Okay guys, here it is, an early Christmas present for you if you will. Here's the continuation of Saving My Face. I decided to keep that as a two-piece, as I find it works better that way but this is a direct continuation of that story, so if you haven't read it I would suggest doing so just so you are aware of where this starts off.

Secondly I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who, followed, reviewed, favorite etc. You guys are incredible and I really felt the love from you all and I'm so pleased you enjoyed the story as much as I did writing it. Certainly made delving into the angst just a little more bearable.

So without further ado, my dear friends, enjoy.

The days following Lena's momentary lapse in control were a whirlwind to say the least. She'd woken up the following morning with a throbbing headache and a raw throat, the remnants of her ill-fated whiskey marathon.

As predicted however the crushing weight which had been threatening to consume her whole had disappeared to the back of her mind once more, a sense of clarity and serenity filling her bones and replacing the grim self-loathing, for the time being anyway.

Lena didn't have many hours in the day as it was, her late stays and midnight research a tell-tale sign of just how heavy her work load truly was. Between the paperwork, the meetings, the brown nosing and everything else that came with running a multi-billion corporate company she rarely had time to breathe let alone anything else and was stretched to the absolute limit.

However, now that her strength had returned and her armour had hardened to its default state she was working tirelessly on her strategy on how to bring down project CADMUS. Every waking minute she wasn't dealing with L-Corp related schematics she was formulating her angle and trying to figure out how in the hell she was going to get her Mother where it hurts.

And it was hard.

It was so hard.

Even with everything she was pouring into it, the resolve and the strength she was channelling into that particular topic she was finding it so hard to find a resolution.

And she knew why. Deep down in the dark twisted recesses of her mind it was there, screaming at her louder than anything else. The answer to her struggle, to her hesitance and to her blindness was clawing at her insides and tearing her up once more. The root cause was blinding, glaring at so frightfully obvious that it was all consuming.

Because she loved her Mother.

No matter how much she loathed her, she loved her just as much.

And she hated it. She hated the hold the word family had over her. She hated them, she hated them so much but still inside she felt like that tiny four year old all over again, fighting for her Mother's attention and wanting to please her.

And even when she was rejected time and time again, still she went back for more. A glutton for punishment. Even when her Mother would say Lex was her favourite, she'd run back to her. Even when she would palm her off to the nearest nanny still she would cry out for her Mother to hold her, to adore her, to love her.

She'd spent her whole life crying out for attention off of her Mother, so much so that she found she never wanted anyone else's attention.

When Lena first met Lillian she honestly thought this woman was her hero. She'd swooped into the orphanage all smiles and sincerity, scanning every child. And out of all the kids in the place Lillian Luthor had picked her.

She'd rescued her from hell itself and Lena had truly believed that this woman would be nothing like the families she'd been placed with before. That she would be loved instead of used, that she'd get hugs instead of punches.

Gods she'd been so wrong, so naïve.

Physically the Luthor's bore her no ill-will but mentally... Mentally they had completely crippled her. She still held those scars to this day and even though she fought them tooth and nail they were ones she would bear until the day she died. Every rejection was another wound, a bleed. Every refusal, every mockery... The hurt had accumulated and multiplied tenfold, rendering her self worth inert and severely lacking.

But even after every hardship, every struggle and every bit of pain that woman had put her through still, she loved her. She might not have been her real Mother but she was the only Mother she knew. She wasn't the Mother she asked for but she was the Mother she got.

And she tried, Lena tried so hard to be able to emulate her Mother's cold and hostile disposition, to make her Mother's feelings towards herself mutual. She wanted to mirror the words and emotions, reflect them back at the woman who had caused her nothing but misery and she tried with every fibre of her being, she tried.

But she couldn't do it, because she was not her mother.

Her mother was cold, hollow, empty. Her Mother was dark, cruel, ruthless and malicious. Her Mother had no emotions, she felt no guilt nor remorse for her actions, feared no consequences.

But Lena did.

Because Lena herself knew that she was inherently good, in her heart of hearts and beneath the morally grey veil which had adapted itself in the name of science, she was good. She wasn't cold, she wasn't dark, she wasn't cruel, she wasn't ruthless nor malicious.

No, she was warm and light, she was kind and sweet, she was sincere and always striving to be the best person she could be, to be the kind of person this world needed. She felt guilt and remorse over even the tiniest of things and was always three steps ahead of any consequences that should befall her.

