Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When she gets back to her apartment, all Lena wants to do is collapse. Her bones weigh her down– molding together where they’re supposed to bend, and her throat is stuffed with cotton. Her forehead pounds a dull ache against her skull and her fingertips tingle. Soreness creeps through her spine– serving an angry reminder about how much her body hates to sit at her desk for too long.

Lena cranes her neck and rolls out her shoulders, trying to work out the discomfort. 

Normally she can ignore it but today it’s just so loud. All of it is. 

Lena swallows the lump in her throat and kicks off her shoes.

She’s fine, she reminds herself. She doesn’t need to cry. Today wasn’t even bad– she got through all her meetings, drank her coffee before it could get cold, then made it home before eight for the first time in months. Arguably, today was one of Lena’s best days all year, which makes it even worse. 

Because for no reason at all, everything is completely and utterly wrong .

Her body is too heavy. It’s filled with a dirty fog seeping through her. A fog that’s dark and daunting, slowly pulling her away from herself. And for as frightening as Lena knows it should be, somehow, it’s calming. It’s there for her and when it calls her, she can’t say no. She lets it embrace her gently and pull her back…

Further.

And further.

And further. 

Until Lena’s no longer sure of anything. 

She walks on wobbly legs to her bedroom, forgetting about the bar cart in the living room she always visits on days like these– bad days that come with certain justifiable badness, not a vague sense of unease – and instead, goes straight to pulling off her clothes. She starts with the button down white top she hates because it touches her skin in all the wrong places, then the straight black pants that make her fixate on her stomach. She leaves them on the floor in a heap and then steps over the mess to get to her dresser. 

Admittedly, changing into pajamas takes all the brain power she has. Lena has to remind herself how to move her limp arms and the legs that don’t want to listen. Eventually, she accepts her own defeat and flops onto the bed, where she dresses herself sitting, too tired to think about how pathetic it is that she can’t stand. 

She’ll get to it in the morning, Lena figures. She always does.

She climbs under the covers while yawning– specifically, the big fluffy white comforter that feels like a cloud, and then the weighted blanket she keeps folded at the edge of the bed. Then, with the shreds of consciousness she has left, Lena turns an episode of Planet Earth onto her iPad. 

She’ll give herself an hour, she decides. She'll start to feel more herself soon enough and then get back to… whatever it was she was supposed to be doing. 

When Kara finds her, Lena’s still in that same spot. She’s laying on her side and chewing her thumbnail with her lips parted ever so slightly– her eyes are glossy and unfocused. They look past her iPad as it runs another episode of Planet Earth. By now, the volume is turned down to the lowest setting, as is the brightness.

“Lena… hey.”

Kara lingers by the door for a moment and twists her fingertips as she takes in the sight. Lena doesn’t move– doesn’t acknowledge her, just breathes deeply as she stares.

“Oh Rao, are you sick?”

What?

Lena furrows her brow. She presses her thumbnail into her bottom lip and tries to say something– tries to ask why Kara’s there and what’s going on. But all that comes out is a disgruntled whine.

Quickly, Lena averts her eyes, not wanting Kara to question her further. 

But no matter how out of it she feels, she knows Kara. She knows she shouldn’t be surprised when she sits at the edge of the bed and gently places her palm against her forehead. Lena can’t help but whine again at the contact, too tired to push her away. 

“You’re not warm,” Kara notes. “Are you feeling alright? You don’t… you don’t look too good.” 

I don’t feel good, Lena wants to say. Everything’s upside down.

Instead, she shrugs and buries herself deeper into her pillows. She stays there for a moment, face hidden in her arm and covered by mops of wavy brown hair, and waits for Kara to proceed for her. 

The smaller, less realistic part of Lena that hopes Kara will take this as a cue to leave. She isn’t supposed to be seen like this– when she’s clumsy and irritated and not feeling like herself. She’s supposed to wallow alone because if Luthors don’t wallow at all, doing it in secret seems to be the next best thing.

But Kara is still Kara. And getting her to leave has never been easy. 

“Lena?”

Lena hums.

