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If it was one thing Adora was finding herself still getting used to during her time in space it was that things were really, really cramped.
Darla, the old First One’s ship that had recently been named by Entrapta, didn’t exactly have much in terms of living space. It was clear that the ship had been designed for a much smaller crew.
When Adora, Bow and Entrapta had left Etheria, they’d merely assumed they’d just be bringing Glimmer back with them. There were two bedrooms on the ship and Entrapta more or less just slept wherever she wanted.
But not only was Glimmer with them now, but also Catra and a lost horde clone to boot. Though much like Entrapta, Wrong Hordak seemed to just sleep wherever he pleased.
But for Adora… well for most of the trip, she’d been bunking with Bow in the same room. Being in space naturally felt very vast and lonely and isolating for her, so it was good to sleep close to a friend, something that had always helped deal with her anxieties as a child when she slept with Catra.
However, since Glimmer’s rescue, things had gotten rather awkward in the sleeping situation and once again Adora found herself looking for somewhere else to sleep for the night, somewhere a few days ago, she still wouldn’t have expected.
“Again?” Catra laughed.
“Yes, again,” Adora groaned, currently sitting on the catgirl’s bed with her head in her hands in exasperation. “It’s like Glimmer and Bow are desperate to have that bed all to themselves now.”
That had been the situation Adora had found herself in ever since Glimmer had come back. She and Bow were practically inseparable now, always staying around one another and not leaving each other’s side.
When they slept, Glimmer slept on the same bed as Adora and Bow, always snuggled up in Bow’s arms. At first, Adora hadn’t minded this, but now, it made sleeping very, very awkward.
But she didn’t want to hurt their feelings by bringing it up. Both Glimmer and Bow had been through a lot and if she were honest… she thought it was rather cute how happy they were together now, how they clearly had some special bond between them.
“Have you told them to like… get a room?” Catra wondered. “Like, you need a place to sleep too.”
“No, that’d be rude,” Adora argued. “Besides, you didn’t see the big fight they had right before you and Glimmer got taken. It was… messy.”
“Ah, I gathered it was bad from what sparkles told me,” Catra agreed.
“Exactly and after all that, Glimmer and Bow deserve some peace to themselves, before everything probably goes to hell again.” Adora sighed, knowing she was once again getting herself very, very off-topic. “Anyway, the point is, can I sleep here again tonight? I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to. I could always grab a blanket and sleep on the bridge or something or-”
Catra rolled her eyes. “Yes, you big dummy.”
“Okay thank you!” Adora sighed in relief. While she did like staying with Catra, she was still unsure about cramping Catra’s space. Between all of them, Catra had been through the worst of late and Adora knew she needed a chance to recover. “If you still want space though, I can always sleep on the floor.”
“No, I want you here,” Catra said, blushing slightly. She shook her head before changing the topic. “Besides, this bed is gigantic, more than enough space.”
“It is a big bed.”
“How tall were First One’s anyway?”
“I don't think it was for First One’s exactly,” Adora said. “From the stuff I’ve read, they had a lot of different species in the empire and probably just figured, hey one size bed fits all.”
Catra chuckled. “Yeah, and also because they probably all have giant hair poofs like you. I mean, they gotta account for stuff like that.”
“Very funny,” Adora sighed, before giggling a little. She took off her jacket and curled up on the very large bed next to Catra.
Lying down, she felt Catra rest up against her, the two of them looking up at the window above them, seeing a beautiful field of stars flying past them as the ship sailed across the ocean of space.
Feeling Catra next to her, Adora looked down, seeing the felid holding her hand and a familiar fuzzy tail coiling around her leg. Already she felt safe and welcomed here. Something stirred in her heart, something that made her feel warm.
“The stars are really beautiful, aren’t they,” Catra admitted.
“Heh, I know, it’s quite the view isn’t it,” Adora added, before she turned to look at Catra. Their faces were inches apart and a warmth crept over Adora’s face. Her eyes widening, she looked straight up, slightly embarrassed.
Catra giggled. “What’s with you?”
“Nothing… just… thinking… about stuff,” Adora tried to excuse.
“You? Thinking? Who are you and what have you done with Adora?”
“Hey, I’m still me!”
“Yeah, still the dork who always rushed head first during the training sims back the horde, and I always had to clean up the mess.”
“Hey, you still were impulsive too.”
“And you turned it into a goddamn art form,” Catra snarked.
“Well, I didn’t get called Shadow Weaver’s favourite for nothing!” Adora snapped, before then she stopped, realising what she’d said, knowing how much Shadow Weaver had hurt both of them. “I… I'm sorry.”
“No… Don’t be,” Catra sighed. “When this is all over, that woman is gonna have a reckoning… she is still around, right?”
“Last time I checked, yeah,” Adora responded. “But… that can wait. I’m… sorry for bringing it up.”
“It’s okay, really,” Catra replied, rolling on her side and holding her hands close to her chest. “I guess… we both still have a lot to work through, about well… everything.”
“At least we’re doing it together and no one can hurt us now… for the moment,” Adora said, before looking up at the stars again. She started to feel nostalgic, reminding herself of the few good moments she and Catra had growing up in the Horde.
“You know… it still feels weird, talking to you again, lying awake in bed like this,” Adora remarked.
“Really?”
“Yeah… I missed this… I missed you,” Adora admitted.
