Chapter Text
Ultimately, it was all Ruby’s fault. She had technically started the whole ball rolling with her answer to an innocuous question.
Sam and Ruby were in National City for spring break in order to spend time with Lena. It was also the week that Lena was hosting game night at her penthouse, her new collection of board games neatly lodged on her living room shelves. Lena had been a bit nervous to host. It was the first time since the whole Non Nocere debacle and her rift with Kara that she’d had everyone over. Things were mending slowly, the pieces of what had been tenuously slotting together but not yet part of a whole. But Sam and Ruby were in town and Lena had always felt more at ease when she was with them, it was like she had back-up.
The evening was going well, or at least Lena thought so. She had never had so many people in her living area before. Their clothes and the blankets they brought with them and the game pieces on her coffee table were like a riot of color in the sterile modernity of her penthouse. The air was filled with the smell of popcorn, chips, and pizza. The laughter and heated (but good-natured) competition had died down. Lena was sandwiched between Kara and Sam, safe if not completely comfortable. Kara was laughing at a joke Brainy had made, and her denim-covered thigh was warm against Lena’s. It was the closest she’d been to Kara in months, and Lena was fighting the urge to lean on her shoulder when Alex asked Ruby that fateful question.
“So are you getting anything from your Aunt Lena as a gift for finishing middle school?”
Ruby paused and sipped her orange soda. “I don’t know yet. She can’t afford the thing I really want.”
A chorus of amused “ooohs” ricocheted around her, and Nia said: “Lena is the 30th richest person in the world. I doubt there’s something she can’t afford. What do you want, a small country or something?”
“No.” Ruby laughed. “For her to take a week off.”
A stunned silence fell over the group at that, and Lena flushed.
“What? You always say you can’t afford it.” Ruby said, giving her a confused stare.
“Oh Ruby,” Lena said softly, “I miss you too.”
The teenager shook her head. “I didn’t mean you have to spend it with me. I just want you to take a break, Aunt Lena. You’re always so tired and you never have time to do anything fun. I know you call Mom really late at night sometimes and she stays up so that you can relax and get to sleep… I just want you to be happy. That’s really what I want as a present.”
“Two weeks.” Sam said before Lena could stutter out a response. “My birthday’s coming up and that extra week is what I want as a gift.”
“Sam, that’s so much work for you. And with the latest acquisition-“
“Lena Luthor, you saved me from being completely taken over by an evil Kryptonian Worldkiller. You run the tech conglomerate with the best benefits and meritocracy in the industry. Half your time is spent in the labs anyway, trying to save the world from the latest cataclysm and to protect this one from getting so much as a paper cut.” Sam nodded towards Kara. “Plus, you keep finding new ways to give your money away and fund harebrained projects for the greater good. If you take two weeks off, you will actually make my job easier.”
“Sam-“
“You’ve built a good company with great people, Lena. Trust us to care about it as much as you do.” Sam smiled gently. “At the very least, do it for Jess. Since you don’t take a vacation, she doesn’t either.”
Lena continued to argue with Sam about how she could easily give Jess vacation time without taking any time off herself. The rest of the SuperFriends looked at each other pensively. Of course they’d known that Lena was incredibly rich, and they had a vague idea of how hard she worked, but only Kara had ever made sure the young CEO would eat regular meals or knock off work at a sane time. They also hadn’t realized how much time Lena had spent helping them and how that had also contributed to her already long hours.
“Fence with me.” J’onn said decisively.
“Excuse me?” Lena’s mouth hung open a little at the sudden request.
“Fence with me.” J’onn repeated. “You were a NCAA fencing champion. I have not used a sword since 1938, so I am more out of practice than you. It would be good to have a match.”
“Um, I would be glad to.” Lena replied.
“I’ll get some equipment and sensors together.” J’onn said. “You still have your sword?”
Lena nodded. “I can easily have my saber and my gear brought over from Metropolis, but-”
“Though I do appreciate the necktie you gave me last year, a match would make me happier.” J’onn smiled and Lena… smiled back. Not quite comfortable with how this was snowballing.
Nia piped up tentatively. “You give me beautiful Leuchtturm notebooks, but I’d really like it if you came with me to the Belmont Pier. We could eat junk food the whole day and go on the rides.”
