“...everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove that life is more than one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.”
- stephen king
[ sometimes you accept that this is how your pain will be, it will never fully dissipate and you will never fully recover, but then you begin to speak and i begin to understand that i left you in pieces for a war worth my time, and we will understand each other. ]
Catra knows .
Every word she says, laced with anger to cover up the guilt and hatred to cover up the envy, is so palpably calculated and she knows it. And she knows Adora knows it. She knows Adora will hear them and know she doesn’t mean them, but instead she’ll hurt at the thought that Catra would say them knowing exactly what they did to her.
“Everything to yourself, Adora. That's how it's always been."
Adora reels, but it isn’t Adora. It never is. Catra tries to get closer, see her face to tell her but instead what happens every time happens again, and the hint of blonde that Catra can see through the shadows begins to fade along with the rest of her figure but this time, Catra’s prepared. And so she runs . She’s running after her, so light on her feet that they’re barely touching the ground and her heart is beating so hard in her chest and in her throat and her head feels hot and she can barely see , but she absolutely needs to see her, because they were just talking, they were just talking and she was listening and where did she go—
She lands, her claws dragging against the ground, and she's no longer in the dark. Instead, she’s surrounded by the all too familiar dark green walls that tower over her, the ones that used to make her feel so alive as she climbed up them until she reached the highest point, sometimes to find some quiet in the chaos and sometimes to piss off Shadow Weaver, but now they feel as big as they are — they overpower her .
She shrinks into herself, nearly jumping when she feels something brush against her arm, and she looks down, and it’s just her hair, which means it’s long now.
And she hates it.
Catra pulls . She pulls at her hair so hard that she’s nearly crying out in pain, but she can’t or someone might hear her and this place doesn’t feel safe—the Fright Zone, once her home, no longer feels safe. She just needs this to come off , and she needs to go back because Adora was there. Adora was there and they were talking and where is she now , where is Adora now when Catra —
“ CATRA !”
—needs her.
Catra jerks awake, eyes widening when she sees the mess in front of her. Her pillow is at her feet and her claws have torn through it, feathers spilling out.
“Catra, I’m here.”
She turns her head, and sure enough, it’s Adora, all of her .
"You were yelling in your sleep again."
Catra looks down at where her hands are gripping the mattress, because she's already torn through the sheets, and she lets go immediately, embarrassed.
She folds her arms, looking down so Adora can't see the tint of red in her cheeks. "I'm okay, now. You can go."
“Oh, Catra,” Adora sighs, sitting on the bed next to her. Catra knows her tone is meant to be comforting, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels so dismissive and so patronizing and she hates herself for thinking that, she hates that it makes her skin crawl, because Adora doesn’t mean to make her feel like that.
So why does she blame her?
“I’m really okay.” She shrugs Adora’s arm off, ignoring the dejected look on her face. She turns away, swinging her feet off the bed and sliding them into the slippers Glimmer had given her.
“You’re not going back to sleep? It’s so early.”
“I slept through dinner. It’s okay,” she shrugs, not so subtly refusing to look Adora in the eye as she stands up, moving to sit on the nook by the window at the other end of the room, and then pausing for a moment to think—”why are you up?”
She looks over her shoulder, wanting to look at Adora but not at her, and in this silence, she holds her breath.
And there she is. Catra looks at the way she sits, hunched over, her hands clutching the side of the bed. Strands of hair spill out of her ponytail and the moonlight makes it glow, almost as if she were She-ra, but this isn’t She-ra. This is Adora. Catra’s Adora. This is the Adora that let Catra run over her belly out of spite. This is the Adora that always came looking for her when she ran away upset. This is the Adora who was always by her side, no matter how she acted. This is the Adora that had a silly sounding giggle that made Catra’s heart race, but she’d never admit it.
This is the Adora that loved Catra so wholly and unconditionally, it made Catra weak .
Catra’s always known.
