Chapter Text
1/23/16
San Diego, California
Friendly: USA v Kaznia (5-0)
Goals: Prince, Prince, Prince, Rojas, Lane
Lenan Luthor’s feet were doing their very best to perform what was probably a simple pattern. It may as well have been multivariable calculus.
Actually, at least I can do multivariable calculus. This is impossible.
"Seriously, Lena, how did you never learn the Wobble?! We were in college when this came out!"
Lena laughed as Andrea Rojas held their linked fingers above her head, pressing up against her back in an attempt to prove that you could roll your hands and your hips at the same time ("Really, Lena, what the hell!"). Lena just punched her hips forward, spinning so she could break away from the brunette’s aggressive choreography attempts.
"What?! 2008 was an Olympic year! I wasn’t really on the frat floor, 'Drea."
"Are you from planet Earth? Because I’m pretty sure you couldn’t escape this dance otherwise."
Lena retreated toward her locker backwards, hands up to ward off all further attempts at coaching. "You can teach me later," she chuckled as one of their keepers, Leslie slid up behind the newly abandoned center-mid with an exaggerated and filthy grind, hoots echoing from around the locker room. "Get it, Willis!"
A locker slammed, and Siobhan Smythe rolled her eyes with a grin. "Save it for our bedroom, Leslie baby, I don’t think Andrea wants that."
Her protest probably would have been more successful if the Latina woman in question hadn’t just dropped her hands to the floor, hips rocking in something reminiscent of an off-kilter laundry machine.
Catcalls erupted as Selina Kyle marched over. "Back up, bitches, this is how you twerk" and proceeded to demonstrate exactly why she was considered the dancer of the team.
Lena rocked sideways with a sudden oof at the tackle of a tall and pony-tailed figure squeezing its arms around her naked midsection.
"THANK YOU. She had me earlier and I didn’t know how to escape her clutches." Samantha Arias mock shivered, gesturing at the trio now grinding to the pumping bass of Andrea’s iPhone speakers.
Scattered fingers were pointing at the spectacle from all around the room as women shouted more! more!, and little 17-year-old Lucy Lane bent over laughing in stitches by her bag.
Lena slipped out of the forward’s arms and pulled a jersey over her sports bra.
"I wish I could say I’d volunteered to save you, Sammy, but I’m pretty sure I was just another victim."
The leggy brunette fell to the bench, pulling on her cleats. Lena scuffed her own against the floor.
A huff pulled her gaze down right as a finger poked in accusation at her knee.
"There are bruises all over your shins, Lena. I swear, if you don’t actually pull up your shinguards and socks I might kick you myself."
Like coke from a vending machine, a whine dispensed automatically… just as Samantha knew it would.
"Sammyyy, you know I don’t like it. They’re uncomfortable!"
"Don’t do it and I’ll give you something to be uncomfortable about." ("Won’t even take care of yourself, God damn.")
Lena tugged Samantha’s ponytail in retaliation, but she didn't mind too much. This bit was long played out between the pair, and it was almost comforting in its familiarity.
So, with an equally scripted sigh, she bent at the waist to grab the offending items slouched at her ankles, adjusted the shinguards, and finally rolled her socks up to her knees in theatrical slowness.
"Happy?"
Sam just flashed her teeth wolfishly, hopping up to shake Lena’s shoulders in a sudden and contagious rush. "OOSA."
"LET’S WIN." Nearby, Kate Kane had started jumping high-knees. "Ok ladies, time to kick some ass!"
Music turning off and locker doors ringing shut, women strapped on their shinguards, slid on their pre-wrap, and slapped each other’s backs as they jogged toward the door.
Lena caught a glance of Kara Zor-El right as her own feet turned to leave. The woman was dazed out, eyes hovering somewhere around Lena’s knees.
"Kara?"
The blonde head popped up, french braids brushing against her shoulders.
"You ready to go?" Lena gestured her chin at the door.
The answering smile was like a light sparking in a dark room and Lena’s cheeks flushed — had Kara’s eyes always squinted when she smiled?
"Well come on then, Zor-El! Let’s go win!"
With a conclusive nod, the two were on their feet and out the door.
About 90 minutes later, they were certainly winning but Kara wasn’t smiling now, and Lena felt her own thrill of the lead slip away into a concerned haze.
Kara had hit the turf and it looked like a bad one. Kaznia’s defender had come in from the edge of the box for a slide tackle at the same time that the midfielder who’d been chasing Zor-El — rather unsuccessfully since the forward’s stunning breakaway — finally got within two feet of her opponent.
Lena had watched as cleats, instead of making contact with the ball, hit Kara’s right ankle.
Body too stuck in momentum, the falling USA striker had tried to twist to land on her back but had only managed her side, leaving her head to bounce sharply off the field with a sickening thwap.
