InsaneJournal

Alex had been much better lately than usual. She had been maintaining her sobriety, for starters. It wasn’t easy, but she was trudging onwards. She was determined not to fuck up again - not after what had happened with Mobius, not after how concerned she’d left Lena. She’d let her weakness get the best of her, after such a long time, knowing better than anyone that she couldn’t handle drinking and yet stubbornly digging her heels in. She wouldn’t do that again.

Getting to see Kara again had relit that fire inside her, boosted her confidence in a way she had been needing. She knew it had all been a dream, but it was more than that, too. She knew her sister. She knew what it felt like being with her. She still missed her, always would, but for the first time since another version of her had disappeared all those months ago, she felt what she said was true.

I’m with you, Alex. I always will be.

Whatever whims of Vallo’s magic had given that to her - and to Lena, who’d had her own time with Kara - she’d take it. She was grateful. Maybe now she could move forward without her sister’s shadow clinging to her and deepening her worries.

Neither she nor Lena had talked much about the time they’d spent in those dreams - outside of that shared period of time where it was the three of them, laughing and talking and binge watching Netflix like they’d never left home. She was curious, but she hadn’t pushed. She trusted both Kara and Lena implicitly, and their time was their own.

Just like their time was their own, and they were overdue a date.

With the weather warming up, Alex had planned something fun outdoors. She’d considered taking Lena for a hike - there were some great trails they weren’t too strenuous - but she’d save that for another day. She had a feeling Lena would require a full-on shopping trip to find the proper footwear, and spending a day scouring the mall wasn’t on her list of ‘fun things to do’ right now.

Instead, they were down at the beach, amidst a small fleet of food trucks. It was mid-afternoon and most of the lunch crowd had dwindled down to just a few scattered groups. That left them with their pick: sandwich truck, pizza truck, fusion truck (Chinese and Mexican - weird mix, but okay), and vegan truck.

“Variety platter?” she suggested, eyebrows raised over her sunglasses. “I could go for some of each.” She may not have her sister’s bottomless stomach, but she had a pretty healthy appetite of her own.

Oh, this was lovely. Lena may have been a bit overdressed for the scene (she had worked for a bit earlier that day, sue her) but she had a thing for the greasy stuff - food trucks were divine, and she was happy to sample each of them. Maybe not the vegan one so much, although if Alex wanted their variety platter to involve a piece of that as well she wouldn't protest.

“Curious about the Chinese-Mexican fusion,” Lena admitted with a sharp rise of an eyebrow, her arm hooked around Alex’s for a latch and squeeze. “I’m happy to try all of them appetizer style, though - I’ve got some tums in my purse in case there’s heartburn.”

How attractively prepared of her. Lena looked forward to this, however; his time was theirs and happiness could be found in the most simple and mundane moments. No looming threats, no tension. Just them, and the rest of the day to make theirs. “I’ll hit up one side, you hit the other and we’ll claim a bench?”

“Seems most efficient,” Alex agreed with a nod. “I’ll take the vegan truck, you start with the fusion.” She shot her girlfriend a knowing smile - vegan food was an acquired taste and not necessarily the most appetizing. Healthy, sure, but definitely an acquired taste, and one she’d only been exposed to through dabbling with Maggie, then Kelly. It wasn’t her favorite either, but there were some snacks she didn’t mind.

“Five minutes.” She stole a quick kiss, then broke off to start on her mission. There weren’t actually any platters available, but there were cafeteria-style trays. She grabbed a few familiar vegan snacks, then moved on to fill up the rest of the tray with sandwiches and a couple of oversized sodas the next truck over. She’d skipped breakfast this morning and her stomach was growling. She would annihilate the excess all on her own if it came down to it.

They met at an open bench with a table at about knee level in front of them. “Chinese-Mexican fusion first?” She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head, eyeing what Lena had bought curiously. “What does that entail? Like…General Tso’s chicken enchiladas?”

Pizza and Chinese-Mexican for her, then. Lena selected some adventurous options - like this fig, goat cheese balsamic pizza? That was a choice. But she chose a meat-loaded one too (slathered in cheese and old fashioned marinara, the good stuff) and had a total field day with the second truck and its combination. How any of it could even work, she had no idea but was willing to try it out.

Hopefully there will be no regrets.

“More like General Tso’s Mofongo - and it doesn’t look too terrible?” Lena explained, judging by its presentation at the very least. The whole display before them had her grinning, teeth flashing brilliantly and cheeks dimpling. “Honey, we’re not going to be able to finish this. And whatever we polish off is going to put us in a food coma.”

Still no regrets. Thankfully, she also had a spinning bike at the penthouse for workout purposes so she could shed all of these empty calories. It would be more than fine.

