Chapter Text
Kara’s thoughts begin to race a million a minute. How could she have missed this? It’s Lena. It’s always been Lena. She tries to take some more calming breaths. Relax, Kara. What are your options? She could stay here, with Dream-Lena, who she noted was far too intimate for comfort. She could stay here while the DEO tracked down the Cinerelian and found the antidote to her ‘condition’. Alternatively, she could help them fight. But, how much help would she really be? Her mind wasn’t capable of having so many voices infiltrating it. Kryptonians weren’t mind readers. And waking up right now would mean having to face the real Lena. The thought scared her infinitely more than fighting the Cinerelian. Her realization would change everything.
She could stay here a little longer. She could put off the inevitable for a little longer. Who was to say she couldn’t be cowardly for once? Kara glances up at Dream-Lena, still sitting across from her on the couch. She’s smiling warmly at Kara, a twinkle in her eye that she loves. Who’s to say Kara couldn’t be selfish for once? She could stay in this fantasy for a little longer, sitting idly by and imagining what could be. Didn’t she deserve that? After the hell she’d been put through- the thoughts of others running rampant through her mind, carving their mark there until it felt like nothing was left.
Despite this, she knew the whim to be selfish was as real as the woman sitting next to her. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not who she is. Sometimes she wants so badly for it to be who she is, but it’s just not. As long as she can fight, and as long as she can help, that’s exactly what she will do. She’d just made up her mind, when J’onn reappears in front of her.
Kara looks to him for confirmation of what she already knows. “You found it?” J’onn nods in response. She stands and takes a step toward him. “I want to help.” She states with resolve.
“I had a feeling.” J’onn answers knowingly.
Kara turns her head back to Dream-Lena sitting on the couch. Their eyes lock and she feels a pang in her heart. She says goodbye silently, to this version of Lena, and to certainty- even if it was only an illusion. “I’m ready.” She turns back to J’onn.
His hands find her temples again and she begins to feel herself being pulled out of this imagined world.
The first thing she notices as she wakes are the voices. Before she even opens her eyes, they’re back in her mind. The weight of a countless number of people in her head. Her eyes squint open and she sees J’onn and Lena standing over her. Lena looks somehow more beautiful than she had in Kara’s dream. It’s not enough to distract from the thoughts invading her, but somehow she feels Lena’s presence help anyway.
She rises to her feet, “So, where am I headed?” Her voice cracks mid-sentence. She knows she doesn’t sound nearly as confident as she’d like to. Lena gives her a look of sympathy so genuine it makes her heart ache. She tries to focus on J’onn’s response but the longer she’s awake, the louder the voices seem to get. Not just in frequency but in volume too. A cacophony of people screaming their wishes and insecurities and deepest secrets in her head. Somewhere through this, she’d fallen to the ground, clutching her head. She thinks this might be what dying feels like. Somewhere through the chaos, somehow, one voice cuts above the rest.
“Kara!”
The concern and passion in Lena’s voice was unmistakable. As much so as the desperation in her next words.
“Put her back under, please. ”
Lena watches intently as J’onn places a sleeping Kara back on the cot she’d just been laying on minutes before. “Is she going to be okay?” She asks frantically, her heart racing.
“As long as we acquire the antidote soon”
Lena shakes her head. “She can’t come with us. You know that, right?”
J’onn pauses for a moment, considering, before nodding. “I know. I only wanted her to know she still had a choice.”
Lena scoffs. “Fuck that. You know what she’d choose. It doesn’t matter, not now. She’s in no condition to be conscious, let alone fight anyone.” She pulls a chair up and takes a seat next to Kara. She isn’t going to be leaving her side, not for a moment. She picks up Kara’s hand in her own, tracing soothing strokes over her thumb. When she glances up she registers that J’onn’s still here, raising his eyebrows at her in a way she doesn't particularly like. “What are you still doing here? Go. ” She whispers harshly.
He exits the room wordlessly, leaving her alone with Kara. Lena’s eyes drift over the features of her face. The small scar above her eyebrow that Lena finds endearing for some strange, foreign reason. The curve of her cheek that Lena can’t help but think her hand would cup perfectly. The softness in her features is impossibly perfect. Kara would be okay. She needs to be. Lena would be lost without her.
She puts her head down, leaning against Kara’s body. She tries to fight sleep off, but the stress of the last week has been slowly wearing her down and she feels consciousness start to slip away from her before long.
