Lena hesitated outside of the restaurant door. She was unused to being indecisive and even more unused to being uncertain. Lena was unsure what exactly she was walking in on: An interview? An interrogation? Commiseration? Threats? Castigation?
The restaurant, La Grenouille was one of the stalwart French affairs that had been here almost from the modern day founding of Metropolis. Refined dining in a low key setting, that offered professional service and the perfect environ for discreet discussions.
Lena's stomach ached in hunger. Her habit of skipping meals to work had become chronic of late as Lena dove into work as a distraction from her life and her feelings. Moving back to Metropolis to let Sam run the National City branch, while she restored the Metropolis hub was good business sense and it put enough distance between her and Kara that they could hopefully start to move on sooner. Food would always be a reminder of Kara, who adored it almost as much as she had adored Lena. Kara would actually love this restaurant, in fact, it was strange Lena had never brought her here when she was first introduced to Clark…
Lena cut off her thoughts as her chest began to ache. The place where her love for Kara sat, throbbing at the reminder of her loss.
She had met Lois before of course. Her first family Christmas had been overwhelming for a number of reasons, but meeting the infamous reporter had been something of an unexpected highlight. Lex had been obsessed with Lois even before her obvious connection to Superman became known. She was a multi Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. A determined, ambitious and powerful woman, who had managed to make a name for herself as an investigative journalist in an age when print media was in decline.
Lena had expected her suspicion because of her last name but Lois had welcomed her with quick wit and a comradery she had rarely felt with anyone else. Then again, as the two women on this earth dating the last children of Krypton, the last heirs of the House of El and global heroes, heralded by some as gods…well it was only natural that they bonded. Who else could you get tipsy with and discuss the realities of super strength lovers using loose grips and slow rolls in bed with, especially when your partners blushed like adorable children at the mention of s-e-x. Sometimes Lena really did think Kryptonians began reproducing through the matrix because they were all such easily embarrassed prudes who went bright red at the mention of anything remotely lascivious.
But that was almost four months ago now, and six weeks since she had broken up with Kara. What could Lois possibly have to say that Kara had not, that Alex had not? What could Lois say that Lena Luthor, certified genius could not think of? Their relationship had had to end. Kara was just too idealistic, and too good to see it. Lena was practical though, she saw reality, and as wonderful as the last year with Kara had been, it would only make it more painful all around if she allowed it to continue. Lena had to be the strong one. She had to protect Kara, and to a lesser extent, herself.
That 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks and 4 days with Kara as her girlfriend were undoubtedly the best of her life. No matter what great achievements Lena and L-corp made in life, no matter what other relationships she had(the very thought of which made her stomach drop) and no matter how long she lived, that time as Kara's girlfriend would forever be the pinnacle of her life.
Lena gazed through the glass door of the restaurant, her hand hesitantly reaching for the handle as she recalled what had led to this.
The knock on her office door was unexpected. Jess had followed Lena back to Metropolis five weeks ago. Her looks of disapproval were often miserably hidden but Jess was loyal and excellent at her job. And more than that, she seemed to care for Lena, even if she disapproved of her actions: leaving National City and Kara. Lena knew Jess was smart and was almost 90% certain she knew that Kara was Supergirl but she had been the consummate professional and never openly commented. Lena even speculated that Jess may have an idea why she left Kara, but again she had never commented. Only threw her disapproving looks and when Lena announced her break up with Kara and plan to relocate she had said, "This is a bad idea." Jess had spun on her heal and left Lena to her miserable packing in her office without further comment and had never again spoken of the matter.
In the weeks that followed, Jess had tried to curb Lena's one outlet for her sorrow and pain, her work. Lena had always been poor about healthy work hours and stopping to eat. Before her break up she had indulged Jess when she brought Lena lunch or asked pointed questions about when she was going home. Then when Kara was around, Jess had a partner in crime to outright mutiny. To manipulate her schedule and make sure she looked after herself, ate well and worked a somewhat human number of hours.
