Chapter Text
The dust on the floor
Piled up from the years
All those scars and souvenirs...
"Kara."
It's just a word. It's just her name – a sound she's heard a hundred thousand times in all the years she's been alive, that she'll hear for as long as she keeps breathing. But at the sound of it falling from those lips, little more than a choked gasp too quiet for those with normal hearing to even notice, from a voice that she hasn't heard for over six months, knocks the breath from her lungs, her knees trembling and she thinks she might have fallen, if not for the strength of Winn's desk at her back.
James, Lucy and Winn all fall silent as Kara turns her head, clenching her jaw to stop any traitorous tears from falling, because she hasn't laid eyes on Cat Grant in so long, even though it's a face that haunts her dreams each and every time she closes her eyes.
She'd barely even been able to step foot in the CatCo building that morning. She'd stopped in the lobby, overwhelmed and dizzy as a dozen memories overcame her, and she'd had to duck inside a bathroom, hide herself from view. Her hands had curled around the sink and she'd taken deep, shaking breaths and her hands had trembled so hard that for a moment she was scared that the porcelain was going to crack beneath her grip.
She'd managed to get herself under control, though, to stop the rising panic that she felt in her chest – she'd raised her head and she'd marched to the elevator and she'd pressed the button for the fortieth floor before she could talk herself out of it.
Six months ago she'd walked out of this building and left it (and the love of her life) behind, and she'd never wanted to be back here again.
But it's been six months, and she should be over it by now (she's not – sometimes, in the dead of night, alone in a new bed in a new apartment in a different city, she closes her eyes and she can still feel the ghost of Cat's arms wrapped around her waist) and doesn’t think she ever will be.
Locking eyes with Cat almost makes her sob, because her mind had done such a poor job of remembering her. She's painted her more times than is healthy, ever since she'd left, but even her very best work pales in reality to the sight of Cat standing before her.
She's wearing a skirt that hugs her in all the right places, and a black blouse with two buttons undone – in the hollow of her throat a blue gem sparkles on a thin silver chain, and Kara's heart aches because a year ago she'd fastened that chain around Cat's neck with trembling hands, and she has no idea how she's supposed to feel knowing that Cat still wears it.
Cat is appraising her, too, and Kara can tell by the tremor of her hands that she's fighting hard to keep her expression blank. Because they're in the very public arena of the bullpen, and none of these employees save Kara's friends know of the details of their history. Kara had just… disappeared, one day, and they all just assumed that Cat had finally, finally made her crack.
But god, it was so much more than that.
"I... I'm s-sorry, Miss Grant." She doesn’t know how she manages to speak with the weight of those eyes that had once looked at her with so much love settled on her skin. Cat had always seemed to see through her, to see beneath what Kara showed to the world, and she wonders if Cat can see the months of restless nights where she'd cried herself to sleep, if she can see the way that leaving Cat had broken her beyond repair, the way she's barely able to hold herself together. "I didn't... I was told you were in a meeting."
She never would have come here if she'd known that running into Cat was a possibility. She would have stayed far, far away, ignored the itch under her skin to know what CatCo was like now, whether anything had changed or if things were still the same.
"Yes, well, I was." Cat's eyes glance nervously over her shoulder, and Kara wonders for a sickening moment if it hadn't been a meeting at all but a date, and Cat's new lover is about to stroll around the corner and slide an arm around her waist, and that might be the final blow that shatters her completely.
She sees the reason for Cat's nerves, though, when she spots a flash of brown curls appear, and Kara feels the breath knocked from her all over again because Cat hadn't been the only one she'd left behind.
No, she'd left a son as well.
Carter has his eyes on the floor, and Kara allows herself a breathless moment to take him in – he's grown at least three inches since she last saw him, taller than his Mom, and he looks so much older. But then he raises his head, frowning for a moment at his Mom before he turns, and Kara knows she won't recover from seeing them both like this, so unexpectedly, as their eyes meet.
She remembers those same eyes, filling with tears as she'd told him that she was leaving, and swallows back a sob.
"Kara." His eyes had been blank (and there's a cut on his cheek, a bruise at the base of his jaw, and Kara feels a flare of protectiveness spark in her chest at the sight), but there's a flicker of excitement in them as they land on her. "You came back."
"For the wedding." Her mouth feels like it's stuffed with cotton, tongue like lead, and she wonders if it's obvious to everyone around her that she's seconds away from a breakdown.
