Chapter Text
Lena couldn’t hold in a yawn as the elevator slowly travelled down to the ground floor. She was drained, both physically and emotionally. It was overly tempting to just stay at the hospital and sleep in a chair in the lobby. But she wanted to get home. She never slept well without Kara by her side, anyway.
As if Kara knew she was the subject of her wife’s thoughts, Lena’s phone rang mere seconds after she left the elevator. Lena smiled sleepily as she answered.
“Hey love,” she said softly.
“Hi,” came Kara’s voice from the other end. “Are you still at the hospital?”
“Just leaving. I’ll be home in about an hour.”
“An hour…Lena did you walk again?” Lena heard her wife sigh, though she could hear the fondness and affection in it. “Babe, I appreciate you trying to save the environment singlehandedly, I really do but…”
“Kara, darling, it’s not just that. Hospital parking is overpriced. And honestly, I needed the walk earlier. The fresh air is…refreshing.”
”I know. But Lena it’s after ten at night, and it’s absolutely pouring outside. Please, let me pick you up.”
Lena had gotten to an exit and peered through the sliding glass doors to see that Kara was right. It was an absolute torrential downpour outside. That, combined with the thought of getting to see Kara sooner, was all it took to convince Lena.
“Alright, darling. I’ll wait here for you.”
“Perfect!” Lena grinned at the enthusiasm she could hear in her wife’s voice. “I’ll be there in twenty or less. Just hang tight. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Lena smiled. She hung up and made her way to a plastic chair in the nearly empty hallway. There were more comfortable chairs in the waiting area, but Lena didn’t think she had the energy to make it there.
Visiting her mother hadn’t initially been so exhausting for Lena. There was a time when she’d leave the hospital feeling not quite happy, but content. Lilian had been doing so well, and their visits were filled with light conversation and reassurances. But the past month the change had been obvious. Lilian more often than not could not hide her pain and frustrations, and talking was quickly becoming a struggle. And it was torturous for Lena to watch that hateful disease eat her mother from the outside in. Sometimes she wished Lilian’s mind would go. It was hellish to see such awareness in her eyes.
Whenever Kara could, she would come with Lena. Those visits were always easier. Kara’s inability to ever be sad was a lift for both Lena and Lilian. Even if they just sat in silence on the days Lilian’s throat was too sore to speak, Kara’s presence was a comfort. Being held by her wife was the best feeling in the world. But Kara’s hours were ever changing, and for the past week in particular Kara had been working overtime as she investigated a potentially big lead for a story.
Lena was slumped over in the uncomfortable chair, nearly right asleep, when her phone buzzed. She laughed softly at Kara’s texts. Kara would often use nothing but emojis to communicate. It was one of the endless traits Lena love about her wife.
Lena exited the building, hunching her shoulders against the driving rain. She saw Kara’s red jeep straight away parked in the drop off and pickup area. As she got closer, Kara jumped out of the driver’s side door and practically sprinted to Lena. The instant comfort Lena felt as soon as Kara wrapped her arms around her could have almost been ridiculous, if it hadn’t been so incredibly soothing.
“Mmm, hi,” Lena murmured, breathing in Kara’s delicious scent.
“Hi yourself. How are you doing?”
“Better now,” Lena said truthfully.
“Good.” Kara kissed the top of Lena’s head, still holding her tight. “How is Lilian?”
Lena tried to speak a couple times, the words getting caught in her throat. Finally she just shook her head and leaned back ever so slightly to look up at her wife. “I can’t…not right now. Let’s just go home?”
Kara’s eyes briefly clouded, but then she smiled and pecked Lena on the lips. “Of course.” Without warning she crouched down and swept Lena up bridal style, carrying her around to the passenger side. Lena couldn’t help but laugh. “Your chariot awaits, madam.”
Lena was half asleep during the drive home, but Kara didn’t seem to mind. She held Lena’s left hand in her right, chatting about her story and her job. Lena had a small smile on her face as she drifted in and out. Just hearing Kara’s voice filled her with a warmth she hadn’t felt all day. She couldn’t wait to get home and just crawl into bed, cuddling against her beautiful wife…
--
“Arghh!” Lena groaned in frustration and threw her mug viciously against the wall, where it shattered. She knew it was juvenile, but she just couldn’t help it. She had just run her numbers for the twentieth time and they were coming out all wrong and her defence was in less than a week and…
“Lena? You okay in there?”
