Adora raised the phone to her ear and cleared her throat slightly before answering. "Hello?" She'd been bent over her computer screen hunting for scholarship offers for an hour, and her voice was rusty.

"Okay, listen." The voice on the other end didn't even offer an introduction before diving into a monologue headfirst. Fortunately Adora's phone had lit up with the telling contact photo of a hysterical Glimmer before she answered the call. "I know you've got a lot going on this summer with soccer training, and interning, and getting ready for college—"

"Please don't remind me," Adora said, only a bit jokingly, giving her computer screen a sour look. When it stared innocently back, she reached out in a sudden show of irritation and slapped it closed.

"—but I have a proposition to make."

Well, that didn't sound weird at all. "Uh, Glimmer—?"

"Just hear me out! Bow and I have been trying to arrange a group vacation forever, and this year it just might happen!" Before Adora could say anything to temper her enthusiasm with realism, Glimmer plunged on. "Mermista's dad owns this huge condo in Panama City, right by the ocean: Salineas Resort. He said he'd give half-price rooms to anybody she wants to bring down to stay with them this summer. And guess what?" She gave Adora no time to guess before she revealed: "My mom offered to pay for all of us! So it's like, basically a free week at the beach."

"Whoa, hang on." Adora took a moment to process the information Glimmer had thrown at her. A beach trip sounded amazing, but a couple of things didn't sit quite right with her. First of all, she had a lot to do this summer and little time to do it. Second of all: "Your mom's paying for all of us?" She counted up their group of friends in her head and winced. "That's really kind of her but, I mean, there's so many of us, and real estate right by the water—"

"Adora," Glimmer cut her off warmly but firmly. "She's got it covered."

"I'd just feel bad not contributing!" the blonde protested.

"Would it make you feel better if I said she'd make up for it by loading you up with work this summer?" When Glimmer was met with a disgruntled pause, she laughed lightly and added, "Actually, she just got a huge bonus. It's really no trouble."

The silence lasted a beat longer. "I guess," Adora finally admitted. Truthfully, the news was a comfort, if a small one. Glimmer's mother Angella was the owner of Angel's Care, the clinic where Adora was interning. She could always make up the difference by making her work extra hard. Not that she would.

"Seriously, Adora! We're almost in college!" Glimmer pointed out. Adora couldn't decide if she sounded more excited or exasperated. "Pretty soon you'll be taking all the free stuff you can get."

Adora had to laugh. Then she realized that Glimmer's words were disturbingly accurate, and her humor fell away. "That's probably very true," she mumbled, staring regretfully into space.

Glimmer ignored her brief lapse into dread and pressed on. "So anyway, are you in?"

"I…" Adora chewed her lip. A week at the beach with her friends sounded very enjoyable. It was time off from her usual self-imposed schedule, time off from her internship, and maybe her last chance to spend time with all (well, most) of the people she loved in one place. After all, Glimmer was right. College was coming. Once it hit, well…she didn't want to think about the social nightmare that was starting at a new school, much less starting a whole new chapter of life. She'd never get this summer back. All the free stuff you can get. "Yeah, all right."

"Perfect!" Glimmer chirped. Adora could practically see her pumping her fists in the air with joy. The girl continued happily, "You'd better get packing! We're leaving on Saturday. Meet at Mermista's house at 9."

"Sounds great, Glimmer." Adora had to smile at her almost rabid buoyancy. Then something struck her and she said quickly, before Glimmer could hang up, "Hey, so, uh, also…" She had to clear her throat a couple times to make her voice relax into some semblance of casualty. "Who all has Mermista invited?" As soon as the words were out, she went back to chewing her lip. Was that too desperate?

Glimmer seemed not to notice. "The usual. You, me, Bow, Frosta, Perfuma, Entrapta, Sea Hawk. And she said we can each bring a friend if we want, too." Or maybe she did. Her voice went smug. "In case there's, uh—someone in particular you want to invite."

"Stoppp!" Adora groaned and let her head flop back, rubbing her forehead viciously with one palm. Of course Glimmer would see through her flimsy façade. She shouldn't have asked.

Glimmer wasn't swayed. Her voice was sly as she wheedled, "Should I tell her to expect one more?"

Her lip was beginning to ache under all this abuse. "I—I mean—" Adora debated between pretending to not understand her meaning and actually voicing her thoughts. Pros? Glimmer apparently already knew, so it couldn't do any more harm. Cons? Potential embarrassment. However, with Catra, that was pretty much a given. So Adora sighed and admitted reluctantly, "She probably wouldn't want to come anyway."

Glimmer let that disheartened answer fly in one ear and right out the other. "Great! I'll tell Mermista!"

"Glimmer—" Adora practically started to plead.

"See you on Saturday! Remember, 9 am!"

And she hung up.

