"…so instead of asking for a spoon or something like a normal person, Adora just goes for it. Dunks her entire face into the bowl." Glimmer was smiling at the memory, but it hurt too. Those early days of the Best Friend Squad, right after they found the sword, felt like a lifetime ago, especially now when it seemed like the three of them could never be that close again. She hugged her legs closer to her chest but tried to keep her tone light. "I just couldn't believe she did it."

"And she really ate the whole thing that way?" It felt like a victory every time she got Catra to laugh. A genuine laugh too, not that mocking thing she used sometimes in battle. She was starting to be able to tell the difference.

"Yes! Though, thankfully, the villagers thought it was funny. By the end, everyone was trying to do it too."

"What an idiot." Catra said the insult so affectionately. "I wish I could have seen it."

Glimmer tried to picture that. What might it have been like if Catra had come with Adora from the start? Adora used to talk about getting her old friend to join them like the entire war was a big misunderstanding they could all laugh about together over a bowl of ice cream. As if Catra hadn't tried to kill all of them dozens of times? It had felt impossible!

But she got it now. She kept getting glances of what must be Adora's Catra, something softer underneath the claws. It left her feeling wistful for what could have been.

Mostly, she thought about the portal. How if Catra had been with them from the start, if she'd never pulled that lever, then her mother would never have—She shook it off before the feelings overwhelmed her again. There was so much she wanted to say to Catra, so much the other girl still had to answer for, but she was just so tired of fighting and it was too nice having someone to talk to at last to ruin it.

Catra launched into a story of her own, something about the cadet Kyle they all bullied back in the Horde, and Glimmer leaned her head back, trying to enjoy the temporary ceasefire and not think about what awaited them all when Prime was done. The force field at her back was a warm buzz, not altogether unpleasant but impossible to forget about. It wasn't quite natural, talking with Catra. She always had to be on her guard, not just because Prime was definitely listening to every word.

This truce was a delicate thing. Adora was really the only safe topic. And, even then, it had to be about Adora only. Adora and her and Bow, Adora and the other princesses, Adora as, godsforbid, She-Ra? Then Catra got skittish, defensive or prickly and that was if she didn't take off entirely.

Glimmer wasn't entirely sure why she cared so much. Why she tiptoed around topics, offering scraps of happy memories with Adora like trying to lure in a wild animal. It wasn't like Catra could help her get out or anything. For all her bravado, she was getting the sense that Catra wasn't much better off than she was. Sure, she could eat or use the bathroom whenever she wanted, but Prime was watching her all the time. To say she felt bad for Catra after everything she'd done, especially when she was the one in a cell, wasn't entirely true. But she recognized the regret and loneliness in the other girl's eyes, the feeling of having fucked everything up beyond repair.

Plus, it helped to have someone to talk to, even if it was an enemy.

Well, maybe not enemy anymore. They weren't quite friends, that was for sure, but Glimmer didn't hate Catra nearly as much as she had a few days ago. Maybe it was because she spent so much time trying to see her through Adora's eyes, to piece together how Catra could still care about Adora like she so clearly did after everything that had happened. Or how she'd never realized what now seemed so incredibly obvious: that Adora felt the same.

IF they could get out of here, IF they could stop Prime, IF they even all survived this… maybe things would be different. Catra could be… better. As Glimmer laughed at something the other girl said, she felt the crush of pressure that had been pressing down on her since she got onto the ship ease and, in its place, rose something remarkably like hope.

"Space Voyage Day 1, continued: According to these readings, the pressure at this velocity is even greater than my models projected. It's fortunate I overcompensated on the hull stability or we'd have been crushed like bugs as soon as we left the Etherian atmosphere! Ahahaha!" Entrapta had climbed up onto the main console, her face pressed up against the on the front of Mara's spaceship, her recorder in her free hand. She cackled with what Bow could only describe as maniacal glee. "I can't believe I'm actually in SPACE!"

