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When Kara comes back, she comes back broken. Body wasted, and a hollow in her eyes that alarms them. It pains them all deeply to see it, the fractures running through her, the impending ruins of her.
The medical unit clears her quickly and sends her home – this is more than tubes and needles can fix.
Rest, the doctors tell her, like rest is an easy thing for a woman like her.
They agree, the team, the family, to take shifts minding Kara at home for the first few days. They can’t bear the thought of her alone, not after all that’s happened, not when they’ve only just gotten her back, and only just barely at that.
Lena’s shift comes second, after Alex, who insists on taking the first. Lena had wanted, with some sort of violent desperation low in her gut, to argue with this arrangement, to beg to be first, to suffer not a single minute apart from Kara after her return.
But Alex was steady where Lena’s hands tremored, and Alex had swept Kara off before Lena could find the words to plead.
So, Lena passes the hours restlessly, twelve of them in all, pacing the starkness of the apartment she hates and roaming the aisles of the grocery store for hours on end, until finally the clock has mercy on her.
Alex meets her at the door to Kara’s apartment, whispers that Kara is sleeping, has been sleeping all that time. Hands her the spare set of keys and tells her to call if anything comes up.
Kara sleeps in the living room, curled tightly with knees to chest, shins and forehead pressed hard into the back of the couch. Alex has dressed her softly, in loose pants and an old sweater Lena has worn herself once or twice on a cold movie night.
Lena lets herself look for a moment, to watch the steady rise and fall of ribs, then forces her gaze away.
She spends the hours finding little reasons to stay close to Kara, pulled towards her with relentless gravity, again and again. Tugs a second blanket over Kara’s shoulders, and then a third. Straightens the mugs in the dish rack and makes a pot of tea, just in case Kara should wake. Drags a rag across the bookshelves until the dust of the past few weeks is irradicated and she could, for a moment, forget that Kara had been absent.
She makes wedding soup, from scratch.
Sometime, minutes or hours or days from now, Kara will wake and Lena needs, dearly, to be ready to feed her, to warm her and sustain her in some way.
Cooking is not now, and has never been, a particularly strong skill set for her (blame the questionable upbringing and vicious work ethic she’d assumed to compensate). But the domesticity of it draws her on nights like this, nights when she feels unmoored.
There are pots in the cupboard and vegetables spilling from the bags she dragged along with her. She dices carrots and onion and celery and kale (which Kara won’t like, but will eat if she’s told, will eat if it was cut by Lena’s hands).
Garlic, minced, in the bottom of the pan, and it smells good enough to remind her for a moment that she hasn’t eaten since yesterday, too busy waiting for the moment she could be beside Kara again.
She adds the broth and vegetables. Lets it simmer until the windows start to fog over and the kitchen heats enough to reach inside her and steady her a bit. She mashes beans and spices and breadcrumbs, and rolls them tightly into balls to bake in the oven until golden, and then the soup is done.
She tends to every dish in the sink, and when Kara still has not stirred, eats a bowl of the soup, and then a second. More appetite than she’s had in weeks, hungrier than she’s been since Kara went and didn’t come back.
Hours into the evening, she curls up at the end of the couch at Kara’s feet with a book from the shelf. She picks one that is worn at the edges, the cover cracked and fading, read by Kara’s hands a dozen times, and she manages, for a little while, to rest.
It doesn’t last long, of course, the rest. Rest is a demanding beast, and Lena has little to offer it, little in her pockets to buy its mercy.
Soon enough she’s back on her feet, busying her hands and occupying her restless head.
The hours continue to tick by, to her great displeasure.
Lena means to leave at the end of her shift, truly, she does. She’s new to this little family, new, at least, in the fullness of them and their truths. She’ll play by the rules for a while, to earn her keep.
Except,
except,
except,
the time passes too quickly, and Kara’s breath is soft and steady.
In the ninth hour, Lena’s fingers find her phone without her brain’s consent.
The texts, sent separately to Nia and Brainy and Kelly, read, “No need to come for your shift. I’ll stay a little longer.”
She is tempted to add a “please” to the end. Please, please let me stay. But the heft of the words is too sharp in her chest, and she hits send before it can pierce her.
Brainy responds with an “OK” immediately and does not question her at all. He trusts her already, trusts the judgment of her with a completeness that startles her a little.
Nia sends a “u sure?” and accepts her hurried “yes” without further argument. Just laces a string of purple hearts across the screen and leaves it at that.
