Chapter Text
“You shouldn’t have come…” Lena’s voice trembled, the words escaping between shallow breaths. Behind them, Alex and Kelly finally caught up, panting from their hurried pursuit. Alex lifted a hand as though to mediate, but the sight of Lena’s raw anguish, and the corresponding shock on Kara’s face... struck her speechless. The air around them felt taut, as if one more word might shatter what little composure was left.
Lena swallowed hard, her tears unchecked as they glistened on her cheeks. Her stance wavered, as if her resolve had fractured under the weight of seeing Kara again. “You should have stayed away,” she whispered, her voice brittle with heartbreak. Each word was a plea and a reproach all at once, condemning and confessing how deeply this encounter hurt.
Then, as if her final thread of strength snapped, Lena’s body sagged, her knees threatening to buckle. Diana’s arms wrapped around her instantly, steadying her without hesitation. Lena leaned against her with a trembling sigh, the last remnants of her composure unravelling.
Kara stood there, heart pounding in her ears, a thousand words tangled on her tongue that she couldn’t force out. The world around them... city bustle, passing cars, muted conversations... faded to a distant hum. Nothing mattered except the look of pain etched into Lena’s features and the quiet, protective presence of the woman holding her up.
In that moment, Alex and Kelly exchanged a glance, their own hearts clenching with sympathy and dread. They had wanted to confirm Lena’s safety, but here, watching her crumble, they realized the cost of their actions might be higher than they’dfeared. The fragile peace Lena had painstakingly built could fracture under the weight of old wounds reopened.
No one spoke. The quiet was broken only by the ragged rhythm of Lena’s breaths and the palpable ache that pulsed among them all. Diana held Lena upright in her arms, her steady grip the only thing keeping Lena from crumpling to the ground. In that instant, raw and unfiltered words felt woefully inadequate.
Still, Kara found her voice, soft and trembling. “Lena… I’m sorry,” she managed, her tone carrying a sorrow too heavy to fully express.
Lena’s head jerked up at the sound of Kara’s apology, her eyes clouded with tears and a simmering anger. “You’re sorry?” she echoed, her voice cracking with a mix of hurt and fury. “Clearly, you never were. All those years, Kara... years... being your best friend, trusting you. And you lied. When I begged you not to. Over and over again, I pleaded. And yet you did the one thing I asked you not to do.”
Her words landed like blows, the weight of betrayal suffusing the air. Diana’s hands tightened around Lena’s waist, as if bracing her against the onslaught of her own emotions. Behind them, Alex and Kelly looked on in tense silence, unable to intervene without deepening the fracture.
Kara swallowed against the lump in her throat, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I did it to protect you,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “And yes, I was selfish. I... I know it’s my fault.”
Lena let out a strangled laugh, laced with bitterness. “Protect me?” she repeated. “You broke me, Kara. You made me question everything, made me feel like a fool for loving someone who couldn’t be honest with me.”
Kara’s tears finally spilled, tracing silent paths down her cheeks. “I never wanted any of this,” she breathed, voice trembling. “I wanted to keep you safe, but all I did was push you away.”
No one moved to fill the silence this time, the quiet returned, dense and suffocating, its weight amplifying the pulse of heartbreak that ran through them all. Lena’s breath caught painfully as she shuddered in Diana’s arms, her fury and sorrow mingling with the raw ache in her chest.
Kara looked as if she wanted to step closer, to gather Lena into an embrace, but the invisible barrier of grief and rage held her back. She stood, torn between desperation and remorse, uncertain whether any gesture would be welcomed... or if it would simply sharpen the dagger of betrayal.
At last, Lena closed her eyes and exhaled a trembling breath. “Just… stay away,” she whispered, her words cracking. “If you ever cared about me, Kara, you’ll do that much.”
And with those words lingering in the charged air, the group remained suspended in a moment that felt all too final, the space between them thick with heartbreak and regret.
“Please, Lena…” Kara’s voice trembled, a desperate quiver colouring every syllable. “I beg you, let me fix this. Fix us. Please... I can’t... I miss you so much. I just want to fix this.”
Lena’s expression twisted, anger and hurt tearing at her composure. “Fix this?” she repeated, her voice cracking under the weight of unshed tears. “You think this is something you can glue back together like a broken mug? The pieces don’t just...”
Her words strangled to a halt, her breath catching painfully in her chest. Her knees seemed to give way in an instant, and she stumbled forward, collapsing into Diana’s steady hold. At first, it looked like she had merely lost her balance, perhaps overwhelmed by emotion, but then a thin trickle of blood slipped from her nose, startlingly bright against her pallid cheeks.
“Lena?” Diana’s alarm flared, voice low and urgent as she braced Lena, gripping her around the waist. “Lena, look at me, what’s wrong?”
Lena’s eyes fluttered, unfocused, her chest heaving as though every breath was a battle. She tried to speak, but no words emerged... only a ragged gasp of pain.
Kara stood rooted in horror, the desperation in her eyes shifting to sheer terror. “Lena?” she whispered, wanting to reach out but paralysed by guilt, by fear, by the realisation that something was profoundly wrong.
Kelly darted forward, her own panic surging. “What’s wrong with Lena?” she demanded, voice wavering. The sight of Lena’s nosebleed and the laboured, frantic rhythm of her breathing forced a surge of adrenaline through Kelly’s veins.
Before anyone could act, Lena’s body gave a violent jolt in Diana’s arms, her eyes widening in sudden alarm, her free hand clutching at her chest. Her breath came in short, desperate bursts, and she let out a strangled cry as pain racked her.
“Diana,” Lena managed, voice scarcely above a whisper, but the anguish behind it was unmistakable. “It… hurts…”
Diana’s heart thundered in her ears as understanding dawned like a cold shock: Lena wasn’t just fainting... she was in real crisis. Her hand pressed to Lena’s sternum, feeling the irregular spasm of Lena’s heartbeat beneath. “Oh god, Lena, hold on,” she pleaded, her voice breaking.
“Alex,” Kelly hissed, frantically looking to her partner for guidance. Alex was already in motion, dropping to her knees beside Diana and Lena, her medical training kicking in. She pressed two fingers to the side of Lena’s neck, searching for a pulse, only to find it racing wildly and then sputtering unevenly as Lena’s heart seemed to stutter.
“She’s going into cardiac arrest,” Alex said, her voice grim and trembling. “We need to get her flat! Right now!”
Kara, jolted from her frozen shock, snapped into motion alongside Kelly. Gently but swiftly, they helped Diana lower Lena to the ground. Her body sagged, eyes rolling back slightly as another wrenching spasm tore through her.
