To the ones we love

Things fall apart

Lena was finishing the last of her work as she closed her laptop and stood up from her chair. She smoothed her pencil skirt out as she slid her chair back and pushed herself up. Her heels clicked as she walked out of her office, not even noticing she left her phone and her purse behind. As she reached the elevator and realized it was missing she turned around sharply. Crap. She turned around almost running back towards her office when she felt a sharp pain hit the back of her head. Then everything went black.
It was a few moments later when the elevator door slid open to reveal Kara straightening her glasses, but as she saw Lena lying helplessly on the ground she couldn't help but run at super speed to her. Seeing Lena helpless on the ground, limbs twisted at all different angles, her hair matted with blood, and the dark liquid pooling beneath. She scooped the women up in her arms without a second though and flew her to the hospital in her Kara clothes. Under normal circumstances she would have preferred to take Lena to the DEO where she can remain conspicuous, but her injuries looked severe, and something told Kara that this would be more than the DEO could handle, besides it wasn't safe with Lex still in charge and Alex and J'onn had left months ago. As she landed, Kara tried to make it look like she was struggling to carry her friend, but in reality Lena was like a feather.
"Help! I need some help over here!" Kara called out and the doctors came rushing. They pulled Lena out of her arms and she looked down to see her cardigan and blouse bloodied, strands of her blonde hair was now stained red. They loaded her onto a gurney and started rushing around her. They put tubes down her throat and into her arms, and started shouting words at each other that Kara couldn't even dream of understanding.
Seeing the doctors shouting made her think of something, or more accurately, someone. After tapping the screen of her phone a few times, Kara lifted the device to her ear. "Kara?" she heard her sister on the other end. "Kara, are you there?"
"Alex, it's Lena. I'm, I'm at the hospital. It's, it's really, it's bad Alex."
"Okay, it's okay I'll be right there."
Kara watched them whisk her friend away and she couldn't help from following them. A nurse tried to stop her, "Ma'am you really need to--" she pushed the nurse out of the way and followed, but she had a doctor for a sister and knew well enough to stay out of their way. Eventually a doctor came forward and insisted that she sit in the waiting room, and since Kara's only choices were to listen to the doctor or blow her cover by pushing him out of the way, Kara decided that it was best for her to just go sit in the waiting room. Alex showed up five minutes later Kara stood up.
"Kara! Is that all Lena's blood?"
Kara stood up, "well it's definitely not mine." She said with a a little too much sass in her voice. She hugged her sister, and after a moment, she pulled away. "It's bad Alex, It's really bad."
"What happened?"
"I think someone tried to kill her. I mean if I wasn't," Kara lowered her voice, "supergirl, then I don't think she would have stood a chance. I did a quick x-ray when I saw her and I'm telling you alex it was bad. Her skull was bashed in and both her legs were broken. It was almost like someone wanted to make sure that she wouldn't be able to run."
"How would she be able to run with her skull bashed in?"
"I don't know Alex, I'm guessing that maybe they were worried the hit didn't do the job. If I had to guess they hit her once to knock her out. Smashed both her legs in cases she woke up, before finishing the job by smashing her skull two more times."
"So there were three points of impact?"
"Yeah, from what I could tell."
"I don't think that's why they did it." They both sat down and Alex pulled her laptop out of her bag and pulled up a mugshot. "This is Al Henley, a hit man with a very specific method of killing: smash the skull three times, and smashing both legs is his signature, his way of letting the police know that he did it."
"Ok, but why is he on your radar?"
"Well our friend Al here has done many hits for, you guessed it, Lex Luthor. My guess is that Lena knows something about what Lex was planning before she turned on him. Now she was probably going to share that secret, but Lex put a hit on her first."
"I just hope that he failed." Kara did her best to hold in her feelings, to push them down until it was safe to let them go.
"Yeah, let me go get an update from the doctor." Alex got up and left Kara alone. She wasn't used to not being able to do anything. Usually she would be able to fly into action and actually help someone, but this time she has to just sit here. She wanted to go hunt down this Al Henly character but she had no idea where he was, besides he was their only lead to Lex. So instead she just sat there, bouncing her legs up and down and waiting for Alex to come back, but she stopped when she saw the linoleum begin the crack.