She bites down harder on her thumbnail so she won’t slip the finger further into her mouth the way that she wants to. It lingers in the back of her mind the same way the desire for Kara to understand her without words does. It’s pulling and nagging like a broken record Lena can’t turn off– but it doesn’t matter. Those things aren’t allowed, especially in front of someone else. 

So she manages to push herself up so she’s sitting and takes Kara’s hand in hers. She watches the way Kara traces her knuckles with the pads of her thumb and feels herself begin to slip even further.

“What’s going on?”

Lena shrugs. 

She thinks about trying to explain the Good Bad Day and the fog that’s consumed her ever since she left L Corp. She would put it into terms that are respectable and easy to digest, even though she knows her girlfriend would never judge her. 

But when Lena opens her mouth, the lump in her throat returns. 

It hits her without reason– she doesn’t need to cry, she doesn’t want to cry. But God, she’s so tired. 

“Oh, honey…”

Kara’s gentle fingers trail upwards across her upper arm. The contact makes Lena’s heart swell and the lump in her throat grow tighter. Her eyes are prickling and hot. She can feel her face getting red–  she knows Kara can see it, just like she can hear her heart beating too fast with frustration. 

It isn’t fair. She didn’t have a bad day, she doesn’t need to cry. 

But her body has already betrayed her. The tears are falling. They’re heavy and unnecessary and the harder Lena tries to fight them, the worse they become. 

“Lena, hey,” Kara whispers. Her hand trails from Lena’s forearm to her cheek, gently brushing the dampness away. “What is it? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lena croaks. “I just– just...”

She shakes her head, defeated.

“Did you have a bad day?” 

The question only makes Lena cry harder. She sniffs and hiccups, trying with everything she has to reel it in. But all that’s left is a scattered blob of disaster and every time Lena thinks she’s got ahold of it– it slips back through her fingers like grains of sand.

“Just…” she tries again, sucking in a breath as Kara squeezes her hand. “Everything’s wrong .”

“Have you eaten?” Kara asks. There’s a concerned crinkle between her eyes. “Or had any water?” 

Lena shakes her head. She remembers breakfast this morning– a yogurt parfait from the cafe near L Corp that she likes. But after that, she’d been so busy. She’d had a power bar for lunch and promised herself she’d make something for dinner. She just didn’t expect herself to get home and turn into… whatever this is. 

“Well, that can’t be helping.” 

Lena shakes her head again and a frustrated noise escapes her. Maybe she’s hungry but that isn’t the problem. The problem is her and that stupid fog. It’s the fact that she can’t stop falling– she can’t reel it in– she can’t be a normal fucking grown-up after nearly three decades of training. 

“No. I just…” Lena sniffs. “I feel… like this sometimes.”

“Feel like what, my love?”

Lena shrugs and chokes pathetically on a sob. 

“I don’t know,” she says. The phrase is the only thing she feels sure of right now. That and the weight on her shoulders. 

“Okay. Well… I can make us dinner. It won’t fix things, but it can’t hurt,” Kara suggests, to which Lena lets out another whine. 

“What is it?”

“I don’t…” Lena mumbles. Her face contorts, frustration over taking her at the effort. She can’t find the words, she can’t even get herself to think hard enough to understand why the hell she can’t get it together. “I…”

“It’s okay,” Kara says. “Take your time.” 

She squeezes Lena’s hand and smiles warmly at her but the comfort only makes Lena feel worse. She looks down and slips her thumb further between her teeth then quickly pulls it out.

She isn’t supposed to do this. She isn’t supposed to act like a child when she’s upset. Especially when there’s no reason for it. Especially when she knows how to function, she knows how to make it through the day, she knows how to be an adult. 

It’s just that– now, Lena can’t stop thinking about the last time Kara was away.

She’d left in the early hours of the morning for Gotham– too early for Lena to say goodbye. But she’d left a note, she always did when she traveled. And at first, Lena was fine. 

She made herself a coffee and texted Kara to have a safe flight, smiling to herself over the irony of her Kryptonian girlfriend flying business class. Then, at seven, she went to work like she always did. She greeted Jess and picked up her messages from the evening prior, only to find out a moment later that her first meeting had been bumped.

