She finds out about it on a Thursday.
Her morning goes well enough. Hot shower, hot coffee, comfortable indifference from Snapper rather than a blistering string of insults. Kara plops into the chair in her small office and starts up her computer. She checks her email first, sends a birthday message to Kathy in financial, and then begins to click through the headlines of all the major news and gossip columns online.
She chokes on a sip of coffee, sputtering as it burns and sticks in her throat, when an image of her former boss flashes across her screen. Wrapped in a blue Versace rib-knit belted dress, and the arms of a man Kara doesn’t recognize but whose suit, alone, tells her is loaded. “Cat Nabs a New Toy: The Dish on Cat Grant’s New Beau” bellows bluntly across the top of the page in bolded, capital letters, and Kara feels her stomach clench.
Her hand moves without command, without thought, and she suddenly finds herself snapping a shot of the computer screen. The whooshing sound of the message being sent has Kara tapping out a follow-up.
Another ridiculous gossip line. I thought you might get a laugh out of this.
Chewing her lip, Kara waits. Stares at the screen. She isn’t sure why, but her stomach won’t settle. Maybe it was the coffee. Or the four sticky buns she had at Noonan’s before heading up to her office. She smiles, though, when three small dots, indicating that Cat is typing, pop up on her screen.
Cats and their playthings. How original. If I weren’t emoji-averse, I might employ that annoyed face you seem to like so much when ranting about Snapper.
With a soft laugh, Kara quickly types out her reply.
I’ll admit the photoshop had me for a second. It’s definitely one of the better manipulations I’ve seen on this site.
The smile still stretching Kara’s lips falls the second Cat’s reply comes through.
Even that praise is unwarranted, Kara. The shot isn’t photoshopped, though I would have appreciated a better angle on the dress. It's impossible to appreciate the mastery of the stitching from this angle.
Mouth dipping into a frown, Kara stares at the message. Reads the words over and over again. The shot isn’t photoshopped.
No. Surely Cat isn’t … No. She would have said something, wouldn’t she? Would she? Kara stills, stalls. She and Cat are friends, aren’t they? Close, even, Kara would say. But they'd never spoken of Cat’s relationships before. It wasn’t like Cat Grant, Queen of All Media, ever called plain old bottom-of-the-totem-pole, assistant-turned-junior-reporter Kara Danvers in the middle of the night to dish about her sex life. But still, Kara feels like she should have known before some gossip columnist. Before half the world clicking around on the internet.
Kara shudders at the thought of Cat with this man, his stubble rubbing against her cheek.
“Stop,” Kara snaps at herself, shaking her head.
Her stomach stirs again, uncomfortable, as she wipes her sweaty hands on her khakis and then types out another message.
Oh, so, you’re … you and this man are seeing one another then?
Yes.
Kara’s throat suddenly feels tight and dry, and despite how much she wants to, she can’t bring herself to inquire further. So, instead, she lets it hang. Lets it rest with Cat’s easy confirmation.
Lets it rest despite the fact that she feels anything but settled.
The pit in her stomach has a name.
Thomas Lively. CEO of WAL Technologies, a software company built by his father and passed on to him.
Thomas Lively has gray hair and graying stubble that looks too scratchy to be sexy. He has brown eyes and a big nose and one dimple in his left cheek. A square jaw and white teeth, and he was listed as one of New York’s most eligible bachelors in three different publications.
Thomas Lively has four ex-wives and three kids, one with each of the first three wives. Two sons and a daughter. 21, 18, and 9.
Thomas Lively has a brownstone in Manhattan, a penthouse in Los Angeles, a houseboat in Newport Beach, and a cabin somewhere in Nobody Cares, Montana.
Thomas Lively has his big, rich hands on Cat’s waist and Cat’s lower back and Cat’s upper back and Cat’s cheek and Cat’s–
“Kara.”
Blinking, Kara looks up from her phone. Seven open search tabs on Thomas Lively and two open image searches on he and Cat together; a relationship the gossip columns have nauseatingly taken to calling ‘ThomCat’. Kara has spent the last fourteen days consistently wanting to vomit.
