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Her mother is singing and it’s beautiful.
Alura is sitting on the couch with an open book in her lap and she’s singing something faint and melodic that sounds vaguely familiar, like it’s being sang through a fog and Kara can just barely make out the words.
Kara is momentarily stunned at the sight of the familiar white couches, the reddish-orange hue warming the room, the panoramic view of Argo City’s skyline directly ahead - all sights she never thought she’d see again. Everything is exactly as she remembers it, from the stain on the rug that looks like a Hantha tree to the unexplained crack in the wall that’s been there since she was little. But the fading light of Rao on her mother’s skin is enough to overwhelm the hundreds of questions that are simultaneously rising up in her throat.
“Mom,” Kara breathes out in wonder, just barely audible, but her mother hears it nonetheless. Alura lifts her head casually, with only a slight look of surprise on her face as if Kara has merely come back early from a school trip, as if she hasn’t been millions of miles away on another planet entirely after the destruction of their home.
“Kara!” Alura closes her book and sets it aside, standing with her arms open to embrace her daughter, “Oh, honey, you’re back already! I thought you would still be away for another few days.”
Despite the confusion, Kara closes her arms around her mother and clutches her tightly, relishing in the embrace. Her mother is warm and her hands are rubbing Kara’s back like she would a child as if sensing her discomfort, but the only thing that matters to Kara is that her mother is here, alive, everyone on Krypton still breathing.
There are a million questions swirling around in Kara’s head and the biggest one prodding at her is something along the lines of But what about earth? Alex? Cat?, but all she can manage to ask through her tightening throat is, “Away? Away where?”
Alura pulls away with her hands still resting on Kara’s shoulders, now equally as confused as her daughter. “Where? Well, on your honeymoon, of course,” Alura shakes her head in concern and places a soft hand against her daughter’s forehead, “Are you feeling alright, honey?”
For her part, Kara is a ball of emotions, bewilderment being at the forefront, but she can’t help taking a moment to just study her mother. The intelligent hazel eyes that always watched Kara with pride and the wavy brown hair that always framed her mother’s face are exactly as Kara remembers. But there’s a haziness to the whole scene that brings Kara back to herself before she can get too lost in whatever it is that’s happening.
“Um, honeymoon?” Kara repeats back, shaking her head, still trying to think. Another Black Mercy? Something else? She brings her left hand up and sees both a Kryptonian wedding bracelet around her wrist and a ring on her finger. Both are gorgeous and both fill her with something like astonishment as the breath hitches in her throat, the breeze from a nearby open window cooling the tears that are beginning to form in her eyes.
Before Alura can answer, a voice she would know anywhere calls from somewhere behind her, “There you are, Kara, I was wondering where you’d gotten off to. Oh, hello, Alura.”
Kara spins around and standing there is the woman she’s absolutely revered from the moment she set foot in that giant glass office space, her mentor, her -
“Cat!” Alura exclaims with a smile, moving away from Kara towards Cat to exchange soft greetings while Kara watches on in awe. Cat is radiant as ever in a white slip dress that reaches the top of her knees and clings to every curve of her body, hair loose and eyes bright with joy. Kara hears Cat mention their needing to pick something up for Carter that they’d left in Kara’s childhood bedroom, hears her mother ask about their trip and Cat answer in turn, but she’s too focused on just taking the whole scene in to actually process any of their words.
“Darling, are you alright?” Cat asks quietly as she moves swiftly across the room to tuck herself into Kara’s side while Alura looks with worry. Instinctively, Kara wraps her arm around the older woman’s small waist and pulls her in closer without thinking about it. She lets her fingers play with the fabric there as her eyes travel over Cat’s face down to her legs and back up again, as if inspecting her to make sure the woman is real.
“Yeah,” she says over the lump in her throat when she still doesn’t find the answer, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
To hell with answers, Kara thinks finally. She doesn’t care what it is, all she knows is that this - now - feels too profound to question, to give up.