Still, Lena took it in stride. She kept it together when a second conference call was thrown into the agenda. And when her schedule changed three more times after that, Lena wasn’t exactly okay but she knew how to fake it well enough. She knew how to hold it together until she was in the safety of her apartment because it was a Tuesday and Tuesdays meant Kara was coming over for dinner. 

She was fine until she remembered Kara wasn’t coming for dinner because Kara was in another state, in another time zone, a hundred miles away.

Lena was fine until she wasn’t. 

Sitting on the couch in Kara’s university sweatshirt with the hood up, chewing on one of the drawstrings as she stroked her own hair to keep herself from crying, she was, for the first time, anything but fine. 

Now, thinking about Kara making dinner now brings back that same feeling. The isolation. The confused loneliness– the waiting and watching, knowing she couldn’t say anything because Kara had gone away dozens of times before and Lena was always okay, so why couldn’t she be okay then? 

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Kara reminds her. “I can heat up some leftovers or we’ll order takeout and eat in here.” 

Lena doesn’t know how to tell her that that’s exactly the problem. That the distance between the bedroom and the kitchen feels just as daunting as when they really were miles apart and right now, Lena isn’t sure she can take it. 

She shakes her head and lets out another noise.

“Do you, um…” Kara swallows. “Want to help me?” 

Lena shakes her head to that too. 

“So… then, what do you want?”

Sitting on the kitchen floor with her back pressed up against the cabinets, Lena knows she should be embarrassed. Humiliated, even. 

She’s chewing her thumbnail and watching Kara cook mere inches away from her like an insecure cat who's been kicked one too many times. While she gazes at her with her eyes wide and focused, Lena waits for the fleeting moments when Kara acknowledges her presence. The seconds of reassurance that she isn’t being annoying. She isn’t too much. 

“Do you want white shells or orange rainbows?” Kara asks her, holding up two boxes of Annie’s Mac-and-Cheese. 

Lena dips her thumb back further and then pulls it out again. She needs to stop doing that, she reminds herself. She needs to stop letting it get worse.

“Mmmm…”

Lena points to the box of white cheddar and tucks both hands into her lap. 

“Good.” Kara smiles at her. “I mean– it’s the obvious choice.” 

Lena nods and looks back down. She carefully examines both of her hands– specifically the thumb she’s been fiddling with. The cuticles are raw, the nail is damp, and the skin is pruney from how much she’s chewed it.

It’s gross, she thinks. She’s gross. 

Lena shudders at the thought. She tries not to let herself fixate on it– not wanting to remember the last few times she’s gotten like this and how it always seems to get worse before it gets better.

Instead, she slouches further back into the cabinets and glances at Kara’s pants again, resisting the urge to tug on them to catch her attention. The bagginess of her sweats makes it look so easy and tempting. They’re so close and Lena’s hand is even closer. Gripping them would hardly take any effort at all. 

Lena slides her nail back between her teeth and reminds herself that if she does pull Kara’s pants, Kara will startle and that isn’t safe with a pot of boiling water on the stove above her. 

So she turns away again and slumps even further. She grumbles something incoherent to herself– tired of waiting and tired of not being able to sit with Kara. It’s just that– the fog she’s been sifting through is getting heavier again. She’s slipping even further and it’s getting harder and harder to keep herself afloat.

Kara could help, Lena thinks. At least, that’s what she wants to believe. But every time Lena considers asking how much time is left on the pasta, the voice in her head reminds her that that’s what babies do and she is not a baby.

Lena chews harder on her nail, holding the words in her mouth and resisting the urge with all she has, until it finally gets the better of her. 

“How much longer?” She asks, looking up at Kara with wide, sad eyes. She sits on her hands so she won’t add in a tug, and scooches away from her, just in case.  

“Just a minute, baby,” Kara responds. 

Baby?

Lena shakes her head and lets out a whine.  

“No,” she says. 

“No, what?” 

“Not a baby.” 

“Oh…” Kara looks at her confused with a crinkle between her eyes and slowly nods. “Right… okay.”

