Chapter 9
“Where were you last night?”
Kara freezes at the question and a neat foot tucks itself behind her boot and pulls and Kara falls, landing heavily on her back. Her breath rushes out in a great gust.
“Ouch.”
“Don’t be a baby, I barely touched you,” Alex says with a grin.
“Yeah but the floor did. All over.”
Kara stands slowly, purposefully slowly if she’s honest, because she's not quite sure how to answer Alex. What is she supposed to say? Hey Alex, sorry I didn’t wake you up after I got back from hanging out with my super evil uncle, I cried for a bit and then I went and hung out with the woman who is my boss and also the person who could ruin my whole life if she wanted to.
That would go over super well, Kara is sure of it.
“What did Non want? Are you okay? Did he try anything?”
“It was just, y’know, funeral stuff,” Kara says with a shrug. It’s more important than just ‘funeral stuff’ but Alex has been weird about the whole Astra being dead thing, more weird than just Kara grieving, so that’s all she says about it. “He didn’t try anything, I just wanted to fly around for a bit. Get my bearings.” Kara crinkles her nose at the lie—it’s a tell and she wavers a bit, waiting for Alex to call her out on it, but she doesn’t. Which is…weird. Again. “Speaking of another evil dude, though, Maxwell Lord gave me a USB.” She ducks a punch and rolls to the side, making her way toward her bag. She pulls out the little stick and holds it out to her sister.
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s either nothing, a virus, or something can actually help us, right? Oh, and Non gave me one of the anti-Kryptonite suits so I was hoping you could—“
“You met with Lord? Without backup?”
“No. Do you think I’m that stupid?” she asks, a little wounded. “He came to CatCo.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Kara, I think that you can be a little…impulsive. When it comes to keeping people safe. And I just—”
“Worry.” Kara’s frown splits into a sweet smile and she tilts her head. “I know you do. You know I’m a superhero, right?”
“With an ego, apparently.”
“I’m getting there.”
“Speaking of egos,” Alex says, her voice hardening again. “Maxwell Lord. I told him if he put your identity in jeopardy I would have words with him.” She wraps her hand into a tight fist and her jaw clenches. “He went to CatCo? What did he want?”
“To offer me a job. And he gave me that,” Kara points unnecessarily to the USB Alex holds.
“What did he say? Exactly?”
“Alex,”
“Exactly, Kara.”
“I can write out a transcript if you want, but he didn’t say anything important. He just offered me a job and was generally creepy. That’s all. And then he gave me this and said it was for my eyes only.”
“Is it a weapon, do you think?”
“I don’t know, computers aren’t really my thing. Maybe we should get Winn on it?”
“Maybe,” Alex agrees quietly. She’s standing tall, feet slightly spread and shoulders back, glaring at the USB, and the feeling that something is actually wrong sweeps over Kara again. “If this is an attack, or a trick, I’m going to hurt him,” Alex says with no small amount of promise and Kara snags her wrist.
“Hey. It’s okay, we’ll figure out what it is and if it’s something bad, we’ll save the day. And my identity is still safe, Cat just thinks he was sexually harassing me. I think she actually plans to sue him,” Kara laughs sweetly, but it fades when Alex just looks at her with dark eyes. “Okay, not funny?” She reaches up to adjust her non-existent glasses. “Check out the USB and if it’s something nefarious, then we can kick his butt. Okay?”
“There will be no we,” Alex growls. “I will drag him all the way here, tied to the back of my car if I have to.” Her free hand closes into a fist again and Kara pats her shoulder.
“Whoa there, try not to sound like you’re looking forward to it too much.”
“Oh but I am.” Alex sucks in a calming breath. It doesn’t work. “I want to punch him in his stupid, smug face. I want to lock him away and I want him to never see daylight again. I want—” She bites down on her next words, but there’s no point. Kara is already looking at her with worry. There’s something in her sister’s voice, a sliver of something dark—Alex has always, always been ready to fight, but for as long as Kara can remember Alex has always fought to defend someone. Kara, their mother, their father, Alex’s friends, country, planet. But this, this is something else.
“Alex, are you okay? You’re not acting like yourself. You’re…” Kara reaches out slowly and takes Alex’s other hand. She throws the USB back onto her bag and squeezes Alex’s hand. “Something’s wrong. Something’s been wrong for a while.” Alex won’t look at her and Kara is afraid that it’s because it’s her, because there is something wrong between them, but she forces herself to relax. “What is it?” she decides to ask, instead of assuming.
“I’m so angry,” Alex tells her quietly, but she won’t look at her. “I’m so angry that he would try to hurt you and that he can just, just get away with it,” she says in a low growl.
Kara waits for her to continue and when she doesn’t, she says, “But that’s not everything.”
Alex’s hands close almost painfully tight on Kara’s—a pain, a presence she can actually feel, thanks to the Kryptonite emitters. She waits until Alex meets her eyes. It’s a long time coming and, when she finally does, her eyes aren’t angry anymore. Worse, it looks like she’s drowning in something that looks a lot like guilt.
“Alex?”
“I am so sorry,” Alex starts, and she pulls her hands from Kara’s and backs away a little. When Kara moves to follow her, Alex puts a hand between them, stopping her. “No, please. Don’t?”
“Okay. Okay, but I’m right here. It’s alright, whatever it is,” she assures her and she means it. But when Alex lifts that hand, fingers curled just a little in the effort to keep it from shaking, and brushes away a few errant tears, Kara isn’t so sure that it will be okay.
“I want to protect you from everything,” she says.
"I know you do."
“Kara, please,” Alex asks of her, quietly but with a hint of desperation. “Please, just let me say it. I can’t, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish if you keep interrupting.” Kara opens her mouth to agree but, thinking better of it, snaps her mouth shut and nods. Alex looks up and just to the left of her, eyes a little distant and stern. “I want to protect you from everything. You’re my little sister and I never want to see you hurt. And it’s easy to be angry,” she tells Kara very gently, softening the word because if she said it the way she wanted to, it wouldn’t be anger it would be something violent and bloody like fury like pain like wrath. “It’s easier to be angry and to stop other people from hurting you than to sit here useless and guilty.”
“But why would you—” Kara flushes. “Sorry.”
Alex sends her a fond little smile that falters before it begins. “When you saw Astra on the ground, you looked devastated,” she tells Kara, voice thick. “You loved her.” Kara nods. “I saw you, I saw the way you looked when you landed, and then you knelt next to her and you told her that she was there and I know, Kara, she’s your family, your real family, and you love her.” She sniffs and lifts her sleeve to her eyes. “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she whispers.
“Alex?” Kara asks quietly. The tips of her fingers feel numb.
“Hank didn’t kill Astra.” Alex says it very quietly. Her voice is unsteady, keeping from cracking. It’s nothing anything Kara has ever heard from Alex before. She doesn’t like it, she doesn’t trust how she’s feeling right now—unsteady, so nervous, dread bubbling away inside her. Kara turns away, just a little. She tries not to hear the faint sob Alex lets out when she does. “He took the blame, he didn’t want. He didn’t want you to hate me.”