“Sorry,” she says, blushing as she clicks to lock her screen and shoves her phone into her pocket. “What were you saying?”
“I wasn’t saying anything.” Alex quirks a brow at her. “I was just trying to keep you from melting your phone with your glare.” She nudges the open pizza box toward Kara as she readjusts on the couch and clicks the remote to pause their re-watch of Breaking Bad. “You want to talk about it?”
With a small shake of her head, Kara swallows down the growing knot in her throat and forces a smile. “I’m fine.”
“Uh huh,” Alex says, disbelieving.
“Really. I’m fine, Alex.”
Alex only continues to stare at her. “Right.”
Mind still racing with the images from her phone, Kara licks her lips. Lets out an uncomfortable, unconvincing laugh. It tastes bitter in her mouth, and then–“It’s just that, you know, he has four ex-wives.”
A heavy sigh that sounds like it has been wrenched up from the pits of hell itself crawls its way through Alex’s lips. “Oh my god, Kara. No. Not this again.”
“I’m just saying.” Kara pushes her glasses up on her nose and shakes her head. She takes a bite of pizza and begins to ramble. And she knows. She knows she needs to stop. Needs to close her mouth. Kill the sound. Kill the thought. Kill the care.
But for some reason, she just can’t.
“That’s a lot,” she says. “He’s obviously got issues with relationships. I mean, he’s been married four times, Alex.”
“So has Cat!”
“No,” Kara says, scoffing. “No. No, see, Cat has only been married twice. That’s half that number. That’s nothing. Tons of people have been married twice. But four times. Four! That’s, well that’s just … I’m just saying–”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re just saying it’s a lot,” Alex says, cutting her off. “Kara, you’ve got to let this go. Cat’s a big girl. She can date whoever she wants to date.”
“But–”
“But nothing.” Alex nudges Kara’s leg with her foot and throws a piece of pizza crust at her head. “Cat obviously doesn’t have a problem with the man’s history, so why do you? What is going on with this? You’re acting like you’re in love with the woman.”
Kara blinks down hard, splutters for a moment, and wheezes out another uncomfortable laugh; caught completely off guard by the question. The suggestion. The accusation. And then she freezes. The words ring in her ears, wedge between her ribs, and suddenly, Kara feels like she can’t breathe.
Eyes widening, Alex stops mid-bite and drops her third piece of pizza back into the box. She sits up straighter, eyes pinned on Kara, and says, “Oh, Kara, no.”
Kara’s eyes begin to burn. They well up too fast for her to blink the wetness away, and her throat shrinks until it feels so tight and dry that she nearly chokes on nothing. Her breath comes too fast, too shallow, making her chest heave and hurt.
“Okay, Kara, Kara,” Alex says, voice softening, soothing. She crawls over the couch, practically into her sister’s lap. With steady hands, she cups Kara’s cheeks. “Kara, look at me.”
Kara’s lip trembles as she looks at her sister. “Alex.”
“You’re okay,” Alex says, nodding once Kara’s eyes are on her. “You’re okay. Just breathe. Take a deep breath and try to calm down. You’re okay. Everything is just fine.”
When Kara finally calms, the ache in her chest dwindling and her breathing evening out, she grabs onto her sister’s hand and squeezes it as tight as she dares.
“You had no idea, did you?” It's only a whisper but it echoes through Kara’s head, bounces around with sharp edges. Jabbing. Leaving its mark over and over.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Kara shakes her head. “I … what do I do? I don’t … I don’t know what–”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Alex says, running her hand over Kara’s hair. She uses her thumb to wipe a tear from Kara’s jaw. “Or.”
Kara’s eyes lock onto Alex’s again. “Or?”
Shrugging a shoulder, Alex gives her sister a small, simple smile. “Or you could tell her.”
Kara immediately shakes her head. Wild. Dizzying. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Kara practically shouts. “Because, because, well just because! Because she’s Cat Grant. Because, because I’m … because it’s not … she won’t …and what about my secret?”
