Disclaimer: Supergirl is not mine, yada yada.

A/N: This story completely got away from me. I was just trucking along, thinking I was writing fluff, and then it got all Dark and Serious and I was forced to run after this rapidly evolving plotline, trying to catch up and being like, "Wait, I want to see how you end...!"

Creativity is such a weird thing.

In Time

Kara finds herself flying a lot these days.

Not for the joy of flight, or because she has to run patrols for the DEO—though she has to do that, of course, and flying is always enjoyable, but—but this is different. This is because there's a nervous energy pulsing in her chest, and she needs to burn it, burn it off like rocket fuel.

So she soars around the city, and if she just so happens to pass near L Corp…

Despite doing exactly that, Kara deliberately refuses to look in the skyscraper's windows, refuses to hope for a glimpse of sleek black hair and crystal eyes. That would be creepy, or something, and Kara coughs to herself and clenches her fists until the knuckles creak and pours even more speed into her flight.

She's just flying a patrol. She's not doing anything else.

She doesn't want to see Lena, wouldn't fly a light-year to see her for a fraction of a second, no. No, that would be stupid. So stupid.

Kara's already out over the bay, rapidly accelerating towards the Pacific horizon. She tucks her arms back, streamlining for even more speed, and tries to focus on the wind blasting her tousled hair straight. She almost wishes it would make her eyes tear, because it seems like it would be easier to hide from herself if her vision were blurry.

Okay, okay, she silently admits once the coast has fallen past the curve of this small, blue planet. Okay, she's running from something. Okay, it might be her own heart.

Okay, it might be Lena's fault. (Kara doesn't blame her at all.)

Kara has taken to texting Lena when she's in her supersuit; obviously, when she's at work, pounding the streets as Snapper would say, she doesn't have the opportunity to whisk into the nearest phone booth and change personas just to send a thumb's-up emoji the Luthor's way (they're on for lunch, and Kara's trying not to think of it as a date, but...well, it's not, but part of her wishes. Part of her wishes a lot of things.). But when she's out on those DEO patrols, when she's at home and tucked into her couch and her phone dings…then, she likes responding as Supergirl. As Kara Danvers, but as Supergirl.

Kara likes blurring the line. She likes pretending that she could be more than a human reporter to the other woman. She likes pretending that maybe, one day, if she's lucky or crazy or whatever, she could be Kara Zor-El, too.

It gnaws at her chest cavity, scraping away at the inside of her ribcage like a dog anxious to escape its kennel. She wants to be herself with Lena, every alien atom. She wants to share herself, more than she can share as a Danvers, as a human. There's a whole lifetime she can't discuss, a wealth of memories and emotions and burdens that she can't drain out of her heart because Secrecy is Paramount (Alex's words, not hers, but. Alex is just looking out for Kara, as per usual, and Alex is pretty convinced that between Winn and James, that's enough people outside of the DEO who need to know her dual identity. Even if Winn is now in the DEO. That's an Unimportant Detail—Alex, again.).

Kara begs to differ, but she hardly knows how to argue. Not about this. Alex already had quite the opinion when she learned that mere Kara Danvers was friendly with Lena Luthor; Kara can't imagine the reaction she'd receive if she told Alex she wanted to welcome Lena into the Supergirl fold.

Because Lena's a Luthor, and much as Kara doesn't judge, the world does. She's sure Alex and Hank and the whole DEO would balk and panic and then there'd be meetings and discussions and…and Kara doesn't want to deal with that, not yet. She wants to cherish these moments, stolen as they may be, when it's just her and Lena and sending semi-flirtatious texts back and forth while she lounges on top of National City's tallest building, red boots crossed at the ankle.

She wants to indulge in being Kara Zor-El with Lena, even if the other woman doesn't know. It's enough that when Lena texts Kara Danvers, Kara Zor-El replies. It's enough.

It won't be enough forever, but it's enough for now.

Kara's palms are sweaty, even though she's flying in the cold evening atmosphere. The wind doesn't seem to be cooling her, not when she's burning up from an internal fever that can't be cured and that she'd happily die from (okay, that's a thousand times too melodramatic, but. But Lena. Kara would die for her, that same thousand times over. If she were a human, she'd already be approaching that tally.).

It's late; it's getting towards nine o'clock, and the sun has long since extinguished itself in the ocean, and the city glitters like a reflection of the stars above. Kara loves National City best like this, when it's just dark enough to jog the imagination into spinning out the brightest fantasies for all those lives progressing forwards behind all those glowing windows.

Lena's office is still lit up, too, Kara notes as she zips past L Corp (for maybe the twelfth time in the past half hour, and she's ridiculous, but she can't help it). The Luthor has been busy as of late, striving to battle Cadmus's hate while simultaneously struggling to keep L Corp on the cutting edge. She's been at the office late every day for weeks, and Kara would know. Even if Lena hadn't apologized nearly every time for being too busy to see Kara Danvers, Supergirl would've noticed from her patrols.

Kara worries. Lena's strong, but not inexhaustible. She'll burn herself out before long.

The hero's struck with the sudden urge to do something, but she can't puzzle out what, exactly. This isn't something flight and superspeed can solve.

Kara pauses, in mid-thought and mid-air. Hovering across the street but with her vision well able to still perceive Lena slaving over her computer, her hair long since dragged out of her severe ponytail and tousled messily from too many frustrated hands raked through its length.

But then, her attention is sidetracked: the comlink in her ear crackles to life.

"Supergirl," Alex's voice instructs, "You're needed at the DEO."

"Copy that," Kara replies, somewhat absently as her gaze is still fixed on that bright block of windows. But she can't stay, so she goes, too fast to even be a blur.

Lena never notices a thing.