She was every single thing her Mother wasn't and perhaps that was why they clashed so strongly. Perhaps that was why she still loved her Mother, even after everything they'd been through. Because deep within her she still felt like she could fix it, fix them, fix their relationship, fix her Mother, fix her family.

Since she was a child Lena had always liked fixing things. First it was broken dolls, then it was injured animals, then it was scale models, then it was car engines, then it was absolutely anything she could get her hands on. There was a reason she moved into the engineering field after-all.

But that incessant need to fix things had merged with her personality until she became obsessed with fixing not just things but people too. She'd tried to fix her Father, to curb his alcoholism, but she failed and he drank himself to an early grave. It was a shame he went first, he'd always been the lesser of the three evils that was for sure.

She'd then tried to fix her Brother and she had given it everything. She had given her blood, sweat and tears on her quest to fix him, to bring him back from the brink of his insanity and to fix all the little pieces in his mind which were shattered and broken. But again she had failed, failed to catch him, failed to pull him back over the precipice and now he was locked away in a CIA black sight, fully succumbing to his madness and almost pulling her over with him.

Now she was trying to fix her family, fix everything they had done. She was cleaning up their messes bit by bit, righting the wrongs of her predecessors and giving it every piece of her she could spare. It was more than a mission, it was an obsession and she knew it as much as anyone. She was getting more and more consumed with fixing all that was wrong and once she'd fixed the mess the Luthor's had made she'd turn her attention to fixing the rest of the world.

National City was only the beginning.

And Lena didn't miss how much her own path was slowly resembling her Brother's, though be it on the other side of the spectrum. It was taking over her life, taking over everything… Just as Superman had become his obsession, fixing her name had become hers.

And in the process without even realising it she had been trying to fix her Mother. To thaw her cold heart, to show her how much Lena deserved her love and attention.

But it fell on deaf ears and just like she'd failed her Father and her Brother, she knew that her Mother would be no exception. She would fail to fix everything that was wrong between them and it stung like nothing else because Lena Luthor didn't enjoy failure, didn't enjoy the bitter taste it left in her mouth.

Lena didn't realise how much she craved to be loved, not only by her Mother now but by anyone. Because she was lonely, she was so lonely. The only person who had ever loved her lost himself in his psychosis and in turn his love for her turned to loathing. So much so that he'd even tried to kill her, twice.

There wasn't a single soul on this planet, not one single person out of the six billion plus who resided on this perfect little earth loved her. And just like she yearned all those years for her Mother to love her, she was starting to yearn for anyone to because she knew deep down her Mother would never do that, ever. All she wanted was for someone to see past her name, past her company and past the icy façade she held so impeccably well and just see her. See Lena.

But no one could. No one would. Loneliness had crept into every orifice, every gap between her bones and every crevice of her body. She was on her own again, just as she had been when she was but a child in that wretched orphanage.

It was ironic really how loneliness had become her only friend…

…Well not her only friend.

She had Kara now and Supergirl. Though, if she was being literal they were one person so really she only had one friend. One friend in the sunshine City she lived it. She knew it was quite pathetic and borderline tragic but people just didn't want to come near her, their fear ingrained too deep to root out no matter how hard she dug.

Sighing Lena leaned back in her chair, dragging herself out of her own head and forced a smile onto her face as Jess's voice filtered through the intercom, signalling the arrival of a long overdue visitor.

She knew why she hadn't been around, why she hadn't even called. She'd gotten into CADMUS's systems, albeit briefly, and stumbled over the security footage of her Mother torturing Supergirl and holding her in captivity along with her friend, Mike of the Interns, who was obviously a lot more than had first met the eye.

And even though she'd have liked to see her sooner she knew that the girl was okay, that she was safe and alive and had walked out of there instead of being carried out in a bodybag.

The footage had only cemented her firm stance against her Mother. The fact that she was hurting people was bad enough, but she'd hurt her friend, she'd hurt her Kara and that was where the line was well and truly drawn. That was a line she didn't even know she'd placed until she saw it for herself.

She couldn't deny how much she'd missed that beautiful face the last few days and she knew she'd be a welcome respite from all of her troubles. She always was. She was like a ray of sunshine, brightening up everything she touched.

