Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It doesn’t seem like much.

It doesn’t seem like it should matter.

Less than a second — that’s all it takes.

But what if that was just long enough, what if a second was all it took.

For a heart to stop.

For a person to break.

One second too many, one second too slow.

What if that’s all it took.

---- ---- ---- ----

Kara turns around as the coffee cup clatters to the ground.

She watches as Lena falls.

Watches the strangled effort it takes her breathe.

Hears her heart race as her lungs constrict.

Less than a second — that’s all it takes — but it’s still more than she’s willing to risk.

The wind rushes past them, and Kara flies as fast as she can, holds onto Lena as hard as she dares.

Her voice calls out frantic over her comms until her sister answers back.

“Alex! Alex! Please. Alex!”

“I’m here. Hey, hey. I’m here.”

“She’s — her hearts beating too fast Alex. It’s too fast, and she can’t breathe.”

Confused, Alex tries to get her to calm down. “Slow down, where are you?”

But half-answers are all she gives. “I’m on my way there. Alex, I’m sorry, I had to,
I’m sorry.”

Her sister tries again, needing more than Kara’s panicked pleas. “You have to calm down. You have to tell me what’s happening.”

“Lena. He tried to kill her. You have to help her Alex.”

“Okay, okay. I’ve got a team coming okay. Just get her here.”

Kara’s hands tighten their grip, and she pushes harder.

Just a few more seconds.

But what if it’s not enough.

It has to be enough.

Just a few more seconds.

---- ---- ---- ----

Not daring to slow down any more than needed, Alex braces her as she stumbles through the glass doors.

“What happened?”

Her words force themselves through quickened breaths as Lena is taken from her arms.

“Edge tried to poison her, it, it was in her coffee.”

Her hands now useless, Kara wraps them tightly around herself as Alex steps forward trying to make sense of the chaos.

There’s nothing she can do to help.

There’s nothing she can do but watch.

Everything seems to happen all at once. Lena’s blouse and jacket are cut open while electrodes are placed on her chest and needles pushed into her arm as her body jerks off the gurney and Alex's voice calls out in alarm.

“Shit, she’s seizing. Two-hundred milligrams phenobarbital, stat. Two liters of saline, run it open. I want a radial artery line and two red tops…Come on Lena, calm down, calm down”

The monitors and alarms echo Kara’s own panic.

She tries to filter out the noises of the machines, tries to block out the people and voices that fade in and out around her.

“Blood pressure 70 over palp. Pulse is erratic and falling fast.”

She listens for Lena’s heartbeat, needs to hear it for herself, but when she does it only scares her more.

Because Lena’s heart is no longer racing — no longer fighting — it’s fading, slowing, stopping.

She knows they are running out of time.

She knows that Lena is dying in front of her.

And when Alex turns to her Kara can see that she knows it too.

“Kara I need to know what poison he used.”

Her voice wavers with its helplessness. “I-I-I don’t — I don't know.”

Her hands tremble powerless.

Alex hesitates only a second, her mind racing through itself “Mustard gas, cyanide, strychnine” — she leans in toward Lena, smelling her breath —“Almonds. Cyanide. Push fifty mils of sodium thiosulfate.”

Alex presses the stethoscope to Lena’s chest as it strains for oxygen.

“How long has it been?”

Kara answers, but can’t look away as the numbers on the monitor one by one turn red.

“Ah, A-About two, three minutes.”

Alex’s voice holds steady.

“We need time but her body’s already shutting down. If we can slow her circulation, induce hypothermia, we can protect her brain and heart while the medicine counteracts the poison”

Kara slows her own breathing and focuses. Finally, there is something she can do to help.

“I can do it. Let me do it.”

Alex looks at her and nods her head as the medical team halts their movements.

Kara lets out a slow, steady breath, the cold air floating over Lena until her sister’s touch tells her it’s enough.

But what if it’s not enough.

It has to be enough.

With a whispered prayer, she waits.

“Come on, come on, come on, come on Lena”

Second after second recedes.

