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Kara fingered the disk in her pocket and looked up at the sky, at that dark patch where Krypton once was. Her fingers found the ring next to it and she sighed hard enough that a tiny mist formed in front of her. Her companion bit her lip and looked uncharacteristically hesitant. Cat let go of Kara’s hand and tightened her sweater around herself.
“If you wanted, you could call Jen and meet up for drinks,” the voice was low enough that, had Kara not had super hearing, the sound of the ocean would have covered the reluctant words.
Kara turned her head and looked at Cat with a blank look on her face. “Who?”
“Jen? From this afternoon?” She sounded like she didn’t want to have this conversation, but something seemed to push her.
“Jen Mathers?” Kara looked suitably horrified to relax Cat’s shoulders. “Why would I do that?”
“She seemed to want to … reconnect.”
“Cat, she was my bully, she’s only nice now because my name is printed in CatCo Magazine.”
“Oh! I see.”
They lapsed in silence again, as they seemed to do these days. It wasn’t comfortable, it was filled with unspoken words on both sides, each afraid to open their mouths. This trip to Midvale for Eliza’s birthday had only made matters worse. Kara had been quiet most of the day and when she’d shared her concerns with her sister, Alex had called her an idiot before pushing them both out the door for a long, way overdue talk. Kara didn’t know where to begin. Her fingers traced the disk again and she looked at Cat. She looked so small in the moonlight, her face sadder than she had ever seen. She was still the most beautiful woman in the world. Knowing this was probably going to be the end of the greatest year of her life, Kara brought the disk out of her pocket.
“Sit with me?”
Cat stopped walking, reluctantly, as if she’d rather keep going and escape this conversation. She sat on the sand, waiting for Kara to join her. When she did, she sat with a foot of distance between them, knees to her chest, and she waited for a minute, trying to find her words.
“Did you ever go to carnivals as a kid?” Whatever Cat expected her to say, this hadn’t been it.
“No, it was always too common for my mother.”
“Right,” Kara framed the disk with her thumbs and forefingers and spoke to it. “We used to have one on Krypton. They were a troop that came from the reaches of the galaxy. Most Kryptonians saw them as primitive, I think. They went to have a good laugh at them more than to enjoy the show and the games. There was a … fortune teller is the closest English comes to it.”
She quickly looked at Cat. The woman was staring intently at Kara, her arms still wrapped around herself. Right this second, Kara would have given anything to just curl herself around Cat. Instead, she closed her fist around the disk carefully enough not to break it, even though she desperately wanted to grind it into dust.
“She didn’t tell the future, exactly. She had one specialty, she gave you the eyes of your… One.”
“Of your what?” Genuine confusion infused the tone.
“Your One. Your soulmate, I guess you’d call them. It’s a deeper concept than Earth has of it. Kryptonians mate for life. It was believed, in the old days, that when the Kryptonian Gods created our kind, they created us in perfect pairs of mates who would balance each other exactly so we could thrive and build the world they imagined. It was said that Cythonna, who was jealous of the Gods ability to create life, killed exactly one half of Rao’s and the other Gods’ children. Rao bargained for their soul by giving her half the day to reign on his kingdom. To help the mates find balance again, the Gods gave them a way to link their souls. We gave up on the legends, but the marriage covenant stayed.”
“I see,” Kara could tell she really didn’t, no human could unless they had experienced it, but it didn’t matter. The Legend was probably just a legend, a lovely story told to the children of well-matched people. The linking had been real though and the compatibility even more so. People on Krypton had dismissed the origin, but there was no denying that when a good link was made, the way her parents’ was, they thrived. Bad matches, like Astra’s, often imploded spectacularly. To think that she had the best of matches and couldn’t create the link made despair claw at her soul.
“That fortune teller, I saw her when I was thirteen. It was essentially a waste of money for Kryptonians, because the codex gave us all perfectly blue, or green or brown eyes. It had no time for details like unique eye colour. So that woman gave out monochrome disks to basically everyone. Except me.”