Kelly types for a moment, then another, and another, as Lena holds her breath and utters a prayer to an absent god. But the dots disappear at last and only a “Take care of you both, hun, ok? Call Alex and I if you need anything.” remains in their place.
Lena sags against the kitchen counter in relief, sucking in a breath that rattles through her and leaves her shaken.
This is rare, to witness Kara in this state of sleep, somewhere south of rest. This is the kind of sleep the body demands before it will even consider rest.
This is rare, and, dire circumstances aside, a relief to Lena.
Kara sleeps lightly, usually, always ready to wake, always ready to fight. She rouses easily at the slightest call. Constantly vigilant.
Good for the world, yes. The world that needs this hero they don’t deserve.
But Lena is constantly vigilant too. And it is exhausting.
She keeps her heart in an iron grip at all times, day in and day out. It shutters and quakes against her grasp, but she can’t let go. Too much of a risk that it might be caught by Kara’s ears across town, in the middle of the night, on the bus, or sitting right beside her. Too much of a risk that it might shout the truth she’s been muting all these years and demand to be heard.
Her heart is hurricane and thunder when Kara is near or on her mind. It is hurricane and thunder nearly always. But she holds it tightly and turns the storm inward, day after day, year after year. Because Kara might hear.
But nights like this, bittersweet in their rarity – nights like this, when Kara sleeps like the world has abandoned her, Lena can let go. Nights like this she can let her secret heart run rampant through her, let it pound against the cage of her and shout itself raw.
Because Kara won’t hear.
Kara doesn’t stir as Lena moves around the apartment. Not when Lena drags the blankets across her frame, or when the oven timer beeps, or when Lena settles on the couch beside her for a time. She does not stir at all.
And the longer this goes on, the longer Kara is well and truly asleep, the louder Lena’s heart grows. It sheds its chains and lets itself sing deeply in the space of her chest. And she doesn’t stop it, doesn’t try any longer to hold it back.
She is tired and this, relenting for a time, is its own kind of rest.
In the early hours of the morning, when the restlessness finally gets to her and she can hold herself at bay no longer, Lena sits lightly on the edge of the couch by Kara’s calves.
Her heart whispers its wanting in every language it knows and it aches and aches and aches.
She lets herself run fingertips light over Kara’s hip, down an elbow and across a wrist, over the familiar terrain of knuckles. For a moment, she lets her palm rest there, against the back of Kara’s hand, lets their fingers overlap like echoes.
Kara’s fingers twitch. It is faint enough that Lena might have imagined it, faint enough she could have ignored it and have risen softly to drift away again to the safety of a little distance and the shackles that wait.
She might have imagined it, had Kara’s fingers not continued on to twitch again, to snare Lena’s fingertips in their gentle grasp.
A shudder runs through Lena, mostly fear, with a stinging trace of hope.
Her eyes travel up Kara’s frame, slowly, so as not to see how the moment ends any sooner than necessary, so as not to see what meets her at its end.
There’s dread there, in the pit of her stomach, and she feels the bile rise.
But at the end of this moment is Kara, watching her softly. Kara, shifting so Lena’s palm lies against the soft of her sweater. Kara, drifting their joined hands up and up and up, until Lena’s palm is pressed firmly against her chest.
And there, under wool and skin and bone and muscle, there is a heart. A heart that thunders in perfect chaos, paired with Lena’s own. A heart that shouts a secret truth Lena has heard, a hundred thousand times before, and it echoes and echoes and echoes.
Lena breathes in a shaky breath, wholly insufficient in its depth.
“How long?” That’s what Kara asks. How long?
Lena doesn’t answer. Can’t answer.
This is too much. This is a dream, surely. This is the story her heart tells to her from within the rigid confines of her chest, when she binds it down and demands its silence. This is too much.
“Yeah,” Kara whispers then, an answer to her silence, soft and barely audible above the raging in Lena’s chest, the mirrored raging under palm. “Me too.”
Lena would sob, the tears already welling, already falling, but she is too damn tired.
The tender relief of it, too delicate to trust yet, too delicate to hold in her hands and feel any heft, it flattens her with the brute force of a tidal wave, and she is exhausted.
Kara’s eyes are already dropping shut again, sleep tugging her back under, not nearly done with her yet.
But when Lena moves to slip away, Kara grips her hand firmly.
“Stay.” That’s what she says, like it is easy.
Kara shifts onto her back and drags Lena close until Lena’s full weight rests there, from chin to chest. Eyes closed, breath already sliding into the steady depths, Kara manages to drag a blanket back over them and wrap Lena tightly in her arms.
