Chapter Text
Numb. That’s how Lena feels as she approaches the Titanic - cold and calm. Resigned.
Peering out the window at the crowded dock, Lena steels herself as the car slows. It’s no secret how she feels about this trip to America - she made her opinion clear to her fiancée when he purchased the tickets over six months ago.
“Darling, it’s the largest ship ever made. Grandiose, unsinkable! We’ll arrive in New York on the finest transportation known to man."
“I don’t want to go to New York, as you would well know if you had asked me before making this life-altering decision."
“A woman’s fancies aren’t high on my list of priorities when it comes to business decisions.” Mon-El takes a swig of his brandy, his pomaded hair falling slightly into his reddened face as he paces in front of her. " We’re going to New York. The market is better, our wedding is already planned, and perhaps in better company you’ll learn to obey your husband and forget these...dalliances of yours."
Lena’s cheeks colour. “Veronica wasn’t a dalliance -“ she begins, rising from her seat.
“They’re a bad influence on you, these friends, women who try to act and study as men do. It will end, Lena. Along with your other associations here. I already withdrew your application to Oxford.”
After that conversation, she didn’t dare push the issue. She was being shipped to America, whether she liked it or not.
And she definitely leans towards the latter. Lena adores Britain. It’s her home, the place she was born and the only place she could remember being loved. When the Luthors adopted her, they were adamant that she be conditioned out of her ‘provincial’ accent and trained to speak like a well-bred American lady in their family of expats. Whenever she slipped up, she was punished. And of course after Lex’s crimes led to stakeholders and lawyers demanding the majority of the Luthor fortune, she was punished even more harshly for every transgression.
She’s expected to hold down a good husband now, one who can support Lillian as well. Their ticket, Lillian calls her. A poor substitute for Lex, but the only hope the Luthors have of salvaging their standing. Happiness, freedom, joy - none of these are likely to be a part of Lena’s future.
Her leanings towards women have always been somewhat of an open secret. While Lex had borne the burden of the Luthor legacy, she had been free to do more or less what she liked, as long as she was discreet - Veronica, a friend from finishing school, had been her last affair, but her mother had put a swift end to it. Lena still isn’t sure what she did, but she suspects that it involved bribery.
She had foolishly hoped that she could maintain those relationships even through her engagement. Most people she knew of had indulged in extramarital affairs at some point, after all - but, she supposes, when your brother goes on a murderous rampage, discretion and privacy go out the window. Now, she only has Mon-El. An engagement ring. An obligation that she wishes she could escape.
Lena has never even left Europe before. Lillian already successfully stomped out all noticeable vestiges of her lower-class origins, and now her final connection to her birth mother will be gone, severed like a thread as she sails away on the R.M.S. Titanic. She wants to fight. She wants to cry, scream, demand that she be listened to - she wants to go to Oxford and study engineering and leave her mother and her fiancée and this superficial life behind.
Instead, she takes a deep breath and puts on her best Luthor mask. Her maid, Jess, puts a gentle hand on her arm.
“Are you all right, Miss Luthor?”
“I’m fine, Jess. Just...nervous. You know I hate being on the ocean. It’s so...” Lena shudders, and Jess nods sympathetically.
“Unpredictable, I know. Once we’ve boarded, perhaps I can call for a drink?”
Lena feels relief seep into the edges of her anxious mind at the thought of a few fingers of scotch. “That would be wonderful. Just don’t tell -"
“He won’t know a thing, Miss.”
Jess is the one constant that Lillian allows her. Her maid since she was a teenager, Jess is a friend and companion, and the only person in the world who seems to truly care about her wellbeing. Her reach is limited, but she does her best to help Lena when things get particularly difficult. Mon-El initially insisted that she take one of his staff as her personal maid, but she stood firm. Without Jess, Lena would be lost.
As the car comes to a stop and the door opens, Lena takes the hand offered to her by the driver and steps out into the sunlight. Thankful for the hat that shades her eyes from the worst of the brightness, she squints up at the ship.
“It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauritania.”
Mon-El, of course, can always be counted on to disagree with her. “Lena, don’t be petulant. The Titanic is far larger than the Mauritania. We’ll be treated as we deserve, here. Like royalty. You’ll see, sweetpea.”
As he speaks, he holds out his arm to Lillian, just emerging from the car with her cold and inscrutable eyes trained on Lena. Always on Lena, ever since she was a child, picking out every flaw, every detail until Lena accepted that she would never be perfect in her mother’s eyes.
