Chapter Text
Lena Luthor was a busy woman.
Beyond busy, actually.
She was a businesswoman, CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation, in fact, one of the world’s largest, most diversified multinational conglomerates, employing directly or indirectly nearly two-thirds of Metropolis alone. She was a scientist leading several groundbreaking researchers in varied fields of study such as aerospace engineering, biotechnology, robotics, security and many others. She was a philanthropist and the face of several charity organizations and beneficent events. She was a public figure, very much so, due to her notorious family and business, with media outlets wanting to capture her every step. And she was, before anything else and more importantly, a single mother to a beautiful seven-nearing-on-eight-year-old boy who was her entire life and world.
So it was needless to say that Lena Luthor had quite the eventful life.
That particular Friday, Lena had her schedule so full she barely had time to breathe. She left home early and she would have to stay at the office late. She really missed her son, she didn’t get to see him up before she left for work and she would get home way past dinner time, maybe even bedtime, he would be taken care of by a nanny, but spending time with her son was the best part of Lena’s day and she was a little sad the entire day missing him.
A great many hours of that day was spent supervising research in the labs and helping out with the development of LuthorCorp’s latest security system, which meant she didn’t get the chance to check her phone until way off in the evening.
It was the first thing she did as soon as she emerged from the lab, check her messages. It was nearing dinner time and she planned on calling to hear her son’s voice before going back to work. What she saw when she unlocked her phone, however, was a mother’s worst nightmare.
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Kara Danvers hated being alone. She felt like she was fated to be so.
Her parents died when she was young, she was adopted by the Danvers, she bonded with the parents really fast, especially the father Jeremiah. But then Jeremiah, who was a police officer, died in the line of duty.
In school, she was always a loner, the weird girl, the adopted girl, and it didn’t help that her adopted sister hated her being around most of the time. When they finally started getting closer, they both moved out for college. Kara got a full ride scholarship to the Blue Valley University, in Nebraska, with her running, while Alex was halfway across the country in Gotham.
While in college, Kara was only a four-hour drive away from Smallville, the birthplace of her cousin Clark, and where his parents still lived, and she spent her weekends with them because they needed help around the farm since Clark moved away to Metropolis. They treated her like a daughter and spoiled her when she was around, and she even moved in with them after college for a while. But living with her elderly aunt and uncle didn’t really help Kara feel less of a loner, as much as she adored them.
Eventually Kara got a job in Blüdhaven, the neighbor city of Gotham, and she was living near her sister for the first time in years. But then Alex met a girl and started dating, and Kara would see less and less of her, and then Alex and Maggie got married, and Maggie was transferred to National City, so Kara was left alone again, living across the country from her sister.
So she got used to being alone, as much as she hated it. Sure Kara had friends, and she had her job at Blüdhaven Times, which she loved, but there was always something missing for her. And the day she always felt the loneliest was her birthday.
It just so happened to be her birthday, and Kara strolled down the cold and damp streets of Avalon Heights, tightening her coat around herself to conserve some warmth. Kara reached the first convenience store and decided that, with all the cold and the haze of the late evening, it wasn’t worth it to look for somewhere else just for a little silly tradition.
When Kara got back to her apartment she was cold and tired and her hair was a wet mess, so tradition would have to wait until after she got a hot shower.
She knew she was stalling, but she let herself soak in the shower for as long as she could take before she started feeling squeamish and had to step off.
And so, clean and relaxed, Kara padded her way to the kitchen on socked feet and placed the single cupcake she got at the convenience store on a plate and pressed the candle gently into it. Kara lit up the candle and leaned forward, resting her crossed arms over the kitchen island and her chin against her forearms. She watched the flame dance in front of her face.
“Happy birthday, Kara,” she whispered before closing her eyes and blowing the candle. She tried not to make a wish because it would not come true anyways, but she couldn’t help but think ‘I wish I didn’t have to spend my birthday alone’.
It happened almost instantly, no sooner was the candle out and the doorbell was ringing before Kara could even open her eyes.
Kara eyed the candle carefully as if it was its fault, before she straightened herself up and moved to the door.
Kara didn’t know what she expected to find when she opened her door, but what she was met with was definitely not it.
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William Alexander… no, he hated being called that. That’s what his mother called him when she was disappointed in him for doing something he shouldn’t; she was rarely ever mad, she was a very calm and kind woman, but when she called him William Alexander he knew he was in trouble. His grandmother called him William, and he hated that too, it wasn’t warm and kind like his mother, it was formal and cold like a doctor or a school principal. And that was a good way to describe his grandmother, she was, in fact, a doctor, and she was a very serious woman, strict, and sometimes when she smiled it made him uncomfortable, but she was nice with him in her own way. He knew she liked him, and he liked the way she smiled at him when he beat her at chess or when he explained to her a new thing he learned. She’d say he was smart like his uncle and he’d shake his head and say he was smart like his mother.
He introduced himself as Liam and insisted everyone call him that.
But the name he truly loved was when his mother called him Lillo.
That’s what she called him most times when they were alone. And he called her mama. Unless he was scared or in pain, which also made him scared, or crying, then he called her mommy.
Liam’s mother was his best friend, and she was the most beautiful and intelligent woman he had ever met in his entire seven years of life. She was kind and funny and she taught him everything about the world, about science and history and music and about respecting people. They’d read together and play games and watch movies. His favorite books to read together were the ones with magic and adventures, and he liked the movies and shows about space, and so did his mother. He really liked when she taught him how things worked, and when they’d build or fix things together, like cars that didn’t work anymore and the things she’d let him take apart to put back together, and the robots and clocks and many other things that they would build from pieces of other things. He didn’t know the name of a lot of things, but he knew what to do when tools were put in his hands.
She was his hero, and he wanted to be just like her when he grew up.
He didn’t totally know what his mother did exactly, but he knew she helped people and she created new things to help people even more, she also did a lot of parties to make money to help people who were sick or lost or hungry, people that didn’t have what they had. He thought it was weird that parties could make money, but his mother explained that the people at the party would give money if the party was good enough and if her speech was good and if she made them happy and talked to as many of them as possible, the success of the party was measured by how much money it made.
His mother also made people happy and she’d take him to visit the children’s hospital that had their name every few weeks. They’d play with the children who were sick to make them happy and she’d read for them and kids would give her drawings and letters that she’d keep with as much care as if it was something he gave her. She told him once she paid for everything the hospital needed and worked a lot to create new things so that the hospital could treat the kids better.
