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Tweak says, "Promissa? Always."

ᴄᴀᴛʀᴀ ʀᴀɪɴʙᴏᴡꜰɪꜱᴛ-ᴍᴇᴏᴡᴍᴇᴏᴡ (

hisses) wrote in

valloic,
@ 2024-09-26 10:40:00

Catra, Babydora & Marlena

WHAT: Babydora wakes up and finds out her best friend has a baby, and that she has a real mom
WHEN: This morning
WHERE: Darla
WARNINGS: None really
STATUS: Complete

“I’m eight,” she declared. Then, with a curious tilt of her head and knitted eyebrows, she asked, “What’re you, like thirty? You look so old, Catra. But not as old as Shadow Weaver!”

Adora didn’t really sleep well at night. Her blanket was scratchy, and her feet were cold all the time, and even the buzzing of all the Fright Zone machines kept waking her up when there was no other noise to drown it out. She often tossed and turned for hours until Catra came down from her top bunk and curled up across her feet, and then she could sleep okay. But she still woke up when there were different noises—other cadets getting up to go to the bathroom or kicking at the other bunks when someone’s snoring got too loud. There was nothing quiet about the Fright Zone. So, waking up to total quiet was almost as startling as waking up to footsteps or the alarm that woke all the cadets for daily training and school. It was dark, too, which was weird. The lights were always on in the barracks, hurting her eyes when she first woke up to their white brightness. And that’s when she realized she wasn’t in the barracks. She gasped, loud and surprised, and scrambled up from beneath a very not-scratchy blanket and bumped into an animal—a black one who was furry like Catra but smaller and much fluffier—and gave her a mean look before jumping onto the floor and going to hide under the table. Once Adora’s feet were on the ground, the clothes she was wearing sagged, and she realized it was because they were way too big and not her Horde uniform and that was weird. That didn’t matter right now. She had to find a weapon, but everything was taller than her, and so she resorted to something different. She hurried around the bed to see a person on the big bed, tugged at the sheet with all her eight-year-old might, and shouted, “WHO ARE YOU?” Weird ruckus to wake up to, but alright. Catra wasn’t much of a deep sleeper thanks to motherhood; her body was always on standby at the most innocuous sound Finn could make over the monitor so when there was a gasp, she was waking up. Sometimes Adora would have a spaz moment if she slept in too late and was rushing to get ready for her shift. Sometimes Vallo was being a dick. She was bracing herself groggily, propping her body up by her elbows, but she was not prepared to be yelled at by a miniature version of her fucking wife. So it was going to be one of those mornings. She blinked, hair kept tame by the braid she’d slept in, and looked right at the face that belonged to her childhood best friend. “Hey Rainbowfist,” Catra greeted scratchily, cocking her head to the side with ears floppy from sleep. “You know who I am.” Adora dropped the sheet and her eyes felt like they practically popped out of her head in surprise. Once the person in the bed opened their eyes, she recognized them—really pretty blue and gold, just like her best friend in the whole world. But her best friend in the whole world was much smaller, not just than Adora but than a lot of the Horde cadets their age. “Catra?” she asked, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes suspiciously. She dug her hands into the mattress to hoist herself up, feet braced on the bed frame. She wanted a closer look but with cautious distance still between them. Catra’s hair was different, but her eyes were the same and all her pretty freckles. “What happened?” Catra kept her cool pretty well. Her brain was, uh, making some calculations though, running through some scenarios that they’d have to tackle—like Finn, who was still asleep, and then there was Marlena, who might start sobbing at the sight of Adora. Of an Adora who didn’t know who her real family was, and that revelation was something she’d fumbled with as an adult. No doubt that explaining it to her as a child would be a lot. This was going to be a lot to manage. Shit shit shit. “I’m a grown-up,” she explained, sitting up and crossing her legs. “You’re supposed to be a grown-up, but grown-up-you got turned into a little-you. And now you don’t remember being a grown-up.” Gods, did that make sense? Catra would like to think she was still coherent without her first morning dose of caffeine. “Annnd guessing from the look of you, you’re…” She knocked her forehead into hers a little hard, a playful headbutt with a grin. “Seven? Eight? You’re not missing your front teeth, so.” When this bigger version of Catra sat up in the bed, Adora deemed it safe to sit across from her on the mattress. She didn’t