Tilting her head, Alex nudges her hand up under Kara’s chin to catch her eyes again and then rubs soothingly down her shoulder. “Kara, you and I both know that Cat Grant already knows your secret and has known it for a while. You told me yourself not to worry about it, and I trusted you like you trusted her. She knows, so you can cross that off your list.” She pats Kara’s knee. “And yeah, she’s Cat Grant but you’re Supergirl. You are every bit as big a deal as she is. And the rest of it? It’s nothing but ifs and maybes. Doubt. It gets in your head, and then you can’t move. I know. But doubt isn’t going to do anything but stop you from being happy.”
“She doesn’t feel that way about me, Alex.” The words feel thick on Kara's tongue, like they don’t belong there; like they shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea or having this discussion at all. It is a fantasy, nothing more. Never going to happen, and Kara knows it.
“She might,” Alex says. “How do you know if you don’t try?”
“How are you okay with this?”
Sighing, Alex shifts on the couch, wraps an arm around Kara’s shoulders, and leans their heads together. “I’ll admit, she wouldn’t be my first choice for my little sister, but it’s not a choice I have to make. So it doesn’t matter what I think. All that matters is how you feel, so if you want to try, I’ll be here. I’ll support you, and who knows? Maybe she does feel the same way.”
Kara swallows; thick, painful. “And if she doesn’t?”
“Well, then we’ll go to the bar and get wasted and I’ll buy you a pound of potstickers.”
It starts as an attempt to test the waters. Kara’s fingers hover over the keys, the words flitting through her mind.
It starts with care and wonder and hope.
It ends with a crass blurting of one of Kara’s dug-up factoids about Cat’s new flame.
As soon as her fingers begin typing, the things she has practiced in her head–the subtle flirting, the caring inquiries about Cat’s life, the easy spark of conversation that might eventually escalate to a daring heart emoji or an even more daring wink emoji–all fly out the window, and instead…
There is speculation that he cheated on his second wife (I have to specify that it was his second because he’s had FOUR) with Jamie Lee Curtis.
When Cat doesn’t immediately respond, Kara chews at her bottom lip and begins typing again.
It was all over Star Weekly. They wrote at least three articles on it at the time.
Again, no response. Kara’s knees bounce as she stares at the screen; clutches her phone just shy of cracking it.
I just thought you should be aware of his possible history of infidelity.
When three small dots pop up, Kara’s heartbeat pounds so loudly between her ears that it makes her head ache. She feels like the world has suddenly melted away and she is floating in the emptiness of space. Breathless.
But then the dots disappear. They reappear a moment later, and Kara braces herself. When they drop from view again, she frowns. Waits. But nothing.
Cat never responds.
Groaning, Kara forces herself to put her phone down and begins to pace the small space of her apartment. She steers herself toward the kitchen to make tea, something to keep her busy, to keep her from burning a hole into the floor with her aimless, shuffling feet.
A call from her sister, two hours later, provides a much-needed break from the silence of her phone. The lack of any response.
Kara changes for the call, a rogue Arachna. A spider-like alien dotting National City’s sewers with mucus-lined webbing and cocooned captives for feeding. The DEO had been after her for weeks, since the first report of a strange webbing in a storm drain downtown. She was fast, though, and could camouflage better than any alien Kara had ever seen, and the one other time Kara had come close to capturing her, she had put up one hell of a fight. Managed to suspend Kara in her webbing long enough to get away.
Leaping from her window, Kara races to the reported location, almost eager for a fight. Her body feels tight, coiled, and she can’t shake the discomfort swirling in her gut. Stiffening her spine. Something has to give before she snaps herself in two like a twig.
When Kara returns to her apartment, coated in the Arachna’s mucus, she wears a victorious grin so wide it hurts, and she has forgotten all about Cat Grant’s silence and Cat Grant’s boyfriend and Cat Grant.
The steaming hot water of the shower thumps against Kara’s cheeks and forehead as she presses her face into the spray. Her muscles relax in the hard rain, tension leaking free and drawing a sigh up from Kara’s chest. She is lazily lathering her hair when she hears her phone chime from the living room, and suddenly, everything comes flooding back to her.