He knew his mother was famous as well, and people kept trying to take her picture alone or with him, and that bothered her a lot because she didn’t like that people invaded his space and made him uncomfortable or followed him and made him unsafe. He saw his mother a lot on tv and magazines. His godmother told him people liked to know what his mother thought about things and how her brain worked, which is why she talked with so many people to go with the photos on the magazines.
And his mother was the CEO of the family’s company, which was like the leader, everyone’s boss, everyone worked for her.
So he understood that she was very important and busy and had to work a lot, but that didn’t make him less sad when she had to work late.
It was just him and his mother. She had him alone and she raised him alone, and she never hid from his questions, answered all of them without complaining. She made sure to explain to him how she wanted him so much that she asked her mother to help make him, with the DNA of someone they never met that gave their DNA to help people like his mother who wanted to have a baby alone or couldn’t have babies without the help. He knew how babies were made, and how it involved either science or two people to kiss a lot while naked and touch each other in ways that only adults could. His mother happened to use science, which for him, was a lot cooler and less gross than the other way.
He never felt like his mother wasn’t enough for him or feel sad because he didn’t have an extra parent like most people he knew, the only people he knew with only one parent were him, his godmother and his godmother’s daughter, Ruby. But that never bothered him.
What he wanted, though, was to know how the person who was technically his other parent was. He knew it was a woman, but he wanted to know how she looked, and if he looked like her, if she liked pink pancakes or blue better, if she liked pasta and soup and if she could play sports and speak many languages. If she liked playing chess, or video games or instruments, if she was a good singer and if she could curl her tongue like he and his mother could. He wanted to know if she was kind like his mother, or smart, or if she liked to help people as well. He wanted to know everything about her, and he wanted her to know him.
He always had a little dream of having his parents together. Not because he felt the lack of his second parent, but because he wanted to know what it felt like, and how different would it be to be parented by two people. He wanted his parents to be together because that’s what he saw on movies, and he wanted his mother to be happy and in his mind, being with his second parent, as in dating or being married, would make her happy. Maybe his other mother could help her be less busy or even help more people, or both.
But he had to meet his other mother first; and make her meet his mother.
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Kara had to admit sometimes she made her situation worse than it really was.
It’s not like she was completely abandoned by her sister. Alex was usually very busy with her work, but she always made time to video chat Kara at least once a week and to send Kara many gifts through the mail on her birthday. But she still missed having her sister close to her, being able to hug her. Kara liked hugs.
This year was no different.
“Happy birthday, baby girl,” Alex said happily on Kara’s phone screen.
“Hey, Alex!” Kara greeted. “Where’s Maggie?”
“Shit, thanks, sis, love you too,” Alex feigned offense.
“Sorry, it’s just that she usually is there with you.” Kara shrugged.
Alex made a face, a hint of irritation. “Yeah, she’s… she’s been busy.”
Kara frowned. “What was that?” she asked accusingly.
“What was what?”
“That! That face you made,” Kara said glaring at her phone camera. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” Alex said defensively.
“Alex!”
“Kar, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Okay, yeah, sorry.”
There was an awkward silent moment before Alex spoke again.
“Hey, I see you got my presents!” Alex said, noticing the sweater Kara was wearing. “You know, that’s handmade.”
Kara looked down at herself, at the dark blue woolen sweater covered in little white dots making constellations with a yellow comet crossing the chest. “There’s no way you made this.”
“Uh, I said it was handmade. I didn’t say I made it.”
Kara giggled. “Well, it’s great either way. I love it. And everything else. Thank you.”
They both smiled at each other.
“You know I’m really sorry I couldn’t be there again this year.”
“I know,” Kara agreed. “You’re super busy stitching people up and all in the happy sunny city,” she teased.
“Hey! Just because it’s not crazy like the twin goth cities doesn’t mean we have it easy,” Alex protested.
“My city isn’t goth!” Kara said back. “It’s just… a demotion from hell.”
“Wow. Dramatic much?”
“It’s part of my charm.” Kara winked. “You know, it’s a bit ironic that I’m the one who lives in the dark and gloomy place.”
“As ironic as it is that I’m the one who lives in the sunny place.”
Kara laughed. “See?”
“So, you doing anything today?”
Kara shrugged, her smile visibly dimming. “Dick and Steph are insisting on taking me out to a bar. I’ll indulge then, but we both know I won’t last much. Especially if they try to set me up with someone, they’ve been bothering me with that for a while, decided I have to date more because apparently, I’m lonely.”
“I mean,” Alex said slowly.
Kara groaned. “Oh, not you too.”
“What? It’s been a while since Adam.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “There was James.”
“Please, that barely lasted a minute. You know mom still bothers me about you not dating enough. As if it was my fault. From across the country!”
Kara laughed. “I just wish everyone would get off my back already. I can’t will the right person into existence.”
“The right person,” Alex mocked. “Kara, you just need to get laid.”
Kara gasped loudly. “Oh my god, Alex.”
“What?” Alex fakes innocence. “How could I say something so controversial yet so brave?”
“I’m gonna hang up now.”
Alex laughed again. “Okay then. I’ll let you go, Kar. Talk to you later.”
“Ah,” Kara said, not even trying to hide her disappointment, she didn’t really mean it. “You don’t have to…”
“I have some paperwork to do,” Alex explained. “You go have fun.”
“Okay. Say hi to Maggie for me.”
Alex grimaced at that but recovered fast with a smile again. “I will.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, baby girl. Happy birthday.”
Kara turned off her phone and let out a big sigh. She was back to being alone.
She lied to Alex. Her friends, Dick and Stephany were out of town for a gala event Dick’s rich father had put on. Dick being the oldest son and Stephany the honorary daughter, had to attend. They apologized for missing her birthday, but it really didn’t change the fact that she was spending her birthday alone.
Kara got up from the kitchen stool and made her way to the couch, throwing herself into it carelessly and desolated. Another birthday without her sister. If Alex was there, they’d go out for a few rounds at a karaoke bar, and then go back home to watch Netflix and cuddle on the couch, making sure to get a cupcake for each on the way back with a single candle for Kara.
Kara got up in a jump. Just because Alex wasn’t there didn’t mean she had to give up her birthday cupcake. She got her coat and walked out of the loft.