really know why she had gone from being a kid to a grown-up (or, if Catra was right, then it was Adora who had gone from being grown-up to a kid), but she knew Catra when she saw her. There was no one she loved or trusted as much as Catra, even if this whole thing was the weirdest. The headbutt made her mirror Catra’s grin and giggle, more sure than ever of who she was, and lift her hands to press against her best friend’s cheeks. “I’m eight,” she declared. Then, with a curious tilt of her head and knitted eyebrows, she asked, “What’re you, like thirty? You look so old, Catra. But not as old as Shadow Weaver!” “Twenty-four next month, you baby jerk,” Catra huffed heatlessly. Thirty was a stretch, but she spoke to Adora with faux-annoyance and all genuine fondness. Easier to focus on her innocent assumption rather than the name-drop of their commanding officer, and she tried not to think about all the manipulative caresses to the cheek that woman gave to Adora at this age. The gesture felt a lot more offensive and dangerous that way. Her hand covered one of Adora’s smaller ones against her cheek. “This is our home and it’s crazy fun,” she smirked. “But let’s get your teeth brushed and into some clothes that fit you better.” Adora nodded agreeably. She was used to a strict routine in the morning, and it had gotten diverted by not being where she was supposed to be. Part of her was a little anxious that Shadow Weaver would find out, and she would get in trouble. But Catra was here, and she didn’t seem worried, so Adora wasn’t going to worry either. “I must be a really big grown-up,” she commented as she clambered off the bed. The oversized shorts and tank top still clung to her but flopped dramatically when she hit the ground. She was already tall for her age, but the difference in size had to be extreme. “Taller than me and everything,” Catra chuckled and then spared a quick, nervous glance to their digital clock—shit, Finn should be waking up soon—before climbing off herself. She looked in the direction of their wardrobe and chewed her lip, thinking back to when Hope and Mara were here, how they had to buy them some extra clothes to keep them from raiding their closet, and those were… in their room. Their stuff would fit her best. Bathroom first. She and Adora almost always brushed their teeth together growing up, and it was about the same in their adult lives too. She urged her little best friend towards it, the sliding doors opening when the sensors detected them. “Yours is the blue, mine’s the red. We should, um. Talk though. About how we live here and who we live here with.” After a quick pause, she added, “We’re safe here, you know? There’s no—it’s nothing like the Fright Zone. Shadow Weaver will never come here.” The bathroom was different from what Adora had expected. It was big, like the bathrooms in the Fright Zone, but small, too, like it wasn’t meant for as many people. The big counter Catra led her toward had two sinks right next to each other, and Adora reached for the blue toothbrush that was hers and then for the tube of toothpaste right next to it. She scrubbed her teeth diligently, turning to look at Catra while she talked, absorbing every word like an attentive little soldier. She spit into the sink nearest her and then looked up at Catra. “Is she gonna be mad we’re not at the Fright Zone? What… I don’t know where we are.” Catra turned off the sink when they were done. “She won’t be mad,” was what she promised, because it was true and she was dead but she didn’t think Adora could handle that news, and she didn’t need to—she was too young, and Catra felt completely stupid to think that an Adora at this size and at this age could protect her from the horrors of their upbringing. Adora was always the bigger one, the stronger one. To Catra, at seven years old, she was her shield and her lifeline, the only one that ever tried to keep her remotely safe. But seven-year-old Catra could never perceive how small Adora was, either. “We’re in a world called Vallo, far from Etheria, and it’s nice,” she elaborated. “A little crazy. But this is the home we made for ourselves, and we decorated it ourselves, and there’s a lot of cool things. The people here are nice. And we live with—well, she lives with us, but—” It was better for her to explain it than Marlena. If it came from Catra, she might accept it easier. So she smiled at her tentatively and said, “You trust me, right?” Adora’s face was some mixture of confusion, interest, and maybe a little bit of nerves. She wasn’t used to being away from the Fright Zone. And while a lot of her wanted to take everything that was happening at face value because she believed this was Catra, and obviously Catra would never hurt her, their commanding officer was scary when she wanted to be. She was mostly scary towards other