“So this is the ship they say is unsinkable,” Lillian drawls. Even she seems impressed.
Lena takes in the ship, noting its size as it sits in the harbour. She has far less faith in the so-called 'indestructible' construction of the ship than her fiancée does. Running her eyes over the rivets in the hull, she leans over to Jess.
“I doubt it’s truly unsinkable. An iron hull doesn’t mean it’s invulnerable - enough force could still puncture it.” Lena imagines the ship taking on water, slowly sinking into a choppy sea, it’s great smokestacks falling like dominoes -
Mon-El’s voice cuts through her spiralling thoughts.
“It is unsinkable! God himself could not sink this ship."
When Mon-El is interrupted by a uniformed officer asking after their luggage, Lena takes the opportunity to slip away. Suddenly overwhelmed, she feels her chest constrict painfully - the noise, the smell of thousands of people all clamouring to board, the screaming of the gulls overhead, her fiancée’s smug voice as he pays his way out of doing any real work - it all blends together into a cacophony as Lena tries to calm her erratic breathing.
“Lena, darling, what are you doing? We need to board. Where is that useless maid of yours?”
Lillian’s cool tones still cause the same reaction they have since she was a child, when her tears for her real mother were met with cold indifference and harsh reminders that Luthors did not cry. Her brain shutters, the panic pushed to the back of her thoughts as she straightens and obediently follows her mother and Mon-El to the boarding ramp.
Her fiancée's grip is like a vise on her arm as he leads her onto the ship, into a life she doesn’t want and a country she doesn’t know. She usually tries to stay firmly on the side of realism rather than fancy, but with Mon-El at her side, Lillian ahead, and Mon-El’s loyal manservant Corben following them with the bags, Lena has the distinct feeling that she’s being dragged onto the Titanic in chains.
Deep breaths. In and out. One breath at a time, one day at a time.
Granted, most of Kara’s days don’t involve high-stakes, all-in poker games. On days like this, she thinks, she can be allowed a bit of worrying.
Biting her lip Kara looks over at Alex, who is studying her cards with practiced indifference. She doubts that their opponents can tell, but she can read her sister like a book – and Alex’s book is telling her that she has a bad hand.
In front of them, in a pile on the scratched wooden table, is everything they own. Coins, a few small bills, Alex’s watch, and even Kara’s precious multi-use pocketknife sit beside the ultimate prize - two tickets to the ship that lays in harbour just outside the window. Two tickets to freedom, to endless days sketching in the California sunshine or the smell of Eliza’s cooking filling their little family house in Midvale. Two tickets home.
Kara hasn’t been home in far too long.
“Well, this is it. Someone’s luck is about to change,” Kara says, tapping her foot under the table. She sees the vein in Alex’s neck pop slightly - a reminder that Kara had practically begged her to put it all on the line just a few minutes ago.
“Come on, Alex! What’s life without a little adventure?”
“Safe, Kara. Life without adventure is safe.”
Kara scoffs. “What fun is safe?! If we win these tickets, we can go home. I know you miss it.”
“Of course I do, but -“
Kara interrupts her, pacing furiously in their secluded corner of the pub. “But I feel lucky! Imagine it - we win the tickets, we get on board the nicest ship ever built, and we sail into the horizon to New York! From there we make our way out working the railroad or something, and within a few weeks we’re back in Midvale.”
“That is all dependent on winning this game! We’ve been living mobile for 4 years, Kara. We have nothing saved. If we lose, we lose everything.”
“What do we have that we can’t get back eventually?”
Kara studies her cards. So close - she’s so close to a great hand. One card will make or break her. Just one. If she draws the wrong card, they could lose everything, and Alex will probably murder her in the alley outside. She and Alex will go back to being effectively homeless, and it might be years before they get to go home again. If she draws the right one - well, there’s a slightly smaller chance that Alex will murder her in the alley. This is a one in a million shot.
Hands shaking slightly, Kara draws her card.
An ace. An ace.
Deep breath. In and out.
“Okay. Let’s see ‘em.”
As each player reveals their cards, Kara’s heart beats faster. Alex has nothing, slamming her cards to the table with a clenched jaw and a glare at Kara. The girl across from her with the shocking white hair (what was her name? Lisa? Leslie?) throws down nothing as well. Kara’s heart pounds harder. One more left.
The burly man across from Kara smirks, and Kara’s heart sinks. He sets his cards down.
A two pair.
Oh.
Kara fights to contain her smile. Locking eyes with Alex, she sighs dramatically.
