Sing The Nightingale

"Oh," she thinks as he walks past. "So that's what it feels like to be in love."

It's the little soar of her heart, that little sting. She's almost forgotten what that feels like. It clings to her like a little song, strumming through her being. It seems like an eternity ago that she was questioning herself whether to go on a date with William.

It felt good. William asking her, just out of the blue. Like a little ray of sunshine in what she has to admit, hadn't really been a great time. The little tingle of excitement, the immediate thought of "Why?". Why did he ask me? What does he see in me? Mixed with the desire to find out, to know what he sees in her, what he sees in Kara Danvers.

But here, looking at him, seeing him, talking to him, just being around him, Kara has to admit that it felt nothing like this.

It felt bad to say no to William. To say no the potential of something new. Kara has missed feeling like this.

But there is this hunger in her soul, this void. Maybe it's just the guilt she tells herself, maybe it's the depression talking, that is making her look at his face and listen to his familiar voice like it's the cure for all her woes. Making her feel like she wants to get addicted to it, addicted to that feeling of how it threatens to bring warmth back to her iced-up veins. She's been dying from the inside bit by bit, turning to ice, turning to stone, trying so hard to keep clinging on to her ability to hope and now she's around him and it makes her feel like falling, except filled with the knowledge that she would land safely, with the knowledge that it would be okay.

Of course, she doesn't, doesn't fall into this dream, for she is a hero, a hero on her mission, even if it's a mission for herself, a mission to gain clarity.

*

A weak, mournful smile plays on her lips.

"When Myxy took me on this journey through my past, Mon-El was there." She rubs the back of her neck while her gaze gets lost in the distance. "We just... talked." Why do these simple words feel so enormous?

"I miss him. I miss talking to him."

She squeezes her eyelids shut. Before, she didn't want to see him. Blocked him from her mind, completely. Didn't even want to think about him. Wanted to pretend he never happened. And even in any brief moments of weakness, where she did think of him, where she found herself wondering how he was doing, what happened to him after she left, she had told herself that she couldn't.

She couldn't endanger Brainy's safety like that. And they are not supposed to know the future.

But seeing Winn again, and now Mon-El... it has opened the floodgates and suddenly he seems so close. Painfully, tantalizing so.

So possible. Maybe not to be with him again, but to just be around him. Just for a little glimpse.

Kara draws her knees up to her chest.

In Myxy's vision, Mon-El felt so close. So hers.

Tears sting in her eyes and she rubs away the single one that is trying to escape. Before she wouldn't have wanted to see him again, because she would have wanted to escape the reminder that there is a good chance that he isn't.

But it's different now, it's different today. She had to watch him die. Again.

And everything feels meaningless compared to that.

Maybe Alex will understand that, maybe she won't, but right now, Kara is beyond caring.

*

He comes when she calls for him. Of course, he does.

Now the only thing left is to figure out how to start. What words can capture the enormity of what she feels, of what she has seen? Of what they are and what they used to be? Mon-El. Is there any right way to start this? There probably isn't and yet, she begins.

"I feel, I feel like we never really go to say goodbye."

It's a lie. They have said goodbye over and over and over again, even if it never felt right. She can see the emotion travel across his face as the realization sinks in. The realization of what she's truly saying. She stands close to him, so close he can't escape her.

His fingers clench. "Kara," he whispers. "What are you doing?" His throat is working furiously. "Why are you looking at me like that?" His eyes are big and panicked, and before she can react he leans in and steals a kiss from her lips, freezing up immediately, eyes squeezed shut, expecting punishment for his misdeed.

"Mon-El," she says, "We shouldn't," and kisses him back, trapping his lips against hers with her hand in his hair. And it's true. They shouldn't. But right now her heart is beyond caring what she should. She clings to him, with her arms, with her kiss, with her heart.

"Just one more," she thinks. "Just one more," as she drinks him in. They nip and caress, shyly, gently, till she pulls away.

Kara takes his hand and pulls it to her chest. With reddened cheeks and from underneath lowered lashes, her heart beating loud and strong enough to burst, she says what's been on her mind. "We should take this elsewhere."

Blood rushes through her ears as she waits for his reply, but there is none and so she just takes his hand and pulls him along. She doesn't want him to be the Romeo to her Juliet. But at least Juliet got her wedding night.

He stops just as they are about to enter her bedroom. "You sure you are not a shapeshifter?" He murmurs. "No Red K, nothing?"

Kara shakes her head. "No, just me." She probably does owe him an explanation, even though she isn't really sure she even has one. "I just want to feel something again." I just want to feel you again. "Please, be with me, just tonight."

He nods, the conditions of their convergence now clearer.

"Good," she smiles.

He opens his mouth. "I think about ..." Kara places her finger against his lips, stopping him. She doesn't want to hear his confessions, the ones she knows will only make it worse when they part. All she wants is another taste, another dream of him.

His lips are poems against her skin. Kara's heart beats faster. Maybe tonight she is Juliet and this is her wedding night. Bit by bit, their clothes come undone, their eyes squeezed shut, their lips never parting. They stumble into each other, into her bed, falling, tumbling. His hand caresses her hair and he looks at her like she's a dream, his dream. Mon-El.. Her beloved Romeo. Her lips find him again, as do her arms when she pulls him close. Warmth travels through her veins, through the pit of her stomach, up her heart.

As Kara straddles him, her legs wrapped around him, holding him close, foreheads brushing, the perfect yin and yang, the meeting of two times, two universes, she remembers, oh right, that what it feels like to be in love.