James and Lucy had finally set a date, and she'd asked Kara and Alex to be bridesmaids (Kara remembers fondly, whenever she's having a particularly bad day, the look of horror on Alex's face as she'd wondered what kind of dress Lucy was going to have the both of them wear).
Carter nods, though Kara swears there's disappointment on his face. Cat's still staring at her, frozen in place. "How... How are you?" The question's directed at Carter, but her eyes are locked on Cat's face, sees the way her lip curls, hears the tiny scoff she lets escape.
And then she's moving, stalking past Kara on four inch heels and slamming the door to her office loudly behind her, and Kara winces at the sound of it, feels it rattle around in her skull.
"I've been better," Carter shrugs, frowning as he looks towards his Mom.
"What happened to your face?" It's easier for her to breathe without the weight of Cat's eyes on her, though it's taking every ounce of self-control she has not to sneak a look into her office.
"Nothing." His expression is closed-off, and Kara aches because once upon a time, he would tell her everything, even the things he was too terrified to tell his Mom. "You shouldn’t have come here." He says it quietly, too quietly for prying ears to hear, but Kara still flinches like she's been slapped, and she feels Lucy's hand pressing against the small of her back in an effort to comfort her. "I mean, I'm glad you did." He takes a step forward and offers her a tiny smile, and she feels like a weight has been lifted from her chest. "But..." He casts his eyes towards Cat's office once more as he chews on his bottom lip, and Kara can't help but let hers follow, turning her head and telling herself she's allowed to look, just for two seconds.
She sees Cat's shaking hands curled around a glass of amber liquid, watches as she lifts it to her lips and tosses her head back, setting it back on the counter and filling it up immediately afterward.
"It's not good for her," Carter finishes quietly, and there's a forlorn look in his eyes and Kara feels her own fill with tears because it's been hard for her, but at least she has people she can talk to – Cat only has her son, and Kara knows she'll have been trying her hardest to make it seem like she's got it together in-front of him.
She wonders how many empty bottles of bourbon are hidden in her room, how much she drinks at night when Carter has gone to bed and she can fall apart without his prying eyes on her, and feels her stomach churn with guilt.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, voice ragged, because she is. She'd never meant to hurt Cat – hell, she hadn't even meant to fall in love with her, but she had, and she'd fallen hard, and for almost two years she'd felt true, blissful happiness, and then it had been ripped away and she's barely felt anything but empty since.
"I know," Carter shrugs, because he'd seen her the day she'd told him she was leaving, he knew how much it had killed her. "But that doesn't change anything."
He's practically a stranger to her, now. She can't read his face, whereas once she'd been able to know what he was thinking just from the look in his eye, or the curl of his lips, and it shakes her more than she ever thought it could.
"I should just... I'll go." Her mind has been screaming it to her ever since she'd heard the sound of Cat's voice, because coming here had been an awful idea and she never should have listened to Lucy, despite her continued assurances that Cat would be gone from the office until later that day.
"Kiera!" Is shrieked not a moment later, and Kara blinks, wondering if Cat had somehow suddenly developed superhearing, too. She's surrounded by curious faces as pretty much everyone in the bullpen turns to glance her way, wondering if Cat's about to murder her for their entertainment, and it's only Lucy's hand pushing at her back that gets her to move.
"Go!" She hisses in Kara's ear, and Kara's tempted to bolt and run away, just like she had all those months ago, because it would be so much easier than having to face Cat alone. But Carter's nodding at her and Kara's never been able to refuse Cat anything (the ragged gasp of ‘you promised me you wouldn’t leave me’ runs through her mind and maybe she should amend that to almost anything), so she takes a deep breath and forces herself to walk towards Cat's office on shaky legs.
x-x-x
"Miss Grant?" Kara sticks her head into the office hesitantly, because the last time Cat had spoken to her it was with a scream to get out and chase up the layouts for their latest issue – they were almost three days behind, and to say Cat hadn't been dealing with the stress well was an understatement.
It didn't help that her mother had appeared in her office unexpectedly that morning, and Kara had had barely two seconds to warn Cat before she strode inside to find Katherine Grant folded into one her couches, and Cat has been taking it out on her all day, but what was Kara supposed to do, float her out of the window before Cat could see?
"Come in." Cat's on the same couch Katherine had been on, legs folded beneath her lap and a hand rubbing at her tired eyes, a half-empty bowl of M&M's sitting beside a glass of bourbon.
"Your layouts." The rest of the bullpen had long gone home, and Kara aches to herself – she's had a rough few days at the DEO, and she's looking forward to crawling into bed and getting a solid few hours sleep.
