I Want To Live

Chapter Two

Kara's eyes shot open and she was halfway out of the Sun Room before she had even realized what was happening. All she could think of was Lena and the veins running up her neck as she convulsed on the ground.

It was only as she got out into the hallway and looked around that she realized where she was. Still in a panic she frantically glanced around at all the equipment that she had dragged with her out of the room in her unconscious haste and snatched up her phone which had probably been on her bedside table, and was now lodged halfway into the wall in front of her.

Tapping open her phone she looked at the time and groaned. She had been asleep for six freaking hours. And it was six hours that Lena could not afford to lose. She started quickly pulling off the monitoring pads stuck to her skin and looking for her clothes until...

"Kara," Alex's voice reached her and she paused. "You're clothes are in the Sun Room. Follow my heartbeat to Lena's room once you're dressed."

She breathed a sigh of relief, Alex had obviously been monitoring her or her vitals and had seen that she was awake. Disregarding the mess she had just made Kara sped into the room and sped back out one second later dressed in her Agent Suit as Alex had dubbed them. It was the standard issue black jumpsuit that most DEO Agents wore but with her house crest painted in white across her chest that granted her access to most levels of the DEO.

For a while Kara was okay walking around the DEO in her supersuit but more and more she felt uncomfortable wearing the short skirt and tight top combo in the facility. Plus she was proven a distraction as most Agents tended to look at her walking around in those colors rather than doing her job. So Alex and her had come up with her Agent Suit for walking around the DEO when she was not superheroing.

Not sparing a glance at the Agents who were remarking at all the mess in the hallway Kara sped out and into the next room where she could hear Alex's heartbeat.

She stopped short when she came across exactly what she had been dreading. Lena lay still, very still. Too still. Her face was paler than usual and her hair was damp with sweat and in a tangle that she knew Lena would detest if she were awake. The dark veins she had seen on her neck and face seemed to have receded but the grimace on her face and the crease on her forehead told Kara that the pain she was in might be worse than when she was injected.

Alex, who had been checking the IV lead on Lena's arm and taking diligent notes on her clipboard looked up at the woosh of her entrance and allowed Kara to take in Lena's situation and process before speaking up.

"Kara..."

"Alex!" Kara let out desperately. "You've found what's wrong with her, right? You're brilliant at this sort of thing!" she spotted the IV drip and pointed at it. "That's the cure right? You've solved that sick bastards idea of a game? Poisoning Lena? You've done it right?" she asked again as Alex didn't answer in the affirmative. "Please tell me you've done it."

"Kara..." Alex began again, shaking her head. "That is just a sedative so that she's not screaming in pain when she's awake. It's a sedative so strong that I would only possibly use it on you or J'onn. Yet it only lasts in her system for a few minutes before the poison breaks it down, so I had to make a drip line. Unfortunately this is the last bag I have of this stuff and it's the strongest stuff I have, after this I don't know how I'll be able to keep her under."

Kara deflated with each and every word that came out of her sisters mouth. Alex noticed and hung her head.

"I'm sorry Kara," she said with tears in her eyes. "I'm good, but this person is better than maybe anyone on this planet at this stuff. All we have on the substance inside of her is what they told us."

Kara looked up from Lena at that comment and watched as Alex froze. "You have them?!" she asked and frowned as Alex's eyes widened in, was that fear?

"They came quietly," she replied coming around Lena's bed quickly. "But Kara, you have to listen to me, wait..."

"Where is he?!" Kara demanded her eyes lighting up in anger.

"Kara please!" begged Alex but her pleas fell on deaf ears. "You need to listen to me! You need to wait!"

Kara shook her head adamantly. "I'll find him myself!" she declared not caring for her sisters protests when Lena's life was at stake and speeding out of the room and coming to a stop at the command center. One glance at the monitors told her that a new prisoner was in Interrogation Room 3 and she only barely heard Winns call of "Supergirl!" before she was off again, crashing through door of the room which held Lena's would be murderer, she had the person clad in black slammed against the wall with her hand against his throat before she registered the smiling face in front of her.

"Hello, Kara."

Lena's voice spoke from Lena's lips right in front of her and she almost let go. Almost was fooled until her eyes blazed with fury and heat vision and she turned her gaze back on Lena's attacker.

"Who the fuck are you?!" she yelled in her face which had not faltered from her smiling visage as her eyes seemed to taking in every inch of Kara's furious face.