Now that she really took it in, Alex had to admit Lena was probably right. Half of this would be brought home in take-out bags, but that was okay. It was a good excuse to make sure they both got out and ate, since their heads were often so consumed with work that food and fresh air fell by the wayside. And the weather was gorgeous, which only added to the fun of this little adventure. It was a shitton of calories for no reason, sure, but it didn’t hurt to indulge a bit.

Plus, she loved seeing Lena smile like that. So, overall, no complaints from her.

“Kara would devour it all and go back for seconds. And probably thirds and fourths,” she replied with a grin. For once, there was nothing but lightness in her tone when she spoke of her sister. She missed her without being afraid she wasn’t okay, without desperately wanting her back. It was a good feeling. She grabbed one of the aforementioned General Tso’s Monfongo to take a bite, chewing thoughtfully before she gave a nod of approval. “Weird combination, but I like it.”

It was a toss up between the balsamic-fig pizza and the Cuban-styled sandwich to try first. Choices, choices. The pizza won just out of sheer curiosity, and she tore a small piece (it was flatbread style so the slices were thin) to nibble on. Sweet, savory - delicious.

“I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t thinking about all the options Kara would want to try,” she admitted, her smile tamed down some. That dreamscape experience was a kindness she thought Vallo wasn’t capable of, and she thought about it often. It had felt like Kara was around - really around, not just some sad hallucination conjured up by the feeling of missing her. “It kind of gives me hope that she’ll show up here as a more permanent visitor again, you know?”

That was oddly optimistic of Lena Luthor, always leaning towards realistic expectations with a dash of cynicism. It wasn’t impossible, but trying to predict what the chances would be on a more numerical level would lead to madness and frustration. It wouldn’t work. Vallo was chaos. She couldn’t measure chaos.

“Me too,” Alex agreed. “I want her with us. Maybe she’ll show up someday.” That sentiment was probably a little more expected on her end. Lena tended toward the darker possibilities, and while Alex was not her sister’s level of hopeful and optimistic, always trying to see the best in everyone, she couldn’t say some of that attitude hadn’t rubbed off on her over the years. She had hope, but it was tempered. They’d had Kara here before and she’d gone; months had passed and she hadn’t returned.

Then, they’d seen her in whatever dream magic Vallo had gifted them, and still nothing. She wasn’t going to say ‘never’, but she wasn’t going to sit around aching to see her anymore. She had enough demons of her own to conquer without keeping the angst of missing Kara and worrying for her in the mix. She had decided to take that dream as evidence that her sister was okay and with her - in the ways that really mattered.

“It was good to have that time we could, though,” she continued. She was convinced it was real. She knew her sister and what her presence felt like, and she had no doubt in her mind it was Kara they’d both seen. Even a figment of their subconsciouses wouldn’t have felt like that. “You guys…had a good talk? Before I showed up?”

She really wasn’t going to push, but she couldn’t say she wasn’t curious. She already knew Kara meant a lot to Lena, too, and she knew those feelings were very reciprocated. What did it hurt to ask? Lena was very capable of shutting her down if it came to that.”

Oh, right. A talk. Alex wasn’t wrong - it had been a good one, and she had meant to bring it up in conversation. This seemed to be as good a time as any. Lena reached for her bottled Coke, twisting the cap off so she could take a refreshing sip (and to swallow that last bite of pizza).

“Mmm - we did,” she said after a second, crossing her legs. “I guess I got bold and decided to be honest with her? About…” Lena gestured at the air vaguely, trying to make a point. “Feelings. I got it off my chest and she took it well. As in, not awkwardly and didn’t shun me or anything like that. It felt good to come clean.”

Kara didn’t reciprocate any - and she didn’t expect her to - but she felt she could put all of that past her now. Her future was Alex, regardless of her response. She was happy. They were happy.

A feelings talk. Yeah, that was what Alex had assumed had gone on, at least in part. She’d seen the look on Kara’s face when she had joined the two of them in the loft. But she hadn’t gotten another second alone with Kara to ask her what had happened, and it felt…odd to ask Lena? She was well aware Lena had feelings for Kara; she’d told her she didn’t anymore, when the two of them finally got together, but she knew then and knew now it wasn’t as simple as all that.

In the end, though, it didn’t really matter. Lena seemed content with how things had gone (even if Alex was sure her sister had held back), and she wasn’t going to try to make her second guess that. She knew Lena loved her, even if she loved Kara, too. Maybe it should be weirder than it was, but Alex had never been jealous in the romance department.

“I’m glad you’re feeling good after telling her,” she said sincerely, picking up her soda to take a drink. She knew firsthand what a relief it was to get feelings off your chest; whether it went well or not, there was always that moment where it felt like a weight had been lifted. “And I’m glad I still have you.”