Diana hovered, tears flooding her vision. She stroked Lena’s cheek, her voice barely coherent as she whispered pleas to any god that might be listening. “Stay with me, Lena... stay with us.”
Alex’s training overrode her fear, she checked Lena’s pulse again and found it near-chaotic. “I need space,” she barked, though her voice wavered with tension. She positioned her hands over Lena’s chest, bracing herself to begin CPR if Lena’s heart gave out completely.
Kara stumbled back, her face ashen, tears streaming. Kelly stood beside her, wanting to help but only able to watch, one hand pressed to her mouth in horror. Diana clutched Lena’s hand, feeling it slackens, powerless in the face of what was happening.
“Come on, Lena,” Alex muttered under her breath, each word a prayer. She’d never felt so helpless. Her own sister’s best friend, her own friend, slipping away right in front of her eyes. “Don’t do this. Not now.”
Every second felt like an eternity. Lena’s chest barely rose, her breathing shallow and erratic. Sweat beaded at her temples, and the rivulet of blood from her nose streaked across her cheek. An unspoken terror gripped each of them.
Behind Alex, Diana knelt, cradling Lena’s head. “Don’t leave,” she whispered, tears escaping in silent streams. “Please, Lena, stay. I love you.”
Lena’s lips parted, a ragged exhale leaving her lungs. It was impossible to tell if she could even hear Diana’s desperate words. A moment later, a shudder ran through her body, and Alex felt the pulse flutter under her fingers like a trapped bird.
“Not on my watch,” Alex muttered fiercely, adjusting her position. She prepared to perform chest compressions, if necessary, her own tears threatening to blur her vision. Her voice trembled when she spoke again. “Kelly, call for an ambulance. Now!”
Kelly fumbled for her phone, voice shaking as she relayed the emergency. The world around them shrank to the circle of heartbreak on the street, bystanders now noticing the commotion, though none dared to interfere.
And in that moment, as the city carried on in its indifferent hum, Lena lay at the brink of darkness, Diana holding her hand, Kara’s pleas catching in her throat, and Alex’s determined efforts the only barrier between Lena and a void none of them could fathom.
It was a reckoning... a final testament to the fragile line between life and regret. All any of them could do was hope that line wouldn’t snap under the weight of too many shattered bonds. And for Kara, who stood there still as stone, watched helplessly as her world collided.
This was all her fault... and her fault alone.
-
Diana paced the hospital corridor, shoes tapping against the stark linoleum as she fought to keep her anger in check. Lena’s collapse earlier had been sudden, one moment steady on her feet, the next crumpling like a discarded puppet. But what weighed heaviest on Diana’s mind wasn’t just Lena’s unconscious form. Supergirl had caused this. Caused Lena’s pain.
Across the waiting room, Alex and Kelly sat hunched on hard plastic chairs, pale with shock. Near them stood Kara, tears tracking down her cheeks, shoulders trembling with fear for Lena’s safety. Their confusion was palpable. None of them had any idea what Lena was truly up against; all they knew was that she’d been withdrawn, struggling, but had seemed so much better that morning.
Diana’s jaw clenched. She threw a glance at Sam, who hovered near the corner as she entered the waiting area, her face etched with a fury that was about to boil over. The moment Sam spotted Alex across the room, she strode forward, anger blazing in her eyes.
“You!” Sam barked, grabbing Alex by the collar and hauling her upright. Alex let out a startled gasp as her back smacked against the wall, and Kelly jumped to her feet in alarm.
“Sam!” Andrea, who’d just arrived, lunged to intervene but hesitated, hovering close without physically pulling Sam away.
Diana was moving before she thought, intercepting Sam with a firm grip on her arm. “Enough,” she growled, voice low but edged with steel. The corridor was no place for bloodletting, not when Lena was lying behind closed doors fighting whatever storm raged inside her.
Sam’s glare cut toward Diana, nostrils flaring. “She let this happen. They all let it happen.” Her voice cracked, a raw thread of grief laced through the fury.
Alex’s chest heaved where she was pinned, eyes wide, guilt and confusion warring across her face. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” she shot back, the words trembling.
Kara flinched at the sound, wiping her cheeks as she took a hesitant step forward. “Please,” she whispered, looking from Sam to Alex, to Diana, like a drowning woman reaching for anyone who’d offer a hand. “This isn’t helping Lena.”
The silence that followed was taut, stretched like a bowstring on the verge of breaking. Even the steady beeping from down the hall seemed to falter. Andrea’s hand hovered near Sam’s shoulder, caught between restraint and solidarity.
“This is on you,” Sam snarled at Alex, voice shaking with rage. “I told you not to push Lena too far. She needed rest, she needed space, but you had to bring Kara, didn’t you?”
Alex, eyes wide, tried to speak. “I... I didn’t realize how serious...”
“You didn’t realize anything,” Sam spat, tightening her grip. “If you’d had even the slightest clue what she’s really dealing with… you never would’ve done this. You wouldn’t have risked it.”
Kara took another hesitant step forward, her voice cracking on Lena’s name. “When she’s what? Sam... what aren’t you telling us?”
The words seemed to cut something loose inside Sam. Her hand trembled where it pinned Alex, the fury trembling into something closer to despair. For a breath she looked ready to shout the truth, to rip the veil away and damn the consequences.
Diana saw it, the fracture in Sam’s composure. She tightened her hold on Sam’s arm, tone calm but warning. “Careful.”
But Sam’s grief was a tide too strong. “You think Lena just fainted? That this is stress, or exhaustion?” Her voice dropped into a low snarl. “She’s burning herself alive, piece by piece, because of you... because you kept pushing when she had nothing left to give.”
The words hit Alex like a blow. She shook her head, breath coming fast. “I... I didn’t know. God, if I had known...”
Kara’s knees nearly gave beneath her. “Sam, please,” she whispered, desperate. “Tell me what she’s fighting. I need to know.”
Sam’s eyes snapped to Kara, blazing with a fury that masked something far more fragile. “No. If Lena wanted you to know, she would have told you. It’s not my secret to give.” Her grip loosened suddenly, as if the weight of her anger was finally too heavy to hold. Alex sagged against the wall, pale and shaken.
Diana had seen enough.
She stepped forward, every movement deliberate, planting herself squarely between Sam’s fury and the broken cluster of Kara, Alex, and Kelly. Her presence filled the corridor; a shadow carved from iron and fire. When she spoke, her voice was low, measured, but it reverberated with the kind of authority that silenced battlefields.
