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“Miss Danvers, Miss Luthor isn’t here today. She already left for her exploration trip.” Jess says
“Exploration trip? What are you talking about, Jess?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Jess asks with an eyebrow raise that is very reminiscent of her employer. “Miss Luthor left on a trip to do scientific research on a temple in Cambodia. They found something of a mystery in a recently discovered chamber, and she is going to do testing and to see if there is anymore of it in the area.”
“No. She didn’t tell me that.” Kara stares at Lena’s closed office doors, but the silence behind them is deafening. “We had plans today.”
“They pushed the date up, and she had to leave pretty suddenly. If she didn’t, they were going to go with a different research company. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, Miss Danvers.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, um, here then. You can have this doughnut.” Kara drops the white paper sack on the executive assistant’s desk.
“Are you sure?” Jess asks, surprised.
“Yeah, I’m not hungry anymore.”
Lena had left without saying a word to Kara. Sure, things had felt off between them for a while now, but Kara had thought that they were doing well in building back their friendship. At least a text message to cancel plans and to notify Kara that she was leaving the country, but there was nothing.
It didn’t sit right with Kara. Not at all. Kara ducked into the nearest ally and checked for anyone nearby before taking off for the DEO.
Electricity buzzed softly in the quiet temple as Lena followed the lights through the crumbling facade. Despite the age, the intricate carvings are still quite beautiful. Lena trails her fingers along the edges softened by time, imagining the hands that carved this stone. Wires also snake the ground, bringing modern technology into a place that has stood longer than archeologists can accurately pinpoint. But this, this is nothing. The surface had been explored long ago. Recently, someone literally stumbled through a wall, and found a previously undiscovered chamber system with many rooms below. Soon, the humm of electricity is replaced with the soft hiss of torches. Modern advancements have yet to be brought this far down. Lena steps through the rough opening of the weakened wall, grabbing the oil lamp handed to her by one of the exploratory team members.
Lena stops dead in her tracks as she discovers the one who originally discovered this area. Pinned to the wall, the body slouches around the series of spears impaling it. Each shaft is as thick as Lena’s forearm. The blood has long since dried where it dripped down from the wounds.
“Why haven't you removed him for a burial?” Lena asks Boran, the lead explorer.
“We tried. The Spears are embedded deep in the wall. We need equipment to remove it, but we did not want to risk the integrity of the hallway. Also, we are still finding more traps. He will remain there until we are more sure of a safe removal.”
Lena nods and pulls her eyes from the gruesome sight to peer into the darkness ahead. “Let’s hope this is worth it.”
“It is, Miss. You’ll never believe your eyes.”
“I believe in science.”
“This is beyond science.”
“Everything can be explained, Boran. Some things we just don’t have the understanding for, yet.” Lena carefully treads on marked stones, avoiding the few marked in red paint to indicate traps.
A team of skilled excavators and explorers walk with Lena down the passage, each person stepping carefully. A vine crosses low overhead, Lena reaches to push it aside when a hand stops her.
“No. Trap.” A man says gruffly, his voice carrying eerily into distance.
Lena nods and continues on. Progress is slow as the team picks through a maze of passageways completely rote with traps. Whatever was at the end of this death maze, Lena wanted to know more than ever now. Time stretched on, Lena tensing every muscle in her body as they side step triggers, or purposefully triggering other traps that can’t be avoided. Many come with near misses that send Lena’s pulse into her ears and drain the blood from her face. The men with her, however, are used to this. They’ve explored many ancient ruins in order to preserve the history of their land.
Suddenly, the corridor ends and opens up into a blackness that the smoking torch cannot penetrate. Lena stops while one man continues along the wall, running a hand along the stone, searching.
The man pulls a rope and a great grinding is heard. Lena tracks the noise upwards and waits. She balances on her toes, and her fists are clenched as she prepares for something to spring out at her or fall from above. Suddenly, something does. Light . Daylight streams in from the middle of the ceiling, but there is no blue of the sky.
“Mirrors.” one man says.
Lena watches as more mirrors flip into place, zig zagging across the high ceiling and bringing beams of light into the center of the cavern. Lena’s eyes follow as the beam descends, not pausing to look at the carvings that are illuminated, and follows the light to the floor. The exact center of the room is flooded with bright light. It contrasts the dark pillar of rock that it shines on. As Lena’s eyes adjust, she realizes it's not just rock. It's some sort of metal. With a gasp , Lena realizes it isn’t just sitting in the center of the room. It’s floating.
The dull gold pillar of metal floats just inches from the floor, rotating slowly. It towers above the group of scientists and explorers. It would probably take all six of them to wrap their arms around the base, and it was probably at least fifteen feet tall. Surrounding it, were much smaller chunks, hovering at various heights.
“What is it?” Lena mumbles mostly to herself.
“We have an old legend, most of the tale is forgotten. Lost to time. Of a healing rock that crashed from the heavens. It saved the village from raiders. Then, sick brought near it would become healthy. Miracle rock. But it became coveted by the village, and outsiders. To keep the rock safe, they built this temple. Only the truly desperate would seek it out then. Eventually, people stopped looking. It became a myth.”
“ Vetomon… ” Someone whispers.
“No, not magic. Just science we don’t understand, yet.” Lena says determidly.
Carfelly, she begins walking around monolithe. A team member following close behind to watch out for her while she studies the piller. Lena watches the slow rotation of the pillar, a thought nagging at the corner of her thoughts. Lena studies the floor as well. It’s not paved with flagstones like the edges of the chamber. The floor slopes in and is simply packed earth, the crater ending directly under the central stone. Light glints off in all directions as the sunshine refracts throughout the chamber. More movement catches Lena’s eye that she previously missed. Even smaller stones float through the air, most no bigger than gravel. One seems to spin right toward Lena in a lazy loop around the room. Lena reaches for it, but hesitates, not knowing what this could do to direct skin contact.
