InsaneJournal

Catra was kidnapped, she was sure of it.

It was the only thing that made sense, except it didn’t, and waking up to her – her, of all people – gave her a sense of safety, and fear, and anger, and sadness, and…

No. Not that word. She wasn’t using that word. That L-word that always threatened its way up her throat and died like ash on her tongue. Everything was complicated. The Rebellion was fractured. Catra kept secrets (or just the one, and it wasn’t anyone’s business who she put her mouth on but Light Hope kept telling her to let go, and maybe she was right) that created tension and distrust. She couldn’t keep Adora from activating the portal, couldn’t keep Angella from staying, couldn’t stop Salineas from being in shambles, couldn’t get Glimmer to listen.

She couldn’t sleep, which meant she must have been sedated or knocked out unconscious and that was how she woke up in this bed, in this room (why did it look so much like that ship), next to – “You have five seconds,” she hissed out loudly, rolling on top of Adora to hold her claws against her throat, right up against the pulse she would sometimes kiss and bite after their fighting became something else, “to tell me where the hell I am and what you’re up to before–”

Something beside them squealed. Catra blinked over, and sitting up in this weird half-crib thing was a baby. Messy blonde hair, an ear folded funny from sleep, bright eyes and a brighter smile with all gums and pure happiness.

“You kidnapped a baby?!”



Turns out that Adora did not, in fact, kidnap a baby.

Or Catra, for that matter. It was a convoluted story. Something about multiversal travel, something about alternate timelines, something about this place’s magic, something about – weird shit. She was always quick to process information and come to conclusions, but this? She didn’t know what to make of it. Her insides hurt. There was nothing in her stomach, yet it felt like she had something to throw up with how bad her nerves were. She couldn’t look at Adora.

Yet she looked, a lot.

The short hair. The softness in her features that she hadn’t seen since – fuck, how long has it been? Too long. She wasn’t full of rage. She wasn’t pulling away from her, rejecting Catra’s attempts for touch. She didn’t command the Horde. She wasn’t a weapon, sharpened by Shadow Weaver’s lessons, full of this delusion that it and all of Etheria were hers to conquer. The baby she cradled so gently and expertly in her arms was hers. Theirs, she claimed, and Catra couldn’t really refute that, could she? Didn’t matter if they belonged to another version of her.

Finn had the blue of her eyes. The Magicat features. They didn’t look at them like they were strangers. They recognized them as mothers, hands reaching for them both. She didn’t know what to make of that.

She didn’t know what to make of the word wife, either, aside from the fact that it made her heart swell. It also hurt. It made her want to be furious. It made her want to cry in relief.

But she did none of that, and kept to herself when a woman boarded the ship (Adora had a mom, what?) to help take over childcare. There was a lot to hash out and doing it with a baby wanting their attention all the time was impossible. She stood by the elevator that would take them to the lower decks (they agreed to fresh air, it’d do them both some good) when she found herself fixated by a photo on the wall while Adora helped Marlena get settled with Finn.

Catra didn’t know what possessed her to remove it from its spot to look at it better. The glass was clean from dust, and behind it was a preserved picture of Adora and – her Catra. They were bundled up in warm clothes, standing in front of a lit up gazebo, holding one another. They looked like they were celebrating something, and that Catra had a slightly swollen stomach.

They looked normal. They looked happy. What the hell was this life?

Adora was pretty pleased with how she’d handled this situation so far.

Had she expected to wake up to her wife not being her wife? Of course not. But when could you really expect anything from Vallo? There was not a lot of anything around here that was consistent, not for Outlanders. So, she took it in stride, even when she got threatened with Catra’s claws and accused of kidnapping her own child.

It was okay. She didn’t know any better.

Luckily, if there was one person Adora knew through and through, in most universes if not all of them, it was Catra. She managed to calm her down, assure her that no, Finn wasn’t kidnapped, and neither was she. Well, not by her anyway, but Vallo was a long story. She tried her best to explain it, and she though after going on three years, she had a good enough grasp of the basics, even if she didn’t understand the exact how. But it was absolutely convoluted, and sometimes it felt like she was talking in circles, even to herself.

But it worked. It calmed her down. And while overall, Adora would have much preferred to wake up next to Hot Future Catra again, if not her own Hot Present Catra, Scary Threatening Catra turned into Confused But Trying Catra, and that was a step in a much better direction.

Marlena, thankfully, was more than happy to come and take over Finn’s care so Adora could have a chance to sit with Catra and really get to know her, figure out where she came from. She knew their worlds were different, that was clear by the threat and the intense worry about kidnapping. She was curious to find out more, to find out what was different. Right now, her curiosity was keeping her worry that her Catra had been replaced at bay in a way she needed.

