Archive of Our Own

They let her out.

They didn’t really but it still rubs Adora the wrong way. They expanded the limits of her prison to the outskirts of the garden. Instead of being trapped in Brightmoons guest room, Catra gets to walk around until she bumps into the now invisible walls of her cage. 

She seems to be enjoying it. A lot. 

Adora’s room overlooks the gardens below. Overlooks what she has now designated “The Zoo”.  Specifically because Catra paces the outskirts of it like a caged animal. Adora can watch like a paying customer as Catra tests the limits of Angella’s magic. One hand sizzling against an invisible wall. 

She still has a limp, despite She-Ra’s best attempts to heal her. Despite Adora’s desperate attempts of keeping her body together as the portal tore it apart. 

It might have been Catra’s own resistance to being healed. Shoving She-ra- no, Adora away. Snarling at her with her good eye as blood seeps into the other. 

Adora still doesn’t know why she did it. Sacrificed herself for the rebellion. Smiled at Adora, the portal already tearing her apart, as she tried to trap herself in the confines of that imaginary world for all eternity. 

Catra’s imaginary world where they were still together. A world that went on as if last year hadn’t happened. A world where they are together like they don’t hate each other. 

Not that Adora ever hated Catra. She couldn’t. Catra meant too much to her. Catra means too much to her. 

Adora doesn’t ask. The number one rule at the zoo is you can't poke at the animals. 

That doesn't stop everyone else from mocking the lions. 

Entrapta is the first. She had also just been captured from the rebellion but her loyalty was so finicky they couldn’t really keep her locked up. They needed her anyways, she was the only one that could take down the bots she had created to kill them. 

It’s a sunny day when Adora watches her stroll into the garden. Though it never isn’t a sunny day in BrightMoon. It makes Adora miss the rain. 

Catra doesn’t seem to mind. She’s sprawled out on one of the many stone benches, basking in the sunlight. She does that a lot. She’s done it every day she’s had access to the garden. It must have a good view from all sides. Let her see if anyone is looking at her. 

She squints one eye open at the thunk of Entrapts boots on the walking path. Watching as Entrapta walks right up to her with her eyes trained on a piece of tech in her hair. 

“Well look who it is” Catra rasps, Adora nearly jumps. She hadn’t realized she would be able to hear Catra from this distance. Catra hadn’t spoken a word in the last three weeks. Not unless she was being interrogated. 

Even then she wasn’t very forthcoming. Adora didn’t blame her, she knew her thought process. She would have the same one if the tables were turned. If she gave up everything she knew she wouldn’t be very helpful now would she. They would have no reason to keep her around. 

Not that they would throw her out after she spilled. The Rebellion wasn’t like that. 

But Catra didn’t know that. 

“Have you come to kill me?” Catra adjusts so her stomach faces the sky. Belly up. “I've been waiting”

Entrapta looks up from her hair, confused. “Why would I try to kill you?”

Catra growls to herself. Entrapta seems to understand it’s not for her because she doesn’t react. 

“What do you mean why? I shocked the wits out of you and tried to set off your portal even after you told me it would kill everyone “

“You successfully set off the portal after I told you it would kill everyone” Entrapta corrects. She doesn't even glance up to watch Catra wince and curl up on her stone bench, 

“And I don't blame you for that. It’s obvious that it was an automatic fear response”

Catra growls, this time at Entrapta. “It was not! I don’t have those”

Entrapta finally looks up from her teck. “Well of course you do, I have hours of data on it” she shifts, pulling a recorder from her hair with her hair 

Catra flinches away when she holds it out. She must have been expecting a hit or maybe for Entrapta to pull a taser from the depths of her hair. 

The squeal of a recorder being rewound makes Adora flinch and Catra hiss. 