Lena expects to feel better in the morning. No– she’s supposed to feel better in the morning. She’s been pampered and doted on all night. She’s acted like a child over nothing but a random bout of sadness that didn’t even have a source. 

But when Lena gets out of bed, her head is as foggy as ever. Her bones are still too heavy and when she tries to walk, she trips over her feet.

Somehow, Lena finds herself chewing her thumbnail as she stares at her dresser for nearly ten minutes, trying to remember how she normally dresses. She thinks about clothes that won’t make her want to squirm with discomfort and how she doesn’t want to straighten her hair again. This, of course, spirals into thinking about how she needs to figure out breakfast. She needs to brush her teeth and put her socks on and remember how to tie her shoes because she knows today, she can’t walk in heels.

Lena sucks in a breath and twists her nail between her teeth. 

Twenty four hours ago– none of this was a problem. Even now, she remembers all the motions she needs to go through. She’s done them a hundred times before.

There’s just so many steps and the more she goes through them, the more consuming they become. It’s like she can see them growing right in front of her– piling on top of each other and forming into a heavy dark cloud that’ll inevitably come crashing down when she doesn’t get it right. 

“Hey, what’s going on?”

Lena glances over at Kara who stands in the doorway with a cardboard tray of iced coffees. 

“When I left, you were still standing there,” she says. “Everything okay?” 

Lena pulls her thumb away from her mouth, embarrassed, and nods. 

“Okay…” Kara says, the skepticism clear in her voice. “I uh, I got your coffee. And there’s bagels in the kitchen.”

Lena nods. She does her best to muster up a smile as Kara approaches and takes her coffee cup with two hands.

For a moment, she’s able to keep herself steady. But the plastic is damp and slippery and the base of the cup is stuck in the holder. 

With her tongue poked out in focus, Lena squeezes the cup ever so slightly and gives it a tug. She’s got it for a second, but the squeeze is too tight. The lid pops and as the cup leaves the holder, it falls right out of Lena’s hands.

Cold liquid splatters over her sweatshirt– over Kara’s sweatshirt– the sweatshirt that always makes her feel okay. It splatters across the floor, followed by the clatter of ice cubes as they slip and slide across the polished wood. 

When the commotion finally comes to a stop, Lena stays frozen. Her arm is still halfway extended with fingers molded to the shape of the cup. Her eyes are wide. They remain sharp and hollow as her mind begins to rush a mile a minute. 

Her sweatshirt is wet. The safe sweatshirt is wet. It’s wet and she can feel it on her skin. The soggy dampness is now dripping down her chest and onto her stomach. It’s sticky and cold and dirty and wrong. It’s seeping into her socks. Touching her feet. It makes her want to gag.

Her socks are wet.

Her sweatshirt is wet.

Everything is wrong.

Lena tries to apologize. All she had to do was lift a freaking cup of coffee– there was no reason to make such a mess. But her throat is welded shut. All that comes out is a pathetic whimper. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kara tells her. “It’s not a big deal– I can clean it up.”

Slowly she reaches out and puts her hand on Lena’s upper arm. 

“You’re okay,” she says. “Just take a breath, alright? I’m not mad.” 

Lena shakes her head and another whine escapes.  

Kara shouldn’t be the one cleaning. She didn’t make the mess. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s been nothing but perfect the past day– attending to Lena’s every need while she does nothing but whine and cry like a god-damn baby.

“Kara…” 

She doesn’t need to act like this. She doesn’t need this much help. She’s twenty-six fucking years old, she runs one of the biggest companies in the world, she doesn’t cry over spilled coffee. But her face is getting hot again and her vision is starting to blur. Her lips are pulling in every direction and she knows she won’t be able to fight it for much longer. 

“Lena, it’s okay,” Kara reaffirms. “It’s okay, I promise– I’m really not mad.”

“No…” Lena murmurs and looks down at her shirt. “‘s wet.”

“Oh…” 

Kara hesitates for a moment and inspects the damage. The spill is mostly localized to the mid-section– contained enough that she should be able to get it all out in one wash. But she knows it’s less about the mess itself and more about the overstimulation it must be causing. 

