Chapter 7
“Why are you having to volunteer at an animal shelter again?” Cat asked, watching as her daughter moved around her room stuffing a few things into a small backpack.
“I told you that it’s a requirement of all students to participate in volunteer work during either the fall or spring semester, and my homeroom drew a spring semester slot.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re volunteering at an animal shelter though.”
Kara grinned sheepishly and toed the tip of her shoe and little bit. “That’s, um, well Lena got a list of places to volunteer that the school accepts for this project, and we were going over the list and I saw the animal shelter listed near the bottom…”
Cat sighed and rolled her eyes, “You and dogs, you better not get any idea to bring a dog home with you. We talked about this.”
“I know, I know, no pets.”
The woman narrowed her eyes and just hummed, “So Lena is going to be volunteering with you today?”
“Yeah, she’ll be here soon.” As soon as the words left Kara’s mouth, the doorbell rang on the penthouse and Kara bolted to answer it.
Cat chuckled and followed after her exuberant daughter, finding her in the hallway by the door giving her brunette friend a tight hug. “Lena don’t let her bring a puppy home,” Cat warned, pointing a figure at the girl. “She’ll try to trick you with her own sad, puppy eyes, but it’s not allowed. I’m naming you responsible for her.”
Lena straightened and saluted, clicking her heels. “Yes Captain ma’am!” She squeaked out, fighting to keep a smile from appearing on her face.
“This isn’t the old west, don’t call me ma’am,” Cat replied, turning to head back to her office. Before she left she turned back to the girls and smirked, “And that’s General Grant to you Lena.” She started back towards her office before she paused and turned back to the girls. “On second thought, I’m coming with you both, you need supervision.”
“No Cat, you have work you need to do,” Kara said, “Carter’s at his dad’s house, you could use this chance to…”
“Sit at home by myself with a glass of wine and a mountain of paperwork to do?” Cat finished, her brow rising into her hairline. “Not a chance, and I don’t trust you not to bring a dog home.”
“But Lena said she would watch me!”
“I once watched her as she handed over her double scoop ice cream cone because you pouted at her,” Cat replied, grabbing her coat and purse from the hall closet. “I can’t trust her to remain unswayed, no offense of course Lena.”
“Those eyes, they’re lethal weapons,” Lena shivered, “I could use the backup.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” Cat replied while Kara just pouted. The woman ushered the girls out of the penthouse and down to the parking garage. She opted to take her car rather than call for one of her drivers, and unlocked her Mercedes. Her mind flickered briefly to the muscle car she had stashed away at her beach house and sighed. When Carter was older, she would be able to drive it again with more frequency, feeling the power underneath the hood as she zoomed along the coastal road near beaches and scraggly cliffs. Cat glanced in her rearview mirror and checked on the two girls in the back seat, whispering and giggling conspiratorially. Warmth built in Cat’s chest and she smiled. This was better, having a family, doing seemingly mundane activities that she heard of from other kids when she was in boarding school, it was worth sacrificing one of her rarely free Saturdays to spend time with her daughter and her daughter’s best friend.
She still hadn’t had a conversation with Kara about calling her mom in her sleep. It was nearing the end of January, over a month since the incident had happened and Cat had meant to bring it up with the girl numerous times. She held back each time though, part of her terrified that the girl wasn’t thinking about her at all, but rather her other mother, the one that raised her for the first thirteen years of her life and made hard decisions to ensure the girl’s survival. Her heart yearned to know if the girl called her mom, loved her enough to give her that title, to share it with Alura, but her heart also remembered the sting of rejection. Her mother, Aaron, Jason, Adam… She didn’t think her heart could take the soft rejection and mournful apology that would no doubt appear in Kara’s eyes.
“Ms. Grant, the animal shelter is just up here,” Lena’s voice came, breaking Cat from her thoughts. She glanced around and spotted the sign for the shelter on her left and signaled that she was turning into the parking lot. She parked and shuffled the girls out of the car and into the building, pushing down a smile at the sight of Kara eagerly bouncing on the balls of her feet.
The woman waiting behind the desk inside the lobby bolted upright when she saw the enter. “Ms. Grant,” the woman stuttered out, “I didn’t, we didn’t realize you were coming today. Of course we knew that your um, well we saw her last name um… Hi, I’m Daisy, Daisy Marks, I am one of the full time staff here at the shelter. I deal with adoptions, volunteers, and general kennel and animal care.” She moved around the desk and smiled nervously at the media mogul before grinning brightly at the two girls. “You two must be Kara and Lena, your homeroom teacher emailed me and let me know you would be volunteering here a few Saturdays this semester.” Kara just bounced excitedly while Lena nodded. “Excellent, you’re the only volunteers we have from your school so far, though we’ll probably get a few later in the term.”
