InsaneJournal

Catra couldn’t tell you how she got herself stranded up high in a goddamn tree, six months pregnant.

…

Okay, yeah, she technically could, but she was not happy about it and it went a little something like this –

The day was pretty, and Adora had a shift and had taken one of their psychic cats, and she had convinced the other one to go out and explore for a bit, and - look, it had been a minute since Catra had been completely by herself, okay? Sometimes it was nice not to have someone hover over her. Considering she was going to be giving birth in just a handful of months and probably never have a chance to have quiet time to herself, she kind of selfishly wanted to take advantage of it and do her thing. Especially when she, herself, wasn’t tied into any of her work obligations or classes.

The hammock outside was set up all nice and pretty, a bistro table with some chairs by it. Catra had snacks out on it - like grapes, cheese cubes, some non-caffeinated iced tea and a sandwich (with spicy cheetos in it for the crunch, she had been having a hankering for it) - with her yoga mat rolled out. She could do her exercises, eat, take a snooze on the hammock considering the sun beams were hitting it perfectly. It was gonna be the absolute fuckin’ best. Catra was here for it.

So she began her stretches, and the movement spurred on some Finn tumbles that had her smiling. “Was wondering when you’d wake up,” she said, sacrificing an arm that was supporting her in a very bendy position to smooth a hand over her stomach. That’s when she heard the very pronounced sound of shit being knocked over.

Her shit.

When the fuck some weird forest animal squirrel hybrid (Atreus, was this one of yours) that was the size of a super fat raccoon came crashing down from a tree to jack her food, she didn’t know. But it was here, looked at her boldly in the eye, swiped her sandwich with its tiny gremlin squirrel hands and ran.

Two things about that; the first is that you don’t steal food from a pregnant woman, and the second is… FUCKING RODENT! Catra didn’t hesitate to bolt after it, snarling a string of obscenities in its general direction. It scaled a tree not far from Darla. Catra followed it, claws hooking into the bark to hoist herself up leap after leap. There was a slight scuffle when she reached her target but in the end, she had come out victorious. She had her sandwich back. All was well.

Except for the fact that when she stood up on the branch, thinking her balance would forever remain impeccable despite the growing weight in her midsection, it got scary. She wobbled - almost lost it if it weren’t for her claws catching the trunk - and she looked down, down…

Like, really down, because she was really high up and was beginning to realize she didn’t have enough confidence to climb back down by herself. Her athletic leggings didn’t have pockets for a phone. She had done this without any communication device, not even with the earpiece she almost always had on her to talk with Adora hands free.

“Fuck me,” she growled, lowering herself onto the branch to sit. On the bright side she at least had her sandwich and began to stress eat it, and in between bites she would let out a keening, forlorn Adoooraaaaaaaaa! in hopes that her distressed wailing would reach her wife.

Having two psychic cats instead of the one was actually working out pretty nicely, if you asked Adora.

After the initial weirdness and territorial tendencies died down, Melog and Clawdeen had agreed to take her in shifts to pacify Catra in her bouts of worry. Clawdeen seemed infinitely more agreeable, even nearing the end of her own pregnancy now. So, for the most part, Adora went out with her and they got along just fine. Even without the pink lion’s words roaring in her head, they’d found a way of communicating that worked for them, and really, everyone was happy. Wins all around.

And today’s shift had been pretty uneventful. Catra had gone silent toward the end of it, and Adora knew she was off to lounge, so she hadn’t been worried. After her shift ended and she’d stopped into the office to make sure there was no paperwork immediately in need of her attention, she popped right back to the nearest Waypoint to Darla and began the short trek home.

One of the perks of having a catgirl wife was that she was attentive to little cat quirks. Even before Clawdeen nudged her to get her attention, she’d noticed the lion’s ears straightening up, picking up something her fleshy human ears couldn’t hear. Clawdeen circled around her, pushing at her legs to encourage her to pick up the pace, so she did.

They were a few yards away from Darla when the sound finally hit her ears and her eyes went wide, head whipping around in search of her wife. Because that was clearly her wife, sounding distressed and weirdly mournful, and her heart rate spiked with worry.

Until her eyes landed on her. In a tree, a tall one, looking like she’d just been kicked as she sat on what looked, thankfully, like a very sturdy branch.

“Catra!” she called up to her wife, hands on her hips while Clawdeen sat down beside her and lifted her head, too. “What are you doing up there? Come down!”

Finally, her tall blonde heroine in shining armor. Catra wanted to facepalm about this entire predicament because it was stupid, and embarrassing, and why was shit like this always happening to her but whatever. With a heavy sigh, she dusted her hands free of sandwich crumbs and looked down below, catching glimpses of gold (Adora) and pink (Clawdeen) through the foliage.

“I tried!” she called out, tail thumping restlessly against the trunk. Catra wriggled a little to sit on the branch forward-facing, legs dangling as if she was sitting on a swing. “Climbing down is different from climbing up and–my balance isn’t the best right now, okay?? I didn’t want to fall with no one around! I’m stuck!”