“Here, let me help you take it off.”

Before Lena can protest and explain that Kara shouldn’t be the one helping, Kara lifts Lena’s arms up and pulls the sweatshirt off over them. It’s a gesture that should make Lena feel even worse. It’s infantilizing and patronizing and a hundred other ‘izings’ she can’t think of because her brain is too foggy and her mind is too small. But really, the whole thing just makes Lena want to collapse into Kara’s arms and let her do all the work for her– make all the decisions and do all the Big Things that Lena is too tired for.

“Do you want me to start a shower for you?” Kara asks, to which Lena promptly shakes her head no. 

Her showers are supposed to be at nighttime and if she takes one now, her routine will be even more messed up. It’s ridiculous and she knows it, but Lena isn’t sure she can handle another change. 

“Okay…” Kara hesitates. “Why don’t you go wipe off with a washcloth then? I’ll bring you some new clothes.” 

Lena nods and sucks in a breath. Wash off with a washcloth, she tells herself. She can do that. It’s simple enough. It’s not like she’s actually a child, right? 

Well, washing off is… harder than it should be.

Maybe Lena should’ve anticipated that, given that everything has been harder than it should be lately. But still, she’s a woman of pride. She’s learned to trust in her abilities– what used to be an endless list. After all, she’s still the same person who graduated with three PhDs at twenty-four, was top of her class at MIT, and has been successfully keeping a cactus alive for over six years. A feat that Lena may or may not hold above the others. 

So when she looks at the facts: there is absolutely no reason for her to be struggling so much over a washcloth . 

But as she stands over the sink, all Lena can think is that she wants to start crying all over again. She’d put the soap onto a dry hand and stared at the faucet in confusion as she’d tried to remember the steps– steps that before today, she’d never had to think about. She’d stood there for so long that now her hand is sticky. It’s sticky just like her chest, and the towel is still not serving any real purpose. 

For a second, Lena debates calling out for Kara again. Really, it’s all she can think about. She wants help– she isn’t exactly sure with what, she just knows she can’t do it on her own. But her throat is still filled with cotton and in a way, Lena’s grateful for it. This side of her isn’t supposed to be seen and if Kara were to leave her because of it– she would only have herself to blame. 

With a sigh, Lena sets the towel down on the sink and wipes her soapy hand on her pajama pants. It creates a terrible sensation– the sticky liquid against flannel bottoms– and Lena can’t help the way she jumps back in disgust. 

The gesture must’ve been followed by some kind of noise because before she knows it, Kara’s knocking on the door and asking if everything’s alright. 

Lena holds her breath and gives a forced mhmm.  

It’s followed by a moment of silence before Kara asks again:

“Do you need any help?” 

The question makes Lea feel like she could collapse in a heap because yes, she does need help. She needs help with so much that she doesn’t even know where to start. But these aren’t things she’s allowed to need help with– they aren’t things anyone should need help with.

“Lena?” 

No, Lena reminds herself. She doesn’t need to. She doesn’t need to accept it, she can do it herself. She still has time to figure it out, she always does. 

Except now, her lower lip is quivering and Lena can’t help it– she unlocks the door and takes a step back, allowing Kara to enter on her own accord. 

She does after only a second, first looking at the towel on the sink and the soap dripping down the counter, then over at Lena, shivering by the shower.

“Oh, baby…” she breathes. “What happened?”

Lena doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know how to explain it– she can’t rationalize the way that she forgot how to wash her hands just like she forgot how to get dressed and just… generally be a human. 

But the longer she stands there, unresponsive, the more concerned Kara’s expression grows.

“I don’t…” Lena tries. “I don’t know, I–” 

She brings her hands up to her forehead and grabs fistfuls of her hair. 

After a second she gives up entirely and shakes her head. 

“Okay…” Kara says, concern written all over her face. “Can I help?” 

Lena sighs and lets herself nod. She’s useless enough without pretending she’s fine– she might as well give into what Kara already knows.

Lena calls out of work. 

