Kara stops short of banging her head on her desk. Sure, now that she's out as an alien, she'd have less trouble explaining how she put her entire body through a piece of furniture, but she really doesn't want to have to deal with CatCo's furnishing again. Plus, she already racks up a high enough bill in property damage with her other job and that can't be good for her karma. Instead, she slowly leans in until her forehead rest on the tepid composite wood, which's got to be the worst material known to humankind, and takes a deep breath.
It's not like she expected this to be easy, there is a reason after all why Russell Rogers' death was never elucidated, but she didn't think she would run into so many walls, walls that for most of them seem to have been placed there on purpose. Why was a bomb placed inside of his body ? How was a bomb placed inside of his body ? If it indeed was Lex, these questions don't really need a more elaborate answer. But Rogers Engineering shouldn't even have been a blip on his radar ; the company never really took off, half of the employees had been laid out by the time Russell died, and Kara doesn't believe Lex would have gone as far as exploding his sister's ex-girlfriend's fiancé. There's also the question of what kind of bomb fragments a person like that, leaving so little trace. Russell Rogers was vaporised, there were almost no scraps left of him save for a few pieces of metal of Luthor Corp fabrication and a lot of blood. This makes little sense to Kara and she can't figure if it also made little sense to all the other reporters who investigated it or if they were kindly asked to look the other way.
A donut appears inches from her sensitive nose, then a coffee, rich with cream and sugar, and finally, Nia drags the chair across from her and plops down on it. "You look like you need it," she says, nudging the food closer when Kara lifts her head.
"Thanks," Kara mumbles, tearing into the pastry with wolfish appetite. It's getting close to lunch, and she hasn't had her second breakfast yet.
"Trouble with your article ?" Nia probs tentatively, "trouble at home ?"
"Everything's fine at home," Kara snaps, squashing down the strange feeling she's had all day since Lena left early this morning with a distracted kiss and a distant look in her eyes.
"Okay," Nia says, raising her hands in appeasement, "okay. It's just. Well. We haven't really had the time to talk since your girlfriend's psychopathic brother lowkey abducted you." She marks a pause. "Or is it sociopathic ?"
"Is this really what strikes you as important right now ?" Kara asks, curtly, washing her donut down with a long sip of coffee.
Nia sighs. "You're right," she says, "that's not what's really important right now." She too takes a sip of her coffee, and from where she is, Kara can smell pumpkin sirup, nutmeg, and almond milk. "How are you doing ?"
Oddly, the question makes her want to cry. She's been crying an awful lot lately. "I've been better," she admits with a little dismissive shrug.
Nia doesn't say anything, but only stares at her, eyebrow arching in a pale copy of Lena's trademark glare.
"Fine," Kara bites. "I've been doing terrible. I feel like crying all the time and live in constant fear of Lena doing something stupid. Happy ?"
"If you're asking if I'm happy that you're not doing well then the answer is no, obviously. But you and I both know it's better if you don't bottle your emotions."
Kara prepares a retort or another. Frankly, she's not sure of what exactly she intends to say ; but Nia interrupts her with a bored glare and she doesn't end up having to say anything. "Don't lie. You and Lena are emotional constipation royalty."
"Yes, heavy childhood trauma will do that to you," Kara drawls.
Nia reaches across the desk to briefly squeeze her hand. Her skin is warm from holding her coffee cup. "What can I do to help ? I mean apart from keeping an eye on Lex ? We could have a game night ? Movie night ? Eat food in silence and muse about our personal failings ?"
Kara snorts at the last one, grateful for Nia's never ending supply of caustic humour. "Game night sounds good."
"Great then ! We can have it at your place, make it a sleepover. Brainy and I will take one guest room, Alex, Kelly and Sam the other, I'm sure that'll work for whatever they have going on and I'm not sure J'onn sleeps at all but he can take the couch."
"You've sure given a lot of thoughts to my apartment layout."
