Archive of Our Own ^beta

The forest is filled with life.

She breathes, and so too do the trees, exhaling with her. She turns her head to the sky and the flowers follow her lead, petals unfurling to soak in the sun. She stretches her arms to her sides, and the creatures hidden in their nooks begin to stir.

Her shoulders relax, and she is at peace; content. Her toes curl into the soft dirt at her feet, and the support of eons-old stability flows through her. The forest has been here for longer than any concept of time has existed, and to give herself to it is a privilege.

A thought drifts across her mind, and she loses it in an exhale. A breeze brushes her shoulders, and her mind rests. The forest has already seen all. The forest has already learned all. Her thoughts already belong to it.

She is serene when her eyes close, burdens washed from her guilty heart. The forest could not, and would not, judge her. It wasn’t its place to. She lets her head fall back, and the forest rises to meet her; cradling her gently as she drifts. It whispers wordless reassurance to her, strokes her hair and her cheek, and she knows. Everything will be okay.

Rain begins to fall, cool splashes on her cheek, and she stirs. There’s something… about that. She… doesn’t like water. The forest holds her close; soothes her. She’s at peace here, it reminds her. No harm can come.

But the rain doesn’t stop.

She pulls against the forest’s hold, tugging herself from its grasp. The ground beneath her feet begins to harden, and she feels the flowers as they curl in on themselves, withering. The trees recoil from her breath, and the creatures disappear.

The forest washes away in a wave of gold.

--

Catra’s eyes snap open, her heart stuck in her throat. She breathes out, a shaky breath, and is relieved when the only thing that moves are the strands of Adora’s hair, splayed against her pillow. There’s a weight on her shoulder, and Catra knows without looking that Melog’s got her.

A rueful smile pulls at her lips. Of late, her dreams have become more weird than terrifying; and she thinks she has Melog to thank for that.

She doesn’t need to move to cause Adora to stir. Just the feel of her gaze, the change in her breathing is enough. Her blue eyes peek open, clouded with sleep, before they drift shut again; and Adora shifts, raising her leg to drape over Catra’s, sliding her arm around Catra’s back to hold her close against her. Her breath tickles against Catra’s twitching ear and Catra bows her head, hiding her face in the curve of her best friend’s shoulder. Silently, Catra’s arm wraps around her. Her fingers grasp at the fabric of Adora’s bedshirt, and Catra breathes her in.

Adora does not match her breathing, already returned to sleep. Catra has never been so thankful. She hasn’t been told exactly what happened to her, on that day when Adora rescued her from Horde Prime’s ship. She doesn’t need to be told.

...She’s pretty sure Adora had held her as she’d died.

--

Nightmares aren’t a novel concept to them, and they don’t bother to talk about them. The only ones who sometimes share are Bow and Glimmer, but there are only so many times you can recall the horrors of war before there stops being anything new to discuss.

Her nightmares should probably feature more space, Catra thinks, as she lounges at the window of the cockpit. An inconceivable number of stars twinkle at her, as dangerous as they are beautiful, and really – isn’t it strange, that she feels so content out here? Where even the smallest miscalculation can result in their messy, untimely (or maybe overdue) deaths?

She watches Bow’s reflection as he steps into the room, and their eyes meet for a moment. She sees the indecision on his face, before he steels his nerves and makes his way toward her. His tracker pad hasn’t left his hand since they left Etheria, and Catra knows it’s his lifeline. It keeps him connected to his fathers, his family, his girlfriend. It gives him something to control while they float around in space, something to tinker with when anxiety grips him.

If the tracker pad were to break, so would Bow.

“Catra,” he says genially. And it’s amusing, really, to watch him pick his words carefully. Because they’re on good terms, friendly ones, but he still knows it’s dangerous to push her. “I thought I asked everyone to stay away from the controls.”

He had. Multiple times, in varying octaves and with a variety of attached threats and pleas. Catra’s tail drags deliberately against the flat panel of the ship, and she meets his eyes in the window with a dare.

