Chapter Text
Lena was far from stupid. She knew Supergirl was up in the sky watching her. She could feel it deep in her bones and burning in her skin, like she always could when the blonde took to staring at her.
She was clearly trying to stay away from Lena as best she could. She was trying to respect the boundaries Lena put up for them. She was trying to make it better as best she could while still making sure she made lena as comfortable as possible. And Lena’s heart loved her even more it.
Lena had known for years that she was in love with Kara. She tried making Kara aware of her feelings with flirtatious touching and staring, the large romantic gestures, she even went to the lengths of doing some of the same things she had seen in Kara’s favorite romance movies in hopes she would get the hint.
Unfortunately she never did.
So she longed and lusted after Kara in painful silence for years, and when she found out Kara had been lying to her all this time-
When she found out the Kara she loved all this time never existed, only Supergirl, it shattered her. She tried so hard to get a vengeance on Supergirl. To make her feel the same way she made Lena now felt constantly, maybe that would give Supergirl an idea of how badly she was hurting and leave her alone.
But of course Supergirl wouldn’t leave her alone.
“I won’t give up on you.”
“I can fix this.”
“I never meant to humiliate you.”
“I understand your pain.”
“Please don’t do this.”
Lena had heard Supergirl and knew her intentions are always good. She always had, but she didn’t want to and wanted to leave. She had decided to go back to Ireland where she was last happiest, before all the lies, abuse and neglect. So that’s what she was going to do.
She would work on forgiving Kara when she came back. Hopefully.
And so Lena got on the plane, never turning back to Supergirl and making her aware that her presence was known. All it would do was hurt them both more to see the look on each other’s faces and Lena could only take so much more pain in her heart before she turned destructive on herself.
Lena sat stiff as a board at the back of the plane, closing her eyes until the plane started to take off. She closed the windows in her eyeshot incase Supergirl decided to completely disregard the space Lena said she needed, and flew next to her window. She didn’t think Supergirl would really do that but incase she did, Lena wasn’t going to risk allowing the blonde to be the first thing she saw whenever she looked out the window.
Lena hates flying, something always wanted to go wrong whenever she was in the sky unless she was being personally flown by the girl of steel herself. Luckily for her though, the flight was smooth. There was no turbulence which allowed her to get some work done.
The flight attendants Lena brought with her, a desperate attempt to not feel lonely whenever she looked around at what would’ve been the empty cabin, sat scattered around the plane. Hope, was standing stock still at the back of the plane, powered off. Nobody was really talking to each other, just sitting in their respective seats sipping whatever beverage they concocted in the bar at the front of the plane.
Lena felt so stupid for bringing them here. No matter how many people she brought with her, it wouldn’t replace the emptiness she felt whenever she remembered the last time she was here it was with Kara. It was foolish of Lena to think she could replace her so easily. It was never that easy.
She rested her head back with a sigh and closed her eyes. It wasn’t going to be a very long flight but there was no use in wallowing all the way there. It’s not like Lena was tired, she was just drained mentally and emotionally. She had been going through so much with her own problems and with her brother as it was and on top of putting a bullet in her chest, she had to deal with the betrayal of Kara as well and pretend for months that she wasn’t crushed. It was just too much.
However, when Lena opened her eyes from the nap she didn’t know she had been taking, a lot had changed.
The once calm and unbothered flight attendants were now running about the isles, clearly panicked. The plane was shaking violently and the oxygen masks were hanging out of their compartments, swinging around with the shaking of the plane.
None of the flight attendants had one on so it must not be that important yet.
Lena stood carefully and ran, as best she could in her five inch heels with how jerky the flow was, to the front of the plane and pounded on the door of the pilots cabin.
She heard them shuffling before the door swung open and the disheveled pilot locked eyes with her, his eyes wide with fear.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” She asked, gesturing to the panicked flight attendants and the oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling. An extra hard jerk of the plane almost knocked Lena over and she had find purchase on the wall to stay upright.
“I’m sorry Miss. Luthor, I was sure he checked for it. He’s steering the plane right now but it’s not looking good”, his voice shook.
“Checked for what? What’s happening?” She shouted. It didn’t slip her mind that her accent was becoming heavy again. It always did when she got upset.
“The gas tanks”, he whimpered, “the plane is out of gas.”
Lena chuckled humorlessly, “What the fuck do you mean we’re out of gas? Tell me you’re joking”. There was absolutely no way Lena survived countless assassination attempts and a cold brutal childhood just to get taken out in a plane crash that ran out of gas.
“I’m sorry. We’re trying to steer manually, but without gas it won’t matter”.