But she doesn’t usually leave until Cat leaves, and judging from the way Cat's lip curls as she glances over the layouts Kara passes to her, she doesn’t think that's happening anytime soon.
"I'm sorry, for yelling at you earlier," Cat murmurs after a moment, without lifting her eyes from the sheets in her hands. "It's not fair of me to take my anger out on you."
"It-it's okay." Kara doesn’t think that Cat has ever apologised to her before, no matter how cruel the comment.
"It's not," Cat murmurs in reply, and then she's patting the space beside her and Kara sinks onto the couch without even thinking. "You do good work here, Kiera. And I know it doesn’t always seems like it but I... I value what you do." She's still not looking at Kara, and she's glad – she doesn’t know to respond to this, wonders just how many glasses of that bourbon Cat has had today, because this kind of praise... it's unheard of.
The flutter she feels in her chest at Cat's words, though, that’s not new. She's had a crush on her boss for as long as she can remember, and it's always harder to ignore whenever they're alone in the office like this. Lately it's been even worse, because Cat's warmer towards her than she ever has been before, and it makes Kara's head spin.
"What do you think of these?" Cat asks, then, stretching her arms in-front of her with a layout in each hand, eyeing them critically. "There's something... off."
"I think..." Kara trails off, narrowing her gaze slightly as she searches for the fault. "I think these two should switch places."
She has to indicate which pieces she means with her hand – she braces one arm across the back of the couch and extends her other, fingertips accidentally brushing the bare skin of Cat's lower arm as she goes, and Cat's reaction, to anyone else, would have been unnoticeable.
But she's got supersenses and she hears the tiny hitch of Cat's breathing, the spike in her heart rate as their skin touches, the feeling electric and shooting across Kara's skin like tiny sparks, and when Cat shivers against her, Kara's mouth goes dry.
"Which two?" Cat presses, her voice steady though her breathing is shallow, and Kara leans daringly closer, allowing herself to breathe in the dizzying scent of Cat's perfume.
"These." Her voice is breathless, and her fingers tremble, and when Cat turns her head she's close enough for Kara to feel her breath against her lips, to see the way her pupils dilate when she meets Kara's eyes, and Kara wonders what expression is on her face, if it's the awe that she feels flood at her at how absolutely beautiful Cat is, or the anticipation that thrills through her veins at being so close.
She doesn't move away – she can't. Her self-control is incredible because she's been working with Cat for years but she's never slipped and let her desires be known, but it’s wavering now. She's never reached out to run her hands over exposed skin no matter how great the temptation, never blurted how gorgeous Cat looks whenever she gets dressed up for an event, never allowed herself to tangle a hand in that blonde hair and bring their lips together, no matter how many times a day she fantasises about it.
Right now she's itching to do just that, because her hand is splayed across the back of the couch behind Cat's head and god, it would be easy. It would be so, so easy and Cat's looking at her like she wants her but there's a part of her that's still terrified, because why, out of anyone in National City, would Cat Grant ever want her?
"Kara..." It's the breathless whisper of her name that undoes her, because it's the first time she's ever heard Cat say it correctly and it sends a flood of heat through her, the way Cat drags it out like she's savouring the way it sounds.
So she lurches forwards and presses her mouth against Cat's, and it's messy and clumsy and not perfect like the way she'd imagined it would be, but Cat's kissing her back with a hand cradling the side of her face and Kara lets a low groan slip from between her lips.
And it's over almost as soon as it began, the hand that had been pulling Kara closer instead beginning to push her away, and when Cat leans back her eyes are wild and her cheeks are flushed and her breathing is laboured and Kara doesn’t think she's ever seen a more beautiful sight in her entire life.
"This cannot happen," Cat says them, her eyes closing for one heavy moment – when they open her expression is carefully blank, though she can't control her racing heart quite as easily. "You are my assistant and not... this cannot happen." Kara wonders who Cat's trying to convince more – Kara or herself.
"But - "
"No." Cat silences her with a single raised finger, and Kara feels her elation at knowing what it felt like to have Cat's mouth moving against her own plummet. "This was a mistake." Kara flinches as though the words are a physical blow, and she sees a flicker of remorse in green eyes before it's carefully blinked away. "And you should go home."
She doesn't argue, even though she wants to. Instead she stands, snatches the layouts from the floor where they had fallen and hands them back to Cat without looking her in the eye, and then she turns her back and walks away before she can change her mind.
