They have to sedate Kara. On her own demand, but still, it makes Lena feel very uncomfortable. She holds her hand as she falls asleep, keeping watch as she fades out for the next couple of hours. She fights hard to remember that this is temporary, an alternative to Kara's primary request of being permanently deactivated, something everybody outright refused to assist her with.
She apologised, crooked words uttered between broken sobs, hands clamped around her neck to stop herself from doing it and the image brought to Lena a memory so blurry and so far away that it seems to belong to another life, another her. She remembered, quite suddenly, sitting on a bridge on a rainy day, water running under her feet, and considering it. Drowning would be painful for sure, but the sweet oblivion it would bring would be a long awaited relief. And then Sam had called, and Lena hadn't jumped.
She remembers, and she holds onto Kara tighter, squeezing her hand so she'll feel her presence even in her sleep. She will always, always call when Kara is on the ledge.
Eliza arrives from her safe house sometime during the night. She was moved to an undisclosed location as a precaution and doesn't seem to have slept a wink in the past fortnight. Her hair appears whiter than when Lena last saw her and purple shadows weight the underside of her eyes, their usual vibrant blue as dull as Kara's now.
She goes to her daughter first, wrapping Alex in a hug that causes the newly appointed director of the DEO to break down in ugly sobs, head buried in her mother's shoulder, hands clawing desperately at her knitted sweater. In this instant, Alex looks like a child, small, tired, in need of protection ; and Lena fears she's rested too heavily on her when the older Danvers needed love and support too.
Then, she goes to Lena, surprising her with a hug she knew she needed but didn't think she'd receive. She holds her like a mother holds her child, fiercely, smoothing her thumbs over her cheeks when she draws back and kissing her forehead tenderly. Only after does she sit at Kara's side, brushing a couple of her scruffy strands away from her forehead. Her fingers linger for a moment on the scar that disappears into her hairline. It hasn't faded yet, and it's likely it won't for a long time. She sighs, leans back on her chair and closes her eyes for a second.
"I understand why Alex didn't want me to see her just yet," she says in a weary voice. She runs a hand down her face in a way that reminds Lena exactly of Alex then sighs again. "You're very brave," she whispers, turning to Lena. "Thank you for bringing my girl home."
Lena feels a small embarrassed smile stretch on her face, the overwhelming need to retreat and hide balanced only by her need to stay close to Kara. "Alex is the one who found us," she says, nodding towards where Alex is sitting on the other side of the room, absorbed in her work with tears still streaming down her face.
"But you're the one who kept her alive," Eliza says gently.
"She kept me alive too. I wouldn't- I would have given up if it weren't for her."
"Thank you anyway. It can't have been easy."
"No," Lena confirms, "no. It wasn't easy." She shivers, for a moment feeling the cold dusty hard ground under her instead of the pleather hospital armchair. She forces her awareness back to the room, focusing on Kara's warm palm in her own, on her steady breathing, on the clean scent of lavender wafting from Eliza next to her. "It can't have been easy for you either. Not knowing where she was..."
Eliza sighs. "I've gotten used to it," she says, "in a way. That's the plight of a mother. I may not have given birth to her but she's still a piece of my heart running around defenceless in a world that is too harsh for her. And so are you."
Lena doesn't really know how to answer to that ; luckily, she doesn't have to. Eliza glances around the room and smiles. "All of my children live complicated and dangerous lives, I've had to make my peace with that. Otherwise, I'd never get anything done."
"You're the brave one."
Eliza shakes her head sadly. "We are all brave in our own ways. You no less than me."
"I don't feel very brave right now," Lena admits.
"It's okay. You don't have to be brave all the time" Eliza reaches out to take her free hand between her delicate papery one and puts the other on Kara's arm, linking them in a triangle of hurt. "You were brave when it mattered."
Briefly, she lets go of Kara to ruffle for something in the bag at her feet, straightening up with a small velvety pouch in her hand. She begins to open it, but when Lena catches sight of a golden cuff inside, she stops her, letting go of Kara too to put her hand on the small bag.
"Don't. When- If she decides to wear it again, I want it to be her own decision."
Eliza nods, tightens the strings of the pouch and hands it to Lena who pockets it in her hoodie.
"You're a Danvers no matter what," Eliza says, "you know that, right ?"
Lena glances from her to Kara, to Alex, to Kelly, who enters the room just then with a tray of coffee cups, to Alex again, smiling tearily at her wife, and then to Kara once more. "I know," she says, "thank you."