At that thought the smile wasn't fake anymore.

Kara was walking towards L-Corp, a deep seated fear clawing at her throat at what she was about to do. To say the last few days had been insane was an understatement. She'd been all set to go and see Lena the day after the woman's meltdown, all ready to put a smile back on the beautiful CEO's face but clearly the universe had other plans.

First there was the emergence of the Guardian who frankly was causing more harm than help, then there was the small issue of her getting kidnapped by CADMUS itself. Followed up by the realisation that the woman at the head of said terrorist group, the one who had captured her ended up being none other than the woman she'd seen entering Lena's office and the one who had surely caused her friend so much distress.

And said woman wasn't just anyone, no, she just had to be Lillian Luthor, Lena's Mother. Kara didn't think she'd ever forget the pain she felt at the realisation, a sharp shooting through her ribs as she took in the so called Doctor as she admitted who exactly she was.

Did Lena know what her Mother was? Was she part of CADMUS? Was she exactly like the rest of her family? All of those questions filtered through her mind, tearing her apart. And she felt awful, truly awful. Because deep down she knew that Lena wasn't, that she had no part in this. But the guilt that she had thought as much, that maybe she could be. Suffice to say it hurt far more than it should have considering their platonic relationship.

Lena was not her Brother or her Mother. She was her own person. She couldn't, no, she wouldn't believe that the CEO had any part to play in this. She refused.

But just because she didn't believe it that's not to say everyone else did. Because she knew J'onn thought she was part of it, as did Winn and surprisingly and disappointingly so did Alex. Every single one of them thought Lena was simply too good to be true and so now instead of going to see her friend of her own volition to comfort her after what she'd seen she was going there to interrogate her as Supergirl under the guise of one Kara Danvers.

And that didn't sit right with Kara. Lena had been nothing but honest to her, and in return all she'd done was lie. Lie about who she really was, lie about her double identity and now she was lying to get information. She was using their friendship to get Lena to spill whatever it was she knew and frankly it made her uncomfortable.

But it was better she did it face to face than to anonymously dig through all of Lena's files from behind a computer, running the risk of exposing things Lena might not have wanted broadcasted. The entire situation was a double edged sword but in the end something had to be done and so Kara hoped this way of doing it would minimise the damage.

Coming to a stop outside of L-Corp she steadied herself and willed herself just to breathe. Nothing was going to come of this, she knew it. Lena knew nothing and the whole visit was pointless.

The lies were certainly going to be for nothing. And that was bitter pill to swallow if she'd ever had too.

Lena never thought that a visit from Kara Danvers could make her feel so bad. The girl always brightened up her days, made her smile, made her laugh and the company was anything but unpleasant. There was always the air of happiness and serenity whenever she was around and she anchored Lena, grounded her, filling her with hope that she would achieve everything she set out to do.

Except this time there wasn't.

All that remained from their brief encounter was a bad taste in Lena's mouth, the bitter sting of betrayal working its way through her blood and her bones.

She was used to Kara lying to her about Supergirl and she didn't blame her one bit. That was a treasured and clearly sacred secret to the woman that she would never pry to know unless the blonde wanted to disclose it of her own choice.

But lying about her intentions, lying about why she was there to see her was something that Lena could barely stomach. She'd said she'd come to see her for their weekly meet up, said she had an interview she wanted to regarding an article she had no intention of writing.

And Lena lapped it up initially, just pleased to have her friends company once again…

…Until she started asking questions.

And they weren't your standard interview questions. Did Kara really think she was stupid enough to buy into them, to not see the pattern as the questioning became more and more relentless. That every question focused more and more on her Mother and their relationship.

There was only one reason Kara would ask about her relationship about her Mother and Lena wasn't a fool, she could see it all over Kara's face. She could see it in the way the girl could barely even look at her, the stiff and rigid shape of her shoulders. Kara Danver's was a terrible liar as it was, and spouting out these lies was no exception.

She was asking because Kara believed that she had something to do with CADMUS. That she was working alongside her Mother in their quest to exterminate alien life on earth.

Kara… The one person she thought believed in her. The one person she trusted implicitly and the one person who she thought would never betray her, would never tar her with the same brush as her wretched family had done just that. Even if the feeling was minute it didn't matter because if even the slightest part of Kara believed that she could have a hand in this then that was more than enough for Lena.

