Archive of Our Own

2008

Catra is ten years old when she picks up a guitar for the first time.

She’s in the tiny shoebox music classroom at her elementary school, just looking for somewhere to eat her lunch in peace. A lot of teachers don’t like it if she asks to use their rooms – the cafeteria is where you eat, they say – so she peers through the little window in the classroom door to make sure it’s empty before she twists the handle and steps inside.

Carefully, she closes the classroom door behind her, and selects a desk that might be out of the window’s view. Any teachers – or any bullies – looking in might not see her. Satisfied, she pulls out the chair and opens up her backpack for her pitiful lunch. It’s just a plain slice of bread, and a bag of chips she’d taken from Ms Weaver’s cupboard when she wasn’t looking. She’s not supposed to take food, but Ms Weaver doesn’t make a packed lunch for her or give her lunch money to get something from school, and she gets so hungry by lunchtime. She takes whatever she can get and hopes that it’s enough to satisfy. People already make fun of her for being so scrawny.

She eats slowly and savours every last bite, but she still finishes too fast. There’s twenty minutes of lunch left to entertain herself with. Nervously, Catra glances over at the classroom door. She could go out there and risk running into her classmates, the ones who laugh at her and call her an alien because her eyes are different colours. Instantly, she changes her mind. She’ll stay in here for as long as she can.

She has a book in her bag, she remembers. A Percy Jackson novel that she’d checked out of the local library. Reading that will pass time until the bell rings, so she leans down to her bag to get it out. That’s when she sees it.

In the corner of the room, propped up on a stand, is a very shabby looking acoustic guitar. Catra’s grip on her bag loosens, until she lets go entirely, approaching the instrument with her curiosity piqued. She stares at it hesitantly for a moment, and glances back towards the classroom door again.

She’ll be in big trouble if someone finds her messing with it. Maybe big enough trouble that they’ll call Ms Weaver and tell her that Catra had been bad. The thought makes her step back from the guitar with a knot in her throat. She shouldn’t play with it. She’s not supposed to do bad things.

Catra looks at the guitar again, thinking about her next move. She should just go. She should grab her backpack and risk the bullies, because at least she won’t get in trouble with Ms Weaver that way.

“Try it, if you like.”

Catra jumps in surprise and whirls around to see the school’s music teacher standing in the doorway. She hadn’t heard her come in.

The music teacher nods towards the guitar. “Are you interested in learning?”

Like it’s an automatic reflex, Catra apologises. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be in here. Please don’t call home, I won’t come back, I promise.”

“You’re not in trouble,” the music teacher smiles kindly, and Catra frowns. Nobody is ever kind to her, not really. They’re usually just pretending, like Ms Weaver and the bullies. “What’s your name?”

“Catra,” Catra says, and then clears her throat nervously and admits, “well, actually… it’s Catrina, but I don’t like it when people call me that. People- they just laugh at me when I say I want to be called Catra, and then they call me Catrina anyway.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Catra,” the music teacher says, and Catra looks up in surprise, “I’m Mrs Light, but since you’re not technically my student, you can call me Hope.”

Catra blinks, but then remembers her manners and nods. “Um, hi. It’s nice to meet you too. I’m sorry, I’ll- um, I’ll stop bothering you now.”

“You’re not bothering me,” Hope says, and the words are definitely foreign to Catra. She nods towards the guitar again and asks, “do you want to try it?”

Catra glances at the guitar nervously. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Hope smiles encouragingly and steps forwards, taking the guitar off its stand. She nods to the nearest chair. “Take a seat. I’ll get this tuned up for you. It gets cold in this room when nobody’s in here, and temperature changes can knock a guitar out of tune.”

Catra pulls out the chair nervously and sits down. She watches as Hope twists the little knobs on the top of the guitar, plucking the strings and checking the notes. Catra wonders how she knows when it’s in tune or not, but after plucking through all the strings again, she smiles satisfactorily and offers the guitar out.

“Okay, you want to hold it like this,” Hope explains, positioning the guitar on Catra’s lap when she makes no move to take it. It’s bigger than it looked against her, but Catra holds on tightly, scared that she’s going to break it and get in trouble. “I’ll take you through the strings. Pluck the top one with your thumb.”

Catra has to look down at the strings to see where she’s going, but she plucks the open note and then looks up at Hope to see if she did it right. “Was that okay?”

“Perfect,” Hope smiles, “we’re in standard tuning, so that sixth string is the low E string. Now try the next one down.”

Slowly, Hope takes her through each string, naming them all. E, A, D, G, B, E. Catra tries to memorise them all, repeating each letter over and over again as she plucks the relevant string.

“Now we’ll try to fret some notes,” Hope says, and Catra frowns, “don’t worry, it’s not that complicated. We’ll just focus on the low E string.”

Catra plucks it with her thumb. It’s already starting to hurt a little bit from the thick string. “This one?”

“Yeah,” Hope nods encouragingly, “okay, on your left hand, take your first finger and hold it down on the third fret, right here. That’s a G note.”

She points at the area, and Catra puts her finger on the string and plucks with her thumb. The note comes out muted and dies out quickly. Discouraged, Catra sighs. “It didn’t work.”

“You have to press down quite hard. It’ll hurt your fingertips, but the more you play, you develop callouses, and then it doesn’t hurt at all,” Hope explains, and Catra presses down harder with her finger. It does hurt, but when she plucks the string again, the note rings out crystal clear.

“Excellent! You did really well there,” Hope praises, and Catra plucks it again, desperate for more, “okay, now move down to the fifth fret with your ring finger and play that too. That’s an A note.”

This time it’s harder – the hand positioning makes her wrist ache, but she pushes through it and plucks the note. It comes out clear first time. “Was that good?”

“Very good,” Hope says, and Catra’s stomach does a happy somersault. Nobody ever says she does well, not even Ms Weaver when Catra tries to show her the good grades she’s getting. “Now try to put those three things together. Open string, then that G note, and then the A note.”

Slowly, Catra repeats the phrase. The changes are clunky, but each note rings out, and her fingers ache like crazy after. Then Hope asks her to repeat it again, but this time going to the sixth fret – A# - before hitting A.

By the time the bell rings, Hope has taught her the classic opening riff to Smoke on the Water, without her even knowing it.

“Now you can go home and tell your parents you can play Smoke on the Water,” Hope says as she places the guitar back onto its stand, “I’m sure they’ll be impressed.”

“I don’t have parents, just Ms Weaver, and I don’t think she’d care that much,” Catra says, and she barely notices the way Hope’s expression changes to sympathy, “was that a real song?”

“Oh,” Hope looks surprised at the question, but she smiles gently and nods, “yes, it was. Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.”

“Can I…” Catra pauses, terrified to ask the question on the tip of her tongue, “can I come back tomorrow and learn some more?”

“Well, if you’d like,” Hope says, “but wouldn’t you rather spend your lunchtime with your friends?”

“I don’t- um, I don’t have any friends,” Catra admits embarrassedly, pulling her backpack onto her shoulders and trying a smile, “I’ll come back tomorrow. Thank you for being so nice to me.”

She goes back every single lunchtime, learning more and more, and it’s the best part of her day.

2009

Catra is eleven when she finally gets up the courage to talk to Weaver about the guitar.

She’s leaving elementary school after this school year, to move up to the private school, and she knows that means an end to her lunchtime guitar lessons. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to ask the music teacher at her new school to teach her things, which means she really needs to get her own guitar and learn things at home.

She’s terrified when she knocks on Weaver’s office door. She knows it’s best to avoid her – she’s never nice to Catra, not unless they’re at one of those boring business parties Weaver drags her to. Then she’s really nice, talking about how Catrina is so smart, you should see the grades she brings home. Much smarter than your daughter, clearly.