Entrapta crackly voice filters through the speaker. “Catra has exhibited signs of claustrophobia. I was suspicious when she found me in the vents but I confirm it now. Catra had a small panic attack in the elevator today after the power shut down. Symptoms include: Falling to the floor, uncontrollable growling and spitting, the repeated words “ ‘m sorry”. These are all congruent with a panic attack caused by the confined space- “

“Shut that off” Catra snarls, reaching for it with her clawed hands but flinching away when Entrapta pulls it away from her. The Recorder squeals again:

“Make another note that while under pressure Catra’s first response is to lash out. Under Hordak’s new orders she has destroyed the communications rooms-” 

The recorder squeals again:

“Day 3: Catra has continued to refuse to leave her room after her meeting with Hordak, not even for food or progress reports. Scorpia and I will now attempt to feed her through the vents-”

“Could you stop?”

Entrapta, finally, clicks off the recorder and hides it deeper in her hair. Catra’s voice was quiet and cracked, defeated. Entrapta seems to have understood that she couldn’t handle much more. "You lashing out at me was done it what I assume is fear that Hordak would kill you after he realized what you did for him was then useless. You felt as thought, if the portal didn't work or wouldn't work, you were no longer worth keeping around"

“What do you want?” Catra asks, tucking her hands beneath her arms. Head pressed to the stone beneath her. 

“Oh!” Entrapta smiles and holds out the tech that originally caught her attention. It’s small and unassuming. Adora would be worried that it was something to help Catra escape her cage if she didn’t know it was being guarded by palace soldiers. “I talked to Perfuma and she said the best thing to help you would be a distraction”

Catra’s ears flatten at the Princess’s name. She might not know her directly but there’s no doubt Catra at some point tried to kill her. 

“Why would you talk to a princess about me?” She asks, warily eyeing the tech. Entrapta tilts her head. 

“I’m not very good at emotions, you know this” Catra scoffs but Entrapta continues as if she hadn’t heard. Maybe used to it, understanding that Catra isn't asking her to stop talking but is just reacting. “Perfuma is, though, and Scorpia told me we should speak to her about it”

Catra flinches at the sound of Scorpia’s name. They hadn’t spoken since they got her and Catra had yelled at her. In Front of everyone. She couldn't seem to help it, back flatten against the sizzling force field. A snarled “don’t touch me”

“You're having a hard time adjusting” Adora nearly scoffs at that. ‘Hard time adjusting?’ how about ‘not even trying’. Scorpia has already been let into the commanding room to help with strategy. She hasn’t been locked in a force field in weeks. 

Catra’s the only one refusing help. Refusing to help. Refusing to do anything but lay in the garden.

Catra’s prison was only expanded because the Brightmoon doctors thought the lack of sunlight would ultimately hurt her. That she would wither away like a flower. Adora had tried to deny Catra ever being like a flower. A cactus maybe. No one would listen. 

Besides Perfuma, at least. Adora knocks her head against the banister of her balcony. Pefuman had said that Cacti do have flowers. They bloom. 

“Perfuma said doing something you enjoy- That it might help” Entrapta holds out the tech again and this time Catra takes it. Maybe hoping that Entrapta will stop talking. She fiddles with it in her hands. Turning it and looking at it from every angle. 

It’s a small box with a long screen and a series of buttons on one side. There's a grid on the other. 

“What is it?” Catra asks, quietly. Almost too quietly for Adora to hear. 

“A Speaker!” Entrapta giggles and presses a button on the side. A song immediately starts blaring. It makes Catra flinch and she drops the box. Entrapta catches it before it can hit the ground and turns down the volume with a button on the side. 

“Sorry” she smiles, placing the box, and it's now quietly playing music, on the bench next to Catra. 

Catra watches, her hand reaching out to touch it with a claw before she looks back up at the expectant Entrapta. 

She clears her throat “Thank you”

It shocks Adora but Entrapta seems to have, as her face suggests, expected it. She pats Catra on the head with her hair and smiles. “You are welcome.”

Scorpia is next. Adora hadn’t expected it. The last time they had spoken was when Catra had yelled at her, claws flying. They separated them after that. Holding everyone in their own Brightmoon room. Force fields, pillows and all. 

Scorpia doesn't seem like one to hold a grudge though. She comes on another sunny day a week later. But everyday is a sunny day so Adora shouldn’t be surprised. Everyday has been a sunny day since Catra arrived. And everyday Adora had seen her in the garden, walking around without a care in the world. 