But before she can lean in to finally kiss Cat, to kiss her wife -
Kara bolts awake at the sound of her front door slamming shut, gasping for air and grasping at her own heaving chest. Her hair falls forward and curtains her face as she tries to gather herself, sunlight pouring into her bedroom through the open blinds and heating her skin in a way that might have been pleasant if she wasn't so shaken up. Within a few seconds, the dream is fading from her grasp until all that’s left is the ghost of its memory burning on her fingertips. She sits up in bed, can hear Alex rummaging around the kitchen and calling out something about needing an extra suitcase, but she’s too dazed by the leftovers of her dream, too distracted by the phantom feeling of having Cat pressed so intimately against her to care.
The day passes slowly from there and Kara is grateful to have the time to go through the routine of a normal work day. She ignores the televisions and the CatCo news coverage of her article, the one exposing the president’s numerous high crimes, from obstruction of justice to illegal campaign financing. And what’s more, she had uncovered the corruption all on her own, as Kara Danvers, and she can’t deny that it had felt good. Kara knows this the article of her career, a once in a lifetime moment, but beyond that bit of pride at doing the work without her superhero counterpart, she can’t help but feel small.
Sitting at her desk, Kara adjusts her glasses and looks around quickly to ensure there are no nosy coworkers looking over her shoulder before peering over her glasses. There’s a framed photo on her desk of her, Alex, and Eliza, but behind that is a photo only Kara can see using her super-special abilities; it’s one of her and Cat at some awards gala she can hardly remember the name of because it hadn’t mattered at the time. What matters is that in the photo, Cat is striking in her green dress and she’s looking at Kara’s profile with admiration and, dare she say, affection. It's a photo she looks at often when she's at work, especially now that she can't simply walk into Miss Grant's office and talk to her when she's craving the woman's attention.
Still staring at the metaphorical touchstone, she pulls her phone out of her purse and with a touch of superspeed, she shoots a text to Cat before she can coward out. It’s only three words long, but it may as well be a full-length novel putting all her insecurities and guilt on display: Proud of me?
Kara thinks of Cat off diving somewhere she refuses to pinpoint and feels the lump rise in her throat again. She knows Cat is alive, is safe (she’s made sure of it using every Supergirl connection she could think of), but she doesn’t want to intrude any further than that. The media mogul did what she thought was best for her and Kara knows it’s best to let her go, to try her best to let the wound heal instead of picking at it further.
Still, she thinks about Cat and Krypton, thinks of her mother singing, and it makes something deep inside her chest hurt.
But Kara shakes the feeling as best she can, ignores the stares from her coworkers, ignores the televisions in the bullpen, and keeps her head down. She takes Winn’s and James’ words of praise with a cheery smile and a bashful tilt of her head. Alex calls and enthusiastically promises a night out on her when she and Maggie get back from their weekend away. Even Clark sends her a long, heartfelt text about how proud he is of her, how proud he’s always been. She doesn't receive anything from her former boss.
Kara makes it back to her apartment in once piece after work and avoids looking at the newspapers all etched with various angles of coverage on the news she broke. She unlocks her front door with a heavy hand and with a heavier lump in her throat, she sits on the couch and checks her phone again. A few more texts of congratulations from friends and family members, a few important media people reaching out for interviews, but nothing from Cat.
(She doesn’t think of her dream from last night, she doesn’t think of Cat in her arms or the dying light of Krypton and it doesn’t make her chest hurt. It doesn’t.)
With a start, Kara is awoken by a rapid knocking on the front door.
She looks around disoriented for a moment and tries to shake off the grogginess as best she can. She’s still on the couch, still in her work clothes, glasses tossed away somewhere, and a quick glance at her phone tells her its just past one in the morning. Before Kara can turn and focus her x-ray vision on the front door, because she knows it’s not Alex, an all-too familiar sound stops her cold.
It’s a sound she’s always listening for in the background of whatever else is going on, always ensuring is there and steady, strong, never skipping, never slowing.
And before she can contemplate it, Kara is quickly following the sound of Cat’s heartbeat, now so close, closer than its been in months, closer than it was even in her dream, and she practically tears the doorknob off in her attempt to find out if it's true or not.
And it is true.
“Miss Grant,” Kara breathes out, airy and barely there, but she knows the other woman catches it anyway.
