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Two things happen for Kate every June: Pride and the receipt of a letter from Ahavat Chesed, the only reconstructionist shul within twenty miles of Gotham. Inside, is a reminder that the twenty-first of Sivan approaches. She pays yearly dues for that letter. Well, that, and so her tzeide won’t come back from the dead for the sole purpose of murdering her.
With the grand opening of the bar set to coincide with the weekend Gotham’s Pride parade, the small matter of her night life, and her ongoing attempts not to have Sophie take up an unnecessary amount of space in her mind, Kate accidentally sorts the letter into the pile for the business. The pile Mary and Luke are more likely to dive into first.
Kate is cleaning the windows at the storefront end of the bar in early June, seeing to the last minute details, even as Mary is going through the initial invoices. Kate feels the moment Mary goes still, despite being halfway across the cavernous space and at war with a particularly assholish bit of grime. For someone who leads almost as much of a double life as Kate does, Mary is shit at subterfuge. Kate keeps at her Battle of Wills, waiting to see if Mary unwinds. Instead, Mary asks softly, “What’s a yarz-hite?”
Kate forces herself breathe out, but manages nothing more than the punched-out exhale of having fallen out of a playground swing. “Yarzheit. It’s—” She closes her eyes, pushing back the urge to tell Mary to Google it, for fuck’s sake. Her mom would have looked at her with disappointment. Mom had always believed that people willing to ask questions were people worth taking the time to answer. “A date of remembrance. Death-versary, I suppose.”
“Your—your church tells you when your mom and sis—when they died every year?” Mary sounds a bit horrified.
“Synagogue,” Kate says, trying not to be pissed at her father for leaving the faith so completely—leaving her mother so entirely behind—that his stepdaughter doesn’t even know the proper term for what was once his place of worship, too. “And it’s…there’s a prayer. It’s hard to explain. It’s not meant to be painful, it’s meant to be a point of continuing connection.”
Mary looks back down at the letter. “It calls your mom Meidlin. Her name was Gabi.”
“Her Hebrew name.”
“It’s pretty,” Mary says. Then, cautiously, “Does it mean something?”
Kate finds the question doesn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. “Heroine.”
So quietly Kate probably wouldn’t hear if she didn’t know what was coming, Mary asks, “And Tikva?”
Beth’s Hebrew name. Kate looks away, over at the colors of the flag as something to anchor herself. “Hope.”
Mary shows up at the apartment Kate has gotten herself out of the desire not to have to lie to her dad quite as much about where the hell she is at any given time. Also, it makes hook ups a hell of a lot easier. With the bar having had a soft opening last week, and Pride coming this weekend, Kate has plans. At least, she has dreams of plans.
Kate answers the door to see Mary standing there with two fabric grocery bags branded Gotham Med. Instead of saying hi, Mary asks, “Did you know there’s a Jewish holiday where you’re supposed to eat dairy and stay up all night? What if you’re lactose intolerant? Like, Jews are everywhere, right?”
Kate blinks. She hasn’t really given the dietary imperatives of Shavuot a lot of thought. Ever.
Mary shrugs her shoulders, the bags moving slightly. “I brought my best dish: slow cooker dump mac ‘n cheese. Also, two gallons of Tillamook ice cream. You letting me in?”
Kate doesn’t think it’s Shavuot. Not that she would know. The only thing she remembers about Shavuot is that Beth and she used to use it as an excuse to lobby for a much later bedtime. It is the twenty-first of Sivan. The day of mom and Beth’s yarzheit. Kate would bet money that’s why Mary’s really here. It’s kind in the way Mary is. An effortless, strange, persistent kindness. It makes Kate uncomfortable. She’s self-aware enough to know she’s been kind of shitty for Mary for reasons that have nothing to do with Mary, and everything to do with…basically the rest of Kate’s life. “What kind of cheese did you use in the mac ‘n cheese?”
“Four kinds, do I seem like an amateur to you?”
Kate stands back from her door, letting Mary in. “Out of curiosity, how is it that your followers never notice how rarely you actually go out?”
“Social media’s the art of making the content you have count. Also, three-fourths of why people follow me is because I’m rich. Or because they like my legs. I’m not appealing to Einsteins, here.”
Kate finds herself smiling at that. The muscles feel unused and she wonders if maybe she needs a hobby that’s not trying to save Gotham from destroying itself. Probably. In all her spare time.
Mary has found Kate’s bowls and doled out a significant portion of mac ‘n cheese to each of them. She hands one to Kate, fork practically sticking up out of the middle. Kate takes an experimental bite and says, “Oh. Shit.”
“Try not to sound surprised that I can stick things in a pot and stir them, essentially,” Mary rolls her eyes.
“I’ll do my best,” Kate tells her, and takes another bite. They eat in silence, and Kate still burns with loss and confusion and uncertainty, but the companionable quiet and the comfort food make it…more like a scar than an open wound.
Kate doesn’t say thanks, but she smiles again at Mary, and when she’s finished the mac, she asks, “So what flavors of ice cream did you bring?”
Kate’s had a bit of a night dealing with Batwoman SNAFU that required staying the fuck away from the Crows. Given that all she’d wanted for this not-terribly-muggy June night was to pick someone up post-Pride parade, get nicely buzzed, and forget about life for a few hours, she’s three hundred percent done with everything. Still, she heads over to the bar at around three to help staff clean up and make sure the second night of being officially open went all right.
Mary is there, dressed like—Kate tilts her head. “Are you a…unicorn fairy?”
“Pegasus fae, but close enough,” Mary says, continuing to sweep up what looks like normal bar debris. Kate is more relieved than she should be. It’s just nice that one thing in Gotham can be normal, is all.
Mary asks, “Where’ve you been?”
Kate’s a shitty liar, sure, but, “It’s, uh. Pride?”
Mary looks up. “Oh. Oh!” She flashes a double thumbs up, dropping the broom.
Kate laughs. She doesn’t actually intend to, it’s just…Mary. She goes to pick up the broom and says, “Since you’re here, I’m guessing Pride went pretty smooth. Nobody needing to be patched up.”
“Alarm sensors at the clinic have been quiet,” Mary agrees.
“Well,” Kate gestures at her hold on the broom. “I’ve got this, if you wanna go pass out.”
Mary purses her lips. “Is that—are you asking me to leave?”
Kate does her the favor of thinking her response through. “No, no. But you’ve probably been running my bar for five hours now, I just thought—”
“’Cause I could help wipe down the tables while you sweep. Tell you some of what you missed while you were all bow-chicka-bow-wow.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “Classy.”
“Says the slut picking up women off the street,” Mary replies, smiling so wide it probably hurts.
Kate shakes her head. “Watch your language, young lady.”
“You’re gonna regret telling me that when I start telling tales from this place and have to censor myself.”
“Probably,” Kate admits. “Go grab a rag, would you already?”
After a beat, Mary says, “Yeah?”
Kate hip checks her, moving to a spot that hasn’t been swept. Behind her she hears Mary say, “Okay. Okay, yeah.”