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The silence that fell around them was the longest and most terrifying silence Lena ever found herself in.
She had dealt with a lot of silence throughout her life, especially after she moved to the Luthor household, and she learned how to be comfortable in situations like that. They had their share of lunches and dinners where no one would say a single word until they excused themselves from the table. They spent entire weekends under the same roof without exchanging a word. They had ignored each other's presence for years and, yet, Lena learned how to deal with silence.
She never found herself being in complete silence when Kara was around. The blonde tended to ramble, to tell embarrassing stories about herself, to make a small comment on anything and everything. She had such a way with words that it was almost like she was a magician with his deck of cards and Lena was the audience who couldn’t help but be transfixed by it. So the fact that she told her to sit down and said nothing else was enough to ring every bell on Lena's head.
It couldn't be good.
It didn't feel good.
Kara was the impersonation of a bubbly, happy, sunshine being. Lena had never seen her look the way she was standing in that moment, staring outside the window, jaws firmly clenched together, arms crossed, furrowed brows. Not looking at Lena at all. Kara told her to sit down, but she kept standing. It almost looked like Lena was a kid who did something wrong and was now receiving her punishment.
Which, funnily enough, it kind of was exactly that.
Lena tapped her fingers on the table twice before she noticed the side glare Kara threw at her hand, so she stopped, collected her hands back to her lap, and looked away. It was a startling view of a woman who didn't look like her best friend and also didn't look like National City's superhero, and she needed a break from that sight. With eyes now fixed on a painting hanging across the room, Lena tried to make sense of the person that was in her presence.
That wasn’t the gentle, good-hearted, full of like Kara who trusted easily in everybody; who fought as hard as she could to break down Lena’s walls when they first met. To descibre it as it happened, Lena’s walls were supported by steel and concrete, but Kara was like a wrecking ball who put it all to the – although not violently. All she had to do was smile and Lena was a goner.
The woman standing in front of her wasn’t that Kara and it scared her more than anything because Lena never learned how to deal with a Kara that didn’t have a smile to offer.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Kara pulled a chair across from Lena, pushed it back, pulled it again, glared at it like it was trying to offend her somehow, sighed, and set down. She immediately crossed her arms again, her blue eyes returned to their task of ignoring Lena and, if possible, her teeth gritted even harder. Lena, on the other hand, stared at her feet and waited.
It didn't go unnoticed to her that she had been in that same position a million times before, albeit Lillian was much louder and she liked to stay on her feet so she could establish dominance. But she knew what she had to do: wait, listen when the time came and apologize again.
When Kara spoke though, her voice was barely a whisper and she was still not looking at Lena at all. "Do you understand why I did it?"
No, she wanted to say. No, she had no idea why Kara lied to her for three years or why she broke her trust like that. But it wasn't true and she would also be lying if she said that. In the several lessons she learned about being a Luthor, not being hypocritical wasn't on the list. She added that one herself.
In the months they haven't spoken at each other - despite the accusations and occasional yelling from Lena's part - she had a lot of time to think about it. She tried not to, to be honest, but late at night, alone in her penthouse, staring at a photo of Kara smiling at her, she had thought about it. And her nerdy brain, in all its brightness, found a reason why and it was one she could understand, yes. It made sense. It hurt her to no end, but it made sense. She didn't like it, but it made sense. She hated it, but it made sense.
"Yes," she replied without raising her eyes or her head or her voice. Lena felt tired. Tired of looking, tired of thinking, tired of yelling. Not for the first time in her life, she wished she could go to sleep and maybe don't wake up. "Yes, I understand why you didn't tell me who you are. You were trying to protect me."
"It's a reason," Kara agreed and her voice sounded a bit louder than before. Yet, it was still a whisper falling flat on the room around them. "But that wasn't why."
The confession took her by surprise and, after a second to considerate what would happen if she did, Lena raised her head and eyes. Usually, what she would see would be rage, anger, disgust, disappointment, hate. In Lillian's face, in Lex's face, in her father's face. What she saw then though, was something her foggy mind couldn't even understand for several seconds.
Kara was hurt. She seemed to be two seconds away from crying, her bottom lip was trapped between her teeth and the frown on her forehead was less pronounced, but sadder. The single scar above her eyebrow could be seen even more and Lena suddenly wished she knew what had happened. How did it end up there? What could have possibly happened to the woman of steel that left a scar behind?