"You know who I am, Kara," the imposter replied calmly the smile still on her face. "You can hear my heart, can't you?"

Kara was just about done with this bitch and her mockery of her best friend, she was just about to lose the smallest amount of control she had left since waking up and frying this fucking monster before the lights above her head turned red and her eyes powered down till only her natural blue eyes, though darkened in grief, were visible. The strain of holding up another person registered as she let go of the imposter and turned around to see a panting Alex standing next to the doors control panel and putting in a code.

"Kara, I can't let you kill her," Alex said between deep breaths. "We need her if we have any hope of saving Lena."

Kara had turned angry eyes at Alex when she realized what her sister had done but as her powers had been taken away, the fury was slowly simmering down to a boil instead of the molten lava that had been flowing through her head minutes prior.

"Why is she wearing Lena's face?!" she asked Alex through gritted teeth not looking back. Not being able to bear looking at this healthy looking Lena that this shapeshifter or whatever she was was wearing in mockery when her best friend was fighting for her life on her deathbed.

Alex sighed and rubbed her forehead as she came in and grabbed Kara's hand and guided her to the seat across from imposter Lena's and made her sit down. Kara complied because she needed answers right now, but her patience with her sister and this murderous imposter were running out.

"She's not wearing Lena's face. She is Lena," Alex said, her tone already anticipating that her words would not be believed. "I've done the tests Kara, three times. Believe me, that's Lena."

Kara's eyebrows furrowed as she looked at her sister, still not being able to look at the imposter as she straightened herself out and settled across from them demurely.

"So she's Lena's evil doppelganger? From another Earth?" she asked desperately trying to understand why Lena would want to kill Lena.

Alex shook her head. "She's vibrating at this Earth's frequency, Kara."

Kara banged her first against the table in anger at her sisters avoidance of the answer she was looking for.

"Alex, tell me!" she damanded but the answer came from across the table.

"I'm Lena Luthor from three years in the future and I came to kill my past self so that the atrocities she commits in the future will not come to pass."

That single statement, delivered with the beautiful verbal diction that her Lena possesed, delivered with the poise and grace that her Lena had and with the certainty and stoicness that was so familiar to Kara that she just stared at the woman for a whole minute. Processing and rejecting this reality.

Then she pushed off against the table, standing up. "No," she said firmly looking down at this fake Lena and turning on her heel to walk out of the room. "I'm taking Lena to the Fortress and putting her in stasis." She turned back at the door and pinned Alex with a stare. "You get the truth out of her, do whatever you need to do."

"Stasis won't work, Kara," Faux Lena spoke up and Kara clenched her fists as she tried to maintain her composure at the woman's voice, her best friends voice, coming from this stranger.

"As if you'd say something different," Kara rebutted. "you want her dead."

"Kara, you know me," she shot back. "Do you really believe I would ever do things by half?" She could easily hear her Lena's self assuredness in her voice at her own abilities, the one thing that Lena had always been proud of was her capabilities as a scientist, someone who could put the best on Krypton to shame.

"There is no cure," she said and Kara turned back to see her shoot Alex a smirk. "And as capable as you are Alex, you cannot torture an answer out of me that I don't even have. I made sure that I could never solve this problem when I created the poison."

Kara turned around and walked back up to the brunette, she dropped to her haunches in front of the woman and stared into her beautiful green eyes, traced her alabaster skin, no makeup adorning her cheeks, revealing the flawless skin that only a few including Kara herself had seen. The princess without her armor. Her gaze dropped to her neck, at the welts forming in the shape of her own fingers, where she had held her against the wall. Tears formed in her eyes at the thought of her own hands marring Lena's beautiful skin, and she was shocked at the woman gently reached down and slowly wiped away the dew drops from her cheeks which had fallen without her permission.

"No tears for me, darling," she said softly and finally Kara realized the truth, the terrible beautiful truth. This was Lena and she was here to kill Lena.

"Why?" Kara asked desperately as she reached out to clutch Lena's knees as her own nearly gave out at her realization. Lena immediately clutched at her hands and pulled her up with herself to make Kara take the seat she was in as Lena herself paced over towards the door only for Alex to block her path. Smirking at her sister Lena turned around and locked eyes with her.

"Because there were a lot of things that my mother said about me that were lies but there was one truth; Lena Luthor is poison and she destroys the lives of everyone around her. And there came a point in my life where I was responsible for destroying the life of the most important person in my life and I had to make it right."