Even the wonderful sound of Kara’s voice couldn’t console Lena. Rudely, she shouted at her girlfriend to go away and leave her alone. There was a brief silence. The next sound Lena heard was that of the door to her office opening and footsteps coming up behind her. She should have known better than to think Kara would actually leave her alone that easily.
“Babe, what is it?” Lena didn’t respond. She just lowered her head to her hands and groaned again. “Lena, honey, come on. Talk to me.”
“It’s all wrong,” Lena said through gritted teeth. “Two years of my life I’ve spent working on this and it’s all wrong. They’re going to laugh at me next week. I’ve wasted so much time!”
Next thing Lena knew there were hands on her shoulders, rubbing and massaging. Despite her anger, Lena couldn’t help but melt into the touch. Kara bent down and kissed Lena’s cheek.
“You’re amazing Lena. There’s no way all your research is wrong.” Lena started to protest, but Kara cut her off. “Don’t. Lena, I’ve watched you work on this for two years. Nothing is wrong with your research, I promise. You’re just freaking out a little bit. But it’s ok. You’re ok.”
“What if I’m not?” Lena asked stubbornly, already feeling a bit better but not willing to be consoled quite yet.
“You are.” Kara kissed her cheek again. “You’re ok. By this time next week, I’m going to be kissing a master.”
Lena chuckled and looked up, turning her head to give her girlfriend a quick kiss. “You’re ridiculous. That’s not exactly how it works.”
Kara just shrugged. “Don’t care. All I know is that you’re going to successfully defend your thesis and they’re going to give you that degree. You’ve worked too hard to fail at this.”
“Thank you,” Lena said softly. “I needed that. I needed you.”
“Uh-huh,” Kara said, somewhat smugly. “You know what else you need? A break.”
“Kara not right now, I’ve got…” Lena yelped as Kara spun her chair around startlingly quick. “Kara!”
Kara just grinned. She straddled Lena in the desk chair, looping her arms casually around Lena’s neck. She leaned down, and Lena was ready for a kiss, but Kara pulled back slightly, laughing. “Does this mean you want a break now?”
Lena didn’t answer. She just chased Kara’s lips and kissed her breathlessly. Their lips moved with and against each other, perfect like always. When Kara’s tongue moved past her lips and met her own, Lena just sighed happily. She wasn’t surprised when she felt Kara’s hand on her breast. Her girlfriend had always been the more handsy of the two. Kara’s lips left hers, but Lena’s disappointed groan quickly turned into a moan of pleasure as Kara began peppering kisses up Lena’s jaw.
“Kara, darling, as much as I’d love to continue this here…” Lena was briefly sidetracked as Kara nipped at her ear. “Mmm…Kara we need to move…this chair is…oh yes right there…this is old…”
The look of disgruntled surprise on Kara’s face when the old, cheap office chair crumpled beneath them was enough to drive any remaining worries from Lena’s mind. She couldn’t help but laugh, and then she rolled on top of her girlfriend to finish what they started. And when Lena successfully defended her Master’s, Kara was the first person to congratulate her. They celebrated all night long, and Lena decided right then that the next day she was going to go out ring shopping.
--
Lena’s ears were ringing sharply. There was a weight pressing against her chest, but when she went to move it she couldn’t seem to lift her arms. A sharp stinging shot through her left wrist, and she cried out. She couldn’t seem to open her eyes, but she could see bright lights flashing through the lids.
“Kara,” she said, weakly.
With a grimace, Lena forced her eyes open. The world she saw was a confusing mess of flashing lights. There was a spider’s web in front of her, but that didn’t make any sense. Shattered glass, her brain supplied, but that made even less sense to Lena. She couldn’t move, and her wrist was throbbing. She struggled to piece together some memory, anything.
There was a loud grinding sound, like nails on a chalkboard. Lena cringed away from it. A cry escaped from her lips and she felt immediately ashamed. Where was Kara? Kara would tell her what was going on, Kara always had the answers.
But right now Lena was tired. She was oh so tired…
--
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Ma’am we’re going to cut you out, just stay still for me ok? Stay with me?”