“That’s enough, Sam.”
Sam’s head snapped toward her, eyes blazing, but Diana didn’t yield an inch. Her gaze was unflinching, her tone cutting like steel on stone. “You three,” she said, her words striking like hammer blows, “made the mistake of coming here. You hurt her. You broke her. And then you show your faces as if your hands are clean, as if Lena owes you forgiveness.”
Kara’s breath hitched, her tears spilling freely, but Diana’s wrath didn’t soften. She took one step closer, towering, the air thick with the gravity of her oath.
“If you go to her again, if you so much as cast your shadows across her bed, I swear upon the gods themselves, I will drag each of your lives into the deepest, blackest corners of the underworld. You will learn what it means to drown in regret.”
The words hung heavy, seething with fire and finality. Sam’s fury guttered into silence, caught off guard by the ferocity of Diana’s threat. Across the room, Kara recoiled as if struck, Alex’s jaw worked soundlessly, and Kelly’s hand found hers without a word, both pale under the weight of judgment.
Diana’s chest rose and fell with quiet, contained fury, her eyes burning with a promise that could not be mistaken. For the first time, the room understood: this was no longer an argument. It was a warning and a sentence.
Kara stumbled forward on her sobs, words spilling from her like shards of glass. “I didn’t come here to hurt her... I came because I love her! Because I can’t breathe without knowing she’s safe!” Her voice cracked, trembling with desperation. “If you think I’ll Walk away, then curse me, kill me! I don’t care! But don’t you dare tell me I don’t love her!”
She reached out, pleading, hand extended toward Diana as if her grief could bridge the chasm between them.
Diana’s patience snapped.
In one swift motion, she caught Kara’s wrist mid-reach and twisted, spinning her with brutal precision until Kara’s back struck the cold wall. The impact rattled the frame, a hollow thud echoing down the sterile corridor. Kara gasped, wide-eyed, pinned by Diana’s unyielding grip at her shoulder.
“You will listen,” Diana seethed, her face inches from Kara’s, her breath hot with fury. “Love is not an excuse to destroy someone. Love does not smother, does not press broken bones to breaking. You’ve done enough.”
Kara struggled beneath the weight of her hold, tears streaming, but Diana’s grip only tightened. The Amazon’s eyes burned like storm fire, ancient and merciless. “One more step toward her bed, one more selfish plea to ease your guilt instead of her suffering, and I swear...” her voice dropped to a venomous whisper, “... you’ll learn exactly why the gods once feared me.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. Sam’s rage faltered into shock. Alex froze, halfway between defence and disbelief. Kelly clutched Alex’s arm, eyes wide with horror.
Kara choked on a sob, trembling beneath Diana’s hand, her love colliding against the immovable wall of divine wrath. The corridor was silent save for the harsh sound of her breathing, the faint hum of fluorescent lights above, and the faint beep of monitors further down the hall.
Andrea, who had lingered in silence, finally moved. With deliberate calm, she stepped closer and laid a hand against Diana’s rigid shoulder. The gesture was bold, almost reckless, but steady.
“I know you, Diana,” Andrea whispered, voice low enough that it was meant for her alone. “This isn’t what Lena would want. She asked for space, peace, not war in the waiting room. Let her go. I’ll escort them out. You and Sam can stay.”
For a long heartbeat, Diana didn’t move. Her grip on Kara’s shoulder trembled with restrained power, every muscle taut as a bowstring. Kara’s breath hitched, eyes wide with fear and grief as she looked up at Diana, unable to read whether mercy or judgment would come.
Then Diana’s jaw clenched. Slowly, with the precision of someone reining in a tempest, she released her hold. Kara sagged against the wall, sliding down to the cold floor, sobbing into her hands.
Diana’s eyes never left her. “If she wakes and asks for you,” she said, her tone cutting and final, “then you may return. But not before. Cross me again, and no god nor Krypton will shield you from my hand.”
Andrea gave Diana’s shoulder a small squeeze, grounding her, then glanced back at Alex, Kara, and Kelly. “Come,” she said sternly, though her tone left no room for protest.
Sam’s fury smouldered nearby, unspent but silent, her gaze locked on Diana’s with wordless approval. The storm hadn’t broken her, but Andrea had, for the moment, redirected it.
The waiting room emptied in tense, fractured silence, leaving Diana and Sam as the last sentinels at Lena’s side.
-
Andrea moved with purpose, her hand firm on Kara’s trembling arm as she urged her up from the cold floor. Kara resisted at first, her knees weak, her tear-streaked face lifting one last time toward the closed doors at the end of the corridor as though sheer desperation might carry her through them.
“Kara,” Andrea said sternly, but with unyielding weight. “Not now.”
Kara’s lips quivered, the words she wanted to scream strangled in her throat. Her eyes searched the sterile hallway, wide and drowning, as if some hidden passage might grant her another chance. In the end, all she could do was let Andrea guide her forward, each step heavy with the ache of surrender.
Alex followed close, silent but hollow-eyed, her jaw locked so tight it trembled. She kept glancing over her shoulder at Diana; guilt carved into the rigid set of her shoulders. Kelly’s hand never left hers, a tether pulling her forward when her body wanted to fold back into the wall. Her eyes glistened, not with rage but with quiet devastation, as though she had seen something shatter inside Kara that might never be repaired.
The four of them walked in fractured silence, shoes tapping against concrete that suddenly sounded like death. Behind them, Diana and Sam loomed at the edge of shadow, unmovable, guardians of a truth the others were not permitted to carry.
By the time Andrea pushed open the heavy doors to the night air, Kara’s sobs had gone quiet, replaced by a hollow emptiness that echoed louder than any scream. Alex finally spoke, voice low and breaking: “We just made everything worse.”
No one argued.
The hospital doors groaned shut behind them, muffling the sterile lights and beeping monitors, leaving only the night air... cool, damp, heavy with the scent of rain. For a moment, silence stretched.
Then Kara broke it with a strangled cry. She wrenched free of Andrea’s grip, staggering into the parking lot. “How could she... how could she do that?!” Her voice rose, splitting under the weight of her sobs. “Lena’s in there fighting for her life, and I’m treated like some kind of monster!”
Alex reached for her, but Kara spun, her grief snapping into accusation. “And you! You should’ve supported me! You knew she needed our help, us!” She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, gasping through tears. “I love her, Alex. I love her. And now... if she dies... she’ll never know.”