"No need to thank me for that sweetheart. You're a gift to our family. We're all glad to have you with us, always, no matter what."
Eliza doesn't take her hand again. Instead, she wraps her arm around her and gently presses on her head until it lays on her shoulder. Lena doesn't close her eyes, keeping them firmly set on Kara, but she does take a long deep breath and allows herself to rest, at least until Kara wakes up.
Lena stands in front of the door for a long time, unmoving, barely breathing at all for fear of disturbing the peace that reigns so high up in the DEO. She's never been in this part of the building, didn't even know it existed, a corridor flooded with natural light with only one guard at each end and a row of large rooms for injuries that require more than a trip to the med bay. This is not where they kept Kara last year but this is where Jack now more or less permanently resides until someone figures out a solution to his nanite problem. The nanite problem Lena is at least partially responsible for.
Kara is awake downstairs, responsive, less inclined to request her own death, and she even ate a little with her mother's help, Eliza spooning that awful tomato soup in her mouth with god-like patience. The fact that Alex threatened to hook her sister to a feeding tube probably helped a lot with that latter development but it's still a step in the right direction ; even if what the "right direction" is, is a little unclear at the moment.
Lena had to step out to take a breath while Kara ate. Food feels weird these days, undeserved if she didn't beg for it, too flavourful and sticky in her throat when she tries to swallow it ; and this is how she ended up here, hovering in front of Jack's room, scared out of her mind by what is arguably the less frightening thing she's had to do in weeks. It's just-
-just that she doesn't know what's on the other side, and it scares the shit out of her. Is Jack really in here, or is he now a vaguely human shaped pile of nanites ? Is he still her drinking buddy, her soundboard, or just another casualty in the war her brother wages against the world ? She doesn't know if she can handle what she's going to see, fears she's going to break down definitely with no chance of putting herself back together. This almost makes her laugh. There's nothing left of her to keep together ; she's wasted it all on Lex.
Taking a deep steadying breath, she reaches towards the handle ; but before she can so much as touch it, the door yanks open inward to reveal Jack, casually leaning against a perch supporting a monitor. He looks upset, a little grey in the face, but overall not as bad as Lena thought he would be.
"Your fretting's driving me mad," he grumbles, "just fucking come in."
Lena follows in after him, a little bewildered. He sounds and acts like himself at least.
"These little fuckers gave me superhearing," he says, tapping on the side of his head nervously before he lets himself drop on the edge of a paper strewn bed and broadly gestures for Lena to take a seat too. "I think that's why they put me so high up. It's quiet here."
"It is quiet," Lena says.
She removes a couple of science journals and a stack of post-it notes from a rigid armchair and sits down, wiggling to get comfortable. She's been pumped up with painkillers, bone growth serum and just about every vitamin supplement known to humankind but her body still aches terribly, her muscles not quite fitting properly under her skin, a bit like she's an old sock stuffed with various things that were hanging around.
Jack stares at her for a moment, then, taking note of her discomfort, rises from his bed and makes his way to an improvised kitchen corner. "Let me put the kettle on, then we can talk."
He fumbles around for tea bags, finding them in a box appropriately marked "tea", then washes a clear glass and a mug in a small sink that wasn't made for this. "You look like shit," he comments. "But well I suppose you were abducted. Thought you were avoiding me for a minute and Andrea Rojas of all people had to fill me in while everybody was running around trying to find you. I would have helped, but my body is a wee bit unstable."
As he says this, the back of his neck ripples and shimmers. Bile rises in Lena's throat, but she swallows it down.
Jack hands her the mug and keeps the glass for himself. Its surface must be burning hot, but he seems undisturbed by it, taking small sips of his tea. "How are you ?" he asks. "How are you really ?"
"Being anything else other than absolutely terrified feels wrong," she admits, finding no interest in lying. She takes a sip of her tea, a British brand, a bit meek for her taste, but welcomed and warming nonetheless. "I shower four times a day and still feel like shit," she spits. "My skin feels gross, my insides feel disgusting, my brain feels manky. I hate myself. And I don't know if the correct course of action is breaking down or moving on like nothing happened. Like Kara wasn't tortured and I wasn't drugged and we weren't sequestered in the middle of fucking Canada for my only living blood relative's amusement and left to die because we weren't entertaining enough. So I'm grand really. Suckin' diesel and all that shite."
Her rant leaves her shameful and out of breath and she takes big gulps of air as Jack continues to look at her, his skin flickering here and there with untamed nanites. "I would offer you something stronger," he says after a while, "but I don't have any whiskey in my room. Can you believe that ? I'm banned from whiskey."
