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Part I.
Love takes time, and love takes work
Adora falls so easily back into old patterns. Catra is like an echo in a snow-covered mountain and their past routines tumble down like an avalanche. It’s almost comical, how after three years of being at each other’s necks, they so quickly find themselves following the same banter and mirroring as they had all that time ago when they were still children of the Horde.
Catra falls asleep beside Adora each night without fail, despite Glimmer having graciously offered her one of Brightmoon’s many, many spare rooms. Adora wakes up to sunlight gleaming on dark, cropped hair and a toothy grin with an ever-present – “Hey, Adora.”
Their arms always find their way to wrap around each other and Catra’s tail slips down her leg in a way that feels both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
“Good morning,” Adora always says back, her voice gruff from the night’s rest. It’s been a few weeks since that final battle with Horde Prime, but she still feels the exhaustion from the fight deep in her bones, and there are days where she wakes up, muscles tense and pulse quick, expecting reality to shatter in an instant.
Catra holds her until she stops shaking and the days go on, and on, and on.
They argue over little things just like they did when they were kids. Over whether Brightmoon food really lives up to all its hype. Over whether Adora’s jacket is out of style and whether its tired reds need a revamping. Over whether Glimmer and Bow really need to be there for every quiet night in and solemn night out. Trivial, inconsequential scrabbles that they work through with a few shoves and a good number of lopsided grins.
The worst argument happens a month after the war and Adora learns that unlearning blood spilled is much harder than she could have ever imagined.
“I don’t know what I expected, you never choose me!” Catra hisses, pulling her hand away from Adora’s. They’re standing on a ledge in the cold and dark, Melog confused and distressed between them. It’s much too late at night to be having this conversation, but there are tears in Catra’s eyes and her shoulders are trembling ever so slightly and – “Just leave me alone, Adora. That’s all you ever do!”
“What the – that’s not fair, Catra. You can’t still be pulling that card on me,” Adora says and she hears the edge in her voice, her stance shifting further and further away from Catra whose back is turned, arms wrapped around herself, and this is familiar. Too familiar. “You and I both know that the world doesn’t just fix itself on its own. Etheria still needs me. It still needs–"
“She-ra!” Catra finishes. “It’s always about her, isn’t it?”
Adora had been gone for a few more days than she had anticipated. There were still diplomatic processes to be done, after all, with the previous Horde soldiers still displaced, numerous Etherians separated from their families after being chipped, and a few uprisings from confused citizens who still weren’t sure whether the princesses were friend or foe. Catra had offered to come, but Adora had anticipated it wouldn’t take long to sort out – it was only a few skirmishes, and she had opted to bring Swift Wind who wasn’t too keen on having Adora, Catra, and Melog weighing him down as he flew.
Catra had begrudgingly agreed after Adora promised to be back within three days, but three had become seven with the complication of Double Trouble apparently posing as She-ra to get a certain town to support their theatre group. After some heated arguments, several misunderstandings, and an accident wherein Adora had ended up on-stage with the spotlight turned on her and a 2-page monologue in hand, she had finally sorted everything out and was more than ready to be back home.
However, instead of the relieved embrace she expected to receive from Catra, she was the receiver of a cold stare and numerous huffs for the entirety of the evening. This was even further exacerbated by Glimmer’s insistence to throw a celebratory Best Friend Squad dinner for every successful mission, solo or not. Catra had pouted the whole time while Bow and Glimmer, ever oblivious, had asked her on the particulars of her mission.
“So what did the townsfolk do when they saw two She-ra’s?”
“Did you have to act?”
“How many people demanded a refund for that?”
Adora answered choppily, a little annoyed at the ache in her chest that demanded she adjust to Catra’s mood. She wasn’t obliged to take care of Catra’s feelings all the time, and she had missed Glimmer and Bow just as much. The four of them had been joined at the hip ever since Prime, and it was the longest she’d been gone without any of them by her side.
Still, she felt like she was walking on glass with every second she drew the dinner out, retelling her mission while Bow and Glimmer laughed and Catra sunk further and further into her seat. When they’d finally finished for the night, Adora tried to reach out to Catra, but she had already left, slinking away into the castle’s halls until Adora could finally track her on the highest (and most inaccessible) place of Brightmoon.
