Archive of Our Own ^beta

She does not remember
to think of me anymore.
We recognize each other only in echoes.

- Donika Kelly, “She, a zombie”; Bestiary: Poems

January 19th is always the most wretched day of the year for Catra.

By the time it rolls around, the Fright Zone has already been hit with the worst of the cold, meaning Catra wakes up in her downtown apartment under three different wool blankets, her teeth chattering as the wind howls against the window and into the old creaking vents. She figures something’s wrong with the heating when the house still isn’t warm enough to walk through without freezing her tail off - Scorpia usually turns on the heating as soon as she’s awake, before starting her shift at the flower shop, and it’s ten in the morning already. Catra figures it’s time for the radiator’s yearly inspection, resolves to call the landlady after her morning coffee, and drags herself to the kitchen, wrapped up in a blanket.

She usually doesn’t pay it too much mind - she’s had the blanket since she was a kid, now worn out and frayed at the edges - but something about this day makes her bury her face into it and breathe in, hoping to catch the last remnants of cedarwood even though the smell has faded years ago.

She hears the clattering of appliances and a kettle whistling from the hallway, and when she walks into the dimly lit kitchen - she’s pretty sure it snowed through the night - she finds Entrapta bent over the microwave in a t-shirt and overalls, which is what she wears in the house regardless of how hot or cold it is. Catra, instead, drags her blanket on the floor miserably and rushes to the window to keep the chill from coming in.

“Coffee’s ready,” Catra says by way of greeting, huffing as she slams the shutters closed. “Leave that microwave for a second.”

“Oh, I’m trying to program an additional setting into it,” Entrapta starts rambling, as if the place wasn’t about to catch fire at that very moment, “so I can get the hottest food in the shortest amount of time.”

“That’s great, Entrapta, but you’re wasting time on it that you could actually spend heating the food,” Catra remarks, resigning herself to turning off the stove. She pours herself a large cup of coffee, then adds in enough milk that the largest mug she owns is filled to the brim.

“I didn’t feel like waiting,” Entrapta replies, and gets back to work. “Also, the heating is broken.”

“Yeah, I figured. Wouldn’t try to fix it myself, though.” Catra sits at the kitchen table and starts sipping her coffee, whipping her phone out to mindlessly check her socials in the meantime.

It’s something akin to a morning ritual for her, something that gradually wakes her up and builds up the energy needed to hate people for one more day. It works, at first - selfies, random ads, people partying, people kissing, more ads; everything she despises about the world - until she swipes right one time too many and is reminded yet again - because who would let her forget - of what day it is.

On her screen is a shaky video reposted from sparklebombshell’s story, showing someone (sparklebombshell, allegedly) pushing open a door that’s very familiar to Catra, plastered with the same posters of rugby teams that have been there since they were kids. The person behind the camera walks into the room, showing a blonde girl sitting up in bed suddenly, and a cake comes into view just as the girl’s expression opens wide, delight all over her face. Even through the video’s shitty quality, Catra can see the dusting of pink that always marks the girl’s face when she’s really happy, hears at least two sets of voices yelling “SURPRISE!” as she covers her mouth, embarrassed.

Underneath it, sparklebombshell has written “HAPPY BDAY TO MY FAVORITE GIRL” in bright pink, with a long string of heart emojis. Adora’s comment on her repost is simple and straight to the point: “I have the best friends in the world!”

It should be enough for Catra to close Instagram and never look at her phone again for the rest of the day. Instead she swipes again, and again, and again, and is bombarded with pictures of Adora and her friends and the impromptu birthday party they threw her at the ass crack of dawn. Figures Adora wouldn’t even want to sleep in on her birthday, but she looks radiant - she’s always loved those little surprises, those random demonstrations of affection that Catra never really learned how to give.

Adora’s grandmother Razz is featured in one of the pictures while she’s being hugged by a pink-haired girl and a black boy - and for some reason, this is what makes Catra lose it and throw her phone across the room.

Entrapta is startled, but doesn’t comment. This happens at least twice a day, for a wide variety of reasons that Catra has made it clear she doesn’t feel like specifying.

She finishes her coffee in complete silence, save for the occasional whirring of the microwave.

Catra and Adora are six years old, and they don’t remember anything about how they met. Catra’s first memory is of Adora walking up to her and asking her if she wants to be BFFs forever, and some voice in Catra’s head whispering that this is right, this is how it should be. Of course they’re BFFs forever; as far as Catra is concerned, there was never a time they weren’t.

The other kids living with them in Shadow Weaver’s house - they’ve called her that long enough that everyone’s forgotten what her real name is - always correct them on their phrasing, possibly wanting to prove their superiority on simple matters such as the English language if they can’t prove it on anything else. Adora and Catra insist that “BFF”" has now been cheapened into nothing but a synonym for “best friend”, warranting the addition of a second “forever” to reinforce that lost aspect. The kids remain strong in their conviction, and Catra and Adora remain strong in what everyone else actually covets - Shadow Weaver’s favor.

Truth be told, it’s Adora who gets the most of her affection, if it can even be called that - she gets to be personally homeschooled, she is handed gifts and new clothes whenever she asks for them, and she is spared the brunt of her rage. Catra only partially shares those privileges because Adora wants her around all the time, and so while the other kids are at school, Catra and Adora spend the whole day together, and do their homework together, and grow up ignoring everyone else who lives in their house because they all dress the same, talk the same, and laugh about things Adora and Catra don’t understand.

“Go make some friends, Adora,” Shadow Weaver still says, every once in a while, when she finds Catra and Adora drawing, dancing or playing together. “You’ll have to make as many as you can, when you’re out of here again.”

Sometimes she follows that with a look at Catra, who always hopes she’ll be met with the same preoccupation for her future that Shadow Weaver has for Adora’s, and instead is met with an uncaring: “You, too, Catra. You won’t have anyone left when she leaves.”

It’s a pointed comment, one that’s meant to remind Catra that this - Adora being with her, choosing her, holding her hand - is only temporary, and that she’d better not hold on to it too tight. It has the exact opposite effect on her instead: precisely because Adora still has people outside waiting for her, because any day Catra could wake up to find her gone, Catra refuses to waste her time on anyone else.

Adora, on the other hand, would have done anything for a shred of Shadow Weaver’s approval, who Adora is convinced only has her best interests in mind. Truthfully, Catra doesn’t see it - Shadow Weaver is never the one comforting Adora when she cries, is often the reason Adora cries in the first place - but Adora is so dead-set on making her proud, paying her back for all that she’s done for them, that she eventually starts reaching out to the other kids.

And here’s the thing - Catra was alone in the world for years before Adora came along, but Adora probably had other friends, acquaintances, family members. Just because she never mentioned them to Catra, perfectly happy to make Catra the center of her world - perhaps because Catra needed her to - doesn’t mean her previous life hasn’t taught her to be nice and friendly and lovable in a way Catra can never expect to be. So all the things about Adora that have drawn Catra to her in the first place end up effortlessly drawing in more and more people, and Catra, well - as much as she still has Adora’s nights and her mornings, she comes to dread the lonely afternoons.

She tries making friends with Kyle, but the guy is too hyper, too dumb, and the conversation is honestly kind of bland. Then she tries with Rogelio, and while the rest of the kids do nothing but talk about how cool and funny he is, he doesn’t seem to like opening his mouth much around her, nor she around him.

But their blind indifference is still a thousand leagues better than the treatment the other kids have reserved for her. They pull on her tail and ears, laughing, rile her up only to cry foul when she turns on them and scratches them. It inevitably catches Shadow Weaver’s attention every time, and every time Catra is punished while the other kids get off scot-free.

She doesn’t like to think about the punishments, even though Shadow Weaver tells her she is supposed to, that it’s the only reason they exist.

“You’re not an animal,” she says. “You need to be taught not to act like one.”

Adora usually protects her from anyone who wants to hurt her just by virtue of her presence. Adora is barely around anymore.

One night, when it’s just too much, Catra can’t wait until lights out to sneak into Adora’s room. She needs to be held by her, to be comforted by her scent - but Adora is at the movies with one of the girls, and her blanket will have to do for now. Catra wraps it around her shoulders and cries.

Catra was invited, too. If she’d accepted, if she’d looked past the presence of a second girl she didn’t know or cared about and focused only on the chance to spend time with Adora, maybe this night would have been different. But she’s too tired, too disillusioned to even try and cater to other people. It grows clearer and clearer that Catra was built to function around Adora alone - the way she speaks, moves, acts, all perfectly discernible to Adora but terrible and incomprehensible to everyone else.

When Adora comes home, it’s slightly later than she's usually allowed to stay out, but Shadow Weaver must not have been too bothered by it, because when Adora comes in, she’s smiling. Then her eyes fall on Catra, huddled up on her bed, and her smile drops.

“Catra?” she calls softly, keeping her voice low so as not to wake anyone. “Are you okay?”

Catra is only thankful that her tears have had time to dry. Adora doesn’t need to see how weak she is - how hard the smallest things, the ones that come to Adora as natural as breathing, are for her. “Tired.”

Adora accepts that without issue. There is no reason anyone would ever lie to her. Instead, she walks up to the bed and sits next to Catra, trying to make the most of the short time they have left together - or so Catra would like to think. “Me too. It’s been a long day - good, though. What have you done?”

