Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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⭐ CHAPTER 1 — “The Universe Remembers Her Name”

Scene 1 — “The World Forms Wrong”

POV: Kara Danvers

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The rebirth of a universe is not quiet.

It is not peaceful.

It is a scream of creation—light and heat colliding in a cosmic roar that tears through every atom in Kara’s body.

When reality snaps back into place, she is blinded. Deafened. Weightless.

Then—

Gravity returns.

Heat bleeds away.

The deafening silence of the void is replaced by the distant hum of city life reforming around her.

Kara drops onto her knees.

National City stands before her.

Whole. Clean. Intact.

She hears her own heartbeat first—rapid, erratic, too loud in her ears. The last thing she remembers is the collapse: Argo burning, worlds dying one after another, her own scream swallowed by the void between universes as she clung to the last fragments of hope.

She had promised Lena she would come back.

Her lungs strain as she forces air into them.

“Lena.”

A whisper. Too soft, too fragile—like speaking her name might break her again.

Kara pushes to her feet, vision sharpening with Kryptonian clarity. She should be checking on her team, on her city, on the thousands of lives being rewritten around her.

But she can only think of one person.

She flies.

Not gracefully—she launches too hard, overshoots, nearly crashes into a skyscraper before catching herself. Her hands shake. She can barely breathe.

She lands in front of L-Corp hard enough to make the sidewalk tremble.

Except—

It isn’t L-Corp.

The building is sleek, silver, and unfamiliar. A name she’s never seen gleams across the façade in bold corporate lettering, replacing the elegant LUTHOR logo she knew so well.

Her stomach drops.

No. No, this isn’t—

She pushes inside, brushing past confused workers who seem as disoriented as newborns. People are still adjusting, still reforming into this reality—but that doesn’t matter.

None of it matters.

“Excuse me,” she gasps to the nearest employee, grabbing his arm. “The CEO—Lena Luthor. Where’s her office?”

The man blinks rapidly, as if the name stirs nothing.

Because it doesn’t.

“I’m sorry—who?”

Kara’s breath halts mid-inhale.

“Lena Luthor,” she repeats. “Luthor. Lena Luthor.”

He shakes his head. “There’s no one here by that name. There’s never been.”

The world tilts.

Kara releases him numbly and stumbles backward, heart hammering so violently she feels it in her fingertips.

No Lena here.

No Luthor here.

That’s impossible.

Lena was here.

Lena was alive.

Lena was everything.

Kara runs—actually runs, like flight is too unstable in her chest.

She tries Lena’s penthouse next.

Empty.

Not empty like abandoned—empty like it never existed.

Her knees weaken.

Every step she takes feels heavier, like gravity is thickening around her. Like the universe itself is resisting her will.

“Kara?”

She turns sharply.

Alex is standing at the entrance to the Tower, hair mussed, eyes wide with worry. “Thank God,” she breathes, pulling Kara into a hug. “Are you okay? Where did you—”

“Alex.” Kara grips her sister’s arms. Too tight. Desperate. “Where is she?”

Alex frowns. “Who?”

“Lena!” Kara nearly shouts. “Lena Luthor. Where is she?”

Alex’s brows draw inward, worried.

“Kara… the only Luthor that exists here is Lex.”

She hesitates, then adds gently,

“There’s no record of a Lena Luthor at all. Not in the city. Not anywhere.”

Kara’s breath catches like she’s been stabbed.

“No,” she whispers. “No, that’s not—Alex, she was here. She was. She—”

Her voice breaks.

J’onn emerges behind Alex. His eyes widen with alarm.

“Kara.” His voice is soft but laced with urgency. “Your mind—your memories—something is… off-balance.”

“Off-balance?” Kara repeats, almost laughing. “She’s missing, J’onn.”

She turns wildly toward them. “Help me find her. Please. I can’t—I can’t feel her. I always feel her. And now I—she’s gone.”

J’onn’s brow furrows deeper, his voice troubled.

“There is no psychic trace by that name. No history. No emotional imprint. This world… it never had a Lena Luthor.”

The words hit like a solar flare to the chest.

Kara’s knees buckle.

She tries to breathe and fails. Her vision goes blurry—not from tears alone, but from the ripple in reality itself. The edges of the room shimmer. The walls flicker. The ground hums like a live wire.

Alex grabs her arms. “Kara! Kara, look at me!”

But Kara can’t see Alex.

She can’t see anything except the fracture across her heart.

“She—she promised,” Kara whispers, voice trembling. “She promised she’d stay. And I— I told her I’d come back. I told her—”

The words dissolve into sobs.

Her powers spike. Air whips through the Tower in a violent gust, papers flying off desks, alarms flickering on and off as her emotional control slips completely.

“Kara!” Alex shakes her. “You’re destabilizing—”

But Kara can’t hear.

Her breath is a ragged gasp. Her palms shake uncontrollably.

The universe rebuilt itself—

but it left Lena out.

It left Kara alone.

Again.

And this time, the wound is deeper than any she has ever felt.

She collapses into Alex’s arms as her entire body folds under the weight of a grief so vast it cracks the edges of reality.

“Lena…” she breathes, voice breaking like glass.

“I promised I’d come back for you.”

The lights flicker again—harder, sharper, like the world itself is struggling to stay still.

Kara sobs as everything inside her fractures.

And the universe… flickers with her.

---

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⭐ CHAPTER 1 — “The Universe Remembers Her Name”

Scene 2 — “You Can’t Fix What Isn’t Here”

POV: Kara (with Barry)

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Kara doesn’t remember leaving the Tower.

One moment, Alex’s arms are around her, J’onn’s voice is somewhere behind the roar in her head, the lights are flickering—

—and then there’s sky.

Cold air slaps her face, sharp and thin at this altitude. Wind claws at her hair, at the edges of her cape. National City sprawls beneath her like a painting she only half recognizes, familiar enough to hurt.

She’s on the roof of some anonymous high-rise, knees pulled to her chest, cape pooled around her like a torn banner. At some point she must have flown here on instinct, but she doesn’t remember deciding to move at all.

Her fingers dig into her own arms, nails biting through the fabric of her suit.

Lena’s name sits on her tongue like a live wire. Saying it again feels dangerous. The universe already responded once.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

This can’t be real.

This has to be some kind of residual hallucination from the void. A psychic misfire. A—

“Hey.”

The single word cuts through the wind.

Kara’s eyes snap open.

There’s a man standing a few feet away, hands lifted slightly like he knows better than to rush her. The breeze tugs at the edges of his leather jacket, the faint crackle of residual lightning running along his sleeves.

Barry.

He looks as wrecked as she feels. His hair is a mess, eyes ringed with exhaustion and worry, the red of his suit peeking out beneath the half-zipped jacket like a heartbeat. For a heartbeat, she flashes back to another rooftop, another apocalypse averted, another moment where she thought the worst was over.

This feels worse.

“Barry,” she croaks. Her voice sounds shredded. “Did you—did your world—?”

“It’s holding.” He swallows, then grimaces. “For now.”

She nods without really seeing him, turning her gaze back to the skyline. The city lights flicker faintly, as if the grid is still settling. Bits of debris fall from the occasional building, remnants of a battle that technically never happened.

The wind whistles through the gap between them.

Barry takes a cautious step closer. “Alex called. Said you… ran.”

Kara laughs, a short, broken sound. “I didn’t run,” she says bitterly. “I escaped. There’s a difference.”

Barry’s eyes soften. “Kara—”

“She doesn’t remember her,” Kara blurts.

The words feel like shards tearing their way out.

Barry stops moving. “Who?”

Kara turns her head, slowly, like it costs her something.

“Lena,” she whispers. “Lena Luthor. She was here. She fought with us.” Her hand curls into a fist over her own chest. “She was on that ship when everything fell apart. She—” Her voice cracks. “I promised I’d get us through it. I promised I’d come back to her.”

Barry’s brow furrows. “Kara, I—”

“This new world,” Kara says, her breath starting to hitch again, “this Earth-Prime—the one Lex rewrote— it doesn’t have her in it.” She laughs again, harsh and wet with tears. “Alex doesn’t remember her. J’onn doesn’t. The system doesn’t. There are no records. No news articles. No L-Corp. No penthouse. No—anything.”

Her eyes are wild now, shining with tears and something else. Something broken and furious and fragile all at once.

“It’s like she never existed.”

The last word leaves her in a whisper.

Barry’s face pales.

He glances around them instinctively, eyes unfocusing for a moment in that way they do when he’s listening to something only he can hear. Kara watches a faint ripple of blue-white energy curl around his wrists, like the Speed Force is answering a question she can’t hear.

He comes back to himself with a quiet inhale.

“You’re sure?” he asks softly.

Kara’s jaw tightens. “I know her,” she says. “I remember everything. The first time we met. The coffee. The wine. The fights. The… the way she looks at me when I make her laugh.” Her voice softens on that last part against her will. “You don’t just—misplace someone like that.”

“No,” Barry agrees quietly. “You don’t.”

He steps closer, lowering himself to sit beside her, leaving a respectful gap between them. They sit like that for a few long seconds, side by side on the edge of a too-new world.

Kara’s eyes burn.

“I thought losing Argo was the worst thing I’d ever feel,” she murmurs. “Watching a whole civilization burn. Watching the sky fall. But in the void, all I could think about was her. Over and over. Every choice I made. Every time I hurt her. Every time I didn’t say what I should’ve.”

Barry doesn’t interrupt.

“I kept replaying it,” Kara whispers. “Like if I got it right in my head, maybe it would be right when I got back.” Her fingers twist in her cape. “I realized in there that I… I love her.”

Saying it out loud feels like standing on the edge of an open wound.

Barry’s chest rises and falls slowly. Of all the people she could have admitted that to first, she realizes distantly, he might be the only one who would understand.

“And now she’s gone,” Kara says.

The world hums beneath them, an almost imperceptible vibration that prickles across her skin. She ignores it.

Barry exhales. “Lex rewrote reality,” he says softly. “We know that. He reset the board to favor himself. Made himself the hero, the savior, the center of everything.” His mouth twists. “Even with the Paragons and the Monitor’s power, it was… messy.”

“Messy?” Kara snaps, turning on him. “He deleted her, Barry.”

“I know.” He doesn’t flinch. “And that’s exactly what scares me.”

Kara blinks, thrown off. “Scares you?”

Barry rubs a hand over his face. “I talked to the others. To Ray. To Sara. There are… inconsistencies. Little things that don’t line up with what we remember. People who survived when they shouldn’t have, or died when they didn’t. The timeline we’re standing in? It’s stitched. Forced. Like someone pulled it too tight.”

He looks at her, really looks at her, gaze searching.

“But what you’re describing?” he adds softly. “Removing a person root-and-branch? That’s not a stitch. That’s a void.”

The word sinks into Kara’s bones.

Void.

She remembers the silence out there between dying universes. The crushing, endless emptiness that pressed in on her from all sides, threatening to peel her apart atom by atom.

This feels worse.

“I can’t…” She swallows hard. “I can’t leave it like this.”

Barry studies her face. “Kara—”

“I won’t,” she says, more fiercely. Her hands are shaking again, but there’s something new underneath the tremor now. Steel. “I got the whole multiverse back and somehow lost her? No. No, that’s not— That’s not a bargain I’m willing to live with.”

The city lights below them flicker again. Not a power surge this time—something deeper, a split-second warping of distance and color that makes Barry’s head jerk around.

He sees it too.

“Kara,” he says slowly, “how long have things been… doing that when you get upset?”

She blinks at him. “Doing what?”

He gestures vaguely at the horizon. “Glitching.”

“It’s not—” She stops, replaying the last hour. Lights in the Tower stuttering. The floor humming. The air bending. “Since Alex said Lena’s name like she’d never heard it before,” she admits. “Since J’onn told me there was no trace of her.”

Barry goes very still.

“Right,” he murmurs, more to himself than to her. “That tracks.”

Kara stares. “What tracks?”

Barry shifts to face her fully, drawing in a steadying breath.

“You’re a Paragon, Kara. Hope itself, right? You carried part of the universe’s foundation inside you through the Crisis. And then you spent months in the void clinging to one thing: Lena Luthor.”

Her throat tightens.

“Your mind, your heart, your powers—” He gestures to her. “They all centered around her. Around getting back to her. Around loving her.” His eyes soften. “If Lex rewrote reality without accounting for that anchor? You’re a walking paradox now.”

She wants to deny it. Argue. Insist that she’s just… breaking down. That this is trauma, not cosmic mechanics.

But the way the air hums around them says otherwise.

“So what?” Kara whispers. “I just get to remember a person no one else does? I get to know that somewhere, there was a world where she laughed, and fought, and saved people, and…” Her voice catches. “And chose me. And this one doesn’t?”

Barry hesitates.

He could sugarcoat this. She knows he could. He doesn’t.

“Sometimes,” he says gently, “the only way to fix a paradox is to… address it at the source.”

Kara looks at him, eyes burning. “In English, Barry.”

He takes a breath.

“You’re asking the wrong question,” he says. “It’s not ‘why does only Kara remember Lena?’ It’s ‘what does a universe do when one of its anchors refuses to let go of someone the rewrite erased?’”

She stares at him.

The wind howls.

“So what does it do?” she asks quietly.

Barry meets her gaze steadily.

“It bends,” he says. “Until someone breaks it. Or reshapes it.”

The word reshapes lands between them like a challenge.

Kara feels something inside her—some deep, buried nerve—twitch.

“You can’t fix what isn’t here,” Barry continues softly. “If the rewrite removed her entirely, there’s no trace to restore. No thread to pull on. No body to revive. No timeline where she just… shows back up.” He swallows. “If you want Lena back, you’d have to go to a version of reality where she still exists. Where she hasn’t been cut out yet. And you’d have to change things there.”

The implication hits her like a truck.

“You’re talking about time travel.”

Barry nods once. “Yeah.”

A beat passes.

“You told me the Speed Force was broken,” she says, almost mechanically. “Burned out in the Crisis. That it needed time to recover. That we shouldn’t—”

“I told you we shouldn’t,” Barry says. “Not that we couldn’t.” His jaw tightens. “And that was before I knew Lex had ripped someone out of your reality so completely that the universe keeps glitching when you think about her.”

He glances at the shimmering horizon again.

“The rules are already broken, Kara. Lex saw to that.”

Kara’s heart hammers so hard she feels slightly sick.

Go back.

Back before the lie. Before the hurt. Before Lex got his claws into Lena’s pain. Back to coffee and soft smiles and the way Lena’s eyes lit up when Kara walked into a room, even when she tried to hide it.

“Could we?” she asks, barely above a whisper. “Could we really go back far enough?”

Barry’s eyes flick to hers. They’re the eyes of a man who has lost his mother a dozen different ways and still wishes, just once, he could get it right.

“The Speed Force isn’t what it was,” he admits. “It’s… raw. Less like a highway now and more like a storm.” He gives a humorless half-smile. “Controlled chaos, if we’re lucky.”

Kara waits.

“But it responds to emotion,” he continues quietly. “To need. To love. It always has. That’s… kind of my whole deal.” He shrugs weakly. “If anyone can punch through to before the rewrite, it’s someone the universe tried—and failed—to overwrite.”

Someone like her.

Kara looks down at her hands.

They’ve held so many things. Broken bones. Broken hearts. Falling planes. Dying stars. Lena’s fingers, once, warm and shaking, when they almost lost someone they couldn’t bear to lose.

The idea of reaching back—of literally clawing her way into an earlier version of her life—terrifies her.

But not as much as staying here, in a world where Lena Luthor never was.

“What if it goes wrong?” she asks, because she has to. “What if I make it worse?”

Barry exhales slowly. “It might,” he answers honestly. “Time travel always carries that risk. You know that.” He gives her a faint, sad smile. “But you’re not asking to fix a bad day or save a stranger. You’re trying to restore a person who should never have been erased. That has weight.”

His expression softens.

“And Kara? You’ve already survived the worst version of this. You lost her once and the universe didn’t collapse. You didn’t.”

She almost did, but she lets him have it.

“She doesn’t even know,” Kara whispers. “In this world—or any world—that I…” She swallows. “I never told her.”

Barry’s gaze is kind. “Then maybe that’s what changes,” he says. “This time.”

The wind quiets around them, like the city itself is listening.

Kara stares out over National City, at the glittering glass, the faint plumes of smoke, the ambulance lights threading through streets that don’t remember the last catastrophe.

Somewhere, in some other version of now, Lena is alive. Working. Laughing. Shooting her a dry look over a glass of scotch, pretending she doesn’t care as much as she does.

Kara closes her eyes.

“I can’t live in a world where she never existed,” she says. Her voice is soft, but it’s steady now. “Not after everything. Not after knowing what we could have been.”

When she opens her eyes, the indecision is gone.

“I want to go back,” she says. “To when she still has a chance. To when I still have a chance.” She meets Barry’s gaze, blue locked on brown. “Help me.”

Barry doesn’t answer right away.

He looks at her, really looks—at the tremor in her hands, the exhaustion in her shoulders, the fire in her eyes that somehow survived the void. At the way the air near her seems just slightly… warped, like reality is struggling to accommodate her refusal to accept what it’s been told.

He sighs.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, Kara. We’ll try.”

Her breath shudders out of her in something like relief and terror tangled together.

“But,” he adds, holding up a finger, “we do this carefully. No running blindly into the past. No punching random holes in the timeline. We plan. We aim. We go to a point where Lena is still alive, where the board can still be changed without tearing everything apart.”

Kara nods. “Before Lex gets to her,” she says. “Before he poisons everything. Before I hurt her the way I did.”

“And you understand,” Barry continues, “that changing things there might change… a lot. Not just between you and her. The whole board. Friends. Enemies. Battles. Losses. You might not get the exact same world you remember.”

Kara thinks of a world without Lena.

“I don’t want the world I remember,” she says quietly. “I want one where she survives it.”

A beat.

“And one where I don’t keep lying to her.”

Barry’s mouth twitches, almost into a smile. “There she is.”

Kara snorts softly, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Where do we start?” she asks.

Barry pushes himself to his feet and offers her a hand. Tiny arcs of lightning crackle along his fingers, forming and fading in time with his pulse.

“First?” he says. “We talk to the Speed Force.”

Kara takes his hand.

The contact sends a jolt through her—not painful, but sharp. For a second, the world around them seems to smear at the edges, the city lights stretching into thin streaks, the stars above them flaring bright and close. A rushing sound fills her ears, like distant thunder or a river running backward through time.

Then it’s gone.

Kara sucks in a breath.

“The hell was that?” she whispers.

Barry’s eyes are wide. “That,” he says slowly, “was it saying hello to you.”

He looks a little rattled, which alarms her more than she wants to admit.

“Is that… bad?” Kara asks carefully.

Barry hesitates.

“It’s… unusual,” he settles on. “It normally only does that to me. Or other speedsters. Not—” His gaze rakes over her. “Not to Paragons who just confessed they’re ready to bend time for the girl they love.”

Heat floods Kara’s cheeks. “Barry—”

“I’m just saying.” He lifts his hands defensively. “If it’s responding to you this strongly already, we may have a better shot than I thought.”

He steps back, eyes scanning the horizon, calculating, already shifting into strategist mode.

“I’ll need to recalibrate my connection,” he mutters. “Anchor you somehow. Find a convergence point before Lex rewrites too much of the surrounding events. If we aim too close to the Crisis, we risk hitting the rewrite directly. We need to jump further back. To when Lena’s still…”

He trails off, looking at her.

“Still what?” Kara asks, though she already knows.

“Still reachable,” Barry says softly. “Before the hurt calcifies. Before Lex weaponizes it.”

Kara swallows.

Images flash behind her eyes: Lena in a white pantsuit, offering her a second chance over a glass of wine. Lena in a lab, hands shaking as she tries to save everyone alone. Lena on a balcony, voice trembling with betrayal. Lena’s eyes wet as she says I don’t know if I can trust you.

A lump forms in Kara’s throat.

“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” she says. “Whatever point you can land us on.”

Barry nods once. “Then we start now.”

He glances up at the sky.

“Take a breath,” he advises. “Once we start talking to it, things might move fast.”

Kara almost laughs. “Since when do they not?”

He smiles, small but real. “Fair.”

Lightning flickers faintly at the edges of his irises as he closes his eyes, reaching inward toward something Kara can’t quite perceive. But she feels it—like static, like the air just before a storm, like the moment before a jump from a building when you’re not sure your powers will catch you.

For the first time since the void, Kara feels something other than grief and shock and hollow, gnawing loss.

She feels possibility.

Dangerous. Terrifying. Irresponsible, maybe.

But possibility all the same.

She looks out at the city one last time—the version of Earth-Prime that never knew Lena Luthor.

“Hold on, Lena,” she whispers, barely audible over the rising wind.

The horizon ripples.

“I’m coming back.”

---

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⭐ Scene 3 — “The Jump”

POV: Kara & Barry — inside the fractured Speed Force

---

The rooftop begins to glow.

Not from sunlight.

Not from lightning.

From possibility.

A tremor rolls through the concrete as Barry’s eyes flare, tendrils of blue lightning skating across the surface like cracks forming in reality itself. The air grows thick with static, humming in Kara’s bones.

“Kara,” Barry warns, voice steady but taut, “once we step in, there’s no pulling back until it spits us out somewhere.”

Kara nods. “I’m not pulling back.”

Another flicker of lightning leaps from his wrist and dances across her palm when she reaches out. It feels less like electricity and more like a recognition.

“It’s drawn to you,” Barry murmurs. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

Kara swallows. “Lena is gone. That shouldn’t be possible either.”

That ends the argument.

Barry takes her hand.

The city drops away.

---

⚡ THE ENTRY — Light, Heat, Nowhere

The world around them detonates in a burst of lightning.

Colors smear like wet paint dragged across glass. Kara feels her atoms stretch, elongate, and reform in ways that defy physics. Time becomes sound — a low, thrumming chord vibrating through her teeth.

They enter the Speed Force.

A tunnel of incandescent light swirls around them, turbulent and shifting — a river in a storm, not the smooth highway it used to be. Jagged streaks of temporal lightning split across the corridor, each one carrying fragments of distant memories, alternative moments, worlds-that-were and worlds-that-might-have-been.

Barry is running beside her — or ahead of her — or inside the stream itself. His form flickers like a red specter. Kara flies, her body adapting instinctively, leaving a contrail of shimmering gold-white light.

“Stay with me!” Barry shouts. His voice echoes in unnatural harmonics. “Don’t let the stream pull you!”

But it’s already pulling her.

Because the stream knows exactly what she wants.

---

🌌 THE VISIONS BEGIN

At first, they’re faint.

Like reflections in water — shapes forming between lightning flashes.

Then they sharpen.

Lena’s office — the first day they met.

Lena’s eyes softening over a glass of wine.

Lena tending to Kara’s wounds after a fight.

Lena saying, “You’re stronger than you think.”

Lena whispering, “I trusted you.”

Lena screaming, “You lied to me.”

Kara flinches, almost losing her flight path.

The tunnel distorts.

Barry notices immediately.

“Kara—focus!”

“I—I’m trying—”

Another memory slams into her:

Lena smiling at her tenderly, like she wanted to say something but never did.

Kara jerks.

Her emotions spike.

The Speed Force responds.

---

⚡ THE SPEED FORCE SPEAKS

The air goes cold.

Not physically — metaphysically.

A presence stirs within the storm, folding around Kara like a current of conscious electricity. A voice seeps into her mind, layered and resonant, ancient and newborn all at once.

