Chapter Text
October 1980
Fortune Bay, Massachusetts
When Lena is 11 years old, she meets her best friend.
“Witch! Witch! You’re a bitch!”
Small-town America, Lena has thought since the moment she arrived here, must be the worst place in the world to grow up different. And small-town coastal New England, with the most judgemental and puritanical adoptive family possible, must be the worst place in the world to grow up a witch.
"Can you just let me through, please?" Lena says, her eyes fixed to the ground. Seven of her least favourite schoolmates are lined up in front of the gate she needs to go through to get home, and the last thing she needs is for them to take her books again. Her assignments had ended up being late last time on account of needing to re-write them all, and Lillian still hasn't let her hear the end of it.
"Or what? You'll turn us into frogs?" Siobhan Smythe sneers. She's the worst of them – she's hounded Lena's steps since the first day Lena stepped into their third grade class, fresh off of losing her mother and relocating continents to a home that clearly didn't want her. She's picked apart every aspect of Lena, from her clothes to her accent, since the moment they met.
"I just want to go home," Lena says softly.
Not that the Luthor manor is home, really. It never has been. Home is still a cottage on the coast of Ireland. Home is her mother putting on an autumn simmer pot, filling the house with the fresh scent of cinnamon and rosemary. Home is learning how to spark a candle into flame with a gentle breath.
But that home died with her mother. The house she's lived in for the last three years, with its long drafty corridors and her stepmother lurking around every corner waiting to criticize her for something, is just the place she happens to be.
Her mother had told Lena of her heritage long before she died and left Lena alone in the world. She’d taught Lena spells and charms, showed her how to harness her magic for healing and occasional mischief. And she'd told Lena of the curse that runs through their veins – the one that made her mother send Lena's father away before he could get hurt by it. The curse that dooms anyone they dare to love to an early death. She had told Lena the tale of her ancestor casting it like a bedtime story until Lena had it practically memorized.
It's the spell of a broken witch. Meant to keep her heart safe after a heartbreak. But it turned bitter with time and loneliness. Now all in her line are cursed, my love. We aren't meant for that kind of happiness.
Her mother had thought sending Lionel away would save him, letting him move on and go back to the family he left for her. But he came back. He kept coming back over and over throughout Lena’s childhood, until he didn't. And when he didn't, it was her mother who got sick.
Lena knows that it isn't scientifically possible to die of a broken heart. But sometimes she wonders.
In her mother’s will, apparently, was a stipulation that in the event of her death Lena was to be brought to her father. She showed up to that big, lonely house on a brand-new continent with nothing but a teddy bear and her mother’s spellbook hidden in her backpack, given to Lionel and Lillian Luthor like a package they didn't order, and she’s never left. Even when everyone from her stepmother to her classmates have made it their mission to beat the magic out of her.
It’s become more and more literal lately, Lena thinks, closing her eyes and trying to shield her face with her books as she’s pelted with sticks and small rocks as an answer. They could be more creative with the rhyme.
"Witch, witch, you're a bitch! Witch, witch, you're a –"
The chant ends in a yell, the crash of fracturing wood, and a voice Lena doesn't recognize.
"Who the heck throws rocks? What is this, 1750?"
Lena opens her eyes. A girl is standing in front of her, tall and willowy with long brown hair and brandishing her backpack like a flail, and just beyond her Siobhan is lying in the splintered remains of the fence Lena had been trying to get past.
"Who the hell are you?" Siobhan snarls, holding out her hands so that two of her friends can help her to her feet. Her arms are scraped up from the wood, but she seems more angry at being stood up to than anything else.
The mystery girl snorts. "Someone who thinks bullies are dumb."
"Are you calling me dumb?"
"I'm looking at you, aren't I?"
Siobhan lunges at the girl. The girl holds her own for a minute, her height clearly giving her an advantage, but soon enough Siobhan's friends jump in and with seven against one Lena's rescuer doesn't have a chance. Lena stands rooted to the spot with her heart in her throat, wanting to help but knowing she'd be nothing but a liability, and the paralysis lasts until Siobhan hits the girl so hard in the face that Lena sees blood start to drip from her nose.
Terrified, driven by pure instinct, Lena throws out a hand.
"Stop!"
The seven girls scatter like marbles. They're sent flying through the air by the force of Lena's spell, hurled away with enough power to knock the breath from them on landing - Siobhan lands the furthest away, rolling a few feet and then unsteadily picking herself up, and when she sees Lena standing over the new girl with a hand extended something comes over her face that Lena has never seen before. Terror.
"I'm telling my mom!" Siobhan shouts. Her voice cracks on the last word, tears visibly welling up in her eyes, and with her friends behind her she scampers down the path in the opposite direction and finally, blessedly, away from Lena. Lena is sure she'll be hearing from Lillian about this latest altercation, but at least for now she can have a moment of peace.
The girl who defended Lena so unexpectedly stands up slowly. Her eyes are fixed on Lena's hand, wide as saucers, and when she's drawn herself up to her full height – almost a full head taller than Lena – she opens her mouth to shout.
"That. Was. Amazing!"
Lena blinks. She'd been expecting to be abandoned as soon as this girl realized who she was defending, or worse – instead, the girl looks like Christmas has come early.
"How did you do that?! I mean, you just put your hand up, and bam!" The girl says, brandishing her hand the same way and seeming disappointed when it doesn't bear the same results. "What was that?"
"Magic," Lena says quietly. The girl takes it in stride.
"Cool! You saved my butt, magic girl. Thanks!"
"You saved mine first," Lena points out.
"Fair point. I'm Sam," the girl says, sticking her hand out for a shake. She has a split lip, and a quickly-swelling red abrasion around her eye that's likely going to turn into a truly spectacular bruise. "Sam Arias. Just moved here from National City."
"Nice to meet you," Lena says mechanically, giving Sam's hand a polite shake but too thrown off to do much else. She'd heard about a new girl two grades above her, but she hadn't expected an eighth grader to come to her rescue.
Sam grins. Her handshake is enthusiastic, and she doesn't let go until she's given Lena a hard clasp. "Introductions go two ways, you know. What's your name?"
"Lena," Lena says, blinking. "Ehm. Luthor."
Sam Arias walks Lena home that day, and every day after. She can't stop the relentless targeting that happens while Lena is in class, but at recess and on the way home Siobhan and her cronies steer clear of the two of them from that point on. Sam is never afraid of anything.
When Sam visits the Manor, Lena feels for the first time like perhaps she isn't simply being ungrateful by not being happy there.
"Wow," Sam says, whistling low as Lena shows her the drawing room and the corridor that leads to the kitchens before heading up the grand stairs towards her bedroom. "This place is massive. Are your family in the mafia or something?"
"I actually have no idea how they got their money. I try not to ask too many questions."
"It's spooky," Sam says, running her finger along the shiny mahogany panelling lining the walls. "All this space for three people?"
"It was four before Lex left," Lena says, though she knows it hardly helps. Sam spins in a wide circle, arms outstretched and still not even close to touching either wall.
"What do you even do with all this space?"
"Honestly? Nothing. My father stays in his study," Lena says, shrugging. "Lillian keeps to her wing, unless she's found something criticize me for that can't wait until dinner."
"And I thought my home life was miserable," Sam mutters.
"Do you not get along with your parents?"
"Don't have parents," Sam says easily. "Just an adoptive mother who hates me. So, ya know. You're not alone."
