https/watch?v=fwv_vW3n8z0 - listen while reading for maximum angst
Not very long btw. Just something I've had on my chest for a while and needed to get written.

The Surge: or terminal lucidity, can happen days, hours, or even minutes before a person's passing. Often occurring abruptly, this period of increased energy and alertness may give families false hope that their loved ones will recover.

Catra didn't know the universe was that insistent on fucking her over. But, it was, apparently. If it wasn't abusive parents, or heroic complexes, or nasty friends, or aliens from fucking space, then it was the near misses of death. Catra had used up all her nine lives as a cat, but thanks to her sexy goddess wife, had a second (technically tenth to eighteenth) chance at life after she shattered her own legs to revive her in space. See below.

1) Burned a life for maximum dramatic exit at Princess Prom (because, of course)
2) Spider'd (thanks Light Hope)
3) Suffocate'd (thanks Hordak)
4) Portal'd (thanks… actually, no, this ones on her)
5) Portal'd, again (thanks Adora)
6) Ass kicked by Sparkles (ugh)
7) Ass kicked by Hordak (fuck Hordak tbh)
8) Burned a life to save Sparkles (maybe she should stay away from her…)
9) Prime'd (thanks Prime)

Humans didn't have that many re-dos. They had one chance… usually. Adora had technically died five times. Once, when they were young, a sickness ripped through the barracks. Everyone was taken down, even the hybrids. Rumour spread that it was a rebellion designed sickness: targeted to take out everyone it touched. Adora helped as many as she could, even as she grew sicker and sicker. Nobody seemed to believe that the star pupil would go down, but she did. And hard. Catra heard her heart stop in her sleep, and consequently panicked. She tore to Shadow Weavers and demanded the witch help her. Of course, she was sent to solitary for six hours as punishment - because it was somehow her fault (of course) - but the witch brought her back and made sure she was nursed back to health. That was the first time.

Second time was when Catra refused to help her in the castle, and she fell over fifty feet in the She-Ra castle. Third time was when Sparkles activated the heart. Apparently the energy killed her and revived her in one. The fourth time was when she jumped in Prime's ship to save Catra - shattering her legs and hips in the process. She was dying when she (thank fuck) turned into She-Ra and revived herself - and Catra at the same time. The final time, and fifth, was the final time in the heart. Catra heard her body stop functioning on the walk, but was determined to see it through: it's what Adora wanted.

So, stupidly, Catra assumed that'd be it until they turned old and grey and dusty.
Wrong.

For a long while, Adora complained of migraines and feeling sick. When the little pregnancy test came back positive, they wrote it off as sickness. But it continued after Finn was born. And after Violet was born. And after Mara and Adam. The doctor delivered the news that Adora would be lucky to see her fortieth. The sheer instability of her magic had finally taken its toll on her body. She went slowly, giving the kids time to adjust that mama wouldn't be around for their adult lives - which was fucking heartbreaking, holding Violet and Mara as they wailed that mama wouldn't be there when they had their own babies, and watching as Finn tried to keep them together, while Adam sat there, numb, watching mama shrink with each week.

On her final week of life, and Catra could tell. Magicats could smell things that humans couldn't. She could smell when somebody was sad, angry, upset, sick, you name it. She even knew Adora was pregnant before the tests said anything. She'd smelt death too many times - and knew its scent well.

So when the time came, she prepared the kids. Finn and Mara were magicats like her, and could smell the impending goodbye. Violet and Adam couldn't.

When Catra walked into the hospital room one morning, watching as Dodo sat up with the kids, laughing and play fighting with them all - even eating Razz's old berry pie. The nurse cornered Catra around lunchtime to deliver the news: it was the Surge. A phenomenal thing the body did as a last hurrah: so they died happy and the family were happy they went happy.

So in the night, when she felt her heart stop, Catra cried quietly into her stomach, trying desperately to not wake the children - mourning in silence.