She opened her palm and offered the disk to Cat. When she took it, their skin touched and Kara shivered, her body craving more.
“It’s beautiful,” she looked at the swirls of brown, green and gold and frowned.
“I think so, too. I carried that disk everywhere with me from when I received it to when Krypton exploded. Every time I would meet someone, I would take it out and look at it. Nobody came even close to having eyes like these. After I landed, it was hard to realize that I would never meet my One. I put the disk away with my clothes when I got here. I figured they had died with the rest of my planet. I’d forgotten about it until I showed my tunic to Carter this weekend.”
“Is that why you’ve been so quiet? Because you’ve never met them?” Cat’s voice was thin, flat and Kara could hear resignation and muted pain, as if she had prepared herself for this day. She didn’t know if it was a recent fear, but maybe it would make things easier.
“No, it’s because I have,” the words wrenched free something inside Kara, making her come apart from the core.
She heard Cat swallow compulsively. “Who are they?”
Kara tilted her head disbelievingly. “You.”
Cat looked up sharply and then back at the myriad of colours on the disk. There was wonder on her face and it broke Kara’s heart. “Isn’t it a good thing? Considering our relationship?”
Tears sprung up in Kara’s eyes and she looked back out to the sea. Her hand went to her pocket and she felt the ring dig into her skin. She opened her senses enough to feel the bite of it. She concentrated on that slight pain to alleviate the one in her soul. “You’d think so.”
“You don’t want me to be your One,” the pain in Cat’s voice was like a blunt, red-hot poker stabbing Kara over and over again. “You’re leaving me.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of the truth that made it worse somehow. She pulled the ring out of her pocket and brought it between her fingers. She twirled it, hypnotized by what could have been. “I’ve known you were my One since the day I was brave enough to look you in the eyes. I almost spilled your latte on your dress.”
The ring was warm in her hand and she wanted to hurl it in the water. She’d worked so hard with Alex to meld a bit of her ship into the perfect engagement ring for Cat. She’d bought the biggest diamond she could afford and it was definitely more modest than she would have liked, but she had set it in a band that curled around Kryptonese words of love and devotion. It wasn’t big, but every bit of the love she felt had been put in it.
“I wanted to give you this three months ago,” she didn’t know why she was torturing them both.
“The weekend you wanted to spend at the beach house,” the lost opportunity echoed in Cat’s voice with a yearning so fierce Kara almost reached to to take her hand, but she stopped short.
“I had a plan,” Kara nodded. “Carter and I had worked it out. We’d filled the house with white daisies and red tulips. I’d flown in your favourite dessert from Italy and that wine you like from that winery in France. I’d set up the loungers and a fire on the beach the way you like and I was going to ask you under the stars,” Kara could still feel the anticipation of that day, of how she’d bounced around, sneaking up to the beach house multiple times to make sure everything was perfect. Overtime she came back to CatCo, she’d gone to Cat’s office to kiss her just because she had so much love inside and she couldn’t contain it. “I hated going back to throw out those dead flowers.”
The DEO had called about a hostile they needed help with. It was supposed to take five minutes and then she’d take Cat to the beach. The daunting part of that day would have been to ask Cat and wait for her answer. With a little luck, Cat would say yes. Except they never made it to the beach house. The alien had been ready for her. One of the last holdouts of Fort Rozz, he’d honed and dreamed of his vengeance for years. He’d waited for Kara and his rampage had just been a way to capture her. He had planned to kill her slowly and painfully. When Alex had found them, he was pretty close to having succeeded. She’d been in a coma for over a week and it took twice that long for her powers to return and heal her. Her body, anyway. Her mind… Well, that was another story.
Her sessions with the DEO psychologist were barely helping. Her alien physiology kept her from using regular medicine so she had to contend with her stress and her anxiety on her own. She had panic attacks during the day every time someone made a sudden move in her direction. Super duty was out of the question when she jumped at every sound and she woke up screaming most nights. When she did sleep. She stopped actively trying to sleep at the penthouse the night Cat had tried to wake her up from a nightmare and in that split second of terror, she’d pushed her away. Cat had landed way off the bed and Kara had scrambled backwards, falling off the bed and still scooted back until she’d met a wall and had been trapped. Cat had tried to talk her out of her panic, but every time Kara glimpsed the bruises on her arm, she’d gone right back at the height of her panic until Cat had called Alex to try and talk her down.
