Chapter Text
Lena clenched her jaw so tightly that a sharp pain shot to her temples and made her groan silently. The chatter around her turned into a dull noise, just a monotone sound that did nothing to break through the headache that was slowly forming like a vice around her skull.
Her fingers were curled around the champagne glass firmly enough that she had to consciously remind herself not to crush it in her hand.
“Don’t just stand there, I haven’t invited these people for you to just scowl at them.”
Lena ground her teeth together and quickly emptied her champagne glass before there was nothing left of her molars. “Then why have you invited them, mother? I’m sure it has nothing to do with me at all.”
“On the contrary,” Lillian replied and Lena didn’t like the tight-lipped smile on her mother’s face at all. It always meant something entirely unpleasant was about to happen. Every time.
Lillian linked her arm with Lena’s and guided her through the small crowd toward the other side of the room.
Lena stiffened immediately but her feet nevertheless began moving at her mother’s too tight grip on her arm. This was neither the time nor the place to make a scene, although she wanted nothing more than a healthy amount of space between herself and her mother’s schemes.
The little get-together Lillian had organized was merely a way for her to acquire new business partners for a very important and very secret new venture Luthor Corp had invested in. Lena hadn’t been able to figure out what exactly this project entailed, but since Lex had begun his work under Lillian’s tutelage, he’d started to change.
Not that he spent much time with her anymore, keeping to himself and whatever he was working on at Luthor Corp.
Somehow, he’d also managed to get out of attending this little party and Lena wasn’t sure if she was glad to be away from the man who had once regarded her with fondness but now carried a darkness in his eyes that sent shivers down her spine whenever she saw him, or angry that he’d left her to deal with their mother alone.
Although Lena had tried her best to stay away, she’d eventually decided to return her family’s estate. Not because of her mother’s insistence, of course, but simply because this house held memories very dear to her. Her father’s study was still untouched, as if he’d just stepped outside for a smoke.
But now she was starting to regret her decision. Her mother’s presence was almost unbearable and this party was filled with pretentious know-it-all stakeholders and investors who had nothing better to do than debate over whether the pollution of their newest project was worth the money it would make.
Lena was dragged from her thoughts when a cloud of revolting aftershave surrounded her and she barely managed to suppress a growl that was crawling its way up her throat.
“Ah what a pleasure you decided to stop by,” Lillian declared with a smile that was as insincere as ever.
They’d stopped in front of a man holding a champagne glass, his hair a solid mass of gelled curls and his too-white-teeth a disturbing contrast to his fake tan.
“It’s good to see you Lena,” Timothy said.
Lena shot him the most menacing glare she was physically capable of but he simply looked back at her with an asinine smile and clasped her hand in both of his to greet her.
“Timmy,” Lena replied simply and snatched her hand away as soon as he let go. She couldn’t believe she was sacrificing her break from university for this nonsense. Instead she could be holed up in a blessedly empty lab on campus and working on their newest formula with Jack.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Lillian said with a pointed look in Lena’s direction.
Lena followed her mother’s departure with her eyes until she’d disappeared into a different part of the house before she turned back to Timothy.
“How have you been?” he asked and Lena snatched another glass of champagne from a nearby tray instead of answering.
The sight of Timothy J. Pike alone was enough to send tiny shivers of revulsion down her spine. Several years ago, she’d happened upon Lillian and her father having a discussion in the kitchen of this very house. While Lionel had been insistent that Lena wouldn’t be sent off to boarding school before her sixteenth birthday, Lillian had vowed that she would marry ‘that girl’ off as soon as she was able to and get her out of this house.
Thus far her mother hadn’t been successful, but she’d never cared for Lena’s happiness either way, so the men she threw in her direction generally had more money than braincells and Lena wasn’t going to give in anytime soon. Or ever. She would make a career out of her science and leave Lillian and her attempts to get rid of her where they belonged—in the dust.
Timothy opened his mouth to say something else incredibly bland, surely, when Lena simply turned away and walked out of the room as quickly as her heels would carry her.
“I have to get out of here.”
This was the last straw, her mother inviting a man she’d clearly expressed her distaste for after making her suffer through attending this awful party was beyond what she could endure. Enough was enough.