She’s always known that Adora’s cheeks turn red when she laughs. She’s always known how she sleeps at night, sometimes sprawled across the bed and sometimes curled up into a ball, but no inbetween. She’s always known how her face scrunches up every time she marches into battle, and to everyone else it’s intimidating but it makes her heart melt. She’s always known how much Adora cares, how responsible she feels for everyone around her, how she would put all her wants and needs aside for those she doesn’t even know, and Catra’s loved and hated her for it.
Catra’s hated herself for hating her.
“I’m helping set up for today,” was Adora’s reply.
Catra wants to believe her, but both she and Adora know that Adora sleeps right next door to her, and probably heard her screaming.
She appreciates Adora trying to cover it up, though.
“Let’s get breakfast?”
Adora looks up and offers Catra a small smile. “Yeah.”
“Perfuma’s doing flowers. Mermista and Frosta are doing something —I can’t read her handwriting and I’m not sure I want to. Sea Hawk and Scorpia are in charge of… decorations? How is Scorpia going to tie a balloon?” Glimmer huffs. “Who made this list ?”
Bow watches Glimmer, watches her pace back and forth with her shoulders hunched and her eyebrows furrowed, and he desperately wants to reach out and pull her close, but he knows she’ll probably throw an angry fit if he tries, so he watches her from a distance instead, trying his best to hold back a smile.
“What are you looking at?”
He jumps, so caught up in watching Glimmer that he didn’t even realize he had been found out.
“Do you think this is funny ?”
Bow stands there, his hand scratching the back of his neck as he bites back a laugh. This betrayal doesn’t get past Glimmer, and truthfully, nothing ever does.
He isn’t prepared for what happens next.
Glimmer thinks for a second, two, and then hunches, squeezing her eyes shut as she literally disappears into thin air , and Bow blinks once, twice, and then barely has a second to look around to see where she could have possibly teleported to before he hears a high pitched scream coming from above him and the next thing he knows he’s on the ground.
He moans in pain, squirming underneath the weight on his abdomen, and he looks up, and there she is, smiling as wide as he’s ever seen her smile.
And his pain dissipates.
Glimmer looks at him, smugly. “Still feel like laughing?”
He manages a weak smile, and winces in pain as he squeaks out a “ tiny… bow .”
“ Oh my god , are you really hurt?” The look of joy turns to one of worry, and Glimmer gets up so fast that she nearly trips over Bow, lightly kicking his ribs in the process, causing them to hurt more than he lets on, because he doesn’t want her to think he’s hurt.
He likes her happy.
"Hey hey hey , I'm fine—”
“And what do we have here?”
Glimmer’s face pales, and Bow follows her line of sight. Scorpia all but barges into the room, a blown and tied balloon in each arm, Melog trailing curiously behind her.
Scorpia’s eyes widen with delight. “Bow! Glimmer ! You’re here ! Oh, thank god . We need you downstairs. Mermista and Frosta tried to make an ice statue—”
“A what ?”
“—but Emily keeps rolling into it for fun. I tried to stop her, but Entrapta’s better with Emily, except no one has seen her since this morning. Sea Hawk was meant to help decorate, but then he decided he wanted to help with the statue, except the statue keeps breaking —”
“Woah, back up. Mermista and Frosta did what , exactly?”
Scorpia sighs, dropping her arms. Melog, who was previously sitting up alert in fear of Scorpia’s pincers waving around frantically, sat back down, curling their tail around them.
“Come see for yourself.”
Glimmer turns to Bow. “If they made a mess, I will kill them,” she exasperates. She then, almost instantaneously, vanishes, leaving a trail of sparkles behind her.
Bow, only now standing up, flustered by the chaotic chain of events, looks at Scorpia, who looks just as frantic now as when she came, but still smiles widely at him. “Come on , Bow.”
Before he can protest, Scorpia’s already lifted him up in one swoop and Melog has curled themselves around their legs.
“Oh, this gets better and better every time.”
