I Want To Live
Chapter Three
Kara and Alex stood next to each other as they stared through the one way mirror into the interrogation room as Lena sat regaly in the chair, calmly regarding her left hand which had the baby truth seeker latched on.
Sharing an uncomfortable look with each other, the sisters exited the viewing room and entered the room holding the future version of their friend. Or at least Kara's friend. Who had tried to kill herself. In the past. Suffice it to say, neither sister was happy with what was happening but both recognized that at this moment FuLena, as Winn had insensitively dubbed her, held all the cards and they would have to play by her rules if they had any hope of saving their Lena.
With minimal fanfare Kara and Alex took their seats and waited for Lena to speak.
The brunette smiled at them both genially and started talking.
"Two years from now, we become very close," she said, looking from Kara to Lena. "You two were my best friends with of course Kara holding top spot since she was my friend since I arrived in National City. And we were a pretty successful team. You two work together flawlessly as always but when you include a few more of our friends and my considerable abilities, we were very capable of handling almost any threat that was posed to the city or even the world."
Kara glanced at Alex. This seemed like a very promising future but considering how bleak Lena had made it sound previously she wasn't holding out hope for it to remain good for long.
"Unfortunately my brother, as usual, was up to no good. He had caused some trouble but we had had it handled. There was nothing he could throw at us that we couldn't handle. Except for one thing."
Lena's smile dimmed a bit as she said this.
"He had one Ace in the hole that he used when he had played all his cards and came up short." Lena pinned Kara with a soft gaze. "You still hadn't told me your secret."
Kara's eyes widened. Two years from now? Working together to fight for the world and still Lena didn't know? How could that have been so when Kara was already contemplating telling her best friend her secret, damn the consequences?
"With his last dying breath, at my hands." Alex twitched at that nugget of information. "He revealed to me that I had been lied to." She smiled in a haunting way that pierced straight through Kara's invulnerable heart. "I was so stupid," she admitted scornfully. "I was so convinced that you all had used and manipulated me. So hurt," she spat the word out as a tear ran down her pale cheek unnoticed. "That the love of my life had lied to me. That I had imagined our connection. That our entire relationship was a lie. And the only way I knew to respond was to lash out."
Kara couldn't deny that the declaration of who she was to Lena didn't stir something in her but the pain in Lena's voice as she told the rest firmly put her feelings in the backseat. She leaned forward to grasp Lena's free hand in her own. She was grateful when instead of waving her away Lena grasped onto her hand and held on.
"We fell out. I did a lot of things that I regretted. We said things that we both regretted. But eventually, after realizing that my anger was misguided, we reunited. We decided to give our friendship another chance and to be honest with each other from then on."
Once again, Kara felt that there was a but coming up somewhere in Lena's narrative and she was right.
"But Lex wasn't about to let that happen."
"Wait, I thought Lex was dead," Alex interjected. Lena smirked at her.
"Do you really think my brother didn't account for the eventuality of his own demise? He may be psychotic but Lex was never stupid, he knew that if he wanted to fight Gods than he would have to have more than zeal and hatred backing him up."
"We're not…" Kara started only for Lena to cut her off with a soft smile.
"Not Gods, I know darling," she interrupted gently. "But that is what he always referred to you two as; False Gods." Lena bowed her head down at the absurdity that was her brother.
"Lex devised a serum. Blood taken from various Aliens, including yours," she nodded at Kara. "Provided by my dear sweet mother." Kara shivered as she remembered her first encounter with the monster that was Lillian Luthor.
"He made a cocktail that when injected into his bloodstream would be able to heal him from fatal blows, even something as decisive as three bullets to the chest."
Kara and Alex shared another look as Lex's death at the hands of Lena was mentioned once more.
"The point is my brother was not gone. And when he came back he somehow finagled his way out of paying for his crimes. Playing the justice system like a fiddle, it was almost as if he demanded the judge let him go with full pardon and they just did what he told them to do. When he was free he declared me public enemy number one, showing evidence of my misguided actions during my time of compromised judgement. It wouldn't stick but he achieved his goal of discrediting my image to the point that I became persona non grata in not only National City but the entire United States."
Even Alex winced at that. She had first hand seen how hard Lena had worked to set herself apart from the other Luthors. To have their fates switched so efficiently, especially at the hands of her hated brother must have been devastating. But Lena wasn't done talking.