In Metropolis and without Kara, Lena had fallen hard into old habits and pushed herself to dangerous levels. Jess' pointed comments about lunch or going home had earned her faithful assistant cutting remarks and blunt answers once too often. Therefore, Jess had retreated behind a mask of professionalism, only interrupting Lena for truly vital matters.
"What is it Jess?" Lena called irritably. Jess usually buzzed in appointments or rang her phone for quick questions. Actually entering her office meant a delivery, or God forbid, she was going to try again at talking Lena into working less or eating something. Lena's posture became rigid at the thought. She would hate to have to fire Jess.
When the door opened a bunch of bright Azalea's entered her office quickly followed by Jess.
"Security sent these up Miss Luthor. They were delivered by an approved sender and passed all checks" Jess said robotically and before Lena could comment they were on her desk and Jess had departed.
Lena froze and half rose out of her seat, gazing at the flowers like they were poisonous, or a bunch of venomous snakes.
An approved sender meant only a handful of people, Kara, and all the people associated with her.
Lena shuddered out a harsh breath as she examined the bold pink blossoms. In the days after Lena broke up with Kara the stubborn and distraught woman had sent her bunches of Plumerias which had become their flower. It symbolised positivity. When that failed to work Kara had sent Roses for love, chrysanthemums for fidelity, Gladiolas for faithfulness…and a host of others. Each day the cards begged Lena to speak to Kara, to answer her calls, to let her into L-corp. And at the bottom of the cards was written the symbolism and the reason for the flower, Kara's feelings. Lena had googled flower meanings and learned more than she could ever have hoped about the art of messages with flowers.
Azaleas's were a new one though. They symbolised the taking care of family and friends, but if in a black vase they could be a death threat. The vase for this arrangement was a beautifully cut crystal heart. Expensive, overdone but tasteful. Not Kara's style. The adorable idiot who owned Lena's heart went for straight forward, honest or cheesy.
Hesitantly Lena lifted the envelope attached to the flowers. Weighty and hand written by the sender, rather than printed from a computer, with looping cursive the envelope read simply: Lena.
Lena gently pulled out the message card and her eyes widened at the message, was it a threat, a promise of vengeance, or a social invitation?
Luthor,
Dinner at 6pm. Le Grenouille. We need to talk.
Don't make me come find you. You know I can, and I will.
-Lois Lane
Lena didn't know what to make of the message, only that it couldn't be ignored.
With one final sigh Lena pushed the door into the restaurant. When the host approached she donned her Luthor mask. Head tilted up, eyes slightly narrowed and tone one of cool arrogance.
"I am meeting Lois Lane," Lena said.
The host, used to the wealthy and powerful, checked his heavy leather guestbook, nodded sharply and turned on his heal with an efficient, "Right this way Madame."
Lena followed in his wake to the back of the restaurant, to a secluded nook in the corner, dimly lit and with no-one close by.
Lois sat casually drinking a glass of red wine and scribbling furiously on a pad. At her approach Lois glanced up and offered Lena an open smile. It threw Lena more than a poisonous glare.
"Lena" Lois greeted her with a sharp nod as she was seated.
"Lois" she replied uncertainly, unsure of the tone to take.
"Anything to drink for the lady?" An efficient waiter asked demurely as he seemed to appear in the hosts place.
"Scotch" Lena said sharply. Hell, she was going to need a drink for the conversation, she had no doubt.
Lois raised an eyebrow but did not comment.
"Your Blanquette de Veau will be out momentarily ladies." The waiter said before departing.
"You ordered for me? Used to wearing the pants aren't you Lois?" Lena asked spitefully before she could engage her brain.
Lois swirled her wine and took a sip, her eyes never leaving Lena and not reacting in any way to her snide comment.
Lois' gaze raked over Lena and she knows what she sees. Lena looks paler than usual which is to say she looks positively ghostly, she has lost weight that she could not really afford to lose, there were dark circles under her eyes poorly hidden by makeup and her eyes…eyes that once shimmered with Jaden Joy as she looked at Kara were faded somehow to brackish green.