"Entrapta, should you be climbing on that? It's delicate ancient equipment," Bow began, but she lept down before he could say anything else. He hated feeling like he was scolding someone who was a) both much older and smarter than he was and b) a literal princess but he'd learned over these weeks of working on the ship together that sometimes Entrapta got so focused on one thing she didn't realize the mess she was making of another unless you pointed it out. And considering this ship was the only thing standing between them and the crushing void of space, he really didn't want their lives to be collateral damage to her distraction.

Entrapta gave another happy cackle and pocketed her recorder. "I'm going to go grab some readings from the thrust stabilizer. If she's holding up under this, I bet we could give her a little tweak, really let her fly!"

"Readings are fine but, please, just don't—" He groaned as she took off down the corridor, clearly not even listening. But Entrapta was smart, right? She was just talking. She wouldn't do anything crazy like take the ship apart while they were flying in it… would she?

"Well, no sense in both of us standing around." That was from Adora who'd been pacing the bridge. Behind her, stars spanned the wide window that stretched across the front of Mara's ship. Nothing like the projection shows his dads had done for them growing up in the library. That was light, wondrous and shining on their ceiling, while this was darkness, crushing and incomprehensibly vast. Just looking at it gave him vertigo. "We should probably start sleeping in shifts, right? So there's always someone on duty?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." He'd spent so much time focused on actually getting the ship up into the air, he hadn't really thought about the logistics of what they'd do once up here. "That makes sense, I guess."

"OK, so, I slept back on Etheria and Entrapta's too excited to sleep." Adora gave him a very pointed look. "So, you should go get some rest."

Rest? Was she out of her mind. Like he could leave either her or Entrapta unattended right now? Not that he didn't trust them, but when it came to the ship, the ship that was the only thing that could get him to Glimmer… He felt better keeping an eye on things himself.

Besides, there was no way he was going back into that bunk room. Not since he went in to set up his bunk and had turned to see Glimmer sitting on the other bed, watching him. She was gone in a blink, but since then he kept seeing her, flashes of her out of the corner of his eye. He heard her too, her voice mixing with the low hum of the engines always just out of earshot. When they'd fired the port thrusters for the first time to make a quick turn around some space debris, he could have sworn he heard her scream, a sound that clawed at his heart and left him shaken even hours later.

"Bow?" Adora was watching him, her brow wrinkled. "Were you listening to a word I said?"

Bow exhaled. "Not really."

Adora crossed her arms and regarded him. "You're useless to Glimmer if you die of exhaustion, dumbass."

"I guess." He was being stupid. This was dangerous levels of exhaustion. It was more than just brain fog and that leaden feeling he'd gotten used to as how he felt all the time now. Now he was hallucinating, really officially losing it when they were only at the start of this impossible mission. Maybe he could just grab a blanket and crash in the engine room like Entrapta did sometimes, this way if—

The ship pitched under their feet and Bow would have fallen over entirely if Adora hadn't grabbed him.

"Uh, what was that?" He asked when things had stabilized.

"I don't know," Adora replied. "But do you smell smoke?"

Glimmer stared at the tray of food, the pain in her stomach warring with the rebellious streak she'd thought was long dead igniting again. Prime had sent another one of those flowers from the trophy room with her dinner, a mockery disguised as a kindness. She usually refused the tray when he did that, throwing it back at the attendant who brought it, but he'd made her wait a long time now and she was desperately hungry.

If she ate some of it, did that mean he'd won this round? Gods, she hated having to think like this, hated that he'd made her start second guessing the things she needed for survival. All she did was eat, sleep and sit around this room and somehow he'd even twisted those into part of his mind games.

She'd finally decided to just nibble around the edges, enough to ease her pangs but little enough that maybe he wouldn't notice, when the force field went transparent and a familiar face appeared on the other side.

"Ah, feeding time at the zoo, I see." Catra cackled, that same smug expression on her face. "Food not up to the standards of your delicate palate, princess?"

"Fuck you, Catra." Gods, she was impossible! Glimmer wanted nothing more than to throw the tray at her like she'd done dozens of times before, but she was too hungry. No matter how much progress it felt like the two of them made, it always came back to the claws again. Like when she thought they were getting too close, Catra had to jab at her side a little and keep some distance between them. "You're back early. Miss me that much already?"

