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"Kara, can you check on the pizza?!"

"Sure!" Kara jumped up from the couch and jogged into the kitchen to check the pizza. She opened the oven, narrowing her eyes at the gently browning pizza. "Seems okay!" She shut the oven door and began to walk back to the couch, intending to continue to flick through the channels. She paused though, at the sound of a knock at the door.

She walked toward it and opened it. Her stomach did a peculiar flip when she found Lena standing there. "Lena. Um...hi."

"Kara," Lena replied in greeting as she glanced briefly past Kara.

Kara swallowed convulsively as she stepped out of the way to let Lena pass her. "Come in. I-I didn't expect to see you."

"Why would you?" Lena replied. She stopped a few feet into the apartment, sniffing the air. "You're cooking? Since when can you cook?"

Kara gave a nervous laugh and shut the door. "Hey, I can cook just fine!"

Lena smirked at the response. "I don't recall any of your culinary ventures ever being successful."

"Well I-I…" Kara spluttered for a moment before she reluctantly admitted defeat. "That's fair. But why cook when you can just order takeout? It's so much faster."

"I could give you an entire list of reasons. Not that you would listen."

Kara smiled warmly at Lena, forgetting to reply for a moment. She had missed this. Just being able to talk to Lena like this.

"Kara, the pizza!"

"Huh?" Kara's attention was drawn away at the sound of Alex's voice and she watched her sister hurry from the bedroom to the kitchen. "Oh no. It was fine five minutes ago!" She grimaced, watching as Alex opened the oven and frantically fanned the smoke away with a towel. "Guess we're ordering takeout?"

Lena pressed a hand to her mouth, disguising a laugh as a cough. Unfortunately, that cough was enough to draw Alex's attention toward her.

"Oh. I didn't know we had company." Alex straightened up, fumbling behind her back to turn the oven off. She was clearly as surprised to see Lena as Kara was, albeit more suspicious at the same time. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," Lena answered, turning her attention back to Kara. "I actually wanted to ask you some questions about our discussion the other day. About the antimatter. I have some ideas but I need to…"

"Ah!" Kara threw her arms up, effectively shocking Lena into silence. Her gaze flicked to Alex and she noticed her sister's brow furrowing. "That? That was nothing."

Lena frowned. "It sounded like something when you barged into my office."

"That was just…reporter stuff, you know? Nothing at all to worry about. Come on, Lena. I'll show you out." Kara took hold of Lena's elbow and escorted her to the door, trying to ignore the way Alex was staring at her. "I'll be right back, Alex!"

Lena pulled away from Kara's grip as soon as they were outside of the apartment. "What the hell?"

"I'm sorry!" Kara whisper yelled. She glanced at the door, worried that Alex might be listening. "Come with me. Please." She walked past Lena and walked down the hallway, only stopping when she was a safe distance away from the door. She breathed a sigh of relief when she turned to see that Lena had followed her.

"Kara, what's going on?"

"Alex doesn't know anything about what I asked you." Kara's gaze kept flicking over to the door, checking to make sure they were still alone. "And I want to keep it that way right now. I want to keep this between the two of us."

Lena stared at Kara for a long moment before she let out a soft, bitter laugh. "A secret between the two of us? That's a foreign concept."

"Lena, please." Kara pleaded, her voice audibly trembling. "She can't know anything about this yet. It's complicated. But I really do need you to keep it a secret."

"And if I give you my word that I won't tell anyone you're just going to believe me?" Lena raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You trust me with this...secret?"

"Of course I trust you," Kara answered sincerely. She stepped closer to Lena, almost reaching out before she thought better of it. She let her hand drop to her side. "I'm not going to lie to you. You know I'm not telling you everything about what's happening. But I promise I will. When it's time."

Lena let out a breath, her gaze flicking to the side. "Come to my office tomorrow. I need to speak with you and clearly now isn't a good time."

"Right. I will." Kara tried to quell the hope that bloomed in her chest, to no avail. "Thank you, Lena."

"I haven't done anything yet." Lena pointed out, her lips turning up slightly before she walked past Kara, toward the door. "Don't be late!"