Lena frowned. She didn’t know that voice. Opening her eyes again, she just saw the same confusing world from earlier. It made her head hurt. Everything hurt.
“Kara,” she said weakly. “Kara! Kara, where are you?”
Still not being able to move her body, Lena found she could at least move her head. Even though it sent bolts of pain through her skull, she turned.
“Kara!”
Her wife was beside her, in the driver’s seat, covered with blood. Lena screamed. Distantly she heard voices telling her to calm down, that it was okay, but Lena kept screaming. She struggled, trying to get over to Kara. Lena ignored the pain. She just needed to get to Kara she needed to make sure Kara was alright.
Then the world went black.
--
“Ms. Luthor? Ma’am can you hear me?”
Lena frowned. She opened her eyes a crack, and immediately closed them at the blinding white light. It sent a sharp pain though her eyes and into her brain.
“Ms. Luthor, can you hear my voice?”
“Where’s Kara?” she croaked.
But the second she uttered her wife’s name, Lena’s eyes flew open. She ignored the blinding light and the pain and shot up from where she lay.
“Kara? Where is Kara?”
“Ma’am please calm down.” Lena took in the sight before her. She was clearly in the hospital. A not unfriendly looking doctor stood by her bedside. “Ms. Luthor, do you remember what happened?”
“I…there was…there was an accident wasn’t there?” she said quietly. If she strained she could recall bits and pieces of the crash, but she didn’t want to. The emotional pain was too raw and real.
“Yes,” the doctor said gravely. “According to the first responders a drunk driver crossed the center line. We’re going to be taking you for some tests now, Ms. Luthor. We don’t think your injuries are any more serious than a broken wrist and some scrapes, and probably a minor concussion. But we’re going to send you for some imaging to be sure.”
Lena shook her head, disregarding the pain it caused her. “I need to see Kara. Take me to Kara.”
“Please, Ms. Luthor, you have to calm down. Your wife is up in surgery right now. She’s in the best of hands, I promise. But right now, we have to take care of you.”
But Lena would not take no for an answer. She struggled to slide out of the bed, but then suddenly there were nurses there, holding her back. Briefly she felt a prick in her arm, but she didn’t pay much attention. Then her muscles seemed to lose function and her limbs lost all their mass and she floated down back onto the bed. It occurred to her that they gave her a sedative or a muscle relaxant. But there wasn’t much she could do about it as she drifted off.
--
A few hours later, Lena was sitting by Kara’s bedside, clutching her wife’s hand tightly in her own. Lena’s left arm was encased in a plaster cast, but with her right she wouldn’t let go of Kara. It was Alex who had gotten Lena out from the trauma unit and up to see Kara. Alex had just been finishing up a fourteen hour shift when the paramedics brought in her sister and sister in law. After they had taken some x-rays and put the cast on, Lena had begged to see Kara. It seemed like it would be a futile effort until Alex showed up to rescue her.
Alex sat on the other side of Kara’s bed, looking about as distraught as Lena felt. She had Kara’s other hand, and she was looking at her sister with an intense stare, as if willing her to wake up and be okay. Kara herself was lying in the hospital bed looking peaceful. If it weren’t for the swath of bandages wrapped around her head and the bruising visible on her cheek and under her eye, nobody would even know anything was wrong.
Lena had been holding it together, but barely. She felt as if there was a damn inside of her, getting closer and closer to bursting. She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes. There was an immense aching in her chest. There was nothing she could do to help Kara, and it galled her. What good was Lena’s fancy Master’s degree if she couldn’t even help her wife?
“I’m going to go call mom now,” Alex said. She tiredly stood up and walked just outside the private room into the hallway. It had been Alex’s idea to wait until dawn to call Eliza. Why disturb a peaceful sleep with such awful news until it was absolutely necessary?
Lena took the opportunity of being alone to lean down and press a gentle kiss to Kara’s cheek. She lingered there, whispering to her love. “Kara, I need you to fight for me,” Lena said softly. “I need you to be strong. We have so much to live for yet, my love. Please, come back to me. Please. I love you.”
She kept murmuring to Kara, kept repeating how much she loved her. Maybe if she said it enough Kara would hear her.
