IT'S BEEN SO LONG! I'm sorry, combination of Lunar New Year craziness, accidentally deleting my Tumblr craziness (I'm still immopengu dot tumblr dot com), a lot of bullshit with the Toronto Van Attack (RIP and good thoughts to those recovering), and general work related craziness... SHIT. It's been tough getting time to write.

I really appreciate the ones who pop by with a message or just stop by tumblr to say hi to me and ask about buying a coffee for me even though I haven't been updating much lol. It's very much appreciated. Watch out for another time jump soon.

And for all of you who are in Canada, Ontario... THERE IS AN ELECTION COMING UP. Go out and vote, no matter who you're voting for, exercise your democratic right! It is honestly your duty in a democratic society! And if you don't know who I'm voting for... well, it's quite obvious from my tumblr lol

Alright, good reading y'all, and thanks so much for your patience!

Kara watched Alex as she slept. Alex had been tired. Bone-tired and exhausted from the day's events, and Kara let her rest, even though she really just wanted to wake Alex up and talk about the thoughts running through her head. How incredible Alex had made Kara feel. Alex's heat burned her and her touch left invisible marks on Kara that inked through her skin, her flesh, her bones.

Kara also wondered about how Alex knew what to do. Kara wanted to go on at length about how wonderful it had been, feeling suffused in heat and the centre of Alex's attention. It was strange, but it had been a very, very pleasurable strange. Could Alex do that to her again? Will it feel the same? Would it kill her? It would be a very good death, Kara decided, if it did kill her. Dying from pleasure. How long did she have to wait in between?

Kara wanted to talk to Alex about her parents dying along with all of Krypton… it ripped her apart, shredded her into meteors that raced away from each other. Kara wanted to tell Alex about space, about the absolute blackness of it, how it had been so oppressive, so infinite that it hollowed out a space within her. How she felt pockmarked with losses. How Kara had been enclosed on all sides by darkness for what seemed like forever, with only temporary wakefulness when Viox would wake her up gently and assess her for stasis degradation. The pieces of Kara only started drifting back together when she woke up to the sight of the House of El's coat of arms, emblazoned across a man's chest. And Kara felt a slight repair along the fault-lines when she realized her cousin, a grown man, was safe and had found her.

But Kara wanted Alex awake to tell her that Alex was instrumental in pushing Kara to start to stitching the pieces of herself back together. With their long talks and Alex's enthusiasm for information about her life, her ability to offer Kara the comfort that she needed… it was what she had needed. Eliza's hovering and unwavering pity was too much sometimes. Jeremiah's fatherly concern and his protectiveness was suffocating. And both Doctors Danvers looked at her, sometimes, nervously.

But not Alex.

Alex who could be cold and aloof. Alex who was awkward and gentle. Alex who burned with a familiar heat, who hugged Kara ferociously and accepted Kara's embraces fearlessly. Alex who knew how to make everything feel better, who grounded her to this Earth and made her feel like this was home.

Kara wanted Alex to be her companion, to be heart-matched. To be for each other, always. Kara knew she had little to offer, even though Viox's voice in the back of her head kept telling her she was the last of the House of El, and anybody should be over the moon to have her as a companion. Kara had little to offer, here on Earth. She did have a strong House, but that didn't count since hers was the only House now with two Kryptonians from the House of El on Earth.

Kara was smart, but she was awkward and definitely had that working against her. Plus, she was expensive. Kara broke things and sometimes got terse messages from Kal asking her to be careful since she always reported everything she broke to Kal so he could pay for it. Kara hadn't quite understood how much that was until Alex had tried to explain money to her in terms of how many tubs of ice cream and pizza that could be bought with the money needed to replace the Danvers' refrigerator.

Kara had been trying really hard, to prove her worth the only way she knew how, and that was to flex her mental muscles. Alex still needed to help her on little human eccentricities that she still had a hard time grasping. But Kara was doing well, working towards what she hoped was the equivalent in academic success to Alex. They could be true partners. Equals. Kara would be able to be there for Alex.

Kara nuzzled into Alex's side, and Alex, even in her sleep, reached out to gather her closer. Kara let out a sigh of contentment. Kara knew, logically, that she was physically stronger than the humans that lived on this Earth. But in Alex's loose grip, Kara felt SAFE.

