For a long endless moment, an eternity that can't last more than a handful of seconds, what happens doesn't register properly in Lena's brain. She watches, befuddled as Kara pitches on the side of the building and doesn't take flight ; stares, helpless, as she lands in a crater and doesn't move. By the time she understands that she's not going to get back up, it's too late to act.
Krypto whines, her phone starts ringing, but she doesn't pick it up. The sky has opened in two, unleashing a storm of Kryptonite rain and tingeing everything in a sickly green colour. The air is acrid, it burns in Lena's lungs as she takes off down the stairs, going two steps at a time and bruising herself on walls and corners when she isn't fast enough to take a turn. She bursts through the back door and into the narrow alley, hands throbbing in pain from the momentum of throwing herself on the emergency handle and finds Kara writhing on the ground as she struggles to get back to her feet.
"Alex," she groans. A long spasm runs through her body, blood gurgles out of her mouth. "Need Alex."
Lena crouches beside her then stands up again abruptly, frantically patting her pockets for her phone. Before she can find it however a slick black van skids to a stop a couple of feet from them tail sending an overflowing dumpster flying away in a geyser of trash. It's not Alex who comes out of it but J'onn. He runs up to them and falls to his knees, immediately putting a hand on Kara's chest to pin her to the ground.
She struggles against it but can't lift up more than a couple of inches. "Alex," she mumbles. "Alex."
A shadow falls over J'onn's face and Lena's heart tightens in her chest. If Kara is already struggling to breathe then-
"She's with Ruby," he says, and with no more words, he collects her in his arms and runs back to the van.
Lena stumbles to her feet and hurries after him, climbing into the back of the car with a distinct lack of grace. The driver peels off the pavement before the door is even fully closed.
The inside of the van has been fully equipped with state of the art medical machinery and J'onn is already fitting a breathing mask over her face. Kara's eyes are glassy, green veins stretching over the white of her cornea. She fumbles for Lena's hand, fingers shaky and palm clammy until Lena herself grabs it for her, squeezing tight, too tight probably but her pulse is so weak that Lena has to cling to her to feel it.
"This won't hold on for long. We need to get her into containment."
Kara's free hand tentatively claws at the mask obscuring her nose and mouth but J'onn grabs it roughly and straps it down to the gurney.
"Don't," he grunts, "you'll only hurt yourself."
"You're going to be fine," Lena lies, trying to get a hold of her fluttering eyes, "I promise. You're going to be fine."
Kara whines. Blood speckles cover the inside of the oxygen mask.
"I'm going to have to intubate her," J'onn says, turning to Lena and retrieving a long sterilised and insulated package in the same flow. "And I should tell you that we have yet to retrieve Sam Arias."
"You haven't what ?"
"She went flying. We lost track of her over the desert. The extraction team has yet to find her."
He delivers this information clinically, tearing open the breathing tube and removing Kara's oxygen mask at the same time. The van goes over a bump, and at the change of sound outside the hull, Lena can tell they've just entered the DEO's underground parking. Kara only needs to hold on for a few more minutes.
"You're going to be okay," she repeats, squeezing her hand and hating herself more and more for the lie ; nothing is going to be okay. "Just stay with me. Please."
Kara's eyes close, slowly, like she's falling asleep and Lena absolutely refuses it. She refuses to lose her here, won't let her die in the back of a black op van, won't let this be the end of them.
"Don't you dare dying on me Kara. You can't leave me now, not again. Not again !"
The van stops, tires screeching on the waxed concrete and immediately its doors fly open, hands reaching inside for the gurney just as J'onn starts pushing the tube down Kara's throat.
It happens fast ; blink and you miss it. Kara's hand slips from Lena's grasp and when only a moment ago she was on the brink of death, she's now sitting gasping for air, the breathing tube crushed in her hand. She casts a wild glance around and backs up until she falls off the bed and onto the van's floor, back pressed against the driver seat. Her skin is no longer violently green but has turned a delicate pale mint.
"What-" she gasps, "what-"
Immediately, Lena is at her side again, rubbing circles on her back and leaning all of her weight on her lap trying her best to ground her, to anchor her to something real and warm.
"You're okay," she murmurs. "You're okay love, breathe with me."
"Your techno-organic compounds must have kicked in," J'onn says coolly. "Come, we have lives to save."