“No,” Kara breathes.
“He saw your face and he didn’t want this to come between us, I’m so sorry, he didn’t want us to lose each other. I didn’t know what to do, Kara, I didn’t know what to say. I saw your face and Hank, he lied to you because he didn’t want you to get hurt and god, he knew I couldn’t lose you, Kara. You’re my sister,” she says, with a raw edge to her voice that sounds a lot like fear. Alex swallows. “Hank was on his knees. Astra had a knife and she was about to kill him. There was nothing he could do. But I had my sword and—”
“No.”
“It was me. I killed her. I killed Astra.”
Kara stares blankly at the wall—she runs through every minute she’s spent with Alex since that night, re-examines it, steps back from herself as she thinks it through.
“Kara please,” she can hear her sister say, but she sounds very faint like she is a great distance away. “Kara, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want you to hate me. It hurt so much, not telling you, Kara I am so sorry. Please,” she says again and she’s crying in earnest now and sinks down into a crouch, back against the wall. She lowers her head into her hands and doesn’t bother to temper her tears anymore.
Kara considers every look, every hesitant touch, every strange thing Alex had said. Every hug that held on a touch too long.
She steps away from Alex—Alex who just hangs her head a little more, sobs—and she reaches her hand up to the panel on the wall. Very carefully, bit by bit, she pushes the Kryptonite emitters up so that they’re a little stronger than normal and when she turns back around, Alex is watching her with wide eyes.
“Kara, what—”
Strength leeched from her body, Kara crosses the distance between them in four long strides and wraps her arms around her sister tightly, knowing that she can’t possibly hurt her. She feels the harsh way Alex hugs her back, pulls her hard into her chest and drops her head with a solid thud onto Kara’s shoulder, and when she begins to cry again, Kara holds all the more tightly to her.
Cat is…concerned.
About Kara.
Something isn’t right, and she can’t quite get her multi-award winning brain to grasp what it is that is amiss.
Cat had sent Kara on an impossible coffee run fifteen minutes ago—some concoction she’d caught wind of from some reputable source, it’s supposed to be all fair trade and fine taste and highly exclusive, three store fronts in America exclusive, none of which were in National City exclusive—and naturally, her assistant had pulled through and had returned with the coffee as well as a bag of the beans for her home machine, a treat for Carter, her prescription glasses that she’d broken fixed and looking better than before, the layouts she wanted, and a contract Lane Junior had evidently given Kara on her way to Cat’s office.
“Miss Grant, your coffee.”
“Is it hot?”
“Of course, Miss Grant.”
Cat lifts her eyes from her computer and squints at her assistant, suspicious. What was that she can hear? Was that a teasing note in Kara’s voice? Kara smiles innocently back at her and Cat decides that she doesn’t care—teasing is far preferable to that irritatingly pleasant expression Kara had plastered to her face 24/7. This, at least, was genuine.
“Hmm.” She waves her hand and Kara lowers her coffee down onto a coaster.
“I took the liberty of picking you up something to eat, just a light snack, I know that you had a meeting with the art department and you get a bit peckish when they’ve been…less than exemplary.”
“The word you’re looking for is disastrous, Kiera. And I don’t get peckish.”
“Yes you do, Miss Grant. You pace back and forth in that room and it’s exhausting for everyone involved so you will eat your snack while you will look over this,” Kara near orders her, placing a thick contract onto Cat’s desk, “and when you’re done I will take the plate.”
“My my, Kiera. A little brash.”
Kara adjusts her glasses with a pleased little smile. “Just looking out for you.”
“Hmm.”
“Oh,” she says as she leaves, “The Peterson contract, I was going to tell you, umm.” She twists her hands a little and then hurries back over to Cat, who nods lazily as she bites into the little treat Kara had brought her. “I, uh, I took the liberty—”
“Another liberty, Kiera? How bold.”
“Of putting some tabs in places where the wording is a bit,” she pauses, considering, and her nose crinkles. “Iffy.”
“Iffy?”
“Dubious, Miss Grant. Not in your favour.”
“Better.” Cat pulls the contract toward her, noting that the tabs are littered throughout the document. “When did you have a chance to read this? Lane only finished it this morning.”
“Um.” Kara looks down at the contract—all 303 pages of it—and her hand lifts very slowly to her glasses. “Well, ah,”
Cat rolls her eyes. “Oh don’t bother. I don’t have the time or patience for babbling,” she says and she stands to make herself a drink. “I’ll thank you for the foresight if your notes actually prove to be helpful.”
“That’s not necessary. Just,” Kara shrugs, “doing my job, Miss Grant.”
“Hmm,” Cat says again, and that feeling comes over her again, the one that whispers that something isn’t quite right. Kara waits for Cat to dismiss her, and she straightens the items on Cat’s desk as she waits, which is entirely unnecessary, and she’s not making eye contact and her smile is so firmly in place and Cat narrows her eyes.
Her smile, she thinks. Oh, it’s still there and it’s real enough. Sunny Danvers, beaming away and lighting up the world around her. But there’s something to the way Kara is going out of her way to be helpful, that she hasn’t sat still at all today, something to the way her eyes look a little washed out and her hands, closed over her stomach and fingers twisting together.
“What’s wrong?” Cat asks.
She wonders, for a moment, if Kara has been waiting for that. Cat is the one who put the barrier between them after all—it stands to reason that Cat needed to be the one to wipe it away, to step over it. To hold out her hand, this time.
“Oh no, Miss Grant, nothing. Can I get you anything else?”
Cat knows she’s struck on something—Kara hadn’t thought that she would notice, obviously, because her eyes opened comically wide and honestly, Cat sometimes thinks that there is no way that Kara could possibly be Supergirl because the effort it would take for someone as open as Kara to keep that hidden would be phenomenal. She knows she’s struck on something, because Kara swallows and her smile droops a little and her shoulders hunch forward a touch more.
She lets it go. “No, Kiera, I need the fashion layouts twenty minutes ago. Chop chop.”
“Yes, Miss Grant,” her assistant says with a frankly appalling amount of gratitude, and Cat just hopes that at the end of the day—the literal end of day—Kara will come back to her and, maybe, let her help.
//
Kara performs seven more minor miracles before the close of day. One of them, Cat had just quietly mentioned to Lane that there were some files she needed to collect before the meeting began—and of course, it’s good thinking for the presenters to have made doubles but of course they won’t have and Cat has never come to a meeting unprepared before and she isn’t about to start now—when Kara shows up, a gentle touch to Cat’s elbow and an “excuse me, Miss Grant? The files for your three o’clock, they were on your desk, I thought you might want them,” and she hands them over with an utterly guileless smile that Cat doesn’t believe for half a second.
Although. It is still possible that Kara is just an exceptional assistant.
An assistant who is working far too hard and ensuring that everything is perfect, a trait Cat would enjoy immensely if it weren’t so painfully obvious that Kara is doing it because she’s trying to distract herself.