"Alex?" Kara whispered. Alex stayed asleep, her punishing schedule made sure that she was out like a light nowadays, as soon as her head hit the pillow.

"Would you let me be yours?" Kara tried the language of the supplicant, the language that Houses that were not the House of El, used. "Would you let me be by your side? I offer you my… my mind, my body, my heart. I would be ever faithful to you and only ask you the same in return."

Kara leaned in, pressed her forehead against Alex's cheek. Then, gently, Kara extracted herself from Alex's grip. She had things to do and she needed to get ready for the day. With Alex sleeping soundly, Kara changed into street clothes and put on her glasses, then slipped out of the apartment. Kara started off to the 24-hour grocery around the corner, but not before pausing at an old decrepit payphone to place a call. She called a hello to the old clerk still mopping the floors of the grocery store, and stopped to have a short conversation, her bouts of sleeplessness made her quite familiar with any staff that would be still be awake at any of the establishments that stayed open for the night-owls.

Kara bought the ingredients she needed, tilting her head to track Alex's heartbeat, faraway, but comfortingly loud in her ears. Still slow and steady, Alex's body still at rest. Kara made it back to her apartment, but her steps stuttered, before she seemed to make a decision and make a beeline to another public phone to place another phone call. Then, she continued on home.

Kara made sure she opened the front door with as much care as possible, so she didn't wake up Alex. The worst thing about their open-concept living space was that sounds and smells filled the space easily and there wasn't much anything that could be done about that. So preparations would have to start in the morning. Kara changed and went back to bed, nosing against Alex's forehead. Alex grumbled, but continued sleeping. Kara didn't sleep at all, too keyed-up for what she would be doing, her mind going through the plans she had in her head.

When the sun was finally lightening up the sky, Kara pulled away from Alex to greet the sun. Sol was not Rao, but Kara, slipping out of her clothes, raised her arms up to the East. Kara stretched up, making sure her feet were firmly on the ground and there was no accidental hovering, then swung her arms down slowly, smoothly moving into another form. Kara could imagine her aunt's voice and sometimes Viox's, teaching her the movements, giving her the secret of the story that the warriors were all given.

Kara closed her eyes and delved into the memories as she went through her forms, remembering her mother chiding her Aunt Astra-mirror images of one another, except for that streak of stark white in Aunt Astra's hair. Pulled in multiple directions by everyone around her, Kara was encouraged by her mother to follow in her footsteps as an adjudicator, while Aunt Astra wooed her with the ways of the warrior. But it was her father, soft and kind, who won this tug of war. Kara was brilliant, one of the youngest members to ever join the Science Guild. Astra didn't give up, though, and continued teaching her in the ways of the Warrior Guild. Alura, too, seemed to disregard the fact that Kara already had an established Guild and would pull Kara into mental exercises and ethical thought experiments whenever she could; also making sure to include Kara when Alura did her investigations and research before adjudications. Alura talked at length about justice and Kryptonian society, lecturing about mercy and the harm and/or good her judgements made to the individual and the collective. Wanted Kara to understand and Kara was always eager to please her mother.

Astra, of course, introduced a very special AI into Korra's survival pod. Viox knew the warrior codex by heart and taught Kara all the traditional dances that the warriors had to know, playing strategy games with her in the dark of the Phantom Zone, testing her decision-making skills using a variation of Alura's thought experiments that asked her, sometimes, the same questions. Kara's answers produced consequences for imagined allies and foes, recountings of history where someone had made the right choice or the wrong choice and how those choices, in the future, could change and what was once wrong seemed to be made right, or what was once right, made wrong. These games tested her logically, just as much as Alura's teachings did.

These memories didn't bring up the debilitating grief like they used to. It was still sharp, like a thin knife along Kara's skin, still stabbing deep, scraping against her bones. But they weren't hammer blows of agony anymore. Dulled down, sometimes aching, but with Alex, Kara could forget a little bit.

