Lena’s breathing heavily, hugging Andrea back so tight she doesn’t even feel it at first.
Andrea has her head on the crook of her neck and her tears are wetting Lena’s shirt. But she doesn’t care, because having stopped Andrea means she won’t kill Kara- and if she just saved Kara then maybe the warmth in her eyes when she looks at Lena will come back eventually.
“I’m sorry,” Andrea says, her mouth so close to her ear, she can feel the way she chokes on a sob after it.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she tightens her arms around her, “we’ll figure it out, together.”
That’s the moment she feels it.
The pain, the excruciating pain the knife in her abdomen brings her. It sends shivers down her spine and almost makes her feel cold- but not even the cold she’s use to.
Not the coldness of loneliness and failure she felt after Kara’s lies, but coldness in a sense of helplessness and hopenessless when she realizes what just happened.
“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Andrea says as she moves away from her and lets Lena fall to her knees, “but she wasn’t the only one I was sent to kill.”
Lena looks down and sees the green light of the knife, the red of her blood around it- she would have laughed if she wasn’t in so much pain.
A Luthor getting killed by kryptonite, it was almost ironic.
Andrea reaches down for the knife, and Lena’s choked wait goes unanswered as she pulls it out of her.
Logically, Lena knows what to do if you ever get stabbed.
First, don’t take the knife out- it keeps the blood inside. She curses Andrea once again for fucking stabbing her and then pulling the knife out.
Second, keep pressure on the wound. And she’s trying, she’s really trying, but her hands feel too heavy and she needs them to get to the panic button a couple of feet away from her.
She needs to wake Kara up.
She watches as Andrea gets closer and closer to Supergirl laying in the bed, completely unaware of the kryptonite getting closer and closer to her.
“Andrea,” she pleads, even when she knows it’s useless, “please, just kill me. Don’t hurt her.”
Lena thought she wouldn’t, but Andrea looks back. And even when her vision starts getting foggier she can see the pain in the woman’s eyes.
“Please,” she tries again, “you don’t want to do this.”
“I have to, Lena, I have to,” her voice sounds so broken.
Lena tries so hard not to feel sympathy for the woman who just stabbed her, but she knows how painful it is. To kill someone, someone you used to love, and watch them bleed out.
I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I had to because if Lex lived, the world wouldn’t be safe, my friends wouldn’t be safe. So I forced myself to pull the trigger.
“It’s Supergirl, you can’t kill her, please.”
She’s begging, she knows she’s begging. There’s a voice that sounds exactly like Lex’s telling her she’s being pathetic but she can’t care because Kara might die and she can’t help.
Kara will die when she just got her back.
At least she won’t get to see it, a world without Kara and without Supergirl- her days without her had been dark enough. She doesn’t want to think how it’ll affect the rest of the world.
There’s must be something in her face, probably the complete anguish and despair in it, that it makes Andrea stop- hand raised, knife just resting on the house of El emblem.
She moved enough through the floor to reach one of the panic buttons in one of her desks, leaving a small trace of blood behind her. She looks back to Andrea and finds her with an odd look on her face, the arm holding the knife down- simply hanging from her hand as drops of Lena’s blood painted the floor.
“Oh Lena,” she utters, looking between her and the blonde.
She walks over to Lena, kneeling beside her. She digs the knife into the button, rendering it useless now.
She rests her hand on her cheek, “I won’t kill her, for you. I’ll give you this, before you die. I guess this is a good enough apology for what I did to you. If she dies, it won’t be me who kills her.”
Lena can’t do anything but nod and say a choked thanks as Andrea dissipates into shadows.
She tries to put pressure on the wound again, but her hands slip with the blood and her arms feel so heavy.
She knows she doesn’t have to fall asleep either, that’s the third rule. But the last three days without a decent sleep, hell the last years without decent sleep, is catching up to her.
She’s trying not to think about what Andrea’s words meant. For you. She won’t kill Kara, for her.
Andrea was always good at reading her, especially in her most vulnerable- when Lena wasn’t hiding from her or was trying to manipulate her.
It was funny, how it felt like an exchange- her life’s for Supergirl’s. It felt fitting. Her life’s for Kara’s, it felt utterly perfect.
She doesn’t know how much Kara will take. She could be in the VR for a few more minutes or hours.
She’s lying on the floor now, and all she can feel is blood. The taste of blood on her mouth. The feeling of blood on her fingers and her body. The smell of blood all around her- she wonders if that is the first thing Kara will notice too.
She looks over to the blonde, completely unaware and smiles- at least Kara will be the last person she sees, and the notices then: how she started to think about Kara and Supergirl as the same, and curses the fact she won’t get to see the goofiness in the superhero or the confidence in the reporter.
“Hope,” she struggles to say.
“Yes, Miss Luthor?” the robotic voice sounds around her.
“Make a note, play it for Kara when she asks what happened.”
“What should it say?”
“Acrata was here, I’m glad you’re okay- and,” she breathes out her next words, a hint of sadness and longing in her voice, “I hope you truly get to forgive me one day.”
Lena closes her eyes.