"Give her a fucking minute," Lena snaps, forgetting for a fraction of second that Ruby and Sam are dying, that they don't even know where Sam is, to focus each and everyone of her atoms on Kara, on her breathing, slightly laboured but existent, and on the beat of her heart, wild and loud but so full of life.
"Where do you need me ?" Kara asks immediately, gently pushing Lena away from her so she can struggle to her feet. Her legs tremble under her weight.
J'onn cocks his head to the side, bringing two fingers to the comm device in his ear. "Great news," he says with a firm nod. "Good job everyone, bring her in to sub-level 19. We're going into lockdown."
Kara staggers out of the van and Lena climbs out after her with the help of her outstretched shaking hand. "Sub-level 19 ?" she asks the slight tremor in her voice sending uncontrollable shivers of fear through Lena. "Lockdown ?"
"I'm afraid we have no choice," J'onn replies gravely. "Sam's ETA is five minutes. We're closing down the moment she's in the building."
The ride down the sub-level 19 is nauseating, the elevator dropping like a sack of stones in water. Kara clings to the railing, and Lena clings to her.
Sub-level 19 turns out to be an almost mirror copy of command level. Screens line the far right wall and a large U-shaped console takes up the centre of the room. The high windows however are nowhere to be found replaced by a thick concrete wall, and where there should be doors leading to the maze of corridors, there are gaping holes covered by half lowered thick metal screens ready to be sealed. A large portion of the room is taken up by individual glass pods, fully equipped, and in one of them is Ruby.
The teenager is sitting prostrated on the ground, hand half extended towards the thick glass but not quite touching it. She raises her head at the sound of approaching footsteps but doesn't react much beyond that. Lena startles at the view, taking in her grey skin and chapped lips, and the thin trickle of hastily wiped blood under her nose.
Alex is crouching before her, leaning on the glass, looking small and frail, weaker than Lena has seen her in a long time. She too perks up at the newcomers and whirls around to launch herself at Kara. The Kryptonian staggers back but holds on, wrapping her arms against her and squeezing tight.
"You're here," Alex whispers, "you're here. How- ?"
Kara shrugs dismissively. "I'm a cyborg I suppose."
"Do you know where Sam is ? No one will tell me where Sam is ?!" Alex screeches, panic rising in her voice. "Ruby was cooking with Kelly, she fell from the countertop when it happened and I-"
"Breathe," Kara says, "breathe," she repeats. "Sam is on her way. She'll be here soon."
Sure enough, the elevator doors slide open and a gaggle of agents rushes inside, two of them pushing a gurney, and even from where she's standing, even without any supersenses, Lena can tell Sam is fairing far far worse than Kara is. She's been intubated, a third agent running alongside the gurney to pump air in her lungs and her face is a vibrant sickening lime green.
"We need a doctor in here ! She's flatlined !"
A gut wrenching scream ripples through the room and Alex tears herself out of her sister's arms to rush to Sam. She doesn't make it far, stopped halfway through by Kelly who bodily lifts her off the ground, bending back while she pins her arms to her side to keep her from escaping. Alex screams, the monosyllabic guttural sound ripping itself out of her throat to fill every nook and cranny of the room. She screams until it doesn't seem possible for her to produce any more sound and then screams some more before collapsing in a pile of limbs, dragging Kelly down with her.
"No no no please," Alex sobs on the ground. "Please... NO !"
The gurney is rolled into one of the air tight pods, Kara following suit because she's the only one strong enough to do CPR on Sam ; anyone else's arms would shatter on impact. She starts pushing on her chest, Lena counting in time with her because it's the only thing she can do as she stands there awkwardly, left behind by the rush of agents around her. The situation feels achingly familiar, she's been there before, the helpless one, and she feels her heart beating wildly in her chest, blood rushing to her ears and rendering her dizzy, useless.
Behind the thick glass, Kara becomes agitated and Lena realises she's left Sam's side and is mouthing something, words that remain caught on the other side of the barrier. Without her accord, Lena's eyes follow the direction she's pointing in, and land on the monitor she's hooked Sam to. She stumbles forward, her legs leadened, and manages to crouch down next to Alex. "There's a pulse," she says, her voice low and unsteady. "Sam has a pulse."
Things slow down to a sluggish almost stop. For now, not much more can be done ; at least not until the air in sub-level 19 has been pumped completely clean which is taking an awfully long time. Lena can't improve the system from down here, which is a grave design error in her humble opinion, but she's already thought of at least five different ways to do it. She could probably have thought of more, but the fact that the filtration system seems to be downright antiquated doesn't really help her concentrate.