But as suddenly as it threatened to stop, the steady echo of Lena’s heartbeat fills the room again, and the violent tremors cease.

Kara can hear the relief in her sister’s voice. “Normal sinus rhythm.”

She draws a shaking hand to her chest. Feels her own heart racing underneath.

She watches the steady rise and fall of Lena’s chest, counts each second in-
between from one breath to the next.

Somehow it was enough.

---- ---- ---- ----

Sometimes Kara lets herself hide inside the world around her.

She Lets her eyes wander into the distance until she can’t see what’s in front of her. She lets every sound come together until she can’t hear her own thoughts.

But tonight, there is nowhere to hide.

Looking out into the city, Kara can see nothing but the pain around her. Hear nothing but the doubts inside her.

The sound of J’onns heavy footsteps draws her away from her silent penance as he comes up beside her.

“You did a brave thing back there, risking your identity to save her.”

Kara nods. Tells him the truth, or at least part of it.

“I had to. I don’t know who I would be if I hadn’t”

J’onn pauses a moment, weighing her answer, choosing his words.

“Alex says Lena will wake up soon.”

She nods again.

“When she does, I think it’s time you told her the truth.”

Kara looks up at this, eyes questioning and disbelieving at the chance he is giving her.

“This world is a crazy place right now Kara. People are acting, reacting, escalating behaviors. Your job is to protect the people of Earth and be there for the people you love. If anything, today proves how much that’s true.”

Kara hesitates, after everything, still unsure.

“Do you think she’ll hate me?”

J’onn smiles. “I know she won’t, but I also know that’s not really what you’re afraid of.”

She’s afraid she isn’t enough.

Kara wrings her hands together in front of her as the seconds pass between them. When she speaks again, her voice reflects the pain of truths she is so desperate to hide.

“I can’t fail. I can’t lose anyone else. The Worldkillers are out, planning, and I'm just waiting for them to make their next move.”

J’onn counters her distrust in herself.

“The Worldkillers will come, and when they do, you'll be ready, we’ll be ready”

Kara lets herself push back.

“Alex got hurt. Leslie was killed. Lena almost died. Those things happened because of me. I let Reign beat me, I couldn’t stop Edge. What if it isn’t enough, what if I’m not enough.”

J’onn moves his hands to Kara’s shoulders as she tries to hold back the tears in her eyes.

“You can’t save everyone Kara, but Alex is still here, Lena is still here, and we’re all with you. You can’t let yourself push people away out of fear of what might happen. You have to let yourself love them. Let yourself fight for them. Let yourself be the person they believe in. If you don’t, if you let them take that away then they win. It won’t matter how many bullets you catch.”

---- ---- ----

Kara can hear the subtle change in Lena’s heartbeat, the slight hitch in her breathing right before her eyes open.

“Uh…What happened?”

A look of confusion passes over Lena’s face, and her hand comes up to her head as she tries to sit up.

Kara gently eases Lena back against the pillows. “Hey, take it easy, you’re okay.”

Lena nods her head wearily, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“I had the strangest dream. We were flying, and you were carrying me.”

Kara laughs nervously.

“I think they gave you the fun drugs.”

Lena looks at her; eyes half closed as she tries to adjust to the pain in her head and the stiffness in her limbs.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a Truck”

Kara pauses, taking in a measured breath as she reaches out to take Lena’s hand.

“You were poisoned.”

Kara sees the question in her eyes; the mixture of pain and fear and anger, and tries to reassure her.

“You’re okay; you’re going to be fine. I brought you here, and they were able to stop it.”

Lena nods her head and turns toward her, a subtle flash of recognition in her eyes and hope in her voice.

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

Lena pauses.

“You were carrying me.”

And this time it’s not a question.

Kara lets go of Lena’s hand and stares at the floor.

“No. No, it wasn’t a dream”

Lena doesn’t say anything. Kara doesn’t look up. The seconds stretch until Kara thinks the silence may never break.

But then it does with clear realization.

