Next of Kin Part 19- The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants

As the door closed, Lena looked to her right. It was Alex Danvers. She let out a long sigh and put her tablet on the table to her right. The good news was she was already mostly flat out in a hospital bed. Well, at any rate, this would be a rather efficient beat down on both of their parts.

"Agent Danvers."

"Luthor," Alex replied.

Lena sighed again. Not only did she not get called by her first name, which she thought she had gotten a few days ago, but she also didn't even get a Miss Luthor. Reaching to her left, she made sure she could get her hand on the emergency call button. Lena Luthor had met several types of people in her relatively short time on this planet. There were bluffers, negotiators, motivators, intimidators, idealists, pragmatists, catalysts, doers, and the word agent held its own special meaning. Alex Danvers was a woman who made threats but not empty ones.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence this evening?" Lena asked, keeping the call button in her hand. When Alex locked the door, Lena managed not to push the button, though she did feel her hand twitch.

Pulling up a chair and sitting next to the bed, Alex asked, "How are you feeling?"

"With a bit more of my body than before," Lena replied, trying to remind the agent that she was injured and how it had happened.

"That's good," Alex replied with a single nod. "My sister believes you'll walk again. Is that true?"

"My understanding is that is what your sister believes." Perhaps not Lena's wisest answer, but this had put her on full negotiating defensiveness. She didn't think she could give anything away.

Alex nodded, eyes steady as she clearly caught the avoidance. "So, I have some questions I'd like to ask you. You feel up to answering them?"

"Is this a personal or a professional visit, Agent Danvers?"

"In this case both," Alex admitted.

Lena fretted at her bottom lip ever so slightly with her teeth. Kara's sister was here, and she was about to be spoken to. Fabulous. She supposed she could have handled things better with Kara somehow...maybe...probably. This was all such a mess.

Lena sighed. "Well, let's just get this out in the open, shall we? You say what you have to say."

Alex nodded. "Kara was here earlier, and she spoke with you."

"She did."

"She made you aware of certain...facts in her life."

Lena lifted one brow, not responding.

In return, Alex held the other woman's gaze.

After probably three minutes of the two of them staring silently, Alex asked, "Are you going to say anything?"

"I'm in bed. I can sleep here. You'll leave before I do," Lena replied.

"The home court advantage," Alex said, leaning forward slightly. "You do this a lot when you negotiate?"

"Agent, I didn't invite you here. You came of your own accord. I understand why. Well, I suppose I understand why, but I don't have a younger sibling. I was the younger sibling. There was a time when my brother would have looked over me as you're doing for Kara. I envy that relationship that you both still have. I truly do. You have a need to intimidate someone, and I am that person. Message received."

Rubbing at her temple, Alex closed her eyes while she spoke. "Lena, I wanted to trust you. I told Kara I thought she could trust you."

"Um...thank you?"

Eyes opening, Alex met Lena's gaze again. "You've been lying to her though, haven't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your medical records show certain impossibilities, and Kara doesn't understand that—"

"Wait, wait." Lena held her free hand up toward Alex. "What do you mean my medical records? You've seen my medical records?"

Alex sighed. "Nerves don't grow back."

Lena inhaled sharply. "Aiteann," she hissed out. "You looked at my medical records? How the did you get my medical records!?"

"That's not the point."

"Oh, it is the point! Did you have a court order!? Did you have probable cause!? Did you...!?" Lena closed her eyes, taking several cleansing breaths as she willed herself to be calm. Losing her temper, though it might be momentarily satisfying, wouldn't prove fruitful. She wasn't a rash person. She'd spent a good portion of her life under the eye of a woman who showed her that what she felt was never as important as what she showed. Though it might not have been true, it was the life lesson she learned. She went back there whenever things got ugly, and this moment felt gruesome. Opening her eyes, Lena's face was neutral once again. "Agent Danvers, I'm going to assume that you had no court order when you obtained the medical records of a private citizen."

Mouth open, Alex didn't respond.

"Yes, that's what I thought," Lena said. "That's unfortunate for you...Agent. Is that normally how the FBI does their investigations?"

"...no," Alex admitted. "But my sister—"

"You could have spoken to me." Lena's face shifted, eyes slightly downcast and the corners of her mouth drooping. "Alex, I know you and I are nothing to each other, but for Kara's sake, you could have spoken to me. You may not like me. You may not trust me with the other 7.3 billion lives on this planet, but trust this; Kara Danvers has nothing to fear from me. Can you believe that?"

Alex exhaled, sinking into her chair. Her agent persona fell off of her to reveal the overprotective sister that sat below the blazer and sidearm. "I want to, Lena. I want you to be the person Kara sees. I want you to be the person Kara cares for so very much. Do you know how much I want you to be that person?"

With a small laugh, Lena replied, "Of course I do. I want to be that person too. She has that effect on you, doesn't she? There's a light to her. At first, I just felt like she showed all of the shadows in me, the dark places. We were so different. I envied her, but I felt like she was something I could only see from afar and certainly never touch. The more she came around, the brighter that light grew. She shone that light into me, touching inky corners in me that had never seen the light of day before. Every day I grew a little lighter, a little braver, because of her. What we had was perfect. I wish it hadn't changed. I wish we hadn't had to acknowledge...well you know."

"Who she really is," Alex said.

"Oh, no. She's really Kara. There's no denying that. She is a unique individual. It's everything that comes with it that I wish we could just ignore."

"You don't sound surprised. You sound like you already...is there a reason we're not using the name? I just realized we're not using the name."

Lena gave a small smile and a shrug.

"Lena, if you knew about..." Alex shrugged. "Why are you in this bed? What's going on?"

"I didn't know, not with certainty. I could have, but I didn't want to. You sister is horrible at keeping secrets. The first time she met me she told me she flew there on a bus. She's adorably awkward but hardly covert. I suppose that's why you're the agent in the family. No, all of it was there for me to put it together, and I walked away from the information. Kara was my friend. That was all I wanted. I mean, I knew, of course, but in the way you know when someone is cheating on you, but you haven't caught them yet. When they smell of another woman's perfume; they work late but don't seem to have new clients; they go on business trips where they forget their portfolio but remember their swimsuit. It was that level of knowledge. I knew, but I didn't know. Does that even make sense?"