“Well can you just land the plane?”
“We’re in the mountains miss. Even if there was an airport nearby they wouldn’t have a the gas necessary to refill a plane of this model”, he sighed.
“What can I do to help?”. Lena thought back to the time she and Kara were in this situation. Of course they had gas and Kara more than likely flew the plane to safety.
“Go back to your seat and brace yourself. Even if you knew how to fly, no gas, no engine. This plane is going down no matter what we do”.
Lena nodded slowly. They were most likely going to die when this plane crashes and it was her fault all these people were going to lose their lives with her. It wasn’t fair.
Lena made her way back to her seat in the rear of the plane and sat down. There was a possibility that her life was over and what did she do?
She pulled out her laptop and started backing it up. If she was going out, at least she could have all her research and work saved. There were things Lena had been working on that could cure diseases, end world hunger, get clean water to people who weren’t fortunate enough to have access to it. No reason someone should carry out her plans and make the world a better place.
What she didn’t expect to do, was send the backup file to [email protected], with “I trust you” in the subject box. She didn’t expect to hit send. She wasn’t thinking. Her instincts just told her if she could trust anybody with everything it would be Kara.
You know. The one that lied to her for four years straight. Lena didn’t understand it but her body was moving on it’s own accord and she let it.
Next thing Lena did was pull the oxygen mask down and over her face. None of the other still panicking women on the plane had put one on, but it just felt like something Lena needed to do.
“Put the masks on”, she shouted to unlistening
ears.
Lena opened the window and gasped at the sight. It was beautiful, the frost collecting on at the edges of the windows and all the snow capped mountains as far as she could see, but it was too close. They were losing altitude rapidly.
She didn’t want to close her eyes, she kept them glued to the horizon and the tips of the mountains that kept whooshing past her window.
Unfortunately that wasn’t very long lived. Soon enough, the left wing of the plane got caught on one of the passing mountains and tore the plane almost in two.
Lena saw sparks and smoke before the jolt slammed her head into the handle of the window cover.
The last thought Lena had wasn’t really a thought as much as an image.
Kara’s bright smiling face, nose scrunched up and her golden hair reflecting off the light behind her.
Then everything went black.
—
There was no pain when Lena woke up. It wasn’t a cold as she thought it would be either.
It was dead silent though. There’s no way that was a good sign.
Lena started taking count for her limbs, there was no use in trying to get help if her legs were missing or her ribs were broken and impaling her insides.
But nothing felt wrong. She was able to wiggle her toes, which means everything from the waist down was fine, she didn’t get paralyzed or snap her neck.
She felt good.
Lena took in her surroundings and noticed she was lying face down on the floor of the plane, wedged between the two sets of chairs that had been facing each other. The plane was even right side up. Easy enough to get out of, so she sat up and scooted out into the isle way.
She almost sighed out of relief, the crash wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be. She was fine.
Her hopes unfortunately were set too high and the second Lena stood up and turned around, she screamed.
The front half of the plane was gone.
Lena immediately turned frantic, searching desperately for any sign of the other passengers she had with her. The pilot she had seemingly just been talking to, along with hope and all the flight attendants, was nowhere in sight.
“No. no. no.” Lena started to cry, this was all her fault. She brought all these people with her and now they’re gone, dead for all she knows. With her vision blurry and multiple questions swirling through her mind, Lena became clumsy, tripped over her own feet and fell.
Shit went from bad to worse before Lena even had the chance to catch her breath the second she landed on the floor, Lena was lying face to face with herself.
No that can’t be right. Lena had just been walking around, she was fine. So whoever this woman is it can’t be her, because when Lena felt her face and head there was no blood dripping across her features and no busted lip or broken nose like there was on the other woman.
In the back of her mind, Lena knew that woman was her but it just didn’t make any sense. Was she dead? Lena had never believed in ghosts before but right now she didn’t know what to believe, not when the evidence was right in front of her.
She reached out to touch to check her own pulse. If she was dead then she would like to know, not that she knew what to do about it, but the moment she made contact with her skin, Lena’s fingers disappeared, going through unconscious Lena’s neck.
If she was a normal person she probably would’ve snatched her hand back, out if shock or fear, but instead she just kept her hand right where it was. Lena couldn’t feel anything on her hands, except a warm rush of pressure where her fingers were supposed to be.
It was truly fascinating, when she got back to L-Corp she would definitely have to start doing research on the afterlife and how spirituality works.
Oh wait. She wouldn’t be going anywhere if she was dead.