Kara feels the unease of doubt creep up into her chest and begin to spread.
Closing her eyes, she resists the urge to fly out of the shower and check her phone, check to see Cat’s response. Tries to resist the urge to wonder, to care.
She fails.
Rinsing quickly, Kara shuts the shower off, dries and dresses in a spinning burst of super-speed, and then heads for the living room. Grabbing her phone, she pulls up her messages only to find a confirmation from her sister.
Arachna contained and sedated. She fought the paralytics but eventually knocked out so we could do labs and scans. Will fill you in on more tomorrow.
That's it. Nothing else. Nothing more.
Nothing from Cat.
Kara clicks to open her messages with Cat and stares at the empty white space where a response should be. Nothing. Cat has said nothing. Six hours later, and still no response. Kara wants to scream.
Instead, she finds herself typing again.
He bought his son a BMW when he was twelve.
She pauses, stares at her own words; chokes down the lump steadily building in her throat.
Twelve. Don’t you think that’s a bit obnoxious?
She waits, again. Cat doesn’t answer, again, and Kara sighs. Rubbing at her eyes, she tosses her phone on the couch, shuffles off to her bedroom, and collapses onto her mattress.
More than anything, Kara wants this day to melt away. Disappear. Die. She buries her head in her pillow and pretends she didn’t send a message. Pretends Cat had nothing to respond to. Pretends she doesn’t care and doesn’t feel and doesn’t know of a Thomas Lively at all.
Two days later, Kara still hasn’t heard from Cat, and she is on the verge of screaming again. Screaming, or literally flying herself to New York just to make sure Cat hasn’t been injured or kidnapped or transformed into a Stepford Wife by the CEO of WAL Technologies. She settles for screaming, muted screaming against the back of her hand as she lies in bed and scrolls through the entirely one-sided conversation taking place in her open messages with Cat.
He has a tie with bananas on it. Actual bananas. He wore it to a banquet. An actual banquet. There were cameras. There are pictures. Bananas, Ms. Grant.
His first wife said in an interview once that he has a nasty temper. Your temper can be … trying at times, too, but that is the point. Two bad tempers isn’t the best combination.
Does he snore? He looks like he would snore.
Ms. Grant?
He named his houseboat ‘The Aquadisiac’. You hate puns, especially puns of a sexual nature.
Cat?
I’m just trying to look out for you.
Remember when you briefly dated Senator Walsh, and afterward, you told me I should have talked you out of it? That you wanted me to vet anyone you considered dating in the future, no matter how shiny their reputation?
Well, you did. So, I’m just doing my job. My former job.
Someone on Reddit speculated that he had his father assassinated to gain control of the company sooner.
They’ve presented some interesting supporting evidence.
Cat?
You’re right. That is highly unlikely. Completely far-fetched. Reddit is not a sound source.
The last message was sent only ten minutes prior. 2:17 AM.
Groaning, Kara runs her hand down her face. She has completely lost it, she knows, but she can’t help herself. She feels possessed. Every new photo that pops up on the internet, Cat’s fingers tangled with Lively’s, Cat’s body tucked into his, Cat’s arm wrapped around his waist; every speculation about the relationship’s potential, its level of commitment, its future … it all makes Kara feel pressed and squeezed in the worst way.
Like she can’t get comfortable. Can’t relax. Can’t breathe.
And it is driving her positively mad.
All she wants in the world is to stop, but every time she tries, she feels that pressure in her chest again and finds herself typing out a new message. She tells herself that if Cat would just respond, if Cat would just take ten seconds to calm her, to ease Kara’s concerns, to reassure her that the man somehow deserves to be with Cat, she could relax. She could let it go. She repeats the lie over and over again, staring at her phone, and the pressure never eases.
She wishes none of this had ever happened, that she had never seen that first photo at all, had never looked up Thomas Lively, had never ranted about him to her sister. She wishes she could erase Alex’s words from her head, the realization that blasted through her with each syllable. The way they punched and pulled and left her aching and reeling for days after. She wishes she never realized she loved Cat Grant at all.