“Alex,” Lena intoned seriously, setting the bottle down so she could reach over and squeeze her thigh. “You’ll always have me. Even if by some miraculous chance her response had been any different - it wouldn’t have changed anything for me here. You’re not a settlement. You know that, don’t you?”

She hoped she did. Kara was important to her, to them. This wasn’t some messy triangle, and they weren’t hormonal teenagers without an ounce of self-control. Lena’s feelings for Supergirl may not have gone away completely but she loved Alex, and Alex was who she was with. Alex was who she wanted to be with.

Considering she was also Supergirl’s personal hero - safe to say that she was quite the catch. Maybe more than the Girl of Steel herself.

“I do know that,” Alex assured her. The words were accompanied by a reassuring smile and her arm lifting to wrap around Lena’s shoulders. She had no doubt Lena loved her and wanted to be with her. If nothing else, how hard she’d taken what she saw from home, with Alex and Kelly, had proven that pretty soundly. Kara, though - Alex loved her sister more than anything, but she was the one person who had the power to change that.

So, it was nice to hear the words again. Even if she knew it, hearing it again certainly didn’t hurt. She felt like a tension inside her had eased, some uncertainty she hadn’t truly realized she was holding onto had dissipated. Lena was hers, and if Kara ever did come back, they’d deal with it then.

For now, they didn’t have to worry about any of that, so Alex shifted the conversation back toward the reality in front of them. “I love you,” she murmured, stealing a quick kiss from red lips before shifting away just a bit to grab her food again. “I’m glad you came out today, Ms. Workaholic. Did you get done with what you were working on?”

Lena would have been more than content to sit and engage in a lovely makeout session with the beach as a backdrop but, yes, fine - food. She settled for peppering her cheek with a few kisses, leaving behind the faintest spots of crimson from the lipstick she forever stubbornly wore. “Love you too, Danvers.”

Lipstick stains were very attractive on her girlfriend, too. On her face. Neck, collarbone - okay, sorry. Back to food.

“And for the most part I did,” she answered, taking a breath and straightening her posture for the next finger dive towards food. It was towards the basket of fries that came with one of the sandwiches. “Been kind of… doing some experimenting with a few things. Now that my anxious moods aren’t setting anything on fire thanks to Ostyia I’ve been trying out a few things magic-wise in the lab. Trying to get in the mood, witch-wise.”

It was difficult. She continued to want to dig her heels into the ground and resist this side of her - there’s no law that says she has to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She seemed happier back home embracing that side of her, but she knew magic and how it was here and it caused so many problems. Lena didn’t want to mess with that.

Ah, the magic angle. Alex knew the witch revelation had been taking up a lot of Lena’s headspace lately. She had woken up with so much new knowledge crammed into her head and magical powers she’d never realized she had to boot. If anyone could handle something of that magnitude, it was absolutely Lena Luthor. That didn’t mean it was easy or something she wanted, and Alex was well aware of the internal struggle she’d been going through

“You know, there’s no one saying you have to do any of this,” Alex pointed out gently. They’d had variations of this discussion before, but she always liked to make sure Lena was really considering her options. Sometimes, she got so into her own head and her ‘this is what I have to do’ mindset that she didn’t really consider her own wants; Alex was the same way. “If it’s too much or something you don’t want, that’s okay. You’re not dishonoring your mother if you don’t want magic to be a part of your life. You’re already brilliant and beautiful and so good, Lena. She would be proud of you just the way you are.”

Alex was so overwhelmingly supportive - she never rushed Lena into things, and it was godsent. She didn’t want to feel pressured to ‘pick’ a side, even though science and magic seemed like very extreme opposite sides of a spectrum. But despite her initial knee-jerk reaction of disbelief, she was aware it was more complicated than that.

To have magic in a world fueled by magic wasn’t a terrible thing. It could prove useful. She did think, however, that science-based technology and processes would help keep a certain balance to things. She liked focusing her time on contributing to that.

“You’re adorable,” Lena chuckled around a bite of a french fry and reached in for a kiss - a little salty, thanks to what she was eating. “I guess we didn’t have too much magic to go by back home and here it’s just… everywhere. I’m content in figuring out how to at least control it by now so I’m not causing elemental accidents.”

She didn’t like feeling so chaotic and undisciplined about herself. Lena was organized - she had her methods, had control. Magic could be the opposite. “Anyway - my current focus is comparing potion making to chemistry because it feels like it’s literally the same thing and I like to have a more thorough explanation behind some practices besides -” Yes, she did jazz hands. “‘Magic.’”