people, not Adora, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t engrained some fear into Adora, too. Crossing Shadow Weaver was a bad idea. The idea of this being a whole new world where Shadow Weaver couldn’t reach them helped. A little bit. They couldn’t get in trouble if Shadow Weaver couldn’t find them, so she’d just have to hope being in this place called Vallo meant just that. Because she trusted Catra completely, more than anyone else, and if she said, it had to be true. And that was the answer she gave to Catra’s question: “More than anyone!” with a small, reassuring smile. She was used to things like this. Catra could be jealous sometimes of Adora being friendly with the other cadets, so she always made sure to tell her she was the most important. And it was completely genuine and sure because it was true. She had found Catra and loved Catra, and nothing else could ever top that. Catra fought the urge to wrap Little Adora up in a blanket and take her out for icecream for breakfast. “So Big Adora,” she began, leading her back into their bedroom, and she paused for a moment to listen to the monitor. Catra could pick up this sniffing sound, something shifting, and knew her time was limited. “Found her mom here,” she then continued gently, ruffling her hair a little. “Your mom. Your real mom. You were stolen when you were a baby. And she loves you a whole lot.” It was a basic explanation, but she hoped it was digestible. She didn’t want to overwhelm Adora more than Catra knew she already was—she was always a creature of routine and habit, and ripping her away from what she knew and how she did things always made her apprehensive. Once again, Adora’s eyebrows furrowed, and she frowned deeply. She didn’t have a mom. Almost no one in the Horde had parents, at least not anymore. Adora had been there since she was born, and whoever her parents were, they were probably gone. She didn’t even think about the possibility of them. She was an orphan, and she would be a soldier someday. Whatever mom and dad she might have had before didn’t matter anymore. But Catra wouldn’t lie to her. If she said she had a mom who was here, then Adora believed her, but she didn’t know what to do. She’d never had a mom before. She didn’t know what to say to her. She felt sad for her mom if she had really been stolen as a baby. She didn’t know she’d been stolen, but she guessed it made some sense. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I guess… I guess that’s nice.” Sitting on the bed, Catra squeezed her upper arms with a chuckle. “I know it’s weird,” she sympathized. “And it’s—a lot to wake up to.” There wasn’t a way to spare her from this overload of information even if she’d tried. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Or to Marlena, who would no doubt try to make the best out of this weird situation. “She lives with us, though, and if you don’t want to meet her right away... that’s okay.” She didn’t want to push. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let Marlena push, either. Her mother-in-law might get a little blinded with emotions and enthusiasm, and Catra was going to try to be a gentle but firm buffer in case Adora panicked. Adora nodded, remaining quiet as she thought. She had never been in a situation like this before and didn’t have a plan. She liked plans. She’d made a lot of plans, but she’d never made one for figuring out how to talk to a missing mom. She couldn’t even imagine what a mom was like. “I can meet her,” she decided with a firm nod. She would figure it out, and she would have Catra there with her to help her. So it would be okay. Everything was always okay when they were together. “Can I have some clothes that fit me?” “Yeah, let’s—” There was the sound of babbling from the monitor. No crying for mama, thankfully, but it was a sign that Finn was up and probably standing in their crib. Maybe bouncing on it a little. She heard the slight creak of their mattress. Keeping Adora from also seeing Finn was unavoidable, and that part was definitely going to be weird to explain. Catra’s internal panic button was pressed for a few moments. “Let’s go,” she managed to finish, leading Adora out of their Captain’s Quarters and into the corridor. They entered what would eventually be Hope and Mara’s room, the sun and moon decor Oldora had gifted her on the walls. “Check the closets there for clothes, they might still be a little big on you but not as big—” And then she heard Marlena’s doors slide open, with a sing-song, “Good mooooooooorning!” echoing through the hall. Catra had to yell out, “Just a minute!” and shut the door before things got chaotic. It felt like a lot was happening all at once, mainly judging by the look on Catra’s face and the way she’d shoved them into another room in this house (it was a house, right?) at