Adora sat back in her swivel chair and sighed again. She massaged her brow, barely more gently than last time. The truth was out there. Now all she had to do was wait. And stress. And stew. But it would be fine, because Catra wouldn't want to come anyway.

Would she?

Scorpia was standing there looking radiantly hopeful, her port-wine-stained hands clasped together under her chin for the full effect. She seemed so pleased with the news she'd just delivered. For anyone else it would have proved contagious, but Catra just glowered up at her from where she lounged on the leather couch.

"Are we even invited?" she demanded sourly. A few minutes ago, she hadn't even been mad. Something about Scorpia's incessant positivity just always brought out the worst in her. She supposed the universe had to balance out all that energy somehow. Or maybe it was just that Scorpia had mentioned Bright Moon. And thoughts of Bright Moon triggered thoughts of Adora.

Scorpia, as usual, was unbothered by it. "Entrapta is. And she's allowed to bring a friend. Which is a thing that I am." She smugly rolled the end of one of her hoodie strings between her fingers like a connoisseur.

"And me?"

"Ah." Scorpia dropped the string and scratched the back of her shaven head. "Well, I mean." She looked sheepish before sharing: "Adora will be there. I know she'd want you to come."

Immediately Catra's nose wrinkled and she slid her gaze away. "What makes you think that?" she practically hissed.

"Well, since we're out of school now and there's not technically the whole 'arch-rivals' love-hate relationship thing going on anymore…" Scorpia made a speculative motion as if she were weighing two objects in her hands. Then she let them drop and backtracked: "Unless, I mean, it is. In which case—"

"Scorpia."

The big girl shrugged innocently. "I'm just sayin'! You should consider it. We'd have a great time!" Her bright smile was disarming. For a moment, Catra actually almost considered thinking about a week at the beach with Adora, free of her usual baggage—and plagued by a whole different kind…digging up old painful feelings…surrounded by people she'd rather catch the flu from than spend a second talking to…

"You can. I'm staying here," Catra declared. She crossed her arms and slid lower on Scorpia's couch to demonstrate her point, finishing off the look with a withering glare. She'd have spent her entire break on that couch if she could (that is, if she didn't have to work two jobs to scrape together enough money to afford the nearest, cheapest university in the fall). Summer just wasn't for her. With or without Adora.

Scorpia laughed lightly, again unmoved. "Oh, I don't accept that at all."

Catra gave a short growl from deep in her throat. "Whatever." She knew Scorpia wouldn't give her a break until she at least mulled over the invitation, so she did what she did best: escaped.

She was off the couch and across the room before Scorpia could blink. It was only once Catra had grabbed her Keston High School backpack from the hall tree and had one hand on the doorknob that the tall girl collected herself enough to plant her red hands on her hips in disapproval.

"This is not over, Wildcat!" she called as Catra slipped outside, though she knew better than to follow. "You can't escape my tender loving care that easily."

Catra pretended not to hear her.

She was on the false balcony outside the second-story window of that old, long-closed antique shop one street over. It was her favorite perch for a few reasons. Scorpia's house was in an old part of town, so most of the shops nearby were in the same state as this one, and Catra liked it that way. It felt like home. Sad, but that was kind of the point. Plus, less traffic meant less chance of someone bothering her.

Except Adora.

It was a feat getting up onto the balcony from the outside, but she and Catra had spent many a night up here during the time that Catra fostered with Scorpia and the Prostakovs and Adora lived with Razz. Before the thing happened, that is. So Adora knew from experience where the gutter was strong enough to hold her weight, and she knew which parts of the roof hadn't rotted through yet, and she didn't hesitate in putting that knowledge to good use. It was only a matter of time before she came hauling herself over the eaves, eyes hopeful as she scanned the space for Catra. She practically physically brightened when her search came to an end.

Catra pretended not to notice as the athletic blonde crawled fully up onto the roof and picked her way across the firmest shingles toward where she was curled up, knees hugged to her chest. As Adora got closer, her pace slowed. Catra could feel her gaze on her and pictured her expression: probably timid and a little hurt. She must have finally be getting it through her thick skull that Catra was throwing off intense 'leave me alone' vibes.

She spoke up anyway. Never was too intuitive. "Um, hey. I figured you'd be here. Scorpia asked me to find you."

"That was stupid." Catra's response was immediate, and she said it without making eye contact. She'd been staring at the same defunct arcade billboard for the past twenty minutes, but Adora didn't need to know that.

"It's nice to see you, too," the blonde murmured sourly. The old wooden roof creaked as she lowered herself down near Catra. She stayed on the shingles, so that the balcony railing still separated them like a wall.

Catra had no patience for her guilt tactics. "Are you here to harass me about that dumb trip?" she asked sharply. "Because it won't work."