And Kara briefly wonders if maybe she’s still stuck in her dream - because Cat is here, holding a bottle of champagne, and wearing a pencil skirt that looks like it’s practically been painted on, with a blouse that shows off her cleavage in the most tantalizing way possible, and most importantly, she’s here.
Before either one can get a word out, Kara has her arms around Cat, pulling the older woman in tight against her chest. She lifts Cat’s feet off the ground and presses her face into the woman’s neck, nuzzling the smooth skin there and breathing in her smell. Kara can feel Cat’s hands caressing the hair at the nape of her neck and whether it’s a conscious action or not, she’s not sure.
After a minute of simply basking in the embrace, Kara sets Cat back on solid ground, steadying the woman so she doesn’t trip over herself on the unexpected hug; instead of addressing it, Cat clears her throat, her cheeks flushed, and arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as she asks impatiently, “Really, Kiera? Are you going to invite me in or are we just going to stand in the hallway all night?”
Kara holds the door open just a touch wider and Cat strolls in gracefully, dropping her purse on the side table in the foyer. Before Kara can comment, the older woman is quickly walking away and into the kitchen like she’s done so a hundred times before, like it’s normal.
And Kara is suddenly slightly self-conscious at the rumpled work clothes she’s still wearing, the messiness of her apartment, before she reminds herself that it's the middle of the night and Cat is the one who showed up uninvited (though not unwanted).
When Cat had left to dive, Kara knew the unspoken thing between them would remain just that: unspoken. But Kara couldn’t leave it wholly untouched. She found herself returning to certain conversations and trying to find their hidden meanings, turning the words over and over again in her head, on her tongue, testing them in her own mouth alone late at night (Boss, employee. Nobody gets confused. Nobody gets hurt.) and wondering how they’d felt to Cat when she’d spoken them. She knows now that that particular little speech had been an acknowledgment that lines had been crossed, but in Kara’s humble opinion, they hadn’t been crossed far enough.
And now she wants to ask Cat about just what exactly she’s doing here, hell, a part of her wants to yell and stomp her foot like a teenager and demand answers - Why did you leave? Why are you back? Will you stay? - but she’s too afraid to disturb whatever it is that’s going on, too afraid Cat will pick up and leave again, this time for good.
So, instead of questioning it, instead of risking losing yet another person so important to her, Kara heads into the kitchen, too.
She pulls a corkscrew from a drawer while Cat rummages through her cabinets for champagne glasses, muttering about clutter and disorganization as she stands on her high-heeled tiptoes in an attempt to reach the top shelf where the glasses sit.
Barely holding back a chuckle at the unbelievability of the situation, of having the woman she’s been pining over since day one here in her apartment, Kara stands behind Cat and mumbles, “Here, let me,” then effortlessly reaches up to grab the two glasses Cat is aiming for. Kara places a palm on the older woman’s waist and lets her front push against Cat’s back; she can feel Cat’s breath hitch, can hear her heartbeat speed up, and it leaves her both a little more flustered and very much smug.
Pulling away with the slightest flush on her cheeks, Cat pours champagne into their respective glasses before handing Kara her drink. They stand only a few feet apart and it takes everything in Kara not to yield to the impulse to bombard the other woman with all the questions floating around in her head. But she’s still too afraid to touch the scene before her and if it is a dream, Kara thinks, better to let it last.
Kara thinks of her dream again, of Cat in a white dress, her mother alive, Krypton alive. The two of them together on Argo City. Is that her heart or Cat’s that’s beating so wildly?
The tension-filled silence lingers for a few seconds before it’s finally broken by a sing-songy voice that Kara has been longing to hear again these past few months.
“A toast to your defining moment?” Cat lifts her glass in question.
Kara’s eyes fall to the floor. Cat watches her for a moment, studies her really, her mouth slanting in worry. The light is dim around them and the night outside is balmy and the whole thing thus far has been a rather quiet affair, but it’s loud in Kara’s head. She wants to cup Cat by the elbows and dig her fingertips into the smooth skin there, kiss the older woman's blonde hair, she wants to say It’s for you, everything I’ve done since you’ve left has been to make you happy again.
But she doesn’t. Not yet.
“Alright, not that,” Cat concedes with a small shrug as a new smirk tugs at her lips, “A toast to your health, then. Surely you can’t have a problem with that.”
