#supercorp femslash

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32)

Five years, one marriage, three new additions to the top five list of viewing points in the city later. They were still falling in love in new ways, some days, but just not every day.

That was what Kara wanted to write in the anniversary card. The thing she was trying to capture in a less on-the-nose way. She stared at the blank card, wanting to write the perfect thing, understated but precise and bursting with adoration for her wife and the funny, lovely, wonderful life they had built together.

Even now, some substantial interim of time having ticked since everything went the way life eventually goes; Kara still felt the urge to pick up her phone, exasperated and at a loss with herself, wanting to run it past someone who had a very distinct, if not mean-spirited, knack for words.

This is my review / rec for @femslashreviewfest (2020) Day 5: Novella

You Are My Soul to Save by Almavivadreams ; @almavivadreams​

Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

Supergirl TV (2015)

Completed, 5 chapter, 25k words, 2018-2019

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence; Near Death Experiences

Author's summary

"Kara will hate her. Kara may never forgive her. Lena accepts that as she looks at the bloody mess on her torso. Even before Lex sent his goon to finish her, Lena knew that she would willingly die for Supergirl. Die for Kara. She will not accept any other alternatives. With sluggish movements, Lena writes down what she could not bear to say out loud.

Kara:

I’m the lucky one for having your voice be the last one I heard. I love you.

- Lena"

When Lena finds herself in grave danger and forced to choose between herself and Supergirl, she knows the choice is obvious. She accepts death. Little does she know the lengths Kara would go to keep her safe.

My thoughts

This is not a spoiler free rec. But I think most people would not like to read this fic without knowing this before (and I think this is also not substantially more than what the author mentions in the author's notes and tags).

This story is brilliant, but it is clearly not for everyone

This story is intense

There is a lot of graphic violence

There is a happy ending and nobody dies, but you can't really get closer to major character death in a story without anyone actually dying 

This is a story of extremes: an incredible amount of angst and violence and an incredible sweet and romantic happy ending.

I usually don't enjoy reading graphic violence, but for this story I made an exception.  Most of the story (and most of the violence) is told from Lena's POV and the author writes the violence in a very intense way that does however not feel voyeuristic. It was still a bit much for me and I needed to skip a paragraph ahead a few times.

While the violence is far more than what is typical for the TV show, the way Lea and Kara act is very much in line with what they would do if pushed to the extreme, to protect the ones they love: In particular Lena who is certain that she is dying, but she stays strong and she would rather die, than to endanger Kara.

I loved this very well written story. If you can stomach violence and angst before the happy ending, then it is highly recommended.

Favorite Quote

“I’m not mad,” Lena replies quietly. She looks defeatedly at Kara. “You were always meant to see it, it’s just…” it’s just that I never thought I’d be alive to see how much it hurt you.

For more f/f fanfic recs, visit my blog or follow me on tumblr, twitter or Pillowfort (this post was cross-posted)

You might also enjoy

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 2 - Hope and Despair: of Lighter and Darker Worlds [tumblr] [WordP]

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)

On Thursdays, a little late in the morning, Kara kept a rolling date.

It was less of a date in the traditional sense, more of a perpetual visit to confession. The winter had prolonged and drew out the frost. The coldness ordered the city with the skeleton of a tree on each corner, here and there, empty shrubs, flower bulbs on apartment balconies fused tightly with pre-grief, and try as everything might, the world still struggled to find bloom in the rapidly approaching mid-March, some three months since the story spread was published.

“Turns out I can be a drama queen.” Kara pushed out her cheeks, rocking back and forth on her feet. “I mean, who does that? At a funeral. Makes it about them—their wedding. Then she cancels the venue, like some perfect Princess Charming, and there I go, three days later, asking if we can rebook it.”

In her head, Kara imagined the knowing look.

“I know.” She folded her arms. “I’m getting better. At being a good girl, I mean. It just hit me hard. It felt like…how do I go through with it? Pushed all the way back to square one—worse than square one even. Just some awkward, boring, sad, hurting person, and there she is—Lena Luthor—looking at me like I’m important, and special, and like...I’m worth the wait.”

“You are worth the wait,” a voice chipped in.

“You’re stalking me now?” Kara snatched around with a glimmer in her eyes, smiling as she glanced the eavesdropper up and down.

Lena grinned and faced a headstone adjacent. She shook her head, flowers in her hand, apparently here with the same idea that some things needed to be confessed to those who would not tell secrets, and other things forgiven by those with no absolution to offer.

“I’m running a little late today. I usually come by around nine, nine-thirty.” Lena rubbed her neck. “I can come back?”

“Don’t, stay.”

“You’re sure?” Lena glanced with careful eyes, double-checking and very gentle in the way she said it. “She was your person.”

“She was your friend.”

“Still is.” Lena tilted her head. “Always will be.”

“Want to text her and tell her you can’t make brunch today?” Kara had a mischievous smile, thinking about how long it had been since they did something good and sporadic. “There’s a park nearby. Let’s get coffee and take a walk, baby.”

“Which park?” Lena offered her arm for Kara to hook into as they walked back the way they came.

“It’s not in the top five, maybe the top ten though.”

“If it’s not in the top five it may as well be a multi-level parking garage.”

“Would you still come on a date with me if it was?” Kara looked at her a certain way, as though spring had finally broken behind her eyes. “You look beautiful. I like what you did with your hair this morning.”

“Brush it?” Lena knitted her brows.

“Sure, yeah.” Kara tucked a rope of jet-black hair behind her ear.

“I would go on the date with you.” Lena pressed forward and pecked her lips, then slipped an arm around to tug and keep Kara warm in the clutch of her side. “About the wedding venue…”

“So, you did listen in?”

