Lord, Save me from your Followers (a Supergirl Kara x Lena fanfic)

Friday (Again)

Friday -

Lena's apartment is a loft in the arts district and is smaller than Kara expected. Its cozy, decorated in the same clean, sleek way her office is. Everything in its place, but with a far more homey touch than her austere workspace. Lena leaves her things by the door and yawns. Kara toes off her sneakers.

"I just want to sleep." Lena says. "If that's alright. It has been a very, very long day."

It's honestly the nicest thing anyone's ever said to her in a situation like this. A lifeline, something she doesn't need to take, but at the same time, one she definitely will. "That's all I want too."

Lena sets her keys in a dish on the breakfast bar and scoops up her mail, crossing to a device tucked away in the corner of her kitchen. Kara leans on the breakfast bar and watches as Lena runs each piece of mail through the device – a scanner - and then checks each piece of junk mail and catalogue over for signs of tampering before throwing them into recycling bin. "Do you want this Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon?"

Kara shakes her head. She'd never get over there before it expired. Lena shrugs and pitches it as well. Lena sets her actual mail beside her keys, presumably to be looked at in the morning and glances around. "Okay." She seems to come to a decision, seems to settle herself to the point where she can relax. "Do... you need anything special to sleep?"

"Are you going to care if I take off my pants? I get hot."

Lena gives Kara a look that strips her naked. "No," she says, rolling the words. "I wouldn't mind at all."

The bedroom is behind a half-wall to provide the illusion of privacy. Lena rummages in a few drawers and under the bathroom counter before finding a spare tooth brush for Kara and changing into her pajamas. Kara brushes her teeth and then vacates the bathroom to inspect Lena's bookshelves. She pulls books off at random, noting that the books on electrical engineering and architecture seem to be the most well-read. There are only a few novels. Most of the fiction Lena keeps are short story anthologies. There are a handful of family pictures around. Kara stares up at a smiling Lex Luthor with his arm around Lena, clad in a graduation cap and gown, her expression growing dark.

Maybe this isn't a good idea.

But then she remembers Astra, she remembers Non. Is that not the same? Wouldn't Kara kill for some sort of documentation of the better times she'd shared with them?

"We can't choose our family." Lena says, eyeing the photograph when she comes back in from the bathroom. "That's one of the happiest days of my life, one of my happiest memories of Lex... yet I know who he is and what he's done."

Kara nods and turns away. Lena's face is scrubbed free of makeup and her hair's braided loosely down her back. She's wearing a t-shirt with the MIT crest printed on it and leggings and is turning down the bed.

"I um, I sleep on this side."

"Okay." Kara sits on the edge of the bed and shimmies out of her jeans and unclips her bra underneath her shirt. She leaves both in a pile on the floor, retreating under the covers before her semi-nakedness can draw wandering eyes. Not yet, not yet. But she wants it. She's exhausted now, and it's really hitting her. Lena's bed smells good, Lena smells good, and this is... this is what Kara wants.

"You said you were a refugee," Lena says, drowsily, turning off the light. "Say something in your native language."

Kara rolls over onto her back, staring up at the blackness above them. She looks up, through it, into nothing. "Goodnight, Lena," she says quietly. Lena's name with Kryptonian inflection is beautiful. She follows it with a prayer – a call to Rao to rise again on the morrow – and it's as Lena's fingers tangle in Kara's hair and tilt her head sideways to press a sleepy, gentle kiss to Kara's lips that Kara realizes that she hasn't said this prayer since she arrived on earth.