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Kara stopped in the entryway, hanging her head as she picked up her bags. There was a defeated slump to her shoulders, and she seemed duller – almost as if an artist had tried to erase the blonde, leaving behind the faded ghost of colored pencils and sunlight. Something about it twisted a knife in Lena’s gut, even though she wasn’t the one making this choice. She wasn’t the one who decided they weren’t worth it anymore, that there was too much pain between them.
“Remember all the things we wanted?” She found herself asking before she could think better of it.
Kara didn’t respond, didn’t turn around. The only sign she had heard Lena was the hesitant way her hand reaching for her last bag paused before falling back to her side. Lena took this as a cue to continue.
“We wanted an old house on the outskirts of the city, something we could add to the history of,” she began. “We wanted Friday date nights and lazy Sundays and a bedroom facing the sunrise. Remember that?”
Kara’s shoulders stiffened defensively. “That’s not something I would forget, Lena.”
The Luthor hummed in acknowledgment, finding the image conjured by her words didn’t bring her the joy it used to. Friday nights were grey, sunrises dull, and old townhouses empty. She wondered when that had happened – a week ago when Kara decided they were incapable of not hurting each other? An hour ago when Kara asked if she could pick up her things from Lena’s apartment? She sighed, mind a hive of stinging thoughts that granted no peace. She mused aloud, “all our memories are haunted now, aren’t they?”
The bag Kara had already picked up dropped back to the ground, drawing Lena from her thoughts. “We were always meant to say goodbye, Lena. You know that.” Kara’s fists were curled at her sides, shaking.
Once upon a time, Lena would have found the image scary, assuming the Kryptonian was holding back rage and physical attacks. Now though, Lena knew better. Now, she finds the image heartbreaking, knowing the woman was holding back the urge to seek comfort and security, holding back tears and stuttered breaths by digging into her palms as hard as she could, mentally attacking herself again and again.
There’s a lot of things Lena knows, now.
“Even with our fists held high,” Kara continued, her back still to Lena, “it never would’ve worked out right. It doesn’t- we don’t get a happy ending, Lena. Not together. I can’t- I won’t hold you back.”
“Hold me back?” Lena was just as surprised and hurt by the idea as she was when she first heard it almost a month ago. This time though, there was an affronted scoff added to her response. “Kara, you don’t get to decide what does or does not limit me, what I can or cannot achieve in various conditions. And even if you could, it would be my choice if the tradeoff was worth it, not yours. Mine. I thought we’d promised to stop hiding behind easy answers and lies.”
That got Kara to turn around, blue eyes shining and brow furrowed with determination, though she still refused to look at Lena. “That’s just it! We had to promise not to lie to each other – that’s supposed to be inherent, isn’t it? Partners aren’t supposed to have such a history of lies and betrayal between them that they have to establish the rule to just tell the truth!” Whatever anger had briefly flooded the hero drained just as quickly, her posture deflating and eyes drifting to the floor. “We- we were never meant for do or die, Lena. I can’t stop hurting you long enough to try.”
“I think I should get a say in that.”
Kara shook her head, curls falling over her face. Lena found herself grateful for the obstruction, unsure if she could continue to hold back tears if she was faced with the unshed ones in her love’s eyes.
“I didn’t want us to burn out,” Kara offered, half to the floor. “If that counts for anything, at least. I didn’t come here to hurt you. I didn’t enter your office with Clark planning to push your boundaries, I didn’t befriend you planning to lie to you for years, I didn’t ask you out planning to leave. I didn’t start this to hurt you, but now I can’t stop and I-” A choked breath cut off the rest of Kara’s sentence, and Lena really wished the sound didn’t pierce her like a bullet, that the sight of shaking shoulders didn’t burn her fingers with the need to reach out.
“You want to,” Lena finished for her. When Kara didn’t answer, didn’t look up, she continued. “You want to stop hurting me, and for some reason, you think this is the way? I- Kara, I love you. I love you more than I’ve loved anyone, even after everything. Honestly, partly because of everything. We’ve been through so much, put each other through hell, and walked out hand in hand. How is taking that away from me supposed to protect me from pain?”
Kara just shook her head again, looking up (but not at Lena, never at Lena) and running a hand over her face. “I want you to know that it doesn’t matter where we take this road. We will keep hurting each other, I will keep hurting you . I will keep hurting you, and I- I can’t do that for the rest of my life, Lee. So, at the end of the day, someone’s gotta go.”