“There is an arcade there and many games of skill. They would be interesting challenges, Comrade. Particularly Initial-D, Mortal Kombat, and Skee Ball.” Brainy observed. “I would like to accompany you. And perhaps Kara can join as well?”
Kara nodded with a smile as Alex spoke up gruffly. “Well none of you can come to my birthday outing. There’s that artisanal whiskey distillery upstate. We could do a day trip? And can I drive your McLaren?”
“You’ll be drinking.” Kelly smacked her girlfriend lightly on the thigh.
“What about your Maserati? Can we take it to the pier?” Nia asked hopefully.
“As long as you keep an eye out for bad guys, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Sam chimed in. “The Maserati’s bulletproof but it is a convertible and you probably want the top down.”
“How do you know that I have those sports cars? I always use the Rolls in the city.” Lena asked in surprise.
Nia blinked. “It was in that ‘Women of Power’ feature in Tatler… I think 2017?”
“And Nia loves fashion and cars. She wouldn’t stop talking about it.” Alex added.
Lena sighed. She knew doing that feature as a favor for Kate Reardon during her last year as editor was going to bite her in the ass.
“C’mon Lena, you had both cars brought over from Metropolis last year and I just know you haven’t made the time to take them out.” Sam nudged. “It’s not good for the engines.”
Lena sighed and nodded.
The conversation rose in intensity and Lena found herself accepting a home-cooked dinner by Kelly to cap a day of “reading fiction and taking time for yourself”, promising Brainy she would sleep from 6.5 – 7.5 hours for each night of her two-week vacation, and committing to a spa day for herself as Ruby’s birthday gift. Lena knew she owed all of them something – Sam and Ruby for shutting them out these last few months, and the rest of the group for plotting against them (even if they had lied to her first). If this was all that they wanted, well there was always a price to be paid and these were small things she supposed she could do.
But Lena simply couldn’t understand it.
She heard Kara’s quiet voice beside her. “We don’t need you to buy things for us, Lena. We just want you to relax and be happy.”
Lena nodded. She got that part. What she didn’t understand was why. It had been jarring enough when it was just Sam who would occasionally check on her well-being, to say nothing of Kara’s intrusions into her perfectly ordered life – cajoling and coaxing her into regular meals and getting out of the office to breathe. Now it seemed that Kara’s friends wanted to do the same, and that was insane after all that she’d done.
Lena was putting the last of the stoneware in the dishwasher, when she asked the question. The SuperFriends had gone home, and Sam had tipsily retreated to join Ruby in Lena’s guest room. Only Kara had stayed to help clean up.
“You didn’t ask for anything.” Lena observed quietly. “Isn’t there something you want?”
Kara paused as she fiddled with the trash bag full of take-out cartons. “I… I didn’t think I could.”
“You can.” Lena bit her lip as she turned the dishwasher on. There had been a time that she would have told Kara that she could always ask. A time when buying a multimillion-dollar media empire was nothing if it kept Kara happy.
“You’ve given me so much already.”
Lena closed her eyes at the words. She was still facing the counter, unwilling to turn around and see the earnest face framed by the finest gold. “Are you sure it’s enough?”
“Lena.”
She heard the sound of a trash bag being tied and placed on the floor, felt the heat radiating off Kara’s body as she stepped behind her.
“Turn around, please.”
Lena took a quick breath to steady herself and rotated in place. She fidgeted with her hands before folding them across her chest. No, that would seem closed off. She put them on her hips, but then that seemed combative. Lena finally settled on sticking them in the pockets of her jeans as her eyes nervously met those the color of a summer sky.
Kara’s hands had reached out for hers for a moment before falling to her side. She pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. “We talked about this… and we’re… I think we’re working on rebuilding our friendship.”
“We are.”
“That means so much, Lena. It… how could it not be enough?”
Lena shrugged. “I lied right back to you, Kara. I manipulated you. I even imprisoned you in kryptonite.”
“We said we would forgive each other.”
“We did.” Lena agreed. “But I… there should be some sort of restitution.”
“I don’t need restitution, Lena.”
