Notes: Somehow this ended up being like 10k even though I thought it would be around 5k like the last two chapters, so... whoops?

I really wanted to show that not all of Catra's progress is necessarily positive, because she goes from one extreme (letting her bitterness and resentment and anger consume her in the first 4 seasons) to another (seemingly just repressing all of her bitterness and resentment and anger in most of season 5 instead of dealing with it) until she starts to find a relatively healthy middle ground.

Because like Catra swings so delicately between believing she must suffer for her past (i.e., believing there's nothing left for her on Etheria, deciding to sacrifice herself and not really caring that the consequences will be her probable death, telling Adora that she shouldn't have come to rescue her because she doesn't matter, falling back into believing that she doesn't really matter to Adora because of Shadow Weaver, running away when she thinks Adora is going to leave her again by sacrificing herself, etc.) and actually starting to genuinely heal in healthy ways (i.e., asking Adora to stay with her to remove the chip, apologizing to Entrapta, admitting that she wants to go home, protecting the BFS on Krytis without a second thought, not pushing Melog away when they bond/imprint on her, opening up to Perfuma a little, essentially telling to Shadow Weaver to get fucked, taking the first step to make amends with Scorpia, finally acknowledging how much she loves Adora, etc.).

Working through abandonment issues when you have no good examples of healthy coping mechanisms is uhhhh incredibly difficult, believe me. I kinda did the opposite of Catra and repressed everything for most of my life only to get really angry and bitter and start lashing out by like age 17-20, before eventually finding a healthy middle ground after going to therapy and learning how to work through my issues in a healthy way, so her emotional journey regarding her abandonment issues really hit close to home for me.

And also listen…. "Open Hands" by Ingrid Michaelson is a Catra song and I will not be taking criticism at this time, and it's what I listened to A Lot while writing this chapter especially the part that covers 5x11

stones taught me to fly

love taught me to cry

so come on courage

teach me to be shy

'cause it's not hard to fall

and I don't wanna scare her

it's not hard to fall

and I don't wanna lose

it's not hard to grow

when you know that you just don't know

When she wakes it's with a scream caught in her throat, and she thinks she must have awoken into another nightmare. She doesn't recognize her surroundings, and nearly tumbles out of bed when she tries to scramble to her feet only for her body to seize with pain and exhaustion.

The door to the room slides open and she can barely manage a defensive hiss before there are hands on her shoulders trying to push her back onto the bed. She tries to fight against them, but something in her relaxes at the feeling, at the gentleness she'd almost forgotten existed while trapped on Horde Prime's ship.

She blinks and her vision clears and there's wide, worried blue eyes and tangled blonde hair and Catra forgets all about her fear and defensiveness in favour of confusion.

"Adora?" she mumbles, barely daring to hope.

"Yeah, it's me," Adora whispers, and her voice is cracked and relieved and watery for some reason, "I'm here."

"What?" Catra croaks, trying to twist her body to actually take in her surroundings. She yelps in pain when the motion sends spasming pain throughout her body, and then those gentle hands are on her shoulders again, guiding her to lay back on the bed. "What happened? Where are we?"

"It's okay," Adora reassures quickly, "You're safe, okay?"

"I don't—"

Catra allows herself to be soothed by Adora's warm hand stroking the hair off her forehead. It's short, much too short for Catra's own taste, and the memory of that green liquid and the discomfort in her neck has her shooting upright once again.

"Horde Prime," she manages to gasp, before doubling over as her body is wracked with agony again.

"Catra," Adora says, and the word is strangled and wet, "Just— Just relax, okay? You're safe from him. I'll explain everything."

It takes long minutes before Catra manages catch her breath, before she relaxes enough to be guided back to the bed once again. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the parts of her body that don't throb with pain, something she learned growing up in the Horde—though there isn't much of her body that doesn't feel like a giant bruise. Her tail seems to be fine, and her left shoulder doesn't ache too much, and her face is mostly unblemished, but that's about it. It grounds her, at the very least, and she eventually manages to let the tension bleed from her muscles and relax into the bed, squinting up at Adora, whose face is mere inches from hers, pulled taunt in worry.

"What happened back there?" she asks once she can swallow the pain enough to speak.

Adora chuckles nervously and finally pulls back out of Catra's space. It makes it easier to breathe, even if Catra kind of misses Adora's warm breath on her face. "It's a long story."

Catra flexes her hands and grits her teeth at the pain that shoots up her arms at the movement. "Pretty sure I've got time," she deadpans.

Adora takes a deep breath and glances to the side, her brows drawn together in pain and concern. Her face is lightly bruised and her hair hangs dully in messy tangles and her clothes are ripped and torn—and somehow she still looks so achingly beautiful that Catra loses her breath all over again. Catra blames the agony and confusion she's currently in on allowing these thoughts to fully form, convincing herself she's in too much pain to try and push them down like she usually would.

Adora launches into an explanation that starts from the moment her and Bow caught Glimmer, and Catra spares a small smile at the thought that Princess Sparkles did manage to make it out safely after all. It's hard to concentrate on everything Adora says, because Adora's voice keeps doing that rambling high pitched thing she does when she's stressed and anxious, but Catra kind of manages to get the gist of everything that's happened since she transported Glimmer away from Horde Prime's ship.

The back of her neck twinges with discomfort and sends prickling pain shooting throughout her body when Adora mentions Catra's creepily peaceful expression the whole time they were fighting, and she resists the urge to reach up and rip that fucking chip out herself. She remains quiet throughout all of Adora's explanation, up until Adora mentions Catra throwing herself off the platform.

A vague memory of that forty foot drop flashes through her mind, and she can't help the smirk that tugs at her lips. "I've always told you cats land on their feet," she mumbles sleepily, partially amused and partially self-deprecatingly.

Adora lets out a choked laugh and shakes her head. "You're the worst," she manages to say around her watery smile, and something blooms in Catra's chest, something that she's spent the last couple years trying to kill in increasingly violent and desperate ways—she lets it grow this time.

It's the most alive Catra's felt in years.

Despite She-Ra's healing magic, her body is still plenty bruised and broken even after the chip's been removed, though not all of it is external. She-Ra healed the worst of her injuries—the broken bones and the internal bleeding and the pierced lungs, but it isn't just physical injuries that Catra suffers from.