“This better be important,” Weaver mutters as Catra opens up the door and peers around, “I have told you many times not to disturb me while I work.”

“I- um, I was wondering if- um, if you’d let me learn how to play guitar,” Catra stammers her way through the question, and Weaver raises an eyebrow, “the music teacher at my school has taught me how to play some things, but- but I’ll be changing schools soon, and I was wondering if I could- could get a guitar so I can practice at home. I really- I really love it a lot, and- and you could tell the people you work with, that would impress them.”

“You interrupted me for that?” Weaver snaps, and Catra steps back instinctively. Weaver lets out a bitter laugh and stares down at her condescendingly. “You came to disturb me while I am working to beg me for money that you do not deserve?”

“No, I- I just…” Catra steps backwards again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I just wanted-”

“Exactly. You wanted something that you do not deserve,” Weaver says, “you are a disrespectful, ungrateful little brat. I have zero obligation to keep you here. And yet I do. I already pay for the clothes on your back, for the food that you eat, and the rest of your miserable existence. You will not ask for anything else, and why on earth would I give you money so you could bother me more than you already do?”

“I- I’m really sorry,” Catra blinks back the tears stinging her eyes, because Weaver always shouts at her for crying, “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just- I thought you might be proud of me, I can already play some songs-”

“Why would I ever be proud of you? You are nothing but a disappointment,” Weaver says sharply, and Catra can’t stop the tears now, “oh, stop with that pathetic little display right now. If you are so desperate for a guitar, you will find the money and pay for it yourself. I certainly will not give you even a single penny.”

“I’m sorry,” Catra wipes at her eyes, but it doesn’t stop the tears, “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ms Weaver.”

“You should be,” Weaver snaps, and she points to the ground right in front of her. “Here, now.”

Catra’s eyes widen, and she steps back, terrified. “No. Please, I didn’t do anything wrong-”

“You are a child, and I am an adult,” Weaver snaps, “you will do as I say. Here. Now. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

Terrified, Catra steps forwards, right in front of Weaver. She doesn’t get up from her desk chair, just turns to the side, looks her up and down with mild disgust, and then smacks her around the face once, hard.

Catra has to bite down on her bottom lip to stop herself from crying more at the painful sting on her cheek. Weaver glares at her, and as much as Catra wants to run, she knows she has to wait until she’s dismissed. Weaver will hit her again, if she doesn’t.

“You will not interrupt me while I am working again,” Weaver says calmly, “get out of my sight.”

Catra doesn’t hesitate to run down the hallway. She barely stifles her crying as she runs to her tiny bedroom and closes the door tightly behind her, burying her face into her pillow. She doesn’t understand what she did to make Ms Weaver hate her so much. She used to be so nice to her, back when Catra lived at the orphanage. She came to visit every weekend and brought her puzzles and quizzes and math problems, and they’d work on them together. On that first home visit, she even tucked her into bed and read a bedtime story for her.

It all changed when Catra came to live with her for real. She ignored her and shouted whenever Catra wanted to spend time with her. There was that time she’d rolled her eyes when Catra had told her about the bullies at school that made fun of her eyes. “What do you expect when you are such a freakish abnormality?” Weaver had scoffed, “kids are mean. Get over it.”

She doesn’t really remember her real mommy, but she knows she was taken away from her because she’d done some bad things and wasn’t suitable to look after her. That’s what the people at the orphanage had told her. But Catra knows she never felt so scared when she was living with her real mommy, and she’d cried and told the people at the orphanage that she wanted to go home when they took her away.

She doesn’t understand why her own mommy, who liked her, wasn’t suitable, but Weaver is.

Catra uses the back of her hand to rub the tears away from her eyes, and she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her face hardens into a glare, and she mutters, “freakish abnormality,” when she looks into her own eyes.

She hates them so much. She wishes that she was normal, and that people liked her. She doesn’t entirely understand why people don’t. She knows that she looks funny because of her stupid eyes, but that doesn’t mean she’s bad, does it? She remembers that one girl from the park that she played with when she was little. Adora, that was her name. She said that Catra’s eyes were cool. She was nice about them, and nice to Catra, without anybody forcing her to like when teachers make another student work with her in class. Catra wonders if she’ll ever see her again.

Or anybody else. Hope is nice, and Catra loves their guitar lessons, but she’d really like a friend her own age. Just… someone who likes her, even if she is a freakish abnormality.

Tearing her gaze away from the mirror, Catra wanders over to her bedroom window and sees the old man who lives next door dragging his lawnmower out onto his front yard. She gets a sudden idea when she remembers the other thing that Ms Weaver had said.

“If you are so desperate for a guitar, you will find the money and pay for it yourself.”

Quickly, she wrenches open her bedroom window and scrambles out of it, thudding onto the grass below. She runs as fast as she can over to the neighbour’s house, and barely lets herself catch her breath.

“I can do that!” Catra says desperately, and the old man frowns at her. “I can mow your lawn. I really want to buy a guitar, and Ms Weaver says I have to pay for it myself, and I don’t know how else I can earn money because I’m only eleven, but-”

He lets go of the lawnmower’s handle and says gruffly, “I’ll give you $20. I’ll bump it up to $25 if you do the back yard too.”

“Yes!” Catra nods eagerly, ready to get started. “I can do that. Thank you!”

She leaves with her pockets $25 heavier and a plan in her mind.

Almost like it’s a sign from some higher power, a kid in her class announces that he’s selling his guitar four weeks later.

Catra bolts over there, and he frowns at her, eyes narrowing in a look of disgust that she’s too used to at this point. “What do you want, alien?”

“How much money do you want?” Catra asks, “for your guitar, I mean.”

“I was going to sell it for forty dollars,” the kid says, looking her up and down, “you can give me fifty.”

“Okay,” she nods quickly, because the guitars at the store in town are all over $150, and so far she’s only made $75 mowing neighbours’ lawns, “bring it tomorrow, and I’ll bring fifty dollars.”

Catra doesn’t let herself get her hopes up even after the kid says yes. People like to be mean, and maybe he realised how much she wants it and thinks it would be funny to upset her. But the next day, he comes over with the guitar case in hand, and Catra unzips it to see the instrument inside before giving him the money.

It hurts her back to carry it around all day, but it’s so worth it. When she gets home, she tries to take it to her bedroom quietly, but Weaver steps out of the lounge and scowls at her when she lays eyes on the big case on Catra’s back.

“And what is that?” She asks sharply, and Catra grips the straps on the case uncomfortably. “Answer me this instant.”

“It’s a guitar,” Catra stammers, and she doesn’t meet Weaver’s gaze when she adds, “you said that I could have one if I paid for it myself. I won’t- I won’t bother you with it, I promise.”

“That better be the case,” Weaver snaps, “or I will use it for firewood. Understand?”

Catra nods quickly, and darts down the hallway to her bedroom, the instrument heavy on her back. She shuts her bedroom door behind her and then lays the case out on her bed, slowly unzipping it and revealing her first ever guitar.

It’s a red and white Squier Stratocaster, according to the logo on the headstock. Over the last few months, Catra has gone onto Weaver’s computer any chance she can get and watched countless videos on different guitars, researching all of the top brands. A Squier is almost a Fender.

The ones she’d liked the most were called PRS. They look kind of like a cross between a Stratocaster and a Les Paul, and even the cheapest ones, the SE range, are $600. She’ll never be able to afford one, but it doesn’t stop her from flicking through pictures of all of the pretty finishes. Her favourites are the quilted maple tops.

Inside the guitar case are four yellow guitar picks, a package of fresh strings, and a little plastic tuning device. Catra clips it onto the headstock of the guitar and tunes it carefully, her mind already buzzing with ideas of songs she wants to learn. Hope had loaned her a few rock CDs with really cool guitar parts. Some parts are so fast Catra doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to play them, but that’s not going to stop her from trying.