“Catra, She-ra is a part of me; she isn’t just something I can let go of!” Adora groans, hands wide, and open, and vulnerable. “I thought we’ve been through this.”
“We have! It’s just – ugh, whatever! I know I’m just a burden to you. This was stupid,” Catra says, and Adora, frustrated and angry and all too wound up, still reaches forward for her hand. Before she can grasp onto it, however, Catra disappears into the night and (not for the first time) Adora curses Melog’s invisibility powers and wishes her girlfriend would just talk to her for once in her life .
The sun is rising and Adora hardly gets a wink of sleep, what with the frustrated tears that can’t seem to stop from leaking from her tired eyes, and the restlessness in her head. It feels like an endless headache, a war on whether or not to go look for Catra or to leave her be.
The easy days have caused her to forget how fickle their relationship could be.
Loving Catra was like loving a wildfire, brilliant and bold and dangerous. Sometimes she steps too close to the flames and gets herself burnt, sometimes the flames surround her, and she’s consumed. Either way, Adora’s always left like this – weary and unable to breathe.
Yet she still notices her bed is empty and far too cold, and she’s gotten way too used to the warmth of Catra’s body beside her – dependent on it, even. She huffs, turning over so her face hits the pillows, when – oh – she hears the door to her room softly open.
She doesn’t stir. Doesn’t dare turn in case it’s a figment of her tired mind, but after a few seconds, she feels her bed shift, a familiar pressure on the other end. Still, Adora doesn’t move, and Catra doesn’t attempt to get any closer, just lies there, a little too far to feel her warmth, but just enough to know her presence.
It is its own consolation.
“I’m sorry,” Catra whispers into the dark after a while. “You didn’t deserve that. I let my thoughts get ahead of me. I thought – well. It’s stupid.”
Adora says nothing, heart pounding a solemn thrum in her chest. She’s sure Catra knows she’s not asleep, but at the same time she doesn’t want to break this standstill, this peace that she fought so hard to keep. She doesn’t want to lose this – not yet, not again.
“Okay,” Catra sighs to the silence. “Goodnight, Adora.”
It’s not the last time they fight over old wounds.
It’s a different thing every time, but Adora always feels responsible for it. Whether it’s because she can’t seem to manage her time very well (because repairing a planet’s entire political system is much harder than one can imagine), or because the heavy workload has made her tired, snappy, and stubborn, she always seems to find herself on Catra’s bad side.
“What do you even want from me, Catra?” she half yells one day in the middle of a particularly grueling summer. The sun is high in the sky and she’s pulled Catra over behind one of the spare tents for the refugees from the war. Sweat drips down her back and she can feel the weight of her jacket like a thick blanket on her uncomfortable shoulders. “I can’t cancel this meeting just ‘cause you don’t want to play nice with our old teammates.”
“It’s not about playing nice with them! I just can’t understand why they have to stay here of all places,” Catra sneers, pulling her wrist away from Adora’s undoubtedly sweaty palm. “You could have left them where they were. They’re tough enough to survive on their own out there.”
“Life isn’t just about surviving!” Adora is getting increasingly frustrated and she can feel it in the way her temper’s starting to run hot – hotter than even the sun shining mercilessly on them right now. “I’ve got responsibilities, Catra.”
“You said it would be just us for a while,” Catra says, equally tense. “I don’t even see you anymore, and when I do, you’re half dead from everything else you’ve got going on. You’re not expected to fix everything, you know. You’ve saved the universe already! Is that not enough for you?”
“Oh, so now you care?”
“I’ve always cared!” Catra hisses before turning on her heel and running away, clearly finished with the conversation.
Sometimes Adora wonders whether this is a punishment of some sorts. Whether they’re too broken to be fixed. She tries to trace back the source, flitting through memories of childhood and adulthood and everything in-between, but she can’t pinpoint where the cracks begin. Many times, Adora thinks that it’s like there’s a chasm between them, and they’ve built a bridge of driftwood and pine leaves, tied together with the attachment of kinship and time. They meet in the middle and play on the railings, leaning over a little too far, until someone inevitably falls.
Attachments are distractions, she hears a long-forgotten voice occasionally whisper in her head. They are a danger. They are to be destroyed.