"You wish, Sparkles." Catra examined her nails, her tone mocking. "There's just nothing to do on this tin can and I know you'll get all pathetic and weepy if you don't have somebody to blabber at."

Glimmer set her jaw and fought the urge to say something cutting back. She knew Catra well enough now to know she was full of shit. That she wrapped her actual feelings under a dozen layers of insults, bravado and denial, hurting before anyone could hurt her. Time was impossible to measure here, but she was clearly coming more frequently, like she looked forward to these visits as much as Glimmer did. But knowing it was an act didn't stop her stupid remarks from hurting.

"Well, don't feel like you have to be here on my account!" Fuck it. Glimmer grabbed at what she was pretty sure was the protein of her meal and started eating. Eating gave her strength and strength meant she could keep fighting. She'd just send the damn flower back in a shredded heap and Prime could read that however the fuck he wanted to.

"Oh, yeah? Well—" Catra cut off whatever smart remark she was going to make, her ears turning to the right. Her hearing was much better than Glimmer's, but she thought she could faintly hear footsteps coming this way. Catra tensed, her tail bristling. That meant it was probably another clone come to scold "little sister" for talking to the queen. "Whatever. I was just passing through, anyway. Enjoy your lunch, princess."

Lunch? Wasn't this dinner? Did Catra have some way of keeping time on this ship that she didn't, or was that just a guess? Glimmer shoved the last of the starchy blue mush into her mouth in case the clone wasn't coming for Catra but her tray, unable to stop herself from eating everything now that she'd started. Gods, she'd been hungry. She washed it down with that terrible bitter green water that was all they ever gave her to drink. "If you're so scared of him catching you, why do you keep coming here?"

"I'm not afraid of anything, Sparkles. I've got nothing left to be afraid of."

Was that true? Or just more bravado? Probably just a lie, but still. It had gotten Catra this far, hadn't it? Maybe she should start lying to herself, too. The other girl didn't even spare her a single glance back before she'd disappeared back down the corridor.

When Catra had gone, Glimmer finished the food then set to work shredding up the flower, which was immensely satisfying, and arranging the scraps to spell out "FUCK YOU" along the edge of her tray. The conversation, however tense, and the proper meal were helping, clearing her head, stoking the fire inside her back up.

Her work done, she set the tray near the door where she was certain Prime's camera couldn't miss it and then surveyed her prison. It had been ages since she'd trashed it, broken up the chair and tried to escape. Maybe it was time to stop wallowing and start being a thorn in Prime's side again.

"Entrapta? What is going on?"

"Oh, hey, Bow! Nothing to worry about! Though I maaay have over calibrated a bit and now the engines are running a little hot."

"They are literally on fire!" He coughed, trying to clear the poisonous air with his hands. This was why he couldn't take a rest, Adora! He'd barely even THOUGHT about sleeping and now the engine room was rapidly filling with noxious orange smoke, which was definitely a BAD color for smoke to be.

"Well, technically, yes, but considering the level of dust accumulation in the metal interior we were unable to remove before liftoff, a controlled conflagration might actually improve functionality by 65%. That is, unless it consumes all the ship's oxygen and hits the pressure valve, at which point we'd all die immediately in a massive explosion!" Entrapta demonstrated their projected deaths with a joyful leap. "Though the likelihood of that is a mere 31.21% at the current growth, though, naturally, that rate would increase exponentially as the blaze continues. If you'd like to see the simulation, I've prepared a scale model with—"

"I don't want to see the scale model!" Bow couldn't tell if it was the smoke or the stress making him feel like he was about to pass out. "We have to put out the fire!"

Entrapta had the nerve to look disappointed. "Are you sure? With the atmosphere so tightly controlled on board, if we reach full combustion, the results could be absolutely fasc—"

"Yes, I'm sure!" Bow was tearing around the room, trying to find the fire extinguisher. "Ship equals Glimmer. No ship equals no Glimmer and also we all die because we are in space? This is not the time for experiments or messing around!"