Her blasé tone softens on the last sentence, and Lena feels such a wave of surprise and relief at finding just one person who understands that she doesn't notice Lillian looming around the corner until they've almost run headlong into her.
Sam makes a noise, drawing up to keep from barrelling Lillian over, and Lena pulls her backward by the back of her shirt until they've both given Lillian a wide berth. She sets her eyes on the ground near Lillian's expensive shoes.
"And who is this?" Lillian's cool tones make Lena's chest seize with a familiar anxiety. "A distraction from your studies?"
"We're studying together," Lena says quickly, without raising her eyes. "Sam is in the 8th grade. She's teaching me some higher-level math." She doesn't look at Sam, but she hopes against hope that her new friend will get the hint.
Thankfully, Sam does. The older girl nods, standing up straighter and clasping her hands behind her back. "Yeah. Linear equations. Pretty advanced for a sixth grader."
"Advanced," Lillian says, looking Sam up and down from her scuffed sneakers to her messy ponytail. Judgement reeks from every pore, but Sam holds fast against it in a way Lena has never managed to. "I don't quite see the point in trying, since Lex was doing linear equations by age 7. But the effort is…quaint."
Lena tries not to react to that. She should have expected it – it doesn't matter what she does. Lillian's approval will always remain out of reach.
"Make sure she's gone by suppertime," Lillian says, brushing past them and towards the stairs. Her heels click into the distance, and only when they fade out of earshot does Lena let herself relax.
Sam blows a loud raspberry.
"Jeez. What a jerk."
"Shhh," Lena says, hurrying Sam down the hall, but she can't help but giggle at Sam's pure audacity. "Don't let her hear you."
"She's not magic like you is she?"
Lena shakes her head darkly. "No. And don't mention it in front of her, okay?"
Lena's room is just about the only place in this house she's ever felt close to safe. There's no lock on the door, but with Lex away at college she's the only one who sleeps in this wing of the house – unless Lillian is seeking her out, an uncommon occurrence when she has full access to give Lena criticism during dinner, Lena is usually alone up here.
It's smaller than Lex's room ever was by a long stretch. But it's still large, full of all the little things she's been able to accumulate over the years – books, scraps from Lex's projects to cobble together into her own inventions, even a pewter chess set from her father's library that nobody has noticed went missing. She has French doors that lead to a small balcony, and a good view of the garden. The little place she's carved out for herself here is one of the few blessings she's grateful for in this house.
Sam looks around, seeming to take stock of her surroundings before sitting heavily on the bed and grabbing Lena's teddy bear.
Lena only gets in a moment of embarrassment for having her childhood teddy on such open display before Sam grins, holding it to her chest and setting her chin on top of his soft head. There's no judgement in her eyes.
"I don't actually have to teach you linear equations, do I?"
Lena snorts. "Oh, please. I've been doing them for years."
From that point on, Sam always visits by climbing in through the balcony.
"She's perfect," Sam says, infatuation punctuating every syllable. "She's so strong, and she doesn't want people to know how much she cares about stuff but she's so enthusiastic about things sometimes. And her hair, ugh. I love auburn hair. I'm so in love with her, Lena."
They're lying with their heads at the end of Lena's bed, hair dangling to the floor, blood rushing to Lena's brain as Sam outlines her crush. It's a girl in Sam's grade that Lena hasn't met, but she's seen her in the schoolyard playing soccer – Tonya, Sam said. Lena might be more prone to take her seriously if Sam hadn't been so in love with a boy on her street named Mark only three weeks before, and a girl she saw at the coffee shop a month before that. Sam gathers crushes like Lena gathers books.
"Isn't she like, 6 inches shorter than you?" Lena drawls. "Are you going to have her stand on a box?"
"So? She's compact. I love it."
"You're not even in high school yet," Lena says. "How do you know it's love?"
Sam shrugs. "I feel it. Every time I look at her I feel it."
"That's just your brain releasing chemicals."
Sam scoffs. She nudges Lena's knee with her own. "You can't make love into a science, Lena. It's like magic!"
"Magic has rules," Lena says firmly. "Just like science. And love is not magic. Love is an illusion."
"You are the most unromantic person I have ever met," Sam sighs. Lena, rather than bristling, takes it as a compliment.
"That's all the better. I'll never fall in love."
Sam sits up. Lena follows, feeling all the blood move out of her head in a dizzying rush, to see Sam looking at her like she has 3 heads.
"What do you mean, never? Like, never ever?"
Lena nods. She saw what love did to her mother after her father stopped visiting. And she sees now how Lillian's love for Lionel, faced with his infidelity and clear love for another, has added to the cruelty Lillian enacts on everyone in the house. It only got worse when Lex left for college. Lionel doesn't love Lena – he only looks at her like she's something he's lost, a cruel reflection of the woman he loved who haunts his house like a ghost. Lex might have loved Lena in his own selfish way, but not more than himself. Not enough to stay and protect her.
Lena vowed a long time ago to stay away from the whole business. She's cursed, after all; what is love, besides a way to get people hurt?
"Why would I ever fall in love? I've never seen it do anything but make people miserable," Lena says. "It killed my mother. It's the reason my stepmother hates me."
"None of that was caused by love," Sam argues. She fusses with Lena's hair, starting to make an idle braid in it while Lena scoffs. "Your mother got sick, and Lillian hates you because she hates herself and needs to take it out on someone."
"I beg to differ."
"I don't think you'll be able to stop yourself when it happens," Sam says. She finishes the messy braid, combing her fingers through it until it's untangled again. "You're only 11. What happens when you grow up?"
"I have magic," Lena shrugs. "I'll just stop it from happening."
"I don't think even magic can do that. You can't just hit an off-switch."
Lena's eyes narrow. She twists around to look at Sam, the cogs in her mind already turning.
"Actually, I think I can."
It's true that no spell exists to take feelings away. Once it's taken root, her mother's book says, love is a stubborn weed. It grows in all the cracks of the heart until it's taken over every inch of fertile ground. But what do exist are spells to give love shape – to mould it, direct it, make it brighter. To call for it to find you. Such spells are complicated, but Lena has always had a natural aptitude.
"So to keep yourself from getting hurt by love, you're…casting a spell to…find it?" Sam says, her face twisted up in confusion as Lena wanders the garden gathering the herbs she needs. It's dark outside, and they're darting between shadows – the garden is here for the kitchen staff to pick fresh ingredients from, and the last time Lillian found her snipping rosemary she was confined to her room for two months.
"I'm calling for Amas Veritas," Lena clarifies. "I'm binding myself to a person that doesn't exist."
Sam steps on a pile of crunchy leaves, and they both freeze – a chill breeze rustles the grass, kicking up the leaves and ruffling their hair, but Lena can't hear any movement from the house. After a few seconds she relaxes again, rifling through the garden bed for some mint.
"How do you know they don't exist?" Sam asks in a loud whisper.
"They can't. No person can fit all my criteria. And if they don't exist, I can never fall in love," Lena says, sifting through her pencil box full of herbs and flora. "And nobody can get hurt. A curse needs a target."
"But what if they do?"
"They don't," Lena says firmly. "I think that's everything I need. Come on."
It's too late for Lillian to be awake, but they tiptoe through the halls anyways until they reach Lena's room. The spell needs open air to work properly, so Lena sets up a circle of lit candles on the balcony, sitting on one side of it while Sam sits on the other playing with one of the lit wicks.