Then, right as she hit the ground, the approaching Kaznian midfielder found that she couldn’t avoid the two bodies suddenly at her feet. Her attempted dodge failing, all her weight instead slammed through her cleat right where Kara’s upper thigh met her pelvis. Falling, the midfielder’s knee then caught Kara square in the chin.
Lena could barely process — it had all happened so fast — but as the ball rolled into the box and slowed without anyone retrieving it, she realized the whistle must have been blown. Every eye was fixed on the commotion of three players tangled up in a heap. The Kaznian teammates slowly pulled their limbs off whatever skin or turf surface they’d landed on, but Kara was just collapsed there.
Lena felt her stomach twist.
A medic began sprinting for the site and players hovered in place, other than Kaznia’s keeper who had finally gone to pick up the ball and toss it to the sidelines.
It was so silent.
Even the crowd’s rumble had paused as they watched their affectionately-termed 'Supergirl' lay there with a shocking and uncomfortable stillness.
...Lena couldn’t tell if she wanted Kara to make a noise or not.
They’d rolled her on her back now. It looked like maybe her teeth had busted through her lower lip because blood was rolling down her chin and jawline as she now clutched the inside of her hip, face contorted in a grim and twisted mask.
The knot in her stomach seized sharply again and Lena found herself taking a step closer.
A stretcher appeared and as the forward was loaded up and carried off the field, time sped up again and Lena realized she hadn’t been breathing. She checked the scoreboard; 3 minutes left in the game and then stoppage.
….
Later, when Lena reflected on what happened next, she would categorize it as the '3rd Sign', because, looking back, Lena had to admit, the signs were there.
Maybe if she’d looked a little closer — just thought about those things that had perplexed her, rather than moved on. Had she been a bad friend to Kara? A bad teammate?
The more she thought about it, the more those three signs wove together like a braid, leaving an obvious conclusion it had taken Lena far too long to notice.
Sign 1:
1/06/16
Carson, California
2 nd day of USWNT Training Camp for CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament
It was supposed to be an orderly, attentive room of soccer players watching game tape in preparation for the Olympics that summer.
Instead, it looked far more like a high school classroom when the teacher was called away for the last 20 minutes of class and told you all to stay and 'behave.'
Yeah, about as successful as you would imagine.
Their coach, Peggy Carter, had stepped out in frustration, seeking an A/V tech to help figure out why the screen setup wasn’t playing.
30 seconds later, the room was a zoo.
While the room itself had four neat rows of chairs with a center aisle, women were scattered everywhere.
Many sprawled across multiple seats or had abandoned them entirely;
Susan Vasquez and Lucy were learning some new line dance up front from Selina Kyle;
Leslie and Siobhan huddled over a phone watching vines;
Lena laying down alone in the third left row trying to catch a moment of hard chill which was not so easy when people were shouting at each other in large voices that echoed off the conference room walls.
"So, I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my titties…"
Diana Prince spun around from her conversation with Barbara Minerva, to stare at Alex Danvers in the back row. "Excuse me?!"
The girl grinned wolfishly. "What, you’ve never gotten a little adventurous in the bedroom, Wonder Woman?"
"BARBEQUE SAUCE?!"
Alex cackled as Olivia Marsden, their heir-apparent in goalies, looked up from her crossword to fittingly save the moment. "It’s just a vine, Diana. She’s quoting a video."
"But who’s to say life doesn’t reflect art?"
Cat Grant, their Captain and rock of a center-back, huffed, not even looking up from her book. "It’s the other way around, Danvers. Art imitates LIFE."
"Well, these tits are a work of art," muttered the player, staring down as if to prove her point.
"My husband and I have done maple syrup before…" piped up Sam from the back of the room.
"Is it because you’re as tall as a tree?"
"Alex!" erupted from a scandalized Diana, but Sam was laughing.
Danvers just looked down at her hands wide-eyed, alternating in lifting them like imaginary scales. "The art…. the life… the art… the life."
Kate Kane just looked like she was trying to work out a math problem in her head. Finally, "…Was it any good, Sam?"
"1 out of 10 — wouldn’t recommend. Way too sticky. Sheets had to go through the laundry twice before it came off. Though Tony did have to work pretty hard to get it off of me so that was nice…"
Kate snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind."
Lena could hear a giggle, then a whisper from Kara in the seats in front of her. "Alex had a girl put chocolate syrup on her in college once. Came back with it still all over her neck — hadn’t even realized."
Mari McCabe, seated next to her, chuckle-wheezed. "Oh geeze, that sounds like something Danvers would do."
"She was 100% wild."
"Well, what about you, Supergirl? Any food stuffs in the bedroom recently?"
(Lena couldn’t help but to crack an eye open in interest.)