Nia rolls her eyes. "I'm thinking about branching out," she says, finishing her coffee in one short sip. "Fashion reporting is getting tedious. Did you know L-Corp is working on a nanite based fabric ? It turns into body armour if you're in danger. Pretty neat if you ask me but nanites have the nasty side effect of trying to bond with your skin if you're not, you know, impervious like you are."
"That's, um, wild."
Nia hums. "Yeah. I've been trying to get an interview with Beth Breen for ages but I swear that woman's busier than Lena."
"Beth Breen ?" Kara repeats. She's read this name somewhere before. Or heard it ; which if she works at L-Corp isn't exactly significant.
"Yeah. Short snappy woman. Dark hair. She's been working with nanites forever, got plucked from a dying company and directly into L-Corp, so I'm trying to get her perspective on the matter but every time I try to get in touch, I'm redirected to Lena's assistant. Tess Mercer or something."
"Teschmacher," Kara corrects without thinking.
"Yeah, that one." Nia bends down and retrieves from her bag another cup of coffee, this one is an insulated cup with a blinding holographic design. "God she's so weird. Always happy and chirpy. Kinda freaks me out to be honest. Do you think she's a real blonde ? There's no way that colour is natural."
Kara doesn't answer the light hearted question, doesn't even chime in with her own doubts about Eve ; truth be told, she's not really listening anymore. "Beth Breen," she whispers, "used to work for Rogers Engineering, didn't she ?"
"Um, maybe ?" Nia says, cup halfway to her mouth.
"She did," Kara continues, now certain this is where she's read that name before. "So Rogers Engineering must have dealt with nanites."
"Probably. I'm not sure where you're going with this but yeah, you're probably right."
"Right before Lex fully descended into madness there was an incident at Rogers Engineering," Kara cringes at her choice of words, incident, isn't exactly it. "The CEO, Russell, sort of exploded from the inside and all that was found were some Luthor Corp components. If his company was already working with nanites, years before everyone, then that's probably what Lex wanted from him."
"Or his nanite shirt bonded with him and ripped him to shred," Nia points out. "Though if you say he exploded from the inside out... I don't know."
"I don't know either, that's the whole problem."
"What's with the sudden interest in Russell Rogers though ? He's been dead for a long time."
"William knew him," Kara says, nodding towards their coworker a couple of desks away. "He's been getting a little too close to L-Corp trying to shed light on his death so I took over. I don't want him to bother Lillian about it."
"You're friends with Lena's awful mother now ? I've really missed a lot."
"Not really," Kara sighs. "Just, she's dying, and I don't want Lena to regret not talking to her again."
"I understand then," Nia whispers, mouth twisting in sadness. "If I could talk to my mum one last time, I'd put everything aside for that."
Kara rounds the desk and crouches next to her, laying a light hand on her arm. Nia rarely talks about her family, and for good reasons. She does call her father from time to time, but the last time she saw any of them in person was at her mother's funeral and her sister hurled some choice words at her that Kara doesn't want to have to repeat under any circumstances.
"She knew you loved her," she says softly, pushing her worries aside to switch into mentor mode, "that's the most important."
Nia sniffles, hastily wiping a stray tear on her cheek. "Yeah," she mumbles. "Sorry about that. Do you want to get lunch ?"
"You never have to apologise for missing your mum, okay ? And I do want to get lunch, I always want to get lunch." In a flash, Kara shoots a text to Lena, offering to swing by with coffee later instead of food. She doesn't get a reply. "Chinese ?"
"Okay," Nia says, sniffling one last time before she shudders from head to toe and rises from her seat, "but I want some potstickers."
Kara laughs. "In your dreams."
For the second time that day, Kara resists the urge to bang her head clean through her desk. Such strong urges of violence are frightening, they bring her back to a time when a part of her, a part that many have insisted was never her, would wreak havoc without a second thought. Granted, the pain she wants to inflict right now is to herself and possibly to her desk, but still, it's not exactly a nice emotion.