But then there are days where Catra smiles at her, so soft and so gentle, accompanied with a feather-light kiss ( oh , she’ll never get used to that) and a nudge on the shoulder. There are days where Catra is the only one who can understand the thoughts that flit through her head, untethered, unfiltered, and raw. The voice disappears because she’s the only one who listens to Adora as Adora – not as the leader, or the Horde soldier, or the savior of the universe.
Catra makes her feel normal, and strangely enough, it’s the most exhilarating feeling in the world. On these days, she feels like her chest can hold an ocean wide enough to fill the chasm. On these days she remembers, treasures why it’s worth it in the first place.
But today is not one of those days, she thinks as she watches Catra’s retreating figure. She’s too tired to chase after her and returns, instead, to the planning table where Glimmer and Bow are staring at her with something too uncomfortably akin to pity.
They don’t ask, instead moving on to strategizing the eventual relocation of the Horde soldiers back into the refurbished Fright Zone, now under Scorpia’s command. Adora runs through the motions, planning coming second nature to her war-scarred mind, and the day ends much quicker than she anticipated. The sun has only just begun to set when she returns to her room in Brightmoon’s palace, and she’s unsurprised to see no sign of either Catra or Melog.
' You’ve saved the universe already! Is that not enough for you?’
Adora knows what she wants, knows how to get it, but she’s never been the type to allow desire to get in the way of responsibility. Call it a side effect of destiny being thrust on her too early in life, but she’s never found it easy to take a break. Every second wasted feels like another life lost, every moment she’s not working feels like another step closer to failure.
There’s an itch on her mind of gold-tinted days and white, flowing dresses and a single, outstretched hand. A future that she had come up with, wanted enough to manifest, but…
With the stress of reparation and relocation, she’s fallen back into old habits, and it looks like she’s not the only one. The thought of having to deal with another one of Catra’s moods makes her feel more than a little overwhelmed, so she buries herself in her pillows and calls it a day, slipping into the blissful ignorance of sleep.
Catra worms her way into her bed again in the early hours of morning and, as another pattern they have found in their endless, complicated dance of a relationship, they pretend as though nothing had happened. Adora still wakes up with her head buried in Catra’s chest, arms wrapped around her waist as the sun filters in through the window, and she make-believes until it might as well be real.
Part II.
If I could begin to do something that does right by you, I would do about anything.
They flit around like this for months – five blissful, turbulent, soul-molding months where Adora balances her relationships and her responsibilities while Catra tries to find her place in not only Adora’s life, but in Etheria. She struggled for a bit as an advisor to Glimmer but found herself too temperamental and a little too unsympathetic for everyone’s liking. Sometimes she hangs around to help with relief efforts, but with a bunch of eager superpowered princesses, her skills are hardly needed.
So she mopes.
When Catra isn’t bothering Adora or Bow or Glimmer, she’s out with Melog or (strangely enough) Swift Wind, doing Etheria-knows-what in the Whispering Woods. That’s the strange thing, she supposes, about peace. The heroes never get to rest, but everyone else, the soldiers, the civilians, and (in her case) the ‘reformed’ villains find themselves in a purgatory of sorts. There’s no training to be done, no battles to be fought, no childhood best friends in need of saving.
The other princesses reach out sometimes, but she suspects it’s mostly because Adora encourages them to. Perfuma offers those meditation sessions more than once, but she shoots them down because she doesn’t do stuff like that. Being vulnerable. Not around people who aren’t –
Adora drifts. She can feel it.
Back in the Horde, she always had the tendency to focus too much on her work; she’d go days without eating or sleeping if it meant being able to stay one, or two, or three steps ahead. And Catra loves this girl to death, but this is one aspect of their dynamic they both could never find a midground on. Catra wants, and wants, and Adora gives, and gives – but she’s not the only one who’s wanting, and she knows Adora will burn herself to the ground if it meant being able to provide for everyone.
On some days, Catra thinks that she’d rather burn with her than be left alone again. On other days, the really bad ones, she thinks she’d be holding the match. Take matters into her own scarred, clammy hands and save herself the heartbreak of loss in fate’s own time.
“It doesn’t always have to be you, Adora,” she whispers to the weary figure opposite her in the too-soft Brightmoon bed. Adora’s dead asleep and she looks almost peaceful, save for the weary bags under her eyes and the tired droop of her mouth.
