It's raining, and it's fitting really, that the sky would display more feelings than Lena at her own brother's funeral. They're dressed in black, all of them, and huddled under enormous umbrellas, as close to the grave as they can get without falling in it ; and it would be the most depressing event of Lena's life if she weren't feeling so fucking numb. She's come to make her peace with it in the past few weeks, this complete absence of emotions, while they were waiting for Lillian to be well enough to come out of the hospital and bury the son she killed. She expected to feel relief, or anger, or even hilarity at the thought of Lex's corpse resting in a freezer at the DEO ; but past her initial breakdown, beyond these first tears, she's felt nothing. Nothing at all.
It's not just raining, it's also particularly cold, colder than it as any right to be in California and she's tucked her body against Kara's, the hand she's not holding tucked in her own pocket for warmth and so she can fidget discretely with her ring. Kara has been so patient with her, too patient even, the calm she exudes clearly otherworldly and beyond anyone else's reach. She's driven her to all of her therapy appointments, let her sit with her when she was praying and in return sat with her with no hurry during all her bouts of prolonged silence. She's picked her up from work every time she forgot to come home, made her food on days she forgot to eat, and never once forced her to talk about it. Kara knows a thing or two about grief she supposes.
That's not to say she's been existing non-stop in this absence of emotions. When Kara holds her, she feels love, and when Alex swings by for afternoon coffee, she feel warm ; it's when it's just her and her memories of Lex that she feels nothing at all, and right now, with her feet stuck in an inch of icy mud, she'd fucking sell L-Corp to feel anything.
They're burying him in the Luthor's private cemetery, the only part of the manor and its surrounding lands that she didn't convert into a rehab centre. There was a bit of a debate surrounding what to do with him. He left no will, so convinced he wouldn't die, and as far as Lena is concerned, they could have just chucked him into the ocean and be done with it. For Lillian's sake though, so she has a place to visit, he'll be resting amongst his ancestors. They dug his final resting place right between his father's, who he despised as much as he admired, and aunt Lucia's, who always smelled of cat pee and Brussel sprouts and spent the few years she knew Lena calling her fat and stupid. If anyone deserves to be buried in such a hellish spot, it's Lex. The thought almost makes her laugh, but the apparition of this fleeting sense of hilarity stops her dead in her tracks. It's a good thing ; she doesn't think laughing at a funeral would be very appropriate.
They couldn't find anyone to lead the ceremony. No one really wanted to officiate Lex Luthor's funeral and the one person that did agree ultimately refused after finding out Supergirl would be there too. Something about a dead family member, Lena doesn't really remember, she wrote a check and moved on to the next one. J'onn, finally released from his cell, agreed to say a few words on account of his late father being some kind of Martian religious leader and the irony of an alien burying Lex is not lost on Lena. She's not really listening, so she isn't sure if he's saying nice generic things or complete atrocities ; but no one around her seems particularly angry or amused, just extremely sad, and then again it's J'onn, so he's probably remaining on the side of politeness. She wishes she could be paying more attention, but every time she tries to focus on what's happening around her, her vision blurs, and blood rushes loudly to her ears so she decides it's better to remain vacant in her own body, and let it pass.
Something moves just on the edge of her vision and she turns her head a fraction to see Eliza wheeling Lillian closer to the grave and helping her up. Her mother looks so frail, so white, bundled up under multiple shawls and blankets. She still looks grey in some places, an aftereffect of whatever it is Lex injected her with, but at least she doesn't have a feeding tube anymore ; that was a shocking sight. She went through the trouble of applying makeup, but quite frankly it makes her look pasty and half dead, her lipstick too vibrant, her eyeshadow too dark, and her mascara not waterproof enough, even for the single tear she's shed, its track still drying on her cheek. She lowers herself down, hanging on to Eliza's hand, grabs a fistful of dirt, and throws it on the coffin as hard as she can. She looks pathetic.
"Burn in hell Alexander."
Her voice is hoarse, gravelly, but loud enough in its disdain that it cuts even through the fog of Lena's brain to sear itself in her memories. Burn in hell Alexander. This really happened ; her mother really did kill her brother.
On her way back to her wheelchair, Lillian stops to kick, attempt to kick really, Aunt Lucia's grave, her foot catching on the side of a planter full of dead flowers which pitches backward slowly and pitifully, its content emptying on the mossy marble top.
She coughs, then mumbles, "never could stand that cunt" ; and to everyone's surprise but her own, Lena starts laughing.