“Paragon of Hope…”

Kara’s breath catches. “No. Not here. Not now—”

“You seek what reality has forgotten.”

Barry looks around, eyes wide. “Kara—who are you talking to?”

She can’t answer.

“Your anchor does not exist in the tapestry of this world.”

“Then I’ll rewrite the tapestry,” Kara snarls, voice cracking with desperation. “I don’t care what it takes.”

The presence pulses.

“You seek what was overwritten.”

“You cannot anchor to absence.”

Kara shakes her head violently. “I’m anchoring to Lena. That’s enough.”

The Speed Force trembles — as if startled.

Barry stumbles mid-step. “Kara—your emotional output is off the charts! You need to calm down or the whole stream’s gonna—”

Another vision slams into her.

This one is impossible.

Lena — standing in a burning world — reaching toward Kara with soot-stained hands.

“Come back to me.”

Kara gasps like she’s been stabbed.

The tunnel shatters.

---

💥 THE PARADOX MOMENT

Barry is thrown sideways, tumbling through fractured light. Kara reaches for him but her arm glitches — flickering between moments.

“KARA!”

“Barry!”

Lightning wraps around her wrist, trying to pull him back —

—but something stronger pulls her forward.

The Speed Force doesn’t want Barry.

It wants her.

Because she is the paradox.

She is the emotional epicenter.

She is the anomaly that Lex’s rewrite failed to erase.

Kara screams as the corridor cracks open beneath her like a broken mirror.

Barry’s voice fades into distortion:

“YOU’RE OVERPOWERING IT—STOP THINKING ABOUT HER—!”

“I CAN’T!”

The presence surges, whispering:

“Love is not sufficient to restore the overwritten.”

Kara sobs through clenched teeth.

Her whole body shimmers, caught between timelines.

“It’s all I have left.”

A silence.

Deep.

Ancient.

Then:

“…Very well.”

“Your heart resists deletion.”

“Your mind retains what was lost.”

“Your grief demands divergence.”

A swirl of golden light encircles her, gently at first, then with unstoppable force.

Barry disappears completely.

“Then fall.”

“Fall to where the fracture began.”

“Let us see what hope rewrites.”

Everything breaks.

---

🌠 THE DESCENT THROUGH TIME

Kara is ripped downward — through colors, through sounds, through versions of herself:

Kara on her first day at CatCo.

Kara saving Lena from a drone attack.

Kara lying about her identity.

Kara watching Lena walk away, hurt.

Kara comforting Lena when her mother betrayed her.

Kara nearly kissing her — a moment that never happened but feels real nonetheless.

Each flash digs claws into her heart.

She screams, reaching out with her whole soul—

“LENA!”

The Speed Force tears open.

And drops her.

---

🌃 THE IMPACT

Kara slams into a rooftop.

Hard.

Air explodes from her lungs.

Concrete cracks beneath her palms.

She gasps, blinking through dizziness, her ears ringing with static from a thousand disjointed memories.

Then she hears it:

A DEO dispatch code she hasn’t heard in years.

Winn shouting in her ear:

“Kara! You’re late! Did you stop for pastries?!”

Her breath freezes.

This isn’t Earth-Prime.

This isn’t the Crisis.

This isn’t Lex’s rewrite.

This is earlier.

Much earlier.

Before the betrayal.

Before the lies unraveled.

Before Lex poisoned everything.

Before Kara broke Lena’s heart.

Kara staggers to her feet.

Her vision sharpens as she looks out across the skyline.

National City — younger. Brighter.

The world before the world fell apart.

And somewhere, Lena is alive.

Kara covers her mouth with a trembling hand.

“Lena…” she whispers, tears burning at the corners of her eyes.

“I made it.”

The air flickers—

—as if the timeline itself recognizes her arrival.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 1 — “The Universe Remembers Her Name”

Scene 4 — “Back Where It Hurts”

POV: Kara

(Years earlier. Kara arrives before everything ever broke.)

---

Kara stumbles upright, breath trembling, hands digging into the edge of the rooftop as she forces herself to orient. Her heart is pounding too fast to be useful—her powers fluctuate around the edges, unstable, crackling faintly with leftover Speed Force static.

The skyline is younger.

Softer.

Buildings she hasn’t seen in years dominate the horizon. Billboards from old campaigns. CatCo’s old logo before the rebrand. A distant DEO drone patrolling with outdated programming. Even the air smells different—cleaner, less scorched by the battles that haven’t happened yet.

Her comm crackles again with a familiar voice that lands like a punch to the chest.

“Hello? Kara? Did you pocket-dial me again? Because if the answer is yes, I swear on my best jacket—”

“Winn?” Kara chokes.

“Uh… yeah? Are you okay? You sound weird. Like—ghost-of-Christmas-past weird.”

She closes her eyes.

She is definitely back.

Her legs nearly give.

“I’m fine,” she lies immediately, because there is no universe where she can begin explaining this. Not yet. “False alarm. Sorry. I’ll… call you back.”

Winn sputters. “Call me ba—Kara???”

She cuts the connection.

Kara stands still for a long moment, forcing her breathing to slow, grounding herself through the sensory flood. Her heart refuses to settle. Her vision keeps blurring—not from disorientation, but because Lena is somewhere in this city.

Alive. Laughing. Working. Existing.

Her chest tightens painfully.

“Okay,” she whispers to herself. “Okay. You can do this. Just… don’t break reality again.”

She inhales slowly.

There’s only one place she can go first.

L-Corp.

Or… Luthor Corp, back in these years.

The thought hits her like a meteor—so sharp she nearly folds over.

This is the Lena before everything fractured.

Before Lex manipulated her.

Before Kara’s lies cracked her trust.

Before the pain hardened her edges.

Kara doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to see her like that.

But she has to.

She takes off.

---

🌃 THE FLIGHT — Trembling Wings

Kara flies low, heart swelling painfully with every landmark that hasn’t yet been touched by war or betrayal. She passes CatCo—windows lit, bustling, alive. She sees the old newsroom layout she hasn’t thought about in so long it feels like a dream.

She pauses mid-air as she spots something on the street below:

James Olsen, camera in hand, laughing with Winn as they cross toward Noonan’s.

Her throat tightens.

She flies on.

Downtown gleams beneath her. Traffic hums. The world feels untouched, unscarred—and Kara feels like an imposter dropped into a memory with too much blood on her hands.

Then—

L-Corp Tower rises into view.

The green tint of its windows.

The sleek edges of its architecture.

The elegant silver “L” crest shining under the afternoon sun.

Her vision blurs.

She lands too fast.

Her knees wobble as her boots hit the pavement.

Her heart slams against her ribs so hard she feels mildly ill.

Because she can feel Lena.

Not physically. Not telepathically.

But the memory echo bond hums under her skin, pulling her toward the building with a force that borders on cosmic instinct.

She steps inside.

---

🏢 THE L-CORP LOBBY — A Ghost in Her Own Timeline

The lobby is quieter than she remembers. Warmer. Staff she hasn’t seen in years move efficiently through their tasks.

And then—

“Kara?”

She freezes.

Not Lena.

Jess.

Jess—Lena’s assistant from the old days—looks as young and sharp as ever, eyebrow arched in polite surprise.

“Kara Danvers,” Jess says, adjusting her glasses. “Ms. Luthor didn’t mention a meeting. Should I put you on—”

“I need to see her,” Kara says immediately.

Her voice sounds wrong—too raw, too breathless.

Jess’s eyebrows rise a millimeter. “Of course. She’s in her office. I’ll let her know—”

“No,” Kara blurts. “Please don’t.”

Jess blinks. “Don’t… tell her?”

Kara swallows. “I just—I want to surprise her.”

Jess gives the smallest smile. “She likes surprises from you.”

That heroic restraint Kara was clinging to crumbles like wet sand.

She forces a nod.

Jess buzzes her through.

Kara walks the familiar hallway, her steps uneven, her fingers trembling. Every nerve feels overexposed. Every breath feels too loud. The universe feels too thin—ready to tear if she touches anything too roughly.

Her vision swims.

Kara stops before the frosted glass door she remembers better than her own.

LENA LUTHOR

CEO

She reaches out.

Her hand shakes.

Her heart is full of lightning.

She pushes the door open—

---

💚 THE FIRST SIGHT

Lena is standing with her back to the door, reviewing holographic schematics projected above her desk. Her hair is in that neat, early-season braid Kara always secretly adored. She’s wearing a dark emerald dress and heels that click lightly as she shifts her weight.

She turns.

And the world stops.

She is alive.

Alive.

A sound escapes Kara’s throat — soft, broken, involuntary.

Lena’s eyes widen at the sight of her, a frown beginning to pull at her brow.

“Kara?” Lena says slowly. “What are you—”

Her voice.

That exact timbre Kara hasn’t heard in… too long.

Kara sways slightly, gripping the doorframe as if she’s afraid she might actually collapse. Her chest is too tight, her heart too full, her lungs too small.

Lena takes one step closer, confusion melting into something softer — something almost tentative, like a woman feeling a memory she can’t quite grasp.

“Kara,” Lena repeats, quieter this time. “Are you… alright?”

Kara can’t answer yet.

Because the memories slam into her all at once:

Lena smiling at her with unguarded affection.

Lena screaming at her in betrayal.

Lena hugging her fiercely after saving the city.

Lena crying alone in her office.

Lena trusting her.

Lena losing her.

Lena dying in the collapse.

Lena erased.

Kara’s knees almost give.

Lena’s eyes search hers, confused, concerned—and then—

A flicker.

A spark.

A break in Lena’s expression so quick it could be imagined.

Her pupils dilate.

Her breath hitches.

Her fingers twitch minutely at her side.

She doesn’t know it.

She can’t know it.

But her soul recognizes Kara.

“Kara… do I know you?” Lena whispers.

Kara bites back a sob.

Lena frowns. “I mean—I obviously know you but—” She swallows. “It feels like I know you more than I should. Like I’ve met you before. Or I’ve—been with you before.”

Her eyes darken with something almost like fear.

“Is that… strange?”

Kara’s lips part in a trembling inhale. “No,” she whispers. “No, Lena. It’s not strange at all.”

Lena studies her.

And then very softly, very hesitantly:

“Kara… why do I feel like you’re about to cry?”

Kara does.

A tear slips free. Then another.

Before she can stop herself, before she can think of the consequences, the timeline, the dangers—

Kara steps toward her.

Just one trembling step.

And Lena’s breath catches like her heart remembers something her mind has not.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 1 — “The Universe Remembers Her Name”

Scene 5 — “The First Echo”

POV: Lena

(Soft, disorienting, emotional, cinematic — Lena experiences Kara’s return before she knows what it means.)

---

Lena Luthor prided herself on being logical.

Precise.

Controlled.

Predictable — at least to herself.

Her emotions were neat boxes with labeled lids. Her past was a meticulously locked vault she rarely opened. And her interactions with the world followed patterns she could chart on graph paper if she felt inclined.

Which is why the moment Kara Danvers walked into her office, something inside Lena shattered in a way she couldn’t articulate.

Not fear.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

Impossible, gut-deep recognition.

Lena’s breath stilled in her throat as she took in the sight of her—Kara in that bright-yellow cardigan she’d worn to their first real coffee meeting months ago, hair mussed, eyes too bright, face pale like she’d run here without stopping.

But that wasn’t what made Lena’s fingers tremble lightly against the side of her desk.

It was the look in Kara’s eyes.

The grief.

The relief.

The unnameable ache.

Like Kara wasn’t seeing her for the first time today, but for the first time again.

“Kara?” Lena managed finally, forcing her voice to stay even despite the sudden tightness in her chest. “Are you alright?”

Kara didn’t answer.

She just stared — at Lena’s face, her hair, her dress, her breathing — like she was memorizing her. Like she’d been starved of the sight and was afraid that looking away would make Lena disappear.

It made something quake inside Lena’s sternum.

Lena straightened, trying to regain her composure. “If this is about CatCo — or a story — or even if you just need coffee—”

Her words faltered.

Because Kara took a step toward her.

Not a large one. Not even close enough to invade personal space. Just one small, trembling step forward.

But her expression — God.

It hit Lena like a blow.

Raw. Broken. Quietly desperate.

A single tear slid down Kara’s cheek before she could stop it.

Lena froze.

Her chest tightened painfully in response — involuntary, instinctive, like her body was reacting to Kara’s pain before her brain had time to rationalize it.

“Kara…” Lena whispered. “Why are you crying?”

And why did she feel like she was about to cry, too?

Kara inhaled a shaky breath. “I’m just—”

Another tear slipped. “I’m just really happy to see you.”

The words hit Lena like a physical sensation — as if someone had reached through her ribcage and pressed a warm palm against her heart.

It made no sense.

Kara Danvers was her friend. Her oddly strong, oddly clumsy, oddly radiant friend who brought sticky buns to meetings and tripped over her own good intentions. They weren’t close enough for… this.

And yet—

It felt right.

Too right.

Like she’d lost this exact moment before.

Like she was getting it back now.

Lena’s fingers curled against her palm.

She felt dizzy.

And warm.

And a little afraid.

Afraid of what?

She had no idea.

She cleared her throat, trying for composure. “Well… I’m happy to see you too,” she said, gentler than intended. “Though you look like you might pass out.”

Kara gave a watery, breathless laugh — the kind of sound that made Lena’s heart lurch with a flash of déjà vu so intense she had to grip the edge of her desk.

That feeling—

Oh God.

It was like listening to music she’d forgotten existed. Something inside her humming in tune before she even recognized the melody.

She stepped closer, almost unconsciously.

“Kara,” she said softly, “have we met somewhere before?”

Kara blinked, startled. “What?”

Lena shook her head, searching Kara’s face like the answers might be written there. “I mean—I know we’ve met, obviously. But I mean…” She exhaled shakily. “It feels like I’ve known you longer than I should. Like I knew you in a dream I forgot the details of.”

Kara’s face folded slightly — pain, longing, love, all at once — and Lena’s breath caught.

What was this?

Why did her eyes sting?

Why did she feel like someone had just run a hand through the fibers of her soul?

Lena took another step forward before she even realized she was moving.

“Kara,” she whispered, voice trembling in a way she hated, “why do I feel like I’ve already lost you once?”

Kara’s breath hitched audibly.

The air around them flickered — the lights dimming for half a second, the air pressure shifting like the building exhaled with her, like the timeline itself reacted to Lena’s question.

Lena blinked in confusion. “What was—?”

Kara sways forward.

Lena instinctively reaches to steady her.

Their fingers brush.

And Lena gasps.

A flash of heat sears through her mind — a memory that isn’t hers:

Kara holding her as the world collapses behind them.

Kara screaming her name in a white void.

Kara whispering, “I love you” into the darkness.

Kara losing her.

Lena staggers back, hand flying to her temple.

“What—what was that?” she breathes.

Kara’s face goes pale.

“Lena, I—I can explain—just not yet—”

Lena shakes her head slowly, still reeling from the ghost-memory. “Kara, what is happening?”

Her voice cracks.

Kara takes a halting step closer, her own voice a whisper made of grief and awe.

“Something the universe shouldn’t allow.”

She swallows hard.

“But it did — because it couldn’t erase you from me.”

Lena’s pulse stutters.

Her throat tightens.

Her mind is a riot of confusion and instinct and impossible understanding.

But one thing is clear:

Whatever this is —

Whatever is happening —

She trusts Kara.

She doesn’t know why.

She doesn’t know how.

But she does.

“Kara,” she whispers carefully, “what did you lose?”

Kara’s eyes shine.

“You.”

Lena stops breathing.

And the lights flicker again — softly, intimately — like reality itself recognizes the truth of that single word.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 1 — “The Universe Remembers Her Name”

Scene 6 — “Resonance”

POV: Kara

---

The air in Lena’s office feels too thin.

Too bright.

Too charged.

Kara is hyper-aware of everything:

the tremble in Lena’s hands,

the rise and fall of her chest,

the warmth of her skin where their fingers touched,

the residual echo still buzzing under Kara’s ribs.

Lena is looking at her like she’s looking into her — like she can see the cracks running through Kara’s soul.

“Kara,” Lena whispers again, voice trembling slightly, “that wasn’t normal.”

Kara’s throat constricts. “No. It wasn’t.”

“Tell me what I just felt,” Lena pushes, stepping closer — not aggressively, but instinctively, like being near Kara feels like the only bearable place to be.

Kara wants to step back.

Every cell in her body wants to step forward.

She does neither.

“You felt a memory that isn’t yours,” she says softly. “A moment from another version of your life.”

Lena’s eyebrows knit. “Another version…?”

Kara swallows. “Another timeline.”

The lights flicker.

Not the glitchy stutter from before — this time it’s subtle, a soft dip as though the universe is holding its breath.

Lena sees it.

“Kara.” She looks around, then back. “Why is that happening?”

Kara closes her eyes. “Because I’m not supposed to be here.”

Lena’s voice sharpens, hurt curling at the edges. “Are you saying you being around me causes this?”

“Yes,” Kara answers. Then, quieter: “And no. It’s… complicated.”

Lena steps closer again — slowly, carefully, like approaching a wounded creature.

“Kara,” she says quietly, “look at me.”

Kara forces her eyes open.

Lena’s gaze is soft and clear and hurting.

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” Lena asks.

Kara’s heart stumbles. “Lena—”

“Because I’m not.” Lena’s voice is steady. “I’m afraid of confusion. I’m afraid of lies. I’m afraid of someone pulling away from me without explanation,” she adds with a sharp edge of vulnerability she tries and fails to hide. “But I’m not afraid of you.”

Kara’s breath catches.

Oh Rao.

Lena doesn’t even know what she’s saying — but it hits Kara with the force of a dying star.

The air trembles.

A soft, shimmering ripple passes between them — like heat off asphalt. Lena startles slightly. Kara steadies her instincts before the ripple becomes a quake.

Kara takes a half-step back. “Lena, you should be afraid. Not of me — never of me — but of what happens if I stay here too long. If I get too close.”

Lena’s jaw clenches. “And what happens?”

Kara hesitates too long.

Lena presses. “Tell me.”

Kara whispers, “You’ll start remembering things you’re not supposed to.”

Lena swallows. “Like that vision?”

Kara nods.

“What was it?” Lena asks. “I saw… I saw something terrible. Something emotional. You were holding me. And everything was—” She shivers. “Kara, was I dying?”

Kara’s heart twists hard enough to hurt. “In one version of reality… you almost did.”

Lena’s face pales.

But she steps closer anyway.

“So there was a version of us,” she murmurs. “Something happened between us.”

Kara’s voice cracks. “Something beautiful. And something painful. And something I refused to let end this way.”

Lena’s breath trembles. “You’re talking like you lost me.”

Reality flickers again — the overhead lights dim, Lena’s glass of water vibrates, Kara’s reflection in the office window blurs.

Kara takes another unsteady step back.

Lena steps forward.

“Kara,” she whispers, “don’t run from me.”

Kara’s chest tightens. “If I touch you again, the building might collapse.”

Lena lifts her chin, defiant despite the tremor in her hands. “Then you’ll catch me.”

Kara’s knees nearly give out.

Rao, she’s so—

so Lena.

Perfect in every timeline.

“Lena,” Kara pleads softly, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Lena blinks, and her eyes glisten just slightly.

Not enough to spill tears.

Enough to break Kara in half.

“Kara,” she whispers, “I don’t understand anything that’s happening… except one thing.”

She hesitates.

“I trust you.”

Kara freezes.

That sentence — coming from this version of Lena — hits like a promise Kara never deserved and thought she’d never hear again.

Kara’s voice fails her. “Lena…”

Another flicker — this one stronger:

The blinds tremble.

The floor hums.

A crack splits across Lena’s desk tablet screen.

Lena startles. “What was—”

Kara lunges forward on instinct, hands wrapping around Lena’s upper arms to steady her.

The building instantly stops shaking.

Time itself stills.

It is so sudden — so absolute — that Lena gasps softly and grabs Kara’s wrists in return.

Their faces are inches apart.

Too close.

Too dangerous.

Too perfect.

Lena whispers, “Kara… what did you do?”

Kara whispers back, “Anchored.”

Lena’s breath hitches.

Kara doesn’t let go.

Neither does Lena.

A slow, warm pulse travels through the space between them — the echo resonance deepening, stabilizing, recognizing them as tether points.

Lena trembles. “Why does touching you feel like—like coming up for air?”

Kara closes her eyes. “Because once… you drowned. And I couldn’t save you in time.”

Lena’s lips part in a small, broken inhale.

“Kara… what are we to each other?”

Kara opens her eyes.

Love.

Loss.

Memory.

Destiny.

Everything she’s been holding back crashes upward like a tidal wave.

“You were the person I couldn’t live without,” Kara whispers. “And the universe tried to erase you.”

Lena’s fingers tighten on her wrists. “But you remember me.”

Kara shakes her head gently.

“Lena — I never forgot you.”

The ripple stops.

The room steadies.

The building is quiet.

Because the paradox stabilizes in that moment:

Kara holding Lena.

Lena holding Kara.

Two timelines overlapping in a single breath.

Kara realizes she is not losing her grip.

She is losing her resolve.

She tears herself away like it physically hurts.

“I have to go,” Kara rasps.

Lena looks crushed — visibly crushed — and tries to hide it with a tight swallow, but her voice betrays her.

“Why does it feel like you’re leaving again?” she whispers.

Kara freezes at the doorway.

She turns, voice soft and breaking.

“Because I did,” she says. “And now I’m here to undo it.”

Lena’s eyes widen.

The lights flicker softly — not destabilizing, but acknowledging.

Kara steps into the hall before she loses her mind — or her restraint — entirely.

Behind her, Lena’s voice follows like a wound:

“Kara… come back.”

Kara closes her eyes, breath shaking.

“I will,” she whispers. “I swear.”

The universe hums in approval.

---

Chapter Text

---

⭐ CHAPTER 2 — “The Past Isn’t Passive”

Scene 1 — “Shockwaves”

POV: Kara, with Paradox Echo POV: Lena

---

The rooftop feels too still.

Too sharp around the edges.

Too bright, like someone turned the saturation of the world up to a painful degree.

Kara braces her hands against her knees, gulping cold air that does nothing to calm the tremble in her chest.

The universe should not feel like it’s watching her.

But it does.

Every breath she takes feels like it’s brushing against invisible threads, plucking at them.

Every heartbeat stirs the air.

Every thought of Lena sends out waves — tiny, golden, impossible waves — that shimmer against the horizon.

Kara grips a piece of rusted railing until it bends.

Her voice cracks out of her before she can stop it.

“God, Lena…”

Just whispering her name sparks another ripple — a soft glow that rolls off her skin like heat haze.

She claps a hand over her mouth.

“Stop. Stop. Stop—”

But the universe isn’t listening to her.

It’s listening to her heart.

And her heart is screaming Lena.

Kara squeezes her eyes shut, fighting the sting, fighting the memory of Lena’s touch — the warmth of Lena’s hand against her wrist, the way Lena whispered “Why does it feel like I lost you?” with a tremble Kara wasn’t prepared for.

Her pulse stutters painfully.

She forces herself to breathe slow.

“This isn’t helping,” she whispers. “This is making things worse.”

The rooftop hums in answer.

Kara flinches.

“Please,” she begs the air, “not now. Not when she’s finally—”

Alive.

Here.

Looking at her like maybe she could fall for her again.

Her breath catches hard.

Then—

The world stutters.

A brief, sharp flicker of light bursts behind her eyes — not hers.

Not her memory.

Not her fear.

Not her longing.

Lena’s.

