Adora forgives Catra. She knows this in her mind and her heart, but the scars that have been left deep in her physical body require healing. Even when her mind tells her she should move on, she can't forget. It took years to leave those scars; they won't disappear overnight. They remember.

So while she is so, so happy to have Catra back at her side, to feel the warmth of her skin against hers in bed, the rhythmic breathing of Catra's shallow inhales, the quiet contentment when she looks into the eyes of the person who understands her the most in the world, there are times the past haunts her. Memories of when Catra has hurt Adora, hurt her friends. When Adora thought she had Catra back, she had her! She could see Catra, her friend, the woman she loved, just under the surface of the mask and her words had finally gotten through, Catra had finally softened and was going to let Adora help her, she had changed, she was going to make the right choice, before—

Sharp claws just brushing against her in passing and her body felt the tear, tear, tearing through the skin of her back, sinking deep into the muscle there and ripping, eight points of pain but none as acute as the heart-wrenching vicious look on Catra's face as she enjoyed Adora's pain—

A blank look in her eyes during a particularly lengthy meeting, and her chest tightened and breathing accelerated, the expression so reminiscent of empty green—

Mermista and Catra bickering, and Hordak is blasting hole after hole through Salineas's shield, Salineas is crumbling, Salineas is gone, the people are suffering and Adora failed to prevent this, Catra is standing there with him arm in arm, celebrating the weapon she had created—

Glancing back over her shoulder, a smirk when she sees Adora huffing to catch up, then the entire world is falling apart, being sucked into this hole, this void that Catra created, that Catra knew she shouldn't have created, knew that it would hurt everyone they'd ever known and herself and had done it anyway just so Adora would suffer and all of a sudden the part of her that passes under a shadow is jet-black, the Catra from the portal—

Adora jolts upright in bed, heart hammering in her chest and panting, it isn't real, it isn't real but it was real. Both hands clasp over her mouth. If she goes on like this, she'll wake Catra. Maybe she already has.

Thankfully, Catra is still curled, tail hugging herself when Adora glances to the other side of the bed. It's not enough for a sigh of relief—not after the dream she had—but it does dispel a little of the panic in her chest. Less thankfully, her relief can't get rid of the adrenaline thundering through her veins and the sight of Catra, this close to her —while Adora was sleeping, unprotected— just makes her heart rate pulse faster.

She can't stay here. If Catra wakes up and sees her like this, she'll just know exactly what Adora is thinking and it will crush her. Catra has been trying so hard. She deserves better.

As she stands, the covers settle back into place, far quieter than her mind. A little time, a little contemplation until the morning rays chased away the shadows in her head, and she can lay back in bed as if nothing had happened.

Her bare feet slap against the marbled floors, their echoing sound reminding Adora that she is alone.

It's for the best… she thinks as she leans against the railing overlooking the rolling green meadows and flowered gardens of Bright Moon. Will she ever be able to truly love again? She loves her friends: this much she knows. But will she ever be able to give herself over entirely to someone? When every Hey Adora makes her spine tense and adrenaline pump?

Both she and Catra were conditioned by Shadow Weaver and Hordak, and she knows this, can't fault Catra in so many ways because for so many years Adora was part of Glimmer and Bow's worst nightmare, yet they forgave her, accepted her almost immediately. But can Adora do that? Because somehow Hordak is with Entrapta, which is a whole other can of worms because Entrapta was her friend and had helped save their world, but now she was dating the man (machine?) who had nearly decimated Etheria and before that Entrapta had betrayed them and joined the Horde, but! she only done that because they had left her behind, had gone on a rescue mission and then assumed her damned, hadn't even checked if she was alive, and if that wasn't a betrayal—

Adora groans, dropping her head over the railing and into her hands. Why was it that they had won a galactic war and everything still felt so hard?

One tear slides down her cheek, then another, then they free-flow, a river watering her misery. She cries: for the lies that poisoned her childhood, for the war that took so much from her, for the pain of rebuilding and having to remember all they lost to reach that point. But most of all she cries because sometimes it hurts so much to look at Catra when the expression on her face reminds her so much of the expression on Catra's face each time she tore Adora's world to pieces. Her heart feels like it's being stabbed even while it soars to know they're standing here together, hand in hand.

Get it out now, Adora, she chastises herself. The sky is still dark but growing gradually lighter, and that means her time is running out. Catra was still healing. Catra couldn't see her like this; she would blame Adora's mental state on herself, after the years Shadow Weaver spent whispering that everything was her fault. Adora has to be strong, so they can both heal together.

"Hey… Adora."

It's tentative. And soft. Two things that Catra usually is not, which is how Adora knows it's not a fragment of her memories. She spins around with a gasp before she can think.

Luminous eyes watch her, resignation written there already. She can fix this, she just has to take a deep breath and control her emotions. "Oh, Catra," she says, hoping her girlfriend won't be able to see the way her smile is forced. "You can go back to bed, I was just having a nightmare, and—"

"It was about me, wasn't it." Her tail hangs loosely behind her and warning bells go off in Adora's head.

She has to deny it immediately. "N-no, of course not. Uh—it was about, you know, Horde Prime."

Catra hops up on the railing, much farther away than usual. Behind her, her tail swishes fiercely. Once, twice. "It's okay," she says. "I know it was."

Adora's hand draws back, and she doesn't remember extending it in the first place. This was… exactly what she hadn't wanted. It wasn't Catra's fault. It wasn't. These were just dark thoughts that she had to work through so they could be together.

The silence on the balcony is louder than the panicked thoughts in Adora's head, but only just. Another minute or two and she can figure out what to say to make it better.

But it's not her that breaks the silence. "I know I did bad things, even if I don't talk about it much," Catra says, then twists her head to the side, eyes resolutely pointed on the landscape and not her. "To a degree, I was groomed, and that's not my fault. This is what I was trained for. But to a degree, I knew exactly what I was doing and I did it to hurt you, and I have to own that."

Adora's hand wraps around Catra's own. "Catra… it's not your fault."

"Some of it is. I'm trying to balance that with how I did something else at the end, but that doesn't mean I can just erase what I did before." Her arms curl more tightly around her legs, perched up on the railing, but Adora won't let her hand go. She continues, "I can't bring it up often because I start to spiral, blame myself again, but I want you to know…"

The words that come next are barely a whisper. "Sorry, Adora."

Adora shouldn't want this. She shouldn't; she should be able to forgive unconditionally, like so many others, but there's a tiny part that revels in being taken care of for once, being able to let someone else be the bigger person, to have her own needs acknowledged that lifts the weight on her chest more than she could have on her own. She wants to live in this moment with Catra forever, so she lets herself.

Catra clears her throat, and it's at that moment Adora realizes how long the silence has gone on. "If you need me to go, for a little bit, while you figure everything out," her voice cracks, "I can-I can do that."

"No," Adora insists, "no. I want you here. You're right, we can't erase the past, but we can move forward together, and I want you to be a part of that. Because I love you."

When Catra whispers the words back, Adora jumps onto the railing alongside her, feet dangling over the edge and arms pressed together while they stare at the rising light. It is reminiscent of a time past when they had only each other. Now, they have a future too.