"So who is this impossible love you're calling for?" Sam says, hissing when she doesn't move her finger fast enough to keep from getting singed. "Lena Luthor's soulmate?"
Lena takes a deep breath, trying to summon the peace and concentration needed for such a complex spell.
"They need to be kind," Lena starts, setting one ingredient after another into a wooden bowl in the middle of the circle. They rustle in the breeze, but don't blow away. Oregano, lavender, violet. "Kind to everyone. Loyal. And they need to hear my call from miles away."
"Miles?" Sam says, leaving the candle alone to watch Lena work the spell. Lena has done magic in front of her before, but never anything this intensive. "That's pretty demanding,"
"They'll hum my favourite song," Lena says. A snipping of chamomile. Comfort.
"Which is?"
Lena doesn't answer.
"They're strong. Strong enough to lift…" Lena trails off, thinking. A car? A house? Lena doesn't care necessarily about measurements like that so much as what that strength could do. She wants someone strong enough to keep Lillian away. Strong enough to take her away from here.
"Strong enough to keep us safe," Lena finally decides, adding a clipping of lovage. "And they can make pancakes in funny shapes. Flip them in the air."
"Okay, that's at least reasonable," Sam says, munching on a few leaves of mint that Lena isn't using.
"They love my favourite pizza toppings."
"And that's asking too much," Sam finishes, tossing the stem over the balcony. "Olives and mushrooms? Anchovies? Nobody likes that but you."
"They wear glasses," Lena decides in the moment, "And they have blue eyes. The brightest blue eyes."
"I'm more of a brown eyes person," Sam muses. Rather than distracting her, Lena finds that Sam's presence is actually helping her concentrate – keeping her mind happy, rather than dwelling on the anxiety that the idea of such a love brings her.
"And they need a great family," Lena says, her voice cracking a little as she set down the last few herbs. "A family that loves them. Who can love me, too."
Sam smiles, sad and a little soft. "Get me in on that one too, will you?"
Lena returns the smile. She sets a single daffodil in the bowl. Resilience. "They need to be indestructible. So that even a curse can’t take them away."
And finally, the one request that Lena knows will clinch it. The final requirement that nobody could ever fulfill. She gathers a handful of rose petals, cupping them in her palm.
"Anything else?" Sam drawls.
"Yes," Lena says quietly. She looks up at the sky, the great big empty expanse she's dreamed about escaping to ever since the doors of the Luthor manor first closed behind her. Freedom. "They need to touch the stars."
The magic starts to gather as soon as the last requirement is spoken. It swirls around her, lifting the spell's ingredients and floating them around her in a gentle spiral, making the candle flame flicker, before floating skyward. And to her alarm, as she sends the spell into the heavens, Lena feels a slight tug. Like a string tied to her ribcage has been pulled towards the sky, urging her somewhere else.
But it passes quickly. The string dissipates, her call to the sky fading, and Lena knows the spell didn’t work. Couldn’t have.
Perfect people don’t exist.
Lena learns when she turns 15 that not even death can stop a curse from finding its target. Lena doesn't love her father. But her mother loved him. Her mother loved him so much that it killed her, and now it's killed him, too.
Listen for the sound of the deathwatch beetle, her mother had told her. When you hear its call, the person you love is doomed to die. Lena hears its chirping in the wee hours of the morning, kept awake by the constant noise coming from her windowsill, and by the time the sun has risen the household staff have given her the news.
The funeral is bleak. It's a drizzly September morning, cold and dour, and the funeral is sparsely attended – a few business associates, the staff, and Lillian and Lex, standing near the grave as the casket is lowered. They're both emotionless, their designer coats and black umbrellas wicking raindrops away while Lena tries to blink the chilly water out of her eyes; she keeps to the back, holding tightly to Sam's hand as her father disappears into the ground and trying to stay out of Lillian's way.
It doesn't work. Once the first handful of dirt is sprinkled and the prayers have been said, Lillian's first move is to turn around and pin Lena with a look that says everything her words won't in a public place, but Lena fully expects to hear regularly from this point onward.
That somehow, this is Lena's fault.
And maybe it is. Maybe it's not Lena's mother's curse that found Lionel, but Lena's; without any other target to latch onto, maybe the curse decided to take away the only sense of shaky safety Lena ever had in the Luthor household. Lionel had hardly even looked at her, but at least with him there Lena knew Lillian would never do anything to hurt her. That guarantee is gone after his death, and Lena finds that she preferred his mournful silence to what follows.
Lionel’s death twists Lillian even further into the cruel shell she was becoming before it. Lex disappears again to grad school, visiting home even less often than before, and when he does visit all he seems to want to do is rant about aliens. About their abuses of power. About Superman, whose new notoriety and feats of heroism have taken the world by storm in the last two years.
Lena couldn't care less about Superman. Lex's obsession doesn't take hold in her, besides to remind her how little Lex now seems to resemble the brother she once knew. Aliens are the least of her worries. Something else takes most of her attention in the days after Lionel is buried.
Sam scales her balcony in the small hours of the morning a few weeks after the funeral, knocking gently on the glass-panelled doors with a tear-streaked face, and when Lena opens them to catch her in a hug that Sam collapses into she sees a small piece of white plastic clenched in her best friend's hand.
It's the first time Lena has ever seen her afraid.
"Lena," Sam chokes, clinging to her shoulders, "I'm pregnant."
“Do you really have to go?” Lena whispers. She shivers in the April chill, Sam’s rusty car idling in the shadowed back road behind the Luthor house.
"According to my mom, yes. She even packed my stuff for me," Sam says with an air of forced nonchalance, gesturing over her shoulder at the trash bags stuffed into the backseat. Lena bites at her lip.
"You could stay with me. Lillian hardly ever comes to my wing anymore, you could -"
“I can’t stay here, Lena. Not for long, anyways. Not like this.” Sam’s pregnant belly fills the space between them, and as much as she hates it, Lena understands. While Sam might be able to hide away in Lena's room for a while, there's no way to hide a baby. And besides, this town is small. Sam's mother is cruel. There's no bright future here for a pregnant teenage girl. Especially one who, after the single night that got her pregnant, apparently realizes that she's gayer than she thought she was.
“I have a friend back in National City who can take me in. I’ll get my GED, and go to college, and…” Sam is obviously trying to sound confident, but Lena can hear the fear in her voice. Her hand splays instinctively over her stomach, and Lena puts her own over it.
“You’re going to do amazing things, and you’re going to be an amazing mom. I know you are,” Lena says fiercely. Sam's smile is halfhearted.
“Are you sure you don't want to come with me?”
“Of course I do," Lena says heavily. "But you know Lillian. It doesn’t matter where I go – she’d just find me and drag me back here. She can't torture me from so many states away. You have a better chance without me.”
Sam nods, visibly holding back tears. Her grip on Lena's hand tightens.
“I know you won't say it back, but I – I love you, Lena," Sam says, those tears finally making their escape. "You're my sister. You know that, right?”
Sam is right – Lena can't say it back. She's never been able to, in all their years of a friendship that feels more like sisterhood. Lena's love is a death sentence, and she can't lose anyone else. She can't ever lose Sam.
“Yeah.”
Sam rubs her belly. “And we’re going to stay in touch. You’re going to be an auntie to whoever is in here.”
Lena lets out a watery laugh, nodding. “I am. I promise.”