Clearly checking for a pulse wasn’t going to work, so Lena retreated her hand and stared at her own body, lying unmoving in the floor. She stared until her eyes strained enough to see the slight rise and fall of her breathing.
Great! This is good. She was still alive for now. She must’ve fell into a coma when she hit her head on the window. That would explain all the blood at least.
Well now what?
Lena was alive, but had no idea where she was. She hadn’t the slightest clue where the rest of the plane was, nor did she know if anybody else had survived the crash. She was all alone.
“Hello?”, she shouted regardless. There was no telling how this worked, and if there was a chance there was someone else out here that could hear her, she was sure as hell going to take it.
She was met with silence. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
One thing Lena did know though, she may be alive right now but she definitely won’t last very long out here. It was cold and if she had suffered any internal injuries that she was unaware of, she wouldn’t make it for sure. She had to get help.
Now that issue was solved... where the fuck was she gonna said help from? It’s not like she can walk back to National City. She can’t exactly call a car, even if could get signal, the phone would fall right through her hands.
“Kara”, she whispered suddenly. The thought really was so unexpected even Lena herself was confused by the random intrusion.
It was a good idea though. If anybody could help her it would be Kara. She could lift Lena easily with her strong arms and fly her along with anyone else that made it to safety. She just had to find a way to get to her.
If she had learned anything from the few ghost movies she snuck and watched during her childhood, ghosts, if that’s what she was, can’t be heard or seen by other people. But Kara wasn’t just people. She was Kryptonian with super hearing and strength.
She didn’t know if calling out to Kara would work or not, but a voice shredding “KARA” left her throat regardless, and she waited.
There was so change. No whoosh of a cape coming to rescue her body. No comforting voice to tell her everything was going to be okay.
Lena’s shoulders sagged, letting go of the shred of hope she was clinging onto, and she flopped down into one of the plane seats. Somehow she allowed herself to forget the logic behind being a ghost and fell right through the seat.
“Ow what the fuck?”, It didn’t really hurt, but the cold pressure from the seat wrapping around her chest when she expected comfort on her behind caught her by surprise, “You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t even sit down?”.
Lena stood up and started at the seat she just fell through. It’s not like she really needed to sit down. She just wanted to for dramatic purposes. Maybe if she focused hard enough she could,
Then for a moment, Lena was gone and reappeared a second later sitting down in the chair. Okay. So if she appears on a surface then she can make contact with it?
Lena looked over at her body and focused on a spot on her back.
She disappeared and reappeared with a hand on the exact spot she was staring at. She wasn’t falling through this time and could feel the fabric of her coat.
This would’ve been nice to know when she was uselessly looking for a way to check her pulse. Lena left her hand on her back and pressed down gently, testing how much control she had over the things she could touch, until her body shifted slightly under her touch and she yanked it away before any damage could be done to her mortal figure. She tried placing her hand back on the body, only for it to fall through and the warm pressure of her insides returned around her hand and wrist.
Okay, so as long as whatever she reappeared on was used as a surface, she could make contact with it, but once she stops touching said object it becomes unreachable? Lena really hoped she wouldn’t have to explain this to anybody one day, it’s already hard enough for her to understand on her own.
Now how could she go out for help? She had already decided on a solution on how to get saved, she figured out how to touch things and move around in the proper ghostly manner, she just didn’t know how to actually go get said savior if she couldn’t talk to her.
Lena needed to get to Kara, and where better to look for her then at home. So she closed her eyes and focused her mind on Kara’s apartment, the couch she sat on the last game night she had gone to after finding out about Kara’s dishonesty. Lena remembered the way her apartment smelled and how warm she kept it. She envisioned it until the silence of the mountains around her was gone and was replaced with the white noise of National City.
She couldn’t feel temperature or climate but she could feel that she was no longer standing in the fragile frame of the plane. She could smell Kara everywhere.
So when she opened her eyes and found herself standing on Kara’s couch, it made her stomach twist. She hadn’t been here in months, but she could tell Kara hasn’t been herself.
Mostly everything was in the same spot as it was the last time she came. The bed wasn’t made and there were dirty dishes in the sink. There was a carry out container, with cold and half-eaten potstickers, on the table from assumingely the night before and and single pillow and blanket under Lena’s feet. All the curtains were closed, but through the cracks of light that shown through, Lena could see little floating dust particles.
Nothing about the scene in front of her portrayed the sunny Kara “I like to keep everything tidy cause it makes me feel better” Danvers that Lena came to know and love. Their falling out must’ve taken a worse effect of Kara than she realized because in all the years Lena has known her, Kara has never gotten something to eat, especially not her favorite food, and not devour it within an hour or less.
