Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The tattooed lesbian cat lady living next to them was a terrible influence.

Not on her daughter. On Adora.

It had all started the week Adora and Mel had moved into the apartment block. It was a shabby place that was a bit run down and the flat was undeniably small, but it was theirs. Hell if Adora wasn’t going to make the best of it.

The view from their balcony was perfect – it was the view of the too-close neighbouring apartment block, where someone else’s balcony was basically kissing theirs. They seemed to have a fluffy brown cat that liked to peruse the edge of the balcony ledge, which stressed Adora a bit (a lot) because she knew Mel had a habit of trying to pet strange animals no matter how inconvenient the situation – even, probably, if they were a full 2-floor-drop across from her.

No-balcony-without-mommy rule, then.

They didn’t have a ton of furniture, as was probably expected from a 21-year-old single mom and her 5-year-old daughter. Adora knew they were both probably still getting side-eyes, but it was still far better for Mel (and for her) than her hometown.

Adora had set up Mel with Frozen 2 on the phone while she unpacked everything, but three hours in had been drawn to what she’d decided would be the main room to listen to Mel’s next ‘She-ra’ story. It was her made-up superhero with a magic rainbow sword that fought the forces of evil with princesses. In Mel’s current drawing, She-ra seemed to be standing on top of an evil Horde soldier, though the harsh crayon lines made it hard to tell.

“A bit violent, isn’t it?” Adora had laughed, and pinned it to their fridge with a magnet.

“No, no, he deserved it – he was about to invade!” And Mel launched into an explanation.

Adora’s attention turned back to the drawing half-way through. Not for the first time, Adora noticed how She-ra’s appearance seemed to resemble hers – same eye and hair colour and her civilian form had Adora’s signature pony tail and hair floof. The first few times she had noticed, her heart had filled with warmth – she was literally her daughter’s hero, come on – but now, she tried not to feel sad.

She didn’t feel like a hero most of the time. She felt exhausted.

A couple of hours later, they had dozed off on the couch together – until, at 1AM, Adora was startled awake. It took a bleary moment for her to process the darkness as well as the sound. It was rock music.

What the fuck?

Adora checked that Mel hadn’t been woken up – she hadn’t – before making her way over to the balcony where the sound was coming from. She stared across at her neighbouring balcony, rubbing her eyes in a vain attempt to process the flashing lights she was seeing.

Was… someone having a party? On a Tuesday?

Adora had blearily waved around and yelled a bit – quietly, it was still 1 in the damn morning – trying to get the apartment owner’s attention, but it was like trying to get the attention of the brick wall. She’d eventually given in (it wasn’t like Mel was being bothered by it) and went back to sleep.

A one-off, probably, she’d told herself.

Except it hadn’t been.

Like clockwork, for the next 2 weeks, on three days a week, music would blast from the goddamned apartment. It typically lasted from midnight to three in the morning before gradually fading off, though that wasn’t consistent. Adora kept one eye out for any crowds of obnoxious hungover college students leaving in the morning but didn’t find any.

Sometimes, however, she would stay up and find individual girls walking out of the apartment block early in the morning, usually in consistency with the timings.

A player, Adora had thought, failing to suppress an eyeroll.

Mel was surprisingly not bothered by the whole thing, but Adora could never get to sleep. Instead, she wasted her nights away stewing in her own irritation. When she did get to sleep, she would dream about meeting the guy – he was probably a Chad, or a Brad, or a Jonah – and giving him a piece of her mind for not only being inconsiderate, but having shit taste in music.

Adora considered asking some of her neighbours whether they were bothered by the noise of filling a complaint somehow, but she had literally just moved in. She’d already gotten nasty looks – she wasn’t about to be the newcomer who immediately started complaining about things as well as the struggling single mom.

So, she had settled for the next best thing.

She’d dug through her boxes and found one of Mel’s massive A3 sketchbooks, ripped out a blank page and had written in big, black cursive:

“Apartment with the unkempt cat – please keep the music down, my 5-year-old is being disturbed. Thank you : )”

Firm, but to the point, all rounded off with a passive aggressive smiley face, and assumptive ‘thank you’. Perfect.

Adora had spent that day with Mel in peace, pretty sure that was the end of it.

The response had been even louder music the next week, following the message in scratchy marker:

“Your crotch goblin isn’t my problem, Becky. Get some soundproof headphones for Christmas :)”

Becky? For telling someone not to blast bad rock music at 1AM?

Oh, Adora would show this guy Becky.

For the next week, Adora paid attention to when this punk did or didn’t blast music – obviously, he must have been getting sleep somewhere. On the days where 1AM came and went with no lights or music, Adora would set up speakers in her balcony across from his, make sure Mel was completely knocked out, and blast some Beethoven in one general direction.

Adora didn’t stay out on the balcony – it was a bit too close for confrontation late at night – but kept it in sight. She was within hearing distance of a distinctly feminine groan of frustration (not a Jonah, then, Adora had thought offhandedly) before seeing a figure come and pace around on the balcony look quite like they’d had their sleep disrupted.

Adora had felt bad for any neighbours who were probably genuinely being bothered by these shenanigans, but only slightly.

The next day, after work and school were both over and the two of them were having lunch, Mel dropped a question. “Mommy, what does ‘bitch’ mean?”

Adora nearly sputtered her tea out onto her lap. “It – it’s a bad word, Mel. Where did you pick it up?”

She pointed out the window with one tiny finger to where the words “IT’S ON, BITCH” were written in big, red marker on the glass doors of their opposing balcony.

Leaning against them was a tattooed girl with brown hair, almost as messy as her cat’s, and dark tattoos running up and down her arms. A leather jacket was thrown over one shoulder and what seemed to be a cigarette was in her mouth.

Even from inside the apartment, Adora could see her neighbour’s eyes were distractingly heterochromatic – and glaring straight at her. With Mel still holding her hand and looking on curiously, and certainly not caring that the bane of her existence had turned out to be a hot-as-fuck tattooed lesbian cat lady with a shitty attitude instead of a dejected frat boy with a shitty attitude, Adora had glared right back.

And that was how it all started.

Chapter Text

Over the coming few months, as they settled into their new normal, Mel’s stories changed. There was a new rival for She-ra – a lady with cat ears and mismatching eyes. To Adora’s slight dismay, Mel didn’t have She-ra as the one always winning the battles.

Really, the cat lady and Adora were running even.

They had decided to stop their obnoxious music playing when someone finally decided to complain, but that hadn’t stopped their antics. Somehow, the girl had gotten Adora’s number and seemed to have an unlimited number of cat gifs to spam her phone with well into the hours of the night (and because Adora hated leaving 100+ notifications just hanging there, she had to open them). Her damn cat liked to pee on Adora’s balcony now too, though she wasn’t sure whether that was intentional or not.

Mel was also mysteriously picking up bad words from somewhere. Adora had no evidence, but she knew who was responsible. She could feel it in her soul.

That morning, Adora woke up at 7am to a ping going off on her phone.

She chose to ignore it. Instead, she looked down at Mel, who was curled up beside her.

Her tiny brown curls were spread over the pillow and her short arms and legs were stretched out like a starfish, barely leaving room for anyone else. Even though Adora knew that was the position they would both end up in every night, she didn’t go to the other bed. Mel was still scared of the dark and couldn’t get to sleep without her.

According to Sarah S with four kids on advice4moms.net, it was a good idea to let kids sleep by themselves sometime around five years old as it would ‘promote independence’ and ‘help you get your own sleep schedule back on track’, but Adora couldn’t really bring herself to. Bad back and uncomfortable sleeping positions be damned, there was something unbearably adorable about listening to Mel’s little snores and seeing her squishy face at rest that Adora wasn’t quite ready to let go of. Not yet.

Perhaps it made her a bad mom. She didn’t really have a point of reference for this – she’d only been picked up from the orphanage by Micah and Angella at the age of six and had shared a room with only Glimmer for most of her childhood. She didn’t have any memories before then.

Her phone pinged again.

And again.

Adora barely suppressed a groan as she went to check.

(7.01AM)
heyy adora ;)

you know, I have a bet going with a friend about how long your marriage is gonna last.

I’m going a year, but she thinks it’ll be half that :P

Adora actually did groan at that. Sometime in the past few months, cat girl's tone towards Adora had developed from being pissy and flipping the bird whenever she saw her to being just plain childish and irritating. For whatever reason, there’d been a transition from rolling her eyes to using an unnecessary amount of ‘y’s in her “hey”s.

Now whenever they spotted each other out on the balcony, the little punk opted to grin and wink, like they shared some kind of dirty secret. Adora knew it was just to piss her off.

It worked.

(7.03AM)
like you have friends

and also, you’d be wrong

(7.03AM)

let me guess, your heterosexual love is eternal?

spare me 🤢

(7.04AM)
no. I’m not married and never have been

She came up as ‘typing’, and then not, and then ‘typing’ again, before finally sending:

(7.06AM)
*gasp* Mrs Norris would be scandalised

(7.06AM)
that ship has unfortunately sailed

(7.07AM)
Wait.

How the hell do you know my name??

(7.07AM)
Your kid told me when she was trying to pet my cat the other day.

“Ah, fuck,” Adora hissed into the quiet room. She had told Mel not to go out on the balcony without her. She debated asking her neighbour to tell her to go back inside if she ever saw her again, but the thought of asking this person to do anything made Adora’s fists clench.

(7.08AM)
alright then, what’s your name?

(7.08AM)
wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy

(7.08AM)
what are you, twelve?

(7.08AM)
no, I’m catra

(7.09AM)
your name is catra and you have a cat?

ha, ha

very funny

(7.09AM)
it was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy i admit, but that rlly *is* my name babe

Adora was about to respond with a basic “don’t call me babe” before a sudden epiphany hit her.

She had Catra’s number.

From there, it was only a few more minutes until she had submitted the number to a Scientologist website and added her to their call list.

Later in the day, towards the end of her shift at the restaurant she worked at, she got another message from Catra. She tried not to check it too quickly, and failed.

(3.12PM)
are you fucking kidding me?

(3.15PM)
?

(3.15PM)
dont play dumb they’ve been blowing up my damn phone all day

(3.15PM)
idk what you’re talking about catra

(3.17PM)
AH FUCK THEY FOUND MY WORK EMAIL

“What are you smiling at, kid?”

Adora dropped her phone suddenly to face the owner of the restaurant, Huntara. Tall, muscled and very intimidating, Adora tried not to look guilty of anything. “Oh, nothing. Just a message.”

She raised an unimpressed brow. “Tell me it’s not a boy.”

“What? No. A girl.” Now both of Huntara’s eyebrows were up. Adora felt her cheeks heat. “No, no, not like—”

“Do your flirting in your own time, and not in mine. Get back to work.”

Reprimanded and more than a bit embarrassed, Adora did as told.

In the weeks she had been working here, she’d come to recognise Huntara as something Glimmer would have called ‘an old gay’. She had been to the riots and fought for the rights and now didn’t take shit of any kind from anyone, and that made her terrifying, if not admirable. It also meant that nothing ‘scandalous’ shocked her anymore, including a young single mom who was new in town and didn’t like to talk about her past.

The one-time Adora had feebly attempted to explain, Huntara had shook her head and went, “Don’t care. If you can remember the orders and have a good smile, you can stay.”

It was a small thing to say, but still something Adora was grateful for.

Adora finished her shift in a hurry and caught the bus. Typically, it was a 15-minute drive between her stop by the restaurant and the stop by Mel’s school, where she would save Mel from the arms of her judgemental teacher, Mrs. Judy.

Mrs. Judy was the definition of a conservative religious old lady whose brain got left behind in the 70’s, but unfortunately, not her mouth. Her beedy eyes hadn’t taken well to the sight of a single, unmarried, struggling-to-get-by Adora. She may not say anything to her face, but Adora knew from whatever she’d gotten out of Mel that she was unrealistically harsh on her daughter compared to the other kids. Mel got in trouble for the stupidest things and her contributions in class were ignored and more than once, she’d come back from a school day looking sad. Even though she had refused to tell Adora why, she had put two and two together.

In short, Mrs. Judy was a little bitch.

Thirty minutes passed on the bus. The cars on the road were basically standing still.

It’s fine, Adora told herself. A little traffic on this road in rush hour is normal.

Forty minutes passed. Then forty-five. Fifty-five.

At that point, Adora was running through her contacts to see if there was anyone else who could pick up Mel. Unfortunately, being new in the neighbourhood meant she had no-one’s numbers. She called Mrs. Norris, the woman who lived below her, but then remembered on the fifteenth ring Mrs. Norris was an elderly conspiracy theorist who didn’t have a phone because she didn’t trust technology’.

There was Dan and Sarah, the nice couple who lived across from her, but she only had Sarah’s Instagram. She sent a message, but it didn’t really do anything.

It’s fine, Adora said, trying to control her breathing. Bad traffic is normal. Bad traffic is fine.

She was suddenly hit with a vision of Mel being left alone with Mrs. Judy breathing down her neck, muttering something to the other teachers about, What else could we have expected? She’s already proven herself to be irresponsible.

Adora flinched like she had been struck.

No. No, not on her watch, was Mel getting left any longer than necessary with a wrinkly old hag that was so shitty, her own kids would probably unplug her life support to charge their phones.

She looked through her phone for literally anyone – anyone – else, before finally relenting and coming to the only option she had left.

**

In the end, Catra had just decided not to pick up phone calls from numbers she didn’t recognise. And change her email as soon as she got back home, too.

She came out of that day at work and had headed to her bike, thoroughly done with everything around her and begrudgingly admitting that Adora had won this one. Whatever ‘this one’ was.

She was… not what Catra had expected, to say the least.

When she’d heard that the old grandpa living across from her was finally moving into a retirement home and being replaced by some 21-year-old mother called ‘Adora’, her mind had turned (a bit unfairly, she could admit) to some ditz who had gotten married to her wash-out high school sweetheart and was now a housewife out of compulsion to help his failing career as an entrepreneur, or something. When she’d seen that dumb message on the window in perfect cursive (calling her cat ‘unkempt’, no less), she thought she’d been right.

She had certainly not expected a slightly buff, distractingly pretty single mom who her cat actually seemed to like quite a bit.

Her phone rang. Catra groaned and hung up automatically, before spotting the caller ID.

Becky Missed Call

(4.35PM)
oops.

thought you were the scientologists again

(4.35PM)
im sorry to ask this Catra but the traffic on my side is rlly bad (like I probablu won’t be out of traffic for anothwr hour bad) and Mel is prob stuck alone with a major extra-conserfvative asswipe of a teacher

If you’re not busy, could u pick her up?