She eventually startles awake when the door slams open. She blinks at the entrance to find Alex and J’onn entering the room. Lena’s eyes quickly drift to Alex’s hand where she sees a syringe with a pale blue substance in it. J’onn walks to the corner of the room, using a key to unlock a switch on the wall. He flicks it and suddenly the entire room is bathed in a green glow. Kryptonite emitters.
Alex approaches, poised to administer the needle, but upon seeing the expression on Lena’s face she hands over the supplies. “One shot, administered intravenously.”
Lena nods and rolls up Kara’s sleeve over her shoulder, wiping down the area and tying the tourniquet tightly just above the elbow. She expertly administers the shot at a fifteen degree angle, then presses a cotton ball to the wound to stop the light bleeding. She looks to J’onn to indicate for him to turn off the Kryptonite emitters. He obliges and she removes the cotton ball, wiping the remaining blood away to see the wound beneath had all but closed already.
“How long do we think it’ll take?” Alex asks, rubbing Kara’s shoulder as she talks.
“It’s impossible to tell.” J’onn replies, “But the antidote is doing its work, and that’s all we can do for now.”
“Well, the original onset was about a day, right? It might take that long for the antidote to work as well.” Lena muses.
“In the meantime,” J’onn announces, “now that we have the antidote, I’d like to have a few words with our Cinerelian friend.”
Lena’s face hardens to stone at that. “So would I.” She says coldly.
Alex glances between the two of them uncomfortably for a moment. “Lena, maybe it would be best if you stayed with Kara.”
Alex is trying to keep her away, Lena isn’t sure she likes whatever insinuation is being made. “You don’t want me to talk to it?” She questions, folding her arms in front of herself defensively.
Alex fiddles with some wires by Kara’s bedside. “It’s just.. You’re not always the most rational when it comes to Kara.” She grimaces as the words leave her mouth. “That came out w-”
Lena scoffs, cutting her off. “ Rational? ” She repeats incredulously. “You think I’m irrational? If by irrational you mean actually caring when Kara is in immense pain and danger, then maybe you should try being a little more irrational. Kara has been suffering and what have you been doing other than playing cruel jokes and sitting on your ass?” As soon as the words are out there, Lena wishes she could take them back. She knows this isn’t fair to Alex, she’d helped retrieve the antidote for Kara hadn’t she? But, for some reason being called irrational when it came to Kara really got to her. Maybe because deep down she knows there’s some truth to it. Lena looks up to see a look she’s never seen before on the other woman’s face.
“You,” Alex straightens up and takes a step closer. “have no idea what I would do for Kara. What I do to make sure she is as safe and happy as she can be. The things I’ve done to make sure that the people she spends her time with,” Alex looks Lena up and down. “are worth it. I know you care about her Lena, but frankly I don’t give a shit. The only reason you are still here right now is because she cares about you . I’ve made my peace with you, and I will continue to do so, but don’t you ever imply that I don’t care about my little sister.” With that Alex turns and leaves without a glance back.
Lena sits, dry-mouthed, unable to ease the tension Alex’s words had brought about. She should apologize, she knows, but she doesn’t want to worry about that now. She looks at Kara, beautiful and blissfully unaware of what has just happened around her. She still wants to talk to the Cinerelian. She wants to find out why it would do this to Kara, so undeserving of this kind of pain. She feels another flare of anger. “J'onn,” she says without turning around. “I want to talk to it.”
J’onn leads Lena down a series of twisting hallways, the silence between them feels stifling, even though she knows he can still hear her thoughts. She’s vaguely surprised he agreed to take her after the argument with Alex, but he didn’t seem to question it at all. They walk for what seems like forever before he finally stops at a nondescript door save for the number 322 inscribed next to it. He holds his hand up to a spot below the number and the door makes a whooshing sound as it opens before them. They enter and she feels a prickle of fear as her eyes land on the hulking creature behind the bars. It looks wholly intimidating. It towers over both her and J’onn, its yellow eyes narrow, shifting to find them as they step closer. It has no mouth and its skin seems to erupt in a mass of bright red trenches. Her eyes narrow as well, she clenches her fists at her side to keep from doing something stupid. She’d wanted to talk to it, yes, but now standing here, she didn’t know where to begin. She really just wanted to know “Why?”
The alien made no move whatsoever, she questioned briefly if it could understand, or even hear her. “Why, what?” J’onn replies. For a moment she thinks it’s just him asking, but she understands. J’onn is this creature's mouth. It looks at him in amazement. They seem to have an exchange that Lena can’t hear, but she cuts them off, she needs answers now.
“That innocent woman, Supergirl, you attacked them, why?” Lena presses.