Lena never notices a thing because Lena is busy (as Supergirl already rightly observed). She doesn't know why, in some sense, she's so determined to take down Cadmus; it's not merely because she wants to see justice done and, like most morally grounded people, disapproves of terrorism and bigotry. There's something personal about it, and while it's never been confirmed, Lena doesn't need this truth to be emblazoned in bright neon or scrawled across the sky in smoke. She can smell it, as strong as blood and rot: the stench of the Luthors.

Cadmus reeks of Luthor, like an abattoir recently soaked in bleach: an attempt to cleanse the old stain with something new, but the sharp chemical scent only repels, perhaps even more than the rust of the Luthors ever did.

Lena doesn't know how Lex could be directing Cadmus from prison, or if he established it long ago (or inherited it, even) and has left it in the hands of trusted lieutenants, but.

This is a Luthor problem. She's sure of it. So she'll do anything to stop it.

It's nice, in a way, because it gives her a legitimate excuse to keep working with Supergirl (even if it is unofficial, Lena's investigations unsanctioned by and unknown to the DEO). Lena enjoys working with Supergirl, as she thinks they make an excellent team, and even more than that, she thinks this may be a truer version of Kara Danvers.

Oh, yes. Lena knows the reporter and the hero are one and the same. She's known for a long time, almost from the beginning. She laid little traps back then, innocent things, designed to prove the connection between the two women. But Lena never really needed concrete proof (neither did she ever really get it); it's obvious enough that they are not, in fact, a they at all.

It's pretty cunning, Lena has to admit, as disguises go. You wouldn't think; it seems too simple, too obvious, but Kara's not relying on masks, not when she can utilize misdirection and the tendencies of human nature. Kara Danvers is a persona crafted to be forgettable: she is awkward and meek and dressed like she might start handing out pamphlets that promise to save your soul. She speaks weakly and poorly and fumbles both actions and words, and she always, always fidgets with her glasses, a flawlessly practiced nervous tic.

And Supergirl…well, she is designed to be utterly unforgettable. She's not someone you're blind to; she blinds you, instead. All any ordinary citizen would remember of her is the S shield and the red cape and the sweep of blond hair and, of course, the fact that she just so happened to miraculously save their lives. That pedestal, that awe, is a handy thing.

No one's in awe of Kara Danvers. No one even remembers her, not when they only meet her in passing. Frankly, it's ingenious, because who would ever connect the two?

But Lena does. Lena connects. She caught on quicker than she's sure Kara would appreciate, but it was impossible not to see. It helped that she interacted with both personas in rapid succession, but mostly it helped because Kara is hopelessly honest, and so she reacted to Lena the same, regardless of which identity she currently inhabited. There was a sense of amazement, which bewilders Lena to an extent even now, and which lent a confidence to Danvers and a fluster to Supergirl and helped further blur the line between them.

It helped, too, that Lena couldn't tear her eyes away from either of them. And she never believed, not for an instant, that there were two athletically built girls in National City with a smile even sunnier than their hair and eyes bluer and deeper and clearer than the ocean could ever be and who had simultaneously charmed and been charmed by Lena Luthor.

Lena chuckles to herself. She could calculate the odds of that, surely, but it's so close to zero it's as good as Fact.

And yet she finds that she stays silent. She hasn't told Supergirl, or Kara Danvers, that she knows there's no point in differentiating between the two of them. Sometimes, she thinks that she's waiting for Kara to confess—this isn't, after all, Lena's secret to tell. Sometimes, she's wounded that Kara hasn't. Certainly, they're good enough friends? Certainly, Kara trusts her? It's not because she's a Luthor, is it?

Dear god, it's not because she's a Luthor, is it?

That twists a screw in Lena's belly, everything in her gut tangled horribly around that possibility. And that, maybe, keeps her quiet—if she opens her mouth to speak, she might say far more than simply, Hey, I know you're Supergirl. That's not a verbal avalanche Lena wants to trigger. Better to stay sick than to bleed out.

So she texts and has (a sometimes cancelled, because she's busy, remember) lunch with Kara Danvers, and she struggles to isolate Cadmus's weaknesses with Supergirl. She watches the news and pretends her heart's not in her throat every time it gets reported that the hero is injured or otherwise momentarily rebuffed in the course of her chosen duties. She doesn't take out her phone and have an entire message typed out to Kara with her thumb hovering over the send button before she deletes it, instead.

The message doesn't say, I saw the news, are you okay? Are you okay? Please tell me you're okay. Where are you? Can I see you? I would sit at your bedside, you know, if there were a bedside to sit at, if you weren't okay. So are you? Okay?

It doesn't say that at all, because Lena keeps it silent. She never sends it. She never sends anything, or says anything, and this strange three-person dance continues.

Lena sighs, and drags her hand through her hair for the umpteenth time; the strands tangle around her fingers, more and more mussed. She's busy. She might be on to something, but she's busy, and she had to cancel lunch today with Kara Danvers in pursuit of the hope that, if she can just pinpoint Cadmus's endgame, she'll never have to worry about Supergirl again.

Well, she'll probably still have to worry about Supergirl. Villainous though Cadmus may be, reeking of the Luthors' rot, they're not the only villains in the world (or the galaxy, for that matter). But Lena would prefer to make it so that if Supergirl is ever, god forbid, rendered not okay, it won't have been at the hand of a Luthor. At the hand of any Luthor.

Including Lena.

Her fingers tangle tighter. Maybe that's why she hasn't said a word.

Let Kara protect herself. Lena doesn't know if she can guarantee the same.

It's approaching midnight when Supergirl lands lightly on Lena's L Corp balcony; the Luthor hasn't moved from her chair, although she has hunched over more, staring at her computer screen in her desperate search for solutions.

For a moment, Kara doesn't want to intrude. Lena clearly has enough on her plate already (and only metaphorically, since she did cancel their lunch). She shouldn't burden the Luthor with more.

