When Lillian meets Lionel Alexander Luthor, he asks her to call him 'Alex'. Not Lionel, not 'Luthor', as her more pretentious classmen call him – but Alex. Just Alex. Lillian herself invites him to call her either Lillian or Miss Elliot and nothing else, because unlike rich trust fund boys trying to make a name for themselves, Lillian has no time for nicknames. She is the bastard daughter of Thomas Elliot and Thomas Elliot raised no fool of a daughter. He did not have time for stupidity and he raised Lillian to scrape every penny, to fight her way to the top and to always be the smartest in the room.
With Alex, that is difficult. Exceedingly so. Especially seeing as he causes her to see colours.
Lillian goes to medical school like her father before her, knowing that she can never be a surgeon like him – not with that tremor in her hand. Damn her grandparents for taking her out without permission and damn that broken brake line. Instead, she focuses on psychology and if her father is happy of her for going to med school even with her tremor, then he is proud of her for entering a field he could only dream of joining, considering past issues that would disqualify him. Lillian tries not to shudder when he cackles over the phone.
Somehow, however, Lillian and Alex became friends, partners in crime. Despite the age gap – a five year gap, not to mention how Alex had gained his qualifications and begun his career when he was still a teenager, working as a consultant for her university – Lillian and Alex get on, to a point that is scary, in retrospect. Lillian doesn't need him for his money, not when she has the Elliot fortune to inherit and likewise, with LuthorCorp having risen to success generations beforehand, Alex doesn't need her for her money either. Their combined intellect is staggering and with Alex's tutoring, Lillian covers over half of next years' worth of coursework by the time she's finished undergraduate.
Three years after their first meeting, Alex leans over a coffee-table of paperwork and kisses her. After months – years – of thinking her obsession is unrequited, that it will never be returned, Lillian doesn't pass up the chance. A year afterwards they're engaged. A year after that, they're married.
The year after that, Lionel Alexander Luthor II is born and Thomas Elliot is unmasked as Gotham villain, Hush.
"Did you know?" Alex questions her after all is revealed and the Press swarm outside their townhouse, a gift from Alex's father for their marriage, seemingly believing without a shadow of a doubt that she did. "Surely you should have seen? Known? Is this why you never wanted me to meet him? For Lex to see his only living grandparent?"
"I haven't been in contact with him for years. We weren't close – he was cold and heartless." Lillian swears and he doesn't believe her, despite his cleverness and his damn psychology degree.
"He's your father. You love him. You'd lie for him."
"No, I wouldn't," Lillian argues, "For you and Lex, I would lie, for you and our baby. But not for him. Please, you need to believe me, Alex-"
Trust issues. Lillian knows how it goes and perhaps she ignores the signs, later. She does ignore the signs, later. She wilfully denies anything is wrong, other than they're drifting apart. They stay together for Lex, for their son. Lara, her friend – through Alex, for she has no friends and that is her way, for she never had friends and doesn't want for them – Lara is someone she goes to, later. Much, much later, years after Lena comes to live with them, years after that little girl takes a piece of her heart, years after that dark resentment in her begins to grow.
"Everything was so unfair. She's turning fifteen in less than a year," Lillian murmurs, gripping Lara's hand over the table. Lara leans against it, squeezing hard – as light as she can – and smiling sadly.
"I'm jealous of my niece, I feel it in me every time I think of her. It's been a year – should I not feel less of all- this? She raised my son as her own and he calls her his mother. Every time she comes up in conversation, every time I come up in conversation…it's a struggle for him. Much more of a struggle than mine-"
"Don't say that kind of thing," Lillian murmurs, interrupting quietly, sipping her coffee and thinking briefly, as she catches sight of Lara's green tea, that coffee isn't very good for one's health. It was only after Lena arrives that she begun to drink it. "Everyone's struggles are equal. Some might be longer and far, far more difficult, but the importance for each is the same."
"You make an excellent point," Lara squeezes her hand, as light as she can. Lillian feels the pressure like a vice. "Might I meet her? You should bring her along, some time."
"Meet me?" Lena herself says to the suggestion, like a deer in the headlights as she startles, staring, wide-eyed at Lillian. "Why would your friend want to meet me?"