Now the alien looks at her, its eyes widen and it looks almost- surprised?
“No.” J’onn replies for the creature, resuming his prior role.
Lena is just as confused as the alien now. “No?”
“I didn’t attack anyone.” Lena can hear the light confusion in J’onn’s tone. Unsure whether that’s from the alien, him, or both.
“You stabbed her!” Lena cries out. “You stabbed her and it didn’t just stop there. All those voices in her head.. You tortured her.” Her voice quivers, she’s letting her emotions get the best of her but she can’t stop it.
“It worked?” The alien muses.
“It worked alright,” Lena can hear the anger leaking into her voice, this monster didn’t seem to care at all about the toll this has taken on Kara. “You almost drove her mad! She was in so much pain.”
The alien looks down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Now Lena was more confused than ever. Why is it apologizing? “You didn’t mean to? You just said it worked. You meant to do this, right?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I only meant for her to understand.”
And Lena has absolutely had it with the cryptic answers. “Explain.”
“On Cinerel, my home planet, we do not communicate, not at first. We spend our youth listening, learning. When we turn sixty, we have the Ceremony of Shiklo, a rite of passage.” The alien turns its wrist over and its arm spike slowly emerges. “Our elders pierce us, imbue us with the spirit of Shiklo. To converse, it is a new privilege to me.”
“How old are you?” Lena can’t help but ask.
“Sixty-two” The alien responds.
“How long does your species live for?”
“On average, about four hundred years.”
Lena can't help but feel saddened by this. “You’re a child?”
The alien looks taken aback by the suggestion. “Not anymore, not while Shiklo stands by me.”
She asks what she’d been wondering about this whole time. “How did you come to be here?”
“We were attacked.” The alien says vaguely, looking down again. “I have undergone the ceremony but still the elders would not share with me what quarrel our enemies had with us. They sent me away, but I was the only one. I found myself on this planet, but I was back where I started, worse even. People here do not understand me, they are afraid of me. I mean no harm, I only wanted someone to understand. I thought if I could imbue somebody here with the spirit of Shiklo, they could understand me. But, it is forbidden to do this without the proper ceremony. I think I must have angered Shiklo. If your friend is hurt, this is why, and I am sorry.”
Lena reels with this new information. Her anger has all but dissolved. This was not some sinister monster who hurt Kara, it was a child desperate and fighting to be understood. She felt the inexplicable urge to apologize. For what, she wasn’t sure. Instead, she asks the question she hadn’t even thought of until now. “What’s your name?”
The alien looks pleasantly surprised by her question. “Ovtik.” Lena thanks Ovtik before turning to leave.
J’onn follows her out into the hallway and she leans against the wall. She isn’t sure what to do with herself now. “What will happen to them?”
He thinks for a moment before responding. “Well, they did commit a crime, whether they knew what they were doing or not.” He chuckles as he catches the look on her face. “But they’re only guilty of being young and naive, likely nothing will come of it. They’ll need to go through some of our CACs before we can let them go though.”
“CACs?” Lena puzzles, this isn’t an acronym she’s familiar with.
“Culture Acclimation Courses.” J’onn explains.
“You’re going to assimilate them?” Lena must look concerned because J’onn elaborates.
“Acclimate, not assimilate. They will still keep many aspects of Cinerelian culture, especially if they truly are the last one. We’re just going to teach them about our laws and basic customs, not to stab random people anymore. Enough to save them from getting into trouble in the future.”
Lena relaxes at that, just glad that Ovtik will be taken care of. She felt a strange urge to ensure their safety, odd considering how angry she’d been just 10 minutes ago. Sure they’d hurt people, but really they were just as innocent in all this as anyone else was. She shakes her head, suddenly antsy to get back to Kara. She starts fidgeting with her sleeve before J’onn speaks. “Go.”
Sometimes Lena forgets there’s still a mindreader around. She nods at him before setting off the direction they’d come from before.
She enters Kara’s room and freezes by the door when she sees Alex sitting there. The other woman looks up but says nothing.
The air is tense for a moment before she breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.” Lena breathes out.
Alex raises her eyebrows, clearly surprised at the apology. The two of them have a bad habit of letting things go unsaid. Tensions build and neither of them put in the effort to diffuse it. It just builds and builds until it gets forgotten about, or in rare cases– bubbles over. But, Lena has been working on saying how she feels. God knows that’ll be easier with Alex than Kara.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did, it wasn’t fair to you. I know you care about Kara, and you’ve done a lot for her. I’m grateful to you for that.” Alex smiles at her. So far so good.. “I think I was just a little upset that you..” Lena’s eyes shift around, unable to make direct eye contact. “That you were right.” She finally glances up and Alex is staring back with a look that says she already knows.
