Chapter 1
“Get some sun, they said, go for a walk in nature, they said,” Cat Grant muttered as she stalked through the wilderness. Her shoes sank slightly in the mud beneath her feet and she let out a slight scream of frustration. Wrenching her feet out of the mud, the blonde woman stalked to a nearby rock, and seated herself with as much grace as she could muster. “I can’t believe I actually came out here.” Cat glanced disdainfully at her surroundings and crossed her legs. She felt something wet and slimy slide down her leg, and she shrieked out in anger at seeing the mud caking her legs. “I can’t believe I listened to those… those buffoons. I pay thousands of dollars for a shrink to avoid doing these things, and yet here I am!”
Too stressed, her doctor said, when she complained of headaches, stomachs, mood swings, depression, working too much, too many emotional changes in the past few years. A rising empire, a failing marriage, a horrible mother and a needy toddler were enough problems to make anyone stressed and anxious. Her doctor recommended that she take a vacation, somewhere away from all the stress and anxiety in her life, somewhere with a scenic view and clean air.
She was halfway through dialing her assistant to book her a vacation in Fiji or Tahiti, one of those tropical getaways when the doctor handed her flier for a nature ranch in one of those useless square states. A few weeks later, she was squirreled away at a national park/hideaway/nature preserve/prison in a landlocked state, away from technology, cell phones and civilization. Her precious boy Carter was whisked away on vacation with his absentee father and his girlfriend of the week while she explored where the buffalo roamed. It made her want to scream, yank her hair out and hit something all at the same time.
Fortunately since she was the only one around, she was able to scream as loud as she wanted. That did feel better, perhaps her doctor had the right idea and she didn’t have to fire him… yet.
Cat sighed and propped her arms against the rock as she sighed and leaned back to take in the view. The area was sparse with trees, but mountains and rolling hills surrounded her on all sides. The view was breathtaking, and the air was clean and crisp. She did feel better breathing it in; it helped clean out all of the dust and cobwebs in her life but didn’t diminish her feelings of guilt and frustration. Guilt thinking about her son… sons, both of them. The one she brought into a broken, unstable marriage, and the one she abandoned pursuing her career. That alone was enough to cause an endless amount of sleepless nights in her life, it was no wonder she took anti-depressants… occasionally washing them down with scotch, depending on the day and what stupid thing her husband… ex-husband has done now. Cat grit her teeth and yelled again towards the heavens. It really was cathartic. If only Lois Lane were here to push off a cliff, it would be almost the perfect getaway.
A flash flickered in her vision and Cat raised her hand to cover her eyes. She focused on the flash and watched in horror as a strange, shining object fell out of the sky, heading straight for the valley below her. The woman didn’t identify the object as anything she had ever seen before and a rush of exhilaration filled her. “I am getting a Pulitzer for this one,” Cat squealed quietly to herself as she made her way down into the valley where the object had crashed. Years with her mother and working with narcissistic men gave her the ability to school her features into a neutral expression. If she hadn’t, Cat knew she would be sporting a large smug grin as she approached the fallen object. She took in the other worldly quality of the craft and immediately started rehearsing her acceptance speech, when the hatch at the top opened.
Cat slowed her approach and her imagination supplied her with no ends of creatures, beings, that could come out of the object… spacecraft. If this had occurred a few months ago, she would have put this down to a failed government test of a new plane. But now, with the appearance of him and the confirmation that they’re not alone in the universe, she was aware that anything could come out of that pod.
What she wasn’t prepared for though was a small blonde child to emerge out of the charred remains of the spacecraft. She was prepared for horns, scales, claws, even slicked back hair and a supposedly charming smile. What she wasn’t prepared for was a small girl, barely a teenager judging from her size, glancing around her in confusion and fright. The girl couldn’t be any older than her oldest son. That thought alone made her heart clench, so she continued her approach, schooling herself to appear less threatening.