Lois nodded as though coming to a conclusion, "You look like you need something decent to eat and I remember at Christmas you told me it was your favourite French dish. That your house keeper Beatrice used to make it for you as a child."
Lena blushed and squirmed fractionally before reasserting her control, "Oh, yes well, I suppose…"
Lois cut off her half baked apology however, "And I want us to have food so we can talk in peace without the wait staff bothering us."
"Oh" Lena said again. The thought of the topic of that conversation made the fine smells of cuisine in the restaurant seem putrid and Lena gripped her stomach beneath the table with her left hand.
Luckily two waiters approached quickly bringing Lena her meal and the scotch she so desperately needed.
Once alone again Lena gulped the amber liquid and poked at her meal while Lois seemed unaffected by her discomfort and seemed to be enjoying her meal.
"Mmm, you are right Lena, this is fabulous and it goes well with the Boudreaux." Lois commented.
Lena hummed a vaguely positive sound as she poked her food with the heavy fork and wished a waiter would return so she could get another scotch.
Lois seemed totally unmoved by her silence and discomfort. This was worse than the interrogation and ranting threats Alex had thrown at her for breaking her sister's heart. Those were expected and even savoured, they were what she deserved after all. But this…Lois could give the Feds lessons on unsettling a suspect. It was no wonder she was considered one of the best interviewers and reporters of our time.
Lena called upon her Luthor upbringing to remain silent. She had sat through years of cold and quiet family meals. Lois would not break her.
"So you broke up with Kara?" Lois asked as if she did not already know.
"Yes," Lena replied, offering only a monosyllabic answer just like her lawyers always told her to. No elaboration.
Lois' eyes narrowed faintly, documenting the almost infinitesimal flinch from Lena at Kara's name.
"A bit dramatic don't you think, leaving the city and the state, just to escape your ex?" Lois asked.
This Lena could handle. She would treat it like any other interview. "L-corp is doing well under Samantha Arias and with company finally being recognised as a force for good in this country again it was time I moved back to our spiritual home here in Metropolis. To right my brothers wrongs and show the city he hurt so badly that not all Luthors are bad. My moving here was always a long term goal."
Lena delivered the speech with a perfectly clear face, paraphrasing heavily from the speech PR had written for her to give next week when she publicly took the reins of the reopened L-corp building in uptown Metropolis.
Lois seemed to stare even harder at Lena. "Well, I suppose that seems a reasonable excuse. But I dare say you will not enjoy as warm a relationship with Superman as you did Supergirl. That will likely hamper your PR efforts at least."
Lena flinched more visibly this time and her mind began to turn. Lois' words almost sounded like a threat but from a more objective point of view it could just be an observation of what would likely become fact. It was true that Clark was always more standoffish with her but for Kara they had been making progress. Now that she had hurt Kara so badly though. Grr…Lena wanted to cry, Superman would never give her the time of day and that would be a PR nightmare for the company.
Lena coughed slightly and began pouring herself a glass of water, "Yes well, Supergirl and I had a rather unique relationship. I am sure Superman and I will have nothing but professional respect for each other at least."
Lois smirked slightly, "I am sure."
The conversation seemed to hit a lull as both women picked at their food. Lena glanced quickly at Lois. She really shouldn't ask, but it had been five weeks since she had shut down her social media accounts, changed her phone number and moved here…five weeks since she had spoken to Kara or any of their…Kara's friends.
"How is Kara?" Lena asked hesitantly. Her voice caressing Kara's name and granting it a reverence that holy men reserved for their gods.
Lois's eyes narrowed and for the first time her face seemed to harden.
"Broken," Lois whispered harshly.
Lena flinched outright at the word as though struck.
"I didn't intend…in time she will see it was for the best…she will recover…" Lena attempted to defend herself and at each aborted platitude Lois Lane's brows lowered and the hand holding her knife seemed to tighten.