Once she’d gotten Finn settled with their grandma, she came to meet Catra near the elevator, coat on and the warm leather one her wife loved draped over arm to offer to her not-wife. Once she realized what she was looking at, she smiled. She always smiled at the sight of this photo.

“That’s our first wedding anniversary,” she told her. “My parents arranged it for us, since they weren’t here for the wedding. It was a really fun night.”

First wedding anniversary. Parents. Words she never associated with Adora. With – them, but they weren’t anything, were they? Catra wasn’t her wife. She wasn’t Finn’s mother. Her world was torn apart by war, and the Adora she knew couldn’t even come out to the battlefield and face her anymore.

Catra watched her warily. Part of her was waiting for this strange Adora to exclaim that it was all some kind of joke and, oh, this was just another attempt to fix the world so she’d come back to the Horde, matching thrones and all. She wasn’t ruling it out entirely, but she knew it wasn’t likely.

The picture frame was carefully set back onto the wall. She made sure it was straight before pulling away.

“Is it cold outside? You look like you’re wearing a cloud.”

“A small cloud,” Adora replied with a grin. The puffer jacket was certainly big but still moved the way she needed it to, coming down to about mid-thigh and including a hood with a furry lining. She generally ran warm, but the cold outside was getting a bit biting for her. “It’s been getting colder lately. It’s not quite winter, but it’s not far off.”

She held up the leather jacket for Catra with an encouraging raise of her eyebrows. “You’ll want the jacket. We’re going to be walking for a few minutes.”

Catra hated the cold.

The jacket was taken without a word, not a single murmur of thanks as she slipped into it, the fit of it flawless. She flipped all of her hair behind her shoulders, smoothing it out with her hands in one last metaphorical attempt to keep her nerves fucking chill. Adjusting her bangs, she felt the metal of that tiara across her forehead; a reminder that if everything revealed itself to be a trap, she had this.

She pressed the elevator button. It was obvious that the ship had undergone some renovations – it wasn’t quite what she remembered, but the layout was overall the same. They were headed towards the lower decks and down the ramp.

Looking at Adora all the way down wasn’t an option. Catra fought against it. She didn’t attempt small talk, but she felt as if her bones were vibrating, thrumming with restless energy. The tense flick of her tail tried to show restraint.

She blew out a breath once the chill air hit. The metal ramp felt like ice beneath her bare feet, but she’d endure. It was a grounding sensation. “I still don’t trust you,” Catra spoke firmly. “The only reason why I backed down was because I’m not interested in traumatizing a baby.”

Adora shrugged. “You don’t have to trust me. But I have no reason to lie.” She did appreciate Finn being enough to convince Catra to back down, even if it was only temporary. She thought maybe once all the multiversal travel talk really settled in, Catra might be a little more apt to believe what she was being told, but if she didn’t, the reluctant ceasefire would have to be enough.

“There’s a tavern in the forest about fifteen minutes this way.” She led Catra out of their gated front yard and pointed to a path west of where they stood. “They have really good bacon grilled cheese. And coffee. This whole situation probably calls for coffee.”

“You’ve expanded your palette, whoo,” Catra shot sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She began walking that direction, deciding to ignore that weird feline creature with the mane that reminded her of jelly - they were watching them, and she assumed it was one of Adora’s pets. Like that giant dog, or the black cat that looked at her like it was a challenge. “Glad to know in this version of things you’re out of the Horde and tried actual food.”

Adora was grateful for Melog’s presence, trotting alongside them. She knew they were concerned by this new Catra, too. Part of her had considered telling them she had it under control, but they were soothing to have close by. Swift Wind would have been fretting, and Clawdeen was occupied at Grayskull more often these days, but Melog was always a comfort for her.

“So I’m not in your world?” she asked, feeling like that was as good a place to start as any. She didn’t know anything yet other than this Catra was not her wife. She wanted to know. Catra might be content to brood silently, but she wanted to talk.

Catra pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, holding back a sigh. That was a question she needed to answer — her reply had been hot and bitter. Something this domestic version of Adora didn’t deserve if all this turned out to be absolutely true. “You’re not,” was her eventual reply, stuffing her hands into the pockets of the jacket. She never stepped too far ahead.

Can’t turn your back on a possible enemy and all.

“You run it,” she continued, clawed toes kicking away pebbles and twigs. “You usurped Shadow Weaver. Hordak. Horde Lord is your title, but I’m not calling you that. You’re always going to be Adora to me.”

Adora nodded slowly as she took that in. Back home for her, it had been Catra who had taken that position – or similar enough to it. She was fairly certain that hadn’t been a title attached at the time, but she couldn’t really say she’d asked. She may not know how the Horde at large addressed Catra from the Rebellion.