A few minutes later, she sent an address. Catra raised her eyebrows.

Blondie was the reason she hadn’t had a second of peace that day – she must be really desperate to have asked Catra something. Especially considering Catra had tattoos and a motorbike and would hardly diffuse any situation with a ‘conservative asswipe teacher’. Plus, you could tell basically from looking at her that she was not good with kids.

Also, she had better things to do than babysit.

The phone pinged again.

(4.39PM)
Please??

Catra sighed.

(4.41PM)
sure

i’d never pass a chance to be your knight in shining armour ;)

**

The total bus ride from the restaurant to her street hadn’t ended up taking one hour after all – it had taken two and a half. By the time Adora had ran off the bus and was making her way into the neighbouring apartment block where Catra lived, it was fairly dark outside.

Adora tried not to stress too much on her way up in the elevator to the second floor, and failed.

What if Catra had said something to Mrs. Judy, and now Mel was going to have an even worse time at school? What if she hadn’t given Mel food? Shit, what if she still had some hungover one-night stand passed out in a closet for Mel to find? Oh, god, what if she’d smoked?

Adora was practically hyperventilating when she found Catra’s room number, and nearly passed out when she realised the door was unlocked. Who just left a door unlocked when they had a kid in the house?

There was a loud wail of anguish. Adora didn’t waste any more time, and bolted into the apartment to find—

Catra and Mel playing Mario Kart.

“Nooooo,” Catra moaned, falling melodramatically onto the couch and draping an arm over her eyes. “You’ve thwarted me once more, Princess Mel.”

Mel squealed and raised her remote up in victory like it was a sword. “Ha! You suck at this game, Catra.”

“Nah, I’m great – you’re just too good.”

Adora took a minute to catch her breath and take in the scene. The main room was small and all the furniture was dark, but everything was clean. No cigarettes or drugs or booze or one-night-stands in sight.

And they were… enjoying themselves.

Rather than feeling relieved, like she probably should have, Adora’s stomach sank.

She wondered if this was Catra’s epic finishing move in their little game – give Mel a taste of the things that Adora couldn’t give her. The fun games on a Wii Adora couldn’t afford and the attention Adora was too tired to spare after a day at work. Perhaps it was unfair to think so, but Adora had barely been holding it together since the move - her entirely life was in a fragile balance of just picking up and dropping of Mel on time and just making enough money with two jobs to pay the bills and just getting by - and now the sight of Catra doing everything so well and so easily...

It made her pissed.

Catra grinned after the pause and peaked out from under her arm at Mel, before spotting Adora watching in the corner. She jumped up as if she’d been caught in the middle of something. “Hey, Adora – I was just playing some—"

“Thanks a lot for this,” Adora said, somehow making the words sound sarcastic and cold.

Catra’s eyes widened and her smile faded, but Adora didn’t dwell on it as she took Mel’s hand and practically ran out of the apartment.

**

The minute they were in their own apartment, Adora was asking questions. “Did she give you food? Did she say anything to Mrs. Judy? To you?”

“Ow, mommy – you’re holding me too tight.” Adora let go of Mel’s arm, not realising she had been gripping it. “Catra gave me nuggets and let me watch TV and play games.” Mel face twisted into a pout. “Why were you mean?”

Adora blinked. “I – I wasn’t mean. I said thank you.”

“You said it meanly.”

Adora opened her mouth to refute that, but then realised she couldn’t. Mel had already moved on, talking about how many rounds of Mario Kart she had won, but Adora’s mind was still in Catra’s apartment.

A couple of hours later, Adora was lying next a snoring Mel and feeling stupid.

Maybe treating Mel well was another part of the dumb game, she tried to repeat to herself.

But as the clock ticked on, it was looking more like Adora had overthought everything and been bitchy for nothing. She pulled out her phone, fingers hesitating over the keyboard, before resolving to be a mature adult.

(9.57PM)
Thank you, Catra. It was a real help.

Sorry for being short with you earlier, I was tired.

(10.01PM)
np blondie 🐱

you’re stuck up, but mel’s cool

if she wants, she can come over any time

Even though she was tired, Adora could still read between the lines.

If you want, you can rely on me sometimes.

And even though Adora still couldn’t stand Catra’s face, she still felt a little less tired at the thought of doing so.

(10.05PM)
I think she’d like that.

Chapter Text

Over the next month, Adora was smothered under an endless brigade of questions from her daughter.

“When’s Catra coming over?”

“Can I go to Auntie Catra’s house?”

“Can you call Catra and tell her to come play with me?”

“Can Catra pick me up from school?”

It wasn’t that Adora didn’t appreciate Catra’s help – she definitely, definitely did. Now, it was pretty much a part of their schedule that Catra was the one who picked up Mel from school, which allowed Adora to have longer shifts at both the restaurant and the grocery store. Sometimes, they would get each other’s groceries or have dinner as a three at the weekend.

The major downside to all of it, however, was that Mel was growing increasingly attached to someone Adora barely really knew. It would petty of Adora to say she was jealous (she wasn’t, she was the mother in this situation, for god’s sake) but she definitely was scared of getting the rug pulled out from under them. And of Mel getting hurt.

And also, under their current arrangement, her nemesis now had regular access to Adora’s house, which had been nothing less than chaotic.

Catra ate all the Oreos. She used Adora’s brushes and got her bushy brown hair all tangled up in them. She rearranged the items in the kitchen for no fucking reason and now Adora couldn’t find the damn milk.

Last week, Adora had walked into work with ashy-pink hair.

Huntara had gaped. “What happened to you?”

“A little demon found my shampoo bottle and decided to have some fun,” Adora had muttered, and Huntara had dropped it.

Adora hadn’t missed her trying to hide a grin.

It wasn’t just the petty pranks and the milk and the hair dye. It was everything about Catra. She walked through life ready to kick down whatever got in her way, simply like she didn’t give a fuck – and Adora couldn’t stand it. She had never gotten the pleasure of not giving a fuck about the things around her, and having it rubbed in her face was shitty, to say the least.

Despite it all, Adora couldn’t say she wasn’t grateful. It was just a type of gratefulness mixed with annoyance, that was all.

That morning when Adora’s alarm clock had blared half an hour before it was meant to, she had woken up blearily to the sound of distant snickers. Her vision was still a bit blurry, but she felt around beside her to find Mel’s side of the bed empty and jumped up.

“Hey, Adora,” an all-too-familiar voice said by the door.

Adora swallowed a long-suffering sigh and turned around, to find the distance between her bed and the door covered with what looked like at least a hundred plastic cups filled with water, arranged shoulder to shoulder.

“It’s too early for this,” Adora groaned. Her eyes narrowed. “How did you even get in?”

Mel snickered off in the distance.

“A little treachery, a little sneaking.” Catra smirked. “Come on, Adora. You’ll be late for work at this rate.”

“Seriously?” Catra merely leaned against the door frame, unrelenting. “Don’t you have anything better to do than torment me?”

She mock-pondered, shifting her eyes up the ceiling, before going, “No, not really.”

Adora groaned again and stood up on the bed, assessing the minefield before her. Distantly, she heard the ping sound of Catra beginning to record.

She would never murder anyone, but boy if she wasn’t contemplating how she would do it.

The bed was up against one wall, under the window, and the door was all the way on the other side. That wasn’t saying much, considering it wasn’t a very big bedroom, but it would still be hard to make the jump without getting soaked. The cups were full, as well, so there was no pouring them into one another to make a pathway. She could try and drink them all, but there were simply too many.

“Fuck,” she muttered, realising it was too early for her morning brain to think of anything else and this situation was crafted perfectly for a jump.

She finally made eye-contact with Catra again, to find her still smirking.

Adora was going to wipe it off her face. She hadn’t come first in long-jumping at high school for nothing, after all.

(She prepped herself, jumping on the spot to warm herself up. The bed was probably long enough for her to gain a little momentum.)

She took a head start and leapt.

Catra’s went wide – almost in slow motion – before Adora landed right on her and tackled her to the floor.

“Agh, get off me!” she yelped, but Adora just cackled as she leaned back to get some cups of water to dunk on Catra’s head. She screeched.

“Oh, the little kitty doesn’t like to get wet, huh?” Adora taunted as Catra writhed beneath her.

“How – fuck – did you – do that?” she asked between gasps as more and more water went on her head.

“As well as being an over-achiever in high school, I was a massive jock.” Another cup of water. Catra had stopped fighting it at this point. “Unlucky for you, huh?”

Catra pouted, and Adora laughed. Mel carefully peaked at the scene from over the corner and shrieked in delight, coming over to help.

Eventually, they ran out of energy and were left panting on the floor. Both Catra and Adora were wet in some form of another. Adora wasn’t even putting any force into pinning Catra on the floor, but Catra wasn’t bothering to struggle, either.

After a couple of minutes of exhausted silence, Mel giggled, a cup of water still in her hands. “It was my idea, mommy.”

Adora mock-gasped.

“You little traitor,” she murmured, before grabbing the cup and dousing her as well.

**

(3.45PM)<>
hey, my shift’s ending early today, you don’t need to pick up Mel

(3.49PM)
Catra??

Adora and Catra arrived at the school at the same time to pick up Mel, both looking surprised to see the other.

Catra’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought—”

Adora raised her phone, lit up with her sent message. Catra’s mouth formed a small ‘o’, before she shrugged. “We can just take her back together.”

Together. Why did that word send chills up Adora’s spine? “Sure.”

When they got to the elementary school doors, they found Mel waiting for them beside a stern-looking Mrs. Judy.

Catra lifted her chin in acknowledgement. “’Sup, Jude?”

The teacher inhaled sharply, looking between the two of them disdainfully. “I would prefer if you did not address me in such a way, Ms…”

She trailed off, and Adore filled in politely, “Catra. My… cousin.”

If possible, Judy’s eyes narrowed even further, and Adora felt Catra give her a look out of the corner of her eyes. Everyone present was aware that Catra and Adora looked nothing alike.

“Bye, Mrs. Judy!” Mel announced loudly from beneath them, breaking the awkward silence, before she hopped between Catra and Adora and pulled them away.

“Nice save, Mel,” Catra said, and Adora pushed her. “Ow, what?”

“You’re meant to try and be nice to her teachers, Catra, not provoke them.”

“She always starts it with her shi—” Adora’s eyes narrowed. “Bad attitude. Right, Mel?”

Mel perked up. “Yeah!”

Adora rolled her eyes with a smile. This new arrangement of the two of them working as a team to gang up on her was going to take some getting used to.

Really, she could see why Mel and Catra got along so well. Mel was a little odd for a kid her age – more than once, Adora had been told by teachers that Mel spent too much time scribbling drawings over her schoolwork than actually learning anything. She was a bit wild and struggled to make friends, and was prone to getting into arguments with the other kids. In all honesty, Adora didn’t know what to do about it.

But Adora had seen how Catra didn’t shut down her little antics like other adults – even, admittedly, like Adora had to do on some occasions. They were on a spaceship? Catra had some spare boxes that would be perfect for it. Mel had been captured by Catra, who was an evil witch? Catra was ready to be in character, evil laugh prepared. She would throw another tantrum? Catra would tough it through and talk it out, when Adora’s own patience would have drawn thin.

“Why?” Adora had asked once.

Catra had just shrugged. “I used to be a bit of a difficult kid, too.”

Walking with them to the bus stop now, Adora figured that yeah—she could probably get used to it.

They turned a corner and ran head-first into two figures.

“Oh, sorry—” Adora said as they all took a step back—before seeing who it was. She froze.

So did they. For a minute, all five of them took each other in.

“Auntie Glimmer! Uncle Bow!” Mel yelled, and ran up to Bow with her arms lifted, like she used to do.

“Hey, Mel – oh wow, you’ve grown so big.” He wheezed a little as he lifted her into her arms. “How have you been?”

And Mel launched into a description of their new apartment and their new school and the funny prank they had played on mommy this morning.

Adora and Glimmer were left staring at each other. Glimmer had cut her hair, styled it to the left again. Sometime in the past year, she had re-dyed it from her old sparkly pink to a sparkly purple. They were both wearing ‘Bright Moon Uni’ sweaters.

Glimmer spoke first. “Adora.”

“Glimmer.” She swallowed, aware of Catra looking between them all in confusion. “Hi. What are you doing around here?”

Glimmer stood still, lips pursed. Bow tentatively answered for her. “We’re just passing through town – there’s a herb Micah wants that only a store in this town sells, apparently. It’s down here somewhere…” He frowned a little. “I think?”

“Micah. Always… lookin’ for those herbs.” Adora cringed, and smiled weakly. “So, you’ve both been doing good?”

Bow opened his mouth to speak, but Glimmer cut him off, face twisted. “Don’t give me that. Don’t give me that after you just--- ran away. And what for? Don’t tell me you live here.”

Adora tried not to be a little offended. “What’s wrong with here?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news? Haven’t you seen the street crime rate? Gangs, Adora! They’re right at your front door!”

Beside her, Catra tensed and scowled. “I don’t remember Adora asking for your opinion, Sparkles. She’s doing perfectly well, so you can go and shove it up your ass.”

Catra and Glimmer sized each other up, like two wildcats in a jungle. Mel had stopped her talking and Bow looked like he wanted to intervene – like he always used to do between Glimmer and Adora – but had no idea what to do when it came to these two.

Glimmer cast a look over everything about Catra – the hair, the jacket, the tattoos, how she was so clearly the opposite of everything they’d grown up with – and said, “This is who you let into your life, Adora? After you pushed us all away? Really?”

Catra raised an unimpressed brow. “Clearly, you two weren’t all that great if she felt like she had to.”

This was all wrong. It was Adora’s worst nightmare come to life. “Stop it. Please.”

Glimmer looked back at Adora, and all the anger seemed to ebb out of her. Her eyes shined and her voice shook a little as she said, “Come back to us, Adora. Please. We all miss you.”

We miss you.

She took Mel out of Bow’s arms, grabbed Catra’s hand with her other free hand and said too quickly, “We need to go. It was nice seeing you.”

She pushed passed them both and didn’t look back.

**

A few hours later, when they had put Mel to sleep after an hour of her asking to go back because she hadn’t got to tell Aunt Glimmer about what She-ra had been up to, Catra and Adora were sitting on the couch in the main room, just a little exhausted. Catra was lying horizontal on the couch, looking up at the ceiling, and Adora was sitting with her back against it, looking at the floor. The only sound was a distance clock ticking.