2013

By age fifteen, Catra has a job waiting tables, and an eye on a blue PRS SE Mira in the local guitar shop. She’s had the job for a year, and it’s good for helping her get out of the house, as well as helping her pay for things. She bought her first acoustic guitar with her very first pay-check and saved up enough to afford a cell phone and a crappy second-hand laptop after a few months.

She’s also started volunteering at the local animal shelter. Partially to stay out of the house on the days she’s not working or at school, but also because Netossa and Spinnerella, the owners, actually seem like they like her. Even if they’re just faking it, at least the cats like her.

She still struggles a lot with feeling lonely, but part of her has quietly accepted it. That curious, innocent, hopeful inner child who just wanted a friend is still there, buried down deep, but Catra never lets it show. For all the rest of the world needs to know, she’s fine on her own. Always has been, always will be.

Besides, she has music. That’s something that nobody can take away from her.

School still sucks. Catra supposes that it always will. Part of her wants to switch to the public school, Etheria High, in the hopes that a fresh start would help her feel less lonely, but she knows that Weaver would kill her if she threw away her scholarship.

“Your intelligence is the only positive asset you possess,” Weaver would say, “do not throw away an academic scholarship to one of the best private schools in the state because you are too pathetic to handle a few insults.”

An actual mother would go down to the school and back her up when she said that the same kids have been bullying her since she started there. But Catra knows well enough by now that Weaver will never be that. She doesn’t care, and she never has.

The day that changes her life, besides the first time she ever picked up a guitar, is an incredibly mundane one. In fact, most people would say nothing really of note happens. Catra goes to school, deals with the assholes, comes home, deals with Weaver, does whatever homework she didn’t manage to finish during lunch break, and then fully intends to practice guitar until the early hours of the morning, like she does every night.

She opens YouTube, guitar on her lap, ready to learn a little bit of theory before deciding on a song to learn by ear. As she moves her cursor over to the search bar, she pauses. For some reason, the video upload button draws her attention.

“Don’t be stupid,” Catra mutters to herself, “nobody is going to want to watch you play guitar in your bedroom.”

But she can’t stop herself from staring at it, wondering what if. She’d always wanted to perform somewhere and had contemplated the school talent show more than once, but she always figured people would laugh at her, no matter how good she was. They already find enough excuses to. It’s not like they’ll ever find it, if she posted a video of her playing. But other people might, and they could give her feedback. It’s not like she can afford proper guitar lessons, after all.

She doesn’t have a camera, but she does have a webcam on her laptop. The quality is probably terrible, but when Catra presses open on the program, she decides she doesn’t care. She grabs her acoustic guitar and puts a capo on the fourth fret, running through the chords of The Only Exception as a quick refresher and pressing the record button before she can overthink her way out of it.

November 8^th 2013, is the day she creates her YouTube channel, youtube.com/catra, and posts her first ever cover, at fifteen years old.

A few days later, it breaks 100 views, and she gets her first ever comment. Keep it up! You’re really talented. :)

It gives Catra hope that maybe she’s finally good enough at something. Maybe she could study music at college and get a good job in a creative field. Maybe… maybe she could finally be happy, one day.

It becomes like therapy to her, to pick a song, learn it, and cover it for her YouTube channel. She has fifty subscribers by the end of the year, and maybe that’s not a lot to some people, but it is to her. She could have zero subscribers, for all she cares. It’s just nice to have something that’s hers, something that makes her feel a little better about the rest of her life.

Even if she doesn’t have friends, and she doesn’t have a family, she has this.

She has music.

2014

She uses the money she wanted to spend on a new guitar on a good camera, an editing program, and guitar amp software for her computer. Slowly, her bedroom covers become more professional with drum tracks, a good microphone to record her vocals, and she picks up a cheap Epiphone bass guitar secondhand to record the bassline herself.

She’s not doing it for anybody other than herself, and when she uploads her first full band cover after taking a couple of months away to familiarise herself with the software and learn how to cut and edit everything together, she’s never felt prouder of herself. It’s Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses. The guitar parts were trickier to learn, but after a lot of practice, she sails through them effortlessly as she records the lead and rhythm parts.

This video gets five thousand views, and it seems like a million compared to her usual hundred or so.

Unfortunately, one of those five thousand views is a girl from her school. She’s rich, she’s popular, and she’s always making underhanded bitchy comments whenever Catra is in her general line of sight.

When she shows up at school on Monday, naturally, everyone knows. They’re all laughing and singing off key lyrics from the song at her and laughing even harder when she tells them to fuck off.

“Aw, Catrina’s mad,” the ringleader girl laughs, “maybe she’ll finally go back to her home planet.”

Catra grits her teeth and doesn’t say a word. She never does, never gives them any reason to run to the principal and get her kicked out of school for acting out. They have money, and parents who’ll protect them. Catra doesn’t have any of that, and she’s got a whole world of pain headed her way from Weaver if she loses her scholarship.

But for once, she can’t help herself. She’s not going to let them ruin the one good thing she has. “Do you ever get tired of being so fucking immature? Grow up and leave me alone. Focus on your own pathetic life.”

“Pathetic?” The girl laughs. “Sounds like the pot is calling the kettle black there, huh? What’s pathetic being so sad and lonely that you resort to posting silly little videos that nobody cares about, because nobody cares about you.”

“I care about them,” Catra snaps, “that’s all that matters to me.”

“And you don’t realise how pathetic that is?” The girl laughs condescendingly again. “That’s almost cute.”

“Why the fuck do you care so much?” Catra retorts. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be wasting my time bothering me about it.”

“I really, really don’t care. I just think it’s funny that you think you’re actually good at something,” the girl shrugs, “keep embarrassing yourself online, for all I care. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when people comment telling you what a freak you are.”

The girl pushes past her purposely, and Catra clenches her fists together to contain her anger and reminds herself that it’s not worth it, and that she can’t let her bitchy classmates ruin this.

She keeps going, even if it’s only just to spite them. Takes time learning songs and posting covers, because it makes her fucking happy, and when she posts her cover of Chocolate by The 1975, it feels like any other video. She does what she always does – uploads it, then posts a link to the video to her Twitter account, then logs off to practice some scales on her guitar.

Two weeks later, she’s working on a completely different video, laying down the bassline from In Too Deep by Sum 41, when she finally checks Twitter again and thinks she’s seeing things.

A really, really famous music YouTuber, Double Trouble, had tweeted a link to her cover complimenting it, and her YouTube channel has gone from 243 subscribers to exactly 127,492. Twitter is similar; her follower count has risen to 20,000 from a mere twelve.

“What the fuck,” she mutters to herself as she refreshes each page, just to make sure her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her, “what the actual fuck…”

Her cover of Chocolate is at over a million views, and the others are steadily climbing. Welcome to the Jungle, which had basically remained at around six thousand views after the first two weeks of being posted, is now at 500,000. Nervously, she scrolls to the comments, and ninety-nine percent of them are ‘this girl is crazy talented’ or ‘keep up the good work’ or ‘I wish I’d found you sooner’.

“Oh my god,” Catra slams her laptop closed – maybe she’s panicked, or maybe she’s just overwhelmed – and steps away from it for a while.

She’s happy. Of course she is. She’s basically over the fucking moon. But she’s also terrified. A million people watched one of her videos. A hundred and twenty-seven thousand decided that they liked her enough to stick around. She’d gone from two hundred subscribers to a hundred thousand overnight. Who wouldn’t be terrified?

She’s also scared that Weaver is going to find out and put an end to it. This could be… an opportunity, maybe? She knows that people make money from YouTube, and maybe she could find out how to do that. She could save up, move out, and never have to see Weaver again, all thanks to music.

