Chapter Text
Time in space was nebulous. Indistinct. Indefinite. There were no identifying markers beyond the mechanical tick of the clock. Up here, in the middle of nowhere, the sun didn’t set and the stars never signified eve. All that ever mattered were the lights. Some persisted every second of every day, while others dimmed and disappeared with the night. It was a lot to get used to, and even more unbearable than the dehydrated protein packs. Yet another facet of her world that was so different now.
Catra was still hunting for her peace.
12:14.
Red numbers blared overhead as she passed through the threshold.
Every part of this ship was technical, industrial. It reminded her of Horde Prime’s flagship, if dirtier and far less clinical. If the Horde ever had spaceships of their own, maybe, and bothered with a nicer paint job than that caustic, military green. Would’ve livened the place up. Catra humored these aimless thoughts as she walked, the markings of an ancient tongue spinning shapes all around her. People from long before them claimed this place, their legacy a faint mystery. She knocked her knuckles against the walls with each pass, winced with the sting yet refused to dig her claws into the metal. Catra had no interest in leaving her legacy here. Instead she followed empty steps that lurched with a power she no longer craved.
Elsewhere, she could hear voices. Distant chatter, laughter, and smiles. Hints of smoke, wafts of cooking food. Catra frowned. How can they act so normal? Adora and friends had extended their kindness more than once now, undeserving as it were, but she was busy searching for a missing piece. Her hand ghosted the back of her neck.
There was always a perch, somewhere.
Catra opened another door and found herself in the storage bay. There wasn’t much to be seen here besides old crates packed tight with supplies. Some were freshly rummaged through. She examined their contents only to find dehydrated goods and decaying equipment, all labeled in an indecipherable script. What wasn’t broken was useless to her. Whatever . Losing interest in a dead man’s fortune, Catra’s attention wandered to the raised ceiling. Heavy metal beams loomed overhead, arching from one end of the room to the other. She cracked a smile. Perfect .
With deft steps and agile bounds she climbed. Vaulting from a crate to the wall, then the wall to the husk of a beam, up and up as the monotony of this world bled away. Her muscles buzzed with excitement, a thrill that kept her going. The pads of her feet touched each surface, then pushed off onto the next. Years of finesse, skill, and style. With a final leap she reached her destination.
Catra sat down, one leg hanging lazily over the ledge, the other brought up to her chest. She leaned against the beam and got comfortable. As comfortable as she could be, sitting upon a metal skeleton. The room was silent aside from the low hum of the engines hidden within the walls. The ship didn’t rock like any boat she’d ever been on, though. There were no crashing waves or splashes of water. If she didn’t know better she might think they weren’t moving at all.
And if she stared long enough, she could make out stories in the shadows. Flickers of the past at the feet of a broken hologram. She didn’t know their names.
Time went on. Seconds might turn to minutes, to hours and days, even. She couldn’t tell the difference. There were no windows to lie to her here, no watches to keep track. It was as freeing as floating, and terrifying all the same. She didn’t care. She felt the pressure on her back, where it would be sore when she awoke, where she’d complain once it was time to get down. Her eyes, half-lidded, closed. Catra could dream if she wished, but what did she wish for? What was there left to dream of? After all she’d seen she didn’t know, yet eased into an uncomfortable cubby, and yearned for sleep.
13:09.
The door opened with a metallic hiss . Catra sighed and opened a single eye to glare at the new arrival. A certain, blonde haired know-it-all came strolling in.
“Catra?” Adora entered the room, carrying a covered tray in her hands. She seemed aimless, searching, but uncertain of where this journey would lead her. Catra watched on in amusement. Her tail swished back and forth, but she offered no response. With her brow pinched in concentration Adora searched the room. She peeked behind crates and in corners, on the hunt for the subject of her affection. When each spot turned up empty she spoke to herself loud enough to be heard, “Where have you run off to?” and then continued to the next. Each failed attempt bolstered Catra’s confidence.