Kara Danvers had turned out to be just like the rest of them, just like everyone else in her life. She was unable to see past the Luthor name, unable to see Lena as she'd claimed she could. Just like everyone else she thought that there was evil and a darkness lurking just beneath the surface of her skin, that she was a ticking time bomb ready to explode and unleash the infamous Luthor rage on National City.

She could feel the foundations of their friendship crumbling and the burn in her chest only seemed to intensify at the thought.

If she'd come to her as Supergirl to ask these things, hell if she'd even have asked outright there and then if she knew what her Mother was up to then she'd have told her. She'd have openly admitted she had nothing to do with CADMUS but she did know her Mother was behind it. And it wouldn't have hurt. Because Kara would have been honest about her intentions, would have given her a chance to explain the whole thing.

But instead she decided to go incognito, clearly still believing that Lena wasn't aware of who she was behind the ponytail and glasses. She had used their friendship as leverage, abused the trust Lena had put in her for answers. And that's what had hurt her so deeply, had cut so deep she was certain she was bleeding. The fact that Kara felt she couldn't just ask about her mother. She could have just swanned in as Supergirl, said what had happened to her and asked and she'd have given her every bit of information she had on CADMUS.

Because that was Supergirl's job and that's what her relationship with that half of Kara was, all business. But her relationship with Kara wasn't that, it wasn't a business arrangement so to speak. She was her friend, her closest friend and her only friend and she had used the one relationship Lena actually cared about to her advantage and the purity of it was now stained, soiled. The deceit of it all was almost unbearable and she'd had to fight to not pick up the whiskey in her cabinet on the other side of the office.

She'd settled for some wine instead. It was thanksgiving after all.

Lena could feel the tears nipping at her eyes, her anger swirling in her gut as the familiar sting of betrayal festered in the organ in her chest. She couldn't get over the persistence of the questions, even when Lena had all but asked her to leave it alone she'd continued to press and press and press.

Couldn't Kara see the pain it was causing her? The hurt that was certainly shining in her eyes as she constantly asked about her Mother. She hadn't been able to stop herself from half throwing Kara out under the pretence of having a meeting, the pain in her chest becoming almost unbearable.

And if she had been able to see she still carried on prying, still digging for the scoop so to speak. She'd willingly continued to hurt her just so she could see if Lena had blood on her hands, the same blood as Lillian.

Friends didn't do that to each other, she'd never done it to Kara and the girl had far more secrets to hide than herself. She at least expected the same mutual respect back. She thought Kara had enough decency to stop, to not even do it in the first place. But she didn't. She pushed and she pushed, as if she wanted Lena to admit something that wasn't true.

And Lena cursed herself for her naivety, for allowing someone to get so close to her. She promised herself after Lex that she wouldn't let people close enough to hurt her, like Clark had done to him. He'd gotten close, gotten friends and gotten under her Brother's skin. That is what had pushed her Brother over the edge and she could actually understand why Lex was so vengeful over it all, over the deceit.

Because right now she could feel it, she could practically taste it. The betrayal was bitter and dry as if she was gnawing on charcoal, clogging up her throat and staining the light within her with splotches of black.

Because she had done the same. She'd allowed Kara to get close, she'd let her in and exposed herself and her vulnerabilities, she'd put her trust in not only Kara but in Supergirl and it felt as if all that trust had just been slung back in her face and then some.

Initially she'd laughed at the sheer irony, the parallels between her and her Brother getting ever more frequent but now the deprecating laughter was gone, leaving nothing but a hollow burn and a dull ache in her heart.

She'd thought she was different. She thought she was her friend…

… But a Luthor didn't have friends… Only enemies.

She'd initially debated taking her findings to Supergirl before Kara had come waltzing in, all fake smiles and sly silver tongue. She was going to ask her for help, to see if she could aid her in bringing CADMUS and her Mother down but she wasn't going to do that, not now.

Lena'd never been a spiteful person but right now she would be because she was wounded, her hackles raised having been backed into a corner like a caged lion. Yes she could still take the information to Supergirl, but she wasn't going to do it and that was out of pure spite.

If she was going to change people's perceptions of her then she would do it herself. She wasn't going to hand it all over to Supergirl to fix it, to Kara. No, this she was going to do on her own because clearly fate wanted her to be alone. If anyone was going to take down CADMUS it was going to be her.