It seizes her by the throat, bubbles out of her like lava until she's bent over in unadulterated and uncouth hilarity, stopping short only of rolling on the ground in the muddy grass. She clings to Kara to keep herself upright and she laughs. Laughs until she can't breathe. Laughs until her mirth turns into loud weeping and it's not so funny anymore. Her brother is dead ; and she is free. But fuck, fuck, he is dead. Full stop, end of story.
She realises after a while, as some awareness returns to her, that she's managed to slip away from Kara's grasp and is now kneeling on the ground, cold grimy mud seeping through her slacks. With some Kryptonian assistance, she stumbles back up to a more dignified position, steps towards the grave, takes hold of a handful of dank dirt, and lets it trickle in dark clumps over Lex's coffin. She doesn't say anything. She's going to miss him, and she doesn't want to thank him for this shitty parting gift. Not the Lex in this grave of course, not the monster he might have always been, but the kind boy who welcomed her in, took care of her, and had a full head of hair.
The ceremony should conclude then. The others don't have much business or interest being here except to support her and Lillian. But as Lena straightens up with the intention of walking back to her previous spot, she finds herself rooted in place by Kara's unshakable grip. She looks up at her, and finds her staring back with a strange expression. Not disgust, not sorrow, but a question which Lena answers with an affirmative nod as soon as she understands.
Kara kneels down, grabs her fair share of dirt, and as she lets it fall slowly on the wooden coffin, she speaks, voice loud and smooth even on the words that are so painfully inaccurate when it comes to Lex that they become laughable.
"Rao, filled with mercy, dwelling in the heavens' heights, bring proper rest beneath your light, amid the ranks of the holy and the pure, illuminating like the brilliance of the skies the souls of our beloved and our blameless, who went to their eternal place of rest. May You who are the source of mercy, shelter them beneath your light eternally, and bind their souls among the living, that they may rest in peace." She pauses, her silence significant enough that they all hold their breath in expectancy. "If you find a way out of this hole," she adds, voice much darker, "I won't hesitate."
It might be Lena's imagination, a side effect of being sleep deprived and just on the edge of complete madness, but when she looks down at the coffin one last time, she would swear the mud cracks all around Kara's feet.
Following Kara, the rest of the family lines up to throw their own handful of dirt on the coffin, with more or less harshness. Not all of them speak, but Jack definitely says something along the lines of "mad bastard," before he walks away.
The ceremony truly is over after that. A contractor will come by in the coming week to lay a thick piece of marble on top of the grave, and that'll be it for Lex Luthor. In some divine twist, the rain lets up while they're walking away from the cemetery, the clouds parting to light the way in fiery gold. Lena climbs in the car waiting for her, pillows her head on Kara's shoulder as soon as she climbs in next to her, and closes her eyes. They're all going for tea at Lillian's now. There'll be biscuits and anecdotes, souvenirs coloured by fresh grief ; and then they will move on.
Technically speaking, it would be incredibly easy for Lena to find Kara right now. All she'd have to do is take a look at her beacon, call her car, and let herself be driven to wherever she is. But Kara never goes far, and she enjoys searching for her, enjoys walking the streets, feet thumping on the pavement until she gets a glimpse of her in a park or a dinner. It should unnerve her, but it doesn't ; and she thinks the knowledge she could find her in a second if she needed to helps a lot with that.
For the same reasons Lena locks herself up in her office to tinker moodily, Kara sometimes leaves, always during the day and never ever in the middle of the night, to go sit in the loudest place she can find. Overloading her hearing with menial sounds helps with cutting out the rest of the city, the calls for help she doesn't know if she can answer, the muttering and insults. Lena once found her in the middle of the train station, features hidden by a ratty baseball cap, broodily surrounded by dozens of trains loudly cooling down. Today she's in a nicer place. Today, she's sitting on the waterfront, legs dangling above the water, arm wound tight around Krypto while she listens intently to the sounds of the ocean. She still hears Lena approaching, she always does, and lifts her head to greet her with a soft tired smile.
"You found me."
"Of course I did," Lena says gently, "I always do." She lowers herself to the ground, sits down on the cold pavement next to Kara and rests her head on her shoulder. "Though to be fair, you are sitting right in front of our building."
"I didn't want to be far from you," Kara replies quietly. "I'm feeling," she pauses, mulls over her words for a moment, "anxious. Yeah, I'm feeling anxious."
Lena sighs, grabs her hand and squeezes tenderly. "I could make you some noise cancelling headphones," she offers.
"Those don't work," Kara says with a tinge of frustration in her voice. "Jeremiah got me some when I first got here and they were basically useless."