Catra flips open her laptop again and refreshes the page. 130,000 subscribers now. She takes a breath and tries to figure out how to handle this.

She posts her first ever sit-down talking video and feels incredibly awkward the entire time, but part of her feels like she has to. When she looks back later in life, she thinks it’s that video that makes everyone stick around; after all, YouTube is generally about personality.

Her channel goes from a place where she posts little covers for fun, to professional covers, original music, and Q&A videos that she actually makes money from.

She quits her waitressing job by the end of the year, and hits one million subscribers by her sixteenth birthday.

2015

Apparently, all it takes for people to be kind to you is to have a YouTube account with over 2.5 million subscribers and rising by the day.

School is so much easier in that regard – nobody dares make fun of her for her YouTube channel or the older stuff they’d laugh at like her eyes – but it’s also worse. People who have bullied her relentlessly since she was nine years old are suddenly uncomfortably friendly, and she knows it’s because they want something from her.

Everyone seems to. In a way, it makes it so much harder for her to make friends, but she’ll take this over the bullying any day.

Besides that, and besides Weaver constantly looming over her any time she’s unfortunate enough to be home at the same time as her, Catra thinks she’s at least a little bit happier. She’s happy with YouTube, and her music, and she can’t wait to graduate school and move out so she can focus on it full time.

And she guesses she’s not entirely friendless – she talks to Double Trouble sometimes online, and she’s one of the first people they come out to as non-binary. She’s also the first person they tell about the big record deal they’ve been offered, and it’s nice to know that someone is actually making it from YouTube.

She’s glad that Weaver is basically technologically inept, besides the stuff she has to use from work. Catra and her YouTube channel have been able to fly under her radar for this long. She just has to make it to next October, to her eighteenth birthday.

(She still has to turn seventeen yet, but still.)

Sixteen is shaping up to be okay. At least in the musical aspect. Especially because she’s going to buy her first professional guitar. She can finally afford a really great one and hang up the old Squier Strat for good.

Catra is browsing the many electric guitars hanging from the walls, testing out each one that catches her eye. She tries a few PRS guitars even though her heart is one day set on getting an actual private stock one built for her, she plays an incredibly beautiful Gibson Les Paul Custom Shop, and she’s messing around on an ESP E-II Eclipse that she really likes the feel of when someone talks to her.

“Nice playing, kid,” a woman compliments, and Catra hits the wrong note in surprise. She’s tall and athletic with kind grey eyes and a gentle smile. “How long have you been playing?”

“Oh, um,” Catra pauses to count, “six years. Seven in November.”

“You’ve got a real talent,” the woman says, and then she holds up the pack of strings in her hand, “I wish I played, but unfortunately I’m just getting these for my girlfriend.”

Like a puppy hearing the word walk, Catra is suddenly very attentive. Maybe it’s just because this woman is older – even older than Spinnerella and Netossa – like a mom’s age. It gives her so much hope, that there are people out there like her who are living happy, fulfilled lives.

Catra has known that she likes girls for as long as she can remember. She hasn’t told anybody, and she’s barely admitted it to herself, but she knows it. And things like this make her feel a little better.

“Thank you,” Catra says to the woman’s compliment, plucking a random C chord, “it’s the only thing I really love to do, so…”

“Hope is the same way,” the woman says, and Catra’s eyes widen in realisation. Hope, as in the woman who taught her? “Keep it up.”

The woman pays for her strings and leaves before Catra can ask if she meant that Hope, and she supposes it’ll always be a mystery.

Everything seems like it’s going perfectly. Especially when shortly after her seventeenth birthday, a representative from Horde Records contacts her about signing her to their label.

The only problem is, they need a parent or guardian present during the planned Skype consultation because she’s a minor, and the closest thing Catra has to that is Weaver.

For the first time since she was eleven, Catra willingly knocks on Weaver’s office door. She’s gotten so good at avoiding her over the last few years that this feels like she’s taking a million steps back.

“What?” Weaver barks coldly through the door, and Catra pushes it open. “Have you not yet learned that when I am in this room, I am working?”

You’re always in this room, Catra thinks to herself, but she wouldn’t dare say that out loud. “I have a Skype consultation for a… job. And I need a parent or guardian present when it happens. Would you- would you be able to do that, or should I hire an actor and forge your signature?”

It’s half a joke – Catra isn’t missing out on this opportunity, regardless of whether or not Weaver says yes. She’s hoping for a quick, one word answer, since Weaver is obviously so concerned about her work, but that’s not what she gets.

“What kind of job?” Weaver questions, and Catra winces. She didn’t want that question to be asked. “Answer me, Catrina.”

Catra scowls at her and figures that she might as well know the truth. It’s not like she’d be technologically able enough to log into Catra’s YouTube account and terminate it. “A record label want to sign me so I can release an album.”

Weaver laughs. Catra definitely wasn’t expecting that reaction. “You interrupted me to tell me some tall tale about a probably fake record label?”

Catra rolls her eyes. Gone are the days when Weaver’s mocking would send her running to her bedroom to hide. “It’s not fake. They really want to sign me.”

“And why would they want to sign some useless, talentless nobody from a small town in the middle of the country?” Weaver hums. “Answer me that.”

“Because I’m not some useless, talentless nobody,” Catra snaps at her, and then takes a breath to calm herself down, “someone from the label came across my YouTube channel, and they want to sign me because they like my music. I could make a real career out of this, I just- I just need you to do one thing for me.”

Weaver’s amused expression fades. She actually looks… interested? “Show me this YouTube channel of yours, then.”

Catra rolls her eyes again but walks around Weaver to type youtube.com/catra into her browser window. When the page loads, and Weaver looks over at it, Catra expects some variation of you are forbidden from ever posting on here again, purely because you enjoy it and I’m a gigantic bitch.

But instead, Weaver scrolls through the videos, a quiet surprise showing on her face. After a few moments, she closes out of the tab, and when she looks up at Catra, there’s no look of mild irritation and disgust like always.

Catra can’t get a read on her, and steps back instinctively. If Weaver lashed out, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“I will join you for this Skype consultation, and we will work out a deal with this Horde Records company,” Weaver states, and Catra blinks in surprise. She’s saying yes?

Catra doesn’t question it. Instead, she backs towards the door and nods quickly. “Okay, thanks. I’ll work out a time with them.”

“Don’t you think,” Weaver starts, making Catra freeze in place, “that it would look much more professional for you to have an adult representing you, rather than liaising with these people yourself?”

“Uh…” Catra pauses, suspicious and confused, “what are you suggesting?”

“Perhaps I should take on your… business responsibilities,” Weaver says, and Catra frowns, “manage the complicated stuff, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Um… why?” Catra frowns. “You hate me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Weaver scoffs, and when she steps forwards, Catra steps back. Her hand reaches out, and Catra closes her eyes, ready for the smack. Instead, she feels Weaver tuck her bangs back behind her ear, and when she opens her eyes, she’s smiling. It’s so foreign on her face. “I am… very proud of you, Catrina. For this YouTube following that you have grown on your own.”

It’s all she’d ever wanted to hear from Weaver since she adopted her. Catra blinks in surprise, and expecting some kind of trap, she asks, “really?”

“Yes,” Weaver nods, “perhaps we can watch a few of these videos together, so you can show me what I have missed out on while I’ve been so busy with work these past few years.”

“Yeah,” Catra blurts out, and she hopes she doesn’t sound too eager. She clears her throat and nods. “I mean, yes. That would be nice. And- and maybe you’re right, and I should have a professional do all of the business stuff. I should hire a manager.”

“Why hire a manager,” Weaver says, “when you have a perfectly able mother, who will have your best interests at heart?”