“You were carrying me.”

Kara finally allows herself to look up at Lena and is met not with hate or anger, but confusion.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot, and I know it might not be enough, but I’m sorry I lied for so long”

Lena shakes her head slightly as she rolls the cuff of Kara’s sweater in between her fingers.

“No. I mean you were carrying me. Not as, not as Supergirl, as Kara.”

The confusion now is all her own as Kara searches Lena’s eyes for answers.

“How did, how did you know.”

Lena answers with a small smirk.

“I told you, you're terrible at hiding things from me.”

Her chest heaves with relief. Lena knew. Lena knew, and she was still there.

Kara thinks of what to say next, of the answers she owes her.

She feels the gentle squeeze of Lena’s hand, the concern in her voice drawing them back together. But Lena doesn’t ask for reasons.

“what if someone had seen you?”

And Kara has to do this, needs Lena to understand she is more important than any one part of her, that she deserves all of her.

“There wasn’t any time. I couldn’t waste any time, you were...” Her voice trails off, unwilling even now to admit how close it had been.

Lena's hand rests on Kara’s cheek, her thumb wiping at the tears now staining her cheeks as she echoes back the words she spoke that night on her couch.

“Well Supergirl may have saved me, but Kara Danvers, you are my hero.”

---- ---- ---- ----

Less than a second — that’s all it takes for Kara Danvers to become Supergirl.

But what if that was long enough, what if a second was all it took.

To lose someone.

To regret something.

What if that’s all it took.

Because a second doesn’t seem like much until it’s all you have left.

Chapter Text

I want to do a second chapter from a different point of view...any preferences or suggestions? Lena or Alex are who I’m leaning toward, but it might be fun to do another character too.

Chapter Text

There are times when Alex looks at Kara and she sees who she used to be.

Nights when she searches the stars for a memory of home.

Days when she closes her eyes and imagines the sky a brilliant red.

Moments that remind her that before she was anyone else, Kara was the last daughter of a lost world.

Helpless.

Scared.

Alone.

Watching Kara now, Alex remembers that a part of her will always be these things.

It is the part of her that fights for those she loves.

That is reckless and imperfect.

That fears the weight of her own heart.

Alex looks beyond Kara to the city below and she thinks about the last time they stood on this balcony together.

About all the times she has given something of herself to protect people she will never meet and a home that will never truly be hers.

She thinks about all is has cost her.

The memories of her family, the comfort of her faith, even the openness of her heart.

But standing here with her now, telling her that Lena will be okay, she can’t help but think how Kara had refused to let it take something else from her today.

---- ---- ---- ----

Alex knows right away that something is wrong. She can’t remember the last time her sister’s voice was so full of panic and fear.

“Alex! Alex! Please. Alex!”

So she’s already moving, running from her lab to the command room, her response automatic as she tries to calm her sister.

“I’m here. Hey, hey. I’m here.”

And Kara’s words are broken and muffled by wind she knows is passing by at inhuman speeds, but what she manages to hear only hastens her actions further.

“She’s — her hearts beating too fast Alex. It’s too fast, and she can’t breathe.”

Alex looks around the room, motioning to a startled Winn to pull up Kara’s location and put her on speaker.

“Slow down, where are you?”

“I’m on my way there. Alex, I’m sorry, I had to, I’m sorry.”

Alex knows that Kara is scared but she needs her to calm down, she needs to know how to help.

“You have to calm down. You have to tell me what’s happening.”

A second passes before Kara’s voice finally comes back over the speakers.

“Lena. He tried to kill her. You have to help her Alex.”

Alex ignores the way her chest tightens and forces herself to be calm because god knows Kara isn’t.

“Okay, okay. I’ve got a team coming okay. Just get her here.”

The comms go silent again and Alex gives herself one second.

One second to breathe.

One second to think.

Then she’s reaching past Winn to jam her hand against the intercom.

“This is Agent Danvers. I need med unit 1 to Area A with a crash cart, monitors, and an emergency kit now!.”