When five o’clock comes around, Kara doesn’t leave her desk and she doesn’t ask Cat if she needs anything because if she doesn’t need anything, Kara has no excuse to stay.
The clock ticks over to half past, and then six, and then half six, and Cat lowers the contract she’s been looking over and says, “Kiera,” very quietly and waits for the click of Kara’s shoes. “Bring your device in here, I have some emails to dictate while I’m reading this.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
She already has her tablet in hand, of course she does, and she settles into the desk chair and poses her hands on the keyboard. Kara looks up expectantly when Cat doesn’t speak immediately.
“You were right about the contract, Kiera,” she says, and Kara is done typing it before she really realises what Cat has said. Her cheeks blush a light pink and Cat smiles, amused. “Email, Lane Junior. Subject line, mm.” She waves a hand. “Your cheekbones are wonderfully sharp but your work just doesn’t cut it.”
Kara snorts a little and obediently types out the phrase.
“Body of the email. Lane. Sending you back the contract. PA marked some sections for review. My notes added.” Kara pauses. “End stop, Kiera, put my signature at the end if you want to. Send. Next email. Witt, computer hobbit.”
“Winn, Miss Grant.” Cat spares her a glare and Kara ducks her head. “Sorry.”
“Mhm. Witt,” she says more sharply. “Computer hobbit. Subject line. Fired.”
“What?”
“Oh relax, Kiera, I’m not going to fire him. It’ll just make sure that he reads it first thing. Write it. Body of email. Wilt. Lose the cardigans, it’s summer and if I have to turn the air-conditioning off to smoke you out of your woolen natural habit I will. Third screen in my office is broken, fix it.” Cat waits a moment for Kara to nod. “There’s one for the Peterson team as well but I have to draft that. What a mess.”
“Do you need any help with it?”
“Mm. No.” Kara nods and waits for her next job. “Coffee, please. And get one for yourself as well.” She looks down at the contract again and pretends that the please meant nothing at all, and when she looks up, Kara has gone to fetch it for her.
Kara returns with a piping hot latte soon but not that soon. It takes her longer than it had in the middle of the lunch rush, which means that Kara either dawdled—unacceptable—or she had called someone, shocked and confused, when her ungrateful boss had said please.
Cat has moved to the couch now and Kara collects a coaster from the little box and places her coffee down at the edge.
“Your coffee, Miss Grant.”
“Thank you,” she says, shocking her assistant again. “Would you like to sit?”
“Oh, umm.” Kara fiddles with her own coffee for a moment before she drops into the seat near Cat. “Thank you?”
“Do you have any work to do?”
“Umm.”
“Kara, it really is quite obvious that you don’t want to leave,” Cat says, looking at her assistant over her glasses. “If you don’t have any work, I will give you some more.”
“No,” Kara admits, nodding. “I finished it all.”
“Print off the Sports section submission. I find it terribly dull and I’d rather spend as little time as possible reading the crud they send me first time. Edit it.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“You may work here, if you would like.”
“I would,” Kara beams, and she returns quickly with a stack of papers—it looks like more than just the Sports section but if Kara wants to work harder, Cat won’t stop her.
They work in silence together for a while. Cat has her send three more emails—threats of severance on the horizon and Kara doesn’t temper her emails with niceness because they really are dreadful and the emails seem almost tame and kind in comparison to what Cat wants to say—and Kara has to scrap an entire column because it’s almost word for word exactly what they had written for the last months basketball feature, just with the names changed and a different anecdote thrown in, and she wants to write something cutting like Cat would but she stops herself.
“Would you like to use the red pen?” Cat asks, teasingly, and Kara rubs at her forehead hard.
“Has everyone always been stupid?”
“Oh yes, absolutely. You haven’t even begun to see the extent of it.”
“This is just, just plagiarism,” Kara says, throwing it down onto the desk and she shakes her head hard. “Self plagiarism but still. They could at least try.”
Cat picks up the article. Kara had made it halfway through, making a few changes here and there, before she had given up and just drawn a large cross through the entire thing. Not good enough, was written neatly at the bottom and Cat had to agree.
“He’s tried to pull this a few times before. I think it’s time we had a little chat. Schedule a meeting tomorrow. Nine a.m.” She doesn’t miss the way Kara presses her lips together to stop a smile—she imagines that her assistant is thinking about the way the columnist will panic when he sees the appointment. “Make sure Lane is there.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
They fall back into quiet work and then Cat is done. She puts down her pen and takes her glasses off. “So. Kara. Something has happened.” Kara’s hands tighten for a moment. Wondering what the best way to go about it might be, Cat stands and heads over to the bar. She drops an ice cube in her glass. “Would you like to talk about it?” A second ice cube.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Cat pours her drink and turns, considers the woman in front of her. Shoulders tense, hunched over the work on her lap. “Kara.”
“Everything is fine, Miss Grant. Did I,” Kara’s head jerks up, eyes wide. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” Cat sips her drink and, when she makes her way over to Kara and sits down again but closer this time, Kara watches her every movement. “Do you think you can hide from me, Kara? I personally figured out that Kim Kardashian was pregnant even before she knew. You?” Cat shakes her head. “You’re an open book.”
“Miss Grant,”
“Something is bothering you,” Cat says, more genuinely, softly, and she lowers her hand very gently on top of Kara’s.
When Kara yanks her hand away, scattering papers onto the floor and over the table, Cat doesn’t move. Her hand does, she wraps it around the edge of the couch instead and tries not to think about how very warm and soft Kara’s hand was. She sips at her drink and waits for Kara to settle, to pick up all the papers and to put them all back in order. She ignores Kara’s breathless explanations—none of them are true, or even finished, and they fade away and stop when Cat lifts her eyebrows at her.
“I’m sorry,” Kara says finally, when everything is neat and she sits still in her place. She lowers her head into her hands and says it again. “I’m sorry.” Cat is about to tell her it’s alright, ask her if she wants to talk about it, but she isn’t sure how to phrase it and by the time she’s decided to just come out and say what she means, brash if she has to be, Kara is speaking again. “You’re right.” She swallows. “Something happened. A lot of somethings, actually, but I thought I had a handle on it and then,” she stops, shakes her head.
“Tell me,” Cat orders her, gently.
“I…” Kara lifts her head, a little, and her hands slide down from her forehead to her cheeks. Kara’s eyes are wide and dark and she doesn’t look at Cat but out the wall of windows. “It’s my sister,” she starts. Her eyes drop closed, her forehead furrows. “She did something…awful. And I don’t know how to help her.”
Kara is silent for long enough that Cat feels comfortable offering something. “Talk to her, perhaps?”
“I have. I mean, we did. Talk. Sort of.” Kara hunches her shoulders forward. “But I can’t talk to her about it. Not really. And she can’t talk to me, it, it’s not,” she shakes her head, makes a sound in the back of her throat that is annoyance and exasperation and frustration. “I’m sorry.”