“Then… then think of it as a gift? I… it feels wrong to give everyone else something and not you.” The youngest Luthor whispered. “You’re… different.”
Lena didn’t want to think about how different Kara was, how special, how deeply important her every smile and every breath was. Her eyes fell to her shoes, looking at Kara directly made all her emotions rise to the surface like magma.
“Can I think about it?” Kara asked.
“Of course.” Lena replied quickly. “Take as much time as you need.”
It had taken a while to sort out the details. It had been the first time in their long working history that Jess had ever broken her professional demeanor and let out an honest-to-goodness squeal. Lena had tried to sort out as much as she could in the two days before her vacation began but she soon found herself locked out of every server and even her emails.
“Two extra days.” Jess had explained firmly. “That’s my birthday gift, Christmas gift, work anniversary gift, and secretary’s day gift combined.”
“But-“
“Ms. Luthor, I have worked with you for a decade. You’re in the habit of giving me raises every quarter, and I’m paid more than most chiefs of staff even though my title is executive assistant. Some of those raises were well-deserved, but many of them were for the most basic acts of loyalty.” Jess replied. “And while I appreciate the extra income, it doesn’t mean that you have to pay me to care about you. Your well-being matters to me.”
Lena shut her mouth and tried to tamp down the emotion filling her chest.
“Go spend the day with Ms. Arias and Ruby.” Jess said, handing her a change of clothes and a pair of flats.
And that was how Lena found herself in red capri pants, a sheer white blouse, and black flannel jacket – splitting a large plate of fully loaded nachos with Sam and Ruby at the Presidium mall before the teenager met up with friends for a movie. It was a beautiful spring afternoon - Sam didn’t want to spend it indoors, so after Ruby had gone off with her friends, they headed outside. They eventually made their way through a park and began walking along the waterfront in a companionable silence. Lena breathed in the smell of the bay as Sam pointed out a nearby tapas bar overlooking the Girl of Steel. They sat down on the plush upholstered seats and ordered some wine as the waiter lowered the blinds, the angle of the afternoon sunlight was causing quite a glare as it bounced off the statue.
“They did a great job repairing it.” Sam said idly over their glasses of Rioja.
Lena nodded. “You can hardly see the seams.”
“Is it that way for you?”
Lena shrugged. “We’re getting there. I… I really hurt her, Sam.”
“She hurt you first.” Sam replied. “It takes a lot for you to open up like that, Lena. We were friends for a year before you even let me hug you. And even then, it was mostly because of Ruby. You were only ever open with her because it’s the affection that you trust completely.”
“That’s not true. I… I trust you too.”
Sam let out a melancholy smile. “There’s a part of you that still doubts me because you pay my salary.”
Lena looked away, unable to refute that statement effectively.
“I get it, you know? I catch you sometimes, I see that flash of envy that crosses your face when I snuggle my kid, or even praise her for something she’s done well. I’ve seen how Lillian treats you and how mystified you are on the rare times that you let me take care of you. And I was here Lena, I saw how your face would light up when Kara would walk into the room and how she made you feel safe enough to be yourself.”
“I’m happy when I see you too.” Lena said softly. “You’re… I don’t have a lot of friends, Sam.”
The taller woman reached over to place her hand gently on Lena’s. “I know. And you do realize that I have never lied to you, right? I have never intentionally hurt you. I’ve never misrepresented myself or taken a medallion that would have helped your brother.”
Lena nodded. “You’ve never let me down.”
“So why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” Sam asked gently.
“I was just… I was too wrapped up in my anger and pain. I made bad decisions. I let Lex manipulate me again.”
Sam took a sip of her wine and shook her head. “We’re going to come back to that, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
Lena’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“Why didn’t you tell me when you realized you were in love with her?”
Lena felt blood rush away from her face as she pulled her hand away from underneath Sam’s. She placed her hands in her lap and entwined her fingers tightly, falling back on boarding school etiquette as she kept her eyes on her napkin.
“Are you going to deny it?”
Lena paused. Sam had never lied to her before, and Lena had always had the decency to be as honest as she could about her own life, even when it made her squirm. Sighing deeply, she shook her head. “How did you know?”