She’d started sleeping at her apartment after that, afraid of what she could do to the woman she loved more than life itself. It wasn’t fair to Cat to keep her in this relationship. Even less to marry her in these conditions.
It wasn’t fair to Cat to make her worry so or to hurt her because of the choices Kara made. She remembered Cat’s face when she had woken up in her sun-bed at the DEO. She never wanted to see that look on her face again. She never wanted to be assured that it was OK that she’d hurt her lover when she couldn’t help it. In all the months they’d been together, she had never put a hand on Cat that wasn’t full of love and she was horrified that this situation had changed that. She was constantly afraid that she would panic when she touched Cat, so she’d stopped completely.
It would only be worse if they made the marriage covenant and were linked. Kara couldn’t imagine burdening Cat with the knowledge of whom she’d become inside. It wouldn’t be fair.
“All I could think of when…” She never spoke the words outside of her therapist’s office. “Was that I’d never get to see you in your wedding finery, that I’d never hear the beautiful vows you would have written, that I’d never get to call you my wife. I wanted to hear you say the Kryptonese vows and make us a family. I wanted to wake up with you on the first day of our marriage and make love to you until you knew just how much I love you and then I wanted to do it again every day for the rest of our lives. I wanted a lifetime with you, to love you and be with you and smile at you as you rant the way you do and hold you close when you’re done. I wanted… Everything, Cat. That’s what I wanted because you are everything,” the last words were barely above a whisper, the tears in her voice making it hard to speak. She had so many unfulfilled wishes. She wasn’t talking about the big picture things, but the little details that made a life home that she had wanted. And now she couldn’t have it.
She took a side look at Cat and she hated herself for the hurt she put on the beloved face. She was pretty sure it was one of the last times she’d ever see Cat and she wished it had been more like that day at the office. When she had gotten the call, she had detoured through Cat’s office. She’d kissed her before leaving, reminding her that she couldn’t be tied up that evening, that they would be leaving at 5 exactly. Then she had kissed Cat deeply as a promise of more to come. The kiss had softened because her heart was about to burst. Knowing that Kara would never leave if they kept kissing, Cat had pushed her away. It had been so hard for Kara to go. She had walked back into the office and went right back to the balcony to kiss Cat senseless because she just couldn’t wait to ask her. She’d finally managed to leave when Cat’s lipstick had been smudged and her eyes had been bright with a desire barely kept in check.
Most days, she wished this had been the last time she’d seen Cat. That was the memory she wanted to keep with her forever, not the last terrifying three months.
“I’m so sorry,” Kara’s forehead was on her knees and she wasn’t even sure Cat had heard her until a tiny fist hit her shoulder. She registered the pressure, not the pain, but it made her look up. The eyes she loved so much were brimming with tears and fire. The fierce Cat Grant glare was full on and Kara didn’t cower from it. She deserved it.
“No,” the small fist was back, but after Cat hit her, she grabbed the shoulder of Kara’s sweater and yanked her closer, trying to turn the Kryptonian toward her, with very little success until Kara lifted to her knees and faced Cat.
“No what?”
“To all of it! You don’t get to leave me because you’re afraid! You don’t get to make all the decisions because it’s easier to quit than it is to fight for what we have. I’m not going to give up on you, Kara Zor-El. Not now, not ever.”
Kara looked at Cat and there was a feeble thing in her heart that fluttered, but she forced herself to ignore it. “I just want what’s best for you.”
Cat’s grip shifted from her shoulder to her collar and pulled her forward until their lips crashed together gracelessly. The taste of Cat sent a shockwave through Kara, she hadn’t allowed them to touch in so long that it felt like the first time. She brought her hands up to touch Cat’s face, but she stopped just short of contact. Cat felt her reluctance and pulled away. She brought her hands up to Kara’s cheeks and cupped her face. A shiver raced through Kara, the pleasure of skin on skin was sharper than it used to be.