Sam's car keeps idling. The smell of the exhaust mingles with the salty scent of the nearby ocean, carried on a damp breeze. Sam glances back at it, but doesn't seem eager to leave – she won't let go of Lena's hand. Not because she wants to stay here, Lena knows, but because she's worried about what will happen when she leaves. What will happen to Lena without the barrier of her presence.
Lena won't let herself be the thing that holds Sam back.
Reaching into Sam’s purse and pulling out the Swiss Army knife she knows is hidden there, Lena flips it open and submits to the fit of impulse. “I can make sure we never lose each other. That we always protect each other. Hold out your hand.”
Sam does it without question. Bracing herself for pain, Lena makes a decently-sized cut on her own hand.
“My blood,” Lena says, letting the blood fill the creases of her palm. Next she cuts Sam on the same hand, a short but deep cut that makes her hiss, but Sam doesn’t jerk her hand away.
“Your blood,” Lena says, and Sam nods. She can feel the magic building in the air, the buzz in her skull that means the spell is working even though she's not working from anything she remembers from her mother's book. An ad-lib spell. A shot in the dark, born of a desperation not to lose the only person she has left.
Finally she grasps Sam’s cut hand in a firm grip with her own, pressing their wounds together – a grip that’s comforting in its familiarity, and the steady pressure of it makes the spell easy to finish.
“Our blood,” Lena says decisively.
She can feel the moment the spell takes hold – the buzz dissipates with a warm feeling, and the pain in her hand eases off. When she lets go of Sam's hand the smeared blood remains, but the cut itself has already scabbed.
It'll leave a scar. But the pain and the permanent reminder is worth it for the smile on Sam’s face.
Lena can't say I love you. But she can do this.
“This way we'll always be linked. We'll keep each other safe no matter where we are. Sisters by blood,” Lena says, realizing she’s failed in her attempt to keep her tears at bay. They're streaming down her face; but Sam is crying too, and they share a tight hug before she finally clambers into her old Toyota and drives away. Far away, to the other side of the country, to start a life of freedom that Lena aches to follow her into.
But Lena stays. She turns back to the Luthor Manor, using Sam's old path to climb up to her own balcony and crawl into bed.
She feels the emptiness of Sam's absence every day.
Lena finishes school with her head down. She gets accepted to MIT, and for the first time she gets a taste of the freedom Sam must have felt when she left Fortune Bay – Lena is still in the same state and Lillian insists on weekly phone calls and full access to Lena's grades, but for the most part Lena is on her own. Nobody here knows about her magic. Nobody here throws sticks when she walks home from class.
Lena is 20 when she meets Jack Spheer.
Jack isn't perfect. He doesn’t believe in magic, putting Lena's eccentricities down to luck or coincidence. He's more interested in the tangible nature of the the stars than he is in touching them, and more likely to theorize about what Superman's arrival means for scientific research than he is to worry about the Kryptonian's powers. His pancakes are truly terrible. He's allergic to anchovies. But he's kind. He shares Lena's passion for helping people. He encourages and supports her. He's gentle and attentive and, it turns out, he loves her.
Lena puts her mother's book into a box. It gathers dust under her bed as she turns instead to science, to the perceptible world, to the things she can put under a microscope or into an experiment, and she leaves the magic behind. In time, she forgets about the spells she cast in childhood; she forgets about curses and candles and amas veritas.
The one piece of magic she can't shake is the scar in the centre of her palm.
Through all the years of their separation, through the birth of Sam's daughter Ruby and both of their big life changes, Lena still hasn't yet had the chance to visit Sam in National City. Lena has always kept in touch with her through letters. They cover as broad a range as their conversations always did, and the night Jack reveals his feelings, the night Lena accepts them with no small amount of fear, Lena pens a new one.
Dear Sam,
Sometimes I feel like there’s an emptiness inside of me. An emptiness that at times, seems to burn. It sounds dramatic, but I think that’s just who I am. There’s a ring around the moon tonight – according to old superstitions, it means there’s trouble not far behind. I’m scared of what that might mean.
Jack told me tonight that he loves me. That he wanted to be with me. I told him yes, but I couldn't say the words back. I do care about him, and I told him so, but it doesn't feel the way you always described it. It's like something is missing. Like something is broken in me.
I miss you, Sam. You’re the only person I could ever talk to about this. Even Jack doesn’t understand this feeling – I have this dream of being whole. Of finding something that no curse can break. Something that cuts through the fear. Something even time would lie down and be still for. Do you think that exists?
I’m sorry I’m being so existential. Maybe I’m just not meant to be happy.
Lena stops writing, putting down the pen and flexing her hand. It feels good to get all these feelings out, but she doesn’t want to unload everything on Sam. She has her own life to live. A daughter to raise. School to get through. She's far enough away now that Lena worries less about the curse taking her, and Lena intends on keeping it that way.
Lena fills the rest of the letter with easier topics – asks after Ruby, and talks about school and Lex’s recent work and Jack – and when she mails it, she feels a little bit lighter.
When Lena is 23, Lex loses his mind.
She watches it live on TV. Jack holds her and stares at the tiny screen in horror as station after station covers the chaos in Metropolis – Lex, in some kind of mechanical suit, shooting ray after ray of sickly green light at Superman. Taking out buildings. Hurting innocent bystanders. A rush of inexplicable violence, tearing the city apart just to get a chance at hurting the Kryptonian.
He's apprehended, of course; as brilliant as Lex's mind is, even his technology can't negate his own hubris. Lena testifies against him in court. She tells the jury of his mania, his hatred, his changed nature. They give him 15 consecutive life sentences, and convict Lillian as an accomplice.
His psychotic break is blamed on anti-alien xenophobia, but Lena can’t help but feel like somehow, some way, it’s her fault. Her fault for loving him, for letting his brotherly affection into her heart before he left Fortune Bay and started to change. The part of him that welcomed her into his home when she arrived as a scared child from Ireland is gone, that much is clear when she visits him in prison – he looks at her with the same blank, emotionless stare she’s always associated with Lillian.
Any vestige of the brother she knew is dead. Lost to his obsession with being the most powerful man in the world.
Journalists hound Lena for statements. They camp outside her apartment. Offer her millions for exclusive interviews about her brother's downward spiral. Theorize in the papers about what she could be hiding. Lena ignores them all.
She throws herself instead into work. Jack's nanobot project has the potential to change the world; maybe if she can help others, if she can get his ideas off the ground and use them for good, she can scrub the stains from her own soul.
The Luthor estate goes to Lena. Stocks and bonds. Patents. Properties. She hardly makes note of it. And when the opportunity to take over Lex's company presents itself, Lena turns it down. The dark path that Lex took started and ended at LuthorCorp. Instead Lena stays with Jack in their little garage lab, and she comes to terms with her future.
Jack loves her. Lena cares for him deeply still, always, just not quite the way he wishes she would; but that understanding is there, and he seems content with what she offers him. He loves her like she's the only thing he'll ever need. She loves him from a distance. She finds an engagement ring in his sock drawer, but it never ends up on her finger.
In the end even Lena's distance doesn’t protect him. The stain of her curse touches everything.
Lena gets the call in her 26th year, just as the September heat is starting to break.
She hears the deathwatch beetle make itself known as she's making coffee. She woke up to a note on the fridge saying that Jack went out to pick up some equipment he ordered from the post office, and Lena takes the opportunity for a slow morning – she opens the windows to let in the fresh air, taking a deep breath of it as she pours a mug and takes her first sip. She picks up the newspaper that Jack must have brought in, glancing at the first pages, and it's as she's flipping to the centre section that she hears it. The same sound she heard the morning she lost her father.