“I haven’t touched them,” she says; and places a clawed hand down onto them, leaning her weight onto her palm. She sees the twitch of his eye in his reflection, and she smirks.

“You’re touching them right now,” he points out, and there’s strain in his voice. The tip of Catra’s tail flicks, and she thinks that this is almost enough to get him back for a couple of the times he’d thought of her as cute.

Melog trills at her quietly from where they’re curled on Adora’s chair, and it’s not their input that convinces Catra to ease up. Although, they do have a point. Destabilizing their navigator would be one of the more destructive things Catra could do, short of taking the ship apart.

“Relax,” she drawls; and for the sake of pushing Bow just a little more she stands atop the control deck, stretching languidly, taking her time popping her joints and dragging her clawed feet dangerously near the compartment filled with Darla’s wires before hopping down with fluid grace. Bow’s sigh of relief when she lands lightly on all fours is tangible, and her ears twitch in amused response. “Lighten up,” she advises him; and he rolls his eyes.

“I’ll ’lighten up’ once we know where we’re going.” She expects him to start playing with his tracker pad at that point, trying to hide his stomach-churning fear as he flicks through various charts and maps. But he stays watching her, determination written in the set of his shoulders and line of his mouth. He’s here to ask her something, she realizes. And he doesn’t like what it is.

…His determination sets her ill at ease, and Catra’s ears fold back against her head. She’s suddenly no longer in the mood for games.

“Spit it out already.” She doesn’t mean it as an order, but it comes out as one. She’s been working on it, but some defensive habits aren’t so easy to break. Bow takes it in stride anyway, seemingly relieved to have been given the instruction – and she’s found that’s true a lot, with him. Confusingly, she gets the feeling it’s less to do with enjoying being bossed around and more to do with appreciating knowing what it is Catra wants from him.

“The star charts we found on Etheria are outdated,” he explains. He does hold up his tracker pad then, showing her a map that she knows with a glance is wrong. “They’re from before Mara hid us, and Horde Prime wiped out a lot of planets in that time. We can’t rely on them at all.”

Which sucks, Catra understands. She’s drifting pointlessly out here too. But the raise of her eyebrow asks her question: what does this have to do with her?

Bow takes a deep breath, which is never a good sign, and at least he doesn’t belittle her with a soothing tone when he explains:

“You sent Glimmer to us, which means you must have seen a map somewhere. I need you to tell me whatever you can about anything you remember.”

And Catra’s heart stills.

To his credit, Bow remains steady. He doesn’t reach out to her, and he doesn’t let his firm façade break. He just waits with a soldier’s patience while she collects herself, and mentally counts himself through the breathing exercise Perfuma had taught her. Based on that, he knows when she’ll begin on the defensive; and he’s prepared to meet her.

“What happened to Entrapta’s data?” She asks, sharp and suspicious. Bow doesn’t blame her. “You said she got into his servers or whatever, didn’t she?” Her tail flicks, fast and angry, and Bow reminds himself that she’s scared. That the aggression is just to protect herself, as she scoffs: “Don’t tell me you two managed to mess it up already.”

“We think the data might have been corrupted,” he answers levelly. The best way to bear through the tidal waves of Catra’s emotions is to remain steady, and allow them to crash around him. Catra could lash out as much as she needed; Bow would not budge. “Or that some of it was fake from the start. Landmarks,” such as they were, “that we should have passed by now are nowhere to be seen. We can’t tell if Prime destroyed them, or if we’re even in the right place at all.”

Silence reigns for a long moment, tense on Catra’s part and unphased on Bow’s. In Adora’s chair, Melog’s aura flickers between confused mixes of red, orange, blue, purple; Bow keeps a watch on the changes from the corner of his eye. Catra’s companion doesn’t seem sure if it needs to protect her from him, and he hopes that after this, it’ll know that it won’t ever have to.

“Catra,” he says quietly, offering the tracker pad to her, a small and reassuring smile curving his lips. The piece of tech means a lot to him, and he knows she knows that. “We could really use your help.”

