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Kara didn’t dream often. At least, not of her life on Earth. She often had visions of those terrible unending years in the Phantom Zone, of her planet dying right before her eyes.
It was rare when she found herself seeing her sister’s face among the ruins of National City, or the disappointed face of Eliza whenever she had to go to the principal’s office in Kara’s high school years, or the changed Jeremiah who looked at her with empty eyes in the middle of a forest.
Kara didn’t dream often. She had nightmares, many of them; so many, that sometimes she wondered if she really was happy, or if she was faking it for the sake of everyone else.
So it was a surprise to find herself in a different world, an Earth similar to the one she knew, but not quite. It was different, a little blurred on the edges, a little softer. Lighter. Everyone was dressed in bright colors or in white. Strangely, she found herself comforted by this home that wasn’t her home. She felt at home among the smiling people, like she belonged in a world of peace. Kara knew: in real life she was destined for war and death and loss; but, this one time, for one night, her mind allowed her the fantasy of a perfect world.
So maybe it shouldn’t have been such a big surprise that Lena was there. One moment, Kara was walking down the street, and the next, she found herself in a university she had never stepped foot in, and she walked with purpose through its halls like she knew them like the back of her hand. All of this because she had suddenly thought of Lena and wanted to see her. Kara didn’t know whether she had teleportation powers in this ideal world, or if it was just dream logic, but not having to suit up and suit down suited her just fine.
(Hah, even in dreams she made awful puns.)
She supposed this was MIT, though she had no idea what the building actually looked like in real life. She passed white halls with portraits or photos hung on them, or maybe landscape paintings? She wasn’t sure, everything was a bit blurry. But it didn’t matter anyway. All that mattered was Lena.
She knew that she had roamed half the campus when she realized that Lena would be in the cafeteria. Why Lena would be in the cafeteria, Kara didn’t really know, but it just made sense.
She passed a group of jock-adjacent bros (some more athletic than others) who had just finished a pie-eating contest.
“Of course you can join in! We have an eating contest every day, just come back here tomorrow,” one of the guys clapped her shoulder warmly, happy to have found someone just as excited about eating pie as he was. Kara thought she would definitely love to return and scarf down like thirty pies in less than a minute and watch the delighted-slash-horrified looks that the guys would have when they saw what she was capable of.
Kara thanked him for his offer and asked him whether he had seen Lena anywhere. She had been looking for Lena for so long. Where was Lena? Why was it taking so long to find her? Kara felt like she hadn’t seen Lena in ages.
And then- there she was, with her back to Kara, talking excitedly to a group of fellow students (probably about science; Lena only ever got that excited about science). Kara stood for a minute and just stared, and stared, and stared, with the biggest smile on her face. There was her Lena, and she looked so happy, so radiant, so in her element. Lena looked like she belonged. Lena looked- well, Lena looked like Kara had only imagined she could without all the trauma and betrayal that had been heaped upon her since early childhood. Lena looked like what Kara wanted her to look like when Lena looked at her.
But this whole thought process wasn’t really there, because this was a dream. And in the dream, Kara just looked at Lena, who wore a black and white striped sweater (and a snapback for some reason – even though Lena would never). Kara just looked at Lena- and loved.
And suddenly, Lena turned towards her and smiled. Excused herself from the group and walked to Kara with just the slightest awkwardness, like Kara had caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe Lena had been the one to catch Kara doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing? It was confusing. Kara didn’t really think she had done something wrong by looking at Lena, but somehow it felt like it.
“Ready?” Lena asked, intertwining their fingers and turning them around.
“Yeah,” Kara replied with no hesitation, and in an instant, they were walking hand in hand down the street towards Kara’s apartment, which wasn’t in its usual place, and didn’t look at all like its real-life counterpart.
“So, what can you tell me about the city?” Lena asked, as if they weren’t in National City, and she hadn’t lived there for years. And, well, Kara supposed that this wasn’t really National City, was it? Yet somehow, Kara felt like she knew the place, and started rambling about the best places to get groceries, and that tiny coffee shop that she went to when she wanted to take a little break from everything, and, and, and.
