#while procrastinating

It was half past 3 a.m. Everyone else was asleep, Barry was snoring softly at the desk, slumped over, drooling onto crossed arms pillowing his head. Kara was wide-awake, staring out the window, looking out over the city and just listening. In the few lulls she’d had coming to Earth 1, she liked to just stop and listen and find out if she could hear the differences between this Earth and hers. She never could. Everything about them was almost exactly the same, except for the few obvious differences they’d all come across so far.

Such as Barry and his friends on this Earth, and her presence on the other.

Her gaze drifted up to the stars after a while. She loved looking at the stars, she always had. When she’d first arrived on Earth, she would gaze up at them for entire nights. Some mornings after warm summer nights, it hadn’t been unusual for Alex to find Kara curled up on a blanket out in the front yard, having fallen asleep after getting lost in the stars.

Jeremiah had brought her to a planetarium one day when she was little to see the telescope there. She’d thought it would be a ‘look, but don’t touch’ sort of visit, but the surprise came in when he informed her that he’d pulled some strings to get her a chance to drive the thing and see through it.

When asked if there was any constellation, any planet she wanted a closer look of, she shot off the coordinates for Krypton—coordinates Jeremiah had helped her determine when a science project at school involved learning about celestial coordinates. She’d had those coordinates memorized to heart ever since.

Her request of Krypton had given Jeremiah pause, and Kara wouldn’t notice the wary look that crossed his face as he warred with how to proceed or the gentle sigh as he closed his eyes and stepped over to his friend, presumably the one that had given Kara access to this device, and relayed the coordinates to him.

The outcome was as to be expected, and the little bubble of hope that had been blossoming in young Kara’s chest evaporated.

Blinking back to the present, Kara’s gaze lowered, brow furrowing a bit as her eyes dropped to the floor just in front of her feet. She stood like that for a few moments, lost in thought as the gears turned away in her head before she slowly looked over at Barry, fast asleep, and then she turned the opposite way to look in the direction of the door and the corridor beyond. Barry had mentioned that this place had a wicked telescope. He’d prattled off specifications and exclaimed how powerful it was. State of the art underappreciated and underused.

It took her less than a minute to find it. It took her even less time to punch in the coordinates for Krypton.

“So?” Lena was literally sitting on the edge of her seat, leaning against her desk, eyes brimming with curiosity and a thin layer of moisture as Kara relayed her tale. She and Kara had discussed Krypton in the past, but they didn’t talk about it often, it just didn’t come up, and the anticipation that Kara was building had Lena’s emotions warring with hope and a pessimistic sorrow at whatever the outcome could be.

Kara’s gaze had unfocused a bit behind her glasses as she paused to just relive the memory for a few moments longer, a soft, wistful smile tugging at her lips as she finally breathed out, “It was there.”

A comfortable silence filled the room, Kara lost in the memory of the picture of Krypton that the state of the art, super fantastic and awesome telescope with a name Kara couldn’t quite remember had presented her, Lena waiting for Kara to go on, understanding that she couldn’t quite imagine what that must have felt like for Kara.

She was never ignorant to the fact that she couldn’t quite relate to what Kara had experienced—there were very few people who could—and she couldn’t imagine what Kara had felt in that moment.

“That’s fantastic!” Lena finally exclaimed, not quite able to contain herself any longer. Although the excitement was genuine, there was a rise to her voice that suggested she wasn’t entirely positive Kara’s feelings were the same. Kara dismayed that fear with an enthusiastic nod of her head, her eyes finally focusing back in on Lena as her gentle turned into a full grin.

“It was so beautiful…” She replied, a wistful breathiness to her voice, “I’ve never had any, Clark’s never had any, pictures of Krypton. Not really. The Fortress has some replications, but our imaging technology was different than what you have on Earth and it was always just not the same. I always knew it wasn’t quite right. Clark wouldn’t have remembered obviously, so it doesn’t really make a difference to him. And I’d just started to…” Her rambling trailed off as she looked down sheepishly, realizing she might have been getting a little carried away. Lena seemed entirely unbothered, and Kara blushed lightly when she remembered how the other woman had mentioned how adorable she found her rambling.

“I’d started to forget,” Kara finally finished, pushing her glasses up, tears now moistening her own eyes at the admittance. It felt like a betrayal to her people, to forget anything about them, anything about their planet.

Another silence filled the room as Lena rolled all of this around in her head, trying to determine how to proceed. She was so excited for Kara, so happy for this new discovery she’d happened upon, but there was also heaviness in her heart that she knew was born out of selfish reasons, but that she couldn’t push away.

“That’s so wonderful, Kara,” She stated genuinely, “Did you go there?”

Kara didn’t immediately respond. Her smile was still in place, though warmer now, and she stood up to walk around Lena’s desk, looking out the window. Her pause worried Lena slightly, but she let Kara continue at her own pace.

Finally, Kara half-sat, half-leaned on the edge of Lena’s desk, standing next to her, and shook her head gently. 

“I didn’t go. There wasn’t any time,” She shrugged a shoulder, looking down at her feet. After a moment she smirked, looking up at Lena as she added, “And I mean, I know I can fly, but it’s a bit harder to fly across literal light years than it is flying across states.”

Lena rolled her eyes, scoffing slightly, “So the girl of steel does have her limits.”

“Can’t exactly just drink an energy drink for a boost to get me there,” Kara agreed.

“Well, are you planning to go back to try and go there?” Lena continued on, getting back to the heart of it, “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling, but it is your home? Surely you’d like to at least go visit and see how different it is from what you remember…?”

Kara’s gaze fell to her shoes again as she let the question sit for a few moments, and then, her hand slid over to twine her fingers with the other woman’s as she shook her head, lifting her eyes to meet Lena’s.