They were friends.

There was no denying it, and as strange as it might feel, Lena did not see the need. Surprisingly, a friendship with Kara Danvers—something the blonde herself had declared utterly impossible—came to them quite easily. It felt natural.

Meeting Kara for lunch, even on hectic days when she had to knock smarmy businessmen down a peg or several, became a near necessity. Lena came to enjoy the woman's cheery disposition, even when it came with a healthy dose of morbid observations. It was refreshing.

Movie nights also became a thing, usually at Lena's apartment, because Kara did not want to linger at hers, with the ghost of her failed marriage hanging in the air and echoing off the empty walls. They would get take out—an abhorrent mixture of pizza and potstickers that Lena secretly loved—and talk for all hours of the night.

"Heya," Kara said one night at her door, brandishing the newest bag of food from the new Chinese place down Lena's street. "Quick, turn on channel eleven."

Lena let Kara divest herself of the bag in her kitchen, rushing to the television and fiddling with the remote. "What's so important on channel eleven?"

"Casablanca," Kara said, bringing over an absurd quantity of potstickers in a plastic container and flopping over onto Lena's couch.

"Casablanca," Lena repeated, slumping down a little more gracefully next to her. She gave her a look. "Are we too lazy for utensils, now?"

"Indeed, we are," Kara quipped, reaching into her pocket and pulling out an impressive wad of napkins. "But don't worry, we won't taint your pristine white couch with grease."

Lena hummed, taking one. They watched in silence until Kara waved a potsticker in the screen's direction.

"Now, would you really say that you would be happier with the Lazlo guy than with Humphrey Bogart?"

Lena furrowed her brows. "When did I ever say that?"

"When we drove to National City. Don't you remember?"

"I never said that," Lena said emphatically. "I would never have said that."

"Did too," Kara nudged her. "If I remember correctly, you'd rather be the First Lady of Czechoslovakia than be stuck with the man who runs a bar—even though you had the greatest sex of your life with him, because you're a practical woman. Like Ingrid Bergman."

"I never..." Oh. "Oh my god, you're right. I did say that."

Kara looked smug. "Of course, you did."

Lena allowed Kara to stew in her victory for a few moments, all the while thinking why on Earth her younger-self would have said such a preposterous thing. Victor Lazlo over Humphrey Bogart. As if.

She turned to look at Kara from the corner of her eye; the blonde was totally engrossed in the movie, chewing silently. Lena held back a smile. It seemed that every time she was with Kara, the other woman was eating something. Grapes. A sandwich. A truly enormous pastry. Lena looked at her friend intently, only half-following the movie. There were dark circles under Kara's eyes, and despite her seemingly constant eating, it looked like she had lost some weight.

"How have you been sleeping?" Lena asked, squeezing her arm.

Kara's shoulders sagged into the back of the couch as she sighed. "Not great," she said honestly. "Maybe I'm coming down with something. Last night I was up at like four in the morning watching The Golden Girls. In Spanish." Her voice became nasally. "Buenos dias, Blanche. Donde esta Rose?"

Lena laughed a little, but Kara sighed deeply. "I'm not well." She turned to Lena. "How about you?"

Lena shrugged. "I went to bed at 7:30 last night, can you believe it? I haven't done that since elementary school."

Kara laughed a little. "That's the good thing about depression. You get your rest."

"I'm not depressed," Lena retorted, because really, she was just fine. She worked. She went shopping. She picked up her groceries and cooked wholesome meals for herself in her kitchen with the Mexican ceramic tiles. She had even picked up a spinning class for a bit. She was taking care of herself. "You're the one who's depressed, watching Golden Girls in Spanish at four in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah, OK." Kara looked at her watch. "Oh, hey, look at the time! Put on channel 24, it's the nude talk show."

Lena yanked the remote away, scowling. "How can you watch that?"

"What? You don't think it's interesting to watch naked people discussing politics, or insider trading, or the drug war?"

Lena held the remote far, far away. "No way. Compromise. ESPN?"

Kara sighed. "Nah, I'd rather keep watching the movie, then."

The silence of their movie watching did not, as it was custom with Kara, last long.

"Hm, Ingrid Bergman. Now that's a lady who's low maintenance."

"Low maintenance?"

"Yeah. There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance. I'm a low maintenance kind of gal."