Lena had wondered about that a lot too. She thought that being obsessed over someone else scar was a small indicator that she wasn't in the best mental state, but that was the only thing she could think about after Lex told her about Kara being Supergirl. Lena would see her and she would doubt what Lex told her because, if he was being honest, then how could Kara have a scar? There was nothing in the entire planet that could hurt her permanently, let alone leave a mark behind, so it made no sense that her best friend that told her about how she fell from her bike and hit her head could be Supergirl.
Even so, from that day on, all she could see when she looked at Supergirl was that damn scar. And how the bike story was clearly another lie and all Lena could think about was how that scar ended up there to start with. She also wondered how she had never put two and two together – how could two different people have the exact same scar? - , but she did that about a lot of things that became really obvious after she started looking at them with other eyes.
But that wasn't what Kara asked her, neither what she was talking about at the moment, so Lena moved her eyes away from the small, circular scar and fixated them on the table one more time.
"You told me that was the reason." She wasn't making an accusation, or she was trying not to sound like she was.
"In parts," Kara declared flatly. "I was afraid for you, not of you. I didn't trust your brother, not you. I was afraid of what he could have done if you knew, yes. I was trying to keep you safe, yes. And I also wanted to have a break and be just Kara for a while, yes. But I was also scared."
Scared.
What a funny word.
Lena felt scared in her life before. With a long record of death threats and murder attempts, she had her fair part of feeling terrified. None of those times made her lie to a friend for over three years, although she didn't have that many friends to start with. She tried to picture it the other way around. If she was Supergirl and Kara was her, how she would have handled things.
She couldn't because she had no idea what it meant to be an alien, to be an outsider, to have the biggest secret of them all. So she tried to think differently. If, for some reason, Sam's life had any chance of being put in line because of her, would she lie? Probably. She did that, if she was being honest, with Reign.
So Lena could understand that as well. "I can see why," she stuttered quietly.
"I don't think you do." Kara wasn't harsh, her voice didn't raise, she was still calm, but the certainty in her tone made Lena look up again. This time, their eyes met and she was incapable of looking away. "You looked at me differently."
Lena blinked. "What?"
"When you were talking with Kara Danvers, you looked at her differently to when you looked at Supergirl. I was afraid you would look at me the same way." It was said so matter of factly that Lena would never dare to refuse that statement.
"How exactly do I look at you?" she asked instead. Deep inside her mind, Lena took a second to consider if she really wanted to know the answer for that or if it would be fine to just play dumb.
But she already asked and, apparently, Kara had an answer. "You look at Supergirl like... like she's a part of the process. You have to tolerate her because she's here and so are you. Sometimes it's like she's a bug that you can't shoo away. Sometimes it's like you actually enjoy her presence until you remember who she is. It’s not your fault, but deep down you blame Superman for what happened to Lex. She brings you bad memories. But... You looked at Kara Danvers like..." she paused and looked away again. Lena could see the bulb in her throat going up and down in a hard swallow, her fingers tapped against her arms, she rolled her jaw and then Kara let go of a deep breath. "Like I was part of your life and that you didn't want that part to go away."
That was one way to put it, Lena wondered with only a slight amount of amusement. There was something in Kara's posture, the stiffness of her face, and the coldness attached to her words that made Lena consider if she planned to say something different at first. Which made her think if Kara knew.
If Kara had, in the course of their friendship, catch up on Lena's feelings and if that was the reason why she kept all of it a secret. Either because she didn't want to break Lena's heart two times or because she didn't know how to tell her friend that "Hey, that girl you can barely stay at the same room with and with whom you had, like, tons of discussions, that's also the girl you're in love with". Either way, it would be an embarrassing situation for both of them.
"I asked myself a hundred times," Lena started slowly, her eyes studying Kara's profile as she spoke, "how could I have missed it? It's so obvious now. After Lex told me and I looked at you, it's just to clear. A glass and a ponytail. It's a ridiculous disguise." Kara turned her face to stare at her again, seeming just a little offended by her words, but Lena didn't let herself be intimidated. "And then I understood. I got it. I finally realized how I could ignore the same voice, the same hair color, the never being at the same place at the same time, all the little slips and the amount of food you eat. Part of me didn't think that you, Kara Danvers, would ever lie to me."
