She hadn't known where else to go. She couldn't stand seeing her Alex so upset as she paced the halls of her mother's house on the phone with Vasquez trying to get a head start on tracking down whoever had taken her ex-fiancée. The worry in her sister's voice was like a green glowing knife between Linda's ribs.
Although she wants so much to stay and help Linda fleas the fazed house as soon as she felt strong enough to fly. Yet everywhere she can think of to hide just reminds her in some way of how she'd been too weak to protect her friends to protect her family. Everywhere that is accept here.
Here she still felt accepted. Maybe even….loved.
She just hopes she will be welcome as she uses the last of her ebbing strength to make the trip.
Her landing is soundless and for a moment she stands quietly gazing at the beauty inside the warmly light apartment. After a few more seconds to gather her courage Linda taps on the window glass as soon as the black-haired beauty's head turned however Linda feels another wave of sadness washing over her causing her to drop her chin in shame.
The opening of the doors to the balcony surprises her.
"What do you want Kara?"
The hard bite of the greeting brings more tears spilling from Linda's eyes, but she keeps her head down too ashamed to face the anger she knew would be waiting in those memorizing eyes. It's only the whispered break of "Snowbird?" that has watery blue eyes peeking up to find beautiful emerald green.
"I wasn't strong enough."
Strong arms encircle her in seconds and Linda melts into them like ice on a hot day. Drinking in the strength and comfort she feels second only to the safety the true Alex brings. "I wasn't strong en…." she tries again only to be shushed into silence by the beautiful angel holding her.
"Come inside then we'll talk alright."
Linda shakes her head already she can hear her family wondering where she'd got to also making plans to head back to the DEO. "We need to go Maggie needs us."
Lena's arms didn't drop but she does lean away to meet Linda's eyes "Maggie?"
Linda nodes her legs threatening to buckle under her. "Snowy, have you been around kryptonite in the last hour?" Of course, the keen-eyed beauty would notice the lingering lines of green under the collar of Linda's shirt.
"The men in black…they used it against us…."
Lena fights back asking any the flood of questions filling her mind as she helps the shaking super into her apartment. "Let's get you out of the cold then we can talk about what happened to Maggie." She offers already bracing for a fight. Linda surprises her by only nodding along with her words.
After guiding Linda to the couch and making sure she was wrapped up in not the long cap she brought with her like a security blanket but also the softest of the blankets Lena could easily find without leaving her friend alone Lena heads into the kitchen to get her warn out snowbird a snack. A holdover from all the times Kara would show up at her place late at night but Lena pushes those thoughts away as she watches Linda pick up the discarded paper and pen Lena had left from doing some late-night crosswords before bed.
"Mind helping me out with that last clue?" Lena says conversationally while she waits for the microwave to finish heating up a few choice bites of the leftovers from her early dinner. "For the life of me, I can't seem to get it." She laughs hunting in her refrigerator for a drink for the both of them. She settles on chocolate milk for Linda and a glass of wine for herself. "Lin?" despite not getting an answer Lena feels a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth when she looks over to find the Kara double intently concentrated on the crossword.
"Hey, Lee Lee." Lena hums carrying the items over to the couch with relative ease.
"Huh?" Linda answers without lifting her eyes from the half-folded newspaper he had proper up against her legs.
"Don't tell me you've already solved it." Lena laughs setting the plate and glasses down on the coffee table.
"Solved what?" Linda asks the picture of confused adorableness in Lena's eyes while she absently chews on the end of the pen top. The move is so like Kara that Lena has to take a few slow breaths to keep angry tears from pooling in her eyes.
"Let me take that while you start in on this and tell me what happened with Maggie." Lena suggests sliding the paper from Linda's lap and replacing it with the plate of warmed food.
Linda recoils at the reminder almost spilling the milky chocolate drink Lena offered her onto the snow-white sofa. "She promised to come back. She said she would after she and Alex talked. We listened but only for a few moments. We wanted them to have some kind of privacy. Then Kara heard it. Alex's heartbeat was stronger, a frightened beat."
Lena winces at the fear behind the words. Already her fingers itch to pull the trembling blonde into her arms to hide her away from anything dangerous or wicked about the world.
