#Special thanks to the anon suggesting the use of the handy-dandy Read More feature

[naralanis]

little bumps in the road (pt. 26)

Previously, on LBitR...

Lena has never given much thought to what happens after death.

She’s heard all about feeling cold—she’s felt that cold, more than once. She’s heard all about darkness—which she has seen, but not exactly in a near-death context. She’s also heard all about the light.

She does see that—not exactly a light she has to follow or whatever it is people see when they die, but a blinding expanse of white, as far as her eyes can see, though a little fuzzy, darker around the edges of her vision.

Considering the way she went out, Lena’s very surprised she doesn’t see any green.

Green. Kryptonite.

Kara.

Something that feels like a sob wrenches itself out of her chest by force. That dumb, stupid, idiotic Kryptonian—if Lena’s dead, then Kara is for sure—how dare she—

“Lena?”

The voice is familiar, and close; physically close, something that Lena didn’t think was possibly in this ethereal, post-death realm. Lena turns her head and realizes that, despite the brightness of the light she’s seeing, her eyes are most definitely closed.

Huh.

She opens them, then blinks, because the only difference seems to be… a lot of fuzzy shapes.

“Lena?” the voice calls to her again, closer still.

“Eugh…” is Lena’s less-than-eloquent reply. She could have done worse; her throat constricts painfully around something, and it’s like she’s pulling air the wrong way in, which causes a coughing fit that rattles her to the bone.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK, take your time,” the voice continues, and Lena knows that voice, but right now her brain feels like actual Jell-O sloshing around in her skull, and her entire body lights up with pain, so it’s understandably taking her a little while to get her bearings.

She blinks the crust out of her eyes; the speaking blob at her side begins to take shape and look like a person.

“Lena, don’t worry. You’re alright, you’re at the DEO. You’re hurt, but we could take the implant out—there will be an adjustment period, but you’re alright.” The voice explains, and Lena finally, finally places it.

“Agh… ah—ugh… L-lex?” she tries; her tongue feels like a wad of cotton in her mouth, and her throat is just burning.

The voice grows soothing. “We got him, Lena, don’t worry, we got—”

Lena shakes her head, which is a terrible decision—there is s sharp jolt of pain that shoots down her temple and settles all the way at the base of her spine; it makes her clench her teeth, which in turn just worsens the throbbing in her head.

She attempts to raise a hand; that fails when another painful shock travels from her shoulder across her collarbones. Lena groans in frustration, she needs to ger her words out, but it’s like her entire body has decided to call it quits.

Finally, she manages.

“Ah-Alex… Alex?”

The figure releases a breathless little laugh, and a reassuring hand comes to rest very gently at Lena’s shoulder.

“It’s me, Lena. I’m alright, you’re alright. Rest now, OK? Your meds will be kicking in again any time.”

Lena is equal parts relieved and panicked; there’s the obvious relief that comes with the knowledge that Alex is fine and right here next to her. But the agent doesn’t say a word about her sister, and that fills Lena with a dread she cannot express in her condition; especially now, as her lids grow heavier by the second, as her body sinks into an undoubtedly double-padded mattress.

“K—K..agh…” she tries, needing to know that Kara is alright, that she’s alive, because if Lena made it, Kara has to be alive. The alternative is unthinkable.

She manages another unintelligible gurgle before the meds do kick in, and then she’s out like a light.

Lena dreams.

This time, she does see green—a lot of it as the entire space of her LuthorCorp office is awash in the glow of the fully-armed Kryptonite cannons, and when Supergirl—Kara—lowers herself onto her balcony, Lena realizes this is not a dream at all.

It’s a memory.

She watches Kara raise her arms in surrender, sees the crinkle of confusion on her brow as the Kryptonian stares at her as if she’s seeing someone else entirely.

Lena watches her fall once she’s hit by what was meant to be a lethal dose of Kryptonite.

The memory shifts.

They’re in the Jeep, this time. It’s the dead of night and Kara’s in the driver’s seat, hair cropped short—Christ, Lena had forgotten just how short it was during those first couple of weeks. Kara’s driving, but she’s not looking at the road—no, in this snippet of reality, she’s staring straight at Lena, her gaunt, pale complexion fixated on her passenger. She looks perplexed, but also, inexplicably, relieved.

The memories keep shifting—they’re at the diner where they finally spoke to one another again, then they’re at a gas station, a phone booth, on and on and on—until everything seems to move and merge into a blur of colours, shapes, and sounds. It’s a convoluted, puzzling mental kaleidoscope, but surprisingly, Lena finds it remarkably easy to make sense of it all.

After all, how could she not? These are her memories. She’s lived through it all before.

Lena blinks into awareness slowly, this time. Her dream—or actual trip down memory lane—fades away softly, giving way to the soothing darkness of eyes gently closed for sleep.

There’s warmth at her side, and movement, too. It’s the up-and-down, in-and-out steady rhythm of deep breathing.

Lena instinctively tucks into the warmth and feels it in a solid, unmovable presence on her bed. She blinks once, twice, registers the lower lighting of her room, the tell-tale beeping of hospital equipment…and a very warm Kryptonian, glued to her side, squeezed so tight into the MedBay bed she cannot be comfortable.

Lena shifts—she needs to get a better look, needs to touch, to make sure she’s not dreaming, that her mind (which hasn’t been extremely reliable as of late) isn’t playing a cruel trick on her.

