Chapter Text
“Be careful. I love you,” Lena smiled at Kara as she suited up.
“Always, I love you too,” Kara leapt out of the window, Alex mouthing the words next to Lena as she said them.
“Seriously,” Lena sighed, hitting Alex playfully.
“Hey! No violence in front of the baby!” Maggie covered the baby’s eyes.
“He’s two-months old he can only focus on your faces,” Lena muttered to her tablet as she brought up Kara cam.
“Jamie’s advanced,” Alex went over to her son and planted a kiss on his forehead, “He’s perfect,”.
“How much sleep are you getting again?” Lena asked.
“We don’t talk about that,” Maggie mumbled, rocking him a little, “He’s our perfect baby,”.
“He is very cute,” Lena leaned over to stroke a little finger over his face gently.
“I know,” Alex smiled proudly.
“Back-up here please!” Kara’s voice spoke over the comms, “We need to ban the baby in the Supergirl bases!”.
“No! It’s the only way I can be at work at the minute,” Alex practically pleaded.
“He has a weak spot in his armpit, no bone,” Lena told her quickly before turning to Alex. “And the only way you can be at work is by making Kara use the base at our apartment instead of going into the DEO because J’onn is scared you’re going to injure yourself by getting involved in the action too soon after giving birth,” she smiled sweetly.
“Don’t remind me,” Alex sighed.
“Incoming call,” Maggie threw a phone to Lena. Over the last six weeks, they’d become a well-oiled team at the apartment base with Jamie close to becoming a key member. Lena picked up the phone, not getting a chance to say ‘hello’ before the person on the other end started to speak. She listened intently before saying four words.
“We’ll be right there,” she hung up the phone and turned the comms on straight away. “Kara be quick. We need to get to Argo,”.
-
“What’s going on?” Kara asked as she landed in the Supergirl base in her and Lena’s apartment.
“The orphanage had a fire,” Alex explained, “Lena’s gone to pack,”.
“Are Milla, Neema and Del okay?” Kara asked, panicked. They were the children at the orphanage that Lena and Kara had gotten particularly close to. The now four-year-old Milla and her older twin siblings, Neema and Del who were both six; now all spoke English, Lena guessed it was the baby sister card that Milla played to get her way so she would have someone to practice with. Lena and Kara only visited Argo, every other weekend, staying with Kal and Lois or Alura. Kal and Lois had managed to have a baby almost exactly nine months after the Zhao ceremony and had only moved back a few months ago, moving to Smallville instead of Metropolis and Lois taking up freelance journalism, giving most of her articles to Cat much to basically no one’s surprise but Kal’s.
“Alura doesn’t know yet. Apparently they haven’t found everyone. They think some of the kids just ran away,” Alex told her, “We can take care of Lola. Go fly to the middle of the desert and shoot yourselves into space,”.
“Thank you,” Kara gave Alex a quick hug before sprinting off up the stairs.
-
“Stop freaking out,” Lena regretted not having put in the ability to remotely start-up the ship as she ran around to press all the buttons.
“Are you saying that to you or me?” Kara fired back, trying to help the best she could but really no one knew the ship better than Lena.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Lena breathed pressing the last button, “Strap in,”. Kara did so, falling into one of the chairs and pushing the earplugs into her ears to reduce the noise. Lena collapsed into her chair too and pulled the lever that sent them into space.
-
They were floating, they had to wait for some time for the engines to reset before the jump out of the galaxy which meant that Lena was sitting chewing her nails while Kara paced in front of her. It was rare for both of them to be so panicked at the same time. Lena had barely registered the fact Kara had been rambling for the last two minutes.
“Just interrupt me,” Kara turned to Lena, stopping the pacing.
“What?” Lena stopped chewing on her nails.
“You always interrupt me when I ramble and make it better,”.
“I couldn’t listen. I was too busy thinking about the worst-case scenarios,” Lena breathed.
“I was talking about the worst-case scenarios!” Kara almost-yelled, not in anger but out of her stress. She sighed and sat down on the couch next to Lena, her head falling to Lena’s shoulder. Lena took Kara’s hand in her own, fiddling with the bracelet on her wrist.
“One of us needs to be sane at all times,” she mumbled, pulling Kara closer.
“Agreed,” Kara sighed.