Maybe Lena was just being self centered. Maybe Kara got called into Supergirl duty and wasn’t able to finish her food and just hasn’t been back in a while. Maybe Lena was the only one brought nearly useless at the loss of her best friend. Maybe Lena was the only one that couldn’t eat or sleep or find the energy to properly take care of herself.
She has to fix things with Kara as soon as possible. If this taught Lena anything, it’s that anything could happen and she refuses to leave this earth until Kara knows how much she means to her.
But Kara clearly wasn’t here.
Lena had to stop and think. She could be at CatCo but it wasn’t likely, Kara had stopped going as frequently as she used to after Lena sold the company. There was a close to impossible chance that Kara was at L-Corp.
Lena couldn’t help but picture Kara’s smile, how her nose scrunched up and her eyes nearly disappeared. All the complicated hair styles she liked to wear to work or whenever she wasn’t being Supergirl. Her interesting outfit choices that would look ridiculous if anybody else wore them but she can somehow pull off. The way her arms feel around Lena. The sound of her laugh. The way she smells-
In that moment something changed.
The pressure Lena felt whenever she attempted to touch something was all over her body. The sudden hot warmth of it was enough to scare her and cause her to scream.
She didn’t scream for long because as fast as the pressure came, it was gone. Whatever she had been making contact with was alive.
When Lena forced herself to focus, she found herself at the DEO. It was chaos everywhere. Windows were shattered and there were agents sprawled all over the floor. Computers and screens were shattered and spraying sparks of electricity everywhere.
The most unsettling sight though was the 8 foot martian thing, flinging Supergirl into a wall. Hearing the crumbling of the wall and how the unsettling gasp of the air leaving her lungs was enough to make Lena shake.
That was one of the main reasons Lena was so mad at Kara for keeping her identity for her. Supergirl could get seriously hurt or even die and not only would National city lose their heroine, they would also lose a reporter and a citizen and Lena would lose her best friend and never know what happened. So she worried now. Everytime Kara flew around the city and got shot at or dropped from the sky, Lena felt like she would throw up.
“Kara?”, Lena called out as if she could be heard. She watched as Kara seemed to gather up strength she shouldn’t have and shoved the last martian into a cell. Kara’s face showed more than the normal amount of tired. She looked confused. Scared even.
Kara looked around and stopped staring directly in Lena’s direction. Lena would’ve been convinced Kara was looking at her if she didn’t start to beeline right in her direction.
“J’onn I need your help!” She shouted and broke into a limping sprint. Lena didn’t have enough time to step aside before Kara walked right through her and the feeling was back. The all consuming pressure. Kara had been what she was making contact with. Lena must’ve focused on her too hard and stepped into her body.
It took longer for Lena to regather herself this time. She was literally able to step into the body of her best friend. She, in a way, didn’t exist. Her physical being was up in the mountains, probably half dead if she was being honest with herself, and she was standing here in the DEO getting walked through.
“-I just want to make sure she’s okay”. Lena heard Kara begging and that seemed to be enough to snap her out of whatever trance she threw herself into.
“You do it yourself. I’m exhausted. Do you know the flight tracking number?”
Kara shook her head and her hair bounced dramatically. Lena wondered what type of conditioner she uses.
“Okay that’s fine. What’s her plane model number.”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Where was she going?”
“I don’t know” Kara’s shoulders slumped. She was clearly hurt that she didn’t know anything. Lena had always told Kara whenever she was taking a trip somewhere. Kara would be the first to come see how her trip was. First to leave with an armful of souvenirs.
And now she wasn’t.
“Well what do you know, Kara. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t know anything!”
Lena knew Kara - well at least she thought she did- and it was clear she was close to tears, “She hasn’t spoken to me in weeks J’onn. The last thing she said to me was that she wanted me to leave her alone. That I broke her heart. If something happens to her, the last think she would remember of me was that I hurt her so bad. I have to know she’s okay”.
“Kara I’m so sorry. I’m okay. I’m right here” Lena tried to reach out and touch her arm, anyway to comfort Kara she would take it, but she just went right through. The same warm pressure covering her hand once again.
In the back of her mind she vaguely heard J’onn giving Kara some type of reassurances, something about jumping a gun and Lena could handle herself if something was wrong, but all Lena could really think about was how much Kara had cared about her.
It wasn’t a secret that Kara loved Lena. Anybody with common sense and eyes could see it, but after Lena had found out Kara had been lying to her for years it just felt like all the trust she thought was there and everything she thought she knew about Kara was different. It was as if Lena was learning about Kara all over again from a new point of view.