One thing they quickly learn after bringing Catra aboard Mara's old ship, is that Horde Prime is very definitely not a living, breathing, organic being. With the pretense—weak as it was—to take care of his prisoners gone the moment Catra offered her hand to Glimmer, he never bothered to make sure any of Catra's basic needs were met after chipping her, like giving her food and water or allowing her to sleep.

The hunger was debilitatingly painful, and the first meal she tried eating sent her stomach into painful cramps that reduced her to tears and had her throwing up all the food she had just consumed. The dehydration was apparently dangerous enough that Entrapta had to slowly and carefully inject fluid right into her veins those first twenty-four hours or so that she was unconscious after being rescued. The exhaustion clings to her even after spending the better part of a week curled up in her dark room sleeping.

It's no wonder Adora spent most of her time pacing in the hallway outside of Catra's door, even after Catra was awake and feeling well enough to start putting her bitter defences back up.

(Catra constantly wonders which of her memories are manufactured by the green haze and which ones actually happened, whether Adora's unwavering You matter to me! was something that she really said or something that Catra dreamed up. Most days she decides it must be the latter, but those nights when Adora sneaks into her room just to watch her sleep, not realizing that Catra is fully awake and staring wide-eyed at the wall, she wonders if those words were real all along.)

Entrapta says that she's lucky that her dehydration and starvation tolerance is more feline than human, because she somehow managed to last the nearly five days it took them to get to Horde Prime's ship without consuming any water or food or getting a wink of sleep.

It still makes her a little uncomfortable to have Entrapta examining her every couple hours, not the least because of what Catra's done to her. Even after the scientist seemingly accepted her apology without any reservations, Catra still finds herself choked with guilt every time Entrapta wanders into her room to take her vitals and make sure she's eating and drinking properly.

But her own guilt and self-reproach isn't the only thing that makes her uncomfortable—she still has flashes of being connected to the hive mind even with the chip long gone, and she shudders every time she remembers the lack of privacy aboard the ship, how Horde Prime knew every single thing she did, the invasiveness of having a clone pop up every single time she so much as thought about attempting an escape. As harmless as she knows Entrapta checking up on her is, she can't help that the hair on the back of her neck stands up at the thought of being watched so carefully again.

She tries to force her hair to lie flat, to keep her tail from poofing up, to make sure her ears stay upright—she tries to stay strong even if she's never felt so weak before.

You'll never have to see me again, Adora says, and for some reason it sparks an old, half-buried memory of a particularly bad wound Catra had gotten from one of Shadow Weaver's punishments.

She had done her best to hide it from Adora, but eventually she was so sickly and pale and feverish that she hadn't been able to crawl out of bed for their morning drills. It had sent Adora into a panic, which would have been amusing if Catra hadn't been in so much pain. Adora—surprisingly strong even as scrawny and lanky as she was at age ten—had woken that morning to find Catra unresponsive and had decided, instead of calling a medic, which would have been much easier, to carry Catra all the way to the med bay herself.

The medic that had treated Catra was a surprisingly kind older woman, especially considering most everyone in the Horde was somewhere on the spectrum of uncaring to cruel. She had tutted over the state of the wound before distracting Adora with the task of holding Catra's hand while she set about gathering supplies. She didn't get mad when Catra's tail had bushed up and her ears had flattened to her head and she had tried to squirm out of the bed—she didn't even get mad when Catra managed to land a couple scratches on her hand and one lucky bite on her forearm, she had just smiled at the two of them as she started to clean the infection from the wound.

T'is gonna hurt 'cause it's gotta get worse 'fore it can get better.

Catra's pretty positive they've already hit their worse, which means that she has to believe they can get better now.

She wants to get better now.

She takes Adora's hand.

The people she's spent so long trying to destroy, to Catra's never-ending shock, make it easier for her to start to relax back into her snarky self again, back into the person she was before she allowed the abuse and torture and abandonment to twist her into something cruel and violent and mean.

She's starting to feel like herself again, even if she's not sure she knows who that is anymore.

Though the sight of Wrong Hordak makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end every time she catches a glimpse of him looming behind Entrapta, his dumb enthusiasm somehow manages puts her at ease. He almost reminds her of Scorpia, in a way, with their shared eagerness in everything they do, which makes something both warm and painful flare up in her chest every time the thought crosses her mind.

Bow is surprisingly accepting of her, and after spending so much time in close quarters with him she wonders if he even knows how to be anything other than friendly and accepting. He even manages to rope her into countless dumb card games that his dads taught him to pass the time as they speed through space, and whenever she goes off on a rant about him cheating every single time she loses he only laughs and re-deals the cards.

Despite everything she's done to Entrapta, it only takes a scant few hours after her apology for Entrapta to go back to the way things used to be when she was still the Horde's best inventor. Catra mostly feels awkward and uncomfortable around her, not sure what to do with her hands or expression whenever Entrapta starts rambling to her about whatever newest scientific development she's made as if nothing bad has happened between them. But it's comforting all the same, and Catra knows that Entrapta is a more forgiving person than Catra could ever hope to be.

Glimmer and her still manage to annoy each other more than anyone else, but their teasing insults and sneered Sparkles and Horde Scum have somehow lost their previous spite and transformed into fond bickering. Apparently after exploring all that space between enemies and friends, they managed to finally settle on friendship, and it's not tentative and wary like it was on the ship, but genuine and steady. They share a bond that neither of them have with anyone else, that neither of them would wish on another, and sometimes it's comforting to just sit back-to-back in silence with one other, doing their best to fight off the demons that managed to follow them from that damned ship.

And Adora—

Catra didn't even think it was possible for her and Adora to ever exist in the same space without trying to kill each other again, not after all that's happened between them, not after everything that Catra has done to her.

But it's like—

It's like nothing has changed and everything has changed all at once, like their friendship is both familiar and foreign. They've still got the other memorized like the back of their hand, but there's so many new things to learn too.

They fall back into each other like no time has passed since they were just dumb kids chasing each other down the hallways, teasing and laughing and falling over each other with no sense of personal space. Except they're different now—Catra doesn't let her resentment fester like she used to and Adora doesn't try and keep the peace between them at all costs. They've both grown up in so many ways, and as much as the prospect that Catra doesn't even know Adora anymore terrifies her to her bones, she knows it's probably the best thing that could have happened to them.

