(I don't own the characters.)

Cat Grant was used to being the smartest, most capable person around. As early as junior high, she had noticed that she was brighter and worked harder than the overwhelming majority of her peers. As she progressed in her career, her confidence in herself was almost always affirmed and rarely challenged. Which meant she almost never had occasion to feel stupid. And when she did, the relative unfamiliarity of the experience made it that much harder to bear.

Recognizing the problem didn't help Cat very much right now. Because right now she felt like the world's greatest idiot.

And it was all because of one simple question that her soon-to-be-ex assistant had asked her.

And because she, Cat Grant, had left her no alternative but to ask it.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kara came out on the balcony at her boss' call. "Yes, Miss Grant?"

"Sit." The voice was cold and accompanied by a gesture.

The moment she sat down in the plush chair, Miss Grant moved toward her and spoke again. "Look into my eyes, Kiera. What do you see?"

"Um . . ."

"Bags." The two women nodded simultaneously.

Miss Grant continued, "I stayed up until dawn watching the news coverage of Supergirl. All the interrupted muggings, and the averted car crashes, and the more I watched, the more I thought about the terrible things that happen while you're here at work."

Kara chuckled. "That should prove to you that I'm not her. I'm in here while she's out there."

Her boss was not impressed, "Oh, please. We both know that Supergirl is capable of pulling off that parlour trick. What it really proves to me is how little this job means to you."

Kara looked like a deer in the headlights. "No, that's not true, I love my job."

Miss Grant overrode her. "Every minute that you waste playing assistant in here is a minute that someone out there is not getting saved."

"Miss Grant, what are you saying?"

"I am saying that I will not partake in this ruse any longer. So you either prove to me that you are not Supergirl," she stood up "or you can clean out your desk, tomorrow."

Kara stood up, walked to the edge of the balcony and looked away from her mentor.

"Let me be sure I understand you. I don't see how I can prove I'm not Supergirl and you don't believe me when I say I'm not her. So it doesn't matter whether or not I'm Supergirl, you'll fire me tomorrow."

"That's right," Her boss said.

"I'd like the rest of this conversation to be off the record. You'll see why in a minute."

"All right." Without moving a muscle, Cat knew she had won. Her assistant was going to reveal herself as Supergirl.

"I've worked for you for two years. Can we stipulate that I'm not trying to flatter you when I say that during those years, I've seen nothing that causes me to question the judgement of the Business Week writer who called you the sharpest CEO in media? Nor have I seen anything that causes me to question the judgement of that Time profiler who called you the most feared and effective interviewer American journalism has right now?"

"So stipulated." Cat wondered where Keira was going with this.

But you've missed something that is absolutely obvious to me, and I can't help but wonder why."

"And what have I missed?" her boss asked. Idly, she noticed that Keira still wasn't looking at her.

"Tomorrow, when you fire Kara Danvers, you think you'll also be firing Supergirl, correct?"

"Yes, so?"

"I'm sorry to do this, Miss Grant, but you've left me no choice. Why do you think Supergirl will still remain loyal to CatCo as her preferred media outlet after you fire her?"

Cat Grant felt her entire world spin upside down in an instant. "Oh SHIT!," she thought as she felt the blush reflex suffuse her cheeks.

Her assistant still didn't turn and look at her. Instead, she waited a few moments, then continued.

"Your silence suggests that you think Supergirl would not remain loyal to CatCo in that situation. When I studied history in college, one of my courses was in military history. I learned then that a wise general doesn't plan for what he thinks an enemy will do, he plans for the worst thing that the enemy could do. If you make Supergirl your enemy, what is the worst thing she could do?"

"She'd take her exclusives to some other media contact." Cat didn't need to think about that answer. It had been hitting her over the head as soon as Keira had asked her first question about Supergirl's possible reaction.

"Which one would be worst from your, and CatCo's, point of view?"Cat realized that her assistant was following the same line of thought that she had already fully thought through.

"No question, the Daily Planet."

"Why would that one be the worst?"

The words Cat had to speak were ashes on her tongue and she was grateful Keira wasn't looking at her. Even in the midst of her humiliation, Cat's professional conscience admired the way her assistant was conducting the interview. She was moving slowly, step by step, covering all the bases. "Because if Supergirl moves to the Planet, her move will carry an unspoken message that everybody will get instantly. And that message is that Cat Grant doesn't have a clue how to manage a professional relationship with a superhero, so Supergirl is moving to a media outlet with a proven record in that department."

