Lena's eyes fill with tears despite her best efforts. Her throat convulses as she tries to swallow back the desperate sobs she can feel building in her chest.
The ache in her chest that she has sewn shut with rage, and distracted herself from with countless hours of work splits open. The pain she has dulled with self-righteous indignation and the desperate determination to make humanity better with non nocere spikes and grows stronger. Like a beast she had tamed, and locked inside her little boxes, the monster that is her loneliness and sadness grows claws and rakes her insides.
Kara stands bathed in golden light, her face static and cold as though carved from stone. Her arms are crossed defensively across her chest as though to shield her from Lena. Angels aren't mean to be so untouchable, so distant and hopeless. Are they?
Lena looks Kara fully in the eye for the first time in months. Her eyes are still the most beautiful thing Lena has ever seen. They are a shade of purest crystalline blue. To call them anything as terrestrial as cerulean would be an injustice, a slight against their exquisiteness. Yet, where before there had been friendship, warmth, and perhaps even the beginnings of love in those swirling depths, there is now arctic hostility. Inhumanly beautiful still, but barren and cold like the fortress of solitude.
Kara's beauty slashes at Lena. The betrayal Lena has been carrying all these months burns hotly in her stomach. Lena knows that logically, Kara's need to hide her identity as Supergirl from a Luthor was understandable, even astute. Afterall, she really was and still is is a Luthor. With hindsight she sees Kara was right. As much as she tried to avoid it, she has become the villain. Blood will out.
Lena feels soiled, infected by her Luthor blood. Despite her best intentions and determination, she still fell into all the traps of power, ego and megalomania that her mother and brother did. Lena can feel her nails digging into her skin as she twists her fingers nervously. The small pains helping her stay focused, helping to punish her for her stupidity in trusting Lex…again.
Lena sucks in a sharp breath and blows it out slowly as she desperately tries to maintain her control. She can feel her Luthor mask slipping. The urge to drop her defences and her careful Luthor control in front of Kara is pushing against her cold facade. The old instincts of trusting Kara roar to life behind her disciplined mind. The old instincts of letting her mask and controlled body language fall away to reveal her natural anxieties and reactions before a person she trusts…before her one friend, fight her control.
Lena marshals her thoughts. Forces her tongue to form the words she practiced on the long drive here.
"You're right. I became a villain, and I'm not looking for forgiveness. I know what I said, and I know what I did. I am really hoping you will believe me right now."
Lena stops with a shudder. Her lips tremble and her words peter out as her voice quavers and breaks from emotion.
Gods, the words burn. To admit it. To admit she has become the villain. The one thing she fought to never be…the thing she knows Kara can never love and that she railed against when Kara accused her of becoming one. How blind she was!
Lena knows she can't ask Kara for forgiveness. She is so utterly undeserving of it, so utterly unworthy of Kara's forgiveness. The things she said to her, the hate and spite she spewed. The hypocrisy of her rage when she was keeping so many secrets herself. Her secrets, not kept for self-protection or to protect others, but to hide the inhuman experiments she performed for some hollow idea of bettering humanity. First with Harun-el and then with non nocere. Lena sees now it was all in service of her own ego.
If Kara would just agree to let Lena work with her to stop Lex, to try and ameliorate some of the damage she has done. There might be a chance…
Lena hopes.
It is all she has left, and it is only because Lena stands before Kara that she can still hope.
Kara, not Supergirl.
Kara is Lena's hope, her humanity, and maybe her salvation.
Kara's face remains stoic and steely. The smallest shadow of the crinkle appearing between her eyebrows as she silently interrogates Lena's words.
"I- I want to help stop Lex and Leviathan," Lena gasps.
Silence descends as Lena's mouth works like some stupid gaping fish. Her mouth forms silent words as she tries to find something else to say. Some words to beg for forgiveness. Some magic sentence which will bridge the terrible gap between Kara and herself.
Lena knows it is too little, too late. She has lied and tricked Kara too man times to be trusted.
Too often Kara has trusted her blindly. Too often Kara forgave her quickly. And when it mattered Lena couldn't even trust Kara once. Couldn't forgive her one betrayal. The scales were already so uneven and Lena feels so unworthy of asking for more. So many lies Kara forgave her, so many foolish mistakes. Surely, she has used up all of her chances.
Lena's hands nervously twist and she fidgets uncharacteristically.
Something wet splashes on the back of Lena's hand and she glances down in surprise before rolling her tear filled eyes to Kara's ceiling, expecting to see a leak in the shoddy buildings pipes.
Lena's brows pull together in confusion when she sees nothing and then she realizes she can feel cool trails marring her makeup.
Hesitantly, Lena lifts her hand to her cheek and pulls away when she encounters the wetness. Tears she realizes in surprise. She has been crying silent tears.
