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English
Series:
Part 1 of 'Cause You're All I Need
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Finished
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Published:
2021-04-17
Completed:
2021-07-25
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140,949
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32/32
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Won't You Stay?

Summary:

She’s not sure why she volunteered for this duty.

That’s a lie, of course she knows.

She wanted to spare Alex the pain.

Why she thought she was any better equipped to deal with this she honestly has no answer.

OR: The one where Lena goes to Kara's apartment while she's gone.

OR: Kara's homecoming and reunion with her family with all the baggage

Notes:

Hello! I am back with some more angst. Just my current headcannon with how things are playing out in the show and where it could go. As always, its subject to change after a new episode.

I actually have a lot written out for this but I'm still fiddling with it but I think you should see updates fairly quickly.

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Text

Her hands freeze, key inserted into the lock and turned to open, but her breathing starts to come in a little faster and she needs a moment, just a moment, to brace herself before she enters the empty apartment.

She’s not sure why she volunteered for this duty.

That’s a lie, of course she knows.

She wanted to spare Alex the pain.

Why she thought she was any better equipped to deal with this she honestly has no answer.

 

This morning…

 

Nia presents J’onn with a plant. His head turns in question and amusement.

The super friends, minus Kelly who is out at the moment, are gathered in the Tower and Lena stands to the side trying to be unobtrusive and unnoticed, typing and trying to help Brainy parse through the fractured Phantom Zone looking for their missing Kryptonian.

It’s still strange to her that they haven’t kicked her out yet, well…all except for maybe Brainy, still surprised that none of them have said anything negative about her hanging around the Tower. She wonders, bitterly, if it’s only a matter of time. Only until they are frustrated and angry for all Lena’s failed attempts to bring her back.

She stabs a little more aggressively at her tablet. That’s an ungenerous and piteous thought to make about them and herself, that’s her insecurities speaking and she’s trying not to let those have too much power over her. These people were her friends, are her friends she corrects herself, and perhaps things weren’t as they were before, but she was trying and so were they, in their own way. They let her help and that was more than Lena could say she might have done in their place. She forces herself to relax her shoulders and breathe evenly, flicks her eyes up occasionally, watching them.

“What’s this?” J’onn asks, taking the small pot with the happy slightly floppy green leaves bouncing on the way.

“It’s a Maranta plant. We had a little community garden at the Cat Co. retreat, and we got to take a plant home if we wanted,” Nia explains, “I wanted to give this one to you…it means gratitude.”

J’onn looks pleasantly surprised, but furrows his brow a little, “Why do you feel grateful to me?”

Nia shrugs a little shyly, “I just wanted to say thanks for being…” she pauses seemingly not sure how her next words will be received, “…well…you’re space dad,” she says looking down at the ground, cheeks pink. “and I wanted to tell you thanks for always being there and taking care of us.” Nia continues to stare at the ground, her shoulders the slightest bit rounded in anticipation for whatever J’onn’s response will be and it’s clear she anticipates some sort of rejection.

J’onn’s hand comes to rest on Nia’s shoulder, and it seems to startle her into looking at his face. His smile is kind, and his eyes look misty, “I love it, thank you,” he says with utmost sincerity. Nia deflates in relief and smiles back.

Lena hears a sharp intake of breath to her left, low and quiet but she’s standing close enough to Alex that she hears it, though she doesn’t think anyone else does. Nia and J’onn are absorbed in their conversation, Brainy and M’gann watching them both with unconcealed fondness. She watches as Alex turns away, grim faced and silent, and makes her way to the balcony unnoticed. But Lena sees. Can see the tension in her shoulders, the tight fists her hands have balled into. She looks to the rest of the group wondering who will go after her, but no one else is paying attention. Lena wonders if she should go, or send someone else, would Alex even want her to? Is it worth it to try if she’s just going to be turned away?

No, she should go.

She and Alex haven’t spoken much, not that Lena expected them to have some huge heart to heart, but Lena knows that Alex is missing her sister and she thinks that if she can be there for Alex, this might be another small way to make amends.

So, she follows.

Alex stands hunched over the railing, hands clutching a key, and seems to be staring at it with something like anger.

Lena doesn’t say anything, she just leans against the railing, gaze on the horizon before them. She just stands and waits, knows that Alex will speak if, and when, she wants to.

After long minutes, Alex lets out a strangled breath, “I haven’t watered her plants,” she says, quietly. Lena can hear the self-reproach in her voice, and Alex sucks in air like she can’t get enough, “Whenever she’s gone or recovering for too many days,” she grinds out, “I always go take care of her plants, she hates dead plants, dead things, they remind her-…” Alex’s words catch and shakes her head, but the ones she says next send a sharp pain straight through Lena’s chest, “I take care of them so she doesn’t have to come back to dead things in her own home,” and Alex turns to look at Lena, unshed tears threatening to fall, and Lena can feel her own eyes start to well.