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Liam’s plan was set in motion when he found a folder in his mother’s home office.
The folder had a file on a woman.
Donor number 38752. 1,73cm tall, 59kg, born on September 22 on Kansas. Right-handed, light skin, freckles and easily tanned, dimples, blue eyes, blonde wavy hair, wear glasses, was adopted, is Jewish. Was really good at school, graduated in linguistics, astronomy, and arts in college, with a minor on journalism. Good in math, science history and reading. Spoke eight languages, was a good singer, played the guitar and piano, painted and did sculptures, was good at sports such as running, soccer, swimming, softball, volleyball, and tennis.
There was a lot of information on the woman, many pages of it, but Liam only read the ones that had what he wanted to know, the two pages on characteristics and habits, the rest was a bunch of complicated words that made no sense to him such as cholesterol and hemophilia, so he stopped reading.
Liam was a smart boy, all that information along with the word donor in every page, he deduced this was his other mother.
But what called his attention the most was the first page, actually not even a first page, the page was separate, as if not part of the others, stuck to the flap of the folder with a paper clip, the page that had the name and the address of his other mother.
She lived in Blüdhaven, which wasn’t very far from Metropolis. The engines started spinning inside his head. Liam took out his phone and snapped pictures of everything he thought was important and put the folder back in place before running out of the office and into the library before his mother could get home.
The plan was easy, put the address he found on the internet, find a ‘how to arrive’ and go there to meet her.
The easy plan did have a few smaller details that he needed to work on, like how to actually travel. He’d never traveled alone before, not that he was afraid, he had a goal set, but he still didn’t know what transportation he’d use, and how to go without his mother knowing.
A solution showed up when his mother told him she’d have to work late on Friday. It was the perfect time to go. And he did come up with a plan for the transport part. He knew where his mother kept money for when they ordered food, he’d take that, then call an Uber from the nanny’s phone during the time that he was supposed to do his homework, sneak out of the house and go to the bus station, where he’d take a bus to Blüdhaven, preferably getting inside without anyone seeing him, when he arrived, he’d tell someone his father forgot to pick him up and he didn’t have a phone and ask them to call him an Uber to the address he had written down in a folded piece of paper, and that would take him to her.
It was a great plan and there was no way it could go wrong because it was completely amazing. He wouldn’t be calling the Ubers from his phone so his mother wouldn’t get a notification, and even if they found he used the nanny’s phone, he would take the bus and he would leave his phone at home so no one would follow him. It was perfect.
And that’s exactly what he did.
The lady from the bus station scoffed angrily when he told her his father forgot him and mumbled ‘men’ under her breath as if his fake father’s forgetting him was something predictable to her but no less enraging. He made a cute face, smiled brightly up at her, popping his dimples, and thanked her, offering to pay with his own money, but she refused him and said it was a favor on her. He wondered if she would still pay for him if she knew he was very rich because his mother’s company made many zillions of dollars. It was actually the family company, so his grandfather’s company, but it was his mother’s now, and she ran it because his uncle Lex, who was older than her, got really sick and had to go live away in a place where people who get sick in their minds go to live and get better.
He felt guilty for letting the nice lady pay for him because he had a lot of money in his backpack, so he offered the driver a few bills as a tip, because his mother taught him that leaving a tip for someone who works in jobs where they need the people who they do their jobs for to get paid, like drivers and waiters and the people who worked at hotels, was a nice thing to do and it could help them. The driver nearly choked when Liam gave him the five bills of hundred dollars and smiled at Liam. I wasn’t a great smile, but Liam wouldn’t judge.
Liam got out of the car and looked up at the building, it wasn’t very big or pretty, but the entire city looked sad already, that building wasn’t the ugliest.
Apartment 4A. Liam’s heart started hammering in his chest, he was going to meet his other mother in person. He was excited.
He pressed the doorbell and pulled on his best smile, waiting for the blonde woman to open.
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Being a single mother was the hardest job Lena had ever had. It was also the most gratifying. She loved her baby boy with all her heart and then some. He was the love of her life, her little prince.
Lena wasn’t the kind of girl who always dreamed of being a mother, nor did she believe she’d be a fantastic mother. In fact, even during her pregnancy, she had her doubts, but her brother Lex had been there for her, telling her she had nothing to worry about because she was amazing and she would be an amazing mother.
She was 24 when she decided to have a child. Though conventionally soon for a woman to decide to have a baby on her own and by herself, something usually seen as the last resort of mid to late 30’s single women desperate to have a baby before 40, Lena knew it was the right time.
She had gone to school, gotten her degree, and then three PhDs to follow, she had her own startup that she was taking off the ground, she had her brother’s support and professional advices when necessary, she had her mother for anything she could need, she had her best friend Sam… her life was great, and a lot more put together than most people her age could even dream of. But there was something missing.
Lena had been feeling like something was missing in her life for quite some time.
First, she thought it was because of her studies, but after three PhDs and an MBA, the feeling was still there. And then she thought it was a career thing, but Lex made her his CFO, after convincing her to accept it as it was her birthright and forcing her to prove to herself that she was good enough for the job, and still the feeling was there. Even after all the amazing things she did as the CFO, the feeling didn’t go away. She knew it had nothing to do with a romantic relationship, she never gave all that much attention to those, though she did have a rather active sexual life.
Until she offered to babysit Sam’s daughter, Ruby, for the weekend when the girl was three. And it was like something clicked, though she wasn’t sure yet. But the next few weeks she kept seeing more and more babies with their mothers. On the streets, on the tv, at the office, restaurants, parks, everywhere she went she started seeing, or rather noticing, babies. And so she thought about it. For months she thought about it. It all fitted. She loved children, she was good with children, whenever she saw one, she spent the next several minutes to hours thinking about what it would be like if she had one, and how her child would be. Holding babies made her feel warm inside, and she felt very important when a child liked her.
After much consideration, she had a conversation with her mother about it. Her mother who was the head researcher and chief of staff at Cadmus labs, a medical innovation center specialized in genetic engineering. Lillian explained to her all the methods Project Cadmus did, including a new method they discovered to facilitate same-sex reproduction. And when Lena decided to have a child, her mother supported her and promised to help, and to get her the healthiest, smartest and best-looking donors they had in their system, ‘only the best for a Luthor’, Lillian had said.
Lena was presented with the files of the deemed best of the best. Out of seven of them, she fell for one: donor 38752. Who happened to be a woman.