The sound of the sheets on the bed rustling made Kara aware that Alex was waking up, every morning like she did, in increments. Rolling onto her side, then on to the other side. Kara could hear Alex's heart's slumber-slow pace, speed up just a bit. Kara had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing. She could feel something inside her light up at the extremely cute little mumble-ly noises Alex was making. Kara looked over the frame of her glasses, saw and heard Alex flex her jaw, wet her lips.

Kara slipped back inside, shrugging back into her clothes, knowing that Alex still had qualms about Kara's casual relationship with nakedness. Kara smiled to herself when she heard Alex's hand flopping onto Kara's side of the bed, patting around, searching for Kara.

"I'm making breakfast." Kara called out, shuffling quietly to Alex's side and kneeling down so Alex could scooch to the edge of the bed and nuzzle against the side of Kara's face. The sleep-drunk version of Alex was completely adorable, and was one of Kara's favourite versions.

"Just rest a bit more? You don't have to get up yet."

Alex nodded sleepily and continued snoozing.

Kara prepared her ingredients, having settled on the perfect breakfast menu some time ago, cracking eggs, whipping up pancake, whisking up whipped cream from scratch. She had practiced making these things when Alex wasn't around, to make sure that she got them just right. Everything had to be perfect. She did cheat a bit and use some super-speed to make sure that her timing was right on everything.

By the time Alex had shuffled out, snuggled in a zip-up hoodie, everything had been plated and Kara motioned to the spread nervously.

"Eggs and bacon! The way you like it!" Kara was shaking with nerves and excitement. She had made sure music was playing softly in the background, some oldies station that she was favouring at the moment, and that Kara knew Alex hummed along to without knowing it. Kara watched anxiously as Alex eyed her spread with amusement. Kara had made everything that Alex had ever enjoyed eating at breakfast. Eggs, of course-one sunny-side up, the other scrambled-a few strips of bacon cooked soft, the way Alex liked it… a couple of sausages, plated nicely with beans on the side and cut up fruit. There was even salsa and guacamole on the side, crispy buns slathered in butter and condensed milk, pancakes, baked beans, broiled fish, stuffed arepas… and to finish off the spread, a mug of the coffee at that fancy coffee place Alex loved.

Kara had wanted to maybe to do something more… impressive. But Alex appreciated simple things in the morning, and Kara knew that. She had to get this right, she had to make sure Alex accepted everything.

"Wow." Alex sat down on one of the barstools at the kitchen island, looking impressed.

"Do you like it?" Kara had her hands clasped together in front of her, shaking a bit from the stress of it all. Would Alex accept her offering of food? It was one of the most important parts of the ceremony, the first meal of the day.

Alex reached out to grab Kara and pulled her into a loose, one-armed hold. With her other hand, Alex picked up the crispy buns and took a bite, making deep humming noises of appreciation that made Kara's insides feel weird.

"It's perfect." Alex's voice was gruff, embarrassed and bashful. "But you don't have to make a thing of last night. It's… it's whatever. You didn't have to make me breakfast. And let's not tell my mom about what we did last night. EVER. She'll freak out."

"But… so-so does that mean we can't do that again?" Kara whined, suddenly feeling panicked and sad. "I can't ask you to help me again?"

"You're going through a weird Kryptonian puberty thing, right? So can I rightly surmise that all those times you've been sneaking out to cafes with your laptop, you were looking at porn or porn-things?" Alex felt a bit smug when Kara choked a bit on nothing but air.

"Alex! No!" Kara pouted at Alex. "I wouldn't-it's a public place!"

"Then what were you doing?"

Kara looked down at Alex's breakfast and muttered something inaudible.

"What?"

"I said," Kara cleared her throat nervously. "I was watching dance videos."

"What? You could watch those anywhere."

"I'm…" Kara fidgetted. "I was researching how humans, specifically American humans, h-how they engage in a courtship. A-And I've never gone 'clubbing' or to the bar that often because sometimes the music is too loud. And I don't know how to dance-"

"Kara, you just have to let these things happen organically." Alex says in exasperation, stabbing angrily at her egg until it bled yolk all over her bacon strips. Kara bit her lower lip, wondering miserably if this was going to go downhill. Alex suddenly seemed to be in a bad mood.

"But I want to really do well. I want to know how to court a human." Kara fidgeted with her fork nervously.