“-and if you want to find different kinds of foods from all over the world you can go to Lidl- wait, do you have Lidl in America?” Kara stupidly asked, as if she wasn’t from America. Truthfully, she wasn’t, but she didn’t really think of herself in that way usually. Yet, here she was, telling Lena about a store she had only visited when she had flown to other countries, as if it was just as easy for Lena to go there herself. Well. Lena did have a private jet. But that was in real life, and Kara somehow felt like dream Lena, happy Lena, wasn’t the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation.
But she didn’t get to contemplate that thought at all, because now they were in Kara’s apartment. Kara toed off her shoes and asked Lena to wait for a moment while she went to freshen up in the bathroom (since when did Kara ‘freshen up’?).
And then Lena was in the bathroom with her, and Kara was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, and Lena said something smooth, like-
“Why did you really come looking for me, Kara? Surely it wasn’t to tell me about Lidl, of all things,” Lena cocked an eyebrow in that signature Lena style, and Kara thought it was very good that she was already sitting down because wow, her knees suddenly felt weak. And was it hot in here? Her palms were very sweaty.
“I- um,” Kara gulped, not really knowing what to say. Not really knowing if what she wanted to say was allowed.
Lena took some of the doubts away by straddling Kara, placing a soft hand against her heated cheek, and looking into her eyes with a far too knowing look.
“Have you been thinking about me?” Lena continued her assault on Kara’s capacity for rational thought.
Yes. Every day. Kara felt the answer resonate throughout her whole body, but no words came out of her mouth. She uselessly stared up at Lena, with her hands gripping the edge of the bathtub so hard that it should have broken, yearning, aching to touch Lena.
(But was she allowed to want?)
“Kara, it’s okay,” Lena softened, tangling her fingers in Kara’s hair and scratching her head comfortingly.
“I-” Kara tried once again but felt her breath shudder and stop in her chest. Did Lena really want this? Did Lena really want her?
“Would you like me to kiss you?” Lena finally had mercy on Kara’s poor, wildly beating heart, and leaned in until their lips were merely atoms apart.
“Yes, please-”
Kara couldn’t remember what the kiss had felt like, but she remembered exactly the warmth that bloomed in her heart. How something just… locked into place. The missing piece to a puzzle she didn’t even think to consider was there.
So maybe when she woke up from this one rare good dream, Kara felt like she could soar upwards and never fall. So maybe she felt a bit normal for the first time in a really long time, because instead of loss, she had dreamt of love. Because even though it was a new and scary thought to consider – that she had feelings for her best friend – it all felt like it was possible in that brief moment when she woke up with the sun shining through the curtains, and her heart as light as she could remember ever since she had arrived on Earth.
So maybe Kara went a little overboard. So maybe she didn’t need to fly to three different countries to get Lena’s favorite breakfast treats, her favorite coffee. But Lena looked happy for a moment, even though she told Kara she didn’t need to go through all that trouble for her. Lena looked a little like she had looked in Kara’s dream. And Kara wanted to do everything to get Lena to smile like that more often.
So maybe she stole government property for Lena. No big deal. The journals should have been in Lena’s hands, anyway. What hope could the government really have to crack Lex Luthor’s impossible codes? Lena was the only one smart enough to see through his illusions.
So maybe Kara was a little blind. Maybe she didn’t see the slightly manic way in which Lena smiled. Maybe she didn’t see the awkward way in which Lena touched her. There, but not really there.
Kara’s world was taken away, and all that she remembered of it was a dream, a nostalgic sketch of what if and could have been. She was pushed into a timeless nightmare and then an unforgiving alien world. She was made into what she was today by pain, and loss, and more pain. She needed to be a symbol of hope even when she herself couldn’t feel it.
So what if she ignored the warning signs? So what if Lena was keeping something from her? So what if Lena could destroy her?
Kara didn’t dream often. But Lena was her favorite dream.