“That’s- that’s not fucking fair, Kara.”
Lena didn’t know what else to say. She watched Kara turn her back to her once more, bending to retrieve her momentarily abandoned bags. Lena knew she wasn’t going to change Kara’s mind, not this time. Somehow the blonde had gotten it into her thick head that the best way to protect Lena was to leave her, and there was no one more stubborn than Kara protecting her loved ones. That’s probably what hurt the most, out of all of this. Knowing that if Kara loved her a little less, she might stay. Knowing this was happening because Kara put her above anything else, that she would do anything to keep Lena safe and happy.
Because honestly, how could she be mad at Kara for loving her too much?
It’s not something she’s had to do before, and she was finding it exceedingly difficult.
Kara shouldered one bag, gripping the other tight enough to turn her knuckles white. Half a step towards the door, she paused again. “I want you to know, if it means anything, you couldn’t have loved me better.”
That broke something in Lena’s chest, some muscle or tendon snapped beneath her heart, allowing gravity to pull it down to her feet. “Then who will, Kara? If there was no way for me to be better, then who will be?”
Another shake of the blonde’s head. “It’s not that, Lena. You know it’s not that. I want you to move on, Lee. I don’t want this cycle of me stupidly getting you hurt over and over again to be the rest of your life.” She shrugged her shoulder not carrying the bag, a half-hearted ‘whatcha gonna do?’ motion. “So I’m already gone.”
“You can’t even face me when you say it,” Lena said, her voice full of disappointed amazement. “I can’t- I can’t believe after all of it, the one time you’re deliberately hurting me, you can’t even look me in the eye.”
“Looking at you makes it harder,” Kara offered, though her voice was small enough for it to be clear she didn’t like her reasoning. “I know it’s selfish, just another thing I’ve done for my own comfort regardless of how it hurts you, but- I’m not sure I could do this if I had to look you in the eyes.”
“Then don’t do it!”
“I have to!”
Kara hadn’t raised her voice at Lena since they had reconciled. In fact, Kara hadn’t raised her voice at Lena, ever. It was always Supergirl, the hero placing a challenge that Lena would rise to or vice versa. Kara Danvers was always gentle with the youngest Luthor, and when the two personas truly merged into one it was the gentleness that lasted. Somehow, that drained Lena of all of her fight. She didn’t want to enter this battlefield, not now, not with her. She could destroy old white billionaires with a flick of her wrist, reduce federal agents to a stuttering mess with a sentence. Her tongue had never failed to draw blood, and she had never backed down because of it. She could absolutely destroy Kara Zor-El here and now, but she didn’t want to . There was too much of the Kryptonian’s blood on her hands already, and she didn’t have it in her to draw any more of it.
All she could offer was a broken whisper. “Why?”
By the way Kara flinched, an observer might think Lena had threatened her life.
“I know that you’ll find another person to love,” Kara’s voice was weak, far from the cocky but kind tone Lena loved so much. “Someone that doesn’t always make you want to cry. I know there’s someone out there better for you than me because you deserve better than what I can offer you – better than what I have offered you. You deserve better, and you won’t find it if I’m here. So I’m already gone.”
Lena just shook her head, jaw loose and eyes fixed on the slump of broad shoulders. She wished she could pinpoint the moment they had gone so wrong, what it had been that brought them here. But no matter how many sleepless nights she picked apart their story, looking for anything she could have fixed, it just… didn’t matter. At the end of the day, none of it mattered. If she changed a single thing in their story they wouldn’t be them , and Lena wasn’t sure she could want anything else.
“Y’know, our first kiss is always gonna be the best of my life,” Kara offered, her hand on the doorknob and head half turned to Lena.
Lena scoffed, tilting her head back to stop the tears. “You can’t say shit like that, Kara. It’s not fair to say it started with the perfect kiss when you’re letting the poison set in.”
Kara stood there for a long moment, her hair once again hiding her face from Lena’s analysis. Lena didn’t know what she would see if it weren’t for the curtain of blonde, and she found herself uncertain of if she could survive the answer. Kara’s hand tightened around the doorknob, tendons twitching in objection as she twisted and pulled. She hesitated for another brief moment, a heartbeat passing between the two women before her foot landed on the other side of the threshold.
“Perfect couldn’t keep this love alive.”