Once again her Mother had taken everything from her. She'd taken her Father and her Brother, she'd taken her own love and now without even knowing it she'd taken away the one friend she had on this planet, the one person Lena had left to care about. She'd destroyed the one relationship Lena had been desperately clinging to like a lifeline to keep herself afloat. The one person in her life who held any sort of meaning, any sort of sway.

The person who had made her want to do good, to go a step further than she thought she ever could. The person who had made it all seem worth it, that showed her that her actions weren't for nought.

Her Mother had taken Kara from her and she was going to return the favour tenfold by taking her Mother's new life from her. She wasn't just going to stop CADMUS, she was going to absolutely annihilate them from the face of the planet, stopping their scourge at the very core.

And she would do it alone, she was going to do it from the inside just as she'd done to L-Corp.

The only positive she'd taken from her meeting with Kara was that the blonde had unknowingly shown her exactly how to get to her Mother. She'd given her the answer and the motivation she needed to bring CADMUS down and had made it all the more easier by practically killing off the last piece of love she held for the woman who'd raised her.

If bright and sunny and hopeful Kara Danvers could believe she'd work with her Mother, then anyone could…

…Including her Mother.

She'd given her the opening she needed, the doorway into blowing the project to pieces.

If her Mother wanted her on side then she had her and if Kara wanted to believe that she was evil then she'd be just that. She'd be everything everyone thought her to be for the time being if it meant stopping them once and for all. Because Lena had never been one frightened to get her hands dirty, had never been frightened to take risks. She was ready and willing to dance with the devil and she knew full well it could go completely wrong. She knew that if it went wrong she probably wouldn't see another sunrise.

But without risk there is no reward. It was the one lesson she'd truly taken off of her Father, the one thing he'd said to her which truly made sense. And right now she would take that chance.

She'd show them. She'd show them all exactly what kind of person she was.

Downing the glass of red wine she held loosely in her hand she typed in the number she hadn't used in a long time.

She rang her Mother.

Before she'd even entered L-Corp Kara had known what she was doing was wrong. She'd known it in her gut and her heart. Her innards had curled and coiled painfully, a pain that not even the girl of steel could prevent.

The moment she'd looked at Lena, looked at the pain on her face as she spoke of her clearly turbulent relationship with her Mother she'd known that J'onn was wrong. That Alex and Winn were wrong. Lena had nothing to do with it, had nothing to do with her Mother it seemed.

Guilt was chewing at her bones, swelling her capillaries and filling her stomach with an anxious bout of nausea. Rao, what had she done?. She couldn't believe she'd convinced herself that going in there and lying to her friend for answers was the best thing. The moment she'd started speaking she could see the hurt pooling in those wonderful emerald eyes.

Lena's whole posturing was screaming pain during the ill-fated interview but Kara had found herself unable to stop. Supergirl had taken control and like a bull in a china shop she'd pushed for answers, trashing and smashing Lena's emotions with undue care or restraint. Answers Lena didn't have, answers she knew herself that Lena didn't have. She'd cut open the scars the woman's family had left with no regard for how much it would hurt her.

She re-opened the festering wounds and exposed Lena to a harsh reality she didn't deserve in the slightest.

Rao…

She'd done some stupid things in her life but she was certain this was up there in the top five at least.

Fear panged in her chest, remorse swirling within her as she tried to surmise how much damage she'd just done. Not just to Lena's feelings but to their relationship. Their fast and steadily building friendship might just have been irreversibly damaged and it was no one's fault but hers.

She'd allowed the other's get into her head. She'd allowed their judgements cloud her own.

No.

No it was too easy to blame J'onn and Winn and Alex. If she hadn't wanted to do it she wouldn't have and it was her who had suggested going to Lena, they just wanted to hack into her systems and find some information.

This… This was all on her.

Kara shook her head and slumped against the railings of the DEO, her cape billowing out behind her in the breeze. She knew now, for certain, she knew that Lena knew nothing and it was all because of the woman's eyes.

Her body and face might have been trained and schooled into a hard shell, an almost impenetrable armour which shielded her from harm but there was one weakness Lena had, one thing she couldn't train or school or manipulate into hiding her true feelings and that was her eyes. Those bright emerald pools which conveyed absolutely everything, filled with so much expression that not even she could disguise it even with all of her talents.

