Hi all, So this is technically the full opening chapter or prologue to the story- it sets Lena's story and some background before we head into the full swing of things...there is a lot to digest and there a lot of darkness in this one, any questions comments reviews etc would love to hear them. Please pay attention to the warnings below before reading.
Trigger Warnings- This chapter details physical and emotional child abuse. This chapter mentions the death of a loved one from Cancer. This chapter mentions the death of a parental figure from a heart attack. Please note this chapter also mentions both the immediate and long lasting impacts of murder, in specific school shootings and the effect they can have on survivors, victims and families. While the story does not go into graphic detail at any time it does mention the event and does impact its characters psychologically. Please read with caution.
Prologue- Lena's Story.
My story starts off probably similar to some of yours, I was born in a small countryside hospital in Ireland on October 24th 2005 to Marian Intavarant, a single mother, she had me out of wedlock and in secret, my father being her boss beforehand. She had worked for a rich man and his family, as a maid, she was paid much less than her worth for her job and when she was found out to be pregnant she was swiftly fired and the family she had once worked for relocated halfway across the world to a place called Metropolis.
That didn't matter, she was my mother and I loved her just as much as she loved me, I do not care for the details of the shady love affair in which I was conceived.
My mother was a beautiful and caring woman, she was warm and passionate, she had love for so many. Something which she was not afraid to show, she gave that love to all that deserved it or needed it without expecting anything in return.
My cousin is a prime example of that.
My cousin was the daughter of my mother's older sister, who had moved away from Ireland years before to start raising a family of her own in Nebraska. My cousin too was greatly misunderstood and was treated poorly by the people who should have been there for her the most.
Three months before I was born, my older cousin Margarita, or Maggie as I learnt to call her, came to live with us when she was fourteen. She had been kicked out of home by her parents and disowned for trying to be who she was. That didn't sit well with my mother, she may not have agreed with my cousin's life choices at the time, but she was not the kind of person to just turn her back on family, a trait which she passed on to both myself and my cousin in the short time that we all spent together.
We were a proper little family, the three of us.
I don't have many memories from the time she spent with us but the ones I do have are warm and fun. I have memories of her playing with me, of her holding me through storms that used to terrify me when my Mother was out at work. I have memories of me holding her hands and standing on the tops of her feet as she danced with me around the house.
Though I am sure it must have been hard on my mother who had to work four different jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, she never once moaned about the extra responsibility. She always gave us as much of her time that she was able to so that she could make sure we both felt loved and supported.
From the age of four to eight things changed, I didn't see my cousin as much as Maggie went off to the police academy for training, I remember my mother sitting me down and proudly telling me how well she was doing and how my cousin was the top of her class and that she was going to become a great police officer, maybe even a detective one day.
When Maggie came home to visit us on the short breaks that she had it was just like it used to be. We would become our little family again.
It was hard not seeing her when Maggie was away. I had grown up with her and my mother being the constants in my life, to suddenly not have her with me for two thirds of the year was a hard thing for me to grasp being so young, and as the years went on and we both grew older, I began to become shy around her when she first got home.
Don't get me wrong I was still excited she was visiting, but she wasn't a kid anymore like me, she seemed older, more like an adult, and like most children that made a bit weary of her to begin with. Of course, all it would take would be for her to pick me up and swing me around like she used to when I was little, for me to start giggling stupidly and for all those nerves to wash away.
When I was eight things changed again.
One day after picking me up from school my mother told me that Maggie was graduating from the academy, and she already had a job lined up.
The job wasn't in Ireland though, it was in America.
Maggie was moving to America, a place called National City.
We spent a few last days together after my mother told me this, we went to her graduation ceremony and she stayed with us a few nights before we took her to the airport to say goodbye.
At the airport I was nervous, but not for the usual reasons, I was nervous because she was leaving, because I knew it would be a long time, much longer than usual till I saw her again. The thought of not seeing her scared me and made me really upset. At the airport even my mom was crying, she felt it too, Maggie was our family and we had been through a lot together- we were going to miss her.
