Sometime during another silent interval in Sam and Lena's conversation, Sam's phone vibrated. When she pulled it out of her pocket and switched it on, an amused smile quickly graced her face. Lena knew instantly who it must've been.
"Ruby?" she guessed, a small smile of her own creeping across her face. She really was very fond of the little Arias.
"Of course!" Sam replied, still smiling at her phone as she texted a reply. "Ruby said that she managed to find a friend who'll take her home from soccer practice today and that she should be back in 20 minutes or so."
"Ah," Lena sat up suddenly. "Then I suppose I should be on my way."
"Wait, hold on, what?" Sam laughed, confounded, as Lena got up off the couch. Sam grabbed onto the hem of her shirt to stop her.
"Well, I don't want to still be here when Ruby gets back," Lena said, as if this remark should've been obvious to Sam. "I don't to intrude upon your mother-daughter time! Thank you again for having me over."
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no," Sam laughed. "You get back here this instant!" she gave Lena's shirt a hard tug and the Luthor collapsed back onto the sofa. "You ain't going nowhere," she continued to laugh as Lena looked stunned. Sam was stronger than she looked. "Ruby has been dying to see you all day and you're staying for dinner," the older Arias insisted.
"I-I- I'm sorry, what?" Lena sounded genuinely confused.
"Lena. You're staying for dinner. Alright? You don't need to go back just yet! Stay here for a while! Stay with us!" Sam's playful expression changed into one of sincerity and expectancy.
"But I don't want to be a-" Lena began nervously.
"Then stay," Sam interrupted calmly. "Heaven knows what Ruby will do to me if she found out you left before she got to say hello."
"But I don't want to-" Lena tried again, but Sam was insistent.
"Lena, please, listen to me," she begged and, hearing the genuine sincerity in Sam's voice, Lena finally shut up. "Ruby really has been anxious to see you. I told her that you haven't been feeling very well of late and she wants to see if she can cheer you up. She really would be upset if you left before she got to say hello. Neither she nor I have forgotten how much you've done for her during that year when Reign took over. We're both eternally grateful and she would be genuinely hurt if you left without seeing her first. So please, stay for dinner!"
For a moment, there was only silence as Sam peered longingly into Lena's eyes. Lena continued to look uncertain and nervous, but the longer and longer that Sam held her gaze, the more and more Lena felt her resolve crumbling. Sam had a point. It would be rude of her to go without seeing Ruby first. Besides, what did she have to get back to? Everyone knew she was going to be away for a couple of days. She had nothing urgent back "home" to attend to, so staying here was not a problem for her. Besides, could she deny how tempting the idea was? To stay here just a little bit longer? To keep on forgetting the crazy world she left behind and keep on pretending that this sweet, simple, domestic life was her own? So Lena finally relented.
"But how much did you tell Ruby?" the Luthor asked, genuinely curious.
"Only that you and the Superfriends had a falling out after your most recent battle against Lex. I told her that seeing your brother again like that wasn't easy for you, and it left things a little strained between them and you," Sam replied seriously.
"And did you tell her about Supergirl's true identity?" Lena demanded, narrowing her eyes as she asked this.
"No," Sam spoke with conviction. "It is not my place to tell."
"But Sam-!" Lena protested, finally growing upset.
"But nothing," Sam interrupted, this time refusing to listen to anything else Lena had to say against Kara. "I know she hurt you and I know she lied to you and you have every right to be angry, but this fight is between you and her, not her and Ruby. If Kara still hasn't told Ruby, then I don't have any more of a right to spill her secret."
"But Sam! How can you not be upset by this?" Lena looked betrayed, temper flaring dangerously, but Sam remained calm.
"I am," she said. "I am a little upset to think that Kara never told me either. I was part of your friend circle, remember? But either way, it is not my secret to tell. It is not my business to know. I have no right knowing any of her secrets or identities. I understand how hard it must be to realize that you were the only one out of the loop, but for me personally, I have to let it go. It is not my place to tell," Sam looked at Lena pleadingly.
"I'm not saying you have to forgive her, but I already do. That's just a personal conviction of mine," Sam insisted. "Hurt as I am that she never told me either, I cannot get mad at her because I have no right to know. Nor does Ruby. If it's her secret, it's her secret. I understand how much harder it must be for you because you were closer to her and you had known her for longer, but as for me? I don't hold it against her at all..." Sam trailed off as a bitter smirk slowly spread across her face. "Besides," she said. "Do you think Supergirl is the only one with a secret identity?"
"But Reign was a monster!" Lena cried. "Wishing to keep that a secret was totally understandable! And you had no control over her!"
"I didn't mean Reign," Sam replied, that bitter smile still on her face.
"What?" Lena's righteous anger turned once again to confusion. Sam then obliged to tell the tale...
"When I first found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. It wasn't supposed to have happened, but I still knew even from that very first day that I wanted to keep it, her, but I didn't tell my mother. For the longest time, as long as I was able to hide my pregnancy, I did. I didn't tell anyone. Not any of my friends, not any of my family, not any of my peers and not any adult. I kept it all undercover. Consider it my version of a secret identity," Sam paused to give a dry laugh before continuing on.
"Of course, in the end, there did finally come a day when I couldn't hide any longer and Mom found out. She was furious, as you well know. We went back and forth over what we were supposed to do, and one of the things that angered her the most was the fact that I didn't tell her right away. She demanded to know why I would ever keep something like this from her and I told her that it was because I was afraid of this very scenario, this very reaction. I kept my secret from her because I was worried that she would react exactly the way she did."
"Are you saying that this is why Kara kept her own secret for so long?" Lena interrupted, narrowing her eyes suspicious again. "She was worried that I'd "overreact" so she thought hiding was the better option?!"