“Alright, then,” Kara nods, and she can’t hold back the little grin that springs up on her face at Cat’s persistence. “To my health. Yours, too, Miss Grant.” Cat rolls her eyes good naturedly at that, but still they raise their respective glasses in the air before each taking a sip of their champagne.
Neither willing to disturb the moment, they remain silent afterwards, the quiet of the apartment and the stillness of the city outside almost overwhelming Kara as she brims with anxiety. Because what feels like a lifetime time ago, Cat once gave Supergirl a talk about belief and hope, and I am not easy to change, and she had thought that maybe bringing down a corrupt U.S. president would be enough change to make amends for not saying all she should have when Cat was still in National City, still a seemingly permanent fixture in Kara's life.
Because this is the woman she’s dreamed about, the woman she’s spent the better part of two and a half years trying to make proud of her, trying to make believe in her, as if pride and belief will lead to Cat loving her. Or maybe she thinks pride will be a good enough substitute if Cat can never love her back.
She's not sure.
“Would you like to tell me what that text was all about?” Cat finally asks quietly, breaking Kara away from her anxieties and pulling her back to the present.
“Um, I don’t - I don’t know what you mean,” Kara sputters with an uneasy smile, still looking anywhere but at the woman in front of her, “It was just a joke. Obviously,” she laughs nervously, nearly a giggle, the sound strained and unnatural, even to her own ears.
“Kara, look at me,” Cat murmurs softly. For a few seconds, Kara keeps her eyes down, but as she can never truly deny Cat anything, she finally looks up and catches the other woman’s eyes with her own. Cat’s looking at her with a softness that’s often been directed at Supergirl on the more-than-occasional screw up. But Kara and Supergirl are one and the same and the hero in her, the one who could never stand to let anyone down, has always been ten times as faithful to Cat as to anyone else, and so she can’t bring herself to deny Cat an answer now.
“I just - I wanted to make you proud.”
Because you feel like home. Because I wanted you to know that.
“Me? And what gave you the impression I wasn’t already proud of you?” Cat asks, eyebrows shooting upwards, very clearly surprised.
Instead of addressing the older woman’s question, Kara shrugs, again lowering her eyes to a spot by the coffee table where her shoes were kicked off haphazardly on the floor as she admits:
“If I'm being totally honest, I didn’t do that investigation or write that article for the right reasons, Miss Grant. I did it for you, so you might finally notice me, wherever you were out diving in the world.” She lifts her hand to fiddle with her glasses before remembering they're not there.
The older woman runs a perfectly manicured finger down her own jawline in contemplation and all Kara can think is how much she wants to follow that finger’s trail with her mouth.
With a calculated look, Cat responds somewhat bitingly, “Oh, please. Believe me, Kiera, you don’t want my attention. Just ask any one of my past assistants or even my mother and eldest son, for that matter,” she says with a wave of her hand.
It occurs to Kara that Cat is baiting her into - something. It feels like a test of sorts, one she’s not prepared for, and she can feel her frustration growing. Because Cat once said It’s you and Kara wanted to say Yes, yes, it’s me, you know me, you have me, but instead all she’d gotten was an underlying promise of mentorship, of secrecy, of looking the other way when a coffee run to Noonan’s takes two hours instead of two minutes. She can see it all, remember it all, feel the echo of all those little moments they’d shared before Cat left, thinks of her dream again, and it hurts.
So, instead of answering, Kara leaves her champagne glass behind on the counter before she crosses her arms and moves to the couch, never taking her eyes off Cat. She pats the space next to her and with only slight hesitation and a small roll of her eyes, the media mogul sits next to her, leaving a foot of space between them.
“So why are you here then, Cat?” It’s said like a challenge, like she’s turning the tables on Cat, and it’s full of bravado the girl has only been able to really conjure when she dawns her Supergirl suit and needs an extra boost.
Instead of immediately answering, Cat sits quietly for a minute, a contemplative hand under own chin, runs her thumb over her bottom lip, but doesn’t smudge the red lipstick there even a little bit.
Kara never takes her eyes off of the curve of Cat’s cheek.