And when Lena held her baby boy in her arms for the first time, she knew she’d made the right decision.
He was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Every tiny fingernail, every single toe, every single hair on his body, and his little hands and arms and legs and feet, and his beautiful little face with his tiny nose and his funny little ears, and his cute little yawns. Lena had never been more in love. All the pain, all the blood, sweat, and tears, both literally and figuratively, it had all been worth it in that moment that she finally got to meet her baby boy. She didn’t even know it was possible to love one tiny little person so much, that she was capable of so much love.
She gave him a strong Irish name, to keep with her roots, the name of her grandfather, and for the middle name, the name of the most important person in her life… second now, her brother Lex.
Liam was an angel, he never gave her any trouble, even as a baby. He didn’t cry just for the sake of crying like a lot of fussy kids did, he didn’t keep her up all night unless something was wrong, he never made a scandal for not wanting to eat something, even tantrums were rare for him. Sometimes Lena swore she had just gotten lucky with him, that that was the only reason for him to be so good, but deep down she knew it had at least a little something to do with her, she must have been doing something right.
As he grew he continued to be nothing but amazing, never made a scandal in public, never yelled at her or did something rude like hitting someone or spitting or calling people names. Lena was very proud, of both him and herself.
Despite her doubts and her fears that she’d end up raising a spoiled rich brat who thought the world was at his feet, and with a lot of factors that could have contributed to such behavior, such as the Luthors being one of the most powerful families in the country and, as Lex liked to joke, essentially owning Metropolis, Liam turned out to be a pretty great kid.
And then Lex went crazy, that was something Lena had not seen coming. They were close, or at least she thought so. He was her big brother, her hero, her best friend, they shared everything. She relied on him for her entire life, and he helped her so much during the first couple of years of Liam’s life, that she felt guilty and somewhat responsible for not seeing the signs before. She felt like if she had seen it sooner, maybe she could have done something to help him before he completely lost himself. But that didn’t happen, and Lex lost it. Lena and Lillian had him committed to a psych ward and Lena had to step up and assume the control of the company.
Being a CEO of a massive international conglomerate and a single mother of a two-year-old boy wasn’t an easy task, but Lena managed, and she managed to always be there for her son. The transitioning process wasn’t entirely too difficult, despite Lex’s madness, it was mostly only a promotion of formalities as she had already been covering for Lex as he traveled the world doing whatever it was that he was doing, and her mother was still on the board, and she had Sam as her CFO, so she wasn’t going in blind nor alone.
After things were properly settled, she made a point to always make time for Liam, she knew how hard it was to have busy important parents that didn’t have enough time for their kids, and she didn’t want that for him. Weekends were exclusively his, and barring any emergencies, she was always there for breakfast and dinner and to help him with his homework and put him to bed, even fitting a little time between that to play with him.
Liam was a smart boy, clever, kind and curious like no other kid she’d ever met. She knew that most parents probably said the same, but Liam was special, he took after her.
He was a good kid.
Which is why it came at such a shock when the uncountable voicemails and text messages from the nanny told her one thing: Liam was gone.
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Kara didn’t know what she expected to find when she opened her door, but a pair of bright blue eyes looking up at her eagerly was definitely not on her list of possibilities.
The small boy with dark hair, pale skin and dimpled cheeks, didn’t look like anyone she’d ever seen, but there was something familiar about him, in his eyes and the shape of his nose and chin that made Kara uneasy.
“Hello?” Kara greeted confused. “Are you lost?”
“Are you Kara Danvers?” The boy asked instead, he couldn’t be older than eight.
“Yes…?” she said carefully.
“My name is Liam,” he introduced himself with a cute smile, “I’m your son.”
Kara almost choked. “You’re my what now?” That was definitely not how she envisioned her night.
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Lena gave orders for her driver to get home as fast as possible, traffic laws be damned, and texted Sam to meet her home asap.
It didn’t quite register with her until she was stepping inside of the manor, being greeted by a sympathetic Sam and a hysterical nanny, that her baby boy had disappeared.
Lena collapsed into Sam’s arms as the nanny talked, nothing really registering aside from the fact that Liam was not there and had not been for hours.
Lena was numb. She could barely feel Sam’s body keeping her steady and leading her to a sofa, and she did not hear Sam loudly scolding the nanny right near her ear.
“How could you let this happen? How do you lose a seven-year-old boy? You had one job!” Sam practically barked, livid. “And why didn’t you warn anyone sooner?”
“I tried but Ms. Luthor wasn’t answering her phone and…”
“You should have called me!”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Arias...”
“Save it!” Sam cut her off. “You’re fired!”
“Miss?”
“Get the hell out of my sight before I hurt you.”
The woman couldn’t get away fast enough.
Once alone in the living room, Sam kneeled in front of Lena, making sure she had Lena’s attention before speaking.
“Hey,” Sam said softly. “It’s going to be okay,” she promised. “We’re going to find him. We’re going to get him back.”
Lena nodded, teary eyed and still a bit in shock.
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The boy, Liam, made to talk but Kara stopped him. “Why don’t we get you inside? I’m sure this is not a conversation for a hallway.” She glanced around, sure a neighbor or another would be watching through the peep hole or was going to come out demanding explanations any time now, and she didn’t want to make a scene, especially not one that could probably end up with the police involved.
She ushered him inside and closed the door, turning around to see him standing in her living room, bouncing on his feet.
“You’re really pretty,” he said delighted.
Kara looked at him perplexed. “Thank you?” she mumbled.
He only smiled at her cutely, nodding his head as if proud of himself.
“Alright,” Kara started. “Just to be clear, I do not have children. Never had. It’d be kind of impossible for me to have a kid and not know about, considering how pregnancy works. But I still want to know how you know my name… And where I live… And what you’re doing here.”
Liam nodded. “Nine years ago, did you donate your DNA for Cadmus labs?” he asked, as if trying to induce her to the conclusion.
She couldn’t believe an eight-year-old – or less? – was talking to her like that, but it did ring a bell. Nine years ago, was when she donated her bone marrow for the cancer treatment of a little girl in Metropolis, she was on the database and the lab had paid for her ticket and everything. But it was to a lab called OMAC, she’d never willingly give her biological material for the likes of Project Cadmus, with all the evil things that were rumoured to happen in there.