Cat drinks again, just enough for the taste of the scotch to run over her tongue and she savours it. She considers what Kara has told her—not much at all—and then she touches Kara’s knee very lightly. When Kara doesn’t pull away this time, she rests her whole hand there. “She hurt you,” Cat deduces. When Kara tenses, Cat knows she’s right. “And you want to tell her that it’s alright. But it’s not.”
“I guess.”
They sit for a time.
“It’s not okay,” Kara whispers through her fingers. “But I understand.” Her hands tighten on her face, knuckles whitening, and Cat wants to pull those hands down and hold them tight so that Kara doesn’t hurt herself, her face, but she doesn’t. “I understand, but it still hurts and it’s stupid because I know why she did it and I want to be okay with it and,” one of Kara’s hands slips down and presses against her chest, her heart, hard. “I don’t know what to do.”
Neither of them say anything for a long moment. Cat waits for Kara to tell her more, but the other woman is so very, very still where she sits and she doesn’t react at all when Cat squeezes her knee.
“Kara?”
Cat doesn’t allow herself to panic when Kara doesn’t react, still—Carter has done this since he was very young, or something similar, and she knows the distant look in Kara’s eyes and that soon enough it will pass. She wonders if there is anything she can do to make Kara more comfortable—Carter likes his blanket, likes to have something heavy and warm and soft on his lap like a pillow, and he likes a little music—but there isn’t anything she can do now to find out so she decides to talk very quietly until Kara returns, just so she knows that she isn’t alone.
//
“Kara?”
There’s something touching her cheek. It’s very soft and very gentle.
“Kara,” that gentle voice whispers again, and the pressure on her cheek increases. It grazes a path up to push a lock of hair behind her ear, and Kara leans the tiniest bit into that pressure. She blinks, brings her vision back from the movement of the stars, which makes her queasy, and focuses until she recognises where she is. Cat’s office. And the person in front of her—who is kneeling in front of her, whose hand is on her skin—and her eyes widen. She meets Cat’s eyes, and the woman is looking at her with no small amount of concern and a little relief.
“There you are,” she says. “What just happened?”
“What—what do you mean?”
“You zoned out,” is what Cat says, and Kara thinks that’s what Carter must call it because it doesn’t really sound like something that Cat would come up with.
“Oh. I,” She doesn’t know how to explain, without telling her that she didn’t know what happened, that one moment she was here, talking with Cat, and the next moment she was staring into the spaces between the stars, light spiralling around her. She can’t tell Cat that. Kara’s eyes blur and all she wants to do is lean into the warmth on her cheek, rest against that soft hand. So she does. She tilts her head into Cat’s hand and her eyelids slip closed. A warm breath ghosts out over Cat’s wrist, sending a shiver all the way down her spine.
“Kara, will you listen to me for a moment?” Kara nods. “Are you hurt?” she asks sharply. This is very unlike Kara and she’s scared—perhaps, before, Kara might have trusted her. With a little push, she might have trusted her enough to let her guard down. But now? After everything Cat has done, it must have been a battering ram that has thrown her back to Cat. And her heart aches for the younger woman. Which is why she finds herself saying, “What do you need?” and she takes the opportunity—it may never come again, she knows—to stroke her thumb ever so lightly against the soft skin of Kara’s cheek.
“Nothing, Miss Grant. Just this,” Kara says very quietly.
“Well, Kara, as much as I might like to, I cannot hold this position forever.”
“Oh.” Kara wrenches her eyes open and she looks privately distraught when Cat pulls her hand away. “Of course, Miss Grant, I’ll just—“ That hand drops to cover hers in her lap and Kara freezes. “Miss Grant?”
“What do you need?” she asks again.
“I’m tired,” Kara says instead of answering, and Cat wonders for a moment how long it has been since Kara asked for something.
“Alright.” Cat stands and, when Kara tries to stand, she lays a hand on her shoulder and presses, just lightly, and watches as Kara allows herself to be held down. “Do you need to call anyone?” she asks and she picks up Kara’s phone from the coffee table.
“Call anyone?”
“You’ll be staying with me tonight. And Carter.”
“Oh.” Kara blinks. She starts to nod and then stops. “Miss Grant, that’s not professional.” It’s not a reprimand—if anything, it’s a reminder. It hurts her that Cat did this to them, Cat knows that it does, and still she helps Cat maintain it.
Cat’s eyes flicker over every inch of Kara’s face. “I know,” she admits. “That never really took with us though, did it? I wasn’t professional, I was vindictive,” she says, and Kara doesn’t disagree. “I have…made some mistakes lately, Kara. I would like the opportunity to fix them. If that would be alright.”
Kara won’t say yes. Cat can see that in the way Kara’s lips flatten into a tense line. She feels a small rush of pride for the other woman. Cat can admit that she has been rather horrid, and she’s glad that Kara is holding her own. Everything that had been so infuriating lately—the too pleasant smile, the way Kara refused to be affected by all the small, sly digs, the way her work never dipped below exceptional—suddenly wasn’t infuriating anymore but wonderful and Cat refuses to take credit for it. Oh, she has mentored Kara and she has told her to be confident and calm and collected and to work hard, but this? Demanding respect? Even tired, even though she might be, as Cat expects, heart-broken from whatever has happened with her sister, Kara demands respect and this is something that Kara has done for herself. Cat gives her a tiny, proud little nod.
“Carter will be thrilled to see you again, naturally,” Cat drawls, falling back into familiar territory.
Kara leaps for safe ground too—her eyes light up and she nods. “He’s a great kid, Miss Grant. Really great.”
“Yes, I’m aware. How could he not be?” Cat stands, waves a hand at herself. “I am his mother, after all.”
Kara is too tired to stop the way her eyes sweep over Cat and she nods slowly. “Yes, Miss Grant, that’s true.”
“Assuming you don’t need to call anyone, since you avoided the question and you’re having…trouble with your sister,” she says and Kara flushes a little as Cat points out her less than subtle distraction, “you can put away your work in your desk and wait for me. I will be ready to go in twelve minutes. My driver is already waiting downstairs. When we stop at your place, I would like you to pack an overnight bag, and then we will go to the city house. Questions?”
“No, Miss Grant.” It’s a lie—Cat can see that Kara has many questions, and she’s sure that she will ask them when she needs to.
“Very well. Go.”
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
Carter flings himself into Kara’s arms when they arrive.
“Kara.” She hugs him so tight she lifts him clean off the floor. He laughs. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too, buddy.”
“Yes, yes, we all missed each other.” Cat closes the door with a click—the sound ricochets in Kara’s ears and she lets go of Carter, pats his jacket down. She doesn’t want to hurt him and she’s sometimes afraid that if she startles, she’ll grab too tight. “While the hallway has some lovely art, I suggest we move this party into the kitchen, Kiera.”
“Mom, it’s Kara,” Carter chides. He wraps his arms around his moms waist when she steps closer and smiles up at her. “Hi.”