the sound of another voice nearby. Adora frowned up at her with concern. “Are you okay, Catra? You look kinda nervous.” “I’m fine,” Catra protested, willing her tail to still before it gave off a more apprehensive twitch. Hard to forget that even at this age, Adora could pick up on all her tells. “That was—your mom,” she explained, turning around to face her. She gnawed at her bottom lip. “I’m gonna let you get dressed, and I’ll go talk to her. She’s gonna be surprised to find you like this. Get dressed. Take all the time you need.” Then she hit the pad on the door to let her out of the room, and she prepared herself to give Marlena the heads up. Adora didn’t get a chance to stop Catra and ask her what she should wear before she was gone, so she went over to the closet herself, pulling the door open with both hands. Her eyes popped out when she saw all the different clothes hanging up. There were so many colors that she hadn’t seen much of in the Horde. Red was their color—sometimes different shades but still red—and was usually paired with black or gray. There wasn’t a lot else to choose from. So, tentatively, she reached for another color that intrigued her—blue, close to the color of Catra’s eyes. She took off the shorts and tank top she’d woken up in, folding them carefully on the bed, and pulled the blue t-shirt over her head, then chose a pair of black leggings covered in sparkles. She had never been sparkly before, but she thought they looked okay. When she was done, she went over to the door and mimicked what she’d seen Catra do, patting her hand against the pad beside the door until it slid open and let her back into the hallway. “Catra!” she called, looking down and straightening the hem of the blue shirt with her hands. “Do I look—” She looked up and stopped talking when she saw Catra there, but she wasn’t alone anymore. “Oh.” Her cheeks got pink, and she suddenly got shy. “Hi.” Catra’s nerves were on display when Adora emerged, her arms folded and her tail lashing, and beside her—they were next to a bedroom, the door open, funny toy sounds coming from it—was Marlena. Her own nerves were doing something unbecoming, but she’d spotted Adora with wide eyes. “Hi,” Marlena greeted, pushing her red hair behind her ears. She looked stunned. Her eyes went to Catra for guidance. Someone squealed in the other bedroom. “Adora,” she started, looking over her shoulder and motioning over. Catra gave her a small, wrinkled-nose smile. “This is Marlena.” Adora was torn between the two things happening here. She could hear noise from the open doors beside Catra that sounded familiar—like baby noises she’d heard in the Horde nursery when she would go with the cadets in her squad to visit sometimes. She couldn’t help wondering whose baby it might be, but her attention was completely on the tall, red haired woman standing next to Catra. She somehow looked familiar, even though Adora knew she hadn’t seen her before even once in her whole life. “Are you…” She hesitated, took a steadying breath, stepped cautiously closer and continued, “Are you my mom?” Marlena mirrored that cautious step. “I am,” she grinned, drinking in all these new, young details of her daughter. She wasn’t toddler-sized (maybe next time, she told herself mentally) but old enough to process things with a little more reason. And still young enough to be classified as baby, at least to her. “I’m using to seeing you big like me. Hi, beautiful.” “MAMA!” yelled the little voice in the bedroom. Catra winced, flashing Marlena a look, “I have to—” “—yes, go, of course!” Adora’s head whipped toward the door as Catra dashed off toward the baby voice yelling Mama from the bedroom. Marlena was momentarily forgotten, and Adora marched past her and followed Catra into the open room. Her mouth dropped open when she saw what it was—clearly a nursery but a little smaller than the Horde’s and with only one crib. Then her eyes zoomed to Catra and the source of the voice: a little blonde baby with a fluffy tail and fluffy ears like Catra, and Adora’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t find the right words to say to express her absolute shock, and she didn’t want to get loud around a baby. “Catra??” Even just her best friend’s name expressed all the confusion and disbelief that Adora felt as she tried to understand even more crazy than she already had. Marlena thought about stopping Adora and—well, she failed at that, unsure of how to broach that topic. Her intention was to follow Catra’s lead (which was a hard pill to swallow, since Adora was her daughter but there was also no one else who knew Adora the way Catra did), but they hadn’t really had the chance to discuss how to approach… this. Finn. Awake, happy, demanding of attention. They were scooped up into Catra’s arms, wearing zip-up footsie pajamas. She