Chapter 6
A hesitant knock came on the door and Cat strode quickly to answer it. She opened the door and found a woman a few years younger than herself with long brown hair and slightly tanned skin. She was holding several pizza boxes and take-out containers, but still manage to muster an air of aloofness in her expression. The two women stared at each other, sizing the other up, almost as if they were waiting to see who would break first. It was only a small hand gripping at the back of Cat’s shirt and a hesitant blonde head peeking around the woman that broke the two from their stare-down. Cat glanced down and found Kara glancing between the two of them, her eyes drifting towards the offering of food before trailing to the ground. “Kara,” Cat started, bringing her hand up to scratch lightly at the blonde’s scalp with her nails, “This is Lois Lane. La- Lois, why don’t you come in so that you can be properly introduced and Kara can stop staring at the food like I haven’t fed her in years.”
Lois chuckled and Kara ducked her head shyly, and they moved back into the suite towards the small dining area. The brunette woman set the pizza and potstickers on the table and turned to the girl, her dark lavender eyes searching her face for familiar features. Kara didn’t look like her cousin physically, but Lois could see the family resemblance. It was more with her behavior, how she fidgeted with her long sleeves, the slight crinkle at the corner of her eyes when she smiled… and the longing look on her face as she stared at the containers of food. “Cla- Superman gets that same expression on his face when he’s staring at his favorite food,” Lois murmured, a fond smile gracing her face.
“Kal does? What, um, what are his favorite foods?” Kara asked. Her fidgeting had shifted her body closer to the table but knew that she had to wait for Cat to tell her it was okay to start eating.
“He’s a farm boy at heart, fried chicken, green beans, really big burgers,” the brunette replied, rolling her eyes slightly.
Farm boy? Cat mused before her eyes widened, Clark Kent! Of course, should’ve known that dopey, self-righteous expression anywhere. Rather than voicing her revelation, she pulled out the room-service menu and perused the selections. “Kara, if Lane says you can start eating the peace-offering she brought you, it is fine with me. I’m going to order room-service, so if you’re allergic to anything Lane, do tell.”
Lois held out her hand for the room-service menu, glaring at Cat through the entire process. “Get me the lamb chops with cracked pepper cream, and do order a nice wine Kitty-Cat, red.” She turned to saw Kara still eyeing the food on the table, “Oh you can go ahead and eat sweetie, that’s all for you.”
“Slowly remember Kara,” Cat called when the girl made to grab the boxes. “And I’m ordering you a salad, you need your vegetables.”
Kara just nodded and delicately sat on one of the chairs, slowly pulling the food towards her. She debated between the containers of potstickers and the extra-large pizza before deciding she would eat one of the boxes of potstickers, then the pizza, then the other container of potstickers. She found chopsticks and sauce in the bag and pulled those out, slowly picking up the dumplings with the sticks and dipping them in the sauce before chewing happily. Cat placed Lois’s order and ordered a filet mignon with bearnaise sauce for herself and a Greek salad for Kara. Checking the wine listing, she added a bottle of cabernet to her order before turning back to the brunette reporter.
“You know she doesn’t look anything like him,” Lois murmured when she caught Cat staring at her. “I mean physically at least. Their behavior though, it’s almost insane how alike they are.”
“Their obsession with food maybe,” Cat replied, “Though now that I think about it, it’s almost laughable how simple Kal’s disguise is, I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner.”
Lois looked at the woman sharply, “How did you-”
“ Farm boy? Really Lois, you might as well have called him Smallville.”
“Cat, you can’t-”
“If you think I’m going to publish Superman’s secret identity, you must be insane. Despite how goody-two-shoes he is, Superman is needed. And exposing his identity would put my daughter in danger, and that is not happening.” She let out a low growl and her eyes flashed dangerously causing the other woman to take a step back.
The reported turned away from the older woman and focused her attention back on the little blonde alien at the table. “So Kara,” Lois started, sitting down across from the girl. “Tell me, how is living with Cat Grant? How are you adjusting to Earth?”
“Cat’s been great,” Kara replied, starting on the pizza, a simple pepperoni. “She encourages me to use my powers as much as I can so I can learn about them and control them better… Not the laser vision and freeze breath though, and I can only really float in the penthouse.”
“So she’s treating you well, and school?”
Kara mumbled a bit around her food and withered slightly when Cat sent her a dark look. She chewed quickly and swallowed, “Sorry, um, yeah, Cat’s the best. She got me all kinds of books to learn about this world, and then picked a good school for me where I could learn about human interaction and study what I want to. And I have a little brother now too, Carter, he’s really fun. We go on adventures and he tells me stories.”
