Conversations on a Balcony
96
A/N: Ok, I totally had no clue this was coming. I just wanted to do a little baby shopping bit and then… this happened!
Kara's fingers tangled with Cat's as they strolled down the aisle of their favorite baby store.
"What about this one?" Cat asked, pausing to unhook a hanger and hold its contents out for her wife to look at.
"I think she'll hate it," Kara replied ruefully. "You know she's in her no dresses phase."
The older woman sighed softly. "Right, I forgot."
"Maybe wait until she wants to wear girly stuff again. You know Abby. Constantly changing her mind about stuff."
"Reminds me of someone else I know," Cat teased, thinking back to the nine discarded shirts sitting on their bed back at the penthouse.
"Hush," Kara chuckled. "I really wanted to wear these pants and I couldn't find a shirt to go with them."
"Sweetheart, they're black," Cat laughed. "ANY of the shirts would've worked."
The hero pouted and then looked down. "They didn't fit right," she admitted with a deep sigh. "My boobs are getting too big."
"Awwww," Cat replied, wrapping her arm around her wife's waist and guiding her down the next aisle, hips bumping comfortably together. "Although, I have to tell ya, I'm not sorry. I kinda love your boobs."
Kara grinned and kissed Cat's temple. "And I kinda love that you love them," she replied. They were still smiling at each other when a new voice sounded out, making Kara stop dead in her tracks.
"Oh my God! Kara Danvers, is that you?!"
Cat tilted her head and looked at her wife as Kara stared at the dark-haired Latina with a look of utter shock on her face. The hero swallowed and then forced herself to smile. Cat saw right through it.
"Been a long time, Mickey," the Kryptonian said tightly. "How are you?"
"Pregnant." The woman rolled her eyes and perched her hands on her hips. "Total accident. My husband, Jack, wanted a quickie before he got his vasectomy and ended up getting me fucking pregnant."
"Con…gratulations?" Kara replied tentatively.
Mickey laughed and rubbed her barely-there baby bump. "It's not terrible news, I suppose. Our other kids, Jack Junior and Michaela Junior, are thrilled."
Kara could practically hear Cat's internal eye-roll and she cleared her throat as she laced their fingers together at her own hip, holding Cat's arm around her. "Mickey, this is my wife, Cat Danvers-Grant. Cat this is…"
The woman stuck out her hand, cutting the hero off. "Michaela Monroe, old high school friend of Kara's."
"I see," Cat said through a smile that was just as forced as her wife's, as she shook the proffered hand. "Funny, she never mentioned you."
"Oh, we met through Alex," the woman shrugged. "She and I dated briefly but Kara and I have more… history." She waggled her eyebrows and Cat's hand clamped down hard on her wife's.
Kara squeezed back gently, encouraging Cat to put her claws away. "That was a very long time ago, Michaela. Cat and I are pregnant too… obviously," she said. "Twenty-three weeks."
"Congratulations. First pregnancy?" Mickey asked.
"No, we have a four-year-old. Her name is Abigail," the hero said, a genuine smile finally lighting her face.
"Cool. Jack and Michaela are twins. They're eight." Just then Mickey's phone chimed, and she glanced at the screen. "Shit, I'm so sorry, but I have to go pick them up. Wonderful seeing you again, Kara, and congratulations on bagging yourself this gorgeous thing. Bye, Cat!" She waved as she dashed off and Kara closed her eyes for a moment, taking and releasing a deep breath.
"What the FUCK was that…" Cat started but stopped suddenly when she saw tears seep out from under her wife's fair eyelashes. "Baby… hey…" she said softly.
"I'm ok," the hero replied, sniffling and swiping her fingers under her eyes to erase her tears. "It was just a shock to see her. Some stuff came flooding back that I'd made a lot of effort to forget."
Cat's arm tightened around her waist again. "Do you want to just go home?"
But the hero just chuckled and pointed. "No, I want to go look at those entirely WAY too cute bib overalls for Liv. Look at that pink embroidery!" She tugged her wife along with her and Cat decided to let the deliberate change of subject go.
Kara would talk to her, if and when she was ready.
Xx
It was late afternoon and Cat was with Abby at the park. Kara eased into the hot tub and sighed with relief as her achingly tight muscles began to release. Her phone was sitting on the table beside her and she eyed it for a moment before grabbing it and hitting a contact.
"Hey," she said softly as her sister picked up.
"Hey," Alex replied. "How are you?"
"Good, I'm…" the hero began but then she sighed. "Alex, I need to talk. Do you have a few minutes?"
The sounds of a squeaking chair came down the phone. "Of course, Kara. What's wrong?"
"Cat and I were shopping earlier today and… we bumped into Mickey Ruiz."
The was silence for a long moment and then Alex spoke gently. "Honey, are you really ok?"
"Yeah… I think so." She took a breath. "I guess I just need some advice. Cat knows I was freaked out when I saw Mickey, but she didn't push me to talk about it. What should I say if she does ask about it?"
"Kara," Alex said. "Cat knows that there were other people in your life before you met her, just like Kelly knows there were other people in my life. She'll understand, especially since you were both just kids. What happened with you and Mickey was terrible and I still wish I could fucking kill her. But you did nothing wrong. She used you, Kara."
"I just don't know how to tell Cat that I was married before."
"You just have to be honest with her."
"I know,' the hero murmured. "And I should tell her now. Thanks, Alex."
"Any time," the director replied.
Kara hung up and set her phone back on the table. Then she closed her eyes and let herself float and drift in unpleasant memories. After a while, she heard Cat and Abby come home and she hauled herself out of the hot tub to dry off and slip into sweatpants and a t-shirt, then strolled into the living room to meet them.