"I could make you better ones. Tailored."
Kara chuckles sadly. "I don't doubt you could," she says. "And it might even help but..."
"But it wouldn't change the problem," Lena finishes for her. "I know."
Whatever Lex's insane endgame was, he did succeed in turning Kara into a monster to the public eye. And though she's not, though underneath all that strength and darkness, she's softer than Lena's terrible Midvale plushy, that's not how the world sees her. The DEO and the president released another joint statement, Supergirl saving the hospital was all over the news and yet, yet there are whispers, when it's not outright insults, people are calling for her to be locked up, they give her a wide berth in the streets, pointedly switch sidewalks when she walks by. Even her coworkers at CatCo have moved their desks a few inches away from hers, no one talks to her at the coffee machine, and she's had to halt her Aliens of National City interviews because all the lined up participants retreated.
She's taken to wearing her glasses more lately and Lena knows she wishes she could hide behind them, could have a secret identity and sometimes be just Kara. But it's not a possibility for her, she is always Supergirl, always a monster, and Kara only in the comfort of an apartment she doesn't even really like. Lena has been looking into finding a place for them to move out but it's complicated. She has requirements, Kara has requirements, and then there are the unconditional security features Alex is going to require they have like an electromagnetic shield and at least two secret bunkers, things that don't exactly come pre-built with most houses.
They stand side by side in silence for long peaceful minutes, Kara no doubt listening to things Lena can't hear, like sand grinding in the tide and fishes having conversations. She wonders what fishes have to say to each other, if their lives are any easier than hers and Kara's. Probably, though to be fair she doesn't know much about fishes, only that they taste good in sushis. This is clearly a ludicrous loophole in her education.
"What's so funny ?" Kara asks when Lena lets out a distracted laugh.
"Fishes."
"Fishes ?" Kara repeats in disbelief.
"Yes, fishes."
Kara laughs. Short and sharp, but infinitely warm. She raises their intertwined hands to her lips, kisses the back of Lena's, then lays them back on her thigh. "Okay," she says, "fishes."
She looks out far into the ocean for a moment, possibly watching things Lena can't see ; then turns to look at her with a soft crooked smile. Lena looks at her too, silently, wondering what exactly Kara is thinking about to make her look so fragile, glass-like and small.
Kara sighs, closes her eyes for a second then opens them again and says, "I love you. I haven't said it nearly enough lately and I'm not sure I've shown it as much as you deserve, but I love you. I love you so much."
To Lena, the words are a punch to the heart. Her breath catches in her throat, tears rise to her eyes ; she doesn't know how to begin to answer. There's been this rift between them for weeks and weeks and even now that the dust as settled, mending this, mending them, as been such a slow process that most days it seems they haven't made progress at all. She opens her mouth, stutters. Kara kisses the back of her hand again.
"I know everything's been complicated lately," Kara continues, "and fucked up and hard but I- I love you, and I hope this can be enough for now."
"It is enough," Lena whispers after clearing her throat. "It's always been. And I love you too. So much. I love you to the point that some days it's the only thing I understand." She clears her throat again, wipes her eyes with her free hand. "We're gonna pull through. It's going to get better, I know it is."
Kara nods in a strangely wise manner, then turns her eyes to the ocean again. They lapse into silence again, safe and comfortable. Lena matches her breathing with the waves, cold body buried against Kara's warm side, and she lets a little bit of the hurt go with the ocean.
When she feels like she's calmed down sufficiently, she straightens up to rumage in her bag, extracts a Tupperware from it, and hands it to Kara.
"Potstickers," she says.
Kara opens the container, expression turning ravenous at the first whiff of food.
"Did you make them yourself ?" she asks, quizzically eyeing the uneven half-moon.
"Yes," Lena replies drily, "and it was a nightmare so you better enjoy them."
The recipe was clearly above her level and her hands still itch from the number of times she's had to wash them while she was cooking. It's worth it though when Kara grabs one, brings it to eye level, observes it for a moment then shoves it into her mouth and starts chewing enthusiastically.
"They're very good," she mumbles, mouth already full with her second potsticker. "Thank you."
Lena exhales, sets her head back on Kara's shoulder, and stares at the waves, gently lapping at the pier. They're going to pull through.