A few alarm bells ring, but Catra ignores them. Probably because this is all she’s ever wanted from Weaver, and she’s finally getting it. She nods quickly in her consent. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Excellent,” Weaver smiles, “now, run along, dear. And forward the communications from Horde Records onto me.”

“Yeah,” Catra nods quickly, “yeah, I will. Um… thanks. I- um, I’m happy you’re proud of me.”

She escapes before everything can go south like she’s terrified it’s going to, running into her bedroom and closing the door behind her. After a few minutes of thinking things over, she finally allows herself a smile.

Yeah. Everything is perfect.

2016

In early January, just after New Year’s Eve, Catra signs her very first recording contract. It’s for a single album, with the opportunity to resign with the label if the album performs well in the charts.

To put every single ounce of passion and energy into her debut album, Catra makes a YouTube video. In her mind, it’s not a goodbye video, just a small hiatus while she works on her album. She’s sure that she’ll find some time to post a quick cover in a few months.

“I am extremely excited to announce that I’ve been signed to Horde Records, and I’m moving out to Los Angeles to work on my debut album,” Catra says into the camera – talking to it barely fazes her anymore, “but because of that, and because I want to put everything I have into this album, I’m going to have to step back from YouTube. From you.”

She says it like she’s talking to every single one of her – by that point – seven million subscribers. “Without you guys supporting me on this platform, none of this would’ve happened, and I am so grateful to every single person who pressed that subscribe button. I’ll still check in with you on Twitter, and I know I’ll find the time to post a quick cover every once in a while. Making weekly videos would divide my time too much, and I just really, really want this album to be perfect. This isn’t a goodbye. It’s just… be right back.”

She posts the video, and the next day at school she has is her last. Weaver had organised for her to take online classes once they move out to LA, where she can do her work in the time between studio sessions. Everyone there has already seen the video, and naturally, they’re all being creepily friendly to her. Kids who had bullied her for years are suddenly asking if they can visit her in LA, which she rolls her eyes at, and she’s grateful to see the back of them when she walks out of those doors for the last time.

A week later, and she’s out in LA, at the Horde Records building. There are plaques with gold records in, names of successful artists, and Catra finds it hard to believe that she’s actually out here, working with a record label to release a real album. It’s everything she’d ever dreamed about since she picked up that shabby old acoustic guitar in the elementary school music classroom.

Her first day in the recording studio, she meets an eccentric young woman named Entrapta who introduces herself as, “the greatest sound technician of all time!” and a tall, pale man named Hordak, who is apparently the big boss Prime’s younger brother. Catra shows them the material she has so far, and records what feels like hundreds of demos before the official twelve song tracklist is finalised.

“Could I maybe make this song heavier?” Catra asks as she’s listening to one of the demos, the song she wants to pick as her first ever single. It’s a fun pop-rock number, but she thinks it might sound better if they went a little heavier on the guitars. “Make it more rock?”

Entrapta shrugs, and glances over at Hordak. He’s wearing a pained smile, and Catra already knows that the answer is going to be negative. She’s very used to hearing that. “It’s not necessarily a bad idea, it’s just… right now, pop music dominates the charts. While you do have an established following, you do not have established traction in the music industry. What we have here, this blend of pop and rock, could work. A rock album only caters to a specific niche, and we want this album to be successful enough to launch a long and even more successful career for you. You are a talented young girl. Surely, you want that too?”

Looking back, it’s the first ever red flag, but Catra doesn’t even think about it.

“Yeah, of course,” Catra says, “it’s just… I don’t know, shouldn’t I make what I like, rather than what’s popular?”

“Catrina, darling,” Weaver’s hand rests on her shoulder, and Catra tenses naturally, and then tries to remind herself that things aren’t the way they used to be. Now, Weaver is proud of her. Happy for her. Almost like a mom. “You should listen to the professionals here. You’ll have plenty of time to experiment with your sound later. You like the version we have already, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah… of course I like it, I just…” Catra says, and as she looks around the room, she nods in agreement, “yeah, okay. You’re right.”

“Good,” Weaver replies, “as for the album title, do you have any thoughts?”

“I was thinking maybe self-titling it,” Catra suggests, and this time, Hordak looks agreeable, “just calling it Catra.”

Weaver laughs. That condescending, I’m better than you laugh that Catra is so used to but hasn’t heard for months. “Honestly, Catrina, when are you going to give it a rest with that silly little nickname you’ve given yourself? There is nothing wrong with your real name.”

“Actually, it’s not a bad idea at all,” Hordak says, “many musicians have stage names, and Catra certainly sounds punchier than Catrina Driluth. Plus, her social medias are already all branded in that manner.”

“Alright then,” Weaver concedes, and when Catra’s surprise obviously shows on her face, she nods towards Hordak and explains, “we listen to the professionals, darling.”

Her debut album, titled Catra, comes out in June that year, and the support of her YouTube following gets it to number one on the day of release. It’s enough of a success for the label to plan a tour and start setting up a contract for a three album deal for her to sign once she’s finished touring.

In addition to the tour, she earns enough from album sales and streams that she can fund a PRS private stock guitar exactly to her specifications. Even though she thought her album would be the most precious thing in the world to her, it’s nothing compared to that guitar.

Her tour sells well, with a number of sold-out shows on the list, and the label fund a backing band for her to tour with. That’s how she meets Starla.

She’s a drummer, three years older, and infinite times cooler. It’s probably natural that Catra is instantly attracted to her, maybe it’s just because she’s a professional musician, and Catra still feels like a kid playing pretend.

She starts writing for her second album the day she meets her, and for once, the songs about having a crush and liking someone are actually from personal experience, rather than what Catra thinks it’d feel like. Catra has been attracted to a few girls before, but she’s never actually liked somebody. She doesn’t expect it to go anywhere, mostly because Catra doesn’t plan on ever making a move. She wouldn’t even if she knew how to.

It happens after the concert date in New Orleans. She finishes the show, and then goes out back to meet the fans who waited and take pictures with them. It’s a late night, and touring always is, but Catra feels like it’s worth it. She’s doing what she loves, and she gets to perform the album that she’d worked so hard on.

She’s in the best mood when she says goodbye to the last few fans and heads back into the venue. The roadies are still working on dismantling the drumkit on stage, and Catra grabs her guitar from where she’d left it in the back and heads as if she’s going to go to the tour bus. She wants to play around with a few riffs she’s been figuring out, ideas for her second album, because the label had said she could experiment with her sound later on. She already knows she wants to go heavier. Leave pop-rock behind and transition straight to rock.

“Catra,” Starla’s voice makes her start, and Catra pauses, gripping her guitar tightly, “good show tonight.”

“Oh, yeah,” Catra clears her throat nervously, “you too. Nice- uh, drumming.”

She cringes at her own awkwardness and opens her mouth to excuse herself to the tour bus where she can hide out and cringe even more at how hopeless she is. Starla beats her to it. “You doing anything right now?”

“Um, just… writing,” Catra shrugs, holding up her guitar, “for my second album.”

“Want to go grab something to eat?” Starla asks, “I know you didn’t have much before the show. There’s a Burger King down the street…”

“Yeah, okay,” Catra says, maybe a little too eagerly, “are the rest of the band coming?”

“I figured we could just hang out on our own,” Starla says, and something in Catra’s throat jumps, “get to know each other. I feel like we haven’t really hung out, and tour is almost over.”

“Um, yeah,” Catra nods, “I guess I’ve just… had a lot of ideas for songs and shut myself away. But you’re right. We should hang out. I’m just- I’m going to put my guitar on the tour bus for later.”

“Sure thing,” the corner of Starla’s mouth curls up into a smile, and Catra finds herself smiling back, “I’ll wait here.”

Catra walks away calmly until she hears the venue door clang behind her, and then she runs the rest of the way to the tour bus, yanking the door open and unceremoniously leaving her guitar in her cramped little bunk.