They grew up together, but Shadow Weaver made sure that they there was always a chasm between them no matter how much they tried to reach across it for the other's hand—Catra's finally realized that they had to grow apart for a while before they could grow back together again.

She was incapable of seeing the pain Adora was in because she was so tangled up in her own, but now she's starting to realize that, just like Catra, Adora couldn't see how much damage Shadow Weaver was inflicting on Catra was in because she was doing her best to survive her own pain. Adora may not have faced the physical abuse that Catra had survived every time Shadow Weaver got particularly angry or bored, but the emotional manipulation Shadow Weaver called affection has broken Adora in a different way. It wasn't that Adora saw what Shadow Weaver was doing to Catra and willingly ignore it, that Adora abandoned her because she didn't see anything worth saving in Catra, it was that Adora was so lost in her own trauma that she couldn't see Catra's.

They were both so blinded by their own pain and abuse that they couldn't see the other's. And Catra is only now realizing how necessary it was for them to lose one another, to allow themselves to grow separate from each other for the first time in their lives.

Losing Adora felt like the ground had fallen out from beneath her, like she was drowning in the ocean with no one there to throw her a lifeline—but it also made Catra realize that she could not only meet the low expectations placed on her, but that she could exceed them. She doesn't think she ever would have tried to climb the Horde ranks if Adora had stayed. And, even though she now knows that power isn't what she really wanted, it healed something yearning and fearful in her to know that she could do it, that Shadow Weaver was wrong about her all along.

Shadow Weaver was wrong about her, and even though she's still fighting with her own mind to acknowledge that, the fact is that even Shadow Weaver couldn't defeat Hordak—and yet, Catra could do it. She even managed to outsmart Horde Prime himself and, even as terribly as that ended, it still sparks a small flicker of pride in her to know that she managed to rescue one of his prisoners right under his nose.

As much as losing Adora hurt, it was a necessary pain; it was something they both needed. Something that allowed them to get to a place where their teasing doesn't have an edge of hurt to it, where they can have fun without the fear of being caught and punished for it, where they can talk about their issues without resenting the other, where they can simply exist together without the threat of Shadow Weaver trying to tear them apart.

It was something that was necessary to be able to get to a place where they can smile and laugh together without trying to hide their pain from the other.

Catra genuinely can't remember the last time she felt a purr rumble within her—can't remember the last time she was happy enough and relaxed enough and safe enough to let a purr vibrate deep in her chest.

She'll take the teasing without complaint—well, without any real complaint—because it feels so unbelievably good to not finally be safe that she doesn't really care about keeping up her indifferent façade.

The smile that Adora gives Catra after her outburst on Krytis about working on her anger issues is so sweet and so proud and so beautiful that Catra can't look directly at it without worrying that her heart is about to beat right out of her chest.

The angry alien cat is easier to focus on than her own inability to keep her heart under control, so she turns her attention to calming it instead. She can tell that they are more scared than angry, and that they are just channelling their fear into rage because it's easier—Catra knows how that feels better than anyone.

So she does for this weird alien cat what she wishes someone had done for her, she carefully offers them her hand and lets them come to her in their own time.

Even with Melog there to soothe her fear and anxiety, it feels like every time she falls asleep she's back under Horde Prime's control, the edges of her vision dancing with hazy green. Adora is almost always there—though sometimes it's Glimmer and sometimes it's Entrapta and sometimes it's even Bow—and she's holding her down on that platform, mindlessly clawing and slicing through skin and bone until her vision runs red instead of green. Horde Prime's laughter always echoes around the empty space of the platform, taunting her as he releases his control on her just enough that she can see what she's done.

She always wakes in a cold sweat with Melog hissing and pacing around the edges of her room, her hair matted to her forehead and her sheets tangled around her body, panting and desperately scrubbing at her hands to try and get the imaginary blood off them. It takes her long minutes of painful sobs before she can calm down enough to breathe properly again—to convince herself that everybody is safe and alive and not covered in their own blood just like they were when they all retired to their rooms to sleep a couple of hours ago.

Eventually, she just gives up on trying to sleep at night and sneaks back out into the control room once everyone else has gone to bed. The silence of space is eerie, but the hum of Darla's computer and Melog's soft breathing makes for pretty good company—and it's nice to just watch the distant stars and planets as they pass them by without worrying about some clone finding her and dragging her away from restricted areas.

It gives her lots of time to herself to think, and reflect, and while her thoughts aren't always good, they're hers again.

Adora is the only person on the ship that knows she's not an early riser, and the only one who is ever suspicious of the fact that Catra is almost always the first one in the control room every morning. But she doesn't ask questions, doesn't push the issue, doesn't try and fix it without knowing the real problem like she would have before she left.

Catra's not sure if she likes it or not yet.

The short hair takes some getting used to.

It was the least painful thing to happen to her on that ship, and yet it's somehow the thing that she thinks about the most. Every single time she reaches up to brush her fingers over the scar on the back of her neck, just to make sure the chip is really, truly gone, she startles at her missing hair. It makes her head feel so much lighter without her mane of hair swinging behind her, and not in a good way—she feels exposed without her hair covering her neck and her back.

Glimmer never mentions the scars, not after that first time on Horde Prime's ship, but Catra can tell that the others are curious. Unfortunately, they don't have any spare clothes—she's lucky that they even had any clothes for her to wear to begin with—and it means that Catra has to make do with the shirt that exposes her back without her hair protecting her anymore. Entrapta seems to want to study the scars, Wrong Hordak asks if she needs a new piece of metal to replace it, Bow never lets his gaze linger for too long, and Adora does her best to pretend she's not staring at them every time she catches sight of them.

It makes her skin prickle, and as much as she wants to snap at them to mind their business, she doesn't. She'll tell them in her own time, probably, and it eventually becomes easier for her to ignore their questioning looks and for them to not fixate on the scars so much. They never actually ask her questions and she never answers the unspoken ones in their eyes—and it's really unfamiliar and strange and almost scary to have her boundaries actually respected for once, but it's also really nice.

