Cat's morning had not gotten better after she banished Kara to fetch coffee and wrangle lawyers.
First Derek had come rushing in, blathering on about some community fluff piece or another that Cat had vetoed the day before, that had supposedly developed into something news worthy. Fortunately for him what he lacked in common-sense he made up for on writing ability, or Cat would have fired him a long time ago.
Almost as soon as she had sent Derek running (very nearly literally) from her office, James had walked in with the morning layouts and some excuse about Kara being tied up trying to get information out of legal.
That had been the final push of motivation to make Cat stride over to the bar. Her hand drifted dangerously close to the decanter of whiskey before scooping up a glass of M&M's. She had, after all, promised Carter that she would never drink before lunch.
On the walk back to her desk Cat paused to watch her multitude of screens, searching for Supergirl. When it came down to it, there was no other reason that she would still be waiting on a fresh latte, and be having her layouts delivered by her art director, if Supergirl wasn't off saving the day somewhere. If Cat hadn't figured Kara to be Supergirl neither the excuses, nor her absence, would have resulted in Kara's continued employment.
Of course they were still excellent grounds to end Kara's employment at any time. All the same, the lengths the hero had gone to with the double-act, had been enough to convince Cat that Kara really did feel as if she needed her job. Her claims that it helped ground her were far more convincing than her insistence on not being a hero.
After some consideration Cat had decided that her original instinct to fire the girl had been misguided. A mentally stable hero doing what they could manage, would be far more helpful long term, than a full time hero constantly at risk of crumbling under the pressure. As such she allowed Kara her secret, and turned the other way whenever the girl had to disappear to save the day.
She even pretended to buy whatever ludicrous excuse her friends came up with whenever Kara was missing too long to be reasonably ignored.
In what might have been the only bright spot in her morning since seeing that photo, Cat discovered the story of Supergirl's latest feat was being broadcasted on the local Catco channel. The news being brought to the public by the Catco traffic-copter that had been scheduled to report on the coastal highway today. Instead of the highway it was hovering above the city docks halfway to its original destination. The camera was trained on Supergirl fighting what looked to be a mottled yellow version of King Kong.
Cat felt her heart leap to her throat as Supergirl took a hit that sent her, and a solid chunk of the docks surface, flying into the water. She swallowed it back down with a mouthful of M&M's a moment later when Supergirl shot from the water and rammed Wannabe-Kong into the side of shipping container.
As usual knowing Supergirl was almost indestructible did very little to ease Cat's instinct to worry; especially when she habitually faced off against foes just as extraordinary as Supergirl herself.
She hated just how much she worried. She hated that she couldn't show it. She hated that she had to be so careful about making sure Kara was okay after a fight, because she couldn't let Kara know that she knew about Supergirl. That it was mostly Cat's own fault Kara so determinedly kept lying to her didn't escape Cat, but that didn't mean it didn't annoy her.
Worrying about Kara when she was out performing Supergirl duties was a slippery slope. One that could result in Cat treating 'Keira' with kid gloves when she returned to the office if she wasn't careful. From there Catco would crumble as people realised that the ice hearted Queen Of All Media was actually a soft hearted fool.
This was the reasoning Cat used as she forced herself to stop watching the fight, and sit back down at her computer. Derek had interrupted her before she could check her emails earlier. She wanted to make sure she wasn't missing anything important before she got to work on the morning layouts.
It was very easy not to be worried, when she found she had twenty-two emails regarding Kara's date. Each one a reminder of how mad she was. At Kara, at Kayleen, and above all at herself.
Nine of them didn't even mention Kara by name. They were much more interested in how much Cat and Kayleen must have been interacting, in order for Kara and Kayleen to spend enough time together to arrange a date. Most of them boiled down to whether or not Cat would be pushing advertisement for whatever Kayleen's next big project would be.
Seven of them were generic requests for confirmation regarding Kara's identity. Half of them also asked if Cat had known her assistant was gay before now.
Three of them started by asking if Cat thought Kayleen and Kara going on a public date would mean an increase in queer representation in the movies from Kayleen's production company. They'd end by asking Cat would be increasing the amount of coverage on LGBT stories now that the subject was a little closer to home. These endings made her scoff. If only they knew.
Two of them were from over ambitious reporters, looking to see if there was anything other than the age gap that could be used to make Kara's date seem like a scandal. These two were almost immediately deleted, but not before the addresses that had sent them were added to Cat's spam filter.
Finally she had an email from human resources alerting her that one of her employees had been involved in a national headline. It was something Cat liked to keep on top of. Praising those involved in fluff pieces and firing those who got mentioned in scandals. Not that either happened often.
Not a single email seemed interested in Cat's perspective on her Kara being taken out. Not one of them suggested that Catco had somehow missed a story in not being the first to report the event. Which was exactly as it should be.
Because Kara wasn't hers. Because Catco wasn't TMZ. The people sending Cat emails knew that. Cat knew that, and still she had hidden behind both as excuses to rage at Kara. All to hide her jealousy. It was just another reason on the list of why Cat had no right to even daydream about a future with the young hero.