"You don't seem to understand Lena, Kara is broken. You remember what she was like after Mon El, she threw herself into being Supergirl. She gave up on her humanity. This time, you breaking her heart, it is so much worse. Kara just exists. She is like an automaton. She goes to work, does exactly what Snapper says, pulls on the suit and saves who the DEO tells her to and then goes home. She doesn't listen to music or watch Netflix, she barely eats, none of us, not even Alex can get her to come out for anything other than work."
Lena's head lowered with every word. It couldn't be this bad could it? Kara had recovered from Mon El, she would recover from Lena. It would just take time.
"In time she will realise what I did was for her own good. Kara deserves better than what I can offer her, she needs better, I am a Luthor, I am just…"
"Human. Like me" Lois cut Lena off, "and you don't see me telling Clark we can't be together because I will get old and eventually die! You don't see me telling Clark he has to find someone who can walk with him in life for more than 70 years. You don't see me telling Clark that we are breaking up so that he can avoid the heartache of my old age and death. You are being a coward and selfish Lena Luthor."
Lena couldn't stand it anymore, she snapped, "A coward? Selfish! Everything I do is for Kara and her happiness. Everything! I ripped out my damn heart and stomped on it to protect Kara. I destroyed my own happiness, went against every selfish Luthor instinct I had to set her free, so that Kara could find someone worthy of her. Someone who can offer her more than 70 years of inevitable decline. Years where she would have to watch me become frail and weak, where she would have to take care of me and hide our relationship from the world as I get older and she goes from being by older girlfriend to my younger girlfriend, to my toygirl, to my daughter and then my bloody carer in the eyes of the world. I can't let Kara love me for 70 years if we are lucky and then die on her, she has lost too much already. Giving her the false hope of that love, only for it to be taken from her when I die, that would break Kara. She loves so purely, so strongly, I had to break it off before it was too late, before she could no longer heal from me breaking her heart. I had to break it off before she vowed herself to me and was stuck with an aging woman as better opportunities passed her by. We were barely together a year and she hurts like this, what do you think would happen if I stayed with her and died in 70 years! I won't hurt her like that, I won't!
By the end of Lena's speech she was sobbing quietly and desperately gripping Lois' hand across the table. Beseeching her to understand.
Lois watched her with wide eyes, seemingly struck dumb by the Luthor's absolute loss of control and depth of emotion.
Lois pulled Lena's hands into hers across the table and rubbed them soothingly.
"Oh Lena," she said mournfully.
When Lena was under control she looked up at a sad looking Lois who was watching her with deepest sorrow and empathy.
"I wish you had come to me before you jumped the gun and broke up with Kara to protect her. Do you think I didn't have these same worries?" Lois asked.
"No, it's different, Kara has lost more, is more fragile than Clark. I did the right thing, I…" Lena began but Lois cut her off again as she abruptly dropped Lena's hands and sat back in her chair.
"How old am I Lena?" Lois asked.
Lena wracked her brains for the answer and despite her encyclopaedic knowledge on Lois Lane, she could not tell her the answer. Sensing her confusion Lois continued.
"I turned 39 last year, 3 years older than Clark."
Lena raised a questioning eyebrow. Lois looked well for her age, she could easily pass for having just turned 30 but Lena failed to see the point of this conversation.
Lois continued however before Lena could openly question her. "I panicked a little when I turned 36. I suddenly realised that the younger man I was married to looked hardly any different to the one I met in his early 20's. Clark hides it well with the hair, glasses and his outdated wardrobe. What was I to do, to keep him interested? To keep the eternally youthful Man of Steel, that every woman pines over, by my side? To not look out of place beside him, to not look like his mother or some old cougar? I panicked and had my eyes done. 15 years as a journalist, late nights and hard living had given me frown lines and pronounced bags under my eyes. I hated them. They made me look old." Lois revealed.
Lena couldn't help but lean forward and stare intently at Lois. Whoever did the work was an artist. Lena couldn't see any scars and it looked so natural. Maybe she should get the surgeons number?