Sometimes Glimmer finds her in the control room at night, when her own nightmares of Horde Prime get to be too much. On those nights, Catra just adjusts her position enough that Glimmer can collapse on the floor behind her and slump against Catra's back. They never say much on those nights, and never mention them during the day, but it's comforting for both of them to have someone else who understands the specific despair that bonded them on that ship.

Trying to untangle her emotional trauma is incredibly exhausting and so much harder than just getting a magical hug from She-Ra that heals all her injuries.

It's hard to go back after she spent so much time trying to kill the part of her that ached so long and so painfully that she just let the darkness take over because at least it meant she didn't hurt so much anymore.

It's hard to allow herself to feel things without wanting to shut down again and just give up because that part of her that hurt so much she turned to violence and anger still aches even when she's doing everything she can to try and heal it.

It's hard to remember that destroying the part of her where all the pain and grief and misery originated from also meant she destroyed the part of her where all the light and love and laughter grew.

It's hard to try and shove her broken, bleeding heart back into her chest after she's spent so long convincing herself that ripping it out and locking it away would make her finally stop hurting.

(Honestly, she didn't even realize that her heart still worked anymore.)

But tries to be better, even though she still fails, kind of a lot, and it scares her because she's pretty sure it means that she'll never actually become a better person like everyone wants her to be, fears that it means she'll never fully heal.

The consequences for cutting her heart out are difficult to navigate, and she finds herself stumbling and falling and failing more often than not, and her knees are scabbed and her palms are bleeding from how many times a day she trips over her own guilt and self-reproach, how many times a day she gives into her still lingering anger and bitterness and resentment.

But every time she falters and considers just giving up because it would be so much easier to just take the familiar path back to the darkness—the one that calls to her like an old friend welcoming her home—she fights against her own fear and guilt and self-loathing to push herself back to her feet and stumble forward.

And, to her never ending surprise, no matter how many times she falls, there's more than one set of hands reaching out and helping her back up.

Re-entering the atmosphere is so much more painful than getting beamed up to Horde Prime's ship in that weird green light. But the hand in hers is warm and grounding, and it's not until she finally opens her eyes to take in Etheria for the first time in so long that she realizes it's Adora's hand that is grounding her. She's not sure who grabbed whose hand, but it makes something painful lurch in her chest and she rips her hand out of Adora's grip before she can think too hard about it.

Nobody notices, too caught up in staring at Etheria's colourful sky and blooming forests and bright moons after spending so long staring at the black void that is space.

Her fingers still tingle long after Adora's hand has left hers, and she can't tell if it's from Adora's touch or the still lingering effects of the corruption acting up.

She decides on the latter, because it's easier to deal with right now—Etheria needs them to not get distracted by stupid things like how Adora's smile makes her heart race and calm at the same time. She'll have time to figure stuff like that out later.

(If she's being honest with herself, she doesn't think she will have time to figure stuff like that out later, that any of them will, but she keeps those fears to herself.)

Though, it is hard to lose herself in negative thoughts and her usual pessimism with Glimmer and Bow's overexcited arms wrapped around her. And as much as she acts like she hates it, their warmth is so foreign and so comforting that she kind of doesn't want them to let her go.

She feels like she's a completely different person now than when she left Etheria. She's definitely not a better person or fully healed, not completely, but she's also definitely not at her lowest point like she was when she limped after Glimmer in the ruins of the Fright Zone what feels like a lifetime ago. She feels things again—allows herself to feel things again—and while the ache under her sternum is still there, it's not unbearable or all consuming. But she's also still fighting her own anger and bitterness and resentment, still struggling to take the hard path and apologize, still struggling to not let her fear and pain turn her cruel and violent like she's allowed it to for years.

And she still fails, kind of a lot.

It scares her because she's pretty sure it means that she'll never actually become a better person like everyone wants her to be, fears that it means she'll never fully heal.

How are we supposed to fight our own friends? Adora asks, and she sounds so sad and so broken and so worried that something in Catra snaps, something dark and hungry and bitter rises to the surface and she can't force it back down like she's been trying so hard to do since Entrapta removed the chip in her neck.

She scoffs and can't help the resentment that colours her voice.

It never stopped you before.

The wind picks up around them and, thankfully, no one has time to respond to her comment before they have to brace themselves for battle once again. But her outburst sticks in her own mind and refuses to let go of her.

Even after doing everything she can think of to work on her resentment and her bitterness and her anger issues, it feels like she's getting nowhere. If anything, it feels like she takes three steps back for every outburst that she can't bite back, which is frustrating and annoying and she knows she's letting everyone down—except she doesn't really care.

The problem is that she doesn't actually regret her comment, she doesn't feel bad for saying it because she means it; and that terrifies her because no matter how hard she tries to be a good person, deep down she knows that she just isn't.

She doesn't want to save Etheria for Etheria's sake, she doesn't want to make sure all the citizens are safely un-chipped, she doesn't feel bad that they're fighting the other princess, she doesn't really care that Horde Prime is almost certainly going to conquer Etheria like he has every other plant he's come across.

She wants to save Etheria because it will keep Adora alive—she doesn't really care about saving Etheria itself. She just cares that Adora lives through this, that Glimmer and Bow and Entrapta and Scorpia and even Wrong Hordak make it through everything in one piece, that the other princesses and even that dumb horse all manage to survive the apocalypse because she knows Adora cares about them too.

But she doesn't want to save Etheria because it's the morally right thing to do, she wants to save Etheria because it will make sure that the people she cares about are safe. And she can't find it in herself to be apologetic about that, because she has no reservations about her own selfishness.

She figures that there will come a day that she'll do things because they're good and not because she'll get something out of it.

She figures that eventually she will become a good person.

(She fears she never will.)

Catra's always known that she's had a pretty messed up childhood—growing up as a child soldier in the Horde will do that to you—and with all the manipulation and torture and abuse she's suffered, and with Horde Prime's violent takeover of her mind, she's pretty sure that the nightmares are never going to go away.

Every time she closes her eyes, it feels like Horde Prime is right there waiting to slip back into her mind again, and it makes it near impossible to sleep at night when she's all alone in the dark. Instead, she's taken to patrolling around the Rebellion's new hideout while everyone else sleeps. Melog is as silent as she is, so they don't disturb anyone so long as they keep to the shadows when they pace around the perimeter of the cave. Sometimes, when she's feeling particularly restless, she even takes solace in the quiet hum of the forest outside.