The bullpen is loud this afternoon, buzzing with energy and from the multiple interns who have yet to take the habit of turning off the vibrate mode on their phones. Kara doesn't want to be a bother, but placards had to be installed all around the building after she'd made one too many scenes, curling under her desk in fear at the slightest hint of buzzing. Most days now she's doing better, fully able, unless she's tired, to squash the prickle of fear that rises in her every time someone receives a text. Today though, she's reaching the end of her tether, and she keeps an eye on her watch, waiting for an acceptable time to go home and cuddle to her dog. She would be at L-Corp if she could, but when she swung by earlier, Lena was in R&D and Miss Teschmacher was so full of cheerful hostile energy that Kara elected to work at her own office for once. She doesn't know what's wrong with this woman but she does know regular people don't act like that.
For what feels like the hundredth time this afternoon, she checks her phone, briefly flipping the screen face up ; Lena still hasn't answered to her text, and all she can think about is how the coffee and pastry she's left on her desk have probably gone cold by now. With a long deep sigh, she starts gathering her things, deciding to go home. Given the state she's in, she won't get any more work done today and it's better she takes a step back, like her therapist told her, and start anew in the morning. Plus, someone turned up the volume of the TV facing her desk and the increased noise is really grating on her nerves.
She shoves her laptop in its sleeve, her research in her satchel, the papers fitting neatly next to her new suit, and goes to grab her water bottle like she's done countless times. Maybe later she'll think about it again, about how she should have put more gusto in a mindless gesture that will turn out to be the last normal thing she does before getting her heart broken. Right now however, all she can do is watch as her world fractures all around her leaving her stranded with no way to reach the shore.
She hears someone calling out her name, lifts her head to see Nia rushing towards her, fighting for control of the remote with an intern Kara can't remember the name of. They must be squabbling, Kara thinks she can see their mouths moving before she moves her gaze further up and there on the TV screen, right before Nia manages to turn it off, she sees Lena leaning over their table at their favourite coffee shop to kiss Andrea fucking Rojas square on the mouth.
Kara doesn't remember getting home. She could have flown there, walked there, run, taken the bus ; all she knows is that at some point she finds herself on the roof, facing the sea, alone. Lena is not home yet, but it's only a matter of time before she shows up. Or someone else does. Kara doesn't know who tried to reach out and who didn't ; she turned her phone off when she got tired of it ringing.
She thinks back to all the times Lena came home late, to the extra hours she pulled at the office and that Kara never questioned once. She thinks about how quick she was to believe her when she told her nothing was going on with Andrea. Her unwavering faith now makes her sick to the stomach.
She doesn't know exactly how much time passes before Lena climbs the fancy metal stairs that lead to the roof, how much seconds tick by before her heartbeat gets louder and louder until it's beating from right behind her and it makes Kara feel terrible instead of safe.
"Didn't think you'd come home tonight," she says, going for angry and landing straight on the side of exhausted.
"We need to talk," Lena says softly.
Kara whirls around, staggering a little when she comes face to face with her. There's mascara running down her cheeks. "Clearly that conversation is long overdue."
"It's not what you think," Lena whispers, looking down at her feet then up again at her, eyes fluttering to somewhere over her shoulder before they land in the middle of her chest.
"It's not what I think ?" Kara scoffs. "It's not what I think ?" she repeats, anger finally seeping into her voice. "You kissed her Lena, not the other way around. You kissed her."
"Please," Lena pleads, she glances nervously around, then takes a step forward and puts her hand on her chest, right where her heart is breaking endlessly. "It's not what you think, you've got to trust me."
Kara takes a step back, drawing away violently like Lena's hand burned her. It didn't, in fact, it's never felt colder against her. "Trust you ?!" she explodes, "trust you ?! I've done nothing but trusting you Lena ! I listened and I stayed and I believed you when you said there was nothing going on. I believed you !"
Lena blinks back tears but Kara doesn't have time for that. She's fuelled by a long forgotten fury, the anger and betrayal that comes for a broken heart and for a moment she's brought back years ago to her old apartment, Lucy lingering on her doorstep with fake apologies.