Catra sighs. “Just - laid around. Drove Shadow Weaver mad. The usual. How was the movie?”

Grateful for the opening, Adora excitedly launches into a play-by-play of the plot as she dives under the blanket with Catra and gently guides them down to rest their heads on the pillow.

It’s warm, and it’s safe. Catra could listen to Adora talk forever if it meant being sucked into her orbit - a nicer world, a kinder world, where at least one person can look at Catra and find her good and lovable, too. But the closest she can get to it is how close she can be to Adora.

So Catra sticks by her under Shadow Weaver’s disapproving eye, and watches as Adora grows prettier and prettier, and falls asleep in her lap and on her shoulder and smells cedarwood in her hair.

Adora hasn’t blocked her number yet.

Catra shouldn’t be too surprised - she wasn’t blocked last year, either, and she hasn’t done anything since then that would warrant Adora cutting off all contact with her, but every year, she dreads. Every year, she also hopes. Having this line of communication with Adora still open but not being able to use it in a way that matters feels like the universe making a mockery of her, and she wishes, sometimes, that it could just be gone.

Instead here she is, yet again, trying to come up with new ways to relay birthday wishes and deleting all of them before the sentence is even complete.

Hey, Adora. Happy b-

It’s Catra. Just wanted to wish-

Happy birthday! How’s it g-

I miss you. I wish we could go back.

Catra stares down at the last message, pausing on it for two seconds too long. Even if no one else is there to read it, it makes her feel stripped bare - like her skin has been pulled back to reveal a lung, or a heart. Something she knows is there, but isn’t supposed to see the outside of Catra’s body.

She backspaces until the text box is empty again.

She sighs, deciding to kill some more time before settling on a message. Adora isn’t online now, and even if she were, she wouldn’t have seen Catra typing for ten solid minutes unless she had her chat window open, so she figures there’s no rush. She scrolls up to read the last of their conversations, hoping for inspiration to hit her - but it doesn’t make her feel anything but empty.

January 19, 2019

Happy bday
13:42

Thanks, Catra!
21:07

January 19, 2018

Hey, Adora! Happy birthday
12:03

Hi! Thank you so much :)
16:50

May 12, 2017

Hey Catra, do you remember the name of my social worker?
I need to contact her but I’ve lost her number years ago
11:05

Octavia?
11:07

No, the second one
11:10

Hope?
11:17

Yeah! Do you remember her last name
11:23

Hope Lightbourne, I think?
11:25

Right! Thanks
11:36

No problem
11:37

January 19, 2017

Happy birthday!!!
15:03

January 20, 2017

Thank you!!! Sorry I didn’t see this before
8:20

After that, she treads carefully. She doesn’t want to go too far back, in case she comes across conversations she doesn’t want to remember.

Maybe she could just forgo the birthday wishes for this year. It’s not like Adora ever loses sleep over her birthday, since October 28th has gone completely unnoticed on Adora’s radar for the past five years. But somehow, skipping out on the only day she’s socially encouraged to reach out to Adora feels like a waste. When it comes to Adora, Catra is only hopeful when it goes against her self-interest.

January 19, 2020

Happy birthday 😼
11:34

There. She doesn’t want to keep thinking about it. She even threw an emoji in there - if that doesn’t show Adora that she’s trying, she doesn’t know what will. (An apology, maybe, but she hopes it never comes to that.)

When lunchtime comes around and Scorpia gets back home from her shift, she finds Catra still in the kitchen, staring into nothing. Catra realizes Entrapta is also here again, preparing - honestly a worrying amount of food, that by the looks of it is supposed to last her all day, thanks to the microwave’s new smart cooking setting. Scorpia stops on the doorstep, taking it all in.

“Uh - is everyone okay?”

“Great!” Entrapta chirps, taking another serving of tiny, flaming hot canapes out without mittens.

“Catra?” Scorpia calls, with that concerned, almost pitying way of hers that makes Catra want to claw her own eyes out.

She’s about to toss out a careless reply that would keep Scorpia from fussing, but Entrapta intervenes before she can: “It’s January 19th.”

Scorpia’s mouth opens, as if that's supposed to mean anything to her. Catra growls. “So what?”

“You’re always upset on January 19th. Like, more than usual. You groan about 122 times, instead of your average 67.”

She relays the information carefully, fearful not of Catra’s reaction - Entrapta has never shown anything but a complete disregard for her own life - but of misremembering her calculations. Still, Catra can’t deny there’s also some concern there. She’s never been one to tell people about herself - mostly because she didn’t think anything about her was particularly noteworthy, and also because she couldn’t be bothered to try if it was still only going to push people away. But she’s pretty sure her roommates of three years have already seen her at her worst, and even with their complete disregard of personal space and personal boundaries, they cared enough to keep paying attention in their own way.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Scorpia exclaims, running up to sit in the chair next to hers. “I was planning to do something special for you since Entrapta told me about it, you know, just to keep your head off things, but I was on a date with Perfuma all day yesterday and I just forgot.”

“Scorpia, it’s okay,” Catra groans, then mentally slaps herself in the face when she realizes that’s gonna be added to Entrapta’s tally. “I know you and Perfuma can only afford to close shop once a week.”

“Well, I’m here now. Do you want to talk about it?”

Does she? She usually hates the idea of opening up, but she doesn’t have to tell her everything, and then again, it’s no ordinary day. She has to let out all the pent-up energy somehow, and Scorpia and Entrapta - they aren’t the worst people to be around.

Carefully, she unlocks her phone and shows Scorpia the chat. She checks quickly that there’s still no reply, though Adora was online fifteen minutes ago. “It’s my best friend’s birthday. Well, not my best friend anymore, but - it brings back bad memories.”

“Why do you still talk to her, then?” Scorpia asks, a question Catra asks herself every year. Then her eyes suddenly widen. “Wait, Adora? Perfuma and I are catering for her party.”

Catra whips around so fast she feels her head spinning. She’s pretty sure a hiss comes out of her mouth. “What?”

“Yeah! Perfuma’s one of her friends, so it’s on the house. We need to be there before dinner to set decorations up.”

“I’m bringing the food!” Entrapta gestures excitedly at all the platters she’s amassed on the counter. “Scorpia invited me.”

Scorpia winces at that. “Sorry, Catra, I didn’t mean - we’ve hung out a couple times, but I didn’t know who she was. What did she do to you?”

“Nothing.” She’s technically not lying, but it does sound a bit defensive. “We grew apart.”

“Do you… miss her?”

Catra scoffs. “No.”

“You do!” Scorpia lights up a bit. “Catra, this is perfect! Come with us to the party tonight, I doubt she’d mind.”

“I would,” Catra retorts. Now she’s lying, but she can’t very well say what she’s actually thinking, which is that Adora wouldn’t want her there and she’d just be too nice to say so. “I don’t want to see her. A text back is all I ask for.”

“Oh, I think - I think she’s just like that. Perfuma and I called her this morning to talk about flower composition, and she picked up after hours.”

It was clearly meant to make her feel better, and when Catra feels the sudden urge to get up, lock herself in her room and tear something up, she has to remind herself that Scorpia doesn’t know. Hell, Catra herself barely knows what’s going to set her off, and if anyone asked her, a harmless comment about Adora’s phone habits wouldn’t make the cut. But as of right now, it reminds her that for all their promises of forever, Adora hasn’t even been around for long enough for Catra to know more about her phone habits than a literal stranger.

“Yeah, maybe.” She thanks her voice for being naturally rough, covering the fact that she’s choked up. She decides to flee before tears make it harder. “I’m gonna go work on my dissertation before my professor kicks my ass for being late again. Enjoy your party.”

Scorpia calls after her: “Wait, Catra, if you change your mind-”

“I won’t,” she promises, and slams the door behind her. She barely reaches her bed before dropping down on it like a deadweight and burying her face into the pillow.

Silence. Peace.

It doesn’t last.

A message comes in, breaking Catra out of her revelry, and it’s only when she checks the time that she realizes she’s blacked out just like that, flat on her bed, letting the rage and pain consume her into numbness for a good few hours. Reading it makes her wish she’d been out for longer.

Thanks!
17:07

Lonnie comes to their foster home when they’re ten, and for a moment there, Catra thinks they’ll actually get on quite well.

Granted, that impression is entirely based around a single conversation she and Adora had with her, but she can’t discount the high of being addressed like she was as much an active participant as Adora, instead of just being her pet. Most people Catra tries to talk with never even bother with that bare minimum, to the point that Catra was starting to wonder if she even deserved as much - but Lonnie’s honestly pretty cool, unlike Kyle and Rogelio and everyone else whose name she didn’t even know.

Which is why, of course, Adora gets attached to her.

Maybe “attached” isn’t really the right word - Adora hangs out with lots of people, but never seems to think about them or miss them when they’re not around - but Lonnie definitely becomes Adora’s go-to for her Shadow Weaver-designated “time away from Catra”. It stings regardless of how nice Lonnie’s been to her, and when you add in Adora actually reciprocating Lonnie’s hugs and pats and noogies, which is something she does with no one else - probably because no one else is even bold enough to try - it’s enough for Catra to absolutely hate the girl.