“I decided to come with them today Ms. Marks, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to every day the girls are volunteering. I wanted to make it expressly clear that my daughter is not to be bringing any animals home with her,” Cat said, her arms crossed over her chest.
Daisy shifted for a minute, pushing the long sleeves of her oversized shirt up her arms closer to her elbows. “No need to worry about that Ms. Grant,” she said after a few minutes, “We have a strict policy against letting our student volunteers adopt pets. They can, but only after they’ve stopped interning and with express parental consent of course.”
“I see that you’ve had this problem before,” the blonde woman commented sardonically.
“Occasionally, but not to often,” another voice replied and the four turned to see an older black woman walking into the lobby. “Tracey Green Ms. Grant, I’m the director here, I deal with all of the business aspects of running the shelter, lobbying for funds and donations, and arranging for adoption days at different festivals throughout the year. Daisy and Diego Reyes, our vet and resident handyman generally keep track of the animals and the kennels.”
“Only the three of you?”
“We rely a lot on volunteer help,” Tracey told her. “If you come with me Ms. Grant, I can give you some more information about our facility while Daisy shows the girls the ropes on what they’re going to be doing.”
Cat followed Tracey back to her office and Daisy took Kara and Lena back to the kennels where the dogs were kept. The smile on Kara’s face when she saw all of the dogs could’ve powered the entire city. The older brunette took them through the facility and told them that they would be helping to exercise the dogs, feed them, and clean the kennels. Older volunteers, generally college students who like working with animals, would take some of the dogs out for adoption fairs or feature adoption of the week, so Kara and Lena would mainly be helping in the shelter, occasionally taking the dogs out for walks.
A few hours passed as Daisy trained them on different safety measures and general care for the animals and the facility, making sure to go over everything a few times to stress the importance of proper procedure to the two girls. She left them alone in the kennels to play with the dogs during the last hour and returned to the front desk. Kara left Lena in one of the cages near the front playing with a few small terrier mixes while she explored the other kennels further back in the shelter.
“Lena?” The brunette glanced up and saw Cat standing outside the kennel looking in on her in bemusement.
“Hi Ms. Grant, did you have a good talk with Mrs. Green?” The brunette asked, reluctantly getting off the floor and leaving the enclosure.
Cat hummed, “It was very enlightening, I might see about covering animal adoptions as a special for my show, or cover local animal shelters in the Tribune. Something to think about anyway.” She adjusted the purse settled in the crook of her elbow and looked around in the nearby pens. “Where’s Kara? It’s time to go, I have to get you back to school. If we leave now, we can get dinner before you head back.”
“She’s further back, I think she said something about meeting as many of ‘the cute little puppies’ as she could.” Lena scrunched her nose, “Is this one of those situations where like calls to like?”
The older woman sighed and just continued down the line of kennels, “Quite possibly.” They found Kara in the next to last pen and Cat was speechless when she saw her daughter.
“Cat! Look!” Kara squealed, picking up the full grown St. Bernard mix, “Isn’t he so cute?! He was just back here, all by himself, lying down, so I came in here to sit with him and then he climbed on my lap so I thought he wanted a cuddle and isn’t he just the cutest?” Cat and Lena looked at the girl with flabbergasted expressions on their faces, which cued Kara in that she had done something wrong. She tilted her head, and wiggled her nose for a moment. The dog in her arms let out a soft ‘woof’ and it finally registered. “Oh,” she muttered, “I’m not supposed to be able to pick him up am I?”
Lena just giggled and Cat let out a loud groan, dropping her head in her hand. “Kara,” she growled, a note of warning in her voice.
Kara just winced and slowly set the dog down, a quiet ‘aww’ building in her chest as he melted bonelessly to the floor, lying on her feet. She heard her adoptive mother exhale in frustration and she flinched, glancing up at the woman. “Um, can we forget this happened?”
“So you have super strength too?” Lena blurted out, “Does that mean you also have super durability or else your bones would snap under the weight…”
“Not here,” Cat hissed, “and what do you mean she has super strength too?’”
The brunette gave the older woman a sheepish look. “Um… well… Kara occasionally… floats in her sleep?”
Cat just let out another aggravated sigh while Kara looked at her friend thoughtfully. “I didn’t know I did that.”
“Kara!”
Lena and Kara just looked down at their boxes of takeout as they ate quietly on the couch, doing their best not to make too much noise in case they set off Cat who was pacing furiously in front of the couch. “So let me get this straight,” Cat said, stopping in front of the two girls, “You’ve known that… something was odd about Kara for how many months?”