But as she hesitates, Lena must get tipped off by a sixth sense, as she casts a curious glance over her shoulder. On reflex, her expression brightens, but it's tempered quickly, like Lena's holding the reins tight. Like maybe she thinks it'd be easier not to be happy to see Supergirl.

Something falters in Kara, too, and her returning smile's a little stilted.

Still, Lena rises to open the door (four-inch heels abandoned under her desk) and steps aside to permit the hero entrance. Kara strides in, fists balanced on her hips in a gesture she's been overdoing, but she needs to establish a clear distance between Kara Danvers and Supergirl. She fears that Lena suspects; she hopes that Lena suspects; and her mind's in a Gordian knot and so she sighs.

It's out loud. Lena notices.

"Something wrong, Supergirl?"

"No, sorry, Miss Luthor," Kara dismisses, still facing away. Best to present her back. Let the other woman look at nothing but hair and cape and…then Kara won't have to feel so something when she meets Lena's eyes. She won't have to feel like she's falling into those glacier-crevasse depths.

She's flown into space, for Rao's sake. Lena Luthor shouldn't give her vertigo.

And yet.

Kara sighs again, more shortly this time, and lifts her eyes to the ceiling, as if it has sequestered all her patience. "Actually, yes, in a way. You're familiar with the events surrounding Myriad last summer?"

Behind her, Lena dims. While she obviously hadn't known Supergirl at the time, she can reflect back on it now and understand that Kara's willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of protecting her adopted people. She has dreams, sometimes, that Kara never made it back to Earth, that she stayed cold and dead and alone in space. Technically, Lena supposes those dreams are classified as nightmares, because she always, always wakes up (cold, and alone, and in too much empty space).

"I am," Lena finally replies.

"The Myriad wave was powered by a Kryptonian generator called an omegahedron," Kara explains tonelessly, still just a red cape and tense shoulders to Lena. "It should have been rendered useless with the destruction of Fort Rozz, and so its absence was not a prioritized concern, but…" She trails off, tilting her head a little differently, staring fixedly at the same speck on the ceiling.

Lena doesn't need a conclusion, though; she draws her own. "Has this generator resurfaced?"

"I don't know," Kara admits. "But Cadmus has been pulling out all the stops as of late; they seem to be getting more powerful at every turn, and they shouldn't be capable of such, well, quantum leaps. They got hold of alien technology before, and they had an established mole in the DEO who siphoned Kryptonite for them back when the omegahedron went missing. So it's highly possible they have it and have figured it out enough to use it."

Lena nods, contemplative, and leans back against her desk, arms coming up to fold on her chest. "I see," she murmurs, aware after a moment that Supergirl can't see her reactions. She swallows against the prickling pain engendered by the hero's deliberate avoidance of eye contact, or even proper facing, and clears her throat as subtly as possible. She cheers inwardly when her voice doesn't catch at all: "I'll look into it, if you like. I'm certain I can determine what kind of technology Cadmus is using for power and then calculate their potential output. Then I can simply compare the projected stats with the actual ones, if you provide them, of course, and we can clarify from there."

"We've already done that," Kara says with a shake of her head. "The difference is staggering, impossible for humans to achieve on their own."

Lena frowns, and not just at her own perceived uselessness. "Then what do you need me for?"

Kara turns around now, but slowly, and her head is lowered. Her arms are still akimbo, but her hands have fallen out of fists; the fingers dig into her hips, instead, flexing like she's trying to hold onto something, or trying to hold something back.

"We've determined a potential front for Cadmus," she offers at length. "But it's closed off to the public—and even to the press. I already asked Kara Danvers for help, but she couldn't get in."

Briefly, Lena has to suppress a smile.

Kara sighs a third time, heartfelt and heavy, and finally looks up. Her expression is one that Lena feels she receives a lot: concern in the pinch of the brow, resignation in the depths of the eyes. Asking for a favor she doesn't want to ask, for help she doesn't want to receive. Not because of pride, Lena knows, but for Lena's own protection.

And she can draw this conclusion, too. "You believe I can get in, though?"

Kara looks at her a second more before she drops her eyes to her hands. The fingers are knotting together now, writhing like worms; every so often, Lena hears one of them crack. "Cadmus's front is a tech company, some sort of lab. Not very subtle, or maybe it's the perfect disguise, I don't know. In any case, they're a company, and L Corp's a company. Who's to say Lena Luthor wouldn't be interested in buying them out?"

Lena accepts that. "It's certainly worth a shot," she agrees. "Just tell me who to get in touch with, and I'll see if I can't arrange a visit."

Everything worsens in Kara's eyes when she raises them again, the brightness drained until they appear dull and gray. "I won't be able to protect you," she says. It's low, and hoarse, and profoundly remorseful.

Lena offers her the smallest smile. "Don't worry, Supergirl. I can handle myself."

Kara's mouth pulls taut, the strain nearly whitening the skin at the corners, and the crease in her brow deepens. With greatest difficulty, she wrangles a hold of her expression and smooths it out. Mostly. "I'll provide you with a device that will be able to detect the unique signature of the omegahedron," she says, her voice almost back to normal but still rough around the edges. "It'll be discrete, don't worry. It won't be a pen, or a watch, or anything Bond, but it won't be a problem, even if they confiscate your things or search you."

Head bobbing in thought once more, Lena hums an acknowledgment. "Okay, then. Keep me in the loop, and we'll get this done. I imagine this is still unauthorized by the DEO?"

Kara is already walking past, eyes down and ahead, and her only reaction is to drag a hand over her mouth. "I might be smuggling the device to you, yes," she says as she reaches the door. "That just means you have even less backup than otherwise, since there won't be a strike team waiting in the wings. We don't want to scare Cadmus away, after all. But I'll be there. Outside, but there. If you absolutely need me, I will come, subterfuge be damned."