Catra, in an attempt to not let her tough facade crack again, deflected that with her usual snark. “What, are Sparkles and Arrow boy that boring to you now?”
“No!” Adora laughed. “But just… I meant like… Oh, I can’t find the words.”
Catra rolled back over, pulling Adora to face her again. “Hey, take your time, the words will come to you.” She reached down, taking Adora’s hands into her own and squeezing them tightly, furred fingers interlocking with Adora’s own.
SIghing, Adora looked at Catra again, at those heterochromatic eyes staring back at her. She’d seen so many emotions in those eyes over the years. Hate, Pain, Sorrow, Joy, but now… she saw she was content, she felt safe with her and Adora felt safe with Catra, like Catra was her other half that she’d finally been reunited with, the two parts of the whole almost rejoined.
“Well… You were my first real friend,” Adora admitted. “My best friend, the one who always stayed with me, the one who I always loved being around and… well it always stuck with me all these years.”
“Stuck with you?”
“When… When I joined the rebellion, when I thought there was no chance of you ever seeing reason and leaving the Horde, I didn’t know how to let go of you. Part of me felt like cutting you free, pushing you out would have healed me… but deep down I know I couldn’t have. Because I still had all those memories of you, memories I couldn’t just ignore.”
“Adora…”
The emotions came flooding out of Adora, as the blonde was able to put her so many of her disparate, deepest thoughts into words.
“I could make new friends, I could be with people who supported me, replace all the abuse that Shadow Weaver dealt to me with kindness from Queen Angella or whoever. But the one thing I could never replace… was you. I couldn’t find another Catra, because there was only one of you and… God, Catra am I making a lick of sense here?”
Catra was just staring in shock and surprise. She knew now that despite everything Adora had never hated her, but she didn’t know how deep their connection still was. She’d spent so long thinking Adora didn’t care, that Catra was just disposable to her… but she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“...You’re making sense,” Catra eventually said. “I just… I just didn’t know you felt like that.”
“I did… I felt like it for so long,” Adora admitted, starting to cry. “And it got worse and worse. Every fight we had, every moment after I realised it was impossible to get you back after the portal and just wanted to end it. I thought we could never talk again unless we were fighting and my sword was at your throat… I thought… I thought… we’d never have anything like this again.”
“What do you mean 'like this'?”
“Just us being here. Sleepovers, staying up late, talking about whatever. I don’t know, just… it doesn’t hurt now but it did and just-”
The blonde’s words were cut off as Catra suddenly pulled her into the tightest of hugs. Adora felt her slightly muscular frame be held by Catra’s firm embrace. The tears stopped for a moment, as Catra’s fingers threaded through her hair, undoing the ponytail from its braid and letting her hair free.
Catra knew Adora’s pain, she knew it all too well. She thought no one in the universe had cared about her, hence why she’d forced herself into the only thing she was seemingly ever good at, destroying, hurting. But things could be different for her now, and for Adora too. Their hearts had been in such pain… but now the healing could begin.
“Catra…”
“Just let me hold you, idiot,” Catra whispered into the crook of Adora’s neck. “We both need this.”
“I… I never thought you’d hug me again.”
“Me neither, so let me keep hugging you, who knows when the next chance we’ll get will be.”
“That’s… That’s true,” Adora admitted.
The two of them kept holding one another, arms and legs and Catra’s tail curled around the other as tight as they could. The universe would likely pull them apart again, since fate clearly had it out for them.
But now, they had each other and Catra was going to fight as hard as she could so she could stay like this, keep Adora safe, and keep them both from ever having to go through all their suffering all over again.
Adora’s tears were still streaming down her cheeks, a mix of relief, pain and god knows how many other feelings. She and Catra would heal those wounds, those deep wounds that still pained in their hearts.
Eventually, the two of them parted, looking at each other once more, their heads pressed against one another.
“I missed you,” Adora finally said.
“I missed you more,” Catra whispered. “But I’m here now and so are you. We’re together. Nothing bad can happen now. Remember our promise?”
“Like I’d forget a thing like that,” Adora had to chuckle.
“Good because… you were my best friend too, Adora,” Catra argued. “I don’t think I’d have survived the Horde without you.”
“Neither would I.”
Then Catra smirked again. “C’mere, enough sappy stuff. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Says the girl who was totally purring when she saw me again after we saved you.”
“Uh huh, yeah right.”
“You’re a sap too.”
“I’m not!”
“You must really like me~.”
Catra was about to deny that, to say that she didn’t like Adora, that she loved her and wanted to kiss that beautiful face of hers. She wanted to kiss her so badly, wanted nothing more than to profess her love and ask Adora to be hers forever, but… no, she wasn’t ready, not even after all that. She knew she and Adora still had to go through a lot before any kind of relationship like that could happen.
“Okay fine, maybe I do like you so what?”
“That’s cute, you’re cute,” Adora teased, before she tickled Catra’s belly. “And you’re sooooo fluffy~!”
“Stop!” Catra tried to deny it between her giggles, but Adora wasn’t going to stop. She wasn’t going to let Catra go. She kept tickling her and the two laughed together, before eventually holding one another on the bed, both of them feeling the happiest and safest they’d felt in years.
Soon, the two of them fell asleep, under the streaking stars the ship kept flying through. Soon, they’d be home, this war would be over and they’d have a chance to rebuild all over again, this time for the better.