Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 13:04:14 -0000
From: Ann Douglas <ann_douglas@hotmail.com>
Subject: Lightning In The Night - 2

	Lightning In The Night
	by Ann Douglas
            (ann_douglas@hotmail.com)


Part  Two

	After her break up with Barbara Gordon
over Kara's inability to deal with the danger the
redhead constantly faced as Batgirl, Supergirl had
decided that maybe she should confine her search
for a companion among those the press had
labeled meta-humans.  Men and women who she
wouldn't need to feel so protective of.
	Her first choice of course would've been
her cousin Kal-El.  Kryptonian culture and
genetics had no restrictions for the cousins to be a
couple, even if Earth mores might have a problem
with it.  On the other hand, few people realized
that the two were even related, many of them
already thinking that she was his girlfriend or
something.  If only that had been the case, she'd
told herself many times.
	Unfortunately, at least for her, Kal-El
thought of himself more as Clark Kent, a Child of
Earth then the Last Son of Krypton.  As such, he
followed the morality of his upbringing and
preferred the company of human women, one
human woman in particular.
  	Kal, or Clark as he preferred to think of
himself, had come to this world as an infant and
was raised by humans.  Kara, on the other hand,
was already a young woman the night her father
had bundled her into an escape rocket and sent her
away from the doomed city of her birth.  In the
better part of the last decade, she had learned
enough to live as an Earth Woman when she must,
but inside she would always be a Kryptonian.

	There were other men nearly as powerful as her
cousin, Superman.  The most notable of which was
J'onn J'onzz, a member of the Justice League known as
the Martian Manhunter.  An alien herself, even though
most people forgot that fact since she resembled
normal humans, Kara had no hesitation about sharing
the Martian's bed for a
while prior to her relationship with Batgirl.  In the
long run however, the age difference proved to be
too much. Using an Earth calendar as a base, Kara
had been twenty-two and J'onn over a hundred
and twenty-two, barely middle age by the standards of
his own race.
	Kara had always been attracted to women
as well.  It was not out of the ordinary for most
Kryptonian girls to have had sexual relations with
girlfriends as well as boyfriends.  In her search for
comfort, Supergirl had turned her attention to
another member of the League.
	Since the day Diana of Themyscira, more
commonly know as Wonder Woman, had first met the
young heroine, the Amazon warrior had made no secret
of her interest in Supergirl. At five foot eleven and a
hundred thirty-five pounds, the black haired heroine
was easily one of the most beautiful women in the
world.  She'd even had a brief affair with Superman
himself, considering it only natural that if she was going
to be with a man, it should be the most perfect
specimen possible.
	 From what she knew of the relationship
from others, because Kal would never kiss and tell
as they say, it had been both brief and fiery.
Originally, just the fact that she had slept with her
cousin, a man she loved and secretly lusted after
like no other, was enough for Kara to shrug off
the Amazon's interest.  Then, in the depression
following her breakup with Barbara, she lost her
earlier reluctance.
	For one thing, Diane definitely didn't need
looking after.  The result of a thousand years of
warrior tradition, the Princess of Themyscira had
also been gifted with the powers of some of the
Olympian gods.  Kara never really understood
where the Olympians or any of the other gods with a
small "g" fit into the ways of the universe, but she just
assumed that they were just another race.
	As a lesbian lover, Diana had those same
thousand years of experience behind her.  The
Amazons had forsaken men centuries before in
exchange for near immortality.  Turning their love
in among themselves, they had refined the art to a
degree known nowhere else in the world.  The
only child born on their island in all that period of
isolation, born not of the joining of a man and
woman, but rather a being of clay brought to life
by the gods, Diana had a wealth of teachers
when she came of an age where she could take her
first lover.
	The downside to their relationship was
also the result of that heritage.  The daughter of
Queen Hippolyta, Diana saw no reason why she
should settle for only one lover.  That was the
point that had ended her relationship with Kal.
	Kara was more liberal than her cousin, not
begrudging the Princess her occasional outside fling.
After all, she had hardly come to the relationship a
virgin and could see herself as perhaps wanting a fling
now and then.
	The problem that finally ended their relationship,
which in the end had been as brief as the one with
Superman,  was Diana's autocratic attitude that while
she was entitled to as many lovers as she might wish,
Kara should hold herself available in case Wonder
Woman decided that she wished that person to be her.
	It hadn't taken long for Supergirl to decide that
a relationship of unequals was not what she wanted.
	After that, it was back to men and women
who didn't spend part of their days or nights
wearing form-fitting costumes.  Most of these had
fallen into the category of people who she felt
could never be trusted with the secret of her
double life.  In three cases, she had thought she'd
found lovers had pasted that test.  In all three
instances, she had been wrong.
  	One female lover had ended their
relationship on the spot when Kara had shared her
secret, telling her that she loved Linda but couldn't deal
with her life as Supergirl.
	A boyfriend had been even more traumatized by
the revelation that he'd been sleeping with an actual
alien.  His greatest fear after her revelation had been
what kinds of space diseases he might have been
exposed to.
  	The last had been the most devistating of all, a
reporter for a mid-western newspaper who after
learning of her dual identity, felt that a story entitled "I
was Supergirl's lover" was worth more than their
relationship.  With the help of a device borrowed from
her cousin's Fortress of Solitude, the reporter woke up
one morning with no memory of his ever having met
Linda Danvers at all.
  	Superman would've disapproved of her
using that memory shifter in the manner she had, so
Kara had solved that little problem by simply not asking
him if she could borrow it.  After all, it
wasn't the intimate details of his sex life that were
about to be published in a few dozen major
newspapers.  Thinking about what she knew of
her cousin and his relationship with another of the
reporters on the Daily Planet, Supergirl decided
that an expose of his current sex life might make
boring reading indeed.  After all, she doubted he
had ever initiated Lois into the mile high club
without the benefit of a plane.