She must have picked up on my nerves, my fears and my sadness because before I could register what had happened she had turned to me and told me, "Be good for your mom kiddo," ruffled my hair and then pulled me in for a big hug. I don't just mean arms squeezing and a little cry hug, she literally picked me up from the ground and held me to her chest. I was far too old and too big to be held like that at eight years old but at that moment in time I didn't care. I remember wrapping my arms and legs around her in a bear hug and crying into her shoulder as she held me and spoke with my mother for a few more minutes until I had calmed enough that she could put me back on the ground.
When the time came for her to board her flight she gave me and my mother her new address, so we could write to each other and keep in contact.
Which we did for a long time.
I wrote to her every week, and she always replied without fail. It felt like we were pen pals, best friends from a distance. She may not have been physically with me, but she was still close, and we still kept up to date with each other's lives.
I remember always being so excited on a Friday at the end of school, I couldn't wait to get home, not because the school week was out but because I knew that without doubt a letter from Maggie would be waiting on the kitchen counter for me when I got in.
Until I was ten that is.
When I was ten years old my mother passed away to Cancer.
The fight had been long and hard, and she had been in a lot of pain, even though I was only a child I could see it and even though I was sad that she was gone, and scared for what the future held I was glad that she was finally at peace. I just wished that she could have prepared me more for what was to come next, because that was when everything changed- again.
Maggie had been great through it all, her letters helped so much, but seeing her would have been even better, unfortunately she wasn't able to get the time off and was working towards a promotion, so she couldn't afford to annoy the big boss's. She did ring us more though, it must have cost her a fortune on those phone-calls but she never complained.
After the funeral was when the biggest change happened, I was forced to leave my home and leave Ireland. I was forced to move to Metropolis to live with my birth father and his family. They took me in which I should be grateful for, or at least so I was reminded constantly, but they changed everything.
They made me take the name Luthor, which I hated.
I now had a brother, half brother anyway, who was only three years older than me.
They made me call Mr Luthor Father, which okay yes he was, but it was still strange calling a man I had never spent any time with prior my Father.
They even made me call his wife, Lillian, Mother.
She insisted- and I hated having to do it, she was not my mother. The woman didn't have a maternal bone in her body. She was outraged if I called her anything other than Mother. She insisted we had to look the part of a proper family, a Mother, a Father, a son and a daughter.
Lillian, or mother as I was ordered to call her, wouldn't let me use the phone to call my cousin, even though they had more than enough money to allow me to do so. She insisted that I needed to get used to my new family and not hold onto the past. When I had moved into the Luthor Mansion, the letters from Maggie became less frequent, when I did get them they looked as though they had already been opened, until eventually they stopped arriving all together.
I still sent mine, I needed contact with Maggie, I just wanted someone to talk to. Someone who knew me and knew my mother, knew how much I missed her. These people were not my family, and the more they forced themselves on me, the more they made me call them Mother, Father, Brother, the more alone I began to feel. I had nobody, I didn't know anybody in Metropolis and my cousin was not replying to my letters even though I had sent her my new address. After time I gave up writing to her, knowing that I wouldn't be getting any replies.
From the outside in we looked like the perfect family, we had money, we had power, we had respect even though it had been mostly grown from fear. When in reality we couldn't have been more opposite to that if we had even tried.
My new brother Lex, Alexander, he was crazy.
He was like a mad scientist, one moment he could be the kindest person in the house, the next he would be screaming at me for touching something in his room and causing his latest experiment to go wrong. He would blame me saying I tampered with it, when really it wasn't working due to his formulas being wrong, not that I would ever dare to tell him that though.
Lillian was a monster, not a mother, she hated me.
She had never wanted Lionel to take me in but had only agreed after a reporter somehow found out about my existence, and recently departed birth mother, and had blackmailed the family. They paid the reporter off generously and of course took me in to cover themselves for if the story was later to end up being leaked. Lillian hated me because I was a living and breathing reminder of the cracks in her fake perfect family. I was the proof that Lionel was unfaithful, and I was the proof that she was not enough. So, she took that out on me, not in any way that would leave a mark or show to people looking in- at least not at first anyway, but by getting in my head.
She made me feel worthless and as though I should have never been born.
Lionel was different to them. Don't get me wrong he was just as crazy and as manipulative as what both Lillian and Lex could be, but he also had this slightly softer side.