She runs back towards the venue, pauses by the door to catch her breath, and then walks back inside like she hadn’t been running at all. “Okay. Hey. Let’s go.”

Starla makes casual conversation with her as they walk towards the Burger King, and Catra tries to focus on sounding at least a little cool. Performing in front of a thousand people doesn’t faze her but talking to one attractive girl has her overthinking her every move.

Catra doesn’t know how, but after a little while, she relaxes. Maybe it’s when Starla spills mustard down her shirt, and Catra realises she’s not as effortlessly cool as she seems. But ideas for cheesy, romantic lyrics flood into her mind and she’s ninety percent sure the whole thing is in her head until Starla kisses her outside the tour bus.

Catra stays up all night writing the first song she’s brave enough to use she/her pronouns in, the song that would later be twisted and warped into the song that shoots her to international fame, Wildcat.

A few days after that, when tour finishes, Catra feels like she’s happy. She starts planning for the rest of her life, and maybe that’s stupid, but when she’s passing by a jewellery store in the city of the day, she goes in and buys herself a ring. She doesn’t have any family heirlooms, but one day, she wants a family. She imagines herself passing things down to her children one day, and feels an electrifying buzz in her stomach.

By her eighteenth birthday, she has a promising career, multiple self-recorded demos to show the label what she wants for her second album, and a cool drummer girlfriend.

But then Weaver gets a lucrative job with the label’s management department and dumps a very thick contract in front of Catra with the assurance that it’s the best deal to help her career. Catra, believing that Weaver genuinely has her best interests at heart, assumes that she’s already read it and gone through everything with a lawyer.

Catra signs on the dotted line and might as well have sold her soul to the devil.

2017

“We had a look at the demos you sent Entrapta,” Hordak says, that sad grimace on his face that Catra has come to know means no from all the times she’d asked to make songs heavier on her debut album, “and unfortunately, as they are, none of those songs will sell.”

“I already posted a little preview of the main riff I want for Her,” Catra says, “and everyone liked it.”

“Your fans, yes,” Hordak waves that point away, “but we’re trying to appeal to the general public here. Your first album did well, but we’re looking for real success here. Your talent with the right songs and the right image will make sure that you’re known as one of the greats. You’ll be remembered along with the likes of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.”

“Those are pop artists. I don’t want to make pop music,” Catra frowns, “and at the end of the day, it’s my music. I believe in these songs, and-”

“What Hordak is trying to say,” Weaver interrupts, sneering down at her like she’s nothing more than dirt on her shoe, “is that we have had a few professionals look through the lyrics and rewrite them much more suitably. Take a look yourself.”

Weaver extends some papers in her direction, and Catra takes them warily. As she looks through, she barely recognises the songs she’d spent so long working on, both when she was on tour and the few weeks since being back.

Her, the song she’d written about Starla the day she asked her to be her girlfriend, is the song that’d been butchered the most. All of the pronouns had been switched to he/him, and the song title had been changed to Him too.

“Wait, what?” Catra looks up from the paper, hoping naively that there’s been some kind of mistake. “This isn’t what I wrote.”

“As Ms Weaver stated, we have had professional songwriters revise it, and this version is much more marketable,” Hordak states, “we’ve actually already had one of our session musicians record a demo track. Take a listen.”

Entrapta takes that as her cue to push a few buttons on the console, and suddenly a happy, generic, bubblegum pop song is playing through the speakers. It’s nothing like anything she’d ever want to make.

“That’s not…” Catra shakes her head, “that’s not me. I’m not recording that. I’m recording what I wrote, and it’s not going to be a pop song. Or- or a song about a boy. I don’t like boys. I’m singing the song I wrote about my girlfriend.”

“Unfortunately,” Weaver says, “that’s not going to be possible.”

“Yes, it is,” Catra argues, “the recording booth is right there, and you have a perfectly good demo that I did myself showing you what I want. You both said I could experiment with my sound on this album.”

She looks between Hordak and Weaver accusingly. Hordak grimaces. “We did not make any promises. Prime and the company have final decision on what you release, and how you present yourself while you are representing our label.”

“Uh, no. It’s my music,” Catra retorts, “and my decision. I’m releasing the song as I wrote it, and I’m not going to hide in some closet. I don’t want to, and neither does Starla.”

“Unfortunately, that isn’t your decision to make,” Hordak states, “your contract details that Horde Records has final say on how you present yourself, and how you present your music.”

“Then I’ll- I’ll make a YouTube cover,” Catra says, “of a song about girls, so everyone will know. You can’t stop me from doing that. You have no control over my YouTube account.”

“Actually, we do,” Weaver smirks triumphantly, revealing a copy of the contract with Catra’s signature at the bottom. She clears her throat and reads from a page, “The artist willingly signs over ownership of his/her online content to the company, along with any and all profits made from said online content. We have control over all of your social media accounts. Everything, right down to a one-word tweet you could send out, belongs to Horde Records.”

“What the fuck,” Catra tries to grab the contract, but Weaver pulls it out of her reach, “let me see that.”

“Oh, Catrina,” Weaver tuts disapprovingly, “don’t you know that you’re supposed to read your contracts before you sign them?”

“You said you went through it, and that it was the best deal to help my career,” Catra snaps accusingly, “but now you’re- you’re springing this on me, telling me that I have to pretend to be something I’m not, and changing my songs. I don’t want to make pop music-”

“I did not lie,” Weaver says sharply, “this is the best deal to help your career. Touring, promotion, marketing… the label will push you and your image as much as they possibly can, but certain sacrifices must be made to do that. You want to be marketable. Pop music, and a clean, heterosexual image, will do that. And I made sure that you would not be cheated out of any royalties, so you cannot complain about that. You will be well paid, a millionaire before you turn twenty, if all goes well.”

“I don’t care about money or fame,” Catra says frustratedly, “My music is mine, and I won’t let you take that away from me. I want to write about my experiences, and I’m not going to lie and play some part just because you’re a raging homophobe.”

“It’s not about my personal views, Catrina,” Weaver rolls her eyes, and then reads another clause from the contract, “the artist consents to the company exploiting and presenting their image however the company sees fit; including manipulating personal image, social media posts, and relationships. You have already given your consent to all of this. As I said, sacrifices must be made for your music to be successful.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Catra snaps, “I won’t let you.”

“The company’s interests override any interest of the artist, and the company’s decision is final,” Weaver reads from the contract, still with that triumphant smirk on her face, “you will sing what we instruct you to sing, go where we instruct you to go, wear what we instruct you to wear, and consent to any and all requests of the label. You are ours to do with as we wish. So I suggest you get into the booth and record Him, unless you want the label to sue you for breaching your contract.”

“I’m talking to a fucking lawyer,” Catra says, refusing to go anywhere near the recording booth, “this won’t be legal. This can’t be legal.”

“I’m afraid it is,” Weaver smiles condescendingly, “and while we’re on the subject, we’ve decided that a… mutually beneficial relationship might be in order to promote your upcoming album. Double Trouble, a friend of yours, is in a similar predicament to you. As you are aware, not only does he prefer the company of the same sex, but he insists on being referred to as multiple people for whatever reason. He is followed around by many gay rumours that his label would like to squash. They…” Weaver pauses to laugh as if every non-binary identity is just a joke to her, “will be an asset to you and your career. We are drawing up a PR contract, and we expect you to make your first public appearance together as boyfriend and girlfriend within the month. We are aware that you share some fans, and that many of them have been, ah… shipping you since you were both making those silly little YouTube videos.”

“I have a girlfriend,” Catra snaps, “I’m not going to betray her like that.”