Her eyes widen, and she pulls back. Not massively, but enough for Bow to read what she’s feeling. He can almost hear her biting out the words - are you stupid or something? - that flash clearly across her eyes, and then the uncertainty - what if I ruin it - that follows.

Now’s the time to challenge her, and Bow raises a questioning eyebrow that he hopes will stoke her indignation. Catra doesn’t just love to prove people wrong; she needs to do it, to validate herself through her victories. One day, he hopes she’ll have recovered enough from her treatment in the Horde to believe in herself without having to rely solely on spite and competition to fuel her. Until then, he’s taken it upon himself to help her build up that confidence: giving her little victories, one by one, to rebuild her foundation upon.

“It’s probably different from what you’re used to using in the Horde,” he says, pretending that he’s misunderstood her hesitation. He makes to withdraw the device from her reach, continuing: “I understand if you need a few lessons before you can use it.”

She swipes it from him immediately, moving faster than his eyes can follow. Bow’s stunned blinking is all real as he’s left staring at his empty hand, and then at the empty space that Catra had been crouched in but a second ago. Melog’s presence still in Adora’s chair, though sitting now and looking around the room with a confused mewl, rules out the possibility of her having been made invisible. But the creature’s mane settles into a clear blue before long, and Bow’s shoulders relax with it. Wherever she’s gone to, she’ll be alright.

…And he’ll just have to find something else to tinker with, while he waits for her to get back. His hands have never felt so empty before.

--

Bow is an idiot, Catra decides as she slips through one of the purpose-built vents Entrapta had hidden during her remodeling of the ship. (Catra had found the tight passages immediately, always partial to a good hiding place. True to their oblivious forms, the other two are yet to realize their existence.) They’re just wide enough to allow for Entrapta’s voluminous hair, which means there’s quite a gap between Catra and the walls either side of her. Still, it’s a close enough space to feel comforted as she curls herself into a corner, the humming of technology both ancient and new (and all of it experimental) providing soothing vibrations around her. (“Listen to this baby purr!” Entrapta had exclaimed, once. “Doesn’t she sound wonderful?!”

Catra hadn’t understood her then, but thinks she might be starting to now.)

She looks at the tracker pad, then, trying to ignore the thoughts about what she’s being trusted with. Not the maps – she won’t do anything that would jeopardize Adora’s safety, and Bow knows that. But… he knows, or should know, that her soft feelings don’t extend to him.

Her eyes stare blankly at the images on the screen. She could… break this. It wouldn’t even be hard. She might even do it accidentally, if she forgets to retract a claw or throws it across a room in frustration, and the idea causes more anxiety to press on her chest than she’d thought.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and leans her head back. Darla’s hum doesn’t feel like a purr to her, not really. But it’s a close enough approximation to pretend.

(She remembers doing this a few times, as a kid. Before she was old enough to fear her weaknesses, before she’d even learned to really talk through the sharp baby teeth that had crowded her mouth. She’d find walls, crates, hollow structures – anything that would vibrate back from the force of her own purrs. She’d lean against them, and hug herself, and close her eyes and fall asleep pretending it was someone just like her, someone who cared about her, holding her and purring back.)

It’s a dumb, childish thing to do. But still she draws her knees up close to her chest and curls into them, wrapping her arms around them, holding the tracker pad carefully. She could go to Melog, she knows. Their purrs are real, and it had been from them that she’d realized the truth of the comfort she’d tried to seek when she was a child. Or she could go to Adora, whose arms would wrap around her in a familiar hug and whose smile would make Catra feel like she'd finally come home.

But as much as Bow and Glimmer pushed the idea of teamwork, some things just had to be done alone. And refocusing oneself, Catra thinks as she relaxes her shoulders against Darla’s cool metal, is one of those things. So what if she was worried about screwing up? So what if she had a history of ruining things? They all had their problems. Not a single one of them was without their fears. Was she really going to let herself fall to pieces any time one of them demonstrated any measure of faith in her? Did she really believe in Shadow Weaver so much that even now, she still thought she was worthless and incapable of doing anything right?