She allows herself to nap when everyone else is awake, finding whatever high perch she can curl up in that's close enough to overhear everyone's conversations but far enough out of sight that no one really notices her—no one except Adora and Glimmer and Bow, who had all gotten used to her weird sleeping habits while they were on Mara's ship.

Bow insists on calling them catnaps, to Catra's never ending annoyance, and Adora has to remind her every time he does that no, you can't suffocate him with a pillow, not even a little bit.

She's still unsure around him, because he's one of the few people she's starting to warm up to who she doesn't have a history with, no childhood memories or traumatic imprisonment or time spent researching for the Horde to fall back on—which means she has no clue how to act around him. Every time they're alone together, Catra can feel the awkwardness scratching under her skin, and it generally results in her falling back on her old defensive habits, even though she's doing her best to break them.

Which is why it surprises her that Bow is the first person to notice that she's been spending most of her nights perched in a tree outside, and it surprises her even more when he easily finds the tree she's hiding out in.

"What do you want?" she grumbles as soon as he's in earshot. Melog, perched somewhere above her, raises their head and ripples with unease.

Bow startles a little before tipping his head back and giving her a bright smile, so wide that Catra can see it even though she's about twenty feet in the air. "I figured I'd find you out here. D'you need the fire brigade to get you down?" he calls teasingly.

Catra curls tighter into herself and presses closer to the tree trunk. The branch she's perched on sways with her weight, and she digs her claws in to hold herself steady. "Fuck off," she snarls, and though Melog remains blue, their mane and tail goes jagged.

Bow softens and takes a step closer to the tree. "I was just teasing. Are you okay?" he asks tentatively.

"Why do you care?" she snaps back.

"Because you're part of the Best Friends Squad now, and I always care about what's going on with my friends," he answers easily, and Catra just knows that he's being genuine, and it sparks something cruel in her.

He's too earnest, too caring, too friendly, and a dark, hungry part of herself that Catra keeps trying her best to bury wants to crush his kindness, wants to tear his warm affection apart. She scoffs instead, curling further up into the shadows of the tree, afraid that she'll say something she might regret if she opens her mouth. "We're not friends," she finally mutters once she thinks she has a handle on that dark, hungry part of her.

"Not with that attitude we're not," Bow says cheerfully, and Catra can't tell if he's teasing her or being genuine. She decides not to dignify that with a response, and instead just completely ignores Bow as he grunts and groans while trying to scramble up the tree. He eventually settles on a thick branch just below the one Catra is curled up on, resting his arms on Catra's branch and settling his chin on his forearms. "Come on, I can tell something's bothering you. I won't judge—promise. You just seem really—"

"Why are you so nice to me?" Catra demands, leaping to her feet and turning on him so fast that he nearly falls off of his branch at her sudden movement. Her tail lashes behind her as she balances on the swinging branch—Melog hisses and their jagged mane and tail get even sharper as they flash red. "I've done terrible things to you. I kidnapped you and attacked you and I've destroyed villages and I nearly tore reality apart and—

"You are not your past mistakes," Bow interrupts, his brow creased. "Sure, you did a lot of bad, but you recognize that the things you did were bad, which is more than some people can say. And you're changing. I don't think I should hold those past mistakes against you when you're trying to fix them, especially when you're trying to heal from a pretty messed up childhood."

Catra tenses and digs her claws into her palms as Melog yowls and paces anxiously above her.

Bow's voice drops and he glances away. "I've seen some of your scars, and Adora's told us some stories, and Shadow Weaver—" his gaze hardens and his face darkens with an expression Catra's never seen on him before, "I've met Shadow Weaver, so. I know you made a lot of bad decisions, but I also know you were in a lot of pain when you made them."

"The stuff that happened to me was fucked up," Catra concedes bitterly, "but I also did some fucked up things so I guess my pain it's all relative to that. I did some terrible stuff so the stuff that Shadow Weaver did to me and what happened with Prime is compensation for that. Like karma or whatever. If the other princesses think I should suffer for what I've done, then I should." She pauses to swallow the ball of ice currently lodged in her throat. "I hurt people. Stick around long enough and I'll end up hurting you too—hurting you again, I mean." She takes a deep breath and tries to keep her voice steady and resolute despite how her hands shake. "I don't deserve your forgiveness, or their forgiveness, or hers. And I don't deserve love. Not anymore.

"What?" Bow exclaims so suddenly Catra has to dig her claws into the branch so she doesn't fall off in surprise, "No, that's not how it works!"

"Maybe it should," Catra mutters. Melog makes a pitiful mewling sound, shrinking until they're the size of a house cat, and Catra doesn't even need to be able to understand their language to know what they mean—she suspects Bow doesn't need a translation either.

"Catra, just because you did some messed up things doesn't mean you deserve to suffer, or that you don't deserve love," he says, quiet but resolute. Catra scoffs and finally plops back down on the branch, facing away from Bow and doing her best to ignore him—she doesn't believe him, can't believe him, and it almost hurts more to hear him say she's worthy of love than it would if he agreed that she doesn't deserve it. "Do you regret the things you've done?" he continues, "Would you take them back if you could?"

"Yeah, most days. Most days I would do anything to go back in time and change the things I've done, the people I hurt," Catra eventually admits, before turning her face away from the suddenly too bright moonlight so Bow can't see her expression or the tears stinging her eyes. "Some days I don't care though. Some days I look back at all the terrible things I've done and all the pain I've caused and I just— I just don't care." Bow sucks in a sharp breath and Catra smirks sadly. "Does that scare you, Arrow Boy?"

He's silent for a long moment, before contorting his body over the branch Catra is sitting on so he can meet her eyes despite how she tries to hide in the shadows. "No, I don't think it does."

"It probably should."

They're both silent for a long time until Melog, still house-cat size, slowly creeps back down the tree and settles in Catra's lap, nuzzling into her stomach and mewling sadly. It should comfort Catra, but it doesn't, not really—she runs her fingers through their mane, still marvelling at how the energy it's made of feels both cool and warm at the same time, because if she doesn't focus on something mundane she's going to shatter.

"If you were smart, you'd all run far, far away from me," she finally whispers.

"Hey," Bow protests good-naturedly, "no one's ever accused any of us of being smart before."