	The long hours of the night could be
endless when your body didn't need sleep to
replenish its energies.  Like a normal human, the
girl from another world did sleep in order to relax
her mind, but with the indecision about her date
with Mary, Kara couldn't relax enough to try for
even that.
	Standing at the open window, the Girl of
Steel looked out onto the city before her.  Clad in
a simple pair of yellow pajamas, she debated
changing clothes and going for a nighttime flight.
Instead, she let her eyes and ears bring the sights
and sounds of the city to her.
	Powerful beams of energy reached
outward, turning structures of steel and concrete
into pillars of transparency.  Images sorted
through her mind at a speed beyond the capacity
of a human mind to handle.
	Aside from the search for events possibly
needing the attention of a Girl of Steel, it was
inevitable that Supergirl's visual surveillance of the
city would present certain other occurrences as
well.  It was something that her cousin Kal
always felt a little embarrassed about.  Ever since
his Smallville days when on a nighttime patrol of
the town, he had spied his sometime girlfriend,
Lana Lang, parked by the lake with his best friend,
Pete Ross.
	 In his identity as Clark Kent, Kal had a
date with Lana that night but had canceled it at
the last minute to respond to a bank alarm over in
Orchard Falls.  It looked like good old Pete had
stepped in to take Lana to that movie she had
been waiting all month to see.  Giving in to his
curiosity, Superboy had watched them for what he later
realized was a little too long.
	If he had gone on his way, he would've missed
seeing Lana thank good old Pete by reaching down his
pants and taking his cock into her mouth.  It was
obvious from the casual way she went down on the
blond haired teen that it wasn't her first time.  What
was also very apparent to the young Superboy was that
as Clark, Lana had never offered to do anything like
that for him.
	When he had first used that story to illustrate
the possible dangers of their visual and audio powers,
Superman had left out the more interesting details of
what he had seen.  It wasn't until her relationship with
Wonder Woman that she heard them.  Evidently, her
cousin hadn't had any difficulty sharing details like that
with the Amazon.
	Spying on the people around them might have
been a problem for Superman, but Supergirl
on the other hand, was never bothered in the least by
anything she saw.

	 In the short time that Kara had lived in her new
apartment, she had already learned a great deal about
her neighbors.  Although for her, the term neighbors
took in anyone in range of her nocturnal scans, which
included just about everyone in the city if she wished.
Based on past results, she actually had a mental
checklist of
people to drop in on and see how they were
doing.