“Oh Lena, I always knew.” Sam said. “I knew long before I came to National City. You mentioned her so often, and almost overnight you became familiar with The Princess Bride and the Great British Bake Off. You talked about her all the time and you would have this bright smile on your face that I’ve never even seen you have with Jack.”
“She was my best friend.”
“I know.” Sam said easily. “I missed you so much in Metropolis, Lena. And while there was some remnant from high school that made me a little jealous, I was so happy that you had Kara – that you had someone here who you would let in even a little. And then I moved here, and I saw I had no reason to be jealous at all.”
“What do you mean?” Lena flushed, still refusing to meet Sam’s eyes.
“You bought CatCo for her. I know the press thought that was part of your continuing war with Edge, and that L Corp PR spun it as a strategic acquisition. And as your CFO, I know that it’s not that big of a deal as far as the acquisition price goes.” Sam replied. “But you didn’t have to run it. You used to dismiss CatCo as a fashion magazine that occasionally tried its hand at real journalism. You could have brought in half a dozen eminently qualified people to helm that magazine. And most importantly, I know that you hate being CEO.”
Lena’s head snapped up at that. “Of course I don’t!”
“Lena, you like investing in companies, you like starting companies. You hate managing them. You hate having to explain your decisions to a Board of Directors.”
Lena tossed her onyx hair away from her face and scoffed. “You make me sound like Elon.”
“The only reason you’re CEO of L Corp is because you want to turn it around. Beyond that, you hate every gala, you hate every board meeting, and you definitely hate every single time you have to discuss policy with legal, HR, and accounting.”
“Because it shouldn’t be so hard to treat people fairly and pay them a living wage! It shouldn’t be so hard to weed out assholes who don’t fit in with the culture I’m trying to build.” Lena said heatedly. “It does make a significant dent in our profits, but employee turn-over is down and productivity is high. That translates into better numbers long term and everyone else is just playing this… this myopic little game!”
“Exactly. Which is why you must have been thrilled to extend your already ridiculous working hours and run a second company in an industry you know nothing about and have often despised.”
Lena gawked.
“Admit it, Lena. I know you. You must have locked yourself in your home office and studied everything you could aside from pestering Cat Grant with calls. And I’m sure, if I looked at CatCo’s numbers under your tenure, I’d find that you raised salaries across the board – something you’ve been known to do at L Corp but oddly benefitting a certain junior reporter as well.” Sam said. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the purchase of a small Midvale bank at the same time you sold CatCo to Andrea. A bank that is absolutely unremarkable except that I might find that it has Kara’s student loan.”
For the first time since childhood, Lena stuttered. “I ju-just wanted to hu-hurt her like she hurt me. N-not anything permanent. I wasn’t going to… I di-didn’t...”
“You were in so much pain you wanted to mind-control humanity.” Sam said softly. “And you still thought of taking care of her. You can’t help it. You’re in love with her, Lena. It was only confirmed after we got shot at during that lead poisoning plot. Kara rushed up to the stage and held you, and you let her. You never let anyone see you scared. You had this look in your eyes when she did it, like you never wanted her to let go.”
Lena sighed deeply and had to admit defeat. She brought her fingers up from her lap and began to fiddle with the napkin she’d been staring at, quietly tearing the white paper into small shreds. Sam thanked the waiter as he dropped off their chorizo iberico and manchego.
“When did you realize you were in love with Kara?” Sam asked gently.
Lena gulped down some wine as she wondered how she could possibly answer that. Because Sam hadn’t asked how she had fallen in love with Kara – Lena knew how to answer that. She hadn’t so much fallen as grown into Kara’s light, reaching daily towards it in such innocuous ways until the entire course of her life seemed to have changed. Sam hadn’t asked when she had fallen in love with Kara – there was no answer to that. It had come so slowly seeping into her limbs and her heart and her very being like the gentleness of spring.
All Lena knew was that it was too late. For months she had tried to excise the Kryptonian who had betrayed her out of her thoughts and feelings as surely as she had banished Kara out of her life. Lena thought it would be like taking out an organ – an essential functioning part of her that had suddenly turned cancerous. It hadn’t been. Kara rushed around her like the cells in her bloodstream, dying and renewed involuntarily, pushed back into her heart without her consent or control.