Her eyes gave away how she was feeling, betraying her words and looking into them Kara just knew… She knew that she was wrong and she was pulling Lena into her Mother's mess when there was no need for it. The way Lena had excused and dismissed her from the office, a smile on her face but the pain in her eyes was evident and she looked as if she knew something no one else did.

What that was, well, it was even a mystery to Kara. She looked hurt, shook and with a hint of betrayal thrown into there.

And that look was practically seared into her brain because it was her who had put that look on the beautiful CEO's face. On her friends face. She was the cause and now she had no idea how earth she was going to make it right, how she was going to make it up to her without revealing who she really was.

The one way to fix it was to reveal herself. That was a dead cert and Kara knew if she spilled that little secret she held so close to her heart then there was no way Lena could hate her for being so intrusive.

But in doing so Kara knew she was opening up everything and illuminating the lie their friendship was built on. The lie's that she had told to protect herself. Where-as Lena had never lied to her, not once.

During the length of their friendship she had never shown dishonesty – well maybe her plans for the gala, but that was no surprise and that was a whole different matter entirety. That was to save people from a menace, not to save herself.

But she had. She'd lied, so many times now she'd lied and now she had used her friend, knowing how many issues and insecurities Lena had about how people had always used her, her whole life for her name and her wealth. And she'd used her for information, a betrayal which was most certainly worse.

Rao… What have I done?.

Her plan was going better than she ever expected. It had worked, her rouse was being bought – albeit sceptically. The angle she'd played, the door she'd used had been blown wide open and now she was on the inside of CADMUS and working at her Mother's side.

But it hadn't been easy of course.

From the moment she'd picked up the phone her Mother had been uncertain and weary, her words and her body language showing nothing but distrust. But Lena'd continued to play her part, spun the tale she knew her Mother would lap up. If there was any-way to tug at her Mother's non-existent heart strings then she'd have to use history to her advantage and she did just that.

Although the parallels between her and her Brothers path were true she spun the tale she knew would deceive, mirroring her own interactions with Supergirl to that of Lex's with Superman. And she played her part well, drawing on Kara's betrayal to fuel the fire and need to punish Alien's for ever stepping foot on this planet, their planet.

And it was hard. It was so hard to maintain the bitterness, the darkness and the vile words she had to spew to lure her Mother into the trap she was concocting. A few well-placed barbs here and an offer of the weapon she knew her Mother had been aching to get her hands on.

If people genuinely believed they could hack into her systems without her being able to track where it was coming from and who it was doing it then they were fools. Of course she knew there were eyes in her files. She was notified the moment an intrusion was flagged.

She knew what it was her Mother wanted and now she was offering it up on a plate…

… With a few minor tweaks of course.

The Medusa Virus. Known Kryptonian technology which Lex had gotten his hands on, technology he'd have used if he hadn't been finally brought to his knees just before he'd been able to deploy it.

A virus which if harnessed correctly could kill every alien in National City. A virus which enhanced could wipe out all alien's on the Planet.

And a virus which had fallen into her hands following her brother's fall.

All this time she'd had it and never used it, instead buried it deep in preparation to destroy because of the damage it could cause. It was too unstable and too powerful to be left in human hands, to be left in her hands, a Luthor's hands.

And people still deemed her to be evil. If only they knew.

She dangled the carrot, pledging her allegiance to her Luthor name and offered up the one thing she knew her Mother wanted to get her hands on more than anything. The one thing she was completely unable to refuse no matter how wary about the whole situation she was.

And it had worked. Lillian Luthor had taken the bait with a gleeful grin and at that moment, when her Mother had looked at her Lena had felt the one thing she'd wanted off her Mother her whole life, the one thing she'd craved so desperately off of her.

For the first time in her life she felt her Mother's love.

It stirred at her deepest desires, flared up some foreign emotion she didn't know she had and that four year old version of herself seemed to tear itself out of the bowels of her psyche.

And she liked it. She liked the feeling of her Mother loving her, appreciating her, of being proud of her.

And that thought, that fleeting moment of happiness absolutely terrified her. It terrified her that deep down, no matter how deep she buried it away her Mother really did have an iron hold on her emotions, a vice like grip on her body and soul. It terrified her that the force of it was so powerful she knew she could succumb to the darkness and plummet into the same orbit and trajectory that her Brother before her had taken.

