Kara hadn't realized it until she'd laid eyes on Cat, but she'd been full of unrest for days. Regardless of her personal situation, her mind had consistently strayed to the older woman, and she had grown increasingly frustrated at the DEO, and her sister specifically, for keeping her from Cat.

Now that she was in the same space with Cat, her mind finally stopped dwelling on what the other woman might be doing or feeling, and she felt drained. The need to see Cat, to be around her, and the fact she couldn't get away to simply be in the same space as the other woman was far more taxing an experience than fighting an alien inside the mouth of an open volcano.

It seemed like her emotional ties to the older woman were running far ahead of where their relationship was, but she chose not to dwell. Instead, she decided to take a shower while she waited for Cat to carefully walk downstairs to wake the sitter, pay her, and check on Carter.

Pulling off her suit, she sighed at herself. How was it that Cat Grant had managed to get into her skin so quickly? She hung the suit up in the closet in the space made for it and placed her boots in the spot made for them on the floor below. Maybe the question wasn't how had Cat managed to get to her, but how had they gotten into each other's skin so quickly?

She shook her head and grabbed her night clothes from the drawer Cat had given her in the chest situated outside the bathroom door. As she walked by the sinks, she tossed the clothes onto the counter and paused to glance at herself in the mirror. Had it really been quickly? She shook her head at her reflection. No, it hadn't. They'd been going around in circles for years.

Chuckling at her own obliviousness, she headed for the shower.

It was wonderful. The shower smelled of the expensive shampoos and the high end soaps she knew Cat favored, and being inside the cocoon of a steam mixed with that familiar scent made her feel peaceful. It was a perfect moment of bliss as she stepped fully into the hot water's spray and allowed the stream to beat down over her, washing away the last few days.

She reached forward to press her hands flat against the back of the shower wall. The world was a myth. The only thing that existed were the three glass walls surrounding her and the mists of time standing still in the presences of her need to take a moment and take a breath.

The strangled gasp and little hiccup of surprise from Cat pulled Kara out of her thoughts. A little too quickly, she turned around, covering herself as best she could as she looked through the foggy glass wall to find Cat looking in her direction with a mixture of surprise, shock, and hunger. "I," the older woman began in a strangled voice. "uh…" she opened and closed her mouth a few times before sound came out again. "Bathroom," she squeaked out. "I… I needed to use the bathroom, and I thought," she finally blinked, and her lids fluttered a little too rapidly, "the shower would be… foggier?"

Kara's entire body burned with the force of her blush and the heat of the water still streaming down her back, over her shoulders, and down her chest. She pulled into herself as much as she could. "It's okay," she squeaked out. "I should have waited."

"No," Cat shook her head, but her eyes remained glued to the shower, "you shouldn't have to. I want you to be… uh… to be comfortable here." She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, clearly trying to mentally regroup. "God, Kara, it's like you were carved," she whispered through a slow exhale.

"Uh," the younger woman's confusion made her forget about her embarrassment. "Carved?"

Cat took in another deep breath and tried to shake herself back to some sense of control. "Your body is… is…perfect, like it was carved by a master's hand." She opened her eyes again and managed to make eye contact this time. "And I'm sorry for completely invading your privacy. That was… this is very wrong of me. I just can't seem to stop myself from," her eyes flickered down again, "staring…" she trailed off as her eyes glazed over again.

It was the hunger in the other woman's eyes that was the spark which gave Kara the courage to turn the shower off and step out with her arms lowered. She'd had fantasies of Cat looking at her exactly like that. She wanted to see more of it. Her body tingled from the force of the older woman's need. She could see it in her eyes and sense it in the air.

Briefly, she thanked her super senses for this moment. She wanted to know everything she was doing to Cat, and her abilities permitted that. She could see, hear, and smell her effects on the other woman. What she wanted was to feel and taste.

Slowly walking toward the smaller woman, Kara reached out to take Cat's hand in her own and place it on the same spot Cat had rested it earlier that evening when they'd first seen each other.

Cat groaned, her eyes following the contours laid bare now that the suit was gone and the House of El symbol no longer blocked her view. She swallowed again while forcing her eyes up to meet the younger woman's. "When did you get so bold?"

"You bring it out in me," Kara replied with a smirk. "Touch me?"

Cat's eyes fell back to her hand where it rested on Kara's chest, and she nodded. Licking her lips, she trailed her fingertips down between the valley of the younger woman's breasts, dragging her fingernails over the sensitive skin of one breast and toward a quickly hardening nipple.

She began to circle it when Kara's hand flew up to stop her, pressing both their hands flat over her breast. "I… it's too much," she pleaded between pants. "I want… I want, but my strength…"

"I know." Cat gave a small, understanding nod and leaned forward to rest her head against Kara's chest. "God, do I know," she groaned as her body shook with unreleased tension.