"Oh, very well." Entrapta's hair produced the fire extinguisher from somewhere and she heaved a dramatic sigh. "But it would have been so much fun!"

Bow sputtered, not even sure how to explain that dying in a spaceship explosion just because it would be fascinating was not his idea of fun, when he heard Adora call for him from the other room.

"Bow?"

"What, Adora? We're a little busy in here!"

Though Entrapta seemed to have the fire under control now. The smoke was dissipating, and she was chattering casually to the ship about how that had been "a bit of a spicy meatball, wasn't it girl?" The part that worried Bow was that she'd taken out at least half a dozen tools now arrayed in bits of her hair and there was something about the look in her eye that made him suspect she wasn't just planning routine maintenance.

"Uh, we've got kind of a… situation? Thing? In here that maybe you should come look at?" Adora was trying to sound casual, but she was the world's worst actor and the panic in her voice was enough to send him dashing to the exit.

He hesitated in the entryway. "Entrapta, please, just… don't tamper with the ship while we are on it."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Entrapta gave him the world's most unnatural smile and surreptitiously hid some tools behind her back. Bow decided to pretend he hadn't seen that as he dashed down the hallway, all the while thinking that his dads had been right, they had no idea what they were doing, they were going to die out here.

"Adora, WHAT did you do?" Bow stammered, looking at the chaos in front of him.

"Oh, well, I wanted a snack, so I grabbed one of those big citruses from the stash of stuff Perfuma grew for us and I couldn't remember if you needed to peel them first or not so I ended up just kind of squishing it and the juice went all over and that's when things started… sparking? A little?" She gestured towards the control panel where electricity was arcing, the display lights flickering on and off. "So I tried to mop it up, but it didn't like the water anymore than the juice so—"

"Stop touching things!" Bow dashed over to the utility panel and grabbed a rag and a safety glove, trying to sop up some of the fluid with without electrocuting himself. "And why are you eating? You just ate!"

"Well, yeah, but it's boring up here, so I was getting the snackies. You know, when you just want to eat to pass the time?"

"Adora, we have no idea how long we are going to be up here. That food from Perfuma has to last us, all three of us— four when we get Glimmer— all the way until we get back to Etheria. That is all we have. We are in SPACE! It's not like we can just stop for supplies somewhere!"

"Well, yeah, but there's a ton of old food left over from Mara," Adora said through a mouthful of fruit.

"Which has to be at least a thousand years old? Not to mention that we didn't even have time to inventory it all before we left Etheria so we don't even know what we have or if any of it is edible." He was trying to pry open the control panel so he could dry the insides, but his hands were shaking too bad to catch the tiny latch.

Great, so even if they managed not to blow up the ship, they'd run out of food and starve to death before they could even get home because Adora kept getting "the snackies." Babysitting his niblings wasn't even half as stressful as this!

He finally got the control panel open, and it looked like the nav relay was fried. They had the parts to replace it but that kind of work was delicate and something Entrapta had far more experience with. He was just weighing whether he should try to do it himself anyway when the floor of the ship pitched underneath them.

"Damn it, Entrapta, I said no tampering!"

"Please, Catra. Do one good thing in your life!"

For a second, Glimmer thought she'd actually broken through to her. That was real fear in Catra's eyes. She knew Adora was on that ship and what Prime would do to her. Maybe the other girl had finally changed, would do the right thing for Adora's sake if not the universe's.

But, no. Catra shouted and ripped her hand away, claws and distance again. Glimmer's hopes dashed like the smashed cake, pretty icing spattered across the floor at their feet. "Don't talk to me like you know me! You don't know anything about me!"

And then Catra was gone, leaving Glimmer to wondering how she'd ever been so stupid as to think the other girl might be anything more than the selfish, awful villain she'd always known her to be. The air smelled sugary, sickly sweet with foolish idealism and Glimmer fell to her knees, tears flowing freely for the first time since she'd left Etheria without caring who saw.