“You always called me Adora in my world, too,” she replied after a moment. A soft smile curled her lips. She knew Scorpia had always been confused by that, always wondered why when she was She-Ra, Catra never called her that. To most people, they were two separate entities. “Even after She-Ra. I liked it. I like always being Adora to you, no matter what.”

Catra looked paused in her steps to blink at her incredulously. That was weird phrasing. “What do you mean after She-Ra?”

Had she phrased that badly? Probably. Adora was used to shorthand with her Catra, and she realized belatedly she had to speak more carefully and explicitly now. The Catra standing beside her had an Adora of her own, but maybe their relationship was more different than she’d anticipated.

“Oh, after I found the Sword of Protection and became She-Ra. That obviously didn’t happen in your world if I’m, uh, Horde Lord, but that’s how it happened for me. I fell off a skiff and found the Sword and—” She waved a hand. “The rest is history.”

It was a moment later that she asked, sounding as if the thought had just dawned on her, “So, did She-Ra not happen at all for you?”

There was more blinking. Like, a lot of blinking, and staring dumbly. Ears up and eyes wide and tail going stiff as she stood there, perplexed by revelation because — that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. But considering the circumstances of her being here, in a strange world with her, she supposed she might have to suspend some belief.

“I’m She-Ra,” Catra announced, and raised a finger to point a claw at her in this nuh-uh, no you’re not kind of way. “I fell off that skiff because of your awful driving. The sword’s mine.”

Then, after a pause, “You hate She-Ra.”

Well, this was not going anywhere near the way Adora might have guessed. It sounded like Catra’s world, from what little Adora had now learned, was a complete role swap for the two of them. She briefly wondered what the ramifications on their other friends were in that case, but that was a question for later.

“Back at you,” was her response. She wasn’t going to argue over who was or wasn’t She-Ra. If Catra said she was, Adora believed her, though she doubted the same courtesy would be extended to her. “My Catra hated She-Ra because she viewed her as what took me away. If you’re She-Ra, that’s probably why your Adora hates her.”

It made rational sense to her, and she wasn’t all that bothered by the idea. She actually liked the idea that Catra got a chance to be the hero. She decided to focus on that instead of how inevitably unhinged this Horde Lord Adora must be if she'd taken over. Nothing good could come from being stuck there.

“So does that mean the First Ones were Magicats?”

Catra was about ten seconds away from losing her goddamn mind. How the hell was she taking this so calmly? The Adora she knew was — yeah, angry, but still a bit of a clumsy, sputtering spazz when it was the two of them. She’d be having heart palpitations right now. She —

Was not this Adora.

“Yeah,” she replied slowly, assessing her from head to toe, trying to find physical manifestation of a lie but there was none, and that was a point that kept being driven home. “With Grayskull nonsense? I don’t even know who that is but, y’know, gotta say it,” she continued, frowning deeply. “So, wait, that makes me - a Horde leader for you?”

She looked offended by the idea.

At that point, Adora started walking again. This seemed like a conversation they could handle while in motion. There was no reason to stand around in the cold, especially with Catra’s feet bare.

“She was,” Adora confirmed. Referring to her wife as her own person (because she was) was the saner route to go here. “But she got better. It just took some time.”

Catra’s pursuit after her was delayed. She had to hurry those bare feet against the ground to catch up to her, and then promptly went to block her from moving forward. Her hand shot up to hold Adora’s chest back. “Why are you so calm about this? I don’t—I’m—”

The words came became noises of nonsense, a growl blooming from her throat. “Does this happen a lot to you? Do you just get different versions of yourselves that show up here and oh, it’s just a fun time for you so let’s go get bacon? Because this isn’t fun for me, lady. We go from fighting each other and then, you know, other stuff,” she alluded, swallowing the guilt of those complications, “but you won’t even look at me anymore. It’s like we’re strangers. Everything’s falling apart. And now there’s you, and this kid, and you’re just—bacon and coffee?”

This is freaking me out would have summarized everything, but Catra had words. She hated this disconnect. She was floundering here, and back home, except she was more familiar with the circumstances back home.

Her hand dropped, glaring. “Let me just stay out of your way instead until you get your wife back.”

Adora blinked at her, guilt blooming in her chest just where Catra’s hand had been a second before. She had really thought this was the best tactic to handle the whole situation. She knew Catra was freaked out, and she didn’t think freaking out in return would do any good. She could; she had, when little Catra had been here so long ago, before Finn was even conceived. Even now, the fear that this wouldn’t be fixed simmered beneath her skin, but she also felt sure it would.

This was Vallo. Crazy things happened in Vallo all the time. More often than not, they resolved themselves. Catra would eventually go back to her world with her Adora. She was keeping that in mind so she didn’t freak out.