Today she’s sitting beneath one of the willow trees. Back against the bark and watching Entrapta fiddle with something in the grass. Her new speaker is quietly playing music. She’s barely turned it off since she got it. Mostly to let Entrapta tinker with it. 

Adora is starting to suspect neither of them like the sound of silence. Or maybe Catra doesn’t and Entrapta is used to the drone of background noise. 

Catra ducks down when Scorpia strolls from the castle. Not that she ever looks up. If she ever did she would see Adora, watching from the balcony.  She has to know Adora is there, watching. She isn't stupid and she’s always been more aware of her surroundings than Adora has. 

Cara watches as they near her. Perfuma speaks quietly to Scorpia as they cross the grass. Scorpia holds a book behind her back and away from Catra’s view. 

“Hey” Scorpia says with a wide smile, still keeping her pincers behind her back. 

“Hey” Catra says warily, eyeing her. 

“Hello,” Perfuma says cheerily. She’s holding a bundle of colored pencils in her arms. She seems just a bit hesitant to hand them to Catra but she eventually does. Leaning down and placing them next to the feline. 

Catra watches her movements. Her ears twitch when the pencils are placed next to her. Then she raises an eyebrow. 

“What are those for?”

“Well-” Scorpia lifts a claw to the back of her neck. Entrapta perks up at the pencils, finally looking away from her current tech mystery. 

“Did you have the same idea, Scorpia?” she asks, smiling and squinting at the book still held behind her wide torso. Scorpia sighs but smiles at Catra, 

“Well, I was thinking you might get bored out here everyday and I know when you get bored you like- well-”

Catra shies away when Scorpia holds the book out to her. It’s small but seems to have a lot of pages. Wrapped in brown leather. Adora finds herself perking up. She knows what that is and she knows what Catra liked to do when she was bored. 

Or at least what she did when they were still Horde soldiers together. 

Catra, hesitantly, reaches out. Taking the book from Scorpia. Perfuma smiles widely, clasping her hands together. She turns to Scorpia expectantly. 

Scorpia clears her throat but Catra doesn't look up. Her eyes are trained on the book. She opens it up and flips through the blank pages. 

“I just wanted to say that I am sorry. I didn’t realize how overwhelmed you were and shouldn't have been touching you when you already asked me to stop”

Catra shrugs, running a hand over the smooth leather. She glances up at a nervous Scorpia and swallows. 

“It’s whatever”

Scorpia smiles and nods, tapping her claws together. 

They stand in a bit of silence. 

“Well I guess we-”

Catra interrupts. “Did you guys want to sit down?” it’s rushed, hesitant. “We weren’t doing anything but sitting around but-” she trails off, looking away. 

Perfuma plops down, pulling Scorpia with her across from Catra. Catra, surprised, looks up at the princess. 

“I’m Perfuma, it’s really nice to meet you” Perfuma says, criss crossing her legs and leaning towards Catra. Adora has never seen her so eager but Catra is an enigma no one has been able to crack. 

There's been many princess meetings about it. 

Catra clears her throat, leaning back a bit more against her tree. “Catra.”

She’s uncomfortable with how eagerly Perfuma’s watching her. Her ears flattening and twitching, her tail curling up and around her. 

“What?” she asks, watching Perfuma watch her. 

“I was just wondering how you felt about the garden” Perfuma asks, gesturing to the tree’s, the flowers, the grass. 

“It’s alright”

“Yeah? You’ve been weeding the flower beds.” Catra looks away and at the wooden boxes of dirt that bloom into flowers every spring. 

“Was I not supposed to?” she asks, tapping a tune out on the leather bound book. She follows the beat that still springs from her speaker. 

“No, I don't think anyone cares that you did at least”

“I just- I saw some other people doing it, and I wasn't busy,” Catra admits. 

“So you helped out?” Perfuma asks, sparkles in her eyes. It seems to make Catra uncomfortable. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Catra mutters. 

Perfuma smiles brightly at her. She seems to understand that Catra doesn’t love talking. The conversation mostly flows between her and Scorpia after that. 

Surprisingly, It’s Mermista who breaks next. She strolls in on a day Catra is alone. Entrapta and Scorpia off in the labs working on something or other. Perfuma having traveled back to her kingdom to look after things for the weekend. 

