighter and then moved towards J'onn. "I love you." She added before leaving.
Kara leaned her head back for a moment, closing her eyes as she wasn't sure how long it would take Lena to finish up what she might be doing and head in when J'onn asked her. Supergirl literally had no time to really think about the matter as the soft sound of Lena's stylish boots coming up the stairs was heard the next moment. A somewhat flustered looking Lena's came literally jogging to her, quickly reaching the side of the sun chair, her eyes on the installation panel to quickly focus on all the statistical readings from the chair.
"Is the chair not working?" There was almost a level of panic to her voice. "I didn't have much time to calibrate both of them and things act different in space..."
"Lena... Lena..." Kara had to say her name twice before the genius even diverted her eyes from the panel to the blonde for a moment. Seeing that the simple request wasn't working she swung her legs to the side of the chair and moved out of the sunlight's brightest beams even if her body seemed to groan that it didn't want her too. "It's not the calibration, it's great... almost as good as the real thing..." She complimented hoping that might get Lena to actually pay attention to her, that and the change in position.
Lena's green eyes did immediately shift to look at Supergirl, going wide the instant she realized the blonde was no longer laying down.
"Kara... you need to lay down." She took a slight step towards the blonde but then seemed to stutter stop.
"I do, and I will but I also need to do this." Kara used the return in her strength to be able to reach out to catch Lena's hand, and using more of the brunette's confusion against her then even her own super strength, she pulled her down and engulfed her in a hug with her seated and Lena having to bend over.
For just a second the brunette was stiff having truly never expected the move, but the instant she felt the warm press against Kara's body, her stiffness melted away and with a breath pressing out of her lungs at the same time, she raised her arms and spread them wide on Kara's back.
"You were so missed." She whispered softly into the embrace.
"Almost as much as I missed you." Kara didn't have the mental strength to keep the admission from slipping out in a whisper as she held on as tightly as she dared once Lena had actually engaged in the hug. Tucking her head as far over Lena's shoulder and into the curtain of loose dark hair that wasn't woven up into her central warrior braid, breathing in deeply, not even hiding the move, as she let the unique combination of scent that was Lena Luthor fill her senses.
"It's been so hard." There came the slightest quiver in the brunette's whispered voice. "But we tried, we tried so hard to make you proud. To do the right thing and get you back."
"I'm back." Kara underlined the soft fact having figured out that while for her trying to discern that all of this wasn't the beginning of a horrible phantom nightmare, for her friends their fear had been never getting to this moment, never finding her and saving her was just as real and debilitating. "And from what Alex have told me, you did the lion's share of the work as usual." She made the soft teasing statement as she breathed in again.
At this Lena pulled back and couldn't stop the small self depreciating frown that crossed her brow or the slight huff of denial that pressed from the back of her throat.
"Hardly." She glanced away. "It was a massive team effort. I just got lucky and was in the team." She offered with a laugh and a shrug of her thin shoulders.
"You are most certainly a part of the team." Kara's hand shot out to grab a hold of the brunette's again almost unable to lose all contact with her so suddenly.
"Well you better come through with a t-shirt this time." Lena offered dryly.
"After all of this, I think I'll upgrade you to a hoodie." Kara threaded their fingers together.
"And if I get upgraded to a super hero anytime, do I get a suit?" Green eyes sparkled a little.
"I don't make the suits but I know a guy." Blue eyes smiled back at her. "He might already think you're awesome so I think I can work out something."
Lena gave an almost shy smile to the blonde and glanced over her shoulder towards the main area, where Brainy was busy monitoring everything about there landing.
"He and Dreamer are in a better place." She offered the observation softly. "She's an incredible young woman isn't she?" Her eyes turned to focus on the blue clad superhero.
"She is." Kara agreed, the short words underlined by strong emotion. "Lena..." She said the brunette's name knowing that once they landed everything would be a bit of a whirlwind, after all she'd been gone weeks and she knew everyone involved would want to touch base and make sure she was 'real'. Almost as much as she wanted to do the same with each of them and then there was the added fact that she'd found her father alive, and her friends had saved him along with her. But with the intensity of all the Phantom zone had given her unwillingly so fresh in her mind, she knew there was one promise she needed to keep to herself. When green eyes finally came back to meet her blue ones she continued. "I know the next few hours, days maybe are going to be... crazy, good crazy but crazy..."
"No, Kara I completely understand." Lena interrupted the blonde with a gentle shake of her head. "I'll start working on a way to contact Argo as soon as we're home and I'll bring in the..."
As Lena had started down her own path of what she believed Kara was going to say, all the blonde could do at first was smile and as Lena kept talking even as she stood up and with their hands still threaded together she took a half step closer, she hadn't even expected that to stop the brunette's words.
"You really are remarkable." Kara whispered out the revelation she had always believed but that was being underlined to her again. "But no that wasn't what I was going to say." She finally managed to get the brunette's full attention. "When the crazy dies down... I wanted to book you for a long conversation, if you can spare me the time Genius Inventor... we'll work on a super name." She gave a soft laugh.
For a moment a look of confusion filled green eyes and even pressed out onto her brow.
"A long talk?" She said the words in a stunned tone. "I... but... I thought we'd said the past... we weren't going to..." Lena almost nervously passed her tongue over a dry bottom lip forcing herself to stop. Pulling in a deeper breath she squared her shoulders slightly and gave a nod. "Of course, we'll find some time."
"Not about the past." Kara tried to make this point immediately, her blue eyes clear and staying locked onto green as much as Lena would allow. "About all of this, about the things I've missed, about the future." She added her voice dropping a little softer.
"Of course." The tension dropped slightly out of stiff shoulders, and a more easy natural smile raised the corner of her lips. "My schedule is surprisingly open these days." The smile melted into a brighter one. "I quit Luthor Corp but no..." She shook her head her smile still big. "Unlike Brainy I hope you don't think that means I'm living in my car off Danesville Park or anything."
"You could have been staying at my place if you needed too." Kara put forward the idea immediately, actually liking the idea of going to her place to have it smell like the brunette. "But knowing you, you have back up locations."
"If my brother thought the only money I had was my bi-weekly cheque from Luthor Corp, he really is as crazy as I think he is." Lena laughed briefly. "I'm in the process of moving but more because I don't want to live in a Luthor controlled property more than anything."
"I'm glad I get free pizza and beer for helping in the future move still, you know I'm good with moving." Kara grinned at her.
"Not unless you get back in that chair." Lena smiled so much that her whole face lit up. "I should go belt up too." She motioned with her head back to the main area.
"One more hug." Kara moved to softly do just that for the second time. "Then I promise to sit back down and go back to sleep until someone waves a Big Belly burger under my nose."
-x-
"Alex, she says she wants to just crawl into bed and go to sleep. I know you want to hover over her but... she needs reasonable space baby." Kelly had managed to manoeuvre Alex into the kitchen area when Kara had excused herself to go to the bathroom, apparently for the sheer joy of brushing her teeth after eating again.
"Okay so I'll make up the couch for us?" Alex took a quick breath as she looked into beautiful brown eyes.
"You did that last night, and then it was reasonable, we had only got her back hours before but now... you know she's 100% physically and part of her getting back to 100% mentally is being able to make choices and her choice right now seems to be the desire to get you home to your bed so you can have just as good a nights sleep as she is." Kelly reached up to tuck the longest part of Alex's hair behind her ear. "She's worried about you as much as you're worried about her."
"What if she has a nightmare, she'll be on her own." Alex stressed seriously. "I can't risk that, How can I risk that." She looked at her lover. "Just one more night... Eliza will be here tomorrow." She took a fast breath. "Then I'll sleep. In a bed, a bed that is mine... with you." She offered up what she saw as a compromise in the situation.
"Alex." Kelly said her name with a soft sigh. "I think you're sister wants to be alone tonight before Eliza gets here because in her own way she's afraid of the idea of being alone again too, but she's also Supergirl and she knows to exist in that head space is something she won't do. She needs to prove this is all real, this is not a nightmare or a dream, but that she's home." She underlined softly. "She already agreed to meet us for breakfast first thing, and she knows she can call either of us at any time, she knows she can call me if she doesn't want to wake you up even and we know I will wake you up as soon as she does." She smiled softly at her lover. "She needs to be in control Alex."
"She can have control." Alex nodded as if for a moment she had caught on to and agreed with her girlfriend. This fact however was quickly dissipated with her next words. "I'll call J'onn he can take the couch."
"If anyone is staying we are, J'onn is still patrolling the city with M'gann so that Kara doesn't have to worry about that side of things." Kelly let out a soft breath and then smiled. "Go pick a movie for when she comes out, I'll make popcorn and hot chocolate like the two of you like it."
"Great!" Alex perked up instantly and leaned in kissing Kelly on the cheek. "You're the best." She added and then jogged over to the table to find the remote.
-x-
The apartment was dark, with only the soft constant lights from the city coming in the enormous windows of Kara's apartment. Alex and Kelly were cuddled together on their makeshift bed of pillows and couch cushions on the floor, the coffee table pushed out of the way for them.
Kara faltered for just a moment to look at them, smiling to see how even asleep her sister looked happy being big spoon to Kelly's smaller one in the close quarters. She'd known as soon as she'd come out of the bathroom earlier that even her hints to Kelly hadn't been enough to convince her sister to let her out of her sight just yet. She could understand the reasons and she didn't blame Alex for her inability to leave yet, but she also couldn't shake the idea somehow of hating how long it was going to take before they all didn't view her as porcelain breakable anymore.
On quiet tip toes she dropped the soft note on the chair next to the two of them, knowing if either of them awoke they'd see it hopefully before they saw she wasn't in bed and panicked.
Moving to the window, she unlatched it slowly to not make any noise before dressed only in what she'd worn to bed, a simple tank top with a sparkly sheep on the front and the matching sheep printed cotton pants, she took off into the air. The simple feeling of flying making her feel more herself then she had in so long.