“A little.” Lena shrugged. “Our original date got snatched up quickly. What would you think about a June wedding?”

“June is only a little longer to wait, sure.”

“June of next year.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not in a rush.” There was a patient, radiant smile and no irritation to be found behind sea green eyes—despite the insanity—despite the nightmare Kara had proved to be in the aftermath. Lena just kept loving her in the right way. “I’m not going anywhere. I have some time on my hands, enough to waste, just to follow you places for the exercise, maybe the view of your butt too. June next year?”

“June next year.” Kara pressed her cheek to her girlfriend’s shoulder. “Lena?”

“Mhm?”

“I love you,” Kara whispered and stared ahead, clutching her arm, matching her idle pace. “I don’t just mean I love you, here and now, I mean…” She blew a little exhale, almost a whistle, like someone’s dad recounting the size of a big freshwater fish that had taken some time to reel in. “I love you in this horrifically logical, sensible, and completely thought through way. I love you the way you love someone when you look at them and your brain says…” Kara grinned. “Oh, there you are. The woman who’s going to be the mother of my children. The person I’m supposed to build a nice, good life around. Who I’m going to be sixty, seventy, maybe eighty with, and I’ll still be looking at you like you’re my best friend, my wife.” Kara held it for a moment. “My person.”

Lena nodded slightly and held open the gate, glancing at Kara with a certain look as she walked through first.

“Your person, huh?” Lena rasped as she followed. “I think we clarified that a person is much, much, much bigger of a deal than a wife or soulmate—we did do that, right?”

“Mhm.” Kara cupped her cheeks. “And there you are.”

“You know”—Lena brushed the tips of their noses—“I think being the mother of your children might be one above that.”

“We should probably get married first.”

“Probably,” Lena grinned as she thought about it. “It’s a fourteen-thousand-dollar dress. You should wear it the way you chose it. Then we can have a baby, maybe two, or seven, what do you think?”

“Two would be nice.”

“We’re still stood in the middle of the path. You want to keep walking, save this for the park?”

“Nah,” Kara kissed her—really kissed her—kissed her for the first time in a long time like it was unavoidable and necessary. “Let’s just stand here in everyone’s way, outside a cemetery, and plan our children’s names please.”

“Boys or girls?”

“Girls.”

“Not one of each?” Lena seemed surprised but happy. “Two little girls?”

“Mhm.” Kara nodded. “Both of them with your hair and eyes.”

“I want a little Kara Danvers too?”

“Then three daughters.”

“Not two as in one little me and one little you?” Lena’s brow knitted again. She suddenly jolted forward, careening into Kara and nearly knocking her over, a busy pedestrian elbowing them out of the way unceremoniously. “Are you okay?” Lena patted. “Hey! Did your mother never teach you to keep your hands to yourself and play nicely?”

Lena went fiery and bright-eyed at the stomping man, in a way Kara had never seen before, and knew she shouldn’t feel so tight, awoken, and aroused about. It hit too quickly. Lena was so feminine and dignified, silver-tongued and faintly upper-class, but never arrogant or precise with it, and so the clenched fists and snarled bottom lip did things for Kara.

Then the man turned around.

“I would ask the same but the way your brother turned out?” He spat at her feet. “Shame it was your wife who died and not him—what a fuck piece—I would have banged.”

John, Kara suddenly realised it was her old colleague—the man who wrote the original questions and found himself fired because of it.

Kara barely managed to keep a grip on Lena.

Then she let go, in a decided and intentional way, because Lena was owed this one. She strode forward. It wasn’t some towering, terrifyingly intimidating change in her demeanour. John didn’t take a step back. He didn’t have some—or any—fear in the eyes. He just grinned, shit-eating and smug, pleased to get the reaction he wanted.

Lena said something inaudible. John’s expression flickered, softened almost. They talked. He hung his head, a little solemn. They talked for what felt like forever. It was maybe only a minute or two, but the fact they were talking the way people talked and there was no shouting or aggression proved to be equally as confusing.

Lena came back in her own time.

“What was that?”

“Karma.”

“Spill.” Kara hooked her arm again, noticing the tension of a barely cooled-off temper. “Whatever you said seemed to have an effect.”

“Apologies do that to people.”

“He apologised?”

“I did.” They stopped, largely because Kara stopped dead in her tracks. “Don’t…make it a thing. I know, I know I should have defended Sam’s honour, or something.” Lena pinched her brow. “That was a very broken man who lost everything in his life because of my brother. He just…needed to feel like that mattered.”

“He was awful to you!” Kara pulled away and scanned the street, ready to give him a much harsher reality check. “He does not get to blame you for his problems—”

“I know that. Kara—stop. Kara, I know that.” Lena took her biceps firm and brought the stormy temper back to attention. “He was—is—a very broken man, and sometimes people just need to begin healing on their own terms.” Lena almost hushed it away.

“Wait.” Kara paused. “You didn’t just apologise, did you?”

Lena grew sheepish.

“Lena, what did you do? Kara glared.

“In fairness—” Lena held up her hands defensively. “He was a very good reporter. I followed his work solving the Riddler killings—it was fascinating.”

“What did you do?”

“I offered him a job.” Lena scrunched her face. “Nothing that involves interfacing with me—ever. Just, you know, an auditor of sorts.”

“Of sorts!” Kara felt furious and well aware it was not her right to be angry over this. “Lena, baby, have you lost your mind?”