“Can I go to the airport she flew from?” Kara asked, “It was private property but if I go as Supergirl they’re more likely to tell me right?”.
“Oh my god the airport! Why didn’t I think of that?” Lena grunted, rubbing her temples. She was supposedly so smart yet she didn’t think to look into the crash with the airport.
“I don’t care as long as you don’t do anything stupid”. Kara was gone before J’onn even finished his sentence.
Lena was getting better at this transporting thing. She didn’t have to think as hard to get where she wanted to go. She jumped from spot to spot on the ground catching glimpses of Supergirl soaring across the sky until she got to the airport.
It was absolutely crazy to think they were both here just a mere hour ago, filled with sadness and pain. Lena wasn’t even able to bring her to the point of even looking at Supergirl. And now she couldn’t keep her eyes off her. Off of Kara. The woman that was flying around the city to make sure she was okay. The woman Lena knew would stop at nothing to make sure she was safe. The woman she was coming to realize she trusted with all of herself. Her Kara Zor-El.
She watched Kara go inside one of the many glass doors and debated for a moment if she should enter to. It was her airport. It was her employee and her plane. It was all literally hers. She had no reason not to go in except she was really trying to avoid the crushing look of worry on Kara’s face. She needed to know what Kara was being told though. If her information was wrong it might take longer than Lena had left for Kara to find her.
“They we’re headed towards the Atlantic Ocean”, shaken boy told Supergirl, “they went down over the Appalachian Mountains”.
Okay that sounded about right. Lena’s plane was private and nearly flew itself, it moved way faster than you average commercial flight.
“Could you be a tad bit more specific? It would take days for me to thoroughly search just half that area”.
“You doubt yourself too much Kara”, Lena muttered to practically herself.
The boy Kara was talking to seems to have calmed down tremendously since she had arrived, but there was still a hint of fear in his voice, “yeah I have exact coordinates for you if you want”.
Relief started to flood Kara’s features and with that tension that was sitting heavily on Lena’s shoulders was becoming less and less of a problem.
“Okay that’s good. The suit doesn’t come with a GPS system though”, Lena didn’t even try to stop the chuckle that came out, “could you find the exact spot on a map and point to it for me?”
The boy brushed passed Kara and Lena and started pushing buttons and looking at panels on his desk. Lena took the quick second to take in how differently Kara carried herself when she was Supergirl. She really looked like a different person. Lena made sure to make a mental note to stop feeling stupid for never noticing the difference.
“Right there”.
Lena and Supergirl looked over the boy’s shoulder to where he was pointing. Before Lena realized it, Kara was thanking him and flying off. She didn’t have time to tell them the plane was split in two.
Lena wasted no time getting back to the plane. She started looking desperately around for the front of the plane. It couldn’t have gotten very far without the back half.
She heard a whoosh and looked up just in time to see Kara in the distance, about a mile to Lena’s left, toward a cloud of smoke.
Fuck.
Lena left this crash, and reappeared at the same time as Kara did and good God. There was blood everywhere.
This was all her fault. She brought all these people here and now they’re all dead. Lying in pieces across the mountains. She couldn’t even remember the name of some of them. Hope was lying in shambles, that wouldn’t have been as bad if Lena hadn’t made her look like an exact copy of Eve.
“Alex?” Kara’s shakey voice called out. Lena looked away from all the gore she was surrounded by and turned to look at Kara, who was now on her knees clawing at the ground through the snow.
After a beat Kara screamed out again, “ALEX PLEASE! ALEX I NEED YOU PLEASE!”.
She couldn’t hear Alex’s response but whatever she said caused Kara to break down. Her hands were shaking and tears started streaming down her face.
“Alex, she’s gone I can’t- I can’t find her.”
“No kara I’m right here. You’re so close I’m still here.” Lena pleaded.
But Kara couldn’t hear that, “I can’t hear or see her anywhere. The plane, half of its gone and I- I should’ve been there and now she’s gone and it’s my fault.”
“Kara please it’s not your fault! I’m okay! Please hear me!” She started shouting. Lena’s own eyes began filling with tears. She needed Kara to know this wasn’t her fault. She did everything she could and that’s what matters. Lena needed Kara know it wasn’t too late for her.
“Alex I can’t breathe. I- I can’t breathe this is my fault. I can’t-“ Kara was cut off by what Lena could only assume was Alex.
Lena watched Kara try her best to suck in stuttering breaths. Every time a tear fell down her cheek it froze almost immediately. Every time she exhaled, her breath turned into a thick cloud of warmth in the cold.
“I think Lena is dead”.