“Do you like her?” she asks Adora one night as they’re laying together on Adora’s bed. Adora, who was happily playing a game on her Nintendo, not privy to the crisis unraveling within Catra, looks confusedly to the side. “Lonnie.”

Adora’s mouth opens slightly in wonder at the question. “Yeah, I guess. She’s cool.”

Something tells her Adora didn’t really understand what she was asking, and to be fair, Catra didn’t either, though she knows the question was exactly right. She tries to rephrase it so her intent is more clear. “Do you like her better than me?”

Part of her wants to see Adora stunned that Catra even had to ask - she’d take the ridicule over validation. Instead, Adora seems to think about it. “It’s different,” she decides at last, and she might as well have stabbed Catra in the chest, because all this time Catra dared to think she was first in something, when she was actually playing in a separate category.

“Different how?” She tries not to seethe - tries not to sound choked up.

She must not do a very good job, because Adora suddenly pulls her closer, holding her against her chest. They haven’t slept that way in so long - have barely been allowed to sleep in the same room since Shadow Weaver decided they were too old now, but Catra misses Adora’s heartbeat under her ears. She misses Adora even when she’s right in front of her, these days, and so she holds her tighter, hoping she can absorb her into her body, somehow, and never have to miss her again.

“I don’t know,” Adora murmurs into her shoulder. “It’s you. That’s how it’s different.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Adora.”

“I mean-” Adora huffs, apparently finding it just as hard to explain. She seems hesitant, maybe even embarrassed. “Don’t you feel like that, too?”

How should Catra know? She doesn’t have any other friends to compare her relationship with Adora with. She’d always thought their connection was more intense than most, sure, but she took comfort in knowing she at least knew the broad strokes of friendship and could replicate them again, if needed. If what she and Adora have really is an entirely different thing, perhaps something unique - then she can never hope to have something like it again.

Sure, she figures it isn’t exactly normal for her to want to touch Adora all the time. Maybe Shadow Weaver is right about that. And maybe she sometimes finds herself daydreaming about their future, which is pretty sure isn’t supposed to happen, but someone has to do all the planning if Adora won’t. And maybe one time - the only time Adora ever got a bad grade alongside Catra - Catra’s lips lingered too long on Adora’s hand, but that was only because Catra knew all about what it felt like to fall short when you’d tried really hard, and she’d hoped kissing worked on emotional wounds, too.

So maybe it is too much. Catra doesn’t think Adora minds, exactly - but if their relationship was more normal, maybe they didn’t have to stay away from each other so much. Maybe if Catra took a step back and toned down her affection, or at least its outward manifestations, Shadow Weaver would come to see her as a positive influence, instead of a hindrance. She wouldn’t have to give Adora up to Lonnie, or anyone else.

“No, I don’t,” Catra finally replies. “We’re best friends. Nothing weird about that.”

“I didn’t say weird-”

“Abnormal. Out of the ordinary. Whatever you want to call it.” And if she’s being honest, maybe Adora just deserves something easier to handle. Something casual, that doesn’t require lifelong commitment - with someone she doesn’t have to think about protecting or keeping out of trouble all the time.

“It’s a good weird,” insists Adora, reaching for her hand. She’s starting to smile, one of those smiles that make Catra lightheaded for some reason, and Catra needs to make it stop, so she breaks out of Adora’s hold entirely.

“Not according to Shadow Weaver,” Catra huffs, “and I’d hate to prove her right.”

Adora’s whole face falls, but Catra tries not to think too hard about it.

January 19th, 2020

You’re welcome. Btw, Scorpia’s my roommate
and she invited me so I’ll be crashing your party.
17:43

“Scorpia?” Catra calls, peeking out of her room. She’s heard no noise in the house since waking up, and she’s afraid Scorpia and Entrapta have already left. Not that that would keep her from showing up at Adora’s house - she still knows where it is, and she probably could have made a great surprise appearance if she hadn’t announced her presence to Adora already, craving that instant gratification - but she’d rather Scorpia and Entrapta make a scene about it now, instead of at the party.

Scorpia is immediately summoned out of her room, sporting a long black dress, ruby earrings and a very concerned expression. Catra usually never called for anyone. “Catra, are you okay?”

Sighing, Catra opens her door all the way, showing Scorpia what she's wearing, and Scorpia’s eyes widen impossibly. Catra’s ragged, torn-up style has never been good for winter, so she’s dug up a maroon jumpsuit that dips dangerously low on her chest and fingerless gloves. She can’t say if Scorpia’s reaction is because of the outfit or of what it implies.

“You’re coming?”

“Yup,” Catra drawls out. “I can finish this chapter tomorrow. Figured I deserved a break.”

“Oh! Oh, that’s good news. Entrapta brought appetizers over a couple hours ago,” - so that’s why the house was so quiet - “but uh, Perfuma’s picking me up soon with the flowers. Want to come with?”

Catra rolls her eyes. Most people think of their birthday as just another regular day, and Catra, in particular, resents her own with a burning passion, but Adora enjoys the attention too much not to make her birthday a day long event so all of her friends could get their due. “Sure. I’ll grab my coat.”

It’s a fur coat that is definitely not her style, but also the warmest thing she owns. It’s the least flamboyant gift Double Trouble gave her in the year they lived on campus together, so she ties it to her waist, makes sure it fits with the rest of the attire - she wouldn’t have been opposed to a bomber jacket, but if she can look hot tonight, she will - and calls it a night, slipping her phone and money in her pockets.

Scorpia and Perfuma are already waiting for her in the car when she comes back - not that they seem to pay much attention to her. Catra hates to interrupt their make-out session, but Perfuma’s tongue in Scorpia’s mouth really isn’t something she wants to see when she’s supposed to be on her way to her ex best friend’s house, so she knocks on the window and they scurry apart right away.

“Sorry!” Perfuma squeaks, immediately looking into the rearview mirror to fix the hat on her head like that was more compromising than the lipstick all over her face and neck. Scorpia, equally unaware that all of her lipstick has ended up on Perfuma’s skin, opens the door for Catra to get in. “It’s good that you’re joining us, Catra.”

“Whatever,” Catra mumbles, sinking into the backseat. She likes Perfuma well enough, especially for Scorpia, but she’s still not gonna talk to her more than absolutely necessary, lest she start asking questions about her - gasp - private life. Like Adora.

It’s funny. Adora hasn’t been part of her life for years now, and yet a version of her still lives in Catra’s mind, protected like a secret. It lives in the same house she’s always lived in - save for the years in foster care - listening to the same music, wearing the same stupid red jacket, waiting for Catra to swing in like any other day and pull on her ponytail. Despite everything that happened between them, that Adora is still intact in her mind.

Now, as Perfuma pulls up to the house, Catra knows the illusion is at last going to be broken. The sun is setting, and she knows the dinner party after the lunch party after the breakfast party is about to start, and people she only knows through Adora’s Instagram stories are fretting in the garden, ushering Perfuma in to help them set the place.

Scorpia and Perfuma start running around, strategically placing flowers on delicate white tables and debating whether tulips or dandelions would make better centerpieces. They ask Catra if she wants to join them - a suggestion which Catra receives with a boisterous “No” and with the realization that she can now either hover about for half an hour, or walk up to the house and find Adora.

It doesn’t take long. She’d still recognize Adora’s laugh everywhere, and it rings out now all over the garden.

Catra is fourteen when the worst thing in the world happens.

Adora leaves the home.

It was to be expected; Shadow Weaver only taunted her with the prospect about six times a day, after all, and she’s known from the beginning that Adora wasn’t like the rest of them - that she has family outside waiting for her, that all this, and Catra too, is just a temporary bump in the road.

Now that her grandma has been released from the psychiatric hospital and deemed fit to look after her again, Adora can go home. The fact that the worst thing in the world to Catra is something Adora was dreaming about since she was a kid should maybe give her more pause, choke her up with guilt, and - don’t get her wrong, she feels plenty guilty already, along with every possible negative emotion she’s able to conjure. But so long as Adora doesn’t see any of it, Catra thinks, she’ll be fine.

Adora is happy as she packs her bags with the little stuff she has strewn about her room, including Catra’s presents to her and some of Catra’s own shirts. They’ve shared a wardrobe for the entire time they’ve been here, and they’ve never seemed to pay any mind to which clothes were whose, which is why Catra is surprised when Adora outright asks if she can keep some of Catra’s things as hers.

“Of course,” Catra nods, blinking down what feels like an upcoming wave of tears. “Keep them. As a souvenir, or something.”

Adora frowns at that. “Catra, you know we’re going to keep in touch, right? I’m not leaving you.”

Catra sniffles. “Right.”

“I’m serious. I promised you, didn’t I?”

Catra believes her, of course. She believes Adora has every intention of following up on that promise, and not even Shadow Weaver’s words will make her doubt her own best friend - but Catra is not looking forward to four more years of being completely and utterly alone in the home, and Adora will probably be too busy with her grandma to do something about it, at least at first.