"Perhaps," Sam allowed. "But it wasn't just that. It was because, as strained as my relationship with my mom had been, she was still my mom, and she still really had raised me well. I didn't keep the secret just because I didn't trust her, but because I didn't want her to think badly of me. Or at least, any more badly than she already did. I didn't just hide the secret out of shame, embarrassment or distrust, but out of a genuine fear that she would no longer love me if she ever found out that I, her own daughter that she had worked so hard to raise, had been "whoring" herself out after school only to get knocked up by sleeping with some no-good delinquent punk who would never be a good father, or even a good human!"
Sam paused to shake her head, these memories still clearly very unpleasant to her, but she continued on nonetheless.
"I didn't just want to hide Ruby, I wanted to hide myself. I wanted my mother to still love me, and see me as good. How could she when I came home at the age of 16, pregnant and alone? Now, maybe I was wrong, maybe if I had come to her sooner, things might've been better, but I was so worried, that hiding seemed like the better option. Until it wasn't. Then, when I could hide no longer, I had to suffer the fallout not just of telling Mom about a teen pregnancy, but of telling her that I had kept it a secret from her for so long."
Sam paused, not to collect her thoughts, but to allow Lena to collect her own. If there were any parallels between Sam's story with her mother and Lena's own with Kara, Sam wanted her to see them now.
"But a secret identity is different than a teenage pregnancy," Lena said lamely. "One is far more common than the other and the difference between you and me is that Kara and I had had an excellent relationship. Why would she ever be afraid that I would reject her because of her alter ego?"
"Who knows?" Sam shrugged sincerely. "But sometimes, the human mind works in very strange ways. I was terrified that my mom would reject me if I told her the truth, so I didn't. Though of course, we all know what happened after that," Sam gave another harsh and bitter laugh, but then her face softened as a second story came into her mind.
"There was actually another girl I knew back in high school who had a story very similar to ours. She was a very out and very proud queer person, and she made no attempt to ever hide that part of her identity from anyone. She was out to anyone she ever even came into contact with: friends, enemies, strangers, you name it! But she flat-out refused to tell her parents."
"Well, were her parents homophobic?" Lena asked, eyebrows knitting in concern.
"Not at all!" Sam replied. "And that was the weirdest, funniest thing of all. She knew her parents were supportive, she knew they were pro-LGBT, she knew that her parents would accept her and never even think about trying to change her, but for some reason, she never ever came out to them. She never told them anything. She would gladly come out to strangers and she would flaunt her homosexuality around homophobic people, but she seemed afraid of the idea of coming out to her parents. Her own parents, who were nothing but supportive, and who were the most loving and important people in her life. Her queerness became a secret identity when her parents were around, but I think I might know why..." Sam paused, lips twitching up at the memory.
"I think her parents' love was the very reason she was so closeted around them. In her mind, being queer was still somewhat of a negative and strange thing. She didn't want her parents to have to deal with a "negative" or "strange" daughter. Because of that, she hid that side of herself from them. She could tolerate being weird and different around strangers, enemies and friends, because she didn't care what they thought. But she could not tolerate the idea of being weird and different around her family, the people whose opinions mattered more to her than anything else. I think that, in a way, their love and acceptance was what made her feel the most ashamed, as backwards as that may sound. She loved her parents so much that she wanted to be perfect and normal for them and any perceived flaw or sin on her part kept her quiet. So she never told them about that part of her life, even though she gladly flaunted it for everyone else..."
Lena nodded slowly as Sam finished her story. With growing sorrow, she realized that understood exactly what Sam was getting at with that example. It was somewhat reminiscent of the "kill them with kindness" adage. That adage implied that the best way to defeat an enemy was not to kill them or to be stronger than them, but to turn them into a friend. Be kind to them until they felt guilty for being evil. Was this what Sam's old friend had felt like? Had she felt so much love for her parents that she considered it an obligation to be as "normal" as possible for them?
"I'm starting to think that maybe Kara wasn't as secure in her alien identity as we have come to think," Sam murmured as they both stared off unseeingly into space. It was a lot to take in, and definitely food for thought, but Lena couldn't deny some small understanding of it all. Just for one second, then, she began to think about Kara in the first non-angry, non-judgmental way since she first learned Kara's secret. Had Kara kept her identity secret from Lena out of fear? Had Kara kept her identity secret from Lena out of a desire to be normal for her? Had Kara kept her identity secret from Lena out of a desire to have one relationship where she could forget the "weird" side of herself and become fully normal and human? Was Kara truly so ashamed of herself that she felt like secrecy was the only answer?
But then that begged the question of why Lena had been that special "only one" to remain in the dark about Kara's truth. Why was she the one Kara wanted to be normal for? Why was she the one Kara decided to place her humanity upon? But this question was not able to be analyzed before the front door to the apartment swung open again. Ruby was home! Now the fun could really begin...
AN: Some more speculation, but I promise next chapter will be the fluffy one where Lena gets some much-needed relief and family-bonding time with Sam and Ruby. Plus dinner, which is always good, LOL.
Also, just saying, that girl who came out to everyone but her parents was a composite character of me, Alex Danvers, and a few of my friends. All of us came out to our parents last because we wanted to be normal for them, because we felt obliged to, and we were all still somewhat in the closet. We felt safer coming out to friends and strangers before parents, because we had the most to lose with them.
(Let me just say that Alex's coming out scene to Eliza was actually amazing and I wish that any potential SuperCorp reconciliation scene happens in a similar manner. I freaking LOVE Alex's "You always wanted me to have a regular life" line in that scene).