Chapter Text
The words have been scrawled across Lena Walsh’s arm since birth.
It’s improper for someone else to tell you what your soulmark says—to take the words only your soulmate should say to you for the first time.
So Lena learns. She reads picture books with her mother. Every night until she knows all the words within them. She begins to recognize the simple, common words in her soulmark. I and and and you. And she decides that she likes that her soulmate will already be thinking of the two of them when they meet.
But those words are less than the knowledge she needs, and so she goes to the library and borrows older books, chapter books, with CDs in the back that tell her the story, and she follows them until she can recognize the words themselves, herself.
Lena looks over her mark, periodically, purposefully seeking the words in the wrong order, seeing what she still needs to study.
Until, with a shock that shouldn’t be such a surprise, Lena realizes she recognizes them all.
At once she feels her mind reorder it, putting the words where she knows they belong, but this isn’t where she wants to know it for the first time, standing in the middle of the library.
So she takes that part of her that thinks so well (that makes her different, strange, as unintelligible to the other kids as they are to her) and shoves it far enough into the back of her mind to pretend she hasn’t already put it together.
She runs home. She throws the front door open with enough force that it bangs against the wall and makes her mother jump, and Lena throws out an apology and I’ll be down for dinner in the lilt she is still learning because she can’t stop running.
Cannot stop at all, until she’s in her room, until she’s put everything down and turned on her favorite lamp, and she’s sitting on the edge of her bed with her arm cradled in her lap.
She can’t convince herself she doesn’t know what it says already, but she hasn’t allowed herself to think about what it means, and that’s good enough. It’s enough for butterflies to flit in her stomach and her heart to race in what is both nervousness and excitement.
Her soulmate will be someone who understands her, won’t they? They won’t run, as the other children do, when she approaches. Won’t stare, as the adults do, when she speaks. The odd girl who knows too much, sees too much.
Sees too much, indeed. Sees that even her mother doesn’t quite understand the all of Lena. And she knows her mother loves her, has never questioned it—
But her soulmate will be different, right? They would have to be?
She forces down a large breath. Forces herself to release it.
Her mark reads:
I looked for you, and could not find
how I had missed you for so long.
Lena reads it over three times. She likes it, she decides. She likes the flow of it—the way it sounds like the poems written above pharaohs and before treasures in the few adventure books she had studied.
Is it from something Lena can find? Will it make her soulmate happy if she knows the source when they meet?
Perhaps it’s rather formal, but Lena likes the idea that her soulmate is searching for the perfect first thing to say to her. That they’re as impatient to meet her as she is to meet them. And what if they write it?
Lena turns her focus back to the words themselves.
I looked for you… That’s simple enough. They’ll look for Lena. How, she can’t begin to guess, but she cares a lot less about that than she does the knowledge that they’ll look.
And could not find… Simple, and yet confusing. Does it apply to the first phrase or the second? I looked for you and, could not find you makes sense, but it doesn’t actually say ‘you’. And could not find how I had missed you for so long makes much less sense.
So does it belong to the first phrase or second? It’s separated from both. From the first by a comma, and the second by its line. What would the second phrase mean?
Lena huffs, frustrated. When all she wants is to understand.
Huffing again for good measure, Lena claps her little hand over the first phrase and marches out of her room.
She finds her mother in the kitchen.
“Mam,” she announces herself, “I can read it, but I don’t know what it means. Can you tell me what it means?”
Elizabeth smiles. Rinses the residue of her cooking from her hands and wipes them dry on her apron. She waves Lena forward, and Lena complies, lifting up her arm, still partially covered by her hand.
“The middle part,” Lena explains, “I don’t know if it goes with the first or the last. I know what it means with the first, but not the last.”
Her mother takes her arm gently in her hands, careful not to dislodge Lena’s own. She hardly needs to. She has known the mark since her daughter’s birth, has seen it every day since. She knows it as well as Lena, though it is now imprinted indelibly in the girl’s mind.
“I think,” Elizabeth says in her gentle brogue, her voice a lilt Lena hopes to have one day, “it means that they expected to find you faster. That they don’t know how—why they didn’t.”
Lena beams. Throws her arms around her mother and hugs her fiercely.
It’s absolutely perfect. Better than every story about princes and princesses.
After that, Lena learns everything she can about soulmarks.