There is no question there, in the weight of those arms, no uncertainty in the thud of the heart as it slips again into sleep.
There is no question there.
For the first time in weeks, in years, Lena uncoils, body and brain relenting at last, and she falls asleep with her head against Kara’s chest.
The first time she wakes, Lena finds herself alone on the couch, the cushions still warm beneath her.
There is a building pressure in her head and before she can identify it clearly, it breaks into the howl of the kettle. A quiet clatter and a hissed cuss follow shortly after.
Kara is there, in the kitchen. Whispering harshly to the kettle, which settles quickly but not quickly enough for Kara’s liking, it appears. She glances over her shoulder and grimaces to find Lena watching.
“Sorry I woke you,” she whispers, running a hand through her tousled hair, and turning again to the kettle. “I feel like I’m an ill-equipped bear.”
That’s the end of the explanation for a moment, until Kara looks back up to find the bemused furrow of Lena’s brow.
“Hibernating, but in desperate need of snacks,” Kara elaborates, lips tugging into a smile as Lena’s do.
Lena rises and joins her at the counter, where Kara pushes a cup of tea into her hands. There is a bowl of soup, still steaming, half empty beside her. Kara fills a second bowl for Lena, and tops off her own to the brim.
They eat with little talk. The air in the room feels hazy and dampens the buzz of Lena’s head, and she considers, for the second time, that this might be a dream.
“This is nice.” Kara says softly, voice hushed because the moment will sustain nothing louder, as she sets her spoon down in the empty bowl.
Lena is unsure of whether she is referring to the soup or the company or the moment itself. She chooses not to ask, the air around them demanding silence, demanding she wait.
Lena clears the dishes and goes to run the water hot in the sink, but Kara turns off the faucet before she can begin, catches Lena’s hand and tugs in question.
With Lena in tow one step behind, Kara shuffles across the apartment to her bedroom, a roaring yawn rising up from the depths of her and her shoulders already beginning to droop.
Kara stops beside the bed and waits expectantly, eyeing Lena with a soft smile that burrows deep into Lena’s chest.
The slope of Kara’s shoulders and the sleepy puff of her cheeks leave Lena aching - The love she harbors for this woman, good god, it contains multitudes.
Lena dutifully draws down the covers and crawls into the bed, slipping far enough to the side to give ample berth, to demand nothing, to hope for nothing.
Kara follows her, dragging the blankets up over them both. She curls around Lena with no pause, shifting and tugging Lena closer until Lena is nestled securely against her.
She presses a kiss to Lena’s forehead and is asleep mere seconds after.
Lena lies awake for a while after that, heart malfunctioning in fits and sputters. She lies awake, waiting for the seams to appear, waiting for the dream to break.
This collection of moments is too close to something she could believe, if she had ever learned to believe in things like this, in goodness and that comes for her and stays. In goodness she gets to keep.
Lena lies awake and waits for the end of this moment, for the end of the dream, but soon enough the gentle tides of Kara’s breath against her neck lulls her into sleep again.
The second time Lena wakes is different.
She finds Kara watching her, bright-eyed, just a breath or two away. One thumb smooths slowly across the skin of her hip, where her shirt has risen slightly.
“What time is it?” Lena asks. It doesn’t matter, and she doesn’t care, not even a little, but the world is disorienting at the moment and she needs something concrete to hold onto. So she asks.
“Almost dawn,” Kara whispers.
Lena bites back the words that come next, but they escape her anyway, the heart now quite pleased with its freedom and unwilling to resume its shackles.
“I’m afraid this is a dream.” That’s what Lena says. It tumbles from her, and she is helpless to stop it.
Kara smiles, terribly tender and terribly fond.
“Not a dream”, she assures, as she pinches the skin beneath her fingers just hard enough to send a little spike of certainty up Lena’s spine.
Kara reaches up slowly, slow enough to leave room for escape, room that is entirely unwanted by either of them, and brushes a fingertip across Lena’s lips. “Not a dream. So, maybe, could we –”
Lena is on her before the question can come, hearts thundering out an answer in tandem as they meet in the middle.
There is a pulse in Kara’s neck, in her wrist, in the join of her thigh. Lena visits them all in the hours that come, takes her time to learn them well with tongue and fingertips.
But they are dilutions of what Lena wants most, games of telephone strung along arteries and veins, and she wants to be sure of the original message, no errors in the code.