It surprises an amused snort out of her, and Bow looks far too proud of himself for managing to get a laugh, small as it was, out of Catra. He quickly sobers though, and offers her a small smile. "Listen," he says softly, "I know you probably don't believe me, but you're not inherently evil, and you don't have to work or repent or whatever to be worthy of love."

Catra frowns and tries her hardest to not be comforted by his words, but Melog's jagged mane and tail finally lie fully flat again and their chest rumbles with a nearly silent purr.

"You're not half bad at this reassuring thing," she eventually mutters, trying to ignore the way something in her chest unfurls at his delighted smile.

"I am the friendship guy, after all," he grins.

Catra rolls her eyes, but she can't bite back her smile when Melog leaves her lap to nuzzle their face against Bow's cheek.

She sleeps better after that, and on those nights she can't, Bow is usually already waiting for her halfway up the very same tree he first found her hiding out in—sometimes to talk, and sometimes to make her laugh, and sometimes to simply make sure she's not alone, perched on the branch below hers in companionable silence.

It's decidedly weird to be back in the Fright Zone with Adora at her side instead of facing her in battle.

Almost every single one of Catra's most painful memories are here, and there are dark ghosts waiting for her in every corner of this place to remind her of all of the terrible things that have been done to her, all the terrible things she's done to others. It makes something in her chest tighten painfully, like barbed wire is digging into her heart.

But she forces herself to push those old ghosts to the side in favour of teasing Adora, because she knows that she's still good at making Adora smile, even after spending years making her hurt.

It feels like they're kids again, laughing and tripping over each other as they race through the metal maze that they grew up in, that they called home for so long because they didn't know anything else.

She hates that it still feels like home, hates that she can see in Adora's eyes that she feels the same, but—

Adora's smile as they catch up with the others, out of breath and happy, makes that painful thing in her chest knock loose.

Almost all of Catra's regrets and mistakes and worst memories are here, sure, but almost all of her happiest ones are too.

Catra really hates water, which is something the rest of the Rebellion coos over like it's just another cute feline quirk, but the feeling of it washing over her body makes her flash back to green and chanting and electricity and—

She swallows the worst of her panic and forces herself to focus on the task at hand. The sooner she gets out of here, the sooner she can dry off, and the sooner she can stop remembering that fucking green liquid.

Her progress feels like it's so slow that she's going backwards, because she still has all this anger and resentment inside her. She doesn't know what to do with it because she's never learned how to express negative emotions in a healthy way—whenever Shadow Weaver was angry or upset, she found some poor orphaned cadet (almost always Catra) to punish, and whenever Hordak was angry or upset he just invaded another village. So she's not exactly swimming in good role models that could teach her how to express her negative emotions in ways that don't involve trying to take over Etheria. And even if she was, they wouldn't exactly have time to deal with silly things like Catra's dumb feelings when the world as they know it is literally about to end.

So instead, she just stumbles her way through. Midnight talks in the quiet hum of the forest with Bow help, and having Glimmer there to call her on her shit is surprising encouraging, and Melog helps her sort through her emotions when they get to be too much, and just being around Adora again without doing their best to hurt one another does wonders to soothe her anxiety and fear (even if most of that fear stems from the worry that Adora will do something dumb like sacrifice herself for all of Etheria or something equally stupid).

But she still feels like she spends most of her time trying to fix her past mistakes tripping head over heels down a steep and rocky cliff.

It's easy to repent—well, not easy, per se, but certainly not the hardest thing she has to do. She can help the Rebellion and try to temper her rough edges and apologize to the people she's hurt and lend an (mostly willing) ear whenever one of the princess starts ranting about whatever and that's all not necessarily easy, but it's doable.

What feels goddamn impossible—like she's standing at the bottom of a completely flat cliff face and trying to climb it, like she's trying to swim up a sixty foot waterfall, like she's back in Shadow Weaver's sanctum with magic freezing her in place and electricity coursing through her veins—is trying to forgive herself.

She's learning that it takes a lot longer to heal than it did to fall to the darkness.

As quickly as she's grown to love Melog, it is really annoying to have a creature that's so completely attuned to her emotions constantly following her around.

She's an open book now, and she hates that there's no way for her to keep her emotions to herself, that there's no way for her to remain aloof and annoyed to mask what she's really feeling.

Not that she was too good at hiding her emotions before Melog, but at least she could hide her fear and misery and pain with anger and no one would look too closely at her. But with Melog following her around and announcing her true emotions to everyone who even glances their way, there's no way for her to hide anymore.

It makes her vulnerable, and she hates being vulnerable because it makes it easy for people to take advantage of her.

It also means that when Shadow Weaver sets her on edge, she can't hide the fear that sparks in her and turns Melog's mane and tail spiky and red. It means that she can't hide the way that Adora's hand on her shoulder soothes her quicker than else could anything. It means that she can't pretend that the only place she wants to be is at Adora's side, even when being at her side means she also has to be in the general vicinity of Shadow Weaver.

It's terrifying, and it makes her want to run and hide, but she can't, not for long anyways, so she forces herself to push through the fear and ignore the warning signs her brain keep flashing at her to run far, far away.

The smile that spreads across Adora's face when Catra reluctantly agrees to go with them all to Mystacor and her bright laughter when Melog jumps on her and fondly licks her face makes it all worth it.

Change is really uncomfortable, Catra is learning, and healing really fucking hurts, but it's also kind of rewarding.

As soon as Shadow Weaver places her hands on Catra, restrains her so she can't move and covers her mouth so she can't scream, she flashes back to the hundreds of times that she's been in this position before—to every single time that Shadow Weaver used magic to wire her jaw shut so she couldn't plead for help or scream in pain.

Melog reacts before Catra can even process her own reaction, growling low in their chest as they go jagged and sharp and red, teeth bared as the invisibility magic slips off the whole group. Catra's skin crawls as she leaps away from Shadow Weaver, not even caring that she just gave away their position.

There's absolutely no fucking way Catra is letting Shadow Weaver ever lay her hands on her again, mostly because Catra is almost paralyzed with fear of what she would do if Shadow Weaver were to touch her again. She doesn't know whether she would completely shut down, try to kill Shadow Weaver herself, or break down and start begging for forgiveness for ruining everything again. All three thoughts are equally terrifying, and Catra's not even sure what it says about her that she has absolutely no clue what she would actually do if it came down to it.