Kara gasps and stumbles back, hand flying to her temple.

The echo hits fast, hot, and intimate:

---

💚 BRIEF PARADOX ECHO — LENA POV

(intruding for less than a second)

Lena sits alone in her office, staring at her shaking hands.

And she feels—

Kara.

A tight, painful longing that knocks the air out of her.

A whisper she doesn’t remember speaking:

“Come back.”

Her chest aches.

Her eyes sting.

She presses a palm against her sternum like trying to ease the pressure of missing someone she shouldn’t miss.

She whispers into the empty room:

“Why do I feel like she’s hurting?”

---

⭐ BACK TO KARA

Kara’s breath tears out of her lungs as the echo slams back into her body.

Her knees buckle.

“No—no, no, no—Lena, you can’t feel me, you can’t—”

She grips the ledge for grounding, but the city flickers again — faint distortions around streetlights, around traffic, around the edges of buildings.

The paradox is stabilizing between them in ways she does not understand.

“Lena,” Kara whispers, voice shaking, “you’re not supposed to—”

The rooftop shivers under a small quake — subtle, but sharp enough to make the gravel tremble.

Another message flickers through her comm — more forceful this time, as if Barry is fighting the current of the Speed Force just to get through:

“Kara—listen—don’t let the echo deepen—until I—can stabilize—!”

The signal crackles violently, then cuts entirely.

Kara tries to steady her breathing, but it comes in staccato bursts.

“Okay. Okay, get it together,” she whispers to herself.

“You’re a time-displaced paradox with unstable emotional anchoring. Act like it.”

She runs her hands through her hair.

Paces.

Stops.

Turns sharply toward L-Corp again.

The memory of Lena’s eyes — worried, soft, pulling her in — hits her like sunlight straight to the spine.

Kara’s stomach flips painfully.

“I can’t let her feel what I’m feeling,” she whispers. “Not until I know what it does to her. Not until I know she’s safe.”

Another ripple — small, but insistent — pulses out of her chest.

Kara clamps her hands over her heart.

“Breathe,” she whispers, voice breaking.

“Hope can’t save her if it destroys the timeline.”

She presses her forehead against the cool metal of the ledge.

But as soon as she tries to calm down—

Lena’s echo whispers through her again:

“…why do I feel like she’s hurting?”

Kara gasps — tears stinging her eyes.

“Oh Rao. Lena… please don’t feel this.”

Because if Lena starts remembering their pain too early…

Kara might break her all over again.

She drops to the rooftop, palms pressed flat against the gravel as if she can hold reality still with brute force.

“I need you to be okay,” she whispers. “I need you to be untouched. Whole. Unhurt.”

The wind stills.

The city hushes.

The world seems to lean toward her.

Kara’s eyes close.

She forces her voice steady.

“I won’t lose you,” she says.

“I won’t let the universe take you again.”

“I won’t let my emotions hurt you.”

A soft golden shimmer pulses outward — delicate, gentle, almost tender.

The skyline steadies.

Kara breathes.

But her hands still tremble.

Because she knows the truth:

The past isn’t passive.

The timeline is alive around her.

And her heart is powerful enough to rewrite the world.

She has to control it.

For Lena.

For the fragile timeline.

For herself.

Kara rises slowly, breathing hard, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“I’m running out of time,” she whispers.

The skyline flickers — as if agreeing.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 2 — “The Past Isn’t Passive”

Scene 2 — “A Scientist’s Intuition” (EXTENDED + MEMORY CUT)

POV: Lena Luthor

---

Lena Luthor has faced monsters, madmen, gods, and her own family.

None of them have ever made her hands shake.

But Kara Danvers did.

Lena stares down at her fingertips, still tingling from where they brushed Kara’s skin, still trembling like she’s holding static that hasn’t fully discharged.

She flexes them.

The tremble doesn’t stop.

She tells herself it’s adrenaline. Stress. Low blood sugar.

She doesn’t believe herself.

Lena exhaled sharply, forcing her body into motion. Movement helps. Analysis helps. She walks toward her lab alcove, heels clicking in a rhythm faster than her usual controlled stride.

She doesn’t feel controlled.

Not even remotely.

---

🔬 THE SCANS — More Data Than She Wanted

Lena opens her portable diagnostic kit and starts a biometric scan. She expects chaos. She gets something worse.

A pattern.

Heart rate: elevated.

Oxytocin spike: significant.

Dopamine: heightened.

Adrenaline: unsafely high.

Cortisol: low — she’s not stressed, she’s calibrating.

Neural activity: two overlapping rhythms, one of which… isn’t hers.

Her mouth goes dry.

“What the hell…?”

She runs the neural mapping again.

Same result.

Same pulse-pattern.

Same ghost-signal just beneath her own.

Like someone else’s emotional signature brushed her neural pathways.

Lena grips the counter, knuckles whitening.

“That’s not possible,” she whispers.

“That cannot be possible.”

Except her body disagrees.

Her soul disagrees.

Because the moment she touched Kara Danvers, she felt—

A connection.

A shock.

An ache.

A swell of something warm and terrifying and familiar.

Something she doesn’t have words for.

She turns back toward her office and taps the wall panel, pulling up the security camera feed.

Static.

Distortion.

Light bending around Kara like she was the center of a gravitational anomaly.

Lena stares.

Kara Danvers should not be capable of that.

“Kara…” Lena murmurs, leaning closer to the screen, “what are you hiding?”

---

🌫️ THE FIRST INTRUSION — a Slip in the Mind

She turns away from the footage, rubbing her temples — and that’s when it hits her.

A flash.

A burst.

A sensation like a spark snapping against the inside of her skull.

Not pain.

Emotion.

Suddenly Lena is not in her office.

She is—

Standing on a cold rooftop.

Wind cutting against her cheeks.

Night sky above.

Her heart breaking so hard she can barely breathe.

Kara’s arms locked around her, holding her up as the world falls apart.

Kara whispering, voice breaking: “Don’t leave me. Please—please don’t leave me.”

Lena gasps.

Her knees nearly buckle.

The vision is gone before she can fully see it — but the emotional impact stays like an imprint burned onto the inside of her chest.

“What—” Lena’s voice cracks. “What was that?”

Her pulse pounds violently.

She presses both hands against the counter, grounding herself.

“That wasn’t mine,” she whispers.

“That memory wasn’t mine.”

But it felt like it was.

It felt so real.

And worse—

The way Kara touched her wrist earlier…

It felt like recognition.

Like comfort.

Like coming home.

Lena squeezes her eyes shut.

“No. That’s impossible.”

She forces herself upright, pacing.

She can feel the ghost of Kara’s arms around her.

She can feel the sound of Kara’s voice — shattered, pleading — in the back of her mind.

She can still feel the wind from that rooftop.

Lena presses her fingertips hard against her sternum.

“Why do I miss you?” she whispers.

“You were just here. Why do I miss you like it’s been years?”

She doesn’t notice she’s trembling until Jess knocks gently.

“Ms. Luthor?” Jess steps in cautiously. “You look… pale.”

Lena straightens abruptly, schooling her expression. “Just a long day. I’m fine.”

“That’s the least convincing thing you’ve said this week,” Jess replies.

Lena gives her a thin smile. “I’ll take care of it. Thank you.”

Jess leaves.

The door clicks closed.

The silence presses in.

Almost immediately Lena’s phone buzzes.

She jumps like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing.

She looks at the screen.

Kara.

Lena swallows hard and opens the message.

Kara:

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.

Can we talk?

Lena’s pulse leaps in a warm, unwelcome, uncontrollable jump.

She types back instantly:

Yes.

She hesitates before sending another.

Where?

Her thumb hovers.

She almost types:

Are you okay?

What did I feel?

Why did you look at me like that?

Why do you feel familiar?

She deletes them all.

Lena closes her eyes, whispering to the quiet room:

“Kara Danvers…

what happened to us?”

And—

Why does it feel like she’s asking a question she’s asked before?

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 2 — “The Past Isn’t Passive”

Scene 3 — “Barry Crashes the Timeline”

POV: Kara Danvers

(Dynamic, tense, emotional; mixture of cosmic and grounded friendship)

---

Kara is still staring at the skyline when the air behind her ruptures.

It’s not a sound.

It’s not even a vibration.

It’s a tear — like reality inhaled sharply and forgot to close the wound.

Lightning bursts open in a violent arc.

Kara spins around as a streak of red hurtles into the rooftop in a messy, uncontrolled tumble.

Barry Allen rolls to a stop, smokes slightly, and lies on his back staring at the sky.

“Ow,” he groans.

Kara rushes to him. “Barry?!”

He lifts one finger. “Don’t… talk to me yet… I think I left my spleen in the Speed Force.”

Kara kneels beside him, worried. “You don’t have a spleen.”

He points at her. “Exactly. It’s worse than I thought.”

Kara would laugh if her nerves weren’t burning.

Barry finally sits up — hair static-frizzed, suit scorched — and squints at her.

“Oh good,” he mutters. “You didn’t destabilize into a time ghost.”

Kara blinks. “That was an option?!”

Barry rubs his face. “Everything was an option. You threw me out of the Speed Force, Kara.”

Kara’s chest tightens. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know.” Barry waves her apology off. “You didn’t do it. The Force did.”

He stands, wobbling.

Kara instinctively steadies him.

The universe hums.

Barry’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. Okay. You’re still a walking temporal anomaly.”

Kara flinches. “Barry…”

He assesses her carefully — the golden glow under her skin, the way the air bends slightly around her, the faint pulse that resonates from her heart like a beacon.

“Kara,” he says softly, “you’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Project through reality. Bend it.”

He gestures around them.

“All of this? It’s reacting to you.”

Kara swallows hard. “Because I was emotional. I’m trying to control it—”

“No.”

Barry shakes his head.

“It’s not reacting to your emotions.”

Kara blinks. “Then what is it reacting to?”

Barry meets her eyes.

“Your connection.”

Kara’s breath catches.

“Connection… to what?”

Barry hesitates.

Like he’s afraid of the answer.

Like he’s afraid of giving it words.

“Kara…” he says finally, “what were you thinking about when the Speed Force collapsed around you?”

Kara’s throat closes.

She looks away.

Barry’s voice is softer now.

Worried.

Kind.

“Kara.”

Kara whispers, “Lena.”

Barry nods slowly.

Like he expected it.

Like it confirms something he already suspected.

“The Speed Force didn’t pinpoint a date,” he says.

“It didn’t aim for a moment.”

He gestures to the city below them.

“It brought you to her.”

Kara’s heart slams so hard she feels it in her palms.

Barry adds gently, “Kara… the Speed Force reacted to the strongest emotional tether in your entire existence.”

Kara stares at him, breath trembling.

Barry continues:

“It dragged you to the earliest fracture point connected to your anchor.”

He swallows.

“Kara… your anchor isn’t a time. Or a place.”

He lets the words land.

“It’s Lena.”

Kara closes her eyes, chest aching.

Barry steps closer, lowering his voice.

“Kara, you entered the Speed Force with the emotional imprint of someone who’s already lost the most important person in her life.”

A tear slips down Kara’s cheek.

“I couldn’t lose her,” Kara whispers. “Not again.”

Barry puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.”

His voice cracks a little.

“I get it more than you think.”

Kara opens her eyes.

They shine with grief, hope, and something too large for one heart to contain.

“Barry… she felt me. She actually felt me.”

Barry stiffens. “What?! Lena felt you?”

Kara nods. “She had… a memory. An echo. A flash of something that happened in my timeline.”

Barry curses under his breath. “Oh, that’s not good.”

Kara swallows. “I know.”

“No — like REALLY not good,” Barry insists. “If Lena is tapping into your paradox memories—”

He trails off.

“Kara,” he says carefully, “she wasn’t supposed to feel anything.”

Kara looks down. “I know.”

Barry grabs her shoulders.

“This timeline is bending around you. Around what you feel. Around what she feels. That’s—Kara, that’s unprecedented even for us.”

Kara whispers:

“I’m in love with her.”

Barry’s expression softens.

Painfully.

Affectionately.

“I know,” he says. “I saw the way the Force reacted. I don’t think it’s seen something like you two before.”

Kara looks out over the city, voice trembling.

“If I lose her again…”

Barry squeezes her arm.

“You won’t.”

Then quieter:

“But Kara… the more you change, the more unpredictable this gets.”

Kara lifts her chin, resolve hardening like steel.

“As long as she lives,” she says, “I can handle unpredictable.”

Barry watches her for a long moment.

“You’re going to fall in love with her all over again, aren’t you?”

Kara whispers:

“I never stopped.”

The skyline flickers faintly — soft, almost warm — like the universe agreeing with her.

Barry exhales hard, bracing his hands on his hips as another ripple of gold static hisses along the rooftop.

“Kara… there’s something I didn’t tell you,” he says quietly.

Kara turns toward him, frowning. “What?”

Barry looks at the skyline — the lights bending ever so slightly around her presence — and his voice lowers into something more troubled than she’s ever heard from him.

“The Speed Force didn’t just react to you,” he says.

“It recoiled from you.”

Kara blinks. “Recoiled?”

Barry nods tightly.

“When you screamed her name, when you reached for Lena… Kara, I’ve never seen the Speed Force retreat like that. It didn’t want to overpower you. It wanted to get out of your way.”

Kara’s heart stutters. “Why would it do that?”

Barry hesitates.

“Kara… the Speed Force sees people like fixed points. Constants. Anchors in the river.”

He gestures vaguely, frustrated at the inadequacy of the words.

“I’m one. You’re one. Legends are fixed points too. But what you did… I don’t have a category for it.”

Kara swallows. “Barry…”

He faces her fully now, expression solemn.

“You weren’t anchoring to Lena,” he says. “You were dragging the Force with you. Like you were overriding its rules.”

Her breath catches.

“That isn’t possible,” she whispers.

Barry shakes his head. “No, it shouldn’t be. But Kara — the last time the Speed Force reacted like this was when Nora West-Allen nearly erased herself from existence.”

He pauses.

“But this is worse. Because your paradox is emotional. It’s not rooted in fear or pain.”

His voice drops to a hush.

“It’s rooted in love.”

Kara’s lips part, but no sound comes.

Barry continues softly:

“The Force told me something before I got thrown out. Just one line — one fragment.”

Kara stiffens. “What did it say?”

Barry looks at her with something like awe.

“It said:

‘Her anchor supersedes causality.’”

Kara frowns. “Meaning…?”

“It means,” Barry says gently, “that what you feel for Lena is stronger than the timeline. Stronger than causality. Stronger than the laws that hold time in place.”

Kara feels her heartbeat echo in her ears.

Barry adds:

“And Kara… the last time I saw the Force identify something like that, it was describing the kind of bond that happens once every few millennia. A fixed point so powerful it overrides predetermined events.”

Kara’s breath trembles. “A soulmate.”

Barry doesn’t smile.

He doesn’t joke.

He simply nods.

“Kara, the universe isn’t just letting you chase her. It’s rerouting itself around your connection.”

A faint quake rolls under Kara’s boots.

Barry steadies her.

“And that’s why I’m worried,” he says.

“Because if the timeline bends too hard, if it tries to correct itself before you stabilize—”

Kara meets his eyes sharply. “What happens?”

Barry swallows.

“Kara… the universe might try to remove the paradox.”

Her stomach drops.

“Meaning… me?”

Barry looks away for a moment.

“Or Lena.”

The world tilts beneath her.

“No.”

Her voice is immediate, fierce, unwavering.

“No. I won’t let that happen.”

Barry nods. “I know you won’t. But you need to understand the stakes. You have to be careful, Kara. Every choice you make with Lena… shifts the entire structure of this timeline.”

He steps closer, lowering his voice.

“You’re not just rewriting time.”

He holds her gaze.

“You’re rewriting destiny.”

Kara inhales slowly — painfully.

“Then I’ll rewrite everything,” she whispers, “as many times as it takes.”

Barry watches her, sympathy and fear and awe folding together in his expression.

“Kara… just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That you won’t lose yourself trying to save her.”

Kara looks back toward L-Corp tower — toward the woman whose absence tore reality apart.

Her voice is soft but absolute.

“I already did.”

The skyline flickers once more — brighter this time — and settles.

Barry follows her gaze.

“Then let’s make sure this is the timeline where you get her back.”

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 2 — “The Past Isn’t Passive”

Scene 4 — “The L-Corp Echo”

POV: Lena Luthor

(Emotional, scientific, intimate — Lena begins to unravel the paradox.)

---

Lena returns to her office after messaging Kara, but she doesn’t sit.

She can’t.

Her body is too keyed up, her mind too sharp, her emotions too unmoored to allow stillness.

She walks the perimeter of her office once, twice, three times — a restless, circling orbit around a gravitational pull she doesn’t understand.

Kara.

Kara Danvers.

The name feels charged on her tongue, like the first syllable should trigger a memory she can’t quite reach.

Lena drags a hand through her hair and forces herself toward her secondary workstation — the one reserved for the more… unconventional analyses.

And this is nothing if not unconventional.

---

💻 THE DATA DOESN’T LIE (BUT LENA WISHES IT WOULD)

Lena slides behind the desk and opens her biometric logs again.

Her neural scans pulse on a loop: two overlapping signal patterns. One baseline, one foreign.

She isolates the second pattern.

It is rhythmic.

Warm.

Almost harmonic.

“Impossible,” she whispers.

This isn’t external interference.

This isn’t a device glitching.

This isn’t some random glitch caused by the office lighting.

The second pattern is… emotional.

And it is synced to her own like a mirrored waveform.

Lena stares.

Her breath quickens.

“This is a resonance signature.”

She freezes at the word.

Resonance.

Her hand rises instinctively to the center of her chest — to the exact place she felt that strange ache earlier. The ache she still feels if she inhales too deeply.

A soft buzz hums beneath her palm.

No.

No — that can’t be—

The scanner beeps.

She looks down.

Another burst of synced neural rhythm.

Stronger than before.

Something in her tightens.

Something she hasn’t felt in years.

Fear.

But not of the phenomenon.

Of what it means.

---

📹 THE FOOTAGE

Lena pivots sharply to her wall screen and replays the office footage from earlier.

Static.

Distortion.

And then:

Kara.

Her outline glitching.

Light bending around her.

Energy rippling outward from her chest in faint golden waves Lena can see but doesn’t understand.

Lena’s breath catches.

She freezes the frame.

Steps closer.

Kara looks devastated.

Raw.

Emotional in a way Lena has never seen her.

And behind the distortion — underneath it — Lena sees something she can’t unsee:

A shimmer of golden-white light around Kara’s heart.

Like a pulse.

Like an echo.

Like a beacon.

Lena touches the screen with trembling fingers.

“Kara… what happened to you?”

Her voice breaks.

And for a moment — just for a moment — she feels a phantom warmth against her fingers, as if Kara’s energy remembers her.

Lena jerks back.

Her heart is pounding.

“This is not possible,” she whispers. “This is not science. This is—”

Her voice dies in her throat.

Magic.

Destiny.

Something bigger than both.

---

⚡ THE SECOND ECHO

Her world distorts.

Not visually — emotionally.

A surge slams into her chest like someone grabbed her heart from the inside and squeezed.

Lena gasps, hand flying to her sternum.

A whisper hits her mind.

Not a voice.

A feeling.

Kara.

Hurting.

Struggling.

Trying to breathe on a rooftop alone.

Fighting something Lena can’t see.

Lena stumbles, gripping the desk as the ache floods her nerves.

“Stop,” she gasps. “Stop. What is this?”

The ache doubles — sharp, intense, a mirror of someone else’s pain.

Kara’s.

“Why do I feel you?” Lena whispers.

Her eyes blur.

She blinks rapidly — and the echo subsides just enough for her to regain her breath.

But the damage is done.

Whatever this connection is… it’s deepening.

Lena’s pulse races.

Her thoughts spin too fast.

She presses both palms against the desk.

“No more games,” she mutters. “I’m going to get answers.”

---

📱 KARA TEXTS AGAIN

Her phone buzzes.

Lena snatches it up faster than she will later admit.

Kara:

Can you meet me? Outside?

The balcony, maybe.

Lena’s stomach flips.

The balcony.

Where they always seemed to talk more honestly.

Where she once broke Kara’s heart, though she doesn’t know that yet.

Where something feels right and familiar and terrifying.

Lena inhales shakily.

Lena:

I’ll be right there.

She doesn’t allow herself to analyze the truth in that statement:

she wants to be right there.

She grabs her coat and heads toward the balcony doors.

But just before she leaves, she glances back at her desk.

At the frozen image of Kara surrounded by impossible light.

At the neural scan still flashing two synchronized pulse signatures.

At the tremor still in her fingertips.

“Kara Danvers,” she whispers, “you’re breaking every rule I know.”

She swallows.

“And I can’t look away.”

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ Scene 5 — “Two Timelines Collide”

POV: Kara + Lena

---

💛 KARA — waiting where she once shattered

Kara doesn’t fly.

She can’t.

Not in this timeline—not when Lena doesn’t know her secret yet, not when one careless moment could unravel everything she is trying to protect.

So she takes the elevator.

A slow, torturous rise to the executive floor where her heart had broken once in another version of reality.

By the time the soft chime sounds, Kara feels like her chest is too small for the emotion inside it.

She walks down the familiar hallway, each step echoing with memories she swore she’d never relive.

At the balcony door, her hand trembles once before she forces herself to breathe and pushes it open.

Warm air greets her.

Sunlight spills across the space.

Kara steps out onto the balcony and moves toward the railing, bracing her palms there as she tries to command her heartbeat into something that won’t crack the world in half.

She hears it then:

The soft click of the balcony door opening behind her.

She closes her eyes.

And turns.

Lena steps out.

---

💚 LENA — stepping into a moment she doesn’t understand

The sunlight brushes against her shoulders as Lena approaches the balcony, watching Kara in a way she can’t quite explain.

Kara looks… fragile.

Not weak — just overwhelmed.

Like she’s standing in the aftermath of something important and breaking.

“Kara,” Lena says softly.

Kara turns, and the look she gives her makes Lena’s breath catch:

raw emotion barely held together.

Kara gives a trembling smile. “Hi.”

The lights above them flicker—soft, subtle, almost like a whisper.

Lena notices.

Kara flinches.

Lena steps closer, her voice gentle.

“Kara… I’m not sure what happened earlier, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Kara blurts softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Lena’s eyes soften, her heartbeat jumping unexpectedly.

“You did scare me,” she admits.

“But not because you did anything wrong.”

Kara swallows, throat tight. “Then… what scared you?”

Lena looks down at her hands, then back up.

“When I touched you… I felt something I shouldn’t have felt.”

Kara goes very still.

Lena continues, quieter:

“I saw something. A moment that wasn’t mine.”

She hesitates.

“A moment where I was with you. Close to you. And something terrible was happening.”

Kara’s breath stutters; she looks away in pain.

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispers. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Lena steps closer. “Why did I?”

Kara turns her head slowly, meeting Lena’s gaze with eyes too full of meaning.

“Because what happened between us… left an imprint.”

Her voice breaks.

“And the past is trying to remember it.”

Lena inhales sharply.

“Kara,” she whispers, “what happened between us?”

Kara’s eyes fall toward the city below.

Then, quietly:

“We were close.”

Lena’s pulse surges. “How close?”

Kara looks back with a softness and a grief Lena can feel in her bones.

“Close enough that losing you nearly destroyed me.”

Lena’s breath falters.

The balcony lights flicker again—this time stronger.

She steps nearer, drawn without thinking.

