For all of her life, Lena had been very much alone. Even in her earliest years, back when she still had a family member out there who loved her, she had still been alone. Though she had been young, she had always been very intelligent and insightful. She was quick to pick up on the fact that she had no father (or at least, no present father) and she was even quicker to pick up on the fact that this was not a good or normal thing. Her mother always tried to convince her otherwise, promising her that it was ok and that it didn't matter and that she loved Lena anyway, more than enough to fill the role of both father and mother, but it still was never enough.
Lena did believe her mother, and she did believe her mother's love, but she was not stupid or ignorant or blind. She did not believe that her lack of a father was anything other than abnormal and abominable. Even if no one ever said anything to her, she could still remember all the staring. All the whispering and pointing. Why didn't that little girl have a daddy? He must've been a bad man who ran out on the family. Or maybe mommy was the one to blame. Had she hooked up with the first man she'd ever come in contact with? All around, Lena heard the whispers, and she knew full well that it meant that she was the only one. She was not stupid or ignorant or blind, though sometimes, she wished that she were.
Then her mother died, and she was quickly taken in by another family, adopted by a man called Lionel Luthor. From then on, she lived in the Luthor household, but even there, she felt like the only one. The only one without Luthor blood. The only one who couldn't truly ever own the Luthor name. The only one who had not come directly from that line or that house. Even Lex, her loving older brother, could not appease her worry. It was her greatest fear that she would never be Luthor enough, or that she would never ever truly belong there. Lex did his best to convince her otherwise but, just like with her mother, Lena's belief only stretched so far. She believed in Lex and she believed in Lex's love, but she did not believe that she would ever truly be a Luthor. She was only a half-breed, a fake, an honorary member at best. She was alone. She was the only one.
And then Lena's wish flipped right around on its head and she began to fear that she would never not be Luthor enough. She began to fear that would never ever truly be able to shed the Luthor name. After Lex had gone crazy, becoming one of the most infamous people in the world, Lena had been forced to flee, to try and run and hide from her twisted legacy as a Luthor. Now, she wanted more than anything to be able to not claim that name or that blood, but it was too late. The damage was done and her name was forever tied to and tarnished by the Luthor line. But she was still the only one. The only one who wasn't in jail, or dead. The only good Luthor. The only repentant and apologetic one. Still the black sheep of the family, just in a totally different way now. But she still would've done anything to feel like she belonged. Not to the Luthors, not anymore, but to the rest of society. But that was just as fruitless a dream as any other that she had ever had. She did not belong, and she was alone.
After spending years fleeing and hiding from her legacy, trying her best to outlive, outlast, outwit, outdo, outshine and outrun her past and her family name, she could not run fast enough. Her fight was a never-ending war. The closest thing she ever found to solitude, peace and refuge was in the arms of Kara Danvers, and all of her friends. They became Lena's family. Her life, her heart, her soul, her reason, her stronghold, her everything. They gave her her first good memories, her first happy moments. But even then, she still felt like an outsider, like the only one. Like the one who did not belong. All of the rest of them were so good and brave and kind and selfless and noble. What was Lena except another Luthor? And as friendly as they had been to her, she could still sense the distrust and distaste radiating off of them. Even after she managed to prove where her loyalties lay, she continued to feel like the odd-one-out, the only one. The only one who did not fully belong.
But by then, Lena was so lonely and so desperate to be loved that she was willing to do anything to get it. She took love wherever she could find it, even if it was not a good decision. She began grasping at straws and taking whatever she could get. Without a second thought, for worse or for better, she latched onto Kara and her friends like a moth to a flame. She never hesitated, and this proved to be her own undoing. Her desperation to be loved blinded her. Her fear of being forever alone kept her willfully in the dark. As long as she felt like she belonged, she was happy, all else be chuffed. So she began to ignore, deny, overlook, misconstrue or forgive any misgivings she ever had about any of them, especially Kara. Kara, whom she saw as her pillar and rock, was like an angel in her eyes. Kara could do no wrong.
Lena intentionally blinded herself to all of Kara's lies and faults, but when her eyes were finally ripped open and forced to see the ugly truth, the pedestal upon which she had placed Kara came crashing down into ashes and dust. Lena could no longer ignore or deny the cold hard facts. Kara had been the most deceitful of all, the ringleader of the lies, the one who willingly kept Lena out of the circle for all of these years. The one secret that the entire family knew never once reached Lena's ears. All along, she had been all alone, the only one to not know, the only one to be on the outside, even though she used to think that she had been part of the family. Apparently not. She was still alone.
"How can I ever forgive them? How can I ever forget?" she asked herself brokenly as she sat alone at her desk in L-Corp. She held her head in one hand and held an empty glass in the other. Beneath the glass was the shattered picture of herself and Kara, which she, herself, had smashed while drinking the scotch that used to be in the glass. There were no tears in her eyes because she couldn't even cry anymore. She was too emotionally drained and empty. She could only stare unseeingly at the shattered picture and wonder, wonder why. Why. Why this had to happen. And why it always did happen. And why it always happened to her. They said that there was no rest for the wicked. What did it mean for and about Lena? Her vision was hazy, her thoughts were unclear and unfocused. Everything and nothing. All at once. She could only sit there and stare and wonder. Wonder why. She rubbed her temples again, the glass still held loosely in her other hand. The picture of her and Kara had been shattered.