Andrea’s footsteps echoed as she closed the distance, her fury a force of its own. She didn’t soothe. She stood over them, her voice sharp, slicing through their grief like a blade.
“Do you hear yourselves?” Andrea hissed. Her eyes blazed as she looked between Kara, Alex, and Kelly. “You speak of love, of care, of wanting to help... but all you’ve done is drag your guilt into Lena’s lap and call it devotion. She asked for space. She begged for peace. And instead, you stormed into her life again like saviours, blind to the fact that you’re the very ones who broke her in the first place.”
Kara flinched as though struck. Alex’s mouth worked, but no sound came. Kelly’s face tightened, jaw trembling under the weight of Andrea’s words.
Andrea took a step closer, her voice lowering but gaining an edge that cut deeper. “Do you think your tears will mend her? Do you think crying I love her excuses the poison you’ve already poured into her veins? Diana was right... your presence is no medicine. It’s a wound that won’t close.”
Andrea’s gaze lingered on Kara, merciless and unflinching. “You don’t belong here, Supergirl,” she spat, each syllable like venom. “And you never will. Lena has someone new, someone who gives her the peace you never could. I’ll be damned if I let you tear that away because you can’t let go.”
Kara’s mouth opened in shock, but Andrea’s fury surged on. “From this moment on, you are finished at Catco. Fired. I’ll have security pack your desk, box every last scrap, and deliver it to your apartment. You can collect it when you crawl back from whatever hole you’ve made of your life. I let you stay at Catco all these months because Cat Grant believed in you. But you hurt LENA! So, to hell with you!”
Kara staggered back as if the words themselves had struck her, her tears drying to silence, replaced by a hollow ache.
“Wait... hang on, Andrea!” Alex broke in, her voice strained with disbelief. “This is Kara’s job, her life. You can’t just... ”
The crack of Andrea’s hand across Alex’s face silenced her instantly. The sound split the night, sharp and merciless. Alex stumbled, clutching her cheek, eyes wide with shock.
“Enough,” Andrea hissed, lowering her hand but not her fury. Her glare cut into Alex, then Kelly, then Kara again. “I’m done listening to excuses, to apologies, to self-pity disguised as love. Lena deserves better than all of you. And I’ll make sure she gets it.”
The silence afterward was suffocating. Kara stood frozen, tears drying on her cheeks, her chest heaving as if she’d been gutted. Alex pressed her hand to her stinging face, fury and shame warring in her eyes. Kelly reached for her, whispering her name, but the words died in the heavy dark.
Andrea stood firm, unyielding, her wrath a cold wall none of them could scale. Without uttering another word, she turned on her heels, her heels striking the pavement with the same finality as her judgment. The hospital doors slammed shut behind her, the echo lingering like the aftershock of a gunshot.
Silence pressed in, broken only by the hum of distant traffic and the rasp of Kara’s uneven breathing.
“I warned you two about this…” Kelly’s voice was low, weary, yet it carried an edge sharp enough to cut. She exhaled heavily, rubbing her temple as though the weight of it all had finally broken something inside her. Her eyes lifted to Alex, then Kara, the disappointment unmistakable. “And yet, you both decided to do it anyway.” She paused, letting the words sting. Then her gaze settled on Kara like a judgment passed. “Are you happy now, Kara?”
Kara flinched as if struck a second time. Her lips trembled, but no words came... only the wet gleam of fresh tears she tried and failed to swallow back. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, the fight and despair twisting into something raw.
Alex reached for Kelly, her voice hoarse. “Kelly, please, not now...”
But Kelly shook her head, stepping back, her tone harder than either of them had ever heard from her. Her eyes glistened, but her voice cut clean. “No. The plan was to watch from afar, to give Lena the space she asked for. We saw her safe and sound and that was supposed to be the end of it. But you, Alex, you insisted we come here. And I... ” she exhaled, bitterness curling the edges of her sigh, “I take some of the blame for edging it on. But we were never meant to confront her.”
Her gaze shifted, cold and steady, onto Kara. “And you. You couldn’t help yourself. You pushed. You confronted. And look what’s happened.”
Kara’s lips parted, a protest trembling on her tongue, but Kelly’s voice carried on, relentless. “I’m going back to National City. If you’re done with the theatrics, you can join me. But I will rather let Lena decide if she wants me in her life... or let her have peace without me... than keep feeding into this spectacle.”
Her hand lifted, silencing Kara’s choked, “But Kelly…” before it could form.
“As a psychologist, I’m telling you this straight: stop. Go home. Get your shit together. Fix your life before you claim you can fix hers. Because right now, Kara, all you’re doing is bleeding your guilt onto her wounds. They were right. We are wrong. Done deal.”
The words hung in the night, merciless in their honesty.
Kara froze, her throat working as sobs threatened to claw free again. Alex stood beside her, stricken, torn between defending her sister and recognising the truth carved into Kelly’s voice.
Kelly’s shoulders dropped with one last, weary sigh. Then, without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked into the dark, her footsteps receding across the asphalt until they were gone.
The silence left behind was unbearable. Kara collapsed back against the hood of a car, staring blankly at the pavement, her chest heaving. Alex lingered, reaching for her sister’s shoulder, but her own hand shook.
Alex’s voice cracked as the words spilled out, heavy with shame. “I’m sorry, Kara. This was my fault. If anyone is to blame… it’s me. I failed you. I gave you the wrong advice, and I hurt my friend more than words can even put to it. I treated Lena like she was the villain of the story.” She let out a bitter laugh that sounded more like a sob. “But I see now... it was me all along. I think it’s best if I go home too.”
Her shoulders sagged, her body folding under the weight of defeat. The fire that had once defined her seemed gone, leaving only hollow exhaustion.
Kara’s tear-streaked face turned toward her sister, horror flickering in her eyes. “Alex, no… don’t say that. You’re not the villain. You were just trying to protect me.” Her voice trembled, her hands fisting in her lap. “You’re all I have left. If you give up on me too, then I have nothing.”
But Alex shook her head slowly, her gaze falling to the pavement. “That’s just it, Kara. Protecting you meant hurting Lena. Protecting you meant making excuses for myself.” She swallowed hard, guilt burning behind her eyes. “I don’t know how to come back from that.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The night pressed in, cool and merciless, the hospital looming behind them like a silent judge.
Finally, Alex exhaled, broken and weary. “Let’s go home. Maybe distance is the only thing we can give her now.”
Kara wiped at her tears, though they kept coming, her heart tearing at the thought of walking away. But Alex’s hand brushed against hers, trembling, and Kara clung to it desperately... because even in their failure, they still had each other.