Coming into work tomorrow is going to be torture, she's sure. Because her daydreams are only going to be all the more vivid, now that she's had her hands on Cat's body and felt the heat of her kiss against her lips, and she doesn’t know if she can survive pretending that it never happened at all.
x-x-x
Kara struggles to keep her eyes away from that couch when she's standing in the centre of Cat's office, remembering that first kiss that had been followed by so, so many others. She casts her eyes around whilst she waits for Cat to speak, looking for any obvious signs of change, but finds none.
It's almost as if she never left at all.
"Not here," Cat murmurs, tearing her gaze away from Kara, standing behind her desk as though it might hurt less to have some distance between them, before she jerks her head in the direction of her balcony.
Kara follows in her wake, her chest tight and her throat feeling like it's closing up, because so many significant things had happened between them out here, and the memories threaten to overwhelm her.
"You shouldn’t have come here." There's just enough anger in her tone to cover up the hurt that shines in her eyes, and god, it's so much more painful to hear those words fall from Cat's lips than Carter's.
"I know." Her voice trembles, because she's always lacked Cat's level of careful composure. "I didn't think you'd be here," she admits, softly, and Cat's eyes flash with a look so deadly that Kara almost takes a step back.
"And that makes it okay?" She hisses, fury injected into every word, and she takes a step closer before she seems to think better of it, taking a deep breath and leaning back against the railing, instead.
"No." Kara shakes her head, because she realises now, how stupid this idea was. "No, it doesn't. I was just... being back here, in the city... I guess I just wanted to see how much had changed."
"Considering how quickly you left the city behind, I'm surprised you even care."
"Of course I care!" The words burst out of her, because she's desperate to get rid of that cold look in Cat's eye – once Cat had looked at her like she held the stars in her hands, but there's little trace of that left now.
Now she looks at Kara like she hates her.
She wouldn’t blame her if she did.
"I care so much that it kills me." She'd left because she couldn’t stand being close to Cat without being in her arms, but she'd left so much more than that behind. She'd left her job, her sister, her friends, and the life that she'd carved out for herself, too.
"And yet you still walked away." Neither one of them are talking about the city anymore. Cat's voice is cold but there's a look in her eyes that takes Kara back to that day that she never allowed herself to think of whenever she's awake, but that always crawls into her mind at night when she sleeps.
That day where she'd said 'I can't do this anymore' and made Cat really, truly cry for the first time in her life.
"You know why I had to." Her voice breaks, because she'd lost the ability to keep it together the second Cat had called for her.
Because this is the first time they've been alone since they broke up, since Cat had hurled a ring at her with enough force to break the skin, had she been human, when Kara had promised she’d never have to see her again.
She wonders if those words still ring in Cat’s ears like they do in her own, wonders if it'll ever stop hurting.
"You didn't have to do anything." Cat hurls the words like an accusation, and Kara feels them rip through her like a bullet.
"Did you call me in here just to yell at me?" She asks, because she might deserve it but she doesn't want it, doesn’t know how much longer she can stand the force of Cat's tangible anger.
"No." Cat takes a breath, and it's almost as if she deflates. "I called you in here to talk about Carter."
"What... what about Carter?"
"You're in town for a few days, right?"
"Two weeks." Cat flinches, and Kara wonders if she should have lied. "Why?"
"I think it might be good for him if you spent some time together." Kara blinks in surprise, and Cat resolutely looks away from her, arms wrapping around her waist and making her seem suddenly very small. "He's... he didn't deal with you leaving well." Kara feels another flutter of guilt. "He's ben having trouble at school. The reason my meeting was cut short was because I had to go and pick him up from there, again. He's been fighting." Kara's jaw slips open, because Carter isn't a violent kid, never had been no matter how bad the bullies had gotten at his school.
"What?"
"Supergirl's influence, I'm sure," Cat says scathingly, and Kara winces. "He's been more withdrawn, lately, and I'm... I'm worried about him. Perhaps you could talk to him."
"O-okay." She's stunned by the offer, because she'd never expected Cat to extend such kindness to her, not after she'd broken her heart.
"If you hurt him again," Cat warns, fire in her eyes as she draws herself up to full height, "you will regret it, do you hear me?"
"Loud and clear," Kara reassures her, because she has very little intention of causing even more damage than she already has. "Does he even... would he even want to see me?" She feels suddenly insecure, because she doesn’t know where she stands anymore, and it makes her feel off-balance and she hates it.