“Hello, Carter.” Cat hugs him close and presses a kiss to the top of his head, eyes slipping closed. She knows he’s quickly reaching the stage where any lingering is creepy and uncool and so she’s very, very quick about smelling his hair—kids shampoo, still, and faintly of laundry powder—and then she turns him and taps him lightly. “Move move. Have you eaten yet?”
“No. It’s only eight,” he quickly defends himself. “I wanted to wait for you! I knew you didn’t have a super long day, I thought we could eat together.” Cat hangs up her coat to hide her smile. “Kara, why do you have a bag? Are you eating with us? Are you staying with us? Is something wrong? How long are you staying for?”
“Oh, umm, I’m not…really sure why I’m here,” Kara says, looks nervously from an unimpressed Cat to an expectant Carter. “Well, that is. I can eat dinner with you? If you want?”
“That would be awesome. But, uh,” Carter scratches at his nose to hide a smile. “She eats a lot so we should cook, like, twice as much. At least. Three?” He spreads his hands. “Maybe four times as much?”
“Carter.”
“No, no it’s okay, he’s right,” Kara interjects when she hears Cat’s warning tone. “I eat a lot. Fast metabolism.”
“Oh to be young again.” Cat tosses her hair back, rolls her eyes. “Fine. Carter, take Kara to the guest room. Not the one we make your grandmother stay in.” She smiles when Carter says duh quietly and again when she sees him take Kara’s hand and drag her away. He’s never usually so tactile. It’s nice. “Get her a towel from the cupboard!”
“Duh, mom! I’m gonna show her Supergirl’s painting too!”
“I wonder if you’ll show her the Supergirl article you have under your pillow,” she says very quietly, and she hears Kara laugh suddenly and loudly—probably at something Carter said—and she can’t help but smile. Knowing Carter, he and Kara will be standing in front of that painting for a full hour so she takes her time kicking her heels off just inside the door to her bedroom and picking out something to wear. If it takes her a little longer than usual, well. She wants to make the right impression, somewhere between I’m still your boss and relax, I’m not your boss while I’m at home, which is a difficult position to communicate.
They aren’t back by the time she gets to the kitchen so Cat turns on the oven and peeks into the freezer. She knows that their housekeeper had made something like seven lasagnes a while back for Cat’s lazy nights and they’d barely made a dent in them. Lasagne sounds perfect—she’s seen Kara eat it on occasion and Cat is too tired to even think about making a salad or anything more difficult than that—so she heats up the oven and slips the dish in. After a moments thought, she slips in a second one. If Carter was telling the truth, they might just need it. And if not, well, he can have leftovers for lunch.
Cat pours herself a glass of wine and makes her way to the guest room,which is empty, except for Kara’s bag sitting neatly at the end of the bed—a bag that looks strangely like something Cat recognises as government issue tactical bag. She rolls her eyes and closes the door, continuing on down the hall to Carter’s room.
She can hear them before she gets there.
“—had it on that wall, but there was too much light coming in from the window and I didn’t want, like, the colours to fade, yknow?” Kara hums a yes. “So I thought that if I put it on this all I could see it in the morning straight away, which is really cool because it’s really nice and happy to wake up to. I used to have this print that my grandma bought me, but it was really dark and creepy. I think it was supposed to be some artists impression of Edgar Allen Poe. She’s really into the classics and she wants to make sure I’m well-rounded,” Carter says with a distinctly unimpressed tone Cat recognises as something he’s picked up from her at some point. “But it just gave me nightmares.”
“Poe can be pretty dark. One of the scariest things for me was the heart beneath the floor boards. Thump, thumping away.”
“Ew.”
“Right? It’s creepy!”
“Totally. Also, by the way, the light doesn’t affect it as much when it’s on this wall.”
“Well I love it, Carter. I think it looks great there. And it’s so cool, it really comes out when it’s against the blue. It’s like it was made for it.” Cat tilts her head a little. It’s not a strange thing to say, it’s just a comment, but there is this strange satisfaction to the tone like Kara is appreciating the way it’s all come together so neatly, the wall and the painting and the colours, and Cat wonders.
Cat leans against the door frame and looks in at them. They have their backs to her, looking at the opposite wall where Supergirl’s painting hangs, and Cat can’t ignore the picture they make. Both with their arms crossed, heads tilted just so to the side. Kara tilts her head a little more and twists a bit to smile down at Carter.
“It’s hung really well. A great height. Did you do that?”
“Dad helped but I chose where to put it.”
Kara nods. “Nice job. And you’re…you like it?” she asks, gesturing to the painting, and she runs a hand through her hair.
“So much.”
“Good,” Kara says, and she beams down at him. “Good. I’m glad. You deserve it.” She unfolds her arms. “Can I hug you again?”
“Yeah,” Carter shrugs, and Cat’s heart lurches when he leans a little into the one-armed hug Kara slings around his shoulders. When he shifts away after a moment, not uncomfortable yet but nearing it, Kara lets go.
“Okay.” She looks up and right at Cat, who fights to hide a gasp. She hadn’t realised Kara knew she was there. “Dinner time?”
“It is,” Cat confirms.
Carter spins around to face her, guilt dripping from his too-broad smile. “Mom! How much did you hear? Not that we were talking about anything that we would want to hide from you, of course, uh, and that is all. We were talking.”
“Smooth,” Kara murmurs and Carter’s neck burns red.
“Enough to know that Kara will be getting a pop quiz about Supergirl over dinner.” Carter grins at that and it even surprises a laugh out of Kara. “It’s dinner time, wash your hands. You too, Kiera.”
“Kara,” Carter corrects her again and he nods to the door. “C’mon, Kara, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.” He marches out in front of her and Kara shoots Cat a bewildered look.
“I’ve been here before,” she whispers as she passes Cat, and Cat can only suppress a smile.
Carter wants to do everything with Kara. Not that Cat had thought any different. It had taken less than a day for Carter to adore Kara that first disastrous turn at baby-sitting so it’s no great surprise to see that he sits himself next to Kara—to be fair, he is between Kara and his mother—and he brings her up to speed with the results of his English and Science tests and tells her about the latest sightings of Superman, which Kara latches onto eagerly.
“Do you think you can send me the links to those articles?” she asks Carter when they clean up together. “I’d love to read up on what he’s up to.”
“Sure! Absolutely!”
“We can read some right now if you want to? You can read with me.”
“Like, to you?” Kara clarifies. She fiddles nervously with her glasses and her mouth opens and closes a few times as she thinks about how to word the question. “I know it’s almost bedtime—do you, I mean, like, do you want me to read to you?”
“No,” he explains patiently, barely even blinking at the odd question. “I’m thirteen. You kinda outgrow that around, like, six.”
“Oh.” Kara returns to the dishes and she rinses them quietly before she stacks them in the dishwasher. “Right. Okay.”
“Did you want to?”
“No, that’s not it,” Kara shrugs. “I just wasn’t sure. My, I,” she shrugs again and wipes her hands rather vigorously on a hand towel. “My sister used to read to me sometimes.”