"NO. No, Rao no." The woman laughed lightly, hand running through the damp mane of her hair, curls wild from a recent shower. "I haven’t even been kissed in … Rao, it’s been years n—"
But she must have said it just a bit too loudly because —
"Did I just hear you say you haven’t been kissed in years? Holy shit, Zor-El!" Kate has spun from the seat in front of them and Kara’s face went from a pleasant tawny rose to ashen in a second.
Too many heads had turned over at the loud outburst; "what?!" echoing from around the room as over half the team tuned in. Kara brought her hands to her cheeks and Lena’s body compacted viscerally in sympathy.
"We’ve got to get you laid, like, NOW," Kate continued. "What’s your type? Tall, dark, and handsome? Athlete? Professional? I’m sure we’ve got someone we can introduce you to."
Kara just shook her head, wide-eyed.
"Not your type? Are we talking more the fairer sex then? Because I certainly have some numbers for you if so. You would kill it in the sapphic scene, my friend."
"Yeah, Kara, I’ve never even heard you mention a date now that I think about it," mused Selina in the front right corner, now kneeling in her chair to look back at the developing scene.
"No, no I’m not… I just … I’m not looking for anything right now," Kara tried in a poor attempt at casual.
"Or ever it sounds like," Kate laughed. "You know you can tell us if you’re ace. At least then the entire world can be united in its mourning rather than just the half with estrogen."
"Ace? No, I … I just don’t really hold with labels, let’s say."
Lena glanced around, waiting for anyone to shut down this conversation.
"Or orgasms it seems." Most of the room chuckled at Kate’s statement, Lena cringing at the way Kara’s knuckles were going white on the back of her chair.
Kate spun towards another player, eyes agleam; "Last time you got off, Harley?"
"Three days ago," the woman smirked, flipping her multi-colored hair behind her shoulder. "Which was also the second to last time I got off. And the third. …AND the fourth."
Sam was grinning widely, face a scandalized mask as she used her hands to fan herself.
A hoot came from somewhere around Lucy and Vasquez.
Cat just turned another page in her book.
"Geeze, did you leave any time to return the favor? I know your wife loves tending to her favorite 'orchid' but her flower needs some tending too you know," Kate offered with a snicker. Lena had now flipped her hood up and pulled low over her eyes, hoping to disappear from any parties who could attempt to engage her.
"I’ll have you know, I —"
"Attention ladies, A/V is finally here with the setup," Coach Carter sighed as she walked in the door at the front of the room. "We’ll be watching reel from our last game against Costa Rica."
Lena released a grateful exhale, just before "— you know, it really is ok if you’re asexual. You know we wouldn’t judge," Mari whispered once more to Kara. Lena found herself leaning slightly forward as she sat up, trying to catch the answer Kara was whispering back but the tape had started and swallowed the reply as quickly as a stone in a river.
Lena chided herself for wanting in on the gossip anyway, squashing the remnant of curiosity still churning in her gut.
It wasn’t her business anyway.
Sign Two:
1/20/16
Carson, California
Last day of USWNT Training Camp for CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament
"Awwww, she’s so cute" Sam cooed over the sleeping teen with her head nestled in Kara’s lap.
Danvers cackled on the far side of the hotel room — "little newby can’t handle camp. Tuckered her right out."
"Hush," Kara laughed, tucking the napping Lucy’s hair behind an ear so it wouldn’t brush her face as she breathed. "She didn’t seem too tuckered out to meg you 1v1 did she, Alex?"
Harley jostled Alex in glee. "Ohhhhhh, she megged you, did she, Danvers? We’ve got a little mini-me coming up!"
Alex dodged from under the woman’s fist now knuckling her in the head and scowled primly. "Whatever. You’re not the queen of megs, Quinn. More like the court jester."
The two began roughhousing on the hotel bed, Kate chanting "fight fight fight!" and Cat rolled her eyes from the floor.
Kara just smiled softly and pet little Luce’s head again. Seriously, the girl was so cute. She knew that Lucy had come up through the U17 and U20 teams just fine, but her first USWNT camp call up was a big deal and the girl had been stressing about her upcoming first cap versus Kaznia. She’d gone hard in training for days now, and apparently the final hangout of camp was losing spectacularly to the siren call of sleep. And for some reason, since the beginning, the little one had latched onto Kara instantly, like a duckling or something equally fluffy and cute. The others teased her, but Kara kind of loved it.
"I’m bored. Let’s do something," Kane drawled just on the other side of a still-cooing Sam, Kara slapping at her finger when it scooched too close to the girl’s face.
Andrea’s head popped up from the bed, Alex’s elbow still clamped around her neck, mid-wrestle — "OOOh, what?"