Catra is drawing lightly in her new sketchbook. Facing Adora but still never looking up. Adora herself leaning against the banner of her balcony. A book in her hand. 

Mermista walks right up next to her and crosses her arms over her chest. Catra knows she’s there if her ears are anything to go by. But she doesn’t look up right away. First sketching out a finishing line.

Eventually,  Mermista watches Catra close her book and then look up at her. 

Mermista looks at her and Catra watches her back warily. Adora is surprised to see Catra break first. 

“Hey” Catra says, looking away. 

“Hey”

“What do you want?” 

“I was just talking to Perfuma.”  Catra’s ears twitch at that. A familiar name. Someone who's been nice to her. 

“Yeah?” she asks.

“She told me you guys were talking about the Mer-Mystery books.” Adora rolls her eyes as looks away. Eyes on the horizon and the water beyond Brightmoon. 

“What about them? Catra asks, surprising Adora. She hadn’t realized Catra had read them. Catra had been a bit of a book nerd when they were kids but that was mostly reports and manuals. 

“I just wanted to know what you thought.” 

“About the books?”

“Obviously about the books, ” Mermista scoffs. “What did you think I meant? The flowers?”

“I thought they were great.” Catra ignores Mermista’s usual deadpan sass. 

“Obviously they were fucking great. It is the best book series on Etheria. I’m talking about book three, Mer-mystery: Serpent of The Sea”

“What about it”

“What did you think?” Mermist asks impatiently. 

“Besides it being the best book in the whole series?” Catra scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. 

At that Mermista plops down next to Catra, ignoring the flinch the feline gives in return. Surprisingly, Mermista talks Catra’s ear off about plot devices and the use of an unreliable narrator for a half hour. Adora listening from her spot on the balcony. 

They talk about the books until Entrapta and Scorpia wander over from the castle. Entrapta butts with something about voice recordings. Then they get stuck talking about the voice actor for the audio books. 

One day, Adora gets out to her balcony to see Catra and Perfuma talking quietly in the Garden. Catra is a morning person. Always has been so it's no surprise that she’s out here before Adora even woke up. She’s leaning against the stone bench, one arm resting on it with her head resting on her arm. 

She talks quietly enough to Perfuma that Adora can’t hear her. Perfuma talks back at the same volume. They talk like old friends. Or maybe new friends who have some sort of understanding. 

It surprises Adora. Not because the princesses are finding out for themselves that they like Catra.  Adora always knew they would. Catra was always likeable. Funny. She’s surprised because Catra has a hard time liking other people. She only ever needed Adora. Anyone else was a threat. 

She’s changed in the last year. She has more friends than Adora has ever seen her have. 

Bow and Seahawk break at the same time. Seahawk striding out because he heard Catra was claiming she was the best shot in all of Etheria and of course Sea hawk cannot be bested. Bow is stumbling after him because he stole Bow's… well, bow; to prove it.

They find themselves shooting flaming arrows at targets in the garden. Catra keeps making them laugh and she is indeed the best shot in all of Etheria. 

Glimmer is last. Adora really wasn’t expecting it. It has been her; after all, that’s been complang about Adora’s time spent on her balcony. It’s been her advocating to lock Catra back up in the guest room. It was her that went quiet when Angella admitted Catra had saved her life at the cost of one of her own and her mobility. 

She stomps right in. Unlike everyone else with their clear hesitation she walks right up to Catra and glares down at her. Catra looks up from where she was drawing the tulips in the flower beds and into Glimmer’s glare. 

She flinches at what she finds there. Adora watches Glimmer soften just a bit. 

“What?” Catra asks, looking back down at her flowers. She keeps drawing lines but she’s not entirely focused on them anymore. 

“I just wanted to know-” Glimmer trails off as Catra looks up at her. She must hesitate at the scar that crosses Catra’s face and clefts her lip. The one she got while saving Queen Angella. 

“I was wondering where you got that red suit,” she finally asks. 

“What?”