“I’m sorry...”
“Sorry?! Kara, you bet everything we have. Everything! We -"
Kara cuts off Alex’s rising temper with a loud interjection. “I’m sorry, but we’re gonna have a very long boat trip ahead of us.”
“...what?”
“Because we’re going to America. Full house! Ha!”
Kara throws her cards on the table, jumping up to punch the air. Suddenly the table is a flurry of activity - Leslie is frantically checking Kara’s cards, her huge partner is flipping his chair and gesturing heavily as he swears at her in German, and Alex is jumping up to throw her arms around Kara’s neck.
“Are you serious? Are you serious?” Alex’s eyes are wide and unbelieving.
“Alex, we’re going home!”
Kara is in the clouds, riding a high, she’s invincible, she can do anything, she can practically fly-
“If you’re going, you’d better be quick. The Titanic is leaving in 5 minutes.” The barkeep gestures behind him at a large clock – it reads 11:55.
Okay, maybe no flying.
“Shit!” Alex breathes, all the elation of the last minute evaporating in a second and leaving panic in its wake. Snatching the tickets, Kara starts sweeping their other winnings into their canvas bag as Alex holds it open, flying out the door as soon as the table is cleared.
Together they sprint through the crowd, running full tilt towards the ship of dreams.
“Yes! We can make it, Alex! We’ve got this! Look at the size of it, can you believe we’re gonna sail on that thing?”
“Not if we don’t get there in time!”
Rounding the corner, Kara sees a ramp being pulled back into the ship.
Not on my watch.
With a burst of speed, Kara flies over the gap and onto the ramp. “Wait! Wait, two more! We’re passengers!”
Alex catches up, doubling over behind her and wheezing as Kara thrusts their tickets into the porter’s face.
“Er. Have-have you been through the inspection line?” The man seems frazzled, not expecting to see two bedraggled women sprint onto his ramp last minute.
“Of course! And we’re Americans. Both of us!" Kara isn’t sure if it’s the time constraint, the tickets she’s still waving under his nose, or her own earnest smile, but after a moments’ hesitation he moves aside and they clamber through the door, giddy with their success.
“Are you kidding? Do you know how lucky we are?” Kara practically skips through the narrow hallways, dragging Alex behind her.
They navigate the crowded third-class corridors with ease, Kara grinning from ear to ear and introducing herself to other passengers along the way. Finally finding their room, Alex shoulders the door open, only to bounce away slightly as it makes contact with the tiny brunette standing behind it.
“Ow, Jesus – what the hell?”
Kara jumps in immediately. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! We didn’t realize there’d be anyone in here yet. I’m Kara, Kara Danvers, and this is my sister, Alex. How is everyone?" There’s a moment of silence in the room, as the brunette looks the pair up and down. Seemingly satisfied, she extends a hand.
“Maggie Sawyer. This is Winn,“ she gestures to a wiry man on the top bunk across the room, who waves jovially. “James is over by the sink, and that’s Lucy.”
As Kara introduces herself to each of them in turn, Alex puts each of their bags onto one of the six beds. A low, teasing voice pipes up from behind her, making Alex tense up visibly.
“Next time watch where you’re going, Danvers,” Maggie smirks, the grin showing off two dimples. Alex’s cheeks heat up, and Kara frowns. Her sister has a short fuse, but it’s not usually this short.
“Watch where I’m – maybe next time make sure the shortest person in the room isn’t standing behind the door!” Alex glares down at the shorter woman, refusing to look away from her suddenly intrigued brown eyes.
Sensing an inevitable conflict here, Kara jumps in before Maggie can retort.
“Uhhh…Alex! We have to go up on deck,” Kara says suddenly, startling her sister out of her staring competition.
“What? Why?”
“We have to say goodbye!”
“To who?” Alex scoffs, incredulous.
“To everyone, silly! To this place! Who knows when we’ll be coming back?”
Before Alex can protest, Kara is running towards the stairs. Emerging onto the lower deck, Kara runs directly to the railing and hoists herself up a few rungs, waving enthusiastically at the crowd.
“Who are you even waving to? You don’t know anyone down there, except maybe the two people we won money from,” Alex grumbles.
“That’s not the point, Alex!” Kara continues waving, yelling her goodbyes at the mass of people waving back from the dock as the ship pulls out into the open water.
Heading for the horizon. For New York. For home.
This is good, Kara muses. A good day. Looking over at Alex, her hair whipping around her face, cracked in a rare and genuine smile, Kara beams.
One day at a time.