The atmosphere is not what Lena would call relaxed, even if it's evidently what they're all willing it to be. There are drinks, and snacks, and multiple board games, and a lingering sense of crushing unease that makes it hard to breathe. It could be all in Lena's head of course, but she doesn't think it is. Not when Kara is sitting so straight there's no way her spine isn't going to fuse into a clean line, and Brainy keeps on staring into the distance, calculating their odds of surviving the evening, and Nia keeps on closing her eyes to check for imminent threats. And not when Alex's eyes keep on fluttering from the not yet faded bruise on Kelly's cheekbone to the brace now permanently fixed to her knee after her heroic saving of Sam ended with a car door trying to merge with her body. Only J'onn seems somewhat calm, but then again, he always is.
By all accounts, they should be having a nice relaxing evening, they've all been looking forward to this little break, Kara spent the entire week devising strategies to finally beat her sister at Cluedo, Sam put in two orders of her favourite brand of alien beer and then flew around the world to get Lena's ; everything should be alright, everything was going to be alright, and then President Marsdin called. Why it's always the president who calls and not some underling or another is beyond Lena but the gist of it is that the FBI is pulling back from all research and investigations surrounding Eve Teschmacher's disappearance, making it exclusively a DEO problem and therefore an Alex problem. To her credit, the director is holding her promise to slow down on her drinking, but she's also irremediably bent all the Cluedo cards that have found their way in her hands since they started playing and her leg is shaking so hard Lena would swear it makes the whole room vibrate.
Lena glances down at her notes. She's fairly sure she can make a hypothesis by her next turn and if she's right, so can Kara. Alex, who's game sheet has been glued back together is not going to win this time and it makes Lena feel strangely bad. Alex always wins at Cluedo, Alex should also win at Cluedo tonight. The air she breathes in feels thick and clumpy in her lungs. Shakily, she rises to her feet and grabs the first empty bowl she can find, silently gesturing towards the kitchen before making her way there with little other explanation. Out of the corner of her eye, she vaguely registers Kelly following after her, but doesn't fully acknowledge her until they're safely tucked away in the warm and spacious kitchen. She doesn't mind that she came after her ; she's been meaning to give her something anyway, but hasn't managed to get a hold of her since she's finished working on it, late one evening in her home office.
"Are you okay ?" Kelly asks, filling a glass of water at the tap and taking one small precise sip from it.
"I could ask you the same thing," Lena counters. She leans back against the fridge, its warm surface and faint humming weirdly reassuring.
Kelly waves a dismissive hand. "Just nervous," she says. "Alex's anxiety has always been particularly infectious."
Lena chuckles. "I think that's a Danvers thing."
Kelly scowls comically. "You mean we're all like that ? I seriously pity our therapists."
Her funny frown melts into a genuine one and suddenly, she looks exhausted. She drags a chair away from the kitchen table, drops down on it with her leg extended in front of her, and sighs.
"It's just that it's supposed to be a happy time. Alex and I are planning on asking Sam to marry us and I overheard her talking with Ruby and I think she wants to propose to us and it should be funny and reassuring, a good natured race of who's going to do it first and instead-" she cuts herself off, takes another sip of water and puts her glass down with great care. "Instead we're all anxious and scared again, including me, and we came so close that I just-" she stops again, exhales shakily but Lena doesn't interrupt. "I couldn't bear to lose them. Any of them. Not Alex. And not Sam. I just can't."
Lena pushes herself off the fridge, and comes sit across from her. "I understand," she says softly. "I really do understand."
She doesn't know what else to say. Her and Kelly have never been particularly close and she's never seen her like that. To Lena, she's always appeared larger than life, stronger than even Kara, fragile and human yet still standing and unshakable in the middle of this absolute clusterfuck. Seeing her this way, the mental exercise of bringing her down from her pedestal, is not exactly pleasant.
Kelly exhales, then laughs wetly. "Sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to unload on you like that."
"It's okay," Lena says, hesitantly reaching across the table to put her hand on hers. Kelly's fingers are cold and humid from resting against the glass. "I told you, I understand. And, um, I might have something that can help. Well it won't help with everything of course, I can't do that, but I hope it'll make you feel less powerless."
She retracts her hand, reaches inside of the pocket of her hoodie, one of Kara's she's taken to wearing in every situation that doesn't require formal wear, and slides a large golden cuff Kelly's way. "Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to marry me," she adds, the joke drawing a small smile from the woman in front of her, "it's a shield. I figured out the nanite situation and added a protective layer so there won't be any problem on that front and it's Nth metal so it's everything proof. I'm not saying you should jump into danger all the time but if you need to protect them, now you can."
"Did I impress you that much with my car door skills ?"
Lena nods. "Yeah, you did."
