101 Notes About Love(By writerstealth, formerly known as Sexghosts)
Fandom: Supergirl
Rating: T
Cat stood in front of the screens in her office. Shazia Dhoury's face appeared a moment after the feed cut out, smoothly transitioning the raw live feed into well-produced analysis. She had a good team and, with what Kara had given her to work with, she was able to begin filling in the gaps in the story. But Cat wasn't really watching that.
She'd been in a few life threatening situations in all her years on this earth, and she'd never once experienced the phenomenon of her life flashing before her eyes. But she was experiencing something akin to it now, though it wasn't her entire life. It was the last four months, replaying in fast motion as she scrambled to process what she'd just seen.
She replayed the week she spent after Kara was gone, taking hot baths and drinking too much after Carter was in bed.
She replayed a session with Rosensweig, who wouldn't stop smirking like she was waiting for Cat to figure out something painfully obvious, as Cat explained why she'd pushed this separation. Rosensweig, that damned hippie and her incense and her dream catchers, demanding, "And how are you prepared to change to accommodate the person who comes back, assuming she does come back?"
"She'll come back," Cat had snapped, but she wasn't sure.
She replayed everything she'd wanted to say to Kara every time she texted her a beautiful sunset over some mountain range or bay or monument, but didn't. How she'd pushed Kara away, and then reached for her, but then pulled back when Kara tried to take her hand.
She replayed the conversation with Carter:
"Mom, I miss Kara."
"I know, honey. I do, too."
"Then why'd you send her to Paris?"
"For her career, darling."
"Mom, come on. I'm not a little kid."
Oh, how his beautiful, wise little face saw right through her. "I know you're not, darling."
"So then just tell me the truth. I know you guys were together."
Her mouth had dropped open. "What did she tell you?"
"Nothing, Mom, come on. I saw how you looked at each other. It's the only time I ever saw you relax around anyone except me. You're never happy anymore since she left."
She had been thunderstruck. "I told you, I miss her too, Carter."
"So why'd she leave?"
Cat had sighed. "It's complicated, Carter. Grownup reasons."
"Well, why don't you try and explain to me?"
She'd folded her arms and stared at him. "Have you been talking to Dr. Rosensweig behind my back?"
"Mom." His tone was serious.
She'd sighed. "Kara is a lot younger than I am, darling, and she had to do some growing up on her own."
Carter processed this. "And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you have to do some growing up too?"
She ruffled his hair. "I didn't think so, but I'm starting to wonder."
He wrinkled his nose. "You could have told me, you know."
"Well clearly, I didn't need to."
He laughed, and got up and threw his arms around her neck. "Yeah, you didn't. You guys were pretty obvious."
Something about that had stung, and she didn't cry about it but it had stuck in her heart.
She replayed those nights of dancing at Tipping Velvet and the happy glow they'd both had on the dance floor. Those umpteen corporate functions where they sat together and didn't touch. The way Kara would look at her like she was everything in the world, and God, she had loved that look but the weight of it had almost been too much. Cat realized how she didn't want to be someone's world, and had been terrified of the responsibility. She thought back over her relationships over the years and they were little more than dalliances; John Stamos, Rob Thomas, that weird now-and-again thing with Cate Blanchett. She told herself it was because she didn't have time, but the truth was that it was easier than being someone's world.
She replayed in her mind Kara's discontent with their arrangement, their discretion, their secrecy. Why hadn't she told Carter? She was raising him to be a proper liberal progressive feminist, he wouldn't care if she was bisexual. Why hadn't she?
She replayed in her mind the drinks she'd had with Diana Prince at Lindy's, where Diana was infuriatingly polite and formal. "I just wanted to thank you for sticking around here. You sell a lot of papers," she'd tried to joke, but it dropped on the table and lay there like a dead fish.
Diana had smiled distantly, and raised her glass in Cat's direction. "Well, Kara's a friend," she'd said. "And I owed her cousin a favor. But I'm glad it's working out for you as well."