She's sitting on the cold floor, back pressed to the thick glass panel of Sam's sealed chamber. They couldn't risk compromising her, and had to keep Kara in with her, turning her into a makeshift doctor with assistance from an actual doctor some forty floors up. She's stable for now, still intubated, her chest rising and falling mechanically ; but her skin is an unnatural colour, a mouldy green, and Lena can't help but think of some pistachios that would have been left out for too long. The first time this thought enters her mind, she has to hold back a hysterical laugh.
Each time Kara gets too close to Sam, adjusting her position or taking some measurements, a web of green veins spreads on her own skin. Lena knows, she thinks they all know, that her body must be working double time to keep the Kryptonite out, and that is not something that was taken into consideration when she worked on her code with Brainy. They should have thought of it, it appears obvious now, but in the heat of the moment, when all that mattered was preventing Kara from going on another rampage, it didn't even cross their minds. She prays, fully ready to convert herself to the first religion that will answer her wishes, that she doesn't have to regret it, that she doesn't have to live knowing she could have saved Kara and just forgot to do it.
She dozes off to the hum of the ventilation. She can't sleep, not when they are all still in danger, not when if she closes her eyes even for a minute, Sam might not wake up at all. A little further away, Alex is curled up on the floor, head pillowed on Kelly's lap, hand pressed to the wall of glass that separates her from her daughter, and Lena forces herself to look at her periodically to remind herself of all that there is to lose if she so much as take one wrong step.
Time passes by slowly, a dangerous lethargy taking hold of the room. Lena checks the clock a little after 1am, then again a little before 2, and finally, it's close to 3 when a loud clang fills the room, quickly followed by a creepy robotic voice that startles her out of her skin.
"Decontamination for subterranean levels 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, and, 13, has been completed. No breach has been reported." The LED light that has been blinking on the control panel for the past hours flickers to green. "Decontamination will now proceed onto subterranean levels 12 to 1. To cancel the decontamination process please follow override protocol ORP-9."
Another loud clang resonates on the concrete walls but Lena already feels like she can breathe easier, her chest contracting with just a little less anguish.
"To unseal subterranean level 19 initiate protocol USP-S19," the announcement continues. "You now have ten seconds to initiate override protocol ORP-9. 9, 8, 7..."
J'onn unfolds himself from his cross-legged position on the floor and slowly makes his way to the control board. His lack of hurry makes Lena's own legs twitch. He looks down at the panel, nods to himself then claps his hands, the resulting sound causing everyone, even Lena, to snap to attention. The back of her head bumps painfully on the glass behind her.
"Doctor Veritas will be able to join us down here in two hours. We remain in lockdown for now until we can get a better grasp on the situation out there and figure out a way to clear the air planet wide. Agent Dox's latest analysis shows that Kryptonite concentration is at 37% right now therefore no Kryptonians will be allowed out of the building until further notice. We have managed to get a hold of Superman. He's been brought to his Fortress and is completely safe."
Lena's first reaction to this news is that she doesn't give a shit. The last time Superman crossed paths with one of them didn't end well for anyone, and one of Alex's fingers is still a little crooked as a result of trying to punch him. But if they got news from him, then, "can we communicate with the outside now ?" she blurts, "or did this come through the DEO's encrypted network ?"
This is a stupid side effect of their lockdown and she didn't exactly bother to hide her opinion about it earlier when she realised they were truly and well cut from everything. J'onn eyes her warily before answering. He's probably still expecting her to yell at him though Lena wouldn't fall this low ; she would use much more insidious boardroom-like tactics.
"Kryptonite concentration is at 41% and still rising," Brainy's voice says through the crackling comms.
J'onn sighs, wiping a weary hand on his face. "We have regained some communication capabilities and will be fully back online once we can unseal sub-level 1. In two hours. I'm afraid you will have to wait a little longer."
"We don't have 'a little longer'," Lena seethes, the determination she's trying to project severely undermined by the way her legs shake when she gathers them underneath her to push herself up. Behind the glass, Kara moves forward as if to support her. "We've already been down there for hours and Kryptonite levels are still rising outside. It's bound to be dangerous for humans too and you know it." She pauses for a second, staring at him in challenge.
"Listen," she continues, pleading," I know you're in a difficult position, I know there is no right call to make, but if I can access my private network, I can figure something out to get us out of this."