“The first real conversation you and I shared” —Lena did the look, the pre-argument look, when she was frustrated and holding it back— “You asked me what I was going to do to help the Midwestern Mom who lost everything on the LexCorp IPO. Well, there is your Midwestern Mom, Kara, I’m sorry it isn’t the sweet, nice, naïve old lady who buys lottery tickets for her grandson’s college fund.” Lena tossed her hands in the air. “I said I was going to fix it and do something good for the people who lost everything, and I meant what I said, Kara. It wasn’t lip-service. It wasn’t conditional on those people being objectively good people. So, who better to judge me than my worst critic?”

“Definitely two of you.” Kara realised and said it simultaneously. “An abundance of you. I did not know you had that kind of temper, that’s the first thing. The second thing is…well you know.” Kara tugged her girlfriend’s attention with the firmest grasp on either cheek. “All of it together, combined, accounted for and on the books? I want your children. I want you, because you are very hot, and very—you know—Daddy.”

“Is that…” Lena looked around. “Is that the argument finished?”

“Mhm.”

“We still haven’t moved.” Lena observed and dipped her chin in her scarf, blinking and furrowing at the absurdity. “We just—did we just plan our children, plus all the other stuff, and have an argument, right here?”

“Mhm. Yes, we did.” Kara kissed the corner of her mouth. “I think this becomes the third, maybe even the second stop on the tour, when our kids are old enough, and they groan in the back of the car while we drive around and point our lives out for them.”

“Where’s the first?”

(Previous Chapter Here)

***

Perhaps the only office skyline view better than Cat Grant’s own, Kara thought. The new chief found herself running late, some meeting or another had carried over, which left Kara confused because it was seven in the morning and nobody in a civilised society should be working or taking meetings before eight.

Kara felt those kinds of early starts were a way of life better left back home.

Still, it didn’t stop her getting out of bed soon after reading the email. She wasn’t sure why she put an extra hour into her routine, but she curled her blonde hair a certain way, put a little extra blush and highlight on her cheeks, made herself fresh and found herself appreciating the city with a bounce in her step, despite the lack of sleep, because things seemed different this early in the morning.

There was a delight to be found in the quietness of the world. The air was freezing cold, refreshing, had the blood pumping quick and the coffee in her hand feeling like good value for money this morning. The train carriage had been empty, that kind of empty that people spoke about sometimes, but Kara had never seen before today, where the chugging express train sped along the bridge in quiet jolts, the river beneath inky black ripples that bounced bright city light in bolts of gold, with only the darkest shade of purple on the horizon indicating the new day.

Kara ate a croissant and found herself with space in her thoughts beyond maintaining the appearance of her life. She tempted her hand into her purse when she switched trains, half-considering a photograph to capture the rarity of an empty, desolate city subway platform. She didn’t. Strangely, she left it alone and just enjoyed the moment, the quiet, as though she were the only person awake and there was something pleasant in the fact.

“It’s something, isn’t it?”

Kara heard the distinct thud of a cleaning cart hitting the door.

“It’s sad,” Kara murmured, still in her own thoughts. “Three months here and I haven’t seen a single, actual sunrise. I figured it was because the city was dense, that maybe the smog sat a little heavier in the morning but, turns out, if you’re one of the chosen few up in the clouds on the lower side then sunrises are just another Wednesday.”

“You’re definitely new in the city. If you go to Southview Hill Park, weekday mornings, not only will you get a quaint walk through the third most-charming public garden in the city, but you will also find your perfect viewing spot to see the sun come up across the river.”

Kara froze.

“You are not the cleaning lady.” She tempered an embarrassed, mortified laugh as she turned around. “I’m. I’m so sorry if that, you know, sounded kind of arrogant?”

“No, to both. I’m not the cleaning lady and you didn’t sound arrogant.” The woman shook her head and stifled a smirk. “I thought you might like some breakfast, something to drink at the very least. My assistant doesn’t get here until nine so I took a walk to see what I could find. Do you like cereal?” She lifted her emerald eyes curiously. “I must warn you that milk could not be procured so the cereal will be served tartare, right from the box.” She lifted the cornflakes and shook a few into her palm.

For a woman who had been awake for perhaps just as long as Kara, if not longer, Lena Luthor looked immaculate in the most understated way as if these insane early starts were just part and parcel of things.

Miss Luthor didn’t look like the most important woman in the city and yet, there she was, most certainly not the cleaning lady. It was that dressed up, dressed down thing all tech entrepreneurs pulled off effortlessly. The kind you could be sat next to, at the bagel place, and assume they were just another intern trying to get a grasp on life, young, figuring it all out, not a billionaire mogul wearing a grey cashmere sweater, black slacks, no Rolex, just a pair of regular beaten-up sneakers.

“I’m usually used to reporters asking most of the questions,” Miss Luthor spoke again with a strange smile. “Or, you know, talking.” Her lips wobbled with amusement.

“I’m. I’m so sorry, I was still mentally replaying the last five minutes. You know, that unfortunate part where I assumed you were the cleaning lady, kind of trying to figure out how I would attempt to explain it to Cat right before she fires me.” Kara fiddled with her glasses and felt better for earning a real laugh this time.

“Your secret is safe with me. I wouldn’t be so sure about Cat either, I had the distinct pleasure of interning for her when I finished college—”

“You?” Kara balked.

“Oh yes.” Miss Luthor nodded at the surprise, craning down to pour hot coffee into two waiting mugs. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, just that I didn’t want that thing to be…too Luthor-ish. Anyway, Cat can be brash, but she has a keen eye for fostering talent. If she didn’t see something in you then she wouldn’t have sent you.” She offered hot coffee.

“They gave me pre-written questions.” Kara quirked the corner of her mouth and lifted the printed sheets. “Thanks for the coffee, Miss Luthor.”

