Chapter 82

"Lillian Luthor is dead, and I'm the one that killed her."

"You... What?" Alex says, baffled.

"Damn, Lena." Maggie sounds impressed.

"How can we know you are telling the truth?" Someone asks. "You are a Luthor. Luthors are notoriously good liars."

Lena says quiet, knowing that there's nothing she can say that would make them change their minds about her. If she were to insist, she may be taken even less seriously, and have more suspicion laid on her.

It's Kara who speaks up. "You guys trust me, right? Well, I was there with her. I saw the whole thing."

"That's awfully convenient." Someone nearby grumbles, and murmurs arise in the crowd.

"I'm serious, I was there. Lena, she-she saved my life." Kara says with more than enough conviction to make everyone pause their skepticism and take in her words.

"Kara Zor-El Danvers!" Alex's booming voice makes Kara wince. "You almost died and you didn't tell me?"

"Oops?" Kara squeaks out. "It slipped my mind?"

"You forgot that you almost died?" Alex asks incredulously.

"Um. No? But I did forget to tell you. It wasn't the number one thing on my mind." Kara admits.

"That's even worse!" Alex sighs exasperatedly. She takes a feel breath and it fails to calm her, but she manages to calm her tone. A little bit. "What happened, Kara?"

"Um. So don't freak out-"

"It's a bit late for that, Little Danvers." Maggie points out.

"I know." Kara grumbles, then continues. "There was Kryptonite, and she had a gun and she threatened to shoot Lena and-"

"Hang on, Kara." Alex holds up a hand. "This isn't something that can be easily deciphered from your rambles. There was Kryptonite, but why would that matter? You have your crown thing for a reason."

"Yeah, and it works. Uh, unless it's hit with a large surge of electricity. Then it goes a bit wonky." Kara explains.

"And..." Alex prompts.

"And I got hit by electricity." Alex begins pacing and runs a hand through her hair, letting out a big breath. "I'm fine, Alex!"

"You almost weren't!" Alex snaps, stopping in order to point a finger at her sister angrily. Her voice comes out shaky. "You almost weren't." She resumes pacing.

"Al..." Kara sighs. She should just continue. "Cadmus hit me in the chest with this weird device that latched onto my armor. That's what zapped me. After it did that, it fell off. I think. I wasn't very conscious at the moment. So Lena kicked Cadmus' butt and then woke me up. Once I was feeling okay-ish again, we started moving. A smaller group of us, because Lena and I wanted to go to Lillian and knew you would need backup. The people we didn't feel we would need, we sent to you."

"Kara..." Alex purses her lips. She hates the thought of her sister being less protected because she thought Alex would need a couple more bodyguards.

"Please, let me continue. We found Lillian's room, and Lena and I went in-"

"Sorry, but just you and Lena?" Alex asks.

"Yeah."

Alex lets out a flurry of curse words that makes the people, aliens and human alike, blush. Maggie calms her slightly by taking her hand.

"Listen to what she has to say, babe. You can yell at her for her dangerous decisions later." Maggie murmurs. "When we aren't surrounded by people we're supposed to be rescuing."

Alex sighs but nods. "Okay. I'll try. But no promises if Kara does anything immensely stupid." Maggie just grimaces in response then gestures for Kara to continue.

"Um. So Lillian... Lena, are you okay with me telling them all this?" Kara asks softly. "Do you want to tell it?"

"Yes, please." Lena says, then begins speaking louder. "Lillian, being the charming woman she is, kickstarts the conversation by placing a gun on her desk, pointed at us. Kara could confirm using her X-ray vision that it was loaded. Kara was so sure that Lillian wouldn't shoot me because I'm her daughter."

"That would be a decent thing to do! You know, not kill your kid on purpose!" Kara says.

"In order for that to hold, Lillian would have to be a decent person. She is... was not." Lena replies.

Kara frowns but nods, squeezing Lena's hand to encourage her continue. Lena clears her throat and gathers herself.

"Lillian has never considered me her daughter, and I told then, told Kara and Lillian, as much. Lillian... She told me that I am Lionel's bastard daughter." Lena swallows harshly and allows a moment for people to gasp in surprise while she works to keep her composure. "We discussed that. How she blames me and my mother, but not Lionel. Which eventually led us back to the gun pointed at Kara and me. Kara pointed out that it wouldn't work because she has superspeed and impenetrable skin. Then Lillian turned on the Kryptonite emitters."