"And... so is Ingrid Bergman, apparently?"

Kara nodded, reaching for another potsticker. "Yup. Definitely an L.M."

Lena furrowed her brows. "Which one am I?"

"Oh, you're the worst kind," Kara said through her chewing with a laugh. "You're the kind of woman who thinks she's low maintenance, but is really high maintenance."

"I don't see it that way."

"Oh, really?" Kara laughed, and her voice climbed to that infuriating falsetto Lena was familiar with. "I'll start with the house salad, but I don't want the house dressing on it; I'll have the balsamic vinaigrette instead, but on the side, and then the salmon with mustard sauce, not honey, but I want the sauce on the side... 'On the side' is a very big thing with you."

Lena pondered it for a moment. "Well," she said, unrepentant. "I just want it the way I want it."

"Right," Kara clicked her tongue. "High maintenance."

Lena wanted to interject, but Kara's attention was back on the TV. "Oh, best last line of a movie! Hands down."

She smiled, listening to Humphrey Bogart.

"Louie, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

This time, Lena was helping Kara pick up a new rug. The blonde had finally had enough of her empty apartment, and decided that what she needed to fill the void left by her wife was a huge, gigantic, completely excessive rug to cover her entire living room and then some. So that was their mission.

Before the store, Kara tagged alone as Lena posted a frankly insane number of letters. The brunette had greeted her as she came down her building, holding her hat so it wouldn't fly in the wind with one hand, the other clutching a huge stack of correspondence.

They had walked to the nearest post box, and Kara waited patiently as Lena picked letter by letter, examined the address, the edges, the seal, and the stamp before putting each one through the mail slot. One by one.

Kara slumped against the mailbox. "Do you still sleep on the same side of the bed?"

Lena pondered for a moment. "I did for a while, but now I'm pretty much using the whole bed. I'm like a starfish," she joked.

Kara nodded; Lena put in another letter. "That must be nice," she sighed. "I feel weird when just my leg wanders over. I end up lying like a mummy, completely still. I miss her."

Lena offered a sympathetic smile as yet another letter made its way in. "I don't miss him. I really, really don't."

"Not even a little?"

Lena paused, letter midway through the opening, and Kara had to fight the urge to not slam it in. "No," Lena said. "You know what I miss? I miss the idea of him."

"Hm," Kara mused, eye twitching at the letter that still hadn't been pushed in. "Maybe I only miss the idea of Kate."

Lena smiled a little, returning to her incredibly slow task with an amount of focus that made Kara impatient. With a huff, the blonde grabbed the stack from the other woman's hand and jammed them all into the slot at once.

Lena stared; Kara sighed. "No. I miss the whole Kate."

"You know," Lena began once they were at the furniture store, looking at rugs. "I found this book that gives some really great tips on how to enjoy being alone."

"Oh?" Kara said, absent-mindedly running a hand through one of the rugs. She wanted her new rug to be plush. Maybe so she could like face-down on it and mope more comfortably. "Like what?"

"Like... never eat standing up. Make a nice meal for yourself and sit at a table."

Kara nodded. "Sounds good. Maybe I'll do that. Once I get a table."

They were rolling the rug onto Kara's living room floor with some degree of difficulty. Kara had picked the biggest, fluffiest, most unwieldy thing the store had in stock.

"I'm definitely coming down with something," Kara huffed, sweat trickling from her temples after the effort of hauling the rug several flights of stairs because it simply didn't fit in her building's elevator. "It's probably a 24-hour tumor. Those are going around, I hear."

Lena rolled her eyes, both at Kara and at the unhappy realization they had unrolled the rug the wrong way, so it leaned a fair amount onto the walls, folding into itself. "I think it goes the other way," she gestured for them to rotate it, grabbing onto a corner. "And you don't have a tumor."

Kara tugged at the other corner. "How do you know?"

Lena huffed. "If you're so worried, go see a doctor."

"See a doctor," Kara snorted. "For what, for them to tell me it's nothing?"

They managed to rotate the damn thing, and fell into it happily, tired and hot. Lena stretched all of her limbs out, feeling the softness of the material beneath her. Beside her, Kara heaved a heavy sigh.

"Will you be able to sleep?" Lena asked.

She could feel Kara's shrug. "If I don't, I'll be okay."