And then, of course, Adora will have to deal with public school for the first time in her life, and presumably - now that Adora won’t be there to share her homeschooling privilege - so will Catra. Shadow Weaver has already sneered at the prospect of her in an actual, serious learning environment, with teachers who won’t have the same patience for Catra’s shortcomings as their previous handpicked tutors did - and aside from the workload Adora is sure to take upon herself, there will be extracurriculars to enroll in, and proms to attend, and many, many Lonnies for Adora to hang out with everyday. Catra doesn’t stand a chance.

Which is why she’s so surprised when, exactly a week after Adora goes back home - after Catra silently cries on her shoulder, away from Shadow Weaver’s eyes, and almost rips Adora’s sleeve trying to keep her from walking out on her - Adora invites Catra to lunch to her grandmother’s house.

The house is quaint and unassuming, except for the huge garden up front. Catra suspects it hasn’t been tended to for all the years the house has been empty, but Adora and Razz have clearly been working to make it flourish again in time for summer, some of the soil messily dug up to host new seeds and the lawn freshly mowed.

The two of them are waiting for Catra on the porch - Adora sitting on the front steps, jumping up when she catches Catra’s silhouette in the driveway, and Razz waiting on an armchair, looking meek and kind and just a little bemused when she inevitably notices Catra’s ears and tail.

The air smells delicious - a thousand times better than any meal Catra’s ever had at Shadow Weaver’s house - but she can’t focus on it too much when Adora’s hugging her, holding her so tight Catra thinks she’ll never let her go, and they’ll have to skip lunch and dinner and maybe even tomorrow’s breakfast altogether. Catra would be cool with that.

But eventually, Adora releases her from the hug and smiles at her like she’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “I’ve missed you.”

“It’s only been a week.” Like Catra’s one to talk. She doesn’t know why she still feels the need to act tough when she’s already begged Adora to stay - when Adora knows damn well it’s been the longest week of Catra’s life.

“Well, I used to see you every day,” Adora retorts, and it’s enough, for now.

Adora grabs her hand to interlink their fingers and lead her to the porch, where Razz is observing them. “Grandma, this is Catra. My best friend.”

“Catra,” Razz smiles wide, trying the name out on her tongue. “It’s so good to finally meet you, dearie. Mara talks about you all the time.”

Catra freezes, sends Adora a worried glance. Adora’s own smile hasn’t dropped entirely, but there’s just that tinge of sadness that lets Catra know this is a more common occurrence than Adora would like.

“I told you, grandma, I’m Adora. Mara is-” Adora cuts off, clearly recognizing this as a bad time to break Razz the news that her daughter is dead. “Well. I’m Adora.”

“Adora,” Razz repeats, slapping herself lightly on the side of the head. “Right. You look so much like her, but you’re shorter.”

A few seconds of silence follow that statement - Adora and her mother did look very much alike, though their heights were far from being the most substantial difference - but Razz immediately fills it with shrill laughter. “Well, no point standing here talking. Come in, girls! Lunch is ready.”

Razz jumps to her feet and makes her way through the front door. Adora tries to follow her, but Catra grabs her wrist to hold her back. “Didn’t they say she was getting better?”

Adora sighs, just looking very defeated. Catra hates it - Adora is not the type to ever give up on anything. “She is. But mom’s death seems to still be a blind spot for her, and it affects everything else.”

“She called you Mara. Does she recognize you?”

“No,” Adora looks down at the doorstep. She had a growth spurt in the past two years or so, yet now she looks smaller than when Catra first met her, all crumpled over herself. “Not if I don’t tell her. She didn’t recognize me when she first saw me, and I think if I were to go away now, she’d just forget about me.”

Catra tries to imagine what it would be like, if her permanence in someone’s mind depended entirely on her physical presence in their life. She doesn’t need to let her thoughts wander too far, because after all, this is exactly the case - Razz will probably be sweet and nice to her all through lunch, and then she will forget Catra’s name as soon as she’s out the door. It’s terrifying, how fleeting and unimportant Catra is in the grand scheme of things, and that Adora is awarded the same degree of recognition in Razz’s life as a literal stranger.

Catra wonders if maybe Adora is thinking about the same thing. She doesn’t know how to comfort her - Adora is so used to tackling her problems head-on, and this is something she can’t fix - but Adora just holds Catra’s hand in reply, and her smile, though bearing a special kind of melancholy, is sincere. Adora smiles at Catra, and she’s beautiful, and Catra cannot look away.

“Let’s go inside,” Adora suggests, and Catra is surprised to find a hint of breathlessness in her voice, which Adora immediately coughs away by clearing her throat. “I told Razz to cook your favorite.”

Inside the house, the party goes on.

It’s nothing too crazy - no loud music, no fluorescent lights, no alcohol kegs, because this is still Adora we’re talking about - but it is, undeniably, a party. People sit and talk on all of the couches, laughing like they’re hearing nothing but the best jokes, all the time, and plates get passed around - Entrapta waves at her, finding it not weird at all that Catra’s here - all while sweet ambiance music plays in the background.

Catra knows Adora’s here somewhere - but she’s so fucking scared, part of her hopes she never finds her. Then she can say she’s tried all she can, and some higher power just didn’t want her to reconnect with Adora. But if she turns any of these corners and finds her, and Adora doesn’t throw her out - Catra hasn’t checked her phone for a reply; she likes to be surprised - then the rest is up to Catra, and she has no idea how to pull this off. She’s showing up unannounced in Adora’s life again, after one year of silence and four of only sporadic interactions, planning on making promises she doesn’t know she can keep.

Maybe this was a mistake. There’s still time to get the hell out of there and text Adora something like “jk. but we really should catch up one of these days”. Smooth, detached, and most importantly, Catra won’t have to look Adora in the face.

There’s only one problem with that plan - Razz is currently nibbling on food in the kitchen, and she’s spotted Catra already.

She quickly tries to reason with herself. To Razz, she’s probably just one more party-goer she won’t notice the disappearance of. Despite Razz once teaching her how to sew, watching over Catra and Adora as they fell asleep in front of the tv, bringing cookies up to Adora’s room for them to enjoy while they studied - it was such a brief window of time, in the grand scheme of things, that to Razz, it might as well have never existed.

Razz might not remember their names, but she must at least recognize Adora’s new friends by virtue of them always being attached to her hip. The same cannot be said for -

“Catra?” Razz’s sweet voice calls out to her, her eyes narrowing in on her. “Is that you?”

Catra freezes on the spot, but now Razz is taking off her glasses, cleaning them on the hem of her dress to look at her better, and she feels compelled to raise her hand and crack a greeting: “Hey, Razz.”

“It is you.” Razz lights up at that and crosses the kitchen on unsteady legs to meet her halfway into the living room. “I haven’t seen you around for so long. What happened to you?”

She doesn’t know why her chest feels so hollow, all of a sudden. She doesn’t know how to explain everything to Razz in what’s supposed to be a short reply, not when she doesn’t even fully understand it herself. “It’s complicated. But I’m here now. Looking for Adora.”

Razz smiles like none of that is a surprise to her. She doesn’t know how much Adora’s told her and how much of it Razz still remembers, but it’s like finding Catra in her house after six years of silence was just what it all was building up to, like this was just a skirmish her two girls needed time to work through instead of life running its course and taking away the only good thing Catra ever had.

“She’ll be so happy to see you,” Razz says softly. “She still talks about you all the time.”

Maybe Razz thinks they’re still those two girls. Maybe, just like Catra, she hasn’t moved a day past that time.

But if their memory is still alive in someone, then -

She has to try.

She nods deferentially to Razz, watching the old woman beam one last time before patting Catra on the shoulder. She takes that to mean Razz is sending her on her merry way, and also that she has no intention of telling her where Adora is - which makes sense, because Razz spouted cryptic shit like “It’s about the journey, not the destination” all the time - so she ventures deeper into the house.

Adora’s head falls on Catra’s shoulder, seemingly randomly, and Catra’s so startled she almost drops her ice cream cone on the side of the pavement. “Everyone at school makes fun of me.”

“Well, yeah. That’s because everyone at your school is stupid.” Hasn’t Catra already told her so? She thinks she told her so, yet Adora keeps wanting to branch out like having Catra by her side isn’t enough. She wants the normal high school experience, and normal friends, and she’s so caught up in this weird frenzy that she’s yet to reckon with the fact that she isn’t normal - that neither of their lives up until that point has been.

Adora winces - possibly because of her words, possibly because the setting sun is hurting her eyes. “They’re not mean about it. They just think it’s weird how much stuff I’m clueless about, like - romance, for example. All of my friends have already had their first kiss, and I’ve never even dated anyone.”

“So what? You had more important things to think about, like - oh, surviving Shadow Weaver’s house, and they didn’t.”

She feels Adora’s gaze burning through her, and Catra takes a tentative bite of her ice cream as if that will help her cool down. “Did you have your first kiss already?”

“Yeah, sure. Been having a lot of fun with Lonnie while you were gone.”

“Catra!”

Catra snickers, because it’s a stupid question and Adora knows it too. Who is Catra going to kiss? Her entire world has revolved around Adora from pretty much the moment she was born. Granted, she doesn’t want to kiss Adora either - she’s pretty sure of that - but the idea of connecting with anyone else that much is unthinkable. She is Adora’s, even though Adora might be hers less and less every day.

