The three of us (karamel baby AU)

Sunsets and jokes

Kara glanced at the clock on her childhood bedroom wall and sighed. It was already close to dinnertime and her little one hadn't gone to sleep yet. They'd been in the bedroom for more than an hour, the blonde rocking back and forth and humming tunes, while Alura whimpered and stubbornly refused to let her eyes fall shut. Be it the unfamiliar house or the fact she'd napped in the car on the way to Midvale, something had thrown the baby off her routine and kept her awake at a time she normally wouldn't be.

The setting sun peeked through the halfway-closed blinds, gentle and warm upon the mother's skin. Kara looked outside the window, the salty breeze and the echo of the waves washing upon the shore calling for her attention. The sight was a familiar and beloved one—ever so present in most of her earliest memories on Earth. But as much as she'd like to be out, on the beach, enjoying the view – preferably wrapped in Mon-El's arms and with no one else around – her daughter had different plans.

With another whimper Allie forced Kara to divert her focus and continue her rocking motions. "What's going on with you today, huh?" she asked but, of course, received no answer. "Why aren't you sleeping? What's bothering you?" Her lips pressed against chubby fingers but the soothing trick hardly lessened the baby's unease. Instead, a tiny fist grabbed onto Kara's shirt and clenched as curved eyelashes fluttered lazily.

"I'll tell you what," two pairs of blue eyes locked. "How about we go outside to watch the sunset together? Would you like that?" Kara smiled at her little angel. "Who needs daddy, right?" she winked, "We're gonna go alone, just the two of us, and I'm gonna tell you all about that time I sneaked out the house to go swimming by myself and ended up swimming so far away from the shore I got lost. Right in the middle of the ocean. Can you believe how silly I used to be?" Alura giggled, as if she could actually understand what her mother was talking about, which made Kara laugh too and tickle a rounded tummy.

"Let's go then," she said and maneuvered her pretty girl in an upright position. Alura's head rested on Kara's shoulder and the two left the bedroom along with any plans that involved napping.

The beach wasn't far, barely a couple of minutes away from the Danvers' family home. The blonde grabbed a hat on their way out, more to avoid people giving her disapproving looks thinking she'd left her daughter exposed to the harmful rays and less for the actual protection. After all, the sun could only do her little alien beauty good.

They walked across the hot sand and stopped right where the water could reach Kara's feet. There were no people nearby and the place was quiet. Apart from the waves and the little one's babblings, no disturbances were heard—that fact alone pulled an effortless grin from the blonde.

"Here we are," she told her daughter, turning the small figure to face the same way she was. "Look at that, sweetheart," she prompted, "if we were on Krypton or Daxam, this is how Rao would look like. This is what greeted mama and daddy every morning."

The reds and oranges embraced the pair, warm and vivid, exactly like Rao used to in Kara's fondest memories of her homeland. Alura squealed, a hand lifting, as if she was trying to grab onto something only she could see. She kicked her feet and made sounds, adding the proper effects to those content and perfect moments mother and daughter shared.

"You would've loved Krypton," the hero spoke again, still halfway lost into her thoughts and the familiar ache of homesickness. "I know your daddy would too. It wasn't as warm as Daxam, and it rained often, but he would've loved the endless forests in the north and the waterfalls scattered across the western side outside of Argo. I bet you'd like those too," she pressed a loud kiss to her adorable girl's cheek, her eyes glinting in response to her fantasy, "any place with water can have you squealing in delight, isn't that right, baby?" And with that, Kara bent just enough for Alura's tiny toes to sink into the water.