She’d taken matters into her own hands with the relocation of the Horde soldiers, flying back and forth to the Fright Zone, helping with repairs and assignments and job allocations. It’s been the hardest job yet and Catra knows that every time Adora returns to the Fright Zone, her heart breaks a little bit for everything that wretched place had stolen from her.
A lot of the time, she wonders if Adora would have been better off without her. Raised by the princesses and away from the clanking metal and loveless gaze of the Fright Zone. Catra entertains the thought until late into the night, when Adora turns to her side, fists clenched and aiming a punch at her gut.
She easily dodges, used to Adora’s strange night-tussle habits by now, but her chest hurts when Adora mumbles a little, “Catra, no!” in her sleep. She wonders what she’s dreaming about – if it’s about her. If she’s the villain or the hero or the lover or something else entirely.
Catra can’t quite figure out where she stands in Adora’s life right now. When she thinks about it, she never really had been sure. Even at the Heart, with Horde Prime’s corruption glowing gold-green around them, she still couldn’t pinpoint where, still couldn’t grasp why .
You’re such an idiot.
I love you too.
She sighs, reaches for Adora’s clenched fist and unravels the tension with her own hands until she hears Adora’s content sigh. If there’s anything she’s learned these past three years, it’s that love doesn’t necessarily mean finding something. It doesn’t mean unlocking doors or connecting fates or building homes.
No.
Love is a battle, and no one makes it out unscathed.
The worst of it happens on a cool, autumn day. Months of rebuilding had finally shown its results. The calls for help had slowly trickled down into an occasional thing rather than a daily one, life starts waking up again in towns and cities initially destroyed, the remnants of being a part of the hive mind slowly washing away from people’s memories until it fades to blurry greys and greens.
Adora and Catra find a moment of reprieve, nestled in the branches of a sturdy tree somewhere deep in the Whispering Woods. Catra’s got Adora’s new jacket wrapped around her shoulders. It’s white and gold and stiff, but it smells like Adora – all pine trees and sunshine – so she keeps it even if it makes her fur itch a little bit.
The sun is setting somewhere in the west, and she can almost see the million moons and stars shine through the dimming sky. Adora is playing with her sword, easily transforming it into things like mugs or shields or pens. She sits a bit above Catra, right on the biggest branch, lying down easily on the tree’s wide trunk. The sight fills her with chills rather than the warmth she had expected.
“Can’t let go of the sword even now, huh?” Catra jabs playfully, not quite sure if she means it or not, but Adora frowns at her tone anyway, and thus it begins.
“Oh, so now I can’t even touch the sword when we’re out together, huh?”
“Wh – no, I didn’t mean it like that,” Catra looks up. Adora looks down. They’re only a few feet apart, but it feels more like leagues.
“Catra, what’s the problem?” Adora says, soft enough to break her heart. She looks towards the setting sun, eyes glowing light blue, hair burning gold for a moment before she’s back. “I know the past few months haven’t been easy for us, but–“
“So I’m difficult?” Catra says and, immediately, she knows she should stop, bite her tongue and leave it be, but she can’t help it this time.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Adora groans, mirroring Catra’s words just moments ago.
“Maybe we were wrong, Adora.”
“Wrong…?”
“Maybe this can’t work out. Not the way we thought it would be,” Catra starts, soft at first, then suddenly the words rush out of her like a dam breaking open, louder and louder, faster and faster. “It’s been, what, months now and we’re still walking around like the other’s about to break. I know you know what I mean. It’s like – it’s like this relationship is a cracked piece of glass and we’re holding it together with our bare hands and every time we feel like we’re getting somewhere, another crack opens – so what happens when it breaks, Adora? What happens when it breaks?”
Adora is silent above her, and there are tears in her eyes, but Catra goes on.
“We’ve hurt each other so much. What if we hit that limit? What if we’ve done too much that any more will ruin this?”
“Stop!” Adora yells, suddenly and forcefully, the sound scaring off the little birdlike creatures that had been nestling in the trees surrounding them. She scrambles down, feet, then legs, then torso down to Catra’s branch. She’s got this expression on her crumpled face that makes Catra feel like she’s been punched in the gut, and she reaches forward, but Catra, ever stubborn, pulls her hands away. “Catra…what are you saying?”