“Catra,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m calm because… well, yeah, these things do happen sometimes. We don’t usually get totally different versions of people, but I’ve had–” She raised her hand to start ticking these off on her fingers as she spoke. “Baby Catra. Literally, like six-year-old Catra was here for a week a year and a half ago. Of course that was Scorpia’s fault, but whatever. I’ve also had Future Catra, just recently. She was here for a few days. My Catra got Future Me for a couple days, too. We even had our future kids show up for almost two weeks.”

She held her hands up as if to say she was just as flummoxed by it. She really didn’t get the hows, the whys. Vallo did what Vallo did. The only case she’d listed where it had been something they’d caused was Scorpia, and a year and a half later, she recognized that was a mistake. Hordak having that damn machine to begin with placed it pretty squarely on his shoulders, even from dimensions away.

“I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but me freaking out isn’t really helpful. You deserve to, if that’s what you’re feeling. But I also… I guess I’d encourage you to try to enjoy it. I know I’m not your Adora, but I want to be there for you. Bacon and coffee included.”

“Enjoy what, Adora? This isn’t my life!”

The yelling startled Melog, who didn’t think a fight would break out but they stood pressed against Adora’s side, protective and cautious. A neutral mane, as they weren’t connected to this Catra.

“I don’t even know—how am I supposed to enjoy things,” she stated, the words forming a question but she didn’t state it like one, she thought the answer would be obvious if Adora was once in this role. “There’s a whole planet to fix and people expect me to do it. You said it, you’re not mine. It sucks that you’re not mine. None of this is mine. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Her arms went straight to her sides, hands balling into fists. Catra tried to ease her breath, tried to keep her voice steady versus letting it break apart.

“I’m sorry for shouting. Bow tried to teach me manners and I still think they’re pointless.”

Bow. Adora’s heart ached hearing her best friend’s name. It had been such a long time. But it ached even more for Catra’s plight because she got it. She had been the same way when she first got here. She and Catra had been pulled from different points amidst their encounters with Prime, and she had tried desperately to get back. She couldn’t afford to be here when Etheria was in danger, and she needed to fix it.

What purpose did she serve, after all, if she couldn’t fix things? Sometimes she still fell back on those old thought patterns and anxieties, though she liked to think she’d come a long way in the past three years. Therapy worked wonders.

“I know it isn’t easy,” she said, reaching down to give Melog’s ear a reassuring rub. Her eyes remained on Catra, though, soft and understanding. “And I’m sorry things are so tough back home. I get it, I really do. I was She-Ra in my world. Everyone pinned all their expectations on me, and it sucked a lot of the time. There is so much weight on your shoulders that you don’t deserve, Catra, and that doesn’t go away just because you’re here.”

She wanted to be sure she acknowledged that. She hadn’t meant to seem dismissive of what Catra was going through, how much of a mess her brain must be having come here. It sounded like she was still in the middle of the war on Etheria – no mentions of Prime, which she figured would be first up if there’d been any encounters there. But no war was fun.

“It took me time to figure out stuff I just liked to do, too, but I can show you some if you’ll let me. And if there’s anything you want to tell me, or ask me, I want to hear it. Our worlds… I think they’re probably more similar in some ways than I thought at first.”

Catra thought she knew what she liked. She didn’t remember anymore. It was almost fun at first, being in Brightmoon — but a big part of her hated the luxury of it all, how a select few people got to experience soft beds and food catered to your every whim while others suffered, struggled. Children were orphaned, and no one fought to save them from becoming soldiers.

Her time with the Princess Alliance wasn’t easy. She wasn’t easy, but she hoped to have knocked them down a few feet off their pedestals so they could look at reality for what it was. Whether or not this Adora had the same experience or not, she didn’t know—but she was right.

They probably had a lot more similarities than differences.

Those bare toes curled from the cold, claws digging into the ground. Adora could probably see some of that fight in her go up in smoke; ears dropping, shoulders losing tension. Finally, she sighed. “You’re good at this.”

“I’m in therapy,” Adora told her, almost sheepish at the admittance. It was no secret, and she wasn’t ashamed, but it was still weird to say out loud. “And I’ve had a long time here to deal with everything that happened with the war. It’s been almost three years since Catra and I ended up here.”

She gestured forward again, taking just one or two steps to see if Catra would join her. “Ready to keep going? You can tell me all about the other stuff you’re doing with your Adora.” Oh yeah, she’d heard that. She could make an educated guess what that was implying, and she couldn’t deny she was kind of surprised.

Three years. That felt like forever but also no time at all, and she couldn’t deny that Adora looked — good here. They looked good here, judging from all those snapshots of their life on the walls.

(She craved this life so, so much.)

Catra followed with a few steps of her own, continuing the stride down the path. “Other stuff isn’t happening anymore,” she admitted, cheeks warming into a soft pink. “It complicated things.”