“You’re getting sloppy, Adora,” she muttered.
Catra quietly, carefully shifted her position. She lied on her stomach rather than sitting upright, so that she could prop her chin up with a hand and watch on from her perch, waiting to see if Adora would ever quite catch on or accept defeat and lose the trail. But she knew better than to think Adora would come up short. The so-called Hero of Etheria was nothing if not stubborn. Even now she didn’t stop until she’d searched nearly every corner of the room, and it was only near the end that something clicked. Catra cracked a smile as realization colored Adora’s expression. She looked up.
Their eyes met. Catra would never admit it aloud, but the way Adora looked at her now made her feel things. The excitement, the bliss, the joy. She missed this.
“There you are!”
“Yeah. Took you long enough.”
Adora jogged over until she stood beneath Catra’s lazy form. Her cat-like companion offered no assistance, even now. From here it would be impossible for them to reach each other, so either the tray would be thrown, or one of them would concede. Adora smiled up at Catra until something else clicked in her head, and her expression dropped. “Wait, were you up there this whole time?”
“Might’ve been.”
“Catra.” The smile was nice, but exasperation was a reward in itself. “Are you going to come down here? I brought you lunch.” She held up the tray in offering.
“If it’s expired ration bars again–”
“No! Glimmer made more dumplings. They’re delicious, I promise.” On cue Adora pulled the cloth away, revealing three plump dumplings. From up here they looked delectable, and the smell was tantalizing. Now that Catra thought about it, she was hungry. Vacuum sealed protein packs hadn’t looked that appealing, but she’d underestimated what Sparkles and friends could make out of the garbage in here. Yet, despite her inclinations, she was nothing if not troublesome, and oh how she loved to make Adora work.
“If they’re so delicious, why don’t you bring them up here?” Catra said as she rolled onto her back, her arms folded behind her head. “I’m comfortable where I am.”
Adora frowned. Catra couldn’t see it, but she could hear it. “Come on Catra, how am I supposed to get up there? That’s like, what, twenty, thirty feet off the ground?”
“You’ll figure it out!”
Catra shut her eyes and listened. She could hear more rustling, more moving about. A few curses under the breath, more complaints. Items being shifted into place, stacked atop each other then tumbling down. It must’ve been a circus to behold. Of course she knew which buttons to push. Adora was stubborn, yes, and terrible at turning her back to a challenge. Act like she couldn’t do something and she’d try her best to prove you wrong, no matter how minuscule a manner or ridiculous a prospect. There were only two people who could really get under her skin. One was Adora herself, and the other was, well—
“For the honor of Grayskull!”
Catra’s eyes shot open. Blinding light filled the room and before she knew it Adora leaped onto the beam. She landed with an unceremonious thud , one hand holding her mystical sword and the other the tray. It was Catra’s turn to be both surprised and exasperated as she stared at the hulking form of She-Ra. The cool, calm demeanor melted away as she lurched upright and faced her companion. “Show off,” she said.
“You know you love it.” Adora smiled, and held out the tray.
“I don’t. You’re being ridiculous.” Catra took the food with a huff and ate the first dumpling without a lick of eye contact. She wouldn’t admit this aloud, either—how much that smile meant to her, what a difference these little, inconsequential gestures amounted to. It was stupid. Yet that never stopped Adora. “Don’t waste any more of your weird magic on party tricks, okay? You’re going to need all of it when we get back to Etheria. Unless you want Horde Prime to blast you out of the sky.”
“Relax, I can do this whenever I want.” It was a tight-lipped lie and they both knew it, but Catra bit her tongue and chowed down on her meal.
“...I would’ve come down eventually.”
“Sure, sure.” Adora saddled up next to her companion, her hulking form dwarfing Catra by comparison. “‘Cause we both know how much you love listening to me.”
“Shut up.”
17:17.