Lena turns, finds herself regarding the hero's back again. "How will I contact you?"

Kara steps onto the balcony. "Just whisper save me," she replies. "I'll hear you. And I will—save you—in a heartbeat."

Lena didn't really need the reassurance, but it's amazing to hear. She can't quite believe how much, but she doesn't get a chance to respond before Kara's soaring off into the night.

She watches the hero go until she's lost amongst the stars that used to be her home and the city lights that claim her still.

It goes off without a hitch. Cadmus has the omegahedron.

Dear Rao, Kara thinks, Cadmus has the omegahedron. Who knows what atrocities they will commit with its power? Who knows, even now, what weapons or plans they have poised to release?

The DEO isn't waiting around to find out. They've established the what and the where, and to hell with the why. A strike team is coordinated, the strongest they've ever gathered: Kara and J'onn and Mon-El and James and even Kal-El, welcomed back from Metropolis.

It's almost time.

Kara finds herself at L Corp, and not as Supergirl on the balcony, but not exactly as Kara Danvers, either. She's passing human, at least, but this is the old Kara, the one who feels most like a Zor-El (at least, as much as she can on Earth), the one who existed before Supergirl made it necessary to craft her everyday persona into a caricature disguise.

She still has her glasses on, but some habits die hard. Not anxiously, not in a fidget, she straightens the front of her white motorcycle jacket; it's a little askew. She hasn't worn it since that fateful day (and she did recover it from the alley, thank you). But she's not exactly incognito. She doesn't want to be incognito, anymore, with Lena.

This feels like Myriad all over again. Saying goodbyes, just in case.

And saying other things, that need to be said.

Kara approaches the receptionist, all dark jeans and sleek sweater and bold jacket; she sees the surprise on the other woman's face, which is clearly hoping to prompt an explanation. Kara doesn't give her one.

"Kara Danvers to see Lena Luthor, please."

The receptionist nods, holds out a visitor's badge, still wide-eyed and curious at this obvious change. But Kara's already forgotten her, merely accepting the badge with an absentminded hand and clipping it to her lapel as she walks to the elevator bank. She takes the elevator today, too, and doesn't look at the other people inside. No small talk, no polite greetings; not even a nod or smile.

Her gaze is a little lost, and everything feels heavy in her chest. This is almost worse than Myriad, and she doesn't know why. She hardly has to talk to anyone—only Lena. Everyone else she cares about is under the DEO's umbrella.

But it's worse, all the same. It's so much worse.

When the elevator doors slide back and Kara steps onto the fortieth floor, she keeps her gaze trained on the ground, half a dozen paces ahead of her. Even her eyes, it seems, are too heavy to lift. Something flexes in her chest, slowly, ratcheting tighter one notch at a time. She barely notices Lena's personal assistant hopping up to get the double doors to her boss's office.

As Kara walks in, the Luthor looks up from her crowded desk. "Kara!" she exclaims, and her gaze tracks lower. Her brows lift higher. "This is a, um, surprise," she adds, certainly sounding it.

Superhearing notwithstanding, Kara experiences the greeting from far away, and she doesn't offer one of her own. She just walks to the wall of windows and stares out past the balcony at the city, at the ocean. It's bright outside, in the sunlight. She nearly has to squint, but she's not exactly looking at anything, so she doesn't. She just stares.

In her periphery, Lena swivels her chair, an inviting gesture, and waits patiently for an explanation.

Eventually, Kara offers one. Or at least, she speaks. "I don't know what I'm doing," she murmurs, sounding as lost as she looks, as lost as her gaze is, out there somewhere beyond the horizon. "I don't know what we're doing," she adds, as if that's really a clarification.

Lena shifts her weight; quietly, the chair creaks. "You and I?" she wonders.

Kara raises a finger, as if she wants to doodle on the glass, but her hand flinches back, falls away before she makes contact. Her shoulders, always so proud and strong, slump a little more. "It's—" But that beginning gets her nowhere, and her lips pull taut, and she exhales her frustration sharply through her nose. "I…I just don't know. Sometimes I feel…but then, I…" She breaks off again, miserable in her lack of eloquence. Now, again, she lifts her finger, taps it against the glass. "I don't know."

Lena rises from her chair, and it's a slow movement—not hesitant, but slow. Incremental, almost. She doesn't approach Kara, really, but nevertheless, she's no longer so far away. "What's going on?" she asks. There's an undercurrent of strain in her voice. It's born of that kind of concern that reaches all the way down to the bone marrow and subsequently infects the very blood.

Kara taps the window again, without rhythm, without purpose. Tears rush up to burn her eyes, and she blinks several times, hastily; they don't retreat, gathering defiantly on her lashes, instead. "Y'know," she all but croaks, "I keep trying to figure out if it makes any difference now. I can't tell, though. It's all…oh, it's all so blurry. So ill-defined. I—"

"Kara." It's gently said. And Lena's standing beside her, trying to glean what information she can from the hero's profile. "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay."

The saline streaks Kara's cheeks when she shuts her eyes, as if that's the same as shutting out the world. "I wish I could believe you," she whispers, "but everything in my gut says otherwise. It all…" She puts a hand to her stomach; her lips skew in a grimace. "I don't know. I feel hollow, but it doesn't hurt. Everything that hurts is here." And she shifts her hand higher, fingertips sinking into the spaces between her ribs, like she could wrench her heart from her chest.

Lena stares at that hand with the most troubled expression, but she seems at a loss as well. She is only capable of breathing an echo of the other girl's name, and that does nothing to anchor either of them.

"I have to go," Kara croaks. She needs to get out of here. Rao, the weight of the atmosphere, of Lena's presence, of doom impending, is crushing her.