Kara’s grip on Alex’s hand tightened until her knuckles went white. Her chest heaved, her breaths sharp and uneven, and then the dam broke.
“I can’t,” she sobbed, collapsing forward, her forehead pressing into Alex’s shoulder. “I can’t leave her like this. Not knowing if she’ll wake up... if she’ll hate me forever. I can’t, Alex… it feels like I’m being torn in half.”
Her words spilled out in broken gasps, each one a wound laid bare. “What if she never forgives me? What if this... this moment... was the last chance I had, and I ruined it? What if she dies thinking I was nothing but a curse in her life?”
Alex held her, arms circling her sister’s trembling frame, eyes burning with tears of her own. “Kara, stop,” she whispered, though her voice was frayed and trembling. “Don’t do this to yourself. We’ve already done enough damage tonight.”
Kara shook her head violently against Alex’s shoulder. “But she’s my everything. And if I lose her like this... without ever making it right... I don’t know how to go on.”
Alex closed her eyes, her own guilt suffocating, but she forced herself to hold firm. She stroked Kara’s hair, murmuring through her own tears, “Then you’ll go on with me. One step at a time. Because right now, the only thing we can give her is distance.”
Kara’s sobs tore through the night, raw and ragged, echoing across the empty parking lot. Alex let her cry, let her break one last time, until Kara’s strength gave out and she sagged in her arms, trembling but spent.
Only then did Alex gently guide her upright, her arm firm around Kara’s waist. “Come on,” she whispered, her voice breaking but steady enough to carry them both. “Let’s go home.”
And together, hollow and defeated, they walked into the night... two shadows bound by love, guilt, and the quiet ruin of what they had lost.
-
Sam and Diana stood in silence, arms crossed, their stances mirroring each other, two sentinels carved in shadow. Neither spoke, neither needed to. The echo of raised voices and slammed doors still lingered in the hospital corridors, a residue of conflict that clung like smoke.
When Andrea returned, the click of her heels broke the stillness. She carried herself with the same fire she had unleashed outside, but her face was pale, sharpened by exhaustion. She stopped a few paces from them, folding her arms as if to match their posture, as if to prove she still belonged in this war of wills.
“They’re gone,” Andrea said simply, her voice clipped. “Kara, Alex, Kelly. They won’t be back tonight.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, her jaw flexing. “Good. They’ve done enough damage.”
Diana’s gaze lingered on Andrea, cool and assessing. “And what about you? Did you leave them standing, or in pieces?”
Andrea didn’t flinch. “Pieces,” she admitted, her voice low but unrepentant. “But better broken out there than clawing at Lena in here. They needed to hear the truth. They won’t forget it.”
Sam gave a sharp nod of approval, but Diana’s eyes softened into something harder to read. For a moment she seemed carved from iron, then she exhaled slowly, lowering her arms. “Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ve only planted new grudges in soil already poisoned.”
“Right now, I don’t care. All I care about is Lena. Has the doctor updated anything?” Sam asked.
“No… but here she comes.”
Dr. Rivera approached with measured calm; a folder braced to her chest. “She’s alive,” the doctor began, “and stable enough to monitor—but I won’t pretend this is simple. The cancer is placing added strain on her heart. We’re seeing signs of cardiomyopathy, weakening of the heart muscle, and some fluid around the heart we’re managing carefully. The arrhythmia has been corrected for now, but recurrence is a risk. We’ve sedated her to reduce demand.”
Diana stood very still. “Is she in pain?”
“We’re controlling it,” Dr. Rivera said. “But… it isn’t looking good. The trials she’s been in are promising, and her own research is pointing the right way. But I fear the chemo and radiation are worsening the strain on her heart.”
Something in Diana’s face tightened, then smoothed, the way steel cools after flame. “What does ‘not good’ mean. Today.”
“Today,” the doctor answered carefully, “means we’re balancing two fires. The cancer is aggressive; the treatments that slow it are exhausting the heart. We’re seeing reduced contractility and intermittent arrhythmias. If the stress increases, we could face another destabilization.”
“Options,” Sam said, voice clipped.
“We can hold or modify the therapy temporarily, bring Cardiology to the forefront, optimize support, adjust meds, monitor fluid closely. It buys time for the heart, but it risks letting the cancer advance. Continuing therapy pushes back on the disease, but it may tip her heart into failure. There isn’t a perfect door to choose.” Dr. Rivera’s eyes softened. “For tonight, we keep things quiet. One of you, bedside. No agitation. Let her rest.”
“Me,” Diana said, immediate and even, her voice carrying the kind of calm that felt carved from stone. There was no hesitation, no room for argument. The decision had already been made in her bones.
Andrea drew in a breath as if to protest, her shoulders rising, lips parting, but then she caught the look in Diana’s eyes. Whatever she saw there convinced her. The breath left her in a slow exhale. “Fine,” she murmured. “I’ll run interference outside. No visitors—especially the ones who treat apologies like they’re a competitive sport.”
Sam snorted once, a humourless sound, arms tightening over her chest. “Good. If any of them even step foot inside again, I swear...”
“You won’t have to,” Andrea cut in, her tone hard as glass. “I meant what I said out there.”
Before the tension could climb higher, Dr. Rivera stepped in between them with the quiet authority of someone used to reigning in chaos. Her eyes were tired but steady, the chart in her hands pressed against her chest like a shield.
“We’ll repeat labs in two hours,” she said, voice calm, clinical, and grounding. “If her pressures climb or the rhythm changes, we intervene immediately. I’ll be close.”
“And her consciousness?” Diana asked. The question was simple, but the weight behind it pressed into the room like a held breath.
Dr. Rivera’s gaze softened, professionally detached, but not unkind. “It’s too early to say. Her body is exhausted. Rest is the best thing for her now.”
Sam swallowed hard, her fingers curling into the fabric of her sleeves. “She’s a fighter. She’ll wake up.” It sounded like a promise she needed to hear herself say.
Dr. Rivera nodded once, offering the smallest shape of reassurance. “I’ll let you know the moment there’s any change.”
With that, she slipped back into Lena’s room, the soft click of the door latching behind her somehow louder than the chaos outside had ever been.
Andrea looked between Diana and Sam; two immovable pillars braced against a storm only they understood. “I’ll be right down the hall,” she said quietly. “If anything happens, anything at all... I’m here.”
Diana inclined her head in acknowledgment. Sam didn’t move, didn’t blink. Andrea finally stepped away.