Kelly puts the cuff on and, with an instinctive flick of her wrist, unfurls the shield in one precise motion. She remains silent for a moment, just gapping at it, then whispers hoarsely, "thank you."
"It rotates with your body weight," Lena explains, "to ensure optimal coverage regardless of circumstances."
Kelly jumps up, crouches, and grins. "It's amazing."
Lena shrugs, leans back on her chair and crosses her arms. "I'm a certified genius," she says, "might as well do some good with it."
Kelly flicks her wrist, the shield recedes, she flicks it again, and it unfolds perfectly. Just then of course, someone knocks on the door.
"I suppose I can't deter you from this ?" Alex asks, leaning against the frame.
Kelly whirls around, fumbling with her shield when just a second before she had perfect control over it. She must make a face at her wife because Alex answers with a raised eyebrow and before Lena can step in and vouch for Kelly, they embark on an entirely silent conversation she has no part in. Finally, Alex sighs, motions for a hug and Kelly steps in her arms, almost knocking her unconscious with the shield.
"Thank you," Alex says to Lena.
Lena shrugs noncommittally. Now that the loving wives are locked in a safe embrace, she kinda wants to get out of here.
"Kara won," Alex says, "but she looked at your notes right after and says you should have won so I'll let you deal with that sickly sweet lovey-dovey problem on your own." She pauses, kisses the side of Kelly's head and steps out of the embrace. "She accidentally started floating though and now she's pretty upset so I called you a taxi if you want to go home. You can also stay in the guest room but I think she needs some quiet."
Lena nods in silent thanks and agreement. Smiles too, a little sadly, in a way she's sure Alex understands. Of all of Kara's problems surrounding her powers, her refusal to fly is the most surprising. Kara used to love flying. She would go all around the world, soar higher than even Sam would risk herself too, and most of all, she would carry Lena anywhere like that. Now, she's only ever remotely happy when she's got both feet on the ground and it's another thing Lex stole from her. It makes Lena so angry that she wants to throw up.
The days that follow President Marsdin's call are hard. Kara seldom sleeps through the night and it becomes increasingly frequent for Lena to find her on the balcony in the early morning, leaning against the railing with Krypto at her feet. She doesn't know how to help her.
She doesn't know how to help her, and it's killing her.
She's had a couple of ideas, sure, but they're mostly shit, and she stopped trying to figure it out when the best thing she could think of was to chuck Kara over the railing to force her to fly. She's cut down her coffee consumption since then, and asked for a higher dosage of anxiolytics instead. She doesn't blame Kara, just as Kara doesn't blame her. It's just the way things are now ; not end of the world worthy, not even mildly terrible, just a bit continuously shitty.
Still quite tired, and feeling like she's been run over by a fret train, Lena extracts herself from bed half an hour after Kara, an uncomfortable shiver pulling at her skin when she puts her feet on the warm floor ; she hasn't gotten used yet to the heated floorboard. Feeling around for the pair of socks she discarded in the middle of the night, she slips them on, and pads her way to the kitchen. Kara has already prepared everything, and all there is left to do is pour hot water in her cup and join her on the balcony ; which she does, after a second of hesitation long enough to be noticeable. She does end up joining Kara outside, and once she's there, she puts her cup on the railing and wraps her arms around her waist, hugging her from behind and resting her chin on her shoulder.
"You're up early again," she says, just for the sake of making conversation.
"I'm sorry," Kara says, "I couldn't sleep."
Lena kisses her clothed shoulder and sighs. "You don't have to apologise."
Kara only hums in reply, squeezing Lena's hands tight against her chest.
They remain silent for a long moment, Kara staring absentmindedly at the horizon and Lena watching as her tea cools down, steam rising with the sun. She presses herself hard against Kara's back, moulds herself to her, breathes her in ; and hopes that this way, she can feel her heart beating for her, and not just hear it. Some days, it's still hard to say I love you aloud, the words sounding like a curse, so Lena applies herself to showing it instead. She presses her heart against Kara's, holds her through the night, and the day, stands by her side when she needs it, holds her hand proudly in the street. Her love for Kara is unwavering, this is the one true constant of her life. It's just a little hard lately ; she's just a little scared.
"I think I'd like to go to Midvale," Kara says, lifting Lena's hands to her lips to lay a soft kiss on her knuckles. "See Mum, do something else for a while. What do you think ?"
"I think that's a good idea," Lena whispers, tightening her hold around Kara.
She squeezes her as tight as she can, straining her human strength to do so. She needs Kara to feel her, to know she's here and she's never leaving. I love you, she thinks, God, I love you.