"Wait," Lena says—Kara's already moving away—and she catches onto her wrist. It's not enough to stop Supergirl, but she obeys the unspoken request all the same. She pauses. She lingers. And Lena continues, soft and still so strained, "You're terrifying me. Please, tell me what's wrong. I want to help; you know that. Together, we can figure this out."

A smile flickers across Kara's countenance, but it's not a happy thing. It's a sliver, mocking and fractured and hollow. "Together?" she echoes. That's almost mocking, too. "Yeah, maybe we could. Figure things out. But not today," she concludes, dulled past toneless. "There isn't time today. I don't know why I thought there'd be time today."

She pulls away. Lena can't keep her here. Once again, she's not enough of an anchor.

Kara doesn't know if that's a good thing. She feels utterly bereft in her head, more lost than when she was condemned to foreign stars. There is an irresistible gravity pulling her away, and she has never wanted so badly to fly, but she cannot break its hold. She longs to stay here, with Lena, to crack her chest open and spill secret after secret at the Luthor's feet, but still, she cannot.

She can't do anything but trudge away, feeling sick. Is this cowardice? Or is the moment really so wrong? She can't tell. She just can't.

"Kara," Lena says, voice raised to carry but yet so, so brittle. "I'll—I'll see you soon, right?"

She's at the door, and she twists the handle. She has had no answers today, and she has no more now. All she can offer is the paltry repetition: "I don't know."

"Kara—" It's wounded. Terribly so.

"Goodbye."

The door clicks shut behind her.

Coward, coward, it whispers in Kara's head. You went there to confess to two truths and you didn't own up to either of them. What now? What if you die now? Lena will never know Kara Zor-El, and the core of you will disappear, just like Krypton.

"Rao, shut up," Kara mutters under her breath. There're tears in the backs of her eyes again, precisely when she can't afford them.

"Supergirl?" That's Alex. She's waiting on her sister's cue. They all are, staring at her, poised to strike but needing Supergirl to lead the way.

Yes. That's true, isn't it.

Kara seeks refuge in the dichotomy: neither Kara Danvers nor Kara Zor-El has any place here and now. There's only room for Supergirl, for the warrior and the hero because this is battle, and she can't wear her heart on her sleeve. It'll just get torn to pieces out there, and it's already so vulnerable, even tucked behind the shield on her chest.

Resolve hardens her face, and Supergirl nods at her sister, her friends, her comrades.

So she wanted to tell Lena everything. Maybe she'll tell her later. Unfinished business and all. It works for ghosts.

(Kara doesn't believe in ghosts.)

Supergirl inhales deep. "Let's go."

And she lets go.

It's a raid, Lena knows. The raid on Cadmus's facility. That's why Kara was here, all different and on the verge of breaking. That's why Lena can't unravel the knot in her chest that hitches her breathing and trips up her pulse.

That's why the bottom has dropped out of her stomach and filled it with ice.

Well, no, that's not why. Or it's not the only reason. There's something far worse—yes, worse than Kara flying into danger and doom and maybe death.

Lena panicked after Kara's very final visit and redoubled her efforts to pierce Cadmus's cloak. Anything that would give Supergirl an edge. And at long last, Lena found something, but all it spawned was waxen horror:

Her own mother is running Cadmus. Her mother.

A Luthor.

Just as Lena has always feared, Supergirl could die at the hands of a Luthor, and Lena has done only too little and too late to save her.

Guilt by association and sins of omission combine blackly in Lena's throat and serve to make her violently sick. It's like her heart's been wrung out and thrown down and ground viciously into the earth, and her breath chokes her, as if the very air is trying to exact vengeance.

Lena tries, though, to tell Kara. She types a message (she sends it this time), It's the Luthors, the Luthors are behind Cadmus, I'm so sorry, I should've known sooner, I'm so sorry, be careful, please. You can't underestimate her. She'll kill you. I know she will and I can't lose you, Kara, I can't.

If Kara's not confessing to anything, Lena will. She does. She upends her soul into those letters and hopes beyond desperation that it will make a difference. She waits, with sweating palms and a racing mind, for a reply.

None ever comes.

It's been hours since Kara left, hours and hours and—Lena tries to forcibly derail that train of thought, tries to truncate it before it reaches its desolate destination, but she can't.

She walked right into it, Lena thinks, dizzy. She walked right into the Luthors and I couldn't make a difference. I couldn't save her from my own damn family.

Too little, too late.

Lena sucks in a breath, suddenly suffocating, but it never reaches her lungs. It just hangs there in her throat, taunting with the promise of salvation. Desperation seizes her, desperation to do anything other than stay here and succumb to her regrets, and as it does, a measure of clarity streaks through the destruction-spiral in her head.

She knows where Kara is, doesn't she.

Lena shoulders through her office doors and gives her assistant quite a fright, but she can't be bothered with that now. "Jess, order a car," she gasps, and she's shaking, all over. "Order a car. Now. Please. I—I'll meet it downstairs."

And then she's racing to the elevator bank, but suddenly, she can't stand the delay forced on her. She can't stand standing. So she tears off her heels and runs to the stairs and takes them three at a time, forty stories down.

It's stupid, but it's an action. It won't help, but it's an action. It's better than standing still.

And maybe if she exerts herself enough and breathes hard enough, that'll condemn the sobs to a back burner.

Because Kara's not coming back. Oh, Lena knows Kara's not coming back.

The Cadmus facility is cordoned off and seething with smoke; the place couldn't have looked worse if it had weathered a meteor shower. Black trucks branded with false logos (Lena knows they're DEO) crowd the scene, and paramilitary agents scramble everywhere. Some of them are leading prisoners, though, scientists in white lab coats with gleaming handcuffs on their wrists, and that's promising. Lena ducks out of the car as soon as it stops (almost before it stops, and the driver makes a brief exclamation of surprise at her disregard), and races to the barricade.

