The first Kryptonian delegation arrives fourteen years ago. Lucy remembers the night her father gets called into the desert and disappears for three weeks. He returns but something has changed. His hugs are tighter and his words are wrong. Lois just rolls her eyes when Lucy brings it up. There's fear in his voice when he talks about the future. "Stay strong, Lucy." And she does.
She's a lawyer and a soldier when she learns the truth of those meetings. "What?"
Lois laughs and chides her father. "Dad..."
General Lane shifts his weight and tugs his uniform toward his waist. "It's not a joke." He clears his throat. "These unions create familial bonds. The House of El would be our allies."
“Why do we need allies?” Lucy narrows her eyes. “Sir, what’s really going on?”
He crosses his arms behind his back and says, “There’s a war coming and we’re going to have to choose sides carefully.” He tells them about his visit off-world fourteen years ago. To a planet with a red sun and technology centuries beyond Earth’s capabilities. He talks about the rivalry between the House of El and the House of Ur. The war of words and ideology that threatens to spill into violence across the galaxy. “They can squash us like bugs. We need to prepared. I need you—the world needs you—to do what’s best for all of us.” In the end, they agree. They are children of the Army. Lois will wed Kal El on Krypton and stay there gathering intel; Lucy will stay on Earth and marry Kara Zor-El, the heir of the House of El.
“A woman?” Lois turns toward her sister. “Are you okay with that?”
Lucy shrugs. “It’s never been a problem before.”
Her father’s face turns beet red and he clears his throat. "From what Alura tells me, these arrangements don't always produce children. It's more ceremonial than anything."
+
"Absolutely not." Kara puts her hands on her hips and stares her mother down.
Alura does not bend. "You have a duty-"
"To my people." She waves toward the viewport and the spinning blue and white globe below. "Not to those..." She makes a face. "Animals."
"It is done."
"I will never lie with one of them as equals."
+
Kara Zor-El hates Earth. It smells. Toxic fumes overlay the natural greenery and the winds carry the scent of waste everywhere she goes. The food tastes off. So much processing has made it almost inedible. She struggles to filter out the visual and audio noise that comes with her super hearing and x-ray vision. She barely follows the bonding ceremony performed according to Earth customs. She's shocked when her mate--Lucy?--leans forward and kisses her lips. It's a chaste kiss but so different from the Kryptonian ceremony that she stumbles a bit when her mate pulls back.
The woman stares at her with a lifted eyebrow and a defiant tilt to her head. Kara holds her stare and her senses still for the first time since landing on this backwater world.
+
Lucy returns to work the day after her wedding. There’s no honeymoon and Kara still lives off-world in her spaceship. She’s spent less than five minutes alone with Kara and she’s okay with that. Her father pulls her into the inner sanctum—an organization called the DEO—and she gets to work catching up on events beyond Earth.
+
Kara’s mother returns to Krypton forcing her daughter to set foot on Earth again. She finds Lucy’s apartment after a few circuits of the world and almost doesn’t stop because she’s found a new love of flying. The wind drowns out the noise of the world. She floats down the building until she spots Lucy sitting at a table and taps on the glass.
Lucy jumps and then rushes over. She opens the window and pulls her inside. Kara lets her. “I was wondering if I’d see you tonight.”
Kara cocks her head to the side. Without the wind, she hears everything and struggles to stay focused. “Why?”
Lucy spins around the device on her table and waves at it. There are several images of Kara flying from various locales around the world.
Kara smiles.
Lucy sighs. “Do you know how many people saw you tonight?”
Kara shrugs. “What are they going to do? Stop me?"
Lucy admits she has a point.
+
Kara stays the night. Lucy pulls a bed from her couch and puts fresh sheets on it. Kara is surprised that the fabric smell doesn’t turn her stomach. It smells less like the chemicals the humans spray on their bodies and more like Lucy. She finds it comforting. She strips out of her jumpsuit and crawls into bed naked.
Lucy pauses mid turn and stares. Kara's got an athletic build—a soldier’s body with scars along her back and legs. Lucy’s mouth goes dry. She looks so…human.