Project Cadmus was a scientific research organization subsidiary of LuthorCorp, one of the world’s largest, most diversified multinational corporations, owned by the notorious Luthor family, the most powerful and controversial family in the country. Cadmus was primarily known for its achievements in genetic engineering and the rumors about its human cloning capabilities, amongst other just as ethically questionable experiments.
“I… I don’t think so,” Kara stuttered. Could it be that the lab she gone to was actually a front to Cadmus as a way to get material for research? That was both too farfetched and ingenious enough to actually be true.
“Well, Cadmus got your DNA, and my mama wanted to have a baby, but she didn’t have anyone to have it with, so she went to Cadmus and they had many files of people and she chose yours and she got your DNA and Cadmus used it with hers to make me,” Liam explained, as if it was a simple and totally ordinary statement.
“How do you know all of this?” Kara asked, because having a young boy say such things was as weird as the whole notion was for her.
Kara knew Cadmus had been revolutionary for the same-sex reproduction, but she couldn’t have been a part of it, she never agreed to do it.
“Mama told me ‘where I came from’,” he said making air quotes to highlight the sentence.
“And when she told you all of that, did she tell you that I’m your mother?”
“Other mother,” he corrected.
“Right. Other mother,” Kara corrected herself.
Liam nodded.
“But I can’t… this isn’t… I’m…” Kara paced around trying to make sense of what to tell this boy, she couldn’t tell him his mother was a liar, could she.
“Mama had your file, but there was no picture,” Liam said. “I found it in her office.” He pulled a small stack of photos from his backpack.
Kara tuned around to look at him, stopping her pacing and meeting his eager eyes as he offered her the photos.
The eyes were what got Kara, because she’d recognize those eyes anywhere, she never thought she’d get to see those eyes looking back at her ever again, not unless looking in the mirror. He had her family’s eyes, her father’s eyes. And that’s how she knew he was telling the truth. The photos he was showing her of a file with all her information, down to her SAT scores and her volunteer work, labeled ‘Kara Linda Danvers, donor 38752’, was just a consolidation.
“Oh dear god, I need to sit down,” Kara muttered as she walked backwards and fell against her couch.
As her mind tried to make sense of it all, she watched him look around her apartment, taking everything in with his curious eyes and his clearly sharp little mind.
“May I have something to drink?” he asked politely, in a way Kara had never really heard a child speak. “I’m thirsty.”
She waved a hand towards the fridge as her answer and he nodded smiling as he made his way to the fridge and got the carton of apple juice she had there, searching for a little while until he found a glass by the sink. He poured a bit for himself and turned to her.
“Would you like some?”
She shook her head no and he put the jar back in the fridge before drinking, holding the glass carefully with both hands.
“What exactly are you doing here?” Kara heard herself asking.
“I wanted to meet you,” Liam explained simply, wiping the juice from his lips with the back of his hand. “Everyone I know has two parents, and I wanted to know you.”
“Cool, cool, cool cool cool,” Kara babbled as she nodded. “That is great, yes, totally. No doubt. Awesome!”
“You’re not happy I’m here,” Liam said flatly.
Kara looked up at him and saw that he was watching her carefully.
“Well, I never knew you existed. I never even knew there was a possibility of you existing. It’s a lot to take in.”
“Did you really not give Cadmus your DNA? Mama says lots of people give their DNA’s to help other people who can’t have babies the other way.”
“The only people I gave my DNA to, were the ones at the blood bank,” Kara told him. “I’m sorry, kid.”
“It’s Liam,” he corrected her.
“Liam,” she repeated. “Well, I’m sorry, Liam, but I really didn’t… this shouldn’t be… this is so…” She couldn’t really find the right words to express herself, let alone to a young boy she never met. She saw his anguished look, finally looking concerned to be in a stranger’s apartment alone and unprotected, he was very small, and he looked near to tears, though holding them back like a pro. “I believe you,” she assured him softly.
He perked up immediately. “You do?”
Kara nodded. “Your eyes.” She gestured to her own eyes. “We, uhm, we have the same eyes.”
“Oh!”
“Gosh,” Kara exclaimed, finally thinking about the most important part of this crazy puzzle. “Your mother must be so worried about you.”
Liam’s eyes widened, and she could see he had never thought that he’d be hurting his mother, but he was now, and he felt bad.
“Alright, I’m taking you home,” Kara told him. “Where do you live?”
“I’m only telling you if you promise to hang out with me,” he said firmly, stopping his right foot a little.
“Excuse me?” she asked bewildered.
Liam shrugged. “I didn’t come all the way here just to say hi. I want to know you,” he insisted.
Kara rolled her eyes and huffed. He stood his ground, of course, she knew that if he was anything like her, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. A staring contest almost formed, and she could tell he was up to it, but Kara gave up before it could escalate more.
“I promise to hang out with you, and you tell me where you live so I can take you home?”
Liam nodded. “And the car ride does not count.”
Kara signed. “Fine. Deal.”
He insisted they shake on their deal, to make it official. Cute.
“Okay, now where do you live?”
“Metropolis,” Liam told her.
Kara sighed. “Metropolis? Seriously?”
“Uhum,” Liam hummed his confirmation, not catching that it was a rhetorical question.
“Ugh, alright, let’s get you home,” Kara said tiredly.
------
Lena had never been more scared in her entire life.
The hours she spent worrying about Liam, not knowing where he was, if he was safe, if he was hungry or cold or scared, were the worst she had ever experienced.
It was worse than finding out Lillian wasn’t her biological mother, it was worse than Lex being dragged kicking and screaming to the ambulance that would take him to the psych ward, it was worse than her father’s funeral.
She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know how to occupy time, she didn’t even know how to breathe normally.
All that she could do was sit and wait as Sam tried to calm her down and her security detail went about trying to find Liam. Sam was good at crisis management, and more importantly Lena management. They hadn’t called the police, because a scandal was the last thing they needed. A horde of reporters on the gates of the manor would do the opposite of helping. But Luthors had people on their pay role since before Lena was born, the kind of people who dealt with this kind of situation.
They had been informed that Liam had left the manor by his own volition, and that was a bittersweet information. On one hand, he had not been kidnapped which was a huge relief, on the other, he had put himself in danger and left without permission or explanation on purpose.
“Why would he do that, Sam?” Lena said as she hugged her tea cup with both hands, it wasn’t exactly a question. “Why would he do something like this? That’s so unlike him.”