“You’re welcome,” she’d said, right before she’d gone and destroyed herself in front of them. Catra feel angry tears burning in her eyes, acrid bile rising in her throat as she drops a hand to dig her claws into Darla, leaving her mark on Entrapta’s work.

“Yeah,” she croaks, voice quiet and choking on bitterness in the small space. “Thanks a lot.”

--

When she returns the tracker pad to Bow later, Catra’s in a more normal mood. Or, Bow corrects as she rolls her eyes at him and folds her arms, normal as far as Catra’s moods usually go.

“Did you think of anything?” He asks eagerly, flipping through the info on his tracker pad. Catra hasn’t added anything into it, he notices. Neither has she deleted anything that was in there. The only sign she’d handled it at all was the tiny, almost imperceptible scratch he could feel on its back, right beneath his pointer finger. She’d gone through real effort to avoid damaging it, like he’d known she would. Not a small part of his excitement stems from the hope that now she knows that she's proven he can trust her, she can begin to think about learning to trust herself.

“We’re in the wrong system,” she says flatly; like she can’t believe they missed that and have wasted over a week of fuel going in a pointless direction. Bow can’t believe it himself, looking up at her with shock and dismay stricken across his face. “But—” he protests, flicking desperately back to the pictures of the ancient star charts; “—But we matched these constellations up! Or, I thought we did…” Horror fills his eyes as he stares at the damning charts, panic clawing at him. They had enough fuel and rations to return to Etheria, but this meant he’d completely wasted their time. He had one job in this expedition, and he’d blown it. “How could I let this happen?”

He should have checked sooner. He had checked sooner, as a matter of fact, but – there were so many reasons why the charts could have been slightly off, and with everything in space so far away it was impossible to tell exactly how far apart anything was supposed to be.

His head drops, shoulders slumping and bowing forward with a groan. He needs to tell the others, he knows. They’ll be disappointed in him as well, but he knows he’ll get it right the next time, and they’ll understand.

Catra’s feet enter his line of sight, and Bow’s eyes widen as his breath stills, frustration and panic momentarily forgotten. He can see the shadow of her tail swaying awkwardly as she hesitates, and he thinks that maybe - maybe - she’s about to make an attempt at comforting him.

He doesn’t get to find out, as the loud hiss of the doors opening jerks her quickly away, like she’s afraid of being seen near him. Or like she thinks he might be worried about being seen near her. And she probably does think that, he muses as he straightens, watching Adora’s face brighten as she enters the cockpit and sees Catra there. Adora had made friends with them easily. Awkwardly, for sure, but she’d at least known the basics of empathy and recognized most social cues. It’s easy to imagine her having friends in the Horde, getting along with people and being well-liked among them.

Catra, on the other hand… aside from Adora, Bow doesn’t recall ever hearing about any of her old friends. Scorpia and Entrapta couldn’t really count; those friendships only very recently ceased to be one-sided endeavors. And even as Catra leans easily towards Adora, tail snaking in a pleased pattern and ears perking up in attention, it’s hard to picture her getting along with anyone else.

She’d probably been a recluse, Bow decides. The people who knew her had probably disliked her, and the people who hadn’t known her would’ve been pushed away from her based on reputation alone. Anyone who had tried to associate with her anyway had probably become a pariah themselves.

In other words… it was definitely for his sake that she’d jumped away, even if she hadn’t realized it; subconsciously trying to protect him from the scorn of their peers. He’s sure he’s right, and it makes the smile on his face all the more genuine when he waves at Adora in greeting. Catra may not have realized it just yet, and he’s sure she’d deny it if it ever came up – but he’s more certain than ever about one thing: despite all her posturing, despite her mocking and her teasing, she cares about him.