“Thanks for making time to accommodate me so early this morning. Please, just call me Lena.” She waved it off and unlaced her sneakers, placing them on the shoe rack in exchange for the Louboutins, footing around her desk to the big seat. “What was your name again?”

“Kara.” Lena’s eyes went a little wide at that. “Kara Danvers, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself—”

“No, no.” Lena blinked and smiled. “I know you. I think. Well, it would perhaps be more apropos to say that I know of you, that’s assuming you’re Kara Danvers, James Olsen’s friend from back home?” She clarified.

“I am that Kara Danvers,” Kara laughed and felt more at ease. “Is it weird to say I’m a little surprised James Olsen has billionaire chief exec friends he failed to mention? He texts me screenshots at two in the morning if any of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills retweet him.” Kara knew she was saying too much and yet it felt so easy.

“And would you not if Lisa Vanderpump acknowledged your existence?” Lena furrowed her brow as she sipped her coffee. “James is—or was—a family friend. It’s a little more complicated now, but our Words With Friends game is still going strong all these years later, so I assume we’re on warm terms…”

“That depends whether he’s beating you.” Kara wiggled her eyebrows and sat down.

“I let him win, once in a while, just to keep it fun.” Lena tilted her expression and sipped her coffee. “It’s not healthy to operate in absolutes, you have to lose some in order to enjoy winning some.”

“That somehow sounds humble and a little arrogant all at once,” Kara grinned and glanced down to the questions that she hadn’t thought to pre-check, which swiftly took the smile off her face. “Miss Luthor—”

“Lena.”

“Lena,” Kara corrected herself. “Can I just pre-start by saying that I am so sorry. Really, I am so sorry, and I did not write these questions. Could we start there—that I’m sorry?”

“Goodness.” Lena’s eyes went wide, the whites growing bright, then she twisted her ponytail into a loose bun. “That means they’re tough ones. Maybe you’re right, maybe Cat does hate you.” She joked. “We better get started…”

Kara felt her forehead break with dampness.

“Shortly after your wife’s passing you withdrew from public life completely. The last impression you left in the public’s perception was described, by your worst critics, as the undoing of one of the most brilliant minds of a generation into the impulsive, erraticism and paranoia that, many now feel, aptly describes your brother’s downfall into madness.”

The air had shifted before the first sentence finished. Kara felt it, as though a stiffness had come over the room, and she had remembered quite suddenly why it was she hated silence, and that was perhaps the only reason she kept reading aloud.

The pause hung for just a moment too long. “Was there a question on the end of that summary address?” Lena cleared her throat.

Kara clenched her eyes and didn’t want to say it.

“What separates you from Lex Luthor? Why should the public, and the many forgotten who invested their life savings in LexCorp’s over-valued IPO before last year’s seventy-percent tank in stock value, trust you to steer the ship and not—” Kara stopped and clenched her teeth with embarrassment. “Not jump off into the deep end again?”

The silence was deafening.

Kara didn’t dare look her in the eyes.

“And that’s the interview over and finished with.” Lena stood from her chair and kept her expression tight, manacled, and dour. “Please let Catherine know I’ll have relations send her a statement before noon today.”

“Lena I’m so sorry—”

“Miss Luthor.” She forced the coolest of smiles. “I’m afraid I…have to be somewhere. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Danvers.”

“Of course.” Kara nodded and gathered her things, mortified and ashamed. “Erm, Miss Luthor, if I may before I leave?”

“Yeah?”

“My condolences. I…” Kara stopped, she felt flustered, but most of all she felt as though she would regret it later if she didn’t say it. “I didn’t know—about your wife—I’m sorry for your loss. But, from someone who truly had no idea who you were prior to two o’clock this morning, I don’t think any amount of time you took to grieve was anything less than the exact reason you might be the most qualified person for this role, in this exact moment, given everything that happened with Lex, because the public down there needs to feel like the people up here, in the clouds and ivory towers, are human too.”

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3)

One in the morning.

Kara tossed and turned just like she always did.

Her phone rang. She picked it up without thinking, half-assuming it was her sister. Kara was a few hours ahead. Alex would have been finishing her on-call shift and just seeing the onslaught of text messages. It made sense.  

“Mhm?” Kara rubbed bleary eyes.

“Tomorrow evening, seven o’clock.” Cat was nondescript. “Turns out John lost his life savings on the LexCorp IPO last year. It regrettably influenced his line of questioning. Well. To make a long story short, John has now lost his job too.” It was never a long story with Catherine Grant. “I smoothed things as much as they can be smoothed. She was understandably upset but Lena Luthor was quite clear that she would only redo the interview with you. Seven o’clock, tomorrow evening.”

“Oh.” Kara blinked and sat up straight out of bed. “I…still have a job?”

“Better than a job, Kara, you now have two” —It didn’t go amiss on Kara that she had finally earned her name— “Assuming you’re interested, and you do a good job tomorrow. You can expect more reporting assignments while John’s position is being filled. You have...the right, amenable, Labrador-ish demeanour for fielding. It will be good experience for you. I imagine such assignments might even lend opportunities for those darling, fanciful social media updates that give some illusion of a very…Anna Delvey existence for your cowboy friends back home.”

“Miss Grant, thank you. I promise, I give you my word, I will not let you down.”

“Get some rest.” There was a softness in her voice, almost. “You should work from home tomorrow, Kara, it’s no small feat for a journalist’s first job to be an interview with Lena Luthor.”

“Wait.” Kara blinked. “I’m…asking her the questions?”

All of a sudden, Kara felt that warm sensation spread on the proximate part of her hip again, right where her birthmark sat on top.

