End Simulation - Chapter 5 Sneak Peek

Fifteen days, thirteen hours, and twenty six minutes. That was how long it had been since Kara had flown off, and Lena spent all of that time going over what she had said in the heat of the moment. Off and on, she desperately tried to convince herself that she meant every word of it.
 

It had only taken Lena half an hour to really appreciate how terrible she felt, and a full day to grasp that she regretted how she acted.
 

It took another two without any contact from Kara to experience the first stab of denial. It cut through her so convincingly that she had refused to see how this silence could continue. Kara had bounced back from everything, including Kryptonite and having her split-self die in her arms. She wouldn’t end all contact. Lena was pregnant with her child after all.
 
 

Not that Lena had extended an olive branch in the form of a text.

Kara’s decision to stop all communication had been met with Lena’s own stubborn silence, and after five days, she had taken to calling Alex and the DEO for the most mundane things without once mentioning Supergirl. In the end her pride had won, and she deleted the numbers from her phone, as if she hadn’t memorized them years ago.

 

By day seven, Lena had cried herself to sleep so often that her new assistant asked if she was suffering from an allergic reaction. Her eyes were so red and puffy that her expensive concealers couldn’t hide her misery any longer. Lena had ignored her assistant and then promptly left for a spa treatment. She refused to mourn the loss of Kara any longer and vowed instead to find a way to bring her back, without actually calling her, or apologizing, for that matter.
 

She was a Luthor, and it was time she started acting like one.

 

On the ninth day, Lena had a fully-fledged plan that required extensive testing and long hours in the lab with Hope.

 

The thirteenth day came and went, and at a business meeting with Andrea Rojas, Lena made an offer that the tech-mogul couldn’t pass up.

On the fifteenth day, Lena stared at her watch as her plan rolled around like clockwork.

 

In less than an hour, Lena would be hosting an event to launch a new and exclusive app that worked in tandem with Andrea’s lenses and she had opened the invitation to the press. If Supergirl couldn’t attend to supervise, then Kara Danvers would be sent over to cover the story. It was foolproof, really. One way or another, Kara had to show up, because the risks were always so high for something to go wrong when Lena made public announcements.

Lena slipped on her Louboutin heels and applied a shade of crimson to her lips that resembled blood. The lipstick had the advantage of making her look dangerous and simultaneously seductive and it didn’t hurt that it never failed to make Kara stare at her mouth. She smirked at her reflection and then grabbed her clutch, because her car would be waiting and she wanted to get to the event hall early.

As usual, Lena executed her plan to precision, and just as all of L-Corp’s clients, tech aficionados and plenty of press were milling around the party venue, Lena spotted Kara from across the room.
 

Kara wore her glasses and a disapproving expression and Lena wet her lips in preparation to talk.
 

This was just what she wanted, but at the last second in Kara’s stride across the room, she detoured and Lena’s stomach simultaneously lurched.
 

It had become a habit that around meal times, Lena experienced a wave of nausea followed by cravings for foods she had never desired before. She thought she would get ahead of the problem today and hurried over to the hot appetizers, but she ate two dumplings and instantly knew they were coming back up.
 

Practically tripping in her heels, she raced to the more private bathroom in the back of the stage and spent several minutes with her head hanging over the toilet. It brought tears to her eyes, because Kara should have been there to hold her hair up and rub her back, but instead it was Hope who came to find her.

“You look dreadful, Miss Luthor.” Hope meekly announced, and although all physical contact tended to make Lena flinch these days, she found herself draped over the bot-human and sobbing into her shoulder.

 

“Oh Hope, I ruined it all,” Lena admitted in her moment of weakness, while she tried to wipe the corners of her eyes. “Do you remember the last night that I ran through my Simulation? I apparently didn’t activate my lenses, so everything I thought was pretend really happened. Supergirl showed up and one thing led to another. Now I’m pregnant with her baby.”

That stupid confession simply gushed out of her, and Lena loathsomely wondered if this was her life now: gushing from different orifices and not in the ways she preferred, all because she was now the host of a small Super Kryptonian parasite, who Lena was already imagining snuggling on a daily basis.
 

It didn’t matter that Lena liked the idea of having a baby in her arms, because leading up to that moment of joy would be a lot of unpleasantries she didn’t sign up for, and without Kara to help, it was all so much worse to endure.

 

“Oh dear,” Hope fretted, wringing her hands in the usual way that told Lena she was accessing some of Eve’s memories. “Is it even safe for a human to carry a Kryptonian baby? Based on Lex’s calculations, there could be a number of side effects if the Kryptonian genes hold. He did a lot of research when Superman and Lois announced they were having a son.”

As it happened, Lena would find out much later what all of those side effects were, based on her own personal experiences, but at that moment all she could do was wave her hand frantically as the urge to vomit came over her and she dashed to the restroom again.

It should have been too early for morning sickness, but this pregnancy seemed to be moving right along at super speed, at least several weeks ahead of schedule.