The corridor fell still again, cold, humming, expectant... leaving Diana and Sam alone with their silence. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, too bright, too sharp, reflecting off the polished floors like a mockery of calm.
Sam dragged both hands over her face, her composure cracking in a way she rarely allowed. “Everything was going so well,” she muttered, voice trembling with a grief she refused to show anyone else. “Fuck, she was managing. Fuck…” She pressed her fist against her mouth to steady her breath, but it didn’t help. “I thought she finally had some peace.”
Diana’s jaw tightened... not with anger, but with sorrow so deep it had no voice. She glanced toward Lena’s room, her expression caught somewhere between prayer and grief. When she spoke, it was quiet, barely above a breath.
“I sent out a message to my mother yesterday…”
Sam’s head turned sharply, eyes widening. “You... Diana, why didn’t you tell...”
“Because I wanted to be certain,” Diana whispered. “I told her about Lena. That something ancient, something cruel, is consuming her. If there was… if there was any way to cure her, to slow this, to give her a fighting chance…” Her shoulders lowered, the weight of the truth pressing down. “Desperation makes fools of us all.”
Sam let out a ragged exhale. “Your mother… and... what, that means more Amazons? More magic? Anything, I’ll take anything at this point.”
Diana hesitated, then continued, voice even softer. “I contacted Clark as well. Figured he might have heard something at the Fortress of Solitude, some record, some healing crystal, some ancient technology Kal’s ancestors hoarded.” Her eyes glistened with a sorrow she rarely allowed anyone to see. “I wanted to wait to tell you. To give you hope only when it was real. But if this is what we’re heading toward…” Her throat tightened. “Every resource seems desperate now.”
Sam leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling as though the answer might carve itself into the tiles. “God, Lena would hate this. Knowing we’re out here pulling every cosmic string we can find.” She laughed bitterly. “She’d call it dramatic. Overkill.”
Diana’s lips curved into the faintest ghost of a smile. “She would.”
Then the smile faded, dissolving into something smaller, more fragile. A single tear slipped down Diana’s cheek—rare, precious, devastating.
“I’m not losing her yet,” she whispered, her voice cracking like ancient marble under pressure. “It was supposed to be a good day… a beautiful day. I was going to make her the happiest person alive.”
Sam’s breath hitched, her eyes widening.
“So overkill or not,” Diana continued, her tone gaining strength even as her knees threatened to give beneath her, “I’m not letting her go. Not now. Not when I just found my happiness again. Not when my world finally came back to me.”
She swallowed hard, her jaw trembling through the effort to remain steady.
“If I had to give up my immortality for this,” she said, each word thick with conviction, “I would gladly do it in a heartbeat just to cure her.”
The hallway seemed to stop breathing. Even Sam, tough, brash, explosive Sam... went still, her fury dissolving into something haunted.
“Diana…” she whispered, not in warning, but in awe.
Diana’s hands curled at her sides, knuckles whitening. “What is eternal life worth if she isn’t in it? What good is centuries of strength if I can’t save the one person who makes me want to stay?”
Sam stared, jaw tight, her eyes glossing with emotion she fought not to show. She had never... not once... heard Diana vow something like that.
“God,” Sam murmured at last, voice shaking with something raw and unfamiliar. “You really do love her.”
Diana didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The truth lay bare between them like an open wound.
Sam swallowed hard, the anger she’d worn like armour earlier now discarded at her feet. “And… I’m sorry. For being harsh back then. For thinking I needed to guard Lena from you. I see it now.” Her eyes shimmered despite the rigid set of her jaw. “How much you love her. How deep it goes.”
Diana finally turned her head, meeting Sam’s gaze. The Amazon’s eyes were still bright with grief, but their steel had softened.
Sam gave a shaky, rueful exhale. “I never doubted you cared. But… this?” She gestured vaguely at Diana’s trembling hands, the tear she’d seen fall, the vow Diana had spoken moments before. “This is… soul-bonded kind of love. The kind you don’tget twice in a lifetime.”
Her voice cracked on the final word. “You really are her soulmate.”
Diana closed her eyes briefly, the admission hitting her with a force she'd been silently carrying for months. When she opened them again, the softness remained, tempered with fierce resolve.
“Thank you,” she whispered. It wasn’t pride or modesty, it was gratitude tinged with grief. “For trusting me. For seeing her. For seeing us.”
Sam nodded, wiping quickly at her eyes as though she could still pretend she wasn’t crying. “You better fight like hell for her, Diana. She deserves that. And so do you.”
Diana steadied her breath. “I intend to.”
Their silence afterward wasn’t empty... it was shared, weighted, full of love for the same woman in two different ways. Through the closed door, the soft hum of machines seemed louder, a reminder that Lena was still fighting, still here.
And together, they stood as her guardians... united not by duty, but by love.
-
Kara stood on the balcony of the dim hotel room, the city lights below blurring through the tears clinging to her lashes. The shattered picture frame in her hands trembled with each breath she took. Its cracked glass split Lena’s smile into pieces... too fitting, Kara thought bitterly.
Her thumb drifted along the fractured line across Lena’s face, following it as if she could smooth it out, make it whole again. But the tears that fell onto the glass only made the break harder to see through.
“To hell with this,” Kara whispered, voice splintering.
Before doubt could creep in, she set the frame on the balcony floor. Her hands were already moving, shaking violently, as she stripped off her clothes. Her civilian self fell away piece by piece until only the red-and-blue remained, the “S” gleaming faintly in the moonlight.
Supergirl.
Not Kara Danvers.
Not the heartbroken ex-lover.
The symbol who moved mountains.
And if she couldn’t save Lena’s heart… maybe she could at least see her.
Kara stepped onto the railing, knees coiled. Then she launched herself into the night.
The wind swallowed her tears instantly. Clouds whipped past her as she cut through them like a blade, flying faster, higher, then lower again as she approached the hospital. No alarms. No sonic booms. Just a silent streak of blue threading through the city night.
She hovered finally outside Lena’s window... the window Dr. Rivera had left cracked open for fresh air, unaware of the visitor approaching through the sky.
Kara’s breath hitched.
Inside, Lena lay still beneath the pale hospital sheets, her skin almost translucent under the fluorescent lights. Wires draped over her like vines. The gentle rise and fall of her chest were the only proof she still clung to life.
Kara didn’t enter.
She didn’t dare.
She stayed in the air, hovering just beyond reach, fingertips brushing the cold glass. Her heart felt like it was being crushed inside her chest.
“Lena…” she whispered, the word fogging the window.
