Lena - 1

Lena sat for a while in thought, trying to wrap her head around everything. How could a couple of hours change so much? She was half tempted to drown herself in a bottle and call it a night, but she had to start dismantling her projects. The last thing she needed was her mother finding them and continuing her work. Eventually she stood and moved over to the kitchen counter pressing the button to activate Hope.

"Good evening, Ms. Luthor. What should I do with the file created about Kara?" Her digital assistant asked in a soft and soothing tone of voice.

"Delete and shred from every system, hunt down any trace of information about Kara and Supergirl being the same person and eliminate that information so that not a single bit of data is left." Lena let her anger show through her voice, but it wasn't the same anger from earlier in the evening. No, this was something else, something primal and protective. She needed to protect Kara now, no matter the costs.

Hope started the search as Lena finished her drink and started on dismantling her projects. Canceling orders, eliminating the paper trail and above all keeping it out of the L-Corp mainframe for anyone like her mother to find. She had just put the finishing touches on the wrap up of those projects when Hope chirped that she was ready with an answer.

"Preliminary scans indicate there are only a handful of mentions on the web, most are superficial." Hope's voice was a bit less languid and smooth, instead it was almost clipped and professional.

"Eliminate those if possible, but guesses and conjectures are not as important. Hard evidence should be the highest priority." Lena clarified, hoping her programming skills would turn out to be good enough for such a subjective search.

"Understood Ms. Luthor." Lena looked at her digital representation of hope, depicted as a multicolored collection of floating squares in the shape of an hourglass and reached over and shut down the hologram.

"Open dictation." Lena said softly, followed by a small beep indicating she was being recorded. "I have been struggling with information for over a week. Thoughts of betrayal and righteous anger had consumed me, driven me to create things in a blind and reckless manner. I started my Non-nocere project with the idea that I could help people. I can see now that it was not only foolhardy, but fundamentally corrupt. I was going to take away free-will for the vague possibility of perpetual peace and security. More importantly, now that I've taken a step back I realize how easily it could've been exploited. Kara didn't even blink when I told her, she must've felt betrayed, and a part of me was happy to see her hurt. But mostly, I just wanted to fix things between us. I hadn't realized why I was so hurt, so heartbroken. I've been close to people before who have disappointed me, Andrea, Lex and Lillian. Even Jimmy didn't live up to my expectations. Kara has never once failed me, despite her lies and omissions, they were never malicious or meant to treat me as a fool. No one laughed behind my back or thought of me as lesser. Instead there were genuine security concerns, given how I reacted, maybe she was right to hold off telling me everything. Yet now, after learning about how she feels, I cannot find even a tiny bit of that hatred I felt as recently as this morning. It's just gone. Now all I want is to love her, hold her. It seems like the romantic in me has taken over, and I'm feeling that twisting thing in my stomach that lets me know when I'm in love. Except it is so much stronger than when I felt it for Jack or James. I have to admit, she means everything to me."

"How sentimental." The voice sent a chill up Lena's spine as she turned she found Lillian Luthor standing in the foyer, her hands deep in her coat pocket.

"How did…" Lena started, getting off her stool and moving towards the middle of the room.

"... I get through security? Easily. How did I learn of your betrayal, the hard way. I watched that speech of yours and knew something was off. So I knew you were the one that pulled the trigger… for her." Lillian said, her eyes wide and wild with an anger Lena had never seen before.

"I'm not following mother, you should leave." Lena tried, but Lillian just smiled maliciously and pulled out a gun, pointing it at her for emphasis.

"I found my son's body rotting in that place. Not even the Metallo protocol could bring him back. I knew you were never one of us Lena, but I had no idea you were that bloodthirsty." Lillian spat out the words through clenched teeth, her fury clearly getting the better of her reason.

"Lex was going to do horrible things, has done horrible things and I was the only one that could stop him." Lena attempted to explain, but Lillian just stepped forward in anger waving the gun around.

"Why not let that Kryptonian bitch you love so much do it?" Lillian shouted, the pain on her face was indelible.

Lena clenched her fists at her side and leveled Lillian a deadly glare, "Supergirl could never kill. The fact you would even consider that a possibility shows how little you understand."

"Just say her name Lena, I know you know who she is now." Lillian slurred the insult a little, but kept the gun trained on her.

"That's not important." Lena countered, as she realized that Kara's identity didn't matter. Supergirl was nothing more than a work uniform, a helpful guise and easy icon to show strength and allow Kara's real self to be soft and kind and wonderful. Kara was the woman, Supergirl was the mask… it was such a simple thing to understand. How could she not have seen it before?

"Isn't it? Really, you killed your brother, my son, for HER! And it's not important?" Lillian shouted again, her anger starting to boil over. Lena had never seen her heated before, never seen her so consumed with rage that she would be anything other than cold and calculating. She was starting to feel real fear, and she didn't know what to do next.

Lena thought about making a plea of mercy, or a demand to lay down the gun. No, she had to be calm and cold. It was the only thing Lillian would respond to in a positive way.

"Do whatever you are going to do Lillian, you can no longer hurt me." Lena said, managing to hold back her emotions, hoping that her adoptive mother would find something inside that would stop her from pulling the trigger.

"You are wrong about that." Lillian's face twisted into that all too familiar condescending malicious smile, then shouted, "Oh Supergirl, Lena is about to die!" Lillian's eyes widened and her finger depressed on the trigger. The muzzle flashed brightly for a split second, illuminating the green projectile.

Lena could hear the patio doors burst open, and could feel the blast of cold air as Supergirl entered the room at superspeed. She started to say the words, "Kara no!" as she partially tracked the bullet moving towards them as Kara jumped in front of her. Then the impact of the bullet, a wet squelch followed by Kara landing with a heavy thud, her lungs gasping for breath.

"No, no, no…!" Lena knelt down and pulled Kara into her arms, glancing up to see if Lillian would finish her off. Except she was nowhere to be seen. She felt a hand reach up to her cheek and she looked down to see Kara staring up at her, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

"I love you." Kara managed to choke out.

"Kara no, please no. Don't leave me." Lena was caressing her face and trying to press against the wound in her chest with her other hand, but she knew it was too late. Kara coughed, and then began to shiver before going still, and the light in her eyes faded. Lena leaned down and laid her cheek against Kara's chest, and could no longer hear her powerful heart.