"I talk about you," Lillian tries to shrug it off, uncomfortable at her questioning. Her eyes wander around Lena's room, filled with corkboards and whiteboards, all filled with chemical formulae, notes and- "Is that a list of the LuthorCorp board members?" She frowns, stepping forwards and raising her hand up, finger not quite touching the dark green pen.
"Uh, yeah- yes. Daddy's taking me to a meeting that Lex is holding."
"Lex's first meeting with the board?" Lillian wonders what has happened to her husband's brains, then, because bringing Lena to Lex's first board meeting during the transfer period? "No. No, you won't be going."
"But mother-"
"No buts," Lillian shakes her head, thinking to the Elliot fortune for some bizarre reason. "You're fourteen. You shouldn't have to sit in on a board meeting with some crotchety old layabouts who couldn't tell the difference between sodium and charcoal." Turning to her daughter, Lillian looks again and forces herself to see Lena – forces herself to take in everything about her.
Lena is small. Her hair is a mess, strands poking out on either side from where Lena's hands have been rubbing in frustration. Her hands are covered in pen, both black and coloured board-marker. With a sickening, mental jolt, Lillian realises that Lena looks stressed beyond comprehension. Everything about her expressions and just her face.
"You don't look like a normal fourteen year old," she says aloud. There's a brief silence, before Lena swallows nervously and stands up straight, hands clasping in front of her. It's torture, all of a sudden, just to see her like this. "No. No, this is all wrong. God, I really need to see a shrink," Lillian gives a laugh, hands rising to the sides of her head – just like Lena does – as she stresses, "and a lawyer. Now. Lena, forget about everything this week. Forget about school and the board meeting. You're having a holiday. I don't care what your father says about it, if I see you getting ready to go out somewhere on his command, I'm abducting you instead to go live with Lara for the month."
"Mom, you're scaring me," Lena says slowly, stepping back. Lillian shakes her head and leaves the room, taking her phone from her pocket and scrolling down to Lara's contact number. Dialling, Lillian waits for it to connect before speaking, clearly and concisely.
"Lara, I'm getting a divorce."
She hears Lara's laugh and wonders how she'd been so blind all these years. Self-denial.
"Finally! I'm so happy for you, Lilly, I really am."
"Thank-you."
Lillian divorces Alex, or Lionel as she now calls him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of having that pseudonym at his disposal. It also knocks him fairly off-centre – and oh, Lillian can see it when they're standing in the courtroom, fighting over custody of Lena because Lionel was really that idiotic to believe it was a good idea for Lillian to adopt Lena properly. Lillian wins, on the grounds that it's what Lena wants, confusing both her father and brother.
Lara leans over the spectators bench to press a hand to Lena's shoulder at that revelation, smiling at the girl who'd spent an entire week and a half being entertained at what Lena had fondly called 'the alien ranch'. Lara had been so amused by the name that she'd had the postal address changed.
"She's still my daughter," Lionel snarls under his breath when they're halfway between the courtroom and the outside world, glaring with all his might. Lex is at his side, face blank as he stares at his sister, who staunchly refuses to look at him, instead conversing with Lara, all attention on her mother's best friend.
Lillian loves her son. The guilt and pain at seeing him there, with Lionel, hurts like a bitch.
"And?" Lillian raises her chin and her eyebrow. "She's in my custody and perfectly capable of making her own decisions, otherwise. If you want to cut her out of her inheritance, fine, it's only your relationship with her you're hurting – I'm an Elliot. Just because my fortune isn't as old or prestigious as yours doesn't mean it's any less valuable, in fact, last time I checked the accounts on your fortune, those numbers were slipping and sliding all over the place."
Lionel looks sharply to Lex at that, sharing some kind of unsaid communication that frankly, while curious about, Lillian doesn't want or need to know the details of. Turning back to Lara and Lena, she feels a smile warm her face at the sight of Lena pulling her alien friend further forwards, through the crowds and past the waiting Press as the doors open and the flashes begin. Lillian quickens her pace, joining them as Lara reaches back to take her hand too, a steady heat in the wintery Metropolis wind.
'The Alien Ranch' becomes a happier place. Lillian knows that before she – and Lena – moved in after the divorce and also, on a sidenote, Lena's fifteenth birthday, Lara lived alone. Alura – Kara's mother and Lara's space pod partner – moved abroad to study international law and Kal-El – Lara's son – visits every second weekend, busy with college life and a job, now, interning at CatCo's Tribune in hopes of becoming a journalist. However, happy does not equal structurally sound.