Soulmates: Chapter VII

Catherine Grant wasn’t as horrendous as Kara once felt her to be.

“Kara?” She leaned around her door on a single high heel, swinging a little almost. “The designers have sent over dresses. I need you to organise what I’m keeping and what I’m sending back.”

“Oh sure, of course. I’m covering the op-ed from the children’s hospital fundraiser gala. Can I get you a temp to help you?”

“Kara,” Cat said quietly, her expression flattening almost imperceptibly. “Does it look like a give a fuck about your extra-curriculars? In here, now please, I’m losing white blood cells and collagen with every passing second of the ennui that comes with reminding you of your job…”

“Yes Ma’am.” Kara pushed away lightly from her desk and stood up without a second word, following her boss into the executive office. “Oh!” Her eyes went wide and bright as she glanced at the navy silk with a thigh slit hung on the rack. “Okay, whatever that one is, the colour is beautiful.”

“You think so?” Cat quirked an odd look. “I thought it was a little too warm…”

“For your skin tone?” Kara balked. “Are you kidding? Don’t you remember the photographs from the front row at Paris Fashion Week? I think you were wearing… I can’t remember. It was like a silk blouse and wide legged pant, and it was all navy, just like that colour there.” Kara pointed with a beaming smile. “I remember seeing that photo and thinking…wow.”

“Must have been someone else.” Cat rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been to Paris Fashion Week since at least 2014. After the krav maga incident with Anna Wintour? Battle lines were drawn. It’s very much the Tupac and Biggie of the publishing world. I steer clear of Paris and London Fashion Week, and she knows laying a single footstep on the Oscars red carpet would be tantamount to a drive-by shooting,” Cat said in her refined, clipped way that breezed over the absurdity.

“No, it was definitely you, probably a year or two before that.” Kara nodded and thought nothing of it.

“You could have only been what…” Cat snorted slightly. “A teenager?”

“Mhm.” Kara never took her eyes off the navy dress.

It reminded her of home, her childhood bedroom, and the magazine cut-outs stuck up on the wall that she saved from whatever fancy lifestyle and fashion magazines she could get her hands on.

Kara continued, “I thought you were the most elegant, beautiful woman I had ever seen. I mean, I was a kid, what did I know about fashion?” Kara shrugged and glanced over at her boss. “I wore dungarees and flannel every day—still do when I’m not at work. But, you know, I saw that photograph and figured…I wanted to dress like that one day. I wanted to look that immaculate and ladylike, just like that, put together and pretty, one day.”

In her own world, Kara imagined what Lena would look like in that colour on her creamy ivory skin, her pristine painted red lips, and some beaming carpet ready grin. Lena’s skin was a little cooler toned, Kara imagined emerald, then ruby red, before settling on emerald again.

The green would bring out her eyes, she thought.

Kara flinched, a certain warmth spreading on her hip, right on that spot that never seemed to get any clearer, yet somehow never looked the same for more than a sporadic, ever-shortening period of a few days a time.

“Kara?” Cat’s voice sounded a little softer—maybe just somewhat flattered.

“Mhm?”

“The next time I want a blow-by-blow of your…rather sad, Charlotte’s Web, Wizard Of Oz, there’s no place like home existence of a childhood, back in Shitsville, Nowhere”—There was absolutely no sting in the way she said it and Kara understood perfectly that none was intended—“I will listen to your TedTalk on how you became the foremost expert in the holistic control of high blood pressure in the elderly with advanced-onset Alzheimer’s disease, by boring them, slowly, lulling them into a state of calm, with stories nobody cares to hear.”

“Miss Grant, that one was impressive even for you.”

“I know.” Cat pushed a small, slow smile. “Put that one in the return pile.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)

The room was dark. Cat awoke to a dry throat, balm on her lips, and some faint surprise that she had awoken at all. The sense of surprise was incremental like a bruise in her conscience that pressed and announced the state of things; an ending meandering towards itself in its own good time.

It was coming undone now.

It was the hard to ignore feeling that Kara had brought her home here in dribbles over the months, by the canvas tote bag, until the hospital became somewhat hybrid because...there wasn’t a home to go back to at the end of this.

Silk pyjamas, curled on her side most days with little movement, in a different bed than her original room, Cat still had zero regrets—plenty of complaints. Not the change of scenery. This room was bigger and much more comfortable with real pillows and comforters that smelled like home, stayed smelling like home, vanilla and old books and a touch of essence, Kara laundered them with the right things—in just the right ways—despite it never being asked, not once.

The view beyond this window was better. Cat didn’t know it was possible. It looked over the lower side, at just the right angle, so she could see her building sprouting tall in the distance like a solitude creature in the skyline; her radiant, proud, towering life’s work.

In the world of treatment, timeframes and ordinate doctors, it was never a good sign when they pulled out stops. They ceased with incessant disapproval about the champagne; no side glances to the empty ice bucket, then the two giggling grown-ups indiscreetly discrete about it, with water marks on top of the ugly, dinged steel cabinet that had been hidden away beneath a patterned silk kimono to make it somewhat less ghastly. The doctors said nothing anymore. Things had gotten bad, all the paths ahead leading nowhere but champagne.

Cat saw it all for what it was and she did not mind.

The dog on sore knees and silver whiskers always found its good fortunes when the six cheeseburgers arrived for dinner after a long day of good, lovely things; Cat took the champagne, every drop, until her hands struggled somewhat, and then Kara proved most useful for that too.

Kara seemed to mind a great deal despite saying she didn’t mind at all.