It was as she rose up out of people's view, after all no one needed to worry that someone who looked a little like Supergirl was flying around in her pj's, it was only then that the thought that she actually had no direct idea where the person she wanted in the city was staying. The crazy idea about Brainy thinking she would be in a van down at Danesville park made a smile come to Kara's face, even as she closed her eyes and just listened. Letting her super hearing narrow down until she heard the noise she was looking for and she took off in that direction.
-x-
Of course Kara should have expected that the hotel suite that Lena was staying in would have a balcony of some sort or another. She hoped it had been an unconscious choice by the brunette to underline that someday soon Supergirl would be doing just this, landing on the balcony and moving to the glass door to knock quietly. Her only hope was that the soft knock wouldn't startle the brunette who she could see beyond in bed.
Turning over, pressing the light sheet covering her body down as she turned, Lena frowned just a little in the darkness. Reaching to flick on one of the lights on the bed, the look melted into a smile at first but then morphed again into a frown. Moving quicker Lena scrambled off the bed, padding across polished hardwood to reach the door in second. Unlocking it she pulled it open, green eyes blinking rapidly. The light red silk pjs she was wearing seemed a little oversized for her body, clearing the idea that these were her 'comfy' nightwear choice.
"Kara?" She pressed out the whisper.
"Hi, sorry, I know you were asleep." Kara shuffled in place for a second feeling guilty for having woken the brunette up.
"Not really sleeping." Lena shook her head. "Is everything okay?" She asked back immediately.
"My place is overfull, Alex and Kelly are asleep on the floor for the second night." Kara reached up to tuck her loose hair behind her ear. "And I just wanted to get out for a minute, see the city... check you were okay."
"In... pyjamas?" Lena tipped her head a little to the side. "Which are.,. cute by the way just not your usual flying outfit." She pointed out her lips pulling into a wide Lena smile. "Sheep." She reached to lightly poke at the fluffy animal in the middle of her abdomen.
"Sleepy sheep." Kara gave a soft laugh as she realized exactly what she was wearing. "The suit is more... dramatic isn't it?"
"I don't know if dramatic is the point, I know Brainy and I had a more functional and ergonomic idea going at the time we made it." Lena pointed out with a laugh.
"I promise, no superhero work in Sleepy Sheep?" Kara smirked at her.
"I'll take that promise." Lena nodded, the two of them still out at the patio. "So how was flying?" She offered the question with a light shrug.
"Great, it felt... so normal, so right." Kara admitted with a brighter smile. "Not being able to fly where I was, was hard." She made the gentle admission not naming the place having hated the fact she'd had to say the words 'The Phantom Zone' so many times in the last forty eight hours.
"And you're feeling strong enough?" Lena checked with obvious concern.
"Yes." Kara nodded immediately. "I think I felt physically strong enough before we even left the ship thanks to you." She summed up the reality that had existed for her.
"You'll soon be able to take your father for a few test flights." Lena winked at the blonde. "How crazy is that?" She asked as she stepped back into the hotel suite hoping Kara would just follow her.
"Remembering that he's at the tower recovering, not..." Kara did step inside to follow the brunette as she let the honest words slip out. "I have to keep pinching myself to believe it's true."
"You know if the two of you want to spend more time together you could take my suite, it has two bedrooms... a balcony for quick exits and the in house restaurant is very good." She made the offer instantly. "I could take your place for a couple of days."
"Maybe." Kara's face seemed to light up at the idea. "Nia told me about how the story she made up to keep everyone at Catco at bay, so taking a few days to spend with him wouldn't be selfish would it?" She asked the brunette the important question of optics.
"Not at all, believe me in your absence I may have had a few words with Andrea, I think you'll find her amicable on your return." Lena smiled. "And I know certain... co workers are eager to see you but even that can wait to spend time with your father."
"No one at Catco other than Nia can even try to compete for my attention right now, my orbit is full already." Kara continued to smile as she moved into the room further and actually sat down on the edge of the bed that Lena had unfolded herself out of.
"We can go into the main room..." Lena let her eyes lift and looked to the closed door in the room. "If you want to sit somewhere other than a bed." She laughed softly.
"Why weren't you asleep?" Kara didn't immediately answer the direct query, she just looked up with soft eyelashes blinking over blue eyes in question.
For a moment Lena seemed to think over the question, or more particularly her answer to it.
"Nightmares." The brunette offered softly, slipping an arm around her own stomach. "Things haven't settled down in here..." She tapped the side of her head momentarily. "Just yet."
"Nightmares of what the phantom showed you... or the rest of it?" Kara's voice was soft even as she asked the obtrusive direct question.
"Everything." Lena shook her head. "It was all my fault Kara." She turned her head away slightly and paced to the far corner of the room, shaking her head as she walked. "And I'm not sure I can forgive myself for it." She admitted. "Any of it." She licked her lips. "So I just don't sleep."
Kara seemed to let her retreat for a moment, a frown pulling down all the features on her usually bright face.
"And of course now I'm telling you all this and you don't need to hear it... not now." Lena pushed out a hard breath as she said the words.
"But I want to hear it, right now especially." The blonde pushed up to stand as she said the solid words, showing that she believed them more than Lena could understand that she would. "And I want to tell you it wasn't your fault, you didn't create The Crisis that messed up everything, you don't make Lex do anything and you certainly aren't in control of him either." She began a slow walk towards where the brunette had retreated. "If Crisis had never happened, you made Non Nocere yes, but it was only once we all arrived on this new Earth that things spiralled out of control because of Lex." She seemed to come to a stop and frown again. "I've had so much time to think about all of this and I still can't seem to get it out right..." She gave a hard sigh. "Lena, you above anyone know what I thought was going to happen in the Fortress."
"I wouldn't have let Lex kill you." Lena shook her head, her tone steely.
"You didn't, even as the Kryptonite killed me, when he thought I was dead already... I heard your name." Kara made the admittance softly. "And then the suit was there and the pain was receding."
"The Lena Luthor Protocol." Lena offered with a slight huff. "I should have worked harder on it." She admonished herself briefly. "You didn't give me much of a window of opportunity." She let the smallest smile grace her lips.
"A minute or two if I remember correctly was all you had." Kara smiled softly back at her. "There is no one on earth I know that can do more with a quantum computer and two minutes, even Brainy, but if you tell him I said that he'll never get over it."
"He spends too much time working out statistic and probability." Lena shook her head with a light laugh. "I'm more of a tweak it when it breaks kind of girl."
"You are." Kara acknowledged with a smirk. "But your superhero name is not going to be the Tweaker." She pointed out and was happy when both of their laughter filled the suite for a moment. "Lena..." The blonde's voice sobered softly as she took a second to take a soft breath. "I decided something when I was in the Phantom Zone..." She felt the dreaded name pass her lips again but tried not to focus on it. "But now that I'm back, it is just so easy to get overwhelmed again, to be fearful of what my decision could change what it could alter..."
"You want to go to Argo, like your cousin for a while?" Lena offered an idea of what might be what the blonde was thinking about.
"No." The word came out of Kara in such a tone that it proved what she was talking about had nothing to do with what Lena had just suggested. "Can I ask you for one thing before I explain? One impossible thing, that isn't fair for me to ask for but just because I need it to be sure I can do this."
"Kara, you can ask me for anything." Lena shook her head giving a small shrug of her shoulders.
"Forgive me, if what I say... if it tries to drive a wedge between us again. Promise me you'll forgive me and we can pretend it never was." Kara chewed on her lip knowing she wasn't making a lot of sense.
"Kara, I can't forgive you for something you haven't done." Lena shook her head. "If you need to talk to me about something..." She took a breath. "Then you need to talk to me, we can't spend the rest of forever asking for forgiveness from each other before we talk." She shook her head. "That's not a friendship that's an arrangement between colleagues."
The very Lena mini speech seemed to do at least one thing and that was solidify Kara's faltering resolve. Taking a breath she stayed silent as she moved across the distance to where Lena was standing, stopping in front of her, too close for the open concept room around them. Enough that immediately she could see the hesitation in Lena's posture, the way that the brunette's mind was trying to out think what Kara could be about to say.
"I don't want an arrangement between us..." Kara's voice was barely above a whisper as she brought one hand up to touch just the fingertip of her thumb and first finger to Lena's cheek, hoping the tiny contact points wouldn't translate the shake she could feel in the hand as so much of her emotions warred inside of her about timing. "And this isn't about our friendship..." She added trying to remember the thousand or so speeches she'd made in her own mind during the long endless moments of her captivity. Suddenly not sure any of them were good enough to express what she was feeling, not sure any of them could ever properly explain to Lena what she was feeling, what she hoped the brunette felt, the answer suddenly seemed so clear to the Kryptonian. With another soft breath out, she finally closed the remaining distance between them and lightly pressed her lips to the slightly shorter brunette's in a brief kiss.
Lena would have sworn that she was prepared for more or less anything from the blonde, from a reset in their friendship to never wanting to work with her, but she most certainly had not prepared for soft lips to suddenly be on hers. Kissing her lovingly but so chastely, the only way she imagined Kara would ever offer a first kiss. She was so stunned in fact that she realized that she hadn't really responded, even as warm lips retreated a little, was it because she hadn't?
Blinking suddenly wide green eyes at Kara as the blonde lifted her head again, taking just a second to shake out her blonde hair over her shoulders as she straightened up. Lena more or less heard herself whisper the blonde's name, her voice full of soft question.
"You were in every one of my nightmares, in every one because losing you was the hardest, the loss that threatened to break me into a million useless pieces." Kara heard the soft question in the repetition of her name and tried to take the most important aspects from all of her speeches. "But those nightmares weren't just in the Phantom Zone, they started even before I told you the truth... when the idea of how you could react badly would choke me, press every ounce of hope out of me because I knew I was hurting you even if I didn't want to be by lying. And then when I did finally tell you... the worst thing that could happen was happening, and by the time the Phantom's were torturing me with worse then even that... I finally understood, what I really wanted."
