A/N: Hi guys! Back with the next chapter, sorry for the wait! Since you all didn't come here to just read my notes, I'll just respond to reviews up here and put most of the stuff I want to say in the end note so you can jump right into the story!

K: Sorry to make you wait, here it is! I hope you like it!

Phaerre: Thanks so much! The wait is over haha

barattajennifer: Thank you! Hope you enjoy the latest!

tell-me-your-desires: Haha sorry to leave you on that cliffhanger for a while, hope this chapter makes up for it! Thank you for your kind words!

EdithType: Thank you so much for reading my work! Since you've seen my other stuff you probably know my update times are sporadic at best haha but I hope you enjoy this chapter!

KaraLuthorZorEl: Great username haha! Hope you like this one!

Lena was getting tired of waking from forced unconsciousness. She groaned as she blinked her eyes open. She felt the hard ground at her back and struggled to push herself upright, her limbs tired and sluggish. Her cheek ached and her head pounded. She brought a hand to her temple, pulling away with flecks of dried blood on her fingers. The crimson was a catalyst, sparking her memory.

Blood.

Kara.

Lena rushed to her feet, wincing at the pain the sudden movement sent through her body. Surrounding her was a mix of solid stone and metal. She was in a cell. Three of the four walls consisted of dark stone. A single grated steel door was in front of her, centered within a fourth wall of cell bars. The door led to a dim, torch-lit hallway, reminding Lena of a medieval castle. Past the width of the hall there seemed to be a cell identical to hers, but it was empty. She was alone.

Where is Kara?

Lena walked to the edge of the cell, pushing on the bars of the door. She willed it to move, to break. Nothing.

"Kara?" Lena shouted. "Where is Kara, Lex?"

No response.

Lena kicked against the metal, redoubling her efforts. She threw her weight into the door, pounded her fists against it, to no avail. Her anxiety was growing. Not being able to see Kara, not knowing what happened to her, it made her heart pound. Her breathing became more rapid as she slammed herself against the door.

"Kara!" Lena yelled again. "Kara!"

It felt like she screamed for hours. She screamed until her voice was hoarse. She waged war against the steel until her fists were bloody.

Lena felt tears stream down her face as she turned her back to the door, sliding to the ground. Anger gave way to gut-wrenching guilt as she buried her head in her hands.

Kara shouldn't have come for her. After everything Lena had done, everything she had put Kara through, the Kryptonian should have left, let her reap the consequences of her actions. Lena knew she would have if she had been in Kara's shoes. And now Kara was at Lex's mercy, a quality Lena's brother had never possessed.

She cried into her hands, trying to make sense of everything. All she could picture was Kara's look of pain as she laid on the ground, fighting for Lena's safety with a dagger in her side and sickening green spreading across her body.

The image brought different memories to the surface, memories of another time Lena had witnessed the glow of Kara's veins. The blonde's heartbroken face flashed behind Lena's eyes and suddenly she couldn't breathe. She wasn't in the cell anymore. She was surrounded by walls of ice, feeling like the heat of her anger would melt the frozen floor. Screaming as she poured all the betrayal, the hurt, from her soul. The stuttered rise and fall of Kara's chest as she fought back what looked like a panic attack. Kara's glowing green veins visible behind sheets of ice as Lena left her in the Fortress of Solitude, trapped with the very substance Lex was using against her now. Her small voice when she asked if Lena was going to kill her, making no effort to escape. The hope leaving Kara's eyes, taking the pain as punishment. And Lena had left her there.

Kara's words from what felt like a lifetime ago came back to her.

"Do you know what it's like to walk into a room and your skin feel like it's going to be seared off your bones? Or like nails are running through your blood? That's what kryptonite feels like."

Lena let a sob escape her lips.

Supergirl always seemed so untouchable, so powerful. At the time of that argument, Lena had only seen her distrust and her paranoia. There was merit behind Lena's actions, creating the kryptonite to stop Reign, not to harm Supergirl. But the Girl of Steel lashed out and Lena stood her ground and in that moment her and Supergirl's relationship had broken beyond repair. At least, in Lena's eyes it had.

She remembered the talk she had with Kara in the elevator shortly after. The way Kara tried to defend Supergirl, the look of guilt and heartbreak when Lena told her she could never trust the Kryptonian again. How Supergirl apologized immediately and tried to rebuild some semblance of trust. Lena hadn't understood at the time why it was so important to her that they be friends, had told her as much when she stated that she had true friends who would never betray her. She thought of Supergirl's defeated look as she told Lena she understood.

Lena hadn't known why Supergirl wanted so desperately to preserve their friendship, even suspecting that Supergirl wanted to keep a close eye on her through the guise of companionship, but she knew now. Lena had drawn a line in the sand, and Kara and Supergirl were on opposite sides. And if Supergirl could never regain Lena's trust, could never uncross that line, then Kara would never be able to reveal her identity without losing Lena.

"And then one day you were so angry with me—with Supergirl. But you still loved Kara. And I just kept thinking if I could be Kara, just Kara, then I could keep you as a friend."

They had both been afraid of losing each other, Lena fearing that Kara was too good to be true, that she would lose her to betrayal, and Kara fearing she would lose Lena to mistrust, that once she knew her identity, Lena would only see her as Supergirl and not as Kara. And through Lena's hurt and Kara's hesitancy, both their fears came true.

Kara's betrayal had cut so deep because once she found out the truth, Lena had only seen Kara as Supergirl. She thought Kara Danvers wasn't real, that all along she had been a disguise to allow Supergirl to get close to her. It was easy to see all the reasons a Super would want to get close to a Luthor without their knowledge, easy to imagine any one of them being the real reason Kara had befriended her. And after seeing that, it had been excruciatingly clear to Lena that there wasn't a single honest moment in their friendship.