After getting shocked a dozen times by another one of Entrapta’s contraptions, Catra was sick of playing lab assistant and left to occupy herself elsewhere. To be frank, she’d endured enough near-death close-calls in the last hour for her curiosity to be sated for a lifetime. If this ship went down she wanted to hear about it when they were tumbling into the abyss, not as she watched Entrapta yank another wire loose from the dash. Genius engineer as she may be, if anything was going to get them killed up here it was going to be that lab rat. Catra rubbed the sore, burned ends of her fingertips.
Nonetheless, she tried to find a sliver of her happy thoughts as she searched for entertainment elsewhere. There wasn’t much to be found. This ship was painfully barren aside from its occupants, and most of the interesting parts could only be accessed with the sacred She-Ra. She’d searched through the cargo bins enough times to know she wasn’t interested in any more vacuum-sealed silicone—she didn’t actually know if that’s what it was, and she wasn’t about to ask Adora to find out. So once more, she wandered.
Bow passed her in the hallway with little more than a “Hey Catra.” His eyes were glued on a tablet, tweaking the switches as lights flickered across the screen. Catra stared as he passed by, saying nothing. She turned around after he’d disappeared around the corner, only to realize that she’d wandered to Adora’s quarters.
The door was open, which is what she noticed first. And Adora was in there, which is what she noticed second. Third was how difficult it was to pull her eyes away.
Adora—ever the damn workaholic—had either convinced one of the nerd-brains to help her or had done the handy work herself. Regardless, there was a solid bar mounted a few feet in the air, and Adora was occupying it. She was slick with sweat. Her hair was tied out of her face and someone, perhaps a cruel and righteous higher power, had convinced her to remove the sleeves of her shirt so that her arms were bare and the material left little to the imagination. She’d hoisted herself a foot off the ground, and with every pull-up her back muscles burned through the white of her uniform. Her biceps flexed in conjunction. It was hard to look away.
Under her breath Adora counted each rep, “Forty-four... forty-five... forty-six...” Catra didn’t realize how shamelessly she was staring until she heard fifty and Adora dropped down. Thoughts of escape flooded her mind, but right as she turned to bolt Adora reached for her drink, and their eyes met from halfway across the room.
Shit.
“Oh hey. I didn’t see you there,” Adora said, all smiles as she popped open her water bottle. “Did you need something?” She sipped on it as she approached and Catra debated whether running without a word would look better or worse than bullshitting a reason for her presence. Before she knew it they were standing before each other, separated only by the threshold of the doorway, and Catra’s mind was racing. It was one thing to watch from afar, it was another to see all— this up close. Adora had always been strong, but this was a different kind of beauty than she remembered.
“Uh...”
“Something wrong?”
“No! No.” Catra scowled. She scowled because she wasn’t sure what other facial expression was meant to fit here, and it was the only thing holding back her fluster. Why does this have to feel so complicated? No time to think. Adora was staring at her with a dopey look on her face, and if she didn’t say something she’d break. “I came by to tell you that—that your dumb friend broke another one of the switches.”
“Who, Entrapta?”
“Yeah. Who else would I be talking about?”
“I don’t know. You think all my friends are dumb.”
“‘Cause they are.”
“Maybe.” Adora took another sip of her water, and far too many thoughts raced through Catra’s mind before she could catch herself. Were Adora’s shoulders always this broad? Is this She-Ra’s fault, or did she not pay enough attention when they were cadets? These feelings have to be illegal. “Hey, you’re flexible, right?”
Catra choked on air. “—what?”
“Come here, I need your help.” Adora grabbed Catra by the wrist and pulled her inside. The door didn’t shut, and she wasn’t sure whether she would’ve preferred if it had as Adora pulled her to the floor. They sat across from each other. “I hurt my back earlier, and it’s still sore. I haven’t been able to stretch it out, do you think you could help?” For emphasis she rubbed her hands against the lower half of her back. “It’s making it really hard to focus, and I can’t put an ice pack on it forever.”
“Have you tried relaxing?”