Running her hand through her hair and letting out a steadying breath she turns to a still confused looking Winn.

“Make sure there’s a med room ready downstairs okay? I don’t know…I don’t know what we’re going to need.”

Winn nods, pushing himself away from the desk, nearly stumbling as he makes it to his feet. He pauses, looks at her, words starting but failing to make their way out as they’re cut off by the sound of rushing agents and medical equipment being pushed into the room.

Alex looks between him and the agents and he just nods, the words of comfort, or fear, or doubt he had wanted to say lost in the chaos.

Around her the command room is turned into a triage unit and she watches as Kara’s tracker moves across the screen.

It’s only been less than a minute since they cut off of comms, but she knows how long that can be; what that kind of time can mean.

Alex paces back and forth in front of the balcony doors.

She hates waiting.

Hates not knowing what to expect.

Hates these things especially when the people she cares about are in danger.

The sound of Kara’s voice plays over and over in her head as she grips her hands into fists at her side to stop them from shaking

She closes her eyes for just a second.

Just a second until the anxious silence gives way and Kara comes crashing into the room, Lena held tightly in her arms.

Alex catches her sister’s stumbling form, feels the way her body is trembling with adrenaline and fear as her arms reluctantly let go and Lena is taken from her and placed on the gurney.

“What happened?”

The words stumble out over sister’s quickened breaths.

“Edge tried to poison her, it, it was in her coffee.”

Lena’s body jerks off the table.

“Shit, she’s seizing. Two-hundred milligrams phenobarbital, stat. Two liters of saline, run it open. I want a radial artery line and two red top.

Straining to hear over the erratic sound of monitors she listens to sound of Lena’s heartbeat slowing and to the breaths that rattle in her lungs.

Alex leans closer, whispering words that feel as much a command to herself as the woman in front of her.

“Come on Lena, calm down, calm down”

Readings and orders get shouted and repeated back to her.

“Blood pressure 70 over palp. Pulse is erratic and falling fast.”

But Alex doesn’t need numbers to know what’s happening, to know that they are running out of time.

She turns to her sister, hopeful for anything that will help.

“Kara I need to know what poison he used.”

But Kara sounds as helpless as she feels.

“I-I-I don’t — I don't know.”

Her mind screams at itself.

Think. Come on. You have to Think.

“Mustard gas, cyanide, strychnine”

The answer is here, it has to be.

She leans in toward Lena, smelling her breath.

Almonds. It smells like Almonds, and she thinks it to herself, making sure she’s right before saying it out loud.

“Almonds…Cyanide.”

But finding the answer isn’t a solution and the numbers in front of her are still falling too fast.

“Push fifty mils of sodium thiosulfate.”

Alex presses the stethoscope again to Lena’s chest hoping the monitors are wrong, but they’re not.

She forces herself to focus.

“How long has it been?”

Her sister’s voice hesitates, but answers.

“Ah, A-About two, three minutes.”

Shit. It isn’t enough. It isn’t going to be enough.

Desperate now she looks up at Kara.

“We need time but her body’s already shutting down. If we can slow her circulation, induce hypothermia, we can protect her brain and heart while the medicine counteracts the poison”

“I can do it. Let me do it.”

Alex motions for the team to stand back and for the first time since this all started Alex sees something other than fear in her sister’s eyes, she sees resolve.

Kara lets out a slow, steady breath, the cold air floating over Lena, and Alex watches as the temperature starts to drop.

She rests a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“Okay, that’s enough”

And she hopes she’s right.

Seconds pass and Kara’s desperate refrain becomes a part with her own silent pleas

“Come on, come on, come on, come on Lena”

Then, after minutes of feeling nothing but doubt, there comes flickering hope.

The image of Lena’s steady heartbeat plays on the screen.

“Normal sinus rhythm”

And she remembers what It feels like to breathe.

