#mama luthor

"Lena?" She hear from the other side once she answered, not bothering to look at the number ID.

"What is it, Alex?" Lena recognized her voice but couldn't identify its urgency at first.

"I'm sorry I woke you up."

"Don't worry, I'm sure there's something going on so, what is it?" Lena asked hoping there would be something at least interesting to distract her mind.

"There is indeed something going on, but I need you to come to the DEO." She heard Alex sigh. "It's about (Y/N)."

At the sound of your name Lena jolted fully awake from her bed. "What about (Y/N)?"

"I would like to explain it to you, but I think it's better if you see it for yourself."

A thousand things crossed Lena's mind in that single moment and only one strong enough to set her into motion. Hope.

"I'm on my way." She finally said.

When Lena arrived, she was taken to the conference room at the DEO. Alex, Winn, J'onn and Kara were already there, looking at the screens and reading papers as if they were getting ready for a new mission. They almost didn't see her come in as she spoke.

"Lena-" Kara tried to ease the following conversation.

"What is it?" Lena asked as a manner of a salute, leaving the formalities aside.

None of them was bothered by this as they knew why had decided to come in the first place. She was a worried mother about to do the impossible to have her daughter back.

"A month ago our radars started to record certain signatures of radioactive activity." Alex started and handed Lena the file records as she took a seat near her. "We didn't put much attention to it, after the attack of the Lost Sons of Liberty we thought it may have been a glitch."

"What do you mean a glitch?" They looked at each other briefly in awkward silence as Lena passed the pages and read the reports.

"After the radioactive explosion, they were reading seconds of activity in many other locations." J'onn added.

"Yeah, it was like there were being many mini radioactive explosions everywhere." Winn continued. "I double checked the systems. It wasn't an error."

"All these places..." Lena said, still looking at the reports. "(Y/N) was in all of them at least once."

"We noticed that too." Alex turned to face Kara, encouraging to speak.

"I went to check most of them, to make sure there wasn't something out of the ordinary but in every location there was at least someone telling me they had seen some kind of-" Kara struggled to find a word for a moment. "Ghost."

"Ghost?" Lena lifted her eyes from the papers and looked straight at Kara. She flinched slightly at the intensity of Lena's stare. "Are you really telling me a bunch of strangers saw the ghost of my dead daughter?"

Lena thought it had to be some kind of sick joke. She had come to the DEO against all reason, holding some hope in her heart that there would be a kind of miracle that could erase the past weeks of longing and solitude, or at least something that could help her ease the pain of your absence. She certainly hadn't come to hear about the undead. She had enough with the traces of you at home.

"N-no, Lena, no." Kara blurted immediately. "I'm telling you the truth."

"I promise you, Miss Luthor, it is not a game for us." J'onn spoke, her voice calm and collected. Lena imagined he had pondered for a long time before revealing this to her, not wanting to bring her any more sorrow. So she listened and Kara continued.

"At first, we weren't sure about this either but after I visited one of those locations, the music shop in Warden Street, I talked to the owner. He said he was so excited he had finally caught a poltergeist on camera and then showed me his security cameras. Winn, could you?"

"Yes, right." Winn pulled his laptop from the table and after a few seconds the screens in the conference room were on and displaying the security footage from inside the shop.

Lena's eyebrows were going up slowly as she watched second by second the images on the screens. There was a circle of light forming in the middle of the shop, then there was a small explosion, a strong pulse coming from inside the light, expanding and contracting until Lena could see some sort of figure emerging from it. It all looked like a bundle of cables moving and trying to find a way to hold themselves onto the air until Lena realized it had the resemblance of a human body.

"I used the DEO system to identify more security cameras that could have been near this locations. I put the few videos I was able to collect in chronological order and while revising them, well, I think we found more of (Y/N)'s ghost. Look."