“The one from Princess Prom?” Glimmer plants her hands on her hips and looks away. “The one you kidnapped me in”

Catra shrinks a little and looks away, back to her flowers again. She shrugs, “There's a clothing shop in Erlandia. I passed by and it was in the window”

“Kara’s?” 

Catra looks up with a “hmm?”

“Kara’s clothing and miscellaneous”

“Yeah I think” Catra closes her book, pencil in between the pages, “it was gray”

“What?” Glimmer asks, squinting down at her, 

“My suit, it was gray”

Glimmer scoffs and shakes her head. “Are you kidding?”

Catra tilts her head and Glimmer's eyes widen. “You're not kidding?”

“It was gray to me” Catra mutters, picking at her collection of barely touched colored pencils. She tends to use green the most and leave the other colors untouched. 

Adora knows why. She always has. Glimmer wouldn’t. 

“Are you color blind?” Glimmer asks, but she isn’t mean about it like Adora expected her to be. It’s a quiet question. An honest question.

“What about it?” Catra asks, less nicely. Adora doesn’t blame her. In the Horde, a confirmation would never have been uttered. The question itself would have been met with a fight. A brutal one. Calling someone weak, even in such a roundabout way, would have ended in blood. Catra answering it makes Adora raise her eyebrows. 

“I just- didn't know,” Glimmer says, “I thought the suit looked great on you, the color was nice.”

“Scorpia helped me, she said the same thing” Catra says, playing with her pencil trapped between the pages of her book before opening it again and tapping it against the page. She had been coloring in green.

Glimmer sighs and bends down. Catra flinches away, Glimmer had gotten close to the side of her face that didn’t see so well anymore. She hadn’t noticed Glimmer getting closer. Probably hadn’t even heard her.

Glimmer hesitates before picking up Catra’s colored pencils. Thumbing them and separating some of the colors. 

“The tulips, in your drawing, are these colors.” Glimmer holds up two and points at the petals of the flower. “Yellow on the outside that bleeds into a red,”

Catra slowly takes them, watching Glimmer closely as they fingers brush. A fight doesn’t break out. Catra looks away. ‘

“Thanks”

“It's.. Whatever” Glimmer says quietly, looking at the ground as she straightens back up. “See ya”

Glimmer leaves. Just like that. A conversation that ended in neither friends nor a fight.

It looks easy.

It rains the next day and it drives Adora crazy. She hasn’t seen Catra all day. It’s killing her. 

Not that Adora expected Catra to go out and sit in the rain just so Adora could keep an eye on her. 

It’s just the first day. The first day Adora hasn’t seen Catra at all. It makes an anxious feeling settle in her stomach. What if Catra ran away. Gets everyone to let their guard down and then on the day everyone stays inside? she bolts. Somehow by passing the magical barrier. 

Adora tells herself she’ll just look into Catra’s room as she passes on her way to the mess hall. A passing glance. Just to make sure she’s there. 

And she does. She just gives the open door a passing glance through the corner of her eye as she walks-

Catra is curled up on her bed, watching the rain through the window. Her eyes on the darkening storm clouds. Music is playing softly from her radio on the desk. Her tail slowly curls and then relaxes next to her on the bed. 

Her desk is full of things people have given her. 

Four of the Mer-Mystery novels, one annotated. And one with a bookmark. There’s two sketchbooks. One is filled and the other is open to a page that has a sketch of a palace guard on it. Life- like, done very well. 

The colored pencils in a cup on the desk are labeled with color names. The green is nearly worn down to the nub but the rest have only started being used recently. 

“Are you done spectating?”

Adora jerks, she hadn’t realized she had stopped in the doorway. That she had plastered her hand on the frame and had just been…. Observing. 

Catra’s eyes flash to hers, just for a second, before looking back through the window. Adora finally takes a step into the room, letting the door close behind her. It feels different when they're in a closed space together. When Adora isn’t just observing from above.

She strides to the desk, eyes on Catra’s assortment of things. She has accumulated more here in the last few weeks then Adora has in the year she’s spent here. In the year she’s had to put down roots and hadn’t realized she was hesitating to do so. 