	Jamie Berman and Cynthia Sy Su both
went to Our Lady of Grace High School, and had
been study partners since their freshman year three
years before.  Both their parents would be quite
surprised to find that in that time, their studies in
human sexuality had broadened to include a
subject that was definitely not covered in the
textbook.
	 Kara smiled as she saw that Cynthia was
again spending the night over her friend's house.
As she had learned was a pattern on most of those
occasions, it wasn't long after Jamie's parents
went to bed that the two teenagers shed both their
clothes and their inhibitions.  At the moment, both
girls were locked in each other's arms, their
mouths exploring the depths of the other's heart.
	The Girl of Steel moved on to the home
of Debbie and Earl Carter.  Married close to thirty
years, the couple still made love as intensely as
they had on their wedding night.  At the moment,
Debbie was giving her fifty-two year old husband
a blowjob with a skill and enthusiasm that few of
her contemporaries could match.
	 Shifting to another part of town, she
found Dr. Roger Smith spending the night at his
office as he had many times since his marriage
started to deteriorate some months before.
Dedicated to her boss, his twenty-four year old
secretary, Heather, had again offered to stay and
keep him company.  At the moment, the long
haired redhead was bent half naked over the
couch in his office, providing much more than
moral support to her forty-nine year old employer.
	The first time Kara had watched Dr.
Smith, she had felt sorry for his wife, but realizing
that every story had two sides, decided to check in
on her as well.  After a few visits with Eva Smith,
Kara's opinion had changed considerably.
	Although actually a few years older than the
good doctor, Eva routinely shared her bed with a young
man who looked like he should be more worried about
final exams and his SAT's than how to best bring the
graying haired woman to orgasm.
	 Over on the East Side, the sleepless Maid
of Might found both Chuck Mason and Beverly
Roberts both at home.  At the moment, both were
actively participating in an activity that the
teachers in the different religious schools that both
had attended repeatedly referred to as self-abuse.
	Since they lived in the same apartment building,
only two floors apart, and actually had much more in
common than either of them realized, Kara thought it a
shame that they couldn't find each other.  If nothing
else, just having a partner to sleep with would go a long
way in improving their lives.  Before moving onward,
Supergirl made a mental note to spend some time
thinking about how she might arrange for them to meet
and see what developed.
	Finally, Kara brought her focus to her
favorite place to visit.  Her favorite for many
reasons, not the least of which was that she almost
didn't need her super-vision to visit it.  Julia Baker
lived just across the street from Linda Danver's
apartment and was in her opinion, the most
beautiful girl she had ever seen on two worlds.  At
the moment, Julia was between relationships and it
was with a sigh that the Maid of Might regretted
that Julia was as heterosexual as a person could be.
	There were many nights that Kara just
watched her sleep, feeling her own heart flutter
with the rise and fall of Julia's chest.  Immediately,
she knew that this was again going to be one of
those nights.  Floating in the air just out of the
sight of anyone who might look up at her window
from the street, Kara watched Julia slumber and
wondered what dreams she might dream.

	The morning's dawn a few hours later
found Linda still undecided as what to do about
her date with Mary.  Part of her was looking
forward to it with great enthusiasm, while another
part, the voice of that part of her that had been
hurt too many times, told her the best thing to do
would be to cancel.
	Donning her working clothes, as she liked
to think of her costume, Kara exited out her
apartment window too fast for human eyes to
follow.  Upward she soared, with only a few high
flying birds for company.  Then, even those were left
behind as she headed east, toward Gotham City.

	Wearing a simple green dress, the blond at
the corner table in the Riverside outdoor cafe wore the
brightest of smiles at the approach of the tall attractive
redhead.  Returning that smile, the woman in burgundy
took the empty seat on the other side of the small
table.
        "Thank you for coming," Kara said after
her guest had sat down.  "I really appreciate it."
	"Why would you ever think that I wouldn't?"
Barbara Gordon replied.  "We might not have worked
out too well as lovers, but we never stopped being
friends."
	"You don't know how good it is to hear
you say that," Kara replied, "because right now I
really need a friend to talk to.  A friend I can be
totally honest with."
	"Well I figured there was something
important that you needed to talk about," Barbara
said.  "A three thousand mile hop just to have
lunch is a bit much, even for you."

