Chapter Text
“Adora. Quit.” Catra was glad this bed was so much bigger than their bunks in the Cadet barracks had been. It hadn’t been uncommon for Adora to kick Catra off the bed when she was sleep-fighting. On the other hand, Catra would be able to retreat to the upper bunk when her friend was restless. Here, there was only the floor if she wanted to get away from the other woman’s thrashing.
The blonde woman flopped over again muttering and making distressed noises. Great. More nightmares. “Wake up, you’re having a bad dream .” Catra shook her firmly.
Adora sat bolt upright, her eyes wide open, staring straight ahead into the darkness. She reached out her hand and the room lit with thaumaturgic power, temporarily blinding Catra’s sensitive dark-adjusted eyes.
“Adora!” yelped Catra, diving to the floor, not wanting to get in the way if her partner mistakenly took a swing with the sword.
It took a few seconds for the light dazzle to clear from her vision: when Catra could finally see, She-Ra stood on the bed. It was not the sword she held, but a staff. On top of the staff, a bright crystal glowed, lighting the room more brightly than daylight. Holding it high, she peered into the corners of as if looking for enemies hidden behind the soft furnishings and drapery.
Slowly, Catra got to her feet, making sure to keep her hands in sight. “Hey, Adora?”
“C-Catra?” Adora’s eyes seemed to focus. Maybe she was properly awake now. “Shadow Weaver...? Where is she?” Or maybe not. “Her shadow-spy things were here!”
“Shadow Weaver’s dead, Adora. I think you were just dreaming.” Catra tried for a neutral, calming tone. “Remember?”
“Oh.” SheRa flickered and disappeared, leaving only Adora standing on the bed in her nightclothes. She fell to her knees and uttered a low keening wail.
Catra crept onto their bed and reached out to gather the weeping woman into her arms. “It’s okay. I’m here,” she whispered.
Adora recoiled as if Catra had struck her, her lip curled with something that looked like...disgust? “Don’t,” she whimpered. She swallowed with an audible gulp, as though she was fighting not to vomit, then slid off the bed and ran to the bathroom. The door slammed shut and Catra heard a click. For the first time ever, Adora locked a door between them.
“The fuck?” Catra jumped up to pound on the door. “Adora?” Over the sound of the shower running, Catra heard painful hiccuping sobs. “Come on, open the door!” she pleaded in time to her banging. Adora had never looked at her that way before, not ever. Even on their worst day she had never shrunk from Catra as if she were something filthy.
Melog appeared in the room, their mane dark and jagged. “Can you unlock this?” Catra demanded. She retained enough common sense to realize breaking the door was not a good idea.
The magical creature growled and the latched door swung open. Steam flowed out of the bathroom in thick clouds. Adora sat on the floor of the shower, her head on her knees, still in the shirt she slept in, her skin bright red and raw. Alarmed, Catra reached out and shut off the water. “What the fuck, Adora?”
Wet blonde hair swayed as Adora shook her head without looking up. Catra snagged a towel and bent down, intending to wrap it around her.
“Don’t touch me.” Adora flinched and put her hand up between them. Her voice was thick with tears and unnaturally high pitched. “Please. Just...just leave me alone.”
The promise Catra had made to Adora on Darla came back to her, “If you ever want me to go, I’ll go,” she’d said. Was that what was happening? She backed out of the room, unsure of what to do. This was way out of her experience.
“Do you think I did something?” she whispered to Melog.
Her friend shook their head. “She speaks not to you. The Dark One” that had been Melog’s name for Shadow Weaver, “still lives in her mind.”
Of course she does. “So, what should I do?”
“Stay with her,” they mewled. “She should not be alone.”
Stay with her? Right. Catra could do that. “Hey, Adora?” she said softly as she went back into the room. “It’s only me. I’ll just sit here, Okay?” She sat down on the floor, opposite the shower. “I won’t touch you and you don’t have to say anything, but Melog says you shouldn’t be alone. I’ll stay with you.”
“Promise?” Adora gasped out, still crying.
“I promise.” Catra ached to put her arms around Adora and she felt useless just sitting here, but she could understand feeling so scared that even the most innocuous touches felt like threats to be met with deadly force.
They sat like that until Adora’s sobs quieted. The cool breeze coming through the open window smelled like dry leaves and woodsmoke. Adora began to shiver. Rolling her eyes, Catra took the towel and threw it at her. “You're freezing. You should dry off. At least take off your wet clothes.”
Adora nodded. Without saying anything or even looking at Catra she pulled her shirt off and wrapped up in the towel. She still shivered. Slowly, it came to Catra that it wasn’t just cold that made Adora shake. Her skin was still bright red, almost like sunburn and that water had been hot .