J'onn hesitates for a long moment, a multitude of feelings passing on his fatigued face. "There is a way," he says finally, "for you to reach ground level by manually unsealing sub-level 13."
"And you are not going to do it," Kara crackles through the speakers. "J'onn. Sub-level 12 is where we keep our most dangerous prisoners."
"I'll go with her."
Lena looks down, tracing the dusty concrete to where Alex is still lying on the floor.
"I'll go with her," Alex repeats, voice hoarse from all her crying. She pushes herself up with some difficulty, squeezing Kelly's hand before she lets go.
"Alex..."
"I have a big gun," Alex says, "and Lena can take care of herself."
"Reports show no sign of breach on sub-level 12," Brainy says, "the two of you should be fine."
In her glass cage, Kara frowns, a green shadow creasing her brow. Lena leans forward, pressing her hand to the glass. "I'll be back soon," she whispers, "I promise. Wait for me ?"
"You won't," J'onn interrupts with shitty timing, "you'll have to seal both sub-level 13 and 12 manually behind you and we won't be able to join you up until," he looks down out the control panel, "four hours when the full tower is decontaminated."
"Then I'll see you in four hours. Alex has my back, and I have hers," Lena whispers, "I promise. And I'm going to put an end to this. I love you, okay ?"
Kara sighs, letting her head fall on the glass on the other side of Lena's hand. "I love you."
"See you on the flip side," Alex mutters much more crassly ; and after Lena swipes a tablet out of an agent's bewildered hands, they cross the threshold of the first of many sealed doors.
They make their way through the first few levels in complete silence but for the sound of their shoes on the floor ; Alex's practical boots and Lena's ill-advised heels. The lights have been turned off to conserve power, and the glow of the red emergency lightning projects bloodcurdling shadows on the walls around them. Tension radiates from Alex and Lena isn't sure how to best approach the elephant in the room. She knows Alex isn't ready to talk about it, but the way things are going, she never will be.
"She," she starts at some point, quickly shutting her mouth and flattening herself against a wall when Alex requests her silence as they round a corner.
"You know," she attempts on another level before changing her mind and looking down at the tablet in her hands which is a bit too low on battery for her taste.
"I," she tries again just when they reach the sealed doors between sub-levels 13 and 12 ; but Alex fires her such an angry look that if she had heat vision like her sister, Lena would be ashes on the ground. It's like she knows what Lena wants to talk about, and is doing everything in her power to avoid it, short of silencing her permanently. Alex enters the manual override code with forced casualness and they step in yet another staircase ; the door sealing behind them has an air of finality.
Lena would very much like to never have to walk up another flight of stairs in her life ; unfortunately, they still have twelve more to climb, this one not included. It smells different here, acrid, like it did outside. She's breathless by the time they reach the next level ; Alex hasn't broken a sweat.
Sub-level 12 is creepy. The lights here are completely off, and the only thing counteracting the darkness is the blue glow emanating from the cells. She's never been on this level, though she has been invited to ; all she knows is that this is where they keep Brainiac's fried body because no one really knew what to do with it and they didn't want to take any chances.
Alex barely flinches when an alien throws themself at the glass when they walk by, she keeps walking confidently, her shoulders set. Lena pretends her stomach didn't just switch places with her heart.
Lena doesn't attempt to strike up a conversation again until they reach the last floor before ground level. Alex is busy unlocking the door, looking down at something on Lena's borrowed tablet.
"Sam is," Lena starts, tone unnaturally neutral. "She- She's going to be okay."
The tablet stumbles out of Alex's hand, hitting the floor with a dry sharp sound. Alex whirls around and stares at her, mouth parted soundlessly. They size each other up for a long moment, then Alex turns away from her again, and finishes unsealing the door.
"I'm in love with her," she whispers, her voice so small and broken that Lena doesn't know where to go from here. She knew, of course she did, but it's different to hear it aloud. "But I don't want to talk about it. Not now."
Before anything else can be said or done, the door slides open, and someone jumps into Lena's arms, sending her reeling a couple of steps back as she wavers on her heels.
"Thanks God you're here," Nia squeals loudly in her ear. "J'onn said you were coming up," she continues speaking much too quickly for Lena to process it, "but you took such a long time and I was getting worried and Brainy said not to worry but-" She releases Lena, briefly hugs Alex then, faced with her no-nonsense attitude, takes a couple of sheepish steps back. "What do you need ?"