"I dropped to the lowest point in my life over what..." Lena stopped and shook her head. "I'm a good person Kara." She said with a little more strength in her voice. "But I'm not good enough for that." She shook her head. "For you." She pulled in a tight breath.
"You are a good person." Kara repeated the words knowing they deserved to be said a thousand times if necessary. "So good that it was my misguided mistrust, my confusion that ended up destroying you. If I had just told you the truth from the beginning, if I had just not given into fear and doubt then I could have saved you from all of that darkness Lena. You think you failed, but it was me who failed you."
"I did what I did to myself." Lena denied Kara's words. "And it's only now, with the revelations and the changes that have happened around and to me that I can admit and realize that." She held herself taller but not with an austere tone. "I realized that I was... am so scared of what it means to be a friend, a partner, a person." She felt her eyes sting a little as tear welled up in them. "So afraid, that I wasn't any of those things ever, not even to Kara." She shook her head and let tears spill onto her cheeks. "I did that, me." She clarified. "To myself, in a reaction maybe to all that I have been through, but it was still me." She licked her lips again to catch the lingering taste of Kara from them. "You could have told me a week after we'd become friends, or it could be unknown to me still, but the only thing that changed me, was you." She offered. "And I know that change isn't over." She almost laughed. "That I'm still a horrible person when it comes to trust, to stubbornness, to challenge." She laughed again.
"My love isn't a challenge, it has been there when you didn't know I was Supergirl, it was still there after you knew and you hated me, it was there when I thought I was going to die, it was there when I awoke in my own personal hell. Loving you has never been the challenge, feeling like I was good enough for you Lena Luthor, that was the challenge." Kara cut her off to make the soft admission. "Because you are like the sun to me."
Lena lifted her hand and lightly touched it to Kara's cheek.
"Oh Kara." She said, her voice soft and evening to introduce the lightest of Irish notes to it. "You are Supergirl, you're perfect." She rubbed her thumb over Kara's cheek.
"That's a name Cat Grant gave me to sell copies." Kara shook her head softly but didn't try to dislodge Lena's hand. "I'm Kara Zor-El and I am far from perfect."
Lena suddenly smiled but didn't move her hand.
"Did you know that Kara, Cara..." She corrected herself, her voice shifting the most 'Irish' it had ever. "Is a Gaelic name?" She kept grazing her thumb in place.
"No, I naively always thought it was Kryptonian." Kara let a soft smile come to her lips.
"Well maybe there it is, but here, your name comes from the same place I do." Lena gave an almost child like smile. "It means 'most beloved'."
"Connected across the universe." Kara looked deeply into green eyes in the way that always made Lena feel like she was looking into her soul. "All this time I thought I was chasing after Kal, but I was flying towards you."
"You really do have the soul of a poet don't you?" Lena smiled as she let her hand still on Kara's cheek.
"I dabble." Kara immediately came up in a soft blush.
"When this is all calmer, we'll talk again and maybe then we can work out what all of this means." Lena didn't pull her hand away just yet. "But until then I need you to know, that I need to be in your life Kara Zor-El, with out you my world was cold and dark and lonely. Now you're back... even with the nightmares, the daylight is worth waking into."
"I need to be in your life Lena Kieran Luthor." Kara repeated to make the simple fact just as clear.
"Do you have to leave?" The brunette asked the question as she did lower her hand from off Kara's skin finally.
"No, I left Alex and Kelly a note." Kara softly rolled her eyes. "As long as I'm back before they wake up, Alex is... not coping just yet but she'll get there."
"The bed gets great morning sun, from any time after five." Lena let her eyes shift off Kara to turn towards the bed.
"Do you think you might actually sleep if I stay?" Kara offered up the even more attractive reason as she began to step back towards it.
"Statistically I'd say I stand a better chance." Lena offered a genuine smile. "Of course there is the percentile that sees you being too heavy for the bed, fracturing the struts of the floor and crashing both down onto the family of three on the floor below, but that's just a percentile or two."
"You're making jokes about my super weight? Already?" Kara feigned being slightly hurt but the bright grin on her face gave away that the words made her more amused without any sense of hurt. "I should take a running jump..." She began to tease back as she put out her arms in a super pose.
"I'm paid up until the end of the month, can that wait till maybe next week?" Lena's grin was wide and bright. But then suddenly there was the sense of movement passed Kara and the slender brunette launched herself onto the middle of the mattress, laughing brightly. "Now if it happens it really is you."
"I float you know." Kara laughed more and did float over to ever so softly land on the bed laying down beside her. "So if this bed breaks its all you, though I would have said you'd lost weight since I last saw you not gained it but..." She teased with a smirk.
"Eating and creating don't go hand in hand without you around." Lena settled into a soft smile as she turned on her side and tucked her hands under her cheek.
"Is it just me or does Brainy have a bit of a ..." Kara didn't fill in a word but held her hand down to her stomach to make a small rounding motion.
"Stress eating." Lena summed up. "Don't ask him how many donuts gave their lives over the last two months." She happily explained. "Also don't ask about your sister and I's Scotch consumption."
"Check and check." Kara nodded softly. "Though that is going to diminish now that I'm back right?"
"Of course." Lena nodded and shifted into a more comfortable position. "Turn the light off when your comfortable to." She encouraged the blonde, letting her own eyelids dip close.
At the same time Kara leaned to hit the switch on the bedside table that turned out the lights as she slipped her hand into the one that Lena had now resting between them.
"Good night Kara." Lena bid her softly
-x-
"Hey Lena, Brainy wanted me to ask you if you had the photon adjuster?" Nia moved to stand next to Lena's workbench in the 'R&D' area of the tower, having quickly volunteered to go make the inquiry for him when he had mentioned it. She'd been trying to find an excuse to corner Lena all day and talk to her and now seemed like the perfect opportunity.
"I do." Lena looked up from the small device she seemed to be working on, not bothering to remove her safety glasses as she looked up at Dreamer with a smile. "Does he need it this minute?" She queried.
"No, he's doing a software upgrade to the propulsion system so I doubt it." Nia shook her head and slipped up onto a nearby stool. "So you excited about the 'welcome home Kara' party tomorrow night?" She questioned picking up a small wiggly length of glowing wire trying to figure out what it was.
"Ask me that again in a few hours when I've worked on this a little more." Lena gave her a smile with her answer and then left what she was working on to go to one of her extensive 'tool boxes'. From it she took something and came back to Nia. "This will work better than the photon adjuster, if he's working on what you said." She continued to smile as she held it out. "Also you might not want to play with the spinal cord of a Ulaflax."
"Ewww!" Nia immediately put it down on the table. "You have the weirdest stuff in here." She made a face as she took the other tool. "So whatcha making? Is it a pressie for the party? Strobe lights? A better karaoke machine that makes it so more of us sound good?"
"More like a present for after the party." Lena replied as she took up her original stance. "It's a digital inter-dimensional communicator."
"So Mr. Zor-El can call Argo? That is so cool." Nia looked on as Lena began to adjust something else with a light up screwdriver and she realized she had no idea what the genius was doing.
"I'm having trouble tuning the visual receptors and it's... frustrating." She admitted leaning back a little to hold the small 'screwdriver' in both hands. "The lack of communication satellites in space between here and Argo is making me have to get a little creative."
"Well no one I know is as creative as you." Nia smiled and complimented her. "And hey, at least Kara is actually trying to 'work' again so she's not all up in here distracting you." She smirked to herself seeing Lena was too engaged to notice.
"Kara doesn't distract me." Lena did notice however and immediately looked up and offered the statement with a shake of her head, the lip on the left hand side of her face pulling up into a half smile.
"Right." Nia gave her a dramatic eye roll. "You can tell yourself that, you can tell most everyone else in the Superfriends that but... not me Missy." She waggled an accusatory finger at the brunette. "I've seen the goo goo eyes you've been shooting her."
"Even if she distracts me... because she's 'new' and back..." Lena offered casually. "I don't possess the ability to have... whatever you said." She denied. "Even when I was a child at Christmas people had to ask me if I liked something, a gift or a toy, because I was so stone faced." She pointed out.
"I guess Kara is your stone faced Kryptonite then." Nia grinned even more, knowing that Lena wasn't noticing how she was moving the screwdriver back and forth between her hands almost nervously.
"Scones, scones from Ireland are my Kryptonite." The brunette folded her arms and tucked the offending tool under one arm.
"Which Kara brings you." Nia pointed out further. "Every morning since Alex hasn't been glued to her." She grinned more. "Oh come on Lena, it's okay, let me enjoy this with the two of you, as a friend watching two other friends... it's storybook beautiful."
Lena did take a more serious and longer breath now.
"Nia, Kara and I aren't... any kind of storybook." She shook her head. "And..." She stopped and looked at the younger woman. "I admit, three years ago, if I knew you like I do now, I would have possibly..." She used the word carefully. "Told you that yes, Kara does have the ability to ... disarm me." She offered. "But too much has happened.." She shook her head again now.
"So if I had told you I was going to never get back with Brainy, never get passed the horrible stupid games he decided to play in order to save the world and ruin his relationship with all of us, me especially... you'd have said what? You're right Nia, too much has gone on, get out while the getting is good." She countered the logical brunette with facts.
"No." Lena shook her head. "But that's very different, you and Brainy... everything about the two of you says you should be together." She stressed. "Even the God damn way you sing 9to5 randomly in the Tower." She laughed. "You make each other happy." She tried again to rephrase the point. "For a long time Supergirl and I did the exact opposite of that."