"Hey, Baby Girl," Kara said as she hugged Abby gently and kissed the top of her head. "Did you have a good time at the park with Mommy?"
"/:ieiu/," the little girl grinned. "I can't wait til Liv gets here and we can play in the park together!"
Kara looked at Cat, who was smiling tenderly and leaned over to kiss her. Then she crouched in front of her daughter and hugged her again. "Me neither, Abigail." She blinked back tears and Cat rubbed her back, her face concerned. Kara sniffled a little and then lifted her daughter up to sit on the couch. "Hey, could you sit here for a while and watch cartoons please? I need to talk to Mommy about grown up stuff, ok?"
"Ok," Abby nodded. "Can we have pizza for dinner?"
"I think that can be arranged, if you're a good girl. Do you want some juice while you're waiting?"
"No, thanks," the little girl replied. "We had juice at the park."
"Alright," Kara smiled. "Mom and I won't be long."
The hero offered her hand to her wife and Cat took it willingly, allowing Kara to lead her down the hallway, through their bedroom and out onto the balcony. They sat together on the couch and Kara just stared out over the city for a long moment.
"Kara," Cat began. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."
"I know," the hero replied with a smile. She lifted Cat's arm then and snuggled against her. "You always have my back."
The older woman kissed her temple. "Always."
"That woman we met at the baby store. There's a lot more to my backstory with her."
"I figured as much," Cat replied.
The hero nodded. "I met Mickey when I was fifteen and I fell deeply and passionately in love with her."
Cat chuckled softly. "As we all do at that age."
Kara smiled and nodded. "Right. She was hanging out with Alex at the time, and they started dating but it didn't really work out between them and they broke up after about a month. One Friday night, at a football game a few weeks later, Mickey and I were just hanging out and she suggested that we sit under the bleachers so we could talk in private. Of course I agreed to go with her but then she kissed me and, being the lovesick idiot I was, I just fell deeper for her. We officially started dating pretty much immediately and I was so happy, Cat. I thought I was the luckiest girl on the planet… that someone like Mickey could really like someone like me… a scrap of an alien kid who still didn't really know her ass from her elbow on planet Earth.
Cat nodded, letting her fingers stroke through her wife's hair. "Awwww."
"I was so fucking in love that, when she told me she wanted to marry me some day, I was over the damn moon and that night, we had sex on the beach near my house. It was my first time. We'd been dating about three months and I was all in."
Kara took a breath and rubbed her nose, giving herself a chance to breathe as her therapist had taught her.
"Fast forward to my seventeenth birthday. Alex and Eliza took me out for dinner and then I went to meet Mickey afterwards. We were on the beach making out, when she suddenly pulled this little ring out of her pocket and asked me to marry her."
Cat nodded.
"And I said yes."
Cat nodded again.
"And six weeks later, we got married in secret at the local courthouse. I knew that Eliza wouldn't understand so we just decided to wait for a while before saying anything to either her or Alex."
Cat stiffened, but she didn't say anything. She swallowed after a long moment of silence. "What happened then?"
Kara pressed closer to her wife. "After another month or so, Mickey became distant. She was ducking my calls and making excuses for why she couldn't see me. I didn't have a clue what was happening. It went on and on and eventually I confronted her about her reticence, but she wouldn't tell me why. I was completely adrift and, eventually, I confided in Alex everything that had happened. I was a total fucking mess, Cat."
The older blonde kissed her wife's head. She didn't know where this was going but she could almost feel Kara's hurt, as tense and upset as she was. "Did she have second thoughts?" she asked softly.
"Oh, it was way worse than that," the hero replied, shaking her head and rubbing her hand slowly over her bump. "A couple of months after I confronted her, I was suddenly served divorce papers."
Cat sucked in a shocked breath. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Kara replied. "Eliza just yelled and yelled at me for being so stupid. God, she was soooo angry at me. It turns out, Cat, that Mickey was a Mexican citizen who had some temporary visa or something that was expiring. She pretended to love me, slept with me… used me… and then left me… all for a fucking green card." She laughed bitterly. "The ironic thing is that she didn't have a clue that my own American citizenship was totally fake."
"Oh my God," Cat breathed.
"When the divorce was finalized, she finally agreed to meet me and she told me that she was sorry, that she'd been desperate to stay and go to school in the US and that she did care about me… but she actually wasn't gay. We were married for nine months total. She'd planned it all out to coincide with her visa interview. Although how the USCIS didn't catch it, I'll never understand."
"And that's why you didn't tell me about her before now?" Cat asked softly.
Kara nodded. "I tried so hard to get over it, to bury it in my past. I went to college, had a lot of meaningless sex and avoided the possibility of falling in love again to the point of obsession. I really was a mess." She smiled softly then. "And then I met you, Cat-El… and I was done for. Every wall I had built, every bit of self-protection I'd put in place just crumbled when I looked into your eyes for the first time. You took my breath away and, over time, it just got more and more difficult to ignore. Only this time, I wasn't a lovesick scrap of an alien kid. I was a woman in love, and it scared me to death… until I realized you loved me too." She kissed Cat gently on the lips. "The first time I held you on this balcony, just before we started dating. You woke up and looked into my eyes. You asked me to stay. And I knew I'd never leave. Ever. And I was no longer afraid."
"I've loved you," Cat said softly. "Since way before that night on the balcony, and I always will."
Kara nodded. "And I think that's why I never told you about Mickey. It wasn't that I was keeping it from you; it was that, how I felt about her ended up paling in comparison to how I feel about you."
They kissed then, pouring all their desire into it, holding on to each other desperately. Cat's eyes rolled toward their bed…
"MOM! /:ieiu/! PIZZA TIME!"