To the ones we love

Back To Reality

      Kara was asleep with Lena's hand in hers. Her back was bent in a strange way, but since this was not nearly enough to make her feel pain, and Kara had never felt sore in her life, she didn't care. She woke up to a hand on her shoulder gently shaking her awake, "Kara."
      She lifted her head and looked towards her sister,           Alex what is it?"
      "You haven't left the hospital in two days, you should go home, take a shower, get a change of clothes, get something to eat, we'll call you if anything changes."
     "No, I don't think I can."
      "Kara nothing much has changed in the last two days. Her brain needs time to recover. The thirty minutes that it's gonna take for you to get home and shower isn't going to make a difference."
     "Is it looking better?"
     "Well her vitals are stable, and there is brain activity, but it's hard to say if she will ever be able to regain full consciousness, and even if she does, Kara you need to prepare yourself for what her life may look like when she wakes up."
      "I have to stay hopeful that no matter how long the recovery is, she can eventually be the same person that she was before."
      "Kara, even if she makes it through, she will never be the same. You don't just don't come out of this kind of trauma as the same person. I will say that it doesn't mean it has to be a bad thing. She may come out of this stronger than before." Kara stood up from her chair looking down at Lena frail and pale, tubes keeping her alive. She couldn't imagine anyone stronger than Lena. This was not the strong and independent woman she had grown to know.
      "She's better." Kara stormed out of the room as angry as ever, "she has to be." When she got outside she whipped off her glasses and flew home. She washed all of the sweat, dirt, and any remaining blood off of her skin. She shampooed the tears and dirt out of her hair, and used a conditioner to work through the tangles left by the past few days of sleeping in a chair. Kara changed into a pair of yoga pants and a comfy t-shirt, before flying back to the hospital. She also brought a can of dry shampoo, a toothbrush, and hair brush, and some other essentials because she wasn't going to leave Lena again.
       When she arrived at the hospital her hair was still slightly damp. Nothing much had changed. "Hey, see I told you it would be fine if you left."
      "Yeah." Kara sat next to Lena, holding her limp fingers gently, stroking a finger along the IV embedded in her hand. This was the first time Kara really took a moment to look over her friend's broken body. Underneath her blankets were metal cages wrapped around her legs, with a quick look with her x-ray vision she could see how the contraptions were holding the bones together. While the woman would usually be dressed in something sophisticated and professional, she wore just a plain hospital gown. She had one tube going into her arm and another going directly into her chest. Bandages were wrapped around her head, covering the surgical incision, and there were tubes coming out of her head, draining all the extra fluid, and more going down her throat, breathing for her. There was even a tube in her nose, giving her nutrients. What was left of her hair awkwardly stuck out on top of the bandages. Her face was bloodied and bruised, her lip puffed up and broken from hitting the ground.
It was at this very moment that Kara had a realization. She cared about this woman more than anything else in the universe. She loved her more than life itself, more than Mon-el, more than James, more than Winn, and maybe even more than Alex. She thought about her lips, and how if there wasn't a tube down her throat she would lean down and kiss her right now. This was more than friendship, this was love, but now she was in a coma. The woman that she loved more than a friend, was now in a coma, and would she ever get to tell Lena how she felt. How she wished she told her years ago, maybe that was the change she should have made. Looking back on all the moments that they had shared, Kara realized she had these feelings longer than she wanted to admit, but she was just scared of them.
      Alex sat in the chair in the corner and watched as Kara sat, hair still damp, holding onto Lena's hands. Kara got up and went to the bathroom. She filled a basin with warm soapy water and grabbed her hair brush. She pulled a chair to Lena's head and started brushing the blood out of her dark hair.
      "Kara what are you doing?"
      "Brushing her hair."
      "Why." She said it more like a statement than a question.
     "Because I know her, she's all frail and broken, and if she could see herself she would tell us all to leave because she looks weak, and she doesn't want use to see her like this. The least I can do, is help her look a little more put together, by getting the blood and tangles out of her hair."
"Ok, just make sure you're gentle. She's missing a part of her skull, and you don't want to tear the stitched open."
"Okay, I will." She rinsed out her hair, starting at the ends and working through the tangles. It took a while to get through all the tangles but when she did Lena's natural waves bounced back to life. She may not look any stronger or anymore alive, but at least she looked a little more put together, and cleaned up. Lena would appreciate that.
      The doctor walked in the room. He was a tall man, broad in the shoulders, but not in prime physical condition. He was older, late fifties at least, in blue scrubs and white lab coat. He reached out to Kara, hand open to shake. "Hi my name is Dr. Frasier I am the one who operated Ms. Luthor, you're Ms. Danvers?"
      "Yes." she shook his hand.
     "Wow, strong grip you've got there Ms. Danvers."
Alex stood up from her chair, "yeah she gets that a lot," She shakes the doctors hand as well, "I'm Agent Danvers, but I also went to medical school."
      "Okay, Ms. Luthor had a large inter-cerebral hematoma in the back of her brain, as well as a severe depressed skull fracture. We evacuated the hematoma and removed the loose skull pieces, and left the skull flap open until the swelling goes down. Once the swelling goes down sufficiently, we will install a metal plate where the broken skull bits were, and that will act as a new skull flap. Eventually as she heals the plate will integrate with her bone and no one will be able to tell the difference."
      Kara jumped in, "So are you saying she'll recover."
      "I'm cautiously optimistic. It's a good sign that brain activity seems to be increasing, she is no longer having seizures, intracranial pressure is dropping back down to normal ranges. I'm hoping that within 24 hours she can come off the ventilator, and hopefully we'll see full consciousness, but there is no way to know what the lasting damage will be."
      This was when Alex jumped in, Kara had heard what she needed to hear, "Okay, thank you doctor." Kara just looked at her friend's limp body. She felt guilty knowing that she was relieved Lena would survive. Lena would rather have died than wake up with an intelligence even a fraction less than what it was. Kara could care less, she didn't need her to be a genius, this was the woman that she loved, and she didn't care how smart she was.