"When I first came to work at Catco, I thought the two of you were dating." Nia dropped the bomb with a smirk.
"I'm sorry what?" Lena frowned as she looked at Nia. "I was her boss, I was your boss." She flared her nose a little.
"I know, you were my boss who was a little abrupt and demanding, and made grown men want to call their mommies..." Nia grinned at her. "And then Kara would walk up to you and the whole world would change, and you'd be smiling and laughing, and giggling a lot and touching each other nonchalantly, eating lunch together, disappearing together..." She laid out the evidence.
"Kara was one of my only friends in National City." Lena offered a 'reason' for all this evidence. "Of course I relaxed when she was around." She moved her hand vaguely as if trying to signify something – anything really.
"You were still her boss. I mean you and James were dating for weeks before anyone on the floor even guessed, the way you still gave him the gears at every opportunity." Nia laughed lightly. "Remember when the night copy was lost by the courier on the way to the printer? There was literally a group decision to send in Kara to tell you."
"It wouldn't have made any difference if..." Lena stopped and then frowned. "You deliberately sent Kara in to tell me!" She opened her mouth wide in shock but then let it ease closed. "Well I suppose I did buy the building for her." She offered with a roll of her shoulders.
"I KNEW IT!" Nia was up off her stool doing a little dance. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it." She seemed happy with herself and then seeing Lena's perplexed reaction at her reaction she sat back down. "What I'm trying to say Lena is that it's okay for you to admit you and Kara have a really emotionally complicated relationship but this..." She made a motion with her hands. "With just you and me here is a safe space, I'm not going to go running to her and tell her what you've said."
"Good because that would be ridiculously embarrassing." Lena offered with a slight tight smile.
"And you sold the same company when you were mad at her?" Nia pushed for more 'honesty'.
"Yes to another friend who had ripped my heart out years ago. I was enthralled by the irony." Lena admitted. "I did also need a large influx of capital for my project." She added the side point.
"Both can be true at the same time." Nia nodded that she agreed with this. "Lena, I guess what I most want you to realize is that there is this 'thing' between you and Kara, and no you're not the only two who see it or know it's there. The number of times someone has tried to say something bad about you in the past, no matter how dark things looked Kara wouldn't have it. I learned really early to accept that when it came to Kara, don't try to influence her view of Lena Luthor."
"Well she is the Paragon of Hope., I should be thankful she wasn't the paragon of 'tell it like it is'." Lena offered a smile and then breathed out.
"Didn't you ever think how odd it was that she turned out to be the Paragon of Hope and you named your AI project that?" Nia questioned in a soft voice.
"That's just a coincidence." Lena's very 'scientific' logical tone flooded her voice.
"Hello I'm Dreamer, I don't believe in coincidence." Nia grinned at her.
"I don't suppose you do." Lena let a more relaxed smile pull on her lips. "Come over here, I want to show you something I'm working on." She suddenly pressed up off the stool she was sat on and nodded to Nia to follow her. She moved to the wall nearest her and pressed her hand to the palm coded lock, waiting as the wall slid back to reveal a smaller, almost individual sized 'transporter'. The design similar to most others in kind, but this one was all the more compact, glowing with a light purple hue in contrast to its stark white material that made up the ellipse's border. "Using the wavelengths and inputs from the communicator back there..." She pointed back to her lab bench. "I disassembled my trans-locator watch and built this.." She looked from Nia to the arch and back again. "It's a permanent personal trans-locator that I intend to establish a constantly available passage to Argo with." She looked back at Nia. "Well it will be, when it's finished." She offered with a quick eye roll. "So it won't take a spaceship ride for Kara to go home."
Nia had moved over to inspect the complicated looking device and then leaned in to give Lena a soft one armed hug.
"She's going to love it, just the idea of it Lena, that you'd work so hard to make it for her, give up your portal watch." Nia summed up the important parts.
"And the great thing is that it's powered by Harun-El, so if I can get it to resonate with the Harun-El on Argo it should create stabilized reliable... highway." She offered with the brightest of smiles.
"Girl what is your IQ?" Nia questioned with a bright grin. "Because..." She looked around. "I think you are the smartest human being ever, screw Stephen Hawking, he never built anything like this."
"Lillian stopped getting me tested after I bested Lex." Lena offered with a shrug. "So honestly I can't answer that question."
"I'm going to say 500 and pronounce that we got the awesome Luthor." Nia continued to grin at her.
"Was it you that put Brainy up to offer calling me Gadget Girl, because Nia I swear if it was, I'm going to design your next suit to have a butt flap, with buttons." The inventor softly threatened her.
"Ohhhh..." Nia screwed up her face. "That is not cool!" She continued to look at Lena. "I thought Gadget Girl was cool though, Kara mentioned that she was trying to think of a superhero name for you."
"So it was you." Lena laughed and folded her arms across her chest. "I suppose it's better than Super Scotch, which I'll let you guess who came up with that."
"Sentinel? We both know why J'onn chose a name for her before she could ruin it." Nia laughed again. "You should hear some of the horrible ones Kara's been testing out." She rolled her eyes. "SuperBrain?"
"Oh God." Lena groaned. "Why do I feel the icy feeling of fear that in 200 years someone will be pushing around a brain in a jar asking 'my' opinion, even though I am blind, deaf... well have no body or limbs to try and help?"
"Don't worry, that will never happen, you'd have made a cyborg body to use when you knew it was going to be 'jar' time." Nia couldn't help but giggle. "What? You think a head?" She teased more when she saw the look on Lena's face.
"Then surely I should be 'Jar to be', sounds alien right?" Lena laughed brightly. "Though is it too close to Jar Jar binks... I don't want THAT kind of association."
"Please." Nia backed her up.
"The first one to offer up Gaelic Girl I will officially punch."
"You have a brutal right hook, so I will not every suggest that." Nia grimaced slightly remembering when Lena had punched her brother in the face.
"Kara at least ruled out 'Tweaker' the other day, I'm just hoping that she doesn't continue down that aisle and come up with 'Tinkerer'. That almost sounds like my 'super power' would be to tinkle... randomly, or tinker and that's not what I do... either of those things." She clarified quickly.
"I feel lucky I inherited Dreamer now." Nia smiled softly. "How about..." She seemed to set the stage and then made a dramatic hand movement. "Super Girlfriend?"
This got a green eyed glare from the slightly older woman.
"Why not Pinky? I hang around the brain a lot." Lena offered up with a shrug.
"You are not Pinky." Nia rolled her eyes. "Pinky was the stupid one." She corrected her.
Lena shifted and then settled her hands on her hips, her green eyes sparkling as she held the very 'superhero' pose.
"What about Lenarella."
Yes, we are so going with Lenarella, in fact I'm changing your screen name on my phone." Nia pulled the device out still giggling. "Lenarella Lenarella..." She started singing along to Cinderella.
"I was trying to give a Barbarella vibe." Lena laughed open mouthed. "You know the hands on the hips... the main of thick curly hair that I don't have."
"Sorry Lenarella?" Nia teased more. "Wait, till Kara hears it."
"No." Lena looked at Nia, realizing that this was the first time in such a long time that she had laughed, actually been happy enough to just laugh. "I'll put the underwear over the tights in your next suit and give the butt flap zippers."
"Not the early Superman look." Nia's eyes went wide. "Okay, I won't tell Kara but I'm keeping it in my phone."
"Okay but I'm changing your name to Beebo on my phone then." Lena teased back. "Cute, blue, cuddly but a lot weird."
"Awww I love you too Lenarella." Nia bounced over with her arms open and hugged her.
"Now get that back to your boyfriend and focus on your own... Goo Goo eyes was it?" Lena laughed as she hugged Nia tightly.
-x-
It was a lot later in the day and Lena and J'onn were supposed to be the only two left in the tower, J'onn meditating and Lena still in R&D working away on the communicator. It was only as soft footfalls broke the silence of the room that the brunette stopped working and looked up a smile coming to her face as she watched a fully suited up Supergirl wandering slowly into the 'lab'.
"Coming to do a late night check in before going to the hotel for some quiet time with your father?' Lena asked kindly as she sat a little back on her stool and lifted the glasses off her face.
"Yes, tonight we're going to watch the Wizard of Oz." Kara smiled as she came in further. "How is whatever this is going?" She made a motion with her hand around the table.
"Better." Lena said with a smile. "Much better actually." Her smile settled into an even one. "I'd let you try it if it weren't a part of tomorrows 'Surprise' party, that I know you know about because I know you saw the balloons at your apartment when you did a fly by last night."
"I know nothing of the sort, I just am worried that we may have to stage an intervention for your balloon obsession but I'm talking to Kelly about if it really qualifies as a 'problem'." Kara grinned.
"One day I'll tell you a story about the balloons but it's okay right now doesn't need to be that time." Lena smiled constantly. "You look really good considering you were out and about in the city almost all day." She added softly. "Being a superhero suits you."
"Now now, half the day I was chasing down a story the other half I worked on getting us one step closer to tracking down Nyxly." Kara admitted how her day had gone. "How about you? Can I fly you home? My spies tell me you've been in here all day and most of the evening."
"You have spies?" Lena smirked softly.
"Watch..." Kara grinned and moved to a panel on the wall. "Tower..." A electronic noise sounded. "What time did Lena Luthor enter the Tower today?"
"Eight forty two am, Supergirl." The disembodied voice came out of the panel.
"Has she left theTower?"
"No, she is currently in Lena R&D room three on floor four." The voice pinpointed her exact location.
"See, spies." Kara grinned more.
"Impressive." Lena offered with a nod of her head. "Though really couldn't it just be called The Lab or something?" She questioned. "Super Lab even." She laughed.
"Gadget Girl's Lab?" Kara grinned even more somehow.
Lena straightened up and folded her arms across her chest.
"That's Lenarella's Lab to you Supergirl."