“She’s going to be alright Lena.” Lena started, not realizing Alex had re-entered the room. “Kara’s a fighter. And I’ve never seen anyone love someone the way she loves you. She’s going to come back to us. We just have to patient.”
Lena nodded, throat too tight to speak. Eventually, she managed to ask a different question. “How did Eliza take it?”
“She’ll be here within the hour. I feel like she was already jumping in the car as she was talking to me.” Alex ran a hand through her short hair. “When she gets here I might head home for a bit and shower. I need to get out of these scrubs. You may want to do the same.”
Lena was shaking her head before Alex even finished the sentence. “I’m not leaving her. I can’t.”
“Lena…”Alex’s voice and her expression were sympathetic. “We can’t do anything for Kara. She’ll wake up when she’s ready. But there’s nothing we can do to change when that happens.”
“I know,” said Lena in a small voice. “But I need to be here when she wakes up. I can’t let her do that alone. If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t even be in this mess. I need to be here for her.”
“Wait…what? Lena! What do you mean ‘if it wasn’t for you’?”
Lena sniffed. “She came to pick me up. I decided once again to leave my car at home and walk to the hospital. So stupid. She should have never been out driving tonight. It’s all my fault.” Lena’s voice broke at the end, and she barely contained her tears.
“Lena, stop that,” Alex said sharply. “There isn’t any controlling these things. Shit happens, and there’s no explanation. It’s not your fault…it’s the fault of the asshole who selfishly decided to get behind the wheel drunk tonight! Kara is going to need you while she heals. You can’t be wallowing in guilt; you need to be strong for her. This is in no way your fault. Tell me you understand that. Lena, tell me.”
Finally Lena nodded. She didn’t know if she meant that nod, but it seemed to appease Alex. That was it for any discussion for a while. The two women sat there in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Eliza arrived around half past seven, and she cried at the sight of her daughter in the hospital bed. She spent several minutes sitting on the edge of the bed hugging Kara. Then she embraced Lena and held her tight, whispering to her that everything was going to be okay. Lena shed a couple tears at that. If she couldn’t be held by her wife or her own mother, Eliza was the next best thing.
The day was spent in mind numbing agony. Alex did disappear for a couple of hours, returning before lunch looking slightly more awake. She had brought Lena a change of clothes, and Lena was grateful once again that they had gotten over their differences years before. Lena and the two Danvers’ sat all day by Kara’s side, waiting for some sign. Sometimes they talked, other times they simply sat in silence. Lena still couldn’t shake the guilt.
It was around five o’clock when things changed. Lena had been slumping in her chair in a kind of half-awake stupor. All of a sudden she sat bolt upright. Kara’s brow had crinkled.
“Kara,” she said urgently. Alex, who had been napping beside her, shot upright as well. “Kara, darling, can you hear me?”
Eliza leaned closer from the other side of the bed. “Did you see something? Honey, did Kara move?”
“I thought I saw…I was sure I saw…Kara. Kara, I love you. Can you hear me?”
This time there was a definite brow crinkle. Kara frowned and a sigh escaped her lips. The three people surrounding her bed were now all up on their feet. Lena still held Kara’s hand in her good one and she gave it a squeeze. They were all talking now, all three of them, gently and softly coaxing Kara to wake up.
“What…where am I?” Kara asked. She blinked her eyes open sluggishly. She saw Eliza first. “Mom? What’s going on?”
“Kara,” Eliza sobbed, smiling from ear to ear. “Kara it’s ok sweetheart. Everything is just fine. There was an accident but you’re going to be fine.”
“Accident?” Kara asked. She looked bewildered as her eyes wandered around the hospital room. They landed on Alex, and then on Lena. Kara looked up at Lena with no recognition. “Who are you?”
Lena’s heart seemed to stop in her chest. Beside her, she felt Alex freeze.
“Kara, it’s me. It’s Lena.”
Kara simply looked confused. “Who are you?” she repeated.
“Kara,” Alex said. “It’s Lena. You know, your Lena. The love of your life, your soulmate, the woman you married almost two years ago.”
“Married? I’m married?” Kara questioned. “I didn’t…I don’t know you.” She looked down, seeming to realize who it was that was holding her hand, and weakly but surely tugged it away. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, and Lena’s heart broke.