"In the end it came down to what I could offer to the Superfriends or the world. The world didn't trust me anymore," she smiled sadly at them. "You for some reason, did. So I made a deal with the prosecution. I would hand over complete control of L-Corp to Lex in exchange for a pardon," she paused as Kara and Alex both gasped in horror at the idea, but didn't linger, choosing to focus on her hands as she powered through the narrative without interruption. "So that I could use what I knew, which is considerable if I do say so, to help the Superfriends to take down Lex once and for all."
Lena sighed as the moment of reckoning came close. "Unfortunately I didn't foresee what handing over Lex control of my company would mean. It meant that everything I worked on; from the Black Body Field Generator to the Harun-El research was accessible to him, mostly because I safeguarded all those research with DNA security. DNA, by the way, that when I was setting it up, I had assumed that only I possessed, when I started encrypting all my files after killing my brother and finding out that all my friends had been lying to me."
Kara's eyes filled with tears at the dejected look on Lena's face but she didn't dare reach out again in case Lena didn't welcome her touch at the moment.
Alex wanted to know what the Harun-El was because it sounded Kryptonian in origin but she kept her mouth shut not wanting to disturb Lena's willingness to tell all.
"Bypassing my locks was child's play for him, paternity markers matching was all the system needed, he did gain access to a lot of sensitive information that he could have used against us. But what he also gained access to was Hope."
"Hope?" asked Alex as Kara finally reached forward again and gripped Lena's hand, grateful again that she wasn't rebuffed.
Lena smiled. "Hope was my crowning achievement. She was supposed to be the culmination of everything I had worked for since I became a scientist. She was named aptly because she was there for me when I had lost all hope. When the brightest symbol of hope in my life turned out, to me, to be a false promise. I made Hope and she was amazing."
The way Lena spoke about this Hope, it was like when Eliza used to praise Alex or Kara for achieving their goals back in school. Alex on the other hand was narrowing her eyes.
"If you're saying what I think you're saying Luthor…" Alex warned trailing off.
Lena smiled blandly at Alex, not at all intimidated by the redhead. "I am saying it Alex. I created an Artificial Intelligence, and she was magnificent."
There was a loud bang on the table which made Kara jump and cover her sensitive ears while Lena just stared serenely at the two women in front of her. Kara stared disbelievingly at her sister.
"Don't look at me like that Kara," she gestured widely at the brunette. "Little Miss Luthor here just admitted to creating Skynet! It always has to be AI, doesn't it? Always has to be…!" Alex said, throwing up her hands.
Lena's smile didn't falter. "I assure you Agent Danvers, that Hope remained steadfast in her duties and never went rogue." Lena beamed at Kara. "Thanks to your sister's movie night marathons I learned the lessons that people in the movies refused to learn and accounted for every single possibility of Hope becoming hostile. She didn't disappoint. No, the AI going rogue wasn't the problem."
Breaking eye contact with Kara, she looked down at her Truthseeker entwined hand. "The problem was that during the time when I was displeased with you, I devised multiple ways to pay back all of you for my perceived betrayal. I was hurting and it was an outlet. I would suggest scenarios. Petty revenge plots, fantastical stories where I confronted Supergirl for all she had done and Hope would grant me the ability to defeat you. And I would, but it never gave me satisfaction and my revenge fantasies remained just that; fantasies."
Still staring down Lena carried on, her voice becoming monotonous as she described her story. "Unfortunately within Hope's memory banks there were scenarios that I had dreamt up that were very effective ways to hurt and punish you. I am after all a very capable and intelligent person and when I seriously thought about it, I came up with a lot of legitimate actions that I could take that could ruin your world." She chanced a glance at the two across and saw a sympathetic Kara and a stony faced Alex, pretty much what she expected.
"There was of course the simplest solution. Once I knew where to look, I found more and more easily obtainable evidence of your duality that I could release to the world and watch as the chaos erupted. But there were also serious scenarios where I could easily see myself dismantling the DEO, devising ways to disable the Superfriends one by one. In my position as one of your most trusted friends, I knew exactly what I could do to make you hurt the most. I knew that I couldn't easily hurt Kara and I couldn't overpower Alex but then there was Eliza." Alex twitched at the mention of her mother as Kara looked horrified at the possibility of her adoptive mom being dragged into this.