She took off her earrings while she was still walking through the house and stepped out of her heels as soon as she reached the garage.
Several keys were hanging side by side on a large board and she grabbed the first one she could reach. It happened to be the big black SUV her father had bought many years ago. The lights flickered as she unlocked the vehicle and climbed up into the front seat.
Her grip around the steering wheel was tight, her knuckles standing out in white contrast as she started the car with the push of a button. The garage door slid upwards and the motor rumbled quietly as she drove into the night, her headlights cutting through the darkness and illuminating her way toward the front gate.
Her departure was swift and silent, but her insides were still boiling. She just needed to get away, take a break from all this, not care anymore that her mother thought of her as a disappointment.
The road that led to the estate was completely deserted, nothing but black trees on either side. Most of the land surrounding the house had been bought by the Luhtor family and neighboring property was also in the hands of old money families. Therefore, it wasn’t terribly surprising that not many people found their way to this part of the map.
The next city wasn’t too far, but Lena was determinedly driving in the other direction where she knew the road would lead up and into the mountains for hours without coming across a single town.
She pressed her lips together and pushed her bare foot down on the gas, speeding around the next curve and feeling gravity pulling at her body. A small part of her knew that she was being irrational, but it felt good for a change. There was only so much anger she could keep bottled up inside.
There was nothing but black landscape on either side of the road as she continued driving until her racing heart slowly calmed and she found herself exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the past days.
She needed to get away from Lillian, back to the life she’d painstakingly built despite what was left of her family slowly deteriorating into something unrecognizable. The turn Luthor Corp had taken was something she couldn’t simply accept and yet it was beyond even her capabilities to stop it. The headlines had gotten worse recently, declaring Lex to be some kind of maniacal genius with an irrational hatred for all alien life. Superman’s nemesis, they called him, a villain.
Lena sighed and her hands tightened around the steering wheel. A villain, like in a fairy tale.
She glanced at the dashboard and realized that she’d been driving for almost three hours. She raised her hand to her mouth and yawned, tears springing to her eyes at the sudden force of her tiredness.
It would probably be best if she took a break.
Just as the thought had crossed her mind, her headlights suddenly illuminated something in the middle of the road. It was some kind of animal, a small deer or a large wolf, or something else with four legs and shiny eyes.
She jerked the steering wheel to the side to avoid a collision and the car swiveled around because of wet leaves covering the pavement. Even with both feet on the brake she wasn’t able to stop the car from heading straight for the bushes by the side of the road.
A second later, the black vehicle was swallowed by the night and the bushes returned to their original position without much lasting damage.
Behind the tree line was a deep drop and Lena screamed as she plowed through underbrush, her hands still clawing at the steering wheel as if she could change anything about the situation if she only brought the car back under her control.
The tires skidded through the mud and nothing stopped her descend until a large tree trunk appeared in the glow of the headlights. Lena raised her arms to her face and braced for impact just as the front window shattered into pieces and glass rained down on her. The blow caused her to jerk forward and her forehead collided with something solid even as the airbag exploded into her face and the world around her finally turned completely black.
S-S-S
There was a noise, something unsettling and loud, and it made the pain in her head worse. She groaned quietly and pried her eyes apart. It was dark all around her and the noise simply refused to stop.
Her entire body was sore as she sat slumped forward, her chest pressing uncomfortably against something solid yet squishy. Every miniscule movement resulted in stinging pain shooting through her head.
After several moments of breathing deeply, she eventually managed to raise her hand to her head and push some hair out of her face. Her fingertips touched something warm and wet and she flinched away from the sensation.
She raised both hands and finally pushed her upper body into an upright position until her back hit something solid.
A car.
She was sitting in a car and the incessant noise that simply wouldn’t stop was rain battering onto the roof and against the pieces of the windshield that were still in place. The airbag was crumpled in front of her and she looked around slowly, mindful of the throbbing in her skull.
She couldn’t see much beyond the darkness around her but the hood of the car was steaming and flattened against the trunk of a tree. Probably an accident, she concluded and unbuckled the seatbelt with shaking fingers.
Every movement seemed incredibly slow but she managed to open the car door with a bit of force, groaning at the way her head felt heavy and thick. She stumbled out of the car and into the wet leaves. She was drenched within seconds and glanced down, noting absently that she was only wearing a dress.