There’s a knock on the door.
Catra sighs. She knows who it is, and she can’t decide if Adora is the first or the last person she wants to see right now, not that she really has many options.
She looks down at her hands that are gripping the edge of the sink so tightly that Catra can feel her claws sliding against the cast-iron, and she squeezes her eyes shut.
If Shadow Weaver were still here, she would convince Catra to look up. She would convince her to look in the mirror, to really look at herself, to own who she had become. Her claws begin to dig into the sink, so she pulls them away with an agonized cry. She doesn’t try to hold back.
Regardless, if Adora hears, she doesn’t say anything.
The thought makes Catra’s eyes brim with tears, and she lets out a sniffle. She doesn’t know why she’s crying, but she is and she wants to scream— she wants to so badly but she can’t and so she just opens her mouth and heaves as hard as she can and what comes out of her is something like a drawn out high pitched squeak and her chest is aching for something to come out and she is aching for some peace.
And Adora could see her like this, but maybe Catra doesn’t care. Maybe she wants Adora to see her like this.
Maybe she wants Adora to know .
“Adora?”
This is it. The last time.
“Catra?”
There’s something in Catra’s chest, and at the sound of Adora’s voice, it begins to press against her ribs, and suddenly Catra can’t breathe.
Breathe, Catra. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“Don’t sound so happy to hear me. I’m sending Glimmer to you.”
She nearly chokes on the words, but catches herself in time. It isn’t about her anymore.
She doesn’t deserve for it to be about her.
“I don’t know your exact location, but I can get her to your quadrant. You have to be there to catch her.”
She focuses her energy on the buttons in front of her, pressing them as fast as she can think, knowing she doesn’t have much time— knowing that, the second she stops, the thing in her chest will grow to be overbearing and she won’t be able to breathe, and then she’ll mess this up too.
And she needs this to go right.
It has to go right.
“Wait, wait, wait, what? What’s going on? Glimmer is with you?”
And then she hears there’s loud grunting, and the sliding of the door, and Catra knows she’s out of time.
And it hurts, but it doesn’t matter.
“We don’t have time. You need to get to these coordinates now. Don’t come here—”
(Don’t come back for me.)
“—no matter what.”
She sees the clone before it can get to her, and elbows it out of the way, yelling in frustration.
Almost there, Catra. You’re almost there.
“Horde prime is ready for you.”
She’s out of breath, but there’s another one coming her way, and so she puts all her might into a kick, holding them off for just a second longer, because this is it.
This is her last chance.
“Catra, I don’t understand, what is—?”
And the thing in her chests bursts and suddenly it’s everywhere— they are everywhere, and this is it and why can’t Adora just get it? Why didn’t she ever get it?
“Just listen!”
She’s fighting to say something— anything even though she doesn’t know what, because these are her last words.
This is the last thing she’ll ever get to say.
“Adora… I’m sorry.”
It's not what she wants to say but it's all she gets to and it's all that's fair to say and the tears are there and she can’t fight them because it hurts twice as much to fight them as it does to not, and Catra doesn’t have it in her to hurt anymore.
“For everything.”
You did it, Catra. You did it.
So she gives in.
She lets them take her.
“Catra?”
Catra blinks.
“Catra, are you in there?"
She looks up, bringing her hands to her face as she realizes her cheeks are wet with tears. She brushes them away, not really caring that despite her efforts, her flushed cheeks and sad eyes will give her away.
“Catra, we have to get ready—”
“—yeah, yeah, give me a second,” she croaks, and she thinks about opening the door. She thinks about Adora taking one look at her and asking her what’s wrong.
“Are you okay?”
Catra swings the door open in response, her head down. “I’m fine.”