And that was what had hurt the most.

Lena had broken her walls down for Kara. Kara was the most important person in her life, her closest friend. She had a heart of gold, she believed in Lena, and if someone like that could believe in her, then maybe Lena could be good after all. Kara was so supportive, she taught Lena to hope, to have faith in humanity and in herself. So the idea that none of it had been real, that Kara had been faking it the whole time, that Supergirl had been faking it the whole time, it sent Lena over the edge. Lena had valued their friendship above all else and to think that it meant nothing to Supergirl absolutely wrecked her.

Except, it hadn't meant nothing to her.

It felt like a punch to the gut. Lena had painted them in lights that neither had wanted: a Super and a Luthor. She never wanted to be viewed as just a Luthor, yet she had only seen herself as one when she found out Kara was Supergirl. And she had only seen Kara as a Super, even going as far as trying to solely address her as Supergirl, although she was never able to truly banish Kara's name from her lips.

There were so many reasons Supergirl wouldn't want Lex Luthor's sister to know she was Kara Danvers, but Lena had never stopped to consider the reasons that Kara Danvers wouldn't want Lena to know she was Supergirl. And Lena hated herself because Kara spelled it out to her the day she revealed her secret.

She didn't want to lose Lena as a friend.

She cared just as much about their relationship as Lena did.

Kara Danvers was real and she was just as afraid of losing Lena as Lena was of losing her.

But blinded by her pain and her vengeance, Lena's walls had been too high for her to see the truth. She hadn't allowed herself to hope for that possibility, hadn't even considered it in fear of being hurt again. And it had cost her everything.

And now it might cost Kara her life.

Lena didn't know how long she spent crying into her hands on the floor, wasn't aware of when the tears turned into sobs or when the sobs subsided to watery hiccups.

Hours could have passed before she heard the sound of grating metal followed by footsteps. Lena shot to her feet, wiping her tears as her mouth formed a grim line. She was going to get answers.

The rattling of keys was audible as a figure approached. The shadow on the floor got closer and closer until the person finally came into Lena's view.

A guard, different from the one who had restrained her earlier, stood on the other side of the bars. He was big in stature, carrying a tray of food in one hand and a torch in the other.

"Where am I?" Lena demanded immediately. "Where's Supergirl?"

The guard said nothing, simply setting his torch into one of the sconces on the wall before fishing out a set of keys. The lock disengaged with an audible click before the door swung inwards as he stepped forward. Lena seized the opportunity.

She shoved her weight against the door, causing it to swing backwards. The guard let out a startled grunt as the metal slammed into him, the food flying into his face as he stumbled back. Lena grabbed the metal tray from the floor and swung it towards his head.

The guard blocked the tray before it made contact, grabbing the edge and yanking it from Lena's grip before bashing it into her face. She let out a cry of pain as the blow connected, feeling the shockwave through her jawbone. The guard grabbed her arms and nearly threw her back into her cell, slamming the door shut as she landed on the ground.

"Bitch," he growled, wiping the remnants of the spilled food from his face as he cradled his nose. It was swollen and bleeding, likely from the impact of the door.

Lena rose to her feet, ignoring the slight she would normally demand respect over. She had more important things to focus on. "Where is Supergirl? Where's Lex?"

"I'm sure your brother will be here shortly when he hears about this," the guard spat angrily. He grabbed his torch indignantly, leveling a smug glare at her.

Lena snarled as she threw herself against the bars and felt a small sense of satisfaction when the guard flinched. He sent her one last dirty look before retreating back down the hallway, leaving Lena alone once more.

She sighed as her shoulders deflated, touching her jaw gently and wincing at the pain. She knew no more about her predicament than she did when she woke up. She didn't know where she was or how long she had been out. The last place Lena remembered was the hangar, and now she was in some medieval dungeon straight out of a fairytale. She didn't even know if Kara was being held at the same location as her.

Her stomach growled and part of Lena regretted sacrificing food in favor of breaking the guard's nose. She reclaimed her spot on the floor, resting her back against the far wall. There was nothing else to do but wait.

Lena startled awake as a loud bang resonated off the stone walls. She blinked her eyes open, greeted by near pitch blackness. The torches in the hallway must have been extinguished. She could have sworn she had heard the sound of receding footsteps, but as she strained her ears she was met with silence. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Sleep called to her once more, tugging at her consciousness. Her eyes began to drift close when—

A shaky inhale echoed throughout the chamber.

Lena shot to her feet, stumbling in the darkness and tripping in her haste to reach her cell door. Her eyes still hadn't adjusted to the lack of light as her body collided with the bars of her cell wall. She gripped the metal rods with white knuckles as she willed her vision to clear, hoping against all hope.

A faint green glow was barely visible across the hall, but it was enough. She could see arms chained to the ceiling, boots just grazing the stone floor, and a mane of blonde hair surrounding a drooping head. Lena breathed out and suddenly she was staring into the blue eyes of a bruised face.

Kara's voice was gravelly, but Lena thought it was the best sound she had ever heard.

"Lena?"

A/N: They're finally alone! This chapter was more reflection than action and I spent so long writing and rewriting because I wanted to get all my emotions about Kara and Lena's conflict in, and I'm still not sure I covered everything haha. I liked what we got in season 5 but I wish we could have had more depth and gone deeper into it, whether it was just as friends or not. I have really been enjoying all the Supercorp content we've been getting in the last couple episodes though, I'm hesitantly hopeful.

Sorry for the long wait. I had summer classes when I made this story and now I'm into fall classes and I am horrible at time management apparently haha, so I can't promise anything in terms of an update schedule, but I hope you all enjoy what I'm able to get out and I'll try my best to create some good content!