Lena searches for her pockets to find a small specimen container and closes it around the pebble in mid air. The shard jostles against the sides, but Lena is able to pocket the sample. She does feel the mysterious metal tugging to lift the corner of her vest, but it's too small to do much.
Another hired explorer is taking pictures, while a scientist notes the general readings of the room: moisture, radiation, barometric pressure, anything to try to explain the gravity defying objects. When everyone is finished with their tasks, the lead explorer calls for the group to head back out before they lose the daylight at camp outside the temple.
Lena is making small talk with another scientist while stepping past trigger plates;she is trying to bring the nagging thought that has been bombarding her to the surface when suddenly the air in the passageway seems to shift. Everyone grows quiet and still, ears straining, for whatever has disturbed their escape route. Faintly, Lena hears wind, like something speeding towards them. Her heartbeat speeds up as she sees the men shift into a fighting stance, unsure what to do or what is coming.
Before Lena can take another breath, a wall, or what feels like a wall slams into her. Then, an actual wall hits her back. Dazed, suddenly Lena finds herself staring at blue eyes in the lamp light. “Kar- Supergirl?” Lena catches herself in her surprise.
“Are you okay?”
“What?” Lena asks, still trying to comprehend what’s happening.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, and it took forever to find you. Then I heard your heart beat pick up in fear. It’s also very hard to corner in here. Very turny, and very viney.” Kara says as she shakes a vine from her shoulder like someone who just walked through a cobweb.
“Was that a vine from the passageway?” Lena asks, all the moisture leaving her mouth as she tries to swallow.
“Yeah, they’re all over. Just annoying really, but I had to find you. Are you okay? You just left and you didn’t even tell me where you were going so I—”
“Supergirl!” Lena interrupts the heroes babbling. “Those were ancient booby traps. Do you know what could happen if all of a sudden, the entire infrastructure of a building older than most civilizations suddenly changed all at once?”
“What? What are you talking about, Lena?”
The rumbling begins low, building quickly as the chain reactions of traps begin to go off, slowly shifting closer to where the team stood. Lena glances at the group, who are much further away now that Kara ran right into her and pinned her to a wall. The corridor begins to shake and pebbles start to fall.
“We have to move! Now!” Boran shouts.
Kara pushes off the wall to scoop Lena up, releasing the fake stone that acted as a switch for yet another trap. Kara must hear it, because she turns her back to the wall to protect Lena from the spears shooting out at a high speed. The sheer amount of them send Kara hurdling forward through another wall, while she still somehow manages to protect Lena from any injury. The wall gives way to a pitch black corridor that Kara drops Lena into while she attempts to hold up the collapsing passageway by herself.
Lena feels earth beneath her fingers instead of stone. The ground is much more still, though dirt still feels like it's raining down on her head. Lena watches the light start to fade with the collapsing hole to where Kara still stands.
“Kara!” Lena cries out as she sees the hero supporting a stone as large as Lena was tall. Rubble is filling up the hole that Lena was dumped into at an alarming rate. Fear enters Kara’s eyes as she glances towards where the team had been and then back to Lena. Kara seems to make a decision as she heaves the weight on her back upwards then dives sideways into the darkness with Lena.
Tense moments pass as Lena waits for the distant sounds of rumbling to stop. Soon the only sound Lena can hear is her own panicked breathing. Darkness presses in from all sides, she might as well have her eyes closed for all she can see.
Lena calls hoarsely, “Kara?”
There is no response.
“Kara?” Lena calls a little louder.
She remembers Kara landing near her before the collapsing temple blocked out the light from the burning torches. Lena begins to feel the ground all around her. Damp earth that probably hasn’t seen a human footprint in thousands of years is all Lena can feel under her fingertips.
“Kara!” Lena cries out, still searching.
A groan to Lena’s right gives away the location of the superhero, and Lena practically dives for her. Being stuck in the dark with no way out, has panic rising in Lena’s throat. As soon as Lena’s hand makes contact, Kara cries out; as if in pain, and jerks away.
“Kara?” Lena asks softly.
Soft shuffling sounds can be heard in the darkness as Kara moves around. “I’m okay, but I think I solar flared.”
“What does that mean?” Lena hesitantly asks.
“No powers.”
“How can you tell?”
“Well, I hurt all over. I think I might have a broken rib, and I can’t see anything.”
“So… what? We’re going to die here in the dark?” Lena tries very hard to keep the panic out of her voice.
Kara shuffles more, a soft groan escaping her lips before a sudden brightness appears in the superhero's hand. A couple of quick finger taps over the light and Kara has her phone flashlight on to illuminate both of their dusty faces.
“It looks like a tunnel. Why is there a tunnel here?” Kara asks.
“My best estimation is that it was made to move supplies into the temple easier. Instead of taking them through the twisting and turning passageways, they built this to get supplies to the deeper parts of the temple more easily.”
“Then we go that way.” Kara jerks her head in the direction opposite the stone wall now visible in front of them.
“It’s just a hypothesis, Kara. For all I know, this could be a wild animal den.”
“Could be, but we aren’t getting back through there without my powers.” Kara jerks a thumb in the direction they had come from.
Lena takes a moment to actually look at Kara. Blood runs from a cut on her forehead, and Lena can already see bruises forming all over her body. It’s a shock. Kara’s indestructible. She shouldn’t bleed, especially without the latest super villain of the month around. Lena starts to reach for Kara’s already swelling face, but thinks better of it. Instead, Lena stands and holds her hands out to help Kara up. With a bit of a struggle, Kara manages to get to her feet.
“How long do you think that battery will last?” Lena asks.
“I’m not sure. It’s a DEO phone, so it's better than most, but it's also not fully charged.”
“All right. Let’s hope we can find an exit before it dies then.” Lena turns on her heel to head further down the tunnel.
Lena stops at a yelp of pain from behind her. Kara looks like she hasn’t moved. “What’s wrong? Lena asks with concern in her voice
“I think I hurt my ankle too.” Kara takes one hobbling step forward, practically falling in her attempt to keep most of her weight off her left foot.