“Adora, I’m saying that…I’m saying that I’m always going to want you,” It comes out soft, shaky. “But I’m never going to be your first priority, and I don’t know if I can keep…being with you. Like this. I don’t know how to stop wanting you all for myself, and I don’t know how to stop hurting you when I want you, and I don’t know how to stop being so…” the next word comes out choked, like an admission she’d long sealed in her lungs. “ Selfish. ”
“You’re not selfish, you’ve saved so many peo—”
“It was for you , Adora!” Catra says, tired. “It was never for them. It was all for you. Rescuing the villagers from Erelandia, Saving Glimmer from Horde Prime, that was for you. ” Adora looks almost stupidly shocked at this. “Sparkles and I may have found our middle ground, but risking everything like that…”
That’s only something I’d ever do for you. The words die in her throat, but she knows Adora can finish the thought in her head. Years of friendship can guarantee at least that.
“Catra…”
“You’re seeing me as something I’m not, Adora. Every ‘selfless’ action I do, it’s selfish,” she says. “And…and you deserve someone who can do better than that.”
“But I want you ,” Adora says, and this time Catra lets her wrap her arms around her shoulders and pull her close to her chest. She breathes in sunshine and pine needles and every happy memory she’s ever had.
“All I’ll ever do is hurt you.”
“I can deal with that.”
Maybe a year or two ago, Catra would have ended it there, solemn and mourning and full of self-loathing, but content – yet she’s not the same person she was back then. She may be selfish, but not enough to do that to Adora.
I’m not going to let you, she thinks, feeling the words and all its implications before making up her mind. You’re carrying the world on your shoulders. Let me lighten this load.
Part III.
What’s surprising is people don’t see what they’re not looking for. The obvious unseen.
Hey Adora,
I’m sorry. I seem to be saying that a lot nowadays.
There are a lot of things that I want to say, but I can’t find the words to say it. I’ve gone to figure a few things out and to give the both of us a break. You and I both need time to re-evaluate things. I meant what I said yesterday, and I know there are a lot of things you’re not telling me. I’m trying not to blame you for it.
Don’t look for me, I promise I’ll be back. You can’t get rid of me that easily.
Yours, and you know it,
Catra
Adora reads the words on the paper over, and over, and over again until she’s memorised every stupid line. When she woke up that morning, the bed was cold and Catra was gone. Nobody in Brightmoon had noticed her leave, none of the other princesses had seen her. She’d spent the entire morning contacting people on her holo-pad for word of Catra, but just as quickly as she returned to her life, Adora found her gone.
And it hurt. She re-evaluates every bit of their conversation yesterday, but can’t figure where she went wrong, what she did wrong, and she says this curled up and crying in Bow and Glimmer’s embraces on the floor of her bedroom.
“She said she’d be back, Adora,” Bow says, rubbing a comforting hand on her shoulder, though she can hear the suspicion in his voice, the calm and controlled anger at the perpetrator of her heartbreak. “You just have to trust in that. Our friends will tell us if they see her.”
“And when she comes back here, she’ll have to deal with us,” Glimmer says, her anger a lot less concealed as she taps her foot on the marble floor and puffs her cheeks up ‘til they turn red. “I mean, you’d think that after six months, she’d be better at handling people without hurting them!”
“She didn’t mean to,” Adora says, soft, aching, the ever defender. Catra has always been her weak spot and it’s second nature to hold onto that even if this is the millionth time that she’s left her.
God , Adora thinks snappily, she can only remember abandoning her once .
“I mean…I just don’t understand why she did it.”
“Well you two haven’t exactly been…on the best terms for a while,” Bow says sagely. “You were always disagreeing in one way or another. A few years of being mortal enemies can do that to you.”
“Mmhm. We could hardly get through meetings without one of you blowing up over something,” Glimmer continues, nodding her head. At Adora’s distressed expression, though, she quickly backtracks. “Not that that was that big of a disruption.”
Glimmer places a hand on Adora’s back, rubbing gentle circles on the smooth fabric of her new jacket. “Like Bow said, you’re still learning to be friends – even more than that now, I suppose – after a long time fighting. You can’t expect everything to just magically get better.”