"Yes," Cat replies quietly. "He misses you." She turns her head, glances down at the city spread out below her. "We both do." She doesn't give Kara a chance to respond before she's moving, striding back into her office and calling for Carter.
Kara leaves them to talk while she tries to regain her composure, still shaken from seeing Cat so unexpectedly . She doesn’t listen in on their conversation, even though a part of her is craving for it – instead she waits for Carter to peer his head around the balcony door.
"Mom says we can hang out for the rest of the afternoon if you want." He asks like he's not sure whether she'll say yes or not, and it breaks her heart.
"Is that something you want?" She counters, because Cat wasn’t the only one she'd left with scars. But he nods with a warm smile that melts her heart, and Kara has no idea how she's going to leave him behind when her two weeks are up. "Then let's go. What do you want to do?"
"Can we go get ice cream?"
"Sure we can."
Carter loops his arm through hers when she's close enough, and Kara has to bite back a sob at how easily he's accepting her back, because even though she'd sworn to herself she'd never see either him or his mother again, because that would be easier for all of them, whenever she had thought about it she'd always imagined Carter screaming that he hated her for leaving and never talking to her again.
Cat sits behind her desk and watches them go, and Kara feels the heat of Cat's gaze on her back long after the elevator doors have closed behind them.
x-x-x
"You really think he'll take it okay?" Kara is fidgeting in the booth next to Cat, one hand fiddling with her glasses and the fingers of her other drumming against the tabletop, until Cat's hand rests on the back of hers, stilling her.
"Of course he will." The reassurance does little to ease Kara's worry though, even when Cat squeezes her hand warmly. "He already loves you."
"Yeah, but... as Kara. Not as his Mom's girlfriend." They've been sneaking around for almost a month, trading heated kisses on Cat's balcony after everyone else has gone home, and sharing dinners at least twice a week.
They haven't told a single person about their budding relationship yet, but it's important to both of them that Carter is the first to know.
Kara had come over for game's night at the Grant's house the previous evening to test the waters, and it had gone perfectly. Cat had murmured in her ear, after Carter had gone to bed, that she could stay the night, if she wanted. She'd finally learned what it felt like to fall asleep with Cat in her arms, and she already knows she'll never tire of it.
"How does he usually react?" They'd decided to tell him at breakfast the next morning, with Cat taking them to Carter's favourite diner, which she'd assured Kara did the best pancakes in National City – the promise of food had done little to calm her nerves. "Like, when you bring people home to meet him?"
"Well, as a general rule I... don't." Carter had slipped away to use the bathroom, giving Kara a few minutes to get a pep talk from her girlfriend.
"What?" Kara can hardly believe that. Because Carter is thirteen years old and she's been separated from his father since he was four, and surely Cat's had relationships in all of that time?
"Don't look so shocked, Kara," Cat murmurs with a shake of her head. "It's not like I never dated anyone, I just... no-one was ever worthy enough of meeting my son. And that was fine," Cat shrugs. "I had CatCo, and I had Carter, and I never needed – or wanted – anyone or anything else. Until I met you."
Sometimes she could be so vulnerable, when she admits how she feels, and Kara knows it's because there's still a part of Cat that believes she doesn’t deserve her. That she doesn’t deserve to be happy. But Kara's vowed to prove her wrong each and every single day, and it takes everything in her not to trap Cat's chin between her fingers and brush their lips together, because the look in her eyes takes her breath away.
"You're sure about this?" Kara asks as she hears Carter coming back towards them, and Cat nods, squeezing her hand once more but not removing it, keeping it resting on-top of her own as Carter slides into the seat opposite them.
"Do you guys think that - " Carter cuts himself off when he notices his Mom's hand, gaze dropping and eyes narrowing before he lifts his head and looks Cat in the eye. "Why are you holding hands?"
"There's something I need to tell you, Carter - "
"Are you guys together?" He interrupts before Cat has a chance to finish, his eyes widening.
"Yes." Kara twists her hand so that it's face-up on the table, tangling their fingers together. "Is that okay with you?"
"Are you kidding?" Carter replies, voice laced with excitement. "I love Kara!" She feels her nerves rush out of her as she smiles, so wide that her cheeks ache. "This is going to be awesome. Does this mean game nights are gonna be a thing? And we can play Settlers of Catan all the time? Oh, are you going to move in? Because - "
"Slow down, Carter," Cat cuts him off, a slightly panicked note to her voice. "We don't want to scare her away." Cat's eyes sparkle as she turns her head so that their eyes meet, and Kara smiles back, heart fluttering in her chest.