	 As they ate, Kara brought her friend up to
date on her life.  Holding nothing back, she included her
affairs with Diana and the others, and
finally how she had met Mary.  Barbara listened
intently as Kara went on, asking few questions.
Finally, when Kara was done, an awkward silence
covered the table.
	"So I guess you were hoping that I would
tell you what you should do," Barbara said after a
few moments.
	"It would be a big help, but I don't think
you're going to do that, are you?" Kara replied.
	"You knew that before you even got
here," said the short haired redhead.
	"I guess I did," the blond admitted.
"Maybe I just needed someone who I could say it
all to.  So I could make up my own mind after
hearing it out loud."
	"I will offer one observation," Barbara
commented, taking a pause as she took a drink.
"As one friend to another."
	"As one friend to another, I'd be anxious
to hear it."
	"With the people I've encountered, people
who do what we do," the girl who wore the
mantle of the Bat began, "I've noticed that the
ones who most fear getting hurt, are those who
under most conditions can't be hurt.  I'm not
talking about physical injury.  I know that's a real
rarity for people like you and your cousin.  What
I'm taking about is the prospect of failure.  The
idea that despite all your abilities, there are still
aspects of the world around you that you can't
control.  it's the fact that you can't be physically
hurt that puts you in a mindset where you often
can't deal with a non-physical injury, or even the
prospect of one.  That's what's really holding you
back."
	"Mary said your world changes around
you every day," Kara offered, "and with it, the
people in it.  With each change, there is the
prospect of a new love, or another failure."
	"That's true."
	"So unless I take that chance, that chance
of failure, I'll never know if there was the prospect
of love," Kara concluded.
	"You sound like you've made up your
mind," Barbara said.
	"I guess I have."
	"Well I hope it's the decision that makes
you happy," the redhead replied.
	"You know, I'm spent so much time
talking about my situation, I never asked how
things were going with you," the girl in green
asked.  "Are you still seeing that Private
Detective, what was his name... Jason Bard,
wasn't it?"
	"Jason and I are no longer seeing each
other," Barbara said, the tone of her voice saying
there was more to her answer than she implied.
	"But there is somebody," Kara said, "and
before you answer that, remember you're talking
to someone who can tell from across the table that
your heartbeat just jumped a dozen beats."
	"Yes, there's someone," Barbara finally
admitted.
	"What's he like?" Kara asked with the
curiosity that only a former lover could have.
"What's his name?"
	Barbara took the longest time answering.
When she finally did, Kara, despite having the most
sensitive hearing in a thousand miles, couldn't believe
she had heard her correctly.
	"Her name is Selina," Barbara confessed.
"Selina Kyle."
	That her friend Barbara was dating a
woman was surprise enough.  After all, their own
relationship had been a first for the former
Congresswoman and one that didn't seem likely to
be repeated.  To hear that she was not only
involved with a woman again, but someone who
was once wanted by the Gotham City Police was a
total surprise.
	"Is this is the same Selina Kyle who used
to dress up in purple tights and go by the name of
Catwoman?" Kara asked hesitantly.
	 "Yes it is," Barbara said softly.  "But she
got that pardon from the Governor last year and
since then she's walked the straight and narrow."
	Kara was immediately consumed by a
dozen questions she wanted to ask, but the look
on her friend's face told her this was a very
sensitive subject and one, for the time being, best
left alone.  Yet there was one question she felt
compelled to ask.
	"Does she know that you're B..."  Kara
started to ask, then hesitated when she realized
that people at the adjourning tables might
overhear them.  "Does she know about your
nocturnal hobby?" she rephrased the question.
	"Yes she does," came the answer.  "She's
known from the very beginning and that's all I'm
going to say on the subject."
	"Fair enough," Kara concluded.
	"So what have you decided to do?"
Barbara asked, turning the conversation back to
the reason they were having this little lunch.
	"As soon as I get back to the West Coast,
I'm going to call Mary and confirm our dinner
engagement."
	"Why wait?" Barbara asked as she took
out a small Waynetech cell phone from her bag.  "It
covers coast to coast, you shouldn't have a problem
getting through."
	Kara looked at the phone that had just
been placed in her hand for a moment, then dialed
the number Mary had given her.  The phone rang
a few times, then a familiar voice said hello.
        "Hi Mary, this is Linda," she said in reply.
Not wanting to intrude on the rest of the
conversation, Barbara picked up the bill and
walked over to the register to take care of it.
Looking back at her friend at the table, the smile
on Kara's face brought a sense of satisfaction to
Barbara's all too human heart.  If anyone deserved
to be loved, it was that woman who still held a
place in her own heart.  A place that she would
always cherish.