Alex blushed a bit as she reached for a slice of pizza, but she took the compliment for what it was. And she was placated knowing that Lena seemed to be content in learning, not doing it out of some sense of obligation. She could understand why - they had been putting out little fires everywhere for a few exhausting days when her powers had first been unleashed, and yeah, preventing that would be a neat trick.

“Well, I hope you make progress, because right now all I’ve got is magic.” Not that Alex was working all that hard to study any of it herself. There were plenty of others more equipped than her to do that, and she’d taken to focusing more on biological studies - Mobius’s blood, Strange’s, Carol’s. That alone could probably keep her busy for the rest of her life.

“I hate that explanation - so much,” Lena laughed, daintily wiping her mouth with a napkin. Considering that’s what was the most common reason anything ever happened, as a scientist it was frustrating. But she imagined she’d never be able to crack any of Vallo’s greatest mysteries. Hank had been gung-ho about trying, and maybe if he stuck around he could have shed some insight.

Alas - she’ll settle with the most basic stuff. Learning at her own pace and not because they were under pressure thanks to the latest world-wide threat coming their way.

She grabbed the plastic knife to (sloppily) cut a piece of that sandwich off for herself. It was a Cuban, therefore automatically amazing. “Did you get a chance to tell Kara your opinion on her whole coming out thing? Superhero-wise, I mean. Obviously.”

Was Kara even a little gay? Huh. Probably not.

Alex stifled a chuckle into her soda bottle and took a moment to just marvel at her girlfriend. How someone who was so smart - a literal child-genius, smarter than Alex by far - could be so completely oblivious absolutely blew her mind. Sure, Kara had never formally come out to anyone, but for her, there had never been a need. Alex remembered discussing the sexuality spectrum with Kara as teenagers; it was different on Krypton, accepted and expected in a way that Earth was still working on. Her sexuality had never been a question mark or a source of shame or fear for her, not like Alex’s.

But she also wasn’t subtle. Alex remembered her making eyes at Lucy Lane, even while she was crushing on James at the time. There had been girls she was interested in during high school and college and had mentioned here and there to Alex, but she assumed it had never gotten to anything serious. The only person she’d been remotely seriously interested in was sitting right in front of Alex now, and even then, there had been no confession. Alex just knew her sister. After all the years they’d spent together, she knew the signs.

It was part of why she’d struggled with her feelings for Lena here in Vallo, despite the Kara that had been here at the time not showing a hint of those feelings. She’d sort of accepted at this point that particular version had been her Kara but not quite her Kara. Something was just a little bit different - which probably explained the murderous vampire boyfriend, but she wasn’t going there again.

She decided to just answer Lena’s question without extraneous commenting. It was best that way, let her remain a little oblivious. “We didn’t really get into it,” she admitted. “If she’s happy with it and I’ve accepted it back home, it doesn’t seem right to change my tune on her. Maybe things are better back home than I think. And even if they aren’t…she’s an adult. She has to decide what’s right for her on her own now.”

Lena recalled Alex having some thoughts about that whole reveal but not like it really mattered right now, in the scheme of things. They’d spent their time with Kara in better ways that didn’t involve exasperated lectures. “You’re adorable,” she repeated fondly, slipping an arm around hers to make leaning her head into her shoulder more comfortable. “And the best big sister. She’s still got us both there - I think she’ll be alright.”

That cuddly position didn’t last long though. Food was still being devoured, and she gathered the courage to try this Mexican-Chinese Fusion dish that had been gleaning morbid curiosity. “And even if we don’t have her here, I think we’ll be alright too.”

It was bittersweet, really.

Alex had gone through General Tso’s Mofongo, a slice of balsamic-fig pizza, and a handful of fries thus far. That meant it was time for the other half of the Cuban Lena had cut in half. And after that, she’d probably have to grab some to-go bags and toss it all in the fridge for later when they got home. They had definitely gone a little overboard, even for her at her hungriest.

“I know we’ll be alright,” she assured Lena, much more certain now than she’d have been even a month ago. Those dreams had worked wonders for her. She wasn’t sure they’d have had quite the same effect if she’d spent that precious time lecturing Kara on her life choices she didn’t agree with - especially because, in the end, it wouldn’t matter. Kara would do what she felt was best, and what else could Alex do but support her?

“We’ve got a lot to look forward to, if everything goes the way it should,” she added, her free hand tangling gently in the ends of Lena’s dark hair. It was obvious what she was thinking about - Theo. The future may not be set in stone, but she hoped that part was. She’d fallen in love with their kid, and she wanted that for them. She knew Lena did, too, had watched her gush about the little boy when they’d seen Kara. She hoped the day they found him came sooner rather than later.