“Again, Catrina, you have no choice here,” Weaver offers out the copy of the contract with that condescending smile, “You will be allowed to keep your little girlfriend, if you can, but you cannot be seen fraternising with her in public. There are already some nasty rumours going around about you. Feel free to go over the contract with a lawyer. You will find that all of this is legal, especially because you have already given your consent.”

Catra takes that as her dismissal – she takes the contract, contacts five separate entertainment lawyers, and they all tell her the same thing. The label can basically do whatever they like to her, because she’s consented to everything in the contract, and there’s no way out. Not unless the label agrees to terminate the contract.

It’s her only hope. That one ray of light that forces her through. She meets Double Trouble in real life for the first time and reluctantly lies to the public that they’re her boyfriend, records the songs the label butchered, and hopes against all hope that the album is a failure and that the label will drop her so it can all end.

Wildcat, the lead single the label chooses with lots of he/him pronouns, the one she originally wrote about how she felt that first night with Starla, shoots to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and stays there for 18 weeks straight. It boosts the sales of her first album, and the pre-orders for the second one go wild. She goes from a moderately successful ex-YouTuber to a mainstream pop artist overnight.

She bursts into tears when she sees it all. And not in a good way. It means she’s trapped until she fulfils every single duty detailed in her recording contract. She has no choice but to do every single thing the label tells her to do, record the songs they pick, wear the clothes they choose, say the things they tell her to say.

From the day Wildcat hits number one, Catra is nothing more than Horde Records’ singing, dancing puppet to do with as they please.

2018

Things have never been worse.

Every day is just another day she needs to get through. Her schedule is relentless. She has to do rounds of press to promote Wildcat, then touring, playing shows every single night with zero breaks, recording songs and having studio time when the label decide she needs to start working on album three, despite Wildcat barely being out for six months. Her ‘free time’ (which doesn’t truly exist) is always spent with Double Trouble, playing a pretend sham of a relationship while they open for her on tour.

She wins Album of the Year and Best New Artist at the Grammys for Wildcat, but it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth when none of the songs are hers.

She never has a moment alone. Fans mob her wherever she goes, and it gets so bad that they have to hire an external security team. The head bodyguard, a kind lady called Scorpia, is always friendly, but Catra resents her just because of what she’s there to do. She can’t get a moment of privacy, can’t go out for a walk in a park to clear her head when she needs to the most, can’t eat a sandwich without it being documented by ten separate paparazzi.

At the worst point, she has a stalker that later commits suicide because of the restraining order she has to take out against him. It’s enough to make her terrified of the fans, and what they’re capable of. Meet and greets are her own personal hell – one angry person with a gun, that’s all it takes, and everything is over.

She doesn't even have music anymore. The one thing that she thought they'd never be able to take from her, they'd ruined. She doesn't care anymore. She'd never sing again if it helped her out of this nightmare.

Despite Starla literally being her drummer, Catra barely gets to see her. And when she does, they have to keep indoors and out of sight. According to Weaver, there are enough rumours circulating about the nature of their relationship that need to be kept under wraps.

Catra almost hopes that the paparazzi who have taken to following her everywhere will snap a picture of them and out her. At least she’d be out, and it’d solve every single argument she and Starla have been having.

It feels like any time they spend together, Catra is always trying to convince her to stay.

It’s at the last date on the European leg of the Wildcat tour when it finally happens. The show is over, and Catra squeezes into Starla’s bunk for the only private time they ever have.

That’s when she breaks the news. “I’m leaving the tour.”

Catra frowns. “Tour’s over. Or, the European leg, at least. We fly out to Australia tomorrow.”

“You,” Starla corrects, “you fly out to Australia tomorrow. I’m going home.”

“What?” Catra laughs nervously. “No. I need you here.”

“I’ve already talked everything over with the label. You’ll meet your new drummer in Sydney,” Starla won’t even look at her when she mutters, “I’m done, Catra. I can’t keep doing this.”

“You’re joking,” Catra says uncertainly, “you’re messing with me…”

“I’ve hidden in the closet for two years because of you,” Starla says tiredly, “we worked in the beginning, but once you signed your contract, it just…”

“No,” ice runs down Catra’s spine when she realises that she’s serious. The one person who was keeping her sane in all of this is leaving her. “No, please- I- I need you…”

“I can’t do it anymore,” Starla sighs, “it’s just- we’re stuck hiding this like it’s something wrong, I don’t get to spend any time with you, we can’t go anywhere or do anything because everyone thinks that you’re so in love with Double Trouble, and I have to sit there and watch you with them and just be okay with it. I can’t keep living like this, Catra. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”

“You know I don’t want to do it,” Catra says desperately, grabbing onto Starla’s hand, “you know that I don’t have a choice. You know I love you.”

She doesn’t expect Starla to say it back. She never has, not even when Catra first told her that day last year. It hurts, but Catra deals with it, because the time she spends with Starla is the only time she has even a tiny sliver of happiness.

“I’m not blaming you,” Starla says calmly, “and if the circumstances were different-”

“Please, don’t leave me,” Catra begs, “I don’t know if I can do this without you. I don’t know if I can stay sane if you leave-”

“But I can’t stay sane if I stay,” Starla answers, turning over in the bunk to face the back wall and effectively blocking her out, “I think it’s best if you go now, Catra.”

In the last year since her career had really taken off, there’s been something dark growing inside of her. A bitter anger that she’s been doing whatever she can to contain. Finally, she lets it out, and the full force of it is directed towards Starla.

“Fine. If you want to be a fucking selfish bitch and just leave me in this mess on my own, then you go right ahead and do that,” Catra shouts, the anger and bitterness she’s felt over the last year mixing with the pain and heartbreak from the breakup to make something monstrous. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody, and I never fucking have. Don’t ever talk to me again. You’re a selfish asshole who only cares about herself. I bet you never even really cared about me in the first place. You’ve been manipulating me this entire time because you know how I feel about you, know that I loved you. You just wanted fame and money and used me to get it, just like everyone else. Fuck you.”

She storms out of the tour bus and down the street, ignoring the shouts from the security team. It’s the middle of the night, the fans have gone home, and Catra lets her anger carry her away from her tour bus, not caring about her destination.

She rounds a corner from the venue, and sees Double Trouble chatting with a group of girls who are obviously enamoured with them. You’re out of luck with them, Catra thinks to herself bitterly about the fans, and she decides she hates them too, for blowing this Catrouble thing up in the first place, which was why the label had forced them into the spotlight.

“Whoa, there, kitten,” Double Trouble reaches an arm out to stop her as she goes to push past them. The girls are muttering things like oh my god, it’s Catra between themselves, and Catra rolls her eyes at how pathetic they are. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Catra snorts derisively. “No. Just want some time alone.”

They don’t let go of her. In fact, they take her hand, and she almost pushes them away in disgust until she remembers the fans are there, and the label probably wouldn’t hesitate to sue her for that. She tolerates it as they smile graciously at the girls, “Sorry to cut this short, ladies, but I think my kitten and I need to talk right now. Thanks for coming out to the show.”

They flash a flirtatious smile before putting an arm around Catra’s shoulders and leading her back over to the area where the tour buses are parked. Instead of heading towards Catra’s bigger one, they punch in the access code for their own bus and lead her inside. It’s empty – the roadies are at the after-tour party inside the venue.

They sit her down on the couch and drop down next to her. She realises that she can let go of their hand and pulls her own away in disgust.

“What’s wrong?” They ask, and Catra scoffs again. “Don’t give me that. Come on, we’re friends.”

“We haven’t been friends since the day the label first forced me to make out with you for publicity,” Catra mutters bitterly, “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.”

“I’m not your enemy,” Double Trouble points out, “and if you didn’t realise, I’m in the same situation as you. I understand better than anybody how you’re feeling about all of this.”