Her sister turned around, and started walking back towards Kara. She stood up. "What did they say?"
"They're taking her into surgery. She has a pretty massive brain bleed and it doesn't look good, but there's a chance. But Kara--"
"No, she's going to be fine."
"Kara, even if she makes it through surgery alive there is no telling how much brain damage there will be, and she may never fully recover. If she does make it through the brain surgery they will operate on her legs."
"Alex, she will be fine, she has to be. She can't die because she chose to help us over her brother, she just can't."
"I know Kara." Alex wrapped her arm around her sister, and rubbed her back.
Kara pushed herself away, "I have to, I have to go." Kara pushed away and started walking out of the hospital.
"Wait, Kara! J'onn and Brainy and Nia, they're all on their way."
"I don't care."
Kara walked out of the hospital and whipped off her glasses, the nano tech transforming her bloody clothes and hair, Maybe she wasn't able to save her friend but at least she could save someone tonight. Supergirl took off towards the skies and flew over the city with her ears tuned to any potential trouble.
"Hey! Hey! That's my purse!" She heard a woman calling out below, she flew towards the ground. She grabbed the robber without a second thought, handed him off the police, handed the women back her purse, and flew off without smiling, waving or signing autographs like usual. And she was back in the air. She would dive down, save someone, and then take off again. Kara did this for hours on end. She wished that this would make her feel better, but no matter how many robberies she stopped, or lives she saved, or people she helped, she never felt any better, because she couldn't help the one person that mattered most.
"Supergirl." She heard J'onn's voice in her ear.
"Not now J'onn."
"Lena's out of surgery."
"I'll be right there." Supergirl flew back to her house first, since she knew that the clothes she was wearing before were covered in blood. Lena's blood. She grabbed a change of clothes, rinsed the blood out of her hair, and took off again towards the hospital. She landed and put back on her glasses, watching as the tech, that she couldn't even begin to understand, built her clothes back around her. She ran inside the hospital, at the fastest, human speed she could manage.
"Alex." They embraced each other, but this time everyone was there: J'onn, brainy, Nia.
"Is she?"
"She's alive, but there's no telling how much damage there is until, if, she wakes up."
"Are they going to operate on her legs?"
"They already did." Alex looked at her sister. "You've been gone all night. Look, the sun is starting to come up." Kara looked out the window to see the sun rising. It had been almost 12 hours since they rushed Lena into surgery.
"And you didn't call me sooner?" Her emotions were overwhelming her system and she couldn't help but take out her anger on her sister.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think that you wanted to be disturbed." Kara felt overwhelmed by her feelings, and her body seemed to collapse from all the pressure. She fell to the ground and hugged her knees, sobbing.
"Hey Kara I know you feel responsible, but the only people to blame are Lex, and Al Henley."
She continued sobbing as Alex rubbed her back and tried to comfort her, but it was no use, there was nothing Alex could do to make her sister feel better.
Alex pulled her Kara up to her feet. "Come on we can go see her now." Kara wiped the tears off of her face, and did the best she could to pull herself together. Lena was her best friend and she couldn't stand the idea of losing her to Lex. All this time they had been working as hard as possible to defeat Lex and now it looked like he was going to win. Either way, Kara reluctantly went with Alex to find Lena. She was in the ICU, covered in tubes and surrounded by machines. Her head was wrapped in bandages and the hair she had left was still matted with blood. She had two very large metal cages around her legs, holding the bones in place, trying to help them heal so she actually had a chance at being able to walk again.
"Alex?"
"Yeah."
"Have any of Al's victims ever survived." Kara inspected Lena's body, looking more frail than ever.
"No, but none of them had supergirl to fly them to the hospital. Those extra moments may have saved Lena's life."
Tears started escaping from Kara's eyes, "Alex, I don't know if I can take losing her."
"It'll be ok, Kara