--

“So, we’re going the wrong way.” Adora summarizes, with entirely unearned and inappropriate cheer. She can feel Catra’s aggravation at her attitude rolling off of her in waves, even though she’s lounging all the way back in the pilot’s seat and not anywhere near the board of controls with Adora and Bow. Bow sighs, looking disappointed in himself for a moment as he nods, and then recovers with determination.

“We’ll get it right next time,” he promises her, and Adora nods, clasping a hand encouragingly on his shoulder. She’s been in good spirits since they began this trip – since she and Catra came out of the Heart, actually, and she doesn’t think it would take a genius to figure out why. Love is, as they say, a hell of a drug.

“At least we’ll get to see Glimmer again,” she tells him; and he brightens at the reminder. “Maybe she’s gotten enough done to come with us this time,” she continues, her own excitement building. Mara’s ship feels strangely empty with only the three of them (--and Melog) on it, but Etheria’s kingdoms had needed their Princesses and Queen to help them recover from the war. Maybe by now, Micah would have readjusted enough to be able to take lead on some things in Glimmer’s place. And Glimmer could come with them, and maybe they could convince Entrapta to leave Hordak and Wrong Hordak and any other clones she’d collected in her lab, and the original space adventure crew could be back together again!

Maybe her hopes were a bit high, but it wasn’t like she was expecting Swift Wind to get on board with her.

“See? It’ll all work out—” she begins to wrap up her reassurance, and then all of Darla’s lights wink out, leaving Adora’s mouth open and caught on the end of a word. In a blink, the lights return; now as red as Melog’s spikes as the creature and Catra both stand prepared to attack whatever it is they’ve imagined might have appeared.

(Shadow Weaver, a quiet thought tickles Adora’s mind as the image of Catra frozen in the grip of red-laced magic flashes before her eyes. She shuts it down.)

(Denial is also a hell of a drug.)

“Darla, what’s happening?” She asks the ship, looking around for the orb to spring into being. It takes longer than she expects, long enough for her to consider the need to use She-Ra to boost the system, but then the console flickers; and a weak, blue hologram attempts to form. A voice crackles from it, before it sputters and dies.

The red lights flash, and things return to normal.

“Okay,” Bow says slowly, glancing between the console and the others. “I’m… I’m not the only one feeling a little nervous about that, right?”

Catra mutters something to Melog, Adora catches the words “gonna get us killed out here” and “big pile of space junk” and is pretty sure she can guess the rest.

“Darla,” she calls again, trying to inject more authority into her voice. The sphere pops up immediately this time, and she exchanges a look with Bow. “Darla, what happened?”

The sphere flickers, and Darla says something in a language that none of them speak.

“Uh, Darla.” Adora glances around; at Catra, Melog, and Bow, checking for anything other than confusion on their faces. “Could you… run that by me again?”

The sphere flickers and fades, and then pops back into existence all in one breath.

“Welcome back, Adora.” Darla says, like it was Adora who had gone anywhere. “A system update has been detected. Administrator access is required to authorize installation.”

Adora’s face falls. The last time she’d let anything of Mara’s do something like that—

“—Hang on,” Bow interrupts Adora’s trepidation, and Catra steps up beside her, clearly noting the need for more than one braincell to be at the helm. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Our connection to Etheria doesn’t even reach this far.”

Adora realizes where he’s going with it, just a moment before he asks:

“Where did you get this update from?”

Darla fuzzes at them, and does not respond.

--

They do not allow the update to install. Adora is banned from all She-Ra’ing until they return to Etheria. Bow’s grip on his tracker pad is such that his knuckles have turned white, and he wishes they weren’t so far out of range. He wants to consult Entrapta; to find out if she has any idea what allowing Darla to update might do.

(Adora tries not to think of already knowing the answer. She tries not to think of Light Hope.)

Their refusal to update in the middle of space means that all of Darla’s systems remain jammed. Any requests for auto-pilot are met with a bland request for an administrator, and so they navigate back to Etheria by themselves.

(They take it in shifts, working a roster that Bow creates. He knows them enough to know that if he doesn’t set a strict schedule, one or the other of them will keep piloting long past the point where they should sleep.)