Alex crosses the room and puts a hand on her arm. “Thank you.” She says, and it really sounds like she means it. She lets her hand drop back down before she exits the room, leaving just Lena and Kara. She wastes no time sitting down at Kara’s bedside. She would be here when she wakes, she can’t imagine being anywhere else.
Lena glances at the other woman’s sleeping face. She seems to glow, even in the dull lighting of the DEO. Her gaze briefly catches on Kara’s lips, which she chastizes herself for, before it settles on the hand laying palm up on the thin blanket that covers her. For the second time that day she immediately reaches out to take it in her own. The movement felt instinctive, as if not Lena herself, but her hand had made the decision to seek out Kara’s. Handholding isn’t exactly common practice in their friendship, but in the times it does happen, it always feels like this is how it was meant to be. As if their hands had been carved out of the same piece of stone, made perfect for each other by some divine sculptor- a higher power. Not that Lena believed in such a thing, but sometimes when she was with Kara, she understood why people did.
Lena doesn’t know how long she sits there, soothingly stroking the sleeping woman's thumb. Time loses all meaning and for a while it feels as though her and Kara are the only two beings in the universe. She’s only awoken from her stupor when she hears the door open behind her. She turns to see J’onn entering the room. She shoots him a puzzled look as he approaches Kara’s bedside.
“I have to wake her up.” He informs her.
“What?” Lena can’t conceal the concern in her voice. “Why? What if the antidote needs more time?”
J’onn nods like he understands her. “Unfortunately, we need to have faith that it has. When I put people to sleep, it puts them in the place they feel safest. Their happy place if you will. This does wonders for easing the soul, sparing her the pain of being conscious, but I’m afraid she can’t remain there for too long. I’m afraid her time is almost up.”
“Why can’t she stay?” Lena questions.
“It’s a temporary fix, Lena. The soul craves the contentment it finds in the dreamworld, that kind of peace can be addicting. People who stay too long might not come back.” The end of his sentence trails off a bit and he gets a distant look on his face, as if recalling a memory from another life. He shrugs it off after a moment before reaching out and placing his hand on Kara’s temples.
With bated breath she waits for something- anything - to happen. At first she thinks it hasn’t worked and she has a brief moment of panic that Kara won’t wake up before she feels the hand in her own twitch. She snaps to attention, staring intently at Kara’s face which has yet to show any discernible change. She’s just beginning to think she’d imagined it when she feels it again, a slight spasm ever so lightly squeezes her. She glances down at their hands clasped together before looking back up.
“Kara?” she prompts softly.
Kara blinks her eyes open slowly and Lena needs a lot of restraint not to immediately tackle her into the bed with a hug. Kara’s gaze blearily moves around the room, hazy and still slightly unseeing. Her gaze finds J’onn briefly, then settles on Lena before she mumbles something indiscernible.
“Sorry, what was that?” Lena questions.
“Why the DEO? Least your office has a comfy couch.” Kara repeats more clearly this time.
This doesn’t aid in Lena’s confusion, and it must show on her face because Kara suddenly tenses a bit. Her eyes shift around the room again before settling back on Lena. “I’m not dreaming?” she whispers.
Lena can’t help but smile a bit at that, resisting the urge to laugh at the sincerity behind the question. “You’re not dreaming, Kara.” and she can hear the smile come through in her voice too.
Kara suddenly lunges into a sitting position, separating their hands before pulling Lena into a hug so tight an onlooker might have mistaken it for their last. She feels the blonde burrow her face into the crook of her neck and she can't help but revel in the feeling. They stay like that for longer than they probably should before they’re interrupted by the sound of a door closing. Lena pulls back and glances around to see J’onn has left the room. She’s slightly embarrassed to realize she’d forgotten he was there.
Kara sits back in the bed rubbing her head. “How are you feeling?” Lena asks.
“Like I have the worst hangover known to man.” Kara grimaces, but she looks up at Lena and there’s a reluctant smile there. “But, no voices.”
She can’t help but beam at this information. “Kara, that’s amazing. Just remember you still need to take it easy.”
“I know, I know.” Kara nods, fidgeting with the blanket on herself.
Lena suddenly misses the feeling of their hands together, she knows she shouldn’t but she can’t help it. There’s a moment of silence before a question occurs to Lena. “What did you mean about my office?”
Kara’s eyes widen a bit and she tugs her lip between her teeth for a moment before answering. “I was just confused, I thought I was still dreaming.”