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.” Sam rubbed her shoulder, giving her a half hug, and Lena let her try and comfort her.
-------
The only reason Kara had a car was because it was a going away present from the Kents to her after she spent all that time helping them instead of going after a job or an active social life. It was 6 years old, but it was in good condition, besides, a truck never really goes old if it’s well taken care of.
It was surreal to be in her truck with the young boy who claimed to be her son, driving him back to his mother.
Liam was already small, but inside her Chevy the boy looked impossibly tiny, being practically swallowed by the massiveness of the seat, and the truck in general. Kara herself felt small sometimes in the truck, and sometimes she felt a little ridiculous for having to all but climb inside, not to mention the many times she stumbled out of it and nearly fell on her face, but she liked how spacious it was, and how it made her feel confident and powerful.
She still hadn’t gotten an address from him, just the city, and she was afraid the boy truly didn’t know, because that would make it slightly harder to get him home.
Metropolis was huge, with a population of over 11 million people, there were literally millions of residences, any of those could be his, and the longer she took to get him back, the more it prolonged the agony of the mother.
She herself had never experienced anything close to it, but one time she got lost in the woods for an entire day, and the Danvers had to get the police force to get her, and when she got back home, Eliza was visibly shaken and wouldn’t let go of her for hours. She figured the boy’s mother must be feeling something similar to what Eliza felt that night, except Kara was fourteen that time and Liam was seven or eight now.
“Don’t you want to call your mother?” Kara asked Liam after a little while on the car. “Tell her that you’re okay, that you’re going home, and not being kidnapped or killed…”
Liam shrugged, looking a little guilty, as he was all the times she mentioned his mother. “I don’t know her number.”
“Oh,” Kara said. “That’s not very great. She must be really worried. Maybe even called the police... I could get arrested just for having you in my car.”
Liam tried to burry himself inside his seat. “I’m really sorry,” he said in a small voice. “I didn’t think of this. I just wanted to meet you.”
“Hey, no,” Kara exclaimed softly, placing a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’re gonna get you home safely and it’ll all be fine, okay?”
He nodded.
“It’s going to be a long ride, you know,” Kara told him a few minutes later. “Do you want to listen to music or something?”
“Do you know how to play 20 questions?”
-------
“What if it was something I did,” Lena asked Sam after they retired the tea and went for the wine when it was clear Lena needed something stronger.
“He didn’t run away from you, Lena,” Sam assured her. “You are an amazing mom and that boy loves you to pieces.”
“But I’ve been working so hard lately and I’m never around,” Lena argued. “What if he feels neglected?”
“Hey!” Sam said sharply, startling Lena and making the brunette look at her. “You are not Lillian, you hear me?”
With wide glassy eyes, Lena nodded quickly.
Despite having a good relationship now that she was an adult, Lena and her mother had a very complicated relationship when she was growing up. Mostly because Lillian worked too much and didn’t give Lena enough attention, which led Lena to spend most of her childhood second-guessing herself and believing her mother didn’t love her.
“You are an amazing mother and you’re doing a great job with that little boy, and he idolizes you,” Sam continued with passion. “He told me the other day that you’re his hero because you help other people and that he wants to be like you when he grows up. He also told me he leaves the hardest parts of his homework for you to help him with, even when he knows it, because he knows you like helping him. Do you really think a boy like that feels neglected?”
Lena had started crying the moment Sam said the word hero. “I’m scared, Sam,” she confessed as the tears rolled down. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to him.”
Sam pulled Lena into a tight hug. “Nothing is going to happen, honey. He’ll come back. Safe; and everything will be okay. And he’ll tell you everything I just told you, that you’re the best mom and that he loves you more than anything.”
Lena nodded as she cried on Sam’s shoulder, gripping Sam’s shirt tightly.
Sam was trying to be strong for Lena, but she was just as scared. It had been over six hours since the nanny noticed he was gone, and who knows how long he had been gone before that, and there were still no leads from the tracking team. That couldn’t be a good sign. But Sam knew she had to be strong for Lena. Lena was the strongest woman she knew, but right now Lena needed her help, and there was nothing Sam would deny her.
-------
It was a near three hours ride from Blüdhaven to Metropolis, and Kara managed to entertain Liam easily.
Despite the situation, he was a very easy-going boy, cheerful and curious if only a bit shy… though shy wasn’t really the word, a little introverted, it seemed. And he seemed to be extremely smart for his age. They played 20 questions and he beat Kara three out of four times, giggling every time she made a question that was too far off from what he was thinking.
He was really cute and charming, and Kara was sure he was used to interacting with adults and that his mother was probably a very sociable person.
At some point, Liam decided to ask Kara questions about herself, because, as he had said, he wanted to know her.
“The file said you spoke eight languages, do you really speak eight languages?”
The file, that was something that made Kara very uneasy. To know someone stole her information like that. Which was almost silly to be bothered by something so little compared to the actual child created by her supposed stolen DNA. Stolen DNA was significantly worse than her school record.
“I actually speak ten languages,” Kara told him. “There’s English, obviously, then Yiddish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, German and ASL. But I can read Latin as well... not too sure on the pronunciation though.”
“Wow!” the little boy gasped. “That’s cool.”
Kara laughed. “Yeah. Not so popular when I was in school.”
“Why not?” Liam asked genuinely confused.
“Because kids made fun of me for being a nerd.”
“Being a nerd is cool. My mama is a nerd, and she is super cool, and she makes lots of money.”
Kara laughed again. “Yeah, nerds usually make a lot of money when they grow up.”
“Do you make lots of money?”
“I said usually, not always,” Kara joked. “I’m a journalist, buddy,” she explained. “Which means I don’t.”
Liam hummed, mostly to himself. “My mama doesn’t like journalists much,” he said candidly. “She says they are annoying and put their noses where they shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, some journalists can be like that,” Kara agreed.
“Mama doesn’t like when journalists try to take our picture in the street,” the boy continued, “she says it’s an invasion of, of…” He stopped, trying to find the word.
“Privacy?” Kara offered.
“Yeah.”
“Those journalists aren’t very nice. They’re called paparazzi, I don’t like them either,” Kara told him. And then she frowned. “What does your mama do for them to want your picture?”
“She’s a CEO,” he said proudly. “Which means she’s the boss of many, many people.”
“I know what a CEO is,” Kara said, not unkindly. “What is she the CEO of?”
“Our family company,” Liam said.