The girl turned her head in her direction, eyeing her approach with apprehension. Cat stopped in her tracks, not wanting to frighten the girl. “Hello? Are you alright?” The girl replied in a language the woman had never heard before, but sounded beautiful with smooth, lilting sounds. The girl halted her speech and shook her head ruefully before trying again, this time with another language that Cat couldn’t understand but one that sounded more earthly in its tone and grammatical formation. “I’m sorry, I still don’t understand.”
Frowning, the girl closed her eyes and her brow furrowed as she thought. “I apologize,” she pushed out, opening her eyes again and looking at the older woman. “I was instructed in the languages native to this region but there were many so I wasn’t sure which one was which.”
Cat fought the urge to blink and stare at the girl in bewilderment. Instead, she continued her slow approach and seated herself on a nearby rock that had been upturned by the landing of the craft. “All of the languages native to this region? As far as I know, there is only one official language for this country,” Cat replied, choosing a safe topic attempt to make the girl feel more comfortable. “Of course, the politicians and people in charge seem incapable of speaking it, but are well versed in idiot.”
The girl giggled at her words and sat down on one of the other rocks. “My father and uncle used to say similar things about the high council,” she murmured, “Much to my mother’s distress.” Cat watched as the girl’s face seemed to crumple at the words and sought to move her away from thoughts causing such pain.
“So what language were you speaking? You seemed to speak two different ones before landing on English.”
“The first was Kryto- oh… Maybe I shouldn’t say, I’m not sure…” The girl started hesitantly, “It’s my language, I forgot myself. Then I tried the language that was specifically native to this area… I believe it is called…” She tilted her head from side to side as she thought, “Algonquin? There were many languages to learn, apparently many different people groups settled here.”
Cat’s eyes widened slightly when she realized the implication of the girl’s words. It implied that she learned the languages of the different Native American tribes but also the settlers that migrated to the region. The number of languages in the girl’s head must be astounding. The reporter part of Cat hummed in glee at the knowledge, but she carefully pushed them away. “My name is Cat,” she said after a moment, “Cat Grant. Do you have a name, or know where you are?”
The girl bit her lip for a moment, looking up at the older woman. “I don’t know if I should…”
“You can trust me,” Cat said hurriedly, “I know you’re scared, new people, new worl-, new life, on your own. I know you’re scared, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You don’t?”
Cat smiled sadly and placed a hand on the girl’s arm, giving a light squeeze before releasing her. “No. In another time, another place, I might have, but you, you’re just a child, no older than my oldest son. I would never harm a child.”
The girl stared at Cat for a moment, her ocean blue eyes searching hazel and nodded. “Kara, my name is Kara Zor-El,” the girl stated quietly. “I come from the planet Krypton. My planet was destabilizing, and my parents sent me to earth to look after my baby cousin.” A mournful look crossed Kara’s face and tears filled her eyes, “But I think something went wrong, I arrived too late. According to the chronometer, it’s been 24 years. I don’t even know if my cousin arrived or if he got stuck wherever I did.”
The older woman’s heart broke as she watched tears roll down Kara’s face. She carefully reached out towards the girl and pulled her gently to her side, tucking the blonde head of hair under her chin and wrapping her arms around her. Her own actions startled herself, since when was she the maternal type, for anyone other than her sons? Something about the girl stirred feelings in her, the need to mother, protect, soothe. Based on Kara’s story though, and information crowed out by that harpy Lane, the girl was anything but fragile.
Cat winced slightly when the girl wrapped her arms around her and she felt the signs of the Kryptonian strength demonstrated by Superman in the past few months. The dark-haired superhero’s story was well known at that point due to Lane’s incessant prattling, and his story matched up with the blonde girl sobbing in her arms.
It was a heartbreaking story. An orphaned baby, last survivor of his people, sent away to a distant land and adopted by an average couple, like a prince squirreled away in the night. Raised by this couple, he grew up mostly normal and chose to use his abilities to protect his adoptive world as a way of giving back. Really, it sounded like something Cat would find on the young adult bestseller’s list or in the summer’s box office. It had just enough tragedy to make him the kind of hero people wanted.
