Chapter Text
Adora and Catra have been living in Bright Moon castle while helping with the rebuilding process. Adora has become a symbol of hope and high expectations. Most who talk to her treat and admire her as if she’s She-ra all the time.
While all the weight of this crashes down on Adora, Catra sees the cracks forming.
Adora sits outside on the balcony they share, looking up at the night sky with her hands shaking from exhaustion. She hasn’t said a word since she came through the door an hour ago. Catra has been inside, watching Adora silently, recognizing the signs before Adora does.
If there’s one thing Catra knows, it’s the way Adora operates. She’s seen this, she knows this. When Adora is mere moments away from breaking down from all the expectations she puts upon herself. That others put upon her by seeing her only as She-ra, the hero, the almighty.
“Hey, Adora.” Catra almost purrs those words as she steps outside in the warm summer air. Although Adora has never admitted to it, she knows what those words said in that particular tone does to her. Catra picks up on Adora’s heartbeat and arousal through her heightened Magicat senses.
Adora doesn’t look at Catra. Instead she looks up at the night sky, focused and exhausted all in one. “ I have another council session tomorrow. They want updates. And–” Her voice cracks the tiniest amount. Just a hairline fracture but Catra hears it.
She sways over to Adora, slow and gentle, and sits down beside her facing towards her, not like Adora who is facing outward.
“You don’t have to get ready for tomorrow yet.”
“I need to,” Adora insists. “Everyone is counting on–”
“She-ra.” Catra’s tone is soft, but deliberate. “But I’m talking to you.”
Adora swallows hard, her throat feels too tight.
“I can’t fall apart, Catra,” she whispers, her eyes looking down at her hands and eyes getting watery.
“Why not?”
“Because…Because what if I don’t come back together?”
This is the moment, the real one. The Adora nobody else ever gets to see because nobody is close enough to hear the fear behind the strength. Tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks as she closed them, bringing both hands up to her face to hide them.
Catra leans in– not forcing or prying–inviting.
“Hey, look at me.” Adora doesn’t for several seconds before she opens her eyes and turns toward Catra. Her eyes are full of exhaustion and defeat.
Catra brings her hands up to caress Adora’s cheek. “You don’t have to be a symbol with me,” Catra says. “You don’t have to be She-ra. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t need to keep it together.”
Tears continue to fall but somehow a sliver of self-preservation holds her back from really letting go. But then, Adora realizes it’s Catra. Catra of all people, the one person in the universe who knew her before She-ra. Who confessed to having feelings for her long before she found the sword.
The only person who has ever seen her at her weakest long before she was ever at her strongest.
Catra shifts closer, forehead nearly touching Adora’s, Catra’s voice low when she says “You carried the whole world through the war. Let somebody carry you. “
That does it. The dam that was keeping Adora together breaks – nothing catastrophic–the first honest collapse she’s allowed herself in years. Her shoulders crumple, her breathing stutters, and she leans forward until she’s folded into Catra’s chest, trembling and shaking from the emotions being let out.
Catra wraps her arms around her– firm, grounding, protective– like she’s shielding Adora the way Adora once shielded everyone else.
“I’ve got you, and I’m never letting go.” The memory flashes in both of their minds, the moment when Catra was saving Adora in the Heart of Etheria.
Adora chokes out “Why don’t you ever doubt me the way I doubt myself?” Catra huffs a soft, sad laugh against Adora’s forehead. “Because, dummy. I know you. Not the sword, not the big sparkly legendary warrior princess. You. “ Catra’s voice softens as she adds “And I didn’t choose She-ra. I chose you. “
Adora finally sobs into her shoulder–helpless, real, unguarded. And Catra continues to hold her like an anchor, holding her down in this world.
For the first time since the war, Adora finally let’s someone save her.