	 If anything, Supergirl's flight back to San
Pablo from Gotham was even quicker that the trip
east.  Spurred on by the thought that she was now
flying toward something, rather than away from it,
the Maid of Might flew high up into the upper
atmosphere and let the Earth's eastward rotation
bring her destination to her.  Then, through the
difference in time zones, she found herself back at
her apartment a half hour before she had met
Barbara for lunch.

	During their transcontinental conversation,
Mary had suggested that they move their date up
to early afternoon.  She gave some indication that
she had something really important to discuss with
Linda.  Now eager to take the chance and see
where this might all lead, Linda had agreed.  Her
heart was beating with a sense of uncertainty
about what was going to happen, and the daughter
of a dead world found it exciting.  For the
moment, however, her mind raced with a much
more mundane thought.  One that she shared with
many of her Earthborn sisters.  What ever should
she wear?

	Two hours later, dressed in a soft, light
blue dress, Linda waited outside the Café Marie,
the place where Mary had suggested they meet.  It
would be a lot more comfortable meeting on
neutral ground than at either of their apartments,
she had said.  Nervous as she was, Linda had
thought it an excellent idea.
	Almost at four o'clock on the dot, Mary
came walking down the street.  After the expected
hellos, she proposed that unless Linda was really
hungry, that maybe they'd take a little walk first to
work up an appetite.  As with her previous
proposals, Linda went along with it.

	Across from the Café was Sutherland Park
and the two women began to follow one of the
winding paths into it as they chatted.  At first,
their conversation covered a number of mundane
topics.  Everyday things that gave them an
understanding of how each of them felt about
certain issues.  It was interesting to find how many
more subjects they agreed on.
	"Do you remember when we first met
yesterday how I kept saying I was getting this
weird vibe from you, and how it made me feel like
we were connected in some way?" Mary said,
shifting the conversation from a discussion about
music.
        "I remember," Linda said, thinking that in
the last twenty-four hours, she had begun to feel
the same way.
	"Well, you're going to find this really
funny, at least I hope you're going to find this
funny, but I know now why I felt that way," Mary
explained.
	"Which was?" Linda asked.
	"I'm not really sure how to say this, so
maybe I should just show you," Mary went on,
"but before I do, I want you to believe me that
when we first met at that audition yesterday, I had
no idea of this."
	"You have me totally confused, but I'll
believe you," Linda said.
        "All right, here goes," Mary said, looking
around to make sure that no one was close
enough to see the two of them.  She opened her
mouth as if to say something, but was stopped by
the sound of gunfire from outside the park.
	Linda snapped her head around at the
sound of shots.  Her x-ray vision cut through the
dense shrubbery that had given them a measure of
privacy to reveal two Police Cars chasing a third
car in front of them.  The gunfire had come from
the car being chased in an attempt to stop the
pursuit.  Unable to get a clear shot, the Police had
yet to return fire.
	Taking all of this in with only a second's
thought, Linda turned back to face Mary.  The
expression on Linda's face seemed to say "Oh
no."
	 "Go!" Mary said to a confused Linda.
	 "What?"
	"I know you're Supergirl and that you
have to go," Mary quickly said.  "Don't worry
about it, we'll work it all out later.  Trust me."
	Linda didn't know what to say, except that
there was no way she could stay here and try and
unravel this mystery when lives were at stake.  In
a blur of motion, her light blue dress was replaced
with the dark red and blue of her costume.  With
only a moment's hesitation to tell Mary to stay
right here, the Girl of Steel took off after the
fleeing gunmen.