Adora nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure it did.” She couldn’t imagine how confused and upset she and Catra would have been if they’d started up anything remotely intimate during the war. It would have hurt ten times as much to see the other still sticking to their side, not giving in, when they had this other layer of things happening through it all. It would have been too painful.

Of course Adora had compartmentalized to within an inch of her life just to deal with all the war and defecting to the Rebellion meant for her emotionally, anyway. It was tough to imagine an Adora who hadn’t.

“She didn’t… leave?” she asked, genuinely confused. She didn’t know what it was like to be in a Horde Lord’s position, thankfully, but she knew what it was like to love Catra. She thought if she hadn’t left, it would be next to impossible. Especially if there was kissing. There was just about nothing she wouldn’t do for her after she started kissing her wife.

“No. You–” There wasn’t a you. Catra had to catch herself. “She stayed. She–Shadow Weaver got into her head a lot, you know?” It occurred to her that she might not know some names, but she was going to drop them anyway as if she did - if Adora had questions, she could ask. “Convinced her that the Horde was hers to inherit, that she could fix Etheria. And when I left, she kept saying she was going to fix it so it felt… safe enough for me to come back.”

Her Adora was stubborn. When she got the idea in her head that her way was the right way, there was no stopping her – even if, at heart, she had the best intentions.

The way she went about it was just twisted.

“It wasn’t safe for her to say,” she added bitterly, glaring ahead. “I hated feeling like I left her there, with Shadow Weaver, but I knew Shadow Weaver wouldn’t kill her. My Adora learned not to trust her the hard way.”

“It’s amazing anyone can trust after growing up with Shadow Weaver,” Adora expressed, looking at Catra knowingly. It seemed in both worlds, their treatment had been about the same. But gods, to hear that this other Adora had been stuck with Shadow Weaver simpering in her ear even after Catra left? No wonder she was angry.

“It took me a long time to realize how awful she was,” she continued. “I think it was only being separated from her for a while when I went to the Rebellion that kept me sane. If I’d had to keep on dealing with her constantly, I would be more of a jerk, too.”

Catra reached out. Her hand was so close to holding hers, until she stopped herself. Habits die hard. It wasn’t the right place, the right time, the right Adora.

Not that her Adora was all that receptive to holding hands, anyway.

“You’re not always a jerk,” she offered, glancing at her quickly and turning away before their eyes met again. “I mean–her. She. The Adora I know. Sorry.” Catra let out a frustrated sigh. “I know she’s tired, and I know she has regrets. She’s always pulling her punches like an idiot. The times I’ve gone to see her, she saves me those gray ration bars even though I tell her better food exists. She’s got blueprints for matching thrones. That part’s a little delusional, but it’s… sweet.”

(She remembered finding them after snooping around in her private quarters. Catra laughed, and Adora got so adorably red-faced, and it almost felt like nothing had changed between them.)

“I’m guessing the other me was a big ass to you with the roles reversed, huh? No stolen moments between and after fights?”

Matching thrones. That was unexpected. She remembered joking with Catra about becoming Queens someday – the Horde was as good as promised to her, from what Shadow Weaver had always told her, and there was no way she wouldn’t bring Catra with her. But she’d never gone so far as to plan it out like that. Then again, she’d only just been promoted to Force Captain before she defected.

But it sounded like Catra’s Adora loved her, even if she was too brainwashed to show it the right way, and that was nice. She was glad that constant existed between their two universes. She hoped it existed in every other one, too.

“It’s hard to believe we ever lived off ration bars,” she mused. She was spoiled now by the food Bright Moon had offered, then the even wider variety here in Vallo. Ration bars had been a necessity once, but they weren’t necessary now. “But yeah, she…wasn’t happy with me. Which was fair, you know? I left her. I didn’t think of it that way, but she did. I always wanted her to come with me someday. I tried to get her for a long while, and then something bad happened, and I got angry. Then I stopped seeing her as much for a while.”

A structure was beginning to come to view, put together by stone and beams of wood – the tavern, Catra assumed. Something right out of the Whispering Woods, if you knew where to turn and how to navigate the shifting roads. She focused on the sight of it as she turned the words over in her head. I left her and I wanted her to come with me.

The something bad happened. The absence.

“Did youurrrrr,” she drawled, dreading the question about to come from her mouth, “bad thing involve one of us making a very bad decision about activating a certain portal?”

Adora’s answer was a solemn nod, followed by, quietly, “Yeah.” She still didn’t like to think or talk about the portal much to this day. She and Catra had put all of that behind them. There was nothing they could do, and she didn’t know if maybe they would someday. As much as it hurt at home, it wasn’t relevant here in Vallo.

“She wanted me to come home. She thought it was the only way she’d get me back again. But I realized it wasn’t real.”