“Catra, look at me. ”
She lifts her head, offering Adora a weak smile, knowing it doesn’t hide anything. But then Adora’s looking back at her, right in the eye, with a care in her eyes that Catra’s hasn’t known in a long time, and her eyebrows are drawn and her hair is open and so strands of hair are falling over her eyes and it’s actually really cute and suddenly Catra can’t hold the smile anymore and she’s tearing up instead because she doesn’t know what else to do because this is so so so much and then Adora’s wrapping her arms around her and Catra wants to hug her back but her arms are locked into her sides and she feels so small , and she doesn’t know what to tell her— she doesn’t know where to start.
“I’m so sorry, Adora. I’m so so so sorry .”
“Hey hey , it’s okay .”
And then Adora’s hands are in her hair, stroking it, and Catra clings onto her so tight with the parts of her hands that she can move, knowing she could leave scars, but she doesn’t care.
She can’t let go.
They stand there— Catra heaving sobs into Adora’s chest with the other stroking her hair, until —
“You know, I messed up too.”
She doesn’t get what Adora’s talking about at first, still clinging onto her like her life depends on it.
“What do you mean?” She mumbles into her chest, closing her eyes as her breaths start to even, as if she’s about to go to sleep there.
“I left you behind.”
Catra falters.
She staggers back, instinctively pushing Adora with such force that both of them nearly lose footing, and her eyes are widening and she’s looking down at her hands because her claws are digging into them so hard but she can’t feel the pain, not yet , because the words are ringing in her head and it is so so loud .
(I left you behind left you behind left you behind you were there and I left you behind you get left behind left behind I left you behind)
Adora’s saying words but Catra can’t hear them and maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to and maybe it’s because of the ringing but then she can feel the tears again and her cheeks are burning and she’s no longer digging her claws into her palm because now her palms are pressed to her head and she feels trapped and there's nowhere to go—
( I left you behind she left you behind she's never coming back for you because she left you behind )
—and there never has been.
"You can't— you can't do that."
And the ringing is growing louder, and there's bile rising in her throat and her face is hot and she's shrinking into herself and she thinks she's on the floor but she can't see— and it's like her dream except vaguely through the white noise she can hear Adora say something like do what and so she tries her best to open her mouth and just speak .
"You can't just… say that ."
Catra inhales.
" Why ?"
And Adora's voice sounds so incredulous and so full of pain that it sends a pang through Catra's chest, and it wears her down, and all that comes out is this:
"Because then… why did you do it ?"
She’s looking at Adora again, but now she’s on the ground and the other is standing over her, and through the tears Catra can somewhat make out the expression on her face, and the look of sheer helplessness makes her body hunch forward, because she can’t hold herself up anymore.
And Adora isn’t saying anything.
“Just go away.”
“ Catra— ”
“ Go away .”
“ No .”
Adora crouches down beside her and Catra sighs in relief.
She stayed.
“Okay, let’s try again.”
“ No , we don’t need a—”
“Can you make one of me? Please— ”
“We already did, Swift Wind.”
“I know, but Emily—”
CRASH .
Everyone goes quiet. Right in front of the entrance to the hall lies a giant pile of toppled over presents. Entrapta peaks out from underneath, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.
“Aunt Castaspella sends her regards?”
The rest of them stand there, saying nothing, just staring— gawking , more like.
And then Entrapta’s face lights up— “ooh wait. I think she left a note.”
And she dives back in.
“Entrapta, no —”
“Glimmer, it’s okay—”
“ What did you just say to me?”
“I found it! I found the note ! Aunt Castaspella says—”
“So back to the statue—”
“—she’s very sorry she couldn’t make it, but—”
“How many times , Swift Wind? We said no.”
“—she sends her love and lots of presents—”
“Oh my god, can I have one too?”
“—and she hopes— oh hey Emily, come here —”
A jarring, high pitched howl is what quiets every one of the one hundred and twenty two of them (it’s exact, Frosta made sure). Their heads turn to the source of the sound, and sure enough, right in the centre of the chaos, is Catra.
She's on her hands and knees, her tail curled upwards, smirking at them deviously.