Lena sighs and slides under Kara's arm to help support her as they hobble down the dark passageway. Thankfully, it seems very straight without any turns off to the sides. Lena hopes she’s right and that this was just a maintenance tunnel before humans knew what maintenance was.
The pair are quiet as they make slow progress on their walk. Kara concentrating on not falling, and Lena concentrating on not collapsing under a heavy Kryptonians weight. In time, both of them are drenched in sweat; the stale air of the tunnel, warm and suffocating, not helping matters. The steps seem never ending. Kara gets a low battery warning, but before Lena can panic about that, she has to panic about the flashlight illuminating a wall of rocks.
“It's… a dead end.” Kara starts.
“It can’t be. There has to be a way out.” Lena drops Kara’s arm and steps up to the wall.
Kara pivots in a circle to shine the light everywhere, there was nowhere else to go but back the way they had come.
“I don’t think there is.” Kara says softly, pain, and tiredness lacing her voice.
“Just shut up and shine the light over here!” Lena snaps, not ready to accept their situation.
Kara does as she’s told, holding the light while Lena examines the wall. Dirt has been packed between the rocks, most not much bigger than her head, though some were probably closer to a meter in diameter.
It all looks purposeful. Man made.
Lena pulls her first rock from as high up as she can reach; she tugs and scrapes, pants and grunts. Finally, the stone pulls free from the slight slope and tumbles its way to the ground. Lena starts on the next one.
“Lee, what are you doing?”
“I think… they… blocked off…. The entrance.” Lena huffs out between her deconstruction of the wall. “Didn’t want… anyone…. Finding this…. To get into…. The temple.” The next rock clatters noisily to the ground.
With a shrug and a grimace, Kara begins helping by trying to loosen dirt with her nails. She can’t tug the stones, but she could make it easier for Lena to. After loosening about thirty stones, Lena thinks they’re making some headway. With each stone removal, she is more sure she is right. This was much too purposeful to be a natural rock wall.
Then Lena blinks, and darkness never leaves. She’s sure her eyes are open, but she blinks hard a few more times to be sure.
“Oh, Rao. The phone died.” Kara says softly.
“Keep going, Kara. It’s our only chance.”
Lena hears Kara start scraping again, this time with more grunts of pain. She can’t see, and just starts pulling rocks loose. With a sense of growing fear that this will be her tomb, Lena also continues scraping and pulling at the wall. The irregular falling of rocks is the only way to mark the passage of time.
Lena pulls a rock free near the top, the one behind it falls away in the opposite direction. A rush of light and air streams in the hole to Lena’s relief.
“Yes!” Kara exclaims as Lena hurriedly begins to push more rocks away, they fall away much easier now.
Lena manages to pull herself through the gap and out the otherside. She has to stop herself from falling down the uneven mound that’s become covered in moss and vines from years of disuse. Lena pulls more rocks free from the outside before climbing part way back in to lend Kara a hand.
Kara’s ribs protest the stretching, but she grits her teeth and wiggles her way out of their-would-be-tomb. Kara pulls free of the hole and topples the rest of the way to the jungle floor with another sharp cry of pain. Lena winces, hating watching the girl of steel in pain. It was very hard to see. Lena follows down just slightly more gracefully and helps Kara stand back up. She immediately puts Kara’s arm around her shoulder and hulls the heavy Kryptonian back upright.
Lena scans what she can of the sky to find the sun. “I think this way is our best bet, but I got really turned around in the maze of the temple.”
“I go where you go. I trust you, Lena.”
“You didn’t trust me enough to be on my own for five minutes though.” Lena shoots back as she starts walking with Kara leaning against her.
“I thought something bad happened to you.” Kara defends herself.
“Self fulfilling prophecy.”
“Well you didn’t show up for coffee, I figured you were stuck at work. So I took you a doughnut, and Jess said you went to Cambodia. Like how random is that? I thought it was weird. So, yeah, I may have thought you were kidnapped or something since you never told me you were leaving. Then Alex found your flight plans that actually were to Cambodia, but like that could just be a cover and—” Kara is mid ramble when her bad foot catches on a tree root and she pitches forward, taking Lena with her.
Both women sprawl hard on the ground as Kara cries out in pain and lena hisses as she skins her palms on the jungle floor. After a moment Lena looks over to find Kara curled on her side and clutching at her ribs. Tears had managed to escape the hero’s eyes before Kara could wipe them away. Carefully, Lena stands again and does a self inventory. Scratched palms and her pants had been torn at the knee, but no major bleeding. With a sigh of relief, Lena helps Kara stand up as well. It’s much harder to get her off the ground, but the pair have to keep moving.
It goes even slower now that Kara managed to fall and hit her side directly on a large gnarled root, making it hard for her to move without pain. Her breaths were more shallow as she tried to keep up with Lena, though Lena was moving at a snail's pace.
“You know… This wouldn’t have happened… if….you had just… texted me.” Kara huffs out.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t shown up, Kara.” Lena grits out while trying not to stagger under the weight of the still powerless Kryptonian.
“If I… hadn’t… shown up… those traps would have got you.” Kara says between pained breaths.
“You were the one that triggered them! All of them! My team avoided them easily.”
“I… Was… ouch. I was just trying to protect you.”
“Congrats on succeeding then, Supergirl. You managed to protect me so well that you collapsed the temple and separated us from the team who live in this jungle and know how to get us back to civilization.”
Kara winces, only partially from the pain. “Well, if you had just brought me along, I wouldn’t have had to play catch up.”
“Did you ever think that I didn’t want you here?” Lena snaps.
The words crack into Kara’s chest worse than the pain of her broken ribs. She doesn’t respond, and Lena doesn’t say anything more. Lena just continues to half drag the stumbling Kryptonian through the thick underbrush of a jungle that may have never seen a human footprint before.