“I don’t! I mean – I don’t think I do.”
“Adora,” Bow says. “You’ve both hurt each other – way more than you know, I think. You’ve got to be patient if you want to unravel all of that hurt. You can’t just cold start a long-stagnant machine and expect it to work perfectly.”
Adora thinks that’s a pretty sound metaphor. Machine. Her relationship with Catra sometimes feels like a well-oiled one – they can finish each other’s thoughts almost before the other can even form them, they blend together in combat like the same weapon, they laugh and joke about all the same things – but sometimes…
Sometimes it’s cold and cruel and unfeeling.
She remembers the past summer days, the rows they’d have, the nights they’d spend without talking, trying desperately to not make things any worse than they were. Their codes would not mesh, their messages remaining undetected, unread, and misunderstood.
“Is it always going to be like this?” Adora whispers into Bow’s chest. He offers her nothing but a tighter hug in response.
The next letter comes after a week, delivered by Melog who holds them softly in his jaws. Adora tried to follow him, get him to tell her where Catra was, but he’d turn invisible before rushing into the Whispering Woods, and any sign of her best friend, ever elusive, slipped from her grasp.
Hey, Adora, one read, and she could almost hear the lilt in Catra’s voice which filled her with anger and frustration and longing like she’d never known. I know you’re worrying, so let me start this off with this: don’t worry about me . I’m somewhere safe, I promise.
I’m sorry for telling you like this and I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly, but I stand by what I said. I think I need this. I think we need this. We’ve spent so long on opposite ends of a war that I feel like we’ve forgotten how to be friends like we always have. It was easy when we were still fighting against Prime, when we both stood on the same side, but now I don’t know what side I stand on and I don’t know where I belong in your life. Don’t try to convince me or tell me what I need to do, what I have to be, where I do stand – I know you, so give me time to let me know me now.
I know this sounds cheesy, corny, stupid – all those things that you are and I’m not, but it’s easier to be open when all I’ve got is a paper to speak to and I don’t need to hear your annoying interruptions . I’m not good with words and writing and all that, that was always your thing. I’m trying to find out what I’m good at beyond what the Fright Zone drilled into me.
I guess a little part of me is jealous that you’ve had three years surrounded by your our friends to unravel every bad thing the Horde gave us. I’m going to need some time to do that too, but I think I can do it better alone, so let me go for now.
I do miss you, though.
And don’t tell anyone this, but I guess I miss everyone else as well. To an extent.
Still yours,
Catra
And despite it all, Adora does smile. Despite the heartache, there’s just something about knowing that she’s safe out there, trying to be better that makes Adora want to run circles and lift tanks and do all the silly, impulsive things that come with joy.
The letters come at random, but regularly in their own way. Sometimes Catra talks about her day – careful not to reveal anything about her location that could potentially give it away – but little things like learning how to cook, picking up new skills, getting bored out of her mind.
There are little bits of self-reflection hidden behind the words of each paper, and Adora spends hours reading and rereading them until her heart feels just about to burst.
Hey, Catra, she writes back one day, blue pen on crisp, Brightmoon-brand parchment. She prepares it beforehand so she can give it to Melog before he leaves, trusting him to deliver it safely. I hope you’re doing well.
This is a cheesy way to start this off, but like you said, that’s my thing, isn’t it?
Anyway, I miss you. I miss the way you’d wake me up and the way we’d fall asleep together. I miss laughing with you. I miss talking to you – in-person, I mean. I miss playing pranks on Bow and Glimmer. I even miss the little arguments we would have every so often. I miss the way you’d raise your voice and I’d know you were joking even if nobody else did.
It’s funny how it’s easy to remember the best times with you. I wrote a letter like this back when we were still fighting on other ends of a war that seems like forever ago, but I never sent it, so let me say it now since you’re so adamant on writing me these letters. I really do wish you were here, but now that I’m not angry anymore, I want to say: I understand why you did it. Why you left, I mean.
We’ve spent so long fighting. We’ve changed into totally different people. We’ve done so many things together that we completely lost ourselves apart, and I get it. We have to learn to be independent together as well. I know I can be an idiot sometimes, but I think I understand this. I hope that one day, I can come to understand you, the new you as well.