"What will you do?"

"I'll stay up, come to this rug and lie face down. And I'll moan. Wait, let me practice now. Eeeuuughhh..."

Lena laughed. "Good night, Kara."

"Good night, Lena. Eeeuuuughhh..."

"So, I'm having sex, right? Really going at it, and the Olympic judges are watching like hawks. They're looking for any flaw in technique, but I nailed the compulsories. So, this is it. The finals. I get a 9.8 from the Canadian—awesome. A perfect 10 from the American. And then my mother, dressed as a babushka, gives me a 5.6." She stared at Lena. "What do you think that means?"

Lena could only blink at her.

"I have no idea."

Kara put her hands deep in her pockets, staring at the sculptures surrounding them. The museum had been Lena's idea. She took a sneaky bite of the pretzel Lena had bought her earlier, before they came in. "OK, what about you? What's your weird sex dream?"

"Basically, it's the same one since I was twelve."

"You've had a sex dream since you were twelve?"

"Well. Not really. Well. I don't know."

Kara stepped closer, eyeing a particular sculpture with distaste. "What happens?"

"It's very embarrassing."

"Okay, don't tell me."

There was barely a pause. "Basically, there's this guy..."

Kara interrupted; mouth still full of pretzel. "What does he look like?"

Lena gestured vaguely to her own face. "He's just kind of... faceless. I don't know."

"Okay. Faceless guy. Then what happens?"

"He rips off all of my clothes!" Lena said, mimicking the motion over her jacket.

Kara blinked. "Then what?"

"That's it."

Kara stopped walking, turning to Lena with an incredulous look. "That's it?"

"That's it," Lena confirmed.

"That's it. A faceless guy just... rips off your clothes. And that's the sex fantasy you've been wearing since you were twelve? Exactly the same?"

"Well, no. Sometimes I vary it a little."

"Which part?"

Lena smirked. "What I'm wearing."

Kara whacked her on the shoulder.

They walked then, for a long while. Kara's focus wavered at times, while Lena explained—in great detail—everything about the sculptures they saw, the paintings, the historical artifacts. Kara scarcely glanced at the little printed informational placards; if anything piqued her interest, Lena would undoubtedly tell her all about it.

They stopped at the Egyptian exhibit—Lena was talking about some late Pharaoh and how he married his sister who had married her brother or some such incredibly incestuous thing. Lena turned to her, green eyes bright and plum-tinted lips tugged into a smile, ponytail swinging with her movement. It made Kara smile back.

"Do you want to go to a movie tonight?"

The brunette froze; the smile turned into a little grimace. "I'd love to, Kara, but I can't."

"Why not?" Kara asked in jest. "Whaddya got, a hot date?"

Lena's smile was back, but it was an awkward little one. "As a matter of fact, I do."

"Oh." Kara said. Suddenly her hands felt heavy in her pockets.

Lena stepped to her, fiddling with the buttons on the blonde's jacket. "I was going to tell you but... I don't know. I felt strange about it."

Kara's eyes snapped to meet Lena's. "Why?"

Lena rubbed her neck. "I don't know, we've... we've been so..."

Kara held Lena's wrist. "Hey, it's fine. We're friends, Lena. I'm happy for you! I think it's great that you have a date."

"You... you do? Are you sure?"

"Of course." Kara leaned in. "Is that what you're wearing?"

Lena stepped back, hands nervously wiping at her pants and jacket. "Yeah. Well. I don't know! Why?"

Kara gave her an appraising look. "I think you should wear skirts more. You look really good in skirts."

"I wear skirts at work all the time."

"Nah-ah—those are business skirts. And, while they do great things for your butt, I mean the flowy kind. A weekend kind of look. You look good in those."

"I do?" Lena smiled widely, cheeks a little pink.

"Yeah."

Lena took the fabric of Kara's jacket in her hand, rubbing it between her fingers. "You know, Kara, I think... I think you should get out there too."

Kara shook her head. "No, no. I'm not ready."

"It's time."

"I can't."

Lena gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "You should."

Kara sighed. "Maybe I will."

They were walking along Central Park about a week later; Kara was trying to beat the wind as she took bites out of an enormous cloud of cotton-candy. She complained loudly, lips tinted a little blue from the treat.