“Kara,” she whispers, “why does it feel like I’m remembering something I never lived?”

Kara’s voice is barely a whisper.

“Because the universe is trying to give it back to you.”

Their eyes lock.

A ripple of golden distortion trembles through the air between them, subtle but unmistakable.

Lena shivers.

“Kara… tell me the truth,” she says, reaching out.

Her fingers brush Kara’s wrist.

The air hums—warm, bright, intimate.

“What are we to each other?” Lena asks.

Kara’s eyes shine with unshed tears.

“Everything.”

The universe pulses.

The railing vibrates faintly.

The skyline distorts in a soft, shimmering wave.

Lena inhales sharply, the sensation shooting down her spine.

She doesn’t step away.

She steps closer.

“Kara…” Lena says, trembling, “I’m not afraid of this.”

Kara’s breath catches. “I am.”

“Why?”

“Because if I get too close… I might break you.”

Lena shakes her head gently, stepping into Kara’s space.

“Kara… I don’t break that easily.”

A faint, pained smile touches Kara’s mouth.

“You have no idea how untrue that is.”

The balcony shivers again.

Kara instinctively pulls away—

—but Lena grabs her wrist with both hands, holding her in place.

Instantly—

the shaking stops.

Lena gasps. “Kara… it stopped.”

Kara nods, chest aching.

“You’re my anchor. You always were.”

Lena stares at her, breath shaking.

“Then why am I remembering this?”

Kara’s voice is soft, full of heartbreak.

“Because it mattered.”

Lena’s eyes widen, lips parting with a soundless inhale.

Kara steps back then—

slowly, painfully—

as if every step away from Lena hurts.

“We can’t do this here,” she murmurs. “Not yet.”

Lena doesn’t argue.

But her expression says everything she doesn’t speak:

Don’t go.

Kara turns toward the door.

At the threshold she stops, looks back—

Lena framed in gold light, pulse synced unconsciously to Kara’s.

“Whatever you’re remembering,” Kara whispers, “it mattered. And it still does.”

Kara slips inside.

Lena remains on the balcony, heart pounding a rhythm she doesn’t understand—

but instinctively knows:

It’s hers and Kara’s.

---

⭐ CHAPTER 2 — “The Past Isn’t Passive”

Scene 6 — “A New Path Diverges”

POV: Kara Danvers

(Rooftop; emotional clarity; cosmic shift; the first real “choice” moment.)

---

Kara doesn’t run.

She almost does.

The moment she leaves the balcony, she almost takes the elevator three floors down and bursts through the doors of L-Corp just to see Lena again—

—but she forces herself up.

Up the stairs.

Up to the roof.

Up into the air where she can breathe again.

She keeps her feet on the ground, because if she takes off flying, she will go straight back to Lena.

Kara stands on the empty rooftop and presses both hands over her face.

“Rao,” she whispers into her palms.

“What am I doing?”

Her heart is still reeling from Lena’s touch.

Her skin still hums where Lena’s fingers held her.

Her whole body feels too full — too alive — too afraid of making the wrong move.

The air shifts behind her.

Kara doesn’t need to turn.

“Barry,” she murmurs.

He drops his hand from the shadows, appearing beside the HVAC unit like he’s been waiting for her to come apart.

“How’d the talk go?” he asks gently.

Kara laughs — broken, breathless.

“I think I made everything worse.”

Barry tilts his head. “Did you?”

He sees her expression and softens. “Hey. Come here.”

Kara sinks down beside him on the edge of the rooftop.

Barry sits too, elbows resting on his knees.

They look out over the city.

“Okay,” Barry says. “Hit me with it.”

Kara wraps her arms around herself.

Her voice is small but steady.

“She remembered something.”

Barry’s heart drops. “Kara—”

“I know. I know it’s too early. I know she shouldn’t be remembering anything.”

Her hands shake.

“But she felt it. The universe gave her a piece of our future.”

Barry scrubs a hand over his face.

“That’s… not supposed to happen unless your bond is—”

He stops.

Kara looks at him. “Say it.”

Barry swallows.

“Kara… your connection with her is acting like a fixed point.”

Kara blinks. “A fixed point in time?”

“No,” Barry says softly. “Worse. Stronger. A fixed point in you.”

The wind quiets.

Kara’s pulse stutters.

Barry continues:

“You’re the Paragon of Hope. That means your emotional anchors, your choices—they carry more weight than anyone else’s. They ripple harder. They reshape easier. They… stick.”

He points at her chest.

“And Lena? Lena is anchoring that ripple.”

Kara’s breath trembles. “This is too big, Barry. I’m changing things just by—by looking at her.”

Barry nods gently.

“Yeah. You are.”

Kara squeezes her eyes shut.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” she whispers. “I don’t want the timeline to swallow her because of me.”

Barry shifts, turning toward her.

“Kara… look at me.”

She does.

“You came back,” Barry says quietly, “because you couldn’t survive losing her. The timeline knows that.”

Kara’s throat closes.

Barry continues:

“The Speed Force told me something before it threw me out. Something I didn’t think you were ready to hear.”

Kara stiffens. “Tell me.”

Barry hesitates—

and then says it:

“If the Paragon finds her fixed point,

the timeline will rewrite itself around her choice.”

Kara’s breath leaves her.

Barry’s voice drops:

“Kara… you’re the Paragon.

Lena is your fixed point.”

Kara trembles. “So if I choose her—”

Barry interrupts gently.

“No. Kara.

You already did.”

The air around them pulses.

A warm ripple spreads across the skyline — slow, soft, like a new heartbeat waking.

Kara feels it resonate in her bones.

Barry watches the golden shimmer with quiet awe.

“There,” he murmurs. “See that? That’s reality responding to you.”

Kara stares.

Golden light arcs across the city in a gentle wave — subtle, invisible to anyone but them.

Kara presses a trembling hand to her chest.

“Barry…”

Her voice cracks.

“I just want her safe.”

Barry nods. “Then keep being careful. Keep stabilizing. Don’t rush her memories. And for God’s sake, don’t let Lex find out.”

Kara’s jaw sets.

“I won’t.”

“Kara…”

She looks at him.

Barry gives her a small, knowing smile.

“Let this timeline be the one where you don’t lose her.”

Kara exhales — long, shaky, filled with something like determination.

She turns her face toward L-Corp’s shining tower.

Lena is somewhere behind those windows — alive, curious, remembering pieces of a future they never got to live.

Kara straightens.

Her voice comes out steady, soft, and full of promise.

“I’m choosing her again.”

Barry smiles.

The golden shimmer pulses once more — brighter this time — then fades into the city’s heartbeat.

A new path diverges.

The rooftop air stills.

Then—

A soft crackle of blue-white energy ripples at the edge of Kara’s vision.

Not dangerous.

Not unstable.

Just… watching.

Time stretches, thins, then folds gently around her like warm static.

Kara is no longer on the rooftop.

Not physically — but her consciousness brushes the border of somewhere older.

Somewhere infinite.

Somewhere alive.

The Speed Force.

Colors swirl like liquid lightning.

Currents flow like rivers made of memory and possibility.

Everything hums with awareness.

A voice moves through the light.

Not Barry.

Not human.

“Paragon.”

Kara inhales sharply.

“Your choice resonates.”

Gold-white light flares, forming a shape — not a body, more like a silhouette of emotion.

Kara doesn’t feel fear.

Only awe.

“Your anchor supersedes causality.”

A pulse ripples outward.

“Your heart alters pathways others cannot see.”

The light brightens — warm, gentle, impossibly vast.

“Your divergence has been accepted.”

Kara’s breath catches.

Accepted?

What does that mean—

Another shimmering wave sweeps across the vision, pulling her attention to a thread of brilliant green and gold winding through the storm of light.

A thread that pulses in perfect rhythm with her own heartbeat.

Lena.

Kara reaches toward it before she can think—

The energy around her warms, almost like approval.

“Your fixed point responds.”

The green-gold thread glows brighter.

“Two timelines converge where one should stand.”

A pause.

“Proceed with caution, Paragon.”

Kara swallows hard.

“What happens if I don’t?”

The light shifts — not threatening, but solemn.

“If you falter… the timeline will attempt correction.”

Another pulse — soft, pained.

“Correction may result in deletion.”

Kara’s blood turns to ice.

“Deletion of who?” she whispers.

The voice answers with devastating clarity:

“Your anchor.”

Lena.

Kara’s heart seizes violently in her chest.

“No.”

Her voice is a tremor of sheer conviction.

“I won’t let that happen.”

The Speed Force hums — deeper, warmer.

“Then hold fast.”

“Stabilize the bond.”

“Choose with clarity.”

The green-gold thread pulses again, wrapping softly around her fingertips before slipping away like a whisper of memory.

“Hope bends the river, Kara Zor-El.”

The light dims.

“And you are its strongest current.”

The vision collapses gently—

—leaving Kara gasping on the rooftop.

A faint shimmer of lightning fades across the skyline.

The rooftop is quiet again.

But Kara radiates with something new.

Resolve.

Fear.

Love.

And an understanding that her choices are no longer just personal.

They are cosmic.

Kara steadies her breath, wiping her eyes.

“I’m not losing her,” she whispers into the wind.

The Speed Force answers with a soft flicker of gold across the clouds.

---

Chapter Text

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 1 — “The Morning After Isn’t Calm”

POV: Kara Danvers

(With integrated expanded Cat Grant mentor energy)

---

Kara wakes up feeling like she’s been emotionally hit by a freight train.

Not physically — physically she feels fine.

But emotionally?

Her chest aches.

Her heartbeat is too loud.

Her skin hums faintly with a soft golden undertone that should not be there.

And every time she closes her eyes, she sees Lena’s face on the balcony.

Feels Lena’s hands on her wrist.

She presses her palms to her eyes, groaning.

“Get it together,” she mumbles to herself.

She makes it through her morning routine on muscle memory alone — brushing her teeth, showering, tying her hair back — all while actively trying not to replay Lena whispering:

“I’m not afraid of this.”

Every time the memory surfaces, reality shivers.

That’s new.

That’s very, very bad.

By the time she reaches CatCo, she is desperately trying to appear normal.

It goes poorly.

---

⭐ Cat notices everything.

The moment Kara steps into the bullpen, Cat Grant looks up from her tablet with the accuracy of a predator spotting weakness.

She narrows her eyes.

“Kiera.”

Just the way she says it makes Kara straighten like someone tightened her strings.

“Yes, Ms. Grant?”

Cat stands from her chair and walks toward Kara with slow, assessing steps, eyes sharp as diamonds.

“You look like someone wrung you out, hung you to dry, and then drove over you with a Prius.”

Kara opens her mouth.

Closes it.

Cat waves a hand.

“No, no — don’t try to explain. I can see your brain working and it’s painful. Come. Sit.”

Before Kara can protest, Cat thrusts a cup of coffee into her hands with the force of someone administering medicine.

Kara sits.

Cat perches on the edge of her desk, arms crossed.

“Now,” Cat says, “tell me who she is.”

Kara inhales her coffee and chokes violently.

Cat doesn’t flinch.

“A brunette, I presume,” Cat adds, tapping a manicured finger against her knee. “You always get that glazed look around brunettes.”

Kara stares, horrified.

“I—I don’t—what—there’s no—”

“Kiera.”

Cat leans closer, lowering her sunglasses.

“Kara.”

Her voice softens, unusually gentle.

“Don’t insult me.”

Kara wilts.

Cat smirks triumphantly.

---

⭐ Cat Grant’s mini-monologue of devastating insight

“Listen to me,” Cat begins, tone switching to mentor-level-sincerity with alarming speed.

“Falling for someone brilliant is a dangerous hobby.

It turns your brain to soup and your heart to oatmeal.

And you, my dear, are already halfway to porridge.”

Kara wants the floor to swallow her.

Cat continues:

“But it also makes you brave.

Braver than you think you can be.

Braver than is probably healthy.”

Kara’s eyes soften, warmth melting her panic.

Cat taps her cheek lightly.

“So whoever this… Luthor-shaped hurricane is—”

Kara nearly drops her coffee.

“Aha,” Cat says, grinning like a cat who got the cream.

“Knew it.”

Kara puts her face in her hands. “Oh my god.”

Cat pats her head.

“There, there. Your secret’s safe… for now.”

---

⭐ Kara’s powers glitch

Jess walks by the bullpen discussing L-Corp on her phone.

Lena’s name drifts through the air.

Instantly, Kara’s superhearing zooms in on the sound without her permission.

Her pulse spikes.

Her coffee cup vibrates on the desk.

A fluorescent light above her flickers.

Cat pauses mid-sentence.

Her eyes shift slowly upward to the flickering light…

then back to Kara.

“Kiera,” Cat says, narrowing her gaze,

“if this building is glitching because of your love life, I swear I will fire the power grid.”

Kara flushes scarlet.

“I—I’m just—maybe it’s faulty wiring—”

“No,” Cat says flatly. “This is you. You’re vibrating.”

Kara covers her face again.

Cat’s voice softens.

“Hey.”

Kara peeks through her fingers.

Cat sighs — dramatically, but sincere beneath it.

“Whoever she is… don’t let fear decide your next move.”

Kara freezes.

Cat’s voice gentles further.

“It has never served you well.”

The words slide straight through Kara’s armor.

Her eyes sting.

Cat sees — of course she sees.

Without comment, she hands Kara a tissue.

---

⭐ The timeline reacts

Kara takes the tissue.

The moment her fingers brush the soft paper, a faint tremor rolls through the room —

like the universe exhaling around her.

Cat’s eyes flick upward again.

“Kiera,” she warns, “if you’re going to have a meltdown, at least go have it on a balcony where HR doesn’t have to file a report.”

Kara almost laughs.

Almost.

Because Lena on a balcony is what broke her in the first place.

Cat sees it all.

Her tone quiets to its rarest setting — genuine concern.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Cat says softly.

“You’ve fallen hard, haven’t you?”

Kara’s breath stutters.

She can’t answer.

She doesn’t have to.

Cat gives a small, understanding smile.

“Drink your coffee, pull yourself together, and then go figure out what you actually want.”

Kara nods, shaky, grateful.

Cat walks away with a confident stride, already snapping instructions to someone else.

But just before she disappears into her office, she calls back:

“And Kiera? Try not to implode the building. I like this one.”

Kara exhales.

Her hands shake.

Her powers hum.

Her heart aches in a way she can no longer hide from herself.

Because Cat was right.

She’s fallen.

Hard.

Fade out.

Fade out

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 2 — “Lena Tries to Rationalize the Impossible”

POV: Lena Luthor

---

Lena hasn’t slept.

She tried.

More than once.

She even managed to lie down for twenty minutes.

But every time she closed her eyes, she felt—

Kara’s fingers in her wrist.

That warm hum beneath her skin.

The soft, fragile look in Kara’s eyes.

The unmistakable sensation that something between them shifted permanently.

So she’s back at her desk before sunrise, blazer off, hair in a loose knot, a pale line of exhaustion under her eyes.

Her lab wing is silent.

Jess hasn’t arrived yet.

The building is cold the way it always is before the day begins.

Lena exhales shakily and activates her biometric interface.

Data scrolls across her workstation.

Neural patterns.

Hormonal spikes.

Electrodermal fluctuations.

Emotional resonance readings she has no business picking apart yet.

And there it is again:

The second signature.

Warm.

Rhythmic.

Harmonic.

Not hers.

Never hers.

Lena presses her fingers to her temple.

“No,” she murmurs.

“This can’t be external contamination.

It’s too stable. Too synchronized.”

She isolates her own neural pattern.

Then isolates the second.

When she overlays them—

—her breath catches.

They fit.

Not identical.

Not matching like two halves of a whole.

But complementary, like resonance waves aligning.

Lena steps back from the monitor.

“It’s a correlation, not causation,” she tells herself.

“A coincidence. An electrical interference pattern.”

But even as she says it, her chest tightens.

Because she remembers the moment on the balcony.

The way everything calmed when she touched Kara.

The way Kara looked at her like she mattered.

The way something in Lena’s chest recognized her.

Her hand drifts toward her sternum again—

And she freezes.

The echo hits like a punch.

---

⚡ THE ECHO

Not an emotion.

A moment.

Just one heartbeat long:

Kara kneeling on the ground in a different outfit — dusty, blood on her cheek — clutching her own hands to her face in grief.

Lena’s voice — older, deeper, broken — whispering:

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kara sobbing:

“I didn’t want to lose you.”

A flash of pain.

The sound of something collapsing.

A rooftop.

Wind.

A city darker than this one.

A sense of loss so bone-deep it steals Lena’s breath.

Then—

Gone.

Lena staggers forward, grabbing her desk.

Her pulse soars.

Her lungs seize.

Her vision blurs.

“What—”

She forces air into her chest.

“What was that?”

Her fingers shake as she pulls up her vitals again.

Spike.

Spike.

Spike.

All red.

Then the overlay appears again.

Her neural pattern—

and the second one—

sync into perfect alignment for three full seconds.

Lena’s stomach flips sharply.

“That wasn’t my memory,” she whispers.

“That wasn’t my pain.”

But it felt real.

Visceral.

Personal.

Her hands tremble.

The idea she’s been trying to push away presses harder:

These echoes aren’t anomalies.

They’re connections.

She doesn’t want to believe it.

But she can’t deny what her body is telling her.

Her phone buzzes.

She jumps.

Jess:

“On my way up. Want coffee?”

Lena stares at the message for a moment, grounding herself.

Lena:

Please.

She locks the neural screens, composes herself, smoothing her blouse and brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

But her hands are still shaking.

Her voice is unsteady when she whispers to the empty room:

“Kara… what are you doing to me?”

No answer comes.

But the lights overhead flicker — just once —

as if the building is exhaling with her.

Lena reaches for the tablet she dropped onto her desk—

but the moment her fingertips brush the metal edge, heat snaps through her nerves.

Another echo.

Shorter than the last.

Sharper.

An elevator.

The soft chiming of a bell.

Kara stepping inside—

her blouse torn, hair disheveled, as if she’d been through something she couldn’t explain.

Her knuckles scraped.

Her eyes red from crying

And Lena—

older, angrier, devastated—

stands inches away, whispering:

“Just tell me the truth.”

Kara’s voice shakes.

“I can’t.”

The pain in Lena’s chest is instant, bright, and unbearable.

The echo vanishes.

Lena jerks her hand back from the tablet like it burned her.

“What… was that…?” she breathes.

Her heart slams against her ribs.

Because she knows two things with perfect certainty:

1. That moment has never happened in her life.

2. But the emotion behind it felt like a wound she’d carried for years.

Her hands tremble violently now.

She shuts her eyes, trying to steady her breath.

But the truth curls cold and undeniable through her mind:

Someone else’s memories are bleeding into her own.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 3 — “The First Break in the Timeline”

POV: Kara Danvers

---

Kara’s day at CatCo is supposed to be normal.

It isn’t.

She sits at her desk, hands hovering over her keyboard, pretending to work on a story about local infrastructure improvements. Her brain tries to focus on the words on the screen, but every thought loops back to Lena.

Lena touching her wrist.

Lena whispering she wasn’t afraid.

Lena’s eyes widening in recognition — a recognition she should not have.

Kara swallows hard and squeezes her hands together to stop them from shaking.

“This is fine,” she whispers to herself.

It is not fine.

Her powers twitch under her skin like static caught in bone.

Her superhearing flickers in and out — too sensitive one second, then gone entirely the next.

She tries to type.

The world skips.

Just for a second.

Like a broken frame in a video.

Kara’s breath stutters.

She looks around the bullpen — no one else reacts.

She turns back to her computer—

And sees two versions of Lena, side-by-side overlayed in her mind’s eye:

One smiling, warm, younger.

This timeline’s Lena.

One older, grief-stricken, eyes full of betrayal.

Kara’s original timeline Lena.

The images slam together.

Kara gasps and grips the edge of her desk, knuckles white.

The lights flicker.

Her monitor glitches.

A ripple rolls through the air as if the atmosphere suddenly breathed in.

“Kara?”

She barely hears her own name.

Because the overlay isn’t fading.

Lena — two Lenas — stand in her mind with impossible clarity.

The happy one saying,

“You can always talk to me.”

The broken one whispering,

“You lied to me.”

Kara squeezes her eyes shut.

“No, no, no—” she whispers.

“Please not here, please—”

The bullpen is bright, noisy, alive — but she feels like she’s underwater.

The world jerks again.

Something slams into the floor beside her desk — a vibration only she feels.

Her breath stops.

Her vision blurs.

The voices of both Lenas echo through her head, overlapping:

“Kara?”

“Kara…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m not afraid.”

She clamps a hand over her mouth, trying to keep from crying out.

The world distorts—

And then a blast of wind sweeps through the room, invisible to normal eyes, rattling papers off nearby desks.

Barry Allen materializes beside her in a crackle of lightning.

He grabs the back of her chair, crouching down to her level.

“Kara—hey—Kara, look at me,” he says urgently, voice low, grounding.

She opens her eyes, tears gathering.

“Barry… I saw her. Both of her. At the same time. I can’t—”

Her voice breaks.

“I can’t do this.”

Barry’s face tightens.

“Okay,” he says softly.

“Okay. That wasn’t a normal glitch.”

Kara lets out a shaky breath. “No kidding.”

Barry touches her wrist — gently, like she’s made of glass.

“Kara… that wasn’t just you. The timeline reacted.”

Kara shakes her head, panic rising.

“But I didn’t even see Lena today. This shouldn’t be happening.”

Barry’s eyes harden with worry.

“That’s the problem, Kara.”

He leans closer, voice gentling.

“The bond is accelerating. The timeline doesn’t want distance.”

Kara’s stomach drops.

“What are you saying?”

Barry hesitates…

then says it:

“I’m saying you might be the one destabilizing reality.”

Kara’s breath stutters into silence.

“I… what?”

Barry squeezes her hand.

“Kara… the universe responds to you.

And right now?

It’s responding too strongly.”

Kara’s eyes fill.

Because she already knows why.

Lena.

Everything is tied to Lena.

Barry looks at the flickering lights, at Kara’s trembling hands, at the tear she doesn’t notice spilling down her cheek.

“We need to get you out of here,” he whispers.

“Before the next slip is worse.”

Kara nods, barely.

Barry helps her stand—

But before they can move, Kara’s vision flickers again.

Just a heartbeat.

Just one frame.

Lena’s hand in hers.

Older.

Warmer.

Devastated.

And Lena whispering,

“Please don’t leave me again.”

The timeline snaps back into place.

Kara sways.

Barry catches her.

“Okay,” he says, voice firm.

“We’re leaving. Now.”

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 4 — “The Magnetism Problem”

POV: Lena Luthor (primary) + Kara (secondary)

L-Corp, late morning into early afternoon

---

Lena tells herself she’s not going to think about Kara today.

That lasts exactly eight minutes.

She tries to drown herself in work — contracts, project briefs, a meeting with R&D — but every time she looks down at her hands she feels the phantom warmth of Kara’s skin under her fingers.

And the echoes.

God, the echoes.

The elevator memory.

The rooftop.

The grief that wasn’t hers.

She finally gets frustrated enough to snap her tablet shut and stand, pacing her office.

“This is ridiculous,” she mutters.

Her mind keeps replaying Kara’s face from yesterday.

The fragility.

The relief when Lena touched her.

The grief—

the grief Lena felt in that micro-flash even though she wasn’t the one who lived it.

And that’s what terrifies her the most:

These emotions aren’t random.

They feel personal.

Like she lost Kara.

Like she loved Kara.

Like something broke between them once.