"Lenarella?" Supergirl screwed up her nose. "Like the scantily dressed woman with the very big breasts and blonde hair from the sixties?"
"No, like Cinderella.." Lena shifted the 'root' of her name with an awkward frown. "You're right it's terrible." She laughed and dropped her hands. "Though really Gadget Girl? How about Scientific Siren." She turned her head to the side and cast her braided hair over her shoulder.
"I think that is the best one we've had yet." Kara smiled moving in to slip onto a stool. "No, wait and SS crest is too Earth X for most of us to deal with."
"Lab Rat?" Lena offered with a shrug.
"No, you're not to be experimented on." Kara shook her head immediately. "Titan?" She offered up the serious name she'd been considering.
"Titan?" Lena looked at the blonde, her eyebrow arched up in question. "Like the gods of old? That Zeus imprisoned?"
"Because even he couldn't defeat them." Kara pointed out quickly. "In a way you control the electricity of lightening in your machines, you use the metals of the earth and every planet you can get your hands on too."
"How about Sparky?" Lena wiggled her fingers.
"Weird story, I will tell you one day like the balloon story, pre-Crisis it was already taken and I like to hope it still is somewhere." Kara smiled softly.
"Techno?" Lena offered and then paused. "Techno Titan?" She smiled at the blonde.
"That could work." Kara pointed at her with a smile. "Martian Manhunter..." She stood up putting her hands on her hips role playing. "Call Techno Titan immediately." Lena laughed lightly at the display. "Supergirl and Techno Titan save National City Again!" She put her hand out in a arch like a headline. Lena laughed a second time.
"Well when I reach my hero status, I have a name." The brunette laid down her glasses.
"Lena, you're already a hero." Kara looked at her with a typical look of pride on her face.
"Maybe." Lena nodded and then slipped off her stool. "Where's my hug? I haven't had one yet today."
"Sorry you were working and I think there is a small rule about not disturbing you when you have 'important' bits and pieces in your hands." Kara reminded her of the disaster a few days before when she'd hugged her from behind after a big fight downtown and Lena had dropped and broke something accidentally. She moved immediately to gap the short distance and pull Lena into a tight 'Supergirl' hug. "Hey Double T." She teased breathing in the smell of dark hair as she always seemed to do now, or at least Lena now realized she did every time.
"Hey Big S." Lena settled herself against Kara's body for a long moment, a small luxury she'd been allowing herself the last few days. "I could agree to that lift if you want to head out of here."
"Definitely, do you think you could do food too? My father is meditating with J'onn until at least nine so I've got time to spend with someone important." Kara made the open offer for the hour and a half window of time.
Lena seemed to think for a moment and then eased back from the blonde with a smile.
"Well if you have a little time, then maybe I will let you test out your present." She nodded with her head back towards her work bench. "Now remember it's not finished but I am more than happy with where it stands." She turned her body to face both Kara and the bench. "What do you say?"
"I'm always willing to help test out your inventions but who said there were going to be presents? I thought it was an excuse for everyone to get drunk and blow off some stress?" Kara quirked an eyebrow.
"I like to be indulgent." Lena offered a light shrug. "Okay so come over here and sit on the stool." She pointed to the one right next to the workbench.
"Yes Ma'am." Kara moved over and perched up on the stool, fluffing her cape out behind her.
"Okay so here..." She held Kara something that looked a little like a hand mirror, but the edges were spiralled with wiring and components, the slim metal handle held a central purple stone. "When you're ready press the stone and look in the glass."
Kara only hesitated to look at Lena for a brief moment before she moved her head back to look into the mirrored reflection and then reached with her other hand to press the stone. For a second nothing happened and then the image began to curl and fractal with nothing but black space and star light before second by second she started to see a large rock sailing through space and then as she got closer the energy of a dome and then as she passed through even that in the image the very clear skyline of Argo city began to clear in front of her.
"Lena... is that... Argo?" Kara's voice was breathless with surprise and shock.
"It is." Lena's voice was soft and filled with happiness. "Turn the mirror... look around."
Without another word Kara did as she asked and was greeted by a completely movable view, which as she continued to stare began to zoom down even further until she was in the quiet night time of the marketplace in the main area of town. All the booths were closed but wares were left on shelves without fear of anyone stealing anything, the odd member of the planet walked in the late evening air alone and in pairs speaking. Almost not realizing she was willing it the view suddenly raced down one road and then another, then across a garden path before finally a rounded house came into view.
"That's my mother's house, those are her plants... oh look Lena, the orchid you gave her, she's got it to grow." She looked for the first time from the mirror to the brunette her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Think about her, your mother." Lena's voice was a whisper as she passed on the encouragement.
Blue eyes came back to the mirror and the view seemed to race to the side, hurling through plants and trees and even past a small pond before finally it framed Alura Zor-El sitting beside a soft rock water garden reading from a book leisurely.
"She always did like reading at night." Kara whispered the memory reaching up to ghost her fingers over the image. "Lena this is... how?"
"I will explain but let's just say that's my 'skill set'." The brunette offered. "When it's finished, you'll be able to wish her goodnight."
"You think you can make this a two way link?" Kara's eyes went wider as she looked at Lena and then softly putting the mirror down turned and engulfed the brunette in a second hug. "Thank you, thank you." She whispered the words.
Lena held on tightly, feeling warmth fill and surround her.
"You're more than welcome." She kept up her whisper. "I thought, even if I can't get it to fully work by tomorrow night, at least this way... Your father could see home, see his wife." She felt her throat choke a little as emotional tears threatened to fill her eyes.
"He will be so grateful even for a glimpse Lena." Kara continued to hold on. "I've already told him of all the other things you've invented to help me, to support the team... to save me." She explained even in the tight embrace. "I told him how you replicated the Harun-El to save Argo... he couldn't believe Mother didn't recruit you to lead the Science guild as he wasn't even sure he could have done what you did."
"I'm sure he was just being nice." Lena shook her head slightly as she eased back to look at Kara. "So I'll keep working on it yes?"
"Please." Kara nodded over and over. "Let me know if you need anything that I can help with."
"I will." Lena nodded and then breathed out and leaned in and ghosted her lips against Kara's cheek. "I'm glad you like it."
"I don't like it Lena, I think it's a miracle." Kara whispered back, almost as equally amazed by the device as she was by the sudden press of warm lips to her cheek. "Miracle should be your super name."
A light blush coloured Lena's cheeks.
"If I can make it do what I want it do to... then I'll agree to that one." The brunette offered. "The full title should be Miracle Maker though... you know have to have the double letter right?"
"And M is right after L, so the hint to who you really are is right there." Kara let a smile spread on her features. "Miracle Maker, I'll design a shirt."
"Maybe even a personalized lab coat." Lena wiggled her eyebrows.
"That for sure." Kara's face spread into a grin as she thought of the perfect website she could go too. "Brainy will be jealous, maybe even Alex."
"I'm not dying a strand of my hair a weird colour, or wearing... Drag Race make-up."
"It is a little heavy isn't it, I think we need to design her a mask." Kara nodded her agreement.
"It's very very blue." Lena agreed with a nod. "Maybe something visor-ish, with digital readout?" She offered up an alternative.
"I know that look, you'll be doodling in your Miracle-book before I finish eating." Kara winked at her.
"You understand why I'm doing this..." Lena's eyes went to the mirror. "Don't you?" She questioned suddenly.
"Because since the moment you knew who had come out of the Phantom Zone with me, you've been focused on getting him home, back to my Mother, back to the life he thought he'd lost." Kara answered with a soft nod. "Because you have a beautiful heart Lena Luthor."
"I am doing it for all of those reasons, but also because... I never want you to feel alone again." Lena felt her eyes tear up unbidden. "I want you to always have a way to know where home is, whichever home, and to see, for real the people there..." She paused very briefly. "Who love you."
"I never thought all those years ago when I watched Krypton explode that I would ever have a home again, let alone two." Kara summed up with a soft smile on her face as she held teary green eyes. "I never even dreamed that I would ever find family again, both blood and chosen." She reached up to softly sweep a tear that escaped off of Lena's cheek. "I never believed I would be surrounded by so much love."
"You are." Lena nodded slightly letting her lips turn up into a smile, she then shifted her look slightly so it rested on the mirror. "It works for Earth too by the way." She offered up the fact. "With sound." She smiled a little more. "The satellites help." She twirled her finger round pointing up. "I'd call and tell Eliza rather than just bursting into her world at seven thirty on a Thursday evening though."
"I'll call her tomorrow morning and warn her, but maybe we can try it out before the party tomorrow night." Kara offered up the idea. "How do you make these things Lena? Miracle Maker really is your name."
"Ironically I've come to realize that the driving force for most of this..." She panned her hand around the lab. "Is my heart." She rolled her eyes at the words coming out of her mouth. Words that she would never have though would even come to her mind let alone find a voice. "And then I see it, it my head and from that I work out a way to make that idea... be." She again shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't work with cooking though." She scrunched up her nose a little.
"It doesn't, you're a worse cook then me." Kara gave a soft laugh and reached up to dab her nose with a giggle. "But lucky for you, you never have to ask the question can I afford to eat out."
"I'm unemployed thank you." Lena teased. "I spent ever single million dollar I ever made." She laughed.
"Let's pretend I don't have super hearing and I didn't hear you and Brainy discussing opening a tech company on the side to fund the Tower." Kara smirked at her.
"Yeah let's do that." Lena let green eyes twinkle. "But for now... what does your tiny tummy what to eat?"
"Pot stickers and Cantonese chow mein." Kara smirked even more.
"Take out or eat in here?" Lena continued the questions. "Or is it a good night to sit out street side and get it from that great food truck?"
"Food truck, food truck." Kara began to chant with an even brighter grin. "You ready to fly or do you need to stow things here?"
"Give me ten minutes, I'll meet you in the main room." Lena grinned.