"That..." Alex starts grumbling again, cursing Lillian.

"Her crown, which blocks the effects of Kryptonite, was damaged, but not destroyed. She was very weakened, but not powerless or dying of poisoning. So... So Kara stepped in front of me so she would get hit instead of me. But Lillian threatened to shoot me in the head if Kara didn't get away from me. So she complied, and then waved the gun around. She first pointed the it at me before keeping it towards Kara. Lillian shot and I jumped in front of Kara, knowing that it would probably have killed her. Kara was able to move fast enough to keep the bullet from hitting anything important."

Kara mumbles something.

"What did you say, love?" Lena asks gently.

"It would've gone through your heart." Kara repeats. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to keep it from hurting you."

"Hey, I'm alive because of your quick actions. You did good, darling." Lena murmurs. Kara doesn't seem like she completely believes her but nods anyway.

"Where are you hit, Lena?" Maggie asks.

Lena pulls aside her armor's adjustable neckline. "My shoulder."

Maggie nods and smiles at them. "You did good, both of you."

"Thank you." Lena says, more out of politeness than believing it.

"Ma'ams?" Someone in the crowd asks. "May I ask how Lillian was killed? And Kara, what was on your mind when you came in that was so important that you forgot to tell your sister you almost died?"

"As I was jumping in front of Kara, I was also loading my crossbow." Lena says. She realizes that no one aside from the DEO people know what that is, so she pulls hers off of her back. "This is a crossbow." She reaches inside her smaller quiver. "And this is a crossbow bolt. I shot one of these into Lillian's heart."

"And Kara, your distraction?" The alien persists.

"Well, my girlfriend had literally just killed her mother and gotten shot in the span of a couple of seconds, so I was focused on making sure she was at least semi-okay." Kara explains.

"That makes sense." The alien concedes. "Whoa, wait. Girlfriend?"

"Yeah, girlfriend. Lena is my girlfriend."

"Friend that's a girl or...?" Someone else asks.

"She's my girlfriend. Romantic partner." Kara confirms.

"How dare you corrupt our future Queen, Luthor." Someone hisses, taking a menacing step forward.

Kara steps in front of Lena, drawing up to her full height. "Hey! Lena hasn't done anything to me."

"Does the Kingdom know?" They ask smugly, like they think she's going to say no. As if she's afraid of their response, as if she's ashamed of dating Lena.

"Yes, they do. And while the majority don't approve yet, most at least respect that I'm happy with her." Kara says.

Alex clears her throat. "Now that the interrogation of my sister is over, we should grab what we can and get moving. DEO teams, you know what to do."

The DEO agents begin rushing around and putting as much research as they can into bags. Lena tugs on Kara's sleeve to get her attention.

"Kara? Something should have happened by now." She says urgently.

"What do you mean?" Kara asks, giving her girlfriend her full attention.

"Lillian always has a backup plan, a fail safe. Even though she's gone, it should still... It should still go off, or happen."

Kara nods. "So what do we do? What do you need me to do?"

"We need to get out of here as soon as possible. I need you to use your superspeed, pack up all the research you can. We're going to need it to understand what they did to these people, and how we can help them. Please hurry, and be careful, darling." Lena urges.

Kara nods and leans in at a normal speed to kiss Lena's cheek, giving her time to pull away if she isn't comfortable showing affection. Lena allows it, and watches with worried eyes as Kara turns into a blur, running around the room and disturbing papers. She catches them all and shoves them (carefully-ish) into the nearest bag or backpack an agent is holding.

The DEO agents are used to her antics by now and don't even flinch when she runs near them. As soon as Kara pauses to take in her work and asses what she needs to do, she feels the shockwaves of an explosion beginning.

Whoo! That took so much longer to write than I expected! I didn't even get much of this chapter done until like 11 at night yesterday... Hanging out with my parents and painting a basement is a good enough excuse for not being able to post this at my usual time, right? Now I'm off to check my email for the first time in a day and a half... Then tomorrow's chapter, then maybe homework! And next chapter, this craziness continues! In case any of you are worried, just remember that I don't kill off main characters! Thank you all for reading and for your amazing comments! Stay awesome!