"I think we need an upgrade," Lena says frankly, blinking at the hole in the wall that had been previously hidden by a wardrobe and a painting. "What happened here?"
"Heat vision accident. Alura was…upset, to say the least."
"Right…" Lena's rediscovery does inspire change, however and Lillian sees to it that the house is expanded, refitted and refurbished. Most of the house is the same, except now instead of being a three-bedroomed house, an extension allows for a garage, a study, a second master bedroom with an ensuite and two other rooms – plus two basements, the lowest of which to be used to store the four pods that previously cluttered Cat and Kara's garage.
"It's lovely, for human architecture," Lara comments, before taking over half the study. Lillian doesn't really know what she's doing, seeing as most of it is in Kryptonian. It's only when Lena asks to learn, does Lillian finally get an understanding of what Lara is doing.
"You're preserving your culture," she realises, when Lara immediately introduces Lena to a comprehensive stack of paper, detailing the linguistics and etymology of Kryptonian – or rather, Kryptonese, which is the proper name. "Teach us both?"
It becomes something of a tradition to speak in Kryptonese in the evenings, English only allowed when either human is utterly lost. By the time Lena's next birthday comes around, when she turns sixteen – "Oh, holy beloved I'm turning fifty next year" – they are passably fluent. Lillian still struggles with writing, though Lena picks it up with ease.
Lara helps Lillian, alone in the study on Lillian's side, where everything is tidy and neat in comparison to Lara's haphazard workspace. They sit close together and Lara curls her hand around Lillian's to tilt her pen, her chin on Lillian's shoulder. Lillian improves her written Kryptonese, for sure, but just as she knows more of the geometric symbols, she knows Lara's body and how it fits against hers.
"Lara," she begins one day, when they sit with tea on the sofa together, because coffee is non-existent in Lillian's life now, "Do Kryptonians remarry? Would- you…would you?"
"Maybe," Lara eyes her carefully, tilting her head, "What about you?"
"It depends. I'm happy with my life, here with you and Lena…" Lillian twists it into a joke, smiling, even as her heart pumps inside her chest. "I'd marry you. You're the only person I'd marry."
She forgets, until Lara's eyes slide downwards, that her best friend has supersonic hearing.
The other woman looks back up to Lillian and the blonde looks down, away, sipping her tea and keeping steady eyes on the caramel-coloured brew. I made a big mistake, there. I should never have started the conversation.
Dark hands reach over, taking her mug from her grasp. Lillian looks up and Lara now, is closer, leaning. She's like a big cat, eyes unblinking as she seems to stare into the depths of Lillian's soul.
"You mean that. You meant that, didn't you." It is not a question. Rather, it is a statement. "The love I feel for ones such as Alura, Astra, Zor-El, Kara Zor-El, Kal-El and Lena is a much different love than my love for Jor-El. It is pronounced and clear to me in it's existence."
"Quite…you're quite poetic," Lillian mutters, faintly hypnotised, barely noticing as Lara takes one of her hands.
"Only on purpose. I am a writer, a wordsmith – but writing is different from speech. Even now, I rewrite what I have already said to you in my head, making it sound much better. But what I have already said makes sense. I love Jor-El differently from the others. I loved Jor-El differently. Present. Past." Lara kisses her and Lillian can't help but compare it to that of her first kiss with Lionel. It isn't full of passion and for certain, it isn't as wet.
Lara sits back far, far too quickly, however.
"That's not fair. You- you can't just leave-" Lillian all but growls, getting up and sitting on her knees, just about glaring at Lara, who grins, eyes crinkling. "Get up here."
"Of course, my love." Lara sits up again, pressing their lips together. Lillian knows she is old – she's turning fifty in eight months, for chrissakes – and Lara is, discounting her time in the Phantom Zone, barely thirty, but Lillian isn't so unloved not to know what she's doing. As Lara's hands traverse her form, Lillian wants but this is her best friend and their first – second – kiss.
But those words. Of course, my love.
Present tense.
"Requited feelings," Lillian murmurs, between kisses.
"Requited, always, Lilly, I promise," Lara's arms wrap around her and Lillian reciprocates, holding her as they sink into the couch. "Do your knees hurt?"
"I'm not that old."
Lillian thinks Lara's grin lights up the sky.