She learns they’re written in your soulmate’s handwriting at the time of your meeting. Some pairs meet young and bear each other’s childhood scrawls. Some bear scribbles they can hardly read. Some bear elegant, looping scripts, and some bear tight, neat letters. Some bear characters in a language they can’t read and have to learn. And everything in between.
Lena’s mark is written with small, perfect letters. She’s oddly pleased her mark is in English. She would’ve learned any language she needed to, but it’s nice to think they might have something in common. That if English is a primary language for them like it is for Lena, they might comprehend the world in similar words. But Lena also understands Irish. Will her soulmate have another language? If they do, Lena will learn it. She wants to understand them. The way she wants them to understand her.
She learns that the color of your script is one significant to your soulmate. Lena’s is written in a deep red, almost crimson, and she wonders at its meaning. She wonders, also, what color her soulmate will bear. She borrows a book on art from the library, but none in particular stand out to her.
She learns that the marks only appear when both soulmates are born, and once they appear, you’re guaranteed to hear them. Lena was born with her mark, which means her soulmate is older. How much older? Lena doesn’t particularly care—they’re her soulmate—but she is curious.
She learns that when you hear the words, you feel a sort of shiver, a confirmation. Yet none seem able to agree on a description for the shiver. Some describe it as that of a cold wind. Others say that it’s as if someone whispered in their ear. Some even compare it to a great anticipation.
Still, they all agree, it’s unmistakable.
But Lena also learns that sometimes being soulmates isn’t enough.
It has always been her and her mother. She hasn’t really thought of her father. Her mother is everything she needs. Until one day she begins to notice that the other children have mothers and fathers. Begins to notice the husbands and wives who walk with their hands together. And she begins to wonder.
Lena finally asks when she sees her mother’s mark. Elizabeth tends to keep her forearms covered—hardly a challenge or an oddity in Ireland—but Lena had never considered that her mother might actually be hiding it until her question hangs in the air, and Elizabeth hastily shoves down the sleeves she had tucked to knead the dough. The flour that had been on her hands shines against the dark fabric with greater guilt than that written across her mother’s face.
“Mam, where is your soulmate?” Lena asks. “Is he my dad?”
She almost rescinds it, snatches it out of the air, at her mother’s quick reaction.
But then Elizabeth sighs, and she gestures for Lena to sit a their small table. She pulls a chair around to face her daughter. To take her hands.
“Sometimes,” her mother explains, slowly, hesitantly, “sometimes you can’t be with your soulmate. Yes, mine is your dad. But he had to go home, and we couldn’t go with him.”
“He left us?” Lena whispers, her little heart breaking.
Soulmates can choose not to be together. Somehow she had never considered that either. She had seen the marks like magic. Their happiness like fate.
Her mother squeezes her hands. “We don’t always get to live the life we want.”
How right her mother will turn out to be.
Lena watches her mother drown hardly a month later. She’s living with the Luthors less than a week after that.
Lena thought moving to America would be the greatest shock. She thought losing her mother would be the greatest pain. But living with the Luthors is like doing something wrong in every action. Like losing her mother every day.
Lillian Luthor is nothing like her mother. Lionel Luthor is doting, but distant. Lex tries.
Lena has never had a brother before. A brother who died or left or existed, and Lena doesn’t see shadows when she looks at Lex.
The Luthors don’t show their marks. They don’t accept things that can’t be explained. Things that aren’t entirely, purely human. Lena doesn’t understand how it isn’t human to love. She doesn’t hide hers.
The Luthors don’t like messes or laughter or sunshine in the hallways or warmth. Lena wears what is laid out for her, and doesn’t cook with the servants, or sing in the manor. She doesn’t paint or play games that weren’t invented to teach strategy. She doesn’t read folktales, only history and science.
The Luthors seem to like her mind. They like how quickly she learns and the things she understands that she shouldn’t yet. And it’s nice. To have that part of her understood. Even if she has to give up all the others.
They take away her bear and her clothes and her backpack and even her smile. They cut her hair and teach her to hide herself away behind her own face.
The only thing they cannot take from her is her mark. And so it becomes a sort of talisman for Lena. It’s the reminder she will meet someone who may like all of her—it is guaranteed. Perhaps her soulmate’s love isn’t certain, but the chance is. Lena will hear these words.