For a moment, she thought she saw Lena’s fingers twitch... but it could’ve been her imagination, wishful thinking sharpened by grief.
Still, Kara couldn’t look away.
Kara needed this. Needed to see the woman she loved. Needed proof that Lena was still here. She hovered there for a while, watching. Caught up in her thoughts, Kara felt her body slam sideways and thrown into the nearby trees of a park. Her body slammed hard into the ground, leaving a tiny crater in its wake.
Kara’s ears rang as she lay in the shallow crater, cracked asphalt and torn grass settling around her like ash. For a second she could only stare up at the night, black sky, hospital lights bleeding over the treetops... trying to make sense of how fast it happened.
One moment: Lena’s window.
The next: a blur of bronze and red, a hand like a vise, and the world snapping sideways.
A shadow fell over her.
Wonder Woman stood at the crater’s edge like judgment given a body, hair barely stirred by the wind, posture calm in the way only the truly furious could afford. Her eyes weren’t glowing, not literally, but they might as well have been with the heat behind them.
“I told you, Supergirl,” Diana said, voice low and lethal, “to back away.”
Kara swallowed, throat tight. “You...” Her voice rasped as she pushed herself up, palms sinking into disturbed earth. “You hit me.”
“I moved you,” Diana corrected, each word clipped. “Away from her window. Away from her peace.”
Kara staggered to her feet, chest heaving. Dirt clung to the blue of her suit; grass caught in the hem of her cape. “She’s in there dying and you’re worried about... about peace?”
Diana’s head tilted a fraction, the smallest motion somehow more threatening than a shout. “Yes.”
Kara blinked hard, tears flaring hot again. “You don’t get to decide who loves her!”
Diana stepped forward. The air seemed to shift with her, pressure building. “I’m not deciding who loves her.” Her voice dropped further, so controlled it trembled. “I’m deciding who is allowed to take from her while she’s helpless.”
Kara’s jaw clenched. “I wasn’t taking anything. I wasn’t even inside.”
“You were at her glass like a ghost,” Diana snapped, and for the first time her restraint cracked—just a hairline fracture of anger. “Hovering. Watching. Feeding whatever this is.” Her gaze pinned Kara in place. “That isn’t comfort. It’s obsession.”
Kara’s fists curled at her sides, shaking. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to be thrown out like... like I’m poison?”
Diana didn’t flinch. “If you truly believed you were welcome, you would’ve walked in through the front doors like everyone else.”
Kara’s breath hitched. The truth of it hit harder than the impact with the ground. “They wouldn’t let me.”
“And that,” Diana said, stepping close enough that Kara could see the muscle jumping in her jaw, “should have been your answer.”
Kara’s eyes flashed, hurt turning into something defensive and sharp. “Lena is my...” The word love got tangled in her throat. My person. My home. She couldn’t say any of it without it sounding like ownership now, without hearing Diana’s earlier voice in her head: Love is not an excuse to destroy someone.
So, Kara swallowed it down and tried again, smaller. “I just needed to know she was still… there.”
Diana’s stare didn’t soften, but it steadied, like a blade held perfectly still. “Then listen carefully.”
She lifted a hand, not to strike, but to point, two fingers aimed back toward the hospital looming beyond the trees. “Lena is unconscious. She cannot consent to being watched. She cannot choose who gets access to her in her most vulnerable state. That’s why we protect her. That’s why you do not get to sneak around the rules like they don’t apply to you.”
Kara’s face crumpled. “I wasn’t trying to...”
“You were,” Diana cut in, and her voice was cold now, the fury pressed flat into something far more dangerous. “You were trying to soothe yourself. To ease your guilt. To feel close without having to face what closeness costs her.”
Kara’s throat worked. “That’s not...”
Diana’s hand shot out... fast enough that Kara barely registered the movement...and fisted a handful of Kara’s capes, yanking her forward just enough to steal the breath from her lungs.
Not a punch.
Not a blow.
A reminder.
“You don’t get to lie to me,” Diana murmured, close, intimate in the worst way. “Not tonight.”
Kara’s eyes burned. She didn’t pull away. Part of her wanted to. Part of her didn’t deserve to.
Diana released her cape with a sharp flick, like letting go of something she’d already decided wasn’t worth holding.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Diana said, and the fact that she had to say it at all made the words sound like a warning. “But I will not hesitate again if you come back to that window.”
Kara’s voice broke, small and furious all at once. “You can’t keep her from me forever.”
Diana’s gaze hardened. “I’m not keeping her from you. Lena is keeping herself safe from you.” She took one step back, giving Kara space with the same deliberate control she’d used to take it away. “And you will respect that, even if it breaks you.”
Kara’s shoulders shook. “You act like I’m... like I’m some villain.”
Diana’s laugh was quiet and brutal, without humour. “No. Villains don’t feel this much. Villains don’t fall apart.” Her eyes narrowed. “But pain doesn’t make you harmless, Kara. Loving someone does not automatically make you good for them.”
The wind slid through the trees, carrying the faint, distant murmur of the hospital, doors opening somewhere, a cart rolling, the muted world continuing as if Kara’s heart wasn’t caving in on itself right here in the dark.
Kara lifted her chin, tears tracking down her cheeks in angry lines. “What do you want from me?”
Diana’s stare locked, steady as the horizon. “Nothing.”
The word hit like a slap.
Then Diana’s voice lowered, quieter, still hard, but no longer sharp just for the sake of cutting. “For once, I want you to want something that isn’t for you.”
Kara’s lips parted. No sound came.
Diana continued, relentless. “If you want to help Lena, then help her the way she asked to be helped: by giving her room to breathe. By not turning her recovery into your penance.”
Kara’s hands rose to her face, fingers digging into her own hair. “I can’t just do nothing.”
Diana’s eyes flicked over Kara... assessing, deciding... and then she said, “Then do something useful.”
Kara blinked, startled.
Diana’s voice stayed low. “You have access to resources none of us do. You have the Fortress. You have Clark. You have alien medical archives and technologies the rest of this world can only dream about.” Her gaze sharpened again. “Use them. Don’t use her.”
Kara’s breath shuddered out. The impulse to argue flared and died... because the truth underneath it was ugly: she hadn’t come to the hospital window because it would help Lena. She’d come because she was desperate and hollow and needed to see the shape of her love to believe it still existed.
Diana watched the realization move across Kara’s face and didn’t look away.
“You want a way back to her?” Diana asked, voice like stone. “This is the only path that isn’t selfish: bring answers. Bring a cure. Bring something that costs Lena nothing.”