"I'm telling you; it was the most uncomfortable night of my life."

Lena nodded. "The first date back is always the toughest."

Kara mocked her in a petulant tone. "The first date back... You've only had the one date. How do you know it won't get worse?"

Lena kicked a pebble out of the way, looking displeased when it scuffed the leather of her boot. "How much worse can it get than having her reach over, pull a hair out of my head, and start flossing with it?"

Kara whined as a piece of cotton candy was lost to the wind. "You're talking dream date compared to my horror."

"Really? How?" Lena asked, yanking a piece of cotton candy between thumb and forefinger, ignoring Kara's protesting grunt.

"It started out fine. She was a very nice person, and we were just talking about this restaurant she wanted to go to. We get there, and they had like, fake food set up all up in the window—the plates on the menu, y'know? So, I joke, I say 'wow, food's ready, we can just grab it and go, what a quick meal.'"

Lena laughed, and Kara was bolstered. "See! It's at least a little funny. I wasn't expecting a standing ovation, but at least a smile. I got nothing. So I downshift into small talk and I ask her where she went to school, and she says Gotham City College and that just reminds me of Kate, then all of a sudden I'm in the middle of this massive panic attack, and my heart's beating like crazy, and I'm sweating like a pig."

"Kate went to Gotham College?"

"No," Kara retorted, waving her off with a sigh. "She went to Metropolis University. But they're both Eastern League schools. I was so upset, I had to leave the restaurant."

Lena gave her a side-hug. "Kara, I think it takes some time. It might be months before we're actually able to enjoy going out with someone new."

"Yeah," Kara agreed wistfully, veering off path to lean against one of the metal railing overlooking a little pond.

"And it might take even longer for us to actually be able to go to bed with someone new."

"Oh, I did go to bed with her," Kara quipped nonchalantly, taking a big mouthful of cotton candy now that the wind had subsided.

Lena blinked. "You went to bed with her?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

The ball hurtled towards her, and Kara's bat made solid contact as it sent the projectile hurtling back with a loud smack. She prepared herself for the next one. In the batting cage next to her, Alex narrowly missed her ball.

"I don't understand it," Alex said after missing another one.

"What?"

"This relationship with Lena."

"What do you mean?"

Alex finally hit one. "You enjoy being with her?"

Kara hit another. "Very much so."

"And you find her attractive?"

"Yup."

Alex turned a bewildered look to her sister, momentarily forgetting about the balls zooming past her head. "And you're not sleeping with her?"

"Nope."

Her sister scratched her head under the baseball cap. "I don't get it. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of letting yourself be happy?"

Kara hit one ball back with a bit more force than she intended, furrowing her brows. "Come on, Alex. Why can't you give me some credit? This is a big step for me! Having a relationship with a woman I find attractive, and who I'm not trying to get into bed with. I've never done this. I feel like I'm growing as a person. Maturing."

"Hey!" a little voice called behind them. "Are you finished batting?"

Kara whirled to face the two boys inching their way into her cage. "I got a whole roll of quarters and I got here first, alright?"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too! Scram, ya little creeps!" She turned back to Alex. "Where was I?"

Alex chuckled, missing another ball. "You were growing."

"Right. I have to say, it's liberating, to be this mature. I can say anything to her."

Alex pretended to be hurt. "Are you saying that you can say things to her that you wouldn't be saying to me?"

"Nah, it's just different. A different point of view on things—she tells me about the people she goes out with. I can talk to her about the women I see. It's great."

"You talk to her about other women?" Alex looked at her with a strange expression.

"Yeah. Like, for example: the other night I was having sex with this woman, and it was so, so incredible, I took her to a place that wasn't human. She actually meowed."

Alex looked both impressed and disgusted.

"You... made a woman meow?"

"Yeah. That's the point, Alex—I can tell Lena anything, like these things. And the great part is, I don't have to lie or puff my chest, because I'm not always thinking about how to get her into bed. I can just... be myself."

Alex's expression had not changed.

"You made a woman meow?"

"What do you do with these women? You just... get up out of bed and leave?"

They were sitting in a deli close to CatCo; Kara was just about to take a bite of her triple-tiered pastrami sandwich.

"Sure."

"Explain it to me, how you do it. What do you say?"