"We don't 'court', Kara." Alex smiled wryly at Kara, even though this topic seemed to make Alex more agitated.

"But I don't want to 'date'." Kara cut into her food sullenly. "I want to court. It's the closest approximation of what we do when we want a companion."

"Oh, so it's that serious?" Alex ate a forkful of food, her grip still around Kara's waist, keeping her in place.

"I am serious." Kara nodded.

"We don't do 'companions' on Earth, Kara."

"I know. But I'm a Kryptonian." Kara said earnestly. "I'm of age and I am mature enough to know what I want, and I want this. This is a piece of my Kryptonian heritage that I would like to keep alive."

"But humans won't know what being a companion even means-"

"But you would know. And that's all that matters." Kara smiled at Alex, hesitant and unsure. "I would be okay with that if you were. And we could get Kalex to register the companionship."

The tight, unhappy look on Alex's face, made Kara feel all at once like she couldn't breath and that she wanted to barf at the same time. Alex didn't want this. Alex would reject her. Alex wouldn't want her.

"Please. Just, hear me out. Don't say anything, please. Just please don't make a decision yet-just let me… let me officially ask you." Kara pleaded. "I can prove to you that I can… I can provide for you. Everything. Just… Please choose me, Alex Danvers. I know I have nothing to offer you, but I want to petition you to be my companion. And-and I want to prove to you, that I am worthy. I have nothing to offer, but please let me try to win you over. To court you."

Alex looked like a deer in headlights and Kara had just slammed into her with a truck. So Kara barreled forward, her chosen flowery words forgotten, desperate the get them out before Alex could think to interrupt her.

"I, Kara Zor-El, daughter of Alura In-Ze and Jor-El, formally ask you to be my companion. I offer you… all of me. Everything I can. And if you accept, I would be… um… I would… I could make you happy." Kara was losing her words at the sight of Alex's face. She felt like she was new on Earth again, unsure of what was going on, alarmed by her new human family's body language and their facial expressions. Unable to read the looks on their face, just like right now. Kara didn't know how to translate that look on Alex's face.

"Kara." Alex turned so Kara was facing her directly, and Kara felt so flustered by her older sister looking up at her. She felt stripped and bared before Alex. More so than even the night before.

"Y-yeah?"

"Can I talk now?"

"If you w-want."

Alex reached up and cradled Kara's face in her hands, looking at her, examining her like she had that first time Kara had caught Alex looking down at her from a window. Kara thought about how different their positions were now, looking up and looking down. Older, now, but still looking at each other with questions only the other could answer.

"So just to be clear… when you say you want a companion… you're talking about me?"

Kara was confused. "Who else would I be talking about?"

"I don't know!" Alex shrugged, embarrassment clear on her face. "This isn't a joke where you're going to just jump out and 'haha got you!' and laugh at me for eternity?"

"Jump out of where?" Kara was even more confused now.

"Never mind." Alex crossed her arms around herself, squeezing herself tightly. Kara was surprised to finally recognize the vulnerability in Alex's eyes, and she knelt down so she could look up at Alex, ready to answer more questions.

"Is it…" Alex hesitated before asking, a blush spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. "Because of what I did? Last night?"

"It was wonderful." Kara proclaimed, eyes glassy at the memory. Kara's earnest reply only made Alex blush an even deeper shade of red. "But that's not why. I've been preparing for a long time."

"How long?"

"Since you first went to university." Kara explained. "Asking someone to be their companion takes a lot of preparation. Some take a preliminary first step-a-actually a step before the official first step-t-to ask first before making preparations. It's more… pragmatic. It's better than preparing and then having it all go to waste, even though it's tradition to prepare first and ask but Krypton was going through a shortage of supplies but we don't have that problem on Earth. I-I've started preparing since you left for university. When you left, that was when I realized how much I care about you. You've stood by me, fought for me, been my sister-in-arms like Aunt Astra and some of her sworn sisters-I had so many words to give to you, to show you how serious I am and how much I can offer you but when I was preparing I realized I didn't really have much to offer and I'm… I'm making a mess of this. I wanted to tell you that-that if you just give me a chance to, maybe give me some more time, I could become more, I would be able to offer you more than just a dead House from a dead planet, I'm-I'm taking so many courses and I'll at least have the equivalent, scholastically-that is to say, I might catch up to you, and you're wonderful and I can't even compare but I'm working hard to be worthy-"

"Kara, slow down. My Kryptonian is not as good as yours." Alex wet her lips. "Companionship still sounds like marriage, no matter how much you have explained it to me."