A sleep-addled-but-not-yet-succumbed Vasquez perked up from Kara’s other side. "A drinking game?!"
Kate’s head knocked back against the wall. "Of course the 21-year-old would say that."
Sam’s elbow introduced itself swiftly into the woman’s side ("FUCK, Arias"), and she smiled at the dimming blonde. "It’s a good idea, Susan."
Alex rolled off of the bed against the wall, nearly pulling Andrea with her, leaving the midfielder clinging onto the dragging comforter with a squeak. "Danvers!"
Kara’s giggle at the scene prompted Lena to look over, sharing a smile at the antics of their respective best friends. Lena had just broken eye contact when Alex popped up again with a plastic sleeve of solo cups and a bottle of vodka.
"GOT IT."
"DUDE, have you been holding onto that all week?" Kara’s jaw dropped.
"Yup, knew it would come in handy at some point."
Cat slumped into the ever-quiet Olivia beside her on the floor — "think it’s any use reminding them that Peggy will kill us if we drink before the tournament?"
Olivia just snickered and pat her leg sweetly. "Not a chance — but it’ll be like our college days, yeah? Work hard, play hard?"
The defender groaned again but everyone could see their team captain wasn’t really going to stop anything and a jittery little current ran through the girls. They shuffled into a semi-passable circle as Alex passed cups down the line.
"Ok," Vasquez said, "truth or dare?"
"NO," Sam shouted, as Kara hushed her with a hand over Mal’s ear.
Sam continued at a cowed level, hissing just above a whisper.
"Alex made me run naked down the hallway last time, and I am not reliving that experience."
Alex cackled again; Lena flushed. She’d just been coming out, hair still wet from a shower, to join the other girls and had received an armful of running Sam for her lateness. She hadn’t fully liked the way her body had shivered at the sensation of her hands on naked hips…
"Yeah, I agree, no truth or dare,” Lena said.
Sam winked at her.
"Never have I ever," from Andrea.
"You always lose at that," the still-sulking Cat frowned.
Andrea smirked. "Exactly."
Alex offered the Latina her hand for a resounding high-five as the room laughed.
"Ok, ok, come on then," Kate said, and they settled.
"Vasquez, you start," prompted Sam. The rookie in question straightened imperceptibly.
"Great. Ok … never have I ever … run naked down a hallway" she threw with a teasing glance at the woman who’d just spoken. Sam rolled her eyes with a laugh, taking a sip from her cup with a wince.
Nearby, Cat also sipped from her cup and a shocked gasp escaped the now twice-successful 21-year-old.
"Really?!"
A wink. "Alex had to get the idea somewhere right? Sam isn’t the first person to ever get that dare and I've been on this team many years. "
Lena shivered imperceptibly nearby.
"Actually, this is good," Cat announced, then looked around with her mouth pursed tight. "Never have I ever stolen Cat Grant’s protein smoothie labeled WITH HER NAME from the team fridge."
Andrea smirked, and drank. "Told you I was good at losing this game." Cat threw a pillow at her.
They went in a circle from there.
"Never have I ever gone to National City U."
Alex and Kara saluted one another and drank.
"Never have I ever been nutmegged by Harley."
Everyone drank with groans except a proud Mari McCabe.
"Never have I ever cheated on my training diet."
Cheers erupted when Cat reluctantly took a sip with them.
"Never have I ever peed myself in a kit."
Kate gasped at a sniggering Alex - "I told you that in confidence, Danvers! The ball hit me right in the bladder after hours of training without a break - it just happened!" as everyone howled, Lucy sleeping contentedly through it.
The game shifted, as these things will.
"Never have I ever joined the mile high club."
Sam was the only one to drink, heavy lashes fluttering as she tried to avoid eye contact at the cheers, finally blushing.
"Never have I ever gone down on a girl."
Kate, Alex, Harley, and a blushing Vasquez sipped.
"Never have I ever had sex in public," came surprisingly from Cat, finally getting into it. Selina drank as Lena jumped ("dude, did you sneak in through a window or something? How do you even do that?").
“Never have I ever kissed a man."
Kate pounded the floor in glee as she forced the entire circle to drink with her play.
"Alright make this next one good, because this bottle is almost empty and I planned on being tipsy before that happened," Andrea teased.
"Well, maybe you should have been a little more sexually adventurous, Rojas! But in honor of my beloved, Pamela, and something a little birdie told me about you and a trip to Las Vegas once upon a time," Harley teased, "…never have I ever been married."
Downing the dregs of her cup with a smirk, Andrea slammed it on the floor in a flourish, Sam laughing as she also drank nearby. She was just reaching for the bottle to refill when a stuttering Vasquez piped up, staring at the woman beside her — "Kara, did you just drink?!"
Kara, already rosy-cheeked at the alcohol, flushed further as Sam broke in with a shock.