Kara hears her heart rate go up as she crawls into bed. She tells her this in a voice devoid of emotion.
Lucy refuses to feel shame. “Is that all you can hear?”
Kara shakes her head. “I can hear the woman in the hall muttering to herself. I can hear the mechanical sounds of your building in the walls. I can hear music from at least three…maybe four locations…I can hear…” She closes her eyes and lists all the sounds in her vicinity until she can’t distinguish them anymore.
“Can you turn it off?” Lucy asks.
Kara opens her eyes and there’s a hint of uncertainty—the most emotion she’s shown to Lucy. “I don’t know.” Her blue eyes stare at her. “I’ve never slept on Earth.”
Lucy nods and leaves but comes back with a pair of soft yellow and orange spongy material. She holds out her hand.
Kara reaches for them and cradles them in her hand. “What are they?”
“Earplugs.” She plucks one and points toward Kara’s head. Kara nods. “You put them in.” Lucy leans over and tucks Kara’s hair behind her ear and says, “Like this.” She knows her heartbeat has picked up again. Kara is so close she can feel her heat and smell her scent. It’s like tiger lilies strong and cloying and entirely too much for such a small space.
Kara sits up and takes her hand. She tucks the other plug inside her ear and her shoulders slump. The relief is palpable. Kara cups Lucy’s hands in hers and says, “Thank you."
+
General Lane is furious. "You've got to make her stop. Keep a low profile."
Lucy holds up her hands. "Like I can stop her." She's already dealing with fallout from the neighborhood; she'll have to move soon to protect Kara's secret.
"She's your wife. Talk to her."
"In name only. I've barely had two conversations with her." Lucy spins on her heel and storms out.
+
Kara looks up as the door to the apartment opens and smiles. A book is resting in her lap. The earplugs still stuffed in her ears. She's spent a restful day on the couch. Her nose twitches and she's next to Lucy in a burst of super speed. "What's that smell?"
Lucy hands off a few plastic bags and Kara digs through them until she comes to the black container. She looks for a release button and then realizes it just comes off. It's her first food on Earth that smells like home; she pulls the crescent shaped dough into her mouth and moans at the taste. She inhales the whole set before she looks up and says, "Is there anymore?"
Lucy laughs. "Okay, so potstickers are a go." She waves at the other bags. "Help yourself." She spots the earplugs still in her ears and taps her shoulder. Kara spins mid-chew. "Did those work?"
Kara smiles and nods. "I can still hear you and the sounds of the apartment but it's tolerable." She looks down at her feet. "Can you get more?"
Lucy rummages in another bag and pulls an identical set out.
Kara grins and snatches them up.
+
Kara's metabolism is incredibly high; Lucy's food budget shoots through the roof. She makes the Army pick up the tab.
Kara loves Asian cuisine. Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Korean. Japanese and Indian are a little further afield for her but she consumes it with relish. They talk over dinner. At first it's the food and the spices. The differences between Kryptonian cooking and Earth cooking. Then it's their work. Kara, like her mother, is a legal advocate on her home planet. They share a fierce devotion to justice. Lucy tells her about a particularly grueling case and at the end of it, Kara puts her hand on hers and says, "That should not have happened."
Lucy brushes away a tear. "No." She swallows. "It wasn't fair." Lucy squeezes her hand and pulls away.
+
Kara continues to fly day or night whenever the mood strikes her. Lucy's apartment is too small and she's bored easily. She reads through her entire personal library including the law books. She tries her hand at the Internet but finds the lack of voice recognition irritating.
She's shot out of the sky over Moscow four weeks after her first night at Lucy's place. She's held in an underground bunker and trapped behind bars that she cannot bend. She rages at them shouting Kryptonian curses and discovers her heat vision only to burn it out against the metal to no effect. When her captors return, she's fully human and the experiments begin.
+
Kara's lost count of the days she's spent underground. She has regained and lost her powers at least twice. She's pretty sure she's not human again if the green glow next to her cell and nausea in her stomach is anything to go by.
