The Rescue

Chapter 9

Lena rushes to stand up in pure shock at seeing the blonde. In her haste, she miscalculates and loses her balance. The next thing she knows, she is crashing backwards into cold water with a sharp twinge shooting up her arm. She yelps, but when she does, water rushes into her mouth. Sam does her best to catch Lena the moment she notices her falling, but she isn't fast enough. When Lena coughs and sputters, Sam's immediately concerned.

"Lee!" Sam shouts. "Are you alright?!"

The splash, yelp, and subsequent shouting immediately draws the Danvers sisters' attention. Before Alex can even register what is going on, Kara is sprinting across the park to the fountain. As she grinds to a halt, Lena is clutching her injured arm with Sam trying to pull her up by her good one. There are pink streaks tinting the water. Kara doesn't even hesitate to hop into the shallow fountain and lift Lena over the edge to get her out of the pool.

"Lena! Are you okay? Let me see your arm!" Kara demands quickly.

Lena is still coughing and gingerly holding her arm. Sam is trying to push wet hair from Lena's face to look her in the eyes to verify that she is okay. Kara moves to the side and is so careful and gentle to examine the long cut on her arm. By the time Lena is back to breathing normally and insisting she is fine, Alex has caught up to them.

"Yikes, that's a nasty cut," Alex states.

Lena keeps her eyes glued to the ground. "It's fine. I must've caught the stone's edge when I was trying to catch myself."

"We should really get this clean," Kara says softly.

"And we should get you dry and warm. You're shivering," Sam points out.

Lena is soaking wet, from head to toe. Water is dripping off her everywhere. Between the cold water and the crisp morning air, she is cold. And just in Kara fashion, she steps half behind Lena and presses against her back to share her warmth, not caring that she too is getting wet. She rubs her hands vigorously against Lena's arms, careful of the injury.

"Come on, my apartment isn't far from here," Kara offers quietly.

Lena stiffens. "It's fine. Sam and I can head back to mine."

"Don't be ridiculous. You live across town," Sam scolds lightly.

This time, it's Kara that stiffens, for just a beat. She realizes that Sam knows where Lena lives now that she left the National City Hotel. To her credit, she immediately starts up her efforts to warm Lena again, shoving her emotions down. Sam and Alex share a loaded glance. This isn't exactly how either of them anticipated this meet up to unfold.

After ushering Lena forward, the four women head back to Kara's apartment. Alex takes a look at Lena's cut up arm. Kara fetches her first aid kit as her sister cleans the wound. After Kara's insistence, Lena heads into the bathroom to get her into a warm shower as Kara changes and pulls out spare clothes. After hearing some awkward grunting and curses, Lena calls out for Sam. Kara tries not to think too hard about it, keeping her emotions as level as they can be.

Sam slips into the bathroom and carefully closes the door after her. She quickly assesses the scene. Lena is sitting on the closed toilet with her jeans barely past her hips. "What's going on here?"

"Well, not only am I dumb enough to literally fall into a fountain, but I just so happened to do it in skinny jeans that are now plastered to my legs."

Sam has to suppress giggles at the conundrum. She fails at it rather epically. Lena can't help but laugh with her at the ridiculous situation she has landed herself in. In between the laughter, she is able to get out, "Help me, please." Sam moves to the foot of her jeans to pull on them while Lena tries to hold herself still.