kissed their button nose and blew a raspberry to their cheek as a hello. “This is…” Catra paused, thinking over her words, because she sure as hell didn’t need to burden Adora with the mere idea of being a parent sometime in the future. “My baby. This is Finn.” Marlena coughed into her fist. Catra glared at her a little. Catra had a baby. A baby. Adora was so shocked that no matter what she tried to say—and there were a few different attempts—she stuttered and looked dumb in the end. Her cheeks flushed red and hot, and she turned back around to Marlena. She was having a hard time deciding which was the less challenging new thing, and in the end, she decided it was her own mom. “Can we…go outside?” she asked Marlena. Even if the air was stifling like the Fright Zone, she needed to get away from everything. But she still didn’t even know what this place was, so she would need help, even if it was from her surprise mom. A flash of irrational hurt crossed Catra’s face. She wasn’t used to… not being the person Adora turned to when things felt unknown, but she didn’t push. Marlena tossed her a look, a quiet request for permission, and she nodded. Her face went into Finn’s hair, and Finn’s babbling quieted to look at Adora curiously. “Of course, darling,” Marlena said, ushering her out so Catra could begin the baby’s morning routine. “You and Catra have such fun pets, and you’re gonna love them!” Adora felt bad, looking back over her shoulder at Catra and the baby, but she needed a minute to get used to all of this. It was easier to accept Catra being a grown-up than to accept that she had a baby. And by herself? How could that have happened? And was she—grown-up Adora—helping? It didn’t feel nice to ask those questions right now, so she didn’t. She just let Marlena lead her into the elevator. “What kind of building is this?” she asked, as the doors opened onto the main floor. She was immediately greeted by a barking golden dog and jumped in surprise as he gently headbutted her in the stomach. “Whoa!” Marlena couldn’t stop looking at her. Adora at this age was so cute, though maybe—a little on the skinny side? She’d known about the ration bars at the Fright Zone, and she was excited to introduce her to actual food (for the first time, again, but this time she got to be there). Like a Happy Meal. Dozens of Happy Meals. “We live on a spaceship—it does actually fly, if we want it to, but we don’t need it to right now,” she explained, giving Spirit a quick pat on the back. “This right here is Spirit, and there are two other dogs here but they’re probably still sleeping. We have a very busy household.” She showed her the motions of filling the food bowls. It was an easy task, and would maybe keep Adora’s brain a little busy to not think about the mysterious baby she saw. Then she pulled out a large tupperware of greens and berries. “This is for the outdoor ones. Molly loves to be fed by hand.” Getting the animals set up with food for the day was a good distraction for Adora’s brain. By the time all the bowls had been filled, the two other dogs had emerged. The bigger golden dog—Pop Tart—was even more excitable than Spirit, but Abby the Beagle was older and very calm. She allowed Adora to pet her but didn’t race for her attention and turned right back to her food when Marlena brought out the big bowl of greens and berries. “Who’s Molly?” she asked. “You have inside and outside pets? How many are there?” That was more pets than she’d ever seen—which was easy since the previous number was zero. “You have inside and outside pets,” Marlena corrected with a wink, leading the way to the elevator. “Four indoor ones. Molly stays outside exclusively. Squirtle does come inside, but Finn is—” She caught herself, and then redirected. “You’ll meet the cubs, but they tend to lurk around the perimeter a lot as extra security measures.” When they made it outside, the morning air was crisp. The breeze was refreshing. The grass was a little wet with dew, and she’d like to think Adora would enjoy the nature of it all—the forests surrounding Darla, the clear skies. With the way the Fright Zone had been described to her, she’d been raising in a heaping pile of machinery and metal that spouted out smog. Nothing like what was on the island that held a mirror-image of it, but she liked looking around Darla and their land here. She loved knowing how far her daughter had come despite everything. Adora took a deep, almost surprised breath when they stepped outside and could turn around to see they really were coming off a spaceship. And the air was so nice out here! The sky wasn’t red either; it was a really beautiful blue, and there were fluffy white clouds instead of the streams of smog and smoke she’d grown up seeing. Any doubts she might still have had about being in a different world called Vallo