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Kara sees the shooter as he fires, not a moment sooner, leaving her no time to change into her costume, and only a split second to decide to take the risk of revealing herself. Even for her, there's barely enough time to put herself between him and Cat Grant, but she manages it, and the bullets bounce harmlessly off her shoulders.
When the shooting stops, she unwraps herself from where she had curled herself around Cat, unconsciously, as though to wrap her in the cape she wasn't wearing. Crap.
Cat looks at her with huge eyes. "Are you okay? You were shot, I saw it..."
"I'm fine, Miss Grant." Another bullet dislodges itself from her shirt as she speaks and falls to the ground with a little metallic sound, and she watches Cat's eyes follow it.
Kara sees Cat put two and two together, feels it like the shattering of what little normalcy there still was in her life, and sighs. "I have to go, Miss Grant," she says, taking off her glasses and folding them, slowly, to show Cat that she knows.
Cat nods. "Go."
And Kara is gone in a blur.
The news that night shows Supergirl saving the gala from a masked gunman. What it doesn't show is Kara Danvers sneaking back in at the end of the night to help pick up the pieces.
Kara doesn't get a chance to talk to Cat again that night, but the next morning she gets Cat's latte, same as usual, and heats it with her heat vision when Cat doesn't arrive immediately.
When she does arrive, though, she immediately calls Kara into her office.
"I know why you hid it from me, so don't bother to explain. What I'm more interested in is how, and if that was really you last week, and most importantly, why you are here every day when you could be out there," She gestures to the window, "saving people."
Answering these questions is a risk, Kara knows it, and so she hesitates. But things have been tense between them since the day Hank posed as Kara... no, since the day Kara broke up with Adam... and she's sick of it, so she takes a chance.
"I can't answer your first question, Miss Grant, but no, that wasn't me. I..." she can't tell her the full story, it still hurts too much. "I was attacked by an alien, and was unconscious for most of the day. As for why I'm here... I think I answered that before, when you wanted to fire me."
But Cat just keeps looking at her, a little of the anger gone, but not all of it.
So Kara keeps talking. "I started working here for the same reason I became Supergirl... I thought maybe I could make a difference." It's not quite true—she became Supergirl to save Alex, too, but does that matter right now? "But right now, this is where I get to be normal. That probably sounds weird to you, but..."
Kara looks at Cat and she knows she's getting through to her because Cat's looking at her not the way she looks at her assistant, but the way she looks at Supergirl—with a little wonder in her eyes. Kara's heart does a little flip, and she doesn't know why.
"It does sound strange, yes. Why be normal when you could be... super?" Cat gestures with one hand, putting the earpiece of her glasses in her mouth, the way she does when she's considering something. Kara remembers that her boss is the kind of person who never wanted to be normal, who always wanted to do as much as possible, be as much as possible. Kara's not like that.
"I wasn't born here, Miss Grant, and I didn't choose to come to this planet. I lost everything when I was thirteen." Don't cry, Kara thinks, she hates crying. "Having some semblance of a normal life is what keeps me going, reminds me why I choose this planet every day." Her voice shakes a little, but she doesn't cry.
Superman's loyalty to Earth is absolute, because Earth is all he knows, all he can remember. But Supergirl's loyalty is a deliberate choice, one that she has to keep on making, day in and day out.
Kara thinks that Cat understands that (well, maybe not the part about Superman), because she looks at Kara as though re-evaluating her, putting her glasses back on.
"You can fire me if you want, but I don't think I want to be Supergirl 24/7. I don't think I should. And please, whatever you do, don't tell the world who I am." Kara holds her breath and waits.
Cat nods to her, sits down at her desk, and gestures at one of the couches.
Kara sits and tries not to fidget.
Cat takes off her glasses, rubs her forehead, and puts them back on. At last she says, "I see your point, Kara."
Kara looks up sharply at the use of her real name.
"Of course I know your name. I just choose not to use it. Is it, by any chance, your original name? Or part of it?"
"You know I can't answer that, Miss Grant."
Cat nods. "I didn't think that you would, but I'll take that as a yes. No, I won't tell the world who you are... and I won't even fire you. As long, that is, as I am satisfied with your performance. At both your jobs." She glares at Kara. "Whoever that was that replaced you last week... I don't want them to do it again. Ever."
Oh dear. Kara adjusts her glasses. "That's fair, I guess."
"And thank you again, Supergirl. For choosing Earth." For choosing me, her eyes seem to add, or maybe it's Kara's imagination. Cat never needs to know that saving her was a conscious choice, a knowing risk.
Kara's not sure how to respond to that, but this time she can acknowledge it, at least. "You're welcome," she says, and shifts in her seat, ready to stand. It seems like the conversation's over.
Cat confirms it a moment later. "Kiera, take this to Lucy Lane," she says, holding out a folder.
Kara takes it, the tension flowing out of her at this return to normalcy.
"Yes, Miss Grant."