Her voice was so soft that no one would have thought they were in the middle of a discussion. Once again, the blonde turned her gaze away, this time staring at her lap, and Lena allowed herself a second to breathe since her chest felt like an anchor was lying on top of it.
"Because I told you about all the lies I heard in my life and you promised me you wouldn't do the same. So every time my brain tried to make me see what was in front of me, I would immediately brush this ridiculous idea to the side because my best friend wouldn't lie to me about something like that.” And, because she needed to say it aloud, Lena added: “You broke my trust.”
“I know,” Kara agreed in a whisper almost a minute later when the silence around them became too much again. The sun was starting to shine from her window, illuminating the area and falling straight into them. Kara’s blonde hair seemed to enlighten and reflect the light, her skin seemed to glow and the legs of her glasses reflected some of the sunlight right into Lena’s eyes. “You also broke my trust.”
The shorter woman couldn’t help herself anymore. She scoffed, only if a little quiet, and shook her head. Kara, with her super hearing, heard it and her face twisted in a grimace for a mere second before she raised her gaze back at Lena. There, behind blue orbs and long eyelashes, Lena could see that her friend, her best friend, was truly hurt. The wound was fresh and blood was still coming from it, just like Lena’s.
“I know it’s my fault,” Kara continued after another beat of silence. “I pushed you away with my secrets, I know that. I was selfish for wanting things to never change between us, for wanting to be normal just this one time. But you and Lex working together isn’t my fault. That’s on you.”
“No, it’s not your fault.” With a sigh and a slight tremble on her lips, Lena nodded. She cried before. Before Kara told her to sit down. Before. Before. Before. She wished she couldn’t cry anymore. “That’s on me. You shouldn’t have lied and I shouldn’t have done all the things I did, but I was broken hearted and I was alone.”
“I need you to understand,” Kara’s voice was almost a whine and her blue eyes were begging, pleading, imploring. “I need you to understand why I did what I did.”
“I don’t think I will ever understand, Kara.” A re-open wound could cause more damage than when it was made, Lena was aware of that. “Not the way you want me to.” Scars don’t form from one day to the other. It takes time to appear and, when it does, more often than not it never goes away.
Slowly, and quite sad to be frank, Kara nodded, her hands falling to her lap as she began to fiddle with her fingers. “I was scared you would look at me differently because all I wanted was for you to see me as me. I wanted you to like me for me.”
“If that makes you feel better,” Lena commented while raising her shoulders towards her ears, “I loved Kara Danvers.”
“It doesn’t,” came the fast and short reply.
Lena couldn’t help it. She chuckled at the honestly that was offered and her eyes moved to stare at her feet. That’s when she heard it. A soft, quiet, almost shy, amused huff coming from the woman sitting almost in front of her. Green eyes searched for the source, she saw the grin turning Kara’s lips up and it made all of her interior melt away.
God, she missed Kara. She missed their movie nights, their lunch dates, their random texts throughout the day, their FaceTimes late at night, their conversations, and their friendship. But, more than that, she missed Kara. Her laugh, her smile, her blue eyes, her blonde hair, her smell, her voice, her hugs, her brilliant mind, her gentleness. Her ability to love. Sometimes that’s all you need, one might say.
“How can we ever trust each other again?” Lena wondered aloud suddenly and Kara’s smile became sad in a second. She almost regretted her question.
“I still trust you, Lena. I may have forgotten it for a second, but I still trust you.” The Luthor had no idea how she could reply to that, so she remained in silence. Finally, after she realized Lena wasn’t saying anything else, Kara sighed. “I need to call Alex and tell her what’s going on.”
So Lena waited. Kara’s call with her sister took less than a second and, from what she could gather, Alex agreed to meet her there, although Kara failed to mention her former best friend was in her apartment as well. It would definitely be fun when Alex got there. After she pushed the phone away, Kara crossed her arms again and looked outside through the window. The sun was high in the sky already, the city was loud beneath them and Earth kept moving.
“Can I ask you something?”