“Why’s that?” Cat asks quietly, not wanting to intrude. Carter and Kara turn to face her—obviously, they had both forgotten that she was sitting there and listening and she would smile if Kara didn’t look sad and Carter didn’t look panicked.
“I didn’t talk a lot. When they fostered me.” Kara sees the sink is still full of water and she pulls the plug, then wipes her hands again. She takes her time and doesn't look up from her hands, making sure to dry every drop of water. “I know people were worried about me, they think maybe I hit my head or something. That I’d forgotten how to talk.”
“What was it really?” Carter asks. Cat is glad—she wasn’t sure she would have dared.
Kara folds the hand towel and hangs it neatly in its place. “Nothing made sense. I didn’t know anyone, everything was different, everything smelled different. The sheets didn’t feel right on my skin, people kept talking at me and trying to touch me and it was overwhelming.”
“Overload,” Carter says knowingly.
Kara grins. “Major overload. Anyway, Alex came up with the idea of reading to me. I think we were halfway through Wuthering Heights when I told her it sucked and she should go back to Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.”
“I haven’t read that. Is it good?”
“It’s great, I’ll lend you a copy,” Kara promises, and he nods.
“So do you want to read with me? You don’t have to but if you want to. That would be cool.”
“Umm.” Kara glances over at Cat. She’s still not sure what she’s doing here—Cat hasn’t given her any instructions or hints so she’s at a loss—but Cat is no help. She shrugs.
“Do what you like, Kiera. I will be in my office, preparing several severance packages.” Her tone approaches relish and Carter laughs.
“The best part of your day, mom.”
“Well, not quite. That would be seeing you.”
“Mom!”
“Too much?”
“Yeah, by like a billion per cent.” He still looks a little pleased at her comment, but he rolls his eyes and grabs Kara’s hand. Cat tries not to smile too widely at the surprised look Kara shoots her, but she doesn’t quite contain her smile when Kara looks down at Carter’s hand holding hers and her face softens and warms. “C’mon, Kara, I’ve got lots of books you can choose from.”
//
Carter is sitting cross-legged at the head of his bed, pillow on his lap, when Cat comes by later to check on them. His bedside lamp is on—it has a little plastic insert that can be changed from the Bat Signal to the Super crest and right now, she isn’t surprised to see, its that famous S emblazoned across Carter’s roof. Kara is laying on her side and she laughs at something Carter tells her. A little snort erupts, which sends Carter into near hysterics, and Kara clutches at her stomach and throws her head back…and rolls right off the bed.
Kara lands with a thud and Carter, still laughing, scrambles to the edge.
“Are you okay?” More laughter floats up from the ground and Carter grins. “Kara, that was, like, the lamest thing anyone has ever done. Ever.”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted, sir.”
“It isn’t my sons fault that you make it rather easy, Kiera.”
Carter grins over at her and then looks down at Kara, who hasn’t made a peep since she heard Cat’s voice. “Kara? You alive?”
“She saw me roll off the bed?” comes a very small whisper.
“I did.”
“Oh.” Kara scrambles to her feet. “Hi, Miss Grant. We were just talking, about nothing really, um, and nothing is damaged at all, I whacked my elbow but that dent was always there I promise,” she laughs incredibly nervously, “and, uh, everything is fine. Carter! Boy, uh, it’s really late you should probably go to sleep!”
“If babbling were a superpower, I would personally make you a cape,” Cat says, and she ignores the way the pair of them freeze. “But you are right. Carter, it’s time for bed. No no,” she says when he starts to argue. “Right now.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Oh no,” Kara winces, and she reaches up to press her glasses further up her nose. “I’m sorry, I’ll just, I’ll go,” she points to the door. “I’ll, to your office, Miss Grant?”
“The kitchen will be fine.”
“Alright. Listen to your mom, dude, or I won't be allowed back,” she hisses when she walks by Carter, and he throws himself back onto his bed and folds his arms and scowls.
“Whatever.”
“Carter Benjamin Preston Grant. Don’t argue with me.”
“I didn’t. But I’m gonna argue now—I’m not tir-ed,” he says, and his face falls in horror when the word breaks in two, punctured by a yawn. “Fine! But you have to wake me up before Kara leaves.”
“We’ll see. Sheets.” Carter pushes his legs under the sheets. He refolds his arms and scowls some more. He relents only when she walks in and brushes a tender hand over his forehead, kisses his head. “You want to keep your light on?” He nods. “Super or Batman?”
“Super.”
“There’s a surprise.”
“Mom?” Carter asks very softly when she stands and she sits again, smoothes the blankets over his chest. “I like Kara. Can she come around more often?”
Cat smoothes the blankets again and pats his hand. “We’ll see. Now, go to sleep."
The look in his eyes and Carter’s tone—firm, hopeful, happy—stays with her and she almost forgets about Kara herself until she’s standing right in front of her.
“Another glass of wine, Miss Grant?”
“Mm. Please.”
“I’m sorry for keeping him up,” Kara says over her shoulder, reaching up into the cupboard for the glass. Cat smiles when Kara picks her preferred brand, a rounded glass, stemless, that fits into her hand comfortably. “I didn’t realise what time it was.”
Cat dismisses that with a flick of her fingers. “He always stays up late reading anyway. He thinks he’s being sneaky but the light shows underneath the door.”
Kara grins widely and she pours a half glass and pushes it towards Cat. She leans against the counter and drops her chin into a hand. “I used to do that,” she admits. “Eliza told me once. I used to read with, uh,” she frowns, “a flashlight?” Cat nods. “Under the blankets, I thought no one could see it, I thought I was hidden but apparently it was really, really obvious.”
Cat smiles at the image. She’d caught Carter more than once, his silhouette dark against his sheets, backlight clipped to his book. She can just imagine a young Kara, reading in the dark.
“Eliza is your foster mother?”
“Mhm, yeah.” Kara shakes her head when Cat offers her some wine. “Oh, no, thank you.”
“Would you like to sit with me?” Cat points to the couch and Kara nods, tucking her hands into the long sleeves of her sweat shirt. She looks comfortable and soft, all soft edges, in sweat pants and a sweatshirt which, once Kara straightens, Cat can see has HARVARD written over the front of it. “Harvard? I thought you went to NCU.”
“I did. This is my sisters.” She lifts the collar to her face, buries her nose in the fabric. “She loves it,” Kara tells her, grinning. “She always gets super angry when I steal it.”
“Well. There’s something to be said for small victories.”
They walk to the living room and Cat sits on the end of the couch. After a slight hesitation, Kara picks an armchair. She doesn’t look comfortable though, sitting stiff and quiet, so Cat leads by example and tucks her feet underneath her body. She looks away, relaxing into the couch and staring out over her city, and she sips at her wine. When she’s almost finished, she looks back to Kara and smiles—the woman looks comfortable, socked feet pulled up in front of her, arms loosely wrapped around her knees, and her eyes serene as they take in the lights and the business of the traffic far below.
Cat doesn’t comment on the fact that she looks rather like a certain hero who had dropped in on her the night before. Or that a certain hero had looked a lot like her.