Chirp, chirp. Chirp, chirp.
A cold, cruel hand wraps around her ribcage and squeezes.
"No," Lena breathes, whirling around as if she'll be able to spot it crawling across the floor. But there's nothing there. No beetle. No spectre of death.
Maybe she imagined it. A conjuration of allowing herself a singular happy moment. Her mind might have summoned the sound as a way to remind her not to get complacent – there are only two people in her life that she cares for enough to be targeted by the curse, now, and she can't bear to lose either.
"It's just a stupid bug," Lena whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. It's what Jack has always said, since the day Lena admitted to him what really killed Lionel Luthor. He had been so sure of it, so steadfast as he told her it wasn't real. It couldn't be real. The mug in her hands is so hot that it's burning her palms, but she holds it tighter. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just a bug."
Chirp, chirp. Chirp, chirp.
It's everywhere and nowhere. Lena tears the house apart looking, her desperation mounting with every failed minute, praying to a force she doesn't believe in anymore that it's not what she thinks it is – or at the very least, that she can find it and kill it before it does its job. She rips apart the couch, tears through the cupboards, rips up half the floorboards in the kitchen, but still it eludes her. Chirping, chirping, chirping –
It stops just before the phone rings.
Jack's mother is sobbing on the other line as she tells Lena what happened. Something so simple, so fucking simple – a car taking a blind corner. Jack carrying too many packages. A hit and run with no explanation. Jack didn't even make it to the hospital.
The phone slips from Lena's fingers, hanging from its cord as Lena sinks to her knees surrounded by splintered boards and nails. Jack's mother keeps talking, distantly, sobbing the cruel truth over and over.
"He's gone. Lena, he's gone. Jack is – he's –"
Jack is gone. And it's Lena's fault.
Lena pays for the funeral and all associated burial costs. She attends the service, quietly sells off everything they owned together, packs up the bare essentials, and then she drives to Fortune Bay, Massachusetts without stopping.
The Luthor Manor is empty, but well-maintained. Lillian hasn't lived there since Lex's trial ended. Lena has continued to pay for upkeep on the outside; the grounds are well-kept, the leaves just starting to change from green to bright late-September oranges and reds, and the garden is as lush as it's ever been. But the interior is dusty and disused. Hollow. Around every corner a ghost that Lena never dealt with. It feels like a just punishment, coming back here. She never deserved to leave this house in the first place.
She wanders its halls for hours when she arrives, giving herself one day to feel everything – the pain, the guilt, the crushing weight of the curse that runs through her veins – before she shuts off the valve for good.
Lena leaves her childhood room untouched. She moves into a larger guest suite in a different wing, and she hires no staff; she lets the gardener continue his weekly work outside, but Lena shutters the Manor windows and retreats to the basement lab that Lillian had built for Lex in the hopes that he would come back home after grad school.
Her mother's book stays in its box, and Lena locks herself in. She doesn't tell Sam where she's gone. Sam's letters, if she sends them, will bounce back from Lena's old address until her first and only friend will finally presumably give up on trying.
If Lena loves nobody – if nobody loves her - nobody can get hurt.
She knows that Fortune Bay's residents have noticed the house being slightly more occupied than it used to be. She sees people point and whisper as they walk by through the cracks in the shutters; she sees kids daring each other to knock on the door of the town's haunted house, sprinting up the path and pulling on the bell before turning back with shrill, terrified laughter. Lena has groceries delivered and left on the front porch, and if ever she needs to venture into town, it's clear that she's been labelled as the resident crazy recluse. She even once sees a grown-up and immaculately dressed Siobhan Smythe shielding her children from Lena as they pass each other on the street.
Lena prefers it that way. The further away everyone stays from her, the better.
It takes close to a year before Sam's letters start to arrive. The first one is a question, a shot in the dark based on the possibility of Lena doing exactly what she's done and coming back here, and their arrival becomes almost bi-weekly once Sam seems to realize that they aren't bouncing back anymore.
Sam talks about everything and nothing in them – Lena gets updates on Ruby's life, pictures of her growing from a little girl to a teenager with a wicked twinkle in her eye that reminds Lena painfully of the Sam she remembers, brandishing a backpack at Lena's school bully.
Lena opens them, reads them voraciously and keeps them safe in a lockbox on her desk, but she never sends a reply.
The seasons change. Time passes slowly in the town Lena thought she'd escaped for good, day after day, as Lena cooks her meals and reads every book in Lionel's library and tinkers with projects that she and Jack hadn't had time for, and she keeps herself isolated from the world. Or, more accurately, she keeps the world safe from herself.
On Lena's 30th birthday, someone breaks into the house.
She's boiling the kettle around lunchtime when she hears footsteps upstairs. It's such an unfamiliar sound that for a moment Lena wonders if the metaphorical ghosts of her past have somehow become real ones – but when she hears a door open and close on the floor above, her brain finally catches up and she snatches up a kitchen knife from the block on the counter.
Her palm tingles under the handle.
She tiptoes up the grand staircase, finding that even 15 years later she still hasn't forgotten which steps are creaky and which are silent, and follows where she heard the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from the wing she used to sleep in, somewhere near her old bedroom. It's cold up here – Lena doesn't often turn the heating on, doing it only enough to keep the pipes from freezing and choosing instead to use the fireplaces in the kitchen and her room to ward off the October chill. Up here, she can see her own breath.
She's just turning the corner when she sees the intruder. They're walking slowly down the dark hall towards the stairs, seeming to be looking up at the ceiling and mostly in shadow until Lena steps out with the knife held out in front of her with both hands.
"I know this house looks abandoned, but there's really nothing here worth stealing," Lena says, keeping her voice as steady as she can. "So if you leave right now I'll agree not to call –"
The intruder steps out of the shadowy hallway and close to a window, illuminating their features. Lena almost drops the knife.
"…Sam?"
"There you are!" Sam says, as if Lena is late to an appointment they made together rather than in her own house, finding her old friend wandering around uninvited. She completely ignores the sharp steel Lena is pointing in her direction.
She looks different than when Lena last saw her, 17 and pregnant and terrified of the future – she looks different even than the last picture she sent of herself and Ruby with one of her old letters, years ago. Older and more mature, but not without the spark that Lena remembers. She still has that brightness that kept Lena going through so many miserable years in this house. Her eyes crinkle at the corner when she smiles.
"Do you realize this house is now even creepier than it used to be? The cobwebs aren't doing you any favours."
"What – how – how did you – what are you doing here?" Lena stammers. She's not entirely sure this isn't a vivid hallucination, maybe born of loneliness. She's thought about what seeing Sam again might be like, meeting Ruby, catching up and sharing a conversation with another person – but Sam is actually here. In Lena's house. Lena's dusty, creepy, miserable house.
"I'm here to see you," Sam says, like it should be self-evident.
Lena could almost laugh. The reflex feels rusty, and it comes out more like a croak. "I mean – in Fortune Bay? I thought you were - how did you even get in?"
"The balcony, dummy. You still keep it unlocked," Sam says, jamming her finger over her shoulder at the door to Lena's old room. "And even after all these years I still remember the layout."
Lena gapes at her.
"Could you put the knife down, maybe?"