"Never going to happen," she promises, quietly, and when Cat leans over and presses a chaste kiss against her cheek, she feels like she's flying.
"Gross," Carter says when they part, nose wrinkled in distaste.
"Get used to it," Cat snipes back at him as she leans further into Kara's side and reaches for her coffee, and Kara feels like she's finally coming home.
x-x-x
"I haven't been here for ages," Carter murmurs as he shoulders open the door to the diner, and Kara feels a flash of relief when he heads for a table on the opposite side to where the three of them had used to sit whenever they'd gone to grab a quick snack during the working day.
After Kara and Cat had started dating, Carter would often spend his school holidays at the office. He'd work beside her at her desk (with Cat's stern instruction to not distract her assistant), and if Cat had enough time at lunch they'd go out together, Cat relaxing the second they were away from prying eyes.
"Mom says it brings back too many memories." He says that quietly, as if it's meant for his ears only, but Kara still hears, feels her heart squeeze painfully tight in her chest. “Oh, crap.” Carter squints up at her then, apology written in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it’d be the same for you. We can go, if - ”
“No,” Kara interrupts quietly as she settles into a chair and opens the menu in-front of her. “It’s okay.”
“Are you… how have you been?” He asks, ignoring the menu in favour of scrutinising her face closely.
“Not great,” she answers, honestly, because she’s never had a reason to lie to him.
“You didn’t have to leave.” There’s no accusation in his voice, or in his eyes when she chances a glance up at him.
“Yeah, Carter,” she murmurs with a shake of her head. “I did.” He doesn’t argue, and she’s glad because she doesn’t have the strength to defend herself. She doesn’t even know if she can anymore. “How’s school?”
“Fine.” He looks away as he says it, staring sullenly down at the table in-front of him and looking every bit the moody teenager.
“Really? Cause that’s not what your Mom says.”
“I don’t want to talk about it with you.” It stings, but Kara doesn’t press, knows that he’ll tell her about it when (if) he wants to. They’re quiet until a waitress comes to take their order, and Kara only speaks again once she’s disappeared with their menus under her arm.
“What do you want to talk about, then?” She’s missed Carter almost as much as Cat, these past few torturous months away. In the beginning, she’d tried to reach out to him, writing letters because once upon a time, she’d promised him she’d never leave.
But he’d never replied, and after a while, she’d stopped sending them, fearing that she’d done too much damage to ever repair with words on a page.
“How about how you got that cut on your head?” She tries, because now that Cat’s told her about the fighting she’s pretty sure that’s the cause of it – she doubts Carter’s going to be willing to give her that information, though.
“Did my Mom put you up to this?” He asks instead of answering, squinting at Kara suspiciously across the table.
“Maybe,” she shrugs, seeing little point in denying it. “She’s worried about you. And I am, too.”
“I’m fine,” he mutters, but it’s not convincing. He tries to change the subject then, every inch Cat Grant’s son. “You work at the Daily Planet now, right?”
“Yeah.” She’d become Cat’s assistant with the end goal of getting into journalism, and Cat had promoted her to junior editor not long after they’d gotten together to help her on her way. It’d been easy to find an opening at the Daily Planet when she’d moved to Metropolis with Clark keeping an ear out. “I don’t get yelled at nearly as much.”
She tries to crack a joke, but it falls short because she misses her old job. She misses being Cat’s assistant, being there for her with a latte in her hand every morning, making sure that her day ran as smoothly as possible. It had only been with Cat’s coaxing that it would make things easier for them when they started to tell people about their relationship that she’d accepted the editing position, Cat gently reminding her that she couldn’t be an assistant forever.
But even then, she’d still seen Cat every day. She’d still been called into her office and watched her at her prime, striding in-front of her desk and giving out her orders for the day. Her boss at the Daily Planet was nice and kind but… they weren’t Cat Grant.
She was unlike anyone Kara had ever met.
“Would you ever come back? To National City?” It’s a question that Kara’s thought about a lot, but one she’s never truly been able to answer. Because the memories are still so potent, here – so much worse than she’d ever feared, and she doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to survive with the constant reminders of what she’d had but thrown away.
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “It’s… There are a lot of things that I miss. But it’s difficult being here, too.” She takes a deep breath, then, because there’s something she desperately needs to get off her chest. “Look, Carter, I just… I want so say that I’m sorry. And I know you probably don’t want to hear it from me, but I need to say it. I am so, so sorry, for everything. I never meant… I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“You don’t regret it though, right? Dating my Mom?”