“What? Pfft, yeah.” Catra narrowed her eyes. “A little bit.”
Sigh . Leave it to Adora to never know when to shut it down, take a break, lay on the couch and read a book. She wouldn’t even allow her body a day to recuperate. Maybe that was what it took to be the Hero of Etheria, but knowing her, old habits die hard. “Okay,” Catra began, as she crawled over to, and then around, Adora. “Kneel.” She crouched behind the blonde, who turned to face her, only to have her head pushed away. “Hey, do what I ask. Get on your knees and lean forward.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Oh, excuse me. I thought you wanted my expert opinion.”
“Right right, sorry. Do your thing.”
Adora did as directed before Catra tapped her on the shoulder. “Put your arms over your head. Stretch as far as you can, face down. Trust me, this will help.” Again, Adora obliged, especially as Catra pushed against her, sore muscles burning. Once she was stretched out so far that she couldn’t move another inch, Catra tapped her lower back. Here, the uniform rode up enough to show skin. It offered a generous view. “Right here?” she asked.
“Yeah. Around there.”
“Hold still.”
Was this medically approved? No, and Catra had never known a doctor, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying. She dug the heel of her palm into the small of Adora’s back, slowly but intently massaging the muscle. At first she couldn’t tell if it was having any effect at all. Adora was silent, Catra was quiet, all that could be heard was the hum of the ship. And then, as she pressed her palm against a particular spot, Adora sighed in relief. “That felt good,” she said, and Catra was thankful to be on the other side, because her cheeks were hot and she was enduring a dozen thoughts at a time.
“...do you want me to keep going?”
“Please.”
Catra was not one to follow orders. They both knew that. If she did follow orders it was on her own terms, in her own way. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t. In this case, though, she didn’t even question it. No second thoughts. No schemes. She massaged her fingers into Adora’s back, feeling the material and the muscle, unapologetic in her shame. If she ever listened that meant there was something to gain and in this case there was plenty to gain. The smallest sounds of satisfaction were reward enough.
They sat there for an indeterminate amount of time. Catra would settle into a satisfying rhythm before Adora shifted into a different position, holding the stretch for a short while longer, and then shifting again. Whether or not this would have some long term ramifications was beyond them. If there was a place to massage Catra would find it and do so, and if there wasn’t she’d assist in the stretch, always needing someplace to keep her hands preoccupied. They might have sat there like that forever, if Glimmer hadn’t arrived spontaneously.
The sparkling princess got as far as “Ad—” before Catra was leaping to her feet, frantic and flustered by mere circumstance.
“We weren’t doing anything!”
Glimmer blinked. “I didn’t say you were doing anything.” She acknowledged Adora, who was unpretezling herself on the floor, and carried on. “We need an extra hand in the cargo hold. Like, a big one.” It took another second for Adora to get to her feet.
“No problem, I’m on it.”
“Hey, wait a second!” Catra stepped between Adora and the door. “Didn’t you just say your back hurts? Shouldn’t you take a break?”
“ Relax , Catra. It’s just a few boxes, She-Ra can handle it just fine. And besides—” Adora rubbed the small of her back. “—whatever you did definitely helped. Thanks.”
“But—” Catra’s complaints fell on deaf ears as Adora walked past to join Glimmer in the hall. They departed, Catra a few steps behind, but she didn’t stick around long enough to watch them enter the cargo bay. Instead she turned off on her own path, returning to the wandering that kept her so preoccupied nowadays. Her hands were hot with a contact she didn’t understand, and as her thoughts lingered on the feeling, the touch, the intention, she squirmed beneath her self-imposed shackles and ran for the hills.
1:38.
Here, in the vast nothingness of the universe, they were insignificant.