A knock came at the door and Cat moved to answer it, letting the attendant in with their tray of food. “We can serve ourselves thank you,” she said, dismissing him with a wave and a large tip after he poured both of them a glass of wine. The attendant left and Cat placed the salad next to Kara’s pizza with the remaining potstickers container and grabbed her own plates of food off the tray.
“Never pegged you for a steak person Kitty-Cat,” Lois commented as she cut into her lamb chops.
“It’s good to enjoy the finer things in life Lane,” the woman returned, spearing a piece of steak with a cut piece of asparagus. “And don’t call me Kitty-Cat Lane, I would like to think cat puns are beneath you.”
Lois was about to retort when Kara spoke up. “Do you know where my cousin went?” She asked, her eyes large as she started in on her last container of potstickers. “Cat said that he couldn’t come see me…”
A sad look crossed the reporter’s face. “I’m sorry Kara, I’m not sure where he went truthfully, he just told me he’d be gone for a few weeks. And with the growing tensions here in Metropolis, it’s for the best really…”
“He could’ve come to see me again in National City,” Kara said, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve been on Earth for nearly half a year and he hasn’t spoken to me other than when I first landed.”
“I-” Lois paused, blinking a few times as she mulled over her thoughts. “I’m not sure what Clark, Kal has been thinking. I know he’s probably thinking that it’s safer for you if he stays away, and truthfully he really doesn’t have time to be raising a kid Kara, he has work, he’s a new superhero, it’s a lot.”
Kara was silent for a minute before looking back up at the woman, “Do you know that I’m older than him, about 13 years older? I watched him for my uncle Jor-El and my aunt Laura, I took care of him, changed his diaper. My parents sent me after his pod when Krypton was exploding in order to protect him, to raise him. I wouldn’t have abandoned him like he has done me.” The girl sniffed and wiped at her tears, “I guess I should be grateful since I have Cat and Carter now because he couldn’t be bothered.” A bitterness crept into her voice that shocked the two women.
“Kara…” Cat started but Lois waved her off.
“I can’t make excuses for what he did, his decisions. Clark pretty much does what he thinks is best all the time. I can’t promise that he’ll come visit you, or call you, but I will. I will keep in contact with you about him, let you know what he’s doing. Eventually I might even get him to act like a grownup,” Lois said, winking at the girl.
The girl smiled and started in on her salad, crinkling her nose as she mulled over the taste of the cranberry dressing on the lettuce. It grew on her though the more she ate and she quickly demolished the rest of her food. The three sat and talked for a while longer, Cat and Lois trading barbs while Kara asked questions about Kal, his life, Lois’s job, working at the Daily Planet. Lois shared stories of what Cat was like when they both worked for the paper and the blonde woman returned with equally embarrassing stories about the brunette. It was nearing midnight when Cat sent a yawning Kara off to bed.
“Amazing we managed to get through dinner without killing each other,” Cat muttered, “Though it probably had something to do with a blonde haired, blue eyed alien puppy and a lovely bottle of cabernet.”
“Those eyes,” the brunette groaned, “I bet she could get Lionel Luthor to confess all his sins and donate his money to charity with those eyes.” Cat snorted at the irony and waved away Lois’s questioning eyes. The reporter glanced down for a minute before looking back up at the blonde woman with unfamiliar hesitance. “Cat… I know that you didn’t allow for any access for biological family when you adopted Kara, making sure that if any showed up that they wouldn’t be able to reverse the adoption or make decisions for her.”
Cat eyed Lois appraisingly, “What of it?”
“I think it was a good idea,” the woman replied, holding her hand up in a placating gesture. “You know Clark, he’s not the best at making decisions. He gets his head out of ass and decides he wants to be there for Kara, then he’d start making all of these demands, saying she needs to grow up in the country on a farm, or that she shouldn’t use her powers as much as you’ve encouraged her to do, she shouldn’t be a superhero, she should be a superhero, she shouldn’t get close to her classmates and make friends like a normal girl…”
“Your farm boy has always been a bit too self-righteous for my tastes and it carries over to his alternate persona.”
Lois shrugged, “Sometimes I think about the naive farm boy I met a few years ago, but then I think about Superman and I wonder which one is the act?” She nodded her head towards the bedroom where Kara disappeared, “That girl though? She’s completely authentic in everything she does.” The woman grabbed her bag and headed towards the door, pausing for a moment before she opened it. “You know Grant, I hate to admit this, but if she decides to don a cape like her cousin, you might end up with the better hero.”