She begins to write—everything, everywhere, all the time. She writes things in a journal she knows the Luthors will approve of (because she knows that at least one of them will read it, even though it has a lock, and she wears the only key on a chain around her neck). She writes out plans and draws diagrams for inventions that have started to interest her, and honestly it does make her happy when Lex notices them. When he wants to help work on them, when they have something to bond over. She even writes the Christmas cards when Lillian thinks her “unusually” neat childish script is the perfect touch.
Lena keeps her mark uncovered. She ignores the cuffs they lay out on her bed in the morning, and keeps her sleeves rolled up. It helps her, to look at it. To read it. To trace her fingers over each letter.
She draws attention to it. And one day, Lillian sees it. Reads it.
She makes a small, almost sympathetic sound. “So, your soulmate won’t want you. How unfortunate.”
And Lena has mostly learned to brace herself against her new mother’s comments by now, but this is too close, too safe, too important, and Lena has no walls for it.
Fear, the very dread that heralds despair, squeezes Lena’s chest.
“What?” she manages.
Lillian gestures to her arm. “We miss people when we want them. Your soulmate will tell you they wondered why they wanted you.”
Lena’s gaze falls back to her mark.
If there had been something malicious in Lillian’s voice, something vicious, if she had sounded the way she always does when she wants to hurt Lena, to cut her, then Lena could have dismissed it.
But there hadn’t been. It had sounded more like pity.
And Lena’s hope cracks.
She bolts. Runs all the way to her room and locks the door behind her. She sits on her bed like she had the first time she had read it, but she doesn’t turn on a light. She doesn’t need it. And she can’t bear to see the words if Lillian is right.
And could not find how I had missed you for so long.
Lillian’s interpretation is every bit as plausible as Elizabeth’s. The physical definition versus the emotional. And just as Lillian would absolutely tell her the worst version to take her hope, Elizabeth absolutely would have told her the better to grant it.
Though for different reasons, the two women are equally unreliable.
And Lena… Lena doesn’t know how to choose. What to believe.
A knock startles her.
“Lena?” Lex calls through the door. “Mother said I should check on you.”
She lunges across the room and unlocks the door. Yanks it open.
Lex actually jumps.
“Come in, come in,” Lena insists, and grabbing his arm, she tugs her brother into the room, closing the door behind him.
He flicks on the lights. “Why were you sitting in the dark?”
She ignores the question. Shoves her arm, her mark, towards him. “What do you think this means?”
Lex gives her a strange look, but takes her arm in his hands to steady her shaking, and reads.
She can trust Lex, she decides. He’s smarter than Lillian, smarter than Elizabeth had been. And he’s an adult—he’s worked at LuthorCorp for a few years now. And he has always told her the truth, whether it hurt or helped.
His brow furrows, and Lena knows he doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to be looking for. What the importance is.
“Missed,” she tells him. “Do you think they can’t figure out how they didn’t find me sooner, or why they wanted to find me?”
Lex’s eyebrow raises. “I’m guessing Mother told you the second.”
Lena shrugs.
He sighs. “Honestly, Lena, it just sounds like a poem they’ll like. Maybe you’ll hear them recite it somewhere. But speculating now is useless. There’s no way to know for certain until you meet them.”
He releases her arm to put a hand on top of her head and ruffle her hair. She reaches up with both of her own to hold it there. It’s as close a gesture of affection as she gets, since becoming a Luthor.
She had never before considered that these words may not even be meant for her. That the first time she meets her soulmate, they may not even notice her, may not even look at her, unless she speaks. That unless she stops them, they could just walk right past her without another thought. And if they’re on a stage—Lena would have to chase them down after.
The words sit in the corner of her vision, her forearms equal with her face, and for the first time, Lena can’t bear to look at them. She releases Lex to push her sleeves back down.
Her brother frowns. Then he finds a seat on the edge of her bed and pats the space beside him.
When she sits, he says, “There are many more things in life to be excited about than just your soulmate, Lena. Your inventions, for one. Everything we’ll do with LuthorCorp when you’re finally old enough to help me.”
He nudges her with his elbow, and it makes her smile. Even if it’s small.
Lex hesitates. “Don’t tell her I told you this, but Mother’s soulmark never appeared.” Lena’s eyes widen. “But not having one let her have the life that gave her this.” He gestures widely to the manor. “Her prestige as a physician. The Luthor name. Endless wealth. A family.”
Neither mention her obvious displeasure with parts of the last.
“And mine hasn’t shown either,” he continues affably. “But I’m glad. I don’t think I could love another person more than I love the work of LuthorCorp. Perhaps I’ll marry one day. Have heirs. But the work we do, that’s what I want with my life.”