This ship, a rotting, beaten vessel, loomed over the husks of forgotten places and beneath the shadows of suns. Their silhouette bled into a cascade of starry galaxies. Out here, they were trivial. Specks among cosmos. In a way, it was comforting. They could melt into the nothingness. But as Catra peered into the abyss, it was lonely, too. Before this, life had started and ended with Despondos. Never once had she imagined that there was a great beyond, better yet that it was like this . So full of life and wonder and endless, pointless destruction. To be frank, it wasn’t too different from Etheria. And to that end, there was no better place to reflect than up here.
Stuck with herself, and her thoughts, and her decisions, and her darkness. Years gone to waste, and for what? She didn’t know.
Conflict had bubbled in her chest for ages, eating away at her every time their paths crossed. No matter how hard she nipped the bud it grew another head. The same, old, stubborn persistence. Catra had forced those feelings down from the day they split. Each regret was stomped out, each uncertainty was soured. Every flutter of the heart was a stab in the chest. At one point, she’d hated her, and the feeling had been mutual. Now they were here, together yet alone, in the aimless emptiness of the galaxy.
Catra had apologized. Once . She knew better than to expect it to last. There would be another time, another person, another place, and this happiness would come crumbling down again. Adora would leave her behind, she always did. Even if… even if … she didn’t know for certain. She couldn’t pretend to understand it. Herself, or Adora. Dumb, frustrating, beautiful Adora. As Catra’s gaze trailed over the monotony of galactic tethers, her thoughts fell to gentle eyes and strong, steady hands. She swatted them away with a hand that hit nothing. “Damn it,” she said, as she hugged her knees tight to her chest and her tail curled around her person.
For a long while she’d crushed these wants up into a ball and shot them into the darkest recesses of the Fright Zone. Now, after all they’d been through, they’d resurfaced through the cracks of her heart, haunting her yet again. There was no point to them. There was no resolution, no comfort, no solace. Nothing. She was undeserving.
“I hate you,” Catra muttered, to no one other than herself. “You’re so confusing.”
As their ship crossed the path of a red star she trailed an idle claw across the dashboard. The sound of scraping, screeching metal might’ve irritated anyone else, but as far as she could tell she was alone, and that was a comfort. She thought to carve her initials deep, only to hesitate, falter, and imbed a single, jagged line instead. She’d leave no memories of this place. None that mattered .
A flash of light.
Catra jumped. She turned to the window port only to draw her eyes away from the glaring intensity of the star. Another flash. “What the—?”
An explosion.
Now she fell from her perch on the dash as the entire ship rocked. She might’ve screamed on the way down, it was hard to hear over the deafening roar of their engines. As Catra got to her feet the rest of the crew came running into the cockpit, all dressed in their sleepwear. “I didn’t do anything!” she shouted, before any accusations had been flung. Adora shot her a concerned look as Bow took to the pilot’s seat and Entrapta investigated the ensemble of holograms coloring the dash.
“What happened?” Adora asked.
“I don’t know! It was fine and then it—”
Another flash, explosive boom, then the vessel was stumbling again. “Watch out!” she’d heard, over the sounds of her screams, the complaints of the ship, and the bubbling anger of the red star they loomed beyond. Before Catra knew it she was crouched on the floor and Adora was hovering over her protectively. The rest of the crew was in chaos. With each jostle Glimmer held onto the captain’s chair, and Bow gripped the sides firm, waiting for an order or a clue or something . Entrapta tapped away at her holograms. Some grim reality registered, and her curiosity soured into concern.
“We need to get away from that star!” Entrapta yelled above the rest, pointing at the fiery giant as she pulled her visor down. “It’s going to blow us to pieces!”
“Bow!” Glimmer shouted.
“I’m on it.” Bow strapped into the controls and turned the ship hard, sending everyone not buckled down tumbling. Another explosion, loud and deafening, yet distant.
“Oh dear,” Entrapta said as more red holograms appeared. “Something’s on fire.”
“On fire?!” Catra yelled above the blaring sirens and explosive pops, forcing herself to her feet. The holograms didn’t make a lick of sense to her.