The older woman kicks off her heels and keeps her gaze anywhere other than on Kara. She notices that Cat looks tired, a different kind of tired than when she’s pulled all-nighters at CatCo, and Kara briefly wonders if she’s been kept up by the same types of thoughts and dreams, if she’s been searching for Kara in every new place she goes the way Kara has been searching for her in every balcony she lands on.
“I read your story and kept up with all the coverage while I was away. Of course I did, Kara, and don’t you ever dare think I’ve never cared about your accomplishments,” Cat finally breaks the silence, fiddling with her now empty glass. “As your...mentor,” she pauses heavily, trails off just a bit before continuing, “I am incredibly proud of you, of course I am. As soon as I saw your text message today, I knew I had to come see you so that - so you would know. I readied the private jet and, well, here I am,” she shrugs, finally peering up at Kara in so timid a gesture that Kara is almost taken aback by the uncharacteristic shyness of it.
Cat crosses her legs and her skirt rides up a little as she leans over to place her glass on the coffee table. As she leans back against the couch, still looking away, her blonde hair falls to cover that cheek that Kara has been so dedicatedly studying. Without thinking, Kara reaches over and lets her fingertips brush the hair away from her face and tuck it behind the older woman’s ear. Cat watches her with something she can’t quite pinpoint and it makes her stomach flip pleasantly.
The air feels charged around them and Kara can hear the minuscule hitch of Cat's breath in her throat that any ordinary human would have missed.
“And to think, we used to be strangers who meant absolutely nothing to each other. Now you're the protege who has surpassed her mentor,” Cat shrugs with a mirthful smile, but her tone is clipped. And it's another glimpse to Kara, another sign of hope, that maybe Cat is prodding at her to be the first to move on this, whatever this is between them.
Anyone else might think Cat is speaking out of bitterness at the younger woman's recent professional accomplishments, but Kara knows her better than that. It's not about career advancements or making headlines. It's about them and where they were versus where they are now.
“These days it feels like we're still strangers,” Kara mumbles as she pulls her hand away from Cat's, her gaze still firmly pinned on her mentor, and the words hit the air like bullets.
Cat frowns and in what feels like another, weaker, attempt at a push, she says, “I know. But I hope you know I’ve always seen so much greatness in you and this, your recent accomplishments, all you’ve done for National City, hell for the whole country, just proves it to me that much more.” The media mogul hesitantly reaches over as she finishes speaking and places her hand on top of Kara’s where it now lies on the couch, simply letting their intertwined fingers rest there.
It’s almost two in the morning and Kara is exhausted and she knows there are probably a few petty crimes to be stopped somewhere out there, but she thinks of Krypton and everything she never experienced there and no matter how undeserving she feels, she’s not willing to let this second chance, the one that’s showed up on her doorstep only an hour earlier, just slip away.
Later when they talk about this night, Kara will admit she had no idea where this sudden burst of boldness came from, only that she knew Cat liked her brazen and Kara had been feeling desperate, because she’s alive, because she’s here with the woman she loves when so many others are gone, and she can’t hold it in any longer when she finally shoves all uncertainty aside and asks:
“Can I kiss you, Cat?”
Instead of answering verbally, Cat studies the Kryptonian for a moment, seemingly searching for something in Kara’s eyes and seemingly finding it when she leans in closer and closer still until they’re only a few inches apart. Kara’s eyes shut instinctively as she feels Cat’s warm breath wash over her lips and chin, lighting all of her nerves on fire.
Neither can tell who closes the distance, but after what feels like an eternity of build up, their lips are pressed together, Kara’s hands knotting in the older woman’s silky hair while Cat’s grasp at her biceps and hold there. It's everything and nothing like what she expected, just as firm but with more passion behind it, and Kara certainly hadn't anticipated that thing Cat's doing with her tongue.
As they continue the kiss, Kara lets herself fall gently on top of Cat on the sofa, pressing her against the cushions and pushing her thigh between Cat’s legs, bunching up the woman’s skin-tight skirt in the process. Kara lets her hands travel up Cat’s torso until they reach her breasts and Cat opens her mouth to welcome Kara’s tongue and before they know it, they’re both moaning and panting, hair disheveled, buttons undone.