Cat felt a tendril of warmth and pride curl in her chest but she hid it with smug superiority. “Never forget it Lane, make sure not to step in any puddles on your way home, I’d hate to have to explain why you melted.”
“Don’t look at yourself in the mirror Cat, I’d hate for you to petrify yourself.”
“A Harry Potter reference Lane? How juvenile of you.”
Lois smirked, “Says the one who recognized the reference.” Before Cat could say anything else, she swung the door open and the brunette disappeared out of the suite. Cat finished clearing things up in the room and pushed the serving cart back into the hallway before retiring to the bedroom. The sight that greeted her nearly caused her to melt in a puddle. Kara was sleeping, curled up on her side, clutching her puppy Krypto to her chest with one arm and one of the stuffed animals Carter had let her borrow in the other. One of Cat’s pillows that she had slept on the night before had migrated to Kara’s bed and the girl had her face buried in it with tiny sounds emerging from her mouth as she breathed deeply. Her fingers itched to brush away the strand of blonde hair that fluttered in front of her face with every breath, but she didn’t want to disturb the girl.
Her itching fingers won out and she stepped lightly across the room and knelt down next to the girl, softly brushing the hair away from her face. “Goodnight darling,” she murmured, “Sweet dreams.”
Kara shifted slightly in her sleep, nuzzling into the older blonde’s hand and Cat was afraid she had wakened the girl. “ Ieiu,” Kara mumbled and Cat’s breath caught in her throat.
She waited until Kara settled down again before retreating to the bathroom, tears forming in her eyes. Cat braced herself against the counter in the bathroom, her heart pounding in her chest. Taking a few shuddering breaths, she glanced up at herself in the mirror. “She called me mom…”
Cat rubbed at her temples idly as another round of squealing echoed through the penthouse. It was Christmas Eve and she had given her staff the day off and had decided to work from her home office so she could have the time between Christmas and New Years to spend with Kara and Carter. She arranged her schedule with her staff and the producers for her talk show (top rated talk show on television, best rated show for her time slot, the accolades could go on) as soon as she and Kara returned from Metropolis. It was supposed to be a calm, family time into the holidays, and hopefully a time when she and Kara could talk about what the girl had inadvertently called her in her sleep.
That plan had been slightly disrupted when Kara had come to her with large, sad eyes saying that Lena was stuck at the school over Christmas break. Cat wasn’t quite sure how Lena ‘Thorul’ Luthor ended up sitting on her couch singing “We’re a couple of Misfits” from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer , but she blames it on those eyes. If she wasn’t totally enraptured by Kara’s voice, she would be struck by how true those words were with the two girls.
Cat abandoned her desk and moved towards the living room to observe the rag tag group clustered on the floor near the TV. Lena and Kara were pressed together shoulder to shoulder with a popcorn bowl settled in the brunette’s lap, and Carter perched in Kara's. Two pairs of eyes, one set blue the other green, gazed at the screen while the third set of eyes drooped tiredly. A laugh near escaped her throat when Cat saw Carter amble slightly out of Kara's lap so he could spread out on the two girls as he fought to stay awake.
Lena let out an ‘oof' as one of Carter's knees dug into her ribs and moved the popcorn bowl out of the way. “At least he's not looking at me in suspicion anymore,” the girl mentioned to her friend. “I never thought a kid could glare but then his mother is Cat Grant after all.”
“Cat's ability to glare is legendary,” Kara agreed, “But you know she's really very nice and loving.”
“Better than my mother I assure you.”
A sad thought crossed Cat's mind as she retreated to the study once more to finish up the last of her work. Out of all of them, Carter was really the only one with a healthy relationship with his family, and she and his father have been divorced almost as long as the boy has been alive. She had a terrible relationship with her mother, Lena was adopted and if information proved correct, both sets weren't model examples of parenthood, and Kara, Kara lost everything. They were forging their own type of family though and while Cat didn't care for the Luthors in general, Lena was proving to be different than she expected. Kara adored the girl for being her first, best and so far only friend, so Cat resolved to make Christmas special for the both of them, for all of them.
She pulled out her phone and ordered her usual from the local place, adding an extra pizza on for Lena, and then called Jin Fa for a few orders or potstickers. In another life, one where she never adopted Kara and learned to deal with her high calorie appetite, she probably wouldn't have a regular order from the local, greasy hole pizza place. Though, she likes to imagine that Kara would've entered her life anyway and she would have, without a doubt, ended up with a regular pizza order. The girl was with her now, and Kara's growing love affair with food was both daunting and endearing.