were wiped away right there. “It’s so pretty here,” she said, awed as she smiled up at Marlena. “Is this…where you lived? Is there where I was stolen from?” “You, my darling, were born on a planet called Eternia,” Marlena regaled, smiling back down at her. She led the way down the ramp, and a corner of the yard currently had some materials set to the side—tarps and stones all lined up as they’d collected things for the next project. “But Vallo’s a different world outside of the worlds we know, and it brings people from other worlds together. And that is how I found you. You were already so grown, and this is the first time I have gotten to see you so… little.” There were medical files the girls had retrieved from the Fright Zone that had a few pictures, but they were all very… sad looking, the backdrop of oily metal and no smiles on their faces. The pictures were informational at best, and difficult to look at despite being entirely innocuous. “You were very… shy, I remember,” she said, turning the corner towards Molly’s hut. “It was a lot for you then too.” A small part of Adora wanted to insist she wasn’t little, but—well, Catra had said she was twenty-four, which meant Adora was at least that old, too. So, yeah, it made sense that Marlena called her little, even if she felt like eight was more grown up than that. And she guessed it was okay, anyway, since this was her mom. She did still feel a little shy and unsure, but she followed Marlena over to the little mini house and watched to see what would happen. She gasped in surprise when a creature with a shell stuck its head out and took a hesitant step back. “What’s that?” After setting down the open tupperware container, Marlena straightened and put an arm gently around her shoulders. “A tortoise,” she said to Adora, pointing a finger over. “That’s Molly. You and Catra have quite a collection of little friends, and she loves being hand-fed. She’s very gentle too.” The other tortoise-creature inhabiting their space wasn’t always gentle. Behind Molly emerged one that was aqua-blue, and could walk on two legs, with red eyes full of excitement as they barrelled into Adora for a tackle-hug. “SQUIRTLE!” “Squirtle—not now!” Adora was slowly warming up to Molly as she watched her start to eat from the container, but she was still cautious. She didn’t really think the tortoise seemed dangerous, but she was unknown. They didn’t see many animals like that in the Fright Zone—or many at all, really. It was a dusty, red-skied wasteland. The last thing she’d expected was a similar creature to pop out and jump right on her. She yelped in surprise as she fell to the ground with the little light blue arms squeezing her eagerly. But somehow that surprise faded into laughter, and she wrapped her arms around him to squeeze back. “Hi…Squirtle?” she guessed, giggling despite her confusion. Molly didn’t seem phased by the rambunctiousness, but Marlena looked like she was fighting off a headache. “Yes, that is—” “Squirtle,” he repeated, and he looked at Adora with some confusion too. He was confident he knew who this was anyway and seemed to roll with whatever weirdness was happening. “We have food for him too,” sighed Marlena, sitting on the grass and picking up a big leaf of lettuce for Molly to chew on. “You’ve been spoiling him a little with pancakes, though. Catra’s probably going to order food for breakfast in a moment if she hasn’t already done that.” “What’s pancakes?” was Adora’s next question, managing to shove herself back up to sit and pulling herself up next to Marlena. She would guess it was food, like the stuff in the container Marlena was giving to Molly, but she’d never had any. They only had ration bars in the Horde once you were big and had solid teeth. Before that, there was some mushier stuff, but that was for the really little ones. There was a pause. Marlena had never needed to explain what a pancake was; it was a simple, basic concept and Adam had been eating pancakes since he had turned one, and Adora was eight and had never had a pancake. Part of her wondered if her heart would ever stop breaking over her daughter when it came to these minute details. “It’s a very flat cake,” she replied, and then came to another realization. “And you might not even know what a cake is either—ahh, well. It’s soft and fluffy. You put syrup on it or other toppings to make it sweet.” The shadow of someone standing behind them was cast on the ground in front of them, the ears making it obvious to identify her. “I got all the favorites,” Catra piped up, cleaned up and dressed for the day—and so was Finn, wearing a fresh diaper and overalls. They held a sippy cup of milk all by themselves. They were a few steps behind, and it was hard to say if they were going to join them or go elsewhere to give Marlena privacy with her