She got to her feet and swayed in place for a few moments before her surroundings swam back into focus.
The car was a wreck, as far as she could tell, and a quick glance around confirmed that there must have been some kind of accident. Deep gouges in the mud led up a steep hill where several smaller trees had broken under the weight of the car. She considered the hill for a moment and decided that trying to climb it in this rain with bare feet was simply impossible, especially because she couldn’t seem to focus on one thing in particular for a longer period of time.
She began moving in the opposite direction, toward an endless array of trees, as a wave of dizziness hit her and she doubled over while whatever contents of her stomach left her body. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and groaned quietly.
The night wasn’t particularly cold but she nonetheless began to shiver lightly in the rain.
The dry backseat of the car was very inviting, but the black smoke still rising from the hood as well as the acrid smell of gasoline in the air kept her from going back.
There had to be another way out of this.
One step after the other, she told herself, just to keep moving. The mantra repeated itself in her mind as she staggered through the rain, every tree looking absolutely the same in the darkness, although she wasn’t sure why she kept pushing forward after her body had become beyond tired. Every muscle seemed to be made of lead and the soles of her feet were a complete mess as she stumbled over branches and rocks.
The rain eventually turned into a soft drizzle and she reached what she assumed to be the edge of the forest, where the trees became less dense. Her path led her to an open field where she discovered some sort of small shack. The closer she came the clearer she could see silhouettes moving within and she realized that the shack was a wooden lean-to where several horses had sought shelter from the rain.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking. It certainly felt like several hours but could’ve easily been more or less than that. She was completely exhausted by the time she crossed the field and the dizziness made her stumble forward until her foot caught on something solid and she basically tumbled into the wet grass face-first.
She was dimply aware of the rain stopping at some point but she just couldn’t move any further, so she breathed out and closed her eyes, drifting off right there in the middle of the field in her soaked dress.
S-S-S
Thunder?
The loud noise was accompanied by the ground shaking underneath her, so maybe it was an earthquake instead.
She mumbled quietly to herself, somewhat grouchy at being awoken so roughly, but once she took stock of her body she found that she couldn’t exactly move. Everything hurt and the world was spinning in slow circles around her.
Her cheek was pressed against the moist grass and she turned her head just so until she could squint at the sunlight slowly filling the field. The noise she was still hearing had nothing to do with any natural occurrences, but was caused by hooves pounding onto the ground, making it vibrate and shake.
In fact, she was surrounded by several hooves but one particular set was heading straight for her and she squeezed her eyes shut, her breath catching in her throat.
The hooves stopped a moment later and instead she heard heavy steps coming closer until there was a soft rustling and she felt warm hands against the exposed skin of her back and shoulders. Those hands were accompanied by the faint scent of fresh linen and she opened her eyes again to stare at scruffy brown boots.
“Oh god, are you alright? Can you hear me?” a female voice asked and she groaned quietly. She really wanted to answer both questions, but only another pitiful sound made it out of her mouth.
“Okay, I’m going to get you out of here, just hold on,” the voice continued and then she must’ve passed out again…
…because when she woke up next, she was surprisingly warm and resting on something decidedly soft.
There were no annoying sounds this time around and she hummed quietly. This was definitely an improvement on before, although she was a bit fuzzy on what exactly entailed this ‘before’.
“Can you hear me, ma’am?” someone asked and she slowly opened one eye, squinting at a strict-looking man who was examining her forehead with gentle hands and a small flashlight.
“…yes,” she replied, closing her eyes against the bright light.
“Follow the light with your eyes for a moment please,” he said in his deep voice and she blinked her eyes open to follow his instruction.
Her head still felt thick and heavy, but the pain was manageable. The light in her eyeballs wasn’t entirely pleasant but she focused on it for several seconds before it was clicked off.
“I’m afraid you have a concussion, but we will need to run a couple of tests to make sure it does not turn into something more serious.”
“You’re… a doctor?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, “my name is Hank Henshaw and I’m the local physician. I will let you rest for now, but someone will come check on you every hour for the next few hours.”
“M’kay,” she mumbled and yawned. Her eyes were heavy again and she was still a bit dizzy, making it impossible to stay awake.