“Um… since the first sleepover?” Lena said, looking up from her pasta. “Like, I knew something was special about her when we met, but I couldn’t quite figure it out until, well, the floating…”
Kara opened her mouth as if to say something but Cat just sent her a withering look that silenced her. “What exactly is it that you’ve figured out?” The older woman asked calmly, pinning the girl to her seat with a fierce glare.
“Well, Kara’s a meta-human right?” Lena asked, looking from the reporter, talk-show host, burgeoning hover mother, to her best friend, “Or an alien? Maybe a mutant like the X-Men, though that’s a comic book series. Though they could be real with my multiverse theory is correct, in which case Kara could also be a dimensional traveler…”
The throbbing in Cat’s head amplified the longer Lena talked. “Lena, Lena, stop, alright, we get it.”
Lena nodded sheepishly before looking over at Kara. “So what are you?”
“Um…” The blonde glanced up at her mother and seeing the older woman’s nod, she looked back at Lena. “Um, an alien?”
“Whoa,” Lena blinked, “That’s so cool! So you look just like humans, er, earthlings? But you can float and have super strength, do you know if you have super durability and invulnerability? How thick would your skin have to be in order to block like a knife, do you feel it when people touch you? I know that one guy in gym class ran into you the one time and you fell over, but I’m pretty sure he was hurt worse than you were…”
“Lena please stop talking,” Cat groaned out again, rubbing her forehead where a headache was throbbing just under the surface. “So you’re alright with Kara being an alien?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” The dark haired girl asked, her green eyes wide. Cat just sent her a knowing look and Lena flinched, looking back down at her food. “So uh, you know about that huh?”
“I’m surprised more people don’t know Lena, though I will say that not many are as intelligent as I am,” the older woman conceded.
“Know what?” Kara asked, her mouth full of spaghetti.
Lena ducked her head a bit before glancing up at her friend, her best friend. “Um, well, my parents and older brother, they're a little… outspoken about aliens. Bordering on hatred really, kind of like anti-Semitism during the Natzi era, or the anti-mulism atmosphere that's cropping up lately.” She sighed and gave Kara a mournful look, “Thorul isn't my actual last name, which your mom has figured out. It's Luthor.”
“Luthor…” Kara blinked, “Like Lex Luthor?”
“My older brother,” the brunette supplied weakly, “He's always been the favorite since he's their real child. The stuff he's been saying, it scares me. You have to believe me, I don't agree with what he's been saying, especially his war on Superman, that's just ridiculous.”
Kara stared at her friend for a few moments and a feeling of dread started to build in both Lena and Cat. Suddenly the blonde did something neither of them expected she would ever do, she turned fully away from her food in order to embrace the brunette sitting next to her. “You're not your family,” Kara murmured, “You're you Lena, doesn't matter who your family is. You're my friend and I love you.”
“Really?”
The blonde nodded her head happily. “Of course! You know you're my first friend on Earth so that makes you special.”
“Thanks Kara,” Lena sniffed and wiped at bit at her nose using her sleeve, causing Cat to flinch slightly. Satisfied that she had gotten all of the important answers, the older woman sat down to her plated dinner, digging into a perfectly seasoned salmon filet.
“So Lena, what is this about Kara floating in her sleep?” Cat asked, eyeing the girl.
Lena giggled while Kara just blushed. “Oh Ms. Grant, it was the weirdest thing. The first night we had a sleepover, I got up to get some water. When I came back, Kara was floating a few feet off the bed.” She laughed when she saw Kara's face express a mixture of amusement and mortification. “I didn't know what to think at first except that this was some kind of exorcist thing, but that's usually all horizontal looking like a creepy corpse. Kara was in her normal starfish sleeping position so I just shrugged and climbed back in bed. I was kind-of afraid that she would just drop out of the air and squish me so I grab her hand and tugged her back down to the bed.”
“I wonder if floating in your sleep is the alien version of sleepwalking,” Cat muttered. She turned a sharp glare on Kara, “You better grow out of it or you're never going to be able to go to college.”
The blonde just shrugged while her friend giggled. “So what else can you do? Can you do anything else? Other than floating and strength?”
Kara glanced at Cat for a moment and seeing her nod, she looked back at Lena. “I have enhanced senses, basically all of them are enhanced.”
“Oh wow.” Lena blinked, “So like advanced hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell? That's amazing! Do you use them often?”