Adora, strategy freak that she is, has begun plotting out her own chart of their journey. But since they haven’t passed anything of interest, it mostly just consists of a circle to represent Etheria and a lot of squiggles where they’d passed asteroids or clusters of debris.

(She tries not to think about how they might have once been planets.)

(Her heart aches with failure anyway.)

--

Catra goes into the vents when she wants to hide, and she thinks Adora doesn’t know about it. In reality, the only thing that’s ever stopped Adora crawling through them to find her is the mere fact that she doesn’t want to risk getting stuck. That, and because Catra comes to her now whenever she needs someone. Gone are the days of having to chase her down to soothe her battered ego; and it’s a comfort, to know that when Catra disappears now, it’s because she truly does want to be alone.

Adora doesn’t know what she does in the vents, but she can guess. It’s probably the same thing Adora’s doing as her fists slam into the punching bag she’d insisted on having installed, her feet bouncing on the soft(er than metal) foam of the gym she’d converted half of Mara’s storage room into.

She’s processing.

Her breath comes in measured puffs as Adora bounces back from her latest strike, parrying the swaying bag like an enemy. Right, right, left; raise her knee to its imaginary stomach as it swings towards her, using its momentum against it before ducking to the ground in a roll, coming up behind it to repeat the process over again.

Sometimes she talks to the bag. Sometimes she snarls at it, angry words spraying from her lips as she forces it to become the source of her problems. Sometimes, when things with Catra had been at their worst, she’d let herself cry while she attacked it. She’d let her heart break into pieces when she rammed her elbow into its side; let her chest tighten and throat close with grief as she’d slid around it, imagining avoiding the swipe of her best friend’s claws and dreading the day she’d have to remove that threat.

(Training herself for the inevitable.)

She doesn’t speak to it now, though. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know how she’s supposed to lead her friends and lover when she has no idea what she’s supposed to do. Go on a space trip, they’d decided. Restore magic to the universe.

It had sounded so simple.

The hard steel lining of her boot collides with the side of the bag as she pivots, and it tears off its supports to crash against the ancient supply of dehydrated food, sending countless (--or counted, rather. She’d done a stock-take and measured their rations.) boxes tumbling.

She stands there, in the lonely and echoing room, and hears her own frustrated breathing filling the air.

(She’s supposed to be better than this.)

--

She’s pretty sure that in the time they’ve had Melog, the magical creature’s done something to Catra’s dreams. Adora doesn’t know what, and she’s not sure she wants to ask.

(She kind of wants it to be done to her, too.)

It's a new sort of loneliness, being the only one jerking awake, rolling out of bed with sword flashing to life in hand in a wild swing. Granted, Catra’s area of danger had never been so wide as Adora’s. Whenever Catra woke up screaming and scratching at the air, she was protecting herself. When Adora woke up with panic in her throat and weapon aimed, she was protecting the room.

(She was protecting everyone else.)

Catra used to wake up immediately after her; used to jolt awake in the same second that Adora’s muscles tensed. Often, in the Horde, she’d had to wrestle Adora until she woke up enough to realize that the puff of hair in her face and tiny pinpricks around her wrists weren’t a threat. That had been before the nightmares, when Adora’s sleep-fighting had been just a bothersome quirk that Catra had to deal with if she wanted to be sleeping in Adora’s bed.

But now, she’s slow to stir; her fingers twitching sluggishly against the coarse blanket they both had insisted on having. Greater luxuries had been available, but they’d never be comfortable to them.

(Adora wanted them to be. She wanted to see Catra melt into warm, plush cushions; wanted to hear her purring as soft fabrics brushed over her, wanted to watch her lips part in satisfaction as she arched her back and rolled her shoulders in comfort. And she wanted her to stretch a hand out invitingly to Adora, her sharp-tipped fingers curling for her. Wanted to hear the soft call of her name from Catra’s lips, wanted her to want Adora laying by her side.)

