Chapter 3
As her eyes snapped open to bright sunlight, Cat couldn’t help but wondered why her head hurt so much. And then she saw it - Kara Danvers asleep in her bed with her head leaning against the headboard and her body almost upright.
Never in all the years of wanting this had she imagined it ever happening, but here she was. She looked down at herself and realized that she was wearing nothing but her underwear while Kara remained fully clothed, she had so many questions about last night because she couldn’t remember a thing from eight o’clock onward.
Breathing in the moment, she allowed her eyes to trail Kara’s entire body, head to toe, and she smiled widely at how beautiful the young woman was. Almost as though she could fell Cat’s eyes on her, Kara shifted and turned to face her boss with alarm in her expression.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Grant! You asked me to stay until you fell asleep but I must have drifted off myself! I am so sorry, I’ll make sure to still be at the office ahead of you, though!” Kara exclaimed as she sat up, about to get off the bed when Cat’s hand clamped down on her wrist.
“Kara, you’re fine. But we need to talk about last night, and the wedding, and how you want to proceed with this since- you’ve kind of locked yourself into a pseudo relationship with me for at least the next three weeks.” Cat stated confidently, shifting herself upright and drawing the duvet with her to protect her modesty. “I need to know how you want to do this.”
“I just- I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences so you can sort out the details. I just want to make the wedding go as smoothly as possible for you, and I want to make sure Michael realizes what a- a horrible person he is!” Kara, feeble-minded Kara had taken a disliking to Cat’s ex-husband right to the core of her. “This is completely up to you because I’m the one who effectively forced you into a corner about this…I was trying to make things easier but I’ve probably just made them worse and- Carter! You really need to explain to Carter because I’m pretty sure he thinks this is real.”
“Kara!” Cat interrupted sharply. “Breathe. I’ll sort out Carter, don’t worry. You get home and freshen up, I’ll see you at work and we’ll discuss over dinner tonight, okay?”
Hesitantly, Kara nodded before standing up and smiling, slipping out of the bedroom and heading back to her apartment to shower and change for work. Meanwhile, Cat prepared for a very awkward conversation with Carter before school.
“Okay honey, I need to explain to you what’s happening between Kara and me.” Cat stated poignantly as she sat at the kitchen table across from her son with the first coffee cup of her day.
“Mom, you’re dating, I get it. Kara’s cool, I’m fine with it, really- so stop worrying!” The teen answered easily as he wolfed down his breakfast.
“Carter, no. We’re not- okay, this is difficult to explain. Kara and I are pretending to be a couple, because I was getting stressed at work about last night and how your father was going to be commenting on how single I am all evening, so Kara agreed to stand in as my date. But it turns out we were too convincing for your father so now he’s asked Kara to the wedding, she agreed in order to save me the embarrassment of explaining the whole charade so now we’re going to have to maintain a relationship with the media for the next few weeks. We’ll keep it lowkey of course, but Michael will no doubt do some digging to find out about Kara if he can. You know I don’t like asking you to keep secrets, especially from family, but would you mind keeping this quiet?”
“Sure, Mom,” Carter replied casually as he stood up and finished the last of his orange juice. “I’ll see you after school. Love you.”
“Love you too, Carter!” Cat called in response as her son made for the front door.
The work day went quickly, with Cat in a relatively good mood and no massive stories to cover, and soon enough it was the end of the day. Kara had taken a ‘long lunch’ in order to go and save some children from a burning building but other than that, it had been a relatively calm day. She received a text from Cat inviting her over for dinner, and flew straight over, careful to land a couple of streets away in the knowledge that Cat was still, subconsciously at least, suspecting that she was Supergirl.
“Hi, Miss Grant!” Kara greeted in true Sunny Danvers fashion as Cat opened her front door.
“It’s Cat away from the office, Kara. I’ve told you that before.”
Nodding in understanding, Kara followed Cat through to the kitchen and couldn’t help but smile at the meal set out before them. Pizza and Potstickers. It was almost undoubtedly Carter’s idea, but the fact that Cat would even agree to it meant something. Dinner was casual and familiar, just the same as it had been every meal they’d shared for months but it was when Carter scuttled off to his bedroom, rather than pleading with Kara to play on the Xbox with him, that things got a little tense.
“So…we have things to discuss, right?” Kara began awkwardly, trying to spur a conversation from Cat as she sat wordlessly sipping wine opposite her.
“Right,” Cat responded reluctantly. “Well, if you want to go ahead with this - and it’s a big if, because I don’t expect you to do this - then we need to make it a relatively public thing. Obviously, we won’t put it in the tabloids or announce it to the office, but Michael has eyes and ears everywhere, and he isn’t completely stupid despite what you saw last night. This isn’t going to be three weeks of avoiding Michael, this needs to be three weeks of acting as though we are a genuine couple.”
“I anticipated that. You’re the most powerful person in National City, he would find it weird if no one knew a thing about it.” Kara pointed out reasonably, a hint of a smile on her lips at the prospect of dating Cat Grant. Pretend dating, Kara, pull yourself together! “We already eat together at least twice a week, we already spend time together so really we just need to make it more visible. And if there are any functions where you think you might see Michael, I need to be there.”
The two women’s eyes met across the table, and Cat couldn’t hide the upturn of her lips as she listened to Kara talk about the pair of them as a couple so easily.
“And we need to draw up about some rules. Real rules - about PDA, about who we’re telling the truth, about how we’re going to bring this to an end.” Cat stated matter-of-factly, no wavering tone as she sipped her wine.
“Okay. PDA, you draw that line because I don’t mind as long as you going to suggest exhibitionism. I would like to tell my sister and then I think everyone else can be left out of the loop, for now at least. And again, bringing this to a close is completely your decision though I’d suggest we wait at least a couple of weeks after the wedding to make this convincing enough. Also, I’d like to throw in that neither of us has sexual or romantic involvements with anyone else until we’ve put this behind us.”
Cat simply nodded appropriately, agreeing with every word that passed Kara’s lips without hesitation. The moon’s light was beginning to spill through the kitchen window and onto the table, and Kara suggested it was time for her to go home. Wordlessly, Cat rose to show her to the door and paused just as she reached for the latch, turning to face Kara.
“Thank you for this, Kara. Truly, you don’t know how much it means to me that you would do this.” Without her heels on, Cat stands just about Kara’s shoulders and she looks so petite and beautiful in that moment of domesticity that Kara can’t help but hug her. Wrapping her small frame up in strong arms, Kara breathes in the familiar scent of Marc Jacobs perfume and chamomile tea. They stand there for a long moment in silence before Kara draws back calmly. “You have games night tomorrow I believe, so we should make plans for Saturday. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Cat.” Kara hums before reaching for the door handle and leaving.
It is less than five minutes later that Cat hears a knock on her balcony window and sees Supergirl stood there. Crossing the room to open the door, she smirks as the superhero enters her living room.
“I went to your office but you weren’t there, so I thought it best to come and check on you. That’s the second night in a row you’ve left early, it’s not like you Miss Grant.” Her entire character changed when she put on the suit, and Cat found it utterly remarkable that they seemed to be such different people when she knew better. “No problems at CatCo, I see. I must be doing my job right.”
“You certainly are.” Cat remarked in a cryptic tone, rolling her eyes at the way Kara still tried to maintain the pretense when they both knew that Cat was fully aware of Kara’s identity. “Was there something you wanted to discuss or were you just popping by to visit, Supergirl?”
“Do I have to make an excuse to come and see my favourite media mogul, Cat?”
The visit wasn’t long, it was simply that Kara hadn’t wanted the evening to end just yet, no matter how late it was getting.