“Sometimes, my M- um, Cat, she encouraged me to use them as much as I could, as much as I could stand. She said it would help me with my control.” The woman in question caught Kara's brief slip and her heart clenched. She would have to have that conversation with the girl, soon. “Occasionally if I hear something bad Cat calls in an anonymous tip to the police, but I normally like to give people their privacy,” Kara continued, “It's working so far, I don't have near as much trouble as I did when I first came, though really loud noises still freak me out a bit. And really really bad smells.”
“How do you stand the smell of the boy’s locker room?” Lena scrunched her nose, “I'm human with average senses and it makes me want to puke having to smell that every day for gym.”
“It, it's not pleasant,” Kara replied, “Boys are gross.” Lena nodded in agreement and the two chattered for a while before Cat called her driver to take the brunette back to her dorm room, ignoring her protests that she could take the bus.
“I’m going to go do my homework for the week,” Kara said when Cat walked back into the living room, finding everything cleaned up and the room spotless.
“Kara wait,” Cat said, halting the girl’s movement. When the blonde turned back to look at the woman, her blue eyes large and inquisitive, all of the air escaped out of Cat’s lungs. “I um…” It was the first time in years that she uttered the word ‘um.’ The last time was her first day of college when her journalism professor snapped at her, demanding an answer for why she was pursuing journalism. That question scared her, but this, right here, with Kara looking at her with large eyes, waiting, it was terrifying. “I need to talk to you,” she said finally, sitting down on the couch. She waved the blonde girl over and took a few measuring breaths while Kara settled on the couch next to her.
“Is this about Lena finding out that I’m… you know because I didn’t know that I floated in my sleep, I promise…”
“Kara, Kara, easy, I’m not worried about it, I think you’ll grow out of it in time. And Lena’s your best friend, her knowing about you would give you someone else to talk to,” Cat replied, running her hand down Kara’s arm. “No, this… I wanted to talk to you about this for a while now.” Kara cocked her head and Cat smiled, brushing back some of the strands of honey blonde hair. “You… when we were in Metropolis, the night Lois came to visit. After she left, I checked on you in the room, dead to the world curled up with Krypto and Tyson.” The woman smiled fondly, remembering the image, “You, when I touched you, you murmured Ieiu.” Kara’s face whitened and she looked down, her entire body tensing. Cat pressed on, wanting, needing an answer. “I normally wouldn’t ask, but I have to know. Kara… did you mean it?”
The girl didn’t reply for a long moment, Cat’s heart was in her throat the entire time before she saw a hesitant nod. “I guess I’ve been thinking about it a lot, referring to you as ‘mom’ in my head, I just didn’t know how to do it outloud, or if you would even want that from me. I know I’m not your real child.”
“Kara, no,” Cat stated, pressing both of her hands on her shoulders. “I took you in, adopted you, loved you, I do love you as if you were my own child. Blood doesn’t always make a family, it’s love that binds us together and I love you. I don’t think I could love you more if I had actually given birth to you. You are my daughter, Carter’s older sister, nothing is going to change that. I can’t replace Alura in your life, but I can serve the same role in your life, if you want me to.”
Kara nodded, once, twice, tears streaming down her face before lunging at the older woman, wrapping her arms around her in a tight embrace. “I love you mom,” Kara whispered, burying her face in Cat’s neck.
The older woman closed her eyes, a few tears escaping to run down her own face. “I love you too Kara,” she whispered, holding the girl close. “I love you too.”
“Kara,” Carter asked, making his way over to the girl and climbing in her lap. He stood up on her legs and placed his hands on her face, giving her a serious look.
“Yes?”
“When’s your birthday?” He asked, the serious expression never leaving his face.
The blonde blinked for a moment and tilted her head as she thought about Carter’s question. “I’m not sure Cart,” she replied honestly, “We never really celebrated birthdays where I’m from, we celebrated Name Day, meaning the day we got our names a few days after birthday.”
Carter pouted his lip a bit as he thought and nodded. “Okay, so when’s your Name Day?”
“I’m not sure buddy, but I’ll let you know.” The little boy nodded his head in excitement and crawled off her lap to keep playing with his toys. Carter’s birthday was a few days ago, just after Kara had gotten out of school for summer break. Lena stayed in National City long enough to attend the little boy’s party before flying back to Metropolis on her family’s orders. The blonde was sad to see her friend leave, but knew that they would keep in touch during the break. Ever since the party though, Carter’s had birthdays on the brain, wanting to know when everyone’s birthday was. He asked Meredith, Lena, Cat and now apparently it was Kara’s turn.