“Oh, that’s cool,” Kara said, without realizing the boy hadn’t finished talking.
“LuthorCorp,” he finished.
Kara choked on her saliva and almost hit the brakes. The car shook a bit, but she managed to steady it as she coughed. “Your mother is Lena Luthor?” Kara gasped.
“Uhum,” Liam agreed with a nod.
“Oh, fudge.”
Kara pulled over. She needed to take a breath.
“Is something wrong?” Liam asked with a deep frown.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. I just needed to, uhm, rest my feet,” Kara lied lamely.
The good news was Kara now knew where the boy lived. The bad news was he was a member of the very powerful and allegedly dangerous family that could easily make her disappear without leaving a trace.
Kara googled where the Luthor Manor was. There were two mansions on the Luthor name in Metropolis, but the Luthor Manor, the smallest of the two, if six acres of property could be called small, was where Lena Luthor was known to live ever since her son was born. Kara knew this for being a reporter, and as a reporter, she felt stupid not recognizing who was probably the richest child in the country. Maybe Lena Luthor was doing a good job at keeping him somewhat hidden from the world.
Kara put the coordinates to the manor on her GPS before starting the car again.
She was silent for a few minutes as she resumed the drive until Liam got bored and started speaking again.
“What’s the favorite language you can speak?”
“French,” Kara said with no hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because my aunt taught me, and it’s what I spoke with her.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Hmm… Red, I guess.”
“Do you like pink pancakes?”
“I never had just pink pancakes. I like to draw mine, actually.”
“Cool!”
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“The Wizard of Oz.”
Liam frowned. “I never watched it.”
“It’s really ooold,” she joked. “What’s yours?”
“Star Wars!” he exclaimed, enunciating the words exaggeratedly.
Kara laughed. “I like Star Wars too. My sister and I watch all of them together every Christmas.”
“Mama took me to visit the place where they filmed Tatooine last year,” he told her excitedly, then he paused. “It was mostly just sand, though.”
Kara laughed again, a bit harder. “That was to be expected.” She bit her lip, considering what to say next. “So, uhm, your mother sounds… cool,” it was lame, and it sounded like a question and Kara wanted to hit herself.
But Liam was just seven – and three quarter, as she had come to find out – as smart as he was, and didn’t pick up on her pathetic attempt at a conversation starter.
“Mama is the coolest! She’s super smart, and she can build things from nothing, like she built a drone once and it could fly faster than the ones you buy at the stores, it was awesome, and she can fix anything and she bakes the best cookies, and she’s great at reading stories and she plays video games with me and she lets me win, even though I don’t want her to let me win because then I’ll never beat her for real but she always pretends like she doesn’t know what I’m talking...”
“Wow,” Kara gasped to stop his little rant. “Sounds like you really love her.”
“I do,” he agreed with a vigorous nod. “So much. She’s the best.”
Kara could only smile. She didn’t really know how to follow such a passionate ode to the mother.
The mother who was Lena Luthor.
The Lena Luthor. The woman who was CFO of the biggest business conglomerate of the Occident at 23, and CEO at 26. Granted it was her family’s company and she only took over after her brother Lex went crazy, but the company had been doing increasingly better since she took over. And she still was the youngest woman CEO in the world, not to mention the richest woman in the world according to Forbes, and the youngest of the world’s top billionaires, being a year younger than Mark Zuckerberg. The woman was a legend.
And a Luthor.
And Kara was still terrified of that part.
Despite being the face of several charities and being a big philanthropist and advocate for people’s rights, Kara didn’t want to know what the Luthor part of her would do to the person who had her son.
And she was the person who had said son in her possession.
Oh, she was so dead.
As she drove up the pathway leading to the gates of the Luthor Manor, Kara kept waiting for a sniper to take her out or for a black ops agent to just drop over her truck and yank her outside. But maybe they wouldn’t risk it while Liam was with her. She was safe with Liam. They could be just waiting for her to drop him off, for a mean looking henchman to be sent after her, and then her family would never know what happened to her and she’d never get to read the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire or watch the next Avengers movie.
The closer she got to the gates, the harder her heart beat.
Until she came to a stop. Right in front of the gates. By the intercom.
Heart thundering in her chest, she reached over to press the button on the intercom, and just as the little screen was coming to life and a voice asked who it was, Liam was jumping in her lap and peaking his head out.
“It’s me Mickey!” he said with a bright smile to the camera, and Kara could swear she recognized at least part of that smile as her own.
“Welcome home, Master Liam,” the man said almost reverent, but Kara detected a hint of teasing in the voice.
The gates opened, and Kara waited for Liam to put his seatbelt back on before continuing.
Had the circumstances been different, Kara would have been able to appreciate the massive home better, but she was on a mission… of sorts.
She parked right next to a fountain, surrounded by flowers and streetlights illuminating the pathway, and jumped out of the truck, circling it quickly to help Liam out. She was opening the passenger door when the doors to the house opened.
“LIAM!” came a pierced and desperate scream and Kara glanced over her shoulders to see a dark-haired woman clad in business like clothes, pencil skirt, button up shirt, tight bun and expensive looking heels, with tearstained cheeks practically sprinting towards them. The mother, Kara thought, Lena freaking Luthor.
Kara helped Liam down, having to literally pick him up and put him down on the floor, due to the height of her truck. The boy hadn’t even properly touched the ground yet when the woman reached him, throwing herself at him, hugging him so fiercely they both almost stumbled to the floor.
“Oh, my love,” Lena gasped, “mama was so worried.” She hugged him as tight as she could, tears running down her face fast, trying to kiss every inch of his face. “Mama was so worried, baby,” she repeated. “I thought I lost you.”
“I’m sorry, mama,” Liam said in a small voice.
Kara stood back awkwardly. Feeling like an intruder on this personal moment. Watching this woman, who she always perceived as super composed and, well, a Luthor, completely break in front of her. Kara never thought Luthors even had real emotions, yet there she was crying uncontrollably, and from the looks of it, she had spent the last few hours doing just that. Right then, she wasn’t Lena Luthor, CEO, she was simply a mother, glad to have her son safely back in her arms.
Kara felt eyes on her and raised her head to see a tall woman studying her by the large doors of the manor. She shifted awkwardly in place and then Lena Luthor was looking at her.