Cat had been frustrated that the dusky heroine wasn't melting under her charm. Why had she been frustrated? She had no intention of actually doing anything with Wonder Woman, did she? She'd been pulling a cloak around herself, trying to take some dim, flimsy reassurance in her own desirability.
And as if reading her like a sad, beaten paperback, Diana had drained her glass and said, "Miss Grant, you don't love Kara because she's a superhero, and you can't just plug the hole she's left with another superhero. You love her because she's brave and good and generous with her heart. That's why I'm sitting here, that's why I'm helping her. Because she's all those things."
A beaten-up paperback, and all the pages had been dog-eared by Kara, the margins filled with her little scribbles, a hundred and one notes about love.
She relived Rosensweig's unrestrained cackling when she had finally fessed up that she had been dating Supergirl. "Christ on a bike," she'd hooted, "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to tell me that."
And Kara's phone call. Her surprising, challenging, heart-twisting phone call. Her voice had sounded sweetly familiar, but different too. Her time in Europe was doing what it was supposed to and it made Cat thrilled and proud but sad and afraid, too. Kara wanted her to change, too. How? Could she even do it anymore? Did she still have the flexibility in her? Kara had said that when she figured out how to be one person, that she wanted that person to be with her. Am I one person? she wondered. It suddenly seemed less clear.
And then there had been that night at the gala in New York. That night at the MoMA, the opening of some damn thing she'd sponsored that she had to show up for, and smile for, and look gorgeous for. And she did, as usual, because Cat Grant did not turn up half-assed in the public eye. She'd brought Sandra, only for the sake of not turning up alone. The girl was no Kara, but she was a passable enough assistant, and she looked decent enough in evening wear. Not as good as Kara did in that blue dress Cat had bought her all those months ago, but good enough.
She'd seen from across the large main gallery the real reason that she'd come to this damned thing. It was, of course, impossible to miss her even at this distance, her distinctive sweep of white hair standing head and shoulders above most of the room, elegant and cold as an iceberg. Except to me, Cat thought with satisfaction, she's never cold to me.
Not that anyone apart from the two of them would recognize the brand of warmth they shared. Cat had learned the lioness's share of what she knew about running a show from her; she was a mentor, a friend, and one of the only people whose opinions would always matter to Cat.
"Catherine, dear, how are you?"
Only two people on the planet addressed her as Catherine. One was Vera Rosensweig, and it was a means of putting her in her place. The other was Miranda Priestly, and from her, it was, oddly enough, an endearment. "Oh, Miranda," she'd sighed coolly, "it's lovely to see you again. How are things at Elias-Clark since you took the helm?"
Miranda's eyebrow quirked slightly. "Barely passable. I'm planning on firing everyone. Or not. You know."
"I do," Cat had replied, swallowing a smirk. "Nigel's doing a lovely job with Runway, though."
"Mm," Miranda replied noncommittally. "And CatCo, also doing nicely, I see. Those lady superheroes are quite a get for you."
An attractive young brunette in a red silk sheath dress swung by, touching Miranda's shoulder in an intimate way and handing her a martini. "Here you are, darling." She noticed Cat and extended her hand. "Andy Sachs-Priestly," she said brightly, offering her hand.
Cat took it and shook it, and smiled like she was sucking on broken glass. "Cat Grant."
Andy chuckled warmly. "Ah, the only protege who wasn't a disappointment."
Miranda waved a dismissive hand. "Darling, what have we discussed about your poker face?"
"It sucks, and you like it that way." She tipped up on her toes and pecked Miranda's cheek. "I'll be back in a bit, I need to go have a dick-measuring contest with Lois Lane."
"Must you be so vulgar?" Miranda demanded, with a flicker of amusement in her eyes that only Cat and a handful of others would have identified.
"Uh-huh," Andy replied cheerfully.
Cat's head snapped around. "Lois is here?"
"She is," Andy replied, smiling broadly. "I'm going to go eat her lunch. Pardon me." She breezed away. Well, the young lady had good taste.
Cat offered a lifted eyebrow and nothing more.
"Catherine," Miranda said smoothly, "what in the world is wrong with you?"
