In Family we Trust - SuperCorp

Rachel Sturridge

(After 2x03)

National City Park was a popular venue during lunch hours. Businessmen and -women, interns, clerks, police officers and any other occupation that you could imagine was represented during this time of day. When winter reared its head, things would certainly quiet down but for now, the park was still brimming with life, full of people either enjoying their meal breaks or eating as fast as they could with one eye on their watch. During this particular time of the day it was usually hard to find a peaceful and secluded place, since half the city flocked to the same destination. Lena had however successfully managed to secure a bench all to herself, somewhere surrounded by tall bushes so that few people would see her. She was less focused on the salad in her lap and more on the thoughts running through her head.

When she had seen Supergirl and her cousin on the news, fighting a kryptonite-powered human, she hadn't been sure how to feel about it. The sudden disappearance of John Corben's maddening presence now made some semblance of sense, but it raised a whole lot of other questions. Who would willingly infect humans with kryptonite? What moron harnessed the power to revive the dead, only to waste it on a crusade against the Supers? If Lex wasn't safely behind bars, he would have been the prime suspect. Lena poked at her salad with her plastic fork while feeling very conflicted, not only about this mysterious entity who had unwittingly saved her from being haunted, but also about the fact that this whole ordeal seemed to have had more of an effect on her than she would have hoped. Right after Corben's disappearance she had dismissed Jess at her door, claiming she was fine. She thought that would have been it. When she'd shown up to work the next morning and had thanked her assistant for checking up on her, she definitely thought that that would be as much emotion she would display in public for the rest of the year. Or the decade. Of course, she was wrong. Because little over a week later Kara Danvers, junior reporter, showed up at her office.

It was a complete mystery to her. She'd thought that she was fine, that the four days in hell with a hostile ghost had been gone and forgotten. Clearly she must have still been affected. Not only did she show the young reporter a prototype that wasn't scheduled to be announced for another month, but she then invited the same reporter back after the article was published just to thank her. She couldn't blame this one just on Kara's honest blue eyes, could she? No, the encounter with Corben clearly still had her shaken up. I mean, why else would she go and talk about how it felt when Lex had been locked up even after the woman had admitted she would have written a 'scathing review' on her device? This was definitely not normal.

She dumped the remainder of her salad in the trash can next to the bench, not feeling hungry anymore, and stared at the small piece of the lake that she could see through the thick bushes on the other side of the small gravel path. She didn't notice a brown-haired woman trying to get her attention until she exaggeratedly leaned into her eyesight. "Um, excuse me?" Lena blinked as she focused on the woman in front of her. She looked like she was in her late thirties. She was wearing running shoes, comfortable pants and... a Christmas sweater? "You're Lena Luthor, aren't you?"

Lena let out a small sigh, trying to contain her exasperation. How did the crazy ones always manage to find her? "Yes, I am." She looked the woman up and down before holding her gaze. "And you are...?"

"Oh, yes... I'm Rachel. Rachel Sturridge." She gave an awkward little wave while still standing a few feet away from the bench Lena was sitting on. "I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, but I really need to ask you for a favour." Lena's eyebrows rose at the woman's statement. "A favour?" she said in an incredulous voice. The other woman, this Rachel, had the decency to look apologetic. "Ms. Sturridge, my company owns and helps many charitable organizations but if you're not able to get the help you need from them, I'm sure you'll understand that coming directly to the CEO is still very inappropriate."