"It's what we are to each other." Kara explained. "I-I guess it is a bit like marriage. Except for that 'forsake all others' thing. American culture and their weddings are still so strange to me."

Alex stayed silent for a couple of seconds, a couple of seconds that really felt way too long for Kara. But that hesitant, fragile expression on Alex's face stayed her tongue and she waited on pins and needles, finally understanding that expression.

"So this courting… is basically you trying to convince me?" Alex looked down at Kara's hands, which Alex's hands had somehow found their way to, fingers tangled in each other's.

"Convince you that I'm worthy."

"Kara," Alex sighed, the Kryptonian accent rolling off her tongue so naturally that it made Kara's chest hurt deep in those empty spaces inside of her. "You're-you don't want to choose me."

"I have. And if you say yes, I will court you like a Kryptonian would and I will give you every reason I have to accept me." Kara could not think of anything else she wanted more. To have Alex rely on her and for Alex to allow her to take the allowances that such a union would give her. Kara had taken the Danvers name for her own, and that name had shielded her and protected her from her cousin's enemies. In a human sense, they were linked, but Kara needed a Kryptonian bond, something that mattered the way it mattered to her people. Kara wanted this so that when she was gone and if a surviving Kryptonian ever came across the records she'll leave behind, they would know what Alex meant to Kara and what Kara meant to Alex. And they would know Kara hadn't been alone, that the last daughter of the great House of El had survived and called Earth her home.

"Why me?" Alex asked quietly, her expression halfway between frustration and uncertainty.

"Do you… do you not want me?" Kara asked quietly, a dull, painful sensation in her chest.

"No, it's-why me. I'm nobody important and you're-Kara, you're-you're so special."

"In the good way?" A corner of Kara's lip tugged up at the memory.

"Only ever the good way." Alex paused, waiting for Kara to answer her. The Kryptonian just looked at Alex for a long time, then shrugged helplessly.

"Even in my native language, it'll be hard to explain why. But doesn't our time together mean anything? The feeling that we do belong together? You're my greatest supporter, and you inspire the best in me. This isn't because of some feeling of being indebted to you, it's that I want to be with you. We fit together-at least I feel that we do. And I feel that you feel that we do. So… so I want to. Be together." Kara kept a loose grip on Alex's hands, afraid, in her nervousness, she might accidentally crush the human's fingers.

"But we know the sun affects you differently than your red sun. What you're feeling, it may just be because you feel too much now. You're confused." Alex said carefully.

"Sol does affect me differently. But I've felt a lot of emotions, and I've given it a lot of time. And you, Alex, you're always everything. This is my new normal, where I have to understand how to feel, how to process. And throughout all the confusion, you are what I am sure of. You're… you're everything, Alex. You're just everything."

They sat in silence again, the air heavy with Kara's words.

"Yes."

Kara blinked owlishly at Alex, not quite understanding.

"Yes, Kara of the House of El." Alex's voice was tremulous but sure. "I accept your courtship. The sun has risen, so the day has begun."
Kara stared at Alex, probably looking absolutely gobsmacked, so much so that Alex was very obviously smirking at the expression on Kara's face.

"I petition for two more risings of Sol and three settings of Sol." Kara said desperately, before she lost her chance. Alex made an obvious 'thinking' face which gave Kara even more anxiety, even though she knew Alex was just playing.

"I will give you three days worth of sunrises and sunsets." Alex agreed.

"DONE! Three days!" Kara said gleefully, before becoming curious. "How did you know?"

"Viox." Alex said wryly. "He was pretty sure this day would come and I would have to know how to petition you for more time. He would short a circuit if he found out you were the one doing the petitioning."

"Viox doesn't have circuits-"

"Just a saying, smartypants." Alex smiled at Kara, couldn't stop smiling, really. And Kara couldn't help smiling back, knowing that this was right. This was perfect. This was the person she was meant to be with.