Kara had no doubt that the most important person in her life had to be herself because for once the emotions on Lena's face was plain and clear enough to read. She wasn't hiding anything and the terrible truth was that the hatred and disgust that she was showing was aimed solely at herself.

Kara got up, feeling strength come back to her legs and ambled towards Lena who flinched away from her as she tried to embrace her obviously bereaved friend.

"Don't," she said as she pressed herself against the wall. "I don't deserve your sympathy or your anything after what I did."

"Lena," Kara said voice was still laced with unwanted sympathy for her best friend. "If you're really from the future then you must know how I feel about you. You must know that I would forgive you for anything."

And suddenly there was a fire in Lena's eyes as she stood back up straight and pinned Kara with a glare. "Would you, Kara? Would you forgive me for destroying your world? Getting Eliza, Alex, Nia and even Cat killed? Bringing about events such that James can't walk anymore and Winn is stuck in the Phantom Zone?" she asked her voice catching in her throat at everyone she had supposedly gotten killed. "And even if you would, Kara, which I have a hard time believing, you would actually have to be alive to be able to forgive me for what I have done."

The words. The names. Her loved ones. All dead. In the near future. It hit her harder than she expected it to. Her own death being a footnote in the narrative; she had a hard time believing that a world could exist out there without Alex or Eliza in it. But who was Nia? And Cat? She had not seen or had spoken to Cat in almost a year but if she got news of her death, she was sure that she would not recover for days. And James and Winns fate somehow seemed worse than death.

But as sure as she was about not wanting her loved ones dead, she was also sure that Lena was not evil. And she was not a killer. And if recent events with Morgan Edge had taught her anything, it was that Lena had a tendency to take blame onto herself with even the slightest of evidence of wrongdoing on her part.

"Did you do it?" she asked softly. "Did you put a gun to my mother's head and pull the trigger?"

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alex shudder and hated herself for giving her sister that visual but she needed Lena to answer the question.

"I might as well have, Kara!" Lena near screamed trying to get her point across but all she managed to do was confirm Kara's own point.

"So you didn't," Kara said stepping closer to Lena. "You think you did and now you're punishing yourself and all of us for it."

Lena was incensed, so much so that Kara almost recognized the vestiges of that Luthor madness that seemed to infect the rest of her family but Kara remained steadfast. Lena was not evil.

"You have no idea what I have done."

Kara nodded agreeing with her. "Then tell us." Was all she asked and waited for Lena to speak.

After a pregnant pause that might have lasted an hour Lena let out a breath and walked back over to sink in her chair.

"Fine," she replied grudgingly. "If that's what it takes to convince you that neither me or the Lena dying in your infirmary is worth saving then I'll tell you, but I want a truth seeker. I don't want either of you mistaking the truth for anything other than what it is."

Kara shrugged. "We can just get J'onn to scan your mind," she replied as she retook her seat next to Alex. "With your consent of course."

Lena shook her head and smirked.

"What?" Kara asked her.

"Have you forgotten that I am the person that just poisoned your best friend, someone you love with all of your heart and about right now, I'm the reason that that poison is eating away her appendix?" she asked viciously, making Kara lose the small smile she had gained when Lena agreed to tell her story. "And you're worried about my consent?"

Kara studied her best friend for a moment. "You're so determined to make me hate you when you should know, better than anyone else, that it's simply not possible," Kara replied with feeling, her blue eyes imploring her greens. "That person that I so love? That is still you Lena and I will always fight for you, even if you refuse to fight for yourself."

Now it was Lena's turn to lose her smirk. "My consent for mind reading is pointless since the nanites in my blood make it impossible for my mind to be read, the only thing that will confirm my story is a truth seeker, so if you will Agent Danvers, I would appreciate it," Lena said through gritted teeth turning to Alex, refusing to meet Kara's forgiving eyes.

Kara shared a glance with Alex before her sister stood up and went to open the door. Before leaving the room she switched back on the normal fluorescent lights so that her powers could return and Kara once again locked in to Lena's slowed heartbeat down in the infirmary while she looked across to the Lena in front of her and hoped to Rao that she would be able to save them both from themselves.

It's Easter so I had time to grind out another chapter. As it is with all of my fics, don't hold your breath for quick updates, but of course reviews might always speed up the wait, you never know. *Wink Wink* Cheers mates!!