The question stuck with Kara the rest of the day as she and Carter played until his nap time, and then later after he work up and they went to the park with Meredith. It lingered in her mind until long after Cat returned home and they were eating dinner around the table. “Alright Kara,” the older blonde started as she was trying to coerce her suddenly picky son into eating his vegetables along with his pasta, “What’s wrong? Your mind has been a thousand miles away tonight.”
“More like light years away,” Kara murmured.
“Mama!” Carter ‘whispered’ in his toddler voice, drawing Cat’s attention. “I asked Kara when her birthday was today.”
“You did?” Cat immediately knew what had her daughter so distracted but focused on his son and the story he was telling. “And what did she say?”
“She didn’t know!” The boy replied, his eyes wide. “Though she said that she didn’t really have birthdays, said that her other family did um… um…”
“Name Days,” Kara whispered to her brother and Carter’s eyes lit up.
“Yes, that, Name Days!” He squealed. “Do you know when Kara’s Name Day is Mama?”
“Why don’t we ask her darling?” Cat whispered back to the boy.
Carter turned his wide, pleading eyes back to Kara and the blonde hated to let him down. “I’m sorry buddy, I really don’t know. The um, the calendar was different, timing, days, things like that.” They still hadn’t told Carter that she was an alien, not really, just that she was special. Cat wanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, so they had to think of ways to talk around it with him.
A contemplative expression crossed Carter’s face and he set his head on his propped up hand, barely paying attention now as his mother shoveled vegetables into his mouth. He finished eating the last of the broccoli by the time he realized what had happened. “I know!” He cried out again, clapping his hands, “You can pick a new Name Day, any day.” He bounced excitedly in his seat, “You could pick Halloween! Then we could dress up, get candy and have a party every year for your Name Day!”
“Carter,” Cat chastised, “If Kara is going to pick a Name Day, don’t you think we should let her decide?”
The boy pouted but nodded reluctantly. “I promise to think about it buddy,” Kara whispered to him, causing the boy to grin. The three of them finished up their dinner, and Cat got Carter bathed and ready for bed while Kara cleaned the kitchen and finished eating the remaining food from dinner. She had just put away the last plate when Carter came barreling towards her, stark naked and dripping wet from having just gotten out of the bath. Kara caught him just as he was attempting to run passed her, and Cat appeared from the bathroom holding his towel and clothes with a disgruntled look on her face.
“I really thought he had grown out of this,” she sighed as Kara held the squirming boy. Carter just giggled and Kara helped her mother get him dried off and dresser with a little help from super speed.
“Kara, sing me a song,” Carter murmured, sleep finally catching up with him. The blonde had taken to teaching Cat and Carter about Krypton, including the language and culture. She lost the opportunity to teach Kal the ways of Krypton, the songs of their people, but Carter loved them, especially the lullabies her mother and aunt had sung to her as a child.
Cat waved her away to Carter's room and Kara carried the little boy, softly singing her favorite lullaby and feeling Carter slowly falling asleep in her arms. She tucked him away in bed, running her fingers through curly brown hair as she finished her song. She quietly left Carter's room and went out in search of her mother. “Mom,” Kara said when she found the woman in her study.
The older blonde looked up from the papers on her desk and moved around to embrace her daughter. “I'm so sorry if Carter's question brought up some bad memories,” Cat started but Kara just shook her head.
“No it's fine, I mean, it hurts, still hurts, but I think it's good to talk about it,” Kara admitted.
Cat wasn't convinced but nodded her head anyway. “Well Carter brought up a good point, do you want to celebrate your Name day? I can call up a few people and see if they can figured out when it was for our calendar.”
Kara just shook her head again, “No, while it would be nice to know, I have a new name now. I'll never forget my mother and father, but maybe a way to celebrate my new family.”
The woman smiled and tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind Kara's ear. “What day do you want to celebrate then?”
“What day did you use for those official documents?” Kara asked after a few moments, “The day I landed?”
“No! No, that’s something that idiotic cousin of yours would do, why pick a day that might remind you of everything you’ve lost?” The blonde girl ducked her head but nodded in understanding. Cat smiled, “I used the day that you agreed to the adoption, just a few days after you started living here with me.”
Kara tilted her head, “I like that, can that be my name day?”
“June 21st,” Cat said, nodding her head, “Perfect for somebody as sunny as you are since it is the longest day of the year.”
“Thank you Mom,” Kara replied, embracing the woman. “I know that birthdays are the tradition here.”
“Shush Kara, it’s okay, I want you to keep as many of your traditions as possible. I don’t want you to forget where you came from just because you’re living here with us now. I’ll be happy to celebrate your Name Day with you.” Kara bounced with excitement and Cat wondered how she was to throw a party for her alien daughter.