“Kara, Lena,” she called, walking back to the living room. “I've ordered pizza and potstickers for dinner, it should be here in half an hour. You still have a few hours before you both need to get to bed, are you going to watch movies the whole time?”
“We have to read The Night before Christmas ,” Kara said, “We finished reading A Christmas Caro l so we have to read that one. And we have to put cookies, milk and carrots out for Santa and the reindeer.” Her eyes were wide and earnest and Cat smiled at the honest belief in old Father Christmas. Kara embraced the Christmas traditions, beliefs and fables with open arms, setting up nativity sets, Christmas trees and reindeer in the same places. Cat didn't want to dissuade the girl's belief in Santa but knew that her classmates would say some things to the girl. Kara just brushed her off saying that most humans didn't believe aliens were real until her cousin started saving people. The woman didn't say anything else to the girl, just went along with the plans for greeting the man in the red suit.
Lena wasn't fazed by Kara’s belief either and just squeezed the other girl's hand, and the two turned their attention back to the movie. The movie had ended by the time that the food was delivered and they turned on the animated How the Grinch stole Christmas . At least it's not that Jim Carey nightmare , Cat snorted and speared a piece of cucumber and cherry tomato with her fork. Kara slowly ate her way through an entire pizza and a container of potstickers, and Cat hoped that Lena either didn't notice the other girl’s eating habits or didn't care. Carter had eaten earlier and it was getting late so Cat picked him up and got him ready to bed with only minimal protesting from the already partially dozing toddler.
The girls had started Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus by the time Cat finished and returned to the living room. “That’s the last one and then you need to help me put things out for Santa and get ready for bed,” she told the girls, a stern expression on her face. “I let you stay up late because it’s Christmas Eve, but you still need to get to sleep.”
“Yes Cat” “Yes Ms. Grant” the two girls intoned, not tearing their eyes away from the TV. Kara had long since finished her food and was starting back in on the bowl of popcorn while Lena continued to munch away on her pizza. Whatever she had leftover when she was finished was quickly pushed over to Kara who hugged the brunette tightly before finishing the last of the pizza and popcorn by the end of the movie. Cat winced at the amount of junk food the girl just consumed but resigned herself to feeding both of them as many fruits and vegetables tomorrow as she could shove at them.
Once the movie ended, Cat shuffled the two girls into cleaning up the living room, making sure that Kara kept everything at a human pace. Encouraging the girl to use her powers helped her control them, but Cat had to make sure that she didn’t use them when there were visitors. The girls cleaned up the mess they made in the living room and Kara bounced around, setting out a tray of cookies, carrots and milk for Santa, along with a note for the man. A little over an hour later, they were dressed in their pajamas and sitting on the couch with Cat. The woman rolled her eyes and chuckled at the matching pajamas that the girls insisted they have. Kara’s shirt was a soft baby blue and her pants were a darker shade with golden retriever puppies splashed along the legs. Lena’s were a light green and had brown puppies on the legs, brown with black floppy ears. They were both so cute it was ridiculous, though Cat remembered another time when a different Luthor was best friends with a different alien with blue eyes. The rhetoric coming from Lex Luthor who, while still growing his business, is becoming very influential in the business and technology world. She hoped that with the separation from the elder Luthors that Lena would turn out different and the friendship between the two girls would survive the truth.
Cat pulled out The Night Before Christmas and Kara immediately snuggled up to her side, setting her head on her shoulder. She could see the hesitation in Lena’s eyes but before she could contemplate what that meant, the girl had moved so she was pressed into her other side, mirroring her best friend. “Comfortable?” Cat asked wryly and the two girls nodded, pulling in closer to the woman. “Alright, ‘ Twas the Night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…’ ” She read the poem to the two girls, pointing at the beautiful illustrations on the pages.
By the time she finished, Kara was dozing lightly against her shoulder and Lena was looking at her with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “She’s like a puppy isn’t she?” The brunette murmured, “Lots of energy, easily excitable, eats everything, takes no time to fall asleep.”
“Mhm, she does have some puppy tendencies,” Cat agreed. “It’s those eyes.”
Lena let out a low groan, “Don’t even on those eyes, she has the meanest teacher at school wrapped around her fingers because of those eyes.” The brunette moved around Cat and gently shook her friend. “Come on Kara, up we go, bedtime.” Kara let out a groan and Lena just rolled her eyes and tugged her off the couch. “You’re a lot heavier than you look,” Lena huffed out when the blonde wrapped herself around her like an octopus. “Nevermind, she’s a koala.” The girl let out a grunt and shuffled back to the room with a blonde alien draped across her back. “Come on Kara, get in.” Lena pushed the girl off her back and Kara sleepily crawled into bed with Lena not too far after her.