For the girl attempting to cry a river in her arms, the story was absolutely devastating. While Superman was just a baby when he left, if this girl is to be believed, she was older when it happened, old enough to remember, old enough to understand what was lost. Superman did not lose anything but figments of a world that could have been his. Kara lost it all, her family, friends, culture, language, everything was gone, lost with the explosion of a planet. Cat can’t even begin to imagine what that was like. Though maybe she could, in a way. She had lost her own father when she wasn’t that much older than the girl, and it felt as if her world had imploded. Maybe she could understand the younger blonde, just slightly.
She could feel tears seeping through her t-shirt, one she hoped that nobody took a picture of her in because she had found lovely places in the wilderness prison to hide a body, and realized that she needed to return to the situation at hand lest Kara drench them both in tears. “Kara,” Cat said firmly, urging the girl back slightly. She cupped her face and wiped away the tears that had streaked down her face. “I can’t do anything about the world you lost, but I can try to give you some relief. I think your cousin is here, I think he made it on time.”
Kara shook her head and rubbed at her own eyes, “What? How, how do you know?”
Cat opened her mouth to reply when she caught a flash of obnoxious colors in the corner of her eyes, and a thump a few feet away. She reacted on instinct, pulling Kara tightly behind her as she stood to face the man that she knew just landed. “Superman,” she drawled out, a smirk present on her face as if there weren’t a blonde child clutching tightly to her shirt. “A pleasure, you finally ready to give that interview and speak to someone other than Lane?”
“Apologies Ms. Grant, but I’m not here for you,” Superman spoke with a formal tone. He turned his attention to the small blonde head peeking out behind the older woman and he smiled. “Are you heath tiny person?” He spoke, choosing Kryptonian in hopes to make the girl feel more at ease.
It didn’t work because the girl only tightened her grip on the older woman and shrunk further behind her. “Your Kryptonian is awful,” she muttered. “Pronunciation, syntax, all wrong.”
Superman just blinked while Cat laughed. “Dear,” she said, turning her head slightly to look at the girl, “I think you just broke him.”
The dark haired man continued to ignore the woman. “You are Kara Zor-El correct?” He asked, “You’ve arrived at last.”
Kara took a good look at the man and noticed her family’s crest sitting proudly on his chest. “Kal-El?” Seeing his nod, Kara smiled, “So you did land on time, I’m glad.”
“Yes, and I was raised by a wonderful family,” he replied, careful of the sharp ears of Cat Grant. He held out his hand to the young girl, “Come, there is a nice family I know that will be able to help you. They helped me with my own abilities.”
At Kal-El’s words, Kara’s eyes grew wide and her fingers clenched more into the shirt worn by the woman standing in front of her. She worried for a moment that she might be pulling too hard, her parents telling her of the powers the sun of this world would give her, but she was comforted by the equally tight grip the woman had on her shoulder. “See Superman, Kal-El, whatever you call yourself,” Cat started, waving about her left hand while her right clutched at the girl. “That plan of your’s, it’s not going to work. It might have in another universe if you had been the one to find Kara first, but you didn’t. I did.” The woman’s eyes hardened and she poked the superhero in the chest a few times for good measure, “I’m the one that found her. I’m the one that held her while she cried. I’m the one to tell her that you were still alive. I’m the one she forged a bond with, not you, not this… other family.” Cat sneered, “You think that they would take kindly to having a girl, an alien girl just dropped off at their house, and I have no doubt that you were just going to drop her off and not speak to her again until it suited you.”
Superman’s face reddened, either from anger or embarrassment, she might never know which, but it appears as if she struck a nerve. She could barely hear the girl behind her release a strangled noise and it seemed like she too realized that the scenario Cat just presented was the one that the man in front of them was going to go with. Self-righteous, hypocritical superhero, no wonder he only spoke to Lane.