Kara chomped onto her sandwich with gusto. Lena could see a little dribble of mustard on her chin and instinctively reached out to wipe at it. Kara shot her a thankful look. "I say I have an early meeting. Or haircut. Or a squash game."

"Kara, you don't even play squash."

"Sure. But they don't know that—they just met me."

Lena scowled. "That's terrible."

"I know," Kara laughed, not really meaning it. "I feel terrible."

Lena's fork scraped against her plate as she played with her salad, a bit too forcefully. "I am so glad I never got involved with you! I just would have ended up being some girl you had to get out of bed and leave at three in the morning to go clean your chimney. And you don't even have a fireplace!" She hissed. "Not that I would know that!"

Kara snapped to her; eyes wide. "Why are you getting so upset? This isn't about you."

Lena shook her head. "Yes, it is. You're an affront to all women. I'm a woman."

"Listen, I don't feel great about it, but I don't hear anyone complaining. Trust me, they all have a fantastic time."

"How do you know?" the brunette countered with a scathing glance.

"What do you mean, how do I know? I just know."

"How? Because they..." Lena motioned from her chest down to her thighs in a suggestive, nearly explosive gesture. Kara blushed.

"Yes, because they..." She repeated the gesture.

"And how do you know they're really...?" Lena made the same gesture, with a little more verve. Kara shook her head.

"What are you saying, that they fake their..." she lowered her voice, and Lena found her embarrassment endearing. "Are you saying they fake their orgasms?"

Lena laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "It's possible."

"Get out of here. They weren't."

"Why? Most women, at one time or another, have faked it. You should know this."

Kara bit down on her sandwich aggressively; pastrami slid out from the sides and she tried to catch it with her mouth. "Yeah, well," she chewed on her words and the sandwich, "they haven't faked it with me, alright?"

Lena leaned over to the blonde, a mischievous glimmer in her green eyes. "How do you know?"

"Because I know! Let it lie, alright?"

The glimmer in Lena's eyes was positively evil. "Alright."

Kara waited for a beat, and when it looked like Lena was not going to say anything else, she felt free to take another bite.

"But you don't really know, do you?" Lena prodded.

"Lena."

The brunette was smiling widely. "See what I did? I said I was going to let it lie."

"Lena."

"But I didn't," Lena's voice lilted in a sing-song tune. "I went the complete opposite way..."

"You're insufferable."

"Thank you. I learned from the best."

"Can I eat now?"

"Of course, of course." Lena paused. "But how do you know?"

Kara let her sandwich drop; it flopped rather ungracefully onto her plate, scattering a few of her chips. "I just know, okay?"

"Ah. Right, I forgot." Lena said, leaning back into her seat with a wicked smile. "You're a top. You just know."

Kara was impossibly red. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Lena rested her chin on her hand coquettishly. "Nothing. It's just that I know your type—self-assured, take-charge, confident top; you think it would never happen to you, and I guarantee you every single woman out there has faked it at one time in her life. You do the math."

Kara rolled her eyes. "You think I can't tell the difference? Have a little faith, Luthor."

"Nope."

"Please, don't be ridiculous."

Lena blinked, and for a moment, Kara thought she would let the subject drop. But then the brunette's lips stretched into a slow, languid smile, and her eyes became hooded, her gaze impossibly intense. Lena let out a laugh; a sultry, rumbling sound that had Kara gulping as the other woman slowly dragged a hand up the delicate column of her neck and bit her bottom lip.

"Oh... oh, oh..."

Kara felt her blush return full-force; Lena's moans were deep, a liquid sound soft as velvet that had no place in a crowded deli.

"Uh... Lena? Are you... are you alright?"

"Oh, God. Oh, God, oh yes, baby, aaah, yes, yes, yes!"

Kara wanted to sink into her seat; diners were looking in their direction with wide eyes as Lena seemed to shatter in place, one hand repeatedly slamming against the table as she writhed in her seat, the other tousling her jet-black hair into a messy, freshly-fucked look.

"Ah, God, yes, I'm-I'm, oh, fuck! Fuck, yes! Yes, God, yes! Aah! Fuck!"

She finished, smoothing her hair and stealing one of Kara's fries, taking advantage of the blonde's stunned state. From the booth behind them, Kara heard someone tell the waitress:

"I'll have what she's having."