She presses a hand to her sternum.

“Get a grip, Lena.”

A knock.

Jess cracks open the door.

“Um—Miss Luthor? Kara Danvers is here.”

Lena jolts.

“Kara?”

“She said she’s here for the renewable energy interview follow-up,” Jess says. “Do you want me to stall her? I can stall her.”

Lena’s heart slams against her ribs.

“No,” she says too quickly.

Then, calmer: “No. Send her in.”

Jess gives her a look.

The kind of look that says, I see everything and I’m judging all of it,

and closes the door.

Lena exhales sharply.

Her pulse thunders.

Her palms sweat.

She hates how much she cares.

She turns toward the window, trying to school her expression—

But the second the door opens behind her, she feels it.

A warm hum rolls through the room like a soft current of energy.

Her breath catches.

Kara.

---

⭐ Kara’s arrival (secondary POV bleed)

Kara stands in the doorway, holding her notebook like it’s a shield.

The moment her eyes meet Lena’s—

The lights flicker.

A soft vibration hums in the air between them.

Kara feels her powers spark under her skin.

Lena feels her heart lurch into her throat.

Neither of them moves.

Neither of them breathes.

The universe leans closer.

---

⭐ Back to Lena

Lena forces herself to inhale.

“Kara,” she says, her voice softer than intended. “Hi.”

Kara swallows, eyes wide, like she expected this to hurt.

“Hi.”

Jess, witnessing a level of tension that probably violates HR policy, hesitates in the doorway.

“Do… do you need anything else, Miss Luthor?”

“No,” Lena and Kara say at the same time.

Jess retreats, closing the door slowly, as if backing away from wild animals.

---

⭐ The pull between them

Kara steps forward.

A tiny spark dances across the metal of Lena’s desk.

They both see it.

Lena’s pulse spikes.

Kara freezes like she’s afraid to get closer.

But Lena—

Lena feels that hum again.

The same hum from the balcony.

The same soft pull that makes her want to step into Kara’s orbit and never leave it.

She moves first.

Just one small step.

Kara’s breath shudders.

And reality responds.

The air warms.

The lights soften.

The faintest golden shimmer flutters behind Kara’s shoulders like heat mirage.

Lena blinks, startled.

“What… was that?”

Kara swallows hard.

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

She is a terrible liar.

Lena steps closer again.

“Something happens when we’re near each other,” Lena whispers.

“You feel it too.”

Kara closes her eyes like the words physically hurt her.

“Lena, I—”

Lena reaches out without thinking—

Her hand brushes the side of Kara’s wrist.

The echo hits instantly.

---

⚡ THE ECHO (short)

A door slamming.

Kara yelling, “Please, wait—”

Lena’s voice, cold and shaking:

“You should have told me the truth.”

A wave of heartbreak.

Not from this Lena.

From another.

---

Lena jerks her hand back with a gasp.

Kara steps forward instinctively, hands half-raised like she’s afraid Lena might fall.

“Lena—Lena, are you okay?” Her voice cracks.

“I felt—” Lena stammers, breath shaking.

“I felt something again. Something that wasn’t mine.”

Kara looks devastated.

“Lena, I’m so sorry.”

Lena stares at her.

“Why does it feel like we’ve… been through something? Together?”

Kara’s chest heaves.

“Because—”

She cuts herself off, shaking her head.

“No. I can’t.”

Lena steps closer again, eyes bright with confusion and something painfully tender.

“Kara… look at me.”

Kara does.

Their breathing synchronizes.

The room vibrates gently around them.

Lena whispers:

“Whatever this is…

you’re not the only one feeling it.”

Kara’s eyes shine with emotion she can’t hide.

“I know,” she whispers.

“That’s the problem.”

The tension is electric.

One wrong move and reality might snap.

Jess opens the door again without knocking.

“Kara—oh my god, sorry—Miss Luthor, your 12 o’clock—”

She freezes at the sight of them standing too close, staring too intensely, glowing just slightly.

Jess backs out slowly.

“I’m… going to reschedule that.”

The door clicks shut.

The tension breaks just enough for Kara to step back, flustered.

“I—I should go.”

Lena’s heart stings, but she nods.

“Okay.”

Kara turns toward the door—

But Lena, without meaning to, whispers:

“Kara… don’t stay away.”

Kara stops.

Her shoulders shake.

She doesn’t turn around as she says, voice trembling:

“I don’t think I could, even if I tried.”

Then she leaves.

Lena stands alone in her office, breathing hard, hand pressed to her sternum again.

The hum lingers.

Stronger than ever.

---

⭐Kara’s Shock Wave

Kara POV, immediately after leaving Lena’s office

Kara doesn’t get ten steps down the hallway before it hits her.

Her heartbeat spikes—

not physically, but cosmically.

A warm, golden pulse ripples through her chest, outward, like a stone dropped into the fabric of reality.

The floor beneath her feet vibrates.

The glass wall to her left hums.

The elevator lights flicker in a synchronized wave, cascading from top to bottom like falling dominoes.

Kara grabs the railing, eyes widening.

“No, no, no—” she whispers.

The pulse comes again.

Stronger.

Her vision blurs for a second—

not with tears this time

but with overlapping timelines pressing through her thoughts.

She hears Lena’s voice in one timeline say:

“Don’t stay away.”

And in another:

“You lied to me.”

The echoes twist together.

Kara clamps her hands over her ears, but it doesn’t stop — because the sound isn’t external.

It’s memory.

It’s the past fighting to merge with the present.

The hallway around her distorts for half a second, as if someone is stretching the edges of reality like plastic wrap.

Then —

everything snaps back.

The lights steady.

The vibration stops.

Her hearing normalizes.

Kara leans into the wall, breathing hard.

“Oh God,” she whispers.

“What is happening to us?”

The answer hits her like a cold wave:

Every time she and Lena get close…

the universe reacts.

And the reaction is getting stronger.

Kara lifts her trembling hands in front of her face.

Faint golden light flickers across her fingers before fading.

She swallows.

“Barry’s not going to like this,” she says softly.

But deeper inside, beneath the fear, a thought she doesn’t want to face rises like a spark:

Neither am I.

Because I don’t want to stay away from her.

Not anymore.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 5 — “Barry’s Hard Truth”

POV: Kara Danvers

(Private rooftop — shortly after the hallway shock wave)

---

Kara barely makes it out of L-Corp before her vision starts to blur again.

Not dangerously — not like the double-Lena overlay earlier —

but enough that she’s afraid to use her powers in public.

So she walks. Quickly. Head down.

Hands shoved deep into her coat pockets so they won’t shake visibly.

By the time she reaches the rooftop Barry told her about, she’s trembling.

She’s barely stepped out onto the concrete when a gust of wind swirls behind her and Barry materializes in a crackle of blue-white electricity.

He looks at her once—

just once—

and his expression drops into pure worry.

“Kara,” he says softly.

“That bad?”

She laughs—

the broken, breathless kind that isn’t actually laughter at all.

“Barry, I think I’m breaking the timeline.”

He steps closer immediately.

“Hey. Sit.”

He guides her to the rooftop ledge like she’s in shock.

“Kara, start from the top. What happened?”

Kara presses both palms against her forehead, trying to steady her breathing.

“I saw her,” she whispers.

“Not… not Lena here. I saw the other Lena. The one from my timeline. And then… something else. This flicker. Like reality was trying to split.”

Barry nods slowly.

He knew this was coming.

“And when I left her office,” Kara continues, “something pulsed through me. Like a shockwave. It felt—Barry, it felt alive.”

Barry crouches in front of her, hands on his knees.

“Kara… I ran a scan the moment I sensed the spike. And you’re right.”

Kara looks up, terrified.

“You’re destabilizing the timeline.”

She feels her stomach drop.

Barry sees the panic rise and gently places a hand on her shoulder.

“But not because your powers are out of control,” he says quickly.

“This isn’t kryptonian. It’s emotional. Kara… it’s Lena.”

Kara closes her eyes.

Of course it is.

Barry continues, voice soft but urgent:

“The bond between you two is accelerating. Faster than the Speed Force predicted.”

Kara shakes her head.

“But we barely touched—”

“Kara.”

He gives her a look.

“You two breathe the same air and the universe lights up like a Christmas tree.”

Kara lets out a long, trembling exhale.

“I don’t know what to do, Barry. Every time I’m near her, something happens. Lights flicker. The ground shakes. Lena sees things she’s not supposed to see.”

Barry nods. “I know.”

“And I don’t want to hurt her,” Kara whispers.

Her voice breaks.

“I can feel her getting pulled into this. I can feel her remembering things she’s never lived. And it’s my fault.”

Barry moves his hand from her shoulder to her wrist, squeezing gently.

“Kara. Listen to me.”

She looks up, eyes wet.

“This isn’t your fault. The universe chose her long before you ever touched the timeline.”

Kara frowns, confused.

“What do you mean?”

Barry swallows.

“When the Speed Force kicked you out of your original timeline—it didn’t just push you randomly. It pushed you to your fixed point.”

Kara feels her heart stop.

Barry continues:

“Kara… a fixed point isn’t a place.

It’s a person.”

Her breath shudders.

No.

He can’t mean—

“Kara,” Barry says softly,

“Lena isn’t just the reason you came back.”

A beat.

“She’s the reason the timeline let you.”

Kara trembles, absorbing the weight of that.

Barry watches her, sympathy shining in his eyes.

“You’re the Paragon of Hope. Your emotions echo louder than the laws of physics. And your strongest emotional anchor is—”

“Lena,” Kara whispers.

Barry nods.

“Your timelines want to converge. They’ve been trying to converge for years. You just… finally gave them the chance.”

Kara’s throat tightens painfully.

“So what do I do?” she asks.

“How do I stop hurting her? How do I keep the timeline from collapsing around her?”

Barry lets out a slow breath.

“You stabilize it.”

“How?”

Barry looks at her with something like awe.

“You don’t keep your distance.

You stay close.”

Kara’s eyes widen.

“Barry, that’s the opposite of what I should do—”

“No,” he interrupts firmly.

“What you shouldn’t do is run. That’s when the cracks get worse.”

Kara looks down at her shaking hands.

“She told me… not to stay away.”

Barry nods.

“There you go.”

Kara’s breath trembles.

“But, Barry… if I get too close…”

She swallows hard.

“What if I lose her again?”

Barry’s voice softens.

“Kara. Losing her is the one thing that breaks the timeline.

Choosing her?

That’s what holds it together.”

A golden shimmer pulses faintly in the air behind Kara, visible only to Barry.

He gestures toward it quietly.

“You see that? That’s not the world falling apart.

That’s the world adjusting to your choice.”

Kara blinks, tears finally spilling over.

Barry smiles — small, sad, but full of hope.

“Let it adjust, Kara,” he murmurs.

“For once… let something be right.”

A hush falls over the rooftop.

Kara exhales shakily.

She doesn’t answer.

But she doesn’t have to.

The golden shimmer pulses once, softly—

like the universe whispering:

Yes.

This.

Fade out.

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 6 — “Lex Notices the Flaw”

POV: Split — Lena (short) + Lex (primary)

L-Corp → LexCorp underground bunker

---

Lena doesn’t notice the anomaly at first.

She’s too busy standing at her window, staring down at the city with her hand pressed absentmindedly to her sternum.

Everything with Kara feels—

Wrong.

Right.

Impossible.

Inevitable.

She exhales shakily and turns to her desk, pulling up the encrypted scan she ran earlier.

The screen loads.

A list of emotional resonance readings—

hers and the unidentified second pattern—

and then, near the bottom—

A spike.

Bright.

Violent.

Green.

Lena frowns.

“That’s new.”

She taps the reading.

The data expands.

It's not gold.

Not tethered to Kara, or to that… hum Lena can’t explain.

This is different.

Structured.

Precise.

Calculated.

A signature she recognizes instinctively.

Her stomach tightens.

“…Lex?”

She straightens, shoulders going rigid.

The spike disappears.

Vanished.

Like it never existed.

Lena stares at the blank line where the anomaly used to be, unsettled.

“Jess,” she calls quietly into her comm.

“Reschedule everything for the next hour.”

Jess answers: “Uh—sure. Everything okay?”

“Yes. Fine.”

But Lena doesn’t believe it.

Because something is watching her work.

Something intelligent.

Something intrusive.

She closes the program and leaves the office without another word.

---

⭐ LEX — underground LexCorp bunker

Deep beneath LexCorp Tower, walls lined with server clusters and cold metal, Lex Luthor sits alone in the blue glow of a massive surveillance array.

He smirks.

“Well, well,” he murmurs to himself, fingers dancing across a holographic display.

“That’s not a normal disruption.”

He expands a waveform — the same signature Lena saw — and overlays it with the city’s energy map.

The result is unmistakable:

A temporal displacement ripple.

Centered around—

Lex tilts his head.

“Kara Danvers?”

He zooms in tighter.

The signature spikes again — gold this time — brief but undeniable.

Lex’s eyebrows lift.

“Well,” he says, leaning back.

“That’s interesting.”

He swipes through data:

Lena Luthor’s biometrics

L-Corp building logs

energy fluctuations

city-wide glitches

and finally…

A pattern.

Small.

But repeating.

It matches Lena’s office.

It matches places Kara Danvers has been in the last 48 hours.

But that shouldn’t be possible.

Kara Danvers is—

Boring.

Predictable.

Human.

Lex scowls.

Unless she isn’t.

He narrows his eyes.

“No,” he mutters.

“Not superhuman.

Not magical.”

His gaze flicks to the temporal distortion wave.

“This is something else entirely.”

He pulls up a blank profile file and enters a name manually:

KARA DANVERS — ANOMALY.

Then another window opens beside it, automatically populated by the system:

Emotional Proximity Correlation: 98%.

Linked Node: LENA LUTHOR.

Lex goes still.

Then he laughs.

“Oh Lena… what have you gotten yourself tangled in this time?”

He taps the screen once — sealing the profile.

Then he leans forward, eyes sharp and hungry.

“Let’s see what your little reporter friend is hiding,” he whispers.

“And what she’s doing to my sister.”

The servers hum around him.

In the corner of the screen, the anomaly signature pulses once more.

Gold.

Alive.

Converging.

Lex smiles darkly.

“This is going to be fun.”

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ ADD-ON MICRO-ECHO — “The Memory That Isn’t Hers”

POV: Lena

---

Lena arrives home long after sunset, exhausted in a way she can’t name.

Her penthouse is quiet—too quiet.

Usually the silence is comforting.

Tonight it feels like it’s listening.

She drops her keys on the counter and presses a hand to her sternum, massaging the tension gathered under her ribs.

She doesn’t know why she expects to feel warmth again.

She doesn’t know why it hurts when she doesn’t.

Lena exhales shakily and moves toward the window overlooking National City, the city lights scattering like stars across the dark.

She touches the cold glass.

And the echo hits.

---

⚡ THE MICRO-FLASH

A memory she never lived.

A room she’s never seen.

A voice she knows too well.

“I’m so sorry, Lena.”

Lena’s breath catches, misting the glass.

Kara stands in front of her—

older, wrecked, tears streaking her face—

in ordinary clothes torn at the sleeves.

Her hands tremble as she reaches for Lena but doesn’t touch her.

“I never wanted to lie to you.”

Lena feels her own heart splinter.

Not from anger.

From grief too heavy for someone who hasn’t lived it.

She hears her own voice—

but deeper, rough with betrayal.

“You broke my heart.”

Kara sobs—silent, devastating.

The echo collapses.

---

Lena staggers back from the window, grabbing the edge of her dining table to steady herself.

“No,” she whispers.

“No, that—That never happened. That wasn’t me.”

Her heart is pounding so hard it hurts.

Tears burn behind her eyes—tears she refuses to let fall.

She presses both hands over her face, breathing through the tremor.

“Why do I feel her pain?” she whispers to the empty room.

“Why do I feel like I’ve lived this?”

The only answer is the city breeze brushing against the windows—

and a faint hum beneath her skin, soft and warm.

The same hum she felt when Kara touched her.

The same hum she can’t stop thinking about.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 7 — “We Shouldn’t Feel This, But We Do”

POV: Split — Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor

Late evening — CatCo

---

The lights in CatCo burn low at night —

soft, warm halos pooling across empty desks

and corridors washed in a muted amber glow.

The bullpen is quiet.

Reporters long gone.

James in his office.

Cat in her penthouse suite upstairs, working but not watching.

Kara wasn’t supposed to be here.

She came back because she couldn’t go home yet —

not with her emotions buzzing like exposed wires

and the ghost of Lena’s voice echoing in her head:

Don’t stay away.

The elevator doors open with a quiet chime.

Kara steps into the dim bullpen, hugging her arms around herself, breathing through the aftershocks of Barry’s warning.

She tries to steady her heartbeat.

She tries to not think of Lena.

She fails instantly.

A soft click echoes behind her.

Kara freezes.

Then she hears it:

“Kara?”

Her breath stutters.

She turns.

Lena stands there, hair slightly mussed from a long day, blazer off, sleeves rolled to her elbows.

She looks too human.

Too tired.

Too real.

Too close.

Kara forces a smile.

It trembles.

“Lena. What—what are you doing here?”

“I was consulting with Snapper about the clean-energy feature CatCo is running next week.”

Her voice softens.

“I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

Kara swallows. “Yeah. I, um… couldn’t sleep.”

Lena steps closer.

“Neither could I.”

The air shifts.

A soft hum begins in Kara’s bones.

Lena feels it too —

she straightens slightly, breath catching

as if the atmosphere itself tightened around them.

Kara steps back instinctively.

The lights flicker.

Lena’s eyes widen.

“Kara… what was that?”

Kara’s voice is too soft, too raw.

“I don’t know.”

Lena steps closer again.

“Kara, talk to me.”

“I can’t,” Kara whispers.

“You can.”

Lena stops just inches away —

close enough for Kara to feel her body heat,

close enough for the hum in her chest to synchronize with Lena’s heartbeat.

She doesn’t touch her.

She doesn’t have to.

Their breaths sync without effort.

Their palms tingle with the memory of contact.

Lena searches her eyes, desperate, frightened, hopeful.

“Kara… something is happening between us.”

Kara’s lashes flutter.

“I know.”

Lena’s voice cracks.

“And you’re terrified of it.”

Kara nods once.

“Yes.”

Lena’s chest rises with a deep breath she didn’t plan to take.

“Why?”

Her voice trembles.

“Kara, why are you so afraid of me?”

It’s so soft.

So fragile.

Kara’s heart caves in on itself.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she whispers.

“I’m afraid of losing you.”

Lena goes still.

The hum sharpens —

warmer, denser, like the world is leaning in.

“Kara… how—how could you lose me?” Lena asks, voice barely a breath.

Kara touches her chest.

Her fingers shake.

“Because I already did.”

Lena gasps.

Her knees nearly buckle.

The world around them flickers—

just once.

Kara steps forward on instinct, catching Lena’s elbow before she can stumble.

The moment their skin makes contact—

A wave.

Not an echo.

A surge.

Lena’s eyes fly open, flooded with a sensation that isn’t hers:

Kara’s grief.

Kara’s desperation.

Kara’s heartbreak.

The moment Kara realized she lost her forever.

Lena chokes on a cry.

Kara pulls her into her arms without thinking, holding her up, grounding her, whispering apologies that make no sense but feel like they’re from another life.

“I’m sorry,” Kara breathes.

“I’m so sorry, Lena.”

Lena grips the fabric of Kara’s coat, shaking.

“Kara—what was that?

What am I feeling?

Why does it hurt so much?”

Kara closes her eyes, voice cracking.

“Because it’s mine.”

Lena freezes.

She pulls back slowly, eyes locked with Kara’s.

“Kara… what happened between us?”

Kara swallows.

Everything inside her screams to tell the truth.

But Barry’s warning echoes in her mind:

“Don’t rush the memories.

Stabilize the bond.”

Kara forces herself to step back.

Lena follows without meaning to.

They’re shaking.

Both of them.

Kara whispers:

“It wasn’t this timeline.”

Lena’s breath catches.

“But it mattered to you?”

Kara’s voice breaks on the answer:

“More than anything.”

Lena’s eyes shine.

“Kara…”

The hum between them builds, warm as a heartbeat.

Lena’s hand rises —

slowly, gently —

toward Kara’s cheek.

Kara leans in without realizing.

The universe holds its breath.

And then—

A door opens upstairs.

Cat’s voice drifts faintly through the silent office:

“Honestly, if these lights flicker one more time—”

The moment shatters.

Kara steps back quickly, swallowing hard.

Lena’s hand drops.

But the connection doesn’t fade.

They stand there, breathing too heavily, too close, too aware.

Kara whispers:

“I should go.”

Lena nods — but her eyes say don’t.

“Okay.”

Kara turns, taking one step away.

And Lena says, barely audible:

“Kara…

please don’t run from me.”

Kara stops.

She closes her eyes.

One tear slips out.

“I’m trying not to.”

And then she leaves.

Leaving Lena alone in the quiet bullpen, heart pounding, fingers tingling, the universe still humming around her like a whispered promise.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ Cat Grant POV — “The Things Kiera Thinks Are Subtle”

---

⭐ Cat Grant POV

Two floors above Kara & Lena’s moment — Cat’s private office

Cat Grant is not eavesdropping.

Of course she isn’t.

She simply has excellent hearing for someone who is absolutely, entirely human, and whose office happens to be directly above the bullpen.

She taps her tablet, reviewing ad metrics, when she feels—

more than hears—

the familiar tremor in the building’s lighting.

The same tiny flicker that happened earlier when Kiera walked in looking like a wet puppy abandoned at a bus stop.

Cat’s eyes narrow.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she mutters.

“Kiera Danvers, what emotional nonsense are you radiating now?”

She stands, slides open her window shade, and peers down through the glass wall overlooking the bullpen.

She sees nothing clearly — just blurred outlines, dim lights, and the soft hum of distant voices.

But she recognizes the silhouettes instantly.

One tall.

One shorter.

Both leaning in like the universe itself tied an invisible string between them.

Cat squints.

“Of course,” she whispers.

“The Luthor.”

She watches for another moment, tapping one manicured nail against the glass.

The air around them shimmers.

Just a hint.

Just enough for Cat to catch it if she’s paying attention.

Which she absolutely is.

Cat exhales sharply.

“Kiera, darling, if you are going to fall for someone, you could have at least picked someone less capable of causing blackouts.”

She turns back toward her desk, shaking her head.

“Oh, she’s in love,” Cat mutters.

“Completely, hopelessly, embarrassingly in love.”

She sits, folding her legs beneath her, picking her tablet back up with a sigh that belongs more in a tragedy than a newsroom.

“And she thinks she’s subtle,” Cat says, rolling her eyes.

“Adorable. Wrong. But adorable.”

Another flicker in the lights makes her look up.

Cat stares at the ceiling, speaking to nobody.

“If this building starts glowing because two idiots won’t admit their feelings, I swear I’m sending the repair bill to the Luthors.”

She takes a long sip of her latte.

“And Kiera,” she mutters softly, “for once in your life… don’t run from what you want.”

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 3 — “Echoes Don’t Lie”

Scene 8 — “The Universe Responds”

POV: Kara Danvers

Kara’s apartment, late night

---

Kara doesn’t remember the walk home.

Not really.

Her mind is still trapped in that moment at CatCo —

Lena’s breath against hers,

their hearts pounding in sync,

the surge that hit when their skin touched.

Every memory echo Lena felt?

Kara felt reflected back at her, sharp and aching.

And Lena’s voice keeps looping through Kara’s head:

“Kara… please don’t run from me.”