Her refusal to leave seemed quite indicative. Against the adjacent wall there was a camping cot. Cat squinted and saw the huddled shape of a Kara-sized lump. Moonlight struck a distinct, bolting sheen of light through the cracked blinds. It fell across the blonde hair on the pillow as Kara laid turned to the wall. Cat saw the sleeping cot when she was awake in sporadic jaunts through the day, a distinct wrinkle in the made-up blankets, yet she had never seen Kara sleep much—if ever—at all.

Cat smiled and sincerely hoped that even through the hard times there were still lovely dreams for the foolish, optimistic, loyal Kara Danvers of the world. The girls who, despite crippling anxiety, run from their doldrum lives while shaking in their boots for what is waiting at the finish line. The ones with good hearts who say horrible things anyway. The people who, without merit or reward, stick it out until the very end.

She closed her eyes. Tiredness came with immediacy despite the good long sleep, which wasn’t anything new anymore. Laying there, she became aware of her body—the proximate parts of her skin. Her face. Her hands. Her lips. It was a comfort that Cat hadn't expected for the last stretch of her days, back when the news arrived last year, her mind immediately wandering, there while they talked prognosis, simultaneously not there, running through all sorts of sad notions.

This had never been considered. The clean, balmy tack of solid deodorant under her arms. Her face clean and moisturised—the full Korean programme—cleansed, swiped with toner, then serum and ampule, moisturised, then moisturised some more. She could tell from the slipperiness of the silk pants on her shins that her legs had been shaved too, which was silly, almost obsessive, and she rolled her eyes because it felt too much. Then it didn't feel silly. Cat sat with her thoughts, for the briefest moment, then hurried her mind elsewhere.

It got her throat a little tight otherwise.

Kara took it seriously.

Cat didn't need to ask some underpaid stranger to help her use the bathroom, that was the main thing, that had been the big fear. There was preservation to her dignity. A procedural silliness to it. Kara carrying her some days, dipping around the room, supporting her waist on others, joking about conga lines, but always hanging by the door for just a moment too long with something in her eyes.

“Yeah?” Cat glared the first time.

“Sometimes it takes looking at just the right woman, on just the right commode, to realise you do have a pee fetish after all—”

“Do you say that to all the girls?”

“Oh just the ones who get my name off their skin with a Bic lighter and some sense of determination for a better life. Shout if you need anything.” Kara always left it right there, on the line, precisely between silliness and respect.

The spritz of perfume. The little mirror set-up on the bed tray so she could check her lipstick. Things were coming undone, rapid and quickening. Catherine still felt entirely her own creature. She felt respected. She felt like a woman. She felt beautiful, human, and as though her life still had some good moments ahead too.

It wasn’t anything new.

Kara was consistent.

Cat closed her eyes and took herself for a brief waltz. She never used to sleep easy. She slept in this rare, sporadic and fraught way that dictated her understanding of how assistants should model themselves. Cat slept much easier now. It came to her as a form of escape; a prolonged dream of warm days, that she could pick up and put down, consistent and reliable; the mid-eighties, the first sports car she ever purchased—a boxy little thing with head lamps that came up mechanically from the hood when the engine started—and taut, tight twenty-something year old eyes in the rear-view mirror.

Good skin, great hair, and a silk navy blouse without tags in the collar anymore.

Her memories were worth reliving. The initial success of the magazine had brought a wave of correctness to her young, youthful life; there would be no more returns, no more tags, not ever, Catherine always knew what she wanted, always stood by it.

Plus it felt good spending money.

In her dreams it all came back to her, the early days, when money was a new thing and her attitude towards it was young, gauche and cavalier. Her life had gone from some humdrum, boring, cycling food menus back-and-forth to afford a Vanity Fair; into everything Catherine had ever dreamed overnight, with immediacy, all in the blink of an eye. Thirteen with ladylike ideas of herself one moment, twenty-three and put-together the next.

In her mid-twenties she lived very fine. A demitasse with her coffee in the morning. A caviar spoon—carved from precious mother of pearl with her name engraved along the handle—that coincidentally proved to be just the right size for a less than conservative blast of cocaine.

Catherine Grant never did think much of caviar.

In her dream, Cat dipped into an enormous bump with the Tiffany’s spoon, true to the old days as it had all once been, back when it was a procedural and professional thing to do; she drove, with the top down, men in suits with blowing ties in the passenger seats talking numbers for a local news network that she wanted to purchase.

It was the delicious, perfectly precise moment right at the very start of the CatCo expansion.

Cat rubbed her nose and didn’t care, not particularly knowing much about the mechanics of the business or what she was getting herself into, simply giddy and away with it all. It was a smash and grab way of living; an economic boom that had arrived precisely the same time she did, with skyscrapers sprouting up, stock prices up-ticking, Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys, and it felt good to remember.

She wondered if that was what people had meant when they said life flashes before one’s eyes at the end. The best parts, the things that were worth remembering, they had come back to her in a loud, bright, and colourfully trumpeting hello; there were no hospice-shaped goodbyes, not in her nineteen-eighties.

Cat had never told Kara the majority of these things for her story spread. She regretted withholding some of the details. On some level, the messy things; the candour, the ruthless and cut-throat bad things she had done too would have made a much more exciting read.

One Kara wouldn't have enjoyed learning about.

Cat kept things abridged for the sake of her own image. Maybe just a bit to protect the little fool too—her little fool—who had come to believe in fairies and giants, and that Catherine Grant was somehow both of these things.

“Kara?” Cat murmured with her eyes still closed—aware time had moved.

“Mhm. I’m here. Are you ready for something to eat?”

There was a distinct pressure on her bed as though someone had sat down. Then a shift in weight, legs pulling up, until Cat felt someone laying beside her. She opened her eyes. It was daytime, bright and warm, Kara laying there in clean clothes and damp hair and a cheek settled against Cat’s ribs.