Technically, Kara does it for her. She uses Lena’s phone to contact Jess, while Lena sits on the sofa with her knees tucked into her chest, twisting a strand of hair around index finger.

It’s a strange, isolating feeling, Lena thinks. She’s stuck in a body that somehow feels too big while her girlfriend speaks to her assistant in a hushed voice so that Lena won’t overhear the moment when Jess asks if something’s wrong and Kara finally admits that something seems off.  

Lena winces when she hears it, wishing once more that she could explain herself. But when Kara comes back over to her and she has to again pull her thumbnail away from her teeth, Lena isn’t sure she’d want an explanation even if it did exist. 

“Now that that’s taken care of,” Kara says, smiling. “How are you feeling? Any better?” 

Lena shrugs. What the hell would better even mean right now? 

But the concern on Kara’s face isn’t leaving. If anything, it’s getting worse. So Lena nods and does her best to muster up a smile. 

She’ll let herself have today, she decides. One more day to feel whatever the hell it is she’s feeling. And tomorrow, she’s going to go back to normal if it kills her.

Chapter Text

“Hey… can I talk to you for a minute? I think I need your perspective on something.”

 Kelly nods. She moves her stack of paperwork to the other side of her desk and gestures for Kara to sit across from her. 

“As a therapist? Or as a friend?” 

“Um…” Kara sits and smiles uncomfortably. “Both, I think. But it’s not– it’s not me. It’s about Lena. There’s some stuff that’s been going on and–”

Kelly holds up a finger to stop her. “Does she know that you’re here? Because she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would be too thrilled to find out we’ve been talking behind her back.”

For a split second, Kara freezes. The air around her feels thick like cement as she shakes her head.

“She doesn’t,” she admits with a sigh. “But it isn’t… it’s not that kind of talk. Nothing bad happened and we’re going to discuss it later. I’m just… I’m getting worried.”

“Okay.” Kelly nods and pulls her chair closer to her desk. “What’s been going on?” 

“Well, it’s nothing huge,” Kara starts. “It’s just, the last few days she’s seemed… off, I guess? Like she isn’t herself.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Kara does her best to list off the biggest things without revealing too much. She talks about the lack of speech, the clinginess, and sudden bursts of panic. Spoken out loud– they all feel so much more serious than they’d been at home. They feel like symptoms, not just moments in time. Now, Kara can’t help but wonder if it was always this heavy.  

When she finishes explaining, Kelly takes a minute to sit with the information. She twists her pen between her fingers, folds one leg over the other, then asks: 

“Have you ever heard of age regression?” 

Kara freezes. She opens her mouth to speak– overwhelmed with a hundred thoughts at once, yet unable to form a single word. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Kelly clarifies. She offers a soft smile– one that Kara figures is supposed to be calming. Really, it just makes her more confused.

“It sounds like what Lena’s experiencing is involuntary. A lot of times with PTSD, especially in cases of complex trauma, people can unwillingly revert to an earlier stage of development. It’s like a response to stress. Is there anything you can think of… anything that’s been going on that might’ve triggered it?” 

Slowly, Kara shakes her head. Everything had been fine right up until it wasn’t. They’d had a sleepover over the weekend, texted all throughout Monday, and then Tuesday was supposed to be date night. At least, it was until it wasn’t. 

“We were supposed to have dinner. I um, I came over and I guess she’d forgotten about it because I got there and she just seemed so…”

Kara stops. Something between sad and younger is sitting on the tip of her tongue and she isn’t sure which one she’s supposed to pick. Thankfully, Kelly chimes in for her. 

“It might’ve been something you weren’t aware of,” she says. “Or it might not have been anything at all– if she was feeling out of control or any kind of overwhelming emotion, that might’ve been enough to push her over the edge.” 

Kara nods. She picks at the edges of her cuticles and tries to sort this new information into piles before it drowns her. 

“So what do I do? How do I… help or fix or…”

“It’s not something that can be fixed. And depending on how Lena’s experiencing it, it isn’t always something that should be fixed,” Kelly explains. She moves her hands as she speaks. Kara can’t help but follow them with her eyes like she’s watching some sort of conductor. “For some people, it can be really healing. It can help restore some of the broken parts of their inner child.” 