Kara’s eyes squeezed shut. “And if I can’t?”
Diana’s silence was the answer.
When Kara opened her eyes again, her voice was barely a whisper. “Please… don’t tell Alex.”
Diana’s expression didn’t change. “Your sister already knows you don’t stop when you should.” She glanced toward the hospital again, jaw tightening. “I’m not here to manage your family. I’m here to protect mine.”
The possessive landed like a final line drawn in the dirt between them.
Kara’s chest rose and fell in ragged breaths. She looked past Diana, past the trees, toward the glow of Lena’s room, just a rectangle of light hidden behind glass and distance and rules she’d already broken once tonight.
Diana turned slightly, angling her body to block that view without even trying.
“You have one choice,” Diana said, voice soft only because fury had already done its job. “Leave. Or I make you leave again, and next time I won’t be careful where you land. You may be Kyptonian Kara, but us Amazon’s were trained from birth. I will not hesitate to use every inch of it. Super strength or not, I will not back down.”
Kara stood there shaking, cape snapping faintly in the wind like a wounded flag. For a second she looked like she might fight. Like she might plead. Like she might collapse.
Then her shoulders caved, just a fraction.
“She loves you, doesn’t she…?” Kara rasped, the word thick with pain. Her voice came out hoarse, raw from crying and impact. “I’ve already lost her, haven’t I? She fell in love with you and not with me…”
Her legs gave out. She dropped to her knees in the ruined grass, cape pooling around her like a fallen flag.
Diana stood a few feet away, still, shoulders squared, jaw taut. The question hung between them like a blade.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “That’s because I didn’t lie. I told her who I was from the very beginning. Something you never did.”
The words landed with surgical precision, no shout, no rage. Just truth, simple and devastating.
Kara sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, fingers shaking. The admission cut deeper than any punch. She stared at the dirt, at the broken earth beneath her knees.
“She… she asked me once,” Kara whispered, almost to herself. “If there was anything else I was hiding. Anything big. I looked her in the eye and told her no.” Her laugh came out cracked and ugly. “And she believed me. Of course she did. Because that’s what Lena does... she believes in people until it kills her.”
Diana’s expression flickered, pain ghosting through her eyes, but she didn’t step closer. “And I told her the opposite. I told her exactly what I was. Who I was. What loving me would cost.” She took a slow breath. “She chose me anyway. With both eyes open.”
Kara squeezed her eyes shut, more tears leaking out. “So yeah,” she choked, “she loves you. You don’t even have to say it. I can hear it in… in how you talk about her. In how you stood between us like I was... like I was a threat.”
Diana didn’t argue.
The silence said enough.
Kara’s shoulders shook. “I thought if I could just… fix it. Make her see how sorry I am. How much I...” Her voice broke, the word love strangling in her throat. “But all she sees now is the girl who lied. The hero who made her feel crazy for not knowing. I did that. I made her feel that way.”
She dug her fingers into the grass, clenching tight. “You didn’t have to tear me apart, you know. I already know what I did.”
Diana’s gaze softened by a fraction, but her voice remained steady. “Knowing and accepting are not the same, Kara. Your grief doesn’t erase what she went through. It doesn’t untell the lies. It doesn’t unbreak the moments you shattered her trust.”
Kara let out a ragged breath. “So what, then? I just… live with it? Live knowing she’s alive, in love, and safe with you, while I’m… what? The cautionary tale?”
Diana studied her, the moonlight catching on the gold of her armour. “You live with it,” she said. “Because that’s what people do when they’ve done harm and there’s no clean way to undo it. They change. They grow. They don’t keep showing up at the window of the person they hurt and call it love.”
Kara’s chest heaved. “You really think I’m that selfish?”
Diana didn’t look away. “I think you’re in pain. And pain, if you let it, makes everything about you.”
The words stung, mostly because Kara could feel how true they were.
“She loved you,” Diana added quietly. “Once. Deeply. Don’t pretend she didn’t. That love was real. But love is not a free pass. You broke something. And Lena gets to decide how, and if, it’s ever put back together. Not you. Not me.”
Kara stared up at her, eyes red-rimmed. “And if she never chooses me again?”
Diana’s throat bobbed. That, too, was a wound. “Then you honour that,” she replied. “By becoming someone who doesn’t break her again if she ever does let you close.”
Kara let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It isn’t,” Diana said. “But it is clear.”
The wind rustled the trees around them, cool against Kara’s overheated skin. Kara swallowed hard. “So, what now?”
“Now,” Diana said, the steel returning to her tone, “you get up. You leave this place. And if you truly can’t bear doing nothing, you do what I suggested before: you go to Clark. You go to the Fortress. You dig through every archive, every alien technology, every dusty crystal that might hold a cure or a clue. You fight for Lena in a way that doesn’t cost her more pain.”
Kara blinked, startled that the offer still stood after everything.
“And if I find nothing?” she whispered.
Diana’s gaze turned toward the hospital, toward the woman lying between them like a shared center of gravity. “Then you still did something that wasn’t about you,” she said. “And sometimes… that has to be enough.”
Kara’s fingers loosened from the torn grass. Slowly, unsteadily, she pushed herself to her feet. Her knees wobbled. Her heart did worse.
“She really loves you,” Kara said again, quieter this time, less accusation, more resignation.
Diana’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t deny it. “Yes,” she said softly. “And I love her.”
The words gutted Kara and steadied Diana in the same breath.
Kara nodded once, a tiny, broken thing. “Then… don’t let her regret choosing you.”
Diana inclined her head, accepting the charge. “I won’t.”
For a moment, they simply stood there, two women in the dark, bound by the same woman in wildly different ways. Then Kara inhaled sharply, wiped her face, and lifted off the ground, hovering just above the cracked earth.
She looked back only once, eyes on the hospital, on the window she knew she couldn’t approach again.
“Tell her…” Kara started, then shook her head. “No. If she wants to know anything from me, she can ask.”
“That,” Diana said, “is the first unselfish thing you’ve said tonight.”
Kara flinched, but she nodded. And then she turned, cape snapping behind her as she shot into the night sky... this time away from Lena, away from the hospital, toward the one thing Diana had given her instead of access:
A purpose that wasn’t just penance.
Diana watched until the streak of red and blue vanished into the clouds.
Only then did she turn back toward the hospital, toward Lena, toward the war they were still quietly fighting inside fluorescent walls, carrying with her the knowledge that somewhere out there, Supergirl was finally doing something that might actually help.