"Yes Miracle." Kara winked at her and moved to the doorway, pausing it to turn. "Just so you know, this is top three of the best inventions you've ever made for me." She continued to smile at the brunette.
"Oh I'm not done yet." Lena winked.
-x-
"So Kara..." Alex moved up along side her sister as the blonde stood on the balcony of The Tower looking out over the city in a quiet moment of the morning that had so far been very busy for the super hero. "How does it feel to be back, saving people, doing good and even showing the Old Man how to fly." Both of the Danver's sisters eyes went up slightly to watch where J'onn and Zor-El were flying lazy loops in the cloudy grey sky.
"Sometimes for just a moment I think I must be in a dream." Kara said honestly as she turned her eyes away from the sky to look properly at her sister. "How does it feel being right there helping me as The Sentinel?" She asked back with a proud smile.
"Unfrickenbeliveable." Alex's reply came with the brightest of smiles.
"Doesn't it feel like for the first time in a long time, we're back? And by that I mean all of us, all of the team together firing on all cylinders as they say." Kara grinned at her sister's honest reaction. "We have our own Tower, which doubles as a spaceship." She moved her hand to motion to the building behind them. "Brainy is adapting to not having his inhibitors and he and Nia are doing so good." Her smile warmed a bit as she thought of the pair. "Dreamer is turning into a force to be reckoned with, she's making me feel like the 'old man' at this." She gave a soft laugh. "And we even have Lena away from Lex for good and where she should be."
"Talking about where people should be..." Alex lost a little of the shine to her smile. "How is your Father doing?"
"He's adapting, it's overwhelming but I keep trying to remind him that it is, so feeling that way is the most honest thing he can be feeling." Kara nodded softly to the worried inquiry. "J'onn is helping a lot..." She turned to put her hands on the railing and look up into the sky again. "I forgot how Kryptonian a Kryptonian can be." She said the words in a soft voice only loud enough that her sister could ever hear, knowing at least her father hadn't mastered their super hearing power just yet.
Alex's smile came back in full force.
"Is that you admitting that humans are better to hang out with?" She teased.
"I guess I got used to you." Kara laughed softy and bumped her shoulder into her sister's. "He's finding that understanding why humans do things the way they do, like letting people choose their own careers and not assigning them based on natural skill sets." She revealed one of the continuing conversations she was having with the older man. "Is hard to consolidate."
"Us humans don't like being told what we're going to do." Alex laughed. "Are you planning on staying in Lena's hotel suite for the duration?" She asked softly. "That is... I take it your Father wants to go home, well to Argo, to Alura?"
"Of course he does, but he said he wanted to make sure both of us had adjusted to being out of the Phantom Zone first." Kara explained where they had gotten too with that question. The arrangement where she and her Father were in Lena's hotel suite while the brunette lived at Kara's apartment had so far been an easy one for all parties. "I think... a part of him fears that the part about my Mother being alive, Argo being alive is just a trick of his mind. He's confirmed enough that I am real but right now she is still a dream to him." She took a soft breath. "But Lena's gift is going to change that, he's going to get to see her soon... well as soon as Lena texts me to say it's time and I drag him out of flight practice to go see it."
"I knew she would cave." Alex let out a bright laugh.
"You knew and didn't tell me she was working on establishing a communicator link with Argo? I get any left over pot stickers in the next two orders!" Kara's held up her two fingers to emphasis the statement but she continued to smile at her sister. "She showed me the mirror last night, my Mother was out late reading by a rock garden." Her face brightened a little. "My father isn't going to believe what Lena has managed. She is..." She didn't finish the statement and let out a soft content sigh.
"Home, just like you are." Alex' smile turned tender. "It's amazing what a little forgiveness, trust, encouragement and love can do."
"Yeah, it's why our team always wins in the end." Kara moved to give her sister a one armed hug. "So are you going to behave tonight since Kelly also plans to indulge? Or am I going to have to carry you home?" She teased about another celebration night.
"Tipsy lovin' isn't as bad as people say it is. At least not for us ladies." Alex pointed out with a wink.
"I won't worry if you two go missing long before last call then." Kara gave her sister a soft compulsory roll of her eyes. "It's a good thing I really like Kelly, because having to deal with a tipsy you staring down her shirt all night, I can't do that for just any girl ya know."
Alex lightly swatted Kara's arm.
"Are you wishing now Nia had asked William?" She laughed.
"No, no I'm fine with my decision in regards to William." Kara shook her head softly and bit her lip taking a glance back towards the doorway to the tower for just a minute. "We make a way better work team then anything." She nodded her head in agreement to her own point. "And... he's not the one, I'd rather be ready for the one." She smiled softly.
"You're not ready?" Alex quirked up a fine eyebrow.
"Isn't whether your ready or not the kind of thing life just shows you?" Kara looked at her serious with a serious glint in her eyes. "I mean you didn't mention that you were even thinking of asking Kelly to move in with you, but then life lined up a few good and bad pieces and suddenly it made sense, it suddenly became what you wanted more than anything." The look she gave her sister was a soft contented one. "I am ready to have what you have, when life decides the time is right."
"Oh so you are ready." Alex laughed and nodded. "Well you can't have Kelly." She shook her head with a grin.
"I don't want Kelly for me, I want her for you, for the two of you to be happy." Kara rolled her eyes again at her sister. "But tonight I think I just want to enjoy my 'not so surprise surprise party'."
"Admit it you'd be disappointed if there hadn't been one." Alex nudged her.
"So disappointed!" Kara agreed nudging her back. "I think I might even have a few alien drinks, really make a fool of myself at Karaoke."
"Oooh this just keeps getting better." Alex clapped briefly and then shifted slightly as she heard a small noise behind her. "Don't look now but the Best Luthor just walked in."
"Hey Lena." Kara turned and waved immediately to orient the brunette to where they were, an instant grin coming to her face. "Are we ready?" She asked when Lena finally made her way up the staircase and out the doorway onto the patio.
The brunette's face was lit by a brilliant smile.
"I think so." She nodded exuberantly. "I wondered if you wanted a trial run before we show..." She paused and leaned to strain a little up into the sky. "Your father." She eased back after catching sight of the other Kryptonian. "And honestly I'd like the opportunity to fine tune it when it's in action for the first time."
"Yes, whatever you need." Kara looked back at Alex softly who nodded in a way that conveyed she'd keep an eye on the two men in the sky and be keep them out of the lab until the time was right. "Knowing my luck I'll be watching my Mother at a boring council meeting while you fine tune it."
"Well your Mother is a busy woman..." Lena began as she led the way back down into the main area of The Tower and then to the elevator knowing Kara was right behind her. "But I'd wager the fact that she'd pause more or less anything to talk to you." She smiled at the blonde as the stepped inside and Lena pressed the lab floor button.
"Wait, talk to me? Lena?" Kara questioned the small probably purposeful slip with wide eyes.
"The key is the Harun-El... hopefully." The brunette's smile was still broad. "Finding and matching its resonance, manipulating it slightly, configuring the..." She stopped and shook her head knowing right now it was useless to go on about the science surrounding what she had worked out in the last nine hours. "That's one of the reasons I wanted you right now." She added. "To fine tune the amplifier and to clear the signal as much as I can."
"No, Lena... back to the part where I get to talk to my Mother, my Father will get to talk to her too." Kara blinked at her for a moment, seeing how Lena did seem to stop her whirling scientific mind to look at Kara and nod. The small head movement coming only a moment before Kara moved and caught her up in a hug. "Thank you, thank you." She repeated the word as she spun her around a little.
A bright almost child like laugh slipped from Lena's lips as she was spun. Moving her hands she clung onto the blonde's shoulders until once again she found her feet resting on the ground, just as the elevator brought them to their destination, the doors slipping silently open.
"You are welcome." Lena looked into blue eyes with a nod. "Fingers crossed I'm not boasting before I deliver."
"You're Lena Luthor, you never boast." Blue eyes looked back at her and then led her out of the elevator towards her own lab.
The first thing that Kara noticed was that Lena led her through the main area and into a smaller side partition, in which was a rocking chair sat in front of what looked like a hand painted silk screen. The floor to ceiling decoration was bright with colour from its design of cherry blossoms, a bright blue sky and green grass. The lighting in the smaller room was the mirror of a bright sunny day and there was even a soft recording of bird song playing in the background.
"If you'd like to sit down." Lena motioned to the chair not commenting on the whole scene.
"Of course." Kara moved over and sat down still looking around at the set up. "This is pretty."
"Well the wall it's hiding isn't the best backdrop in the world, and I need the mirror to stay in the lab while I adjust it." Lena explained. "So I pulled a couple of things out of storage to brighten things up.
"I worry about what you 'have in storage'." The blonde laughed softly as she got comfortable, knowing Lena would guide her through what she needed Kara to do but she doubted it would be more complicated then it had been the night before.
Lena moved over to the only workbench in the room and lifted the mirror from off of it, this time there were a few cables attached to the back of it, wired up to the computer that also sat on the bench, a small stool close by it. Carefully, managing the wires all the way the brunette moved over to where Kara was sat.
"These are only necessary for me to work on it." She explained as she held out the slender object. "Just like yesterday, when you're ready and I'm back at my workstation, press the gem and think of home." She lingered for Kara to take it.
"Yes Miracle Maker." Kara held the mirror and took care with all of the cables, waiting until Lena was in her spot behind a screen and keyboard. Knowing a little what to expect she began to think of Argo and pressed the button to watch the image race through the cosmos before it narrowed down its focus bit by bit and finally she was looking at her Mother watering some of the plants in her garden. She only glanced up to look at Lena, suddenly realizing she should have asked how the talking part might work.
"Just say hello, and direct her to any object that can receive visual input. I am sure there are plenty inside." Lena urged the blonde in a whisper.