Mortification rushes up her spine and heat infuses her pale cheeks.
Lena swings her dark hair forward to shield her face as she swiftly tries to wipe away the evidence of her traitorous tears.
Glancing back up at Kara through long lashes and the curtain of her hair she sees Kara's face spasming as though she is trying to conceal her own internal battle.
Confusion, hurt and an aching need to reach out to her former friend seem to war in Kara.
Lena is humiliated by her tears. Even when she discovered Kara's betrayal she refused to cry, she held back her tears.
Even when she confronted Kara about the betrayal in the fortress she had withheld her tears.
Here, now, she is undone, and she hates it.
Hates the weakness, and hates how it must look.
Hates how her mind whispers that Kara will spurn her for her tears. Her mind in Lillian's snide tones whispers that Kara will think these tears are a prop from a masterful Luthor actress to sell another act and another lie.
Lena groans and spins on her heal, fully intending to depart.
It was foolish. Stupid to believe she could seek solitude in Kara's arms. That she could find redemption once more at Kara's side.
As Lena reaches the door she feels a hot hand catch her wrist, branding her and arresting her motion.
"Wait," Kara whispers desperately.
Lena shivers at the sensation of Kara's warm, silky skin. Those lithe fingers wrapped like iron cuffs around her wrist. The familiar spark, that Kara's touch elicits, races up Lena's arm.
The burning warm grip on her wrist feels like hope, it feels like a life line that might pull her back to salvation, to the side of the angels.
"I want to trust you Lena…I want to believe…" Kara whispers desperately. Her turmoil is clear even without Lena turning around to face her.
The broken hope in Kara's voice is too much for Lena. A beacon of hope like Kara shouldn't sound so lost and unsure.
Lena can't bear it. A sob breaks through her chest as she laments, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
She isn't even sure what she is apologizing for anymore: the alien detection device, the Haun-El, the Kryptonite, Reign, her hateful words, her trickery, keeping secrets, working with Lex, non nocere…she doesn't know.
In a swift movement, Kara pulls Lena back and whips her into her embrace. Lena's face is snuggled into Kara's chest, her warm arms encircle her, and her sweet sunny scent invades her senses. Lena feels the ice in her chest melt. The hard exterior she has been hiding behind shatter. The choking sob rises again and before Lena knows what is happening, she find herself sobbing uncontrollably into Kara's bosom.
The sense of warmth and safety in these soft, familiar arms is too much for Lena. She can't hold back anymore. She cries for the loss of friendship, the loss of her brother, the loss of purpose and even the loss of her ow sense of self. All her rage and sorrow are cried out in giant gulping sobs.
Vaguely she feels herself become weightless and the surroundings shift as Kara sweeps her across the apartment and snuggles her up on the sofa. Lena distantly feels embarrassed at this loss of control and how Kara holds her like a small child snuggled close to her chest, almost foetal and primal.
Kara's warm, soft hand strokes her dark hair and she whispers soft words of comfort and nonsensical reassurance.
Lena struggles to speak, to give voice to her pain, and to explain her failure, "Lex wasn't always- he was…my brother….I loved, and..-" Lena hiccups uncontrollably as she gasps for breath. Kara shakes her head and shushes her, but Lena tries again, "I didn't want to…you were my only friend and I was so…I felt so…" Lena stammers between tears.
Kara bows her head and drops a soft reassuring kiss upon Lena's forehead.
"Shh Lena. Breathe. You're having a panic attack. Shh. It's going to be ok."
Lena tries to deny it. Luthor's don't panic, they don't break, "No Kara…I…you,"
Kara gently rocks Lena's body and tightens her arms, tenderly rubbing her back in comforting strokes.
"Shh Lena. We have lots to talk about. We're not Ok. We're so far from Ok, but…but maybe we have taken the first step to getting there, to rebuilding what we were. One day."
Lena pulls her head back. Her red rimmed, emerald eyes glisten as she meets Kara's inhumanly blue orbs, "It will be alright?…You'll let me fix it?" Lena begs, her voice small and brittle. Like a small child begging for reassurance.
Kara hesitates for but a moment before she nods slightly, "We'll fix it Lena. It won't be easy, but together we can try. We can fight Lex, we can fight Leviathan and we can maybe fix…this. Fix us."
Lena sighs out a long breath. A pain she has been unable to pinpoint in her chest easing for the first time in months. The fist crushing her heart easing its grip and her lungs taking a full, deep, clean breath of air.
Lena closes her eyes, relishing the temporary sense of safety. The familiar sense of love and friendship. Maybe, just maybe she can get this back, but for now she will hoard this feeling, relish this moment. Lena will rest now, but when she opens her eyes, she will do everything in her power to be worthy of Kara's forgiveness. To be worthy of Kara's friendship once more. Even if it takes a lifetime to earn or costs her her life against Lex.