But she did.
She does.
She loves her, and Kara hasn’t got a clue how long she has felt this way. When it began. When it evolved. When it wrapped around her insides, grew in like vines around her heart. Natural. Until she was so eaten up with it that she forgot what she looked like before, felt like before.
And now she is overrun with it, all green and tangled and unable to break free.
It is the worst kind of capture, because Kara doesn’t know how to cut through, how to escape. Or if she even wants to. If she even can.
She doesn’t know what will ease it, what will help her breathe again; what will help at all.
That’s a lie.
She does know. She does. She just can’t bring herself to say the things she needs to say, to ask the things she needs to ask. To take the steps she needs to take.
Her fingers are typing again. Oh Rao.
His middle name is Egbert.
Why? Why? Kara presses her fingers to her stinging eyes and chokes back the sob that builds in her throat. She presses and presses and hates herself.
When her phone suddenly starts ringing, Kara startles so hard she tosses the damned thing across the room. Scrambling quickly off the bed, she grabs it from the floor and squeaks when she sees the name on the screen. Pressing to accept the call, she hopes her voice doesn’t shake as much as her hands.
“Hello?” She clears her throat. “Ms. Grant?”
“Explain.”
Cat’s voice is scratchy, tired, and Kara feels guilty because she knows she must have woken Cat up.
“Um, explain?” Kara’s knees feel shaky, standing beside the bed, so she plops down again. “Explain what?”
“Don’t play stupid, Kara,” Cat says. “I haven’t the patience for it at 5:30 in the morning.”
Crap. Kara had completely forgotten about the time difference.
“I–”
“You,” Cat drawls when Kara hesitates. “What, Kara? Spit it out. Three days, you’ve been babbling like an idiot in my messages, and now you’ve got nothing to say?”
Frowning, Kara huffs and curls into herself. “I haven’t been babbling like an idiot." She absolutely has. Babbling like a jealous idiot.
Nothing but silence follows, stretching out until it becomes unbearable. Skin crawling, Kara says, “I was trying to be helpful.”
“By bombarding me with every foul and ridiculous bit of gossip you can dredge up from the bowels of the internet about the man I am seeing,” Cat says, and Kara seethes. "You could just as easily find as many, if not more, trash pieces about me on those pathetic sites."
“I’m looking out for you!”
“I’m not a child, Kara,” Cat snaps back, and Kara’s eyes begin to water. Her throat closes. Stomach roars. “I don’t need you to look out for me. That isn’t your job anymore. You aren’t my assistant, so why the hell are you still acting like one?”
“Because I care about you!” The words burst up and out before Kara can stop them. She chokes on the last syllable, lets out a sob before she can silence it, and claps a hand over her mouth. Hot tears push through her lashes and fall as she clenches her eyes closed and sucks in a wet breath through her fingers.
“I–” She tries again, but when her voice cracks, she doesn't dare continue.
“Kara.” Cat’s voice is soft now, laced with a breathless kind of surprise at Kara’s outburst, and Kara aches at the sound of it.
Choking back another sob, Kara shakes her head and says, “I have to go.”
She hangs up before Cat can protest or even speak another word. Pressing a hand to her chest, she finally lets everything bubble up and out until she is spent. Lying on her bed, curled in a ball, she falls asleep with sticky cheeks and tired eyes. Her chest somehow both tight and empty, like a hole has been punched through her, twisting and straining and tearing at the vines still somehow clinging to what’s left.
Alex makes good on her promise, despite her insistence that Kara wasn’t actually rejected by Cat. She hadn’t even told Cat how she really felt. Still, Alex drags Kara out to the alien bar and lines the table with shots.
When she helps Kara home at well after midnight, helps her get her jeans off and change into a t-shirt, tucks her into bed like they are kids again, and heads back out, Kara listens to her go. Follows the sound of her sister’s heartbeat all the way out of the apartment, all the way down to the street, halfway down the block, before sighing and letting the sound go. She stares up at the ceiling, dizzy, and draws pictures in her mind on the blank space.
Her family crest.