Kara presses her hands against her eyes as she stands in the quiet of her apartment, trembling.

She barely gets her coat off before her knees weaken and she sinks onto the couch.

Her hands won’t stop shaking.

Her breathing won’t settle.

And her heart…

Her heart feels like it’s trying to rewrite itself.

“I can’t lose her again,” Kara whispers into the dark.

“I can’t.”

The words crack her open.

Tears spill over, unexpected and uncontrollable — not from pain, not entirely, but from fear.

Fear of what she remembers.

Fear of what she’s changing.

Fear of what she might break.

Fear of what she feels.

She wipes her eyes and looks down at her palms.

A faint golden shimmer dances across her skin.

Kara’s breath catches.

“Not now… please, not now.”

But the shimmer grows — soft, warm, almost beautiful — illuminating the edges of her fingers like she’s catching starlight in her bones.

The room pulses once.

Like a heartbeat.

Kara gasps softly.

“Barry… what is happening to me?”

The air thickens.

A low hum fills the room — not loud, but unmistakable.

Not sound.

Not vibration.

The universe breathing with her.

Kara stands slowly, her heart pounding.

“Okay,” she whispers, voice tight.

“Okay. Don’t panic.”

She steps toward the window, placing a hand against the cool glass.

Outside, the lights of National City shimmer —

then flicker —

then steady again.

She feels a shift in the air behind her—

Not dangerous.

Not violent.

Just… aware.

“Kara Zor-El.”

Her breath freezes.

The voice is familiar.

Warm.

Infinite.

She turns slowly.

The Speed Force stands before her in its non-form —

a silhouette made of soft gold and white energy,

shifting like waves of light.

Kara swallows hard, throat tight.

“You again,” she whispers.

The light pulses gently.

“You made another choice.”

Kara clenches her fists.

“I didn’t— I didn’t choose anything. I just—”

“Your truth chooses for you.”

Kara’s breath trembles out of her.

“That’s not fair.”

“It is inevitable.”

She looks away, blinking hard against new tears.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she says.

“I don’t know how to be near her without… without everything breaking.”

The Speed Force tilts, as if observing her more closely.

“It is not proximity that destabilizes reality.”

A pause.

“It is fear.”

Kara flinches.

“I am afraid,” she whispers.

“I’m terrified.”

A soft wave of light moves through the room.

“You fear loss.”

Kara closes her eyes.

“Yes.”

“But your anchor does not fear you.”

Kara’s breath catches.

“Lena… she felt something today. I saw it. I—”

“She remembers your grief.”

Kara’s knees buckle.

The Speed Force continues — gentle, patient, unbearably kind:

“She remembers your love.”

Kara opens her eyes, tears falling silently.

“Is that why the echoes hurt her?”

“No.”

A beat.

“They hurt because they mattered.”

Kara lifts a hand to her chest as emotion overwhelms her.

The Speed Force’s energy shifts again, brighter for a moment.

“When two timelines converge, emotions bridge before memories.”

Kara inhales sharply, her heartbeat stumbling.

“And if… if they converge completely?”

The light dims to a warm, steady glow.

“Then what you lost may be rewritten.”

Kara’s breath stutters.

She shakes her head, stepping back.

“No. No, I—I can’t let that happen. I can’t lose this Lena. I can’t overwrite her.”

“You misunderstand.”

The voice softens.

“Convergence does not replace.

It restores.”

Kara’s eyes widen.

Her pulse pounds in her ears.

The Speed Force moves closer — inches away, glowing softly.

“Hope bends reality.”

“Love anchors it.”

“And Lena Luthor anchors you.”

The words hit her like a physical force.

Kara covers her mouth, overwhelmed.

The energy around her flickers — gold, soft, trembling.

The Speed Force begins to fade, light dissolving into gentle sparks.

Before it disappears completely, its voice echoes one last time:

“Do not run from what your heart already knows.”

“She has not forgotten you.”

The light extinguishes.

The room is silent.

Kara stands alone, trembling, tears running freely down her cheeks —

but her heart feels steady for the first time in days.

She turns toward the city, whispering into the glass:

“Lena…”

Her hand presses against the window.

And somewhere across the skyline, in her penthouse,

Lena stands at her own window at the exact same moment,

pressing her hand to the glass

with no idea why her chest feels warm

or why her eyes suddenly fill with tears.

The city lights pulse once more.

Soft.

Warm.

Gold.

Fade out.

End of Chapter 3.

---

Chapter Text

---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 1 — “The Morning After the Universe Spoke”

POV: Kara Danvers
Kara’s apartment, early morning

---

Kara wakes before sunrise.

She doesn’t mean to — her body just jolts awake, breath catching in her throat, as if a voice called her name from somewhere far away.

She sits up slowly, blinking in the soft blue light of her bedroom.

Her heart is still racing.

Not from fear.

From memory.

From the moment last night when the Speed Force stood in front of her, glowing like starlight behind lace curtains.

“Hope bends reality.
Love anchors it.
And Lena Luthor anchors you.”

Kara presses the heel of her hand to her chest.

She can still feel it — the warmth the Speed Force left behind, the echo of a truth she has tried desperately to avoid for years.

Her fingers tremble.

“Lena…”

Just saying her name makes the room shiver.

A soft, gold pulse flickers over Kara’s fingertips.

Kara freezes.

“No no no—don’t do that, not this morning—”

But the golden shimmer fades on its own, gentle, as if responding to her calming breath.

She exhales shakily.

This is new.
This is dangerous.
This is… terrifying.

But the fear is different now.

It isn’t fear of Lena.

It’s fear of what the universe is doing around her — because of her — and how much of it she can’t control.

Kara stands slowly, grounding her feet on the cool wooden floor.
Her body feels heavier, like she’s been carrying something enormous inside her chest.
But she also feels clearer.
Anchored.

Because she finally understands something she’s been denying for years:

She can’t lose Lena again.

Not in this timeline.
Not in any timeline.

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

ALEX:
Everything okay? I felt something weird last night.

Kara winces.

Of course Alex felt it.
Her sister always senses the cosmic disasters right before she asks Kara to tell the truth.

Kara types:

I’m fine! Just… weird dreams lol.

Three seconds later:

ALEX:
Kara Zor-El, that wasn’t a dream and you know it.

Kara closes her eyes.

She doesn’t answer.

She can’t.

Because the truth isn’t something she can explain over text.
Or maybe at all.

She moves into the kitchen, pouring coffee she doesn’t need, letting her hands shake because she knows she’s alone.

The moment she whispers Lena’s name again under her breath—

A soft, warm pulse ripples across her skin.

Like the universe is listening.

Like it’s agreeing.

Kara’s breath catches.

“Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay. Don’t panic.”

She takes another grounding breath, grabs her bag, and heads for the door.

But she doesn’t go to CatCo.

She doesn’t go to Alex.

She doesn’t go to the DEO.

Her feet take her where her heart has been pushing since last night.

Toward the only person who’s ever anchored her.

Kara walks into the morning light with a quiet, fragile truth sitting in her chest:

She is done running from Lena Luthor.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 2 — “Lena’s Day Starts Wrong”

POV: Lena Luthor
L-Corp Penthouse → L-Corp Offices, early morning

---

Lena hasn’t slept.

She tried.

She even took a mild sedative.

But her mind wouldn’t slow down.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Kara’s hands on her arms—
protective, grounding—
and the echo of a memory she should not have:

Kara holding her, whispering “I’ll always come back for you.”

Lena presses a hand to her sternum as she stands at her penthouse window, watching the city in the pale gray glow before dawn.

Her chest aches.

Not physically.

Emotionally.
Like an old bruise someone brushed against that morning.

She doesn’t know why she keeps touching that spot.
She doesn’t know why she expects warmth to bloom there again.

But she does.

She exhaled shakily, turning from the window and grabbing her tablet.

She tries to lose herself in data.
It usually works.

But this morning?
Everything feels… off.

Her neural resonance readings are still out of alignment from yesterday.
Her adrenaline curve is wrong.
Her emotional signature is elevated.
And another unfamiliar signature—warm, rhythmic—keeps appearing in the overlap.

She tries isolating it.

It resists.

She tries re-running the data.

It appears again.

“Come on,” she mutters, frowning.
“This makes no sense.”

Then she sees it:

A timestamp.

A sharp spike.

At the exact moment she touched Kara’s hand yesterday.

Lena steps back from the tablet.

“No,” she whispers.
“That’s not— It can’t be—”

A knock at her penthouse door.

She jumps.

Jess peeks in, holding a coffee tray and wearing the expression of a woman who’s been awake as long as her boss.

“Good morning, Miss Luthor,” Jess says gently.
“You look like you were up all night.”

“That makes two of us,” Lena mutters.

Jess offers her coffee. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

But she does.

She just… can’t.

Not yet.

She shakes her head, brushing past Jess as she grabs her coat.

“I’ll be at the office early,” Lena says.

“That also makes two of us,” Jess sighs, following.

---

L-Corp Offices — one hour later

Lena is in full CEO mode.

Her hair is immaculate.
Her makeup hides the exhaustion.
Her posture is knife-sharp.

But the longer the morning stretches, the less she can pretend.

She pulls up the neural data again, trying to force it to make sense.

It doesn’t.

And worse—
the signature that isn’t hers
that she knows isn’t hers
keeps drifting back into the overlap.

She presses her thumb and forefinger to her temples.

“These readings shouldn’t exist,” she murmurs.
“And yet—”

Her screen flickers.

A new alert pops up.

TEMPORAL ANOMALY: SOURCE UNKNOWN

Lena stiffens.

“What the hell…?”

Before she can examine it further, Jess appears in the doorway again.

“Miss Luthor? You have a message.”

“From who?”

Jess hesitates.

“…Lex.”

Lena’s jaw tightens.

“Delete it.”

“Already did.”

Lena exhales a slow, controlled breath.

“Thank you.”

But she still feels the sting.

She still feels the fear she refuses to name.

Jess softens. “Miss Luthor… are you sure you’re all right?”

Lena closes her eyes for a moment.

When she opens them, her voice is calm.

Too calm.

“I will be,” she says.

But she doesn’t believe it.

Because something in her chest is pulling her somewhere—
toward someone—
and she can’t ignore it anymore.

She glances at the door.

At the elevator.

At the place Kara always enters when she comes to see her.

Lena’s heartbeat quickens.

She swallows hard.

“I need to see her,” she whispers under her breath.

Jess hears.

“You mean Kara?”

Lena doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t need to.

Jess smirks — very quietly — then slips away.

Lena stands there for a long moment, her fingers curling at her sides, her pulse racing.

Then she straightens her jacket.

And walks toward the elevator.

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 3 — “The Pull”

POV: Split (Kara → Lena)
L-Corp Offices, mid-morning

---

Kara stands outside L-Corp with her hands stuffed into her jacket pockets, staring up at the towering glass facade she has seen hundreds of times.

But it feels different today.

Heavier.
Sharper.
Like the air itself is waiting.

She breathes slowly through her nose, grounding herself the way Alex taught her.

“You can do this,” she whispers.

But the elevator ride up still rattles her.
Her heart still races.
Her palms still sweat — something she didn’t think she was capable of anymore.

The doors open with a soft chime.

Kara steps out.

And instantly —

the world hums.

Just a soft vibration under her skin, a warmth blooming in her chest, a whisper of something familiar and inevitable.

Her breath catches.

“She’s here,” Kara whispers before she even sees Lena.

She can feel her.

Every atom in her body can feel her.

Kara forces herself to walk calmly — normal stride, normal posture, normal breathing — but her heart thunders and her powers flicker faintly just beneath the surface.

She stops in front of Lena’s office door.

Her hand trembles when she lifts it to knock.

Before she makes contact—

The door opens.

Lena stands there, slightly breathless, clearly on her way out.

Her eyes widen when she sees Kara.

“Kara.”

Just her name.

Soft.
Surprised.
Almost relieved.

And the hum intensifies.

Kara swallows hard.
“Hi.”

Lena’s lips part — she wasn’t prepared, not really, not for this moment where running into Kara feels like exhaling after holding her breath too long.

“Kara,” she tries again, voice steadier.
“I—what are you doing here?”

Kara forces her voice not to crack.

“I, um… came to follow up on CatCo’s tech feature. Snapper asked me to get some clarifications.”

Lena lifts one eyebrow.

“Kara, Snapper Carr hates clarifications.”

Kara blinks.

“Well. Yes. He does.”

Silence.

Hum.

Heat.

Jess walks by, sees them, and immediately backpedals out of sight like a cartoon character escaping danger.

Lena steps forward.

The air between them warms.

Her voice softens unconsciously:

“You came here. To see me.”

Kara opens her mouth — closes it — tries again.

“I… yeah. I did.”

The honesty in it startles them both.

A shaky breath leaves Lena’s chest.

“Kara… are you okay?”

Kara shakes her head before she can stop herself.

“No.”

Lena’s face falls.

And without thinking —
without hesitation —
she steps even closer.

“Kara,” she whispers, “tell me what’s wrong.”

Kara’s throat closes.

She can’t tell the truth.
But she can’t lie to Lena either.

So she whispers the one part she can say:

“I didn’t want to be alone.”

Lena’s eyes soften in a way Kara remembers from a lifetime she never lived here.

A way that hurts.
A way that heals.

“You’re not,” Lena murmurs.

They stand close enough now that the hum between them becomes a full, warm pulse.

Kara feels it in her ribs.
Lena feels it in her spine.
Reality itself leans forward.

Lena takes one more step without realizing it.

“Kara…”

Kara inhales sharply.

Her chest pulls toward Lena’s.
Her fingers twitch at her sides, aching to reach out.
Her voice drops so low only Lena can hear it:

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Lena swallows, her pulse racing.

“I feel it too.”

Lena’s breath catches as she watches Kara’s eyes shimmer — not glowing, not sparking, but soft, warm, almost liquid with emotion.

Like she’s holding back a storm.

Like she’s breaking open right in front of her.

Kara looks down for half a second, eyelashes fluttering, then up again—
and Lena’s heart stutters.

Because the way Kara looks at her…

It’s not friendship.
It’s not gratitude.
It’s not fear.

It’s devotion.
Raw.
Unfiltered.
Undeniable.

Lena inhales sharply, the sound tiny and cracked, and without meaning to—
without thinking—
her fingers reach up.

Just an inch.

Just close enough that she could touch the curve of Kara’s jaw if she allowed herself.

Kara doesn’t move.
Doesn’t breathe.
She leans in by instinct alone—
like gravity tilting her toward the only point she recognizes.

“Lena…” Kara whispers, voice breaking in the middle.

Lena swallows.
Her voice trembles.

“Kara… what are we—”

Her fingertips graze the air near Kara’s cheek.

Not touching.
Not yet.
But close enough that the space between them thickens, humming with something neither of them has the language for.

Kara’s chest rises sharply.

The lights above them flicker again—
just once, soft and warm.

Kara leans that last millimeter—

Lena’s breath catches—

Their lips are almost brushing—

The air vibrates between them—

Their eyes lock.

And for the first time in this timeline—

Kara doesn’t look away.

Lena doesn’t pretend not to notice.

They breathe at the same time, slow and trembling.

The universe hums louder.

The lights flicker gently above them.

Not violently — not like a glitch.

Like a heartbeat.

Like recognition.

Kara’s voice is barely a whisper:

“Lena…”

Lena whispers back:

“Kara…”

Their hands brush.

Just the backs of their fingers.

Just a feather-light, barely-there touch.

But it’s enough.

A warm surge rolls between them — soft golden light blooming in Kara’s chest, echoed by a soft ache in Lena’s.

They both gasp—
quietly,
in perfect unison.

Kara opens her mouth to speak—

And then—

A loud BOOM rattles the floor beneath them.

The building shudders violently.
The world snaps apart.

Lena staggers.
Kara reacts first—
turning, grabbing Lena, pulling her flush against her chest, shielding her completely—
just as the alarms erupt in a scream of red light.

Jess screams from down the corridor:

“Security breach! Lab wing!”

Kara’s eyes snap wide.

Lena’s pulse spikes.

And the moment shatters.

Kara steps in front of Lena before she even thinks—

“Kara!” Lena gasps.
“Don’t—”

Kara’s voice is low, fierce, trembling:

“Stay behind me.”

And Lena sees something flicker in her eyes.

Something powerful.

Something familiar.

Something she should not see.

---

⭐ KARA — POV

Kara’s heart is still racing as she holds Lena steady, her pulse throbbing in her fingertips from how close they came — from how close she wanted to be.

Even with alarms blaring, even with the building trembling beneath them, one truth refuses to let go:

If she had leaned in one second sooner, she would have kissed Lena Luthor.

And the world didn’t break.

But now, with the threat closing in around them, she’s terrified it finally might.

---

⭐ LENA — POV

Lena’s breath is still caught in her throat, her skin tingling where Kara’s hand had just rested, her mind shocked by the certainty that if the world hadn’t exploded, she would’ve closed the distance between them.

She doesn’t know why she wanted to.
She doesn’t know how she can feel so much.
But one thought strikes through her like lightning:

Kara almost kissed me.
And I almost let her.

Not out of impulse.
Not out of confusion.
But because some part of her felt like she’d done it before.

And for the first time all morning, she doesn’t feel afraid.

She feels awake.

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 4 — “Mercy Graves Attacks L-Corp”

POV: Lena → Kara
L-Corp, Upper Corridor — Immediately after Scene 3

---

The alarms scream.

Red lights strobe across the corridor, painting the walls in violent flashes as smoke curls up from below, seeping into the hallway in trembling wisps.

Lena’s pulse hammers in her throat.

Kara’s arm is wrapped firmly around her waist, pulling her close, sheltering her from falling dust and the vibrations shaking the floor.

“Kara—” Lena breathes, her voice thin, shaken.

Kara doesn’t let go.
Doesn’t even turn her head.

She just says, low and fierce:

“Stay behind me.”

The words hit Lena like déjà vu —
too familiar,
too warm,
too protective.

For one impossible heartbeat, she sees another image flicker over Kara’s face:

A red cape.
A skyline.
A memory she should not have.

She blinks hard, and it’s gone.

Smoke thickens ahead of them.
The corridor groans like something heavy gave way.

Kara shifts her stance, body half-blocking Lena as she peers forward.
For a moment Lena swears she sees a faint gold shimmer around Kara’s shoulders — warmth bending the air —
but the next strobe of red light blocks it out.

“Okay,” Kara whispers. “We’re fine. Just—just keep low.”

“We need to get downstairs,” Lena says, steadying herself even as her breath trembles. “The breach was in the lab wing—”

A voice cuts through the smoke:

“Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that, Miss Luthor.”

Lena’s blood runs cold.

Because she knows that voice.

A figure steps into view, emerging from the haze like a blade cutting through fog — tall, precise, armored with sleek tactical gear and the coldest smile Lena has seen outside her brother’s.

“Mercy,” Lena whispers.

Mercy Graves tilts her head, amused.

“Well. If it isn’t the CEO herself,” she says, tapping a small metallic cylinder against her palm. “Lucky me. I didn’t expect the two-for-one.”

Kara tightens her hold on Lena instinctively.

Mercy’s eyes flick to the gesture.

“Well well,” Mercy smirks. “And who’s this one?”

Kara straightens, jaw tight.
“Kara Danvers. Press.”

Mercy laughs.
“Oh please. You’re many things, Miss Danvers. But harmless isn’t one of them.”

Lena stiffens.

“What do you want?” she demands.

Mercy smiles like she’s been waiting for that question.

“Lex sends his regards.”

Lena’s stomach drops — but something in Mercy’s tone is off.
Too glib.
Too rehearsed.

A lie.
A message meant to wound.

Mercy lifts the cylinder and clicks a switch.

A shrill frequency explodes through the corridor.

The sound cuts straight through Lena’s skull — sharp, nauseating.

“Cover your ears!” Kara yells—

But Kara doesn’t cover hers.

She moves.

Fast.

Too fast.

She throws her arm around Lena, dragging her back behind a support beam just as Mercy rolls the device forward.

The blast hits.

BOOM—

A pressure wave crashes into them, ripping through glass, metal, and air.
Debris explodes outward.
A ceiling panel gives way and plummets toward them.

Lena screams—

Kara grips her waist, twisting, shielding her body fully—

And stops the falling debris with her forearm.

Not perfectly — she pretends to struggle under the weight — but the metal beam should have crushed them.

It doesn’t.

Lena feels Kara shaking — not from effort, but from fear.

“Kara,” Lena whispers, breathless, overwhelmed.
“You—you just—”

Kara doesn’t let her finish.

She pulls Lena close, head tucked against Lena’s temple as the shockwave blasts past them.

Lena feels Kara’s heartbeat slamming in her chest, perfectly synced with her own.

Then —

A flash.

A memory.

Not from today.

Not from this timeline.

A rooftop.
A night sky.
Supergirl — Kara — holding her the exact same way.
Lena crying into her shoulder.
Kara whispering:

“I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”

Lena gasps, clutching Kara’s jacket as the memory-whiplash hits her like a punch.

Her knees buckle.
Kara catches her immediately.

Their foreheads nearly touch.

Lena’s voice shakes uncontrollably:

“Kara— I— I remember— I saw—”

Kara’s eyes widen, golden at the edges.

“Lena… don’t… not now—”

Mercy reloads.

“Touching,” she sneers. “But we’re not done.”

She fires a concussive charge.

Kara doesn’t think.

She wraps her entire body around Lena, twisting mid-motion and slamming them both to the floor as the blast detonates above them.

Glass rains down.
Heat rolls through the hallway.
Lena’s breath is ripped from her lungs.

Kara whispers into her hair:

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

And Lena believes her.

Without knowing why.
Without remembering why.

But deep in her chest, something old and aching awakens.

Mercy steps back, smirking at the chaos she’s created.

Then tosses a small device onto the floor — it begins siphoning energy from the damaged wall conduit.

Her objective complete.

She calls out:

“Consider this a preview, Miss Luthor.”

And disappears into the smoke.

Kara lifts her head, eyes glowing faintly gold before blinking out.

Lena sees it.

She sees everything.

“Kara…” she whispers, voice trembling. “What are you?”

Kara helps her sit up, hands shaking.

“I— I don’t know how to explain.”

Lena reaches for her cheek.

“Kara, you saved my—”

Another BOOM echoes from deeper in the building.

The DEO alarms switch to high alert.

Footsteps approach fast — tactical, controlled.

Alex.

Winn.

James.

Help is coming.

But for a moment — a single, fragile, trembling moment — Kara and Lena are alone in the thick smoke and golden-tinged air, still holding onto each other like their lives depend on it.

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ KARA — Tiny Add-On

Kara keeps her arms around Lena even after the debris settles—
not because she needs to for safety,
but because she can’t convince her body to let go.

Her cheek is still close enough to Lena’s hair that she can smell the faint hint of jasmine shampoo,
and the familiarity of it hits her so hard she nearly sobs.

She realizes, with a painful, stunning clarity:

I’ve held her like this before.
Not just in the memory echo—
in my real life.
My real timeline.

Her heart fractures, soft and fierce.

Because in this moment, with Lena shaking in her arms, Kara understands something she hasn’t said aloud:

Lena was always the part I couldn’t live without.

And this timeline is trying to give her back.

---

⭐ LENA — Tiny Add-On

Lena’s fingers curl into Kara’s jacket without thinking—
not clutching out of fear,
but grounding herself in something she doesn’t understand.