"How have I never heard of this? Who is he? How long have you been together? Where is your ring?!"
"Ace, my ass!" shouted Kate, a few sips too far in to regulate volume.
Alex shifted uncomfortably across the room, eyes locked on Kara.
Kara looked down at her lap, touching Lucy’s still-sleeping head gently.
Lena’s eyes were locked on the blonde’s downturned face, heart inexplicably pounding as those normally grinning lips grew teeth-ravaged in the heavy pause.
Finally, they were released.
"The question was just if we’ve been married. Not if we currently are."
A long silence hung in the air …
Kate swallowed. "Well, shit."
Sign Three:
1/23/16
San Diego, California
Friendly: USA v Kaznia (5-0)
Goals: Prince, Prince, Prince, Rojas, Lane
A stretcher appeared and as the forward was loaded up and carried off the field, time sped up again and Lena realized she hadn’t been breathing. She checked the scoreboard; 3 minutes left in the game and then stoppage.
Time began again.
6 minutes of play passed without really thinking about it; their 5-0 lead held just fine, and when the buzzer sounded, Lena found herself walking towards the field exit rather than the bench or even the many fans starting to push towards the front of the stadium for autographs.
She wasn’t the only one. At least three of her teammates were headed through the tunnel as well. But as they turned the corner towards the locker rooms and medic station, they found the rolling stretcher stopped preemptively in the hallway, several people gathered around it as —
Kara was screaming. And Lena gulped as it took a moment to realize it didn’t even sound like pain, it sounded like —
Panic?
"Don’t touch me! Don’t — STOP. Don’t —"
The frantic woman was batting hands away as two medics and their assistant coach tried to keep her still and take stock of the situation.
Blood was dribbling down her chin, soaking into the collar of her jersey, and her braids were starting to come loose in the commotion, frizzed locks bursting wildly around her cheeks.
But that noise and —
"STOP!" —
God, her voice sounded like shredded fabric, or broken glass, or something terrible Lena hadn’t had to experience before, and she’d never seen Kara like this; never even imagined the possibility of seeing any of her teammates, any human, in this state. There were tears streaming down Kara’s face too, mixing with the blood to create odd pink tracks. Somebody was trying to hold her legs down to keep her still for the medic. Swanson behind the stretcher just looked shocked and confused, and —
"Get Lucy out of here."
It was Cat. Lena couldn’t understand what she was saying.
"Get Lucy, Lena!"
Lena spun to see the 17-year-old frozen with her mouth open and eyes starting to tear up, watching the writhing woman as Lena turned back to Cat and —
"GO. NOW."
Lena grabbed the now crying girl’s arm and started to pull her backwards, noticing the just-arrived Alex take a stuttering step forward as Cat walked right into the madness like an avenging angel or something to wrap her arms around Kara’s shoulders.
"Everybody just take a breath and step the fuck back! Danvers. Not you."
The medics withdrew a little as Alex rushed forward, and then Kara was sobbing blood and tears into her sweaty jersey, as Lena successfully dragged Lucy back behind the corner of the tunnel. Andrea already had her arms stretched wide to stop other teammates — confused by the sound of uninhibited weeping up ahead — from coming closer to investigate.
Lena wrapped her arms around the body of the girl who should be celebrating her goal in her first-ever international cap right now but instead had her head tucked under Lena’s chin, fists clutching the back of her jersey as she trembled.
Lena’s head buzzed.
What the FUCK had just happened here?
2/5/16
Star City, WA
The weird thing about being on the USWNT is that they almost all played in the League as well so they were really only together for camps, tournaments, and friendlies. The in-between was spent in cities stretched across the U.S. — or globe even — with different teammates and different teams.
Lena didn’t see Kara for two weeks after Kaznia.
She didn’t text either. They were friends, sure, but … honestly, Lena just didn’t know what to do with her last sighting of Kara. Her fingers would work out something on the screen, then just hover over the send button until slowly deleting every letter.
"How are you?" felt overt.
"What happened?" felt intrusive.
"Look at the smoothie I just got!" felt avoidant.
"You totally freaked me out," felt too honest.
So, she didn’t text.
Besides, everyone was busy trying to psych up for CONCACAF whether that meant time at home with loved ones, extra training, or, for some, League games they felt required to participate in.
Kara was probably busy doing her own thing in National City with the Starlings or maybe with her parents in California somewhere.
So, yeah, she didn’t need Lena bothering her, right?
Lena let her phone fall unused to her side — but never too far away. No one wanted to be too far from their phones when the call for the CONCACAF roster would be released any day now. Lena knew she’d likely be called up — there was no reason not to be when she’d been on the team for years at this point. But there was always that little pit of anxiety sneaking in to whisper that they’d choose someone else this time; that she didn’t deserve to be there. But Lena had learned how to quiet herself and, with that, the little voice.