"So this is what a party looks like."
"Hey, Scorpia?"
Shortly after Catra's grand entrance, the rest of them had quieted down. Glimmer took to sorting out the ice statue dispute, Entrapta distracted Emily, Scorpia and Sea Hawk touched up on decorations, and Catra had followed Perfuma to the kitchen with the promise that she'd get to lick cookie batter off the spoon.
Adora had stayed back in Catra's room after encouraging her to join in on the festivities, knowing it would be her first time. Initially, she pushed Adora to come with her, but then, it seemed, she had figured something—Adora doesn't know what—that made her expression change, as if she suddenly understood, and she left without a word.
Adora didn't address it.
Instead, she had let Catra go, and stayed behind, her mind in a million different places.
( "Adora?"
Adora turned around, and there she was. Her pointy ears were just barely peeking out from her hair, and one of her eyes was drooping, and she had a line of drool running from the corner of her lips all the way down to her chin. Adora had the sudden urge to pull her close and squeeze all the breath out of her and never ever ever let her go.
Catra waddled over to her, her feet lightly padding against the ground, and even just the sound of her footsteps made seven year old Adora's heart flutter.
"Adora," she whined once more. "Scooch over. I can't sleep.")
Eventually, Adora had managed to bring herself to get up, put on a smile, and be ready.
It's what she was made to do.
"Hey, Adora ! How's it going?"
Scorpia beams at her, and for a moment, Adora wonders how—how she can look at everyone, even those who had hurt her, with an unparalleled fondness.
Except Adora knows the truth. She is so intimately familiar with the truth. They all are.
She tries to smile, but she barely manages to maintain it for a second before it falls again. “Um, can I ask you something?”
“Of course!” Scorpia continues to curl streamers around her pincers mindlessly, careful not to tear them, seemingly oblivious to the way Adora is shaking slightly, her palms holding onto either arm to hold still.
Adora hasn't been here. She hasn't been to this place where it's cold all the time. She hasn't been to this place where she feels like scratching the creases in her arms until there isn't any skin and her flesh is exposed. She hasn't been to this place where she doesn't belong.
She opens her mouth to say something, but everything feels caught in her throat. It feels heavy and poky and like it's going to tear through and all that will be left are shreds of who she used to be.
Scorpia turns to look at her, an eyebrow raised in concern. “Hey, you okay?”
Adora inhales, and everything that was ready to come pouring out goes right back in.
“Yeah, I am,” she says, looking Scorpia in the eye this time. “When...when you and Catra were in the Horde— ”
Scorpia visibly flinches at the malice in Adora’s tone when she says the word, and Adora wonders if it’s because she feels the same hostility, or if it’s because she feels defensive towards it like Adora sometimes does.
Like all of those of them who were raised there do.
“—how did she cope with… how did she cope with me… abandoning her?”
It happens for a second, a moment so small Adora wouldn’t have noticed if she weren’t looking closely, but Scorpia freezes, and her facial expression drops, and she looks hurt, and Adora wants to backpedal but she doesn’t know how because she doesn’t know what she said wrong to begin with, but then Scorpia’s shoulders are dropping, and she’s about to say something, and Adora’s not sure she wants to know anymore.
“She hurt you,” Scorpia admits with a small shrug.
She hurt you.
Adora looks down at her palms, watches as they become blurry, and she doesn’t know if it's because there are tears in her eyes or if it's because she’s feeling slightly dizzy, but all she knows is she needs to get out of here .
“Adora? Adora, are you in there?”
Adora says something— she doesn’t really know what but it’s probably something curt and dismissive and then she’s turning away from Scorpia and pushing her way through the crowd and hoping no one will notice that she was ever there to begin with. Her eyes are set on the giant archway between herself and the outside of the castle, where there’s air , and she would run if it didn’t draw attention to herself, if there was room —
“ Adora , what the hell?”