daughter. “It’ll be here in the next thirty minutes.” Adora turned around at the sight of Catra’s shadow and looked up at her. She felt bad that she’d walked away from her with Marlena before, but now that she’d had some time to sit and see how many other big changes there were, she knew it had been kind of mean. She pushed herself up onto her feet and leaned in to wrap her arms around her best friend’s waist. She didn’t say anything—didn’t know what to say—but she squeezed, her eyes on the tiny little Magicat in Catra’s arms. Catra’s baby. That was still so weird, but they were cute. They looked mostly like Catra except for the blonde hair; Adora still didn’t know how to feel about that. Catra weirdly hadn’t expected that. She didn’t know what to expect from a tiny Adora who had just met her mom, and was introduced into a world that she wasn’t used to, or how she’d look up at her very grown best friend with a kid in her arms. But she also knew Adora in her bones, and figured this was… some form of an apology, for something she didn’t even need to apologize for. Because that was her Adora, always. Feeling guilty for things she shouldn’t feel guilty about even at this age. “Hey dummy,” she grinned at her toothily, ruffling her hair. Finn’s eyes wouldn’t leave Adora. They raised a hand and waved at her, still sucking down some milk from their cup. “You okay?” “Yeah,” Adora said, smiling a little as she tried to resmooth her hair after Catra had made it messy. She returned Finn’s wave and tried not to let herself feel nervous or weirded out. They were Catra’s baby, and even if she didn’t expect it, she still had to accept it for what it was. She was the one who had changed here, somehow. “Hi, Finn,” she greeted the baby, hesitantly extending a finger to skim over their arm. They were soft to the touch, just like Catra. The sippy cup popped out of their mouth, and they gave Adora a smile full of teeth. “Mama,” they declared, completely confident of who they were addressing. They offered her their cup too, in case she was thirsty! Catra winced. Marlena laughed, covering her mouth to try and cover her smile. Adora’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline, and she gently pressed the cup back into Finn’s hand. “It’s okay, you keep that,” she told them. Her mind raced, wondering if that meant that grown-up Adora— No. That was too much. She had enough to think about without thinking about what grown-up Adora was doing. She already knew she lived on the spaceship, had a mom now, and had a whole lot of animals around, and that was enough. She didn’t know what else to do. “Are you getting pancakes?” she asked Catra. “I just found out what those are. Do they taste like ration bars?” Finn didn’t seem offended, and thankfully they were easily distracted. Grams was there, and so was tupperware full of stuff they wanted to get their hands on. Catra let out a small breath. “Way better than ration bars,” she agreed, and playfully flicked at Adora’s forehead. “You wanna sit somewhere with me for a few minutes?” Adora nodded without a second thought. She wanted to get to know her mom more – she seemed really nice, and she wanted to hear more about Eternia – but Catra was her first priority. Even though she was old now, she knew her, and she needed that familiarity in such a weird situation. “Can Squirtle come with?” she asked, mostly because Squirtle had sidled up beside them and was nudging her arm with his shiny blue head. “Yeah, yeah—Baldy can come,” Catra smirked, leading Adora towards the hammock not too far from them. Finn was in good hands with Grams, and they were all visible from where they decided to sit. The hammock swung with their weight, and she kept that momentum with her foot, moving them back and forth. She wasn’t sure where to start, but she knew she couldn’t just sit there for too long and not say anything. She had to wing it and hope she did her best. “One day,” she exhaled, motioning to everything. “This is gonna be all yours. The crazy ship and the pets and all that comes with it. And one day, you’re going to have a kid that looks a lot like me and calls you mom. But that’s not you right now. You’re a kid—and you get to be a kid. Like, an actual kid. You’re going to try every food you want to try, and you’re going to see movies, and you get to do this with your mom.” And maybe—as much as it stung—maybe Marlena was going to be better suited in taking care of Adora. Finn was in the picture, and their existence was probably too confusing for her at this age. That wasn’t Adora’s fault. “Does… that sound like a good time to you?” Adora tugged Squirtle into her lap as she sat down beside Catra. He was snuggly and seemed totally okay with her being not the same Adora her probably knew best, and there was something comforting about it. He wasn’t as soft as Catra, and