Adora was painfully silent for a moment, head bent to study her shoes intently. "I just wanted to tell you it would mean a lot to me if you came."

"So?"

Adora narrowed her eyes. "Or you could put crabs in Glimmer's bed and kick over small children's sandcastles and whatever else makes you happy."

Catra snorted. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

"There's seafood," the blonde tried again after a pause.

With every passing remark Catra was growing more and more irritated. Here was Adora, barging into her private perch to interrupt her alone time after a year not talking to her, and for what? To make jokes? To make her feel guilty? "Why are you even asking me?" she snapped, finally turning her glare on the other girl, tightening her long-nailed hands on her knees. "I thought this was a Bright Mooners vacation."

"I wanted to spend time with all my friends before we go off to college," Adora said, her eyes wide and earnest. What a saint. What a bleeding heart.

Catra scoffed and turned her gaze away from those stupid, soulful pools of blue. "I didn't know I counted as your friend anymore."

"You could if you wanted to," the Bright Mooner said defensively. "Just because I switched schools doesn't mean I left my old friends behind."

Catra tensed. She had screamed and cried and raged about this very topic plenty of times before, imagining a million different ways she would confront Adora when she got the chance. She'd gone from shocked to angry to depressed and back again. She'd wondered how she could ever live and thrive without Adora. She wondered how her best friend since childhood could just up and leave her like that. She'd hurt and festered and suffered. And she'd dealt with it. So now, faced with Adora in the flesh and the chance she'd been missing for a year, she found herself run emotionally dry. All she had left in place of those old feelings was an aching, all-encompassing bitterness. She let it trickle freely into her voice as she said flatly, "That's exactly what it means. You traded me for your shiny new school and your shiny new buddies and you never looked back."

"That's not true!"

How could she say that? How could she think that what she'd done to Catra was anything less than heartless? How could she so much as imply that it wasn't her, but Catra who was in the wrong?

Catra's clawlike nails dug into her knees through the rips in her leggings. "We were best friends, Adora, and you promised we always would be," she grated out through clenched teeth. "I won't pretend that's the most realistic, but you didn't even try."

"Then why would I be here now?" Adora shot back. There was a long, pregnant pause as her words sank in. One could practically feel the waves of consternation rolling off Catra. Then she said a little more softly, deflating, "I feel bad about the way things happened and I want to fix it. I never meant to break our promise."

"You want to fix it by making me tag along while you have fun with the people you left me for," Catra summed up cynically.

"It's not like that," Adora huffed. She was getting frustrated, and Catra didn't feel bad about it in the slightest. Serves her right, she thought. See how you like it.

She said aloud, "Then what is it like?"

The blonde spread her hands in front of her as if physically laying out her heart to Catra. "I still care about you, Catra. I want to spend time with you and have fun like we used to." Just before Catra could make a comment, the inevitable catch came: "And I also want to spend time with my friends from Bright Moon." The brunette snapped her jaw shut tight and didn't look at Adora, even when she felt the other girl's pleading gaze. There was a beat of silence before Adora finished softly, "Just because things have changed doesn't mean they have to be worse."

Catra's immediate response to that was a sardonic curl of her lip. 'Yeah, right,' it said. Only for some reason she couldn't make the actual words come out.

Adora apparently didn't like that. "I didn't have to ask you at all!" she pointed out angrily, hopping to her feet so that the shingles creaked. "Can't you appreciate that I'm trying to make things right between us?"

Catra looked up at her impassively. What a drama queen, she thought as she met those fiery blue eyes with cool indifference. But, she couldn't completely banish the twist of longing in her chest. This is what she'd always wanted, isn't it? Adora to want her? Adora to value her company? And here she was, trying to persuade Catra into a trip that included 'all her friends.' Didn't that mean something? A year ago it would have.

Except now it was too late. Catra had conditioned herself not to care what Adora wanted anymore. Not to care about Adora. If she caved now to some stupid, girlish illusion that everything could be like it was before, she'd never forgive herself. She knew better than that. She was better than that.

Adora was still looking at her. Catra could see the frustration and regret and angst in her eyes, and she didn't enjoy it as much as she'd thought she would.

Hurting Adora didn't erase the hurts done to her, she realized grudgingly.

But was that a good enough reason to forgive Adora?

No. Not yet, at least.

Did she even want to? Did she even want Adora anymore?

Gazing into those stupid blue eyes in that stupid pretty face framed by that stupid golden hair, she couldn't quite convince herself that the answer was 'no.'

And now…now Adora was here, asking for her forgiveness outright. Honestly. Earnestly, like it was the most important thing in the world to her.

Like they used to be to each other.

Catra took a deep, shaky, painful breath and let it out slowly.