Eventually, Catra took a breath, and Adora prepared herself for a question on what happened, but all she said was, “I found your notebook.”

“What?”

“Your old notebook.”

She dropped it into Adora’s lap – an old, worn sparkly cover. She hadn’t seen this in years.

Slowly, she flipped through it. It had mainly been for her school notes, where she put in extra notes from her lessons and drafts for various essays and whatnot. Occasionally, there would be some scribbles in the margins from the times her and Glimmer and Bow would pass notes between each other in class.

The last page that was filled had NEXT YEAR GOALS written across in sparkly sharpie. Underneath it, in bullet points:

§ Ace classes

§ Get into Bright Moon University

§ Get a dog with Glimmer when we become roommates

Underneath it, Glimmer had added:

- Prove to mom that we ARE responsible enough to have a dog ffs

The whole thing had been crossed out in red marker.

“Bright Moon Uni, huh? Ambitious,” Catra said softly. After a pause, she added, “So, what happened?”

“What do you think?” Distantly, they heard Mel’s gentle snoring. “I hadn’t even completely decided what I wanted to go for – maybe history or engineering, probably – but my parents believed in me. So did my teachers. But then I had Mel, and got busy, and my grades… they didn’t keep up.”

I got crushed under the weight of my own stupid expectations. I let everyone down.

“‘Had Mel’?” Catra asked, before quickly adding, “I get if you don’t wanna talk ab—”

“No, you’ve been spending time with us for months. You must be at least kinda curious,” Adora added with a laugh. “Um, it was a guy from my English Lit class.” She wasn’t going to bother with his name. He had wanted nothing to do with Mel, so he didn’t have a place in her story anymore. “He was just some dumb boy I dated because he asked me out and isn’t that what teenage girls are meant to do in high school? Date boys?” The words were sour on her tongue with hindsight. “Anyways, you can put two and two together. By the time I’d actually realised, I’d been pretty far along my pregnancy.”

She remembered the day where she’d felt woozy in football practise and had fallen to the floor, and the coach had told her to go to the nurse.

Telling it now, a part of her felt embarrassed at how… anticlimactic it all was. Basic. For all her big talk, she’d made the most stereotypical and trademark ‘dumb teenage girl’ mistake in the book.

“My parents were never anything but kind and supportive,” she went on. “They had my back. But I just… I had ended up like every adopted ‘problem child’ people thought I would be. I’d let all of them down, whether they said it to my face or not. I just knew, you know? It’s one of those things you can see in people’s eyes. I’d been all talk and had nothing to show for it. I was ashamed. So . . .”

“You left,” Catra finished.

She cleared her throat. “I know what you saw of Glimmer today wasn’t great, but I must have really hurt her by picking up and leaving like that. Don’t think bad of her for it. And—when I say I’m ashamed, I’m not ashamed of Mel,” Adora clarified sharply. “Not for one second. I’m… I’m ashamed of myself.”

“For what? Being a dumb kid?” Catra scoffed. “Cut yourself a break, Jesus.”

Adora didn’t ‘cut herself breaks.’ She was meant to hold it together and be better than breaks.

It felt wrong to admit it all. Micah and Angella had never given her anything less than love and support, and had never treated her anything other than their own.

But sometimes, not even all the love in the world could keep dark thoughts at bay.

“Anyways, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Adora said. “It’s all in the past. I don’t care.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what’s all that money you’ve been saving for? A new haircut?”

Adora sputtered. “What? How do you—”

Catra dropped another notebook in her lap. “If you want to keep your plans a secret, you should probably stop writing them all down in sparkly notebooks. And labelling them clearly in red marker. ‘Saving for the Future’, huh?”

She spun to face Catra on the couch. “You went through my stuff?”

“Don’t look so surprised! What did you think I’d do while Mel re-watched ‘Frozen’ for the millionth time? Sit through Anna’s dumb straight nonsense again? No thank you.”

Adora was pissed, both at Catra’s nosiness and her urge to defend Anna because, yes, she had sat through ‘Frozen’ every time Mel had wanted to watch it. “I can’t believe—”

“Mommy?” A tiny squeak came from the corridor. “Catra?”

They both got up to see Mel in her PJ’s, rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding her teddy with the other. “I’m scared. Can I sit here?”

**

About half an hour a later, they were all on the couch. Mel was in the middle, snoozing onto Adora’s arm, who was snoring fairly loudly.

(Catra debated recording it, before deciding the scene was too cute to find something to annoy Adora over.)

They slept next to Catra peacefully, completely unaware the stranger they had let into their homes was running from a past far worse than theirs. She knew it was selfish to get close to two vulnerable people that could get hurt so easily because of it, but she’d gotten so deeply entangled in their web that there was no way of getting out without bringing it all down. Adora depended on her now, whether either of them could admit it out loud or not, and Mel was attached to her. She was in this for the long haul.

Adora mumbled something about Oreos. One of Mel’s chubby hands found one of Catra’s curls and played with it absently.

She was overcome with the strongest urge to hug them both and hold them close to her, and protect them from everything this shitty world was going to through at them with her teeth bared and eyes flaring.

They’re mine, and no one else can touch them, some feral part of her wanted to announce.

It was terrifying, but not nearly as terrifying as the fact the thought didn’t bother her that much.

Mel yawned between them, and Adora snuggled closer, a small smile on her lips like she was having a good dream. Catra’s eyes went to her mouth, and stopped there.

Shit.

She had gotten herself into some deep, unyielding shit.

Chapter Text

Adora’s shift had ended early that day. Mel was still at school and there was nothing really for her to do at home except try not to think about Glimmer and Bow, so she decided to try a ‘stereotypical adult thing’ and go to the gym.

In high school, Adora had easily been one of the most athletic people in the year and had a decent amount of muscle to show for it. She had particularly favoured martial arts.

Then, Adora had got busy and hadn’t had the time to keep up with all her sports and exercises, but she had been meaning to get back into shape for some time. She didn’t know the first thing about gym memberships, but if she showed up and asked, they’d have to give her something, right?

The nearest gym wasn’t that far a walk from the grocery store, anyways. She quickly googled whether they had anything for self-defence or martial arts training, and just in her luck, they did.

Within five minutes, she was looking up at a large, ever-so slightly worn down building, standing directly in front of the automatic doors. (It was a bit in need of repair, sure, but so was everything else in this town.)

Adora stepped into the building, admired the blue carpeting for a second, before realising no-one was at the reception. Fair, they were all probably on their lunch break – no-one would mind if Adora went further inside, right?

She slowly slid past the reception desk and looked into the corridor, where two figures were talking at the end. One was a bald, muscled man who was gesturing wildly about what looked like to be something about weights, and the other person was nodding along half-heartedly, bushy brown hair tied up in a ponytail, tattoos on their arms.

Wait.

“Catra?”

Adora hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it was too late – she had their attention. A look of surprise flitted across Catra’s face before she schooled it into a smirk. She said something to the guy, before casually strolling over.

“Hey, Adora.”

Adora tried to look casual, as well, aware that Catra was wearing shorts that made her look very fit whereas she was wearing an old, worn hoodie. “You work here?”

“As a personal trainer, yeah.” She cocked her head. “What are you doing here? Get lost on your way to the hairdresser’s?”

You’re adulting, Adora. Like a responsible adult. She took a deep breath, and said adultily, “No, I’m here for a membership. Is there anything to do with martial arts or self-defence around here?”

Catra laughed for a second, before abruptly stopping. “Wait… you’re not kidding?”

Adora bristled, trying not to be offended by what sounded like genuine surprise.

“Yeah. What, you don’t think I can fight?” What the fuck was that condescending like squint about? Adora had literally tackled Catra the other day.

Catra raised her eyebrows and leaned against the reception desk. “Sweetie, I don’t think you’ve seen a real fight.”

Adora glared back. “Wanna bet?”

At Catra’s look of confusion, Adora clarified, “You’re a trainer here, right? You must have access to a ring, or some place where we can have some fun.”

Oh god, those words had sounded suggestive, hadn’t they? Catra’s eyes went impossibly higher and Adora tried not to change her facial expression and possibly failed.

She expected to be shut down, but Catra said, “Yeah, I do wanna bet. Follow me.”

**

Catra took her to a fairly large room with thick, large mats arranged in a big square on the floor. She was explaining something about the gym, but Adora was only half-listening. “. . . not usually used to throw down, but it’ll do. You do have previous experience with it, right?”

“Yeah.” She listed off a couple of the fight styles she’d done in high school, but Catra remained unimpressed.

They eventually decided to blend a couple of styles and not bother with too much protective equipment as, in Catra’s words, “It’ll be over quickly, anyways, right?”

Standard rules. Whoever was held down for three seconds, was out. If you got thrown out of the mats, you were out too, though they both acknowledged since they weren’t in a ring with any border it would be a lot easier to do that and it wouldn’t really count.

Adora was aware that they were basically just making up this as they went along and this was quite unconventional (not to mention, she was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to be here), but she was too ready to give Catra a piece of her mind in a way that wouldn’t actually get her charged with anything to care.

“Ready to go?” Catra said once they’d been over everything.

“Obviously.” Crap, why had Adora eaten before coming here? Her awareness of her lack of practice had reached a new high.

“Sure? You look a little nervous.” Catra smiled and bounced on her heels. “Don’t worry – I can go easy on you.”

Adora paused, before smiling back sweetly and batting her eyes as she got into position. “Promise?”

They had a slightly-too-quick countdown and began.

**

So, it turned out, not having practised in three years, the odds were that you would lose a fight with a professional trainer. Who would have thought?

Catra hadn’t gone easy on Adora at all. She struck quickly and had thrown Adora in a perfect arc in the air and onto the floor. Adora had struggled, but there hadn’t been much point. Before Catra could say something smug, Adora had gritted out, “Best of three?”

“You think I don’t have anything better to do?” Catra said, but stood up and got in position for another round anyways. Catra would never pass up a chance to show Adora up.

The next round, Adora was a bit more prepared. She’d probably had a disadvantage with not having done much of a warm-up, anyways.

And Adora hated to admit it, but Catra was good. Which was obvious, considering her profession, but somehow the image of the lazy Catra who didn’t want to get off the couch didn’t match the Catra in front of her, with a sharp focus and quick feet.

Catra came for her in the same way again – perhaps a bit slower, circa having reason to underestimate Adora – and Adora blocked the path of her arm. She had the pleasure of watching Catra’s eyes go wide before her feet were swept out from under her.

Adora pulled Catra’s arms behind her back and pushed her to the floor. “One, two—” One of her arms slipped out of Adora’s grasp. She quickly snatched it back with a yelp, and gritted out, “One, two, three.”

“No fair,” Catra hissed.

Adora laughed. “How? I played by the rules, didn’t I?”

Catra had just pouted and stood up again.

Adora’s heart was hammering now. She had missed this – the burning skin, the bursts of adrenaline, the look on someone’s face as they were thrown across the mat. Why hadn’t she tried to continue doing the things she’d done, the way people looked at her be dammed? She would have certainly been in a better place to wipe the floor with Catra for it.

The final round went out for longer. Catra was faster and went for the parts Adora left exposed as soon as she saw them, but Adora was stronger and blocking was one of the best things she did. Beads of sweat formed on both of their brows, and they got slower and sloppier.

Adora saw the momentum of one of Catra’s higher kicks slow, and she managed to grab the leg as it came up.

But before she could push Catra down, she had twisted out of Adora’s grasp, and Adora was staggering forward—

Catra slammed her shoulder hard and Adora fell to the floor, Catra falling on top her.

“Ha!” Catra held down Adora’s wrists and legs. Adora struggled, but her grip was firm. “Three, two . . .”

Her bright eyes glinted with victory. God, Adora couldn’t stand like that look.

Adora stopped struggling and went soft, and took a half-second to brush her eyes over Catra’s face. Catra must have noticed because her counting stumbled for a beat.

“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this,” Adora said suddenly, completely serious, “but you have the most beautiful eyes.”

Catra’s grin faltered, as did her grip.

That was all Adora needed.

She hooked a leg around Catra’s and pulled her down, reversing their positions (and pinning Catra much more efficiently). Catra struggled and clawed in frustration, but Adora didn’t let up. “Three, two, one.”

This would have been the part where Adora would have hopped up victoriously, but her legs felt like they were made of liquid and she was pretty sure if she tried to, she would crumble.

“I win,” she said softly through pants.

They were both flushed, and panting, and sweaty, but neither of them moved to get up.

Adora actually took a proper moment to study Catra’s eyes up close. One blue, one yellow, both with flecks of the other in them. They really were pretty.

She saw those eyes look back into hers, before – just for a second – seemingly going down to her lips for a second. Just a second.

“Uh,” Catra said with a swallow. “My lunch’s ending. Probably.”

“Oh.” Adora stood up, blaming her flush on the fighting. “Right. Yeah.”

She offered a helping hand to Catra, but it was ignored. Catra walked straight past Adora like she wasn’t there.

Sore loser, much? Adora thought as she watched Catra move away from her without so much as a look back.

Even in her head, the words didn’t sound right, but she decided not to think about it too much.

**

A few days later, Catra had gotten good at not thinking about what happened. She had even moved on to not thinking about Adora at all, really.

Even now at the grocery store with Mel and Adora, she wasn’t thinking about it. Definitely.

So what if they’d had a play fight that had a slight homoerotic subtext? It didn’t change the fact the Adora didn’t want Catra. Not like Catra wanted her.

Not that I want her, obviously.

“Can we get some ice cream?” Mel whispered from beside her as they pushed the trolley through the grocery store.

Catra was abruptly snapped away from her thought process. She looked back at Adora, who had gotten distracted by some horse girl magazine, and back at Mel, who was bobbing impatiently.

“Sure, but we’ll need to be quick,” Catra whispered back. “Where’s the ice cream aisle, again?”

Mel led her to the freezing part of the store, in which there was a colourful assortment of ice-cream flavours.

Catra studied them closely, trying to remember the one flavour Adora had told her not to get because it gave Mel a tummy ache – really, kids didn’t need so many flavours. She had been fine with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, and so could they. Life was easier that way.

“Excuse me, miss? Why is your jacket so ugly?”

Catra’s head snapped to the side, where Mel had moved a couple of steps away from her and to the next adult in the aisle.

She was by her side in a second.

“Sorry about her, she’s a bit—wow.” Catra led out a low whistle, looking at the stained purple-brown hue of the figure’s jacket. “That really is an ugly jacket, Jesus.”

The person turned, and Catra’s heart practically fell out of her chest.