Lena drops it. A small cloud of dust erupts from the carpet where it lands. Sam steps closer; she seems taller than Lena remembers.
"Sam…" Lena whispers. Her voice cracks – her eyes are starting to burn, and her breath hitches in the barest beginnings of a sob that she claws back with great effort. Sam opens up her arms, her face soft and empathetic.
"Happy birthday, Lena."
Sam steps into her space. Lena sinks into her first hug in what feels like a lifetime, enveloped in the somehow still-familiar and comforting smell of her best friend in the world, and does her best not to break down completely.
The kettle is long cold when they make it back to the kitchen. Lena re-boils it to give herself something to do – now that the shock of seeing Sam has worn off, it's becoming more evident that Sam is here for a reason beyond saying happy birthday.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Sam says matter-of-factly, perched with delicately crossed legs on one of Lena's kitchen stools. Lena fiddles with the gas knob.
“I’ve been busy,” she insists, but unfortunately even after years of separation Sam can still read her like a book.
“For 4 years? Bull. I’ve been in town for a week and you didn't answer the door once.”
"That was you?" Lena says, turning back around and crossing her arms defensively over her chest. She'd heard knocking on the door a few times this week, but as usual she'd ignored it – everyone in town knows that Lena won't open up. "I didn't even know you were in town."
"I've come by every day."
“I don't answer the door. It's usually kids playing pranks.”
The silence stretches thin. The kettle whistles behind her at the tail end of it, breaking the stalemate between them. She bustles over to it, carefully pouring two mugs and taking as much time as possible to do it – anything to avoid the conversation Sam is insisting on having.
"I've sent you about 100 letters," Sam says more softly. "I'm so sorry about Jack, Lena. I didn't even hear until after the funeral, and when I went to your old place you'd already sold it. I made a guess that you might have come back here, but I was hoping I was wrong."
Lena swallows. "The mail carrier never comes up here. Nobody likes to come near the crazy Luthor house." She steeps the tea, toying with the teabag and resolutely ignoring the second part of Sam's statement. Talking about Jack only reminds her that Sam needs to leave as soon as she can. Before any magic can take hold. Before the curse can reach out its tendrils. "Why are you here, Sam?"
"My mother died."
Lena turns back around, tea forgotten. "Oh. Fuck."
She hadn't given it much thought until now, but Lena hasn't seen Patricia Arias around in the whole time she's lived here. Not that she'd want to – Sam's mother had never taken kindly to Lena, nor to anything else that might have allowed Sam a bit of freedom. She and Lillian had been eerily similar in that way. But a loss is a loss.
Sam shrugs. "She was a cruel bitch, but she was the only mom I had. She left me her estate, small as it was. We had to come up and get everything sorted."
"Is Ruby here?"
"And Alex."
Lena frowns. Sam's more recent letters have made it seem like she and her newest girlfriend had only been seeing each other for a few months, though Sam seems crazy about her. "Alex came all the way here with you? Already?"
"Huh. No 'who's Alex'?" Sam says, arching a brow. "I thought you didn't get my letters?"
Lena turns back to the tea, duly chastened. "I'm sorry about Patricia."
Sam accepts her own mug. She blows on it gently and then sets it on the table without taking a sip.
Lena taps her fingers nervously on the ceramic. The dull sound seems to echo through the huge, empty house.
“I can feel it, you know," Sam finally says, her voice low and soft. "How much you’re hurting.”
It’s a startling enough sentence that Lena breaks her self-imposed stony silence and looks up sharply.
“What?”
Sam nods. “When Lex was locked away, when Jack died – I felt it. I felt you, as if you were screaming in my head. It's quieter now, but sometimes…”
Lena stares at her, still trying to compute exactly what Sam means. “How –"
Before she can form the full question, Sam holds up a hand; there, in the centre of her palm, is a short white scar. Even after 15 years it’s still visible, matching the longer scar on Lena's own palm that still stands out starkly against her skin.
“Apparently blood oaths are serious business, even if you make them when you’re a teenager,” Sam jokes, trying for levity. Lena can’t find it in herself to laugh. She rubs her own scar, staring at Sam's hand.
"Then…why haven't I felt you?" Lena says, feeling her voice go thick and strained. Sam doesn't put her hand down. It's as if she's waiting.
"Maybe you have. Maybe it's what kept you from going crazy here all alone."
Lena snorts, trying to blink away the tears that fight to escape again. "Who says I'm not crazy?"
"I do," Sam says simply. "Sad and under-socialized, maybe. But still sane."
Lena stares at Sam’s hand for a moment, at the scar that's linked them since she cast that impulsive spell, and then holds up her own. Sam grasps it palm-to-palm just like always. Just like the night they said goodbye all those years ago.
As Sam links their fingers Lena leans her head onto their gripped hands and lets it all hit her – all the loss, the pain, the grief, the guilt she's been packing away since Jack died. It rolls over her in waves, sobs clawing their way out of her chest, and she doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Sam pulls her close and smooths her hair, whispering reassuringly.
“Shh, come here. I’ve got you,” Sam murmurs, her voice soft. The voice of a caretaker. A loving mother. A side of Sam that was always there, but Lena hasn't given herself the opportunity to know. Lena gives into the comfort, craves it after her years of self-imposed solitude, and finally admits to herself exactly how much she’s missed the woman she’s always thought of as a sister. "You don’t have to be alone anymore."
Lena cries for what feels like years. It’s like someone has tied every awful, hidden feeling inside her to a chain and is now pulling it forcibly from her body to be laid bare in the light, link by devastating link. Sam holds her through all of it, and when she’s finally lost what seems like all the moisture in her body and is reduced to shaking and sniffles, Sam helps her to do what she hasn't done since she moved in.
Lena opens the shutters.
“You have to leave the house, Lena. How do you get groceries?”
“I get them delivered, and I leave when I have to. Right now, I don’t have to,” Lena argues stubbornly, but she can feel her will starting to wane.
Sam has already shoved her arms into her coat, and she’s standing impatiently with the front door open. It's windy outside, but the sky is blue – the sprawling front lawn is scattered with dying leaves, blowing away from the growing piles the gardener has left. Someone nearby is burning piles of them. The musky, smoky smell drifts over the whole estate, lending a sharp edge to the crisp air.
For 4 days now Sam has been dragging Lena out of the house in short stints – first going for morning walks around the garden and then for a quick coffee in town, during which Sam got a full demonstration of just how unsettled the town at large is by her presence – and now it’s becoming clearer why.
“Come on. I want you to meet everyone! Ruby has been begging to meet you. She's going crazy with excitement.”
At the thought of meeting the people that Sam loves – her girlfriend, her child – Lena recoils, backing further into the darkened house. To do so would only be introducing more people she could hurt. People her curse could take from her. Take from Sam.
“No,” Lena says firmly. Sam frowns.
“Why not?”
To Lena, the answer is clear as day. She absolutely, unequivocally refuses to put anyone else in danger. Sam might not believe in the curse, but Lena knows it’s real, and she can’t take the chance – if she gets to know these people, gets too fond of them, she’s putting them in harm’s way. It’s dangerous enough having Sam around again. She won’t let anyone else in. She can’t.
“Because I’m dangerous.”
“What? Because you have magic? Jesus, Lena, you’re not going to light my girlfriend on fire –"
“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” Lena says darkly.
A look of realization dawns on Sam's face in the stifling silence that follows. She steps closer to Lena, who still tries to shrink back into the safety of the house.