“Makes me think we like each other a little too much,” Catra tried to tease, but her choked voice didn’t bring any mirth. That incident was a fresh wound. “She did the same.”

Another misguided attempt to fix the world. Instead, Adora had created a world of lies. They had to wake up from it at some point.

“I’m sorry. For pulling the switch in your version of things. I know it wasn’t me — but I think I get it. The feeling.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Adora offered. “For yours. Just thinking about how much she’s been through, I get why she’d make the choice, too. I have infamously bad impulses sometimes.”

They were approaching the tavern door so she stepped forward and opened it first, waving Catra inside. Finding a table was easy at this time of day, but before she sat down, she turned back to Catra.

“You can say no, but is it okay if I hug you?” She felt like after the heavy territories that conversation had dipped into, maybe they could both use one.

The tavern was cozy. A fireplace crackled in the center, and the floors were warmer against the flat of her feet than the natural ground. She hadn’t quite been paying attention to Adora when a table was approached, her eyes too busy drinking in the details of where they were – how at peace everything seemed, the scent of coffee grounds hitting her nose.

Catra’s focus snapped back to her when the question hit. She blinked, stunned. Physical touch hadn’t been in the realm of possibility for her. She wanted, of course - she always wanted, that was always her problem. Bow and Glimmer softened her up a little to victorious group embraces (though she’d bitch if they lasted two seconds too long), but a hug from Adora was just always–

“You’re the one person who never has to ask,” she answered quietly, brows furrowed.

That was all Adora needed. She swooped in and hugged Catra to her, tucking her face into her hair to breathe her in. She missed her wife already, so much it ached, but she felt for this new Catra she’d woken up to this morning. They were in the same sort of position in their worlds, and she knew what the pressure of being She-Ra felt like during the war. She knew what it felt like to be separated from someone you loved so much – even if it had taken her longer to acknowledge and act on that love.

She held onto Catra for a good minute before letting her go so they could shrug off their coats and sit down. A server came over to take their drink orders and Adora looked to Catra. “What do you say? Coffee? Hot cocoa?”

Catra held it together during the hug. Was it reciprocated? Absolutely. So tightly, so fiercely that it was hard to hold back the extension of claws. She hated to separate. It might be a different Adora but those arms felt the same – she felt the same, and for a few moments, she deceived herself into thinking they were the same.

It was a beautiful lie. She could understand why that life in the portal was so appealing. Deep down, she wished it was real too.

Reality brought her back down. The hug left her dazed, delaying her response. “Uh,” Catra shook her head a little, peeling off the leather jacket and folding it carefully (it wasn’t hers, she was trying to be polite to this other Catra’s stuff) to set beside her. “Coffee. I don’t have money. I’ll – pay you back, somehow?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Adora said, nodding up at the server in confirmation. She didn’t drink coffee as often as her wife, but there were times, and today felt like a coffee day. She handed a menu over to Catra and skimmed her own in front of her, though she was fairly confident in her bacon grilled cheese choice. Maybe a full on BLT if the mood struck her.

“What’s your favorite Bright Moon food?”

“Applesauce,” was her immediate answer, not a second thought required. It might be lame in retrospect — Brightmoon had a lot to offer even in war (which was a thought that left her a little sick), but she always went back to that. Applesauce. “I first had it as Fright Zone contraband,” Catra said, taking the menu. “Now I can have it whenever I want.”

It was a little nostalgic too, she’d admit. She wasn’t good at letting things go. That was how she got into a more complicated mess with Adora as things waged on from opposite sides to begin with, and she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

The options weren’t perused very long. There was bacon, and toast — those were fine. She wasn’t all that hungry. “Should I ask how… things ended for us? War wise. Or is that too much and maybe I shouldn’t—” Catra sucked in a breath, setting the menu down to cross her arms. “We’re gonna be okay, you think?”

Adora was glad the server returned with their pot of coffee and two cups, interrupting them for their food orders long enough to give her time to formulate an actual answer. She debated whether or not she should tell her how the end had gone for them. She probably could. She figured when this got sorted out, Catra would go back to her own world with no memory of being here. Which sucked, honestly, but it seemed to be the way most disappearances worked.

But she didn’t know how the war would end. Maybe it would play out similarly, but maybe it would go another way altogether. One thing she’d learned in Vallo was that the timelines and universes out there were infinite and varied. She couldn’t claim definitively how things would go in Catra’s world, no matter how much she felt they were alike right now.

What she could say was, “Yes, you’re gonna be okay.” She reached out and took Catra’s hands in both of hers, squeezing gently. “I love you. Any version of me loves any version of you, I can promise you that, Catra. And it’s all going to work out in the end, but it’s not going to be easy. I don’t think we do much easily.”