Cat followed after the girls and made sure they were both in bed before cutting the light off. She lingered outside the door for a few minutes and waited for the giggles and whispers to quiet down before moving back to the living room. “The things I do,” she sighed out, staring at the large plate of cookies and carrots Kara had left out for Santa. Cat bit into each of the cookies, biting the heads off the gingerbread men, and taking chunks out of the sugar cookies. She used part of the milk to wash down the cookies before biting into the carrots as well. Leaving the crumbs and remnants of the milk on the counter, Cat returned to her room and pulled her pajamas on, falling into a dead sleep as soon as she crawled into bed.
She was woken up the next morning by an excitable blonde and squirming toddler bouncing slightly on her bed. “Mama Mama, wake up! It’s Christmas, Santa was here!” Carter giggled, tugging on his mother’s arm.
“Alright, alright, I’m up,” Cat groaned, grabbing her robe as she rubbed her eyes and followed her children out into the living room. She stopped short when she saw piles of presents under the tree, more than what she stashed there the night before and the empty plate sitting on the counter with an empty glass next to it and note folded on top of the plate.
“Thanks for the presents Ms. Grant,” Lena beamed, her eyes shifting towards the small pile of presents in front of her. Cat counted four presents in front of the girl and tilted her head, she only got two for the girl.
The children excitedly opened their presents while Cat plucked the piece of paper from the plate. Opening it, she saw an old-fashioned, loopy ‘Thank you’ scrawled across the paper. Cat’s brow rose into her hairline and she glanced between the paper and the kids on the floor in front of the tree. Carter was playing excitedly with his legos and action figures that she had gotten him, but was clutching tightly to a toy train and a plush version of Thomas the Tank Engine. She had gotten Lena a book dealing with environmental science, something Kara had told her the girl was interested in along with a simple science project kit she had picked up at the store. Along with those gifts though, there was an incredibly soft looking plush tiger and a large sweatshirt with the Republic of Ireland’s national football team logo printed on the front. Kara had boxes of art supplies, paints, pastels, charcoal, everything Cat could find in the art supply store when she went asking around, along with paper, canvas, sketchbooks. The girl burned through sketchbooks in no time. She also received a sweatshirt matching Lena’s and a book on different dog breeds, which she was flipping through with interest. Cat frowned at that last present and glanced back down at the note in her hand. We are NOT getting a dog, she thought firmly before noticing the small print on the bottom of the paper.
‘Look under the tree.’
“Cat, there’s still a few presents under here for you,” Kara said, pulling a few boxes out from underneath the greenery. Cat dutifully opened the presents from her children and the one that was mailed to her from her mother out of some sort of familial obligation. Carter had drawn her a picture and had picked out a nice box of chocolates and bath supplies (courtesy of Meredith no doubt). Her mother sent her some useless trinket that was no doubt supposed to have some sort of meaning but would either become decoration in the hall closet to only be pulled out if her mother deigned to visit again, or as a glorified paper weight. Kara fidgeted slightly when she handed over her present. “Lena helped me pick out a frame,” is all she said before falling silent.
The woman looked at Kara curiously before pulling open the box. Her breath caught when she saw what was inside. It was a canvas, fairly decent size with a painting of herself, Kara and Carter sitting on a bench in the park with a few ducks at their feet. The sun was setting, the light casting a warm glow through the scene and dark shadows behind them. “Oh Kara, it’s beautiful.”
Kara ducked her head shyly, “I started working on it at the beginning of the semester when the art teacher said our final project could be anything we wanted. Getting used to the paint was the hard part.”
“Is it oil paint?” Kara nodded her head and Cat hummed, she must’ve sped up the drying process just a tad. “It’s beautiful, I love it, thank you, all of you.” The three returned to their presents and Cat looked at the last box in front of her in contemplation. Shrugging her shoulders, she opened the box and found one of her favorites vintages of wine and an aged bottle of single malt. She found another letter in the box with handwriting matching the one left on the plate. ‘ A small token for giving one of the greatest gifts, the gifts of love and family for someone in need.’ Cat sat back on the couch after reading the note. She knew Clark Kent’s chicken scrawl and Lois Lane’s overly loopy handwriting, neither one resembling the writing on the notes she received. She glanced up and saw Carter playing with his train and Lena and Kara sitting side by side wearing matching hoodies, while the brunette explained the science project in the box to the blonde.
The older blonde excused herself back to her room to change clothes, all the while thinking Maybe there’s something more to this Santa thing.