The ship. Mara's ship. The ship she'd helped them find, sent them on a mission to retrieve, had Bow repair. It was on its way here.

Bow and Adora. It had to be them. The ship wouldn't run without She-Ra and Adora would need Bow to fly it. Even if she didn't, he wouldn't have let her leave him behind, not if Adora was coming for her.

Oh gods, they were coming for her! Warmth and absolute terror warred inside her chest and she gasped out another sob. After all those horrible things she'd said, after everything she'd done, they still cared enough that they'd come all this way for her.

But they would die for it.

Not just them. All of Etheria and countless other worlds. Once Prime had She-Ra, he could control the Heart of Etheria, would stop at nothing until he destroyed the entire galaxy. Her fault, all of it, and yet there was nothing she could do to stop it.

And their only hope was pinned on a cat who would let the whole universe die before she did one good thing.

"Nice work, Entrapta. Fits great." Bow made a show of checking the straps on his space suit as if he actually cared how it went together and hadn't only mentioned trying on them on to lure Entrapta back inside the ship after the whole rope and blowtorch incident.

"Excellent!" Entrapta clapped her hands together, delighted. "Oo and did you notice I gave you a window bubble in the middle because I know you prefer your abdomen to have a little breathing room!"

"Yup, I noticed." It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever seen, and the window was so low was pretty sure one false move and he'd flash everyone, but he appreciated she had tried to fit his style, right down the hearts on his boots. "Really thoughtful, Entrapta. Thanks a lot."

"Now that I've got Darla working again, you wanna head outside, test it out?" Entrapta waggled the rope at him excitedly.

"Uhhh…" He exchanged a glance with Adora, who was already taking off her helmet. She gave him a panicked look and shook her head. "Not right now, thanks."

"Suit yourself!" Entrapta shrugged and disappeared down the hallway.

"Why do we need space suits?" Adora whispered when Entrapta was out of earshot. "I mean, I appreciate the work she put into these, but is she really expecting us to go floating around in space anytime soon?"

"I don't know what she's thinking." Bow pulled off his helmet and placed it on the rack with the others, fully planning to never put the thing on ever again. "All I know is there is NOTHING that could get me to go out there in this."

It all happened so quickly. Catra bursting into her cell with barely a moment to register that the unconscious clone at her feet used to be Hordak before they were running for their lives. Clones overtaking them and going down a moment later under their fists. It felt good to fight again, but Glimmer was rusty, weak from imprisonment and missing her magic.

She was winded, still not sure what they were doing, when Catra pulled them into a side room and shoved her onto a small platform. In a moment, an electronic field rose in front of her and her heart skipped a beat. She'd been assuming the one good thing Catra had pulled her out of her cell to do was for the two of them to save her friends on the ship, but what if this was some fresh betrayal?

Glimmer pressed her hands against her new cage, watching as Catra frantically tapped buttons on the small console. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm getting you out of here." Catra hit something and the doors to the room slid closed with a hydraulic hiss. She nodded, satisfied. "Good. That should hold them."

"Wait, are you— are you saving me?"

"Not you. Adora. Even if I sent her a message to stay away, she'd still come for you. That's just how she is."

Not untrue, but there was something ominous about how Catra said it, like she'd just as soon jettison Glimmer out into space and let her die if it meant saving Adora. Catra tensed, her fingers moving faster across the control panel as the clones banged on the door, struggling to force it open.

Glimmer looked around, trying to even figure out where they were. Was this the transporter room Catra had mentioned? But if this thing she was on was the transporter platform and Catra was over there…

"What about you?" she asked, panic rising in her chest as the sounds at the door had intensified.

"Me? All I do is hurt people. There's no one left in the entire universe who cares about me." Catra hit a button, tapping her nails against the side of the console, her tail twitching nervously while the control panel beeped a repeating melody. Before Glimmer could ask what she was doing, there was the static of someone opening a comm line and Catra asked, "Adora?"

"Catra?" Adora's voice was incredulous, a mix of shock and surprise. She couldn't even imagine how Catra had known how to hail Mara's ship, but, gods, was it good to hear her friend again!