Kara took a deep breath and bit her lip softly.
"Hello Mother, this is Kara, sorry to startle you." Kara began softly seeing her mother accidentally spill more water then she'd meant too on a small blue plant when her voice had clearly made it all the way across the universe. "If you can go to one of the inside terminals, we can centre in an image so you can see me."
"Kara?" Alura looked around herself into the air. "Am I really hearing you?" A soft brow creased her forehead.
"Yes Mother, Lena has worked out a way for us to communicate." Kara knew the second name would be one only a few people would know to even use and she hoped it would prove to her Mother that this wasn't fake or a hallucination. "I have the most wonderful news to share with you."
"Lena." There was an air of 'oh I see' to the older Kryptonian's voice now. "And I can just go inside and this device will project an image of you onto any screen?" She asked for clearer directions.
"Well that's how she hopes it's going to work, this is the test run." Kara filled in grinning at the image of her Mother who still kept looking around until she confirmed the fact and then had finally moved inside. "She will have to explain what exactly she is doing but..." Her words cut off as the image flickered for a minute on the mirror and then finally settled to show Alura leaning in towards a screen now before she stood back to settle. "Can you see me?"
The brunette's eyes instantly widened and then tears sprung into her eyes.
"Kara, my daughter." Her whole face lit up as she moved a little just to get a chair to perch on by the screen.
"Mother." Kara's blue eyes also glistened with unshed tears. "It's so good to see you, how are you?"
"I... I am fine... Oh Kara I can't believe this... How?" She shook her head her dark hair bouncing slightly. "That Lena of yours is a true genius." She smiled and breathed out a little deeply. "How are you? You look well." She added. "It's so beautiful where you are. Where are you?"
"Lena set this up so you weren't looking at a science lab." Kara gave credit where credit was due. "And I am well, better than well... on top of this miracle..." She purposefully used the word. "I have something else to tell you, it's a long story but the most important part is what I want to skip too and tell you first."
"Well you certainly sound like it's something very important." Alura let a soft laugh slip from her lips as she settled her hands in her lap. "A mate perhaps?" She laughed brightly.
"No Mother!" Kara's cheeks blushed immediately as she had to glance up towards Lena again happy the brunette was hiding in her work. "Not for me at least..." She took a soft breath and looked straight into the mirror. "I found Father, he is alive and safe here with me."
"You..." Alura could be seen to literally sit up and forward. "Kara what do you mean, your father is gone." She shook her head, her brow crumple in both pain and confusion.
"I know he remained to save Argo, but he was able to send himself to the Phantom Zone before Krypton exploded... he's been there all this time Mother, and recently I was there and I found him, and my friends saved us both." Kara knew she had to give her Mother's some details but didn't want to get bogged down in how she'd ended up there in the first place to make the discovery.
"Zor-El is..." A hand went up to Alura's face resting lightly on her mouth. "Alive?" She literally squeaked out the word.
"Yes." Kara said the word softly and nodded her head at her Mother over and over. "Lena needed to fine tune the signal, I wanted to tell you first before I get him so you can see him. I wanted you to understand that he is really alive."
"See him? I can..." Alura's lip trembled. "He's there, with you?"
"Yes." Kara repeated the word. "Safe and healthy." She underlined.
"I... I can't possibly see him looking like this." Kara's mother glanced down at the drab 'working' clothes she was wearing.
"Mother he won't care what you're wearing, he's not going to be looking at your outfit, just basking in the fact you're both able to look into each other eyes." Kara's smile was bright at her mother. "He has missed you so much."
"I can't believe this." Alura stated honestly. "He was in the Phantom Zone all this time. How did he survive?" She continued with the questions. "Wait... why were you there? How did you survive?"
"All the answers to those questions can come in time." Kara tried to soothe her need to understand. "How about I go and get him and you take a minute to freshen up and like before I'll call in to you when he's here by the mirror?"
"Call again? This isn't a one time event?" Alura looked at the blonde with amazement.
"No, Lena has figured out how to use the resonance of the Harun-El as a link for the signal to find you and for you to find us, she has plans to make it call both ways." Kara shared with her the other great excitement about Lena's invention. "She is amazing."
"Well I was already aware of that." Alura smiled. "Your father is alive." She underlined the point again. "I have to prepare." She pressed up and reached up to smooth over her hair. "I love you my darling Kara." She added looking at her screen.
"I love you too Mother, so much." Kara smiled back at her.
-x-
Kara closed the door to the lab softly behind her and looked to meet her blue eyes to Lena's green ones as the 'inventor' waited there having already left to give the El family some privacy during their reunion.
"I think she still doesn't believe it, I think he does finally." Kara admitted with a soft smile looking at the brunette with warm emotion. "All of this is thanks to you Lena."
"No not all of it." Lena shook her head. "I mean you found him, without that element all this wouldn't be quite as exciting."
With a soft laugh, Kara moved closer as she shook her head and then leaned in to hug her again out of the blue.
"Just take the compliment please." She whispered her head tucked over Lena's shoulder.
Lena raised her arms up and rested them against Kara's back.
"Thank you." She offered softly. "When your father has finished talking, I'll be able to make some final adjustments and then dis-attach it from the main frame and you can take it home with you when you go to prepare for the party."
"I'm not sure he's going to be moving for awhile, he's not worried about a wire or two." Kara didn't pull back from the embrace when Lena hadn't moved away either, so filled up with happiness at that moment her emotions weren't something she was in control of so much as she was just feeling something she had feared only weeks before was lost forever as she languished in her personal hell. "How do you do these things?" She asked the awe filled question suddenly.
"Do you really want the science?" Lena was the one who eased back, her smile bright and happy. "I do these things out of the desire to help." She offered a different perspective. "And I have a lot of motivation behind me."
"You just invented a new form of intergalactic communication." Kara giggled as she put forward the fact. "To a security domed planet." She added the other complication of Argo.
"Making it dome friendly took a day or two I hadn't timetabled for." Lena admitted.
"Just know, whenever you think you can't do something, create something, fix something on the fly..." Kara pulled back just enough so that green eyes could meet blue ones. "I believe you can."
"Well thank you for that but..." A smile pulled more at Lena's lips. "I know I can, because of this..." She pointed a finger back and forth between each of them. "We fixed us." She summed up. "And if that's possible, anything is."
"Yes, you're right, it is." Kara's face somehow lit up a little bit more when Lena made the specific reference. "Being me is so much easier with you in my corner, knowing you have my back Lena Luthor."
"Now that line is one I wish I could broadcast aloud to the entire city." Lena laughed. "And not just to imagine my brothers anguish." She laughed.
"I'm sure his blood is already boiling to know you helped get me back, alive and added another Kryptonian to the population." Kara laughed with her at Lex's expense. "Are you ready to drink unresponsively and not worry about anything in that lab tonight?"
"Why do you think I was so eager to get it finished?" Lena laughed again. "There is a bottle there with my name on it."
"Remember this is still Al's, it's a dive bar." Kara laughed more. "Unless... wait you dropped off your order already didn't you?"
"When I made the reservation." Lena underlined with a nod. "You think three hundred pot stickers was enough?"
"For me? Just." Kara grinned wider.
"Oh before it happens though, I have to tell you I do not participate in Karaoke." Lena made the important fact known.
"No, you have too, it's tradition... one song. You have to do one song as a Superfriend, it's the law, literally Winn wrote it down." Kara pleaded with instant puppy dog eyes.
"What on a napkin?" Lena shook her head. "Do you think Kelly and Alex will duet?"
"Again they have too! It's a couple thing." Kara continued to try and sway her with her pout. "You can do anything, you can do one song."
"A short one." Lena offered. "With very few lyrics." She laughed. "You can stop with the pout." She added and then without second guessing herself she leaned back in and closed her arms around the blonde. "It's going to be great."
"It is." Kara moved into the closer embrace again with ease, spreading her hands out against Lena's back.
-x-
"Okay I want two shots of what you are plying my girlfriend with, one for each of us." Kelly suddenly appeared in the spot beside Lena at the bar, grinning as she did so catching the brunette as she'd gone to get a round for their table. Another patron of the bar was attempting to sing an Olivia Newton John song and murdering it to everyone's glee.
Lena looked at Kelly with a relaxed and happy smile as she added the two drinks to the order.
The party had been in full swing for two hours and everyone was at least a few drinks in, much of the pot stickers and pizza had been demolished and even Kara's cake had been pretty much devoured.
"I swear we're not going to exceed one bottle." Lena held up a finger as a promise to the other woman.
"Don't lie to me." Kelly continued to tease her. "I've seen how much you and Alex can drink and not even be affected, not to mention I am not actually a light weight myself you know." She grinned more. "Kara on the other hand... I'm glad she moved to club soda after those first two shots."
"I don't think I've ever heard her giggle quite so much at nothing." Lena nodded. "And her jokes were getting terrible."
"Yes, how she remembers all those puns is a crime." Kelly gave a laugh. "Alex told me that Operation Argo Link worked just as we all knew it would."
"The hard part was getting Kara's father out of the lab and home with it." Lena laughed lightly. "It was only that Kara managed to sway him towards the idea of privacy, comfort and perhaps a change of clothes."
"Well I for one wanted to toast to a job well done Lena." Kelly smiled as the timing seemed perfect as the bartender sat both shots down in front of them. "Because I hope you realize how much you've done for the EL, Danvers family today... how much you've done for Kara."
"I honestly think I started all of this..." She mused for a moment as she looked briefly back at both Alex and Kara. "To make myself feel better, to somehow repay for all the things I got wrong, to try and mitigate the guilt I felt." She offered openly having learned it was the easiest way to go with Kelly. "But right now it's more about doing it because it feels good and the recipients are so, so worthy."
"This is just a personal observation but..." Kelly had finished her own drink not long after Lena had. "You and Kara seem to be in a much better place, even before the Link worked, almost back to where you were before."