Kara remains quiet as she watches the side of Lena’s face. Lena is clearly thinking hard, seemingly unawares of Kara’s presence besides the extra weight dragging her down. Lena stops to check their surroundings, looking for what Kara doesn’t know, but it does give her a chance to breathe.
“I guess... I never imagined that would be possible. Because, despite everything, I still want you to be in my life, Lena. Always.” Kara says softly.
Lena stiffens under the arm Kara has thrown over her shoulder. “You weren’t the one who trusted someone every time they lied to your face. You weren’t the one to kill your own sibling to save your friends, only for it all to be for naught. Then I had to wake up to that same sibling reinventing the world over again in his image. You’re not the one who has to keep proving their worth at every turn. You're not the one who is tired of fighting, still fighting, even after we won. All I wanted was some space, Kara, to do something for myself.” Lena steps out from under Kara’s arm. “Wait here. I’m going to see if there’s water nearby. Then we will need to find a shelter for the night and you’re in no condition to help. I’ll be back.”
Before Kara can even take a breath to protest, Lena is disappearing into the underbrush. Kara leans against a tree with a groan of pain. All she wanted to do was help Lena, and all she was doing was making Lena more angry at her. They hadn’t had much time to talk about everything that had happened between them. At every chance, Lena is pulling away from Kara.
It's not very long before Kara can hear Lena returning. She emerges out from under the trees with a slew of curses and grumblings. “No water nearby, but we need shelter for the night. I found a place that way that will work.” Lena gestures to the way she just came from.
Kara climbs to her feet with a pained wince. “Do you know which direction we need to go to get back to your camp?
Lena rolls her eyes as she steps back under Kara’s arm to support her. “I have no idea where we are in relation to the temple’s entrance, but I believe we are mostly east of where we started which means heading west should take us back there. We can only hope that that's where the search party will start looking for us, if there is one.”
“What do you mean if there is one?” Kara almost loses her footing on a gnarled root.
“Kara, that tunnel wasn’t on any mapping done of the area that I found in my research. Which means, the expedition team probably doesn’t know about it. Therefore, if they aren’t digging to try and get to us, then they are assuming we are dead. There’s only a small chance of a search party.”
“What do we do then?” Kara tries not to let the fear into her voice.
“We survive until you get your powers back.”
“And what if they don’t come back?” Kara asks softly.
“Then we survive.”
><><><><><><><><
Lena makes a shelter by clearing the floor with her feet and then taking a fallen branch and wedging it into the crook of a tree. She lays fern branches on the ground for a clean place to sleep and also helps keep the ground from taking their body heat. She then begins gathering other fallen branches and snapping them to a certain length to build up a frame. Then she covers the frame with more fern branches and moss from other trees to enclose it.
With a sturdier branch, Lena manages to dig a small hole in the dirt and gathers fire supplies, intending on making a friction fire starter with wood and some vines. Kara watches on in quiet amazement, barely able to move due to the pain in her ribs and her now swollen wrist. Kara hasn’t felt so helpless in a long time.
“Do you think you can hold this base steady for me and keep pressure on the top?” Lena asks Kara.
Kara nods and grits her teeth through the pain, determined to help. Somehow, Lena attached a strip of vine to a stick and wrapped it around another. Lena has Kara hold a piece of wood with her foot so that the bottom of the starter grinds into it as Lena makes a sawing motion. Lena also helps Kara press down from the top with a rock. A few painful minutes later, the friction has caused embers to spark on the plank of wood, and Lena quickly manages to gather a pile of smaller debris and carefully blows on the embers until a flame catches. The debris starts smoldering and catches on the slightly bigger pieces of wood until a small fire is growing in the hole Lena had dug. Before the sun has set, Lena has turned a hopeless situation into a temporary home and Kara is in awe of her.
The night is long and loud with mysterious sounds happening all around them, but the silence of their little shelter is deafening. Lena hardly speaks to Kara except to give her basic instructions. Quickly, the little bit of sunlight that reaches the jungle floor, fades to darkness. Without the fire, Kara is sure she wouldn’t be able to see her hand in front of her face. Lena is diligent in feeding the fire, carefully adding logs without making it bigger or wasting their wood supply.
Kara falls asleep watching Lena’s skilled fingers feed the flames. It's a restless sleep, as the pain in her body keeps her awake, and the sounds of nocturnal animals crying into the night. Once, Kara wakes to Lena pressed tightly against her as they use Kara’s red cape as a blanket to fend off the chill of the night. The next time Kara wakes is to Lena feeding the fire. Bouts of sleep are few and far between as Kara shivers in the night. At one point, Lena wraps her arm around Kara’s waist and pulls the broken hero close. Kara can feel Lena’s teeth chattering against her shoulder blade.
Day break is almost a relief to Kara as it glows behind her eyes. Lena stirs almost as soon as light appears on the jungle floor and starts to bank the fire. “Come on, we have to find water.” Lena says cooly.
“Huh?” Kara asks, still trying to shake the exhaustion.
“We need water. And food eventually. We have to keep moving, Kara. I’m going to tear this down then we’re leaving.”
Kara manages to stand with some struggle before Lena begins dispersing the building materials around their small clearing. Lena moves assuredly about the place before taking note of the sun and slinging Kara’s arm back around her shoulder and ushering Kara in the direction they were headed the night before.
Each step seems to take twice as much energy as the one before. The uneven footing and growing heat on the forest floor makes everything seem so much harder. Despite there being plenty of light to see, The foliage above makes it impossible for the actual sun rays to penetrate through to the jungle floor. Kara feels like she is running on fumes. Normally, after using her powers past their limits, she would lay in a sun bed at the DEO to at least help her healing process. Maybe even jump start them again with enough radiation.
Miles seem to pass under foot when the sound of water reaches the edges of the pairs hearing. It bubbles under the animal calls that keep Lena’s head on a swivel. Lena sets off for it like a dog on the hunt. She practically drags Kara over the last fallen tree before reaching the edge of the swiftly moving stream. Lena drops out from Kara’s arm and falls in the muddy bank. She dips her hands in the cold water and splashes it to her face and then her neck.