“Let’s make a deal,” Adora’s saying now, and she’s already grabbed Catra’s pinkie like she knows Catra will never reject her, never tell her no, never turn down anything that comes out of her mouth. “Promise me that whenever you do have your first kiss, I’ll be the first person you tell. And I’ll do the same when I get my first kiss.”

Catra rolls her eyes and touches her ice cream cone to Adora’s nose just to hear her squeak. She has no need to make that promise - first, because Catra isn’t kissing anyone, and secondly, because even if she did, of course Adora would be the first to know. But she doesn’t mind being reassured that Adora would, as well - that they’d be first in each other’s thoughts even when someone else tried to step in. “Sure, you weirdo. Just spare me the racy bits.”

Adora grins, and Catra feels like she’s stepped right into her trap. “Or, we could get it over with right now.”

She knows she should probably crack a joke here, play up the offense or, if she felt very, very bold, maybe even play along - but she freezes instead. What’s worse, something freezes inside her chest, and so she’s forced to stay uncharacteristically quiet as Adora gets closer and closer because she suddenly can’t breathe.

Her eyes flicker down to Catra’s mouth, her hand reaches up to touch Catra’s face - and she leans down to catch a bit of whipped cream that was stuck to the corner of Catra’s upper lip, with her own lips.

Catra blinks. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Mm, I was hungry.”

“Then get your own cone, you asshole.” Catra shoves at her, feeling way too red in the face. This was so much worse than what she was expecting.

“What?” Adora insists, amid her cracking up, “Doesn’t this count as a kiss?”

“It absolutely does not.”

“My lips touched something directly touching yours. What’s that if not a kiss?”

“By your logic then, we totally had our first kiss in kindergarten, when we drank soup from the same bowl.”

“Oh, you’re right! See? Don’t act all disgusted now.”

“I can’t, ‘cause you’re disgusting.”

Adora, in retaliation, licks the melting chocolate off Catra’s cone until Catra’s forced to elbow her in the face to make her stop.

Adora’s house is as small as Catra remembers, so she won’t have to look for long, but there are people crammed in every corner, which makes it more difficult for Catra to zero in on Adora’s voice. As for her scent - well, her scent is everywhere, and after so much time scrambling to pick it up from a single, old blanket, it feels like her nostrils are under attack.

She would’ve expected Adora to be the center of attention in her own home, on her own birthday. But all these people are just minding their own business, merely gravitating around her, and when she does find Adora, she’s out back with only two people, holding - nope, not alcohol. Hot chocolate.

Catra recognizes them from the good ol’ days of fighting with them for Adora’s attention and from Adora’s Instagram stories, but they clearly don’t recognize her, because they frown the moment they see her. Adora, who has her back to Catra, must notice it and wonder what’s wrong - because she turns around and meets Catra’s eyes for the first time in half a decade.

Catra has always paid attention to the split second after recognition settles in, but right before sociality kicks in; she thinks it’s when one’s true emotions are exposed. When she was a kid, she liked surprising Adora by pouncing on her out of nowhere, because her basic instinct, once surprise wore off, was always to smile, or laugh, and it was all Catra needed to feel loved.

Now, she can’t catch that second. Adora stands uncertain, almost fearful, as she processes who’s standing in front of her. “Catra.”

It might just be her imagination, but Adora’s two friends almost seem to flank her now, taking one step forward to stand right by her side as they stare Catra down.

Well, sparklebombshell is staring Catra down. Her friend - bowstr1ng, she thinks - just looks kind of concerned.

Catra has stood there silent for too long, so she plasters on an easy, comfortable attitude, and forces herself to smile warmly. “Hey, Adora. Happy birthday.”

Adora reflects the exact same smile at her - meaning she’s probably forcing herself, too, though Adora is not the type to fake. Catra hates that she’s the one who brings it out of her. “Thanks! It’s - it’s really good to see you.”

“Yeah, I told you I would come, didn’t I?” She realizes now that she probably should’ve hugged Adora right as she came in. That’s what people did when they wished each other a happy birthday, right? But the moment was gone now, so there she is, babbling to make things slightly less awkward. Wasn’t that another thing people did - talk about whatever came to mind, just to prove they appreciated the other’s company and wanted to share things with them? “Scorpia told me she was coming here, and I figured I’d stop by.”

“Right. Yeah, I got your message. I can’t believe Scorpia is your roommate - I had no idea.”

“What can I say? It’s a small world.”

Adora brings a mug that was resting on the coffee table to her lips, and that’s - yes, definitely hot chocolate.

Feeling too many eyes on her, she pretends to look around. Adora must find her disoriented, because she comments: “You’ve been gone a long time.”

But Catra just scoffs, and when she does release a little laugh, it’s genuine. “It hasn’t changed one bit. Except for the people making out in corners.”

Adora cracks a smile into her mug. “Right. Last time you were here, Sea Hawk and Mermista weren’t even together.”

“And we were all the happier for it.” Bowstr1ng frowns. “Well, except Adora, I guess.”

“Hey, it was only two months, and not even the worst of my life.”

“You started planning to get them back together while you were still dating her. How bad was the rest of your life?”

Adora laughs and keeps the banter going, no doubt making light of some horrific detail about her childhood she feels distanced enough now to joke about, but Catra stops listening. Her brain lags behind, on the implication that Adora dated someone - and of course she did, it’s Adora, and people have always, always wanted her - but most importantly, that it means she kissed someone, too, and Catra had no idea about it, and she’s not sure exactly why she expected otherwise.

Maybe she didn’t think Adora would break yet another promise to her. Maybe she just assumed that whatever she and Adora could do to each other, no matter how much Catra yelled that she never wanted to see her again, Adora would still climb whatever walls she put up to meet her on the other side.

Adora, for her part, at least notices that Catra’s getting silent, realizes she hasn’t spoken in a while. She’s gotten too distracted talking to her friends, and Catra can’t blame her, but - she needs out. Immediately.

“Do you want some hot chocolate? Some tea?” Adora offers, already stepping around her to make her way inside. “There’s some punch, too, if you need something stronger-”

“It’s fine, Adora.” She doesn’t want to hang out with Adora and her friends, not when Sparkles is still looking at her like that - and she’s not looking forward to following Scorpia around the whole time. “I actually should get going.”

Adora’s face doesn’t look as relieved as Catra figured it would. It doesn’t look sad, either - it doesn’t look like anything. The idea of Catra’s departure doesn’t displease her any more or less than that of any random partygoer. “Oh, already?”

“Yeah, I, uh - I need to wake up early to work on my dissertation, so.”

It seems to take Adora out of goodbye mode and back into small talk. “What are you majoring in?”

“Business Administration at Horde University. It’s not as cool as Bright Moon -” She chances a glance at Adora’s two friends, proudly sporting the logos on their jackets, “but, well, it’s the best the Fright Zone has to offer.”

“Then we have to celebrate! Come on, at least grab something from the buffet before you leave.”

“No need. Entrapta has that buffet at home.”

That seems to do the trick, because Adora deflates entirely. It is so easy to get her to stop trying with her. “Right. Well - it was nice to see you again, Catra.”

There are several things Catra wants to tell her, things Catra wants to know about her, because there is clearly so much she’s missed - but not with Adora’s friends around. Not on her birthday, when Adora should think about being happy and comfortable with people she loves more than her. Perhaps even if she asked, Adora wouldn’t feel comfortable giving her any answers.

“Yeah, yeah, me too. Let’s get coffee some time and catch up, I guess.”

Adora is taken aback - she must not be able to tell Catra’s only saying what she needs to to get away, and there’s a shy warmth in her smile that could melt the ice coating the handrails. “Y-yeah. Sure. I would like that.”

The music suddenly changes to a slow song, and through the glass doors she peeks all the couples pairing up, swaying together.

She nods to Adora, deciding to take her leave. It’s probably for the best - she will let Adora have her night without being haunted by her presence, and she’ll just take whatever Adora decides to give her whenever they meet up again to make small talk around a table, like perfect strangers or childhood acquaintances or people who need to learn their way around each other again. It’s fine. It’s more than she could expect yesterday.

The four of them make their way back in the house, but Catra walks on, reaching the front door with her head low and a feeling of burning tearing through her.

The last thing she sees before closing the door behind her is Adora holding Sparkles to her chest, the two of them laughing together as they dance.

At the very last second, though, Adora looks back at her. There’s a sad sort of longing in her eyes that makes Catra run again.

Adora isn’t listening to a word Catra says.

It’s not that out of the ordinary, since Adora has been feeling off more and more often these days. She never really feels like talking about it, though, so Catra is more than happy to fill her silences with mindless chatter and just stay home with her, even when what she’s actually craving is to go out on the town and celebrate the few hours she can be out of Shadow Weaver’s claws.

It’s just that Adora has a lot going on, what with taking care of her grandma, and school, and whatever clubs she’s foolishly signed up for to fill up the rest of her free time - or, Catra suspects, to avoid thinking. She wishes Adora was there for her more often, maybe, but the point is - Catra understands. And if the Huntarnished concert they’re going to next week doesn’t cheer Adora up, at least she’ll get Adora to herself for a whole day.

Adora lifts her head from the pillow. “That’s next week?”