Shadow Weaver stared back at her, a sneer twisting on her grey face. “Ah, Catra.” Her gaze went disdainfully to Mel, who shrank and hid behind her leg. “Nice to see how you’ve ended up, after so long.”

Her brain caught up with the sight slowly. What is she doing here? Why is she here, of all places? A fucking grocery store? Her mouth couldn’t form words.

Shadow Weaver nudged her head down. “Who’s the brat from? A stranger, no doubt.”

“Adopted,” Catra lied, thinking fast. “And for your information, I’m happily married.”

Shadow Weaver rolled her eyes. “Let me guess – some washed-out trucker?”

“No.” This part was easy, because it wasn’t a lie at all. “To the most hard-working, beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

Shadow Weaver’s face looked like she didn’t believe a word of the shit Catra had just spontaneously spouted, but just as she opened her mouth once more, a voice came from behind both of them. “There you two are. Sneaking off to get ice-cream behind my back again? Really?”

Adora walked up to the three of them, looking between them all and seemingly putting together what she was looking at. “Uh, Catra, who’s this? A friend of yours?”

Catra stifled a laugh. If only. “Ma, this is Adora. Adora, this is Weaver.”

Catra treasured and memorised the look of surprise on Shadow Weaver’s face as Adora held out a hand for shaking. She realised how Adora must look – with her efficient pony-tail, friendly, can-do smile and signature hair floof, she was the image of what Shadow Weaver had called ‘normal life – something you and me are above’.

Shadow Weaver didn’t take her hand, and Adora let it drop awkwardly.

Catra let the tension simmer for a while, relishing the scene a bit, before said, “How strange. It seems we’ve run out of semi-civil things to say to each other.”

“Indeed,” Weaver said drily.

“Let’s go our separate ways and not talk again, shall we?” she said cheerfully, taking both Mel and Adora by the arm and turning their backs and walking them away.

Shadow Weaver let out a dry, shallow laugh behind them that crawled up Catra’s spine and lodged itself into an old, haunted part of her mind.

Always needing the last word. How typical.

“Be careful, Catra dear,” she called, faux-sweetly. “You still haven’t paid your debts. Sooner or later, they’re going to catch up with you.”

**

“Who was that lady, Catra?” Mel asked once they were on the bus.

Catra saw Adora pretend to be on her phone out of the corner of her eye, but not actually go through anything.

She sighed. “My old mentor.” Mel looked confused at the word. “She wasn’t a very good lady, and she was involved in some bad things. But I got away.” She gently booped Mel’s nose. “And I found you.”

**

Later, the two of them sat on the couch once more, after spending some time lying beside Mel to comfort her into getting to sleep. Catra had crawled away from the bed first, gently putting on her coat, before Adora caught her arm from behind.

“Sit for a sec,” she whispered.

And there they were, both holding a cup of tea in their hands that neither was drinking.

“So…” Adora said eventually, clearing her throat and turning to look at her directly. “What was that, Catra?”

‘Catch-up on the Couch’ was becoming a somewhat semi-regular occurrence for them, it seemed.

“I wasn’t lying on the bus. That really was my old mentor,” Catra said, deciding that despite having called Shadow Weaver ‘ma’ her whole life – and that being what was on the papers – that was definitely not what she had ended up being. “She’d picked me up from an orphanage in Portsmouth because she’d felt like doing so, but never acted particularly maternal. We haven’t got a good relationship, as you could probably tell.”

Adora nodded, taking a sip of tea, before saying, “Portsmouth, did you say?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, just—” Adora fiddled with a stray strand of her hair. “I think that was the orphanage I was from, too.”

“Small world, huh?” Catra said drily. They both chuckled.

Catra took in the information for a minute. They’d both come from the same place, but had gone on to vastly different families – Adora had gone on to have loving, supportive parents and Catra had, well, a woman who believed the best way to raise children was to traumatise ‘em young so they’re ‘ready for the real world’ – and somehow, they had still ended up right across each other.

“Really small world,” Adora whispered, probably thinking the same things. “What – what ended up bringing you here, of all places?”

“Weren’t you listening to my wonderful mentor’s ominous and dramatic parting words? I was running.” Catra liked to imagine that Shadow Weaver stayed up at night imagining conversations with people and coming up with the dramatic one-liners. “Like I said, she was involved in some bad things – organised crime, dumb gang shit – and I kind of grew up around that. Oh, her record’s clean – she’s good at hiding it – but she’s got a hand with several different cartels. I don’t even know why. I was used to hopping from place to place with her, so I didn’t really make a lot of friends, and when I became a teenager I started getting involved with it, too.

“It was dumb, and stupid, and I shouldn’t have done it but what else did I know? A . . . a friend got sick of me because I, uh, wasn’t all that great to her. She left me, and that was a wake-up call, I guess. I needed to get away. So I saved up, and came here. I haven’t really looked back. I had some old debts to pay to some guys, but I haven’t heard from them in a year.” Catra looked down at her nearly-empty cup, and rubbed the sides anxiously. “I don’t think she moved here because she knew this was where I was – I think it was just chance. But I get it if you . . . if you don’t feel safe.”

She sneaked a glance at Adora, to find her staring intensely back. “Normally, I would distance myself, because you’re right – you’re good, Catra, but what happens if your past catches up with you, and hurts Mel?” Catra felt her eyes burn a little, and cursed herself. “But Mel… she really loves you. And she would be really hurt to lose you.”

Perhaps Catra was delusional, but she thought she heard the unspoken words.

I would be really hurt to lose you.

Catra brushed away the thought, suddenly also glad that Adora hadn't heard the part where she had lied and maybe, sort-of told Shadow Weaver that Adora was her wife. She would never recover. “Please. Like you couldn’t find some hot himbo to replace me in a couple weeks?”

Adora frowned, and the seriousness of what they were talking about was shattered. “Do you see any hot himbos in the vicinity? Unless you think I’m creaming myself over Mr. Chandler’s receding hairline, five parrots and aggressively tucked-in shirts.” Catra spat out of the sip of tea she’d just taken, probably ruining her jeans.

She looked back at Adora thirty seconds later to find that her shoulders were shaking with laughter a bit, too. “And no, by the way, I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, really? Why not?”

“Because I was handling things fine by myself before you, and I would be fine after if so needed, too.” She dismissively brushed her hair behind her shoulder and set her cup down. “I don’t need anyone else.”

Catra couldn’t help it – she rolled her eyes. “Oh, lord, what is that stench?”

Adora was alert and sniffing, so serious Catra nearly cackled again. “What are you talking about?”

“I think that’s the smell of. . .”—she paused—“. . . bullshit?” Adora’s eyes widened before she rolled her eyes, too, but Catra went on. “Look, Adora – I’ve seen your type.”

“Have you, now?”

“Yeah, I have.” Catra put down her cup as well, and decided to be real, because why the fuck not? She’d never been good at dancing around things, anyways. “You made a mistake as a teenager because of course you did, you were a kid, and now you’ve sworn off all intimacy and getting close to anyone. You pushed everyone away. You tell yourself it’s because you’re a #girl boss who don’t need no man, but really, it’s because you’re scared of getting hurt again. You’re scared of ‘letting anyone else down’.” She leaned in, savouring every second of Adora’s shocked expression. “Am I right, or am I right?”

**

This bitch.

Adora cursed herself for feeling for Catra and her sad-backstory-act, because of course Catra couldn’t last five minutes without being a little shit.

Who the hell did she think she was? Adora could just as easily psycho-analyse Catra – mommy issues, abandonment issues, bad people skills, scared to get attached just as much as Adora, the whole shebang – but she wasn’t. Because that was rude.

A concept, it seemed, Catra didn’t care for.

Adora scoffed after realising she had been staring. “You really think I’m soo predictable, don’t you?”

Catra smirked and leaned back. “Yup. Nothing you could do could surprise me at this point, because anything surprising, you’d be too scared to do.”

You’re scared of getting hurt again. You’re scared of letting anyone else down.

You’re scared.

Adora hated Catra, but more than that, she hated the fact that Catra wasn’t wrong.

Catra took a deep breath and began to put on her jacket. “Anyways, it’s pretty late.” She grinned at her. “Catching up on the couch is fun, isn’t it? We should—”

She didn’t have the time to finish, because before she could, Adora had impulsively taken Catra’s face in her hands and kissed her.

Catra’s lips were warm and soft and tasted of like strawberry chapstick. She had frozen against her, Adora realised, wondering for a second if she’d made a grave mistake – before Catra melted against her, too, and pulling Adora closer. She bit down on her lip slightly, and Adora swallowed a gasp.

Adora was pretty sure she’d never done anything even similar to this, much less be kissed like this. Catra knew what she was doing and wasn’t afraid to do it, and Adora was completely out of her zone.

It. Was. Great.

Adora pulled away briefly for air and smiled, whispering, “How was that for scared?”

Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, because Catra froze and leaned away from her, the warmth gone for a minute. Adora’s eyebrows furrowed, before Catra’s cool, casual demeanour was back. Of course—Catra must be far more used to this kind of thing than she was.

The thought seemed obvious to Adora now, but it suddenly felt like a bucket of cold water had been dropped over her. She had no idea why.

Catra wiped her mouth, which was slightly swollen. Her cheeks were red, but that seemed to be the only giveaway she was particularly flustered at all. “Not bad—for a prude. With some practice, all those hot guys will be on their knees.”

A thought came to Adora, completely unwelcome: I don’t care about bringing all those hot guys to their knees.

Just you.

**

In the end, they didn’t resume their make-out session. They had sat looking at each other for either ten seconds or ten minutes, before Adora had abruptly stood up and announced something about the time, and Catra had promptly agreed and left.

That night, Catra was unable to stop thinking about it for a long while. Eventually, she put it out of her mind by telling herself that Adora didn’t want her and had just been trying to prove a dumb point, so there was no point obsessing over something that Adora had probably already stopped thinking about.

Adora was unable to get any sleep at all.

Chapter Text

Adora woke in the morning (after getting about what must have been five minutes of sleep) and felt like she’d made an utter idiot out of herself.

“How was that for scared?”

God, had she really said that? Had those words really come out of her mouth? To Catra? After kissing her? Adora felt a violent cringe slither up her spine and come out as a long-suffering groan.

She was such an idiot.

Wasn’t this what had started it, all those years ago? The dumb, impulsive decisions she hadn’t thought through, hadn’t used her brain for, and had led her to ultimately losing most of the things important to her?

Her sparkly notebook on the side-desk almost seemed to glow in the dark, drawing Adora’s eyes to it. She knew off the top of her head it had five entire pages of plans from a few years ago, and a new page made for her goals right now.

- Save, save, and save until moving to a better town with a better school is a feasible option.

- Give Mel a stable childhood.

Underneath it, scribbled out because she’d decided it wasn’t a priority was also, maybe save enough to go to uni. It was crossed out on paper, but not entirely in her mind.

She had made so much progress over the past few months and was already about three-quarters of the way to her savings goal. At this rate, by the end of the year, she would be officially on her own, stable feet.

That was what her mind should be on. Not Catra, or anyone else. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of what was important again.

**

Avoiding Catra became an art. Obviously, avoiding someone who you were basically co-parenting your child with wasn’t easy, but Adora could get creative. Her shifts mysteriously became longer and earlier and picking up Mel from Catra’s house became a speed-run of exchanging as little eye contact and words as possible. Their dinners and movie nights diminished to none, and Adora stopped responding to Catra’s taunting texts.

Catra eventually stopped sending the taunting texts (and the cat gifs and the memes), noticing how Adora only really interacted with the important questions about Mel. Eventually, Catra didn’t bother with those either. Her shampoo mix-ups and messing up Adora’s cupboards ceased. Adora wondered if she’d even told her cat to stay away from their balcony, because the floofy gremlin (who Catra had said she had unironically named Dalai Clawma) had been nowhere in sight for the past two weeks.

Adora could practically hear the words that Catra wasn’t saying. You want me gone? Fine.

I’m gone.

Adora tried not to hate it.

More than once, she’d typed out a message apology or an explanation or even just a basic invitation to dinner with Catra’s favourite takeout, but backspaced every time. This was better for both of them, she told herself. Running from each other was good for them.

She knew she was being a coward, but Adora couldn’t bring herself to stop. After all, this was all what had happened last time she’d slipped up, and all of her plans for her life had come crashing down around her for it.

Besides, taking more, longer shifts had been good for taking her mind off things. Spending time with her co-workers complaining about bad customers and collecting tips for her savings and just generally having a sense that she was working as hard as she could kept her from feeling too guilty about anything else (or pondering certain late-night questions), even if it meant she was getting less sleep and drinking more and more coffee.

Taking Catra away from Mel was out of the question – Mel loved Catra and Adora wasn’t going to be so petty as to try and deny that. This way, their personal drama didn’t affect her daughter.

Still, Adora noticed how the current She-ra stories showed a lonely and separated Catra and Adora, both staring across the expanse of space and stars between them and missing each other. And Princess Mel stuck between them.

Adora was just dragging herself up the elevator to Catra’s floor at the end of a particularly exhausting day when a notification came up on her phone – an email from Mel’s school reminding them of parent’s conference on Friday afternoon. Adora didn’t think much of it at first, before remembering that she had a longer shift at the grocery store on Friday.

“Ah, fuck,” she hissed, opening up email to ask her boss for a change of shift as the elevator doors opened, her feet leading her automatically to where she needed to go as her fingers typed.

Her boss at the grocery store was a hardass, though, who didn’t let up on shifts lightly. The odds weren’t in Adora’s favour.

Her hand had barely brushed the doorbell of Catra’s apartment before the door was opened, and Catra was standing in front of her, looking on edge. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Adora said absently, reading through the email she’d just sent.

“Is something up?”

“Oh, um, nothing,” Adora said, before realising she hadn’t been able to come to the last two parent-teacher meetings, either. This wasn’t exactly a great track record.

She also realised that she had a perfect alternative in front of her to ask to go.

The idea of Catra at a parent-teaching meeting was too much, however – Adora almost dismissed it right out of the gate. Leather jackets and a bad attitude with the little rainbow wallpaper and cutesy aesthetic of the elementary school classrooms?

Catra could be a massive part of their lives everywhere else (and was), but literally representing the space of ‘parent’ in Mel’s life at school? That was a step too far. It had to be. Adora’s single remaining braincell felt like short-circuiting at the thought.

“Adora?” Catra was waving a hand in front of Adora’s face. “Adoraaaaa? Anyone home?”