She glanced over her shoulder at Andy moving away through the crowd. "I'm fine, Miranda."
"You might be able to fool the rest of these jewel-encrusted tin cans," she retorted, gesturing around the crowded, opulent room, "but I taught you your game face, dear, so try again."
The one person she couldn't fool, and if she was being honest with herself at that moment, didn't want to. "How'd you do it, Miranda? I know she used to be your assistant."
"Yes, and now she's a reporter and nearly cleaned Lois Lane's clock for a Pulitzer this year." Miranda tilted her head and looked carefully at Cat. "Have you got one?
"A Pulitzer?"
A knowing smirk played around Miranda's lips. "A prize."
Cat didn't speak, and knew her silence telegraphed a yes.
"Mmm," Miranda sighed. She slipped into mentor mode, which if you didn't know her like Cat did, would look like frosty imperiousness, but Cat recognized it as caring, because Miranda didn't bother to give you the hard truth if she didn't care. "Catherine, look at me. Now look at my wife."
Cat glanced again at Andy; pretty, poised and clearly cutting Lois Lane's heart out with an indisputably dazzling smile.
"Do I look like I have a single reservation about her spreading her lovely wings in front of the world and calling her my wife?"
Cat shook her head.
"Exactly."
"You don't know the whole story," Cat objected.
Miranda rolled her eyes. "I don't need to, Catherine. Just own it. It's not as though your tastes are a deep, dark secret, dear."
"No, I just don't advertise."
"And you also haven't had a committed relationship in twenty years." Miranda was having none of it.
"I don't like the idea that I can't control what it becomes once it's out there and declared."
Miranda looked at her archly. "I thought you were the Queen of All Media."
She replayed that afternoon at the LGBT Press Club dinner a week later, where she'd made an appearance that was supposed to be about announcing CatCo's new queer lifestyle imprint, Edge Magazine . She'd always had her routine down at these sorts of things; brief, vaguely worded speeches in which she vaunted her commitment to giving voice to the LGBT perspective without going so far as to state whether she shared it.
But that speech had been different. She'd sat looking at the carefully constructed speech scribbled on cue cards, and then thrown them in the trash.
And now she stood in front of the wall of televisions, her spine straight as a steel girder. "SARAH!" she barked.
Sandra, who had gotten accustomed to answering to that name by now, jumped about two feet in the air, recovered quickly, and answered meekly, "Yes, Miss Grant?"
"Call Seamus, have him bring the car around. Then phone ahead to the airstrip, have them get the jet ready. As soon as possible."
"Yes, Miss Grant. Where are they taking you?"
"Paris. Make sure I've got a car waiting for me when I get there."
Philippe Comeaux was in the process of losing his shit.
Kara stood there watching him. He was hollering at her, switching between French and English, and doing a lot of swearing and slamming his palms on the desk.
"What the fuck did you think you were doing?"
"I was just there as a tourist, Philippe. It just happened. It was dumb luck. The news crew went down right in front of me. Somebody had to report it. The way I see it, the bureau was lucky it was someone bulletproof!"
"You! So you are L'Americaine! You! How have you been doing this right under my nose?!" He leaned across the desk and shook a finger in her face. "I am not the kind of person who misses things!"
"I… haven't really made any effort to hide it, Philippe," she pointed out with bewildered calm. "In fact, I told you I was late last week because I was stopping a bank robbery."
"I thought it was sarcasm!" he shouted, running his fingers through his short, salt-and-pepper hair. "You Americans have a weird sense of humor, do you know this?"
"But I'm good at my job," she argued, not really sure where she was going.
It didn't seem that he was quite sure where he was going either. "Yeah, yeah, good at your job, traffic manager, pushing paper. So are you a field reporter now?" He stormed over to the window, then stormed back, thrusting his chin at her. "You want to be a field reporter, great! Fantastique! You have to make up your mind, Mademoiselle Danvers, do you want to be a journalist or do you want to be the story?!"
"Why can't I be both?" she pushed back. "You can send me into all those dangerous places where you can't send normal people! I can bring back the stories that nobody can." As the words left her mouth, she felt suddenly sure about it.
