'Don't we all want to paint ourselves into something better than we are?' - Dorian Grey
Head shaking, bewilderment was creeping through every freckle, pore and facial muscle so much so- that her tightly wound bun bobbed even after she had stopped moving.
Contorted staring off into the throes of an existential crisis... mulling on a puzzle that she was struggling to disassemble.
Lena tore away pieces- questions bit by bit from that scrunched up ball of tangled neurones
Attempting to read off her thoughts like a line from a cheap fortune cookie, Lena untangled the easiest one of all...
"Why?"
Kara gaped a little...
Why did I keep this from you?
Why am I telling you now?
Why am I your friend?
Why am I here?
Why didn't I trust you?
Why did I say those things in Juru?
Why did I ask James to look into you?
So many possible endings to that question and the Kryptonian wasn't sure which one she actually meant... so she went with...
Insecure and guessing "Um.. Why didn't I tell you?" Lena nodded chewing the pink skin on the inside of her palette so that her lips were tightly wound over to one side, the expression she held was pained as she awaited the outcome of Kara's explanation- one that was just likely full of lies and excuses...
Kara sighed shoulders slumping "I don't know" voice trembling in sincerity.
Lena blinked, absorbing and scrutinising until the business woman realised... hushed.. asking...
"You... don't know?"
Fidgeting... twisting so that her hands were buried straight into her knees trying to feel something other than clawing responsibility...
Debating... "I-...I suppose I'm not good at being human."
Kara said that as if it were the answer to the goddamn multiverse, but forLena she might as well have recited a list of grocery shopping for all the use it did and her own response likely would've been the same for all the rational sense it made... it just made her thoughts even more scrambled inside of her fucked up cranium.
Quiet deliberating... a little more inpatient... scraping a nail on the ground looking down...
"But.. you were always... human... at least to me?"
"Exactly"
The clear miscommunication was evident in the looks between them, so the blonde tried to explain things... clearing her throat, eyes weak and betraying "Um... for-for so long... I've been... hiding, everything not just who I was but... who I AM.
...if I haven't been hiding that I'm an alien, an oddity, my past on Krypton- then I've been hiding my.. my personality as Supergirl, because I have to be strong.. stoic, I can't have emotions- at least not ones that cause humans to carry stigma."
Shifting, her muscles were tense frigid and it was apparent that Kara was finding it hard to figure out exactly how to word what it was that she was wanting to say.. how to tell some of her biggest insecurities.
Eyes pacing over the scrawl of the English language.. on the sign above... almost wishing they were symbols not unlike the world in which she grew up.
"Um... it's like I'm stuck between two.. no three halves of myself, Supergirl has to be better than me... the real me... she has to be untouchable, untraceable Godlike maybe.. because she can't seem real... not as you or I... she's a fallacy... someone to provide hope and inspiration."
Shifting on her knees...
"But then there's Kara Danvers... the human who likes what we share together... because It means she doesn't have to hide her fragility, she gets to embrace her humanity.. and it's okay if she stumbles... or if she has nightmares about her tumultuous past because she knows you'll be there... she gets to have a best friend.. and um to... love, she's the one who gets to breakdown... she's the one who gets to be happy and have domesticity in a life full of instability."
Exhaling.. Lena just sat with her walls fraying gently...
Rambling...
"Though... all in all she isn't perfect Lena... nor does she have enemies willing to kill those she holds dear, she doesn't have an image to uphold... she absorbs all of the emotional baggage Supergirl doesn't get to carry... and that means her selfishness too... she's only human."
Bowing in shame... "and that's what I meant when I said I'm no good at being human... that's utterly true, because I'm still getting used to navigating these emotions.. let alone separately and I let the worst ones of all dictate my morality with you.. at least when it came down to our relationship. Fear.. selfishness... greed... That made me justify continuing to pretend.. I convinced myself that it was for the best.. because then it meant I got to keep you for the part of me that has always felt needy, the woman riddled with anxiety... it also meant then that this whole situation.. it didn't have to change... I'm no good with change."