You said you aren’t sure where you stand in my life and, to be honest, sometimes I don’t know too, but you’re always going to be my best friend through and through, Catra. I meant it when I said that. If you find other places to rest your heart, I understand, but just promise me it’s still going to be you and me.
The same old Catra and Adora, with a little bit more growing up.
I can’t wait to see you again. Make it quick, okay?
Love,
Adora
Part IV.
I’m coming down with you, hand in unlovable hand.
A month passes and their meeting plays through the same way it always has – with Adora caught completely unaware. This time she’s at Brightmoon’s forgotten training room littered with dummies and wooden swords. The past hour had been spent hacking and slashing at various poor, strawmen with an imbalanced spear that felt odd and uncomfortable in her calloused hands. The sun was shining through the glass windows, making it a little difficult to see with the room tinted orange, and the sounds that filled the air were that of wood hitting wood and Adora’s own huffs of effort.
It’s probably why she doesn’t notice the door open and the familiar figure walk in.
“Hey Adora,” Catra says, soft enough not to startle her, but loud enough for her heart to race. Blood rushes into her head and she whips around to see – Catra?
When she turns, she confirms that the voice had belonged to Catra but the person standing by the doorway hardly looks like the person she’d seen before she left. The month had seen Catra’s hair grow long and uncontrolled, way past the shoulder-bob that Adora had last seen her in. It’s tied up in an almost-familiar ponytail, though.
She’s seen that somewhere before.
Another thing – Catra is wearing blue and white. An azure cape fitted around her shoulders and a comfortable white shirt, cut off at the shoulders. Her pants are the same – black and torn at the knees, but that’s not what surprises Adora.
What surprises her is the energy that seems to emit from Catra – cool, confident, bold. She can see it in the way the girl holds her chin a little higher, puffs her chest out a little stronger, stands straight rather than slunk. Catra’s still got a shy smile on her face, though, and it’s not one that Adora is particularly familiar with.
“It’s been awhile. I’m sorry it took so long,” Catra says, and it looks like she’s about to say more, but before she has the chance to, Adora’s arms are already around her, strong and tight and fitted like she belonged there.
They stand like that for seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, breathing the other in and refamiliarizing themselves with one another. Adora cries a little bit, and she pretends not to notice the wet tears falling onto her shoulder from Catra too.
After what feels like a small eternity, Adora speaks.
“You’re such an idiot.”
Catra pulls away, incredulous. “Hey, that’s my line!”
“It’s mine now, I think I deserve at least that after this stunt,” Adora murmurs, pulling Catra back in. A swarm of emotions rush through her chest – shock, annoyance, wistfulness, relief – but most of all, an overwhelming joy at having her back. “I’ve missed you. More than you know.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Catra says, then she pulls away for real this time, holding Adora by the shoulders and Adora is surprised at the determination that’s coursing through her blue and yellow eyes. The hand on her shoulder slowly slides up to her cheek and she leans into it. “We need to talk, for real this time.”
Adora sighs, cupping Catra’s hand with her own. “Yeah, I know…but I think we should tell everyone else that you’re here first! Do Bow and Glimmer know?”
“Sparkles knows whenever anyone enters Brightmoon, I think,” Catra smiles surprisingly fondly at the mention of the queen whom she used to be so at-ends with. “She’s been such a control freak since she stopped having war meetings every few days, so she’s got pretty much the whole town monitored, hasn’t she? I haven’t seen her, but I’ve said hi to Bow, but he didn’t seem all that happy to see me.”
“Well, I was kind of a mess when you first left,” Adora admits, and Catra’s smile slips away a bit. “I mean – I’m better now! Really, I get why you had to leave. I think—I think it was good for the both of us, actually. They’re just mad because they think you, you know…”
“Hurt you again,” Catra finishes, and Adora nods hesitantly. “I know I did. I’m sorry.”
“You know I’ll always forgive you.”
They share a look, one full of understanding that can only come from years and years of friendship before breaking a little further away, this time only connected by a joined hand, interlaced fingers conveying more than words ever could.
“After dinner, let’s talk,” Catra says.
“Promise?” Adora asks. Promise we’ll sort this mess? Promise we’ll talk to each other for real? Promise we’ll try to figure it out together this time?