Adora opens the sketchbook. She doesn't ask if she can. She doesn’t think to. Catra doesn’t try to stop her but her tail curls around her body. Her eyes don’t stray from the storm clouds out the window. 

The book is nearly filled with drawings. Lots of flowers and other people. Perfuma and Scorpia are usually found on a page together. Sitting close. Either one girl looking at the other or vice versa. Surprisingly though, the book is mostly of Adora. 

Adora looking off at the water that surrounds Brightmoon. Adora with her bag to the banister of her balcony and enjoying the sun. Adora curled up on a couch, a book in her lap, one where she had a map in her lap. There’s even a drawing of her sleeping in the sun. 

“I knew you could see me”

“I'd have to be blind not too.”

Adora lets them sit in the silence. Stopping on a page of Adora leaning against the balcony. A book open in her hands. She remembers this day. She hadn’t actually been reading. She had been listening to Catra and Mermista banter about the newest novel in the Mer-Mystery series. 

Lightning strikes and Catra jumps hard. Shivering when the thunder follows. Adora didn't realize she had startled at the noise as well until she watched the cup of colored pencils she ultimately tipped over splatter against Catra’s desk. A series of colors across the hardwood. 

Adora sighs, letting the book of drawings close. She doesn’t attempt to right the colored pencils. Instead she finally walks to the edge of the bed and gets in. Laying herself down next to Catra. 

Catra doesn’t even seem surprised. Just moves her tail to make room and keeps her eyes on the storm clouds. Adora folds her hand over her stomach. 

Laying next to her, Adora feels like she can finally ask the question that’s been eating at her mind. It doesn’t seem so daunting with Catra’s warm arm pressed into her own. 

“Why did you close the portal?”

Catra doesn’t sound surprised when she answers. She’s been expecting it. “I was the one to open it. Might as well be the one to close it”

“So you risked your life on a principle” Adora says, her eyebrows drawing together. 

“I have nine of them so I had one to spare” It sounds like a joke but Catra isn’t teasing when she says it. 

“You fucking asshole” Adora spits, glaring at the ceiling. It sudden and bursts out of her before she can stop it. 

“Oh, I'm the asshole? You're the asshole” Catra responds, her tail whipping at the bed. 

“Great comeback. I sure feel threatened.”

Silence. Adora had expected the fight. She didn't realize it would end so quickly. Usually when they’re both riled up it ends in physical war. Catra doesn’t seem to have the energy for that. Or maybe she realizes it won't help. 

Then, Catra starts to laugh. Adora can’t help but follow. It starts slow, a giggle turns into a full laugh. Then neither of them can breathe, leaning into each other like the last year of separation had never happened. 

She feels good, laying here next to Catra as they take in deep breaths of air. She didn’t realize you could miss breathing next to a person. 

“I think I understand now,” Catra says after a second. She’s got her breath but she still breathes deep and lets it out slowly. 

“Understand what?” Adora asks. 

“Why you left” 

Adora sighs, trying to let herself sink into the soft  mattress below her. 

“You honestly didn’t know, did you?”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That the Horde’s abuse was the exception not the rule.” Adora blinks, her eyebrows drawing together. She had never thought of it that way. Never thought to look back and wonder why she was so confused that The Horde was the bad guy. 

“I- no- I guess, I never thought about it”

“You lived your entire life thinking that the hurt we suffered was normal. That, that’s how it was supposed to be. That The Rebellion could be worse in some way”

“Didn’t you?” Adora asks.

“No”

“No?”

“I knew the world had compassion and kindness. I knew that, what the Horde was doing, was horrible”

“How?”

Catra finally turns to her, her eyes meeting Adora’s. One a striking blue and one a muddy yellow. A faint line runs through it. 

“I had you”

Adora’s heart drops in her chest. 

“I had your love, compassion and kindness. I knew from the beginning because I had your love from that first day.”

Adora swallows, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. “You knew but you didn’t do anything about it?”

“I had you” Catra says again, as if it solves everything. As if that's a perfectly valid reason. As if Adora was some sort of life boat that could keep Catra afloat through any storm that weathered it. 

