Hi! So, Catra in season 2 episode 6 broke my heart. This sad cat needs a healthy parental figure, stat.

Angella walked the silent halls of the castle, her steps illuminated only by moonlight and the faint glow of her wings. In a sense, it really wasn't fair, she mused. An immortal being who couldn't sleep? She would give nearly anything for that sweet reprieve, a way to skip over a few scant hours of eternity. But sleep eluded her, as always, and her regrets of the past and fears for the future did not.

So she walked.

A dark figure caught her eye as she passed an open door to one of the castle's many balconies. She backtracked, approaching the archway. The figure was small, lithe, and topped with an unruly mane of hair, leaning against the wall of the balcony and staring out across the moonlit woods beyond. A familiar figure, these days, but the stillness-that was new.

"Catra?" Angella called quietly, though she suspected Catra had detected her near-silent footsteps long before she spoke. The figure's head turned, and the thin glow of a thoroughly unsurprised blue eye confirmed her suspicions before turning back to the silent woods.

"Hey."

The corner of Angella's mouth quirked upward. Catra's casual disregard for her authority was a far cry from the way Adora had literally and figuratively fallen over herself in her attempts at propriety during her first days at Bright Moon.

Angella found herself not caring in the slightest.

There was a strange tenseness to her stance. A small piece of ragged paper caught Angella's eye as she approached, held loosely in Catra's hand where it rested on the balcony wall. The paper appeared to have been crumpled and smoothed repeatedly.

"Long patrol?" Angell asked, conversationally. She would hear Catra's report in the morning, as usual, but clearly… something… needed to be addressed before then.

"Yes. No," Catra amended her automatic response. She sighed. "It was typical."

"Mm."

Angella waited.

Catra's hand clenched around the paper, crumpling it further, then relaxed.

"Shadow Weaver is dead."

Ah.

Angella swallowed against the familiar, cold emptiness those words brought. Shadow Weaver. Light Spinner. Another person from her past she could have helped, perhaps even saved, if only she had been more observant. Another failure. Another loss. She shook her head, collecting her thoughts and carefully pushing them aside.

Right now, her attention was needed elsewhere.

"I see," she responded. "How far has the news spread?"

"Aside from our spy network? I doubt anyone else knows. It was quiet, apparently. Just Hordak cleaning up another one of his messes." The paper twisted in her fingers again.

"I will need to share this news in tomorrow's meeting," Angella said, carefully. "Does Adora…?"

"I'll tell her in the morning," Catra said, tiredly. "I don't know how she'll feel about it." She scoffed. "I don't know how I feel about it."

Angella stood, silent.

"I can't believe she's actually gone." The words were delivered in a strange tone, thick with an unnamed emotion.

"It's all right to be sad, Catra." A laugh interrupted her words.

"Sad? I'm not sad! I should be happy the old witch is gone!" For a moment, Angella wondered if the girl was speaking to her, or to herself. Catra's words continued to flow, as though a dam had been broken.

"Why should I miss someone who was never once nice to me? She could be nice to Adora, sure, telling her what a great leader she'd be someday, smoothing her hair back all gentle-you know what she did with me?" Her words were punctuated with sweeping gestures, an almost wild look in her eyes. "She threatened to kill me when I was four. Four! Who does that? She used her restraining magic on me all the time, couldn't even bring herself to touch me unless it was to hit me—except for one time," she was pacing now, index finger upraised to drive her point home, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. "The one, single time when I thought I had finally earned her respect, and she used me." Her voice broke, and Angella's heart broke with it. "It was all a lie. She was a terrible person and I should be glad she's gone."

Catra stood a moment, catching her breath from the emotion of her outburst.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this," Catra muttered, dropping her elbows to the wall of the balcony and leaning against it in a way that belied exhaustion beyond the physical.

Another silence, broken only by the distant rustling of wind in the trees.

"You still can't touch Adora's hair when she's half-asleep without her freaking out," Catra finally said, softer. "Did you know that?"

Angella did not. She added it to the long list of things that she would contemplate later, in the hours she spent not sleeping.

"Even her approval messed us up so much, and yet it's all I ever wanted." Catra laughed; a short, bitter thing. "I must be an idiot."

"No," Angella said firmly. Catra looked up in mild surprise. "No," she repeated, more gently. "How could you not desire the approval of the only mother you'd ever known?"

Catra's gaze dropped.

"I shouldn't," she whispered. "I should be happy she's gone."

Angella stepped closer. "But you aren't." Catra turned away from her, silent, briefly bringing the back of her hand to her face and roughly dragging it across her eyes.

"It's all right to be sad, Catra," she repeated. "Shadow Weaver did terrible things, things you never deserved-but she was an important part of your life. It's normal to grieve such a loss."

Silence.

"You were alike in many ways, you know," Angella said a moment later.

Catra scoffed, and it sounded wet. "I thought you were trying to make me feel better."

"I said many, not all. She was driven. Intelligent. Determined. As for her other, less desirable qualities, you have accomplished what all good mothers wish for their children: you have grown beyond them. Become the best version of themselves, the one they could never attain."

"I don't believe you." Her voice was unsteady in the dark.

