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Catra was lying in bed, curled up at Adora’s feet. It was late at night in Bright Moon, and the soft, dim light filtering through the window and into their room reminded Catra of things she’d never experienced but somehow felt like she knew. Things like sleeping under the stars, slow dancing in a dimly lit room, and whispering sweet nothings in a glittering love confession on the balcony like Romeo and Juliet.
It had been three months. Catra had finally started to learn how to sleep easily and calmly, a soft lull that seemed a world away unless she was at Adora’s side, in her bed. But tonight, Catra felt sleep escape her for a different reason than the torturous self-loathing and sadness forced into rage that haunted her in the Horde.
Adora looked so beautiful in this lighting, Catra thought. Gorgeous and gentle and sweet. She curled up into a ball, smaller still than she had been before. She did not know or understand how Adora loved her, and sometimes she felt like she might run as fast and far as she could because of it, certain that there would be a back-stabbing trick waiting around the corner and this time, she’d really never come back from it. She was scared, and she tried to hide it underneath other emotions that were raw like it was, convinced that she’d spent so long forcing herself to feel a certain thing that no one would be able to tell if it still wasn’t right so long as it was closer than it had been before. Of course, Adora always knew. But she never asked.
She was patient with her, far more so than she deserved. Patient in a lot of things, but love especially. Adora had no qualms about expressing her devotion, but because Catra did not understand it, she never spoke her own.
Now, in the soft blue lighting of Etheria’s moons, wrapped in a blanket and looking at the most beautiful woman Catra had ever seen, she was unable to look away. Everything seemed soft and safe and real here, like it wouldn’t matter even if someone tried to steal their love away tomorrow. They were safe now.
They were safe and soft and home.
“I remember when we were kids, no one else in our unit liked me. I had never been nice, and I lashed out too often and too hard for them to even want to try. But you never cared about any of that, and you came right up to me every day and made me feel a little less alone. I don’t know if that’s when I fell in love with you, but I do know that that’s when I knew you weren’t ever going to leave me.
“I don’t know if that’s when I fell in love with you because I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. I think about you, and… you’re golden, Adora. You’re not a hero, you’re not this grand, untouchable thing. You’re this bright, shining vision sculpted into gold, and every time I touch you or see you all I can think is that I can’t believe someone like me would ever get to hold someone as incredible as you.
“You never really left me. I mean, I know we’ve talked about how you didn’t actually leave me when you joined the Rebellion, but I mean it. Every decision I made, every choice I royally fucked up, you were there with me inside, and it hurt more than anything I’d ever known to see you look at me and ask, what happened? Who are you?
“I still don’t know who I am beyond the locked-up, messy person I became when you were gone, but I do know that when- when I saw you on Horde Prime’s ship, when I didn’t know anything more than my own name, what I thought was, there you are.
“You’ve made up my soul, Adora. You pulled me up by my hands and sprinkled stars in my heart, and the truth is that I wouldn’t be anything in the world without you. And I always thought that was how it would be. Me, circling around your sun every day, living off of your warmth but a galaxy away. But then you looked at me, and you saw the heart that hardened and the soul that you made but I’d ruined, and you were willing to give up the whole world to hold my hand.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, cold and harsh against this gentle midnight.
“It never occurred to me that a person who doesn’t know who she is could be loved wholly and completely anyway, but somehow, you’ve managed it. And I didn’t know what it was to feel so fucking cold until you reminded me how it felt to hold you. But most of all, I didn’t realize how it was supposed to feel when you finally love yourself until when I looked at you tonight and I thought that maybe, just maybe, some part of me is good enough to deserve the sun and the stars in my soul.
“Here I am, Adora,” she said, her mind drooping with the heavy damper of sleep, her voice softening to a whisper. “I’m here. And I love you.”
Catra could hear Adora snoring, could feel her steady, deep breaths, and she wondered if what they said about hearing things in your dreams was true. She hoped that maybe, in some distant, beautiful dreamland, Adora knew how much Catra loved her.
“Sweet dreams, idiot,” Catra said as Adora thrashed suddenly and violently, fighting some invisible demon, and she let sleep take her.