See What You've Done - Tumblr Posts
Kara’s dead. Lena won her fight against Brainiac, subdued and destroyed the 12th level intelligence with her will alone, a feat many would say was impossible. Kara’s dead and Lena’s never felt so lost. Human beings walk through life with such a limited understanding. Their ignorance, Lena can't help but think, is their greatest gift. Lena has sacrificed that gift and sacrificed her humanity to stop Brainiac. She would have sacrificed so much more to ave won her battle one point five three seven eight two seconds earlier. Enough time that a concentrated blast of yellow solar energy would have jump started a dead Kryptonian’s physiology. Enough time to save Kara.
Lena wishes that she wasn't in possession of Brainiac’s heightened abilities. She can smell Kara’s blood on her hands. The high definition memory of Kara’s dying smile, her endless faith, is etched forever in Lena’s now faultless mind. No human could truly, in a single moment, understand the irrevocable impact of a single death. Lena isn't human. Her mind is more than capable of generating the mathematical probability of the eleven quintillion most probably futures that will now never occur. And Lena can never, will never forget killing the woman she loved. Because Kara is dead.
Stopping the assault of Earth by Her new forces takes barely a fraction of Lena’s attention. Less attention that she would have give a fly as a human, to be honest. Then again, with as much attention as Lena currently has available to her it's a paltry thing to design and implement a plan to repair the Earth. It doesn’t even take any of her attention from picking up Kara’s body. Nor does redesigning her own once possessed body into something that doesn't look like Brainiac. As a 12th level intelligence Brainiac should have been capable of leaving his thralls looking human. A quick examination of Brainiac’s memory files show that while he had the raw processing power to be unstoppable he desperately lacked imagination. A part of Lena thinks of the cultural and scientific impact of Star Trek. It's awfully hard to create something if one doesn't know what may be possible even if they do know what is possible. A greater part of Lena rages that her awe inspiringly capable mind makes it impossible for her to deny reality. She killed Kara.
After those first few seconds of adjustment, all the time required to lean down and pick up Kara’s too limp body, time passes in a rush. Lena remembers every nanosecond; she can never forget. Life just doesn't matter. There is nothing left for her, not even Brainiac’s goal holds any appeal. She stands silent sentinel over Earth. She uses L-Corp to introduce humanity to advanced ways of thinking in the optimally determined pace. She goes through the motions of life and finds no pride in her heroic actions. Just repition. For all Lena cares she may as well have completely wiped the Earth from existence. Alex reminds her that Kara wouldn't approve every now and again. Lena will never admit to needing the reminders. It’s not that Kara was the great love of Lena’s life. It’s not even that Lena thought Kara could be. The simple, sad truth of the matter is that Kara was the only person who loved Lena for who she was and what she wanted to be. Kara was the only person who believed in her.
Lena changes so much of the world after Kara dies. Humanity adores her, the Luthor name pulled from hatred to sainthood with her actions. They think Lena is their saviour. They never understand that even though she’s gone it was Kara was the one who saved them. Alex understands. Alex knows that the moment she dies, the moment that last tenuous living connection to Kara is gone, so will be Lena. Alex doesn't know where Lena will go and she doesn't think Lena does either. In the many years since Brainiac the childish explorer in Lena hasn't stopped upgrading herself. Alex is pretty sure that Lena can't actually die anymore. Alex mourns that loss for Lena, knowing the other woman has refused to mourn anything since she first brought Kara’s body back to Alex. With her wife already dead and her children to her great great grandchildren as happy and cared for as they can be, Alex has only one loose end right now. One final legacy to sort before death.
“I want to talk.” Alex says as she looks out of the ocean from her balcony. She's an old woman and she's lead a full life, even with the inevitable hole Kara’s death left in her. She waits patiently for a seconds before huffing out her annoyance. “Honestly, I'm not getting any younger and I refuse to talk to the walls.”
Said walls bulge out. The pale cream colour chosen to be relaxing by her doctors after her second heart attack quickly shifting to the pale skin and dark hair of Lena. It's not her real body, Alex knows, but it's close enough for her purposes. Lena arches a sardonic eyebrow at the woman she came to call friend. “You could be if you’d just stop refusing the nanobots.”
Alex grimaces at the familiar refrain. Get a few wrinkles and suddenly your nigh immortal AI god of a friend starts offer to make you look fifty years younger. She scowls at Lena, more from habit than emotion. Lena obviously knows what Alex is about to say and politely waits for her to say it. “Humans aren’t meant to be immortal.”
Lena’s next line in this old familiar dance is that Alex wouldn't be, not really. She doesn't say it. Instead she murmurs gently, “few things are.”
