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Even overgrown with greenery, Horde Prime's flagship was an intimidating, empty hulk. And the two figures walking through its corridors were less than enthused at revisiting it. “You sure you want to do this?” Adora asked softly.
Catra scoffed. “Are you sure you're okay with me doing this?” she said, “Seriously, Adora. I did literally everything to get here. I want to do this. I'm going to do this. You're just along for the ride.” Catra's tail swished. Adora knew she was hiding her anxiety under bravado. Even those who'd known Catra for years sometimes found the subtleties of her body language hard to read, her tail especially. When was her swaying tail excited, as opposed to agitated? Adora, on the other hand, could read her like an open book. “I miss the stupid thing.” Catra groused. “Not wearing it as much as having it. It was my first taste of being something other than a faceless Horde cadet.”
“I still remember the day you found it.” Adora said, “You fell in love the moment you saw it.”
“It was meant for me. Made for me. I know it.” Her voice dropped with uncertainty. “It's sounds stupid, but-”
“No, it's not.” Adora said firmly. “Out of everything weird that's happened in our lives, that mask being made specifically for you would be like, near the bottom on the weirdness chart.”
Catra chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that's true.”
Adora's hand went to her back. The gentle pressure grounded Catra. She never had to ask for it, but Adora always knew when she needed it anyway. The subtle syncing of their body language, their wordless exchanges, the unconscious communication between them... that was something precious reclaimed after long years apart. Like when they were cadets, knowing that in everything, no matter how big or how small, they didn't expect the other to support them – they knew they were already there, the wind beneath the other's wings. Catra sidled against her as they walked, pushing her weight into Adora more and more as they walked. She leaned more and more into Adora's gentle touch, until she collapsed into Adora, almost dead weight dragging down into her arms. It was all Adora could do to keep Catra from falling on the ground in front of her. “Ugh! Why do you always do that?”
Catra batted at her face playfully as she twisted around in her arms. “Cuz I'm your's, dummy.”
Adora knew she was stalling, but that was okay. There was no rush. So she held her, and let her love on her all she wanted. Catra purred and nuzzled up against Adora's abs, her thin white undershirt all but giving Catra full access to them. Ho ho ho, they were all her's! Years of pining had finally come to fruition. And it only took almost dying and letting the universe be destroyed to get there. Worth it.
As much as Adora loved Catra loving up on her curves and angles, it was hard keeping half of her weight supported so she could nestle against her. “You know it doesn't matter how loveable you're being, I can't hold you like this forever.” Catra gave Adora her best wounded puppy dog (kitty cat?) eyes. “And no, that's not going to work.”
“Fine...” Catra groaned, and straightened up under her own power again. “... but you owe me.” Adora gave her a little scritch under the chin and laughed as Catra went through surprise, blissful relaxation, and outrage in under a second. “Idiot! That's not what I meant!”
“Aw, do you want another?” Adora chirped, “What's the conversion rate for scritches to cuddles?” She dodged Catra's playful swipe at her. Adora rubbed Catra's neck as she grabbed for her, and Catra folded like wet paper. Adora laughed as she caught her and the two tangled together on the cold, metal floor. Catra was basically a very happy hundred-and-something pounds of dead weight, like a sack of purring potatoes. “You know you can basically never win against me ever again.” Adora kissed her neck and put her hands to Catra's side, coaxing out more contented purring. “You gave away your secret. Your whole body is just one big weak point for me.”
She squeaked as Adora's warm hands dipped under the fabric of her shirt. “Adora! Adora!” she laughed, squirming out of Adora's firm hold, “We came here for a reason, remember?”
Adora lifted herself up on her elbows and raised an eyebrow at Catra. “Uh, are you sure I'm the one who needs to be reminded?”
Catra hated that stupid, smug smile of Adora's. It made her want to kiss it right off her face. “Yeah, I'm sure, dummy. Now stop trying to distract me! I can make you beg for mercy when we get home.”
“More like I'll make you beg for mercy!” Adora shot back, without an ounce of creativity. Then, more seriously as they brushed themselves off and continued on their way, she said, with calming hand to Catra's back again, “Are you nervous?”