Adora jumped, being jerked back to where she was. Floor. Door. Catra. Right. “Yep, I’m right here. Are you doing anything on Friday afternoon? There’s a parent-teacher conference that I can’t make but the email says is quite important.”

The normal process of thinking ➡️ planning what to say ➡️ saying it had also fried, it seemed. Adora had jumped straight to the blurting out whatever came to mind.

There was a beat of silence where Catra’s eyes narrowed. Oh, no. “Seriously, Adora? You avoid me for weeks and now it’s asking for a favour?”

She decided to push. In for a penny, in for a pound. “It’s not for me. It’s for Mel.”

Adora knew that line had convinced her. Catra’s scowl slipped and she sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you.” See? We can adult. We’re adulting right now. “I don’t have any particular questions for any teachers, so just listen to what they say about Mel and tell me the general feedback, especially if there’s something important that they say. You know – if she’s struggling with school work, has had falling-out with any classmates, that stuff. It should be fine, though. And also--”

“I know how a parent-teacher meeting works, Adora,” Catra said flatly. “Just forward me the email, or whatever.”

“Cool.” Cool, cool, cool. Their first proper conversation in weeks was going just fine. “Just be polite to everyone, even if Mrs. Judy can be passive-aggressive and annoying. Try and be patient. Not that you’re impatient usually, just that – I haven’t been able to make it to a lot of the school events and I don’t think that’s left a good impression.”

Catra leaned against the doorframe in an annoyingly distracting manner. “So? It’s a school filled with old geezers who are probably waiting for the next shipment of MAGA hats. Why do you care about the ‘impression’ you’ve left on them?”

“I have to think about Mel,” was the first thing Adora could think to say, before seeing that Mel had finished putting on her shoes and was waiting behind Catra. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go.”

They were already walking away before Catra gently tugged on the sleeves of Adora’s jacket, stopping her. Adora felt her heart leap. “Can we talk? Please?”

“Later,” Adora said. Catra let go, looking slightly rejected, and Adora felt worse. God, why was she doing this if it was just making them feel worse? She decided to continue the lie. “I’m just busy with stuff, that’s all.”

Catra stared evenly at Adora for a few moments, and Adora felt her face go hot and her skin feel weird under her mis-matched stare. She remembered the last time Catra and her had talked - seriously remembered how Catra felt and how she had felt herself - and went redder. “Okay. Later.”

Adora smiled weakly and caught up with Mel, who was already at the elevator. She looked up at her mother curiously as they went inside.

Adora’s mind was running a thousand miles per minute, thinking about the heat in her cheeks after a simple, five-minute conversation and properly processing for the first time that maybe, just maybe, entirely heterosexual people didn’t feel the way she did in regards to someone like Catra.

**

Adora went through the motions of her job at her shift the next day – she smiled at customers, took their orders and cleaned and rearranged the tables – but her mind might as well have been in an alternate dimension for how much she was paying attention to the world around her.

It turns out, having kissed a girl for the first time might, in fact, lead to some questioning. Who would have thought? She’d been doing a good job of ignoring it and pushing down the thoughts since the first morning, but talking to Catra yesterday and brought up all back to the surface.

Most people would have done this in high school. Most people would have hit puberty, started looking at people around them with a little more interest than usual and go, oh shit, and then grapple with it in that awkward teenage way until finally coming to terms with it.

Pretty much as soon as Adora had started that phase, she’d had Mel, so she hadn’t really had the same process. And now, she had to deal with it.

She thought back to the times she’d been with boys – obviously, she had been with boys. She had a kid. But was that same as being attracted to boys? Her times with them had been awkward, but was that a product of being a teenager or… something else?

Adora mind flicked back to her frantic google searches on the bus ride this morning, a product of her newly scrambling mind.

how to know if gay

am i gay quiz

am i bi quiz

idrlabs sexuality test

can you be gay if you’ve been with boys

what’s compulsory heterosexuality

She had begun to type in “signs you’re wlw” in an effort to find a more specific article (at this point, she had figured out that if she was googling ‘am I gay’ quizzes, she was probably not straight) before she heard someone beside her cough and found an old grandma smiling at her, both a bit sympathetic and scandalised. She had smiled back timidly, and closed her phone for the rest of the bus ride.

“God, why is this so hard?” Adora groaned, throwing her mop on the floor.

“Why is what so hard?”

Adora tried not to look like she’d been caught doing a crime as she turned around to face Huntara, who was standing with one brow raised and a flat expression on her face.

Adora’s stomach bottomed out. She absolutely did not want to talk about this with her boss.

“Nothing,” she muttered, awkwardly leaning forward to pick up the mop.

The brow went higher. “Really? Nothing has been making you act all fazed-out for this shift?”

She hadn’t been as inconspicuous as she’d though she had been.

Crap.

Adora awkwardly fiddled with the hand of the mop, looking at the pretty design of the tiles on the restaurant floor and the way the warm light bounced off them, before going, “Just some personal things.”

The floor was so polished that she could see the reflection of Huntara tilting her head. “Ah. Girl trouble?”

Adora didn’t say anything, trying not to give it away and maintain an ounce of professionalism, but the red rising in her cheeks didn’t do her any favours.

She sighed. “Maybe?” Huntara stayed silent. “I just . . . I used to be sure of things. Where I stood, who I liked, what and who was important to me. Now . . . I don’t know. I hate not knowing.”

Adora was aware that she was still being vague as fuck and not making any sense, but Huntara still sighed understandingly.

“Listen, blondie – and know this is from a fifty-year-old lesbian who’s married with two dogs – it’s okay not to know.” Adora looked up. “It’s okay to be confused, and take a million quizzes in the backs of magazines or wherever you find them these days, and still not be sure after the end of the tenth one. The answers will come to you eventually, and you won’t be fake or a bad person for being unsure. Cut yourself a break – lord knows you probably need one, and refuse to admit it.”

She wasn’t sure what to say in response to being read so clearly (for the second time that month) so Adora just nodded hesitantly. She got that – sort of.

“Is about someone in particular?”

“Yeah.” She thought of Catra’s shitty attitude. “No.” She thought of her dumb smile. “Maybe?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Huntara’s lips. “Do you like her?”

She thought of the way the sight of Catra and Mel filled her chest with warmth. How there was no one else Adora would trust her kid with. Everything else. “I . . . think so.”

The words came out quiet, like she was revealing a grave secret. As soon as she said them, it felt like a sack of bricks had been taken off her shoulders.

Huntara grinned – it was perhaps the only time Adora had seen her do so. “Then what are you waiting for? Go get her.”

**

Adora got on the bus back to her apartment just as an email notification came up on her phone from Mel’s school. She frowned, noticing she had a missed call from both them and Catra on top of it, and opened it.

Dear Miss Prince,

During the Spring Semester Kindergarten Parent’s Conference, an incident occurred between a teacher and the present guardian for your daughter, who only gave us her forename ‘Catra’ and whom we do not have the appropriate contact information for. Many other parents and children present were caused distress and there was a threat of violence as well as derogatory language.

Please be in touch with us as soon as possible to discuss this issue.

What. The. Fuck.

Adora read the email once, then read it again because she had to be sure she had read it right, and then closed her phone and counted to ten. Took deep breaths.

She opened the email once again, trying to see if there was any way this made sense or could possibly be justified.

Many other parents and children present were caused distress and there was a threat of violence, as well a derogatory language.

Try as she might, Adora couldn’t come up with a scenario in her head where that kind of reaction was justified at a damn parent-teacher meeting. Sure, if some teacher or parent was being a little shit, being rude was understandable, but a threat of violence? At an elementary school? Seriously?

This was what she got for asking Catra for a favour after ghosting on her so spectacularly for three weeks. She’d been so focused on taking more work that she hadn’t left time for dealing with her own kid herself, and depending on someone else – especially someone she hadn’t been treating well lately – had led to this. Of course this would happen.

She thought of Mel, and how her teachers already thought of her as a ‘problem child’. She thought of how the other parents would tell their kids to stay away from her from now on, and how she must have been terrified if there was such a scene.

Adora had barely processed the fact that she had made her way off the bus and up Catra’s apartment block, already in front of the door in what seemed like just a few minutes.

The door opened – Adora must have knocked, she wasn’t really sure – to reveal Catra’s face. She was smiling, though it quickly morphed into confusion upon seeing Adora’s expression. “Hey, Adora—”

Adora pulled Catra out of the apartment, letting the door shut closed behind her and the sounds of Dora the Explorer becoming muffled.

For half a moment, they just looked at each other – Catra looking utterly bewildered by the intensity of Adora’s glare and the way she was practically smoking from the nostrils.

“Fucking really?” Adora let go of Catra’s arm, hands wringing through her hair. “Okay, I ghost you for a few weeks. That was shitty, I’m sorry. But you choose to get back at me through Mel? Or, worse—if it wasn’t even intentional, you just couldn’t behave yourself at a fucking parent-teacher meeting?” She took out her phone, open on the email, and shoved it in her stupid face. “The hell, Catra?”

Catra grabbed the phone out of Adora’s hands and read it for herself, eyebrows knitting closer and closer together with every word she seemed to read. Some of her neighbours walked by them and gave the scene funny looks, but neither paid them much attention.

Finally, she handed it back to Adora with a roll of her eyes – Adora got ready to strangle her – before Catra said, “Can I give my side of things before you keep on yelling at me? Please?”

Adora looked at Catra who, while seeming dismissive of the whole thing, also looked pissed and tense. She nodded.

Catra folded her arms. “The line for Mrs. Judy was long as hell, so I decided to kill time by talking around. I talked to some of the other teachers just fine, by the way. Eventually the line got shorter and we queued up and eventually got to talking with Mrs. Judy and by lord, is that woman shitty. She starts going off in that teacher way about how Mel’s a problem child who doesn’t get along with the other kids – who all look stupid, by the way, and I think pick on Mel – and blah blah blah, but I’m not doing anything here! I’m nodding along and smiling like you told me to, and trying to move on to talking about Mel’s work, because I can’t stand any more of this and Mel looks like she wants to cry.” Her eyes were pleading. “I swear, up until this point, I was on my best behaviour. I knew it was important to you, Adora.”

The words tugged on her heart. “I believe you.”

Catra took a breath. “Thanks. Anyways, the conversation got better for a bit – Mel’s pretty good with the writing but struggles with numbers, but is generally improving. There’s quiet for a bit as I think everything that needs to be said at a parent-teacher meeting has been said – the behaviour, the work, the future – and start to get up, before she brings up a ‘serious private concern’ she has as someone who works with children, and is ‘worried about the influences on Mel’s wellbeing’.”

Adora eyes narrowed, not sure where this was going but picking up on everything about Catra’s body language – the tense shoulders, the way she was pacing in the short space they had and clenching her hands – that it was bothering her more than the words indicated. “What was it?”

“She gave me this. It was a thing they did in class, apparently.”

Catra handed her an unfolded piece of paper. Adora recognised Mel’s drawing style instantly. Adora was on the left, pony-tail and red jacket coloured very brightly. On the left was Catra, whose messy hair was drawn so exaggeratedly that Adora almost laughed at the sight. In the middle was Mel.

They were all in the middle of a giant heart, on top of which was writing in misshapen handwriting:

MY FAMILY

Adora was still staring at the image, slightly transfixed, before realising Catra had begun speaking again. “. . . and she’s all like, ‘This goes against the moral backbone of this institution’, ‘other children were greatly distressed by the drawing’, something dumb about the ‘natural order’, and then finally – and yeah, this is what set me off – how she’s seriously concerned that Mel is being emotionally abused or some shit just by the sheer fact she doesn’t have a dad, and instead has two m—” Catra’s eyes widened for half a second, about to say a word that both of them knew would not fit their situation, before she backpedalled and went on with barely a hitch. “—female guardians. She was talking about having a meeting to discuss our family’s lifestyle choices and what’s best for Mel’s development, and how she’s been having these concerns ‘ever since the beginning’, ie, ever since she saw a single mom. Can you fucking believe that?”

Our family. God, why did Adora feel like bursting into tears at the words?

“And yeah,” Catra stopped pacing and looked down sheepishly, “I flipped, a little. I knocked over the stapler that was on the desk and stood up and yelled, and then left dramatically. It was a whole scene. Which, um, I think the email is about. Mel got scared, but she’s better now.”

Adora was gobsmacked – both at the fact that Catra stood up to the teachers like that, in a way Adora wasn’t sure she’d do herself. She’d like to think so, that she could be as heroic as She-ra, but Catra was the real deal. She had not only stood up to Mrs. Judy – she stood up to the her for Mel. For Adora.

Huntara’s question floated to the front of her mind. Do you like her?

From where Adora was standing, yeah. She fucking liked Catra a lot.

“Well?” Catra ask, after Adora just continued to stare blankly at her. “Aren’t you gonna say anything?”

Adora opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, a creek sounded from behind Catra. They both turned to see Mel in between the gap made by the slightly opened apartment doors, eyes downcast.

“I’m sorry for getting you in trouble,” she said quietly.

Adora and Catra began speaking at the same time.

“It wasn’t your—”

“I’m not in trouble because of—”

They stopped speaking and looked at each other. Catra raised her eyebrows, as if to say, let me speak here, okay?

She crouched down until she was eye-level with Mel, and said, more softly than Adora had ever heard her, “Your drawing was amazing, okay? Mrs. Snotnose didn’t like it because she’s a stupid dummy, and it’s no-one fault except hers. I’m not in trouble because of you, either – it’s just because I raised my voice. So don’t say sorry for any of this.”

Mel nodded, though she still didn’t meet either of their eyes.

The sight of them made Adora’s heart clench. Really, she should have stopped it before it got this far – she knew how Mrs. Judy was and she had known Mel was unhappy in her class, but hadn’t wanted to ‘cause a scene’ by confronting any of the teachers about it.

Catra hadn’t cared about that, though. She’d told Mrs. Judy to fuck-off without a second thought, the way Adora should have done ages ago. If she was still the way she was when she was a teenager, she probably would have. She hadn’t had a problem with standing up for herself and others back then, but the fire inside her had been worn to a nub over the years, and she had no idea how to get it back.

She hadn’t even stood up for Mel. How pathetic was that?

The three of them went inside Catra’s apartment and eventually ended up playing Mario Kart until ten (Mel was the lasting victor, as usual). On occasion, Adora thought she saw Catra giving her a concerned look in the middle of games, but whenever she would look back, Catra had gone back to focusing on red-shelling her.

Perhaps Adora did look a little unusually intense. She tried to relax her shoulders, and smile more.