The way the blonde jumped on her chair had the chance to be funny if she hadn’t looked at Lena like she was truly scared with the prospect of being asked a question. Lena didn’t back down, though. She wouldn’t ask, but only if Kara told her not to.
“Sure,” the woman answered instead with a small shrug.
“How did you get that scar?”
“What scar?”
Lena raised her index finger to touch her own forehead to a point where she guessed was a mirrored image of where Kara’s scar was. The blonde’s face lighted with understanding and she, conscious or unconsciously, shook her bangs just enough to hide it from view.
“You told me it was from when you fell from your bike.”
“It is, actually.” Kara chuckled at a memory only she could remember. “Or the closest of a bike we had in Krypton. I was four or five, I think, and I hit a rock. Funny enough, we didn’t have helmets.”
It was essentially the same story Kara told her the first time. A bike, a rock, no helmet. Yet, Lena tried to rearrange how she pictured it. This time, she pictured a red sun, a different rock, a different person helping the young girl to get up.
“Scars that I got from Krypton never fade away,” Kara informed her as a later thought.
“Is there more than one?” the brunette tried to find it with her eyes, but all she could see was the woman’s face and her neck, and there was nothing else there.
“A few.” There was another long pause and then Kara took a deep breath. “I guess I looked it the wrong way.”
“The wrong way?”
“I kept focusing on how differently you would look at Kara Danvers. I never thought about how it would make you look differently at Supergirl.”
Lena gulped. “How do you wish I would look at you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the blonde shook her head.
“Doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I loved Kara Danvers and I respected Supergirl. Which one of those would you prefer?” Lena’s nails dug into her palms as she waited for Kara to process her words inside her head.
“I would prefer if you had met me, the real me. And maybe you would love and respect me for who I am.”
“And who are you?”
Kara only hesitated for two seconds. “Kara Zor-El. I came from a planet called Krypton fourteen years ago. My pod landed on Earth, then I was adopted by a wonderful family who helped me to adapt and fit in. I’m proud of who I am, I’m bitter because of everyone I lost, I’m angry and I can get so mad sometimes, and, Rao, I have so many flaws.
“I don’t need to wear glasses, but I use them to muffle my powers and, as you also know, it now triggers my suit. I need yellow sun, tons of food and not that much sleep. Sometimes I can’t stand my cousin or the fact that he tries so hard to erase his past and all about Krypton. I miss my planet, I miss my parents, I have nightmares almost every night and I regret cutting this bangs. And the difference between Kara Danvers, Supergirl and Kara Zor-El is that there are no secrets with her. I don’t have to pretend not to be a superhero while trying to be human and I don’t have to pretend I’m not human when I’m flying around town. I’m just me.”
That was a hell of a speech, Lena thought once it was over. It didn’t hold the same power if Kara had raised her voice like Lex and Lillian loved to do but it passed the same message with the same certain.
“I kind of like the bangs,” Lena commented after a minute in silence. “It grows on you after a while.”
Kara blinked, her body deflating, before she nodded almost distractedly. “Okay.”
“How do you want me to look at you now?”
“Like you can still see me.”
“Are you aware that I was in love with you? Or were you just that oblivious?”
Kara actually smiled at that, her eyes crinkling at the sides. “I wasn’t sure, not until you showed up here this morning. I wondered, a couple of times. Sometimes you would look at me and I just... I wondered, but I could never say anything. Not when you didn’t know all the truth. If I can be honest, I hope you still feel the same.”
“If you promise to only be honest from now on, I think I can get there again.” Lena sighed, patted her thighs once and got up.
“I would like that,” Kara also got up. “But, first, we need to get Lex.”
They would. They had never failed while working together before and they wouldn’t start now, Lena knew it.
What she didn’t know was that Kara would walk around the table and pull her into a hug. It was tight, warm, and loving, and Lena almost lost her breath when she felt Kara’s arms around her again after months of trying to hate her and her web of lies. Instead of pushing away like her first reaction tended to be when someone touched her, Lena hid her face in the crook of Kara’s neck and inhaled deeply.
“You and Alex are the most important people in the universe for me,” Kara whispered, her chin moving against the top of her head. “And I will do anything and everything I have to do to keep you safe.”
A second before Lena could reply, the door swung open and they had other things to worry about. Lena was surprised when no one commented on the fact that she held Kara’s hand the entire time.