Though he was the reason I had to live like this, he was the one good thing about staying with the Luthor's. When he was around both Lex and Lillian were always that much nicer to me, and he would tell me stories, when it was just the two of us, of my Mother. Bar the few photographs I had of her and my own memories, it was the only time I could feel close to her, talking about her with someone else made it feel like a part of her was still with me. From the conversations we had, even though they were short and quiet, I could tell that he had on some level cared for my Mother, and that even though I was born in secret, born from an affair, I was still born from love and knowing that helped me in more ways than I think even Lionel could have realised at the time.
I was just getting used to my new life, to reading Lex's moods and to hardening my heart against Lillian's cruel and calculating words when things changed, again.
When I was twelve Lionel Luthor had a heart attack, a fatal and deathly heart attack.
He was gone and now I truly was an orphan with both parents being dead.
Two weeks later Lex had a meltdown at school.
Another boy in his class, Clark Kent, beat him getting the top marks in his science work.
Coming anything other than first was not an option for a Luthor, it was unheard of and unexpectable. Most people would try harder next, most people would try to better themselves and make sure they were the best that they could possibly be.
Lex did things differently.
If he had a problem, he removed the problem entirely.
So, the next day he brought a gun into school and killed two teachers and eight children before finally killing the person he had been after.
He murdered eleven people in cold blood all because he didn't come first.
All because he didn't get his own way.
Part of me still wants to believe that he was grieving and had gone mad with the grief but really I know that he was on the verge of madness already, and with a mother like Lillian who could blame him? That didn't change the fact that he had murdered innocent people though, so in the space of two weeks I had lost my Father, and my brother was sent to prison, leaving just me and Lillian.
Leaving me, a twelve-year-old child, in the care of a woman who hated me and everything that I represented to her family. She was more than happy to show that hatred before, and after Lex and Lionel had both left she was happy to show that hatred even more. What used to be just the emotional abuse from her turned to physical abuse, though she would make sure that no one could ever see the marks that she left.
She was always so careful and calculating, so cold and hard.
She would make me kneel on ice and glass for hours till my knees would bleed. If people asked about the cuts and scabs on my knees she would tell them that I had weak skin that dried and cracked, and of course they would believe her. She would feed me food with nuts in even though she knew I had an allergy, then wait till the last possible moment to give me the medicine I needed to stop the allergy from killing me. The pain was terrible and would make me weak for days but no one knew about it, as it was always done in the privacy of our home.
Once when I had turned thirteen I got a B- on a paper.
I was so terrified to go home that day and for once the teacher noticed, she called me out on it and I almost told her everything, but I didn't. I lied. I covered everything up like I always did through fear. Still, she became suspicious and called a meeting with Lillian and the head-teacher to get to the bottom of it on the last day of term before a two-week holiday.
That was the worst thing that could have happened.
Lillian lied convincingly as ever, she told the teachers that I had anxiety issues and was far too hard on myself, she played them like a fiddle. She even had me fooled for a moment with her caring mother routine, till I saw the look in her eyes that told me I was going to get it bad when we got home.
I did, that was the worst punishment I remember.
It was the first and the only time that she went all out.
Not her personally of course, she paid someone else to do it. She couldn't possibly chance anyone else knowing that she was the one to beat me. So, she paid a staff member to do it. Paid him to beat me into unconsciousness, then locked me in my room for days so that I could heal without people knowing what had happened. Afterwards she had the man that had beaten me killed in a suspicious looking drive by shooting, so that he could never talk.
After that I became even quieter and pushed everyone who tried to help me away.
I couldn't deal with pain like that again, I was already in enough pain as it was. Even today I still have some scars on my back to remind me of the so-called 'lesson' that I was taught that day.
I ploughed myself into my school work and joined as many after school clubs as I could manage to try and be away from home as much as possible. I worked really hard and even managed to push myself up an entire grade making me the youngest in the year-set by a full year, of course the bullies had fun with that one.
Meanwhile as I threw myself at my school work, Lillian thought of new and inspired ways to make my life a living hell, for when I did come home. Her newest and seemingly favourite being locking me away in my room for days at a time when school was out with no food. She would leave me with just water, and if I was very lucky, a small bag of nuts.