“I had you and I thought you had me. I thought I was showing you the love you deserved, even if it was through my own way. I thought we understood each other, that we were on the same page. I guess I was wrong”

“Catra- I-” Catra had suffered through abuse worse than death so she could be with Adora. She chose Adora everyday and the suffering that came with it. 

Adora had thought she was lucky. That Catra was a one off. An exception that fell into her lap one gloomy, smoggy morning in the Fright Zone. She hadn’t known there was any other choice. 

As soon as Adora realized there were more options? She was off. She didn’t even say goodbye. She just…. Left. She left and specifically told Catra not to come with her. That night she had told Catra to 'go back to sleep’ to ‘cover for her’.

“So, I’m sorry for that”

 Adora starts. Her eyes jerked back to Catra’s where she hadn’t realized they had strayed away. There’s a tear crawling down the side of Catra’s face. It must have come from her bad eye. 

“But I'm not sorry I stayed in the only home I've ever known. Even if I knew it was bad.”

Adora’s mouth gapes like a fish. Catra smiles just a bit before her mouth drops back into a line. She reaches up with a hand and quickly wipes away her tear. Her weakness. 

“You're wrong.” Catra looks away, her eyes straying back to the rainy clouds. 

“Well, you're right, ” Adora corrects, “but you're also wrong.”

Catra laughs lightly but let’s Adora continue. She either said her piece and had nothing else to say or knew Adora needed a moment to collect her thoughts.

“You're right that I didn’t know about The Horde. That it was bad. I thought, what we were going through was what life was. I think I thought, what we had together-” Adora gestures to them. Her hand leaving the other to do so before falling right back, “was this new thing no one had ever thought of before.”

Catra laughs again. It’s quiet and sounds so exhausted. Adora smiles and finally looks away from Catra. Letting her head rest on the pillow, letting her eyes stray to the ceiling. 

“I know it sounds silly. I know now that it sounds silly.”

“It’s not silly” Catra whispers 

“Leaning on each other was something we invented. Right there in the worst place on earth. If I knew what money was then? I would have been thinking ‘shit, me and Catra are going to be fucking rich’”

Catra laughs, glancing away from her rain clouds for a second and back at Adora’s face. 

“Then I got out there. And I saw what the world was. I saw- that what we had… it wasn’t” Adora sighs, fiddling with her hands. “I’m not going to say that what we had- have- Isn’t special. Because it is. What we have is special”

Adora turns her head back to Catra’s. “I realized that not only could we have our special thing but we could also live without all the pain. Without the suffering. And then I realized that everyone could have that. I wanted everyone to have that”

Catra smiles. Tears are running freely down her face now. Soaking into her peach full. They’re running down Adora’s too but she ignores them in favor of trying to put her feelings into words.

"I didn’t realize that we weren't on the same page either. That we were in different books even.” Adora laughs, “I didn't realize that you were in the garden and I was on the balcony.” Catra giggles with her. Adora feels a tail come up and wrap around her ankle. 

“So I'm sorry for that. I'm so sorry that I made you feel like I was leaving you and not The Horde. “ Adora gulps and grasps one of Catra’s hands in her own. She looks away from Catra and back to the ceiling and says her piece. “But I'm not sorry that I joined The Rebellion”

Adora watches Catra give a firm nod and a weight, that was so heavy, is lifted off her shoulders. 

“Ok then” Catra says, holding Adora’s hand with the same tightness, the same desperation, that Adora holds hers. 

“Ok then” Adora agrees, tilting her head so it rests on Catra’s shoulders. Catra tilts hers until it rests against Adora’s head. Their hands held between them. They lay there together until the storm passes and the sun finally peaks out from between the clouds again. 

The first time Adora brings herself to find Catra in her garden; she is holding a bundle of Colored pencils. Not the multi-colored one Perfuma had brought. Adora has an assortment of the color green. 

Catra’s favorite color. The color she sees the best, the most vibrantly. It had been the only color she needed in The Horde. The other’s didn’t mean anything to her, she didn't need them to. 

She has other colors now. She knows their names and sometimes she needs help to be able to see them, but she uses them. Adora would even say she needs them sometimes. To bring her art to life. 

But green is still her favorite and Adora wants her to have as much of it as she wants .