"If you'd come to me," she continues angrily, "if you'd told me you had feelings for her we could have done something. I would have let you go if that's what you wanted !"
"I don't have feelings for Andrea."
"You don't ?" Kara snaps, "you don't !? Then what the fuck is going on ?"
Lena steps forward again ; Kara steps back. "It's complicated."
"Complicated ? Seems rather simple to me."
"It's not," Lena whispers, reaching out like she's going to touch her again. Kara bats her hand away. "It's really not. I can't explain it but please Kara, please you've got to trust me."
Kara's heart burns ; she feels like she's been set on fire, the pain concentrating in her chest in a nauseating way. "If you can't explain it," she says, voice suddenly low and broken, the rasp whisper all she can muster right now, "then I'm out of here."
Lena freezes and Kara sickeningly hopes that what she sees is her heart breaking too, that she's not the only one burning in agony. "Maybe it's for the best."
The ache disappears instantly, replaced by something more insidious, a bone deep cold that she knows she won't be able to shake off. Without looking back, she starts walking away, crossing the ridiculous helipad and stopping at the top of the stairs. "Rao," she whispers, "I've been so blind. You're the one person I never doubted."
Lena doesn't say anything, but Kara doesn't know if it's something she's got to be thankful for.
She walks without stopping, not even to gather her things before she leaves. She walks down the service stairs and in the street, feet carrying her away mindlessly from the epicentre of her pain. She walks, unaware of where she's going, she walks, because that's the only thing left to do, she walks, until she comes upon Alex's car driving in her direction. Then, she climbs into the back seat, curls up on herself, and cries. She's really been doing an awful lot of crying lately.
Alex has to carry her out of the car. She tries to make herself less heavy, knows she's always been on the dense side muscle wise and she's basically impossible to lift, but she can't remember how to float. A big dark pit has opened inside of her, sapping all of her strength and will like Kryptonite and she can't find it in herself to do anything. She wishes it were Kryptonite, that Lena had simply shot her. Kryptonite is a pain she understands, a pain she knows how to manage ; she also knows, deep within herself, that it would have hurt less.
She hears shouts, can't make out the words but a second later, she finds herself in Sam's arms, the other Kryptonian carrying her into the house like she doesn't weight a thing. A couch appears underneath her. At least she thinks it's a couch, but she can't be sure, her body doesn't feel like her body anymore.
Someone grabs her wrist harshly. "Stop," Sam says, "you're going to hurt yourself."
She thinks she might have tried to rip her arm off again.
"Have you managed to get a hold of Lena yet ?" Kelly asks somewhere in her vicinity.
A cool cloth is laid on her forehead ; it smells faintly of lavender and with an energy she didn't know she had, Kara rips it off and throws it away. It lands somewhere across the room with a wet sound.
"She's not picking up her phone," Sam replies, "I'm going to fly there. I'm sure it's nothing but a big misunderstanding."
Kara wants to interject here, tell them it's not a misunderstanding, that Lena did rip her heart out and fed it to Andrea Rojas, but she doesn't remember how to speak. She does open her mouth with the intent of producing words but what comes out instead is a low pitched wail, so terrifying that it startles Kara before she realises she's the source.
"I don't know what to do," Alex whispers.
"But you always know what to do !" Sam sounds somehow more scared than Alex and Kara wishes she could apologise for it.
"Not this time..."
Her sister brushes a few damp strands away from her forehead and lingers there, her hand pressing lightly against her skin, before she draws back with a sigh. Kara blindly grabs at her, presses her hand to her chest like she's inviting her sister to crawl inside to fill the void that has opened here. Alex crouches before her. Her face is fuzzy through Kara's tears but she can still discern her expression and what she sees breaks whatever was left of her heart. Alex looks lost and desperate and a little bit like she's about to say something terrible, along the lines of "what am I gonna do with you ?" so Kara cuts to the chase, uttering the first two words she's managed since leaving Lena ; "it hurts."