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The bedraggled, ski-capped man behind the counter had come very close to telling Cat Grant there was no room at the inn. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Like ya know, the weather’s awful - we’re about filled up with the snowboarder competition up on the mountain and fellow travelers such as yourself.”The petite, warmly-dressed woman in front of him pursed her lips and refrained from commenting. The arch of her eyebrow, however, encouraged the man to continue. Kara teased her once it was a magical truth-telling eyebrow, compelling all sorts of confessions and concessions. “We do got one more room, but it’s at the end and the heat’s not so great. I can give you more blankets though. The whole place is on a generator, but with the gas station’s power out, we couldn’t get much more fuel today. So, what I’m sayin’ ma’am, is it’s likely to get pretty cold.” Clearly afraid he’d undersold the room, Ski-Cap hastened to add that he’d cut 10% off her bill for her trouble.“Oh goodie. A discount,” Cat drawled. As she clicked her credit card on the counter - a black AMEX that had a limit higher than the combined value of the building, the land on which it stood, and every snow-covered vehicle in the parking lot, Cat was well aware of her lack of options. She was also well aware this turn of events was at least in part her own fault.‘Snowboarders. The only thing worse than being stranded in this no-tell motel with a collection of amped dudebros is if they’d been here for a Lois Lane cosplay convention,’ Cat thought grumpily as she shouldered open the door to the northern California equivalent to Mary and Joseph’s stable. It had an actual metal key, dangling from an actual plastic keytag. The last room at the end of the one story outdated highway motor lodge, on Christmas Eve Eve.Surveying her temporary lodgings, Cat muttered to herself. “At least they got rid of the vibrating beds. Of course, maybe the bed bugs just work in concert instead of having to insert a quarter.”The only source of food in town was apparently a set of vending machines, per the manager. Cell/internet service was down, so a delivery app was out even if there was a restaurant open that served more than a lettuce wrap filled with E. coli and Miracle Whip.The vending machines stood completely empty, of course. Cat returned to her room, and checked every surface - the mattress, the bathroom, the $14 IKEA dresser, and was slightly relieved to find everything outdated but at least clean. Stranded with no phone, no email, no texts, freezing cold, and nothing to eat. Alone.“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” Cat said.---***----“I told you Alex, if you keep cheating I’m going to melt all your earrings into one big lump and leave it in your stocking,” Kara threatened, mostly jokingly, as she walked out of the family room towards wherever she’d left her phone. Her ringtone interrupted a hot and heavy game of Uno between Kara, Alex, Eliza, and Lucy Lane. The Danvers’ cutthroat version of the card game always managed to involve enough slight of hand to impress a Las Vegas strip magician, and invoke equally dramatic vows of revenge for said cheating. Lucy was a new addition to the game and the holiday this year. Alex had shyly invited her just last week to Christmas in Midvale, and Lucy almost as shyly accepted. It had been a tentative process, this enemies to co-workers to friends to more. With Lucy’s reassignment to the DEO a few months ago, she and Alex had been spending more time together as J’onn’s right hand women. And then work lunches became happy hour drinks and game nights and dinners…and Lucy Lane discovered she wasn’t quite as heterosexual as she’d previously believed.Kara was almost as thrilled as the two of them when they disclosed they’d started dating. It was a lot of jumping and hugging. The blond superhero smiled as she located her phone, thinking of how happy her friend made her sister.The text was from Carter Grant: “Kara, can you call me please? We can’t get in touch with mom. Sorry to bother you. Please.”Kara didn’t always answer texts immediately. Faux-millennial though she was, Supergirl duties often prevented it, and usually resulted in her getting yet another phone. From one of her favorite people, about one of her other favorite (if irritating) people? Yeah, that was gonna get an immediate response.She walked outside to the deck behind Eliza’s house and shut the door. No need to bring any attention to this call just yet, she decided. Especially since two of the women in the house weren’t exactly pro-Cat Grant at the moment. “Carter,” she greeted when the young man picked up on the second ring. “What’s up, buddy?”“Thanks for calling Kara, I knew you would. Adam said we shouldn’t bother you, but I knew you could help.” There was a muffled protest on Carter’s end of the phone that was presumably his brother, but the younger son continued. “I’m gonna put you on speaker, ok?”“You know you can always call me for anything Carter. Especially about your mom. When was the last time you guys talked to or heard from her?”Adam spoke up this time, his deep voice carrying clearly through the connection. “I talked to her the day before yesterday. We…” He paused for so long Kara wondered if there had been a technical problem. Carter piped up. “We sort of had a fight with her. I think…I think we hurt her feelings.”Siding with his half-brother against his beloved mother would’ve been unheard of until several months ago, when the two disparate sons of Cat Grant began to correspond regularly. Adam, although still somewhat frosty to Cat, was wonderful with his little brother. They had long emails and Facetime about all sorts of scientific things - Cat laughingly told Kara that it all sounded like a foreign language to her. She’d been nothing less than thrilled for her children to get to know one another.Apparently, that may have backfired a bit on the media mogul. Although, it did help Kara with piecing together the timing of her own most recent “heated discussion” with Cat.Not wanting to get drawn in to either side, Kara interrupted before either guilty male voice spoke again. “Ok. I think I get the idea. I can check her calendar, but did she mention where she was going?”Adam this time. “I don’t know if she’d finalized her plans, but she said something about going to the mountain house. I figure you and Carter know where that is.” Of course Adam himself didn’t know, because he’d never been there. He’d only reconnected with his mother a year or so ago, after an absence of 20 years.“Oh, and I think she may be taking the Tesla, so you may be able to track her through it’s GPS. Or maybe Winn can help.” Carter appeared to put more stock in Winn’s computer abilities than Kara’s, which…well, that was accurate.“Good, those help a lot. I’ll see what I can find out, and let you both know. Don’t worry ok? You know I have ‘super’ friends who can help if I need them to.”They thanked her in unison. “We appreciate it, Kara. Carter said if there was anyone on the planet who knew Cat and how to find her, it would be you. When you get in touch, can you…” Adam faltered for a moment, trying to find his words.
His younger brother had no such worries. “Tell her we’re sorry, and we miss her, and we love her.”
The blond’s smile could be heard through the phone with her next words. “You got it. Detective Kara Danvers is on the case of The Missing Mogul!”