Kara was the personification of hope, and youth, and vitality. The first rays of sunlight after a storm. She was a reminder to all that met her that good still existed in the world.
Comparatively Cat was just an embittered old crone. The chilling breeze that reminded everyone of the wreckage the storm had left in its wake. The reminder that no matter how much good was out there, the world was still a hard place.
A tentative tap on her office door dragged Cat from her thoughts. For a very brief instant Cat expected to see Kara, shuffling her feet by the door, unsure whether or not she'd be granted entrance after her previous dismissal. Even before her eyes fell on Winn she banished the idea. Kara had stopped being that unsure years ago. She had figured out far faster than any of Cat's previous assistants that it was better to just dive straight into whatever task that happened to be at hand than to just hover by the door, waiting for Cat's mood to lessen.
When Winn saw that he had his boss's attention he raised a latte before himself as if it were a shield. She noticed the way he eyed her glass of candy, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. Cat just raised an eyebrow and waited for him to get on with it.
"K-Kara," he paused to clear his throat, "Kara asked me to run and get your latte. She said something about a misplaced file down in legal needing to be reprinted, and a broken toner cartridge." He approached her desk warily as he spoke, no doubt acutely aware of Cat's still raised eyebrow. Before it was a signal to address her, now it was a challenge, asking whether or not that was really the story he was going to go with.
Kara's inability to tell a convincing lie under pressure was endearing. Her friends see through but relatively well delivered lies were less so. Which explained the flash of satisfaction Cat felt when Winn almost knocked her latte over trying to place it in her reach without getting close to her.
Clearing his throat again Winn continued, apparently deciding to stick with his deception, without embroidering it.
"She also asked me to make sure you took your morning Lexapro."
Cat felt her other eyebrow raise to match its peer in surprise. Surprise but not anger. Had he been passing on the message from anyone else Cat would have assumed a liberal dose of sarcasm and insubordination had been implied. But from Kara the words rang with genuine concern.
"I would have brought along with your latte but I don't actually know where it's kept and-" Winn rushed to explain but Cat cut him off sharply.
"That will be all Wilk."
Winn's jaw snapped shut instantly.
"Now go find out why every printer in my building seems to keep developing these absurd faults whenever I'm in need of my assistant." He slowly began to nod, his mouth opening to issue some kind of assurance. Cat decided to once again cut him off.
"If the problem isn't fixed by the end of the week I'm going to start firing members of the IT department." For the second time since entering her office Winn's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "After all they are clearly doing an abominable job of maintaining office equipment."
Winn squeaked out an affirmative, and then scurried from her office so fast that Cat was a little concerned the friction from his polyester blend monstrosity would cause him to combust. She wasn't at all surprised when he made a beeline straight for James Olsen's office.
The sight was almost enough to bring a smile to her face. It was probably wrong to threaten the employees of the IT department with being fired just because Kara's friends were bad liars, but honestly. How many times could she be expected to buy the same excuse every week?
Her almost smile faded when she opened the draw to her desk and looked at her prescription bottle. She had become a lot more consistent in taking the medication since Kara had become her assistant. At first Kara had stuck to the offer she had made during her interview, simply fetching the prescription refills as required. Which meant Cat would still regularly forget to take her pill, too absorbed in her work to notice, or that she would occasionally take two within a few short hours. Usually because of a surprise visit from her mother, or phone call from the board of directors.
Kara had obviously noticed the irregular amounts of time between each refill because within a few months a new notification appeared on Cat's phone. A daily reminder at 10:15 for Cat to take her prescription. Most of the time it was the only reminder Cat needed, but on the rare occasions that work kept her too focused, Kara would interrupt her, at great personal risk, with a fresh latte and a single pill in a small glass dish.
Almost as if on cue her phone buzzed, lighting up with the time displayed in big numbers but no note to say what the reminder was for. A stark change from the first time the notification had come up. Kara had almost been fired that day, just at the beginning of her fourth month, when LEXAPRO and an abundance of smiling emojis had filled the screen of Cat's phone as she tried to type out a text to Carter. It was sheer shock that the girl had made such a bold move for the sake of Cat's well-being that had spared her. Instead of firing Kara Cat had simply changed the notification to something more discreet. That should probably have been Cat's first indication of just how hard she was falling for the girl.
A quick tap silenced the reminder and Cat shook a Lexapro into her palm. Even off fighting a giant space ape, after Cat had been a grade A bitch, Kara was still looking out for Cat's health.
She took the pill, washing it down with a mouthful of coffee, grimacing at the lukewarm temperature. She'd gotten used to her lattes being near scolding since Kara had started up as Supergirl. The idea of having her coffee heated up by laser had been uncomfortable at first, but she was more than certain that Kara wouldn't ever dare do it if it would cause a risk to Cat.
With one last mouthful of cold coffee Cat dropped the drink into the bin by her desk and turned her focus back to her computer. She had emails to respond to and layouts that needed revising before lunch.
And when Kara finally made it back from her extracurricular activities she should probably see about apologising to the girl.