“Your father and Jack…they weren’t your fault,” Sam says softly.
Lena shakes her head, that familiar cold hand gripping her heart at the knowledge that Sam is wrong. She heard the beetle. She's heard her mother's voice in her dreams since the day Jack died, echoes of one of their last conversations before she had gotten too weak to tell Lena stories anymore. With the sweet comes the sour, my darling. Love is a potent force. But we Walsh women bring ruin to those we love.
“They were my fault,” Lena insists, her voice breaking slightly. “I’m cursed, Sam."
“Lena, you need to stop blaming –" Sam tries to interrupt, but finally, Lena loses it.
“No!” Lena says more loudly, and Sam startles at the volume, stepping back. “Everyone I love dies, Sam. Do you understand? Everyone anyone in my family loves dies. Romantic love, familial love, platonic – it doesn't seem to matter! They either die or they go insane and try to kill Superman, which is essentially a suicide attempt."
Sam is quiet, and Lena keeps going. It's cathartic to let all of this out now that she's started.
"You know I have magic, you know it’s possible, and I know that it’s real," Lena chokes on the last word. "I’m so scared – I’m so scared it’ll take you or Ruby, and I can’t lose anyone else.” The tight hold Lena usually has over her emotions starts to waver. She can feel tears forming; she shuts her eyes tight against the flow, feeling Sam’s arms come around her.
“I’m not going anywhere. Not without you,” Sam says, her words full of conviction. They distract Lena momentarily.
“What do you mean, not without me?"
“I’m not going to let you rot away in this shitty town,” Sam says, as if it’s a simple concept. “Everyone here is backwards, and they’re all afraid of you. You don't deserve to be alone like this.”
“I'm fine,” Lena starts, but Sam isn’t having any of it.
“A child threw a pumpkin at you yesterday when we were walking down the street. A pumpkin, Lena. These people all either think you’re a crazy witch –"
“Which I am,” Lena interrupts, but Sam holds up an impatient hand.
“Or, they think you’re going to be like Lex, both of which are untrue.”
“I can’t just go back to National City with you,” Lena says, shaking her head. The thought of being surrounded by so many people, people who could be hurt because of some stupid Irish curse her birth mother passed down – it makes her shudder.
“Why not? What’s keeping you here?” Sam challenges.
“Everything I touch falls apart. I stay here, alone, because it’s safer for everyone else,” Lena finally admits, staring hard at the carpet to avoid seeing the pity she knows is in Sam’s eyes. Sam seems to let that sink in for a moment, but finally she speaks up, saying exactly what Lena expected her to.
“You can’t stay holed up here, miserable, just because of what might happen.”
“It will happen,” Lena says, unshakeable conviction in every syllable. "It did happen."
Sam sighs. She sounds close to defeated.
“Look, I’m here for 3 more weeks at least. Hang out with me and Alex, meet Ruby and Kara. See that being alone sucks. And when it's time for us to go, if none of us have kicked the bucket, at least think about it.”
Sam seems to be going for a last-ditch attempt, and strangely enough, it’s this try that finally gives Lena pause. Something sweeps through her at the mention of this new name. Kara. Kara. Warm tingles spread from the base of her neck all the way to her toes, taking all the anxiety of their conversation with them and leaving Lena feeling strangely…calm.
“Who’s Kara?” Lena asks, almost dazedly. When Sam gives her hand a tug, pulling her over the threshold and out onto the porch, Lena doesn't resist. “Does Alex have a daughter, too?”
Sam smiles, shaking her head. “No. Kara is her sister – she decided to tag along with us. Apparently she’s never seen the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t know why, but she was pretty excited about coming. Alex thought it was kind of weird.”
Lena shrugs, still luxuriating in the rare absence of anxiety. In the end, she should have known she can’t argue with Sam when she sets her mind to something. “Fine. I’ll meet them. But tell them to keep their distance if they want to stay alive.”
Sam laughs, looping their arms together and leading Lena down the driveway. “God, you’re such a drama queen.”
When they arrive at Sam’s B&B just off the Main Street, making their way up the rickety stairs towards the rooms on the second floor, the tingly feeling returns in full force. It still brings the radiating sense of warmth, but this time Lena starts to feel the slightest bit of apprehension about what exactly it means.
She hasn't done any in years, but she still remembers what magic feels like. And there’s something in the air here that tastes like spellcraft.
It intensifies the closer Lena gets to the door labelled 2-B. It makes the hair on her arms prickle. Sam is talking about something, some story about something Ruby did on the road trip here, but Lena's ears are buzzing too loud to hear it.
Sam pulls out her key, but before she can put it in the lock, the knob twists and the door opens.
When Lena locks gazes with the clearest blue eyes she’s ever seen in her life behind a set of black-framed glasses, something inside her slides into place. A puzzle piece finding its home. The blue eyes are attached to a handsome face, and blonde hair, and broad shoulders, and a dazzling smile, and –
“Hi! You must be Lena,” the blonde woman says, sounding slightly breathless. She holds out a hand, and Lena takes it on autopilot. “I’m Kara. I’ve heard so much about you from Sam!”
The moment their hands touch, the magic in the air shifts on a monumental scale. Everything inside her is screaming that this is good, this is right, this is perfect – and judging by the awestruck look on Kara’s face, she feels it too. There's a cool breeze swirling around them despite being indoors, enough to ruffle Lena's hair and throw Kara a little off balance. It smells like fresh herbs – like rosemary and violet. Lavender.
And rose petals.
The final scent that drifts past her nose unlocks something in Lena's memory. A night she'd since put out of her mind – laying herbs in a circle, watching Sam chew on mint leaves, and protecting her heart by calling for a soulmate that couldn’t possibly exist.
They wear glasses. And they have blue eyes. The brightest blue eyes.
“Oh, wow,” Kara whispers, almost inaudible.
A stab of panic enters Lena's unexpected nirvana state.
Oh…oh, no.
Kara Danvers is, by all Lena's objective metrics, annoyingly perfect.
She's sweet, friendly, and relentlessly kind. She loves dogs and ice cream, she gets along famously with Ruby. And she's absurdly, superhumanly handsome. Bouncy blonde waves, clear blue eyes, bow lips that curve into a smile that takes Lena's breath away. She's taller than Lena by a few inches, with deceptively broad shoulders under her cozy wool sweater.
All of these facts Lena learns within an hour of meeting her. Everything about her, from her musical voice to her warm, genuine smile, calls to Lena like a siren's song.
Half of Lena wants to follow it to whatever conclusion it's leading her to. The other half is screaming at her to run, to flee back home and lock the doors and block out all thoughts of blue eyes and glasses and warm smiles, but she's kept in her seat by Ruby's unfiltered joy at their introduction.
Sam's daughter is every bit as enthusiastic and lovable as her mother is, and Sam wasn't lying – she's very excited to meet Lena.
"Do you like living here, Aunt Lena? Can I call you that?"
"Of course, that's…that's fine," Lena says, twisting her hands together in her lap. Ruby is perched next to her on the middle cushion of a patchy couch in the sitting-room area of the B&B suite Sam has booked – Kara has an adjacent room, but just so happened to be in Sam's when Lena arrived – and has been peppering Lena with questions since the moment she sat down. "Living here is…fine."
"Cool! I've never been to a town this small," Ruby says, her grin so reminiscent of Sam at age 14 that Lena can't help but return it. "Do you guys have a Blockbuster?"