She should want Shadow Weaver to pay for everything that she's done to her, but as fucked up as it is, Catra still wants that affection and approval she's longed for all these years—she still wants Shadow Weaver to be proud of her, just once.

She still just wants to be worthy of someone's love.

She doesn't even think twice before jumping through the fire after Adora—she can't lose her again, she refuses to.

Except, she's going to, because Adora is beautiful and loyal and stubborn and flawed and idiotic.

She's going to lose her because Adora doesn't have any sense of self-preservation, because Adora doesn't think about herself, because Adora is She-Ra, because Adora doesn't know the meaning of being selfish, because Adora can't say no even when she knows that Shadow Weaver is manipulating her, because Adora is stupidly self-sacrificial, because Adora doesn't know how to let other people help her.

She's going to lose her because Adora would never put her own needs and desires above the greater good.

She's going to lose her because Adora doesn't know how to share her burden of responsibility for Etheria and its people.

She's going to lose her because Adora believes that it would be better for her to die than to let anyone else get hurt.

And Catra's not going to let that happen.

She doesn't care about a world without Adora in it, doesn't care that Etheria will be saved if Adora gives up her own life, doesn't care that Horde Prime will destroy the universe if Adora doesn't take the failsafe—Catra doesn't care about any of that.

The only thing she cares about is that Adora and their friends survive this nightmare. So she'll fight Shadow Weaver even though just being in the same room as her sets her on edge, she'll fight all of the Rebellion for allowing Adora to sacrifice herself even though she's on their side now, she'll fight Horde Prime herself even though the thought of being chipped again is her deepest, darkest fear—she'll fight anyone and everyone who tries to convince Adora that she's only worth something if she's useful, that she's only useful if she sacrifices herself to fulfill some dumb destiny, that the dumb destiny is her burden to shoulder and her burden alone.

She'll even fight Adora herself just to keep her safe, to keep her from killing herself for the sake of people who don't care about Adora like Catra does, who don't love Adora like Catra does—and she's not going to lose this fight, she refuses to.

Catra loses.

She always does.

Melog tries to stop her, but Catra ignores them, ignores the fact that Melog is so attuned to her emotions that they know her deepest feelings better than she does.

Ignores the fact that she wants to stay by Adora's side no matter what, except—

Except Adora doesn't want to stay by Catra's side, she can't want that if she's going to go ahead and sacrifice herself and leave Catra all alone, again.

Except Adora has too much of a hero complex to allow herself to want things that don't directly help random people she's never even met.

Except Adora will let herself die in the name of destiny without any regard for how it will affect the people who love her.

Except Adora will sacrifice herself to save Etheria even though Etheria wouldn't do the same for her.

Except Adora doesn't love Catra the way that Catra loves her.

She can't keep trying to hold onto Adora if Adora isn't going to try to hold onto her.

It just hurts too much.

So she leaves before Adora can leave her first.

Why do you always have to sacrifice everything for everyone else? When do you get to choose? What do you want, Adora? is what Catra says, but what she's really screaming is Choose me!

She knows that Adora won't though, no matter how loud Catra screams. She knows that Adora can't because she's still trying to play the hero, even when there are no heroes left to play, not at the end of the world.

It's what Catra expected—the reason why she tried to sneak away when no one would notice her. She knows no one will miss her once she's gone, knows no one will mourn her absence, knows no one will go looking for her, knows that no one expects her to become good, knows that no one needs her to save Etheria, knows no one cares about her enough to bring her back home.

She knows she's always going to be Adora's second choice.

It's easier to leave than to watch Adora sacrifice herself anyways.

Her chest aches like there's a hole under her sternum that's getting bigger the further she gets from Adora, but she ignores it.

It's easier this way, she tells herself.

Hearing Horde Prime's voice again sends an icy chill crawling along Catra's spine, and that green haze prickles at the edges of her vision until Melog nuzzles against her hand and brings her back to the present.

And the present is fucking terrifying.

She had no reservations about leaving the Rebellion behind, knowing that she would die an almost certain death at the hands of Horde Prime even if Adora could get the failsafe to the Heart in time, and yet—

No one saw this coming. Even in their wildest speculations, not a single member of the Rebellion suggested that Horde Prime would be able to infect the planet itself and—

The thought of Adora dying all alone in the bowels of an infected planet is somehow so much more terrifying than the thought of Adora sacrificing herself for that planet.

While there was a chance Adora could survive her sacrifice, Catra is pretty sure that virus spreading along the planet will cut that chance down to zero. Because even with all of She-Ra's strength and magic, She-Ra is still Adora, and Adora is still just human, and humans are still very mortal. And Catra still knows Adora better than she knows herself. She knows what's left behind when you strip away She-Ra and destiny and that damn sword.

And what's left behind is a just a girl barely into her second decade who has been thrown into a war she's far too young to die in, who has had her childhood stolen from her by an abusive sorceress and a cruel army, who has had a destiny she never asked for thrust upon her and the weight of an entire plant placed on her entirely too human shoulders.

What's left behind is the girl that Catra loves more than she knew was even possible after spending years drowning alone in the darkness.

And while Catra still hasn't quite figured who she is without her anger and resentment, she knows that she doesn't want to be the kind of person who abandons the girl she loves the most when things get hard.

She's not going back to help Adora because it's the morally right thing to do.

She's doing it because she loves Adora, and she refuses to apologize for that. She refuses to let anyone to place some sort of arbitrary restrictions on the reasons she's doing something good—she refuses to let anyone tell her that her love for Adora makes her selfishly motivated.

It's not going to be easy—both the race to the Heart of Etheria and asking Shadow Weaver for the help she knows she needs to get there. And Catra knows the chances of her dying some gruesome death before she even reaches Adora is more likely than her actually making it all the way to the Heart. She knows that there's a chance Adora won't even want to see her after Catra ran away, knows that she's going to have to fight tooth and nail the entire way there, knows that this is probably going to be the hardest thing she'll do in her (probably soon to be very short) life.

But then again, love isn't easy.

It's making the hard choice.

And it's so much harder to stay than it is to leave.

She's willing to take the hard path instead of the easy one.

