Author's Note: I'm fully aware that like no one will read this chapter but DO I CARE?! No. No I do not.

Funny thing- the last time I put Kara in this story it was with Winn in 2016 :O Crazy how times change…

CatCo Christmas Parties.

Kara had mixed feelings about Christmas parties in general. Throw in drunk coworkers, an uptight boss, and awkward feelings about one of her fellow reporters, and she was not looking forward to this evening.

"I don't envy you," Alex agreed as she poked around in Kara's closet. Her sister had invited her as her plus-one but Alex had promptly and smirkily declined. "I remember how last year went with… Chad, was it?"

"Brad," Kara corrected with a grimace. "But it might as well have been Chad."

Alex snorted with laughter and flung a dress towards Kara, who caught it with only a teensy bit of super speed. "Really?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the slinky red-velvet number Alex had decided on. "Why this?"

"Because I know for a fact that you want to dress to impress a certain someone tonight, and nothing dresses to impress better than red velvet," Alex replied. "It's like… wine in dress form. Who wouldn't want a piece of that?"

"A guy who makes scones and sings karaoke and that I've been kind of half-dating, maybe?" Kara tried, wince-smiling. "I don't know, I get the feeling that William would actually prefer me in sweats and a messy bun."

"Most guys do, or so I've heard," Alex admitted. "But I'm not going to let you go to a CatCo Christmas Party in sweats and a messy bun, Kara. You know how upscale these are… until people start overdoing it with the spiked punch, anyway."

Kara groaned and fell back on her bed. "Don't remind me," she sighed. "If William hadn't asked me with his adorable puppy dog eyes whether or not I'd be going, I probably would have called in sick. Or dead."

"That may not have worked so well for you," Alex smirked.

Kara was suddenly moving a super speed, and when she'd stopped she had the dress on and her hair was meticulously curled. She sighed, gazing despondently at her appearance in her full-length mirror. "What if it's awkward?"

"It's you and William," Alex replied. "Of course it's going to be awkward."

"Alex."

"But it'll be the adorkable kind of awkward that only the very best of ships can achieve," Alex amended, stepping up beside her in the mirror and throwing an arm around her shoulders. "And if you really need to get out of there, just text me to call you and I'll fake a spontaneous emergency. Maybe my cat will have gotten out again."

"I might have to actually get you a cat if I don't tell William the truth soon," Kara deliberated.

"That you will have to run through Kelly," Alex told her with, giving her one last squeeze before dropping her arm. "She's a pretty big dog person.

"No," Kara gasped, mock horrified as she clapped a hand over her chest. "Alex how could you? My children's aunts need to have cats! That's how we've always dreamed it!"

"Dreams change, young grasshopper," Alex grinned. She turned Kara by the shoulders and shoved her out the door. "Now get out there or you might not even end up having children."

W / T \ Y

"Kara!"

Kara spun around, caught with a shrimp gyoza halfway stuffed in her mouth. "Hi William," she mumbled around the food, trying to figure out if she should try and bite the gyoza in two, take the whole half-chewed thing out of her mouth, or just stuff it all in. She settling on the bite and half of the gyoza's stuffing fell into her had. It seemed she'd picked the wrong choice.

"Here." William produced a napkin out of seemingly nowhere (could he do magic, too? Kara wouldn't be surprised) and handed it to her.

"Thanks," Kara sighed, too resigned to embarrassment to actually be embarrassed, if that made any sense. She stopped just short of licking her hand clean and carefully wiped it on the napkin. "I guess that teaches me not to eat without a plate."

"I doubt the plates would have done you much good; they're about the side of saltines," William quipped.

They fell into an awkward silence. Adorkable silence? Kara didn't know exactly where one drew the line on that.

"So… talk about a party, huh?" Kara tried, glancing around. Desks had been pushed aside to clear the floor but the music was barely audible and everyone was staying to the outskirts of the room. Andrea was in the doorway of her office, holding a glass of champagne and wearing an expression that had everyone avoiding her like a late deadline.

William pulled a face that included raised eyebrows and a grimace. "Not exactly what I would have expected with a woman like Andrea in charge. I was hypothesizing there'd be fireworks. Possibly inside."

Kara started laughing and couldn't seem to stop. "Expectation versus reality," she joked, and then William started laughing too and the tension between them abruptly vanished.

"Now," William spoke up once they'd calmed down. "I'm generally a bit of a wallflower at parties so one game I've developed is 'who is going home with who tonight'?"

Kara sent him a half-scandalized glance. "No…"

"Yes," William corrected, grinning. He nodded across the room. "Michael over there has been tossing glances at Eileen all night."

"I think Eileen is already seeing someone," Kara told him, frowning a little. "Didn't that super tall guy bring her lunch the other day?"

William contemplated. "I honestly have no idea," he admitted with a short laugh. "I suppose I don't really observe people unless I'm at parties without any of my mates. Or with a mate, I suppose, like tonight."

Mate. Hmm. Kara chewed on the corner of her lip. "Right…" she said slowly. "Well…"

"Or," William didn't seem to have heard her, "girl… friend? Uh… partner? Who I've gone on a few nonexclusive casual dates with?"

"Let's keep it at mate, for simplicities sake," Kara told him, unable to resist a wry grin.

"Right, of course," William agreed, adjusting his shirtsleeves awkwardly.

He looked quite good tonight, now that Kara was thinking about it. He was wearing a nice fitting suit and a dark red tie that, coincidentally enough, matched her dress perfectly. Kara had a sudden flash of suspicion that Alex had somehow orchestrated their wardrobes but she pushed it aside as nothing more than paranoia.

As something to do, Kara glanced around for someone new to observe. Her eyes landed on Andrea and then she quickly looked away and started fiddling with her glasses. "Oh, um-"

William looked over, too, and soon found himself following Kara's example as he spotted Andrea staring straight at them. "Why was she looking at us?" he muttered, risking a quick glance back up again. "Prepare yourself; here she comes."

"Andrea!" Kara peeped as their boss stepped up beside them. "Uh… Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas," Andrea replied sedately. "I apologize if it appears I was staring. To tell you both the truth, there's mistletoe over your head and I was wondering how long it would take one of you to notice."

Kara gulped and looked sharply upward. There was indeed a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling above their heads. Kara wondered if this (happy?) coincidence could somehow be blamed on Alex, too. "Oh."

"There is a reason I've been standing half in my office for the majority of the evening," Andrea agreed, and as suddenly as she had walked over she was turning away from them and returning to her spot.

"Well then." William cleared his throat and nodded a few times. "I suppose we'll just, uh… ahem. Ignore… it…?"

"You sound pretty sure of that," Kara teased. To tell the truth, she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted right then. On the one hand, kissing William was not at the bottom of her secret-fantasies list. On the other… kissing made a relationship kind of real in a way that she and William weren't yet.

William shrugged cluelessly. They stared at each other, a decision yet to be made.

What would Alex say? Kara wondered. She got the answer almost immediately and nodded to herself before smiling up at William. "What the heck. Who ignores a chance for a kiss under the mistletoe with someone they actually like?"

William grinned widely. "Say no more," her told her, then cupped her face with his hands and leaned down to kiss her.

Andrea may have smiled, just a little bit.

Author's Note: Conspiracy theory: Andrea put up the mistletoe just in case Kara and William would happen to stand under it because she was tired of all the dancing around each other they were doing XD