I think she was doing an experiment.
I think she wanted to see how far she could push me before I tried to down them in an attempt to kill myself. Of course the medicine I needed would always be administered before that could happen.
When I was fourteen I'd had enough.
I couldn't live like that anymore and I knew that whoever I told in Metropolis would not be able to help me, even if they did believe me.
I remember sitting in my room one night, looking over an old photograph of my mother that I had hidden with the final letter I had received from my cousin.
I remember feeling so helpless and alone but yet finding comfort in holding that photograph and that letter. It made me remember how my mother had told me how proud she was of me before she died, how strong I was, and how special I was. As I sat on the floor crying onto the picture of her I didn't feel strong, I didn't feel special and I definitely did not feel like I was anything to be proud of.
I felt like I was swimming in a pit of despair, and in that moment, I knew that if I stayed where I was then I was going to die. I was going to die before I had even had the chance to attempt to be the person my mother had seen when she said those things to me.
So, I ran.
One day after school, instead of walking out the front with the other children to meet the driver who would escort me home to the hell hole I lived in, I snuck around the back, climbed the wall and just ran as fast as I could before hitchhiking my way to National City.
There was only person left that I could even think of turning to and that was Maggie.
I didn't even know if she still lived at the address I had from her final letter or not, or if she would even believe me and consider helping me but I had to try something. I hadn't heard from my cousin in just under four years, but in the letter that I had with me she had told me to reach out if I ever needed her, and at that moment in time I needed her more than I had ever needed anybody in my life before.
When I finally got to National City and managed to find her apartment from the address I had, I thought I had gone to the wrong place, as when I knocked on the door she didn't answer.
Instead I was met by a woman with very short brown hair, who looked to be in her mid to late twenties. I just stared at her in confusion as she looked back at me, obviously taking in how much of a less I looked. My clothes had tears in them. I had bruising on one arm, from where a truck driver I had hitched a lift with got a bit too touchy feely one night and I had to run from him. I must have been filthy, and my hair needed a wash, that was for sure.
From memory at that point I was shaking, and I think I was close to bursting into tears.
I was about to turn and run in the opposite direction when my cousin emerged from inside the flat towel drying her hair.
I remember hearing her ask the woman at the door who it was before saying my name in shock.
Then the tears did fall, I knew that for a fact because I remember them not stopping, whether it was relief or fear I have no idea, but they just kept coming and coming.
Maggie to her credit was brilliant.
She crossed the room towards me, wrapped me up in her arms and just held me through it all. She must have seen how scared I was and just reacted on instinct like when we were both children. Somehow she managed to drag me through into the apartment and pulled me down onto the sofa with her, while I was still folded tightly in her arms crying more tears than I had the energy to cry until eventually I had passed out asleep on top of her having cried myself out.
When I woke up hours later it was dark outside, and I was still lying comfortably in her arms. She must have stayed with me the whole time, probably scared I would run again if left on my own. I could hear the TV on in the background with a news report about me, how I was missing, presumed a runaway. There was a reward for my safe return. Hearing that made me tense, it made me want to run again, it made me feel as though I was some lost puppy that an owner was trying to find.
Maggie must have sensed that because she just hugged me tighter and promised me everything was going to be okay, she told me we were going to get some food, then talk and figure out what to do.
She was so relaxed and in control of the situation it made my panic lessen and made me feel a sense of safety that I hadn't felt since living with my real mother and her when I was a child. I wanted to cling to that feeling, so I did. I remember hiding my face against my cousin's shoulder and clinging to her tightly as she rubbed a hand up and down my back quietly talking with the woman who had opened the door when I had first arrived.
I hadn't noticed she was still there until that point, that was when I learnt her name was Alex, Alex Danvers, and she and my cousin were dating, they lived together.
My cousin had asked Alex to order us some food, quickly telling her to make sure it was something without nuts, due to my allergy. That prompted me to start crying all over again, relieved that she cared enough to remember and that I wasn't going to be forced to eat food that could kill me just so that I could survive. Maggie just pulled me closer still and held me while I tried to stop myself from crying, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the punishment and lecture of how Luthor's don't cry and Luthor's don't show weakness.