Catra stops in the middle of her excited rant to look at Adora. “Uh, yeah? Saturday. Did you forget?”

“Oh. Yeah, I- I did, actually.” She lies back down again. “I can’t go. I’m sorry.”

Catra’s blood runs cold. “What do you mean, you can’t go? We bought tickets months ago.”

“Well, I’ll have to sell mine or something. Saturday is Glimmer’s birthday.”

She never learned Adora’s stupid friends’ names. She assumes Glimmer is the pink one. “Okay. Why is that my problem?”

“It’s… not? You can still go to the concert, I just can’t go with you.”

“But Glimmer’s birthday is every year. Huntara and her crew probably won’t come to town again for the next ten years.”

She leans over Adora’s bed to touch her shoulder, which for some reason makes Adora snap and swat her hand away. “God, who cares? You’re the one who likes them, anyway.”

Catra’s caught entirely off guard. She and Adora have banged their heads to the Huntarnished since they were kids and first got the thrill of listening to something that wasn’t age-appropriate. She even remembers teasing Adora about her huge crush on Huntara. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, they make good music, but it’s not - it’s not really my style. I only liked them because you did - because it made you happy that we had something in common. But you’ve never cared one bit what made me happy, so - what’s the point?”

Adora is being more responsive than she’s been with her all month, and the first emotion she turns on Catra is - this senseless anger. Catra, not caring about Adora? Catra’s life revolves around her. “Is this about me not liking your friends? I don’t have to.”

“Of course. But you don’t even want to hear about them, or anything I’m doing with them. I mean, you’ve cut yourself off a huge part of my life. I don’t get it. They’ve been nothing but nice to you.”

“Sure. By forgetting to invite me places all the time.”

“They don’t even have your number. You hung out with them twice. ”

Twice was all Catra needed. At the very start of the year, Adora still brought her along wherever she went, meaning she came face to face with Adora’s new friends a bunch of times - then, to Adora’s insistence, eventually agreed to a night out with them, and then another. It wasn’t terrible, but Adora’s friends clearly weren’t interested in keeping her around after that, and Catra couldn’t stay where she wasn’t wanted. Sole fear of rejection, however, isn’t why she can’t bear to think about them.

It’s that they kept inviting Adora out with them, while making no mention of Catra, only to play dumb and later ask where Catra was and why she couldn’t come. Adora once asked them about that - they said Catra was always welcome with them, by virtue of being Adora’s friend, and that they didn’t need to invite her directly, because they knew she would always be where Adora was.

It wasn’t wrong. That’s the worst thing about it.

Shadow Weaver always did say Catra would be nothing without Adora.

That's when the burning under her skin, the one that’s an inextricable part of her but that she was always determined to keep away from Adora, starts. “So what? Because you can’t go one second without mentioning your princess friends, I can’t see you more than once a week? You’re really going to break our promise for them?”

Adora scoffs. “Well, maybe I’m tired of you making jabs at me whenever I open my mouth. Maybe I’d rather be at Glimmer’s party, with people who actually appreciate me and listen to what I say.” She’s growing more frustrated, and her hand gestures are growing frantic along with her. “I don’t even know why you keep hanging out with me. I don’t get it, Catra - is it ‘cause you’re lonely? ‘Cause I’m your only friend? You seem to dislike everything about me.”

“You’re my best friend,” Catra says, and it’s the thing she’s most sure of in her entire life. She says it like the sky is blue and the Earth is round and Catra and Adora are going to be together always, because it’s just the way the world is built and she doesn’t know any other.

Adora fixes her eyes on Catra. It’s the first time she’s done that since this conversation started, and something about it makes Catra shake. “But do you love me?”

Her voice is so small. Catra has to reply right away, ‘cause Adora should never have to doubt that, ever. “Of course I do.”

“I need to hear you say it.” Adora gets up off the bed, walks closer to Catra. “You need to say it, Catra, because there are people actually telling me now, and - I like that.”

Catra opens her mouth, ready to one-up the losers Adora is choosing over her again and again, to prove to Adora that she is not the one in the wrong here - but then she falters. She tries again. She does love Adora - why can’t she say it? She was made to think Adora would run the moment she realized how abnormally huge Catra’s need for her was, but clearly the people Adora is hanging out with have no issue expressing their affection. Why does it feel like, if she did, something fundamental to her would be ripped out of her chest, sneered at, and carelessly stepped on? Why would she hurt herself like that to make Adora happy, when Adora can’t even focus on her for one hour without making it about anyone else?

So instead she says: “Sure. It’s always about what you want.” And instead of admitting that she isn’t able to give Adora what she needs for some godforsaken reason, even though she loves her, loves her so much it feels like she can never get enough of her and that’s going to kill her, someday, she shucks on her jacket and gets up in a rush.

“Catra, where are you going,” Adora groans.

“Away. So you can go be with your true friends or whatever.”

She expects some resistance. She expects Adora to tell her that she’s being stupid, that of course she cares about her, that she’s still her best friend and that will never change, no matter how many more people she meets. She expects Adora to tell her all of that, despite the fact that she couldn’t even say three measly words when Adora asked because they felt too heavy.

Instead, Adora stares long and hard at Catra, as if calling her bluff - Catra has no intention to actually leave, she just wants to elicit a reaction, and it looks as if Adora wants to test how long she’s gonna wait for it - and then murmurs: “Yeah. I think that would be best.”

Catra doesn’t think too much about it. They’re having a fight, for sure, and it’s harsher than their fights usually are, but Adora will apologize. At the very least, Adora will realize she did something wrong and reach out to her, even if she won’t outright admit it. Catra will use that time wisely - she will prove to Adora, and everyone else, that she could get other friends if she wanted to. That she could be perfectly fine without her. That her choice to stick by her despite it all should be more indicative of her loyalty to her than any combination of words.

She leaves the house in a hurry, slamming Adora’s door closed, and doesn’t see it again for the next five years.

Catra runs through the garden. She runs as fast as she can without drawing unwanted attention on herself, which is unfortunately not fast enough. She’s almost on the sidewalk when she feels a hand on her shoulder pulling her back.

“Are you okay?” Adora whispers. Her lips just barely graze Catra’s ear, and something about it feels life-ending. Catra flinches like she’s been burned.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Adora hums. “I always worry about you.”

“No, you don’t.” It’s a sad and defeated thing that leaves her mouth - far from the spite she was trying to conjure.

“What do you mean, I don’t?”

She gets out of Adora’s grasp easily - Adora never did hold on too tight - and looks for Scorpia’s car among those parked on the road, before realizing that it is, in fact, Scorpia’s car and that without it, she and Perfuma would have no way home.

Catra is not going back inside. She’s not breaking into Scorpia’s car, either. She releases a frustrated, dragged out sound at the thought of walking six miles home in the snow, but keeps walking nevertheless.

“Catra,” Adora groans - and the sound is almost comforting to her ears, much more genuine than the stilted, polite exchange they had on the balcony. She hears the sound of footsteps behind her. “Where are you going?”

“I told you. I’m going home.”

“With whose car?” Adora asks, semi-rhetorically. The jingling of car keys at Catra’s back answers her own question. “C’mon, I’ll drive you.”

Catra scoffs, because she has to - but honestly? She really doesn’t feel like getting to the other side of town on her own. The Fright Zone is a cheap neighborhood, and as far from Adora as urbanly possible, but it’s not particularly safe to wander around, and it’s also - Catra will never get tired of saying it - fucking freezing outside. She stops in her tracks and thinks this is the least Adora could do for her, which gives Adora time to catch up to her.

She raises an eyebrow. “And leave your own birthday party?”

“Why do you think I’ve been drinking hot chocolate all night? I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t make sure all of my friends got home safe. Let’s go.”

She nods in the direction of her car for Catra to follow her, and dragging her feet, Catra does. The air is different out here, colder; the breeze is picking up, and there’s no loud music to distract her from it. Catra zips up her coat as they walk.

Adora’s car is a tiny white thing parked on the side of the road, a rainbow bumper the only conspicuous detail about it. She has never been too picky about cars, nor has she ever liked driving very much, and so Catra supposes it’s a hand-me-down from her mother or from Razz, something Adora only uses for short trips and for groceries. It’s really only fit for two, maybe three people - and she imagines Adora, Glimmer and Bow driving around town, singing songs out the windows that Catra’s never listened to, marveling at how the car seemed like such a tight fit yet ended up holding the three of them so perfectly.

Bile rises up her throat as Adora opens the driver’s door and gets in. Catra stomps over to the passenger’s side to get in, too, and slams the door closed.

“Yeah, your friends. You seem to have a lot of them. Never seen your house that full.”

Adora isn’t looking at her. She’s busy turning the key in the ignition, frowning down at it when the engine only sputters in return. She tries again, and the car finally roars to life. “Oh, I’m friendly with most of them, but they’re not, like, part of my inner circle or anything. A lot of them are Bow’s friends.”

“Why are you being so defensive about it? I don’t care.”

Adora throws a quick glance at her, as if to appraise her, before fixing her eyes on the road again. “You don’t?”

“Nope.”

“That’s funny. So you came all the way here, with no way to get back, just to say hi for five minutes and immediately dip, and that was always the plan? Nothing pissed you off and made you run?”