Instead, she asks, “Are you alright, Kara?”
Her answer—and it is a long time in coming—is a little sniffle.
Cat reaches to the side, places her wine glass down and trades it for a box of tissues kept there. She stands, walks it over to her assistant—no, her company.
“Thank you, Miss Grant.”
“It’s Cat tonight, Kiera.” Kara tilts her head and Cat sighs. “Kara, then, if we must.” Her tone is light, though, and it only makes Kara smile.
“Cat,” Kara tries, and it doesn’t sound as clumsy as Cat thought it might. She wonders if, when Kara talks about her to others, she uses her name. “Thank you,” she says again, and smiles. “I don’t know how you knew but I, I really didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Kara, you practically threw yourself into anything that meant you wouldn’t have to leave the office. You made it blindingly obvious.”
That pulls a laugh from Kara. “Well, thank you anyway. For noticing, I guess.”
Cat nods. “Would you like to talk about it now? I know you found it difficult before, but you might find it easier out of the office.”
“It’s not that. It’s not the office,” Kara tells her. She twists a tissue between her fingers thoughtfully. “You know how I feel there. I love being there, working. It gives me purpose. And you,” Kara adds, waving to Cat. “You always know what to say.”
“True.”
“But, I don’t.” Kara grimaces. “I was confused. I still am, I guess. It’s just,” she blows out a harsh breath and frowns heavily. “She’s my sister. And I can’t talk about it because she works for the, uh, the government.” Kara says it in that way of hers, looking faintly pleased with herself for being so clever, telling a lie that isn’t a lie, a truth right on the cusp of untruth. Her eyes slide slyly for a moment before meeting hers and Cat has to admit, it’s rather endearing. Painfully obvious, yes, but endearing.
Cat knows all about non-disclosure agreements, and she knows about protecting family too, so she doesn’t press. Rather, she says, “I’m going to talk then, Kara. Tell me if I get something wrong.” She pauses, but Kara doesn’t interrupt, she just tilts her head thoughtfully at her and waits. “Your sister did something to protect you,” Cat guesses, though it’s not really a guess. Kara adores her sister wholly, so much so that Cat knows the feelings have to be returned. “It wasn’t a good something. She’s hurting because she did it and while you’re safe, it hurt you as well. You feel guilty—wrongly,” she adds, because Kara needs that, “because you’re angry with her and you feel like you shouldn’t be. She did it with good intentions. She has a lot to deal with without you being angry with her.” Kara has to look away. Cat presses on. “You’re angry because she had to do something that was morally or legally wrong. You feel responsible. You should have fixed the problem it before she had to do it, whatever it was. How am I going?”
“You…” Kara clears her throat. She wipes at her eyes roughly. “Aren’t wrong.”
“Mhm. I thought as much.” Cat softens, then. “You feel guilty because you know she feels badly about what she did, but you don’t know that you can forgive her. And you feel guilty because you love her.”
“What? Why would I feel guilty about that?”
“Because, Kiera, you see the world in absolutes and now that your infallible big sister has suddenly failed in an irreparable way, you don’t know how to deal with that.”
“No, I love her. Nothing is going to change that.”
“Yes. But that frightens you too, doesn’t it? How far would she have to go for you to stop loving her? How can you love someone who does terrible things? Maybe you're almost glad that she did it. So you didn't have to. Or because you wanted someone to do it."
“No, never. And Alex, she’s not like that,” Kara snaps, eyes burning—just an expression, Cat tells herself, because those blue, blue eyes stay blue and she has to have imagined the wave of heat. “Oh.” Kara deflates, staring down at the tissue in her hand. Ripped clean in half. “Oh no.”
“It’s just a tissue, Kara.”
“I,”
“You are allowed to be angry. I know I said we aren’t, girls aren’t, but I only meant in the office. Ignoring your anger, ignoring the cause of your anger, well. That leads to problems. As you know.”
“No,” Kara says softly.
“No?”
“I don’t want to be angry. I,” she looks down at her hands, at the torn tissue. “I really don’t like being angry.” Cat can hear what she doesn’t say—it frightens her, her own anger.
Cat makes some sound, non-committal. Understanding, to a point. But anger has always helped her, always given her sharp focus and an iron will. It’s hard for her to imagine not using it, not wanting to be angry about something—if she’s not angry, she doesn’t care and that’s the base line for her.
“Everyone gets angry, Kara. It’s just a part of being—“ she stops herself before she says human. “It’s a fact of life. You will get hurt and you will get angry.”
“I don’t want—”
“But you will,” she says sharply. “It’s not a matter of want. You will. It’s what comes after that is important. Feel it. Figure out why and deal with it. Talk with someone you can be a little more honest with,” she suggests, and Kara blushes a little. “What else do you need?”
“Miss Gr— Cat?”
“You have space from your sister. You talked about it, in a manner of speaking. You ate, you’re not alone. What else do you need?”
“To feel better?”
“Obviously, Kiera.”
“Umm. Nothing? I’m much better now.” She falters a little under Cat’s unwavering gaze and she blushes a little at the thought that comes to mind. How relaxed she had felt with Cat right next to her, hand on her cheek. She opens her mouth to say it and then remembers—Cat is her boss. It would be leagues beyond the line that had been drawn.
And yet.
Cat had asked for a chance.
Cat had brought her back to her home, let her eat with her, let her spend time with Carter, talked her through a problem. It’s not fixed, but she does feel lighter and more in control, so that’s something.
They weren’t exactly on professional terms anymore.
“What is it?” Cat presses, seeing Kara’s dilemma written so plainly on her face. “Ask it.”
“Back at the office,” Kara says, and then sucks in a breath because boy oh boy she’s going to need all her courage. “I, you…”
Cat collects her empty glass and lifts it to her lips to hide her smile.
“Can I sit next to you?” is what Kara asks, and Cat inclines her head in a nod. “Thank you,” Kara breathes, and she picks herself up and the blanket thrown over the arm of the chair and she shuffles over to join Cat on the couch.
“That is not next to me,” Cat says when Kara doesn’t move from the end of the seat. Kara blushes. Again.
“Well, I didn’t want to—that is, I,”
“Kara, I presume what you really want is physical contact. You’re one of those…huggable types. Don’t think I haven’t seen you interact with your cardigan hobbit and Olsen,” Cat says with the faintest sneer. Kara wants to laugh.
“Yes, Miss Grant. I like to hug my friends.”
“Then,” Cat says, rolling her eyes, “You may sit next to me.” She moves a cushion onto her lap and lifts an eyebrow when Kara doesn’t immediately shift. “Kara?”
“Oh. Okay. If, I mean, are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Um. Okay.” Kara inches her way down the couch until she’s a slight distance away. Cat can feel the heat from her body all the way down her side and, after a moment of thought, she is the one who closes the distance so that they are comfortably side-by-side. Shoulders and legs touching. Knee to thigh. After a slight adjustment, Cat’s shoulder to Kara’s arm—the woman is tall and Cat feels small and fragile next to her. Kara is solid, and though everything is all hidden by a too-large sweatshirt, a helplessly kind smile and glasses, there’s some kind of power in her. Cat relaxes. She’s still Kara, and this is unfamiliar but not unwelcome.