She thinks about that a lot, too. About whether things would be better, if Cat’s resolve had never cracked again after that first earth-shattering kiss. She wonders where she would be, now – if she’d still be at Cat’s side, or if she’d be somewhere else in the company.
She does know that she would never have felt real, true love. That she would have never known what it felt like to fall asleep with Cat in her arms and wake up beside her in the morning. She would never know that sometimes, when she was particularly stressed, that she would talk in her sleep. She would never know that she had a weakness for sci-fi and had the entire Star Trek collection on DVD, and she’d watch them when she couldn’t sleep. She’d never know what it was like to laze in bed and watch Cat get herself ready for the day, to shower with her, to hear the sound of her moaning Kara’s name into her ear.
She wonders if she’d be happy now, instead of feeling a desperate, aching loneliness that reaches deep down into her bones. What was that saying? It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?
Kara’s not so sure that it’s true, but she wouldn’t change a single thing about her past anyway.
“No, Carter,” she answers softly, her fingers running absentmindedly over her index finger. Cat had placed a ring on it on their six month anniversary, a promise to a future together, and Kara had picked up the new habit of playing with the thin silver band whenever she was nervous – a habit that she hasn’t quite managed to break, even without wearing it for months.
Sometimes she still swears that she can feel the weight of it on her finger.
“The only thing I regret is the end.” She wishes every day that it could have gone differently, but it had happened and she thinks that it was inevitable, anyway. There was only so long they could fool themselves into thinking that Kara could successfully keep herself separate from Supergirl.
And when she’d been discovered, it had nearly been the end of them all.
“She doesn’t regret it either,” Carter says, tentatively, and Kara looks up sharply, heart beating faster at the first Cat-related news she’s heard in a while. Winn, James and Lucy still work at CatCo, it’s true, but Kara had forbidden them from mentioning Cat two weeks after she’d left National City, because no matter how much she’d craved to know everything Cat was doing, the wounds were still too raw, and it just made everything harder.
“She doesn’t?” She’s often wondered if Cat would take any of it back if she could. She’d thought she would, thought she’d regret the slip in her careful self-control, almost two months after that first kiss that had changed everything.
Cat had kept her distance for so long, and Kara had let her, because Cat had been the one to push her away. Neither one of them had acted differently, but whenever they were alone together all Kara could think about was the taste of Cat’s lips or the feel of her skin.
There were always traces of desire lingering in the air between them though. Kara would catch Cat staring at her whilst she was in her office, or would find Cat’s eyes lingering if she wore something a little more revealing that normal, and she’d waited patiently to see if Cat’s resolve would crack.
And then one night, they’d been working late once more, and Kara had stepped closer than she’d dared in a long, long time and then Cat was kissing her, pressing Kara against her desk with a hand in her hair and another at her hip, and Kara had been powerless to do a thing but drag her closer.
She’d expected another reprimand, when they broke apart, ready to bolt from Cat’s office at the first sign of danger. But Cat was looking up at her with a soft expression, her hands turning indescribably gentle, and Kara had practically melted into her arms.
“This absolutely shouldn’t be happening, and you should turn and walk out of that door and never look back if you know what’s good for you, but I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you, Kara. I don’t think I can anymore. And if you want me back, then all you have to say is yes and I’m yours.”
Those words still haunt her dreams, sometimes. They’d changed everything – she’d gone from merely being Cat’s assistant to dating her as well, and it had been terrifying and exhilarating, all at the same time.
“No, she doesn’t,” Carter reaffirms, and when Kara catches his eye she smiles sadly, because he looks so grown up and she’s missed it. She’s missed him going from gangly-awkward teenager to this, and she wonders what it would feel like if he hugged her, swamping her in his arms. “And you don’t… you don’t have to apologise, Kara.” His eyes are earnest as they stare back at her across the table. “I know… I know what happened. All of it.”
“You do?” She asks, a little sharply, because she and Cat had agreed to keep most of the grisly details from him for as long as they could.
“Yeah. Don’t be mad at her,” he says, even though Kara doesn’t think she could be if she tried. “She… didn’t, for a while. And I didn’t understand for so long… why you’d gone. I mean, I know you tried to explain it to me that day,” he winces as he remembers it, and Kara winces along with him, because from start to finish it had been the worst day of her life – and once she’d watched her whole planet, and her life as she knew it, be blown to smithereens. “But I never really got it. Until… well, until what would have been your two year anniversary.”
