A black-and-white movie played on the TV, the sound so low Kara could barely hear it over the crunching of the fortune cookies she was munching on.
What's so bad about this, she thought. She was huddled on her rug, in front of her couch, with an obscene amount of leftover potstickers and fortune cookies around her. The TV flickered like the Christmas lights in the city outside her windows.
It was great. She had food. She had a TV. She had a plush rug. What else could a girl want?
Lena looked over to the city, deep in thought. "Do you think the fact that we're friends is keeping us from finding someone?"
Kara laughed a little. "Yes," she whispered. "I think we should stop being friends. Let's go home right now and make love all night long."
"You don't mean that—you know you don't."
Kara shook her head, and her daydream away.
"Air. Some air would be nice right now."
Lena smiled through gritted teeth as she was whirled and twirled and dipped between an inch of her life. Her dancing partner didn't seem to need a moment to breathe; her lungs were burning and her feet hurt in her heels.
In one particularly enthusiastic dip, she met Sam's gaze as Alex dipped her wife beside her.
"I hate that I let you talk me into this!"
Kara took off running, but then felt self-conscious about running in her jeans and boots. So she started walking, only to burn with anxious energy, because walking was not what she wanted to be doing, and also, walking was so slow, why did people walk anywhere, and why...
A brightly lit display caught her attention, like a moth to a flame. It was an ice-cream store. She rushed in, ordering a three-scoop monstrosity that seemed to come with more sprinkles than ice-cream.
"This was a wise choice," she muttered at the first taste. "It's the middle of winter, so I made it winter in my mouth too. Wise."
She realized quite by accident where she had wondered over. Washington square. It brought her back to eleven years before, to the puttering of Lena's engine as they pulled up to the very curb where she now stood.
"Well. I guess we're not going to be friends, then."
"Have a nice life."
Kara shook herself out of it, feeling her hand cold and sticky. She had crushed the ice-cream cone in her hand. "God fucking damn it," she hissed in the cold air, tossing it in the nearest trashcan and wiping her hand on her jeans without a qualm.
"God. Fucking. Damn it!"
She began to run. Past the square where Lena had dropped her off, past the bench where they sat eating cotton candy, past the Christmas place where they had bought that insane tree last year. She skidded past the café where they talked about Kate and Jack, the restaurant of that disastrous date where Sam and Alex had connected.
"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" she gasped as she ran.
Lena laughed at a joke she had barely heard, lips hurting from the effort of smiling. Discreetly, she turned to Sam behind her.
"I'm going home."
"You'll never get a taxi."
Lena turned, laughed again—the man talking to her excused himself to get drinks for the countdown. By the look on his face, he expected to kiss her.
"I'll walk."
"Four miles? In heels? Please." Sam scoffed, Alex laughing on her arm.
"I can't stand the thought of not kissing somebody," Lena lied.
Alex shrugged her shoulders. "Big deal, I'll kiss you!"
She shook her head. "Thanks, Alex. But I have to go. Goodbye, guys."
"Fuck-shit-fuck-shit-fuck—taxi! Taxi!"
Kara's lungs were burning. She felt like an idiot, she didn't even know if Lena would be there. She had to be. She had to.
Suddenly, the Rojas' building came into view, a block ahead. The rooftop was illuminated by twinkling lights, and Kara could see the revelers' funny hats and streamers if she squinted.
She kept running.
Lena finally managed to say her goodbyes, despite Sam and Alex's vehement protests. She ducked out of the ballroom, avoiding her last dancing partner like the plague, and discreetly snuck into the coat check room, finding her coat.
She waited an eternity for the elevator, standing awkwardly at the doors, huddled in her coat, still cold despite being wrapped up.
The ding signaling the lift's arrival could not have come soon enough. She was prepared to rush in as soon as the doors opened.
And there was Kara.
The blonde looked as surprised to see her as she was. She looked a fright—red-faced, panting, her hair wind-swept... And Lena didn't even want to think about what the pink stain on her jeans was.
They stood, completely still, staring, until the doors began to close again and Kara reached a desperate hand to stop them. She stormed out, nearly colliding with Lena as she came to stand a few inches away.
"Lena," she gasped, and now Lena could see the sweat that made her hair clink to her face, in droplets going down her temples. "I've been doing a lot of thinking. And you know what? The thing is, I... I love you."
Lena felt about to faint. This wasn't real. This couldn't be happening. "What?"