“It probably won’t be too bad,” Lena tried to comfort Kara but she was barely convincing herself. Kara just hummed in agreement. There was a beep that indicated the ship was ready to move again and they both jumped up running back to their seats.
-
They landed and it was like a small bit of their stress was lifted as Lena and Kara both sprinted out of the ship and onto the solid familiar ground of Argo. It wasn’t Argo as they knew it though. It was in chaos, people running everywhere. They ran into the crowd, in the approximate direction of the Orphanage and hoped for the best. Lena’s hand gripped tightly in Kara’s as she tried to keep up with her pace. They reached a small clearing in the crowd and Lena tugged on Kara’s arm to stop her and take a breath.
“Lena. Kara,” a small familiar whisper came from one of the bushes.
“Milla?” they both spun around to find her, she came out of one of the bushes and Lena instantly brought her into her arms, crouching down to her height and to give her a proper hug. She seemed to throw all her weight at Lena, refusing to let go. Lena stood, still holding her close and moved her onto one hip.
“ You’re okay ,” Kara breathed, wrapping her arms around the two of them.
“ I don’t know what happened to Del and Neema. They told me to run and I did and now I can't find them and then there were lots of people and they were everywhere and they were screaming and shouting ,” Milla’s voice began to break as she spoke.
“ I know. I know ,” Lena rubbed Milla’s back to try and calm her down, “ We can go find out ,”.
“ What if they died? ” the tears started to fall, soaking Lena’s shoulder but she didn’t care.
“ We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it ,” Kara spoke this time, taking Lena’s free hand and leading the way to the hospital where she assumed everyone would be.
-
“ You found her ,” a voice interrupted their mission to find Alura as soon as they walked into the hospital. They turned to see one of the men who worked at the orphanage.
“ She was hiding ,” Kara explained.
“ Okay, we need to sign her in and then put her with the rest of the children to get a check-up ,” Milla gripped Lena tighter as she spoke, burying her face in her neck and shaking her head. “ Milla, we need to make sure you are okay ,” he spoke kindly to her but she shook her head again.
“ I’ll take her ,” Lena suggested and Milla shook her head again.
“ Del? Neema? ”.
“ I’ll find out ,” Kara offered, “ Go with Lena and I’ll go find someone to find out about Del and Neema ,”.
“ That way ,” the man pointed Lena in the direction of what Lena could only assume was the Kryptonian version of an A&E.
“ Do you know? ” Kara turned to the man, she thought was called Sol-Rath.
“ They haven’t been found but their room was in the worst affected part of the orphanage, the firefighters haven’t got there yet but they don’t think there is much possibility that Del and Neema could be alive ,” he had tears in his eyes as he told her the news, “ But there’s still a chance. Don’t tell her yet ,”. Kara took a deep breath, trying to hold back her own tears.
“ I won’t ,”. Kara’s phone buzzed and she looked down at it.
Lena: Don’t even think about it. You have no powers on this planet, you can’t fight fire. Just come find us.
Kara: How do you know so much?
Lena: You could tell he knew and we forgot to take our comms out earlier so they reconnected when we walked away.
Kara sighed, Lena knowing her so well would normally make her happy but she couldn’t feel it at the moment and instead went to follow Lena to the Immediate Response Area bidding a quick goodbye, to the man who was definitely called Sol.
-
“Smoke inhalation and dehydration,” Lena explained as Kara found the room she was in with Milla. Milla was hooked up to Argo’s more discreet oxygen masks and had their version of an IV too that was administering fluids. She was asleep. Kara pulled out her phone to text Lena, not trusting the fact Milla was unable to hear them.
Kara: They haven’t been found but they were in the worst affected part of the orphanage. They probably aren’t alive.
Lena’s hand flew to her mouth as she read the text, looking at Milla with panic in her eyes. “Really?” she mouthed and Kara just nodded, going round to Lena’s side to sit next to her, taking her hand and holding it tight.
-
“I thought I’d find you here,” Alura walked into the room. Kara blinked her eyes open, she must have fallen asleep. She scanned the unfamiliar room, taking everything in again. Lena was awake next to her, reading through something on her phone but Milla was still asleep.
“Hi,” Kara smiled, speaking quietly as not to wake Milla.
“Hi. Sorry I was emailing Sam and Cat because we left the planet while on lunch break,” Lena looked up, sending off the email. She studied Alura’s face.