It was like something had clicked, and the woman went from a concerned mother to savvy business woman in a clench of jaw. Kara tried not to think about how attractive that jaw clench was, but the woman in front of her looked like a Greek goddess and Kara had very little control over her gay mess of self. Sure she had seen the woman in magazines and in online articles and stuff, but pictures did not do justice to how breathtakingly gorgeous she was.
The woman straightened herself up, standing tall in front of Kara, but keeping a hand firmly on her son’s shoulder. She tightened her lips, with a little frown of her brows when she swallowed her saliva, drying her tears with the cuff of her shirt.
Wow, was the only thought Kara could form.
“Thank you for finding my son and bringing him home,” Lena Luthor said formally, Kara recognized the CEO in her voice.
Kara nodded, looking at the woman still a little dumbly, her lips gaping as she looked for something to say. She ended up laughing nervously. “Yeah, n-no, no problem. Not at all,” she stammered. “He, uhm, he actually found… found me,” she confessed.
The Luthor woman raised one eyebrow at her, as if asking Kara to elaborate.
“I’m Kara Danvers.” The woman looked like she had just been slapped in the face, and Kara smiled a bit awkwardly at her. “Hi.”
-------
“Ms. Luthor,” one of the security guards said approaching them in the kitchen. “He’s here.”
“What?” Both Lena and Sam said together.
“He just entered the gates in a pickup truck. A woman is driving him,” the man explained.
A sob dislodged itself from Lena’s throat, like it had been stuck there for hours, and before Sam or the security man even knew what was happening, Lena was running towards and out the door.
She saw a bright blue death contraption parked by the fountain and a woman was opening the passenger door. But nothing mattered, Lena didn’t see anything else when the door opened, and she saw him inside.
“LIAM!” Lena screamed as she ran towards them with a speed she never even knew she had.
She reached them just as the woman was putting him in the ground, and she pulled him into her arms.
“Oh, my love,” Lena gasped, “mama was so worried.” She hugged him as tight as she could, hands gripping his jacket, trying to kiss every inch of his face. “Mama was so worried, baby,” she repeated. “I thought I lost you.”
“I’m sorry, mama,” Liam said in a small voice.
“It’s alright, my love. You’re okay, you’re home,” Lena breathed out relieved, and Liam nodded and let her squish him as much as she needed.
Until she caught a movement and she remembered they weren’t alone. She looked up at the woman, still crouched in front of her son. She wasn’t what one would expect to come out of a pickup truck. White skinny jeans and a thick dark blue space themed sweater, with a plaid shirt peeking out from underneath, all of which were extremely fitting, nearly painted on, in the lithe body of the blonde woman in piggy-tails and dark-framed glasses. She looked like someone one would find at a chess match – and Lena would know – not coming out of a monstrosity of a car. She was attractive, Lena would give her that, her body was visibly toned even through the jeans and sweater, and she had a rather youthful face, quite cute.
It was obvious that the blonde was completely out of her element.
Lena clenched her jaw as she eyed the woman, and she looked about ready to run away. She straightened her posture, steeling herself and she noticed the woman get even more uncomfortable as Lena went from concerned mother to Luthor with hardly a breath. The blonde gulped and Lena almost didn’t hold back the smile of satisfaction at the reaction. Pressing her lips together tightly, Lena wiped at her face with the sleeve of her blouse.
“Thank you for finding my son and bringing him home,” Lena said in her ‘Luthor’ voice.
The woman nodded, gaping a little like she didn’t know what to say, then laughing nervously. “Yeah, n-no, no problem. Not at all,” she stammered. “He, uhm, he actually found… found me,” she confessed.
Lena raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the blonde.
“I’m Kara Danvers.”
Lena felt faint, like the ground was shifting underneath her. That was very much unexpected.
Lena trusted her mother wholeheartedly and didn’t even think to question her when it came to choosing the procedure for her pregnancy. A less trusting daughter might have reconsidered and asked for a male donor to go with the common procedure, as much as she loved the one she chose.
The girl with the perfect GPA, with an SAT score higher than Lena’s, which implied she got all questions right considering Lena had only missed two, who decided to study arts and journalism instead of pursuing a higher and more prestigious field of study. The girl who finished highschool at 14 and graduated college with three majors before 20, speaking eight languages, and who lived with her elderly relatives in a farm in Kansas to help them with the things they were too old to do. The girl with a heart so big she volunteered in resting homes and hospitals on both the cancer and the children’s ward, who donated blood 3 times a year and adopted sick or elderly dogs so they had someone to love before passing. Lena was in love before she even finished reading the file, and she didn’t even bother reading any other. She trusted her mother knew what she was doing.
Despite her PhD in biochem, Lena wasn’t a geneticist and her knowledge on genetic engineering was limited to a few scientific magazine articles and what her mother had told her. Lena had total faith in science, in her mother, and the work Cadmus was doing, so she went ahead with the procedure without a question, without a doubt.
The only thing Lena did do before, was running a more detailed background check on the donor. It was the Luthor thing to do, and her mother laughed when she confessed to it.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Lillian had told her. “In fact, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
Though one thing she never told her mother, was that she had refuse to look at a recent picture of the woman. She knew it was silly of her, but she was so infatuated by the woman already, simply by what she found out about her, that knowing how she looked would either break the magic or make it worse and ruin Lena completely, and she couldn’t let herself to care for someone involved in a process that was so clinical, impersonal, detached.
But as the years would go on, Lena would indulge herself in the silly sentimentalism of the situation and keep tabs on the young woman who would grow up to become a reporter, and a good one at that. She’d feel like she knew the woman while at the same time not knowing her at all, like a celebrity one follows on Twitter or an artist one admires to for their entire life having a glimpse into their soul with each work but would not recognize if they passed by on the street. Lena would read every article the woman ever published, but she’d never manage to bring herself to look at a picture of her, know how she looked.
And as Kara Danvers stood in front of her, smiling down at her a little awkwardly but entirely too charming, Lena knew that her decision had been wise. She didn’t know what she’d do with herself had she known the woman was the personification of an angel.
Lena would describe the feeling of meeting her as somewhere between star-struck and a slap on the face; completely earthshattering.
A stab of panic washed though her, like a bitter taste rising in her throat, that this woman was here to take her son away from her.
It didn’t really help that the blonde did a little wave as she started swaying in place nervously and said “Hi” in the most awkward and yet adorable way Lena had ever seen in a grown adult.
Fuck, was all Lena could think.