“Was it when you were about to blast her?” Sam asked carefully.
The sharp bark of laughter clearly wasn’t what Sam expected. “I was wondering when you were going to ask about that.”
“I’m mentioning what happened, not asking about it. I know you’re not ready to talk about that yet.” Sam replied evenly. “You know I’m here for you when you are.”
“You have every right to ask.” Lena whispered. “I… I showed up at your door straight from Mt Norquay.”
“You were in a really bad place mentally, but you gave me what I needed to help you. Everything else can follow when you’re ready.”
And Sam had helped her, in that way she always had. Simply listening to the facts without judgment, allowing her to shut down emotionally, keeping everything and everyone away for weeks while Lena had holed up in her guest room, forcing her to take care of herself, running L Corp until she was stable enough to face things and then continuing to do so when Lena and the SuperFriends finally teamed up to put an end to Leviathan once and for all.
“You always seem to deal with the fall out of my stupid decisions and you never… you never change the way you look at me.” Lena said hoarsely. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You talk like you haven’t been there for me so many times.” Sam replied, the expression in her eyes fond but still haunted by flashbacks of Reign.
“This is different.”
Sam sighed and asked for the check. “Come with me.”
“What about Ruby?”
“Frank can wait for her and bring her to meet us later.”
Lena nodded as Sam cleared her schedule with a message to her assistant, paid the bill and took an additional bottle of wine with them. Sam put on her favorite playlist as she got in beside her in the back seat of the luxury SUV she preferred the car service to use when she came to National City. Lena dimly recognized David Guetta as the car pulled away from the bay and moved towards the city. When Sam gave the driver an address in Laurel Heights, Lena was surprised.
“Where are we going?”
Sam only smiled mysteriously and refused to talk about it even when the car came to a stop in front of a brick building on Belvedere St. The driver handed Sam a brown paper bag and a small cooler. Sam ushered her through the lobby, into an elevator, and inside a condominium. Sunlight streamed through the bay windows onto the hardwood floors. It was empty except for a gray three-seater couch that sat in front of the fireplace.
“Sam… what is this place?”
“Casa Arias.” Sam replied with a grin. “It got turned over to me yesterday.”
“What?”
“Ruby got into Harker Prep, which is only the next exit over.”
“What? But that’s a high school?”
“Lena, you know Ruby is 14 right?”
“You’re moving back?”
“Well, I do have to put in for a transfer with my boss, but I’m hoping she won’t be averse to the idea.” Sam laughed. “Ruby and I will be here after she finishes middle school in June. So I’ve got the rest of the week to furnish the place, I’m not taking a lot of furniture from Metropolis.”
Sam grinned at Lena’s gobsmacked expression and drew her to the couch.
“But I thought… what about Spence? It’s the best school in the country.”
“It is. But it’s across the country from you.” Sam said quietly. “Ruby and I want to be close to the only family we have. That’s you.”
Lena felt tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. “Sam…”
“She misses you, Lena. She doesn’t know the details of what went down before, but ever since Kara had to go full Supergirl in front of her when Gamemnae held the three of us hostage, well she’s put a few things together… and she’s worried about you.”
“This is the epicenter of all the insanity that comes with Supergirl.”
“I’ve lived in Metropolis since I graduated from college, Lena. You know as well as I do that’s the epicenter of Superman insanity. So I don’t see much of a difference on that front.” Sam replied. “It’s not like I’m moving to Gotham.”
“People will come after you because of her… or because of me.”
“So it’s pretty convenient that we’d be much closer so you can save us.” Sam’s voice turned soft. “And like I said, Lena. You’re family. You’re my ride or die. I miss you. I worry about you. I want to be here for you. We both do.”
“But…”
“We love you, Lena.”
Sam’s voice was so serious, so sincere, that Lena felt the tears she’d been holding back for hours spill over her cheeks. Sam gathered her into her arms and let her weep, rubbing her back gently until Lena pulled away. Knowing her best friend after all this time, Sam gave her a warm smile before fishing out two red solo cups and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos from the paper bag on the floor. She opened the cooler and put the bottle of wine she’d brought from the restaurant in the ice within it after she’d poured a serving into the plastic cups.