"I won't!" Kara called after Lena. She watched Lena leave before she headed back inside, her elation at the invitation to Lena's office causing her to completely forget about what had happened a few minutes ago in the apartment.

Upon entering her apartment she found Alex waiting for her, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Kara's smile slipped away. "Okay, you're mad."

"I'm definitely confused," Alex admitted, staring hard at her sister. "What was all that about?"

"Uh…" Kara hesitated at the question. She'd never been very good at lying to Alex. "Just something I wanted to work on with Lena. I figured maybe if she helps me look into this...thing for CatCo, maybe it would give us a chance to bond again and maybe she would see I really didn't mean to hurt her."

Alex's brow furrowed and for a moment Kara thought that her sister wasn't going to believe her. Finally, Alex's posture relaxed. "Just be careful, okay? I don't want her to take advantage of you again." She quickly continued, seeing Kara open her mouth to protest. "I know! I know she has every right to be angry with you but I can still be pissed at her for hurting you. You're my sister. I'd be furious with anyone for hurting you."

Kara breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that Alex had believed her at least. She wasn't exactly lying. She did want to rebuild the closeness she'd once had with Lena, she just wasn't being completely honest with her sister. "I know. Thanks, Alex."

"The pizza is a lost cause by the way," Alex commented as she turned and made her way back to the kitchen. "We're going to have to order takeout again. I'll set the movie up while you do that because you're definitely paying this time. And I'm demanding a hunger games marathon tonight."

Kara pouted at the demand that she pay for the food but she was quickly distracted by Alex's last sentence. "Wait, marathon? Aren't you meant to have a date with Kelly tonight?"

"Uh…" Alex paused briefly on her way to the couch. She sat down, grabbing the remote. "No."

"Alex."

Alex flicked through the list of movies on the screen, refusing to look at Kara. "Fine, I canceled."

"What?" Forgetting about ordering the food, Kara walked over to the couch and stood directly between Alex and the TV, forcing Alex to look at her. "Alex."

"Stop saying my name like that," Alex grumbled, reluctantly setting the remote down. "I'm worried about you, okay?"

Kara bristled, recalling Nia's constant pleading with her to say something to Alex. "Why? Did someone say something to you?"

"No. But you've been distracted lately." Alex took note of the relief that washed over Kara's face. "You're not focused on the job. It's like your mind is somewhere else entirely."

"I am not distracted!"

"You flew into a building yesterday, Kara!"

Kara grimaced. "I'm...well...that was...fine! I was distracted then but I'm not distracted now! I was just thinking about…"

"Lena?" Alex interjected knowingly. "Kara, I know you miss her but…"

"I don't want to talk about this." Kara quickly interrupted. She didn't want to get into her thoughts about Lena and she didn't want to lie to Alex more than she already was. "I'll try to focus, I promise. Now can we go back to talking about why you ditched your date to hang out with me?"

"I already told you. I was worried." Alex patted the seat next to her and Kara plopped down at her side. "Kelly understands."

"You could have at least invited her over for movie night."

"You'd be okay with that?" Alex turned more toward Kara, resting her arm along the back of the couch. "Me inviting her to our sister nights sometimes?"

Kara shrugged her shoulders. "Sure. You two are serious, aren't you? She's practically family to me too now. The more the merrier!"

Alex smiled warmly at the response and leaned forward to hug her sister. "Thanks, Kara. I know that would mean a lot to her."

-

"Come in," Lena called at the sound of a gentle knock at her office door. She distractedly straightened the already neat stack of papers in front of her and looked up when Kara entered the room, her hands and arms full.

"It's too much, right?" Kara grimaced at the shocked look on Lena's face. "I didn't know if you would have eaten lunch yet so I brought sushi and then I figured maybe you would want something sweet so I brought cronuts and cupcakes. I didn't know if you would want hot coffee or iced so I brought both."

Lena leaned back in her seat, reluctantly amused by Kara's rambling. "I'm not especially hungry but I never say no to coffee."

Kara brightened at the comment and she walked toward Lena's desk, unceremoniously setting everything down. She sat down opposite Lena, shuffling the chair as close as possible to the desk. "So you wanted to talk?"

Lena sipped at the coffee Kara had brought for her, noticing it was still piping hot. "I do need to ask you some things. But before we get into that, I was wondering if you'll tell me why you're keeping secrets from your sister? It seemed that the two of you told each other everything."