So, she expected the phone call from U.S. Soccer.
What she didn’t expect was them asking her to come a day early.
"The extra day in the hotel is covered, and all your meals of course."
"Ok… is there any particular reason?"
"They’ll explain when you get here."
"Have I done some-"
"No, no, nothing like that. It’s — just, a special ask for something. You can always decline once you’ve heard. Nothing bad."
"Ok, well, thanks for the call. I’m excited for the tournament."
"And we’re excited to see you play as always, Ms. Luthor!"
"Thanks. …Bye."
The call disconnected.
Lena pulled out her laptop and began arranging tickets.
2/7/16
Frisco, Texas
When Lena arrived at the hotel in Frisco, Coach Carter was waiting in the lobby.
"Hi Lena, thanks for coming early."
"Yeah, no problem."
"Great, well, honestly I want to jump right in. You can leave your bags with the porter; your room will depend on — well, come with me."
Lena found herself a step behind the quick-footed woman, eyes searching everywhere for some hint of what this could be about — news crew, special trainer, sponsor label. But the hallways were empty and looked the same as any other hotel in America.
As they turned the corner, a conference room appeared up ahead. Peggy walked right up to it, opened the door, and ushered Lena inside.
The confusion grew.
It looked like they had asked Kara to come early too. And Zor-El did not look happy — she was slumped down in her chair, arms crossed and tense across her body, a tie-dye hoodie large and pooling over her limbs like a blanket.
Lena felt her gut twist knowing she hadn’t reached out to the forward since the Kaznia friendly. And why did she look so put out? It was growing more and more clear that this meeting wasn’t about a press conference or ad deal.
Several chairs were pre-arranged in a loose circle, Kara slumped in the one facing the door, one of the team physical therapists two chairs to her left, and then a white man Lena didn’t recognize on Kara’s right. Peggy came from behind her, taking a seat next to the stranger, and looked to Lena.
"Grab a seat."
She looked at the circle and evaluated. Her safest bet was probably the seat across from Kara, one away from both Coach Carter and the trainer. Better than right beside Kara anyway. This felt so strange.
Lena sat, insecurity rendering every movement awkward, and leaned forward on her knees, waiting for someone to explain what on earth was going on.
Everybody looked at Kara and her brow furrowed, almost sulking. The unknown man waited a second more and then coughed.
"Well, I’ll begin. Ms. Luthor, thank you for joining us early and it’s nice to meet you in person. I’ve been looking forward to it since Kara named you as who she wanted to join us today."
Wait, so Kara was the reason she was in this tense little circle?! That would make a lot more sense if the woman wasn’t studiously avoiding eye contact with her.
"Kara, would you like to explain to Lena why she’s here?"
The blonde woman tugged lightly on a braid...
The midfielder held her breath...
And then the forward shook her head.
Jesus Christ. This was so weird.
"Ok. Well, Lena — may I call you Lena?"
She nodded.
"Kara has been going through a combination of a health issue as well as stress that has created the need for her to have a roommate assist her with some rehab. Nothing physical, but rather, as a sort of accountability."
Lena nodded far more out of instinct than actual understanding.
"Mr. Swanson here is assisting her in her injury recovery from a groin strain in your last friendly but she is already able to practice and should be ready by game time. He’s more just helping her to stay healthy at this point.”
The casual stance of his body looked wildly self-assured but the flex of his jaw read tentative in the pause — like he was searching for the precisely correct words to continue. It made Lena itch.
”However, there are certain… exercises Kara must do on her own and as she has been … neglectful in the past to fulfilling them. U.S. Soccer has given her the option of either stepping off the team or allowing someone to come alongside her and verify, so to speak, with the coaching staff that she is indeed doing her rehab. Do you understand?"
"Um… yeah I guess." Lena’s forehead creased into hills and valleys. Why would Kara ever not do her rehab? And why was Lena the one who was here? This was so far beyond any reason Lena thought she might have been called early.
Peggy spoke up now: "Obviously, Kara is a vital member of this team and we’re happy to have her on board. But to make sure that she is able to receive aid whenever she needs it, she needs to be fulfilling Dr. Hart’s … prescription."
Kara rolled her eyes at this, hard, and their Coach flushed.
What am I not getting? Lena wondered.
“Ok, so how can I help?"
Dr. — Hart, she supposed? — looked at Kara one more time as if waiting for her to speak up. When she didn’t he returned his gaze across the circle again.
"Well, Lena. The difficulty we are facing is that Ms. Zor-El has an extreme aversion to anyone touching her on her hip flexors and general pelvic region. Because of this, she has been unable to handle physical therapy efforts from your trainer over here — as I heard you may have observed at your last game, actually. While that incident specifically was exacerbated by a minor head injury, this is also part of a larger ongoing issue.”