Explosions rock Kara's senses and flashes of light shoot across her retina. She hears gunfire and pulse rifles and then the door slams to the ground. A squad of soldiers rush the room--weapons out and clears the area. One of them walks toward her cage and wraps her hands around the bars. "Kara?"
Kara squints in the smoke and shadow. The skeletal outline is familiar. "Lucy?"
"Major." Another soldier hands Lucy the keys and she opens the door and hurries inside. She drops her rifle to the ground and cups Kara's face. Her hands feel so clean against the filth and the bruises. Her hand curls around Lucy's. "Help..." She points toward the glowing rock.
Lucy pivots and shouts, "Get that rock out of here." She looks down at her wi--Kara and says, "Bring it back to base, but in another vehicle." She turns and helps Kara to her feet. Kara sags against her. Lucy murmurs, "It's okay I've got you." Kara closes her eyes and lets her take care of her.
+
Kara refuses to stay at the DEO. Lucy watches her struggle and plead until she can't take it anymore. "Leave us."
The entire room goes silent. Lucy turns and stares each one of them down and then using all the authority her rank and her status affords her, she says, "That's an order. I want to be with my wife."
Kara stares up at her. Her face is so gaunt and there's still dried blood on her forehead. "Please take me home."
Lucy reaches down and runs her hand along her arms and twines their hands together. Kara squeezes her hand and Lucy can feel the strength in that touch. "I wish I could." She sighs thinking how she could get her back to Krypton. “But I don’t know how."
Kara pushes up and twists her body. She tips forward and Lucy catches her before she pitches to the floor. “Not Krypton.” Lucy’s arms circle her body and steady her. She looks up through her hair and says, “Your home."
Lucy’s breath catches and she tilts Kara's head up. She leans down and brushes a kiss next to her lips. “Okay."
Kara's body tenses and then melts into her.
+
Kara’s capture changes her. She stops flying altogether and sticks close to home—Lucy’s home.
Lucy cuts back on her hours at DEO headquarters and works from home. She pours over their Russian counterparts ‘research’ on Kara and is equal parts amazed at her abilities and appalled by their behavior. She does not question when Kara occasionally wakes up screaming—she just holds her and sings her back to sleep.
Kara continues to plow through earplugs and complains of headaches from suppressing her X-ray vision just to function normally. Lucy looks for a solution and finds them lying in Alex Danvers’ lab—a pair of lead lined radiation glasses.
Kara puts them on. The silence is so abrupt it feels like her ear drums have popped. She looks around and the X-ray vision is gone. She yanks them off and everything is back. She puts them back on and smiles. "These are perfect.”
The glasses bring new life to Kara. Her senses dulled she can enjoy the world around her without the overload. She absorbs weeks and weeks of television. Lucy buys her a Kindle and expenses the books Kara buys to the U.S. government. When the costs start to skyrocket, she takes her to the National City Library. She spends hours reading through the reference section—law, science, history. She reads everything. And she talks to anyone. She asks questions and becomes the favorite of the librarians.
Lucy picks her up one day and one of the staff pulls her aside. “You must be Lucy. Kara speaks so highly of you.” She leans in and Lucy sees Kara wandering through the stacks behind her. "My brother’s on the spectrum and watching him struggle for connection...” She pauses. “It’s hard.” She takes a deep breath. “But seeing Kara with you.” She shakes her head. “She makes me smile.”
Lucy just stares at her as she walks off.
Kara bounds over to her. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming to get me.” She leans in and links their arms together. “I could have taken the bus.”
Lucy shrugs and returns her half hug. “I know but I wanted to take you someplace after work.”
Kara’s face lights up and she bounces on her toes. “Where?”
Because this two has changed since the glasses. She spends hours and hours walking the city. A couple weeks ago, she lost track of time and came home late. Lucy pounced on her as soon as she was in the door. “Where have you been?” After her initial surprise, Kara recognizes the question for what it is—worry—and showers her with apologies and a promise to do better. The next day Lucy hands Kara a phone and says, “So I don’t lose you.” She spends the next twenty minutes showing her how it works.
Lucy takes her to a Chinatown restaurant with the best potstickers in town.