Unconsciously, Catra's tail wrapped around Adora's waist. “Yeah.” she said. Adora loved how honest Catra had become in serious moments. How open. It made her want to hold her and never let her go. “I know there's nothing here anymore, but...” She glanced around at the overgrown ruins of the ship. “Memories, y'know?”
“Yeah. I know.” Adora said softly, moving her hand up to stroke Catra's hair.
Catra fought the urge to just lean into her again and stop all semblance of progress. There'd be time for that later. “Welp. Here it is.” Catra said, voice wavering slightly. “Four days of suffering on the bridge of a galactic dictator with an ego problem.”
“Are you sure it's here?”
“Yeah.” she said quietly. “It's like... hard to explain.” She ran a hand over the cold metal of the ship's walls, pointedly avoiding the ivy and flowers that had somehow found their way into the stratosphere.
“That's okay. I trust you.”
She blushed. She needed to say something back, but she couldn't be a total sap. “Thanks, Princess.”
Adora saw right through her, the big softie. Sure, Catra was the living incarnation of schadenfreude, but she loved as sincerely as she laughed at others' misfortune.
After a few minutes of meek searching and pawing through piles of broken down junk, Catra heard Adora cry out, “I found it!”
Catra rushed over to where Adora was standing. Above the calm green pool of liquid that had come so close to obliterating her. “... oh.” She swallowed hard. “Okay. Uh...” She took a few hesitant steps forward. Flashes of horrors ran through her head; her screaming Adora's name as Horde Prime's clones forced her under the surface, the cold, icy grip of Prime's will on her soul as he puppeteered her body, the helplessness as he made her voice her deepest resentments to Adora, and then brutalize her best friend as she tried to save her... Catra coughed out a sob and recoiled from the pool. “I... I-I can't do this, l-l-let's just go home-”
“Catra! Catra, it's okay. It's okay.” Adora caught Catra before she could bolt, nestling her in her strong arms, firm but not confining. Not trapping her. Just protecting her. “You're safe.”
Unwelcome tears forced their way from Catra's eyes. She hated them, tried to blink them away, but it was a losing battle. “I can't... can't go in there, Adora.” Catra couldn't even look in the general direction. She buried her face in Adora's shirt. “Not again...”
Adora's hand went to Catra's hair, stroking her rough mane with compassion and affection. “Hey. It's okay. You don't have to.” Adora smiled softly at her. “I'll get it for you.”
As she turned to the pool, Catra grabbed her arm, wild fear in her eyes, and pulled Adora back to her. Her voice went hoarse with the strain of crying, “Don't go in there!” She sobbed in Adora's arms. “Don't go in there! Please, Adora! Adora, I'm begging you-”
“Hey! Hey!” Adora rushed back to Catra's frightened embrace. “It's alright! It's alright... shh...” She kissed her head reassuringly. “C'mon. Let's sit down.” Adora picked somewhere out of sight of the pool, across the walkway, almost carrying Catra the whole way.
Resting on a suitably flat outcropping, Catra whimpered in Adora's lap as Adora stroked her hair. “P-promise me, Adora...”
“Promise you what?”
“... that you'll... take me home. Again.”
“I promise.” Adora's hand went to her arm. Gentle and loving, just like her voice. “Do you want to go now?”
“No, I just...” She sniffled. “I needed to hear that.” The dams burst again.
“Catra... I know how much that mask means to you.”
“I can't... I can't watch you... or know you're... going into that pool.” Catra was willing to give up everything to stop that from happening. Just thinking about it... “I know it's stupid! I know it's not anything anymore but-”
“Hey, hey hey hey...” Adora caught her in her arms again before she could turn away and torment herself further. “It's okay. It's not stupid. I love it when you care about me, you goofball.”
Catra's purr rumbled up from her chest.
“But... what about another way?” Adora said, “I'm sure we can find something to use here! Remember how we talked about improvisation? Watch this: For the honor of Grayskull!” Catra watched in awe as Adora took on the form of She-Ra in a glow of strength and beauty. Every time it made Catra a little gayer, and she was already topping out. Or bottoming out, depending on how pliant Adora was that particular day. Once in her larger form, Adora gave Catra a grin, tore down some junk from the wall, and twisted the pipes into pretzels, until she had fashioned together a crude oversized hook.