As Winn showed each video, the figure coming and forming from these little explosions was taking better shape. Lena could see it now. The nervous system, the bones, the muscles showing progressively like it was a puzzle finding its own form, its own body.

"Lena, we think (Y/N)'s trying to come back." Alex said. "We just haven't figured out how."

The first time Lena ever held you in her arms she had feared for a moment she wouldn't be a good mother. Scared that she couldn't protect you from the evils of the world, scared that she could hurt you too. After all, what did she really know about motherhood? But she loved you. She had loved you the first instant she ever knew about your existence and even more the moment she saw you. You had looked so tiny and fragile once you came into this world that she had sworn to protect you no matter the cost. So that was what she was gonna do.

"Then we will." She assured, more to herself than to anyone else in the room, and they all set to work.

Needless to say, it was complicated task. One day you would be back at the music shop and the next you would be on another corner of the world. There were also many times when Lena returned home hoping she would catch any sign of your silhouette or hear your voice. But your appearances were too erratic and too short to even recreate an ordered pattern. Lena had never seen something like this, not even when you had first tried your powers.

"We have to give her time." Lena suddenly said one evening as she and the rest of the team watched the last video Winn had been able to retrieve of you.

"Uh, how much?" Winn asked a bit confused. "Like a week or something?"

She remembered the initial diagnosis the DEO had given about your powers. The ability to travel from one place to another at will by disassembling and reassembling your own cells at will. Lena guessed you were finally learning the cellular part of that while pulling yourself together.

"Just time." Lena assured with a little and confident smile. "She is figuring it out."

They followed your every move after that. Your mom was hopeful every time they were able to catch you on camera as you looked more and more like a whole body.

Sooner or later, she thought, she would have you in her arms again and, after weeks of following you, Lena went to get a peaceful night of sleep. She never imagined, however that, while they were waiting patiently for your return, the wait for you was already over that same night...or day.

It had been during the late evening when Diana felt the sudden change of energy inside the room. She had been in the Louvre, taking care of the final details in the pieces for the next exhibit, when she felt the air turn heavier and had thanked the gods no one else had been there to see what occurred next.

There was a small explosion in the middle of the room as a tangled figure emerged from the light. Diana had to cover her eyes for a moment to be able to see nerves and veins, bones, muscles and skin, all finding their way and wrapping around to form a human figure. It all finished in seconds and with another flash of light as your body fell heavily to the floor and Diana was finally able to recognize you. She ran to your side, making sure you were in fact you and you hadn't suffered any other kind of injury.

"(Y/N)? Can you hear me?" Diana took you gently on her lap and tried to wake you up.

You opened your eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the newfound light and focused them on her. If you hadn't felt so tired and out of breath you would had slapped yourself on the forehead in annoyance. You weren't suppose to be this far from home.

"Why France?" Diana heard you say with an annoyed but happy grunt before you fainted.

That's when the second call came in.

It had been two in the morning when Lena jolted awake and grabbed her phone imagining it would be Kara or Alex, or someone else at the DEO, to finally tell her you were here. When she answered she heard a familiar voice just not one she had expected.

"Diana?" Lena frowned a bit in confusion. She and diana were good friends and she was not unused to her calls but this was different. She sounded different.

"I'm sorry if I wake you up but you need to come." And with that Lena knew. "It's (Y/N). She's back."

It may have been the fastest trip Lena Luthor ever took in her life. With the help of Supergirl, she was able to reach Diana's apartment in less than an hour. Lena sat beside you as you laid in Diana's bed. Diana had explained to them what had happened at the museum and how you had been sleeping since. She looked at you, the slow rhythm of your respiration and the features of your face. She almost didn't believe you were there.

Then Lena saw you take a deep breath and open your mouth slightly.

"Am I in trouble?" You mumbled a moment after.

"Not yet, young lady, but we'll be having a long conversation about playing the hero." She managed to say, keeping the tears at bay and touching your face gently. "Just wait till we get home, sweetheart."