“With all due respect Ms. Grant, this doesn’t really concern you-”
“To hell it doesn’t!” Cat yelled, shocking the man into silence. “What power do you really have to decide where Kara ends up? And these people that you were going to take her to, you said they helped you with your abilities? That would mean that they’re either aliens or humans with expert information, meaning scientists, you don’t look like the government trusting type.” She hit the nail on the head again and Superman looked away. “Scientists then, would they give Kara the family that she needs? That she deserves? Or would they look at her as another science experiment, one living in their house that they could observe and monitor closely?”
“They’re good people!” Superman defended, raising his voice.
“And I have no doubt about that,” the blonde woman replied, arching her brow in a questioning manner, “But they are scientists, and scientists have a bad habit of getting caught up, their curious minds getting the better of them.”
Kal-El scoffed, “Like you’re one to talk, you’re a journalist, what’s to stop you from publishing everything you’ve found out here today, endangering Kara even further?!”
“You mean, something like that harpy Lane would do,” Cat snarked, narrowing her eyes. “You understand this, I am a far better person than Lois Lane will ever be. I would never knowingly publish an article that would put people in danger, especially a child.”
Superman scrubbed at his face in frustration but ultimately knew that the older woman was correct. The Danvers were very good people, some of the best, but they could get carried away, their scientific curiosity getting the better of them. His cousin didn’t need that. What she did need though, he was ashamed to admit that he wasn’t the best person to know what Kara needed. He gave Cat Grant an appraising look, perhaps she knew what was best for her. “Ms. Grant,” he intoned formally, “What do you suggest I do with my cousin then?”
Cat’s eyes hardened at his words. “I suggest that you ask her what she wants. Despite being new to this world, she is old enough to make her own decisions.”
“But-” He started but a fierce look from the woman quickly shut him up. He sighed and turned to the blonde head watching the conversation from behind the older woman. “Kara,” Kal started, “What do you want to do? Do you want me to take you to the family I found for you?”
The girl bit her lip and shifted her eyes from her cousin’s face to Cat’s. “Can, can I stay with you Cat?” She looked up at the older woman, her large blue eyes swimming with tears.
Cat could count on one hand the number of times she’s been struck speechless in her life. “I- Kara darling, are you sure? I don’t have the easiest life. I have an ex-husband, a teenage son who hates me, a toddler, a talk show and a rising media empire, I’m extremely busy…” She could’ve kicked herself when the girl’s expression crumpled and tears started to flood down her cheeks. She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose before kneeling down to be eye level with the girl. “Do you really want to stay with me?” Cat asked, softly brushing away the girl’s tears. Kara nodded, wiping at her own tears. “Well,” she said, turning back to Superman, “You heard her.”
“Ms. Grant, you make a living telling secrets. Am I to expect that you’ll keep this secret? That you’ll keep Kara safe?”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “I’ll excuse the preconception about my person as slander from that harpy Lane.” Superman’s face turned stony at her words but she continued, “And as for your question, yes I believe that I can protect Kara, but the question is, can you?”
His expression turned from stony to puzzled in an instant. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she drawled out. “You came here, expecting to retrieve Kara and what, instantly take her to this family you know? You weren’t going to call them in advance? Or give Kara any time to assimilate to either, help her figure out her abilities or the culture?”
Superman flushed briefly before clearing his throat, “I… I did not think of that Ms. Grant, and as for abilities, mine came in slowly, so Kara should have plenty of time to adjust to them before they come in.”
Cat sighed at the stupidity of the man in front of her before turning to the girl. “Dear, do you think you could try to crush one of these smaller rocks for me?” Kara nodded and picked up a nearby rock that was slightly larger than both of her hands. She held it delicately in both of her hands before pressing together, easily crushing the rock into dust. Cat turned back to see the shocked look in Superman’s eyes. “I felt her strength when she hugged me. She already has some control, but needs help. It is obvious from your words, you wouldn’t have helped her, but these scientists of yours would have, further cementing Kara as an experiment in their minds.” She turned her eyes from the superhero she was dressing down to the silver pod not to far away. “And what of that?” She asked, nodding her head to vehicle. “Would you have just left that here for anyone to find? Is that what happened to yours?”