She searches for a glimpse of her mother, shackled and defeated.

But mostly she searches for Supergirl, for the burst of primary colors that would give her away in this sea of black and grit.

Lena can't find her, doesn't find her, and decides she doesn't give a fuck about anything, especially concepts like barricades, and she dodges around the blue-painted wooden frame and dives into the chaos. Perhaps she has an air of desperation or unconscious authority, or perhaps they're all too busy to notice or care, but Lena nearly reaches the smoking building before she's apprehended.

"What the hell are you doing here?" It's Alex, Kara's sister. She's geared up for battle and looking haggard and harried: her short hair wild, her eyes even wilder. She's streaked with smoke and sweat, and there's a spatter of blood on her cheek.

Lena doesn't care for questions, at least, not ones that aren't her own. "Where's Kara?" she demands.

Alex stares at her, suddenly shut-off and wary.

"Supergirl!" Lena angrily clarifies. "I know—god damn it, Agent Danvers, where is she?"

Something behind Alex's eyes softens, or maybe it just collapses. A pinch worries her brow. "I don't know. It got too much for the human team. We had to pull out. The air was thick with poison—some sort of chemical warfare; even the gas masks didn't work. I don't think Kara was immune at all—I don't think any of them were—but she kicked us out. Caved in the ceiling with her heat vision, and that blocked off the corridor and blocked off the gas, too, but…" She trails off, at a loss for words and a loss for so many other things.

"Didn't any of the other supers go after her?" Lena balks, all while thinking, Kara, you stupid, selfless hero! like those are the worst insults she can muster. They are, really.

Alex shakes her head, shakes her assault weapon as well in a helpless sort of gesture. "No. I don't know if Kara knew what she was doing when she took the ceiling down, but it was too dangerous to move the rubble. It would've triggered a total collapse. So she's…still in there." She hesitates and revisits, "You really shouldn't be here."

"I'm not leaving," Lena snaps, and Alex doesn't argue with that. That surprises Lena, but mostly it just gouges more of a hole in her heart. If Alex is so exhausted by this that she can't even pick a fight with a Luthor, then Kara must be in the absolute worst danger.

And then there's an explosion.

It rocks the ground, tremoring out like an earthquake from this too-near epicenter. Fire and smoke and debris plume and expand into the sky, all gold and orange laced with black, and the heat is like a wall. The shockwave is a wall, and all the mere humans are knocked back off their feet. And the sound of it—there is no description. It is like a physical force, and all Lena can hear are her ears ringing, high-pitched and saw-edged and whine.

She sees Alex's lips moving, though—the agent is shouting at someone, someone she still believes can hear her. And Lena sees a green-skinned man, followed by Superman himself, fly up into the sky before diving down into the wreckage of the facility, delving into its now-exposed core.

Lena's hardly steady when she regains her feet, but she determinedly holds the pose, anyway. She can't be on the ground, on her back, like she's defeated.

Superman comes out first, ashen-faced and empty-handed. He lands and swivels back immediately, fingers snarled together and pressed to his lips as if in prayer. Lena stares at him for a bewildered second, and then she follows his gaze.

The green man (a Martian, right, Lena vaguely recalls) flies up out of the debris, a red-caped figure in his arms. Lena begins to rush forward, but is confused when Superman only steps back—away from his cousin, and that makes no sense. And he sees her, then, and does a double-take, but his expression fades so fast to grim, Lena is even more panicked than when Alex let her stay.

The Martian touches down, and Alex beats Lena to Kara's side, but only because the alien landed nearer to her. When Lena arrives with the screaming in her head already so far past noise that it's just a white rush of silence, she sees why Superman retreated, why he didn't personally rescue his cousin.

Supergirl's curled in on herself, one hand clutching the omegahedron, and there's a Kryptonite rod running her through. Other shards of the radioactive metal dot her body like stars, and somehow, in the glossy silence of her mind, Lena forms a picture of what happened: the omegahedron was powering a generator, and that generator was precautionarily ringed with Kryptonite. When Kara wrenched the omegahedron from its seating, which must've been hard enough with the strength-sapping material all around, the generator exploded and effectively turned into a grenade, and the Kryptonite into shrapnel.

Kara's shaking so badly her edges are blurred. Lena doesn't know how she's still holding on to the omegahedron, except maybe she doesn't have the clarity to uncurl her fingers.

Alex falls to her knees, her mouth already open in a silent scream of agony, a gloved fist trying to prevent the sound that never comes.

Lena is a step quicker, a shade more composed (no, she doesn't know how; perhaps this is shock; yes, it feels somewhat familiar, doesn't it), and she touches a hand to Kara's cheek. The veins pulse a livid green beneath her skin, and her eyes are wide and already glazed, already utterly out of focus. But she's still warm. She's still alive.

For now. There's a rapidly spreading, dark red puddle underneath where the hero hangs in J'onn's arms. The Martian gives Lena and then Alex a meaningful look, and then he's shooting up into the sky, arcing back towards National City. Lena stares after the dwindling dot and can't help but feel that he took her heart with her. Sentimental, sure, but accurate.

There's certainly something missing in Lena's chest.

No longer under threat of Kryptonite, Superman is beside her and Alex, and while the humans still can't hear, he taps them both on the shoulder and motions after J'onn. They nod, desolate and listless and unable to conjure any more of a reply, and he simply wraps an arm around each of their waists and carries them after.

They arrive just in time to hear Kara scream as J'onn removes the Kryptonite rod.

Lena will never forget that sound.

It's touch-and-go, for a while. The first few hours are crucial, but Kara is far from the Kryptonite (Superman was close to it long enough to give a blood transfusion), and she's being soaked with sunrays and her horrible wounds have been patched, so…

So she's not dead. It's uncertain if she's not dying. But she's not dead.