Lena considers his words. Considers what it would take to change her focus. To, perhaps, live with her soulmate slipping away.
“And Father,” she can’t help but ask, “his never appeared either?”
Lex hesitates again. “No, actually. Father had a soulmate. She… died some time ago.”
“Oh,” is all Lena can think to say.
“We don’t talk about it,” Lex affirms seriously. “Any of it. Do you understand?”
She nods. She understands the warning.
Lex smiles, and ruffles her hair again, which makes her smile too. He makes to leave, but she stops him at the door.
“Lex? Will you have time to help me with the quantum processor tomorrow?”
That makes him grin. “Of course, Lena.”
And though she keeps her mark covered from then on, it makes her feel better.
Then Father dies. And as much as it makes her sad, it makes her scared.
Because Lionel loved her, and Lillian doesn’t. Because now Lex runs LuthorCorp alone, and suddenly he’s gone more often than he’s around. Because it’s just her and a grieving Lillian in one, empty, manor.
So Lena hides. In her room, and in her makeshift lab, and she works. She works so that one day she’ll be useful to Lex and to LuthorCorp.
Then Lex starts to come home again, and she sees him more often, and she’s happy for about a minute before she realizes Lex is getting paranoid.
He begins to say things about Superman that she doesn’t understand. And she doesn’t understand why Lillian is so quick to agree.
Lena had never thought much about aliens. The day Superman had revealed himself had been… strange, and the attacks alarming, but Father had just died, and it wasn’t the first thing on her mind.
Sure, Lena thinks it would be nice to know what someone is when she speaks with them, but she doesn’t think aliens are intrinsically evil. Yes, some of them attack humans, but so do some humans. As Lena sees it, aliens don’t do anything to humans that humans don’t do to each other. And if they want to worry about how advanced some other races are, perhaps they should think about the humans still drinking contaminated water. Those with the advantage never think about those who can’t keep up. They only care about surpassing the next.
So, no, Lena doesn’t think very much about aliens. But she doesn’t say any of this to Lex or Lillian.
Instead she tries to remind Lex about LuthorCorp. About the direction they want to take it in, the advancements they want to make. Tries to make him think about helping people again.
But he only seems to get further and further away.
He begins to fight with Clark, his closest friend. Starts to make strange things in secret at LuthorCorp.
He asks Lena to help, and for the first time, she says no.
She goes to MIT. She wonders if she can ever learn enough to help.
Lena studies. She calls Lex when she can, and sometimes he answers. And every time he does, he seems worse. She visits home on holidays and tries to distract him, to reach him. The gulf between them grows each time instead.
It only makes Lena want to help more. To do something.
She meets Jack Spheer, and they try to improve medicine. He doesn’t have a mark, and she does, but he kisses her anyway. And she lets him. And even though some soulmates do date around before meeting, it makes her feel guilty. But it’s a distraction, and she needs one, too. She lets him kiss her when he wants to, but she never lets him do more.
Then Lex boils over, and the villain she couldn’t prevent rises and falls, and the Luthor name becomes a curse. And it’s all too easy to leave.
Lena arrives home in time for Lex’s official arrest. She stands with Lillian and the cameras watch them. She doesn’t know what face she makes as Lillian sobs, doesn’t remember if she says anything when they push microphones in her face. She can’t bear to watch the loop of it they play all day on every news station.
Lillian unravels, and Lena works to take over LuthorCorp. To redeem the name she loathes and loves in equal measure. The pride she was raised with is too strong to let her walk away.
She has to conquer the board first. Old, entitled men who aren’t too happy to have a young woman telling them what to do.
She dares to reach out to Superman. Lena issues an official apology on behalf of LuthorCorp and its affiliates, and asks if anything can be done to mend bridges.
Superman’s resounding dismissal, his repudiation of the Luthor name, is a painful stumble.
But there’s another super, a woman, flying around National City, and Metropolis is growing increasingly hostile towards anything Luthor for the harm Lex did to their hero, so Lena initiates a move.
And she knows she has to make a concession, knows she can’t force forgiveness, so she plans another change. She cuts the Luthor name enough to let people avoid saying it. Tries to make it so that they can think of the mission before the name.
The move is quick, and relatively painless—there’s little money can’t do, and despite the falling stocks, the boycotts, LuthorCorp still has plenty of it.