It takes Kara a few moments more before she too relaxes and her body softens against Cat’s. “Thank you for bringing me here, Cat,” Kara says quietly, looking out the living room window across the city. “It really is beautiful.”
“It is,” Cat agrees. “Has Carter ever told you why here? Why this apartment?”
Kara shakes her head no.
“Would you like to know?”
“Oh yes,” Kara nods. “I would love to.”
Cat’s fingers pull at the corner of the cushion on her lap and she thinks back, smiles. “It was a whim,” she admits. “I was looking for a home for us, me and Carter. Something a little more pedestrian than this, if I’m honest. Fence, garden, homey.” Kara turns her head to watch Cat, leaning back against the couch, and she smiles as she listens. “He had just turned three. Dark hair, dark eyes, precocious of course.”
“Of course,” Kara murmurs, and shares a smile with Cat.
“We only came here because it was on the list and Carter demanded we work through it, top to bottom. I didn’t think it was suitable but that’s what he wanted so I agreed and we stood here,” Cat lifts her finger, just a little, to gesture at the window. It’s a soft movement, only meant to bring Kara further into the story. “There was nothing else in the apartment. Absolutely empty. White walls, no furniture, abysmal bathroom. It didn’t matter. Carter stood at that window and he stared,” she says. “I couldn’t—wouldn’t—pull him away. I signed the papers right then and there.”
“It’s nice,” Kara says softly when a few moments have passed. Cat turns to her. “How much you love him. It’s really nice.”
“Yes, well. He makes it extraordinarily easy.”
“Yeah. But,” Kara yawns. “I know you go the extra mile. He does too. He talked about you a lot, y’know. In our interview.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He really loves you, Cat.”
She nods and turns away, focusing her eyes on the view and hoping that her rather observant assistant won’t notice the way her eyes glaze over a little. Unfortunately, she does, and all the effort Cat put into having her relax was gone as she tenses and sits up slowly and inches away.
“Oh, I’m so sorry Miss Grant, did I say something wrong? Did I overstep? I’m sorry, I—”
“Enough, Kara. I was just very touched by what you said.”
“Oh.” Kara beams. Then, she reaches out and lays her hand on Cat’s knee. She squeezes gently and then pulls her hand back onto her own lap.
They talk a little more—some work, some stories Kara shares about her sister, gentle stories about when they were younger, about college, about sister squabbles because Cat knows that Kara needs to remind herself of that right now, they talk about Carter growing up in this home—and Cat finds by the end of the hour that Kara has grown very quiet and she is listening to Cat very intently and her eyes are focused on her own arm, where Cat’s hand is resting gently.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and she pulls her hand away.
“I don’t mind,” Kara tells her.
“Kara,”
“I n—I need it, actually,” Kara says, and her face blushes remarkably hot as she realises what that sounds like. “I don’t mean, I just meant that, you asked,” she reminds Cat, who bites the inside of her cheeks to stop from smirking at Kara’s distressed tone, “what I needed and physical contact is, I need it.”
“I understand.” And she does. She really, truly does know what it feels like to be alone and to have someone hold her. “We are making strides at ignoring what I said about professionalism tonight, aren’t we?” she jokes, and Kara grins back at her, eyes bright.
“Yes, Miss Grant.”
“So, how would you like to do this?” Cat asks, with a hint of seductive because it’s late and she is tired and it seems like a good idea at the time, especially when the blush that hadn’t quite faded from Kara’s cheeks returns with a vengeance.
“I, umm, you can decide?” Kara offers.
Cat stares at her for a long moment. Then, she reaches up to her face. Her fingertips skim over Kara’s cheekbones and then tangle in her hair, searching for the tie that holds it up. Kara tries not to focus on the way her skin prickles in lines identical to those that Cat’s fingers draw, or the way her lungs don’t quite want to fill, or the way her blood seems to pump terribly loudly in her ears.
“Glasses,” Cat demands, hand out, when Kara’s hair falls loose.
Kara bites her lip and blinks owlishly at Cat, who does’t waver. Her fingers shake only the tiniest bit when she pulls the frames from her eyes—she has to take a moment, as those extra sounds hit her, as her eyes unfocus, the stars, the faces, all the lights demanding her attention—and she folds them carefully and hands them over. Cat places them on the side table.
“Good. Lay down,” she says, and Kara blinks.
“Miss Grant?”
“Lay down.”
Kara does, slowly, and Cat adjusts her until Kara realises what she wants and then she tucks her feet up on the couch and lowers her head onto the pillow in Cat’s lap and, when Cat settles one hand on her shoulder and the other beings to play softly with Kara’s hair, Kara finds herself relaxing shockingly quickly.
“Oh that’s nice,” Kara breathes, Cat scraping her nails lightly behind her ear and just above her neck. She shivers a little. “No one’s ever done this for me before.” Cat pauses, very slightly. Kara sounds half delirious, tired and and thrilled. She reaches up and presses Cat’s hand back to her head. “Why’d you stop?”
Cat continues. “You are greedy.”
“Wait until you have to feed me breakfast,” Kara laughs, and she shuffles a little in place and rubs her eyes with a closed fist. “Are things going to be weird tomorrow?”
“Most likely,” Cat admits. “But you needed this. So,” she clears her throat. “I will try to make it less…weird.”
“I’ll help.” Kara yawns again. “Whatever you need.”
Cat smiles down at the other woman and pats her shoulder. Allows her fingers, now, in the soft dark, while it feels like it’s alright to do this, allows her fingers to move down from her shoulder down her arm, to her wrist and back up in slow, tender lines. Kara shivers and smiles.
“You make me feel more real,” Kara says later, very softly, when Cat thought she was asleep. “More like Kara.”
There is something in the way that she says her own name that is a little unfamiliar. A hint of an accent, maybe, a fullness to the name that she doesn’t remember ever hearing before. It’s her real name, Cat realises. The way her family had said it.
“Kara,” Cat tries to mimic the way she said it, and Kara’s smile isn’t wide or bright—it just is.
“That’s pretty close.”
“What does it mean?”
“My name?” Cat hums a yes. Kara shrugs. Tucks her hands inside the too-long sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Beloved. Pure, cherished.” She pauses. “It’s the way it feels,” she closes her eyes and turns in Cat’s lap so that her eyes are on the ceiling and Cat holds her hands still for a moment, trying to figure out where she can touch Kara, and her answer comes when Kara takes her floating hand and holds it in hers. “When Carter laughs at something, or he’s telling you about his good day and you can’t help but smile and everything feels a little lighter, brighter.” Kara opens her eyes. She reaches up and, with the tips of her first two fingers, she touches Cat’s sternum gently. Cat stares down at her with wide eyes. “And you feel it, right here?”
“I know it.”
“That’s kara,” Kara says, with a slightly different inflection. “Beloved.”