“Come on, cool off. Just don’t drink it yet. Who knows what is in the water. We’ll have to boil it first.”
Kara drops next to Lena and mimics her actions. “Boil it? How?”
Lena sits back on her feet from her knelt position. Her eyes search their surroundings. Slowly, Lena stands and begins to wander off, eyes searching for something Kara can’t see. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. If you can, gather anything dry and small you can for a fire.”
Then Lena disappeared into the jungle. Kara stares after the CEO and tries to merge the designer clothes Lena with the mud covered one who is navigating the jungle. Kara struggles back to her feet to do as Lena asked for her. She was determined to pull her own weight, figuratively. Realistically, she was struggling to actually hold her own weight.
Kara is sweating with exertion and is re-splashing her face when a rustling behind her makes her turn. Lena emerges with what appears to be a rock the size of a dinner plate. Without a word, Lena sets the rock on one sticking out of the river bed. She then grabs another from the ground, examines it briefly, then brings it down with a loud crack against the original rock. Kara watches in fascination as Lena does it again.
“What are you doing?”
Crack! “Breaking this rock.” Crack!
“I see that—” Crack! “But why?”
“It’s chert.”
“Huh?”
“Can you find a vine? I need it for a handle.”
“Okay…”
Kara does as she is asked while watching Lena continue to work out of the corner of her eye. Sweat drips down Lena’s brow as she brings the river rock down over and over again and breaks pieces off the chert. Kara manages to find a small vine and frees it from its companions with a small struggle. Kara returns to Lena who has now freed a triangle shape with an extra jut out at the thicker end.
“Perfect.” Is all Lena says before snatching it from Kara’s hand. With sure movements, Lena begins to wind the vine around what Kara now assumes is the handle. “Great. Now we need a log of some kind. Not rotten, preferably dry. Can you find one while I start a fire again?” Lena asks Kara.
Lena isn’t even looking at Kara as she finishes wrapping the vine around her crude knife. Kara sets off to do as Lena asked. The air between them isn’t cold. It's not even hostile. It just feels like… nothing. Like Kara is just a tool Lena is using to survive.
By the time Kara returns, Lena already has a fire burning low at the edge of the trees. She stokes it softly to build the flames. Kara hands her the section of a tree branch that must have come down in a recent storm. Lena immediately sets to work with her new knife. Carving away the end to make it roughly flat enough to sit on the ground before starting on the other end. Lena begins to carve out a divot in it.
“Can you go to the water and find some rocks? Make sure they are smooth and not porous. Then put them at the edge of the flames to heat.”
“Yes, but why?”
Lena finally looks at Kara after avoiding eye contact all morning. She seems to weigh something in her mind before responding. “Rocks can hold heat very well. Once they’re hot, and I’ve filled this log with water, we can drop them in the water to boil it and sanitize it so it’s safe to drink. Porous rocks tend to not be able to stand that heat and will explode.”
“Okay, thank you for explaining it. I’ll be right back.”
It’s a long wait after that. And Kara just grows more thirsty by the minute, not helped by the inviting cold water just a few feet away. Lena finishes carving out the log and then takes it to the water, rinsing the log several times before filling it once more to return to the fire. She then pulls several large leaves from a tree and layers them to use as protection to remove the rocks from the fires and drop them into the water. The liquid immediately hisses and bubbles at the contradicting temperature. Lena adds a couple more sticks to the fire before laying back to rest her eyes.
“We need to wait about ten minutes and hopefully all the bacteria will be destroyed.”
“You are really good at this.” Kara says softly.
“Yes, it’s not my first life threatening jungle excursion. I can’t tell you how many expeditions I went on to find the amulet. Or did I even go on them on this earth? I don’t know. I get so confused about it. Either way, I took a lot of survivalist training courses and did a bunch of research.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that about you.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Lena says matter of factly.
“That didn’t used to be true.”
“It did. And it became more true the day you lost faith in me.” Lena tests the water with her finger tip before dipping her hand in to scoop some water out. “Here, drink. I’m going to bank the fire. We should head upstream. Water flows downhill so if we can get to a higher elevation we can get you some sun. I think that’s our best chance.”
The two women drank the water until it was gone, and Lena scooped up the makeshift reservoir, leaving the rocks inside for later use. The knife, Lena had stuck in her belt band to keep it close. Lena even threw the scraps of chet into the reservoir to take with them.
The path was easier while they followed the river uphill. Kara managed on her own while Lena bore their meager supplies. Though Kara continually fell behind and Lena had to wait on her. Lena constantly kept her head swiveling from side to side as she gauged the sounds around them. It was like a constant wall of noise just outside of their sight.
“Can we talk… a bit. I think… it will help… distract me… from the pain.” Kara struggles out between deep breaths
“And what would you like to talk about while we try to escape a jungle?” Lena turns and raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t know…” Kara concentrates on navigating a tree root system without jostling her side too much. “Did you see whatever… you came… to see?”
“Briefly.”
“And? What was it?”
A small smile plays at the corner of Lena’s lips as she turns back towards Kara before it disappears complete. “I’m still trying to figure it out. Who knows if it's still standing now though. The chamber was beautifully constructed. The time alone to plan it would have been astronomical.”
Kara feels embarrassment flood her cheeks despite the heat that was already living there. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the one you have to apologize to.” Lena throws back over her shoulder.
“Well, that didn’t work.” Kara mumbles to herself.
“Okay, wait here. I’m going to look a little bit away from the stream for a place to build a shelter. We don’t want to be right here because it's where the animals will come at night to drink.”
“So you want me to wait here? Where animals might come?”
“We still have a few hours of daylight. You should be fine, Supergirl.”
Lena seems to fade into the brush as Kara sits on a tree root and pouts. She feels more useless than she ever has on Earth. Kara digs her boot into the dirt, vaguely thankful that her super suit had pants now instead of that stupid skirt. She would freeze if she had to wear that out here.