It was hot up here.

Wait, no, that was her face because Catra was flustered as hell and she already knew the look Adora was going to give her.

“A fat squirrel-hybrid stole my sandwich so I chased it,” she then added, a little quieter, like that was meant to explain everything.

Oh. Yeah, Adora could see where she might have trouble coming down now that she mentioned it. With her belly growing with her pregnancy, her center of gravity had to be a little off and affecting her balance. She could see not struggling going up the tree, if you weren’t particularly attentive while doing it, but getting down would be a different story.

Of course she didn’t like seeing Catra so helpless and shamefaced – even from down below, she could see her cheeks had turned red – but she also…kind of wanted to laugh? Her hand raised over her mouth as the mirth washed over her and a smile curled her lips, and then a giggle burst free. She didn’t mean for it to, but she couldn’t contain it.

“Okay, I…” She forcibly cleared her throat, trying to overpower the giggle fit, but it just made her laugh again, raising both hands to stifle the sound. This might take a minute, sorry wife.

Catra’s face was positively burning. “Shut up!” she yelled down, and not only was Adora cracking up (despite her poor attempts to conceal it) but Clawdeen was giving off ‘highly amused’ vibes. “I worked hard on that sandwich, I wasn’t going to let that little shit steal from me! Now will you be helpful and just–”

Okay, okay. How was she going to do this? Getting up here was second nature, and she had been so hyper focused on the hunt to let the anxiety of her, uh, condition be in the forefront of her mind. With the reality of the situation having sunk in a little deeper, she realized that a) she shouldn’t be up here, period and b) she might be able to get down with a little more confidence now that she wasn’t alone.

Carefully, she hooked one set of claws into the tree bark and lowered herself down to the next sturdy branch that didn’t wobble from her weight. Catra could do this shit in her sleep - you know, when she wasn’t knocked up. The uncertainty was probably the most dangerous thing about this. “Don’t let me fall,” she warned, bracing herself to hop down on the next one.

That one did wobble a little, and she knew the longer she stayed on it, the higher chance of it splitting under pressure. Catra moved onto the next one quickly.

Whoa, okay. Adora sobered up quickly when Catra started just popping down the branches. Her brows furrowed and her mouth turned down into a frown, and she was quick to shift into her taller alter ego. She’d been about to make a crack about calling the fire department (since they were so accustomed to getting cats out of trees, obviously), but apparently her laughter had only spurred on Catra’s stubborn streak. She’d call it bravery, but really, they both knew it was just her being stubborn, at least to some extent.

She watched raptly as Catra made her way down one level lower, then another. She tensed when that second branch wobbled, but it seemed to hold, and she was getting close enough that Adora could see how unsure she was feeling. At She-Ra’s taller height, thankfully, she wouldn’t have much farther to go before Adora could grab hold of her.

“You’re good,” she assured her, looking up at her wife with a reassuring smile. “Make it down one more and then I can catch you.”

“I know,” Catra swallowed, feeling a little self-conscious as her ears were flat against her head. Heights didn’t scare her and ordinarily she would have leapt down by now, gracefully landing on her feet and then proceed to do something dramatic like flip her hair over her shoulder. But now all she could think about was that a fall could be really bad, and she felt the baby push against the inside of her stomach, and Clawdeen could clearly sense her nerves since she was circling the tree (also ready to catch her) and ahhhhhhhh fuck.

The final branch wasn’t as sturdy as she hoped.

She felt it begin to splinter from the trunk the moment she added a full weight of foot on. Panic flashed across her face, and she looked at the branch, and then at Adora, and made the decision to fall into She-Ra’s arms before the branch collapsed.

Adora forced herself not to panic, even when the branch began to crack under just the weight of Catra’s foot. She was right here, waiting and very willing and able to catch and bring Catra back down to the forest floor. Internally, her heart was going a mile a second, but she caught her wife without any trouble and stepped aside to let the branch tumble down harmlessly beside them a moment later.

“Are you okay?” she asked Catra, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and holding her close to her chest. Catra didn’t scare easily, but that descent was definitely worthy of some fear.

The moment she felt Adora’s arms catch her, the fear went up in smoke and her ears perked back up. Catra could breathe and boy did she inhale deep, just to exhale it a second over in what was a very clear sigh of relief. They were fine, nothing tragic happened, this was exactly why she waited for someone to find her and–

Oh. Hey. These arms. These extra muscled arms.

Catra blinked up to drink in the sight of her wife like this, crowned in a gold mask meant to honor her - the pale glow of her blue eyes, the features that always looked extra-sharpened when she was in this form. Purring began. It obviously wasn’t from Clawdeen.

“I’m thirsty,” she blurted at Adora.