Catra tried to hide the thrill shooting through her body and reddening her face as she watched Adora effortlessly bend thick steel tubes like paper clips. “This has to be the dumbest use of She-Ra I've seen.” she said, crossing her arms and trying not to bite her lip bloody.
“Seen so far!” Adora said cheerfully. “Now... let's see how my fishing is...”
Catra had dropped down to all fours and leaned over the pool. Her attention was rapt; she completely forgot she was hovering over the same fluid that has caused her so much agony; that buried her sense of self so deep that it threatened to never surface again. She was lost in the spectacle of Adora chasing around her mask at the bottom with a pipe. Her tail swished from side to side as she watched Adora swipe at the mask again and again with the makeshift hook, eyes big and absorbed, head following the movement with seamless grace.
Adora smiled. Catra found the oddest things captivating. It was so cute!
Adora managed to hook the mask just firmly enough on the tip of the pipe. She knew she wouldn't be able to balance it all the way up, but she was She-Ra! She could take shortcuts. She flipped it up out of the water with a single yank of her arm, and caught it in her left hand. “Got it!”
Catra snatched it out of Adora's grasp out of pure excitement. A 6'6 warrior goddess was nothing compared to an eager, leaping Catra. She turned around to affix it on her face, and turned back to Adora with a chershire grin. “How do I look?”
Adora giggled. “I think you need the long hair to pull it off.”
Catra took it off, smiling as she did. She was so beautiful when she smiled. “Don't worry, Princess. I'll save this for special occasions. Like scaring the kids with stories of the terrible Horde warrior... FORCE CAPTAIN CATRA!” She was still getting used to her own history of wrongdoing. Treating it a little lightly helped. She took a deep, satisfied breath and twirled the mask around her fingers as she turned on her heel. “Okay. I'm good. Let's go home now.”
All her easy confidence had returned as she swaggered back through the ruins of the ship. Adora smiled, broad and happy. She loved her so much.
*****
Bared in the moonlight, Catra sat motionless beneath the window, her mask held in her hands, her focus on it unyielding.
Groggy, head fuzzy, Adora murmured, “Catra...?”
Not loud enough for Catra to hear her, apparently. She dragged her drowsy carcass out of bed and to her feet unsteadily. A few stumbling steps brought her close to Catra, but she still didn't seem to notice Adora. Catra just stared at the mask with disturbing intensity. She looked so sad, so filled with remorse and regret. Then, without looking up, she whispered, “Hey, Adora.”
Adora tried not to barrel into her as she threw her arms around her. “Hey.” Adora said, “You've got something on your mind.” Adora pushed her head into Catra's shoulder, looking up at her with tired, but loving blue-gray eyes. “You know I'll never let you go, right?”
“Y-yeah...” Her grip on the mask tightened, and her voice tensed. “I just... I've hurt you a lot, Adora...” she rasped with quiet despair, “I don't wanna hurt you anymore...”
“When you open up to someone... it can hurt.” Adora said, “It's okay. I'm ready.” Adora hoped Catra didn't notice the string of sleepy drool she accidentally deposited on her shoulder as she nestled against her. “Please... don't shut me out, Catra.”
Catra shook. She couldn't fight Adora asking her like that. “Since I got this stupid mask back, I keep having this nightmare, every time I try to go to sleep.” She fiddled with the mask in her hands. “I see you leaving me.” she whispered, “Back in Thaymor. I see you leaving me again and again and again, and I hate it, and I hate you, and I hate me, and I hate the world...” Her hands shook.
“I'm here now.” Adora said softly, hoping that sounded reassuring rather than defensive.
Catra hardly seemed to hear her. “I thought you were just throwing me away, and I...” She clutched the mask so hard her hands shook. “I tore up everything I could get my hands on. I scratched our dumb drawing next to your... next to... our... bunk...” Catra looked at her claws, and sheathed them. “My world ended...” Catra seemed smaller than ever, smaller than seemed possible. “I wanted to throw up. I wanted to die. You were all I had. And you were just... gone...”