“Yes. One of our engines has taken significant damage. Someone needs to put those fires out while I find the closest landing point.” With a wave of her hand a fresh set of holograms appeared, these representing a diagram of their surroundings for the next few thousand miles. The angry red star hovered too close for comfort. If Catra had any chance to volunteer herself for this fire fighting duty it was immediately made moot by Adora, who pulled her from the room by her wrist.
“Come on! We need to put out that fire.”
“I was planning to!”
The rumbling never stopped. The ship would hit, turn, and dip, sending them colliding with each other and the walls. As they slid about the possibility of cataclysm became more and more real. By the time they’d reached the door to the engine bay it was sealed tight. Adora tried the keypad, and was met with a red warning. “We’re going to need suits,” she said, her brow pinched with concern. “The pressure’s building up in there, and there’s a slight chance we’ll get shot into space if it blows.”
“Oh great, that’s exactly how I want to spend my morning.”
“Yeah yeah, I know how you feel about vacuums.”
“Hey!”
The gentle prodding didn’t last. Another explosion sent the ship off-kilter, and the window to act was closing. Adora led them to the port where each space suit was sealed away. There were four. “Entrapta hasn’t made yours yet, so you’ll have to use someone else’s.” Catra paused long enough to debate between the various sizes and interesting designs, before resolving to take Bow’s. It was the best she had, and even that was a stretch. The helmet hurt her ears, and the midriff was unspoken of.
Once they dressed they returned to the engine bay door. Adora picked up a pack of coolant and handed Catra one of her own. They were hefty, heavy, and cumbersome. “Are you ready for this?” she asked, as her hand hovered over the keypad. Catra wondered if she had any last words, and the quiet between them was long and painful. It felt like they were both expecting something and yet neither of them could or would divulge what. Once the staring had grown awkward, Catra looked away.
“I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.”
The engine room door opened with an uncomfortable groan. The engine bay had an eerie presence, as if the bonds holding this place together were threatening to break. The door shut behind them with harrowing finality. The room was hot. Fire licked the ceiling as certain portions of the engine sat ablaze and others simmered. Even as Adora directed them, she was hard to hear over the searing pandemonium. “That way!” she said with a point, and Catra followed her lead. They split off, one to contain one fire, another to contain the next.
The coolant sprayed the blaze with foam, thick and heavy. It doused one, only for the surviving flecks of ember to catch elsewhere. For every problem they put out there was always another. The longer they stayed, the worse it got. The heat was most severe. A hot, uncomfortable sweat rolled down Catra’s back. Between lugging the coolant pack around and being surrounded by flame, the circumstance was suffocating.
She sprayed on and watched black smoke mingle with the coolant. Something doesn’t feel right. The ship lurched again, turning as it took on a new angle. Catra reached for a hold of the engine, only to yelp and pull away from the burning hot metal. Without something to keep her steady she dropped to all fours and anchored herself. The pack fell loose and slammed into a nearby wall. As the ship leveled out once again the room filled with smoke, so thick that she couldn’t even find the door.
“Uhh, Adora?” Catra turned around, but there were no signs of her companion. She could hardly see five feet in front of her, and if not for the helmet she would’ve keeled over by now. With her coolant pack abandoned the situation was growing dire. They had to change plans, or they’d burn up here. “Damn it, where are you?” Catra rubbed a hand across her visor, only for the soot to smear the glass. The ship rocked again, and her heart skipped dreadfully. This is bad. This is bad, this is bad. “ADORA!”
“Catra?”
There she is. Catra jumped to her feet. Up here her vision was even worse off, but that didn’t stop her. She made a B-line for the voice. “Adora—!”
Another explosion.
It went down in an instant. At first there was the fog of fiery smoke, the intensity of the flame, the uncomfortable nature of this place. And then, it was gone. Catra felt the violent pull of space, and then she was being sucked out of the ship. It didn’t register until she saw the battered exterior of their ship, and the hole ripped apart by lightning.
And then she was floating.