"At this point I'd drink rubbing alcohol," Lena mumbles to herself, pressing a weary palm to her eye, her hand turned warm by the mug. "I'm not here to talk about myself," she adds, louder and to Jack, though she has no doubt his newfound superhearing picked up on her previous words with no problem. "I want to talk about you. How are you doing ? How can I help ?"
"Oh don't worry about me, I'm doing fine. All things considered." His hand ripples and he clenches his fist to contain the odd movement. "I just need to attain symbiosis with my nano guests and everything will be okay. Biscuit ?"
He extends a red packet Lena's way and she grabs a digestive from it, the biscuit slightly old and crumbly.
"Do you even need to eat ?" she asks.
"No. But tea is a habit that I find hard to shake."
Curiosity piqued, Lena leans on her elbows, biscuit pitifully crumbling in her fingers. "Where does the food go then ?"
Jack laughs. "You don't want to know."
"But I do. Humour me please. I'm traumatised and in need of distractions."
She keeps her tone lighthearted, but her attempt at a joke rests heavily on her chest and she finds herself wanting to curl in on herself to shut the world out. She can't do that though, or she risks drifting off to sleep and waking up panicked, convinced that she's back in the cave. It's happened a few times already and each time she woke up screaming, Kara was pleading for her to shut up.
"Everything I ingest," Jack says, "needs to be expunged one way or another. I'm not yet proficient at choosing from which part of my body it exits." He points at his shoulder where a growing stain wets the fabric of his sweater. "Case in point. And believe me, it's come out of worse places."
"Fascinating," Lena whispers.
Jack laughs again. "You think ? Well I'll be happy to let you run experiments. I'm a little bored here. Not much to do. My cancer research is stalling."
"You're still working on that ?"
"Of course I am," Jack scoffs, "you asked me too."
"I don't even know if my mother is still alive."
"She is," Jack says with a small distorted smile. "Sam took some news from her while you were away, even went to one of her chemo sessions and explained the situation. On top of running L-Corp and partaking in the search efforts. Damn. That woman is extraordinary. I understand why Peter had a kid with her." He blinks, seems to come out of a daze. "Sorry," he says, "I got lost in thought for a minute."
"Sam is extraordinary." Lena smiles too, feeling strangely more at peace now than when she first entered the room ; she doesn't want to leave just yet. "Would you mind talking me through your nanite problem ?"
"'Nanite problem'," Jack echoes, "is that what we're calling it ?"
"What do you call it ?" Lena asks.
"I don't know, what's written on the door ? Nanite Man ?"
Lena thinks back to her long minutes spent in the corridor. "Nothing I think. Just your name. Just Jack."
Jack furrows his brow and repeats, "Just Jack."
Lena gets the feeling he needs normalcy just as much as she needs distraction.
She stays at Jack's side for longer than she'd said she'd been gone, discussing nanotechnologies and cancer research and all the good they'll do if they only just manage to get the nanites under control. He makes them another cup of tea, this one leaking through where his stomach used to be and when Lena emerges from his room much later in the day she feels cleaner, a bit of her self esteem restored by the tangible proof her brain isn't completely fried. A bit distracted, somewhat hungry, the tea and biscuits having opened her appetite, she bumps into Sam in the corridor that leads the med bay, bouncing back off her tall frame with the grace of a tennis ball smashing against a brick wall. Sam catches her on the way down with absent minded reflexes, a bit like she hasn't yet noticed Lena is there.
"You okay ?" Lena asks once she's back on her two feet. Her stomach lurches at the motion and she grabs Sam's arms to stabilise herself.
Sam chuckles dismissively. "I could ask you the same thing."
Lena quirks an eyebrow at her, levelling her with a glare that she knows is weakened by her current state.
Sam sighs. "I'm fine," she says, "just needed a breather."
"Do you want to grab something to eat ?" Lena asks, nodding in the general direction of the cafeteria, which is to say she juts her chin in a way that seems to invite Sam to jump over the railing.
Sam shakes her head. "I don't want to keep you from Kara."
Lena glances over Sam's shoulder, rises on her tiptoe to do so because from where she's standing in her flat DEO issued sneakers, her friend is gigantic. Kara is awake, propped up against her pillows, and Alex is with her. They appear to be talking, hands wound tight together, heads close.
"Kara will be fine," she says, even if she's never been so unsure of anything in her life, "if you need me, I'm here."