---- ---- ---- -----

Alex has a memory of Kara huddled on the roof of their home, the remnants of tears on her face. She remembers the sound of her own voice only minutes before blaming her for what happened. Her father was gone, he wasn’t coming back, and Alex had hated Kara for that, hated that she was there and he wasn’t.

But when she thinks of that memory now, it isn’t the hatred or grief that she remembers, it’s the care with which Kara had held her glasses in her hand like they were the most fragile thing that ever existed, like if they broke then a part of her would too.

She looks at Kara and how she holds Lena’s hand the same way now.

She thinks how she has always had to do this.

That Kara has allowed herself to love carefully, but never completely.

That she is afraid to let go of the things she has for fear she will lose them forever.

How even though she wants to hold onto them with all the strength she has, she can’t. That if she does they might break.

Alex thinks about what it means for her to have to choose between these two different types of loss.

She hopes that one day maybe she won’t need to.

Leaning against the doorway, Alex knows that Kara can hear her there, hear the way her heartbeat is still a little too fast, and so she isn’t surprised at the sound of her sister’s voice even though she never looks up.

“Do you think it’s the right thing to do? To tell her?”

Alex pushes herself off the door frame and steps into the room.

“I do. For all the reasons you already know, for all the reasons J’onn told you, and for one more.”

Kara looks at her, hopeful.

“What?”

Alex moves next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“You both deserve it”

Kara leans into her and Alex places a kiss against her temple.

“I love you, and I’m proud of you, but don’t think what you did today doesn’t scare the shit of me and don’t think I won’t tell Eliza if you ever do it again.”

Kara laughs quietly.

“She’d probably just blame you”

Alex smiles back

“Yeah, you’re probably right, but still.”

A second passes between them and Kara looks down at her hand in Lena’s. Her voice quit, reserved once more.

“I didn’t even think. It would have only been a second but.”

Alex tightens her hold on her sister.

“But what if?”

Kara nods and lets her head rest on Alex’s shoulder.

“yeah, what if”

And the words are so simple that the moment feels wanting of more, but Alex knows the true weight that they carry, the burden they hide.

What if I’m not fast enough.

What if I’m not strong enough.

What if I’m not enough.

Because this world has cost Kara so much but it keeps asking for more.

And even though Alex can’t give her back what she’s lost, she can do this, she can tell her that she deserves more, that she doesn't have to choose.

She can give her a family and tell her it’s okay to love someone.

She can help her rid her memories of dust and pick up the debris of her past.

Chapter Text

Lena knows how fragile life can be, how quickly it can change, and how suddenly it can end.

Her body bears the scars of it and her nightmares the truth of it.

On the nights she doesn’t sleep, sometimes it’s all she thinks about.

The echo of bullets.

The weightlessness of falling.

The cost of choices made and chances never taken.

Of death and reason.

Of all the broken places where hope and loss collide.

---- ---- ---- ----

It happens in an instant — in a second — but it all feels endless somehow.

She watches the cup slip from her hand but never feels herself fall.

And at first it feels like she’s watching someone else.

But then her eyes open to the sky and its vacant, distant blue is all she sees — the sound of her own desperate gasps all she hears.

She can feel her chest as it rises and falls but the air feels heavy, and thick, and lacking.

Her lungs burn with the need for oxygen.

Her body heaves in revolt.

Each breath she can manage has to force its way in past the words that try to fight their way out.

The world is muted and dark at its edges as blue fades to black.

Somewhere in her mind she thinks that this must be what drowning feels like.

Everything around her feels just out of reach.

Each sensation like a ghost of something else.

She feels the weight of arms around her, feels herself wrapped in warmth amidst a violent wind.

And It all seems so surreal, like a dream within a nightmare.

Because she has felt these things before.

Felt them when they were her only hope.

But in the fleeting seconds that black gives way to blue again she sees not the hero she expects, but Kara.

So her mind struggles to hold on even as her body starts to let go. Her thoughts willing themselves to the steadiness of Kara’s heartbeat and to the comfort of her arms.

And there is a different kind of hope that fills her then.

Because this has to be a dream.