“Who would take it Ms. Grant?” The man asked, a naively puzzled look on his face that made the woman want to slap him for his stupidity.
“If you think there are people on this planet that don’t wish you harm, or who wouldn’t confiscate this,” Cat said, gesturing towards the pod. “I can’t tell if you’re naive or just stupid.”
Kal shrunk a bit at Cat’s expression, not used to anyone giving him a dressing down like this, no one but his mother. At that, he straightened and realized that maybe Cat was exactly what Kara needed. “I will take care of it Ms. Grant.” He turned his attention to Kara, “Everything in it is yours Kara. I will look for any messages or anything else useful for you and I will make sure it gets to you.”
“Thank you Kal,” Kara said, moving away from Cat and towards her cousin. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed with as much strength as she could, causing him to let out a small ‘oof.’
“You’re definitely strong, stronger than me,” Kal muttered ruefully.
The blonde girl smiled shyly until a sad look crossed her face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you Kal, I was supposed to be there, teach you about Krypton…”
“Maybe my Kryptonese wouldn’t be so bad,” he joked, trying to ease her concerns. “Don’t be sorry. I was raised by a great family, and it looks like you’ll have a great one as well. Ms. Grant may present a heartless face, but I can already tell she cares a lot about you.”
Kara nodded and returned to Cat’s side, clutching lightly at her shirt. “Anything else Ms. Grant, before I take the pod to my… lair?”
“I am currently on a… doctor imposed vacation where I was separated from my cell phone,” Cat admitted, looking at the man. “I am of course allowed to use the phone at the… ranch,” she muttered distastefully, “To call and check on my son. I will need my cell phone though to make some calls and arrangements with certain people to make sure that this arrangement works out as quietly and smoothly as it can.”
“I know some people who can help with that Ms. Grant,” Superman started but was quickly waved off by the woman.
“I’m sure you do, but my people are better. Can you use your speedy abilities to retrieve my phone from that infernal safe so that I can make the appropriate calls?”
The man nodded and sped off, heading in the direction Cat indicated. Kara fidgeted slightly as they waited for Superman to return. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” She asked, pulling lightly on the bottom of Cat’s shirt. “It’s really sudden, and you said you had a son already, and I don’t know how to control my abilities, and I don’t want to hurt you or-”
Cat silenced the girl with a stern look. Placing both hands on her shoulders, she spoke in a strong, clear voice, “Kara, you aren’t going to hurt us and you aren’t a burden. I am happy to take you in, we’re going to be a family.”
“Really?”
The older woman nodded. “I know all of the right people to keep you safe. I won’t be able to keep people from knowing that something fell here, but I will do my best to keep them away from what it was, specifically you.”
Kara nodded and pressed her face against Cat’s stomach, seeking physical comfort. The older woman patted the top of her head and ran her fingers through soft blonde hair. “You’ll be okay Kara, not right away, but eventually you’ll be okay.” She was going to say more but Kal-El chose that moment to return. He handed over Cat’s cellphone and she gave him a slight nod when she took it. She tapped a few keys, praising that she had signal, and found the contact she was looking for. “I’m going to arrange papers for Kara and to expedite the adoption process,” she said, looking up at Kal. “What I need from you is to disappear everything that happened here. Clean up the whole area so that it looks as if nothing happened. You want to keep Kara safe, you clean up the evidence that she ever landed.”
“Of course Ms. Grant,” Superman acquiesced, realizing that the older woman was the wiser one in this situation.
Cat nodded again and walked off, one arm around Kara’s shoulders as she escorted the girl back in the direction of the ranch, dialing numbers on her phone as she went. “Daniel? Cat Grant, I have a project for you which will help you earn and keep that ridiculously high salary I pay you…”