They remained silent until Kara's breathing evened out and her body began to relax. "I'm so sorry, Cat."

"Sorry?" The older woman pulled back, scowling for a split second before her face morphed into something more gentle but no less serious. "Kara, it's not your fault. It's not mine. It's simply the situation we find ourselves in. We're working on it, and I know we'll find a solution, but, if we don't," she shrugged as she gave the still nude body before her a wistful look, "well, there's more than one way to go about pleasing a person." She pulled her eyes back up to Kara's and gave her a small smile. "We'll figure it out."

The younger blonde nodded, sniffling away the threatening tears. "You should probably take care of that bathroom situation, and I really should wash the soap off. I think I missed a few spots."

Cat rolled her eyes. "Do that. I can't have soapy sheets." She forced herself to withdraw, turning toward the toilet area and closing the door softly behind her.

Kara wiped at her eyes and headed back for the shower. What even was her life these days?


"Maybe I should go home?" Kara balanced on the side of the bed opposite where Cat had slipped in. "This might be too much after… well, after all of that." She nodded toward the bathroom.

Cat pushed up to lean against the headboard and crossed her arms. "If you feel the need to leave, I won't stop you, but I think I've made it clear that I would rather you stay here with me tonight."

"I'm not saying I don't want to be here," the younger woman replied with a sigh. "I'm just saying that… well, it's just…" she groaned. "I don't know what I'm saying. Honestly," she continued in a defeated voice, "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing most of the time anymore."

"What you're doing," Cat replied definitively, "is coming to bed. You're going to get comfortable, and then I'm going to hold you because," she admitted with just a hint of embarrassment, "I still need to know that you're, one, here, and, two, still okay. Tomorrow, we're going to get up, get Carter off to school, and you're going to remain on sick leave." She held her hand up to stop the oncoming protest. "I am going to take the day off," she raised her eyebrows in challenge to the clear shock on the other woman's face, "and we're going to spend it resting and making phone calls."

Kara tried to shake her stunned feeling. "Phone calls?"

"You said you still needed to call your cousin about the Kryptonite, so you're going to do just that, and, if he has a lead, you and I are going to follow it. If he doesn't, we'll find one of our own. You're an extremely resourceful assistant," the older woman declared as she reached over to pull the covers down and motion for the younger woman to slide into bed, "and I'm one of the best investigative reporters in the world." She smirked at the eye roll that declarative statement received. "Between the two of us, there's nothing we can't do."

Kara obliged and shifted down into the softness of the bed. She rolled onto her side facing Cat and scooted over until she was wrapped around the other woman's side. "The office is going to think you've been kidnapped. Besides, if memory serves, you have a meeting tomorrow you shouldn't miss, and I'd really rather be at work. I need some normality after the past few days. I can contact my cousin during my breaks."

"I doubt Winn would be worried," Cat replied with a chuckle. "He'll just be thankful I can't order him around like I do with you."

"You know, he's really not a bad person," Kara lightly chastised, "and he is my best friend."

"He's also my competition," the older woman declared with a small huff. "You know he's had a crush on you since the moment you walked through my doors, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm aware." Wrapping her free arm around the smaller woman, Kara sighed. "I wish he didn't. I just don't feel that way about him. I never have, and, I mean, he really can't compete with the Queen of all Media." She tilted her head back to give the other woman a mischievous grin. "Can he?"

"Of course not," Cat replied with an affirmative nod. "Well, now that's settled," she leaned down to steal a kiss, "we should get some sleep. Carter is going to burst when he finds you here tomorrow morning, and I'm going to need all the rest I can get to handle you two feeding off of each other's excitement plus get all of us to work and school on time."

"You love that we feed off each other's excitement," the younger woman teased as they began to settle. "Besides, it's hard not to be excited when there's… pancakes?"

The older woman laughed. "I'll consider it."

"That's all I'm asking," Kara said through her smirk. They were absolutely getting pancakes. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself down from the highs and lows of the night. "Good night, Cat," she whispered and was surprised to hear light snores in response.

That sound was the most comforting sound she'd ever heard.

Of all the gifts Cat could give her, the one she continuously blessed Kara with was the gift of trust, and what better show of trust than to fall asleep first with the person sharing your bed? Kara knew the trust wasn't misplaced. She'd never do anything to purposefully to betray Cat, but it was nice to see trust so freely given. Too often, she found she had to prove she was worthy of humans' trust. This human gave it freely and quickly.

This human, she thought as she drifted to sleep, was a gift she would forever be thankful for.

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