“What if it was me?”
Kara looked up at the eyes she’d spent her life looking for in confusion.
“What if it was me?” Cat repeated, her hands tightening around Kara’s face to make sure she had her undivided attention. “What if I was the one who’d been taken and who was bent out of shape, would you leave me?”
“It’s not the same,” Kara shook her head, trying to loosen Cat’s grip, to no avail.
“It’s exactly the same! It’s the same as those days I can’t get out of bed or the nights I pace because my anxiety is through the roof. Do you want to leave me then?”
“I don’t want to leave you! I’m afraid I’m going to kill you!” She hadn’t meant to shout for that fear had been eating away at her since that night. What if she couldn’t control herself and threw Cat through the room hard enough to break her? How could she live with herself if she injured Cat? Her hands had the strength to destroy everything she touched, what chance did Cat stand if she couldn’t control herself?
“Oh, Kara,” loving arms were wrapped around Kara and soft kisses were peppered against her hair and forehead. She pressed her face in the crook of Cat’s neck and the tears she’d been holding in for the past three months started to fall hard and hot. She’d tried to be strong, to be brave, to be the hero everybody expected her to be, but she just couldn’t. All she could do was slump forward in the welcoming arms of her One until her tears ran dry. She didn’t know how long they were like this, with Cat whispering nonsense in her ear, her embrace strong, steady and the only safe haven Kara had ever known.
When Kara was as calm as she thought she could get, she pulled back and looked at Cat. She was the most beautiful woman in the entire galaxy. She’d scoffed when Kara had told her that, calling it the rose coloured glasses of infatuation. She had never understood that Kara meant it for more than the obvious, but for all that she was. Right this second, she was the most beautiful she had ever been. Her eyes were fierce and her face was set, a force of nature ready to get her way.
“Do you trust me, Kara?” The question took her by surprise, since she’d officially come clean to Cat about her secret identity, there hadn’t been a secret she had wanted to keep.
“I do, but that’s not…”
Cat took her chin between her fingers, she looked in Kara’s eyes and leaned forward until their lips touched. Kara couldn’t remember the last time they’d actually, properly kissed before tonight. It soothed her soul and she didn’t feel so cold anymore. Cat pulled away when Kara moaned.
“Do you trust me?” she asked again and this time Kara heard the real question.
Did she trust her enough to let her in? Did she trust Cat enough to let her make her own choices? Did she trust that Cat knew what she was getting into and that she was choosing this life in full knowledge of the possible consequences? Did she trust herself enough to work on getting better even if it was hell and that she’d want to quit again? Did she trust in them enough to make it through this together?
“I do,” there was no qualification to it. It took her probably longer than it should have to answer, because she wasn’t sure that on her own she was enough, but Cat’s unwavering faith in her and them was plenty and the determination on her face didn’t waver once as she awaited the verdict.
The smile she got in answer was like the parting of the clouds. She’d missed it. It was her turn to put her lips on Cat’s, kissing her slowly, thoroughly, as if their world hadn’t almost ended. When they pulled apart, Cat took Kara’s hand and pulled the ring she had slipped onto her pinky.
“Now, I’m going to keep this, because I want this for us. The whole thing, Kryptonian and human. When you’re ready, I want you to ask me. I’ll say yes,” the smirk on Cat’s lips felt like the first step on her way home.
“Are you sure?” most of Kara still felt as if it’d be better for everyone if she just walked away now, but she was aware that those were the bits she needed to fix talking.
Cat put the ring on her right hand and rolled her eyes. “Have you ever known me to doubt myself?”
Kara shook her head with her first smile in weeks.
“Besides, if I’m your one, then you’re mine too and I’m not giving that up.”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to Kara, but when Cat said it, it felt right, it felt good and for the first time in three months, Kara was glad that Cat was hers.