Sam's shoulders relax a little. "Okay," she says, "but anything over than that Rao awful tomato soup."
In the cafeteria, they find a quiet corner to sit, Lena with her back to the wall, and get a little bit of everything that's bland and tasteless. Sam could get herself a coffee and pepperoni pizza but she decides not to in solidarity with Lena who's been forbidden to eat or drink anything remotely astringent or interesting. Her earlier tea was already not a good idea but she'll stand her ground on that one concession, especially now as she spreads diet jam on a dry bagel and sips lukewarm milk.
"I feel selfish," Sam says quite suddenly, picking up the string of the conversation they half begun in the corridor. "The world is falling apart, you're hurt, Kara is hurt, my own daughter is in constant danger, and all I want is to be home, sleep in my bed with my girlfriend, and get her attention for more than one fucking minute."
"That's not selfish," Lena replies gently, "or well, not in a bad way at least." She picks apart her bagel as she mulls over her words. She would murder someone for a cup of coffee right now but knows it'd be pushing her luck a smidge too far ; she's already at risk of explosive diarrhoea from the jam. "This is a terrible situation," she continues, barely holding back a laugh at the subpar euphemism, "there's nothing wrong with wishing to be home and safe instead. I understand, I want the same thing. What would be wrong would be trying to pry Alex away from Kara, and that's not what you're doing. You're the literal embodiment of altruism Sam, wanting to be selfish once in a while doesn't make you a bad person."
"Even if it's at the worst time in the entire history of the universe ?"
"Yeah," Lena breathes, "yeah. Even now."
"It's just-" Sam exhales, running a nervous hand through her hair. "It's just that I finally have what I've always wanted and I barely got to enjoy it for five minutes and now I don't think Alex is ever going to be okay again and Ruby has nightmares and Kelly locks herself in the bathroom to cry and I'm not sure I can hold all of us together. What if I can't hold us together ?"
"Trust them," Lena says, a bit surprised at how easily the answer comes to her. "Trust that they can hold themselves and your family together too. You're not on your own."
Sam stares at her from over her cup of herbal tea, the same kind Alex drinks all the time and that she personally finds too sugary.
"This is not shit pub therapy," Lena continues with a little laugh, "it's just that I've had to learn that too, had to teach myself how to trust Kara. It's not innate, doesn't come easily, and I've just had a prime example of what happens when I don't trust her with my bullshit so maybe I shouldn't be out there giving advice but just, just trust them."
"Trust them..." Sam echoes.
Lena hums in agreement. "Trust them. Trust yourself too of course, but trust them."
Sam takes a long sip from her tea and contemplates Lena's words in silence. She looks beyond tired, drained, though only faint shadows under her eyes serve as a manifestation of that. Slowly however, a smile stretches on her lips and her face lights up, her dark eyes twinkling softly.
"Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me," Lena says, looking down to her half eaten bagel. "I know I'm chronically emotionally unavailable but I'm your friend. I'm not going to let you fall if I can catch you."
Sam contemplates this for a second too. "You're not emotionally unavailable," is what she settles on eventually, a couple of words that she says very carefully
Lena scoffs. "I kinda am."
"You're not," Sam insists softly. "You just carry more pain than most."
"I suppose I am burdened with multiple traumas, yes."
"That's not what I meant," Sam says, "and you know it."
"I know," Lena mumbles, waving her hand around and spreading crumbs on the entire laminate table top. "I know I'm just..."
"Being a little shit on purpose ?" Sam offers with a teasing grin. "It's okay, I forgive you, you are burdened with many traumas after all."
"You-" Lena chokes, "you are being a little shit !"
She kicks Sam's shin under the table, regrets it immediately when her toes bend backward and she hisses in pain. She understands what Sam is doing though, and she's grateful for it.
"Thank you," she says. Sam arches an eyebrow and Lena sighs. It's okay, it's just Sam, she can be vulnerable around her. "For a lot of things," she elaborates, "but mostly for reaching out to my mother."
"I know you don't have the most stellar of relationships with her, but I-" Sam says, reaching out to squeeze her hand gently, "I thought about what I would want if something happened to me and well, I would want my mum to know. Plus, Lillian gave us a full list of all Lex's hide outs and creepy bunkers completed with access codes and how to disable the traps she has knowledge of. She's very angry."
A flicker of warmth ignites in Lena's chest, right where Lillian snuffed it out decades ago. "Have you told her I'm alive yet ?"
