shattered souls won't mend themselves (supercorp au)

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i love my coauthor; infinity_in_his_eyes

//Lena POV//

I wake up from a dreamless sleep (a blessing, since my last dream led to that whole incident with Kara) to sunlight shining through my window. It makes me angry. How can the outside world keep spinning while the world I've gotten so used to is falling to pieces around me? How can the sun shine and the sky be clear when there's a dark, swirling hurricane inside my head, all centered around a girl with sun in her hair and the clear sky in her eyes? I throw off the covers and stomp over to my window, yanking the curtains shut, blocking out the radiant sunlight, obscuring the perfectly blue sky. I don't want a reminder of her. Except maybe I do.... But the last thing I need is a reminder of her. I turn around and stomp back to my bed, letting myself fall face-first onto the twisted sheets and the lumpy mattress. I want to scream into my pillow in frustration. I want to throw something, anything. I want to punch my way through that wall again....

The wall. The hole I punched through it. The shitty job the repair people did. The feeling of my ear pressed against cheap plaster and partially-dried beige paint. The tiny spy-hole I had been making with my pocket knife last night. The sounds of Kara's breathing I had heard. The sound of her knees hitting the floor and her gasping for breath when she had her episode (oh yeah, what even was that?). The fact that I could hear something as small as her shifting around on her bed. It all comes flooding back to me in an instant.

I freeze. The walls here are probably the shittiest, cheapest, thinnest walls in the entire city of Detroit (and that's saying something). If Kara heard me storming around, I am royally screwed. If I woke her up, she'll be waiting outside the door for me, waiting to confront me about last night. Ask me what was wrong. Try and talk to me and smile at me and break down even more of my walls. Or else scold me and scowl at me and demand I explain why I left her alone on her floor. I can't deal with that right now. I can't even deal with myself right now. So I get up, with painstaking care, and walk over to my dresser to grab a new set of clothes, shampoo, my favorite cucumber body soap, and a towel. This is when years of being stuck in the same lackluster room, in the same shabby building, in the same troubled city comes in handy. I know exactly which floorboards to avoid and how much force I need to apply to open the dresser drawers. I check the clock as I sneak around my own room: it's 7:02. I feel the urge to punch something again; normally I'm awake and ready by 7:00 sharp. This damn Kara girl is messing up my entire life....

When I've finally gathered all the stuff I need for the day (I don't want to come back in my room until I absolutely have to, for fear ( fear?! ) of encountering Kara), I head to the door. I pause before I grab the doorknob, listening intently for any sound coming from Kara's room. I glance over at the repaired section of wall without even meaning to (has this become an unconscious thing now?). I see my knife lying on the ground right where I dropped it last night, right on top of the pile of chipped plaster. I debate whether or not to go pick it up, finally deciding to put it back in its hiding spot since I'm not technically supposed to be in possession of any weapon. Once I've put it back in the Converse shoebox I keep under my bed, I pick up my clothes, makeup bag, and soaps and open the door.

Upon doing so, I almost scream.

As soon as I open the door, a limp body falls at my feet. It's Kara. Her hair is still angelic, her fingers delicate, but her face is serene, her breathing calm and even, her eyes moving only slightly under her closed lids. I almost want to rest her head on my lap again and stroke her hair and whisper into her ear....

Instead, I push aside the box of chess pieces from Lex I keep on my bedside table, place my stuff down in the room I made, and pull Kara (a little ungracefully, but not harshly) into my room a little bit, just so her feet aren't out in the hall. I'm honestly surprised that she sleeps through the whole thing, but I'm certainly grateful. When I'm satisfied that she's positioned comfortably (remind me again why I care?), I grab my clothes and swiftly leave the room, heading down to the end of the hall where the bathroom is.