"Alex was already down when we arrived and Maggie. She fought like a тигр so wild." Lena smiles despite herself. Of all the animals she could name a tiger wasn't exactly at the top of her list when thinking of the feisty detective. A wolverine maybe but not a tiger.
"The green pain rock kept us from helping then they threatened our Alex. They had a gun on her. At her head." Linda shudders as if she was reliving the sight of her sister at gunpoint in her head. "Papa tried to help, but they blast him out of the sky. Then I couldn't see Maggie anymore. I tried to go to the van, but the green pain gun kept me back."
"Who were they Lin. Who took her?"
Rather than answer around the bite of food in her mouth Linda uses her fork to point to the paper Lena had set back on the table as she reaches for her the wine glass beside it.
As soon as her eyes landed on the rough outline Linda had drawn over the unfinished crossword the half-empty wine glass falls from Lena's fingers. "How is that possible? They were disbanded as soon as my mother was put in jail."
Linda shrugs her shoulders her head tilted to the side like Kara would do from time to time in what Lena now knew to be her listening in on something only someone with super hearing could detect. "Kara and Papa bear has returned to the DEO. They found Maggie's phone smashed where the van the men in black used was abandoned." She relays.
"Just because it was smashed doesn't mean they couldn't still try to use it to track her." Lena points out going back to the kitchen for a dish towel to sop up the spilled wine while Linda cracks what could be considered a smile as she finishes up the last bits of the mini-meal Lena had given her. "Winn says the same thing to Alex right now."
Lena was about to ask something else when Linda's head tillites to the side again when her keener hearing picks up something Lena couldn't. For the second time that night Lena feels a sucker punch right to her heart at the breathtaking smile now spreading over Linda's lips.
"Have they found something?"
Linda shakes her head in denial, but her smile didn't waver listening in again on whatever was being talked about at the DEO. "Jamie."
Rather than ask who this Jamie person was Lena heads back to the kitchen for a refill of their drinks. "What?" Lena questions as soon as she comes back seeing a broken look pass over Linda's eyes as she pulls her blanket tighter around her shoulders. "Lin, what is it?"
"Mom had to finish telling Jamie what was going on when Alex couldn't." A phantom pang of sympathetic pain pulled at Lena's heart for her former friend. After all, they may have called it off and Alex was already seeing someone new, but she and Maggie had been engaged once upon a time. A love like that wasn't easily forgotten.
"Alright." Lena prompts at the wide smile spreading over Linda's lips whoever this Jamie was she was obviously saying something interesting. "What's Jamie saying now?" Lena nudges with a smile of her own. Kara's smiles were always so infections meaning Linda's were just as contagious.
"She says they will come….. Kara"
Despite having done her best to repress her feelings when it came to Kara Danvers or her Super alter ego for that matter Lena can feel the start of worry creeping into her system at the concern in the blonde's voice.
"No, Kara Danvers, you go lay down now. You need rest."
For once Lena was glade Linda was too preoccupied in the resulting argument that followed with her equally superpowered twin across town than listening to the uptick in speed that had become Lena's heartbeat at the sound of the Kaznian words coming from the blonde's lips.
The show of anger was made even cuter when her riled up snow puppy gives one of Kara's adorably aggravated huff and pulls out her phone when it seemed simply using her powers to talk with her 'twin sister' wasn't enough to get her point across while Lena crosses to a slide closet for a coat have already pocketed her car keys..
"Come on Snowy, you can yell at them from the car." Lena coxes before her companion can do more than pull up one of the numbers in the phone's contacts her hand sliding smoothly into Linda's before she'd realized what she was doing.
Linda seemed just as surprised by the move looking down at their joined hands then up into Lena's eyes and back again to their hands as if she expects the contact to break at any second.
It doesn't. In fact, it only grows stronger the longer she watches.
"We have two other stops to make first possibly three depending on how the first goes then we'll meet with the others at the DEO and work out a plan on getting Maggie back." Linda nodes along with what the other woman is saying while taking the time to burn the feel of Lena's hand in her own into her memories as the raven-haired woman leads the way toward the private elevator.