His jaw would probably be aching by the end of this.
“To put it plainly, Kara needs to grow more comfortable with medical personnel touching her hip to groin area. But for that to happen, a first and necessary hindrance to overcome is actually growing comfortable in touching herself.”
Wait, wait — excuse me, WHAT??
He rolled on without a pause and Lena scrambled to get her ears working again over the sudden static buzzing through her synapses.
“Without going into her specific history — but in collaboration with her personal therapist on related goals and her team therapist on this medical requirement — Kara has supposed to have been practicing daily therapeutic touch in her pelvic region as part of her mental health regimen with U.S. Soccer."
Green eyes flew wide, even as he continued.
"She hasn’t been, despite informing your training staff of her supposed compliance, and it became clear when she was unable to receive aid at the last game and experienced a profoundly negative reaction in her follow-up rehab.”
The tie-dyed heap of a girl winced.
“So, as we stated earlier, in order to continue to play with the team, your coach has decided to require someone else to confirm her commitment to her rehab regimen. With that in mind and because of the sensitivity of the rehab in question, we asked Kara to choose who she would want to come alongside her."
Lena gulped.
Kara covered her face with her hands.
"She chose you."
The very oxygen of the room seemed to solidify, and Lena felt her lungs seize.
She — she chose — me?!
Don't think about it. Boxes, Lena. Emotions later. Or never. Just… get your information first.
Jesus, this whole thing was fucking crazy.
"Sorry, hold on, let me just get this straight. You want me to room with Kara — if I’m getting what you’re all so obliquely trying to say — to confirm with you whether or not she is … masturbating?!"
"Well, no, actually. Masturbating is one of the hopeful milestones of the practice in her personal therapy actually. More specifically, Kara needs accountability on touching herself daily with the effort of alleviating the stress she experiences when she or anyone else touches her in that region, sexually or otherwise."
Kara finally pulled her hands off her face and leaned forward with a sigh, mirroring the flabbergasted Lena with elbows on her knees.
"Look Lena, I don’t actually — Rao — I — well, let’s just say that you’re not going to have to watch me...”
— her hands pulled at her sweatshirt collar, then rubbed against the knees of her sweatpants in an anxious push —
”...come or anything. I don’t do that. This isn’t something I enjoy doing. It’s work for me. That’s why we’re here, is I don’t like it, so I didn’t do it, and because of that, I freaked out. I got that cleat to my thigh, but it was right there …” her glance seemed almost apologetic towards their trainer, “against me you know, and when Chuck tried to check it when they carried me off the field, I freaked out and kicked him, ok?"
Blue eyes glared a hole in the carpet.
"I couldn’t handle it. So, you’re here because, for me to play, I have to prove that I’m working on being better at this. That I can handle something as simple as a massage or a therapist for a strain. And if I need someone to prove to them that I’m doing it, it’s worth it to play. So can you just … can you just do this? Please?"
She was finally making eye contact, and she looked so stressed and anxious, and God, Lena had no idea how to feel about this — like, how the hell was this an actual therapy? And —
But Lena knew the fear of not being able to play; that some injury would take her out of the game forever. And if this would let Kara stay, she could do it, right? Right?
Lena stayed there, looking into Kara’s troubled-sea eyes for a few seconds more.
She swallowed hard.
"Ok."
20 minutes later found her unpacking her bag at the foot of the bed closest to the bathroom, Kara’s things already stored in drawers or laid out on the bed by the window. The two women hovered in their separate areas, unsure how to move forward.
"Thanks for doing this, Lena," the blonde offered, sitting at the foot of the bed and staring somewhere in the vicinity of the TV. "I know it’s like … the worst and weirdest request ever but … it means a lot."
Lena couldn’t contain herself.
"Can I just ask one question?"
Kara’s head tipped a bit to the left, staring at Lena through her periphery.
"Why me?"
The forward flushed as Lena continued.
"I would have guessed you’d ask Cat, after Kaznia. Or Alex maybe, because of NCU."
"Actually, I did ask Alex."
Well, that made her heart drop into her stomach somewhat. I mean, it’s not that she was comfortable with this or anything! But ... it had felt oddly good knowing that Kara had asked her, and—
Her thoughts were interrupted as Kara continued:
"She knows a bit about how this all started and we’ve talked about it before, just a little. But when I asked, she said she didn’t think she could. There were reasons, and I didn’t want her to have to deal with them, so…"
Yikes. That must have been tough.
"...Oh."
"Yeah. And Cat, Cat is great. She’s actually checked in on me every day since the friendly."
Lena’s stomach felt heavy, and dark. "So why didn’t you ask her?" (Whoa, Lena, try to sound a little normal. You chose not to call.)