When she moves, blue eyes rimmed by dark circles snap open; they crinkle at the corners with a smile as they meet Lena’s gaze head on, and Lena releases a breath of pure relief.

“Hey,” Kara murmurs, her voice a soft breath ghosting over Lena’s cheeks since they’re only inches apart.

Lena can’t really help it; the tears are running down her cheeks before she realizes she’s crying, and she breathes in through sniffles as she reaches out to touch Kara’s face.

She’s there, inches away, warm and soft, and alive, and Lena lets the sobs rip through her chest. Her breaths are short little stuttering gasps, really, and she can’t stop smiling.

“Hey,” she whispers back, leaning into the warmth of Kara’s touch once the Kryptonian delicately wipes at her tears with her thumb. Her hand stays there, cradling Lena’s face as they smile like idiots after one-too-many near-death experiences.

“I have to admit,” Kara says after some time, smile unwavering and bright despite the pallor of her features, “that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

Lena chuckles—she does so lightly, since her ribs (most likely broken) protest at the slightest movement. “What, crying?” she asks. She can’t really move her arms, or really anything at all, so she settles for slightly craning her neck, leaning further into the hand Kara has kept in place at her tear-stained cheek.

Kara just nods, laughing a little. There’s a warm yellow hue around them—Lena surmises someone probably moved a sunlamp to her bed once Kara invited herself in—and it makes Kara’s hair, growing at awkward, adorable angles, glow golden and beautiful.

Lena soaks it all in.

“Is this real?” she can’t help but ask. She doesn’t think she would survive another trick of the mind, especially one so cruel.

Kara shifts on the thin mattress, impossibly closer, body practically melding along Lena’s. She’s still smiling, and there’s such certainty in her gaze, Lena practically melts with relief before Kara can even reassure her.

“Yes,” Kara says. “I have to admit the details are a little bit fuzzy,” she raises her arm with some difficulty to poke playfully at her own head, “but it seems I uh, ripped the Lexosuit apart and tossed it just before it exploded.”

Lena furrows her brows, trying to remember. All she can recall was the countdown clock and the split-second feeling of weightlessness before she began falling to the earth once the suit powered down.

“And then?”

Kara shrugs—Lena notices how her movements are stilted, like moving pains her, and wonders just how close to dying Kara had been. Again. “As far as I know, J’onn got to you in the nick of time.”

Lena narrows her eyes. “And you?”

Kara looks sheepish. “I uh. Hit the pavement.”

It’s said so… matter-of-factly, so casual and off-hand. It wrenches another sob right out of Lena, and her ribs ache in protest, but all she can think is Kara falling again, crumpling limply onto the pavement again, being on the brink of death again, and she can’t—Lena can’t cope with the image at all.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s OK,” Kara moves in, ready to calm and soothe, wiping at Lena’s tears with both hands. Her lips find Lena’s forehead, and while the gesture is entirely unprecedented, it has the desired effect—Lena’s body instinctively relaxes, and her sobs begin to abate. “I’m here,” Kara says, lips still on Lena’s skin, “Good as new, I promise.”

Lena doesn’t believe that for one second—there’s an unhealthy pallor to Kara’s complexion that tells her she still has a lot of time to spend under the sunlamps, and Lena can tell just how much it hurts for the Kryptonian to move. She bets there are slow-healing bruises all over her skin under the DEO-issue henley and sweats.

Though—she considers as her own body twinges with pains she hasn’t yet had the mental fortitude or will to catalogue in their entirety—she supposes she also has a long way to go as well.

“How long have we been out?”

“A few days,” Kara replies, chin resting atop Lena’s head and showing no inclination of moving. Good. “I just woke up a few hours ago.”

Lena grins. “And then the first thing you did was come to crowd my space while I recovered?”

Kara laughs. “Of course not. I went to pee first.”

It’s worth the twinges in her ribcage to chuckle a little. Lena lets out as deep a sigh as her injuries will allow, and her breathing adjusts to follow the steady rise-and-fall of Kara’s chest, still melded to her side.

“So, what now?”

Kara’s sigh is deep, and when she speaks, her voice grows heavier with sleep by the word. She’s probably exhausted and just about ready to conk out.

Lena thinks she’s got the right idea.

“Well,” the Kryptonian murmurs, voice so soft Lena has to strain to hear over the faint hum of hospital machinery surrounding them. “Nia caught Lex—gave him a good ol’ trashing, from what I hear. Uh, your name’s been cleared. LuthorCorp is yours, or will be after Lex’s trial—again. Supergirl is alive and back, sort of. Kara Danvers, meanwhile, is due to return from a mysterious illness… or something, I’m not sure what lie Nia made up at CatCo. Oh, and…”

Lena nods, barely processing Kara’s words. She’s just sinking into warmth, and Kara’s rambling in earnest now, and it feels so familiar. Comfortable, even here, cramped in this tiny MedBay cot.

Especially here.

Lena tucks further into Kara’s neck, and that stops Kara’s talking just enough for her to get a word in edgewise. “OK,” she whispers against Kara’s skin. “But for now… we just rest?”

She feels Kara’s slight nod, and Lena’s smile stretches wider while her eyes grow heavier. “Together?”

Another nod. Another whisper. “Together.”

<<<Previous||

That’s it! It’s done! Oof! Thank you all for humouring me in this wild, bumpy ride. All chapters (plus an epilogue!) will be posted on my AO3 within the next few days.