She thinks she understands. It’s so, her sister doesn’t have to associate death with her apartment, like Krypton and her dead planet with no more plants, or animals, with no more life.

“I haven’t gone to her apartment in weeks,” Alex confesses, and it bursts out of her in a rush of air, and the stricken look in her eyes is almost too much for Lena to bear. The guilt and the sadness are etched into the lines of Alex’s face, “she was supposed to be home already,” her voice is raspy, and Lena hears that sentence for what she really means, ‘I was supposed to bring her home already’, and she stares directly into Lena’s eyes with mounting horror, “what if,” tears finally spill over Alex’s cheeks, “what if all the plants are already dead, Lena?”

‘What if she’s dead already?’ That’s what Alex means, and witnessing such a strong determined woman, who has made the impossible possible in the past, contemplate the death of her sister propels Lena forward sliding her arms around Alex, and they cling to each other.

“They’re not,” Lena manages to croak out, and she squeezes her eyes shut, willing no tears to fall. It’s too much. Alex is breaking and Lena’s own self control is starting to fray. First Brainy, now Alex. She’s been avoiding thinking about how much time it’s been since the Fortress, she’s been focusing on the things she can control, because if she doesn’t, she knows her methodical mind will calculate every terrible permutation of possibilities that will leave her broken and bereft of her best friend.

So, she leaves that one box in the corner, like a hypocrite after her conversation with Brainy, it’s full to bursting and the only relief she has given herself is a journal. She started it the first night back from the Fortress, a way to sort out her thoughts from those few days stopping Leviathan, about her reconciliation and subsequent loss of her friend. It morphed into a recounting of her day almost like letters or one sided conversations so she wouldn’t forget all the things she wanted to tell her when she returned, and it’s turned into a sort of pressure release valve to ensure her little box doesn’t burst open.  She needs that box still, needs it because she knows she needs every ounce of brain and will power to figure out how to bring her home.

Lena hugs Alex tight, forces herself to take even draws of air, and whispers, “I’ll go,” even as she knows offering this could break her. Being in her space could be the thing that cracks her self-possession and implodes the box in the corner of her mind.

Alex tries to draw back, a strangled protest in her throat, but Lena holds fast not letting her pull away, “Please,” Lena begs, and Alex stops struggling, fingers digging into Lena’s back, “let me do this for you,” and then more quietly, “let me do this for her.”

There’s silence, and Alex’s fingers relax, no longer gouging into her, and Lena feels a shift though they haven’t changed positions and realizes that Alex is no longer clinging but hugging her, almost cradling Lena, and that almost breaks her too, because Lena knows even without having experienced it before, only borne witness to, that this is how Alex holds her sister.

Without meaning to Lena leans into it, because no one has ever held her like this, nothing has come close, except maybe the other Danvers’ hugs but those were different, and no, she won’t think about why those were different just now, and instead she wonders if this is what people with caring older siblings get to feel. Safe and warm and loved, and for a moment she remembers Lex and realizes any warmth she perceived from him growing up was a lie. It’s here in a warm firm embrace that she finally gets why Alex was always deemed the ‘best big sister’ by her best friend, because this is what family really feels like.

Lena stays just long enough to appreciate it, not nearly long enough, not nearly as long as she would like, pulls back just before she can let it unravel her hard won control, before Alex can inadvertently open the box.

Alex watches her with such sympathy it almost makes Lena cry, not used to such a soft look from anyone aside from the other Danvers sister, realizing she’s never had anyone especially Lex, look at her with such filial care and understanding.

“You don’t have to…” Alex starts, eyes worried now for Lena.

“I want to,” Lena says with steady conviction, and she finds that it’s true even if it might later unbalance her tenuous self-control. That box has other things crammed into it not the least of which is the real reason why Lena was so heartbroken about the superhero’s identity, why Lena’s reaction was so disproportionate to realizing that her best friend had lied and was perhaps something more akin to a roman- but she can’t dwell on those things because the box is closed, damn it. For now.

Alex looks at her for a long time, silent with a still watery gaze, finally she nods slowly, and presses the key into Lena’s hands. She doesn’t let go right away, instead holds Lena’s hand between both her own, and waits for Lena to meet her gaze.

“Thank you,” in a fierce whisper, and Lena hears all the reasons for Alex’s gratitude without her having to say them at all.

She nods and heads to the door, but Alex’s voice catches her, “Lena,” turns to look at Alex, “I’m glad you found your way back home to us,” she says with utter sincerity, and Lena’s body curls slightly into herself as if struck by a physical blow. Her answering smile must be some terrible mix of anguish and elation from those words because Alex’s lips press into a line of concern.

She struggles to maintain steady breaths and flees before Alex can tear apart her fragile heart anymore with kind words and soft touches. Lena can’t afford to lose it. Later. Later, when she’s back, Lena will allow herself to fall apart, but not yet.

Not yet.