"Yeah," Sam says, "but she's, um, not cleared for access to the DEO."
"Understandable. I'll call her. Later. I'll call her later." She takes a sip of her tepid milk. It tastes powdery, fake, sanitised, and like someone has dumped a bunch of sugar in it to mask the absence of taste. "If I get a coffee, will you snitch on me ?"
Sam's gaze hardens jokingly. "I absolutely will."
Lena sinks into her chair, levelling Sam with a mean and sort of hazy glare.
"I will snitch on you Lena, do not test me."
When they finally get back upstairs to the med bay, Kara isn't here anymore, and Lena's heart skyrockets at her absence. She feels dizzy, pressured, but faced with the complete lack of hurry and concern of the others, she forces herself to relax.
"Kara's in the locker room," Eliza says without looking up from her work. She's still sitting in the armchair Lena left her in, but Alex is now at her feet, leaning against her knees while her mother takes care of her hair, a pair of scissors in hand. She's annihilated the unruly growth of her undercut and is now snipping at the longer strands on top. "Alex convinced her to take a shower but she wanted to go on her own. I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you joined her though."
Lena nods, exits the room she's barely just entered. There are dozens of locker rooms in the DEO but she's going to assume Eliza meant the one on this floor. Which she did, and that's where Lena finds Kara. For a split second, she wishes she hadn't.
Kara is sitting on one of the gross benches in the middle of the room, completely naked, with her elbows resting on her knees and her head between her hands. Even from where she's standing, lingering on the threshold, Lena can see the multiple scars that now litter her supposedly impervious skin, thin angry lines running sometimes on a few inches, and sometimes spreading far beyond what she can see. Kara's hair is wet, dripping on her forehead, and when Lena pads closer, she catches a whiff of DEO standard issue soap, clean, but on the heavy side.
Kara raises her head at her approach, smiles weakly. There are tear tracks on her freshly showered face but she wipes them off with the back of her hand, sniffling and clearing her throat.
"Your mum told me I'd find you there," Lena says, stopping a couple of feet away from her. "Is it okay if I stay with you for a while ?"
Kara nods, then clears her throat again. "Sorry," she grumbles, surprising Lena who didn't think she'd say anything, "I'm just-" She gestures vaguely, slaps her thigh and closes her mouth.
Lena settles next to her on the bench, grateful for the thick layer of protection her sweatpants offer. She keeps a good foot in between them even if her body screams at her to climb on her lap, cling onto her and never let her go. After being prodded and poked relentlessly as much by her doctors than by Lex, she isn't sure Kara is okay with being touched.
"It's okay if you're a little out of it right now," Lena says, careful with her choice of words.
"You're doing much better than I am," Kara replies stiffly. She sounds almost accusatory, even considering the roughness of her little used voice.
"I have to," Lena says softly. "If I break now, I'm never going to stop crying. That doesn't mean I'm okay though, I just rescheduled my mental breakdown for later."
"I don't think I'm ever going to be okay," Kara murmurs. She writhes her hands on her bare lap, metal hand digging into the skin of her organic one. "I don't think I want to be okay. What does it mean if I am ? What does it mean if after everything, I'm just okay ? Alive and well ? I don't want to be okay. I don't want to move on and be some emotionless monster."
"You're not a monster," Lena corrects softly. She begins to reach out, but Kara slithers out of her grasp, abruptly sliding to the other end of the bench.
"I am. I'm a freak. And I should be dead." She slams her hand on the bench, open palm leaving a deep indent in the metal. Lena startles at the sound. "Look at me. Fucking look at me ! I'm a monster…"
"I am looking at you," Lena whispers. She rises, legs a little unsteady, and takes the couple of shaky steps that separates them, kneeling in front of her. "I am looking at you Kara. And I see the woman I love. I see someone strong, and resilient, and I'm telling you that if you're not okay right now, or ever again, it's alright, and I love you anyway and I'm never giving up on you."
"Shut up," Kara whispers. "Shut. Up."
Her fists clench at her side and if Lena had a single ounce of common sense, she would step back. But she loves Kara too much for that and instead stupidly grabs her face, tugging until their eyes meet, Kara's eyes flickering relentlessly to the side.
"Look at me, love. Look at me. We're going to find him. And when we do, I'm going to kill him. He will never hurt you again. Never."
Kara trembles in her hands. She folds in until their foreheads touch, resting lightly against one another and shaking. Kara cries, tears and ache spilling from her eyes in an endless flow. Lena holds onto her. She holds onto her, and she doesn't let go.