Catra’s jaw ticked. The muscles there were set so tight, doing their best to keep her face masked into the epitome of nonchalance - something she’s had plenty of practice with when dealing with war, dealing with all the high and mighty politics and destiny, dealing with omitting details of the handful of times she’d disappear into the night (only to have a stolen moment or two with the enemy, something she kept hidden from her friends until recently), dealing with pointing a sword at her ex-something’s face while trying to forget the way her lips felt the night before.

Any version of me loves any version of you were words she hadn’t prepared to deal with. A single tear fell, but her face didn’t break. The only attention she drew to it was when she lifted her shoulder and turned her head to wipe her cheek against it. There was so much she wanted to say to that – how she wanted to admit to this Adora all of the things she was too scared to admit to her Adora – but she choked it down, and told herself some numbness was needed to survive.

“We don’t,” she agreed, her hands dead weight in Adora’s, unsure of what to do. It felt selfish to want to hold them, to take them. Her thumb gave the back of her hand an experimental graze. “Your life seems – it’s nice,” Catra complimented quietly. “Tell me about it?”

Adora was watching closely enough to pick up on these small things – the tension in Catra’s jaws, the tear she turned to wipe away. She was sure there were words being held back, but she didn’t blame her for keeping them to herself. She was facing an Adora that wasn’t her Adora, and even in these circumstances, where they weren’t at war and there was nothing dire happening around them, it was hard to look at someone you loved and see they weren’t the person you were expecting.

But Adora was making the best of a weird situation. She always tried her best, and this time was no different. She kept Catra’s hands in hers, assuming she’d either get comfortable enough to hold them back or inevitably pull away, and thought about how to start explaining their story here.

“Well, we’ve been here three years,” she said again, “and we were in the middle of the war when we got here. We weren’t together then, and we never had been like you and your Adora, but we figured it out pretty quickly. We kissed after about a month, stayed in the same apartment for a while until Darla got here, and it all just… progressed. I asked her to marry me on her birthday that first year, and we got married in December, then Finn came along pretty quickly after that.”

That was the quick version of their story, but she wasn’t purposely withholding anything. If Catra had questions, she would answer them.

“Catra made me these scrapbooks for Christmas the past two years. I’ll show you them when we go back if you want, so you can see some of the memories for yourself.”

Catra never thought much about marriage. She tried not to, anyway. Sometimes she looked at Netossa and Spinnerella, and what they had and – she was jealous, yeah, of how easy it was for them, how they were open and comfortable enough with the idea of a lifetime together. She was jealous now, of this Adora and her Catra, with their home tucked away from people, their marriage, their –

Did she want kids? Shit, she never thought about it. Every time she tried to picture a life if she survived all that was happening, she came up blank. She couldn’t. It had become a waste of time, so she soldiered on. Didn’t think anything more of it. Kept fighting, kept planning, kept trying.

“Scrapbooks,” she repeated, thumb now focusing on the rings on Adora’s finger – there were two of them, stacked on top of each other? It was odd, but maybe they had meaning. “I – she made scrapbooks, really?” Catra smirked. The coffee was going to get cold if she didn’t move her hands, and she told herself just a little longer. “That sounds really cheesy, Adora.”

“It was her idea, not mine,” Adora replied with a grin. Reluctantly, she pulled her hands away to hold up the left, where Catra’s finger had passed over her ring finger. “Engagement ring, wedding ring. It’s an Earth tradition, but a lot of people around here adhere to it. Worked out, too, because it turns out my mom is from Earth.”

Then, she tugged at her collar just a bit, enough to expose the necklace that held the miniature version of Catra’s mask around her neck. “Token, like we do on Etheria. I gave her my wing pin in exchange.”

“That’s a lot of jewelry just to claim you as mine,” she blurted, an observation more than anything – until she caught herself on the mine part, and she cursed under her breath. “Hers. Hers. Sorry.” Catra cleared her throat, sat up with more proper posture, took a sip of her coffee as a way to, uh, busy herself from her oops and only to regret it.

It didn’t have sugar. Smooth. She swallowed it bitter anyway to save face.

“Especially since I don’t usually wear jewelry,” Adora chuckled, unperturbed by Catra’s little outburst. She grabbed some cream packets for her coffee; there was no way she could drink it black. “But they’re sentimental. When I go to work, it’s usually just the necklace. In case I have to punch things.”

Adora had a… job. Of course she had a job. She had the home thing and the family thing and they all had to eat, didn’t they? It was a mundane detail to hone in on, but that had her wondering about the day-to-day things and what was going to happen with it all going tits up considering she wasn’t this world’s Catra.