She'd been silent long enough that Adora was starting to lose her conviction. Her eyes were dropping to stare at the roof and her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. After another moment, she shook her golden head. "Fine," she said numbly. "I knew you wouldn't listen to me anyway." She turned away and made to cross back to the gutter.

"I'm not a big fan of the water," Catra blurted. She felt her knees sting suddenly where she'd just accidentally cut herself with her nails.

Adora stopped.

Her hands flexed nervously, and she turned her head to look at Catra over her shoulder. Carefully, like Catra's tentative implication of a truce might shatter if mishandled. "I thought you couldn't even swim," she said slowly.

Catra scowled, but inside her heart was racing. This was uncharted territory. Did she even want to venture here? Where reconciliation might live? She pushed a response out through her constricting throat. "Yeah, that's what I meant, but I didn't want to say it."

Adora turned back to face her. "We can do things besides swimming."

"You said something about crabs in Glimmer's bed?"

A smile broke out on the blonde's face. "It doesn't have to be Glimmer," she said quickly, anxious to please. "We can prank whoever you want."

Catra was running her fingers over the crescent cuts in her knees. Chewing her lip. What was she doing? She wasn't supposed to be swapping playful banter with Adora! That was—that was a thing of the past. A lost art. One more thing to bury behind a façade of indifference. "And seafood?"

"As much as we can afford."

A chuckle escaped her, and it almost didn't sound shaky. "That's not much."

Adora crossed her arms and blew out a sigh that puffed her cheeks, protesting, "I'm trying my best here, okay?"

Catra laughed; an actual laugh this time. Then the fear returned. Adora was looking at her with so much hope on her face and such a sparkle in her eyes and it was making Catra's gut twist and she wondered if this was nothing but a recipe for disaster. Where did they go from here? Forward or back? Or nowhere at all? Catra was good at pretending nothing had ever happened.

She stalled for time by unfolding to her feet and moving to the balcony railing. She swung her legs over and sat, feeling the old wood bow beneath her. One foot dangled while the other brushed the shingles. She swayed it absently, nervously. Adora was watching.

"You know I'm still mad at you, right?" she finally let out.

The blonde smiled sarcastically. "Yeah, you've made that very clear, thanks."

They fell silent again. Catra was warring with herself. She missed this. She wanted this. But she knew what it felt like to lose it, and she didn't ever want to feel that again.

But, Adora.

"You really want me to come?" she asked softly, keeping her eyes downcast. Then she flickered her blue and gold gaze up and pinned Adora with a glare. "You're not just doing this because you lost a bet with Glitter or something?"

Adora laughed shortly and shook her head. "No. I mean, yes." She groaned and rubbed her temples, and then spread her hands to Catra in supplication. "I mean I want you to come. Really." She took a step closer to where the brunette sat, and then caught herself and stopped as if unsure. "I'm tired of this stupid rivalry," she admitted. "I want Catra back. My Catra." Her eyes widened. "I mean, not that—not that you're mine, I—I meant—"

Catra snorted over the sound of her stammering. "God, shut up, Adora."

"If you don't enjoy yourself you never have to see me again," she blurted out.

Catra stilled, raising her eyebrow. Adora was just standing there awkwardly. When she didn't revoke her sudden declaration, Catra pursed her lips. "You're serious?" she asked curiously.

Adora nodded. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line and she looked altogether frightened, but her eyes never wavered from Catra's. "I'll leave you alone," she reiterated. "You can hate me all you want. You won't have to deal with me or my shiny Bright Moon buddies ever again."

Catra was quiet. You never have to see me again…I'll leave you alone. Leaving the fate of their relationship in Catra's hands? That was a risky stake. A bold move. One likely to end in disappointment.

"Just give me a chance to make things right."

Catra held Adora's steady gaze. She couldn't lose. Enjoy the trip: win back Adora. Hate it and her friends: be rid of them forever. Why couldn't she have thought of this earlier?

She smiled, flashing one sharp canine.

"It sounded like a pretty safe bet," she reflected, a smug, predatory smirk back on her face as she related the conversation to Scorpia over the phone.

"So you're coming?" Scorpia practically shouted in excitement. Then she really did shout: "Oh, heck yes, I'm so happy! We're gonna have tons of fun, you just wait. We can do swimming, and boating, and beach volleyball, and I know this place right near the shore that has really good—"

"Scorpia." Catra's tone was biting, but her smile really hadn't faltered. "Don't make me change my mind."

"Right. No problem, boss," Scorpia sobered up for about six milliseconds before she burst out again: "It's just that—so happy!"

"Why did I agree to this?" Catra groaned dramatically. When Scorpia laughed, the brunette dropped her act and joined her. Then in a normal, almost cheerful tone for Catra, she said, "I'll see you on Saturday, okay?"

"Yes indeed! Make sure to pack sunscreen. And antibacterial ear drops. And—"

Catra hung up.