Very late into that night, Samantha Arias woke up to hear her phone ringing.
"Mmmph," she moaned tiredly before reluctantly rolling over to see who on Earth was calling her so late. Then her eyes widened in surprise.
"Lena Luthor?" she asked into the phone, sitting up at once and answering it the moment she read the name. She wasn't tired anymore.
"Sam?" on the other end, Lena's voice was unreadable.
"Hi. What's up?" Lena couldn't see her, but Sam was wearing a very confused, wary, nervous expression as she greeted her boss.
"Nothing, I- I- I just wanted to talk to you," Lena's voice was low and smooth, just like always, but Sam could already tell that something was really wrong (aside from the fact that this was Lena Luthor calling her at 2 AM). Sam's maternal instincts shot off like a rocket.
"What is it, Lena?" she asked, voice hardening just a little. For a moment, there was only silence, but right before Sam could ask again, Lena spoke.
"How do you forgive-? How do you...? Have you ever been kept in the dark by someone? By someone that you love?" she asked, a new note of pain slipping into her voice as she tried to speak to Sam without revealing too much.
Sam, though, of course, caught onto Lena's first question immediately. She was mother to a teenage girl, she knew all too well when there was something troubling someone that they didn't want to come out and talk about just yet. Similarly, though, she also knew never to push the troubled person in question, so she allowed her curiosity and Lena's eerie question to slide. For then.
"What do you mean?" she instead asked, hoping Lena's clarification might help her understand what the heck was going on over there.
"Has anyone you loved ever kept a secret from you?" Lena clarified, speaking a bit louder this time, though Sam could still hear a very vulnerable and sore note in her voice. She sounded like a glass, sturdy and solid, but very easily breakable.
"What do you mean? In what way?" Sam repeated, now she felt bad for prying so much, but she really did not know how to answer Lena's question. She heard Lena sigh frustratedly and felt bad, but the Luthor willingly explained anyway. Lena understood that the question had been very vague and very loaded. Of course Sam wouldn't be able to understand without context.
"There was a person, no, people, that I loved. Very much so, in fact. Only now I've just found out that they've been keeping secrets from me for this entire time. This entire time that we've been friends, almost like family, they have all been keeping me out and keeping me in the dark. Have you ever had that happen to you, Sam? Have you ever had that happen where your entire world has been hiding from you? Do you have any idea what that feels like? To realize that you are all alone, and the only one?" Lena's words were jumbled and cold, her voice managed to sound angry, sad, hurt, scared, broken and utterly empty all at once, bouncing back and forth and all over the place. She was demanding and sharp, but not angry. It was almost like she was genuinely asking if Sam had ever been hurt before, and of course, the surface-level answer was yes.
Yes, Sam had been hurt before. And she'd been hurt deeply as well. And she'd been hurt by family and friends and loved ones, just like Lena. But even though the surface answer was yes, Sam could already feel it in her soul that her answer was not going to be enough. That "yes" was not necessarily the answer Lena wanted to hear. At least not without further elaboration. This was an answer as complicated as its question, and there would be no easy or simple path to an explanation, especially not if the chat was occurring over the phone and in the middle of the night. This was the kind of talk she would have with Ruby when Ruby came home from school in a depressive state because some of her friends had stabbed her in the back. This was the kind of talk that required physical and direct interaction. This was not a conversation to have over the phone.
Sam addressed this issue first, calmly and respectfully telling Lena that they would get nowhere in this conversation that night. There was just too much to unpack and it was the type of conversation that had to occur face to face. She gently told the Luthor to wait for her, and if the emergency was really that bad, she would head over to National City right then. She could afford one day off from work. But if Lena could wait, then Sam could visit tomorrow night.
"We can't talk now," she said gently. "There's just too much to say and I need to be there with you in person to do that. Do you think you can hold on until tomorrow? And then we can talk? Properly? And in person?"
Lena hadn't liked that idea, but she understood Sam's logic. This really was the type of talk where the speakers needed to be able to see and touch one another. A distant phone call at 2 AM, when thoughts were still jumbled by sleep and stress, was not a good way to start any talk, especially not one like this. So with a heavy sigh, Lena agreed, yielding and clinging onto Sam's promised visit like a lifeline. It would be all that got her through the following day. But Sam didn't hang up before offering to at least listen to Lena's story if there was something that she really did need to get out that could not wait until the next night.
"I won't hang up just yet," Sam promised. "So if there is anything you want to at least start right now, I'm all ears."
"Thank you, Sam, but that won't be necessary," Lena replied, strained and pained. "You are right that we should wait until tomorrow. I just need to sleep things off right now. But I promise I will be better in the morning. I look forward to seeing you," then before Sam could say anything else, the line went dead. Sam could only stare down at the phone in confusion and concern, but since she knew that Lena would not wish to speak again until tomorrow, she could only set her phone back down worriedly and try to go back to sleep. Lena, meanwhile, stayed up all night crying, all alone.