“That’s right.”

She catches the hint of a smile on Adora’s face when they pass by a streetlight. The rest of her face is entirely cast in shadow. “There were better ways to get my attention, you know.”

Catra is tempted to joke back, ask her what these ways are, because she’s pretty sure she’s tried them all over the years, and none of them worked - but her curiosity is not stronger than her unwillingness to admit defeat. Maybe that’s where she always went wrong.

“Have you considered that maybe the world doesn’t revolve around you?”

“On my birthday, it does,” she replies distractedly, peering down the street. “Is this my turn?”

“No, keep following the road. You need to get to the long-ass bridge at the end of the woods.”

Adora doesn’t reply, and silence falls over the car. Catra can’t think of a single thing to say, though that has more to do with slow-simmering anger and nervousness clouding her mind than her not having anything to say at all. The words press against the roof of her mouth, some of them even making it to her lips, all of them promptly discarded and pushed back in before she can give voice to them. This is the first time she’s been in such close quarters with Adora for years, and she’s not sure what is and isn’t appropriate to say - but it’s probably not the time, not the place.

She takes a page out of Adora’s book and decides to focus on the road instead. Adora’s neighborhood flies by before her eyes, telling of Catra’s own childhood - a fairy tale land she’s maybe forgotten, maybe relegated to the bottom of her dreams. There’s the ice cream shop in town where she and Adora always got their cones to eat on the side of the pavement, and the reason why, to Catra, summer to this day tastes like chocolate and mint; there’s the bar where she and Adora always had breakfast before school, their croissants filled to bursting and their coffee orders perfectly memorized; there’s the park where they spent most of their afternoons as kids, when they were allowed to play outside and could keep an eye on each other.

To Adora, this is probably just a daily route to the cheapest supermarket or to a friend’s house, all the places that were hers and Catra’s filled with new stories to tell or faded into anonymity; to Catra, this is memory after memory resurfacing. It’s been five years since she lost Adora, and it’s also only been five minutes. It feels like they could just get out of the car and pick up where they left off - swing in the park for a while, laugh to themselves about how mad Shadow Weaver was going to be that they stayed out that late. But they can’t, and besides - it doesn’t feel like a part of her life that Catra’s allowed to miss.

“Is that why you never come here?” Adora whispers all of a sudden, and for a moment Catra thinks she’s read her mind - but that’s before she glances at her and continues: “‘Cause you live on the other side of the bridge. I never see you around anymore.”

Despite not seeing Adora very often in person, Catra still saw Adora all the time through her socials. Even if Adora cared enough to do the same for Catra, she wouldn’t be so lucky - Catra’s presence on socials is infinitesimal, for reasons that have to do with both her sheer hatred of them, and nothing worthy of note having happened in her life for a really long time.

“I wouldn’t say I never come here,” Catra says nevertheless. “We saw each other a few months ago, remember?”

It was only a few minutes at a bus stop, but Catra can still see them. Catra’s waiting for the bus that will take her to class, and Adora’s waiting for the one that will take her home, in the opposite direction. They stare at each other across the street, and they can’t really talk like this - but they wave at each other, and smile politely, and Catra feels emboldened enough.

How are you? she asks, and Adora’s probably about to reply with a comment about how cold it’s getting - early fall, and all that - but then Catra’s bus comes, cutting off her visual of Adora, and when she gets on it she sees Adora getting on hers, too, their windows facing the wrong sides.

“How are you, anyway?” she asks again now, because the silence is growing heavy again, and she figures she might as well. Throw the ball in Adora’s court - let her dig up something casual to say, since she insisted on driving her. Anything to make this trip down memory lane, in quite the literal sense, more bearable.

She’s expecting Adora to launch into a digression on her perfect life - gearing up, even, to turn it all into background noise. Adora seems willing to deny her even that, because the next time she looks over, confused over Adora’s continued silence, Adora’s gripping the steering wheel like she wants to crush it.

“Is that all you say to me nowadays?” Adora’s voice is perfectly steady, save for the small, but not nearly unnoticeable crack at the very end.

Catra watches her swallow, and she can’t stand the sight of it. She turns away.

“I only ever see you for five minutes at a time.”

“You’re the one who ran.” She can’t tell if Adora’s talking about tonight, or about that afternoon five years ago, but it doesn’t matter. Catra’s defense is the same.

“Didn’t feel like you cared much.”

Adora, once again, does not reply. She does something more peculiar - she waits until the woods come into view, the ones lining the bridge that will take Catra home, and slows the car down to a stop.

“What are you doing-”

“I have to show you something.”

She opens the door and gets out of the car without waiting for an answer. She knows Catra, technically, has no choice but to follow her, unless she wants to be left in the middle of nowhere - and Catra kinda doesn’t, so she sighs and opens her door too.

Adora’s at her side in a second, helping her out for seemingly no reason. It’s a blow to her pride, but Catra takes the hand she’s offered, and keeps holding it even when Adora forgets to drop it. With hands interlocked the whole time, Adora leads her through the foliage through a path Catra now recognizes as one they took once before, when they were smaller and younger and a little shorter. They were told to stay away from the Whispering Woods, especially after sunset - but that was a special occasion, and also the middle of the day, and Shadow Weaver would have never found out.

Still, because the path they’re on now is dark and only going deeper into the woods, she has to ask: “Are you going to murder me or what?”

Adora doesn’t reply. It would be mildly concerning if she couldn’t see how focused Adora is on finding whatever she’s looking for - which turns out to be the point where the path opens up onto a clearing.

Said clearing hosts a peculiar pair of trees, much smaller than the others around them not for being younger, but for being planted so close to one another that once they started getting bigger they ended up growing into each other like mutually parasitic beings. Their trunks, their branches, presumably their roots - all of it is intertwined, in much the same way dead bodies left to rot in a common pit will have their parts indistinguishable from one another after some time. Mold and mushrooms are growing at the base and climbing up over the sides, and while it should be clear to any less-than-keen observer that this pair of trees is done for, the unfortunate nature of this kind of rot is that it could so easily spread to other nearby trees once it reaches the leaves and branches.

Someone carved a heart in it a long time ago with shaking hands. It says “A + C”.

“Well, that’s a sad sight,” is all Catra can think to say. The idle movement of Adora’s thumb on the back of her palm is splitting her focus. “Fitting, though.”

Catra remembers pointing to them, saying That’s us; Adora smiling and agreeing, suggesting these trees should carry their promise; Catra taking out her pocket knife and finally making good use of it, unaware that everything that grew too close to something else was doomed to perish along with it.

A sigh next to her. “Perfuma’s environmentalist group was all over town a few years back, trying to save them, but there wasn’t much that could be done. That’s how we met her, though. We joined one of her protests against global warming and she made me try weed for the first time.”

We being her, Glimmer and Bow, obviously. It doesn’t hurt as much as she expected - actually, Catra can’t help but laugh. “No way. She got you too?”

Adora offers a sort of skirmish smile. “Oh, she was a terrible influence. I wouldn’t have made it through college without her.”

She knocks their shoulders together, feeling almost light at the thought of this one experience still connecting them. Finally, common ground; finally, closeness that doesn’t result in a knife to the gut. “Don’t sell yourself so short. You’re the smartest person I know.” She thinks about it for a bit. “Well, next to Entrapta.”

Adora lets go of Catra’s hand for the sole purpose of wrapping her arms around herself. “I hated it. It made me miserable.”

She looks so small right now, all hunched over herself. Catra almost wants to touch her shoulder, to provide some comfort, but Adora pivots away from her before Catra can raise a hand, her back against a nearby tree like she’s exhausted just talking about it.

“I guess - I just thought it was something I had to do. It took me so long to figure out what I actually wanted from my life, regardless of what everyone else thought I should do.” She lets herself sink down to the ground, and it’s only when she’s settled among the roots that she looks back at Catra, almost shyly. “Can you relate?”

“Yeah.”

Adora looks away again. Catra wonders if she should leave her alone, maybe go back to the car and leave her there - but this is the first time in several years that Adora’s opened up about what’s been going on with her, and isn’t that what Catra wanted? For Adora to show that she still trusted her, still cared, was still willing to fill the divide that makes them strangers right now?

Catra sits down next to her, to Adora’s surprise, and lays her head on Adora’s shoulder. They stay there in silence and watch the trees rot for some time.

“Meeting new people helped. All of them made me discover something new about myself, and - it was nice to feel normal for a change.” Another sigh. “I never wanted you to think that I didn’t care about you. It’s just -”

“I was holding you back. You can say it.”

She hates how dejected she still sounds, but she can’t make herself sound any other way now that she’s face to face with Adora. The end of their friendship had caused something inside Catra to break irreparably, and she spent their time apart living inside an open wound.

Adora turns into her to look at her better, and her breath hits the side of Catra’s face.

“I think we were holding each other back. That’s the whole point.” Adora’s hand hovers close to her like it’s going in to touch Catra’s cheek - but there’s a flicker of guilt in Adora’s eyes, and she drops that hand back into her lap. “I needed so much reassurance, all the time. You always showed me you cared in your own way, but I pushed you too hard, and asked for something you just couldn’t give, and - I’m sorry.”