Alex raises her own eyebrow. Obviously Lena knows something is different about this conversation. Perhaps she senses the same thing Alex does, the invisible approach of death. “You know.” As much as Alex may want to ask it as a question, it's really not. Even with Lena’s guidance the entirety of human can only claim to be a 7th level of intelligence.
“Yes.” Lena doesn't say anything more. She doesn't need to and she knows it.
Alex lets out a long, slow breath. She refuses to call it a sigh. Suspicions can be just a little harder to face when they become spoken of. “Well, then what's you’re plan? If your going to leave shortly, what's you’re plan?” They both know she means ‘when I'm gone’ but they are so very good at dancing around things better left unspoken (Kara, always Kara).
Lena smiles and Alex nearly cries at the sight. She hasn't seen such a smile ever on Lena’s face. Not in person at least. Alex had found a few such smiles hidden on Kara’s phone, tucked away in a folder labeled with a string of emoticons and filled with pictures of random puppies, rainbows, and Lena smiles. This is a smile that Alex had immediately classified as Lena’s hope smile. Alex hadn't ever thought she would see it.
“Barry Allen.”
It takes Alex a moment to connect the name. She's old and she forgets her own kids name’s half the time. Never Maggie's. Never Kara’s. “The Flash. Kara’s friend.” Alex had stopped calling Kara just ‘her’ after her second child was born.
“Her friend from another dimension.” Lena never had.
Alex draws her eyebrows together, thinking. “You plan to go to another dimension. Isn't it a little late for that?” That, they both know, means seeing Kara again. Means saving Kara.
Lena’s smile doesn't waver. “Time is causality. Within that dimension who I am never was so I have no causality.”
“Meaning so long as you time travel at the same time you could appear in any time without consequences other than your existence, like any native to the time/space you currently exist in.”
“Exactly.”
“But the power requirements would be huge if you were to explore more than one reality and your manufacturing processes are all here and now. Are you planning on jumping back every time?”
Lena shook her head and her expression slipped to something so gentle, so caring that Alex couldn't imagine words for it. Many people thought that becoming part AI made Lena less able to feel emotions. Alex knew it made her more capable. “No. It took me a few decades but I've had a multijump capable body for over a dozen years now.”
Alex felt her jaw drop open slightly. “How long have you been working on this?”
“Since the beginning.”
“Why? Why’d you wait so long? You could have been out looking for her years ago, why?”
“It wouldn't have been her. Not really. I'm sure I'll love whomever I find. I can’t imagine not loving any version of her. I didn't wait for that, though. After Maggie died, after J’onn and Winn and Eliza, you didn't really think I'd leave you alone did you? You’re the last family I have left Alex. I'm not leaving until you do. Not for all the Kara’s in the multiverse.”
Not to make myself emo, but apparently there are rumors of Brainiac coming to Supergirl 2B and based on the comics Lena will be possessed by him. While I have no idea how that shit works or whether it’s true, all my gay heart can think about is a potential scene where possessed Lena is about to kill Supergirl, while this song plays in the background.
She’s so close to do it, and Supergirl, lying on the ground, doesn’t fight back because she knows it’s not her. She doesn’t want to hurt Lena. She’s giving up. So Supergirl tells her it’s okay. “It’s okay, Lena.” She looks into her eyes and smiles.
But she’s not giving up on Lena. So before Lena can do anything, Supergirl tells her that it’s her, Kara. Her only friend in National City, Kara. And she’s so proud of all the work she’s done. She’s so proud of her saving the city on multiple occasions. Kara’s proud that she’s been such a hero to the city. She’s so proud she fought her own mother to save the aliens. And that she knows that she’s possessed and deep deep down she’s fighting.
So she tells her she needs to fight more, she needs to fight whatever is messing with her mind. She needs to, because whether Kara or Supergirl, she believes in her. “If someone can fight it, it’s you, Lena. I believe in you.” Kara says, smiling, not scared that she’s probably about to die.
And Kara can see she’s really fighting it, because Lena is tearing up. And Lena will break it after all, because if there’s anything that she cares about and is worth fighting for in this messed up world, it’s Kara.
SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE Written & Composed by Michael Woodhead Copyright ©1966, 2021
See what you've done You've broken my poor heart No need to run I can't tear you apart Cause my whole life's been ripped away Since you left me here alone today So I can't even hope to send away the pain
[Musical Verse]
See what you've done You've made the tears fall down No need to run I think I'd only drown Cause my whole life has been a waste And things are sour to my taste And I can't even put my arms around your waist