Lena and Alex watch from the other side of the glass as the surgeons fuss as best they can with these appalling injuries and alien physiology. It's a pure kind of agony, helplessness. It strikes so effortlessly to the core.

And then the doctors have done all they could, and the two women slip quietly inside.

Kara doesn't look better, exactly: she's unconscious, and even as such, her expression is drawn, as if she's still experiencing all the pain. But the acid green shards are gone, and clean white bandages are in their place, and the warm glow of the sunlamps lends a false color to her skin (in reality, she's paler than her bandages). She's on a ventilator; the shock was too much for her system, and the poisonous gas didn't help. That's hardest for Lena, hearing a machine breathe for her.

She pulls up a chair and sits. Alex might be doing the same, but Lena can't spare her any attention now. She can't look away from Kara. She can't stop thinking how, if Kara never wakes up, they'll have missed so much just because they didn't know how to talk to each other, if they should talk to each other.

On instinct, Lena glances a finger down the back of Kara's hand, carefully avoiding the taped-in IV that's giving her Kal-El's blood. Even more carefully, she curls her fingers around the hero's limp ones in the gentlest grip. It's solid, even so. Like a promise.

I'll be here, it seems to say. When you wake up, and ever after.

Kara doesn't respond to the touch, of course, but Lena doesn't mind. She shifts her weight and settles in. It's going to be a quiet, arduous strain, just sitting here and waiting for the hero to stir, but again, Lena doesn't mind. She'll gladly suffer this.

She can't imagine being anywhere else.

At first, the darkness is opaque, black as pitch and utterly impenetrable. Kara drifts in it, numb to all else. She's felt like this before, when she was hanging in space, awaiting death. It's a similar sort of stasis, except Alex can't save her this time.

Nothing and no one can. This is a shadow she has to fight on her own.

But it's hard to fight. The darkness whispers cloyingly to surrender to its shroud, to shirk the land of the living forever and pass into a dreamless sleep. It's tempting. Kara doesn't remember much of when she was last awake, but she's pretty sure it was terrible. She's pretty sure terrible doesn't begin to describe it, and that no words ever could.

Sometimes, though, she thinks she hears other whispers, too. And they're reminding her to wake up, pleading with her to open her eyes, to be okay. She doesn't know what to do with these, doesn't know how to respond: she can't move, in this darkness, and she can't speak.

For a while, she feels even more lost than before.

But sometimes, too, Kara thinks she feels warmth in her hand. It's faint, so much so that she first believes it to be a hallucination, but when she concentrates on it, it anchors her. It's a safety line. A lifeline. Literally, a lifeline.

Perhaps this, she thinks, is something she can follow home.

So she holds onto it, in her mind, that warmth in her hand. And gradually the darkness thins, becoming more of a gauzy gray. It's not so absolute like this. She doesn't long to drift into even deeper sleep anymore, and she finds that the light that leaks through, faint though it may be, isn't so bad. It doesn't burn. It's just…warm. Comforting, like blankets on a winter day.

She curls around it, lets it fill her up, all her cracks and all her wounds until, even if they're not wholly healed, they're not empty. They're full of light. It keeps her together, intangible but unbreakable.

The whispers are still pleading for her to open her eyes.

After a week, Kara has the strength to obey.

She surfaces as if from a dream, slow to comprehend her surroundings, her condition. The sunlamps flood her with golden light, but beyond, there is the cold sterility of fluorescence. With difficulty, Kara cranes her neck and looks down at herself; she's still in her supersuit, and it's full of holes from the Kryptonite shards, but the exposed skin is sealed into scars. The only bandage remaining is the one swathed around her middle, and that's from the rod that impaled her.

Nausea rises reflexively at the recollection, and Kara determinedly stamps it down. There's yet more to see.

Someone's holding onto her hand, dark head lowered to the table, fingers loose in sleep. This is the DEO, Kara knows, but this doesn't look exactly like Alex. The hair's much too long. Unless she was out for a really long time…

Kara essays a flicker of her fingers. They obey her, shifting within the slumbering woman's grasp, and have the desired effect: with a sharply indrawn breath, the woman wakes, snapping up straight.

Kara's brow furrows. Her voice rusted through from not speaking for a week, she nevertheless wonders, "Lena?"

Lena stares at her, as if she doesn't quite believe the evidence of her eyes, and then she rattles off her chair, leaning over Kara now with that hand clasped in both of her own. Tears fill her eyes quicker than thought, but she's smiling, and it's painfully genuine.

"You're awake," she half-whispers, half-croaks. "Oh thank god, Kara, you're awake. How do you feel?"

Not seeing the point in dissembling, Kara admits, "Kinda human."

There's a trace of confusion in the pinch in Lena's brow, but then she nods. "Yes, the doctors said that would likely happen. Your body's so dedicated to healing itself that it will take some time to augment your abilities again."

Kara tightens her hand, as much as she can. It's not much, but she can see that Lena feels the change, as her grip only tightens in return. "What're you doing here?" she asks. "I mean, I'm glad that you're here, but…how?"

Lena dismisses most of that with a shrug. "One thing kind of led to another," she remarks. Her grasp flexes again, and some of the tears drip from her lashes. "But you're okay. Mostly okay. Nothing else matters."

The warmth in their joined hands is so familiar, and Kara knows what grounded her in that unfathomable darkness. She knows what gave her the strength to come home. Her throat thickens, and her words come out even rougher than before. "Thank you. For being here. Just…thank you."

Oddly, Lena's expression dims. Everything about her seems to slump. "God, Kara, don't thank me. I don't deserve any gratitude. I need to apologize, for so many things."

Confusion rumples Kara's forehead anew. "You don't need to apologize for anything."