Kara smiled a bit, sort of sad and happy at once. "She’s wonderful, really. I didn’t ask her because, well, I wanted to keep that. Keep her as a person I could talk to about what it was all like. Not as someone who was involved with it all, but as a friend outside the mess."
Lena scuffed the toe of one sneaker with the other.
"…So what am I?"
Kara looked at her more fully, a curious intensity to her eyes that made Lena feel like the room heat had just turned on suddenly. Kara looked down.
"Someone who makes me feel safe."
3 hours later, they both returned from dinner; an awkward affair between them and the coaching staff, all but a few who were confused to see the two players there so early.
Lena and Kara sat next to each other, eating quietly, shoulders brushing occasionally as Coach Carter gabbed about her plans for the tournament. By silent but mutual agreement, they ate quickly, and departed before many others had even made it halfway through their own chicken, asparagus, and rice.
When they had both brushed their teeth, taking turns using the bathroom to change, they settled on top of the covers of their respective beds.
Despite the slow, stuffy drag of the last few hours, time never actually stops.
There were no more minutes left to drag.
With an almost guillotine-march trepidation, Lena adjusted her crossed legs and shuffled till she was facing the other woman.
"So…”
Pull it together, Lena.
“How do we do this? Am I supposed to watch, or just like, be here doing my own thing, or …"
Jesus, truly what was this supposed to look like?
Her alto trailed off in embarrassment.
Kara’s face was obscured by a hand but there were enough gaps to catch her smiling in a sort of crooked, pained way. "Think there’s any chance I can convince you to forget about this? Or lie for me?"
Lena shifted awkwardly.
"Yeah. I know." The sigh was resigned. "I don’t know, I haven’t exactly done this with someone before… Maybe — I don’t know —" Kara snorted suddenly. "Any chance you want to go first so we both have something to hold over each other’s heads?"
Lena froze, eyes snapping to the completely serious face.
They looked at each other…
Then Kara cracked a smile and Lena’s lungs unlatched like a drowning sailor into fresh air.
"Thought I was serious, did ya?"
A pillow quickly introduced itself to Kara’s face, dropping to reveal a mess of loose curls, giggles erupting from within.
"Shut up," Lena gasped, hand over her heart with a wild grin.
But the tension was broken, and Kara eased back a little more lightly into the headboard. "Did you bring a book? What if you get it out so you have something to focus on, and I’ll just … get under the covers and do my thing?"
Lena giggled a bit more, suddenly punch-drunk with the whole situation.
"Your thing?"
Kara eyes met the back of her head. "LUTHOR. Don’t tease." But she didn’t sound too mad.
They shuffled around a bit, Lena rustling in her bag for the 4th Harry Potter, Kara getting situated under the rose-colored, mystery-patterned hotel quilt.
When Lena got comfortably settled under her own quilt with the book, there was an audible pause in the room. She glanced at Kara — "Um…"
Another sigh. "Ok, so you read, and I’ll …"
"K," Lena said quickly.
She turned her gaze to the book and tried to make sense of any word on the page. All she could hear was the gentle shuffling in the bed next to her as Kara scooted down, and wow, was it hot in here? Lena grasped at her neckline in discomfort and tried to focus again. She wasn’t looking, really she wasn’t, but she could see the jostled movements of a hand under the comforter, there in the corner of her eyes, and — STOP, ok.
“The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall."
She was reading about Dennis Creevey being sorted into Gryffindor when a noise distracted her.
Lena slid her eyes to the left, trying not to give away that she was looking. There was still a bump under the comforter where she knew a hand must be but it had stilled and Kara’s other hand was over her eyes and she was — was she crying?
"… Kara?"
The other woman let out a sob.
Oh God, definitely crying. Think of something! Maybe... but no. Um — I could—
"It’s fine, Lena. It’s fine.” The voice was strained, like the metallic shrill of old bike gears clicking into action. “Can you just… turn out the light? I think that’s enough for tonight."
She couldn’t move — too paralyzed by the gentle weeping in the bed next to her.
"Lena." It was dagger sharp this time.
"Ok, yeah, yeah, I’ve got it." She leaned over and hit the switch, room collapsing into darkness. She could hear Kara turn over in bed; just vaguely see her curl into a ball under the covers by the light of a passing car. There were still quiet sniffles and Lena’s hands flexed in a fit of uselessness.
She didn’t know what to do.
But it didn’t feel like Kara would be open to anything either.
There was nothing left to do.
"… Goodnight, Kara."
The tremulous inhale made Lena’s ribcage shudder. "...Goodnight, Lena."
She waited a bit longer in the humid dark…
…But nothing came.
Lena turned over, facing the wall.
It took her a long while to fall asleep.