Because even if it isn’t, then this pain, this fear, won’t have to be the last thing she feels.

---- ---- ---- ----

From the faded memory of broken images and dissonant sounds there is a feeling of coming back to herself, of returning to something and somewhere.

Her eyes open to a place she doesn’t recognize, but there is a soft light and gentle warmth that speaks of something known and somewhere safe.

“Uh…what happened?”

In a haze of confusion, she tries to sit up only to collapse again, the pain and stiffness making themselves known with the sudden movement.

“Hey, take it easy, you’re okay.”

Lena relaxes at the sound of Kara’s voice, at the feeling of familiar hands that ease her back against the bed as her mind struggles to make sense of its clouded, scattered thoughts.

Everything around her is white.

White walls, white sheets, white floors.

Everything expect for Kara’s eyes.

And in an instant the blue brings her back to the blue of the sky, and a single memory stands apart from the others.

“I had the strangest dream. We were flying, and you were carrying me.”

A fleeting smile makes its way across Kara’s tired and weary face.

“I think they gave you the fun drugs.”

The vague beep of monitors reaches their way passed her muffled hearing.

She tries to move again.

Tries to remember.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a Truck.”

Lena sees Kara pause, watches her hand as it stills on her own, and both the feeling and the hesitation steadies her attention.

“You, you were poisoned.”

She feels her chest tightens at the words — a reflex of a memory — and a deep breath fills her lungs as if her body needs to make sure it still can.

“You’re okay; you’re going to be fine. I brought you here, and they were able to stop it.”

The pressure on her hand grounds her again to the present — to Kara’s words.

'I brought you here.'

And suddenly Lena realizes it wasn’t ever a dream at all.

She waits for Kara to take back what she’s said, to hide it away.

But she never does.

And maybe it’s because she doesn’t notice the words she’s used or the admission that they speak of.

Maybe she’s too tired to care.

But a part of Lena hopes it’s something else.

That maybe Kara had meant everything she said.

That maybe her words were not mistaken.

So she tempts the truth of them.

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?

Kara looks up fleetingly from where their hands meet, and even in that brief moment, Lena knows for certain then that Kara understands what she’s said even if she hasn’t accepted everything it means.

“You were carrying me.”

She watches as Kara looks away, finally gives into the truth she has never shared but that Lena had known nonetheless.

“No. No, it wasn’t a dream.”

Lena close her eyes and feels herself again in Kara’s arms.

Kara’s arms.

Kara, not Supergirl.

She says the words again to make sure.

Something between relief and disbelief in her voice.

“You were carrying me.”

And for a second they only look at each other.

Unsure.

Unhidden.

Until Kara’s whispered apology makes use of the silence

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot, and I know it might not be enough, but I’m sorry I lied for so long.”

Lena shakes he head and rolls the cuff of Kara’s sweater in between her fingers.

“No. I mean you were carrying me. Not as, not as Supergirl, as Kara.”

Kara’s fear is replaced by confusion and blue eyes search green in a moment that begs for answers.

“How did, how did you know?”

Lena tries to smile, to ease the weight of both of their confessions.

“I told you, you're terrible at hiding things from me.”

Kara draws a shaking breath that gets caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh but sounds only of relief.

And Lena knows they will talk about everything this means, that they will spend time with each other’s reasons and questions, but there is something at that moment that she has to ask.

Because Kara had risked everything.

The people she has sworn to protect.

The city she has fought to save.

Herself.

Her family.

And she doesn’t know why.

“what if someone had seen you?”

Kara’s answer comes without hesitation but ends with a waiver of fear and uncertainty

“There wasn’t any time. I couldn’t waste any time; you were...”

And in everything that’s left unsaid, she finds the reason.

Because I promised to be there.

Because I promised to protect you.

Because I could’ve lost you.

Lena's lets her hand rests on Kara’s cheek, her thumb wiping the tears now staining her cheeks.

“Well Supergirl may have saved me, but Kara Danvers, you are my hero.”