Lena had not experienced a flashback before.
That was not wholly true; she'd definitely experienced the recurrence of bad memories, had occasional nightmares too. But not like this. Never like this.
Tonight, she didn't even know what she was remembering, only that it was causing some extreme panic within her. She knew the term, emotional flashback. She wanted to scream. But no-one was hurting her, no-one was in her flat. She was alone and she was terrified of something she couldn't even remember. She guessed it was because she'd had a session with that new trauma-specialised therapist, worked some things through. This, though, this feeling? It made her wish she hadn't gone at all, only added to her doubts.
So there she was, uncharacteristically distressed and out of her depth, lying on the cold tile floor of her apartment because somehow this also made her overheat. Breathing too fast. Thinking too fast. Everything at once yet no answer to why she was feeling like this. Maybe something she didn't remember, maybe something her subconscious couldn't forget.
And instead of thinking logically, as she had always been best at, she was crying in the middle of the room. On the floor. In her work clothes. In the... dark?
Once her breathing slowed a bit, yeah, she realised that the lights weren't even on. She still couldn't get up to turn them on, not really.
I'm really, actually going to lay here in the dark, she thought. Well, that's just upsetting.
Honestly, she'd mostly forgotten whatever her new therapist had said to do in these situations. It had only been two sessions. Except-
"-establishing a network of people you can trust. Who you can call and depend on when you need them. You need to trust people, Lena."
Maybe if she had any other option, she would have gone with that. But aside from spending the night feeling this horrible and probably never eating or even making dinner... She opened her phone, still teary, but mustering any composure she could. She flicked through her contacts despite knowing she was going to call Kara. Something about their uh, friendship, at least that's what she thought it was, made her feel strangely guilty to call her without at least pretending to consider other options. (That's just another thing she was going to repress. It was only subconscious.)
---
Lena quickly took a breath in and put on her fake work voice to call Kara, but only reached voicemail. Shit.
"Hi Kara, I was just wondering if..." What was she wondering? "If you could call me back." Ha! What the fuck was that? You really are as stupid as you feel. She hung up, already feeling tears prick her eyes. Kara will think you're insane. You are insane.
However, it took less that three minutes for Kara to respond. Of course it did. She's too good for you. You don't deserve her.
Lena picked up the phone anyway.
"Lena?" Kara sounded distant, far away, but maybe it was Lena's state of spaciness.
"Yes. Hi."
"You called me." It was a question, of sorts, but Lena didn't answer. "Are you alright? You don't sound alright."
"I'm fine." Lena said automatically, regretting it immediately. Cursed herself for being even more awkward.
On the other side of the line, Kara frowned. "Have you had dinner, yet? It's 9 pm."
"I haven't actually." Lena meant to sound diplomatic but her voice was small.
"That's it, I'm making you dinner. Well, I'm bringing takeaway dinner. Same thing."
"What?"
"See you in ten."
The phone beeped as Kara hung up. Lena just stared at it, managed to push herself into a sitting position, and wondered what the fuck Kara was going to think when she sees you sitting in the middle of the cold tile floor. Get up, you freak.
---
Kara was there in five, somehow already having picked up the food - potstickers, of course. And having... driven here? Okay, not the best of plans, but Lena didn't sound like she was going to be questioning it.
She knocked on the door, but noticed warily that there were no lights on in the apartment. What if someone had Lena? She'd sounded stressed on the phone. She couldn't fight someone in front of Lena. She knew how to fight without relying on obvious powers, but Lena was smart and would notice her inhuman strength. She'd wonder why someone wanted to get to Kara.
"The door's unlocked." Lena called from somewhere within.
"Oookay?" She hesitated, but put her trust in Lena anyway.
And she was correct to do so, clearly, as she looked upon the scene in the apartment. Lena was holding her head in her hand, sitting on her couch, but shivering. She looked almost sick, timid like Kara had never seen her before. No lights were on, the apartment was freezing cold and the TV and heater and all other electronics that would make sense to be on, were off. "Is there... a power outage?"
"What? No." Kara almost followed up, but realised there was some light coming from the refrigerator.
"Can I... turn the lights on?"
"Oh. Yes."
She flicked the switch, although it gave little insight on what was going on. "Lena, what's happening?"
Lena tried to laugh but the noise was strangled. "Nothing, I'm just a bit stressed tonight. Just wanted to call."
Kara accepted this response and walked over to the couch, but the closer she got, the more she picked up the pace. Lena looked miserable. And maybe even frightened? Of what, Kara had no idea.
"Lena, what happened? You've been crying. What's wrong? Did someone do something? Did I do something?"
"No, no, I'm perfectly..." Alright, was not the correct word. "I'm having a bad night. That's all."
Kara shook her head. "It's more than that. Someone hurt you, didn't they?"
Against her will, this genuine concern, this awful truth, caused Lena to shed a tear. Her calm demeanor that was already hanging by a thread was completely lost. No matter how long ago it was, yes, someone had hurt her. Someone had really hurt her.
"Oh, Lena." Kara whispered. She pulled a blanket from behind her on the couch to give to the shivering woman. Lena hadn't even realised she was so freezing until the blanket began to warm her up.