A loud breaking of twigs echos under the normal maelstrom of noise, drawing Kara’s attention back to the section of jungle Lena had disappeared into. Lena emerges from the trees, bating away vines from her face. The neutral expression Lena had worn for most of their walk was gone now. It was replaced with an almost shocked and terrified look, her pale skin even more pale than before.
“What's wrong?” Kara scrambles to her feet as quickly as possible.
“Umm, you should come see this.”
Lena leads Kara back into the jungle, Kara feeling like a lumbering giant as she tramples through the brush after Lena’s careful steps. Not far into the foliage, a small clearing emerges. Yellowish rocks covered in vines seem to form a cave. Except it wasn’t a cave.
Kara gasps.
Deep in unexplored jungles of Cambodia, was a massive animal skull. It stood twice as high as Kara and just as wide. The lower section of the jaw seemed to be buried in the earthen floor. The upper portion of the skull rested on two giant canine teeth that Kara wasn’t sure she could wrap her arms around.
“What… what.... How? What? What is it?” Kara finally manages.
“From the bone structure I’d say it was a bear. But, it has been awhile since I studied animal anatomy, I think it’s a polar bear.”
“A polar bear? This size? In cambodia?” Kara asks in disbelief.
Lena just shrugs. “I could be wrong, but polar bears have much flatter heads then brown bears, and see there,” Lena points to a small bit of the lower jaw still above the dirt. “In grizzly bears, that part of the mandible is much bigger and looks more like a wave in an ocean. This looks more oval like an egg.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I think we use it as a shelter.”
“You want to sleep in a bear skull?”
“Well the bear isn’t going to eat us, but animals out here might. Plus, it's much more stable then what I can build, it will protect us from wind and rain, we can build a fire inside, and it's near our fresh water source.”
Kara looks at Lena skeptically but she can’t find an argument against it. Lena is right. They can’t squander and resources out here. “Okay, Home, Sweet home it is.”
Lean makes quick work of starting the fire and putting the rocks near the flames to heat again. She sets Kara on the task of gathering kindling while she heads to the river to bring water back. Kara explores the space around the camp. It’s painful work, but at least she can do something today.
Moving around the sparse underbrush, Kara gathers anything she thinks might burn. Picking up one branch, Kara let’s out a startled gasp. “Oh, Rao.” she mumbles to herself as her heart beat slows. She had found a bone. A large one presumably from the animal they are calling home for now. Kara returns to the skull with a bundle of kindling she had somehow not dropped.
“What's wrong?” Lena asks, having returned with water and seen the expression on Kara’s face.
“Just more bones. Scared me at first.” Kara gestures in the direction of the offending object as she sets her kindling down.
“Really? That could be useful.”
“Useful how?”
“Many indigenous people around the world use bones as weapons. Or water vessels.”
“You want to use this creature's bones for water?”
“Right now, it’s him or me. And since he’s dead, I choose me.”
Again Kara had no logic to argue with because Lena knew what she was doing and Kara didn’t.
Kara fed a few sticks to the fire and then spotted a sunbeam that had managed to penetrate the thick overhead branches as the day drew to an end.
Her stomach growled as she lay in the light. Another struggle of their current predicament. Her body was running on fumes. Until she got a proper meal and sunlight, she doubted her powers would return.
Lena returned some time later with a few large bones and what appeared to be more rocks, still wet from the stream. She quickly sets to work. With a solid whack against a tree trunk, the old bone breaks into two larger pieces with shards splintering off. With more careful taps against a rock embedded in the ground, Lena chips off some of the bigger jagged edges in one piece. She repeats the process with the second large piece. Kara watches with one eye open while laying in the fading sun. Lena then takes one of new rocks she gathered and begins to rub it around the broken edge of the bone. Lena struggles to hold the bone still because even for how small it is, she still can’t wrap her hand all the way around it. Kara gives up on the weak sunlight and waves Lenas hand away so that she can grab it with both of her own. Lena nods her thanks and sets back to her task of rubbing the stone.
“What are you doing?” Kara asks.
“Sanding the edge so we can drink from this. The marrow is long gone so it’s just hollow. This stone is porous so it acts like sandpaper. I can make basic carriers to wrap around these later so we can carry clean water with us.”
“How did you learn all this?”
“Previous expeditions, and fascination with survivor shows, a very in depth education. Take your pick.”
“Why are you being so short with me? I thought we had been working past this?” Kara asks softly.
“You were working past this. I’m still stuck right where I have always been. Surrounded by people who don’t trust me and I don’t trust them.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.”
Kara was taken aback. She wasn’t expecting that answer and Lena is avoiding looking at her. “Why?”
Fierce green eyes finally look into Kara’s soul. “Why? Because you hurt me Kara. And just because I forgave you, doesn't mean I trust you.”
“You’ve hurt me too. But I still trust you.”
“No, you don’t. You never did. Not really. The day you sent James into my vault showed your true colors. A moment of doubt and all of the trust we built went right out the window. When I realized it was you, my best friend Kara, who did that, my heart was broken. I realized that I was so in love with you that I couldn’t even see the lie standing in front of me. Now, I can’t keep exhausting myself to prove my worth to you day in and day out. So, no. I don’t trust you, Kara Because you don’t really trust me.” Lena pulls the bone from Kara’s slack hands and stands up.
“You… You were what?” Kara asks, eyes unfocused as she stares at the place Lena had been sitting.
“I was in love with you, okay? But you are obviously as straight as your one track mind for justice and as rigid as your Kyptonian pride so I didn’t say anything. I just needed some fucking space and you repeatedly crash into my life over and over and cause me hell.”
Kara is quiet for a moment as Lena starts moving back towards the direction of the stream. “I am so in love with you that I don’t know how to walk away. I’ve tried! I tried to cut off my feelings for you by calling you a villain, but nothing worked, Lena. One look in your eyes and I was head over heels again. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I should have never made you feel like you did. For that, from the bottom of my heart, my soul , I apologize. I’ll give you space if that’s what you need when we get out of here. I never want to hurt you again. All I want to do is keep you safe. That’s why I came here.”