"I love you," Kara repeated through a ragged breath, as if that explained everything. Lena took a step back.
"How do you expect me to respond to this?"
Kara faltered. "How about... you love me, too?"
Lena drew a sharp breath, and it came out as a hiss. "How about, I'm leaving."
She turned to walk off, going back through the crowd, parting it with some difficulty as Kara followed her like a golden retriever.
"Doesn't what I said mean anything to you?"
Lena bit back a retort—around her, revelers began the countdown to midnight. She finally broke free of the crowd, finding a free pocket of space in a hallway. Confetti flew in every direction, and all around them, people kissed and broke into song. She turned to face Kara, tears burning in her eyes.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I'm sorry, Kara. I know it's New Year's Eve and I know you're feeling lonely, but you can't-you can't just show up here and tell me... tell me you love me and expect that to make it all better." She threw a hand in the air, gesturing between them. "I mean, what I am supposed to say? Great, Kara, you love me. That settles everything, now we can waltz into the sunset together? It doesn't work that way!"
Kara paused. "Well, how does it work?"
"I don't know!" Lena cried. "But not this way."
There was a beat, and Kara looked like she was either about to run or kiss her.
"How about this way," she said, stepping closer. "I love how you get cold when it's 65 degrees out. I love the dimples you get—on both cheeks! —when you smile. I love how it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love how you fidget with your hands when you're around me and you're nervous. I even loved when you used my jacket for a Kleenex. I love it that after spending the day with you I can still smell your stupidly expensive perfume on my clothes. I love how you're the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. Lena, it took me eleven years to figure this out. And I ran here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!"
Lena opened her mouth, then closed it again. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now.
"See, that's just like you, Kara!" She pressed a furious finger to Kara's chest. "You come here and say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you-"
Kara stepped forward. "-and I hate you, Kara, I hate that you're the one who messes with my heart like this."
She was truly sobbing now, but when Kara put her arms around her, Lena didn't recoil. Their comfort, their warmth—even through that denim jacket that was still cold from the wind outside—it all felt like home.
And when Kara leaned in, hesitating, Lena had to all but grab her face in her hands to bring her closer, to brush their lips together, because she felt like that would be the only way to stop crying, and the way the lights twinkled in her blue eyes made Lena see how she was also about to cry, and Lena really, really, really didn't want that as much as she hated her.
And at the first touch of their lips Lena remembered how much she loved how Kara was always eating some kind of treat, how that stain on her jeans was most likely ice-cream, how Kara could not stand silence and thus always had some crazy, morbid, or plain ridiculous observation to the most mundane event, how she was strong enough to haul that stupid Christmas tree, how she always rested her head on Lena's shoulder on movie nights. She loved Kara Danvers. And Kara Danvers loved her.
They broke apart after an eternity, and Auld Lang Syne went on around them, and of course Kara chose that particular thing to fixate on—just how Lena loved it.
"My whole life I've never really known what this song means," she whispered, brows furrowed. Lena laughed.
"I know what you mean."
"I mean, should old acquaintance be forgot. So, does that mean we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we do happen to forget them, we should remember them—which is not possible because we already forgot them in the first place-"
Lena silenced her with a kiss. "Maybe you're just supposed to remember you forgot them, or something. Anyway."
They began to sway together, and Kara was leaning in again. "It's about old friends."
Five Years Later
"The first time we met, we hated each other."
Lena laughed, leaning into Kara on the couch.
"You didn't hate me, I hated you."
There was a beat and a laugh; the reporter from Time magazine laughed with them.
Lena leveled Kara with a knowing look. "The second time we met, she didn't even remember me."
"Did too! I totally remembered you." Kara protested. "The third time we met, we became friends."
Lena nodded, taking Kara's hand in her own. "We were friends for a long time."
"And then we weren't."
"And then we fell in love."
Kara smiled, clearly reminiscing; the reporter scribbled something on her notepad. "Two months later," Kara quipped, "we got married!"
"It was a beautiful wedding." Lena continued, not even looking at the reporter anymore.
"Yeah. We had this incredible cake—four tiers! Four!"
"With a very rich chocolate sauce on the side..."
Kara nodded along, and Lena couldn't stop smiling if she tried. "Yeah, of course. Because, you know, not everybody likes sauce right on top of the cake. There might be too much, or too little, or, you know, it can make the cake all soggy! And there's a difference between a moist cake and a soggy cake, and trust me, no one wants soggy cake, and of course we didn't want... What, is there something on my face?"