They sat sipping their wine for a few minutes. Only the muted sounds of the city that filtered through the bay windows broke their comfortable silence.
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” Lena finally said, her voice low and hoarse. “I… I really fucked up.”
“Oh, you fucked up royally. But you’ve also gone a long way to putting things right.”
“Have I?”
“You helped put an end to an evil 2-million-year-old organization. You’ve even been good to Tesmacher.”
Lena snorted. “I overwrote her mind. Just because she has no memories past being kidnapped after work, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. She deserved to be in prison. She didn’t deserve to be violated like that.”
“She betrayed you. So did Kara.”
“You didn’t.”
Sam took a deep breath to steady herself. “No, I didn’t. I never have. Neither has Ruby. Yet, you were going to do that to us too, Lena. I know you were going to do it to everyone. But I’m sure you can see why I take it personally.”
“You should have kicked me out when I came to you that night… when I told you what I did and what I almost did.”
“But you didn’t do it, Lena. You pulled yourself back before you went over the edge.” Sam stated with finality. “Ultimately, you chose what was right.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten so close in the first place.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.” Sam agreed. “You should have come to me right after you killed Lex. After he told you about Kara.”
“Sam… why are you…? Why are you here? Why are you still my friend? After years of dropping my shit on your lap when I’ve fucked up and it’s beyond complicated to fix it? Now that you know that I’m a murderer, now that you know how monstrous I can become, why are you here?”
“I already told you. Because you’re my family and I love you.”
“But why?”
Sam sighed and put a gentle arm around her shoulders. “Lena, I’ve personally witnessed Lillian sideline you and belittle you. I’ve held you while you were bleeding from your family’s assassination attempts. That's all you know. And with Jack dead, I knew I was the only one who you still trusted… as much as you can trust anyone anyway. Until Kara came along. If I had known that imploded… Lena, I understand why you spiraled. I just wish you had come to me, trusted me, when you found out. I… I’m sorry.”
Lena pulled back in surprise. “What? What are you sorry for?”
“I’ve… I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, Lena. I haven’t been present for you, not emotionally anyway. I was there professionally but I… I don’t think I loved you well enough. I’m really sorry for that.”
Lena shook her head vehemently. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You were trying to recover from Reign. And you had Ruby to think of.”
“And you were there for me, Lena. Every time I had a flashback. Every time I needed to talk.” Sam said. “It just somehow ended up being all about me. That was an entire year where all our personal conversations were about me and my issues. If I was just… I never let you feel that you had support, never convinced you that you had my loyalty. I let your emotional reticence give me an excuse not to make it clear that you were loved.”
“No.” Lena said firmly, brushing tears from her eyes. “It’s not your fault, Sam.”
“It’s not. But I do bear some responsibility.”
“You’re always there for me when I need you. I should never have doubted that.”
“I’ve always been there when you let me know that you need me.” Sam clarified. “You have to be better at asking for help. And I have to be better at being a part of your life. I’m moving back to do just that. Can you try to let me in? Give me another chance to be a better friend?”
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You have nothing to apologize for. Honestly, you shouldn’t even forgive me.” Lena said glumly.
“Well, not for the first time when it comes to you, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
Lena inhaled shallowly. “I’m going to try… to let you in. More than I have.”
“Ok.”
“And for the record, I’m deeply sorry for not trusting you and… wanting to…”
“Use nanobots to infiltrate my brain and my daughter’s brain so that we would give you the loyalty we’ve already so clearly shown you and the love we have always wanted to give you of our own free will but you’re too emotionally constipated and suspicious to accept?”
Lena blinked.
“Oh, and mindfuck all of humanity as well.”
“Yes. That.” Lena said. “I’m sorry for that.”
Sam shook her head as she smiled. “I forgive you.”
Lena shuddered as she sank deeper into the couch cushions. She hadn’t realized how much she had needed to hear that, and how much she had needed to hear that from Sam. The Latina left her to her thoughts as she refilled their plastic cups with wine and munched on more of the chips.