Lena has her back to Kara and doesn’t turn around. “I don’t need saving.”
Lena returns just before full dark with more water in her newly crafted canteen. Kara had moved inside the skull to keep the fire going. Lena doesn’t say a word as she dumps the water in the wooden bowl and adds a couple of rot rocks. She then sits as opposite Kara as she can get. Lena also brought a long branch in with her along with bone fragments from her earlier project and a long coil of vine.
The silence is loud and only interrupted by the occasional pop from the fire and the constant sound machine of the jungle. Lena takes a sharp bone shard and a rock and uses them to split the end of the branch into fourths by hammering the bone in with the rock. Then she trades the bone for smaller pieces of wood to keep the four parts separated. Carefully, Lena winds a length of vine around where the split ended to reinforce it. Lena then set the tip near the coals of the fire. As the tips begin to blacken, she would pull it back and set to work with her knife, scraping away the blackened wood to work each section into a point. She repeated the process countless times before Kara fell asleep.
By the time Kara woke, Sun was lighting the entrance to their new home and Lena had a completed spear by her side as she slept. There also appeared to be a crude bone knife. And a couple other half finished projects that Kare couldn’t identify.
The water bowl was empty so Kara set the rocks back near the flames and added more fuel to the fire. She then grabbed the bone canteen and decided to refill the water before Lena woke up. They may not have food but they had shelter and water. Kara had no idea how to get food out here, but Lena had taught her water.
Lena wakes to the sound of the hot rocks hitting the water’s surface. Despite sleeping in the jungle for the past two nights, somehow Lena still looks beautiful. Lena rubs the sleep from her eyes before continuing what looks like a weaving project that had been abandoned in favor of a few hours of rest.
Without looking up, Lena says. “I’m going to show you how to weave so you can do that and sit in the sun while I try and go hunting.”
“You shouldn’t go alone, Lena” Kara protests.
“Your injuries make you clumsy and I’ll never find prey with you scaring everything off in a three mile radius. Plus, we need mats to insulate us from the cold ground. The fire helped last night, but we shouldn’t keep doing it. Our best bet to get out of here is you getting your powers back. It will also let me look for a place with more sunshine.”
Kara hates Lena’’s logic, but knows it is true. Lena quickly finishes something that looks like a basket before setting it aside to drink water. Kara takes a turn after her. Before following Lena out of the skull so Lena can show the powerless super hero how to weave using ferns from around the site. Lena’’s nimble fingers make it look easy, but it takes Kara a solid half an hour before she can do it slowly without making a mistake. Lena nods her approval and retrieves her spear, knives, and basket. “Don’t try and look for me. I don’t need you getting lost, but I’ll be close and hopefully I’ll be back before sundown. Keep the fire going.” Lena instructs before walking into the trees like she had lived in the jungle her entire life.
Kara works the day away in a methodical daze created by the repeating pattern of weaving. She breaks twice to relieve herself and fetch more water to stave off the edge of hunger in her body. Quietly, she prays to Rao for Lena’s safe return and for a full belly tonight.
Lena returns just as the sky is starting to change color. Her footsteps are labored and much more clumsy than before. She emerges with exhaustion written all over her face. She had built a strap for her spear and slung it across her shoulders, Kara catches a glimpse of blood on the tip. Also the basket Lena is carrying seems to have a dark liquid trying to leak out the bottom.
“Food?” Kara asks while offering the bone vessel to Lena to drink from
Lena nods while she drinks deeply. “Yes,” She says after swallowing. “A hare and a shrew. Already cleaned. I left the parts we don’t want way off our trail to hopefully not attract any predators here, but we will have to cook them. It’s too late to make a fire by the river. So for tonight, we will cook here. Tomorrow I’ll make a pit there so next time we can just take coals there to start a fire.’
The meat is the best food Kara has ever had. After not eating for nearly three days, Kara is starving. Lena gives her the hare while Lena picks apart the shrew. When they are done eating, Lena buries the scraps, explaining to Kara it was to help hide the scent, along with burning fresher foliage to smoke out their home.
Day passes into night with little spoken between the two. They both curl up on their separate mats and wait for sleep. A full belly pulls Kara under the ocean of nothingness more quickly than the previous nights.
A full bladder wakes her before the sunrise. Kara stands and adds more fuel to the low burning fire and shuffles her way out the front of the skull. She grabs a makeshift shovel Lena had made for just this purpose. She had explained to Kara that leaving bodily solids would attract animals so they had to bury it. Kara makes her way as far as she can without losing sight of the eerie glow of the skull.
Kara finishes quickly and quickly does as Lena showed her. Kara is halfway across the clearing when the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She feels as if she is being watched. Kara freezes, debating on turning and facing the perceived threat or continuing back into the makeshift home. Just the slightest shuffle, so faint Kara is almost sure she made it up, comes from behind her. All of her training kicks in.
With a swift turn Kara brings the shovel up in front of her, ready to strike at the threat. A flash in the faint firelight reveals the bright eyes of a predator. A growl rumbles into the air as the beast pounces at Kara. She swings the shovel at it’s head and it makes a solid impact, deflecting the attacker to the side. Pain blossoms on the side of Kara’s face and she cries out in pain.
“Kara!” Lena calls out from behind her.
Feet thud towards Kara as she falls to the ground. The beast is righting itself and crouching low for another leap. Something flashes out of the corner of Kara’s eye. An unhuman like yelp pierces the air and is then followed by a heavy thud.
“Kara, my god. Kara look at me.Are you okay?”
Kara’s head is swimming like she was just punched in the head. She reaches her finger tips up and feels something wet. “I’m… bleeding?” Kara asks, unsure.
“I can’t see out here. Let’s get you inside.”