Setting up a press conference is even easier. The requests for attendance endless, the invitations hastily accepted. Everyone wants their chance to throw stones at the invading Luthor.
Lena wakes too early the morning of the conference, restlessness driving her from the bed. But they’re still working on the new L-Corp building, still working on her office and the labs in the basement, and Lena had agreed L-Corp employees would stay out until it’s no longer a construction zone. Including her.
She has tours lined up for the rest of the week for various L-Corp affiliates, and an interview or two. Necessary fodder until the headquarters officially opens next Monday.
But that leaves Lena with too much time until the conference, and nowhere to go.
So, because she doesn’t want to sit in this room that long, because the coffee at this hotel—she’s still looking for more permanent accommodations—is acceptable at best, Lena applies a lighter cover of makeup than usual, dons her most reserved dress, and asks for directions to the best coffeeshop in the area.
She hopes, more than expects, not to be recognized as she makes her way down the sidewalk. The distance they named seemed safe enough to risk going on foot, and it would be less conspicuous than the town car dropping her off. Still, she keeps her head ducked, avoiding eye contact as she makes her way to Noonan’s.
She is, perhaps, a little to pleased to find it. A little too proud of herself. Thinking a little too hard about what she might order.
Because she opens the door and starts her way in just as someone makes their way out.
She isn’t sure whose shriek is louder.
But the other woman is the one with hot coffee soaking into her shirt, so Lena blurts, “Oh, I’m so sorry, darling—I ran right into you!”
The woman freezes, shining blue eyes wide.
“Are you alright?” Lena asks, concerned, after a moment of the woman’s silence. “Let’s get you some napkins. I can replace your blouse or have it cleaned, whichever you prefer.”
She puts a hand on the woman’s elbow and tries to guide her back inside, but it’s like trying to move a statue.
Lena frowns, looking back up to try and catch her attention.
But the wonder in those infinite eyes is startling. She’s looking at Lena like she recognizes her, and is glad for it. When had someone last been so happy to see her?
“I looked for you,” the woman begins in a near-reverent voice, a bright smile lighting her face.
And all the air in Lena’s lungs deserts her at once. Her heart is either racing, or has stopped, or is the new blockage in her throat.
Because she knows those words. Knows them in her dreams and in her nightmares. In her hope and in her dread.
And Lena wants to run just as much as she wants to stay.
The woman finishes before she can decide, “And could not find how I had missed you for so long.”
The shiver starts at the top of her spine and runs to the bottom. And it isn’t cold, or someone’s whisper, or anticipation. It’s warmth. Warmth after cold, that burrows into your blood and revives you.
And the way this woman—her soulmate—is looking at her is almost answer enough, but Lena has to know, so she remarks neutrally, “Interesting choice of introduction, considering it might just as easily mean you regretted the search.”
Her soulmate’s answering smile is soft. Gentle. Inexplicably happy. “That’s not what it means. It means, how did I not find you? The answering line is, ‘How did I not yet run right into you, as fate made us meant to.’”
The relief floods through her, every cell, and her knees nearly give out.
She’s almost embarrassed by the depth of it. For caring so much. She hears Lex telling her there’s more to life than soulmates. She thinks of everything she has accomplished, and all she still hopes to do. She is, inarguably, an impressive woman.
But she’s hated. Mistrusted and disdained for acts she didn’t commit. She has to hope no one identifies her when she goes for coffee.
And her soulmate is looking at her like she’s worth something anyway. She’s telling Lena poetry of how happy she is to find her, just like Lena has hoped since she was still with her mother. Even when she had convinced herself that she’d given up.
Will she still be so pleased when she knows who Lena is? Will she understand? Will she understand Lena, as Lena has always hoped her soulmate would?
She finds herself asking, “Is it from something? I’ve searched a few times over the years, but never found anything.”
And suddenly, her soulmate looks uncomfortable.
Lena nearly apologizes. Nearly asks what she said wrong.
But the other woman looks pointedly at the alley between buildings, then back to Lena.
Lena’s brow arches.
Her look turns pleading.
And though it definitely goes on the list of the most foolish things she’s done—soulmate or no—Lena turns and leads the way to the alley.
When she turns back to her soulmate, the woman tosses a cautious glance toward the end of the alley and fidgets with her glasses in a way that shouldn’t be so endearing.