Adora’s smile broadened. She wasn’t as blind or oblivious as she once may have been in these situations. She could see that look in Catra’s eyes as they raked over her in She-Ra’s form. Of course, Catra always looked at her like that – like she was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen – but there was an edge of something a little more when she was She-Ra. She may have a tear-my-shirts kink, but Catra definitely had a She-Ra kink.

“Yeah, I bet you are,” she chuckled. She decided to play along with the more innocent definition for now as she turned them in Darla’s direction, Clawdeen padding along beside them. “Did you have a drink in the backyard? Hope it hasn’t gotten too warm while you’ve been trapped up there.”

“I think it all got knocked over,” Catra sighed again, totally having meant that declaration in an innocent way anyway - or so she told herself. It’s not like she was eyefucking Adora in her She-Ra form that much. She was also completely capable of walking back on her own feet except, y’know, she didn’t, and she was letting her wife flex her strength as an obvious favor.

(Yeah, fine, all that was total bullshit and Adora had no right looking like that ever. Sometimes she just liked to try and convince herself otherwise for the sake of dignity and to distract from the fact that she was a constant mess for her.)

Her tail wrapped around one of her arms, and once they reached their yard - yep, Catra was right. The damn thing had not only knocked everything over but they must have come back after they lost to her to eat everything else she had out.

“I’m gonna find it again,” she narrowed her eyes, “and I’m gonna skin it.”

“You are not,” Adora replied without pause. She couldn’t blame Catra for her aggravation, though. That squirrel-hybrid nemesis of hers had made a big mess of the yard, but she’d worry about getting it cleaned up later. Getting her wife inside and pampering her was her first priority right now.

“You want me to make you another sandwich?” she asked as they stepped into Darla’s elevator. “I totally can. I’d have to put you down, though.” She smirked, looking down at the tail wrapped around her arm with knowing eyes.

Fine, she was not. It would probably involve clawing up another tree and considering how much of a terrible idea that proved to be - guess that little fucker did have the last say. “I stole my sandwich back and ate it while I was waiting for a rescue,” Catra smirked back, winding her arms around her neck (they’d been crossed over her chest, grumpy). “I should be making you a sandwich.”

Patrol shift, then rescuing her wife from being stuck in a tree? And then carrying said wife all the way home? Catra used to gag at the idea of needing to be saved but, hey. Adora looked hot doing it. She can’t complain.

“I like taking care of you,” Adora insisted, carrying her wife over to the couch when they’d reached the observation deck. She settled Catra down into the little nest that had been established as her spot over the months and sat down beside her, reaching over to give Spirit some pets where he was sprawled on the opposite end of the couch.

“So,” she mused, turning her attention fully to Catra and leaning down to brush their lips together. Lightly, teasingly, not quite a full kiss. “Who are you in the mood for, babe? She-Ra or Adora?”

Catra made a sound of protest at being put down, but it was fleeting. The spot she had created for herself the last few months felt like a cloud, and it was easy to melt into it. Much better than being stranded up on a branch, and she let out a little breath from feeling movement right below her belly button when–

“Sounds like you missed me,” she whispered, raspy and a little strained from the barely kiss. She-Ra had this… tingle to her. Or at least, that’s what Catra felt; the magic that crackled under her skin, electric and captivating, powerful and gentle. It gave her goosebumps, made her pupils a tad bit (a lot bit) blown. “If you’re giving me that choice.”

Admitting she wanted Adora was as easy as breathing. Admitting she wanted She-Ra - that’s where Catra got a little stubborn.

“‘Course I missed you,” Adora replied easily. She always missed Catra when they were apart, cheesy as that may be. But, even though it had been a while, she still had those days where it was extra strange to be out on patrol without her. The earpiece that kept them in constant contact helped, but it would never be the same as having Catra working beside her.

“You were so cute trapped up in that tree, though,” she teased with a chuckle. This time, she really kissed her, letting it linger for a moment while she settled on her side (still She-Ra, her body sprawled across much more of the couch’s length than usual) and placed her hand on Catra’s belly to stroke the gentle curve. “What have we learned about trees today?”

Catra swallowed. Adora’s hands were, uh, big like this. Those hands could snap bones in half like a twig, but her touch was sweet and protective and her eyes might be a little fixated on her fingers (those were longer). She kept it together - even if her tail was twitching with a little wound up energy.

“That I shouldn’t climb them,” she answered with a roll of her eyes, hand reaching out to wrap some of that platinum blonde ponytail around her hand. It helped her draw Adora’s face closer, closer, to kiss her lips in a way that showed impressive restraint. “And that, maybe, the only thing I should be climbing is you?”

Was that a pick up line?

Adora’s eyebrows rose and she smiled widely, kissing Catra again with considerably less restraint. The question in that line nearly made her giggle again, but her brain, thankfully, focused on the sexier aspect. “You can climb me any day,” she murmured. “At least I know I won’t have to call the fire department to get you down.”

Come on, she had to get that joke in somehow. It may not have been appropriate out there in the midst of the situation, but it was still worth telling, if only to make Catra roll her eyes again.