“I know.” Lena nods. She doesn’t want to push too hard, but some part of her is desperate to ask what she really wants to. “But, J’onn told me he put you in your safe place. Why were you dreaming about my office?”
Kara doesn’t reply at first. She has that same sickly nervous expression she had on her face before she told Lena she was Supergirl. She looks like she’s contemplating something in her head, and Lena’s about to tell her she doesn’t have to answer if she doesn’t want to when Kara’s response comes.
“It’s you.”
That makes Lena’s brain stutter to a halt. Kara’s looking at her so earnestly that it takes a moment for her to regain her composure and ask what she means by that.
“Your office is just where I see you most I guess, so that’s where I went. But it’s not your office really. It’s you. You’re my safe place.” Kara looks down, fidgeting with her hands.
Lena’s mouth goes dry. She’s not sure she could reply even if she knew what to say. Luckily, she doesn’t need to yet as Kara continues.
“When I woke up, I thought I was still dreaming because you were still here beside me.”
A small, hopeful part of Lena jumps at hearing this. Running wild with all sorts of assumptions she tries her best to swallow back down. She can feel her heartbeat speed up and her face turns red knowing Kara can hear it too. “So,” her voice comes out a bit unsteady, she clears her throat before continuing. “What does that mean? That I’m your safe place?” She can feel the tension in the air that her question invites. She feels it infiltrate every crevice of her body, crawling into her mouth and stopping any other words from escaping. She stops breathing when she feels Kara reach for hand on the bed.
“It means I love you.” Kara offers, so softly Lena wasn’t sure she heard her right at first. Lena just blinks in response. She must be misunderstanding something. Kara can’t mean…
“You mean like-” She starts to ask before Kara cuts her off.
“I mean I’m in love with you.”
Time slows to a stop. There it is. The words Lena never let herself believe she would hear coming from her best friend. She can’t believe it, but at the same time nothing in that moment could have ever made more sense. When she sees a flicker of doubt across Kara’s face she realizes that she’s been staring for too long without a reply. Her mouth opens and closes again, her words refusing to make themself known. Kara pulls her hand back and breaks eye contact, looking down at her lap dejectedly. She opens her mouth to say something and suddenly Lena is so terrified she might miss her chance.
She still doesn’t know what to say, so she settles on the next best thing. She leans closer, Kara oblivious to her movements. Her hand finds the curve of Kara’s jaw and shifts it toward her, she leans in further and their lips meet. She hears her make a soft noise of surprise before Kara is leaning into it too. She can taste something vaguely sweet on the other woman's lips and it makes her want to melt. It’s all just unbelievably soft and Lena has to hold herself back from kissing her with all the fervor of someone who thought they’d never get this chance. Kara’s hand fists into Lena’s shirt, keeping her close. The contact is addicting and it has Lena feeling like she’s floating. Time loses all meaning like it does so often with Kara and she has no idea how long it is until they break apart to breathe. Their foreheads lean against each other, taking in the same air.
Neither of them say anything for a beat until Kara breaks the silence. “Does this mean you love me too?” she smiles hopefully.
She can’t help but let out a small giggle at the question. The idea that Lena ever wouldn’t be in love with Kara seeming almost laughable. “I am so in love with you Kara Danvers.”
“Thank Rao.” Kara lets out a breathless, relieved laugh. They just sit there for a moment, gazing at each other.
The door to the room opens and Lena feels herself jump back, moving to pull her hand away too, but Kara doesn’t let go. She’s glad for that, a little scared that if they stopped it might not happen again. She knows that’s ridiculous but she never has been too rational when it comes to Kara. She turns to see that it’s Alex who’s entered the room. She approaches Kara’s bedside, briefly glancing down to see their hands interlocked. Lena can swear she sees the woman smirk, but it’s gone in an instant and she doesn’t comment on the state of them.
She starts wordlessly checking Kara’s vitals before finally speaking. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel great.” Kara says simply.
Lena definitely sees Alex smirk this time as she looks between the two of them. “Well the good news is that I think you’re going to be just fine.”
Kara nods enthusiastically. “Yes, full recovery in my future.”
It’s quiet again, no one speaking as Alex jots some things down on her clipboard. When she’s finished she fidgets with her pen for a moment before walking to the door. She lingers by the exit but all she says is “Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” before closing the door behind her.
As soon as the door closes, Lena and Kara make eye contact before bursting into laughter. Neither of them are sure exactly what they’re laughing at, but they both know they will definitely be just fine.