Glimmer gasped as the clones prided the door open a crack, angry fingers jabbing through. They couldn't have more than seconds before they were through, but a small smile played at Catra's lips at the sound of her old friend's voice. "Don't sound so happy to hear me. I'm sending Glimmer to you. I don't know your exact location, but I can get her to your quadrant. You have to be there to catch her."

She was… what? Glimmer tensed, realizing with horror that her passing thought about Catra jettisoning her into open space might actually not be that far from her plan. She called to Catra, but the other girl ignored her, focused on whatever she was inputting into the console.

Adora's voice was tinny, static cutting in and out from Mara's ancient comm system. "Wait, wait, what? What's going on? Glimmer is-is with you?"

"We don't have time. You need to get to these coordinates now." The door finally gave with a slam, clones pouring into the room, burying Catra, who fought them off while still typing into the control panel with desperate beeps. "Don't come here, no matter what. Horde Prime is ready for you."

"Catra, I don't understand, what is—"

"Just listen!" Catra was struggling, pinned between two clones, and all Glimmer could do was bang on the energy field and watch helplessly. "Adora… I'm sorry! For everything!"

With a grunt, Catra ripped an arm free, slamming her hand down onto the console. She slid upward and then all Glimmer could see was green light, energy crackling around her, a mechanical roar rushing in her ears that she'd only heard once before, when she'd been snatched from the Fright Zone. Something was tugging at her, like a teleport but in reverse, electricity tingling up and down her body like sharp static trying to rip her apart.

"Catra!" The last thing she saw was the other girl going under with a sharp scream, buried by clones, before everything disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

"Bow?"

Bow ignored Adora, willing his fingers to stop shaking enough that he could get just get this last strap done. Every fumble cost them seconds, seconds Glimmer didn't have. And if they got there too late, if they found her floating there but not— Well, that just wasn't an option.

"Bow!"

"What?" He finally got the strap and slammed his hand against the keypad for the airlock, the rest of the rope coiled in his other hand.

"I just think maybe I should be the one to—"

"No." He punctuated the word with a tug, pulling the double knot on the rope around his waist so tight it hurt and pushing his way into the airlock before the doors were fully open. "Secure this on the back wall."

He tossed Adora the rest of the rope and whatever objection she'd been about to raise died when she saw the look on his face. "Uh, sure. Got it."

They only had a few frantic seconds of rechecking their gear before Entrapta's disembodied voice announced they were reaching the coordinates. As the door opened and the air rushed out into the vacuum of space, the fear hit in earnest, the gaping expanse of darkness stretched before them like a bottomless void, the only thing between him and it a thin coil of rope and an untested spacesuit. But then he saw her outline appear between the stars and everything else faded away.

"Glimmer!" He shouted and without a second thought, lept out into oblivion after her.

Glimmer gasped as the transporter slammed her back together, the green light like a haze over everything. But beyond it was nothing, just darkness and stars, and for a horrible moment it felt like one of her nightmares, like she'd joined her mother in the void between worlds. She gasped for air but there was none, just ice and pressure crushing in around her shrinking cocoon of light.

This was it. She was going to die out here in the nothing. She slammed her eyes closed, tears sliding out in panic and desperation. Just when the thought she wouldn't be able to stand it, something flew towards her, colliding with her body, strong arms wrapping around her.

Bow? Right here? It felt like a delusion.

He was so close and real and THERE after all this time and she wanted to say something, but all she could do was gasp airlessly, her lungs screaming. Whatever protection the green aura had provided her was fading and she could feel space pressing down on her, waiting for its chance to crush her completely.

She must have blacked out because she didn't remember how they got inside the ship, only the feeling of slamming into something hard and then hitting the floor of what had to be Mara's ship. The world was fuzzy and out of focus, but the air was back and she took a few grateful gulps.

Through the ringing of her ears, she realized someone was calling her name and opened her eyes to find herself looking up into the eyes of her two very best friends. Safe, for the first time in a very long time, in their arms.