She feels Kara’s heartbeat against her shoulder, strong and protective and painfully familiar,
and the echo that slammed into her moments earlier still pulses warm and sharp in her chest.

A rooftop.
A promise.
Kara’s arms around her in another life.

Her voice trembles as she whispers—too soft for anyone else to hear:

“Why does this feel like I’ve lost you before?”

Kara stiffens—just barely—
and that tiny reaction sends another pang of truth through Lena’s heart.

She doesn’t know what Kara is hiding.

But for the first time since the echoes began, Lena isn’t frightened by the truth pressing at the edges of her memory.

She’s frightened by how much it hurts not to remember.

She leans into Kara’s hold just a little tighter.

And somewhere deep in her chest, an unspoken certainty unfurls:

I know her.
Even if I can’t remember yet—
I know her.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 5 — “Reinforcements Arrive”

POV: Kara → Alex
L-Corp Corridor — Minutes After Mercy’s Attack

---

Footsteps pound through the smoke.

Kara hears them before they round the corner—
the rapid, coordinated cadence of tactical boots,
the familiar clipped rhythm of Alex’s stride,
the panicked huff of someone who absolutely did not pass DEO field fitness (Winn).

Kara’s heart jumps.

She pulls her arm from around Lena only enough to help her sit upright—
not enough to put distance between them.

She can’t.
Not yet.
Not after everything.

Lena’s hand remains gripping the sleeve of Kara’s jacket, knuckles white.

Then—

“KARA!”

Alex appears through the haze like a force of nature, gun drawn, eyes sweeping the corridor for threats before snapping directly to her sister.

Kara barely has time to inhale before Alex is on her knees beside her, grabbing Kara’s face between both hands, scanning her pupils like she’s checking for a concussion.

“Oh my god—are you hurt? Kara, talk to me!”

Kara tries to keep her voice steady.

“I’m okay. I swear. I’m okay.”

Alex’s eyes narrow.

“You don’t look okay—”

She breaks off when she notices something.

Her gaze drops to where Lena’s hand is still clutching Kara’s jacket.

Then to the way Kara’s arm is wrapped protectively around Lena’s back.

Then back to Kara.

Slowly.

Alex’s eyebrows lift.

“Kara,” she says, very softly,
“why are you holding Lena like she’s going to disappear?”

Kara’s cheeks flush a color that definitely isn’t from smoke.

Lena straightens, still dizzy, one hand pressed to her temple.
She clears her throat.

“It’s not what you think.”

Alex looks between them again.

“It’s exactly what I think.”

Before Kara can combust on the spot—

“ALEX!”

Winn rushes into view, tripping over a fallen panel, skidding to a stop beside the two women.

He fumbles with a DEO handheld scanner, tapping it frantically.

“We’ve got—uh—okay wow—okay this can’t be right—Alex, this cannot be right—”

Alex snaps, “Winn, breathe.”

“I am breathing,” he insists, wheezing. “Just not… well.”

He aims the scanner at Kara.

It pings.
Loudly.

He frowns.

“That’s… weird.”

Alex stiffens. “Define weird.”

“I mean—Kara’s vital signature is always abnormal—no offense—but right now it’s, uh… vibrating.”

Kara nearly chokes.
“What?!”

Winn ramps up.

“And Lena’s vitals are—uh—synced with hers?? Like perfectly synced? Like same rhythm, same adrenaline curve, same—okay this is either beautiful or terrifying.”

Lena’s head snaps toward Kara.

“Kara…?”

Kara shakes her head quickly—too quickly.

“Winn’s scanner must be malfunctioning.”

“It’s absolutely not,” Winn mutters, tapping it again.

James arrives last—sweaty, breathless, worried.
He kneels beside Lena.

“Are you okay?”

Lena nods, still dazed. “Just rattled.”

James looks between Kara and Lena.
Then at their joined proximity.
Then at how Kara is still half-wrapped around her.

His eyebrows rise.

But unlike Alex, he says nothing.

He just gives Kara a quiet, knowing look.

Not jealous.
Not shocked.

Just understanding.

He places a supportive hand on Lena’s shoulder.
Lena flinches—not from pain, but because for the first time in her life:

Kara is the one she instinctively leaned toward.

Kara feels it.
She feels everything.

And the universe hums again—
warm, golden, low—
like a heartbeat under the floor.

Winn’s scanner pings violently.

“Oh—uh—okay something is happening. Something big. Something—Kara, you’re glowing. Kind of. Just a little. Like a soft gold—”

Alex snaps, “Winn!”

“I’M JUST SAYING WHAT I’M SEEING!”

Kara squeezes her eyes shut.

She can feel Lena staring at her.
Can feel the memory-hover still clinging to both of them like static.

Then:

“Kara,” Lena whispers, “what’s happening to us?”

Kara’s breath breaks.

“I—Lena, I can’t—”

But before she can finish—

A second alarm blares overhead.

“BREACH LEVEL: EXTREME. HOSTILE EXIT DETECTED.”

Mercy is gone.

And the DEO will want answers.

Alex rises first, snapping into command mode.

“Winn, get this scanner data secured and wiped from any external feeds. James, help escort the injured out. Kara—take Lena somewhere safe. NOW.”

Kara hesitates.

Alex meets her eyes.

Softening.

“Go. I’ve got this.”

Kara nods.

Then gently slips an arm around Lena’s back again.

Lena doesn’t object.

She leans in.

Just slightly.

Just enough that Kara feels her warmth.

Just enough that Kara’s heart aches with a truth she still can’t say.

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 6 — “The Shared Memory That Shakes Reality”

POV: Split (Kara → Lena)
A quiet, smoke-streaked side corridor in L-Corp

---

Kara barely remembers how they got here.

Alex had ordered her to get Lena somewhere safe—
but Kara’s feet carried them through smoke-filled hallways,
past shattered glass and broken light fixtures,
until they slipped inside a small maintenance alcove off the main corridor.

It’s quiet here.

Dim.
Warm from the emergency lights.
Safe—at least for the moment.

Kara lowers Lena gently onto a storage crate and crouches in front of her, hands trembling as they hover near Lena’s knees.

“Are you hurt?” Kara whispers.

Lena shakes her head.

“No. Not… physically.”

Kara’s breath stutters.

Lena is staring at her.

Not like before.
Not like a friend.
Like someone who just saw something impossible—
and something familiar.

“Kara…” Lena says softly, “what you did—”

“I know,” Kara cuts in, panicked. “I know it looked strange, but I just reacted. Adrenaline, I—”

“Kara.” Lena’s voice stops her cold.

Kara looks up.

Lena leans forward, her face close, eyes locked onto hers.

“You didn’t just react.”

Kara swallows.

“You stopped a steel beam with your arm.”

Kara’s pulse spikes.

Lena continues, quietly:

“And for a moment… I saw something. Felt something.”

Kara’s heart breaks open.

“Lena…”

Lena lifts a hand.

Not touching.

Just hovering near Kara’s cheek.

Kara freezes.

“I felt you,” Lena whispers. “Not just holding me. Something older. Something I’ve felt before.”

Kara’s breath shakes.

“I… don’t think that’s possible.”

Lena’s eyes glisten.

“Then why did it feel like remembering?”

Kara’s stomach twists.

Lena’s hand trembles in the air between them.

“Kara,” she whispers, voice cracking, “why does it feel like I’ve lost you before?”

Kara’s throat closes so tightly she can’t speak.

She reaches up—
slowly—
covers Lena’s hand with her own, guiding it gently to her cheek.

The moment their skin meets—

The universe reacts.

A soft golden pulse rolls through the alcove.
The air thickens.
The lights warm.
A hum vibrates beneath the floor.
And a memory slams into both of them:

---

⭐ THE ECHO — Shared, Full, Overwhelming

Night sky.
Wind whipping around a rooftop edge.
Lena shaking in Kara’s arms.
Kara in her Supergirl suit—
eyes wet, heart breaking—
whispering:

“I’ll always come back for you. I swear it.”

Lena’s voice cracking:

“Promise me.”

Kara pressing her forehead to Lena’s:

“With everything I am.”

---

They jerk back into themselves.

Lena gasps, stumbling.

Kara drops to both knees in front of her, hands on either side of Lena’s thighs, trying to steady her even as her own breath falls apart.

Lena tries to grasp the details of the echo — the wind, a rooftop, something red brushing her peripheral like fabric in motion — but the emotion hits harder than the image. Whatever she saw, it slips away the moment she reaches for it, leaving only the ache behind.

“That—” Lena whispers. “Kara, that wasn’t my imagination. I saw you. I saw you. I felt you.”

Kara’s eyes burn.

“I know.”

Lena stares at her.

“Kara… who are you?”

Kara swallows, tears pooling.

“I’m… someone who made a mistake.”

Lena’s voice softens in terror.

“What mistake?”

Kara reaches for her hand again.

Lena lets her.

Their fingers intertwine—
and a tiny shock of warmth arcs between their palms.

Kara whispers, voice breaking:

“A mistake that led me back to you.”

Lena’s breath catches.

“Kara…”

Kara leans in—

Just close enough that Lena’s breath brushes her lips.

Just close enough that Lena tilts toward her without realizing.

Just close enough that if the universe wanted them to kiss,
it wouldn’t take much.

But instead—

A golden tremor pulses through the hallway.

The walls shake.
The lights flare.
A soft hum becomes a deep, vibrating echo.

Kara pulls back, gasping.

Lena grabs her wrist.

“Kara! What is that?”

Kara whispers:

“Us.”

Lena’s heartbeat stutters.

“Kara… I think I’m remembering you.”

Kara’s eyes fill instantly.

She reaches up, cupping the side of Lena’s neck with trembling fingers.

“Lena… I’m so sorry—”

A distant shout breaks the moment.

Alex.

“KARA! Where are you?!”

Kara squeezes her eyes shut.

The universe hum fades.

The lights calm.

But neither woman moves.

Neither breathes.

Neither looks away.

Lena whispers:

“We’re not done talking about this.”

Kara whispers back:

“I know.”

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ KARA — Tiny Add-On

Kara stands frozen long after Alex’s shout fades into the hallway, her hand still tingling where Lena’s fingers had tangled with hers.
The echo of that rooftop memory beats inside her chest like a second heart.

For a moment she presses her palm over her sternum, trying to breathe around the ache.

Because Lena remembered her.
Not fully.
Not clearly.

But she remembered her.

And Kara realizes with a sudden, terrifying clarity:

If Lena keeps remembering…
Kara won’t survive losing her a second time.

---

⭐ LENA — Tiny Add-On

Lena watches Kara’s silhouette through the haze as she rises, every muscle in her body trembling with the weight of that shared echo.
Her fingers brush her own cheek—
the place where another Kara, another version of her Kara, once held her during the rooftop memory.

Her heart stutters painfully.

She whispers into the dim corridor:

“Why does it feel like she’s breaking every time she looks at me?”

And even though she has no proof,
no memory,
no logic to support the truth—

Lena knows with bone-deep certainty:

Kara Danvers has loved her before.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 7 — “Lex Watches the Footage”

POV: Lex Luthor
Unknown Location — High-Security Off-Grid Surveillance Vault

---

The room is silent.

Not quiet — silent.
Engineered silence.
Vacuum-dampened walls.
No hum of electricity.
No buzz of lights.
Just the soft, precise click of Lex Luthor’s shoes on polished titanium flooring.

He steps into the vault with the calm detachment of a man entering a cathedral he built for himself.

Because he did.

Lex stands before a wall of suspended, holographic screens — all dark except one.

A flashing red feed.

L-Corp (Upper Corridor) – Restricted Internal Security Camera 14-B

He taps his finger lightly on the air.

The feed begins.

Smoke.
Alarms.
Shattered glass.
Debris raining down.
And then—

Kara Danvers.

Press badge crooked.
Hair wild.
Face streaked with soot.

And wrapped protectively around—

Lena.

Lex’s jaw ticks once.

He watches Kara pull Lena behind cover.
He watches her shield Lena’s body with her own.
He watches the ceiling collapse—
and Kara hold up a steel beam long enough for them both to survive.

Lex slows the footage.

Zoom.
Enhance.
Frame-by-frame.

Kara’s arm muscles flex — but not enough.
Her stance is wrong for the effort.
Her bones don’t crack.
Her ribs don’t collapse under pressure.

Instead—

There’s a pulse.

A warm gold shimmer —
so faint it looks like a glitch.

Lex’s eyes narrow.

“Well,” he murmurs, “that’s interesting.”

He taps again.

The feed continues.

Kara leans over Lena, shielding her from another blast.

More gold.

Like the energy is responding to something in her.

Or someone.

Lex rewinds.
Zooms in on Kara’s face.

On her eyes.

There.
A single frame.
Barely visible.

A flicker of gold.

Lex stares.

Not surprised.

Annoyed.

“I knew you weren’t normal,” he murmurs. “But this…?”

He taps his fingers behind his back — a habit he developed in childhood when he needed to think faster than fear.

“You’re protecting her,” he says quietly. “Of course you are.”

A soft chime signals another alert.

Lex ignores it.

He keeps watching Kara fall to her knees in front of Lena.
Keeps watching Lena touch her cheek.
Keeps watching their faces move closer—
almost too close.

Lex’s lips curl.

“Oh, Kara,” he says, voice almost pitying.
“You’re going to break her.”

He plays the moment again.

Slower.

Frame-by-frame.

Lena’s fingers brushing Kara’s cheek.
Kara whispering something too quiet for the audio to catch.
The golden pulse between them.

Lex’s eyes sharpen to ice.

“This isn’t normal convergence,” he mutters.
“This is accelerated. Emotional.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“Dangerous.”

A new screen flares to life beside the footage — Mercy Graves’ field report.

EXECUTED: INSTALL DEVICE
FAILED: SECURE PROTOTYPE
ENCOUNTERED: HOSTILE (UNKNOWN)
ANOMALY: K.D. + L.L. = SIGNATURE SYNC???
RECOMMEND: OBSERVATION / EXTRACTION

Lex’s eyebrows rise.

“Oh, Mercy,” he murmurs. “You actually noticed something relevant for once.”

He taps the sync data.

Examines the harmonic resonance signature.

Sees:

K.D + L.L.
Neural alignment: 62%.
Emotional amplitude: 91%.
Temporal echo interference detected.

Lex goes very still.

“Well,” he says slowly.
“That explains the gold.”

He zooms in one more time.

On Kara’s face.
On the way she looks at Lena.
Soft.
Raw.
Devastated.
Like she already lost her once.

Lex exhales, amused and calculating.

“Kara Danvers,” he whispers,
“what exactly did you do?”

He taps a command.

All screens illuminate at once.

Kara.
Lena.
Mercy’s report.
Temporal energy signatures.
Kara’s identity profile.
Supergirl’s power readings.
The missing gap between them.

Lex smiles.

A cold, thin, razor-sharp smile.

“Let’s find out.”

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 8 — “Kara Walks Lena Home”

POV: Kara → Lena
Exterior of L-Corp → Downtown Streets, Dusk

---

The building is still swarming with DEO agents when Kara and Lena finally step outside.

The sky over National City is bruised purple, the last streaks of daylight drowning in smoke drifting upward from the damaged lab wing. Emergency lights flash across shattered glass on the ground.

Lena stands just outside the perimeter tape, arms wrapped around herself, jacket pulled tight.

She’s steady.
Composed.
Unbreakable.

But Kara sees the tremor in her fingers.

She steps closer, voice soft.

“Do you… want me to walk you home?”

Lena doesn’t look at her at first.

Her eyes are on the broken windows.
On the rising smoke.
On the aftermath of her company being attacked because of her name.

Then she turns.

And the answer is immediate.

“Yes.”

Kara’s chest loosens with relief she didn’t know she was holding.

They walk side by side, slowly, leaving the chaos behind as dusk settles into full night.

A few blocks pass in silence—
the kind that isn’t awkward
or forced
or empty.

It’s simply full.

Full of everything neither of them knows how to say yet.

Kara keeps stealing glances.

Lena keeps catching them.

Eventually Lena breaks it.

Her voice is quiet.

“You saved my life today.”

Kara’s breath stumbles.
“I… I tried.”

“No,” Lena says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“You did.”

Kara stops too.

She turns fully toward Lena, heart hammering.

Lena’s eyes search her face for a long moment—
not suspiciously,
but tenderly,
like she’s looking for a truth Kara hasn’t said yet.

“You were holding that beam with one arm,” Lena whispers.
“Just like in the— in the…”
She trails off, frustrated by the word she doesn’t have.
“…the echo.”

Kara’s pulse spikes.

“Lena—”

Lena steps closer.

The streetlight overhead casts a soft glow on her features, catching the faint lingering dust in her hair, illuminating the exhaustion and the gentleness in her eyes.

“Kara,” Lena says quietly, “I don’t need you to explain what I saw. Not tonight.”

Kara blinks.

“You… don’t?”

Lena shakes her head.

“I’m too tired. Too rattled.”
A small breath.
“And too aware that whatever is happening between us… it’s not something we can unpack on a sidewalk.”

Kara exhales, relieved and terrified all at once.

“But,” Lena adds softly, “I’m not ignoring it. Any of it.”

Kara’s throat tightens.

The golden hum she felt earlier returns—warm, subtle, pulsing in the air between them like the memory of a heartbeat.

They resume walking.

A few minutes later, Lena ventures:

“Is your apartment far from here?”

Kara smiles faintly.
“No. But I wasn’t planning to go home yet.”

Lena glances at her.
“Why not?”

Kara swallows.

“Because… I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Lena stops again.

She looks at Kara like those words rearranged something inside her.

“Kara,” she whispers, “you don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

The answer is immediate.
Instinctual.
Bare.

Lena’s lips part slightly in surprise.

Kara rubs the back of her neck awkwardly.

“I mean—after everything that happened—after the memory we shared—after the way you looked at me—”

“Oh god,” Kara groans, blushing, “I’m rambling. I’m so sorry—”

Lena steps closer.

She places two fingers under Kara’s chin, gently lifting it.

“Hey,” Lena says softly.
“I liked the way you looked at me.”

Kara nearly forgets how to breathe.

Lena drops her hand slowly—reluctantly—and nods toward the street ahead.

“Come on,” she murmurs, “let’s—just get home.”

Kara nods quickly.

They walk the rest of the way in comfortable silence.

When they reach Lena’s building, she hesitates at the entrance.

“Kara?” she says quietly.

“Yeah?”

Lena’s eyes soften.

“Thank you. For today. For… all of it.”

Kara’s voice is barely a whisper.

“Anytime.”

Lena steps inside.

Pauses.
Turns back.

“Kara?”

Kara’s heart jumps.
“Yes?”

Lena swallows, voice wavering just enough to reveal the truth:

“Don’t disappear.”

Kara’s breath catches.

“I won’t.”

Lena nods once, then slips into the building, leaving Kara alone on the sidewalk—
heart pounding,
hands shaking,
unable to wipe the soft, stunned smile off her face.

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ CHAPTER 4 — “The Fault Line Between Us”

Scene 9 — “The Night Kara Breaks”

POV: Kara Danvers
Kara’s Apartment — Late Night

---

Kara closes her apartment door behind her and locks it with shaking fingers.

The second the latch clicks—

Her breath collapses.

She presses her back to the door, sliding down until she’s sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, palms over her face, trying to breathe—

But she can’t.

She can’t.

Not anymore.

The apartment is too quiet.
The city hum too distant.
Her heartbeat too loud.

She tries to swallow it down.
The panic.
The grief.
The terror.

But her body trembles violently, betraying her.

“Kara,” she whispers to herself, voice cracking, “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re—”

A sob tears out of her.

Raw.
Ugly.
Unrestrained.

Kara clamps both hands over her mouth to muffle it, but it doesn’t help.

Her whole body shakes with it.

Because today—
today she almost lost Lena again.

Not the Lena she grew up with in her heart.
Not the Lena she fell in love with over years of fights, reconciliations, rooftop sunsets, promises and shared pain.

But this Lena.
This Lena she’s barely gotten back.
This Lena who doesn’t remember loving her.
This Lena who doesn’t know Kara’s truths.
This Lena who has no idea the universe itself is trying to knit them back together.

And Kara can’t stop the thought echoing through her mind like a siren:

I can’t lose her twice.
I can’t survive that.

Her breathing spirals.

Images flash behind her eyelids—

Lena in the Void, gone in a flash of collapsing worlds.
Lena’s hand slipping out of hers in the final convergence.
Lena screaming when the ground opened beneath them.
Lena’s lifeless form in Kara’s arms—
one of the timelines, one of the failures, the ones she’ll never forget.

Kara chokes on a sob and buries her face in her knees.

“No,” she whispers. “No, no, no—”

Her powers flicker uncontrolled.
The air vibrates around her.
A picture frame on the wall rattles.

Kara grips her head.

“Stop,” she begs. “Please—just stop—”

But it’s not her powers.

It’s her heart.

Everything inside her is splitting open.

Because when Lena looked at her today—
really looked at her—
with memory in her eyes,
with something like recognition,
with something like longing—

Kara nearly told her everything.

She nearly exposed herself.
Her powers.
Her truth.
Her heart.

She presses a trembling hand to her sternum.

She can still feel Lena’s fingers there.
Still feel the golden hum between them.
Still feel the shared rooftop echo, the one they weren’t meant to remember yet.

She leans her head back against the door.

“Lena,” she whispers brokenly,
“I love you. I never stopped. I never—”

Her voice shatters.

And once it starts, she can’t stop.

She sobs until her throat is raw.
Until her chest hurts.
Until tears soak her shirt.
Until she’s clutching her own arms like she’s trying to hold herself together.

“I’m sorry,” she cries into the silence.
“I’m so sorry I left.
I’m so sorry I had to go.
I’m so sorry I came back wrong.
I’m sorry you don’t remember—
I’m sorry I can’t tell you—
I’m sorry I failed you—”

Every apology she never said in the original timeline, every regret she swallowed, every moment she held herself together for Lena’s sake—

They all come pouring out.

She curls onto her side on the floor, arms wrapped around her stomach, shaking with the force of her grief.

A framed photo of Kara, Alex, James, and Winn slides off a shelf and hits the floor with a soft thud.

Kara flinches.

Then she crawls toward it, picks it up with trembling hands, and holds it against her chest like a lifeline.

“I can’t lose her again,” she whispers.
“I can’t. I can’t. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix everything. I swear—”

She drags in a painful breath.

The golden pulse in her chest answers softly—
a reminder of the convergence,
of the timeline,
of what she broke,
and what she has to rebuild.

Kara wipes her cheeks with shaky fingers.

Then she whispers the truth she’s never said out loud—
not even in her own timeline:

“Lena Luthor is the love of my life.”

The room hums in recognition.
A soft gold ripple stretches across the ceiling—
like the universe acknowledging her confession,
like it has been waiting for her to say it.

Kara presses her forehead to the floor.

“I’m going to get you back,” she murmurs, voice hoarse and trembling.
“In every timeline.”

Fade out.

---
---

⭐ POST–SCENE 9 ADD-ON (Lena POV)

“The Night Lena Wakes”

Lena’s Penthouse — Same Night

Lena wakes with a gasp.

No nightmare.
No sound.
No external trigger.

Just a sudden, crushing weight in her chest—
so sharp, so real,
she sits up immediately and presses a hand to her sternum as though something inside her might break open.

Her heart is pounding.
Her breath stutters.
Her throat feels tight.

Like she’s been crying.

Like someone else has been crying.

Lena looks around her dark penthouse, disoriented.

Nothing is wrong.

No intruder.
No emergency lights.
No messages.
Just silence.