+
Kara no longer sleeps on her couch but cuddles up in her bed. That first night back, she held Kara while she slept but after the fifth night in a row of falling asleep on that fold out, Lucy surrenders. They even have sides but most nights end with Kara wrapped around her. She wakes up one morning and realizes it’s been almost a year together. Almost two since her relationship with James went sideways.
Kara shifts and leans her head against her chest. "I can hear your heartbeat."
Lucy smiles and threads her fingers through Kara’s hair. The play of light and dark are an interesting match--similar and yet so different. She wonders what it would be like to see more of her. In over a year she’s seen her naked dozen of times but she’s been careful to protect Kara’s privacy. There’s been no overture and no indication that sex is something Kryptonians do. If Kara’s anything to judge by, they are natural cuddlers.
Kara chuckles and Lucy knows that she’s been found out. “It’s racing.” Kara walks her fingers up her arm and Lucy shivers.
“Kara…”
Kara tilts her head up and says, “I can smell you.”
Lucy reaches out and pulls her face closer. Kara closes her eyes. Their mouths brushed together once, twice and then Lucy surges up and into her mouth demanding entrance with her tongue.
+
The first taste of Lucy's mouth is wet and messy and Kara loves every minute of it. The open mouth kiss is something new to her but she’s an enthusiastic partner. They trade turns controlling the speed and tempo until Lucy pulls away with a gasp and says, “Need…to…breathe.”
Kara opens her eyes and grins. “Sorry.” She scrambles across the bed, stuffs her glasses on, and yanks her earplugs out.
Lucy’s face falls. “Are we…”
Kara hurries back and straddles her waist. “No.” She leans down and kisses her again and again before she pulls back. Her blue eyes intent through the lenses. "I just want to see and hear you like I would at home.”
Lucy bites her lip and closes her eyes. The warmth that suffuses inside her is both sexual and deeper—almost like love.
+
Kara explores human sexuality with the same zeal as everything else on Earth. They talk about the differences between Kryptonian sexuality and Earth sexuality or, in Lucy’s case, American sexuality. She reads—the Kama Sutra, Anais Nin, Marquis de Sade, Kinsey and much more. She spends almost $800 on porn sites before Lucy puts a stop to that. Kara fights her on that one until Lucy says, “I can’t afford for you to explore this side of your sexuality. If you get a job, you can watch whatever you want on the Internet. Until then, find a free outlet.” So she does.
There are moments of hurt when Lucy comes home to find her with another person followed by moments of clarity when Kara learns the differences between monogamous and non-monogamous relationships. Kryptonians have no words for those types of relationships but Kara learns their meaning in relationship to Lucy. She pulls back on other lovers and turns toward Lucy exclusively.
+
Lucy learns more about her sexual needs in three months with Kara than in all seven years of her relationships combined. Kara pushes, pulls and meets Lucy all the way. She’s amazing, infuriating, and exhausting.
+
The first attacks come to National City in the middle of the night and target the West Coast, Northern Europe, South Africa and Siberia. Kara rolls out of bed already dressed in her black jumpsuit while Lucy shrugs into her shirt. She knows those weapons. She grabs Lucy and says, “I need to go.”
Lucy shimmies into her jeans and reaches out for her. “Wait…”
Kara shakes her head. “Those are my people out there. They need to be stopped.” She nods toward the door. “Go. Alert the others and find me.”
She hears the whoosh of air outside and swings Lucy behind her before the windows explode. Glass flies everywhere.
Lucy pushes her. “Go.” Kara races out and jumps into the sky.
+
The casualties are devastating but the DEO is ready with Kryptonite bullets and armor. Kara holds off the worst of the attacks in National City with her body alone but there’s multiple targets.
Lucy coordinates with her worldwide counterparts. After the DEO’s destruction of their Russian counterpart, the United Nations brokered a truce between the US and Russia before appointing the UN Security Council to oversee extraterrestrial threats. But there’s only so much Kryptonite to go around. Only the South Africans have synthesized a stable substitute.