Jerking her head, nodding to herself...
"So I'm sorry.. I know I was wrong... I really really do."
"It took me a while to see it but I need all of them... all three identities."
Lena frowned, and Kara leant inward.. subconsciously moving closer.. Lena raised an eyebrow... holding herself in...
Tears falling... "Your my hero Lena, you always have been, your my inspiration and my hope, your my Supergirl and my family."
Lena's face was pained...
"All these years your something I was never allowed to have, someone whom doesn't see me as an invulnerable alien with superpowers like Winn or James, you see past the cape.. to who I am at my core... even when not knowing who I actually was you still.. just knew me."
She shrugged "you always saw all of my faults and weird little traits and you never even batted an eyelash, even then.. you always see my soul before anything else... even the glasses."
She chuckled wetly, wiping her nose.
Absorbing the garble of information... green eyes glassy upon taking a moment to recollect herself. Lena's lips parted.. she wasn't one for such emotion.. this was such new territory repeating "You said three identities... three people? ...Kara Danvers, Supergirl... so who is... the third?"
Understanding dawning... acquiring the truth behind Supergirl...
again..."Who is the real you?"
That's when two starlit orbs crinkled at their corners and Kara's expression differed from what it used to be.
Lena's orbit had thoroughly shifted...
The cheeky, quippy blonde was suddenly no longer either persona.. it was like a magic curtain had begun a grand unveiling and she was that child waiting to meet Santa or something... they both wear red and fly... it works.
With the grace and poise of Supergirl but the voice of Kara Sunshine Danvers... she announced...
"Kara Zor-El"
And there it was...
Her true self.
The person she'd never met until this hour.
A merge of personalities.
The person that according to Kara... she'd always subconsciously noticed.
Currently the Luthor just didn't know how to feel... she figured for the most part Kara's answers were genuinely truthful which was far more than she'd thoroughly expected when waiting for some sort of justification but there was still such a part of her corporeal flesh that felt akin to stinging nettles as each bad thought had crept throughout her limbs only to converge on her love for Kara Danvers- knowing that this Kara wasn't the person she'd once entrusted her deepest of secrets too, the girl she'd pulled straight into her own magnetic field and been okay with when she'd allowed that woman past any barrier that she might've held.
It was now at present moment that all that could be heard in the elevator shaft was a stuttering breath, alongside a strangely mute alien lady who continued on listening intently to time as it ticked by, until surprisingly... it halted...
Blurting "So thats why you hurt me?" Timid... Lena hadn't even meant to say it.. nor sound like that, she was loosing control of her speech pattern more times in one elevator journey than the amount of baby animals being birthed in spring time.
Helpless... more a monotone of acceptance now, Sighing..."As I said... I didn't want to loose that precious thing that we had together, the one thing I thought I'd never get again... then I suppose.. the more our paths diverged the more you started hating on Supergirl the more I became tangled into this stupid web of lies and deceit."
Gulping, she was trembling a little...
"...but that was never my intention- I never wanted to hurt you, I'd never do that purposefully... it was just inevitable" shrugging "because if I told you the truth you'd be broken you'd feel betrayed, but if I kept on pretending... that'd be just as bad too... and in every which way I turned I realised there was just no way of getting out of this guilt ridden mess of my own creation."
accepting...
"... so yea, I allowed it.. I don't knowwhy fully, but I've tried to explain at least some of my reasonings... your just special to me Lena Luthor and because of that i've made some terrible decisions, that I completely take the blame for... I do however think that a part of it was due to growing up on earth in a different culture and being forced to become this strange ditchomy that even I don't quite understand."
Lena just blinked- she couldn't help but feel a little sarcastic- because clearly the excess rambling was one thing she hadn't only pretended to have.
[To Clarify i've decided to make this a six parter]