	 In the time since she'd heard the first shots
and the brief revelation from Mary, the speeding
vehicle had gone almost a mile.  It might as well
have been ten feet for all the good it did them as
Supergirl covered that distance without effort.
	Normally, Kara loved the sensation of
bullets bouncing off her skin and the look on the
face of criminals as they realized that their prized
weapons were as effective as cap pistols.  At
another time, she might have even playfully caught
the expended rounds in mid-air, dropping them to
the ground one by one in a demonstration of their
futility.
  	At this moment, however, all she wanted
to do was get back to Mary and find out what was
going on.  How had she discovered Linda's secret
and what did it mean to their still embryonic
relationship?  The three gunmen who scrambled
out of the car which she had violently pulled to
a halt, by ripping out the engine block, had the
misfortune of being merely a delay in her return
for those answers.
	With lighting reflexes, Supergirl grabbed
each of their guns and crushed them in her hands.
Then each of the now unarmed criminals was
tossed into the arms of the already arrived Police.
	 As they cuffed the trio and led them to
the back of their squad cars, Kara was surprised
to hear what sounded like a clap of thunder.
Automatically, she looked up into the clear blue
late afternoon sky.  There wasn't a cloud in sight.

	"Very impressive," Mary said as she
stepped from out of the space between buildings
and clapped her hands in admiration.
	"How did you get here?" Supergirl said,
knowing she had left the girl a mile away only
minutes before.
	"I assumed that you wanted to finish our
talk," Mary replied.
	"Oh you assumed right," Kara said, a
touch of anger in her voice.  Above all else, she
didn't like being treated like a fool.  There was
much more going on here than met the eye.
	"Out here on a public street," Mary smiled.
"Or would you rather someplace private?"
	Tired of games, Supergirl picked up the
brown haired girl and in a burst of power, flew the
both of them to a small, empty peninsula off the
coast.  Mary seemed unruffled by either the
sudden action or the quick flight.
	"Now, no more games," Supergirl said.  "I
want an answer."
	"It never was a game," Mary smiled.  "Just
the fate's idea of a practical joke.  None of this was
meant to hurt you.  In fact quite the opposite.  I think I
could easily fall in love with someone like
you."
	 "I'm still waiting for an explanation," Kara
said with growing impatience, not wanting to
consider Mary's talk of the prospect of love.
	 "Like I said before, I guess maybe it's best
just to show you," the brunette said as she walked
a dozen steps away from Supergirl.
	Feeling a sense of something in the air,
Supergirl tensed up, ready to meet what might be
an attack of some kind.  Instead, Mary just smiled
that wonderful smile of hers, and spoke but a
single word.
	"Shazam!"

	A clap of thunder heralded the arrival of a
bolt of golden lightning, striking the ground where
Mary now stood.  So bright was the flash, Kara
had to shield her eyes for a moment.  This from a
girl who had looked into the heart of a sun.
	As fast as the thunderbolt had appeared, it
likewise vanished.  Leaving far more than just the
ionized air in its wake.
	By all rights, Mary Bromfield should've
been atomized by the lightning strike.  Instead, she
had been transformed.
  	Gone where the street clothes she had
been wearing, replaced by a costume not that
dissimilar to Kara's own.  The short-sleeved
blouse and skirt were red, trimmed with gold,
coupled with golden boots and a short white cape.
The cape was held by a thin golden cord that
draped over the cut of her blouse, the depth of
which displayed her rounded breasts beneath.
	Far more than just her clothing had
changed.  To the matchless confidence she had
already exhibited was added an aura of raw
power.  Supergirl recognized the insignia on the
red blouse, the same golden lightning worn by
Captain Marvel.  It stood to reason that Mary had
the same connection to the Captain as Kara had to
Superman.  They called her male counterpart the
World's Mightiest Mortal.  If Mary's powers came
from the same source as his did, then she was at
the very least Supergirl's equal.