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Hate is a Strong Word

"I hate you."

Lena hates Kara. She also hates the hot, turbulent emotions in her chest, and tears she feels burning at her eyes. She hates the tremble in her fingers she hides in a fist.

She hates that her rage is not the cold, calculating anger she wants. She hates that it's messy and sloppy, threatening to undo her completely.

Most of all, Lena hates herself.

"I hate that you made me love you."

She hates that she fell for it. She hates that she let her guard down at the first friendly smile that came her way. She hates that she wavered from her resolute, that she let a rat tunnel under her walls with such ease.

Ultimately, the fault is her own, but Kara Danvers and her guise of steel makes a better target.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

Kara looks at her through tears of her own.

"Because I knew I would lose you."

Her former friend's voice quivers in a whisper. Lena watches Kara's throat bob in a thick swallow. Lena doesn't soften.

"Not good enough."

Kara flinches as though Lena had lifted a hand to strike her. Lena's chest hitches at the sight. She grits her teeth and waits.

Kara tries again.

"I didn't want to share you with her," Kara says. She sighs, as though a weights been lifted. "With Supergirl."

"You're the same. fucking. person," Lena grinds out. This time, she almost does raise her hand to lash out. How could Kara not understand that this is the entire goddamn problem in the first place?

But Kara hardens too, anger eclipsing her hurt and her worry.

"You don't understand what it's like. And I don't mean having powers, or leading a double life, or the danger. I mean the way Alex is the first one to look to me when a crisis hits. I mean the way that James expected me to be a hero before I'd even figured it out myself. It's--

"It's the way they just... accept that I have duties greater than them. If I have to leave to be Supergirl, they wave it off with a smile--"

"And I didn't?"

The reminder of all the tiny fibs that built Kara's mountain of a lie only cuts deeper, aggravating the wound already carved there.

All the times she'd accepted Kara's poor cover stories as forgetfulness, she never once complained about coming second to whatever it was that stole their time together. She never once considered treating Kara in kind. How could she? Kara was... Kara was everything.

Kara shakes her head no, tears spilling down her cheeks as she coughs a laugh. "No," she confirms. "No, you never begrudged all the times I had to flake on you, but you..."

With a sniffle, Kara breaks into a tremulous smile.

"Lena, you made me feel missed."

Unable to meet Kara's sparkling eyes any longer, Lena looks away. Kara uses it as an opportunity to move closer.

"You were always so understanding, but I never wondered if you'd rather I stayed. For once I had someone with the expectation that I would be there, that would miss me if I didn't show up. And that-- that made me feel so... valued. As Kara. Not Supergirl."

Kara's hands reach for hers, but Lena pulls away. "No," she refuses, petulantly. "Don't touch me--"

As though she knows Lena will cleave in two the moment she makes contact, Kara disrepects her wishes for the first time in their friendship, and continues to reach. She snags Lena's twisting hands, holding them firmly.

Lena's breath catches in her throat, and a sob pops out of her. The air hisses out of her, her anger melting away until all that's left is the aching hurt.

"I know I hurt you," Kara says. "I knew it as I was doing it. But I told myself it was better than being alone. That it was better than YOU being alone again. And it was wrong. I shouldn't have made that choice for you."

"Then why did you?" Lena intends it to be a lacerating accusation, but the words emerge soft and wanting. Lena seeks to understand, because she just can't wrap her mind around the fact Kara would do this to her.

"Because the thought of a life without you terrified me."

Lena freezes. Startled, she looks up at Kara, and the sight of her earnest, wide eyes root her to the spot. The truth Lena always thought they had is here now, hovering between them with the faltering wings of a newborn bird.

Her better sense tells her not to believe it. Every fiber of her molded by the Luthors screams at her to scorn it, spurn it for the garbage it was. But Lena can't hear it. All she can hear is the pounding of her heart and the rasp of Kara's breath through her lips, now so very, very close.

"Please, Lena. Forgive me."

Lena wants her life back. She wants it the way it was: routine in its comfort, highlighted only by the anticipation of seeing Kara again soon. She wants that. She doesnt deserve to have it taken away. She hasn't done anything wrong.

Lena leans forward, and captures Kara's lips in a gentle, warming kiss. For a moment, the ire and then heartbreak falls away, and Lena feels the lift of what if.

Of what could have been.

Cupping Kara's damp cheek with one hand, Lena looks deep into Kara's eyes.

"End simulation."

Removing the lenses from her eyes, Lena returns them to their case. She snaps the lid shut and takes a moment to wipe her cheeks.

Then she picks up her pen and returns to work.