Love was a powerful motivator. Love which was continuously toyed with, rejected and then given when it was wanted the most…

…It was lethal.

It had never been hard for Lena to step into Lex's shoes and take up his mantle, she was perfectly aware of that. But now with this feeling of power swirling within her it had never been easier. She'd been betrayed by her only friend, she had no one to protect, no one to be loyal too and she personally owed these people absolutely nothing.

But she couldn't do it.

She wouldn't do it.

Because the role she was playing right now was just that, a role and an act. And she would fight the stigma hanging over her head, fight the darkness her family were all too willing to tap into until her last breath.

Because she was not them. She wasn't a real Luthor, she never had been and her Mother had always reminded her of it since she was a child. Only now that it was convenient to her own ends did she acknowledge such a thing.

But it held little weight now because she didn't want to be a Luthor anymore. And as much as finally receiving her Mother's love buoyed her this wasn't the way she wanted it. She didn't want her Mother to love her because she was about to commit genocide.

She wanted her Mother to love her simply because she was her Daughter.

But that would never happen and she wasn't fool enough to fall into that abyss. A few years ago she might have but she was older now, wiser and a damn sight smarter than the woman she'd wanted to please so badly. She'd sworn to herself a long time ago that she wouldn't allow them to define her and if there's one thing Lena had in buckets then it was willpower.

Her sheer will was a force of nature and she would never allow herself to become compromised. She wouldn't allow herself to fall like those who'd come before.

She was going to be better. She was better.

And now her Mother had no idea what was coming for her. Her whole life she'd underestimated her, thought her to be nothing but a sweet little wallflower who wouldn't say boo to a goose but how wrong she was.

She was going to unleash hell on – as Supergirl had suggested earlier on in the day – the devil incarnate, the devil herself.

And she was going to win, no matter the cost.

Lena shrugged on her coat, the trepidation gripping at her gut and turned her attention to the other person who'd done a number on her that day.

Supergirl… Kara.

Even after she'd extended the olive branch to her Mother it seemed she'd already sent her attack dog to take the virus by force and had conveniently forgotten to call him off. So when the Cyborg came rampaging through her building and began harming her staff it had pissed her off beyond measure.

So she'd gone down to the lobby, all but ready to confront the half man half machine herself armed with nothing but her wits. It was obvious that it was her he wanted and there was no way she was going to allow her staff to become collateral damage.

However when she got there she wasn't surprised at all to find Supergirl had quite literally beaten her to the punch and was engaging said Cyborg with absolute ferocity. But not even she had been able to contain it, the woman getting bested by the monstrous creature and finally he'd turned his attention to her.

And even though she knew she was staring death in the face, even though she knew this man, this thing, was going to kill her she didn't move an inch. She could have run and put some space between them but she didn't. She stood her ground, watching as he lifted the concrete L from the ground and flung it straight at her.

At the very last moment she'd closed her eyes and braced herself, turning her body so that it wouldn't hit her face but the contact she expected never came. She heard the sound of it smashing, pieces of the debris scattering into her skin but the full impact never came.

Supergirl had taken the hit instead, the blonde standing in front of her in all her glory and shielding her from the strike that would have certainly killed her. Momentarily gratitude had filled her, replacing the painful ache Kara had punched through her chest that morning but it was gone in a blink.

So she'd retreated to her office to do some damage control, confident the blonde could manage on her own for the time being. And manage she did because within ten minutes she was swanning through the window, a determined and strong posture framing her body.

And Lena had smiled, not giving a thing away to Supergirl that she knew who she was. Somehow she'd managed to split the two beings, Kara and Supergirl. And finally Kara had been honest with her, finally she came straight out with what her Mother was and how she knew she led CADMUS. Finally she came to her for answers and information on her Mother the way Lena would have appreciated initially but it was too late for that now.

The damage had been done now and Lena had already planned to make Kara's lack of faith in her a catalyst for her alliance with her Mother who would shortly be arriving to hear what her Daughter had to say.

She'd found she hadn't even needed to act hurt and upset by the accusations Supergirl – no – Kara was throwing around about her Mother because she was already hurt and upset. She wasn't hurt at the accusation, she knew who her Mother was long before Kara did, but she was still wounded from their previous meeting and couldn't disguise her agitation as well as she thought.

'How long before you come after me?'.