There’s a flush to Adora’s face when she stands slowly from her crouch, and it’s nothing to do with having shot out of bed to fight an imaginary threat.

(It hadn’t been imaginary. It had been real, once. It had almost killed her.)

Melog trills softly at her from where they’re laid on Catra’s shoulder, and Adora smiles ruefully at them. She almost asks, then, for the favour – but then her mouth clicks shut, and she makes the decision to get dressed instead.

(She doesn’t want to dream of Light Hope again.)

--

Bow is wide awake in the pilot’s seat when she trudges out there, and he looks up at her as she passes by him to stare at Darla’s control panel without a word.

“Adora…” He begins. He doesn’t like the narrowed look in her sleep-deprived eyes, or the determination in her rigid spine. He feels a sense of dread in his stomach. Adora knows better than to risk him and Catra in order to become She-Ra and find out what the upgrade is, he knows. And still, in this moment, he’s scared.

Because what if she does it anyway?

“Adora, come here.” He phrases it as a request, hands relaxing to allow the holo-controls to fade away. The ship will continue going in a straight line without his guidance, and that’s fine. There’s nothing in their way. “Talk to me, okay?”

Adora breathes out, a sharp exhale, and her hands snap to her elbows with a soldier’s precision. Someone else might have seen it as closing off her body language. Bow sees it for what it is: a self-given hug.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says shortly. Stubbornly. She sounds like Catra, and Bow’s coming to be less surprised that the two of them share so many defensive traits. They were, after all, both reared by the same figure.

“You’re clearly stressed,” he points out. He’s more free to be direct with her than he is with Catra, at least. He brings his hands to rest in his lap, feeling a lot like his fathers. “You look like you haven’t slept a wink. I get that we’re lost in space and all--” he’s stopped feeling bad about himself for it. It was a mistake, he’s learned his lesson, and they’re getting back on the right track now. “--but I really don’t think that’s what this is about.”

He pauses, waits for her. The hard line of her shoulders eases for a moment, before tensing again in silent refusal to relax. He sighs.

“It’s okay, you know.” He says it quietly, to keep from pressuring her. To lend his words the sobriety she needs to hear in order to feel comfortable. “Whatever you’re worried about. It’s okay to be scared.”

He knows he’s hit a nerve before he finishes speaking, as Adora spins on her heel in a dizzying whirl of red and blonde, and her grey eyes glaring at him before she barks a defensive ha of laughter.

“I’m not scared,” she rebuts harshly, the world curling mockingly in her mouth. And Bow sees in her what the Horde did; sees the unwavering sharpness of her eyes and hears the almost cruel edge in her tone. She could have easily continued on the attack, could have cut through him with bladed words and barbed jabs.

And he sees what the Horde didn’t. He sees the self-directed frustration in her white-knuckled grip of her arms; he hears the self-ridicule in her voice. The Horde had trained her to hide her weaknesses, to bury them deeply and to forget they could ever exist. He forgets, sometimes, that she still does it. She’s so good at it, he thinks sometimes that she forgets she does it, too.

He waits. With Adora, it’s always like popping the lid off a bottle of shaken soda. She always explodes out, forcing her feelings into aggression because it’s what she’s been trained to do. And then she says or thinks something that triggers self-doubt, and the angry tirade of words begins to slow as she starts to work through it. Then she’ll land on the problem that she’d buried so deep, and then be stunned or shaken, unsure what to do with it and unable to push it away any longer.

Bow wonders if Catra will be like this too, once she’s comfortable enough to begin opening up to him. Wonders if it’s a Horde thing, or a Shadow Weaver thing, or just a Them thing. Wonders if it is only Adora who does it after all; if, now that she’s not trying to force her love into hatred, Catra will be more open with her emotions and problems than he thinks.

(She does seem to be bad about wearing her heart on her sleeve, he thinks to himself as he watches Adora begin pacing with all the rhythm and precision of a well-practiced march. At the very least, he hadn’t yet had to guess how she’d felt about anything.)