“Yeah,” Catra laughs, a little choked, a little relieved. “Promise.”
So they talk.
They sit on opposing ends of the bed that used to be Adora’s, now theirs, and the moonlight trickles in from the window. Earlier, they had dined and laughed and gotten caught up during dinner. Glimmer and Bow had given Catra a stern talking-to about how abandonment issues go both ways and how if she wanted to take a vacation, she should at least give a few days’ notice. Adora smiled until her cheeks hurt, and they stuffed themselves with food until the bad days seemed long enough ago to be forgotten.
When they retire to their respective rooms, however, Adora quickly sobered. Catra followed behind her, footsteps as soundless as always, but their hands had remained intertwined until they sat down.
It takes a moment, of staring, of holding, of lips pressed on smooth necks and hands roaming sacred spaces before they begin. Catra’s blue cape lay forgotten on the floor, paralleled with the white and golds of Adora’s jacket, long abandoned in the night.
When it’s over, they begin.
Catra explains that she had spent the last month at Madame Razz’s ( god, why didn’t Adora think of that?) who had taken her in so graciously and had cared for her so generously that she couldn’t find the heart to refuse.
She had done a lot of self-reflection while she was gone, and she goes on to talk about how messed up she felt like she was, how messed up she actually was, and the amount of self-loathing that sometimes slips into Catra’s voice makes Adora ache. The confidence that had followed her return seems to falter and her next words are painted with pain.
“The Fright Zone really messed me up. I didn’t think much of myself to begin with, and Shadow Weaver was always comparing me to you, always putting me down, making me feel worthless…and even if I told myself I wasn’t listening to her, I knew that there was a little part of me that did,” Catra says. “I didn’t want to resent you, but I did. I thought I was just mad that you left, that you didn’t choose me, but I think it was more than that. There was a part of me that thought Shadow Weaver really was right. You were the better of the both of us, and that’s why you left. Because you were good, and I was bad, and that’s how it was supposed to be…
“And the way you turned on me so easily. What we had seemed to mean nothing to you. I seemed to mean nothing to you. I thought you were the type to never turn on your friends, but knowing I was wrong…well, that hurt me. Neither of us kept that promise we made, you know the one, but all this time I felt like – you were the one who broke it first, so you were the one who deserved to suffer.”
Catra says this, calm, controlled, yet Adora can feel the hurt and resentment in them. Even so, she feels the urge to interrupt because she can feel the protests bubbling in her chest, the anger at knowing that Catra thought this without thinking of her side too, without realising that she was hurting just as much, and Adora realises that maybe they haven’t sorted this out as well as she had thought.
So she speaks as well.
She talks about the betrayal she felt when she realised that the Horde was actually evil, and even more so when she learned that Catra had known all along. She talks about feeling like she always had to be perfect, always had to be the best, always had to be number one. She talks about the expectations, the responsibilities thrown at her and the way she never felt like she had ever had time to think about what she wanted so much as what everyone else wanted. She talks about how Catra had hurt her, had betrayed her, and how painful it was because the only selfish thing she ever did want was to be with her.
Subconsciously, her hands travel to the claw marks on the side of her face, remnants of a battle long finished, and Catra trembles as she watches. Adora thinks that they are finding themselves on opposing ends of a war again, only this time…
“Is it always gonna be like this?” she murmurs under her breath, shakily, softly, tender. Catra looks up, frowning, her hand reaching out, pulling back, reaching out until she can put it atop Adora’s own.
“I don’t know.”
“War makes soldiers out of all of us,” Adora continues. “How can I love you when we’re this broken?”
“We’ll figure it out. We have time,” Catra says, inching closer so she can rest her head on Adora’s shoulder. There’s tension and tease and a tightness in their chests that make it difficult to breathe. “We’ll work it out, we’ll get better.”
And just like that, Adora relaxes, leaning in to Catra’s touch and realising that perhaps their relationship has been through bloodshed almost as much as it has been through sunshine, and perhaps the scars will always be there, and perhaps there was no getting better from here, but Adora also thinks that they have time to make new patterns, fall into new routines.
She interlaces their fingers together from where they had been resting on her knee.
“Okay. Promise we’ll do it together this time?”
It ends as it begins.
“Yeah. I promise.”