Lena shuts her eyes and sinks back into her chair. "No, I do," she says, the regret in her tone making the words brittle. "I discovered too late to help you that my mother's running Cadmus. Obviously, the DEO is trying to track her down now, but…but I couldn't help you in time. And you almost died, because of the Luthors." She spits the last, twisted with self-castigation and revulsion and hate.

Kara squeezes her hand again, gives her head a wobbling shake. "No," she denies. "You're not your family. I understand that better than nearly anyone. You aren't responsible for their actions, and you don't have to apologize for them, like you were the one laying a trap with Kryptonite."

Releasing one hand, Lena wipes some of the tears from her cheeks. "I never wanted to hurt you," she whispers, gazing forlornly at the liquid clinging to her fingertips.

"You haven't," Kara lets her know. When Lena glances up guardedly, Kara adds, "You never have. I'm pretty convinced you never will."

Something like a smile flickers at the corner of Lena's mouth, but it's there and gone too quick to really tell. It's replaced by a realization. "I should get your sister."

"In a minute," Kara says, holding on as strongly as she can when Lena tries to rise. "I have to ask…how long have you known? That…well…"

Lena is definitely smiling now, and it's faint, and it's more of a smirk, but it's there. "That Kara Danvers and Supergirl are the same person? Nearly the entire time, honestly. I suspected for the first time the day after I'd shot Corbin, when you and Clark visited me."

Kara doesn't quite know what to do with that, so she just quips, "That long, eh?"

Lena dips her head in confirmation. "The way Kara Danvers looked at me in my office…it was exactly the same way that Supergirl had looked at me the day before. After that, it seemed too obvious to deny." And she offers a small shrug.

Despite her blood being needed elsewhere, Kara feels it prickling in her cheeks. "Oh," she says, and, "I didn't mean…hm. So I'm obvious?"

"Only to me," Lena assures her with a chuckle. It's light, but it's a laugh. She glances down. "I was glad you were both of them, so to speak. It made it easier. I didn't have to choose."

Kara's throat has never been wet, but now it's arid. "Choose?"

"I would've been hard-pressed," Lena murmurs, still looking down. She watches her fingertips skim the backs of Kara's knuckles. It's basically a caress. "Charmingly awkward Kara Danvers or selflessly striking Supergirl? Talk about a catch-twenty-two! Lucky me, though," she adds as Kara feels her face breaking into flame: "they were the same amazing woman. But I wonder…who does that make you, exactly?"

"Still Kara," she replies, "but Kara Zor-El. Of the Kryptonian House of El, see." And she shifts her free hand to touch the emblem on her chest, her family's coat of arms. It's a reverent sort of motion.

Lena smiles, a slender curve. "It's an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Kara Zor-El," she says, and she's only half-teasing.

Tears burn Kara's eyes.

They're completely happy.

After a few more days of limping about human, Kara recovers her full strength, and she flies for the first time in two weeks. It's exhilarating and refreshing and freeing, and she knows she'll never tire of it. The feel of the sun and the wind, the bird's-eye view of the world below…it's humbling, and strengthening, and more than almost anything, she loves it.

She lands on Lena's balcony, because she's heard that the Luthor feels otherwise.

This time, when Lena sees her and grins and opens the door, she greets, "Kara!" even though, of course, she's in her supersuit. It's a recognition Kara hadn't known she'd been craving, and it makes her ribs swell and her knees weaken.

"Hey, Lena," she replies, also dropping her erstwhile formality, but she still settles her hands on her hips. It's jaunty, though—cocky as anything, and she smiles crooked to match it. "So I recalled that you happen to think flying's dangerous, and I am here to rectify that."

Lena arches a brow and challenges right back, "Oh? And where do you intend to take me?"

"Anywhere you want to go," Kara says, spreading her arms wide to encompass the whole of this earth, this blue planet with its yellow sun that is so different than Krypton but is finally feeling just as much like home. (No disrespect to the Danvers, but there's always been unfilled holes in Kara's heart. That's just the way life is. Love of family can only seal so many scars.)

After a moment of quiet contemplation, and as if reading Kara's mind, Lena decides, "Your favorite place. Wherever you've been on this adopted world that reminds you most of home."

Kara really thinks her legs are in danger of buckling, and she croaks, "Geez, Lena…" And then, despite her fluster, she remarks, "Although then I don't need to take you anywhere."

Lena frowns at her, and Kara only smiles in return.

"I'm already there," she clarifies.

Lena actually sways, and she tangles an awkward hand in her hair. "Geez, Kara," she echoes, thin and somewhat out of breath. "Warn a girl before you break out the big guns."

"Sorry," Kara says, but she's just smiling brighter. "Really, though," she adds, offering a hand, "you ready to fly?"

Lena considers the hand and bites her lip and ultimately accepts the gesture, their fingers lacing together. Kara beams at her, and in an instant, she's gathered the Luthor securely in her arms and stepped out on the balcony (and Lena's such a negligible weight, something Kara could never tire of supporting, not a burden at all. But her arms ache anyway, negligible as the weight may be, and she holds on a little tighter and is keenly overwhelmed by Lena's warmth, instead; it almost feels like she's being heated from the inside out, even though that makes no sense, but nothing makes much sense right now. Kara's already soaring high, and they're not even in the air yet).

"What the—" Lena begins to exclaim, and then she laughs. "Kara Zor-El, I do believe you've gone and swept me off my feet!"

Impish, Kara teases, "And what're you gonna do about it?"

Lena tilts her head to the side, studying her hero. There's not much distance between them, considering how Lena's arms are secure around Kara's neck and Kara's own braced beneath shoulders and thighs, but Lena closes it, anyway, until their breath mingles and their lips brush and Kara's sighing into her mouth. Lena shifts a guiding hand to Kara's jaw and presses even closer, and all Kara can think is that this feels exactly like flying.

It's better, though.

It's so much better.