“—And that’s if I don’t get us all killed first!” Adora laughs, throwing her hands in the air with just a touch of hysteria. Bow snaps back to attention. The posturing and protests have finished, and Adora’s about to hit the wall of doubt she’s hidden from herself. “I don’t know what I was thinking! What if something goes wrong? I can’t protect you guys from—” her breath catches, and her voice raises an octave as she discovers one of her stressors; “‘the crushing void of space’!”

She laughs hysterically again, panic climbing in her throat and out through her voice. Her fingers grasp madly at the air above her, and Bow sees the exact moment the cold thread of realization winds through her body.

He gives her time. Lets her work through it. Her eyes widen with fear, and she draws in a sharp breath.

“What if I lose you out here?” She whispers, staring into the vast emptiness stretched before them. He gets the feeling she isn't talking about either he or Catra. Her hands tremble as she lowers them, clutching at her arms again. Desperately, this time.

Now is the moment for comfort, and Bow stands; walks to her quietly, places a warm hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispers to her reflection moreso than to him, her voice hoarse. She’s shaking under his hand, but she’s still tense. It’s not yet time to go in for the hug. “I don’t have a plan, and—“ she swallows, curling in on herself. “—and I’m… I’m scared.”

--He’s surprised, not by the admission, but because he’d thought that that would be it. But Adora hasn’t turned to him yet; she’s still lost in the swarm of problems she’d buried, eyes unfocused and watering.

He doesn’t know what to do. This is a new stage, one they haven’t visited before. He squeezes his hand on her shoulder, and hopes it’s right.

“What if we find them out here?” She breathes, and he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Her lips tremble, and she chokes on a silent shudder, and he thinks he understands a bit more when she asks: “And what if we don’t? What if I really am the last one?”

She looks to him then, lost and scared, and Bow wraps her up in the biggest hug he can give, enveloping her in as much warmth and comfort as he can muster. She clings to him, and he feels more than hears her sob against him, her entire body wracking with emotion.

The door hisses open, and Bow meets Catra’s eyes in their reflection. She recoils as soon as she sees them, jealousy and hurt and anger flaring in her eyes and in the baring of her sharp teeth, and he shakes his head, turning their bodies slightly. Adora’s sobs don’t ring throughout the room like Glimmer’s often do, but the trembling of her shoulders and her buried face broadcast her distress. Catra’s mood changes in an instant, and she’s beside them suddenly in a sharp crack of Melog’s magic, her hand raised as if to touch Adora.

She hesitates, and Bow sees her fingers curl towards her palm. She almost withdraws her hand completely – but then she looks up at him, uncertainty in the drop of her ears and a plea for help in her eyes, and Bow nods, glancing pointedly to the space available across Adora’s shoulders.

Catra swallows, clearly still unsure, but her fingers uncurl again and she reaches until they brush Adora’s shoulder; and then she lays her palm flat against her best friend, offering her comfort.

It’s not the group hug Bow was hoping for, but the tiny progress towards one makes his heart swell.

--

They land back on Etheria, and their relief at blue skies and green grass and signs of life is palpable. Catra doesn’t even complain much when Glimmer teleports onto the ship to retrieve the three of them in quick succession, but maybe that’s because she’s busy trying not to vomit on Adora’s shoes.

He does wonder why she reacts so badly to Glimmer’s teleports when she’s so unphased by Melog’s, but Bow knows it’ll still be a while yet before he can get any sort of answer out of her. He allows himself to get caught up in his happiness and excitement to see his own girlfriend, spins with her in his arms and laughs with her, basking in the warmth of her love.

Later, when they return to Glimmer’s room in the castle, he extracts himself from her just long enough to rummage quickly through her shelves.

“Bow,” she complains, tugging at his arm. “What are you doing?”

It takes him only a second to find it, and he feels a sense of victory when he grabs it; and again when Glimmer begins to laugh.

‘Healthy Coping Mechanisms and You’, the title reads. ‘A beginner’s guide to self-help.’

He’s not getting on that ship with them again without it.