"No?"
"That's what mom said, but I didn't believe her. We brought some movies with us. Maybe we can have a movie night! What was my mom like when you were kids?"
Lena laughs a little, trying to relax her posture. Remembering Sam's fiery nature, Lena's biggest source of protection then, is helpful. "She was a hellion."
"She still is," Alex says, giving Sam a firm kiss on the cheek. Alex hasn't talked directly to Lena yet except to shake her hand when she arrived, but she seems steadfast in her love of Sam, and for that Lena can't dislike her even if she's somewhat distant. Lena might even thank her, if that distance means she keeps Sam far enough away not to get hurt.
"Like mother, like daughter," Sam says with a wink.
"How did you meet?" Ruby asks, looking back and forth between them. "My mom has told me a lot but sometimes she doesn't answer questions because she gets too sad. Because she missed you."
Well. That one hurts. Sam glances away, leaning into Alex as her light dims a little, and Lena swallows past the lump of guilt in her throat.
"She saved me. From some bullies," Lena recounts quietly. "Beat them up for me. We were pretty inseparable after that."
Sam's smile returns. "I seem to remember you being the one that sent Siobhan running."
"Team effort."
They share a smile, tinged with all the years between them. It's familiar and foreign, a comfort Lena hasn't let herself have in far too long.
"Wait, you beat people up?" Ruby says, twisting around in her seat to glare at her mother. "You always tell me to solve things with words!"
"This was completely different."
The old-fashioned rotary phone on the end table rings loudly, interrupting Sam's protest, and Ruby reaches over Kara to grab it. She listens only for a few seconds before hanging up, pumping a fist in the air.
"Pizza's here!" Ruby shouts, jumping off the couch and running to the door. Sam, seeming relieved to be free of needing to explain her past of bully-removal, follows with an affectionate chuckle.
"If you think she's hyper now, you should have seen her cooped up in the car for 3 days."
"We should help her carry it up," Alex says, tangling her fingers with Sam's. The two of them duck out swiftly, leaving Lena alone with Kara on the other end of the couch before she can offer to go with them to avoid this situation.
Kara is staring at her.
Kara has been fairly quiet since Ruby started talking, but it's clear in the way she speaks up the moment they're alone that she's been biding her time.
"Sam spent the whole drive talking about how great you are," Kara says warmly, her legs pulled up cross-legged on the cushion. "Ruby has been vibrating with excitement for days."
"Sam is exaggerating," Lena says, staring down at her hands. She's picked so harshly at the nail beds of her thumbs that they're starting to bleed – she tucks them into her fists, squeezing and letting the hint of pain ground her. "I've been a less than ideal friend for a long time."
"I don't think that's true. But you must be pretty amazing if she still thinks so highly of you."
Lena clenches her fists harder. She has no answer; she's still not sure why Sam has even put in any effort, after how steadfastly Lena has shut her out. And being here with the people Sam cares about feels like she has a ticking curse-bomb in her chest, just waiting to go off and take them away.
"So, um. What do you do? For work, or…or hobbies." Kara winces, seeming embarrassed of her own question. Her hands bunch up in the sleeves of her sweater.
Lena bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste copper. Kara's awkwardness is endearing, and it's increasingly difficult to respond with a cool head.
"I mostly keep to myself."
Kara nods. "Cool. Cool."
Lena fidgets harder, wishing above all for Sam to come back and act as a buffer. She wants to talk to Kara, which makes the whole thing worse – she's drawn to her so inexorably that she can feel the physical distance between them like a canyon.
"And…you?" Lena says, for lack of anything else to fill the awkward silence.
"Oh, um. I like to paint. And cook," Kara says, and Lena can feel her eyes on the side of her face. Staring, still. Probably hoping Lena will look up from her hands, as if Lena isn't exercising all of her willpower to keep from doing so. "And, uh. I like writing. I'm a journalist, actually. For the National City Tribune?"
A cold pit forms in Lena's stomach.
It's then that Sam reappears with Ruby and Alex in tow, arms full of pizza boxes and sodas, and as everything gets laid out on the coffee table Lena pulls her aside. She goes about as far from Kara as she can without going into the hallway, and pulls Sam close to whisper.
"She's a journalist?" Lena says, trying to keep her voice low so as not to be heard over Kara and Ruby arguing over the merits of Dr. Pepper vs. Pepsi. "You brought a journalist here?"
"Who? Kara?" Sam says, half-distracted. She does nothing to lower her own voice.
"Yes, Kara!" Lena hisses. "She works for the Tribune! One of the biggest newspapers in the country?"
"Yeah, but she's an ethical journalist."
"There's no such thing," Lena mutters darkly. "They're vultures. I've spent years making sure they couldn't contact me for interviews about what happened with Lex, and you bring one here without even telling me?"
"Lena, she's not interested in using you for a story," Sam says. She matches Lena's tone this time, at least.
"She's certainly been trying to get me to open up," Lena argues, lowering her voice again when Kara glances in their direction. "Why else do you think she was so excited to come with you on a spontaneous long-term road trip?"
"That's just who she is."
Lena glares.
"Look, I'm sorry for not mentioning what she did. But it's because I honestly didn't even think of it," Sam says, with all the bare honesty she's always spoken with. She's never given Lena a reason not to believe her. "It doesn't come up much, because she isn't a hyper-focused career type. You can trust her. I do."
Lena raises an eyebrow.
"Okay, you don't have to trust her," Sam says, rolling her eyes. "You don't even have to talk to her directly. But can you at least be civil? I didn't even tell her your last name. I don't think she knows to associate you with your brother. It wasn't my place to tell either of them. And I truly do not believe she's here for some Lena Luthor exclusive."
Across the room, one of the sodas explodes in Kara's hand. Ruby squeals, laughing as it sprays Kara directly in the face, and Alex is the one to snatch it from her hand and hold it over the sink before it gets all over the furniture. Kara is left dripping Dr. Pepper and blinking, looking a bit dumbstruck.
She looks…harmless. Cute, even.
"Fine," Lena says, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. Maybe she is being overly defensive. She really just needs to keep her walls up around Kara – it shouldn't be as difficult as it's proven to be so far. She does it for everyone else, after all.
Lena does her absolute best to stay aloof for the rest of the night. She gives Kara one-word answers, saving her social energy for Ruby, but no matter how many times Lena sidesteps her Kara is relentless in her kindness. And when Kara grabs two slices of Lena's pizza, Lena forgets aloofness.
She looks at Kara sharply, and Kara freezes as if she's been caught stealing cookies.
"Oh! Sorry, was this – was this one supposed to be just for you?" Kara says, pointing to the pizza that thus far only Lena has touched. She'd been surprised Sam even remembered her preferred toppings.
"No, I just wasn't expecting anyone else to want it," Lena says, watching carefully as Kara folds one slice over the other with a spread of ranch dip between them like some kind of deranged pizza sandwich. "Most people hate anchovies."
"All toppings are good toppings," Kara says, grinning as she takes a big bite of her creation. "I don't discriminate." Kara chews and swallows her mouthful, nodding her approval. "Yep – see? Delicious. Why did I never think of this? Anchovies are awesome."
The rose-scented breeze picks up again. It's at Lena's back, as if it's pushing her towards Kara.
They love my favourite pizza toppings.
Kara eats half the pizza, but Lena hardly touches the rest of her own slice.