Chapter 48 - Bed Conversations

It is now close to 11AM and Kara has spent the last few hours just nervously working on her laptop, all while she has continued to keep one ear focused on Lena's heartbeat, planning to speed to her side, as soon as the brunette wakes back up. As Kara mentioned to Alex via text, work has not been going great for Kara, as CatCo is in absolute disarray. There really isn't any structure in place, to appoint a temporary CEO/Editor-in-chief before the board of CatCo can meet on Monday, so that has left a complete power vacuum in the company now that James is in prison. Throughout the last few hours, Kara has found out from various people at work, that Snapper has basically tried to take control of everything they put out, as he is the head journalist, and previously answered to no one else, other than James for final approval. But the problem with this is, the journalism part of CatCo, while being their biggest department, is not the only department, there is also HR, marketing and even the tech departments. These departments do not fall under Snapper's purview, and from what Kara has been told, the other department heads are unwilling to work with, or maybe a better description would be for, Snapper. As of course the other department heads are not going to suddenly bow down to Snapper Carl, and allow him to just effectively become their boss pro-tempo. While at the same time, Snapper, being his usual gruff and rude self, has allegedly been acting like a complete ass, and making demands of the other departments, by ordering them around, rather than attempting to work with them, with an open line of communication. All in all, this has just meant that nothing has really been getting done at CatCo. Everyone is still working, but without anyone to wrangle the departments together, none of their work is actually getting finalised. This even means that no articles that are currently being written are being published, due to a lack of coordination with the tech department, and HR claiming that they can't allow 'in good conscience', for articles to be published, without an editor-in-chief to be there looking on for final approval.

This has all just been very frustrating and worrying for Kara this morning, as she has heard all these rumours from her work colleagues, while also being ordered to do one thing by Snapper, while HR has been telling her Snapper can't order her to do that at the moment. In fact, some of the rumours that Kara has been hearing from a few of her colleagues who have been at CatCo a long time, and therefore know people, have suggested that the board is actually considering dissolving the entire company, as they see no way forward. Apparently with everything that has happened, James' arrest having tarnished the company's reputation, and Cat Grant's shares are still being held in a trust while she works for the president. Of course, for Kara, she knows that it isn't the end of the world if CatCo ceases to exist, as there will be other jobs, and in the bigger picture of everything that has happened recently, it is not important. However, Kara has worked at CatCo for the last several years, and it was her first real job, other than being a waitress in Midvale and while she was in college in National City, and she has absolutely adored her time at CatCo. Kara actually isn't sure that she would be the super hero she is today without CatCo, she knows for sure that she most likely would not have been named Supergirl, and her early hero struggles would have been a lot worse without Cat Grant's encouragement. Then at the same time, Kara thinks that without CatCo, she would have never met Winn, who was one of her quick best friends as soon as she arrived at the company, even though she was soon pregnant a few months after she joined. Winn didn't care that Kara was this new awkward single girl who was having a baby, he just connected with her, as a friend, and was always there to help her. Then equally, Kara does realise, as bad as it is to think about, that she doesn't think that any other work place would have been as accepting of one of their new hires getting pregnant and needing to go on maternity leave, less than a year after joining the company. Kara knows that most companies, even though it is illegal, would have found a way to fire her, for some reason or other, but Cat didn't. Cat was a big supporter of Kara, and allowed her to work through her pregnancy as much as possible, and after she gave birth, actually gave her paid maternity leave, whereas usually companies would not pay their female employees during that period. Cat was just fantastic about it. In fact, Kara remembers that the first time she brought Alura to work, to show her off to her colleagues, Cat for a very brief moment grew a big smile on her face and said 'Congratulations Kara, she is a beautiful girl. Remember, this will be your greatest accomplishment in life, no matter what your other achievements may be, cherish that'.

Therefore, for all of those reasons alone, Kara just hates the idea of CatCo, a company that has given her so much, not existing anymore. But there is actually an even bigger reason that Kara will always be grateful to Catco. A reason that completely eclipses all the others, and that's the fact that it led her to meet Lena. Obviously, Kara can't be sure that if she never worked for CatCo that she would have never met Lena, but it doesn't seem likely. Kara and Lena run in completely different circles, have different interests and friends, and most importantly, have completely different jobs. Sure, Kara may have bumped into Lena as Supergirl, to save her, or to perhaps work with her, but she would have never built a repour with Lena as Kara, her true self, and it was Kara that Lena fell in love with after all, not Supergirl. So, Kara can't be sure, that without Cat sending her to tag along with Clark to interview the newest Luthor in the city, that she would have ever met Lena at all. In actuality, the fact of the matter is, that even if there was a 1% less chance of Kara meeting Lena, she would consider it too great a risk to take. So, due to all this, Kara is truly feeling worried and upset over the prospect of CatCo just vanishing from her life, and going away.

Back in the present, Kara is shaken from her thoughts, as she continues to sort of aimlessly, and really pointlessly at this point, type away at her laptop, doing work that she knows probably won't even be published. However, Kara now hears Lena's heart begin to beat a bit faster, signalling, that Lena is waking up.

Kara quickly dashes into the bedroom, wanting to be there as soon as Lena opens her eyes again. However, as soon as Kara is in the room, she doesn't really know what to do with herself. There is no chair in her bedroom, so it's not like she can just sit by Lena's bedside and sort of pretend she was just sitting there. Then at the same time, Kara thinks if she just stands there and waits for Lena to wake up, it would be incredibly weird, making it seem like she has just literally been standing there and watching Lena sleep like a creep. However, the decision is taken out of Kara's hands, as while she is making her decision as to what to do, Lena wakes up, and then turns her eyes to look at Kara.

"Kara?" Lena says, as she wakes up, confused as to why Kara is just standing there.

Kara looks down at Lena and smiles at her, a wave of nervousness rushing over her.

"Hey, Lena." Kara smiles.

"Were you just standing there, watching me sleep?" Lena asks, with a smirk.

"No!" Kara blushes, "I wasn't being weird like that I swear! I just.... I have spent the last few hours in the living room doing some work..... and I was keeping one of my ears trained on your heartbeat.... As I wanted to be here when you woke up.... I then heard you begin to wake up so I rushed in here.... but then I realised I didn't really know what to do.... So I just ended up standing her looking like a weirdo who has been watching you sleep. But I promise I wasn't!"

Lena chuckles.

"It's okay, darling." Lena smiles.

Kara smiles back at Lena, a wave of relief hitting her that Lena isn't weirded out by her, even though she knows Lena would never act like that anyway.

"Wha... what time is it?" Lena asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Just after 11." Kara replies.

"11!!" Lena says shocked, "I can't believe I slept in that long!"

"You obviously needed it, Lena. Your body still needs to recover." Kara says.

Lena is silent for a moment, a part of her wants to just tell Kara 'I'm fine', just wanting to deny that she is hurt and needs to take time to recover. But Lena did make a promise to Kara that she would look after herself, and she wants to stick to that, and not pretend she is okay. But for now, all Lena can do is hum in response. It's a small step in the right direction.