"The one chink in your armor. Sitting in Midvale without any protection whatsoever. Just sitting there. I knew you would do anything to save your mother, Alex and I knew that Kara would do anything to save you. So I set up the scenario and it had a hundred percent success rate. Sedate and capture Eliza Danvers," she saw Alex clench her fist. "Wait for the next significant Supergirl emergency, which are a dime a dozen. Contact Alex anonymously and tell her to meet at a location away from prying Kryptonian eyes and not to bring the Super. Have Alex trap herself willingly under threat of her mothers life. Contact Supergirl. Ensure Kryptonite presence to disable the Super and make her watch as I first kill her mother, then her sister and once I revealed who I was, I would stab her with a kryptonite blade. By the time I would be done with Alex you would have been begging for me to kill you."
All of this Lena said robotically, her voice neither betraying glee or remorse at the gruesome descriptions. Tears slid down Kara's face at what her betrayal had forced her friend to contemplate but she still held fast to the notion that this was all hypothetical. She fully believed that while Lena thought about doing those things, she would never actually do them. Alex on the other hand was almost shaking with rage, Lena emotionlessly stared at the older Danvers, waiting for her to explode and possibly try to hurt her. Lena would probably let her.
It was Kara's hand on her clenched fist that slowly soothed the raging inferno inside Alex as Kara looked at Lena. "But you didn't do it, Lena," she said with conviction. "I will not ever believe you capable of those horrific acts. You can think of them, to tell the truth, I think on a daily basis to do some terrible things that are well within my capabilities just to make sure that some of the evil in this world, including your brother, never live to see another day. I stop myself from doing them, because it is the right thing to do. I know you feel the same." She once again gripped Lena's now shaking hand making her meet the Kryptonians eyes. "Look at me and tell me that you would ever even attempt to those horrible things."
Lena looked down and shook her head sniffling back tears. "I couldn't," she gasped out. "Eliza is innocent. She's wonderful and kind and everything my mother wasn't. I would sooner kill myself than use her to exact my misplaced vengeance."
Kara squeezed Lena's hand in solidarity. "But Lex didn't have those hangups," she continued slowly. "He didn't care who or how many people he hurt getting to you, so when he found those simulations, he carried them out to perfection. And once he was done he put the footage of Supergirl's fall on every screen imaginable. He made us all watch as he slaughtered the Superfriends then your family and in the end he told the world that I was the genius who came up with the plan to take care of you, which was true. He destroyed everything and then watched as the world burned. And it was all because of me. I went underground after that, Lex executed a coup on the government, made himself President and gave a shoot on sight order if anyone ever found me. I didn't give two shits about dying at that time but wanted to set things right. I wanted to fix things but I knew that I couldn't trust myself not to mess it up even when I fixed things. It became more and more clear that if I took out myself, a lot of pain and grief could be prevented. It took me two years," she said with a proud smile. "And I did it, so don't worry Kara, Alex, soon the future that I just told you about, will never come to pass, because I won't be a part of it."
Lena sat back in her seat, letting go of Kara's comforting hold and became silent as she waited for the sisters to process everything she had told them.
On their part Alex and Kara really didn't know what to say. They sat in silence, contemplating this future that Lena had outlined for them Alex seething in anger at Lex or Lena she really didn't know at this point. Kara was the least hopeful she had been at the end of Lena's story.
She had been right, that Lena could never do what she had imagined doing in those simulations, but there was also no denying the fact that her making those simulations gave the direct result of destroying both their worlds, difference was that instead of blaming Lena, Kara was blaming herself, because there was also no denying that if she hadn't been such a coward then she would have told Lena about her secret long before any sort of future like the one Lena foretold could come to pass.
Lena had it wrong. She wasn't the one to blame for the death of her friends and family. No, the blame solely lay on Kara's head and now because of her actions in the past, present and future, her best friend who she was in love with lay near death in the present and was a broken woman in the past and Kara was the one responsible for the death of everyone she ever loved.
Hey! It's been a while. I can only apologize, it's been a hectic month. After almost a year of no active cases and no deaths, Covid 19 has reared its ugly fucking head in my country. Half of the Island is in lockdown and we've already recorded four deaths. Our town hasn't been affected severely but restrictions are being put in place.
I always imagined that I would get more writing done if we ever went into lockdown but surprisingly the creative juices are actually blocked most of the time because we have worries over rations, money, necessities, etc and it really doesn't allow for a lot of ideas to flow.
So I once again apologize for the delayed update. Unfortunately for the foreseeable future, I cannot guarantee consistent updates. And also my writing might suffer as it might have done in this chapter, I don't know, I'll let you guys be the judge of that. Do tell me how it was in the comments/reviews and I'll update as soon as I can bring myself to do so, I guess. Cheers!