Lena pulls Kara to her feet and half drags the Kryptonian back into the skull.
“I woke up and you were gone so I was going to check on you. Then I heard the scuffle and grabbed the spear. You shouldn’t have gone out alone at night.” Lena scolds with worry lacing every word.
“I… bathroom. Had too…” Kara’s thoughts felt so jumbled.
Lena feeds the fire to brighten the light and examines Kara. Quickly, Lena drops fresh hot rocks into their water supply then removes her outer shirt to start tearing it into strips. “You’re probably concussed. The claws got your face. It's hard to tell how deep with all the blood, but head wounds bleed a lot. You have to stay awake Kara.” Lena starts putting the scarps of cloth into the water.
“Yeah… stay awake.” Kara manages to get out, but all she wants to do is the opposite.
In a few minutes, Lena is carefully removing the cloth from the water with two sticks sanitized over the heat of the fire. As soon as it is cool enough to handle, Lena presses it to Kara’s cheek. “Stupid cat was brobably young. It didn’t look that big. A mature one would have pounced before you turned or ran off when confronted. It was probably trying to prove itself.” Lena mutters to herself while she works.
Lena keeps talking to keep Kara awake. Once the wounds are as clean as Lena can get them, she holds the last bit to Kara’s face and instructs her to hold it there. Then Lena goes back outside. She returns after much shuffling, dragging the body of the attacker behind herself. Lena removes the spear from the spotted cat’s neck and blood bubbles out of the wound.
Kara watches in a daze as Lena begins to quickly field dress the leopard and then start sectioning the meat. “Can’t let it go to waste. The sun will be up soon. I’ll smoke the meat, then when I can set up something to hang it above the fire. Then we should have a supply to last for a bit.”
Kara just nods in a daze and concentrates on not falling unconscious.
When the sun rises, Lena quickly set’s about her work of cooking the leopard meat. Kara, though her thoughts feel clearer, still cannot believe that Lena Luthor killed a jungle cat with a spear and saved her life. Lena keeps Kara moving and is constantly talking to her to make sure Kara stays coherent. It isn’t anything important, mostly just narrating to her what is happening.
They make several trips to the river to pour water on the blood soaked ground while the meat is cooking. Lena never goes anywhere without the spear strapped to her back. When everything is as clean as they can get it and the meat is cooked, Lena piles fresh branches and leaves on to the fire to start filling the skull with smoke.
“Come on. While this dies down, I found a clearing yesterday. We can see if sunlight will help you. I’m worried about those cuts. They aren't bleeding, but they look deep. I want to look at them in a proper light.”
“Yeah. Sunlight will be good.” Kara agrees.
The clearing is far. Much farther than she expected. Lena said she found it just before she had turned back, and this is also where she had killed the hare. Kara is exhausted by the time they break from the tree cover and she can feel the warmth of the yellow sun on her skin. Kara takes a deep breath and smiles softly at the sky.
“Come here.” Lena says.
Kara looks at Lena and turns her head so that the survivalist can examine her cheek. Lena holds Kara’s chin and turns her face this way and that to see all the angles.
“Thank you.” Kara whispers to her.
“For what?” Lena responds, distractedly.
“For saving my life. You were right. You didn’t need saving. I did. I always do. I try so hard to protect people, but it's usually because of me that they are in danger.”
Lena turns Kara’s head to look her directly in the eyes. “In this instance yes, but my life is always in danger and ninety-nine point nine percent of the time it’s not because of you.”
“I know. I know, now. But with you, I always loved being just Kara. You never wanted anything from me.”
“That’s not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted you to fall in love with me.”
“I did.”
“Did you?”
“And that’s what I was trying to protect. Because if you knew the truth, there was no way you could love me after lying for so long.”
“But I do.”
Lena is so close now, Kara can feel Lena’s breath on her lips. “Even now?”
“Even now.”
Kara doesn’t know who initiates the kiss, but she doesn’t care. Suddenly, Lena’s lips are on hers and she feels her heart pumping a mile a minute. Lena’s chest is pressed against hers and Kara can feel Lena’s heart as well. The kiss is long and sweet, and very much overdue. Lena pulls back, slightly out of breath and goes back to examining Kara’s face.
“Oh,” Lena says surprised.
“What?” Concern lances through Kara’s heart.
Lena runs a thumb over Kara’s cheek. Her injured one. “It’s healing. It looks weeks old now, and the scabbing is fading even now.”
“That means…”
“That you have your powers back. Or they are coming back. I guess the sunlight did work.”
“Or you. Adrenaline is another factor.”
“Well, that’s good to know. Do you think you could fly us back?”
Kara mentally checks herself, closing her eyes and even wiggling her toes. “No, not yet. I’ll need more food and sunlight. If we come up here all day tomorrow, then I should be good to go. But, umm, I will probably have to eat most of our food.”
“It's yours then, as long as we can get home. Let’s head back before it gets too late.”
“And then tomorrow we go home.”
“Yes, tomorrow we go home.”
The next evening Kara feels strong enough to fly them high enough to see the temple and fly them to the base camp. The women are greeted with cheers and questions. Stories are told on both sides about how the explorers managed to make it all out alive and how Lena killed a leopard. Lena leaves out the part of the ancient skull. Later she explains to Kara that she wants to do her own research on that, but after she solves the first mystery of the monolith.
It takes months of excavating the passageways before the entrance to the hidden temple is found again; somehow, the entire chamber is still intact. Kara had long since returned to National City, but made multiple trips back to see Lena. One trip was to even return with a box of journals that Lena kept in a closet in her penthouses. Old notebooks full of research that was Lex’s. It took some more digging, but Lena finally found the journal she had been looking for. Deep in his mad hatred, Lex had begun studying a metal called Nth metal with almost magic-like properties. Many heroes and villains alike had wielded this material in various forms. Lena thought she was looking at the largest chunk of raw Nth metal the earth will ever see. And she had plans for it.
Plans to help the earth survive.