Lois smiled at her obvious appraisal. "I had the procedure while Clark was off world on a Justice League mission, but despite healing up, the second he got home he notice. Instead of being pleased and understanding my worries he was horrified. I had gone under the knife with all the risks that entails, willingly and without telling him. I had put my health and life at risk for vanity. It is only the second real argument of any weight we have ever had since we married."
Lena was nodding along, "But he couldn't understand…" Lena began only for Lois to make a chopping motion with her hand.
"Oh he understood. You see Lena, we mere humans sometimes forget that we have chosen two of the most righteous and pure of heart beings this universe has likely ever known. Clark doesn't love me solely because of my looks. He loves me for who I am, for how I accept him. He, like Kara will never stray, he will never look at another woman. Never even consider it, because he loves me. My sin wasn't my vanity, it was not having faith in Clark, just like you fail to have faith in Kara. I know Clark loves me and will until the day I die. He has already planned it out you see, as I am sure Kara has begun to do. Clark and S.T.A.R labs have created an image inducer using kryptonian tech which will allow his civilian persona to seem to visibly age. He plans to start wearing it when he is 40. He has planned our retirement in a remote area where we can be by ourselves and to travel where no one knows us. Clark has planned our lives together, he has planned to change so he can walk beside me, from now until he is changing my diapers in some old people's home and he never considered anything else. The thought never occurred to him, only to my fickle human vanity. I was scared he would leave me, scared I would be unable to cope with being old."
Lena sat in shock watching Lois the normally confident Lois admit her deepest fears and secrets. Lois gulped her wine.
Lois gathered herself to continue, "Kara is 26 and you are only 22, the youngest CEO in history. You have found each other so young, but if you think Kara has not already considered your future, how it will be, how she will cope when you are gone, then you are a fool. All you have done is steal 70 years of happiness from her, 70 years of happy memories to tide her over when you are truly gone. 70 years of memories and love to keep her heart from closing itself off before she could hopefully one day find someone else to bask in the sunshine of her love. You are being selfish Lena. Selfish and a coward. Something I never thought you capable of."
Lois wiped her mouth and threw money on the table before abruptly rising from her chair.
"Don't you dare call this a selfless act Lena Luthor. It is anything but." Lois said as she lifted her bag and pinned Lena with her cold reporter stare.
"You also forget who Kara is, what she does every day. They are resilient but not immortal Lena. When Doomsday kil…hurt Clark I thought I had lost him and suddenly I realised that he very well may die before me. They are strong but also so very fragile, could you live with yourself if something happened to her and you had stolen her chance of happiness from her. Because you did make her happy Lena."
With that parting jab Lois Lane breezed out of the restaurant and Lena sat in shock. Her genius intellect tumbling through everything Lois had said. The thought of losing Kara…it was unbearable. And losing her after not immersing herself in the sunshine of her love and making sure Kara knew she was loved …that was…that was criminal, it was repellent. Was she just being a coward? Selfish? Was her vanity blinding her, was she not having enough faith in Kara.
The one thing in this world she had come to depend on as fact, as stable and unwaveringly true was Kara's faith.
Standing abruptly on shaky legs Lena staggered towards the exit of the restaurant, her hand digging in her purse for her phone.
With shaking fingers Lena called Jess,
"Jess!" Lena said out of breath.
"Yes Miss Luthor," came Jess's cool voice.
"Jess call my jet, I need to fly to National city. Now!" Lena ordered desperately.
Silence greeted the request for a moment before a suspicious voice asked, "Have you business there Miss Luthor? Is Sam and L-corp..."
Lena cut her off, "I need to talk to Kara damn it! Get my jet ready, cancel all my appointments here, buy, bribe or blackmail whoever is necessary. I have to go home." Lena almost choked at the word home, home was Kara, she had to get back. Her breaths were almost desperate as she kicked off her high heels and began running down the street barefoot, uncaring of the staring crowd as she bolted for her car.
"About damn time!" Jess exclaimed with abrupt warmth spilling through her voice.
Lena laughed madly.
It didn't matter what she had to do, she would talk this out with Kara. She would walk through hell for her, she would grow old for her.
The end.