Regardless, that didn’t change the fact that Adora was never going to be a doormat and let her family be hurt again, espiecially not because she was worried about the opinion of people who had never left the diameter of this stupid fucking town. Not her, and especially not Mel.

Catra groaned and through her controller on the floor, having fallen off the edge on Rainbow Road either. Adora looked at her for a second longer than was normal before realising she’d fallen off the edge, too, and flopped onto the couch alongside her. Mel cackled.

The following thought seemed natural.

And not Catra, either.

**

The plan was that they would go and talk to the headmaster about the situation on Tuesday, together. Adora must have looked like she was already ready to throw hands because Catra had burst out laughing in the middle of Adora explaining what their strategy should be, and told her to calm down.

She’d gone red. “This is serious! She was being stupid and homophobic and we can’t let her get away with it.”

“True, but she also looks like she’ll die of heart problems in a year. Don’t stress over it, please.”

Adora’s personality was practically centred around stress so that didn’t seem very feasible, but she had pouted and dropped it.

“She is a bitch, though,” Catra said after a minute. “The way she ‘tsk-tsks’ when she doesn’t like what you’re wearing? I want to claw her eyes out, oh my god.”

“And the way she smiles condescendingly at you when you’re genuinely trying to be nice? I actually wish I was She-ra, so I could use my big sword and deal with her.”

Catra raised her eyebrows. She was lounging upside-down on the couch, head on the floor. “That’s not very heroic of you.”

“Heroism is overrated. You can’t kick people’s asses efficiently with a strict moral code.”

“So no moral code?” She folded her arms, trying to be serious but failing in her current position. “What, you’ve been considering murder in your free time?”

Adora thought about how guilty Mel had felt for getting Catra in trouble and how agitated Catra had seemed over Mrs. Judy’s words, and how even pinning the drawing up on the fridge of ‘their family’ proudly hadn’t soothed Mel’s sad look.

A dark look crossed her face. “Who knows? Maybe I have.”

Catra grinned, all teeth. “If you’re making any plans, call me. I’ll help you hide a body.”

Catra had the attitude who looked like she probably did have experience with hiding bodies, so Adora didn’t take the offer lightly.

Catra rolled off the couch and went off to get some food, complaining about how there was nothing to eat and how Adora always got less food when it was her turn to get the groceries, but Adora was only half-listening. Currently, Mel was off playing games on Catra’s laptop in the bedroom. They were getting along way better, though they still hadn’t talked about the kiss, nor the three weeks of silence after. Definitely not how they were almost confirmed to be a part of the same family.

What are you waiting for? Go get her.

If she was a Responsible, Reasonable Adult, Adora would have confessed by now. She would have cleared up the air thick with uncertainty between them. So what was she waiting for?

“Do you want some coffee?” Catra called from the kitchen.

Yeah. And can we talk for a second? I have something to tell you. “No, I’m good.”

The thing was, another part of being a Responsible Adult was considering the consequences, too. If Catra – the commitment-phobe, ‘marriage is a scam’, ‘romance is propaganda meant to sell movies’ Catra – didn’t like her back, then their new balance would be destroyed. Again..

And if she did like her back?

Then Adora would be in entirely new territory, in a town that was already less-than-accepting of people like them.

Catra came back with a sandwich, telling Adora to turn on the news with a mouth half-full. Adora did so, knowing full well that Catra would tell her to turn it off after two minutes because it would be too depressing and Catra couldn’t watch the news to save her life.

She loved their new normal, and wasn’t in any hurry to change it.

**

Tuesday came and went. Catra ghosted on her, and she ended up looking like an idiot in front of the headmaster and Mrs. Judy.

She called her at least seven times after that, as well as a brigade of angry text messages.

(11.02AM)
WHAT THE FUCK, CATRA?

DO YOU KNOW HOW BAD IT WAS??

SHE WAS TSK-TSKING FOR THE ENTIRE HALF HOUR

i had to make fucking excuses for you and they didn’t even looked like they believed me

are you stuck in traffic?? did something come up at work???

(11.12AM)
ok im sorry for getting mad, i get something probably came up, but please call me back

catra??

Catra replied to none of them.

She went back to the school, hoping to maybe catch Catra while she picked up Mel – but she never came, and her and Mel went back home alone. As soon as she’d given Mel some food and told her to stay put, side-stepping her questions that she couldn’t answer, Adora dashed off to the neighbouring apartment and rang on Catra’s doorbell for what must have been half an hour, before one of Catra’s neighbours, Mr. Chandler, finally came out after five minutes.

“Are you waiting for somebody, girlie?” he asked gently.

Adora jumped up. “Yes. Catra. Have you seen her?”

He frowned. “I saw some rough-looking people come by her house and leave this morning, and she left after them soon after. Not since, tough.” Adora felt like falling back down. “I’m sorry, I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah,” Adora said absently. “Hopefully.”

She went back to her own apartment and spent the rest of the watching Catra’s balcony from the couch, waiting for a light or a movement or something.

The apartment stayed dark.

Adora went to put Mel to bed and ease her worries, before coming back to the couch to find Dalai Clawma prowling out on their balcony, looking agitated as all hell. Adora opened the door to let him inside, and he curled around Adora’s legs immediately.

Something was really wrong.

Ping.

Adora practically sprinted across to the kitchen where her phone was on the mantle, the screen bright like a beacon in the dark room with a message across the screen.

It was from Catra.

(11.02PM)
Some personal stuff has come up that I have to deal with. I’ll be out of town

I’m sorry, Adora.

Chapter Text

Catra started her day being startled awake by the sound of crashing downstairs. She opened her eyes blearily, taking a moment to take in her surroundings around her.

Not her room. Not her bed. Not her home.

The memories came back to her slowly. A knock on her door, followed by her opening it warmly, expecting it to be Adora or Mel or both, and it turning out to be an ugly reminder of her past.

It had been time to pay up.

There had been little resistance on her end. If they had found her, then that meant they had found out everything about her – including people she had gotten close to. Dimly, she remembered thinking it was a miracle they didn’t just off her right then for deserting, but it turns out having been efficient and what she did had paid off, and they could use her help to establish their new territory.

The deal she had managed to weasel out was working for them until she had earned back the money through extortion, expanding territory, and other general degeneracy, though Catra was under no false pretences: now that she’d broken trust between them and her, she was only in this for as long as she was useful.

After that, there would be nothing to protect her.

She thought back, way back, to Scorpia, and old friend she’d had in high school who’d also got involved with them. She had left much earlier than Catra, smelling the smoke faster than she had, and they had fallen out of touch.

Stupid, Catra thought, thinking about she had yelled at Scorpia for being a coward and a thin-skinned, and not gotten out while she had the chance. I was so fucking stupid.

Catra made her way to the out of whatever run-down house they had assigned her to stay in as a means to ‘keep an eye on her’. She had been set several assignments for her first day.

What was done was done. If she was lucky, she could get away again, and start again somewhere new. Briefly, she heard her phone ping with another missed call from Adora. She swallowed, before deleting the notification.

It was for the best.

They were both better off without her, anyways.

**

“Mommy, when is Catra going to come back?”

It had been a month, and Mel was still under the impression Catra had gone on holiday. Adora still had no idea how to tell her the truth.

Instead, she smiled down at her daughter’s big eyes, trying to look as confident as she could. “Soon, sweetie.”

Adora had been coping, but not particularly well. Catra had been the stable rock Adora had essentially built their life up around, and now it had been swept out from under her. She was back to her previous work ethic, which she was now not in denial about being completely unsustainable for an extended period of time. She had all but cut out the grocery store job altogether, only working there once a week.

Even Huntara was showing concern about her new demeanour. At the end of a particularly long shift, she had approached her.

“You okay, kid?” Huntara had said. “You can cut back on shift if you’re stressed, you know. Better than looking like you’ve aged ten years.” She lowered her voice, looking genuinely worried. “Is there anything I can do?”

Adora tried to smile, but it might have come off more wince-like because Huntara’s brows only narrowed further. “Thank you, but not really. I’ll be fine.”

Because if there was anything Adora was good at, it was being fine. She could do fine – she had been doing it for years.

Sure, she was exhausted and sad and missed Catra, all the time and all day long. But there was nothing to be done about it.

On her bus ride back, Adora closed her eyes and came to terms with the fact that Catra hadn’t just made Mel fall for her. She had made Adora fall for her, depend on her, and made them both care for her. She had become a part of their family. And now she was gone.

Adora thought back to the start of it all – that dumb, petty game between two neighbours, trying to make each other’s lives as difficult as possible for no other reason than the very sight of the other ignited their flight-or-fight response – and grimly entertained the thought that maybe getting close to them, befriending them and making them care for her and vice versa, then vanishing was the best finishing move Catra could have made.

She didn’t seriously believe Catra had done all of this to spite them, not at this point, but sometimes that was better than the alternative – thinking about how Catra had probably not left of her own free will. And was probably not just messing with them, but in danger.

One upside was that the energy she usually reserved for her hussle at her jobs was now being concentrated into one area – Mel. Cutting down on shifts left and right so she wouldn’t have to inject caffeine into her bloodstream to stay awake now meant she had a little bit more time to spend with her kid, and that meant showering her with event more attention and affection than usual.

Every little game, Adora was up for. Twister? She was terrible, but she would play. She’d help with dress-up. She would get her the extra-chip chocolate ice cream.

Adora wasn’t sure if it was possible if you could make up for the loss of a parent by parenting twice as hard, but fuck if she wouldn’t try.

Mel noticed, though. More than once, Adora caught her out on the balcony peering into Catra’s apartment and drawing even more of Catra in her crayon drawings.

Eventually, Adora broke.

It was after one of her few remaining longer shifts. She picked up Mel from school, and Mel had been tired and fallen asleep early. Adora had been lying on the couch in the dark main room, not bothered enough to turn on the light and trying not to reach for her phone to scroll through her and Catra’s messages for the millionth time.

There was one conversation in particularly she had been revisiting, from weeks and weeks ago.

Happy valentines day, blondie :P

try not to go too crazy

lol

unfortunately, himbos have not turned up at my door in recent times

She had immediately cursed herself for bringing up that night, and cursed herself even more when she saw Catra start typing, stop typing, and start typing again. She was about to go hurl herself out the balcony when Catra finally sent a message.

…don’t tell me that makes me the top contender rn

Top contender of what? Adora wanted to ask, but she’d instead sent,

pff

your furry ass wishes

Adora hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now she found herself coming back to it in her head. She wished she’d said yes.

She let out a deep sigh, trying to clear her head, and got up to make herself some coffee. Just as she did, her phone pinged from across the main room. It lit up the darkness with a ghostly blue light.

Adora lunged across the room to see what it was, desperately trying to stop her hopes from rising and failing. It would be something from Catra, it had to be. Who else would message Adora?

It was not Catra.

[Unknown Number]

hi adora, this is glimmer

can we talk?

Can we talk?

In high school, Glimmer would have just come barging into her room and jumped on her bed – irrespective of whether Adora was on her phone or doing homework – and demanded her attention. Adora would have laughed and told her to buzz off, before eventually giving in and binge watching some Netflix show together. The memory surfaced as a surprise. Adora apparently hadn’t quite forgotten would it had felt like to not be alone.

She felt her fingers move over the screen of their own accord and hit ‘call’. The phone rang softly three times before it was picked up. For a second, there was quiet. Only some faint background noise on Glimmer’s end.

“…Hello?” Glimmer asked tentatively.

The unsure note in her old friend’s voice was too much. Adora burst into tears.

“Oh – oh god, are you okay?” There was the sound of movement, and the background noise suddenly became muffled as if she had stepped into a different room. “Considering our circumstance, shouldn’t – shouldn’t I be the one crying?”

“You’re right.” She sniffed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry – can we talk in person?”

**

They agreed to meet at Adora’s apartment that Tuesday. She called off her shift and cleaned up awkwardly, though she eventually realised there was nothing that could make the place look as good as her old home. Mel was at school, so they would be able to talk openly. Adora didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not.

The doorbell rang, and Adora jumped, nearly dropping the photo frame she was polishing. She rushed over to the door – not before checking that she didn’t look too run-down – and opened it.

Glimmer and Bow stood side-by-side, looking a bit like they did at parents’ evening after the time the three of them had caused an explosion in their chemistry class. Bow held some chocolates in his hands, and Adora nearly laughed – Bow only brought chocolates for someone if he was anxious.

Adora broke the silence first. “Hey, you guys. Come in.”

She zoomed in and heard them follow behind her. She tried not to turn around to see their expression as they took in her new home, instead focusing on the tea. She opened the cupboard and pulled out two random mugs and turned on the kettle, a bit more shakily than she normally would.

Bow vaguely engaged her with small talk, but it fell short as the normal topics – school, kids, family, work – were too close to home for the three of them at the moment, so he was restricted to basically complimenting her furniture arrangement.

Adora came over with their tea. “Here – it’s fine that there’s sugar, right?”

Bow nodded and thanked her, but Glimmer just narrowed her eyes as she took the mug, staring down at it as if she wasn’t really seeing it. Adora realised she’d left the door open and went to close it quickly.

“It’s only been a year a two,” she heard Glimmer murmur absently, “I suddenly haven’t started taking sugar in my tea…”

Out of the corner of her eye, Adora saw Bow lightly elbow Glimmer disapprovingly. She realised he’d probably had to tell her to play nice before coming her, and she had very reluctantly agreed. A smile tugged at her lips as she turned around.

Glimmer noticed. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing, just – feels like old times, kinda.” Adora took a deep breath and started speaking before anyone could say anything. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for picking up and leaving without even telling you guys. I’m really, really sorry. None of you were anything less than the most supportive, amazing family anyone could have asked for, and I’m sorry I hurt you.”

There was a second of silence, in which Adora wondered who was going to respond first, and hoping it would be Bow.

It was not.

“Yeah, well, you did.” Glimmer’s eyes shone, and Adora assumed talking to her in person made her feel more frustrated than talking on the phone would have been. “I get you’re sorry, but what I don’t get is why. Because what – what that girl said the last time we talked said has been eating at me. If we were the most supportive, amazing family you could have asked for, why the fuck did you leave me?”

Glimmer eyes watered, not seeming to realise that she’d said ‘me’ instead of ‘us’.

“I’m with Glimmer here,” Bow said slowly. “What was the reason, Adora?”

Adora sat down on the couch opposite them and stared down on her hands. She noticed how worn they had become.

