After The War

"I never hated you"

Walking back from training, Adora and Catra silently sipped water from their Brightmoon issued water bottles on their way to their bathroom to shower. Though it's not even five yet, Adora grabs pajamas from her newly expanded wardrobe and sets it down on the bed. They had planned dinner before movie night with Glimmer and Bow around six and all agreed to make it a pajama party. They tried to do movie night once a week or every other week, but with regrowing communities and Entrapta's research to get Angela out of the time warp worm hole, they had all been pretty busy, especially since no one told Glimmer in case it didn't work out. Glimmer had the kitchen make all kinds of treats for them for after dinner. Adora was about to head back to the bathroom when she turned around to see Catra holding her arms, ears flat against her head.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked, peering up at her through her eyelashes.

"Yeah, is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong!" She replied quickly grabbing one of her hands, reassuring her.

"I just...uh..." She opens her mouth as if to say something then closes it again and looked away from the eyes searching her face for any indication of what could be bothering her.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Adora says as she gently guides her chin back towards her with her free hand.

Catra looks as if she's embarrassed now. Like she wishes she never said anything in the first place. Like Adora seeing her weak is disgusting and wrong. She just sighs and Adora leads her to the window seat, taking Catra into her lap. Adora's lap is Catra's favorite place even when she's mad at her.

"What's wrong kitty," Adora nuzzles into her neck holding her waist and rocking a bit as if to say 'come on Catra it's okay'.

Sighing again Catra starts, "I just... I've been thinking about how... long I've known you and... how I felt when we were younger..."

Adora put her chin on her shoulder and nodded holding her hand.

"I told you... I've always loved you or whatever... and I was just wondering when you knew you loved me too..." Catra said hesitantly looking away so Adora couldn't see her face and how hard she's blushing both from embarrassment of being vulnerable and also from the fact that her Adora was holding her with her hand on her thigh drawing circles on her knee subconsciously. Adora kisses her neck with a loud, and rather obnoxious, smooch sound and turns Catra's body around so she's sitting facing her.

"Hmmm... I don't know if I can pinpoint a specific point when I started feeling more towards you, but when I got you back from prime I started to have dreams about you. Good dreams where it was just you and me...just talking," she smiles looking away remembering the image, but her smile fades as she continues.

"It was really hard for me to be away from you when I went with the rebellion and you didn't come with me. I couldn't sleep by myself, being so used to you being close by every night. My first night in Brightmoon I actually snuck into Glimmer's room because I felt so out of place on my own. All my dreams had you in them... and so did my nightmares. The only way I could get myself to sleep was after I started putting a pillow by my feet so it felt like you were there..."

Adora looked as if she could cry, her eyes became a little red and her waterline glistened with tears threatening to fall. Despite all of this, Adora laughed dryly feeling somewhat embarrassed thinking that Catra had hated her at that point and didn't miss her at all. Her heart hurt from the thought of Catra hating her. The image of her angry face glaring at her as she backed away when she had gone with Glimmer and Bow flashed in her mind and she clenched her jaw attempting to push the giant lump in her throat down.

"... I-" Adora tried to speak but the tears came streaming down her face, "I missed you so much. I wanted to go back to the way things were, even if that was selfish and the rest of the world suffered because of my choice. The only reason I didn't was because I knew it would never be the same and you hated me anyways," Adora began sobbing into Catra's shoulder. She simply wrapped her arms around her and began stroking her hair to calm her down.