Kara had purposefully blown out her powers that day. She’d sparred with Kal-El until she’d been too exhausted to even move the night before, and he’d flown her back to her apartment and told her to be careful before he’d left her alone.
Because she’d wanted to feel on that day. She wanted to grab that bottle of whiskey that she kept in her kitchen for when Alex came to visit, and she had. She’d drank almost a third of the bottle, a photo of Cat clenched in one hand and the ring in the other, drank until she hadn’t been able to keep any of it down and had curled up in her bathroom beside her toilet and cried until she could barely breathe.
She wonders if Cat had fared any better in dealing with the pain of it than she had.
“She took the day off work and she let me stay off school so that we could spend it together and I could distract her but then I… I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about her.” There’s something awful churning in his eyes that Kara hates herself for being the cause of, is practically holding her breath as she waits for the rest of the miserable story. “And I heard a crash so I went to see if she was okay and she… well, she wasn’t.” His lips twist in a bitter little smile and Kara’s stomach roils. “I don’t know how much she’d had to drink but it was a lot and I think… I don’t think she ever wanted me to see her like that. I was never supposed to.”
Kara knows that Carter had used to worry about his Mom’s drinking habits. He’d told her one night that he was the one who had suggested she grab a handful of M&M’s when she was feeling stressed instead of a glass of bourbon. Kara had worried about it sometimes, too, but Carter had murmured one night when she and Kara were fighting and Cat had locked herself away in her study that she’d never been this sober.
“And she started crying and she just… she told me everything. I think keeping it bottled up wasn’t doing her any favours.” He glances up at Kara’s face and winces at whatever he sees there. “I’m not… I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad.”
“I know.” Her voice is little more than a whisper, and not even the towering chocolate sundae that’s placed in-front of her a moment later is enough to ease the emotions swirling in her gut.
“I just… thought you should know. That I know. So I know you didn’t leave her because you fell out of love with her, or anything like that. I know you did it to protect her, and me. I know that it must’ve killed you as much as it killed her. So you don’t have to say sorry to me, because I get it.” She feels tears spring into her eyes before she can stop them, because he sounds so mature, her boy is all grown up and she’d missed it. “Hey, don’t cry.”
Carter shuffles so that he’s sat next to her, and when he pulls her into a hug she can’t help but let out a small sob, burying her face in his shoulder. His shirt smells like Cat’s laundry detergent and it just makes her cry harder, Carter’s hand trying to rub comforting circles at the small of her back as she lets out everything she’d been feeling since she’d come face to face with Cat that morning.
“God, look at me,” she murmurs when the tears finally stop falling, leaning away from his shoulder and wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re allowed to be,” he shrugs, staying beside her as he reaches for his own ice cream. “But maybe next time wait ‘til we don’t have something melting on our table.” She manages a laugh, and knocks his shoulder with her own as she snatches up her spoon. “I’m sorry I never returned any of your letters,” he says after a few moments of companionable silence, both of them content to just eat. “I didn’t… I wanted to.” She can see that it’s bothering him, so she lets him get the words out without interrupting. “But I never knew how. And then I caught my Mom looking at them sometimes when she thought I wouldn’t notice, and she looked… she looked so sad and I thought they were just reminding her of you so I thought… if I never replied you’d stop sending them.”
“It’s okay,” she tells him with a smile. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m glad you did, though. I thought… I thought you never wrote back because you hated me.”
“I could never hate you, Kara,” he’s quick to reassure her. “Never. You… you were always so good to me. You treated me like I was your son.”
“Because you were.” She feels more tears spring into her eyes at that, and Carter is quick to reach for her hand and squeeze gently. “You still are, even though I haven’t been acting like a very good mother lately.”
“You still are though,” Carter shrugs. “You never stopped being that to me. I love you.” His eyes widen in alarm as he sees another tear slide down her cheek. “Please don’t cry again. All of these people are going to think it’s my fault.” Kara manages a choked laugh, and reaches up to wipe at her eyes once again.
She knows she probably looks like a mess, but it’s easier to forget about that with Carter at her side. She’d missed him so much, but she hadn’t realised how much until he was here with her, when she could look at him and see all of the little things that she’d missed, all of the time that she would never get back.
“I love you, too,” she murmurs back to him quietly, and he grins and wraps an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug, and Kara wonders, for the first time in a long, long time, whether she might be able to put the pieces of herself back together after all.