"Thanks." She managed.
"I know you're upset and you need time to recover, but you have to tell me if you're in danger. If someone hurt you, I can't let them hurt you again."
Lena blinked. "No, I-I'm not. I..." She sighed.
"You don't have to tell me right now if you don't want to. All I need to know is that you are safe. And you are always safe with me."
At that, Lena started truly crying. She put her hand to her face but it didn't exactly cover the silent tears and red, puffy eyes. The façade that she had worked so many years to create, to prevent anyone from seeing this side of her, even herself, shattered with the promise.
Kara touched her arm tentatively, waited for Lena to nod permission before she hugged her properly. She squeezed her own eyes shut, softly saying whatever reassuring thing came to mind. "Lena, it's okay. I'm here, you can cry."
After a few quiet minutes, Lena sniffed and broke the hug off. She muttered, anxiously, "I don't think I am alright."
"No kidding," Kara joked, but gently. "Can you tell me what happened? Who I need to beat up for you?"
Lena laughed despite wiping away tears. "No-one, it was a long time ago, Kara. I'm okay now."
"No, you're definitely safe now, but you don't seem okay to me."
Huh. She was onto something there. "Yes, I guess so."
"Would you like to tell me about what happened? Who it was? You don't have to, if you don't want." She added quickly.
"No, uh, yes, I want to. I guess it's meant to be good for me, right?" Kara nodded, encouraging. "I guess... some rather difficult things have happened when I was young. Nothing that bad."
"Bad enough to make you cry all this time later. Sounds bad to me."
"I guess."
"Did someone hurt you, like I said before?"
Lena hesitated, but sighed. That's what the therapist says. It's not un-true. "Sort of. Yes. My parents... they could be rather cruel. You can imagine with all the world domination attempts and bigotry, maybe. But they were cruel to me too, sometimes. Said some things. Threatened... some things."
"Threatened?"
"It's barely worse than a normal childhood, in my opinion. But apparently it's not so normal... I don't know"
"I have never been threatened by my parents. Not my birth parents, not my adoptive parents. Never." Kara's face was more serious than Lena had ever seen it as she spoke.
The next words came at a rush. "My mother said she wanted me dead and gone. Wanted to kill me. Have me kill myself."
"Lena, that's horrible! That's... disgusting." Lena looked up in a flash of shock. "Not of you! Of her, of course. That's... abuse. That's very much abuse. That would be traumatising."
"So I've heard. Not sure I believe it yet."
"Well it seems like it's traumatising to me." Lena looked confused, so she continued. "I've had arguments with my parents, obviously, but they were never, ever, at a level that I would still be affected by them years later. Not even a week later. Even if I was grounded or punished, I knew they just cared. That, what you described, that was not care. That was abuse. Nothing your parents do should ever make you feel this way. Or else they never really parented you."
"Oh."
"I've also never felt unsafe when with them. Angry at them, worried about punishments, yes. Not unsafe. Even out in the rest of the world, during my childhood there was probably only one time that I felt completely unprotected by them, and that was an extreme circumstance. My parents were dead and I was waiting to... be adopted... and some scary things happened. So even that is rare. I always knew someone had my back besides those moments." She said, thinking about leaving her home planet in that ship.
"Well... are you okay?"
Kara laughed. "I appreciate the care, but yes, I'm alright now. I think you're the one who's not quite okay at the moment. I had Alex and the Danvers to help me after that. They are family. And- and a therapist, too, for a long while, actually."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It helped tons. It was sort of hard to explain everything," Kara winced at the memories of telling the human psychologist about her parents and 'adoption' in the vaguest terms possible to prevent her alien identity from being revealed. "It helped, though."
"That's good." Lena took note.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all of that, Lena. I have a feeling there were other things about your childhood too. You didn't deserve it. And you can call me at any time, for whatever reason, I need you to know that."
"Thank you," Lena murmured, allowing Kara to draw her back into a hug.
---
They sat there a long while, and Kara managed to get Lena to eat a few potstickers even if they were cold. She couldn't miss dinner entirely. Somewhere in conversation, Kara brought up a sitcom that Lena had never seen and she may have forced her to watch a 15-episode-long marathon of the first season, all the time talking and ranting about the characters and plot as Lena tried to shush her. They ended up laughing hard until Lena eventually fell asleep in Kara's lap, with a smile still on her face.
Kara looked over her, brushing loose strands of dark hair out of her face. She didn't see Lena smile too much when she was awake, not so genuinely and happily. Now she sort of knew why. She'd managed to get Lena to take off her jacket, jewellery and heels, and to wash the day's makeup off her face, somewhere around episode nine. But somehow, she was comfortably sleeping in her work clothes.
At some ungodly hour of the morning, she called a disgruntled and tired Alex to tell her that she would be late to the DEO.
Alex just said, "Never call me after - after three am, oh my god Kara - again, unless you are actively dying," and immediately hung up the phone. Kara just had to assume she got the message.
She did feel especially grateful tonight that she had someone like Alex to call for anything (well, before 3 am).