Spires puncturing the red sky of Argo City.
The three-legged stray cat Alex found when they were in high school.
She closes her eyes, lets each image dance through her head. Clear as day. Bright.
And then she thinks of Cat, sees her face flash through, and Kara groans. Pressing a hand over her heart, she rubs at the spot. Rubs like she can soothe an ache she knows won’t be soothed. Still, she tries.
Cat’s voice slips between her ears. That breathless quality. That quiet shock.
Kara.
Rolling over, Kara pats over her body, feeling for her phone. She finds it half under her ass and pulls it free. Stares at Cat’s name in her contact list. When her thumb presses to call, she expects to feel panic, but it never comes.
Instead, a calm floods through her. Heavy. Too heavy. But calm nonetheless.
“Kara.” Like before, Cat’s voice is scratchy. Tired. Now, though, there is something more. Something like sorrow, and it only makes Kara feel heavier.
“I’m in love with you,” Kara murmurs into the phone. Easy. So easy it almost makes her want to cry, scream, shake herself into pieces. The words breeze through her lips, and Kara hears the weight of them press into Cat’s slight, barely there gasp. Her shaky exhale.
“That’s why I’ve been babbling like an idiot,” Kara says, the words slurring on her slightly numb tongue. “That’s why I can’t stop.” Pressing her face into the cool sheet of her pillow, she sighs. “Because I love you, and you … you’re you.”
“Kara, I–”
“Rao, this pillow feels good,” Kara mutters, pressing her face further into its soft cushion. “I’m so … spinny.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Maybe.” Kara smacks her lips together, blinks heavily. “Yes. Maybe yes, definitely.”
Whatever Cat says next slips away from her, muted as the world slims and shuts down around her. Disappears.
Kara wakes to the sun already low in the sky. Pressing a hand to her face, she smacks around the mattress for her phone. Parting two fingers over her eye, she peeks at the screen. 6:12 PM.
“Rao,” Kara groans, throwing her phone back down.
Bracing herself, she pushes up into a sitting position and instantly regrets it. Her stomach rolls at the motion, lurches as she lies back down and presses her face into the pillow again. With a deep breath, she tries again a moment later, shifting up and moving to the edge of the bed. It takes a second for her to realize there is a glass of water and two small pills resting on her nightstand.
Kara’s brow furrows for a moment but then she figures Alex must have left them and slams back the pills. Her stomach lurches again when she stands, and she quickly makes her way to the bathroom. Thankfully, she doesn’t get sick but she definitely gets close. A glance in the mirror makes her wince. Her hair is stuck up on one side, tangled, but she is too tired to care, so she just leaves it the way it is. Using the sink, she splashes water onto her face and rubs the sleep out of her eyes before shuffling toward the living room in only her t-shirt, panties, and socks.
She grumbles to herself as she passes into the kitchen. "I'm never drinking again."
“Oh, if I had a dime for every time I’ve made that promise.”
Kara screams. Literally screams. Loud, high-pitched, and echoing as she whirls around to find Cat Grant seated on her couch, a book in one hand, the other pressed to her chest, and her eyes blown wide.
“Dear god, Kara,” Cat says, taking a breath. “Was that really necessary?” With another calming breath, she sets her book aside and stands. She hesitates for a moment, watching Kara from the across the room, and Kara can’t move.
She can’t think.
She is convinced she’s still asleep. Mostly. Maybe. Hopefully.
After a moment, Cat seems to regain some measure of composure, of confidence, and walks around the couch. She sniffs and gestures toward Kara as she passes by into the kitchen. “If anything, I should be the one screaming,” she says. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”
Kara’s hand shoots to her hair of its own accord, tries to detangle the mess there and fails. “How, um, why ….” She runs her hand over her hair again, shifts on her feet and feels her bare thighs rub together. Panic shoots through her chest as her head snaps down and she realizes she isn’t wearing any pants. “I … how ….” Swallowing, she presses her hand to her throbbing forehead and closes her eyes. “I need pants.”