Then, with a steadying breath, she explains, “That’s because it’s not from Earth.” And that’s enough, in Lena’s mind—her soulmate’s an alien, and her brother’s the biggest xenophobe on the planet—but she has to add, “It’s Kryptonian. It’s what we say to acknowledge our mate. To accept them.”
Not just an alien, but the very species her genocidal brother hates the most. Lena’s answering sigh is bone-deep and weary. “You’re Supergirl.”
She has to be. Lena’s not lucky enough for there to be a second, pacifist Kryptonian in National City. And if there was, Lena’s not lucky enough for that one to be her soulmate.
Supergirl fidgets with her—fake—glasses again. “Yes.” Then she blurts, “I’m sure being a superhero’s soulmate is—well, something—but I’m really careful, and I promise I’ll be—”
Lena holds up a hand, and she stops talking at once. A small amusement swirls in Lena—what super is ever careful with their own safety?—but mostly she’s just tired.
She came here for Supergirl. And she’s her soulmate. Does that count as irony? If not, it deserves an honorable mention at the awards.
It’s Lena’s turn to take a steadying breath, and she tells her, “I’m Lena Luthor.”
Supergirl’s mouth falls open, her eyes wide.
Then she releases an undignified snort that startles Lena so greatly that she nearly jumps.
“This is an entirely new page on Super-Luthor relations.”
A small, pleasantly surprised laugh slips out before Lena can stop it. “That’s all? You don’t…” She bites her lip. “Care? My brother tried to kill your cousin. He would try to kill you.”
Her soulmate’s brow crinkles. “Well, are you going to try to kill me?”
Lena blinks. Did she… really think Lena would say yes if that was the answer?
It’s so, utterly trusting that she can’t fathom it.
But the answer isn’t yes, so Lena answers honestly as she says, “No. Actually, I was hoping to work together. I want to make L-Corp—that’s the new LuthorCorp—a force for good. I’m announcing it all later today at a press conference.”
Supergirl’s smile is blinding. “Then no, I don’t really care who your family is. I only care who you are.”
Her heart races. Lena wants to save the Luthor name. Feels a sort of masochistic pride towards it.
But hearing Supergirl say she doesn’t care about what Lex has done, that she only cares about Lena—it feels like a benediction.
“Can I ask your name?” she wonders softly.
“Kara Zor-El,” she answers immediately. “But here it’s Kara Danvers.”
“Kara,” Lena repeats, just to feel it on her tongue.
Kara smiles at her. Can’t seem to stop smiling. “You have beautiful handwriting, by the way. I would trace the letters when I was first learning English.”
“I practiced,” she admits, and then instantly wants to smack herself. What fool part of her mind had decided that should ever be shared? Her cheeks burn.
But Kara looks so overwhelmingly delighted that Lena decides she can forgive herself just this once.
After a moment of them just looking at each other, taking each other in, Kara bites her lip. Fiddles with her glasses.
“I have to keep my identity a secret. It would be dangerous for my family if people found out.”
“Kara Danvers and Supergirl can’t share a soulmate,” Lena surmises.
Kara shakes her head, seeming relieved that Lena had understood so quickly.
“Which would you prefer?” Lena asks.
“Kara,” Kara answers easily. “If you’re Kara Danvers’ soulmate, then we can do things together.” She blushes. “Go on dates. Hold hands.”
And why do Lena’s cheeks feel so warm? At dates and holding hands?
Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.
But there’s still a small, giddy feeling in her stomach. Her soulmate wants to be seen with her. Doesn’t want to hide being attached to a Luthor.
Her soulmate is choosing her.
“I’d like that,” she murmurs, a smile playing at her lips and warmth in her cheeks, and feels, for the first time in a long time, more like a Walsh than a Luthor.
Kara’s soft, happy grin feels like being held. “But if you want, Supergirl can come to your press conference today. She can stand on stage with you or wherever you want her.”
For a moment, Lena can only blink. “You would do that? You would stand by a Luthor as Supergirl?”
Her brow crinkles again. “Why wouldn’t I? Supergirl will have to be more distant, but she’s still going to support you. You’re my soulmate, Lena. I would do anything for you.”
And this time, when Lena’s heart breaks, it’s healing. It’s the kind of break that needs to happen so things can be reset.
Lena recalls. She adjusts. Then she looks into the eyes she knows she’ll soon love, and says, “I’m glad I ran right into you, as fate made us meant to.”
Kara answering smile is more beautiful than perfect equations. More right than the turning of the Earth.
And it’s already Lena’s new axis.