"And what will the financial impact of that move be on CatCo?" Keira was relentless, but her voice was still calm and uninflected.

"You know very well: you helped edit the financials."

"Humor me for a moment, please. Let's pretend I've forgotten them."

"Last year we made over three-quarters of a million dollars selling reprint rights to Supergirl stories. Not to mention the boost in our circulation and general advertising revenue that those stories have brought in. And since CatCo's total net profit was only a quarter of a million, the loss of Supergirl means that we move from being one of the very few profitable media companies to just another loser. And you don't need to ask me how the board will take that news. You've politely forced me to admit that neither CatCo nor I can afford to lose Supergirl right now. The corollary is obvious: I need to reverse my decision. If I can. And, Keira?

"Yes, Miss Grant."

"Not only are you far more intelligent and quick witted that the average assistant I see, you are a very clever interviewer. I couldn't have done that takedown better myself. But there is one question you've raised that is staring me in the face."

"Go ahead and ask it." Keira still wasn't looking at her.

"I fire you, and instead of walking out like almost every other fired employee would do, you are loyal enough to me and to CatCo that you politely force me to prove to myself that I made a bad decision. Why are you so loyal? What is it with you?"

For the first time, her assistant turned and looked at her. "That's a very good question, Miss Grant, but you don't know the half of it. I need to get something from my desk to show you. I'll be back in a second."

Her employer nodded. Kara Danvers walked to her desk and came back. She handed a large, bulging folder with a string tab closure marked "Property of Kara Danvers – Private" to her employer and said "Open it. Check out the contents."

Cat opened the envelope and removed the contents. They were job offers, each one marked "Declined." She began to count them. When she reached 50, she stopped.

"How many are there?" she asked.

"They average about three a week for the last year. All unsolicited. They started coming the day I outlasted your previous longest serving assistant's tenure. You have the reputation as the most demanding boss in the country, so it seems that surviving this long as your assistant is all the references I need. And it's not just media jobs. People like Max Lord and Bruce Wayne and Tim Cook want me as their EA. I've even had a few of them call me directly, a couple more than once. And there's one other job offer you should know about that isn't in there, because it wasn't made to Kara Danvers. It was made to Supergirl. And before you say "Aha!," the reason I know about it is because my sister works for an FBI unit that has had some dealings with Supergirl and she told me that they've offered her a job as a consultant, at double the salary CatCo is paying me. And Supergirl turned them down, because, according to my sister, she didn't want to quit the job she already had."

"Now you called me "far more intelligent than the average assistant" and "very clever" a few seconds ago. If I were Supergirl, don't you think I would have been intelligent enough to have realized long ago that I needed to move to new employment before you could out me? I mean, it's no secret that I look like Superman. James Olsen spotted the likeness the minute he saw me. And that was before Supergirl came out. So if I'm Supergirl, I must have known that the likeness would be a huge problem for me from the moment I saved the plane, right?"

Cat nodded.

"And from that point of view, where is the worst place in the world for Supergirl to work?"

Cat smiled, "The media organization that is promoting her left, right and center."

"And the single most risky job for her to have in that company would be, what?"

Cat snorted, "You don't have to belabor the obvious, Kiera: the most dangerous job for Supergirl to hold at CatCo is the job you now have. And since I have conceded that you are not unintelligent and very clever, let me save some time. I also recognize that there must be a reason why you are staying here when you could have left for any of these job offers any time you wanted to, without arousing my suspicions in the least."

"Yes. So here are the real questions you need to answer. What's so important to Supergirl about her current job that she turned down the FBI offer, and, if I am Supergirl, what's so important about this job that I continued to work here, despite the huge risk that you'd out me sooner or later? And the most important question is this: why did you not think through what Supergirl could do to CatCo in payback if you fired her? If I may make a suggestion . . . ?"

Her employer nodded.

"Maybe you should postpone your decision until you get the answers to those questions. After all, you don't like to lose a story and since it's at least partly a Supergirl story we're discussing, I think you'd really not want to lose it."

"You're right about that, I don't. And if I do it your way, I don't have to hire and train another new assistant. At least not just yet."

"Yes, there's that, too. Good night, Miss Grant. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good night, Keira."