“I’m not hungry just yet.” Cat observed the distinct, persistent lack of hunger or thirst as a symptom of progress. “Is there a reason you’re laying all over me like some sort of remedial, drooling and rather overly personable puppy?”

“Because it’s a small bed and the best view of the television. Lena has a live broadcast interview airing this morning.” Kara nudged her to look at the photographs and exposition on screen, glancing up with the most tender and excited blue eyes. “I took her for lunch yesterday. She was so nervous about it but we practiced, and I think.” She didn’t seem so confidant. “Well. You know. I think…she’ll do great.”

“That bad, huh?”

“She forgot her name.”

“Ha!” Cat’s chest hurt from the push of her lungs. “She is terrible in front of cameras. The worst social anxiety. Enjoy the rest of your forever, kiddo.”

“Hush,” Kara said, the silly mood detectable, slinging an arm over Cat’s waist absentmindedly. “I still love that boy, Daddy, think I might just go ahead and be his wife one day.” She joked and parroted the hammy, transatlantic accent in all of the old classic films she had been forced to watch over the last few weeks.

“Alright. You don’t like Turner Classic Movies. We can watch other things if you’re going to be fucking petulant.”

“Not true.” Kara gawked, her brow furrowing. “Why do you think I put them on?”

Cat smiled, not saying anything, trying very hard not to think too much about anything, just watching the television as it all went by, and the interview carried alright enough.

Lena remembered her name.

Surprisingly, she even remembered Kara’s too.

Now the world knew Lena Luthor had found love again and Kara Danvers, soon to be Luthor, would be wearing white in the spring.

“What colour do you think I should wear for your wedding?” Cat felt a certain sudden possession on her soul. Aware she wasn’t going to make the day, just not quite ready yet. “I think floral, maybe something with a little colour?” she whispered.

Kara didn’t say anything for a moment, she laid there, cheek to her ribs, arm slung like a seat belt, thinking about it or holding in her tears, but Cat had grown somewhat expert in not thinking about things, and so she didn’t think about it.

“Navy blue,” Kara quietly replied, an absolute certainty in the rasp of her voice. “You should wear that navy silk blouse, and the matching-coloured pants. I would like that. Will you sit close to the front?”

The smoke struck and the sting grew tense.

“Well, I am Catherine Grant”—she said the line often, it was different this time, meant something very different altogether—“I should be as close to the front as possible.”

It was Kara who cried first, which felt more of a surprise than it should have been. Cat had not seen any tears, for months, for this whole thing, not since the argument on the doorstep.

It had been a good thing.

Cat didn’t like mess.

Yet there Kara finally was, a little contained mess, and Cat felt a warmth flood her heart at the sight of these little stinging tears and the corner of her blanket suddenly repurposed as a hanky.

“It’s okay.” The whimpers on her ribs huffed in breaths that tickled. “We’re going to have so much fun at your wedding. You’ll see. But, you know, I don’t think I’ll be drinking on the day.” Cat wasn’t very good at joking but she kept her tone as bouncy and light as she could. “Will you have two glasses when they get you dressed in the morning? One for you, one for me?”

“You’re the meanest woman I ever met and I want you there on my wedding day.” Kara grabbed a slender wrist and brought it around herself. Cat didn’t know what to do, but she allowed herself to be turned into a seat belt, quite determined to keep the little girl safe for now. “It’s supposed to be you and me. On my wedding day. And I…” Cat grew tense. “I’m getting dressed in the morning and I don’t know what to do, what shoes to wear, feeling ugly and awkward, because I always feel ugly and awkward. But you would be there. You would do the thing you do.”

“The thing I do?”

Kara inhaled and seemed to decide if she couldn’t have the real thing, they would just have to make a wedding day, here and now; put it in her heart and tuck it away for later.

“You grab my shoulders and do the awful mean thing you do with words—but in the Catherine Grant way—that puts everything into perspective.” Kara nuzzled with the saddest smile one woman could possess. “And we look in the mirror together at my wedding dress. It’s not me and my mom. Or, me and my sister. It’s supposed to be you and me—” The tears marched in and they didn’t stop this time. “And I get to see myself different because you fixed whatever thing I didn’t realise needed fixing, something only you could fix, and suddenly I get to feel beautiful and attractive and put-together and ready for it all, like I can go and marry Lena Luthor, because you are there.”

Cat nodded and smiled.

“It’ll be your glasses and your earrings.” Cat moved some hair off her face with gentle fingers. “Take your glasses off and make sure your earrings match either the bouquet or your eyes. And, in God’s name, whatever you do please don’t release doves. It’s tacky and gross—”

“You’re the most hateful person I know.”

“You’re the most irritating, foolish and blindly-optimistic woman I have ever had the displeasure of tolerating an elevator ride with much less the final months of my life.” Cat rolled her eyes, then dramatically softened her tone. “And I want to be there on your wedding day too, Kara, very much, so for now I’m saying that I am going to be there.”

“You’re going to be there.” Kara understood what was being asked of her. “Cat?”

“Mhm.”

“I figured it out—by the way.”

“The thing you said you had originally figured out for your article?”

“Mhm.” Kara nodded. “The thing I was trying to…capture.”

“My forties?”

“Your scar.”

“No.” Cat felt angry. “We agreed. I understand it’s your story too. I understand it’s a big request—but it’s one you agreed too. I do not want reporters making insinuations or asking Lena for the rest of her life whether there was a rift between us after she proposed to ‘my soulmate’ while I was dying of cancer. Does that sound like a fluffy, nice portrait piece for either of you?”