The lecture never came.
After eating, which I did so nervously sitting as close to my cousin as possible as I found her girlfriend rather intimidating to begin with, Maggie took me through to the bathroom and ran me a bath.
She left me to clean up before changing into a pair of her pyjamas that were far too big for me, wearing them showed how underweight I was. I could tell that they could see it too as when I shuffled nervously back into the joint kitchen and living room. I could hear Alex gasp and mutter how I looked like just skin and bones while my cousin clenched her jaw, her face looking angry before schooling her features again and beckoning me over towards her.
She had sat me down on the couch again while Alex excused herself leaving us to talk.
The questions started off small, but as I answered them I found myself being more truthful than I had been in years until finally, I just broke, and everything came pouring out.
I told her everything that Lillian had done to me from the moment I moved into the Luthor household; I told her about the times she knowingly made me eat nuts, about how she would lock me in my room for days at a time when I wasn't at school, about the things she said to me on a daily basis, about the beating she paid for me to receive when I nearly asked for help from a teacher.
I told her everything and she listened, she didn't once try to stop me or ask me for further information. She just let me get it all out, holding my hand the entire time as I spoke before pulling me back into her chest and hugging me tight once I had finished talking and couldn't go on any further.
I will always remember what she said to while she held me tight and let me cry myself out for the second time since I came to her, she said: "I can't even begin to imagine the pain and fear you have been living in, but I promise you that I will do everything I can to help you. When I was not much older than you, my parents disowned me, and I thought I was completely alone. You and your Mom gave me a second family, and I'm only half the person I am today because of the two of you. You are my family and I will do everything I can to protect you. I'm so sorry I haven't been there for you, but I am now. I am so glad that you trusted me enough to come here like this, though I wish you hadn't hitchhiked all that way, as that is incredibly dangerous. You have been so incredibly brave and strong holding this all in for so long. It's okay to let it out and cry, it's okay to scream and be angry and be scared. Whatever you are feeling is valid and more than okay – here with me you can feel without fear. I won't let anybody ever hurt you like that again, you came here looking for help, and that is what you are going to get, I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you, you're stuck with me kiddo."
What happened in the next two weeks after that is still a bit of a blur if I'm honest, probably blocked out due to how afraid I was. There were police interviews and social services meetings, hospital visits and more conversations about my time spent at the Luthor's with different officials of this and that than I care to even try to remember.
The one constant that I do remember though is my cousin, Maggie was with me every step of the way, holding my hand, telling the doctors and other officials to slow down when things began to overwhelm me, holding me when I cried. She was there throughout everything just like she promised she would be and I am so glad she was as I don't think I would have made it through that time without her, she was my rock. She helped me to see there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that I didn't have to live in constant fear and pain anymore.
After two weeks of negotiations, of interviews and check ups, a mediation was set with Lillian.
The only reason that we went down that route was due the fact that she was too rich to make anything official stick, and I was far too afraid to have to face her in a court. I was terrified of what would happen if we lost, and I had to go back to living with her, even though everyone kept reassuring me there was no way that would happen.
The mediation was just as terrifying.
Sitting across a table from her, her cold hard eyes staring at me, making me shiver and look away.
I remember focusing on the fact that I could feel Maggie's warm and comforting hand holding my own trembling one.
It was a long mediation, long and tiring.
Emotional for everyone, bar Lillian who only knew how to be hateful, but at the end of it everyone in the room could see it clear as day that I was petrified of Lillian Luthor, with good reason.
It was established by the end of the mediation that full custody of my care was to be signed over to my cousin. A restraining order was set to stop Lillian from ever getting in to contact with me in any way shape or form; she was not allowed within a ten-mile radius of me, she was not allowed to write to me, email me, call me or text me. She was not allowed any contact with me what so ever. Furthermore, she was ordered to send my cousin ten thousand dollars a month to help cover the costs of my care.
I could tell Maggie wasn't happy about that, she didn't want handouts for taking care of me.
It was part of the terms though, I guess the mediator's way of making Lillian pay for being such a sorry excuse of a human being, making sure she lost some of the one thing she loved more than anything - her money. Lillian, of course, accepted the terms, not wanting the press to have a field day with everything and not wanting to be dragged through the courts herself. She was told that if she ever broke any of these conditions that she would be arrested and later charged with the full force of the law for her crimes against myself.