“For the benefit of comfort, I would agree,” Cat says. “Though, we’ve gotten this far pants-free. I suppose we can carry it home if you’re too hungover to resume your awkward shuffle back to your room and dress.”
Heat flooding her cheeks, Kara shakes her head. “I’ll be back.”
The second Kara is in her room, she shuts the door and dives for her phone. Slamming her face into the pillow, she forces several muffled breaths and tries to calm herself.
Cat Grant is in National City.
Cat Grant is in her apartment.
Cat Grant is in her kitchen.
Cat Grant just saw her shuffling around in her underwear like a half-drunk zombie.
Mortified, Kara types out a quick message to her sister.
Cat Grant is in my kitchen. I have no pants on. I hate you.
Alex’s reply comes in only seconds later.
…I am incredibly confused.
Letting out a pitiful laugh, Kara shoves her face into her pillow again. With one last grumble, she pushes off the bed, promises to text Alex later, and uses a burst of super-speed to throw on a pair of sweats and a sweater and brush through her tangled hair.
Checking herself in the mirror, she shrugs. Anything is an upgrade after the way Cat just saw her and Kara figures she has kept her waiting long enough, so she takes a steadying breath and shuffles back toward the living room.
Cat is on the couch again, book back in hand and a freshly brewed cup of coffee in the other. “Well, now I’m certain you’re Supergirl.”
Stopping short, Kara gapes. “W-what?”
“Nothing short of the supernatural could have tamed that bird’s nest you were wearing on your head,” Cat says, and Kara splutters. Splutters then chokes then laughs. Doesn’t bother denying or arguing, or caring even.
She just sighs and says, “How are you in my apartment?”
Cat licks her lips, dips her head the slightest bit as if ashamed, but then simply shrugs a shoulder and sets her book aside again. “I happen to be rather skilled at lock-picking. A useful tool during my days as an investigative reporter.”
“You picked my lock?”
“Prove it.”
Another quiet, slightly unsure laugh shakes through Kara’s lips. “Why are you here? I mean, not just here here, but here, in National City. You came back.”
After a sip of coffee, Cat clears her throat and ignores the question; changes the subject. “We should talk, Kara.”
“Oh, um.” Kara shuffles a bit in place, stomach still unsettled and palms beginning to sweat. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, we probably should.”
Padding over, Kara plops onto the opposite end of the couch. She takes a deep breath and begins to explain herself, but when she opens her mouth to speak, so does Cat.
“About the way I’ve been–”
“Last night, when you called–”
“Wait,” Kara says, shaking her head. “What? Last night?”
Cat’s eyes widen slightly and she stiffens in place. Her lips move wordlessly for a moment, and Kara tries to fill in the blanks Cat doesn’t seem to want to.
“Kara.”
The sound of her name jars her, soft and–Kara gasps. “Oh god,” she says, slapping a hand over her mouth as the previous night rushes back to her, floods through her mind. Suffocating. Drowning. “Oh Rao, no.”
“Kara.”
Kara’s eyes well up with tears as she looks at Cat, surprised to find green eyes glossed as well. “I’m so–” Kara chokes on the words, swallows them down, and tries again. “Cat, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to … I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. I, and god, it was late. I was drunk. I–” Kara sucks in a heavy breath, and it breaks around a laugh. Hollow. It cracks into tears. “I just keep messing everything up.”
Her shoulders shake with the effort it takes to keep from shattering entirely.
Setting her coffee aside, Cat hesitates only a moment before rising from the couch and moving closer. She sits again, right next to Kara, and reaches out.
Kara shudders when Cat runs her fingers down Kara’s wet cheek before resting her hand atop one of Kara’s knees, bunched against her chest.
“Did you mean it?” It’s a whisper, nothing more. Just an earnest question on a shallow breath.
Kara stills, stares at Cat. Searches for something, anything, to cling to. With the warmth of Cat’s hand pressed to her knee, Kara swallows her fear and nods. “Yes.”
The only crack in Cat’s composure is the heavy rise and fall of her chest. She says nothing, though, despite the way her heart is hammering. Kara can hear it, fast and sharp, as wild as her own, and it sparks the tiniest bit of hope between her ribs.