The words weren't a lie, they weren't an act. That was her age old insecurity rearing its ugly head. Because no matter how good she made herself she was always frightened that one day Supergirl would turn on her.

In a way she already had.

'I'm a pretty good judge of character and you are not your Mother'.

The way Supergirl had spoken the words, the softness and sincerity that filled them wormed their way through the cracks in her armour, stifling her ability to speak. They might have been said in Supergirl's voice but they were Kara's words.

Words which seemed like nothing but a lie after the stunt she'd pulled on her in the morning. Words which only tore her on both sides.

'She is cold and dangerous. And you are too good and too smart to follow in her path…

…Be your own hero'.

Kara once more had merged with Supergirl, her ability to split the two waning and the betrayal she felt bled through into that interaction. Maybe Kara believed her now, that she had nothing to do with her Mother but the fact still remained that she had also believed that there was a chance, no matter how small it was, that Lena was just as bad as her name.

The wound she'd opened was still too raw and too fresh for the heartfelt words to have the impact she clearly desired however and Lena couldn't accept them, not yet anyway.

She wanted to believe them, believe the sincerity behind them and she was certain Kara had some inkling of the pain she'd inflicted during the ill-fated interview but she couldn't believe them, not right now.

So she enveloped herself in her façade, her mask of indifference far colder than she usually held, her snark and her ice just a little more cutting and she'd dismissed her with thinly veiled hostility. She had to play her part, she had to maintain her act because if she crumbled now than she knew she would never be able to hold it as strongly as she needed too around her Mother.

Suffice to say their meeting ended the same way it had with Kara, Lena kicking her out and wanting nothing more to do with her.

She sighed at the thought, pinching the bridge of her nose to retain her composure. She couldn't dwell on it all, not now because she had more pressing matters to deal with.

It was time she ended her Mother and CADMUS for good.

She was going to take the words Supergirl had said to her and run with it. She was going to be her own hero.

She was going to be her own hero.

She couldn't, however, no matter how hard she tried to block everything else out, stop one stray thought from filtering through her subconscious as she walked out the door of her office. A thought she could barely comprehend after everything they'd gone through.

'I hope Kara can forgive me for this'.

The pain swimming in her chest was like nothing Kara was sure she'd felt in her life. So it was true. The words she'd been battling, the judgements she'd been swatting away with absolute vigour. Her efforts were for nought.

Because now it had finally come to light. CADMUS's masterplan, The Medusa Virus and who had supplied them with such a terribly destructive weapon. It was there in black and white on the files Winn had pulled.

Lena Luthor.

She was in line with her Mother. She was a true Luthor after all.

No.

No.

No.

Kara shook away the thoughts in her head, unwilling to allow herself to believe them even though the evidence was right there before her. Lena wasn't like her Mother, she knew it. Deep down in her heart she knew that something there was wrong, that something was amiss.

She'd failed her friend once today by buying into what everyone else believed, even when her gut was screaming at her that it was a lie. Lena was good, kind and bright. She was not her Mother, she was not a Luthor…

… She was just Lena.

Something had to be at play here, something else had to be going on because there was no way the Lena she knew would do such a thing. Lena wasn't evil and she would not believe it, not until she saw it with her own eyes and heard it from her friends mouth.

She believed in Lena, truly she did.

She only hoped Lena still believed in her.

So here is the first chapter my dear friends. Obviously now we're in 2x08 and this is where it all kickstarts, though this story will branch off on it's own linear trajectory with any Lena/Kara elements from Canon thrown in throughout for continuity purposes. Seeing how hurt Lena was by it, it just had to go deeper, stem from somewhere and I like nothing more than burrowing into fictional character's brains and trying to work it all out.

So I hoped this lived up to it's expectation, and please give me your thoughts, critiques, views, feelings. They really do help me to shape this story, shape these characters and well... make it all worth it. Because I write not only for myself, but for all you guys, my fellow Supercorp crew because I believe you guys are worth it and well we deserve more Lena/Kara in our lives.

The next chapter has been written, but don't expect it too soon. I want to get a few chapter's ahead before continuing to post, that way I can ensure everything is tip top and I would have held out longer but it's Christmas and I can't give you real presents so I thought I'd give you guys this instead.

Merry Christmas (Or any other holiday you may be celebrating).

With all my love,

C.