"I...you're right. We do, usually." Kara took her bright pink milkshake from the cup holder on the desk, mostly for something to do with her hands. "But if I tell her about this she's only going to worry. It's dangerous."

"I would have thought she'd be used to that by now," Lena commented, folding her arms atop her desk. "Being the sister of Supergirl and all."

Kara shrugged her shoulders in response. "I just don't want to worry her until I have to this time."

"But my question is, why is this time different to all of the other times?"

"I'm...um…"

Lena watched Kara nervously fidget. "So that's the part you're not telling me."

"It's not for the reason you think!" Kara said quickly, not wanting Lena to get the wrong idea. "It's just that I don't want to tell anyone until I'm sure. I'm still kind of processing it myself. Trying to anyway. But I will tell you. When I'm sure."

"It sounds important. Is it bad?"

Kara nodded grimly. "You could say that."

As Kara drank an unhealthy amount of her milkshake in one sip, Lena decided to stop pressing the issue. "I've been looking into the antimatter you asked me about. Or trying to, at least. As I said when you asked me, it's really only a theory."

Kara wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Do you know if there's any way to stop it?"

"Not yet." Lena reluctantly answered, trying not to show how much it irked her that she was having trouble figuring it out. "I've been looking into it but up until now I only have more questions."

"Okay. Can I help?"

Lena thought about that for a moment, hesitant to open herself up to working with Kara again. This was how it started. She knew that. Kara would worm her way back in with her goodness and sincerity and Lena's resolve to be angry would crumble.

"Lena?"

Lena shook her head, breaking herself from her thoughts. "There's far more matter than antimatter in the universe compared to say...moments after the Big Bang when matter and antimatter would have been at war with one another. Of course, matter won out in the end which is why now there's very little antimatter left in the universe today."

Kara nodded in response. "Yeah?"

"But we still encounter a small amount of antimatter every day." Lena continued, cupping her hands around her still warm coffee. "But that only accounts for single particles colliding which is why we never notice when they do collide." She paused, taking a sip from her coffee as she gathered her thoughts. "The only answer I have for you right now is that the scale of destruction that would be caused is entirely dependant upon the amount of antimatter in question. Which leads me to my question...how much antimatter are you talking about?"

"A lot." Kara sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Larger than a city?"

"Bigger than the earth," Kara answered, shaking her head. She shuddered, recalling the wave which had consumed everything. Including herself. "Do you know if there's a way to stop it?"

"I'll keep looking," Lena replied, watching Kara closely. There was something off about her. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Thank you," Kara said gratefully. "Anything you find out could help. This really means a lot to me."

Lena bit back a harsh retort. It was instinct for her to want to lash out at Kara. The wound of betrayal was still fresh. So fresh that Lena wasn't sure it would ever heal.

"Lena, I'm...I think I'm…" Kara hesitated, taking a shuddering breath. "In this crisis, I'm supposed to…"

Lena watched with a furrowed brow as Kara struggled to speak. "Supposed to what?"

"Just…" Kara was cut off by the sound of her phone ringing and she jumped at the sound, scrambling to take her phone from her pocket. "Sorry, it's Alex. I have to take this."

Lena motioned for Kara to go ahead and leaned back in her seat.

"Hello? Yeah, it's fine...I'll be right there."

"Duty calls?" Lena asked as Kara quickly tucked her phone away and stood up.

"Sorry. Can we talk more tomorrow?" Kara asked hopefully as she whipped her glasses off.

Lena nodded as she watched Kara's suit appear. "That's fine. Stop by my office around the same time."

"Thanks, Lena. I have to go, I'm sorry…" Kara bit her lip, looking at Lena.

"What?" Lena looked down at herself, wondering what Kara was looking at.

"Nothing." Kara blushed. She could hardly tell Lena that instead of rushing off to a burning building she was busy thinking about how much she missed hugging Lena goodbye. "I'll see you later."

Before Lena could say anything Kara had fled the room, shooting up into the sky from the balcony. Sighing, Lena looked at the untouched food Kara had left on her desk. She supposed her employees would be happy, at least.

TBC.