“Cat.” Kara pushed up on her arms. Cat glanced, noticed the tautness, the biceps, the blonde hair sitting crooked in her blue eyes. “You said you didn’t want an obituary and I don’t want to write it. You were right, with what you said, and I want to put that perspective in the story. Most of all because I am selfish and it…keeps you alive, forever, beyond always.”

“I’m always right, be specific.”

“Soulmates.” Kara had this emphatic look in her eyes. “It’s bullshit. It’s…” Kara paused. “I think it’s not the universe designing perfect marriages. You could have more than one perfect marriage, or more than one great love. Look at Lena. I met other people too. I even met a woman once who loved two boys, both called Harry, and I think she preferred the wrong one more.” Kara’s eyes flickered and brought thoughts together into words.

Cat grinned too big for her cheeks.

“Two boys called Harry?”

“The first one tattooed her name on his arm just so she would talk to him,” Kara whispered, astounded and romanticising new things. “Isn’t that the most beautiful little thing you ever heard?”

“Maybe.” Cat nodded. “So, hurry it along. If it’s not romance—then what?”

A slow smile, a deep inhale, the optimist blinked slowly and looked like a scared little girl who needed to believe her own dreamy outlook.

“I think it’s a buddy-system.” Kara propped her chin on her hand and stared off. “I think we come from star dust, on some great adventure, some big school bus trip down to earth, and that’s your person—your unconditional person—on your birthmark.” Kara adjusted her weight, lifted the hem of her shirt and trailed a finger over something that had once been important. “It’s not romance. It’s not even love sometimes. It’s the person who understands how to care for you in the right ways in the exact moment you need it. And you, ballsy and knowing everything, decided you weren't in the business of taking care of people.” Her expression exaggerated as though it were enough explanation.

It wasn’t.

Cat didn’t understand Kara’s point.

“Sorry if it still gives you a boo-boo in your feelings?”

“It doesn’t.” Kara scoffed, impressed by it this time. “You were only nineteen years old, and you knew, despite all of human history and the entire world insisting you...force yourself into the idea of marriage?” Kara smiled. “In your very Catherine Grant way—you set your eyes on bigger things. You did it all for yourself. You were selfish, and you were better off for it, you had the biggest life and chased all your dreams. I think…” Kara inhaled. “I think people should fall in love more, with different people, different things, for different reasons at different points in their life. Not just take the safe bet or the road mapped out for them. I think you are my buddy-up person. I think I’m yours. We found each other to take care of right when we both needed a little help, and that?” There was a forced calmness in her tight throat. “That is a happy ending, it's our happy ending, because nobody in my life has ever got it quite so right as helping me grow the way you have, Catherine.”

Cat didn’t say anything.

It struck her funny.

It struck her right in the heart.

“You sound like you have found your story.” Cat pushed a smile. “I don’t think I was ever wife material. I think, probably, I made a much better…” She sighed and didn’t know what to say. “I liked listening to your perspective, but I don’t think I’m much of a buddy either.”

“Just my person then.” Kara patted her hand, teeth on the rim of her lip as she staved off the tears. “A person I probably would have married if I had been born thirty-years earlier.” She tilted her head and left it at that.

“Mhm. Well, let’s just get you to the alter of your actual wedding.”

“She is going to be quite the bride,” Kara grinned.

“Kara?”

“Mhm.”

Here it was, Cat realised.

“You’ll be a good girl won’t you?”

“For Lena?” Kara softened. “I’ll eat healthy and take care of myself just so I outlive her, yeah. I think she’s earned that much.”

“No, no.” Cat shook her head and—for the first time in her life—felt stupid. “Just, in general. You’ll be a good girl, and find all those different things to fall in love with, and never lose your optimism and keep trying to do good things for people?”

“Like you do?” Kara gave her the sarcastic look.

“Fuck off.”

“Mhm.” Kara smiled sweetly and pecked the back of Cat’s hand with a chaste kiss. “Will you be a good girl? You’ll get home safe—wherever it is we’re all going in the end. Tell everyone I said hello?”

“Good girl? I’m fifty.”

“Still a pretty little girl to me.” Kara was not joking and her expression said as much too.

That did it.

Cat felt those words puncture through her soul.

“Thank you.” Cat stroked Kara’s hair. “Really. For everything, for coming around, but for that too. I can’t even remember the last time somebody dared to speak to me like that.”

“Well, you are a pretty little girl,” Kara murmured as she settled a cheek back on her belly. “You should consider yourself lucky. If I had been born thirty years earlier? Your life would have looked a lot different. I could have married a pretty little girl like that.”

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4)

“Better than your office.” Kara blinked in surprise. “Out of curiosity…” She came undone. “Forget it. We have an interview to figure out, I can save it for a little later.”

“You’ll forgive me for my impulsive erraticism and paranoia, I’m sure, but would you mind not asking about my dead wife?” Lena kept her eyes trained on the setting sun, freezing wind blustering her hair into something pretty and decidedly unprofessional. “That was a joke, Kara.”

“I’m still so sorry.” Kara cringed.

“Me too.” Lena rubbed the back of her neck, then sighed. “I was rude, it wasn’t your fault. Nobody calls me Miss Luthor. I don’t even know why I thought it would…make me feel less out of control.”

“Trust me, I totally get what it’s like when small things make you feel a little more in control of weird situations.” Kara warmed her hands on the paper coffee cup. “I was going to ask about something you mentioned yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?”

“If this is the third most-charming public park in the city…” Kara nodded, thinking about it. “Just out of curiosity, what’s the second most-charming, and also the fifth—if there is one—where’s that?”