It has taken too long to get here, too many dreams woken from in a daze with the drop in her gut and bitter disappointment on her tongue. It’s taken too long to have any misunderstanding now, any uncertainty lingering.
There is a pulse, and she worships wherever she finds it, in every limb and along every boundary.
Savoring, yes, but searching still.
In the pinks and oranges of dawn, as the light spills across Kara’s frame braced above her, Lena finds what she’s looking for, at last.
She trails a hand slowly down Kara’s chest, the edge of the sternum as her guide, counting the peaks and valleys of ribs as they pass by under the pads of her fingertips.
One, tucked behind the collar bone. Lena ducks to press her lips to it, as a shiver runs through Kara.
Two. Kara’s teeth find her earlobe, a ghost of tongue and the ensuing bite, tempting but they do not distract her from her travels.
Three. Kara charts a dizzying path along Lena’s jaw, but still, Lena’s fingers travel on.
Four, as Kara tugs Lena to her, catches her lips and draws her in again.
Five. Lena’s fingertips take their lateral slide and come to rest in the dip below the left fifth rib, and it feels like coming home.
She loves this moment for a hundred thousand reasons, reasons she will unpack slowly in the coming days, will touch softly and study until they are familiar in her hands.
But most of all, right here and now, she loves this moment because, here, in the dip of the fifth, the thunder in Kara rages loudest, fierce against her fingertips.
Lena’s heart hurries to match the beat of her, gallops ahead to catch Kara’s stride.
Lena slips from the kiss and Kara grumbles her disapproval, one hand shifting to the nape of Lena’s neck as she tries to keep her in the tangle of tongue and catching breath.
Lena chuckles, soft and fond, rising to her elbows to press her lips to Kara’s sternum, to soothe the parting blow.
Her hands find Kara’s thighs and sprawl across their width to urge her up as Lena travel down, lips following the map made by fingertips.
one two three four five
There she finds what she’s come for. The gentle flutter of skin above her, just below the soft swell of breast.
This, here, the slightest flicker of the skin, just barely visible to the eye in the golden light, as the sun rises to catch them.
This, here, the point at which Kara’s heart comes closest to Lena, the point where it rails against its cage.
The point of maximal impulse. Gravity at its finest.
Precocious, a heart like this, a heart like hers.
Bold to make itself known in a world like this, to breach the safety of her frame, to push the bounds of its captivity and dare to meet the naked eye.
Kara tangles a hand in Lena’s hair, deep, urging her to move, to pick a direction and pursue.
The lazy patterns of fingertips along Kara’s thighs, the tongue and teeth, the awe and honor as Lena watches the pulse of Kara move against the skin in the purest of forms. It creates an ache that leaves Kara’s arms tremoring, but will not satisfy.
The soft pant of Kara’s breath asks nicely. The hand in Lena’s hair pleads, a little less patient.
Kara can have whatever she wants, she can take whatever she pleases.
In a moment. They have waited a long time, and can wait a moment longer.
First, first Lena wants to savor this.
Kara’s heart, defiant as it slams against the chest wall and lays challenge to the tissues charged with holding it in its place. The heart that came back when all seemed lost. The heart that rests here, twinned to Lena’s own, devoid now of their silences, of their muted yearning.
Shouting shameless truth against muscle and bone and skin.
Lena could use words, could try to explain the bitter and the sweet of this, the fear and joy and relief of this moment with her, of every moment with her. Every moment given, every moment fought for and hard won with blood and sweat and sacrifice. Every moment waited for, years of bated breath and a twist of the gut.
She could use words, but the drag of her tongue across the pound and thud and thunder speaks louder, screams that she is here, they are here, undeniably and indisputably here.
This is not a dream any longer.
Kara is living flesh and raging blood, all heart and urgent, aching want. Safe, here in Lena’s arms, if only for this moment.
The world is cruel and has striped their futures of their guarantees. It will, someday coming, try to tear Kara from her. Has and will again, with no signs of impending mercy.
But here in the dawn, the pulse races under Kara’s skin. Today, her heart pounds on the door and Lena answers on first knock in perfect parallel.
Right now, Kara is here and she is Lena’s, and the world and all its plans, all its doubts and silences, shackles and secret hearts, can be well and truly damned.
They sleep for days, tangled together, exhaustion rising from them in waves as the weight they’ve carried peels away.
It is rest well-earned.
They sleep for days, soundly, save for the quiet hours that come like dreams but are, without a doubt, waking.