“So this is… it’s a good thing?” Kara asks. “Not something to worry about?”

“That’s something only Lena can tell you. From what you’re saying– it sounds like right now, this is something that’s hard for her. Probably something she dislikes. But the more she understands it, the more she can use these feelings as something to help her recovery.” 

Kara nods, though, she still isn’t quite sure what Kelly means.

“Just talk to her,” Kelly presses. “I think it’ll do you both a lot of good.” 

Lena pulls her knees up into her chest and looks down, pretending to be fascinated with a piece of fuzz on her sweatpants. 

The conversation at hand feels vaguely like when she got called to the principal's office in the eighth grade. She wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong but clearly, it had been something. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “It just… it happens sometimes. It’s like I feel this– this thing inside of me and I don’t know how to stop it.”

Kara nods. A crinkle appears between her eyes as she opens and closes her mouth with a few false starts. Lena can tell she’s choosing her words with the utmost care, which somehow, only makes her feel worse.

She shouldn’t have to be so fragile, she thinks. Kara shouldn’t have to treat her like glass. 

“You know you don’t have to stop, right? You’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling.” 

Lena doesn’t say anything. She chews the inside of her mouth and nods like she wants to respond, but her voice never follows. 

Because in Kara’s reality– the sentiment might be true. When the world loves you for your softness– your ability to love, it’s easier to think that way. It’s the way the universe has colored itself over and over again. Enough time passes that eventually, you start to see things in shades of pastel pinks as gentle as the ones within.

But the same way Kara was born with inherent goodness, some people are depraved. It’s stained black oil and a sticky glue-like ink that drips through their bodies, all greasy and undesirable. At least, that’s what Lena imagines it’s like. 

Admittedly, it’s hard to see its form. It’s hard to see anything at all, beyond the vague sensations she’s tried to bring shape to. The only thing Lena knows for sure is that it clings to her.

It’s attached itself to her bones and the only way to offset it is to be something better. If you strive for greatness and learn to mold yourself into ideal versions of yourself again and again and again, somewhere along the way that mask must start to feel true. It must give you a reason to get up every day. It must become real, tangible proof that you can be more than your mother and your brother ever were. More than they ever thought you could be. 

It has to work or else Lena’s spent all these years desperately trying to be something new for nothing at all. 

And maybe it doesn’t matter. At least, not to anyone else. But she’s chipped away at the violence she was grown from and spent years meticulously cutting it down into something that finally resembled a person. She’s created something perfect. A new, ideal version of herself; the exact thing that she was always meant to be. And still, if anyone looked too close, they’d see the cracks in the marble. They’d find her old self, all tainted and worn, still dripping through the crevices like a virus that can’t be beat.

If Lena starts to unpack and form the new shape, her mask will drop. And her mask can not drop.  

“I’m not mad at you,” Kara says. She’s already said it a hundred times. At a certain point, it has to lose all meaning. “Not for anything that’s happened in the past few days or anything else. I just… I want to understand.” 

Lena nods. She swallows and tries to find her explanation, but the words won’t reach her. So she does the one thing she knows how to do right now, and continues to pick at her invisible fuzz until really, she’s just poking at her skin.

“I um, I don’t think it’s more than what I said. I just… I feel it inside of me. Something will happen and just… the world gets heavier. Like the equilibrium of the universe is thrown off but only to me.” 

Kara frowns, a crinkle appearing between her eyes. 

“Have you told anyone else?” 

Lena shakes her head.

“It’s not supposed to be seen. This…” She pauses for a moment and gestures vaguely to herself. “It isn’t the kind of thing you show people. Even when I’m alone, it’s wrong.”

“But what… what is it?” 

Lena looks back down and pokes at the skin around her cuticles. 

“It’s like… I feel…” she stops again, cheeks flushing bright red as she forces out the words. “Smaller. Different.” 

They hang uncomfortably in the air. The crinkle between Kara’s eyes deepens as she tries to decipher what Lena means. 