"A computer and a lab," Lena says, dusting her hands on her unpractical dress. "And a change of clothes. I'm going to hack myself."
The hum of the ventilation is sickening. Lena can hear it clicking and clanging as it works double time to rid the DEO off all Kryptonite. Clearly, it wasn't designed with that in mind. The entire tower has been sealed to the outside and the atmosphere up there is even more oppressive than down in the basement. Partly because it's suppose to be daytime now, but no light is making it into the building, thick screen lowered over every window ; but mostly because Kara is forty floors down, sealed in a glass chamber with her infected best-friend and both of their fate resides on wether Lena can remove all trace of Kryptonite from the atmosphere and, frankly, she only has a vague idea of what to do.
The floor is cold beneath her feet, even through the thick soles of her borrowed boots and she shivers under her sweater and additional hoodie. She's stopped short of slipping on some fingerless gloves but the AC does seem to be broken. It doesn't seem to bother Alex who remains immobile in a corner of the lab. Then again, Alex could no doubt survive a nuclear winter with a t-shirt and a pocket knife, which now that Lena thinks about it, isn't exactly a comforting thought.
Her fingers are fast on the keyboard. She's already managed to extirpate herself from the complex security of the DEO's private network to dive right into her own, trickier by some aspect, and she has to be careful now. She risks shutting herself out entirely if she isn't and it would alert her entire security team. It seemed a good idea when she created it, but now all the firewalls and hidden switch are more of a nuisance. She takes a sip of the tomato soup Nia brought her up from the cafeteria ; it's started to congeal and she almost spits it out. She forces herself to swallow, if only because she doesn't want to ruin expensive lab equipment, enters a few more lines, presses the enter key with the carefulness she would have disarming a bomb and exhales longly when the screen reflects her computer's desktop, the background a selfie she took with Kara and Krypto.
She activates her webcam then, as an afterthought, logs into the cameras surveying her office, just in case Eve walks in and she has to disconnect fast. She's ran several background checks on her new assistant, but she's not Jess. Suddenly feeling paranoid, she glances over her shoulder which is off course useless and doesn't assuage her nerves. Alex tries to soothe her with a smile but the resulting grimace has a radically opposite effect. She's just about ready to vibrate out of her own skin.
Scolding herself silently, she loads into her encrypted database, forcing her hands to steady so she doesn't mess up the 43 characters password that unlocks the biometric lock. Praying that the connection is stable enough, she highjacks her webcam to replace the feed with the DEO's and leans over the bulky computer to scan her retina. The screen fades to black and her heart misses a beat before a loading bar blinks into existence taking all the time she doesn't have to fill slowly.
Allowing herself a little gesture of impatience, she drums her finger against the table top and promptly stops when she almost knocks over the container of cold soup. Finally, the database finishes loading and an intense sense of relief washes over her when hundreds of files, unpatented projects, wishful notes and scribbles, blueprints and mechanical drawings. What she's looking for however is not here.
Quietly, she swears under her breath. "Of course," she mumbles to herself, "of course."
Alex pops up behind her and this time, Lena swears loud enough to resonates in the small room.
"Of course what ?" Alex asks, nodding sharply.
"I'm not looking in the right place. I never moved Lex's files with my own."
"And can you access them ?"
Lena nods, takes a sip of the soup again then and swallows it with difficulty when she remembers it's inedible. "Might just take a few more minute. He had a dispersal device that I'd meant to reverse. The one I told you about. I have partial blueprints from a while back, but I never copied the file onto my own projects after he..."
"Do you just know everything your brother has ever worked on ?" Alex asks with a sliver of disbelief.
"Trauma will do that to you," Lena grumbles in reply before diving back into the database.
She's kept her files and Lex's separated, but she took the liberty of opening a backdoor, one that's well concealed, buried under lines of code, but that she finds easily anyway. At least this time, she had some foresight. She slips into his old files, shivering at the familiarity and at Alex's continued hawk-like presence over her shoulder. She scrolls through once, twice, thrice, but the device she's looking for simply isn't there. Files don't just disappear from encrypted databases, do they ?
It dawns on Lena, very slowly, too slowly really for someone of her intellect, that she checked her encrypted backdoor hadn't been touched, but she never looked at Lex's files after the hack happened. The last thing the screen displays before it fizzles to black, is a lime green message, "gotcha," followed by a winky face.