Adora's eyes filled with horror and regret.
“I told myself I hated you. I didn't need you. You weren't worth it, weren't worth anything. That you didn't even care about me. I never believed it.” Catra's teeth chattered. She couldn't look at Adora. “Even at the... the temple... I knew just how badly I was messing up, I just...” She sobbed. “I was just lost and hurt and so angry at everything...”
“Catra, Catra...” Adora cried, letting Catra curl up into her welcoming embrace. “I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry... I let things get so bad...”
“I know you cared. I know now. I just... didn't see it at the time.”
“You didn't see it because I didn't show it!” Adora blurted, “I was so caught up in myself and the idea I had some big destiny...” She shook her head and laid her shaking hands on Catra's cold back. “I just thought you didn't come with me because you didn't want to leave the Horde. I never thought it was... personal. Despite you telling me that again and again and again...” She coughed out an ugly sob. “I always thought I knew best... I didn't listen to you... if I could go back...”
Catra tried to cut off that line of thought before it consumed Adora. “If I could go back I'd do a whole lot of things differently, too.” she interrupted, raising an eyebrow lightly and sniffling back a fresh wave of tears with a weak smile. “I'd try the food at princess prom for one. Pretty sure that'd get me motivated to defect and get off ration bars pretty quickly.” She'd hardly got a bite in before Entrapta'd stole it right out of her hand for 'analysis'.
Adora half-laughed and wiped a few tears from her eyes with a sniff. “I don't know, Scorpia managed to hang on.”
“Scorpia also believed in something. In people.” Catra leaned back into Adora, gaze distant and unfocused. “I would've tossed the whole Fright Zone to the wolves if it made my life a little easier. I wish I'd used that to get away from there instead of hurting everyone who tried to help me.”
Adora shook her head vigorously. “If I'd just tried harder to reach out to you... you wouldn't have felt like you were left behind!” A sob slipped from her chest. “I was a stupid kid. I didn't think anything through. I'm so sorry, Catra, and I always will be-”
“It's okay! It's okay! We're here now, right? All of that stuff happened... all the dumb mistakes we both made... happened so we could be here.” Catra buried herself in Adora's bare, warm chest. With a sincerity immune to counterfeit, she whispered, “That makes it worth it.”
“I care about you...” Adora whimpered, “I always have... I wish I'd shown you sooner...”
“It's okay, Adora.” she said softly, “I know you, dummy. My head was all messed up, but... I saw it eventually. Besides... I was so mentally trapped in the Horde, I might not have come with you even if you spent all those years doing nothing but trying to get me to see reason.” Catra looked up at her, two-toned eyes big and empathetic. “What do you want, Adora?”
“You.”
“Yeah.” Catra smiled, and kissed her tenderly. “What did you want? Back then?” Before Adora could answer 'you' again, Catra continued, “You didn't choose. You let everyone else choose for you. You gave everything to everyone except you.” She touched Adora's cheek. She was so soft and warm... Catra looked into those deep blue eyes and let her lose herself for a few long moments. Eventually she continued, in a small voice, “I always thought you wanted to leave me. That you wanted to drop me like the burden I thought I was. I just thought you were leaving the break half-done cuz you weren't gutsy enough to finish it. But I saw you didn't – never wanted to leave me behind. You never left me behind. You just always wanted to give me a choice. The one thing the Horde never gave us. I didn't even know what to do with it for the longest time... I didn't really know what it was. That's why I told you I love you, at the Heart.” She curled around in Adora's arms to put her head against her chest, to listen to her gentle heart beat. “I finally realized I had a choice. I chose to love you. And you...” Catra's voice cracked with emotion. “... you chose to love me back.”
Tears in her voice, Adora gasped, “I love you so much, Catra.”
“Love you too, dummy.” she murmured. “You make me feel safe.”
“Always.” Adora whispered. “I'll never let you go again.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” Adora said, tears in her eyes. Happy or pained, even she couldn't say. Maybe there wasn't a difference.
Catra's tail twirled around Adora's leg as she purred into her. Everything in her life was worth hearing that. “Take me back to bed, Princess."