When Cat does speak again, she only squeezes Kara’s knee, rises to her feet, and says, “You should take a shower. You’ll feel better. I will order us something to eat.”
The change is jarring, and it takes Kara a moment to adjust. To react. To respond.
“Uh, y-yeah,” she stutters, wiping quickly across her wet cheeks and pushing shakily to her feet. “Okay.” She heads toward the bathroom, heart jammed in her throat and feeling sick to her stomach with Cat’s lack of reciprocation, with Cat’s lack of anything in response to what Kara had just confessed to her, but she can’t bring herself to say anything. She feels weirdly numb, like she is floating though her feet are firmly on the ground. Just before she reaches the bathroom, she turns back. “Cat?”
Cat turns at the call of her name, arches a brow.
“I, um, I need to eat a lot,” Kara says, scratching awkwardly at the back of her head. “Like, a lot.”
Cat’s only answer is a simple nod, and Kara wants to cry again.
She hides every drop in the shower rain.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Cat startles, turning quickly from her place in the kitchen, propped up on her tiptoes to reach the glasses in the cabinet above the stove.
Standing in the middle of the room in leggings and an oversized sweater, hair combed through and still slightly damp, Kara stares at her. She feels exposed as she looks at Cat, desperate to curl back into herself and allow this silence to shake them back to before. Before any of this. Before all of it. But she is here, and this is happening, and it’s her chance. Her one chance. So, she takes it.
Heart drumming in her ears, Kara says, “I told you I love you, that I’m … I’m in love with you, and you just ….” She lets out a sad croak of a laugh. “You told me to take a shower, Cat.”
Briefly, Cat closes her eyes, takes a quiet breath Kara still hears like thunder. She releases it in a heavy sigh and leans her back against the kitchen counter. “No,” she says with a shake of her head.
“No?”
“You told me you love me,” Cat says, gaze dropping and voice just slightly trembling around the words. “And I got on a plane three hours later and flew to National City.”
Kara sucks in a breath, feels her stomach flip. Waits with her insides twisted and trembling.
“You told me you love me,” Cat says again, closing her eyes and pressing one hand to her temple. She rubs small circles there with her fingertips. “And I flew across the country to pick your lock and sit on your couch while you slept.”
"What about Thomas Lively?"
When Cat opens her eyes again, they are wide and glossed. Breathtaking. And Kara suddenly understands. “Kara, I–”
“You love me,” Kara says, a whisper, and Cat shivers. Lets out a helpless little laugh.
“I haven’t felt like this in years.”
Crossing into the kitchen, Kara moves to stand in front of Cat. She hesitates before stepping into Cat’s space, before slipping a hand over Cat’s elbow, up her arm, over her shoulder. She stills at the base of Cat’s neck. “Like what?”
Cat shudders under Kara’s touch, closes her eyes again, and tilts her head just the slightest bit. The line of her jaw brushes against Kara’s wrist. “Like I can’t breathe.”
“Cat,” Kara whispers, and Cat opens her eyes again. When their gazes meet, their chests nearly pressing together, Kara smiles. It pulls up from within, tugs at her lips until they strain. “You love me.”
With a huff, Cat rolls her eyes. “I know,” she says, voice shredded with the tears she is holding back. “It’s all been terribly inconvenient.”
“How long?”
Shaking her head, Cat sighs. “Long enough,” she says, and as soon as the words leave her lips, her hand slides up the center of Kara’s chest, curls into the material of her sweater, and pulls her down. Pulls her in.
When their lips meet in a wet press, Kara feels the world shift and slip away from her. Shatter entirely. And something new sprouts in the remains, something green and wild. Something free and hers.
Theirs.
She melts against Cat, eyes slipping closed and fingers sliding up into Cat’s hair, and gives herself over to the feeling. It spreads, swallows, surrounds, and Kara revels in the expansion.
She is eaten up, overrun, with all the ways she loves Cat Grant, and it doesn’t feel like capture at all.
It feels, instead, like rescue.
It feels like refuge.
It feels like home.