“Its bad news isn’t it,” she sighed. Alura just nodded.
“I’m sorry,” Alura breathed, shaking her head, “They didn’t make it out,”.
-
Lena leaned into Kara, her comforting, familiar arms holding her close while she rested her head on Kara’s shoulder. A small noise came from the bed where Milla was sleeping and both Kara and Lena stood up and moved to her side.
“ Where am I? ” she asked, groggily, sitting up slowly.
“ Hospital ,” Lena explained while Kara helped her remove the oxygen mask.
“ Del? Neema? ” she asked, sitting up even more and coughing. Lena rushed to put a pillow behind her back. Milla looked around the two adults. “ No. No. No, ” she whispered, tears beginning to fall down her face.
“ I’m sorry, Milla, ” Kara spoke first.
“ No, they aren’t allowed to die ,” Milla insisted, wiping her tears away, “ They aren’t, ”. Lena just climbed onto the bed next to her and pulled her into a hug, not knowing what else to do.
-
Milla had fallen asleep again, in Lena’s arms this time and for the first time, something dawned on Lena. She looked over at Kara, ready to say something when Alura walked into the room again. “ I brought some food ,” she smiled weakly.
“ Thank you ,” Kara sighed, taking one of the bags off Alura and opened it up before passing it to Lena, who currently only had the availability of one hand. She took the other bag for herself. Alura had one and pulled up a chair near them, taking a deep breath.
“ We all know adoption isn’t a big thing here ,” she started, “ But we are adapting from the old Kryptonian ways and there has been some legislation which would allow for it that we have been trying to push for quite some time, part of the attempt to lose the class system of families that causes so much inequality and with the fire all these children now need homes and I thought you’d like to consider Milla ,” Kara and Lena exchanged a look, both of them trying to see what the other was thinking. “ It would be more complicated with the interplanetary stuff but you could just talk about it. Obviously there is no pressure at all and ultimately Milla gets the final choice ,” Alura began to ramble in a way very familiar to Lena.
“ We will talk about it ,” Lena cut her off.
“ Okay, ” Alura breathed, “ How did she take the news? ”.
“ She fell asleep after crying for hours ,” Kara sighed, moving a piece of hair that had fallen over Milla’s eyes.
“ Do you want some time to talk? I can keep an eye on her for you ,” Alura offered.
“ We’re not leaving ,” Kara and Lena managed to speak in sync.
“ Why aren’t you married on Earth yet? ” Alura asked.
“ Uncertain ,” Kara laughed, catching Lena’s eye as they looked at each other lovingly.
“ I’ll step outside ,” Alura smiled, “ I have to visit some other patients anyway ,”. Lena turned to look at Kara again as she left, holding Milla close to her chest.
“Would you want to?” she asked.
“If I forget every single complicated thing about it like fake backstories, language, a new culture, powers, food and diet, our work schedules and the fact we would be instantly throwing her into the public eye because legally they only have to blur her face,” Kara took a breath and looked down at the child in Lena’s arms. “Yes,” she breathed, “Would you?” she asked.
“First of all, when did you become the one who thought about the complicated stuff,” Lena laughed, “And yes,”. They looked at each other holding eye contact, Kara taking Lena’s free hand in hers.
“Okay then,” she laughed.
“That was easy,” Lena smiled, pressing her forehead to Kara’s.
“I have a feeling it might be the easiest part,” Kara smiled, giving Lena a chaste kiss before taking another deep breath.
“What did you mean diet?” Lena asked, “I know exuberant amounts of food but what about diet,”.
“We are technically slightly lactose intolerant when we come to Earth and the only reason I was fine with it was because I have powers but apparently Kal couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t vegetables and you might as well as add carbs and meat and fish to that no-eat list because that's a very human thing too,” Kara explained in one breath.
“So we eat a lot of vegetables and slowly introduce everything else,” Lena shrugged.
“Does that discount pizza and potstickers?” Kara’s face fell. Lena pressed her lips together and didn’t say much. “I need to call Alex and Eliza,” she smiled.
“Tell them I say ‘hi’,” Lena smiled, kissing Kara quickly before she left to call them. She held Milla closer to her chest, knowing that was all she wanted when she was her age and had just lost her mum. She planted a kiss to the top of Milla’s head and smoothed the hair out of her face vowing to herself to never let her go.