“What have happened if I’d went to uni with you guys, with Mel?” she asked quietly. “It’s not like I could have left her with Micah and Angella – I never wanted to do that. She was my responsibility, not theirs, and I would have never been able to study in peace with that guilt, that I’d made a mistake and not even properly owned up to it. And let’s face it, I was not getting into Bright Moon with my grades. But you guys probably wouldn’t have left me, and would have been ready to come to whichever university I ended up at and help out just so I wouldn’t be alone. You’d be ready to ruin your futures over me.

“That was the problem. No matter which choice I saw before me, some way or another, I was holding someone back. I already know I’d basically ruined Micah and Angella’s reputation around town, and didn’t want Mel near that. I had done enough damage. So moving – moving was the best thing. For everyone.”

There was silence.

Hesitantly, Adora looked up to see both Bow and Glimmer look as if she’d back handed both of them in one swift motion.

Glimmer opened her mouth, but Bow cut her off. “Adora, you’re such an idiot.”

Both of them stared at him in surprise, but he kept going.

“Jesus, what part of being a goddamn family do you not understand? Us supporting you isn’t you being a burden. If that was Glimmer or me, you would never even think to think of it that way. And if you really felt that way – why didn’t you say anything? If the thought of us not going to Bright Moon made you so upset, then we would have gone, you could have taken the grade again to get your grades up and re-applied, we could have slapped some sense into you earlier – something!” He threw his hands up, before putting his face in his hands in defeat.

“You’re so stupid,” Glimmer added, shaking her head. “How could you ever think that, Adora? You’ve never been a burden to us. God, you’re so stupid.”

“I know,” Adora whispered, not sure whether she was agreeing to her not being stupid or being stupid or both.

“Come the fuck over here,” Glimmer said, before dragging Adora into a hug. Adora was so starved of affection that just the strength of Glimmer’s hold made her eyes water. Bow joined. They were all crying.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Adora having nearly forgotten what it felt like to be near her friends that she didn’t want it to end. Eventually, Bow said, “Angella was right. We really do share one braincell between us.”

Glimmer laughed and released Adora. She wiped her eyes, and choked, “Now, could you have had such a heart-felt conversation with that dumb cat girl you replaced me with? I don’t think so.”

Adora smile froze on her face, and soured that way. She felt as if a cold bucket of water had been washed over her. Bow and Glimmer noticed, eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Actually…” She said. “Actually, that’s one reason why I called you guys. She’s gone missing, and I have no idea how to find her.” She looked over at the fridge, where the drawing of her, Catra and Mel under the misshapen words ‘My Family’ was still hanging. “And she’s become a really, really big part of my world. Can . . . can you guys help me look?”

Glimmer and Bow shared a look, and Adora suddenly felt a pang, realising how much they must have bonded in her absence. She realised how much she had to make up for and vowed never to leave her family behind again. Not Mel, not Catra, not Glimmer or Bow.

Glimmer grinned back at her, and Adora felt her heart swell. “What are friends for?”

**

The next two weeks consisted of intense googling. It turned out, some searching of her full name ‘Catra Rose’ turned up a couple of local news stories about petty crime by juveniles from across the country, though none of the charges ever really went anywhere. There was her old Facebook account that was rarely updated, and a twitter account that was basically reserved for just retweeting stuff.

Then there was one article of particular relevance. It was a case of arson from the high school that they had deduced Catra went to, resulting in the expelling of an unnamed student. There had been an investigation into whether it was connected to any of the more organised crime happening in the town at the time, but it once again was seemingly dropped.

‘Shadow Weaver’ turned up some more interesting stories. It turned out it was probably the cover name of a person suspecting in affiliating with various dodgy things for a long, long while from across the country, along with big gang names like the Red-tooth. There was less on her than Catra, though, and ultimately, they were still left without even a starting place as to who could have taken Catra away.

Glimmer groaned from the couch. “Who could have known trying to figure out information about organised crime from google would be so hard?”

The three of them laughed tiredly. Adora checked the clocked and jumped up. “Shit, it’s late – Mel should be in bed by now.”

“I’ll check,” Bow said promptly, zooming out the door. Adora sat back down and wondered why she had ever even thought about ditching her support system.

“Is there anything else you know?” Glimmer asked after a moment.

Adora frowned and shook her head. Despite knowing each other for months and months, Catra hadn’t revealed a ton of specific details about her past. “I know the orphanage she went to, her mentor’s cover name, general history – that’s about it. Oh, I also know what Shadow Weaver looks like, because…” She trailed off suddenly, eyes widening.

“…Because?” Glimmer suggested.

Adora jumped up and waved her hands about, briefly forgetting what words were in her excitement. “The grocery store – we saw her at the grocery store! She lives around here, somewhere – or at least was, about a month ago. She can’t have moved on such a short notice, and there’s basically only one store to get your food from in this town. So…”

Adora trailed off.

“So,” Glimmer continued. “We track this bitch down and get some information out of her?”

Adora grinned. “You read my mind.”

**

Bow did not approve of their plan, but that didn’t stop them.

Adora and Glimmer stalked out at the grocery store as much as they could, trying to keep an eye out for a familiar dark figure, eventually convincing Bow to help. They frequented the grocery store parking lot so much that more than once Adora had seen the manager come out and give them weird looks.

On the fifteenth night, after two hours of waiting out, Adora was ready to call it a day (Glimmer had already dozed off), before she saw a dark figure speed into the grocery store, so quick she would have missed it if she had looked away.

“Glimmer,” she said, shaking her awake. “Glimmer, it’s her.”

“Hm?” she grunted, before jerking up. “Oh – oh, wow. Okay, now what?”

They gave each other startled looks, before deciding on a plan.

Shadow Weaver didn’t take long to finish up her shopping and leave the store, at which point, Glimmer and Adora got out of the car and followed her, staying a good several meters behind at all times, waiting for a good moment in an empty street to confront her.

In the end, Shadow Weaver did the job for them. She stopped, turned around, and said, “Are you two just going to stalk me, or are you going to be polite and say hello?”

She let Adora and Glimmer catch up with her, and the mismatch of skills became clear. It was late in the evening, so there was no-one around on this fairly empty road. Adora and Glimmer were both built and young, whereas Shadow Weaver was older and slightly sickly-looking. She was not about to put up an adequate fight, nor was she about to outrun them.

“Hello,” Adora started cheerily. “I have some simple questions. You can answer them, and we can be on our merry way, and this doesn’t need to go badly for any of us.”

Shadow Weaver raised a brow. “What questions?”

“Which gang took Catra?” Glimmer burst.

To both of their surprise, Shadow Weaver burst out into laughter. “Oh, they caught up with her, did they? I’m sorry to tell you, but I have no idea where Catra could be by now.”

Adora exchanged a look with Glimmer, before asking, “So you’re not going to tell us anything?”

“I have nothing to tell you.” Shadow Weaver’s face twisted into a grin, looking positively gleeful. “I left that life years ago, and my last interaction was merely a simple anonymous tip. But rest assured, they’ll dump her body in the sewers once they’ve gotten what they want out of her. That’s the way things are run – I always knew Catra didn’t have the stomach for what she was getting into, nor the brains on properly deserting like I have, but she insisted on it all anyways. It was always going to end like this, so you’re best trying to forget about her.”

Adora saw red. “What was that. About a tip?” Shadow Weaver’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly for a minute, but Adora didn’t miss it. “Were you the one that told them about her?”

Shadow Weaver began to refuse, but Glimmer seemed to have had enough, too. She yelled in frustration and pushed her to the ground. “Give us a damn name and a way to get find her, because so help me, I’m not above hurting old ladies.”

“You’ve jumped to conclusions,” Shadow Weaver wheezed from the ground. “I know no—”

Adora crouched down, and her sudden proximity silenced her.

Adora took a moment to take in the woman who had raised Catra. Truly bitter, willing to endanger Catra’s safety and her life out of sheer pettiness to be right, and yet somehow Catra had turned out as great as she had. When Catra had spoken about Shadow Weaver, Adora hadn’t missed the lingering fear in her voice. It didn’t take much to put two and two together to figure out that her home life hadn’t been amazing, and that had been no-one’s mistake but the person cowering before her.

This is all her fault.

Catra had stood up for Adora time and time again.

Leaning forward, patient hanging on by a thin, thin strand, Adora finally returned the favour. “One more chance, you cruel old coward. Who. Took. Her.”

**

On one weekend, there was a sudden change in Catra’s schedule. Hordak – an old annoyance that she had hoped she would never have to see again – showed up at her hovel of a reassigned home, and simply said, “You need to come with me.”

“Why?” she’d asked. He hadn’t responded. “Why?”

“There’s a deal happening on the other side of town with some fresh meat. Your presence is required at three-fifteen.”

Catra frowned. Deals with normies – usually to do with intimidation, gaining more land, having a foot in more businesses – wasn’t normally something Catra was assigned to. “What’s it over?”

“You’ll find out.”

Catra tried to get Hordak to give what the hell was going on, but he wouldn’t budge. It didn’t make sense for Catra to be left in the dark. So what the hell was going on?

She decided it was for the best if she followed Hordak’s instructions and showed up at the address at quarter past three. The building they went to was worn down and crumbling, on the worse end of town. There were two broken windows, a hanging door, and all-in-all a perfect image of a place that should definitely be deserted. It was not the usual place for doing deals.

Catra went inside to find a more well-kept interior. This must be a somewhat regular meeting place for the Horde then. Down the hall, there was the faint sound of voices.

As she approached the room where they were coming from, she began to make out bits and pieces of what sounded like a negotiation. She wondered why one of the voices sounded so similar – before recognising it abruptly.

Catra sprinted down the hall and threw open the door to an old living room quickly, to find Hordak seated at a table.

Across him, looking quite calm and composed, was Adora.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” When Adora just grinned, she spun on Hordak. “What the fuck is she doing here? I thought we had a deal.”

“Your little friend wants to make a new one.” He sneered at Adora. “Isn’t that right?”

Adora nodded, and Catra wanted to scream.

This wasn’t how things were meant to go. These two worlds were not meant to collide, under any circumstanced.

“Her debt. To you. How much is it?”

Hordak raised an eyebrow. “More money than I’m sure you have at this moment.”

“Try me.”

“Adora,” Catra hissed.

“Ten thousand,” Hordak said.

There was a pause. This should have been the part where Adora’s eyes widened in shock, she stuttered, and then left – but instead she steeled herself and said, “I can pay that and a thousand on top of it. Right now.”

Bullshit.

Catra wanted to force Adora’s mouth shut with her hands. She was lying out of her mouth, and it was going to get her hurt. Why wasn’t she thinking? Why could she just leave Catra behind, for her own sake?

“Adora, you cannot,” Catra said. “Leave. Please.”

Hordak wasn’t buying it, either. “I’m sure you—”

The door behind him opened.

In came Sparkles and her man from all those weeks ago, carrying a few briefcases each. What the fuck? “Sorry. Took a sec to arrange the cash.”

Before Hordak or anyone could say anything, they popped them open.

There were blocks and blocks of green, more than Catra had ever seen in one place. She couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open. How could a working single mom and two uni students have got all this?

Some of this – some of this, Adora’s friends would have had to help with, pitch in by themselves. But she realised that most of it had to have come out of Adora’s own savings. She imagined that page in Adora’s sparkly notebook now ripped out and tossed in the bin. For nothing.

For her.

Distantly, she processed Hordak saying, “What makes you think that we won’t just take this from you?”

“You said it yourself when we were talking earlier,” Adora said with a shrug. “I doubt the Horde has wasted much man-power here – it’s you, and that guy hiding on the stairway, and that guy in the hall who got bored and left five minutes in, right?” Hordak’s eyes widened as he took in the scene – buff Adora and her buff friends, looking like they meant all business. Drily, Catra thought that they would make good gang members. “Four of us, and two of you. I barely passed math, but I’m pretty sure that’s not too good on your end.”

There was a tense pause in which all parties considered each other.

“Adora,” Catra tried again, more feebly this time. “Don’t do this for me. I’m not asking you to, and I don’t want you to.”

“I know,” Adora said. “But I want to, and I think you know you can’t stop me.” She raised an eyebrow at Hordak, whose eyes had wandered back to the money. “Well?”

His shoulders slump. Catra knew his answer before he said it. “We’ll take it. Now take your scum and get out.”

The words were begrudging and reluctant. Rather than feeling relieved, Catra’s heart dropped to her stomach.

This would not end here. The Horde would follow them all, and hurt them, and it would have been for nothing.

Finally, Adora looked at her, and Catra tried to scream it with your eyes. Don’t. Walk away. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Slowly, she turned her gaze back on Hordak, seemingly having considered something. She added, “And not just Catra. I want to buy your silence and want you to leave us the fuck alone, too.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

Adora grinned and pulled out her phone, and showed Hordak some information on the screen. “You guys still pissed at an old deserter called Shadow Weaver?”

**

And that was how Catra ended up in a car, returning to the home she’d made for herself that she was sure she would never see again, with three people laughing and celebrating like she was a part of their family.

They’d done the standard ‘oh god are you okay’ that was probably standard for a friend who had been blackmailed by a gang, before picking up that Catra was grateful but a bit shaken and kind of drained right now. They let her close her eyes in the backseat next to Adora and rest for the first time in weeks.

She was going home.

Then, she remembered with start.

“Mel?” she suddenly asked.

Sparkles glanced back from the front and said, “Deals with organised crime aren’t a child-friendly space, so she’s with – what’s she called? Mrs. Norris?”

Adora nodded, and there was second of silence in which Catra realised she had disrupted the flow of the conversation by suddenly waking and closed her eyes again. Bow and Sparkles started talking in the front of the car slowly – something- something about having to call their parents – and Catra could sense that she had Adora’s attention again. She tried to ignore it.

They got home in one piece, somehow, and Catra told them, “Not that I don’t appreciate you all coming together and paying my debts for a bloodthirsty gang – I really fucking do, to the point where I don’t know how to say it, except you’re going to get back every cent of what you paid whether you want it or not – but I… really just need to see my cat right now.” Her throat was already sore from having said so many words in a continuous sentence. How long had it been since she’d drank some water? “I don’t know if I can… people.”

“Are you sure?” Adora said. “Mel really missed you.”

The thought of Mel seeing her like this – pale, sickly and bruised, very much not the strong reliable Catra-next-door she was meant to be – made her want to get in the car in keep driving.

She shook her head violently. “Not right now.”

Sparkles and their man-friend nodded as if what she had said had made sense to them, and Catra probably wasn’t mistaken to see a little relief in their eyes. They had given their money to help her, but it had probably been more for Adora’s sake.