"I don't even know if it's anything like what we were before." Lena admitted with a shake of her head. "Because now... we're both free, free from secrets, from bias, from my family." She rolled her eyes. "This time what we have is Real, in all ways."
"Authenticity is an important component of any deep relationship." Kelly agreed with her with a soft smile. "What you two have is very special, but I think you realize that."
"She effects me more than anyone ever has." Lena revealed quietly.
"And you effect her in turn." Kelly underlined hoping that Lena could see and admit the reverse as well. "I hope I'm not overstepping my newest addition status but... someone like Kara, doesn't come along very often, and no I'm not talking about the Super aspect either. Just the Kara aspect."
"They're one and the same thing." Lena shook her head. "That's what makes this so different this time round." She went on. "I now understand that the Kara that used to bring me all my joy and was my foundation in so many ways, is Supergirl, just as the Supergirl who challenged me and made me fight for the best me I can be is Kara. Having all of that from just one person in my life..." She paused. "Let's just say I know how lucky I am."
"We're all lucky." Kelly agreed with her looking to the table as it erupted in rancorous laughter at some joke or another.
Alex and Kara suddenly pulled themselves away from the table and slightly staggering, made their way to the bar, grabbing the Karaoke book.
"You've got to get back with drinks... Kara and I are doing 'Sisters are doing it for themselves'." Alex had her arm slung around Kara's shoulder, who was just grinning inanely.
"And... And... you have to pick a song." Kara put in suddenly pointing to Lena. "I told her about the rule, she didn't think it being written on a napkin made it real but it's still a rule... she has to sing one song, once."
"YEAH!" Alex clapped wildly. "Give us a good old Irish tune."
Lena glared at both of them.
"Let's just get the drinks, yes Kelly?" She looked at the other woman who nodded as Alex dragged Kara up towards the stage.
-x-
It was an hour later and much more alcohol had been consumed, even Kara had reverted to one more shot to top up her giddiness. M'gann and J'onn were 'merry', in fact probably a little more than usual even. Brainy was asleep, with Nia softly stroking his hair occasionally, dancing along to songs and sipping a mixer. Alex was becoming more and more draped over Kelly, often leaning in to whisper something to her and letting her lips just catch the edge of an ear or a shoulder now and then. Lena had taken off the heels she had been wearing as well as her dark green satin over shirt to reveal the black tank top she'd worn under it. She's also messed her hair up into a loose bun as it had gotten hotter as the night went on, well that and with the amount of Scotch she had drunk.
Suddenly Lena moved and slipped her arm through Nia's and gave the younger woman a tug, pulling her off towards the bar, from which she picked up the song book.
"I'm gonna do a song." She said with an uneven smile.
"Are you? Can I video it?" Nia's eyes immediately lit up with excitement.
"No!" Lena scrunched up her nose. "I want you to help me choose." She went on, flicking the book open and scanning through the list of possibles. "Which one... this one..." She pointed. "Or this one."
Nia looked down at both the options and then looked back at the other brunette with a sly grin.
"That one." She pointed to the second song. "That one for sure." She added moving to swing her small purse around from where she had it over her shoulder. "Do you want..."
"An introduction, yes of course I do." Lena laughed. "If I'm going to do this ridiculous thing, I'm going to do it right."
"Do you want a dedication in your introduction?" Nia batter her eyelashes. "Or we just going to let her figure it out?"
"No dedication." Lena shook her head. "If anyone asks just say you've heard me talk about Elton John on numerous occasions."
"You got it." She pulled out a compact and offered it to Lena. "I only have a coral lipstick, I'm assuming you have your red it needs to be perfect for this." She underlined with glee in her voice.
"I do." Lena pulled it from her pocket and then leaned in to make the selection, waiting for Nia to move first.
Nia moved back towards the table, moving first to jostle Brainy awake.
"Film this, all of it, just do it!" She hissed at him and to his credit he snapped to attention as her phone was stuck into his hands already videoing, all he had to do was centre on the stage as he realized Nia was going up to it.
"Hey... Everyone..." Nia picked up the mic and smiled brightly. "I would like to introduce a newcomer to Al's Karaoke, singing in her debut and final performance, a woman of incredible talents and now she'll prove to us all that singing is also one of them... the one, the only... the genius Lena Luthor." She made a motion with her hand and clapped as she waited for Lena to come up on stage so she could hand her the mic.
At their table in the front Kara was now shushing J'onn and her sister as she eyes fixed on the stage.
"Brainy are you filming this?" She checked and got an immediate agreement from him. "Good, send me a copy." Kara straightened up in her seat to give Lena her full attention as she clapped through her arrival with everyone to encourage her.
Lena stepped barefoot onto the stage taking the microphone gracefully from Nia as soft piano tones filled the room. Bringing the microphone to her lips, the brunette let her eyes half close as she breathed quietly out.
"Blue eyes... baby's got blue eyes..." The brunette's voice was soft but thick as she began the slow love
ballad.
Almost immediately Alex's eyes went from the stage to her sister, who she not so gently nudged, a wide grin on her face as she did so as Lena sang on.
Kara barely noticed the nudging, she didn't turn away from the stage, the beautiful sound of Lena's voice and the sheer fact the genius was even up there singing had Kara completely enthralled. After her introduction Nia had returned to her seat beside Kara and had picked up Kara's phone on the sly to also start recording the blonde's reaction as she watched Lena singing almost as a treat for the brunette.
As Lena continued, Kara leaned forward to put her face in both of her hands just staring at the brunette as she crooned on, though it was clear Lena wasn't trying to make eye contact with anyone, even her.
Beside her Alex and Kelly both reached for their phones, but they flicked on their flashlights and began waving them over their heads, as did a few other patrons in the bar.
Lena finally let herself pan her eyes over the gathering of people, smiling as she saw the bright lights moving in a soft sway as she sang. Then very slowly she let her eyes be drawn to Kara, her smile evening out into a soft, emotive one as the song began to draw to a close.
"When I'm by her side, where I long to be, and I see. Blue eyes laughing in the sun, laughing in the rain. Baby's got blue eyes... And I am home... I am home again."
The soft piano finished with a light flourish as Lena gave a very light bow.
Kara was up out of her seat and clapping loud enough that she was just shy of causing 'trouble' with the effort she was putting into it. Everyone else in the team was also clapping by the time Lena got to the table to accept the wide array of compliments about her voice and congratulations on finally being 'initiated' into the team. Other than a quick word of how amazing she'd been Kara had let everyone else shower the brunette with accolades before she had hooked her arm into Lena's and led her away from the group for a moment and towards the open area near the bar.
"Lena, that was... amazing, your voice, where have you been hiding that voice?" Kara was not longer buzzing from the alien alcohol, she was buzzing from the adrenaline that seeing Lena perform had caused to flow through her.
Lena looked down a little for a moment a soft blush colouring her cheeks.
"I just don't sing." She gave a soft roll of her shoulders. "I don't think I've ever done so for anyone but myself." She admitted her voice quieter than at the table now there was less people around them.
"You should sing all the time, your voice is beautiful." The blonde underlined again reaching out to softly sweep a stray lock of hair away from her face. "And that... best initiation song ever... one day I'll convince you to duet with me."
"I got you babe?" Lena offered with a light laugh.
"Anything you're willing to sing." Kara nodded immediately.
"Actually if I'm honest both that.. and the song I chose were supposed to mean something. Something that maybe I can't actually say." Lena's voice softened even more.
"When I'm with you I feel at home too." Kara didn't pretend to play coy or push for Lena to admit even more then she just fundamentally had. "My life is only complete with you in it."
"And if I kissed you?" The words almost seemed to come from nowhere, but the soft look of question in low lidded green eyes paired with the gentle bend in Lena's neck to look up at Kara underlined that they came from the brunette's heart and soul.
"Lena, I..." Kara tried to fluidly respond but her throat suddenly went dry at the simple suggestion of the intimate contact and she had to swallow to finish. "Would like that very much."
"Welcome home Kara." Lena pressed up a little to her toes and leaned in to press her lips lightly against the blonde's.
Slipping her hands down to Lena's waist, Kara leaned down the distance to meet her and put more pressure from her lips into the kiss. The room around them seemed to shrink off into the distance, and she didn't even register the call of 'It's about damn time Luthor!' from Alex somewhere even further away.
When the soft first kiss finally retreated, Kara couldn't stop herself from stealing forward to press into a soft second kiss before they ended up standing there forehead to forehead.
"You really are a Miracle Maker." Kara whispered to the brunette with a loving smile on her face.
"No, you are..." Lena corrected with a soft shake of her head. "But I'll take the title." She beamed at the blonde.
Before either of them could say anything more however, literally the whole team herded around them, all clapping and cheering, patting either Kara or Lena on the back or shoulder their smiles all bright, big and happy.
"I got it all on camera." Nia leaned up and whispered in Kara's ear.
"You did?" Kara seemed to be the first one to clue into the rest of them, though she'd almost instinctively pulled Lena closer at the first press of bodies.
"We need more drinks!" Alex grinned as she leaned to push a kiss against both of the sides of there heads. "Because I've waited years for you knuckleheads to figure it out!" She didn't let either of them have a reaction before heading towards the bar to scream out an order.
"We'll talk tomorrow... later." Lena leaned in to whisper the words to Kara, reached down to slip her hand into the blonde's.
"Please." Kara smiled at her and immediately squeezed the hand in her own.
"Brainy got the singing, I got your reaction and then the kiss... we're going to have to edit it into a video." Nia was still enthusing as the group began to move to follow Alex to the bar.
This only made Kara catch green eyes and give a soft laugh as she shrugged at the situation.
"This is what it's like to work with a team." She added with another soft chuckle.
"I think I can handle it." Lena laughed back contentedly.