She's willing to try.

When Bow and Glimmer hug her before they go, and Catra doesn't even try to hide the way she sinks into their embrace. They're warm and unapologetically affectionate, and Catra thinks they're exactly what she's needed for so long. She was so dependent on Adora's friendship and nobody else for so long that she's only now started to realize how unhealthy her dependance was now that she has a support system that extends beyond one girl who was as traumatized as she was.

She thinks it's good for her, to have Bow and Glimmer in her life, even if that life's probably not going to last as long as she would like it to—but it's good all the same. As much as she loves Adora, and as much as her support means the world to Catra, it's nice being able to lean on other people and trust that they won't let her fall.

She's starting to realize that, no matter how much it might hurt, it's better to have had these people in her life for even a short time than it is to have never known their friendship at all.

Shadow Weaver's pride doesn't feel anything like like Catra thought it would, like she had imagined it would.

It feels empty, as empty as Catra now realizes the sorceress' heart has been all these years. As empty as Shadow Weaver's affection for Adora actually was—she can see that clearly now, and the tears burning her eyes feel more like relief rather than grief.

Shadow Weaver never loved either of them, she couldn't because she wasn't capable of loving anything other than herself, so caught up in her narcissistic quest for more power and more magic that it didn't leave any room for love or affection.

Adora pulls Catra into a tight hug, their bodies slotting together like they always have, and Catra knows the tears are from relief now.

Even though she doesn't have time to sort through all her tangled and complicated emotions about Shadow Weaver (fears that she won't ever have time), she knows now that she doesn't need Shadow Weaver's approval to be happy—she never did.

Shadow Weaver may have fucked them up and ruined their childhoods, but she can't ruin their futures, not anymore.

She can't ruin the way that Catra loves Adora.

The Heart of Etheria would be breathtakingly beautiful if it wasn't so terrifying—if it wasn't the reason Etheria is falling apart at its seems.

If it wasn't the reason Adora is about to sacrifice herself.

They take a moment they don't really have the time for to just stare up in awe at the glowing, twisting thing that floats above them. There's colours Catra has never seen before, ones that she doesn't even think humans have names for, and the blinding lights leave dancing white spots behind her eyelids whenever she blinks. It's somehow something more than anything Catra's ever seen, like it was made by something more than human—it hurts to look at it for too long.

It's beautiful, and terrible.

Adora's shout of pain snaps Catra out of her awe and back into reality.

Back into the nightmare they've been living through for the past couple of hours—for their entire lives, really.

Back into the looming apocalypse.

Adora's forehead presses to hers and Catra's breath hitches in the back of her throat and she calms for the first time in what feels like days even as everything collapses around them, even as everything in her is desperately screaming and protesting Adora's hopeless words.

Of the finality in her voice.

It's intimate in a way that almost scares Catra, but it also soothes something deep and dark and aching underneath her sternum, something that she didn't even know was hurting until Adora reached out and soothed it.

Adora is her best friend even after everything, her first crush when nothing made sense, her first love despite all that Catra did to try and destroy it, her worst enemy throughout her fall to darkness, her most painful heartbreak amidst a lifetime of trauma and abuse, her last thought as she lost her mind, her guiding light out of the grief and pain she had lost herself to—Adora is the one constant in her life, whether as her best friend or her worst enemy or her dearest love or her most painful maybe.

But then Adora's next words cause that aching thing deep in her chest to flare back up, all consuming and painful, and it feels as if Adora is reaching straight into her chest and squeezing her heart until it finally, fully shatters.

It's okay. I'm ready, Adora says, and the tears pooling in her eyes make them too bright and too shiny and too beautiful.

But I'm not, Catra thinks.

Even if it kills Catra to stay down here, even if she has to watch Adora die, even if it means Catra's never going to know love this deep and this enduring and this beautiful ever again, she's going to stay at Adora's side.

Catra's not going to let her die alone.

Adora might be giving everything she has left in her to save everyone else, but someone's gotta save her too, and Catra is there to catch her when she falls.

Adora, please, you have to wake up. You can't give up. You have never given up on anything in your life. Not even on me. So don't you dare start now.

At the end of the world, there's no one she would rather be dying beside.

No, no, I've got you. I'm not letting go. Don't you get it? I love you. I always have. So please, just this once—stay!

She can feel the hum of electricity buzzing in the air as the walls collapse in around them, and after the hundreds of times she's felt lightning coursing through her veins, she knows she's not going to survive the strength and force of this one.

She buries her face in Adora's chest and breathes her in for what she knows is going to be the last time.

Stay.

Adora's smile has never looked more beautiful than it does now—warm and awed and tender and alive.

I love you, too.

The celebration lasts late in to the night, people expressing their relief at narrowly avoiding the apocalypse through countless parties that have sprung up all over Etheria, but Catra and Adora disappeared before the last moon had even dipped before the horizon.

There will be time to be exalted as the heroes they have become, even if neither of them truly believe they deserve that title. There will be time to rebuilt everything that has been lost in decades of war, villages and trust and relationships alike. There will be time to explore the universe with their best friends, to bring magic back to planets not as lucky as Etheria was.

But for now, they curl up in a sleeping roll that's only slightly charred by the near apocalypse. The thick scent of smoke drifts towards them on the slight night breeze, from burning villages and bon fires, from devastation and celebration—but it smells of something new, the way the ash after a forest fire smells of both death and new life.

They aren't all that far from the nearest celebration, the one they left Bow and Glimmer and the rest of the Rebellion leaders at, though the sound of music and singing and dancing is muffled through the forest that surrounds the Rebellion's hideout.

But they're too caught up in each other to notice, legs tangled and chests rising and falling on a synchronized loop, hands latching on to warm skin under a scratchy blanket and lips softly touching and exploring despite the way their blinks get slower and slower as well-deserved sleep slowly stakes its claim over both of them.

There will be time to talk about everything that's happened between them later—to work through all of the betrayal and heartbreak and resentment still lingering in the air, to work through the complicated grief they both struggle with regarding their mentor's death, to work on self-sacrificial tendencies and habits of running when things get hard, to work through all of the issues that don't magically disappear as soon as the world is saved.

But there will be time for that later.

For now, they can rest, and they can sleep, and they can love, and they can start to heal.

Together.