But the pain doesn’t fade.

It lingers—
warm, aching, hollow—

a sense of loss so deep it feels like drowning.

Her hand trembles as she whispers to the empty room:

“…Kara?”

The name falls from her lips without permission, without logic—
a reflex,
a truth her mind doesn’t understand
but her heart absolutely does.

She stands, unsteady, walking toward the window as if drawn by something she can’t see.

The city glows beneath her.
Still.
Quiet.

But Lena’s pulse won’t calm.

She presses her palm flat against the glass.

The ache behind her ribs sharpens.

A tear slips down her cheek—
slow, soundless, unbidden.

She wipes it away immediately, startled.

“Why am I crying?” she whispers.

No response.

Just that same sensation—
like a bond tugging tight across a distance,
like someone she cares for is breaking apart,
like a thread connecting her heart to another’s.

And deep inside her chest, something wordless echoes back:

You’re not alone.

Lena closes her eyes, breath catching in her throat.

She doesn’t know why she knows it.
She doesn’t know what it means.
But she knows exactly who the echo belongs to.

She whispers into the darkness:

“Kara… please be okay.”

Her voice trembles.

A second tear falls.

And far across the city, in her apartment, Kara feels a sudden warmth in the center of her chest—
a soft, steadying pulse—
and her sobbing eases for the first time in hours.

The convergence hums between them.

Alive.
Awake.
Pulling them closer.

Fade out.

---

Chapter Text

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — Scene 1

“The Morning After”

POV: Kara Danvers

Kara’s Apartment — Early Morning

---

Kara wakes with her face buried in a damp pillow.

For a moment she can’t even remember falling asleep — only the way her chest hurt, the way her lungs stuttered, the taste of tears she couldn’t swallow fast enough.

Her eyes feel swollen.

Her throat burns.

Her body aches in places Kryptonian bodies aren’t supposed to ache.

She rolls onto her back slowly, staring at the ceiling as the early sunlight filters through her blinds in soft, golden stripes.

But even the sunlight feels too bright.

Like the universe is shining in a way she can’t match anymore.

Kara drags a shaky hand over her face.

She doesn’t need to check her phone to know she overslept.

Her body feels heavy — like gravity doubled overnight.

She breathes.

In.

Out.

Carefully.

Quietly.

Trying not to shake, even though she still feels like she might.

She sits up, pulling her knees to her chest.

Her voice is hoarse when she whispers:

“Okay, Kara… today we keep it together. Today we… try again.”

The words don’t land.

They sound thin.

Like a lie she’s told herself too many times before.

Her apartment is too quiet.

The silence presses on her skin like a weight.

She looks around — the bookshelf, the couch, the corner where her supersuit is hidden.

And then her gaze lands on the photo frame on her nightstand.

Kara reaches for it with trembling fingers.

It’s a picture of her, Alex, Winn, and James — a snapshot from a simpler time, before the multiverse collapsed, before Lex rewrote their world.

Her thumb brushes over each face one by one.

Her vision blurs.

A tear slips down her cheek before she can catch it.

“No,” she whispers, wiping it away fast.

“No, not again. Not this morning.”

She stands — too quickly — and sways when the floor seems to tilt beneath her.

Her powers flicker.

Just for a second:

her vision sharpens too fast

the air vibrates around her

a lamp rattles on the nightstand

a faint gold pulse sparks beneath her skin

Kara gasps softly and grabs the dresser for support.

“Stop… stop, stop…”

She squeezes her eyes shut.

She knows exactly what caused it.

Lena.

Or more specifically:

The memory of holding Lena yesterday.

The way Lena said don’t disappear.

The bond tugging at her chest even now.

The rooftop echo they shared.

The universe nudging her, pushing her, reminding her—

You are connected.

Your hearts remember.

Kara takes a slow breath, trying to calm the pulse in her ribs.

“Not now,” she whispers.

“Please… not now.”

She can’t think about the convergence.

She can’t think about the gold.

She can’t think about the flickers of timelines where she lost Lena.

She can’t think about Lena at all.

If she does—

she’ll break again.

She moves to her closet, pulls on a soft blue sweater, tries to ignore how the color reminds her of Lena’s eyes.

She grabs her messenger bag, her press badge, her hair tie.

And before she leaves, she pauses in the doorway.

Her voice is barely audible.

“I’m sorry, Lena,” she whispers into the quiet.

“For all the things I can’t tell you yet.”

The convergence hums faintly, like a heartbeat she can’t turn off.

Kara inhales—

and leaves the apartment, carrying the ache with her.

---

I

Kara steps into the hallway and pulls the apartment door shut behind her, but her hand lingers on the handle long after it clicks.

She takes one more breath — steadying, shaky — as if she can still feel the echo of last night clinging to her skin.

The world feels louder today. Sharper. Thinner around the edges.

And somewhere in her chest, the bond stirs again… like a pulse reaching for another heartbeat across the city.

She ignores it.

Or tries to.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — “When the Heart Remembers First”

Scene 2 — “The Echo Lingers”

POV: Lena Luthor

Lena’s Penthouse — Early Morning

---

Lena wakes with the sun in her eyes and a tight, inexplicable ache behind her ribs.

For a moment she lies still, staring up at the ceiling, trying to remember why she feels like she didn’t truly sleep — only drifted, restless, as if her mind kept reaching for something she couldn’t grasp.

Then the echo hits.

Not a memory.

Not a dream.

An emotion.

Sharp.

Raw.

Heavy enough to make her inhale sharply against it.

It’s grief — that much she knows.

But it’s not hers.

It feels… borrowed.

Like it was pressed into her during the night and is still fading from her skin.

Lena sits up slowly, pushing her hair back, breathing through the tightness in her chest.

She knows this sensation.

Not from experience — but from instinct.

Like déjà vu with teeth.

She presses a hand lightly over her sternum.

The spot Kara touched yesterday.

The spot where their hearts synced in that impossible hallway echo.

A shiver runs down her spine.

“Get a grip, Lena,” she whispers to herself.

But her voice is gentler than her words.

She swings her legs off the bed, stands, and crosses the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

National City is glowing in the morning light — calm, quiet, unbothered.

The opposite of how she feels.

She touches the glass lightly with her fingertips.

Her reflection looks back at her — composed, steady, controlled — but her pulse is racing beneath the surface.

She swallows hard.

Because she knows exactly who was in her mind last night.

Exactly who the echo belonged to.

Kara.

Kara, trembling in that smoke-filled hallway.

Kara, shielding her with her body.

Kara, whispering her name like it mattered.

Kara, collapsing in front of her with something in her eyes Lena still doesn’t have language for.

Lena’s fingers curl slightly against the glass.

Something has changed between them.

She feels it — humming through her chest like a signal she can’t decode.

And there’s the strangest, softest thought:

If Kara is hurting this morning… Lena wants to know.

Lena exhales slowly, still staring out at the city.

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

She crosses the room, picks it up, and unlocks the screen.

Jess:

Morning schedule attached. Do you want the board brief moved to this afternoon?

Lena stares at the message for a long moment, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

Then she types:

Lena:

Cancel everything.

A pause — then another message:

Jess:

Everything?

Lena answers without hesitation:

Lena:

Yes. I’m going to CatCo.

She sends it.

No explanation.

No justification.

Because she already knows the truth.

She’s not going for a story.

She’s going because of Kara.

She grabs her jacket, her keys, and heads for the elevator — the ache in her chest sharper now, insistent.

All she knows is:

She needs to see Kara.

Now.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — “When the Heart Remembers First”

Scene 3 — “Cat Knows Everything”

POV: Kara Danvers (with Cat POV beats woven in)

CatCo Worldwide Media — Morning

---

The elevator doors slide open into the CatCo bullpen, and Kara instantly regrets coming in.

The noise.

The lights.

The people moving too fast.

Her senses feel raw, scraped open, like she doesn’t have enough layers left to protect herself.

She tries to stand straighter, smooth her sweater, fix her glasses — anything to hide the exhaustion settling behind her eyes.

She doesn’t make it three steps before a familiar voice slices through the noise.

“Keira!”

Kara flinches so hard she actually squeaks.

Cat Grant strides out of her office like she owns every molecule of air in the building—which she does—and points at Kara with the casual precision of someone who has weaponized a manicure.

“You,” Cat says, walking toward her with purpose.

“What in the Statue of Liberty-torch-holding hell happened to your face?”

Kara freezes.

“Wh—my face? What about my—”

Cat stops directly in front of her, just inside personal space, studying Kara’s expression with the kind of focus normally reserved for live broadcasts and national scandals.

Her eyes narrow.

“Oh, this is worse than I thought.”

Kara’s heart stutters.

“What? No, I’m fine—”

“Keira.”

Cat’s voice softens, but only in the way a silk blade still cuts.

“You look like you’ve been flattened by a bus. A bus made of feelings. Driven by a hormonal teenager. On prom night.”

Kara’s cheeks burn.

Cat folds her arms.

“And the last time you looked even remotely this wrecked, Superman had just ‘broken up’ with you, which was laughable, because you two had about as much chemistry as a wet sponge and a toaster.”

Kara chokes.

“Ms. Grant—!”

Cat tilts her head, eyes sharp.

“Spill it. Who’s the girl?”

Kara nearly dies.

Her mouth opens but nothing comes out except a strangled squeak.

Cat’s eyebrow climbs.

“Oh, Keira, honestly. You might as well be holding a neon sign that says ‘I made prolonged eye contact with a woman and now my soul is in shambles.’”

Kara feels heat explode across her cheeks.

“I—It’s not—it’s nothing like— I mean, I didn’t—”

Cat clicks her tongue.

“Adorable,” she says.

“And fully pathetic. Move, we’re talking.”

Before Kara can react, Cat’s hand is on her elbow, steering her into Cat’s glass office with the efficiency of someone relocating a potted plant.

The door shuts behind them.

Cat doesn’t sit.

Cat circles her once, eyes narrowing with surgical precision.

Of course it was Lena Luthor. Cat didn’t need binoculars to see Kara orbiting that woman yesterday like some lovesick lunar satellite.

“You’re vibrating.”

“I’m—what—?”

“You’re emotionally vibrating,” Cat says.

“It’s like standing next to an unplugged fridge that’s still somehow humming.”

Kara swallows hard.

Cat leans in, voice dropping.

“Tell me what she did.”

“Honestly, Keira, the last time you looked this tortured you’d dropped your ice cream on the sidewalk. This is clearly worse. Which means the woman responsible is either incredibly beautiful or incredibly dangerous. Knowing your taste? Probably both.”

Kara sputters.

“No one—no one did anything—”

“Oh, please.” Cat waves a hand. “Your hair looks like you lost a fight with a pillow. Your eyes are red, which means you were crying, which means this isn’t a work issue, which means it’s personal, which means—”

Cat stops.

Her expression shifts.

Her eyes sharpen in a different way.

“Kara.”

It’s not Keira this time.

It’s Kara.

“What happened yesterday?”

Kara’s heartbeat spikes.

She looks down.

Her fingers curl around the strap of her bag.

“It was… a really intense day,” Kara whispers. “At L-Corp.”

Cat’s jaw sets.

“I heard about the attack,” she says quietly. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Kara says quickly. “I’m okay. I just—”

But she isn’t okay.

And for a brief second, Cat sees every crack Kara tried to hide.

Cat inhales, softening.

“You’re scared,” she says.

“Not for yourself. For someone else.”

Kara’s breath catches.

Cat nods once.

“Then let me guess the rest:

You rushed in to save someone.

And whoever it was… matters to you.”

Kara’s throat closes.

Cat stares at her for one long, knowing moment.

Then:

“It’s the Luthor girl, isn’t it?”

Kara’s entire body goes still.

Cat doesn’t smirk.

She doesn’t tease.

She just watches.

“Of course it is,” she murmurs.

“You should see your face when you say her name.”

Kara doesn’t even realize she said Lena’s name.

Her eyes widen.

Cat lifts her chin just slightly, softer than Kara expects.

“Go,” Cat says. “Before you implode. Fix whatever emotional catastrophe you left behind.”

Kara blinks.

“What? But—work—”

“Keira, I am Cat Grant.”

Cat gestures vaguely at the universe.

“I can rewrite your schedule in my sleep. Go.”

Kara hesitates.

Cat raises an eyebrow.

“No one in this building needs you right now,” she says.

“But someone out there clearly does.”

The convergence hums quietly under Kara’s ribs.

Kara nods, voice barely above a whisper.

“…Thank you.”

Cat turns away like she didn’t just shatter Kara’s defenses in thirty seconds flat.

“Yes, yes,” she mutters. “Bring me coffee when you get back. Something strong. Like my personality.”

Kara almost smiles.

Almost.

And then she leaves the office—

still raw, still scared—

but unable to stop the pull toward Lena Luthor across the city.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — “When the Heart Remembers First”

Scene 4 — “Lena Arrives”

POV: Kara Danvers

CatCo Worldwide Media — Late Morning

---

Kara is halfway across the bullpen, trying to remember how to breathe and hold a coffee cup at the same time, when the energy around her shifts.

Not the air.

Not the light.

Something deeper.

A tug.

A draw.

A warm, low hum under her ribs.

Her breath stumbles, and she lifts her head—

just as the elevator doors slide open.

And Lena Luthor steps out.

Not with her usual CEO polish.

Not with her media mask on.

Not even with her signature “don’t-mess-with-me” strut.

No.

Lena walks into CatCo with her guard lowered—

eyes soft, shoulders tense, expression pulled tight with worry.

Kara stops walking.

Stops breathing.

Stops everything.

Lena sees her instantly.

Her entire posture changes—

not dramatically,

but enough that Kara feels it like a rush of wind.

A subtle inhale.

A flicker of relief.

A faint easing around Lena’s eyes—

like seeing Kara is the one thing she needed most this morning.

Kara’s heart lurches violently.

She tries to smile, but it’s small and shaky.

“Lena… hey.”

Lena doesn’t smile back.

Instead, she steps closer—

slowly, deliberately—

eyes scanning Kara’s face with too much care, too much feeling for someone who’s supposed to be “just a friend.”

“Kara,” she says softly, voice low enough to keep anyone from overhearing.

“Are you… okay?”

Kara’s throat tightens.

Not because of the question—

but because of the way Lena asks it.

Like Kara matters.

Like Kara’s wellbeing is something she feels in her own chest.

“I’m fine,” Kara lies.

Lena gives her a look that says she knows exactly what fine means in Kara-language and finds it wholly unacceptable.

“Kara,” Lena repeats, quieter, “you look like you didn’t sleep.”

Kara drops her gaze.

“I… had a lot on my mind.”

Lena’s brows pull inward, concern sharp and unguarded.

“Was it… because of yesterday?”

The convergence hums beneath Kara’s sternum.

Gold.

Warm.

Dangerously close to visible.

Kara stumbles over her breath.

“I—yes. I mean—kind of. It was intense, and you were—there was the explosion and then the—the…”

She trails off before she says memory.

But Lena hears it anyway.

Her fingers curl slightly, like she’s fighting the urge to reach out.

“Kara,” Lena whispers, “about that… we need to talk.”

Kara freezes.

Lena takes a single step closer—

close enough that Kara can see the faint shadows under her eyes

and the softness in her expression

and the way her lips part just slightly when she’s nervous.

“I felt something yesterday,” Lena says.

“And I know you did too.”

Kara’s pulse spikes so hard her vision flickers at the edges.

“I—I don’t know what you mean,” she tries feebly.

Lena tilts her head in that surgical way she does when she’s about to slice through someone’s defenses with precision.

“You do know,” Lena says, voice barely above a breath.

“Kara… that wasn’t nothing. And I can’t pretend it was.”

Kara swallows hard.

The pressure under her ribs swells—

the golden hum, the convergence, the pull.

It vibrates through her bones.

And then—

Lena’s hand lifts.

Slow, hesitant, unsure.

For a breathless moment, her fingers hover just inches from Kara’s.

Kara’s breath catches.

Lena hesitates—

just enough to ask permission without words.

Kara’s fingers twitch.

The space between their hands feels electric.

Then—

Their fingers brush.

Just barely.

Just skin against skin.

The world breathes.

A gold pulse rolls through Kara’s chest.

Lena inhales sharply like someone touched her heart directly.

They both freeze.

Their eyes lock—

wide, stunned, terrified, and pulled so taut with emotion it hurts to breathe.

“Kara…” Lena whispers, voice trembling now.

“What is happening between us?”

Kara opens her mouth—

and nothing comes out.

Because she doesn’t know how to say:

Everything.

Everything is happening.

And I’m terrified.

Before Kara can answer, a voice cuts in from across the bullpen.

“Ms. Luthor!”

Jess, hurrying off the elevator.

Lena jolts slightly, pulling her hand back, the moment breaking like a snapped thread.

Kara feels the loss like a physical ache.

Jess approaches quickly.

“They pushed up your meeting. You’re needed on a video call in the next three minutes.”

Lena’s jaw tightens.

She forces herself to step back, though her eyes linger on Kara for one last second—

soft, searching, full of unspoken things.

“Kara,” she says quietly,

“don’t go anywhere. We’re not done.”

Kara’s breath stumbles.

“O-okay.”

Lena turns and heads toward the conference space, Jess trailing behind her.

Kara stands rooted to the spot.

Stunned.

Shaken.

Shivering.

Trying very hard not to glow.

She doesn’t see Cat Grant watching from her office doorway

with a smirk that’s half amusement,

half I told you so,

and one hundred percent smug queen energy.

Fade out.

---

From her office doorway, Cat watches the whole thing unfold — Kara freezing like a deer in headlights, Lena Luthor walking in like a designer hurricane, and the universe itself practically humming between them.

She doesn’t even pretend to be subtle about it.

Cat lifts her coffee cup, takes a slow sip, and smiles to herself.

Of course.

Of course it was Lena Luthor.

Kara could barely tie her shoes this morning without getting flustered; seeing Lena walk into the room was practically a religious experience for the girl.

Cat mutters under her breath:

“Honestly, if those two don’t figure it out soon, I’m filing a complaint with the universe.”

She turns back into her office, smirking.

Some people needed signs from above.

Cat only needed a glass wall, two clueless idiots, and one very obvious cosmic connection.

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — Scene 5

“Lex Escalates”

POV: Lex Luthor

Luthor Estate — Sublevel Lab

---

The elevator hums softly as it descends into the private underbelly of the Luthor Estate — the part of the compound even Lena never knew existed.

Lex steps out, immaculate as ever, adjusting his cuffs with the precision of a man who expects the world to bend to him.

The lab lights flicker on automatically.

Cold steel.

White panels.

Banks of humming servers.

A dozen holographic screens flickering with data.

Lex exhales once, crisp and controlled.

“Show me yesterday’s incident,” he says.

Instantly, holographic windows open:

L-Corp hallway feeds

DEO medical scans

interference spike logs

police reports

audio transcriptions

Mercy’s encrypted brief

He folds his hands behind his back.

He’d already watched the raw security feeds last night, but this—this processed data—was different. Deeper. Sharper. Full of anomalies he hadn’t seen before.

“Play it.”

The explosion.

The smoke.

Mercy’s breach.

And—

Kara Danvers throwing herself over Lena with startling speed.

Lex pauses the frame.

Zooms in.

Again.

Kara’s expression: terrified, too protective, too invested.

Lex taps the air lightly.

“Well. That’s interesting.”

He opens a second report:

INCIDENT ANOMALY LOG

Interference: 7.2% spike

Emotional Sync Pattern: High correlation between subjects

Signal origin: Unknown

Classification: Unidentified resonance anomaly

Lex frowns — intrigued, not confused.

“So you two are linked,” he murmurs.

“But why?”

He pulls up Lena’s DEO-adjacent biometric data:

heart rate spike

adrenal flare

neurological activation pattern

All occurring the moment Kara touched her.

A second file shows Kara’s own readings — accidental pickups from hallway sensors:

elevated pulse

matching adrenal spike

small gold-tinted anomaly in the interference field

Lex tilts his head.

“The girl again.”

He studies the footage of Kara shielding Lena.

The glitch.

The flash.

Too brief for identification.

Not enough for a conclusion.

But enough to disturb him.

“Either you’re hiding something,” Lex murmurs, staring at Kara’s frozen face,

“or you are far more important to Lena than you should be.”

He turns toward the screen where Mercy now appears, bruised and seething.

“Sir,” she begins, “if you want me to regroup, I—”

Lex shuts her up with a raised finger.

“No. You’ve caused enough noise. I want silence. Precision.”

He gestures toward the emotional sync graph.

“This was not a coincidence. Something happened between Lena and that girl that I don’t yet understand.”

Mercy stiffens.

“You want surveillance?”

“I want everything,” Lex replies smoothly.

“Her patterns, her habits, her triggers, her past.

Tail her.

Separate from Lena.”

“And if I find something… off?”

Lex smiles a thin, cold smile.

“Exploit it.

Whatever is between them, I want to understand it—”

A beat.

“—and then I want to control it.”

He ends the call.

Lex lifts a glass of scotch and stares at the slowed footage of Kara and Lena’s fingers brushing.

The faint gold flicker catches his eye again.

“Well now,” he murmurs,

“that is very interesting indeed.”

Fade out

---

Mini-Scene — “Mercy Watches”

POV: Mercy Graves

National City — Rooftop Overlooking CatCo

---

Mercy crouches low against the rooftop ledge, binoculars pressed to her eyes, wind snapping at her jacket.

She adjusts the focus.

There —

through the glass façade of CatCo’s bullpen —

Kara Danvers walks between desks, shoulders tense, movements tight.

Mercy’s lip curls.

“That’s our girl,” she mutters.

She watches Kara pause at a desk, fiddling with her notebook, clearly rattled.

Not normal rattled.

Shaken.

And then Mercy sees it:

Lena Luthor enters the bullpen.

Kara reacts instantly —

straightening, freezing, heart clearly in her throat.

Mercy lowers the binoculars slightly, eyebrows rising.

“Well, well…”

A slow smirk spreads across her face.

“So the boss was right.”

She watches Lena walk straight to Kara.

Sees their fingers brush.

Sees Kara nearly fold from the impact of it.

Mercy lifts the binoculars again.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you two,” she says under her breath,

“but Lex is going to love this.”

She snaps a picture through the scope, pockets her phone, and rises smoothly to her feet.

“Time to dig deeper.”

She disappears into the shadows.

Fade out.

---

---

⭐ CHAPTER 5 — “When the Heart Remembers First”

Scene 6 — “The Pull of the Bond”

POV: Lena Luthor

CatCo Worldwide Media — Conference Hall → Bullpen

---

Lena steps out of the conference room the moment the call ends, exhaling a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

She’s not listening to Jess, who’s listing follow-up items in a neat monotone.

She’s not thinking about board votes or crisis messaging or procurement budgets.

She’s thinking about Kara.

The brush of their fingers.

The electric jolt between them.

The warmth that lingered long after.

She presses her hand briefly against her chest.

It’s still there —

that pull.

That impossible, low-frequency hum beneath her sternum like the echo of a chord struck too deeply.

Jess looks up.

“Ms. Luthor? Should we debrief on—”

“No,” Lena says too quickly.

Then softens.

“No, Jess. Later.”

She’s already moving.

Jess falls behind, resigned.

Lena steps into the bullpen—

and stops.

Because Kara is there.

Standing near her desk, posture stiff, pretending to read something on her tablet.

But her hands are shaking.

Just barely.

Just enough for Lena to notice.

The pull sharpens.

Kara looks up at the exact same moment Lena does.

Their eyes lock.