“It wasn’t when the bunker almost blasted her.” Lena said suddenly. “The bunker belonged to Lex and the defenses got triggered. I shut it down as fast as I could. I… I didn’t want to kill her. I just…”
Sam nodded. “You wanted to hurt her.”
“I did.” Lena sighed. “But it was right then, I realized that I… even if she hurt me more than anyone… ANYONE else has in my life… I couldn’t be in a world where…”
Sam wisely let Lena open up at her own pace.
“The look on her face. She was so afraid but it… it didn’t look like she was afraid for herself. Kara looked… she’s looked at me that way before… She looked afraid for me. She didn’t know I didn’t trigger those cannons. She still doesn’t know… I… just… she looked so frightened for me and the other times she’s done that was when I was grieving Jack or furious that I let Rhea betray me…”
“The times you were in danger of losing yourself.”
Lena nodded. “And that’s when I realized I was – losing myself, I mean. I still hated her. I certainly hadn’t forgiven her. But what I was doing… who I was becoming. Using people the way Lillian and Lex did, giving in to hatred … I knew I didn’t want that to be me even if the outcome would have… would have kept me safe… As usual, I shouldn’t have believed Lex.”
“Huh?”
“When he told me that Kara was Supergirl, before he died, he said that… he said that at least he wasn’t a fool. That everyone had lied to me and that I was left with no one and nothing.” Lena let out a sob. “And when… when I realized that I… what I was becoming… I didn’t know if I could turn back because I had done too much… and then I remembered you.”
Sam pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad you did.”
“I’m glad you’re here. For me.”
“Always.”
“I know I don’t… I’m no good at…”
“I know, Lena.” Sam said gently.
“I should say it.”
“You will.” Sam said, pulling away from her so that Lena could see the smile on her face. “You’ll say it when you’re ready.”
“But-“
“Lena, listen. Love is like farting. If you have to force it, it’s probably shit.”
Lena blinked rapidly in mystification before letting out a laugh. A real one. A laugh that made her stomach and her jaw hurt from the force of it. Sam joined her in the moment, more out of joy than at her own words. After the hilarity subsided and they caught their breath, Sam glanced at Lena and saw the young woman’s face creased in melancholy again.
“Hey.” Sam nudged. “You deserve to be able to laugh. We’ve talked about this.”
“It’s not that.”
“Ah.” Sam said before resuming her silence, knowing that it was about Kara and that Lena needed time to say what she needed.
“It was Foundation Day and the city was going to celebrate with fireworks since it was the 130th anniversary. I only knew about it because Kara burst into my office and dragged me out onto the balcony to watch. I told her the bay was too far away for it to really matter but she just… she said she wanted to watch it with me.” Lena shrugged helplessly. “We were waiting for the fireworks to start and everything was just… normal. The sounds of the city were normal. The lights were normal. The stars were normal. It was… I looked at her, she was looking out on the horizon with so much excitement for… for everything. For life in general. And I just… my stomach lurched, and my chest got tight and I… I just knew.”
Sam paused for a bit before stating the obvious. “You should tell her.”
“Maybe I should have then. I don’t know.” Lena sighed. “It’s too late now.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Ruby came through the door and plopped down on the couch between them, wrinkling her nose at the smell of wine before she found a can of root beer in the cooler. “What’s not true?”
“Hello to you too, young lady.” Sam rolled her eyes.
Ruby had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry. Hi Mom. Hi Aunt Lena. Thanks for having Frank bring me over.”
“You’re welcome.” Lena said with a smile. “And congratulations on getting into Harker. I’m so glad you’re moving back.”
“Me too. So what’s not true?”
Sam thought quickly. “That you’d find your bedroom too small. I was just about to show her around.”
“Ugh it’s been hours! Have you guys just been talking this whole time? I can’t believe you didn’t show Aunt Lena your room and my room and her room.”
“My room?” Lena asked in surprise as she let Ruby pull her up off the couch and down the corridor.
“Well, the guest room.” Sam smiled. “But you’re the guest we love the most so you’re always welcome to crash here especially after we host game nights.”
“Yeah, Mom measured it and everything so we can put a double bed in there. Just like, don’t do anything gross with Kara.”
Sam laughed as Lena sputtered uselessly and turned beet red.