Leaving the room that day I left so much lighter, I felt safe, and I felt free.
I felt like I could move on with my life now and that those hard days were over – but I was wrong.
Of course, I was wrong, I had been living in a hostile environment for so long it was bound to leave me with scars both physical and psychological. Though those scars may not have shown at first, they had left a crack in my mind, a crack that was filled with self-doubt, that left unchecked would only grow more.
The first few months were the hardest.
It was a hard transition for us all.
My cousin and her girlfriend Alex had only recently taken the next step in their relationship, they had only recently moved in together, and they were still getting used to living with each other.
Then I was added on top of that, and that must have been a strain on them, they may have never said it to me but I know they must have had a hard time getting used to suddenly becoming a guardian for teenage girl with a lot of baggage and a lot of problems.
Maggie took a lot of time off work to help me settle in and to help me through the trauma of everything I had been through, and she was great. She somehow just knew what I needed and when, she knew when to push me to talk and she knew when to give me space. She would always joke with me that it was because she was a detective – she detected things, or at least that was what she always said.
With Alex though it was different.
I didn't know Alex, and at first even though she was brilliant with me, she was so kind and patient and supportive, I couldn't help but feel afraid of her.
It got to the stage where she even moved out for a few weeks to make things easier on me.
It did help, and gradually I got used to her being around as she started spending more and more time with us. It allowed me to get to know her on my own terms rather than forcing the issue on me like the way things had been handled when I first moved into the Luthor's. At the same time though it made me feel bad, it made me feel like I was ruining my cousin's life. I could tell she missed her girlfriend and that she found it hard being away from her. She never once complained, and she never once made me feel as though I was to blame for it even though deep down at the time I thought I was. It took a long time for me to understand that it wasn't my fault, and that it was a decision we made as a family.
In the end it was Alex that helped me see that, years later, but we will get to that in time.
I think we are closer now because of that, because of the time she allowed me to take in getting to know her, because of the help she gave me in finally realising that all the things that had happened to me were completely out of my control and in no way my fault.
That is something which I am very grateful for, almost as grateful as I am for having her in my life.
Alex, in time, has become one of the people I trust most in my life.
I know that she will always protect me, as I would her. She is the heart of our family in more ways than one, something which you will find out throughout this story.
After a while the three of us got into a routine and that helped so much.
You see, when a person's life has been turned upside-down so much with the amount of changes that mine has, having a routine that you know people will stick to really helps to make you feel safer, and it did for me.
Both Maggie and Alex work in law enforcement, my cousin is a detective with the police force and Alex works for the FBI. Both of them work long hours and their jobs come with a lot of risk but they have always made sure that the risk has never caused me any harm or ever disrupted our family life. They have always made sure they both have time for me so that they are always there when I need them, even if that leaves them very little time for each other. They both stopped working nights, nights were hardest for me and still are at times, they both made sure that I am never on my own during nights, and during times of high stress such as tests at school and the like.
Unfortunately, we all learnt that one thehard way together.
Shortly after I started school here in National City I had to undergo a series of examinations. The school wanted to check I could handle the work I would be set in the grade I was set to be moved into. They wanted to test if the teachers of my old school were right in letting me move up a grade. I proved beyond a doubt that it was the right decision and that I should stay in the higher grade. My results were good, and the teachers were excited, but I was devastated.
In three of the exams I got B's.
Getting a grade B when you are a Luthor is unacceptable, or at least that was always what I was taught.
B's equalled pain, they equalled being locked away and they equalled only bad things, and even though I knew that I wasn't there anymore, I knew deep down that my cousin and Alex would never do the things to me that Lillian had, I was still absolutely terrified.
I tried to push it down, the feeling of fear, I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't.
It all came to a head in gym class, we were playing dodgeball and a rouge ball smacked me in the back.
It didn't hurt me, but it triggered me badly.