"It's the truth. And truth remains, whether you believe it or not," Angella said simply.

Catra's gaze was fixed on the ground, and for a moment all Angella could see was her own daughter standing before her, broken and hurting. Without thinking, she raised a hand and gently pushed back some of Catra's hair from her face before resting her palm against the side of her face.

Catra froze to stone under her touch. Slowly, mechanically, her head raised.

"What do you want," she demanded, all traces of her former vulnerability replaced with a cold, hard stare. Angella dropped her hand away, silently cursing herself for not remembering how the only soft touch Catra had known from her parental figure had been a manipulative lie.

"Nothing," she said, too quickly. "I'm sorry."

A moment passed as something coalesced in her mind, and she spoke again.

"No, you're right," she said firmly. "I do want something."

Catra's eyes held a heartbreaking mixture of disappointment, resignation, anger. The look of someone who knew what was coming, but had hoped, however faintly, they would be wrong.

"I want you to know that it was never your fault." The anger faded from Catra's face, replaced by confusion. "You were a child, and you never deserved what was done to you."

Catra's lips parted, but Angella forged on. "I want you to know that you're good enough, smart enough, strong enough. That you always have been. That you… you are enough."

Confusion gave way to shock, then disbelief, and Catra spun her back to Angella too late to hide the tears spilling from her eyes. Her fists reflexively clenched and unclenched at her sides.

"Shut up." Her voice was cracked, fragile.

Angella thought of how Scorpia and Entrapta deserted with her when Catra left the Horde-not so much because they wanted to leave the Horde, but because they refused to leave her. She thought of Bow and Glimmer and how, despite their near-daily complaints and protestations about Catra's behavior, they had been practically frantic when she was briefly captured by a Horde patrol a few weeks ago. Thought of Adora, and of the warmth she herself had felt steadily growing for this angry, damaged girl who hid so much and cared so deeply.

Slowly, gently, she reached out and rested her hand on Catra's shoulder, feeling her tense under the touch.

"I want you to know you are loved."

There was a long silence while Catra stood, trembling and shaking under Angella's hand with the force of holding herself together, not even breathing. When she finally drew a breath, it came as a sharp sob wrenching its way out of her throat-followed by another, then another as she sank to the ground. Angella followed, listening to her cries with an aching heart before she finally risked putting an arm across Catra's shoulders.

"Oh, child," she whispered.

To her great surprised, Catra suddenly spun in place, wrapping her arms around Angella in a vice-like grip and firmly planting her damp face in her shoulder as she continued to cry. Frozen only momentarily, Angella brought up her arms up to wrap them gently around her shaking frame, cocooning them both in the soft, iridescent glow of her wings. A memory came to her of Glimmer, not long after Micah's death, as she started to rub slow, gentle circles on Catra's back.

"Shh," she murmured. "It's all right."

Eventually, her wracking cries faded to hiccuping breaths, and her grip loosened. Angella loosened her grip in return, allowing Catra to pull a short distance away. She wiped her forearm across her face before pulling her knees to her chest.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Angella offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted without making eye contact. "You have nothing to apologize for."

Another silence. Angella knew she didn't believe her words, but it was all right. She would repeat them as many times as necessary.

Catra looked at the iridescent wing that was still wrapped loosely around her back.

"You know, I used to think you were some enormous, disgusting winged monster?" Catra smiled sheepishly. "The Horde wasn't exactly flattering with their propaganda."

Angella laughed softly. "Opinions can change. After all, I wasn't your biggest fan when you tried to shoot the Moonstone while I was standing under it."

Catra gave a stuffy, wincing laugh. "Yeah… sorry about that."

Angella's wing tightened briefly around Catra, brushing her shoulder. "It's in the past," Angella said gently. "I trust you now."

"Maybe you shouldn't."

"Maybe I should."

Catra's mouth opened, then closed. Angella saw her brow crease in the dark as her jaw muscles worked, like she was trying to force words out that wouldn't come. She laid a hand gently on Catra's arm.

"It's all right," she said. "You don't have to say it. Trust comes when it comes."

Angella's wing remained gently curled around Catra's shoulders, shielding her from the occasional cool breeze. They sat that way for some time, side by side, lost in their own thoughts and a silence that was strangely comfortable.

A sudden thought came to Angella, and she pulled her wing back instinctively. "Do you wish for me to depart? Glimmer often has to remind me that I can sometimes… overstay my welcome."

Catra looked startled, glancing back with almost a hurt expression at the wing that now hovered a respectful distance behind her.

"What? No, it's fine, I-" Catra stammered, flushing slightly and averting her gaze at this unfamiliar vulnerability. "...I don't really want to be alone right now."

Oh. Of course. Angella gently replaced the wing around Catra's back, noting the soft sigh the girl gave when she did so.

Angella hummed. In the distance, the deep indigo of the night sky began to fade purple with the barest tinge of morning light.

"Neither do I."

Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too

Fun fact: the working title for this fic was "Ding dong, the witch is dead"

This sad cat needs a mom, okay, and if the show isn't gong to give her one I'LL DO IT MYSELF

Thanks for reading! As always, let me know if you liked it!