Kal El's arrival in orbit with reinforcements comes well after whole cities in Northern Europe are burned to the ground and Siberia returned to the stone age but just before South Africa, National City and the West Coast succumb through sheer numbers and dwindling resources.
Afterwards, Kara flies Lucy around the world to survey the damage—it’s the first time she takes her flying—and she meets her cousin in the rubble of Amsterdam.
She wraps her arms around him and he wipes a smudge of dirt from her cheek. “You look awful, cousin.” He speaks English with no trace of an accent.
She answers him in Kryptonese. “I’ve been better."
He looks over her shoulder and lets go. “You must be Lucy.” He smiles. “Lois speaks well of you.” His smile breaks into a grin.
Lucy reaches out and shakes his hand. He pulls her into a hug before he lets go. She steps back and Kara slips her hand into hers. Kal El smiles at the gesture.
Lucy speaks first. “This isn’t over, is it?”
Kal El shakes his head. “No. This was just a test. The House of Ur will be back.” His thoughts are open to her. He’s been sent to bring her back.
Kara shakes her head. “I can’t go back.” She listens to the survivors calling out for their loved ones and sees the people trapped in the buildings. “These people are my people now.” She takes a deep breath and turns around. “They need my help.” She reaches out and Lucy takes her hand before she goes to work.
+
Kara’s official title after the attacks is Ambassador but one enterprising media outlet dubs her Supergirl and the moniker sticks. Kal El stays to help her build a Kryptonian base of operations near the Arctic circle. Kara loses her anonymity and Lucy’s role in Extraterrestrial Affairs is no longer secret. She’s promoted to Colonel and spends her work life traveling around the world securing Earth’s defenses. Lois returns and leaves again with Kal El but not before publishing a series of articles on Kryptonian culture and signing with CatCo Media to be the first off-world correspondent.
Kara meets Lucy when she can. Flying to whatever locale she’s at. She misses the quiet of their life before the attacks but loves the freedom flying gives her again.
Not everyone embraces her presence and there are death threats and bomb scares for both Lucy and her.
After another near miss, Kara loses it in the ER while Lucy is getting stitches. “You’ve got to stop taking these unnecessary risks. At least wait for me.”
Lucy’s eyes widen. “Wait for you? I’m a soldier, Kara. I run toward danger not away.” The doctor clears up her supplies and leaves them alone.
Kara comes over and crouches in front of her. “You don’t have to.” She cups her face and kisses her. "You have me."
Lucy frowns. “You’re not invulnerable."
Kara returns her frown. “Neither are you.” She sighs and leans her forehead against her. “It scares me. Every time I hear you’ve been hurt.”
Lucy pushes her back and says, “How do you think I feel? Every time you jump into the air?” She shakes her head. “We lead dangerous lives. It’s the price of who we are.”
+
Lucy finds her on the roof of their new apartment in National City. Kara sits with her feet dangling off the edge of the roof. Pulling her jacket closer, she walks over and settle down next to her. “What’s going on?”
Kara opens her arm and Lucy snuggles into her side. “Why do you think something’s going on?”
She leans up and brushes a kiss against her cheek nudging the glasses slightly askew. “You only come up here when you need to think.”
Kara chuckles and adjusts her lenses. “I do?”
Lucy smiles and nudges her. “You do.”
Kara sighs. “The view reminds me of home.”
Lucy looks out at the city. “Do you miss it?”
Kara shrugs. “Sometimes. I know it’s there.”
“You could go back.” Lucy takes a deep breath. “I’d go with you.” She swallows. “If you want…”
Kara looks down. “You would?”
Lucy cups her face. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Kara grins.
Lucy rolls her eyes. “There’s a saying in the Old Testament between two women. A mother and a daughter about their love for each other. 'Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people.'
Kara whispers, "El mayarah.” Lucy cocks an eyebrow at her and she continues, “It's our family motto. Stronger together.” Kara leans in and kisses Lucy with a devotion she’s never applied in all their lovemaking and sexual adventures.
Lucy’s body tingles down to her toes and she pulls away with awe in her voice. “Kara, that was…wow.”
Kara leans her head against her and says, “I love you, too."