he didn’t purr, but his presence still soothed a little bit of the anxiety she was trying really hard not to feel being in this really weird situation. And it wasn’t that she didn’t feel relaxed around Catra. Big or little, Catra had always been the most important person in the whole world to Adora, and she was glad it seemed like that still true. She didn’t like to picture her life without Catra—but she’d never known to picture it like this either. Because Catra was telling her all the truths she was scared to hear. She knew the spaceship was hers and the animals were hers because Marlena had told her so. But the greatest, scariest part of it all was that Finn was hers, too. Hers and Catra’s. And she was eight, and that was a lot for her to take in. “I want to do stuff with…my mom,” she said, still fumbling over the term. She’d never thought she’d have any mom to talk about before an hour ago. “But I want to do stuff with you, too. Do you…not want to do that?” Her eyes were unintentionally wide and puppy-like. It sounded like Catra was saying she didn’t want her around like this. “I’m really sorry I’m not your Adora anymore.” “You’re always my Adora,” Catra countered fiercely, brows furrowed. Her tail went to thwap at her gently, and brush along her wrist like it always had. “And I want to do all the stuff you want to do, too. But I don’t want to be too much either, dummy. Did you know that this place turned me little too, once? Smaller than you. And you took me to do so many things, and I ate so much sweet stuff behind your back and threw up in like, six different spots around the ship. It was awesome, actually.” Adora laughed and felt relieved that Catra still wanted to be around her. She would have understood if she didn’t want to because it was too weird. She was still Catra’s Adora, sure, but she wasn’t the Adora who was Finn’s mom, the owner of this ship, the person who knew all the animals, or even Marlena’s daughter. She was just a little Horde soldier who didn’t know what pancakes or tortoises were. But Catra still wanted to hang out with her, and that was enough for her. “Do you know how long I’m gonna be here?” she asked. She wasn’t sure what answer she wanted to hear, but she knew she needed to have an idea of what to expect. Laughing was a good sign. Catra was relieved. “A few days is my guess,” she answered. “And then you’ll be big again, and you’ll remember a few things—and it’ll be like you had some new memories of being little. Kind of like you had the chance of a redo, even if it’s only for a little bit.” Adora nodded slowly. She wondered if the grown-up version of her would like that—having different memories from when she was a kid. The Horde was hard. Being a cadet was hard. Having all of Shadow Weaver’s attention and expectations was hard, especially when Adora saw how mean she was to Catra at the same time. Maybe it would be nice when she was the same age as Catra to think about the days when she was eight and in Vallo with her mom and her best friend. It sounded nice in her head. She looked up at Catra, studied her for a minute, then asked, “Do you like it? Having new memories of being little?” “Yup,” answered Catra with a pop of that p. In the background she heard Finn’s squealing and Marlena laughing; she didn’t have to go into helicopter parent mode and glance over her shoulder to make sure they were okay. “They were with you, and people that wanted to give me some happy childhood memories. It’s super cheesy to say, but—” She shrugged, looking ahead. “I felt loved. It was nice.” Adora frowned at that, opening her arms to let Squirtle go; he was getting squirmy, more interested in what Finn and Marlena were doing instead. When he hopped away, Adora scooted close to Catra. She looped her arm around Catra’s and cuddled in close, her head resting on Catra’s shoulder. “I always loved you,” she said softly. Catra blinked back a sting of tears. She knew that, and she didn’t need Adora’s reassurance—but to hear her say it in that little voice, at this age, was surreal. “You little goober,” she chuckled, a little scratchier than usual, and dropped a kiss to the crown of her blonde head. “I know. I always loved you too, even if I scratched your face because you paid more attention to Lonnie than you did to me.” Adora remembered that. It wasn’t that long ago. She liked Lonnie. They were friends and squadmates, and it was nice to have fun with them sometimes. But she didn’t feel the same way about Lonnie that she felt about Catra. She didn’t think she ever could. “I wanna pay attention to you,” she declared. She didn’t know anyone else here, but she wouldn’t care anyway. She had a whole family here, and she had the chance to get to know them. “But first, you gotta tell me what movies are.”

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