She didn’t really blame them for not knowing what to do around her. Maybe they would have to become compulsory ‘we-saved-you-from-a-gang’ friends, or her and Sparkles would go right back to getting on each other’s nerves and Stubble over there would have to play peacekeeper. Maybe it would be fun to find out.

“I’ll come up with you,” Adora said. “Probably not good practise to leave you alone right after this.”

They made their way into the building in silence. Less because they didn’t have anything to say, more like the very thought of extended conversation made Catra want to keel over. They were in the elevator before Adora said something.

“Hey, Catra,” she said softly, so much so that Catra nearly did keel over. “Are you okay? For real?”

She laughed, and it came out a bit like a croak. “Not really, but I’ll be fine.”

Catra didn’t even want to ask how Adora had figured out how to find her, or gotten Shadow Weaver’s information – that train of thought in the car had always led to Adora looking into her past and who she used to be, and it made her want to break into Adora’s brain and erase that image of her.

None of that was me, she said. It’s not me – not anymore.

And always, always, her brain went back to the eleven grand, offered to Hordak on a silver platter – containing all of Adora’s blood, sweat and tears. She thought of ‘Savings for the Future’ in red marker in a sparkly notebook, now crossed out.

Catra swallowed. “Why? Why would you give up all of your dreams on fucking me?”

The elevator stopped as they reached Catra’s floor, but Adora punched the close button as the elevator doors started to open and turned to face her intensely – more intensely than Catra was sure Adora had ever looked about her. She remembered a night on a couch when they’d been this close before and tried not to shiver.

“Because I fucking love you, idiot,” Adora rushed out, as if trying to say it before she lost her nerve. “Because Mel loves you. Because we love you, and you’re a part of this family. Wherever you go, we go. If you suffer, so do-fucking-we. We have been with you gone, Jesus. And I’m not letting it happen again.”

“Really?” Catra laughed, disbelieving. “Because I’m a piece of work, Adora. Boatload of trauma and insecurity and issues, the whole shebang – it’s a lot to deal with.”

I’m a lot to deal with.

Adora gritted her teeth – for a brief second, Catra thought she was angry, before realising it was in determination.

“Not to me.” She stepped forward. “Not if it’s you.”

And she took Catra’s face in her hands and kissed her.

Chapter Text

Half a year later

“Mooooom,” Mel whined. “Hurry up, we’re gonna be late.”

“Yeah, mom,” Catra added. “Hurry up.”

Adora huffed as she hopped out of her room, finally deciding to wear the white jacket over the red one. “I’m sorry for wanting to make a good impression at her new school.”

Catra rolled her eyes playfully as they walked out the door of their new house. “You’ll be seeing some six-year-olds, not the President.”

“Excuse you. I’ll have you know, six-year-olds are very judgemental. Isn’t that right, Mel?”

As she said it, Adora threw a glance at Catra the way she had grown a habit of doing so over the past few months – it consisted of a concerned furrowing of the brows and a gentle brush on her arm as if to make sure that Catra was still there. Catra smiled back in the way she’d grown a habit of doing, too – as if to say, I’m not going anywhere.

Catra didn’t blame her. Generally, the past few months had felt straight out of a fever dream.

Three months earlier

They stood outside the door of a very nice suburban house. It had the same lawn and the same cars parked in the same space, but Adora noticed there was a new tree in the front garden. The door was a different colour and the gnomes in front of it were gone.

Adora suddenly regretted telling Glimmer she didn’t need to come with her, before she felt the warm hand on her shoulder and remembered, oh, yeah, I’m here with my new girlfriend. I’ll also need to tell them I do girlfriends now.

Adora realised still hadn’t summoned the courage to ring the doorbell. Tentatively, she began to raise her hand.

“Stop,” Catra said.

Adora froze and turned around, to find Catra looking at her solemnly. Was this the part where she told her it was all a mistake?

Catra moved her shoulders uncomfortably. “Is my collar straight?”

Adora swallowed a sudden laugh. For her first meeting with her girlfriend’s adoptive parents, Catra had opted for her newest, nicest-looking leather jacket, her one pair of non-ripped jeans and a plain white t-shirt. She’d put her hair up into a ponytail, though that hadn’t saved it from looking messy.

“Nothing about you is straight.” Adora squeezed her hand and pressed a kiss to Catra’s forehead when she began to protest. “They’ll like you. I know they will.”

How they would feel about her after all this time, Adora was less sure.

She took a breath and raised her hand again to ring the doorbell. The door swung open the second her fingers brushed the button.

Angella stood there. Micah’s voice announced something in the distance (“Don’t let them in yet, the brownies aren’t finished!”) but no-one paid him any attention. As Adora took in Angella, seeing the new wrinkle lines that had grown on her face and yet how she still seemed to not have changed at all, and smelt the familiar scent of Micah’s homemade brownies, a fresh wave of homesickness hit her in the gut.

Adora swallowed, realising no-one had spoken. “Hi, Mom.”

Tears swelled in Angella’s eyes, and the next thing Adora knew she was being crushed in a hug, face crushed in Angella’s shoulder. And now they were both crying.

After they had finally let go of each other and Adora introduced Catra and they had settled inside for dinner, Micah began to passionately talk to Catra about herbs. Catra looked startled, not used to such a vibrant personality, and Angella laughed and told him not to scare Adora’s new girlfriend.

Adora let herself sit back and feel the weight of everything she had left behind. She felt her old guilt and fear and self-consciousness twisting in her gut, and inhaled. Being here felt in some ways like twisting that knife.

Adora had left her family, and it had been a mistake. She had hurt them and she had hurt herself. But if she had never have made that mistake, she would never have met Catra. She would never have learned to stand up for herself and Mel.

She was torn away from her thoughts as there was a sudden burst of laughter from Micah and Angella, laughing at something Catra had said. Catra looked surprised, as if she’d been funny on accident, and looked at Adora and smiled self-consciously.

She mouthed, They do like me.

Adora grinned back, before taking a deep breath. She looked around at her old home and all of their family pictures still displayed proudly on the wall, felt all the feelings of guilt and fear and toxic perfectionism, and then exhaled.

She let it go.

Two months earlier

It was a late Saturday night, a couple of weeks before they were planning on moving. The packing had begun and the boxes of various things had begun to appear, but for now there was still a dinner table in the kitchen from Adora to study on while Bow, Catra, Glimmer and Mel played ‘Just Dance’ very competitively – perhaps concerningly so, by the sounds of the enraged screaming of Catra and Glimmer – in the room over.

After a while, Adora managed to block the sounds out of her head as she fell further and further into the textbook. She’d perhaps been in the same position for one out, the sheer energy of desperately wanting to go to uni powering her.

She was so involved in her studying, she almost missed the sound of Catra approaching.

“Hey,” she said, pant in her voice. “What are you up to?”

“Studying,” Adora murmured absently, not looking up.

She could practically hear the narrowing of eyes in Catra’s next words. “Weren’t you studying in that exact position when I came to check an hour ago?”

Adora mumbled something incoherent, now intentionally avoiding eye contact.

“Adora, when did you last drink water?”

“I don’t need water. Water’s for weaklings.” Adora pointed to the refrigerator, where Mel’s new She-ra drawing was up. Currently, Catra and She-ra were no longer enemies – they were joint Queens ruling over Etheria, working through destroying the Horde, one enemy boss at a time. “I’m She-ra.”

Catra sighed and walked over to the sink, filling her a glass of water. “She-ra still drinks her doctor-recommended eight glasses a day. How else would she be so buff otherwise? Drink up.” Adora pouted but did as told. “So. What’s actually got you like this?”

Adora gestured around to the boxes and the general mess of the apartment. “Just a bit of … everything, you know?”

They had decided, all things considered, this town was not the safest place for them after everything that had happened. It had taken a while of saving and a bit of help from their friends, but they had a smaller house in Bright Moon to move into and were looking for good schools for Mel.

Mel’s last day of school had just been a few days ago – she’d left with a card signed by some of her classmate friends. On their way out of the school for the last time, Catra had stopped and turned around.

“What are you doing?” Adora asked as Mel skipped farther ahead of them. She saw Mrs. Judy’s beady eyes were fixed on them from the entrance.

“Making sure the Big J sees this,” Catra said, before dipping Adora into a scandalising kiss.

A last-ditch effort to induce a stroke, Catra had told her later. It hadn’t worked, though Mrs. Judy definitely looked ready to scream.

The memory brought a brief smile to Adora’s lips whenever she thought about it, though not before it faded upon remembering that moving back to Bright Moon also meant Adora was trying to get into uni again. And that came with studying.

And that came with the strong possibility of failure.

“It’s just,” Adora continued, “I might not be good enough. It might be too late – I’m already several years behind Bow and Glimmer. Who knows? I might have to be an eternal housewife, having to rely on you and your new job to get by.”

Adora was joking, but only by half. There was a tiny part of her mind that entertained that as a serious outcome.

Catra leaned on the table and sized Adora up. “First, you would make a terrible housewife. Seriously, your apartment was a mess before I came into your life. Second, come on. You’re working your ass off. Your hard work is going to pay off, Adora, and any uni would be stupid as fuck not to see that. For real – when will you stop beating yourself up for not being the perfect hard-working slave to the capitalist machine?” She smiled when she saw she had made Adora smile and stood up. “And your hard work isn’t gonna come to much if it means you’re going to be burnt out when you have to take the actual exams.”

“Excuse you. I have in fact become a perfect slave to the capitalist machine, so much so I don’t experience burn-out,” she said, very much burnt out.

Catra tugged on her hand. “Yeah, yeah. Now get off your ass so I can record Mel destroying you at Mario Kart and laugh. I want to go twitter viral, so get moving.”

Adora getting destroyed at Mario Kart by her six-year-old did not, in fact, go viral on twitter, though it definitely made Catra and Mel cackle whenever she rewatched it. And it made Adora smile to see them happy.

One month earlier

The three of them had fallen asleep on the couch, with Dalai Clawma quite comfortable sitting on top of all of them – though when Mel had started snoring, Adora and Catra (and the cat) had woken up. Carefully, they had picked her up and placed her on her bed, before going back to their own room and curling up together. Dalai Clawma had also curled up, just at the foot of their bed in a tiny fluffy ball.

Adora had just about fallen asleep again, before she felt the strain of light on the outside of her eyelids. She opened them to find Catra scrolling through her phone on the other side of the bed. It didn’t take Adora much to realise what Catra was probably checking.

Over the past half year, Catra had taken an interest in Bright Moon’s foster care organisations. In particular, there was this kid named Finn who Catra had grown attached to. It had taken a while for Adora to get her to admit that, yes, she wanted to foster this kid. It would be a long process with a lot of paperwork, but it would hopefully be sorted soon.

Adora’s guess was right – Catra was scrolling through her emails with the foster organisation again. She slid up and wrapped her arms around Catra from behind, planting a soft kiss on her neck. “They’ll fit right in with us. You know that, right?”

Catra let out a breath and closed her phone, plunging them into darkness. “Yeah. I know.”

Now

The three of them stood in front of the new school.

It was smaller than the old one, but definitely more… warm-looking. They had done their research – after their less-than-stellar experience last time and after Mel’s ADHD diagnosis had been confirmed, Adora wasn’t going to accept anything less than the best. This school had done LGBT-friendly events before and had training specific to kids with difficulties.

They’d found their way into the place that parents were meant to drop off kids, a small crowd of people doing that exact thing around them. Mel’s new classroom was within sight, and Adora couldn’t deny her new classmates looked friendly.

She was still scared to let Mel go in.

“Do you have everything?” Adora asked for the third time. “Jacket? Lunch box?” When Mel nodded, Adora gulped. Really, she shouldn’t be the emotional one in this situation. “First day of the new school year. Are you feeling ready?”

“Super ready,” Mel said, bouncing on her heels.

Catra smiled and ruffled Mel’s hair. “And if anyone tries to push you around, you know what to do.”

Adora answered, “Tell us immediately,” at the same time Mel said, “Kick their butts.”

“Yeah, that’s my girl.” Catra caught Adora’s flat glare. “I mean, tell us as well. That’s also important.”

Adora rolled her eyes, emphasised the telling them immediately part, and finally let go of Mel’s hand, letting her run forward towards the classroom. She stopped outside of the door, waved back at them, and ran into it without another look back. Adora and Catra stayed for a few minutes after she had gone, just in case something happened.

Nothing happened.

Catra put a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll be fine, love. Better than fine.”

Adora sighed. “I know.”

She allowed her head to rest on Catra’s shoulder for a moment, intertwining their fingers, before standing straight again. “Now. We have to check out the wedding cake, don’t we?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Sparkles wants us to do the big gay rainbow inside – she won’t stop spamming my phone with Pinterest photos – but Adora, it’ll look so tacky. Her boyfriend agrees with me, so it’s two to one.”

Adora raised her eyebrows as they walked out of the school. “Surely not less tacky than the big lesbian banner over the whole thing?”

“That’s different.” Catra looked offended. “It serves a clear thematic purpose. The rainbow is just there for the sake of having a rainbow.”

Adora raised her eyebrows but let it slide. “Whatever you say.”

As they walked, Adora swung their intertwined hands blatantly. In their first few months of dating, Adora had been a bit more cautious of doing so, not really liking public displays of affection in a town that wasn’t very welcoming of gays.

It took a little thing after her final shift to make her see differently. That last shift had been bittersweet, with her saying goodbye to some co-workers she’d grown close to and handing Huntara a wedding invite (and swearing she saw her boss tear up a little). Afterwards, in the parking lot, she saw Huntara kiss someone who could only be her wife on the cheek without a fuck to give. It was Adora’s sudden want to do the same that made her realise – fuck that. Big rainbow cake, big lesbian banner, a badge for herself with the Q highlighted for both ‘queer’ and ‘questioning’ – everyone was going to know Adora loved her girlfriend. They could die made about it.

“Speaking of tacky,” Catra said suddenly. “Surnames. Catra and Adora Prince-Rose… blah, barf. Spare me.”

Despite her words, a massive grin had formed on Catra’s face as she had said their new names. Catra could tell Adora she wasn’t excited about the wedding because she wasn’t basic and being married wouldn’t make a difference to her because the institution of marriage was a scam all she liked – Adora was never going to believe her if she kept on shining like the sun whenever she talked about it.

They’d certainly come a long way from two neighbours trying to make each other’s lives hell.

Adora couldn’t help her own smile, either. “No, actually. I think we sound just perfect.”