“Is there – where do you want me to stay until all of this gets sorted out? Who takes care of Finn? Like, what should I do?” she asked, at loss with how to proceed. She’d do whatever Adora wanted, of course. This was her life being inconvenienced. “Should I help with the baby? Do I just… stay away? I’m not their mom.”

They had smiled at her, though, like she was one of the most familiar things to them. And their scent was so like hers and Adora’s that it spiked something in her. A protectiveness that was new and strange, though she felt as if she had no right to have it.

“You can help with Finn as much as you want,” Adora told her. Finn didn’t know the difference between this Catra and their Catra, that much had been made clear this morning. Without any Magicat senses of her own, she didn’t know, but she felt it was safe to assume the scents were the same. “But I can take a few days off work and handle things at home. I wouldn’t put all of that on you.”

Marlena and Teela would help as much as she asked, too, but she didn’t think that would be too necessary. She and Catra were getting on familiar ground, but she didn’t want to spook her by putting her in social situations with a bunch of strangers. She knew, even if Catra was She-Ra in her world, that putting on a happy face for others wasn’t her favorite thing.

Awesome. She could help with Finn.

…

How the fuck was she going to help with Finn? Sure, yeah, she had some exposure in the Horde’s nursery – the personnel tasked to look over that sect weren’t total pieces of shit, and sometimes there was a kid that liked the way she purred so she would purr for them. She remembered trying to find a specific color of chalk for another, and it took weeks to sift through the Fright Zone’s contraband piles for it. The day-to-day tasks of keeping them alive, though? Oh boy.

Catra didn’t squeak; her chair just made a sound against the floor as she shifted, that was it.

“You wouldn’t put all of–” she paused, blinking as she tried to decipher the meaning of those words, and she wasn’t sure about the assumption she arrived to but fuck it, she was asking. “Does your Catra, does she… does she stay at home with them? By herself? Have you met us?”

Adora hid her smile against her cup of coffee as she took a slightly prolonged sip before answering. “Yeah, she does, and yeah, I have. But she’s an amazing mom. Best of the best. My mom helps, and Teela, and I’m home three or four days a week. She takes care of a lot on her own the days I’m at work, but Defense isn’t an everyday thing, so we still share responsibilities between the two of us.”

She understood Catra not having that confidence, though. Her Catra had come a long way and grown so much in their three years in Vallo. Adora had, too. Being away from war, away from responsibilities they never really should have had to take on, had given them freedom to figure themselves out – as individuals, as a couple, then as moms, too.

Catra immediately went to have another sip of her coffee only to regret it again. She sifted through the sugar packs and examined them weirdly (they had sugar cubes in Brightmoon, all she had to do was dump that shit in). She ripped about seven open at once and poured it all in like a sugar gremlin.

Screw stirring it in properly. She needed a few healthy gulps for her brain to wake up more. “I can’t,” she paused to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, and breathe, that was a lot of coffee she guzzled down, “believe she’s your housewife. What the f–okay. Fine. I’ll just live with you.” Adora hadn’t directly answered that question but if she was against it, she would have proposed alternative housing for her. Or she’d figure it out herself - that was fine, too. “And play – house? Until I go back. I can do that.”

“You don’t have to play house,” Adora told her, because she didn’t want Catra feeling tied to a life that wasn’t hers. She understood it was strange, maybe awkward, and she wanted to make her comfortable, whatever that entailed. “I would like you to stay with me, yeah. I would never send you packing. But you’re allowed to just – go out, do things, explore a little?”

“No, I – I want to,” Catra corrected, though her answer was cautious but sure. “I literally have no idea what to do in the context of your life, but I told you. I want to help. It’s nice to see what could be, some day. Gives me hope, y’know?”

She didn’t know if she would remember feeling when she went back, but she was going to do everything to hold onto it tight. Bow and Glimmer had chipped away some of that cynicism to make room for lame, fuzzy emotions. “Then when this shit sorts itself out, you’ll have your wife back,” she said, leaning back into her seat with her coffee, “and I’ll be back home to knock some sense into my Adora, and save my dumb planet. Maybe I’ll make her my housewife in a few years.”

Adora laughed with surprise, leaning back in her chair and feeling reassured. “Maybe you will,” she agreed. “If she’s still anything like me, she wouldn’t be opposed.” It might take some convincing, since she was a person with a very busy brain who liked to be occupied more often than not, but Finn was no easy task. Cute and sweet, which made up for the tough parts, but enough to keep even her busy consistently.

For the first time since the day started, Catra smiled. She hid it behind the mug for a few seconds, and revealed it when she set it back on the table. Adora had told her to enjoy it, and while she still wasn’t sure how to really go about it - she could enjoy talking to her, without all the bad blood and resentment. It was baby step number one. “Since we’re both She-Ra, let’s compare some notes.”

Their breakfast arrived just on time, set before them. Catra had a lot of questions.