“That’s so stupid,” Catra grunts. “I loved you. I literally loved you.”

Adora freezes where she is, inches away from her. “You loved me?”

Her eyes are filled with tears; Catra wonders what it must be like, to get what you want after years of wanting it. She’s completely sober, and yet Adora’s closeness has her feeling like she’s downed an entire liquor cabinet. If this is the last time they see each other, then there are things Catra needs to say. She wants that closure, if she can have nothing else.

“Remember when you told me that what you felt for me was different? Not better or worse, just - different?” Adora has to think about it for a bit, but then nods, frowning. Catra takes another breath. “I get that. I think I loved you the same way. Maybe you deserved to know, but - I’m sorry. I don’t know why I couldn’t say it.”

She’s met with the kind of stunned, anticlimactic silence that follows a revelation that comes way too late in the game to change anything. She doesn't know why she was so worried - whatever she feared would happen already did happen, and she and Adora are sitting in the ashes of that lost world. 

“That’s okay,” Adora still says - to Catra, or maybe to herself. She lays a hand on Catra’s shoulder like that could provide any comfort now. “Shadow Weaver did a number on both of us.”

“But it wasn’t just her. I mean, wasn’t she right in the end? That we were ruining each other?”

“Maybe. Or maybe she’s the reason we were messed up in the first place. I know that doesn’t make it better, but - I’m glad you didn’t come back right away. I would have just taken you in again, no questions asked, and we would’ve been miserable.”

If she’d come back - well, Catra never allowed herself to think what would have happened, because regret is something she doesn’t like to wallow in. She gives herself that permission now.

So in another life, Catra realizes she’s overreacting, and that she and Adora aren’t thinking clearly, and turns back. Maybe not immediately, because it would do neither of them any good - but she does, eventually.

She doesn’t apologize. Neither does Adora. They don’t talk about what happened at all, and instead make stilted conversation for long enough that it feels normal again.

She reluctantly accepts to give Adora’s friends another chance, if only to show Adora that she’s trying, but she secretly resents her best friend and resents them and can never quite shake off the idea that Adora only invites her out of courtesy, that she laughs so much harder when Catra isn’t hovering over her shoulder at all times, and that the others barely know who she is. Still, she is there for the major milestones - in the corner whenever Adora throws a house party, walking behind her and her friends to all the places that could’ve been hers as well, maybe even getting high together with Perfuma for the first time. She still has a pang in her heart sometimes, brief moments of clarity where she can tell Adora hasn’t loved her for a long, long time - but as long as she has Adora, isn’t that enough? Isn’t that all that counts?

And then one day, suddenly, they stop being friends. It is silent and terrible: no one screams, no one even bothers to fight about it, because there is nothing to fight for anymore. Whatever existed between them has been left to waste away for way too long to be able to do something about the body now.

How could there even be any other outcome? If Adora is right, that they needed to be apart to be able to heal, that perhaps what they needed to heal from was each other - how does it make sense to want to go back at all?

But maybe, in yet another life, Catra and Adora actually talk. They say exactly what they want to say, and deal with the consequences, and rebuild from there. It could never have been this life, not with how things were back then - but somewhere out there, at least one version of Catra and Adora must’ve had their shit together enough to get it right. That’s enough to give her hope.

“What about now? Do you think we could try again now?” Adora looks back at her, wide-eyed but careful. Catra feels emboldened - she shifts closer to her, knees inching forward until she’s nearly in Adora’s lap. “I miss you, but - I’m not like you. I don’t think I ever grew past missing you.”

She reaches out to touch Adora’s face, and Adora doesn’t just let her - she takes Catra into her arms like she can’t help it, like she’d die if she didn’t. “What are you talking about? I mean, look at you, Catra. You never would’ve opened up to me like this five years ago. Scorpia and Entrapta are really kind people. You’re working towards a degree, a plan for the future. You’ve survived so much, and you did all of that without me.”

It’s strange - she’s never looked at it like that. No one told her she had anything to be proud about, but that’s also because Catra barely let anything be known about her and where she was coming from. When Adora, who used to know her so well, put it like that, and judged her by their own standards instead of the rest of the world’s - surviving seemed like enough of an accomplishment, and one that she’d gone well past.

“And you?” By now, her voice has lost most of its hard edges. It’s not fair, how Adora can just say a few kind words and make her soft again. “Did you finally figure out what you want?”

The air is different out here, colder; the breeze is picking up, and there’s no loud music to distract her from it. Even in the circle of Adora’s arms, Catra has to zip up her coat.

“Yeah. Bow, Glimmer and I have a dream, you know.” Adora’s thumb brushes over Catra’s chin - eyes mysteriously hung up on the area right above it. “I mean, they pretty much already live at my house, but we dream of moving in together for real. Just, buying a house in the city where all our friends can come visit us whenever they want, and we can throw barbecues and potlucks and stuff.”

“Potlucks,” she spits out, because the indignation helps keep the pain in her chest at bay. She’d hoped Adora had learned to live a little while they were apart, but she’s apparently lived so much she’s come out the other side with a retirement plan. “What else, bingos on Saturdays?”

Adora barrels on like Catra hasn’t even spoken. “I mean, Glimmer has the money, Bow has the connections, and I’m just really invested in making this happen. I’ve been looking at wallpapers, Catra. And you know why?”

Catra can’t believe she’s still here, five years later, listening to Adora talk about how much better her new friends are. She shakes her head, and hears Adora’s breath hitch.

“‘Cause it was our dream first.”

Catra’s ears twitch on top of her head. Apparently satisfied by that reaction, Adora continues speaking.

“I only realized it recently. I’m not - saying I’m using them to replace you. You’d love them just as much as I do, if you really got to know them. But whenever I imagined my future, I always figured you’d be in it, and - I never stopped hoping that things between us would be different one day.”

Catra won’t lie - as much as this is exactly what she wants, knowing Adora wants it too is a lot of undue pressure. She never knew she had expectations to live up to.

“And what if they’re not? I might have grown a little, but I’m still me. I’m bound to fuck up sooner or later. What if I ruin everything again?”

She imagines saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing without realizing, and having to deal with disappointing Adora yet again - with her realizing that she was foolish, to believe Catra could have changed.

Adora just narrows her eyes, the shadow of a grin letting Catra know that she thinks her existential crisis is really, really dumb. “I never expected you to be perfect, you know. I definitely won’t be. But no one can hope to become a fully realized human being without some help, so -” She reaches up to link her hand with the one Catra’s holding against her cheek, and leans into it. “Get better for me. I’ll get better for you.”

Catra thinks about it. Even now, she’d do anything for Adora, but she might have just found the one thing that’s beyond Catra’s power to give her.

Getting better? Even if it’s for Adora?

There is so much broken and wrong and rotten with her, she has no idea where to start.

She knows where she refuses to start, though.

“I’m not joining you and your friends in your dorkass residence.”

Adora lightens up anyway. That’s when Catra knows she’s going to do it.

“Yes, you are. They’ll love you, and you’re going to love them yet pretend to hate it the whole time.” She stands up, untangling herself from Catra, and offers Catra her hand again, like when she helped her out of the car. “But we can start with coffee.”

Catra looks at Adora’s outstretched hand and then back to her. “Tomorrow?”

“How about right now? Party is going to go on for a while, anyway, and I need all the caffeine I can get.”

Catra couldn’t go home now if she wanted to. She doesn’t want to leave Adora, not when Adora doesn’t want her to leave, either. If that means having to deal with her friends, then - that’s something she’s going to have to accept, eventually. They’re part of her life, after all, and Catra wants to be, too. It’s just that now she has a life Adora can be part of, too.

So, Catra stays.

They end up skipping out on breakfast entirely. Instead, they make coffee again at 2 am, and 4 am, and 6 am, and bring it on the porch to look at the stars together.

Neither of them are particularly tired, and whenever one of them finds themselves nodding off another cup is poured, the need to stave off sleep far more important than going to bed. They whisper for hours, so as not to wake up Razz, but laughter occasionally catches them off guard, and then they’re giggling and wheezing and swatting at each other in the dimly lit patio that Catra still knows like the back of her hand.

“Why did you never tell me,” Catra says at some point during the night, slumped all over Adora’s shoulder, “that you had your first kiss? I thought we’d promised.”

Adora’s eyes are dazed as well, and she seems confused. “Why would I need to do that? You were my first kiss.”

“Uh, no? Pretty sure I wasn’t.”

“I ate whipped cream off your mouth.”

“Yeah, without touching my lips,” Catra reminds her, because she remembers every second of that afternoon. She even remembers wishing, afterwards and inexplicably, that Adora kissed her for real, which had to mean she didn’t. “That doesn’t count.”

“Well, it does to me.” Adora’s fingers start threading through Catra’s hair, and the feeling is so familiar - something she thought she’d lost, rushing back again with nights cuddled in bed together, and hot summer days in front of a small electric fan, and legs intertwined together on the couch. “At least, that’s what I told everyone. I would hate for them to think I lied.”

Adora nudges her, like cluing her in to a longstanding inside joke, and Catra turns into her - and it’s January 20th now, and time has started moving again, and the sun is peeking over the horizon and melting the snow in the streets and the ice on the railings.