“Um, Adora? Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’ll be fine.” Adora squared her shoulders and took a long breath. It seemed like whatever had happened was passing. She scrubbed at her face with the towel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I think it was just a bad dream.” She stood, using the oversized towel to cover as much of her skin as she could, almost as if she wanted to hide it from Catra. “Can we...just go back to bed?”
“You are a shitty liar,” Catra growled. “Five minutes ago you freaked out when I touched you.” The look on Adora’s face had been as if something slimy had crawled on her and Catra couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice. “If...if you want me to get out or go sleep somewhere else...I will,” her voice sank to a murmur. “But,” she continued more loudly, “I will go scrounge up Arrow Boy and Sparkles and get them to sit with you.”
“No. I don’t want to talk to either of them about this.” Adora’s shoulders slumped and she pulled the towel more tightly around herself.
“So...you want me to stay?” Catra checked.
“Please?” At last, she looked at Catra, “Don’t...don’t leave me.” Her eyes were filled with tears again and her shakes hadn’t stopped.
“Can I come over there?” Catra was beginning to suspect Adora was going into shock or something.
“Y-yes?”
“Okay.” Catra took a step forward and picked up a second towel from the rack on the wall. “Can I touch you now?” Adora nodded and let Catra wrap her shoulders with it, then guide her back into the bedroom with a gentle arm on her shoulder, but Catra did not miss the barely suppressed wince at even that contact. “You want me to get you dry clothes?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Adora’s body still shook as she climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up.
Cautiously, Catra crawled in beside her and handed her the dry shirt and shorts. Adora tossed the wet towels onto the floor and pulled them on with unsteady fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Catra put her head on the pillow and patted the space beside her. Adora lay down facing her.
“So...uh...do you remember what you were dreaming about?” Catra asked.
“Do you remember when Shadow Weaver was going to erase my memory? I mean the day I tried to rescue Glimmer? When you gave me back the sword.”
Really, it would be great if Catra could forget things like that. “Yeah. Is that what you were dreaming about?”
“Maybe.” Adora shook her head, her expression pensive. “I’m not sure. I just remember little bits. Shadow Weaver’s mask and hearing her voice. We were in the Black Garnet chamber.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t think it was that time with Glimmer. I was talking to Shadow Weaver by myself. I was so scared. I’m not sure why. I think I was afraid for you? Or maybe you were in trouble and I was trying to talk her into going easy on you?”
So, pretty much any ordinary day in the Fright Zone.
“Were you dreaming about Shadow Weaver...punishing you?” Catra could never remember Adora being punished by Shadow Weaver with more than a harsh word, but who knows what the old witch had done when they were alone. That might be the reason why it never took more than a harsh word.
“Did she..?” Adora’s voice trailed off, as if afraid to articulate the question. She gulped a quick gasping breath, firming her resolve to put the unthinkable into words. “She did it before. Messed with my memories, I mean.” Not a question this time, just a bald statement of fact.
Catra’s stomach dropped. She hesitated, closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Adora needed her honesty. “Yeah. Probably.”
For a few seconds, they both were silent, trying to process this thing they both agreed was probably real. “Do you have any idea why?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I remember that, every so often, you’d disappear for an afternoon with Shadow Weaver. Then you’d need me to tell you about what we were supposed to be studying. I remember having to teach you multiplication tables a couple of times. You’d be weird and jumpy for days. You wouldn’t let me out of your sight and you’d usually ask me to sleep with you for a few weeks.”
That curl of Adora’s lip again; the expression of someone who’d found a maggot wriggling in their food; just as quickly it was gone. She pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut. After a second she moaned in frustration and covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know. I almost feel like I’m trying to get around some mental block. I mean, I know something’s there, and it’s...terrible.”
“Of course it’s terrible,” Catra mused, out loud. “Shadow Weaver was terrible. ” Very carefully, Catra reached out to touch Adora’s shoulder. She purred with relief when Adora moved forward to rest her chin on the top of Catra’s head.
Gradually, Adora’s body relaxed as Catra snuggled against her, but sleep was lost cause for Catra tonight. They hadn’t spoken much about the things that had happened before or during the War. They both understood that those conversations were coming, but they had so much to unpack that Catra had no idea where to even begin.
For all her bravado, Catra knew she had never defied Shadow Weaver’s will before the day she let Adora and the Princess escape. Until then she’d rebelled against Shadow Weaver only in small ways. When she was still a cadet, she skipped classes, slept in and made a great show of her back talk and arrogance. After her promotion, it was more of the same, but the reality was Catra never crossed Shadow Weaver in any way that counted. At the time, Catra told herself she had defied Shadow Weaver and given the sword back to Adora because she didn’t want to lose her position. To be fair, that was certainly part of it. Now, thinking back, she could admit that the larger part was the broken expression on Adora’s face and the yawning chasm of terror it opened inside Catra’s gut.