“Like… there’s a younger version of me stuck in my head. Sometimes something will happen and it just– everything gets thrown off. And if I can’t cope with it… if I can’t process it… that feeling takes over.” 

“Oh.” 

Kara’s expression adjusts and any potential sign of the judgement or shock Lena had been waiting for leaves. In a way, it almost makes her feel worse. Up until this week, she’d thought she’d done a good job of hiding it but if Kara isn’t surprised– that must mean she’s been wrong this whole time. 

“Kelly said that can happen. Like–” 

“You talked to Kelly about me?” 

Lena’s eyes go cold as Kara retracts. 

“About this?”

“No,” Kara says quickly. “I mean, yes but it– it wasn’t like that. I just thought… she specializes in trauma and maybe… if this was related to your cPTSD then–”

“--yeah, my cPTSD. This isn’t something to go running to our friends about,” Lena snaps. “I don’t care if she’s a therapist, I don’t need her psychoanalyzing me. And certainly not behind my back with my girlfriend whose supposed to communicate these things with me.” 

Kara sighs and shakes her head. 

“Lena, I was going to talk to you about it– obviously, I wanted to talk to you about it. But we couldn’t have had this conversation then– you just said you weren’t yourself. And I’m not blaming you, I’m not mad that this happens… but just try to see it from my side. I had no idea what was going on.” 

Lena purses her lips and looks down at her lap. She clasps her hands together so tightly her knuckles go white and her wrists start to shake. 

“I only went to Kelly because I wanted to help.” Kara’s voice is softer now– the defensive twinge is starting to lift. “And because I knew she wouldn’t judge. She didn’t judge. Can you just… trust me on that?” 

Lena nods, still quiet.

There’s a part of her that wants to keep arguing. It knows they could go in circles until they’re both blue in the face because no matter her intentions, Kara was wrong and that’s all that matters. 

But beside it, is a contradiction; the part that wants to know every last word Kelly had to say. It wants to pick apart any perceptions she may have passed and dissect the connotation of every last word. More importantly, it wants information. It needs it the way she needs air because if Kelly knows something she doesn’t– Lena isn’t sure she’ll be able to breathe until she knows it too. 

“I trust you,” she says, finally gazing back at Kara. “Just… please, don’t do that again. Not with this.” 

“I won’t. I promise.” 

“Okay…”

Lena sucks in a breath and pulls her legs in closer. 

“Then what did she say? About… what did she think was wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Kara says softly. She reaches out a tentative hand and sets it on Lena’s knee. She then waits for a moment to see if Lena still isn’t ready for contact, but when Lena makes no effort to move, decides it’s okay to stay. “She said it might be involuntary age regression. Like… your mind cycling backwards because of trauma.”

Lena nods and draws her bottom lip between her teeth. 

“I’ve heard of that,” she admits. “I mean… I read about it a while ago. When Lillian came back a few years ago I kind of dove into trauma research. That was one of the things that came up.” 

“How did you feel about it?” 

“How do you think?” Lena laughs mirthlessly. “Beyond the fact that it’s degrading and just… off putting, it isn’t necessary. It doesn’t serve a purpose– there’s no productivity in it.” 

“Well, I don’t think healing and productivity are always mutually inclusive.” 

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

The room goes silent momentarily as Lena stares ahead of her and tucks her hair behind her ears. 

“I’m just– I’m not doing anything for myself by giving into some childish thoughts. It’s not helping me get better. If anything, it makes me feel worse. It reminds me of how shitty and helpless it was to actually be a kid and it…”

Lena pauses and sucks in a breath. Her chest is twisting yet beating so hard it feels like it could burst right out of her. 

“It’s gross,” she says, voice flat. “I’m not so deranged I need to pretend I’m three years old again every time I’m a little sad.” 

“But you’re not pretending,” Kara interjects. “You feel the way that you feel. You’re a lot of things, Lena, but I know you’re not a liar.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s real! Lena wants to scream. Don’t you get it? 

With a miraculous effort, she manages to stifle the urge. Instead, she presses her palms into her thighs and rises from her spot on the couch. 

“We’re done talking about this,” she says. Before Kara can get another word in, she turns on her heel and walks away.