Before things can heat up too far, they each pull slightly away with light kisses against the other’s cheek and jawline.
“Finally. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting, Supergirl?” Cat jokes breathlessly, though there’s a slight tremor in her bottom lip. Kara fleetingly thinks they’ll have a lot to address later, from her alter ego to what happens next with her big story to where Cat has been since taking her leave from CatCo. But later, she thinks -
We’ll have time later.
“I’m sorry. I won’t let you down ever again, Miss Grant, I promise,” she says with the utmost conviction, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to Cat’s neck, her eyebrows knitting together in a determined fashion. If she were in her suit, she’d probably have her fists balled up against her hips.
But this is better than being in her suit. Kara selfishly - guiltily - thinks this is better than any accolades for her heroics, any promotions for her work, that she could ever receive. Lying between Cat’s legs, bodies pressed together so no air can escape, is the proudest she thinks she’s ever felt.
“Kara,” Cat chuckles slightly before Kara can get too lost in thought, pressing her forehead against the Kryptonian’s, a small smile playing at her lips, “You have never let me down, not once. I’ve always been proud of you, darling.”
Outside the window, the sky is nearly pitch-black and the usually busy streets are nearly empty. The world is summoning Kara to sleep, but a delicate kiss on her shoulder calls her back to wakefulness.
“Ready for another round already?” Kara teases in a husky voice, thinking only of Cat’s mouth forming a perfect O as Kara pushed her to the brink several times throughout the night, thinking of Cat's back arching deliciously off the bed, thinking only of how much she wants to do it again already.
She can feel Cat smile against her shoulder as she answers, “Not quite yet, darling. I think we need some sustenance first, and if I know your appetite like I think I do, a middle-of-the-night meal is in order.”
“Well, maybe not a whole meal. I think just a snack or five will do,” Kara giggles, still feeling that floaty feeling in her stomach.
“Come on,” Cat pats her backside playfully, standing from the bed and putting on Kara’s shirt that had been tossed to the floor just two hours earlier.
They get up and Kara lets the media mogul lead her by the hand to the kitchen, where Kara gestures for Cat to sit while she pulls out an unopened carton of ice cream from the freezer.
Cat picks up a copy of the Trib sitting on one of the stools near the island. On the front page is her story, her work.
With a cheeky smile, Cat lifts it up and murmurs, “Nice job, Supergirl.”
"Oh, shush, Miss Grant."
Rolling her eyes and ignoring the blush that rises to her cheeks, Kara puts the carton of ice cream between the on the counter and pulls out two spoons. A small bit of blonde hair is falling across Cat’s forehead, the tips just barely touching her eyelashes, and her lips are still plump and pink from their earlier activities (all traces of lipstick now gone), and Kara wonders if Cat feels as light as she does in that instant.
She likes that Cat is still Cat, that they're still them, as if the two women simply took the long-unspoken thing between them and finally breathed life into the words before throwing them into the wind to land where they may - simple as that.
“We’re really not strangers now,” Kara jokes as they begin to eat, her eyes quickly trailing down to Cat’s bare legs then back up to her eyes again.
Cat rolls her own eyes now with a smile softer than she thinks she’s ever seen before. “No, we certainly aren’t, darling.”
Looking out at the balcony and the blurry skyline in the distance, Kara thinks of Krypton and for the first time, she can honestly say it doesn’t hurt. Kara looks across the counter at the woman she loves, the woman she could easily spend the rest of her life with and suddenly all sense of urgency is set aside as green eyes gaze up at her through long lashes. So much between them is still unfinished, still unanswered like starting in the middle of a story and closing the book only a third of the way through, but that doesn't matter to Kara because she thinks of her dream again and her chest doesn't ache.
No, it doesn’t hurt anymore to let herself think of Krypton and all she’s shouldered in her short lifetime, all she's lost, all she still feels guilty about surviving. It doesn’t hurt to look at Cat and see all she’s gained by coming to Earth, all she would have missed out on if Krypton had survived. Because the ground is still there beneath them, because this world is still turning and Cat will still be safely secured in her arms come morning. Because there is still life here and it’s beautiful.