—but there wasn’t, and so she keeps her head down, and she can’t tell if it’s in her head but she’s almost sure she hears a small ‘ She-ra ’ as she nears the entrance, so she speeds up, praying she makes it out fast enough.
It’s when she’s out and breathing that she realizes she’s not alone— she looks down and finds her hand digging into someone’s wrist, and then she looks all the way up and suddenly, she vaguely remembers having seen Glimmer and grabbed her without thinking twice.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” She lets go immediately, wincing when she sees the redness and slight dents in her skin from Adora’s nails, but the look on Glimmer’s face is not one of hurt as much as it is one of worry .
“It’s okay. Are you okay?”
Adora repeats the question to herself.
“I hurt Catra.”
“What do you mean?”
She pulls Glimmer to the side. “She did a lot of terrible things.”
Glimmer looks at her, an eyebrow raised as if to say where are you going with this, and the worry seems to be gone, and Adora wonders if possibly, Glimmer feels the tiniest bit defensive towards Catra, or at least, she hopes to God that that’s what it is.
“Yeah, but we put that behind us. Kind of.”
Adora nods. “Yeah, but that isn’t the point— until now, I wanted to believe that I wasn’t capable of doing what she did.”
Glimmer looks confused, and so Adora looks back at her helplessly. “To me, Catra and I had lived the same life, and she took the wrong turn. But we didn’t. We both lived life at the Horde, but I was always told I had a place there— she was treated as if she was disposable.”
Adora watches as Glimmer’s expression softens, sees that she’s beginning to understand, and it makes every inch of her body hurt, because the pain she caused Catra is real, and it isn’t the kind of pain that she can easily fix.
“Shadow Weaver manipulated both of us, but I was valuable to her. I belonged there. And when I met you, and found the sword, I dropped it all— I dropped everything , including her, because I had some responsibility to Etheria, without second thought. And she loved— well, loves me. I was the only one that treated her like she mattered, until I didn’t.”
“And there’s no way of knowing that if the roles weren’t reversed, I might not do the same.”
Her voice cracks, and she knows that her eyes are brimming with tears, and Glimmer looks like she feels bad for her, and puts her arms around her, and Adora doesn’t know what to do except cry.
So that’s what she does.
“You’re right, you know. We don’t know that any of us wouldn’t do the same in her position. But as of this moment, the war is over, and Catra is here, and she loves you, and she’s regretful, and you’re regretful, and it’ll take awhile for you guys to get past this pain, but you have each other now. You’re not in it alone.”
“I’m not in it alone,” she chokes out, repeating the words, over and over again in between hiccups, until her sobs quieten, and she’s pulling away from Glimmer. “I’m not in it alone.”
She feels something in her chest clench, and she’s looking at her best friend, the one she fought with side by side for three years, and Adora is finally, finally realizing, after all this time. “I’m not in it alone.”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Adora turns around, laughing slightly when Catra draws out the you . She feels Catra’s fingertips brush past her neck, and she tries her hardest not to shiver, but suddenly every inch of her body feels like it’s on fire.
Catra always had that effect on her.
“I was with Glimmer,” she smiles, now looking at her in the eye. “Where were you?”
Catra’s face lights up, and it makes Adora’s heart squeeze, because she hasn’t seen her girlfriend look this happy for so long, and Catra deserves to be this happy always— every second of her life.
“I was baking with Perfuma,” she boasts, “we made mini cupcakes.”
Adora laughs. “That’s cute.”
“ Cute ? I’m not cute. Cupcakes are good ,” she crosses her arms, scowling.
“Mini cupcakes?” She raises an eyebrow questioningly.
“Entrapta likes tiny food.” Catra’s face turns red with embarrassment this time, and Adora wants to laugh, but instead she finds it so ridiculously endearing, and it makes her ache because she had missed this so badly, and she was finally, finally here.
Adora was finally home.
“You know, we do have a party to go to." She smiles and holds her hand out.
And this time she knows Catra will take it.