"Yeah? So you're going to what, save people in Kabul while you report on yourself saving people in Kabul? It makes no sense, Kara, L'Americaine, whatever you fucking call yourself!"
"I don't call myself that! The journals do," she laughed.
"I don't care!" he snapped. "Go back to pushing that paper and figure out what the fuck you are, and when you decide, let me know!"
Kara stood looking at him with her hands on her hips, trying not to laugh. "Philippe, it's Sunday."
He waved at the door. "Go! Go! Out of my office."
She turned on heel and walked toward the door. She'd gotten three steps, when he said, "Wait."
She stopped and looked back at him.
"You could go into firefights and not get hurt."
She nodded.
He stared at her a moment. "That crane shot was pretty good."
"It wasn't a crane, I flew."
"You know what I mean."
She just stood there, smiling at him.
He shook his finger at her for a moment again, trying to scrape words up off the floor of his brain. "There are legal and ethical questions about this."
"Of course."
"I need to think about this. Go do your job."
Kara sat at home that evening, lounging in her sweat shorts, looking at the sunset poking through the rain over the tops of the buildings, and still smiling to herself as she realized that Philippe was taking her seriously. It had been satisfying. It felt right. Why couldn't she be all these things and still be Kara?
She heard a knock at the door. Her brow furrowed. She wasn't expecting anyone. She padded to the door in her fuzzy socks. "Who is it?"
"Kara," came Cat's voice, muffled slightly through the door. "It's Cat."
Kara's heart stopped for a moment. She took a deep breath and flung the door open. Cat was standing there, really standing there, in the flesh. She was a little disheveled and damp, a little tired, a little pale, carrying no luggage and wearing no pretense of removed cool. "What… what are you doing here?"
"I saw your broadcast," she said softly.
"What'd you think?" Kara asked, half afraid to know.
"I think I realized something important."
Kara bit her lip. It was everything she could do not to grab Cat and draw her into an embrace. "What's that?"
"This entire thing ...us… has been me trying to control everything. And it's been you, coming to me. Meeting me more than halfway. And … and I just… I just realized that it was past time for me to come to you." Her eyes met Kara's and Kara recognized what she meant. She did the math in her head quickly and realized that Cat had to have seen the broadcast and flown out here as quickly as she could.
Kara gathered Cat in her arms and drew her inside the door, pushing it shut behind her. Her skin ached as she held onto her, smelled the faint scent of Guerlain perfume and the clean smell of the rain on her skin and in her hair. It was going to be different, she knew, but Cat had taken the risk, and Kara wasn't about to let her fall on her face. "I missed you so much, Cat," she whispered, her eyes welling up. She tried not to squeeze her too hard.
"Darling," Cat whispered back. "This has been the most miserable four months of my life." She pulled back and looked at Kara, smirking a little. "Productive, but miserable."
Kara ran her fingers through Cat's hair, relishing the fact that she had showed up here, impulsively, risking heartbreak, willing to be less than perfect. "We have a lot to talk about," she replied hoarsely.
"I know, I know we do," Cat agreed, nodding vigorously. Kara couldn't tell if Cat's trembling was from emotion or the chill of the rain or both. "But… can we talk about it later?"
Kara felt a warmth in her gut. She leaned down and took Cat's jaw gently in her hand, kissed her for the first time in four months. Her lips were soft, and hungry, and wanting. Her mouth tasted like… like Cat; that mix of bitter and sweet, chocolate and whiskey, need and passion. It was more than she even remembered, almost more than she could take. The rain tapped on the windows out of time with their asynchronous heartbeats and their breathing that had been jagged from the moment Kara opened that door. Cat, tired and vulnerable, was more beautiful than Kara had ever seen her. "Do you want to go to bed?"
Cat nodded and kissed her again. "Yes, for the love of God, Kara, please. Please, let's go to bed."
Kara lifted her off the floor, felt Cat's legs wrap around her waist, kissed her again. "OK," she whispered, smiling against Cat's lips. "Let's go."