I remember screaming out and collapsing to the ground, I remember shaking and crying, and somewhere through the haze of it all I remember a brunette girl that stayed with me while everyone else was escorted out of the hall and the nurse was rushed in. I remember her trying to talk me through my panic, asking me random questions about absolutely nothing as the nurse checked me over to find out I wasn't injured, I was having a severe panic attack. I could have told her that myself, if I had been able to get the words out between the gasping breaths I had been taking.
Through it all the girl kept talking to me until Maggie and Alex arrived and the three of them managed to calm me down enough for me to be able to get home. I stayed off school for a week after the incident, until I felt ready to go back again and Maggie and Alex were sure that I would be okay to go back. In the end it was me convincing them which was ironic as most kids had to be convinced by the parent or guardian to go to school. They let me go back to school, but only if I agreed to talk to a professional about everything that I had been through.
To be honest I am still amazed it took us all that long to realise I would need to.
The sessions were hard, most of them I was in tears by the end, Maggie would have to come in and calm me down before she could even attempt to take me home.
I think it was an eye-opener for us all, I still had a lot to deal with from my time with the Luthor's and to this day sometimes I still get those feelings of panic when I feel like I haven't done as well as I should have. I still get that fear that the people closest to me will be angry with me and will hurt me because I am a failure even when I know that they won't.
I know that I am not a failure. Sometimes it's just difficult to remember that.
The one good thing the incident did bring me though was Lucy Lane.
She was the girl that helped me through that day at school, and she has been one of my best friends ever since. She is our bridesmaid for the upcoming wedding, and she too is like family to us all now, you will understand why in time.
Lucy Lane is a year older than me, she is strong and loyal, she is smart and funny, she is kind but fierce, if you hurt someone she cares about she will make sure that you know about it. She has been my protector in more ways than one throughout the years that I have known her, and I know she would do almost anything for me as I would her. Lucy is dating a man who is a year older than her, two years older than myself, a man named James Olsen, or as we call him Jimmy.
Myself and Jimmy didn't always get on that well, Jimmy knew me from Metropolis, he knew my family and he knew of the carnage that my brother Lex caused.
The boy that my brother had been hell bent on killing, Clark Kent, had been a good friend of his. Seeing me again brought that all backup for him and he found it difficult to be around me at first. We are fine now, but to begin with there was a lot of tension, and a clear dislike on his part. Even though Lucy clearly liked him more than in just a friendly way even back then, she refused anything to do with him while he was treating me so poorly. Now that we have worked through all the tension and all the issues between us he is probably another of my closest friends. I know that when I need him he will have my back, and he has many times in the past.
About a year into my growing friendship with both Lucy and Jimmy we added another new friend to our small but close knit friendship circle.
Winslow Schott, or Winn as we call him.
He is the same age as me, and like me is very smart, smart enough to have been moved up a grade like myself at school.
We connected straight away on those grounds alone, and myself, Lucy and Jimmy quickly took him under our wings at school, making him an integral part of our small but slowly expanding group of friends. Winn has had his fair share of bad experiences, he lost his mother at a young age like I did myself and only months before he moved to National City his father had been thrown in prison for murder much like my brother. We found a connection with each other through our familiar family backgrounds that way, as well as our shared love of technology and science.
Lucy and Jimmy would constantly tease us both about how alike we were, Jimmy often saying things like "Mate, you are Lena in pants, you get that right?".
I think both Lucy and Jimmy assumed that at some point myself and Winn would become a couple, but I never saw him in that way.
Winn was everything I wish I had in my half-brother, everything I wish that Lex could have been.
A kind boy who would much prefer to help others than hurt people who got his own way.
He was great and whoever he ended up dating would be lucky to have a man like him in their lives, but he wasn't right for me, I knew that even back then. It only became even more obvious to me when I met Kara, my girlfriend, my fiancée, my partner and my everything.
She completed me more than I ever thought was possible without knowing she was doing so.
She completed my- our- family.
Meeting her changed my life once again, not only did it change my life, but it changed the lives of everybody I knew in the process.
She came bouncing into our lives like a pebble being thrown into water, leaving ripples in its wake.
Her entrance into my life, our meeting, and the story of how we came to know each other is where this story truly begins.
The day that changed everything was September 14th 2020, and that is where I will begin this story.
AN: Please do let me know what you think.