They have a point, the tiny rational part of her brain mutters, and she sighs. “Starla just broke up with me. Because of the label, and the fans, and you. Because I can’t come out, and I can’t be with her publicly. Or barely even privately, because the label overwork me so much.”

“Been there,” Double Trouble sighs, and puts an arm around her in a hug. For once, she doesn’t immediately pull away, knowing that they understand. They’d lost a boyfriend the moment they signed the PR contract with her. “But- answer me this honestly, can you blame her? If the tables were turned, would you want to be in a relationship like that?”

She wouldn’t, but she doesn’t think about that part. “I wouldn’t just ditch someone I claimed to care about just because things are hard.”

“I can tell that you know I’m right,” they say, and Catra rolls her eyes, “but people like you and me… we don’t have a choice right now. It’s not always going to be like this. Contracts expire, and we’ll both be able to come out. And there’ll be another girl out there, one that you’ll meet exactly when you’re supposed to meet her, and you’ll be able to be out and proud with her the way you deserve. I know it sucks, but you just have to stick it out right now.”

Two more album cycles, Catra thinks to herself. At the rate they’ve been working her, with one album per year and then straight into a tour… that’s two years, minimum. Two years, stuck living like this, never having a single day off, never having any privacy, and now, no support system. No safe haven of a girlfriend who she can at least feel okay with.

She’s not sure if she can stick it out. But god knows she has to try.

2019

She’s drinking more.

It starts just to help her sleep. Catra has never been able to sleep easy, not even when she had Starla to share a cramped little bunk with. After each show, she starts with a glass of wine. Just one, to ease the tensions of the day. Then a second. Then a third, and a fourth if there’s anything left in the bottle.

Perhaps after that, she’ll take a couple of shots. By the time the tour bus, or hotel room, or the bedroom back at the LA house is spinning, she’ll be able to fall asleep.

She wakes up feeling even worse off, and eventually begins remedying it with the occasional morning shot. She’s angry all the time. Bitter at the label, bitter at Weaver, bitter at the fans, and bitter at the whole goddamn world.

The breakup with Starla coincided almost perfectly with the end of her PR contract with Double Trouble. The label and the tabloids orchestrated a bad breakup narrative to push both of their upcoming albums – Catra isn’t sure if Double Trouble had a hand in anything on theirs, but her own consists of heavily, heavily edited breakup songs that she’d written both in the immediate aftermath of the breakup, and the scheduled studio time a few months down the line. She’s been forbidden to speak to them since, and in a way, she misses them. She misses having someone around who understood.

Scorpia is always nice, but she doesn’t get it. She’s just a bodyguard, and the fans and fame and evil record label aren’t her life. She gets to go home and get away from it until the next working day. Catra wishes she could.

The label never stop working her to the bone. Catra can’t remember the last time she ever had a day to herself. She collapses from exhaustion and dehydration after the London show on the Fright Zone world tour. The date happens to be her twenty-first birthday, not that she even remembers until she checks Twitter from her hospital bed and sees #HappyBirthdayCatra trending. The two-day hospitalisation is the longest break she’s had since she was seventeen, and she takes that as her present.

Her birth mother contacts her a few days after that, and for a little while, Catra feels like maybe she could have that. Even if she can never have a normal life, with a girlfriend and a little house and maybe a cat too, she could at least have a relationship with the mother she’d been taken away from.

That feeling doesn’t last. Her mother pretends to listen to what Catra says for ten minutes, and then immediately asks her for money.

“I know you’ve got it,” her mother said, “you famous types, you’re all rich. Share some with your mom. Look at where I live. I need it. I have some people I need to pay back.”

Some people. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she meant drug dealers – Catra knows by now that’s why she was taken away from her in the first place. Her mother was an addict, and with the way she’s been drinking lately, Catra is headed the same way.

“I’m not giving you a single fucking penny,” Catra had snarled on her way out, “sort out your own goddamn problems. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a mother.”

Catra has never been this miserable before. Never been so angry and hateful, but also never so hopeless. Even as a child, when she was so scared and lonely, she always had hope. Hope that one day things will be better, that she’d be happy when she was older.

Now, Catra knows none of it is true. Things don’t get better, and they’re never going to. The label are going to keep controlling her and treating her like their little singing, dancing monkey until the day she finally can’t fucking take it anymore.

Maybe she’s always been destined to be miserable. Maybe this was always going to be her life. She had a miserable childhood, stuck in that children’s home after getting taken away from a mother who only contacted her again for drug money. She was adopted by Weaver, who tricked her into thinking things would be better, until she realised she was just some fancy show pony that Weaver had selected because she was smart. Kids at school were awful, for reasons Catra had never understood. She was lulled into a false sense of security when she thought she finally had a good career ahead of her, and a girlfriend who at least cared about her, even if she didn’t love her. But then she signed the contract that fucked her over, thanks to Weaver, who fucked her over even more.

Maybe Catra was never meant to be happy.

On a particularly bad night, she drinks even more heavily, and keeps going even after she knows she should stop. It’s reckless, but she doesn’t care, and when she collapses in a blur on her bedroom floor, she hopes that she finds peace.

She wakes up in a blurry hospital room to hear Weaver making excuses for her. You know how these kids are, especially young celebrities. Always out partying.

Catra laughs bitterly into her pillow. Pathetic.

She can’t even die properly.

2020

When Catra meets Adora Gray, she wants to hate her.

She’s nothing more than some annoying fangirl who won Weaver and the label’s stupid contest, and Catra had vowed to be as uncooperative as she possibly could. Small revenges are all she has, and she’ll be damned if Weaver thinks she can make her act like the happy, heterosexual famous girl around the clock.

Catra snaps at Adora, expecting her to apologise for bothering her like any other pathetic fangirl would. But instead, Adora stands her ground and argues back, and it’s the first time maybe ever that anybody has responded to her like she’s a normal person. She still doesn’t care, and still wants to just get the stupid contest over with so she can at least get the minuscule scraps of privacy she has at home back.

But then Adora defends the song Catra attempts to show the label. Says she thinks it’s good, thinks it would sell because it’s different, and real. It makes her suspicious that she’s just saying things to get in Catra’s good books, because after all, she is a fan. When she asks, Adora’s response takes her by surprise.

“You really think I’m so pathetic that I’d lie to make some asshole musician like me? Get over yourself. I liked the song. I’m still on the fence about you.”

Weirdly, Catra feels like it’s okay for her to trust Adora. She feels oddly familiar, like Catra has met her before, even though she’s sure she hasn’t. So she tells Adora the truth, about everything, and it feels good.

Adora doesn’t judge her, or call her ungrateful, or make comments about how she should be happy with the life she has. Adora listens, and tries to be understanding, and it makes Catra feel things she hasn’t felt in years.

Catra wasn’t even sure that she could feel those things anymore, but when Adora looks at her with those pretty blue eyes and offers to be her friend, something in her stomach jumps. It hurts even more when she knows it could never happen. Only a fool would ever choose to be with her – she’s suicidal and angry and frankly, an entire mess, even if she could be open about being with a girl. Adora wouldn’t want her. Not in that way.

But Adora is genuinely kind to her and doesn’t put her on any kind of pedestal just because she can sing. She treats Catra like a person, and nobody else ever really has. Kids at school had mocked her for her eyes and called her an alien. The fans act like she’s some almighty god walking on earth. The label treats her like a commodity and a puppet.

Adora treats her like a real person, and like a friend. And on that fateful Friday where she finally decides that she wants to be happy, and she wants to escape the record label’s stifling clutches, Adora is the one to help her.

If there’s one thing Catra knows for sure, it’s that Adora Gray saves her life that day they climb out of the window and run away.

Catra thinks the world of her. This girl, who she’s technically known since she was six and playing in that sandbox, but actually only known for a week, who swoops in and saves her life. It’s so hard for Catra not think that she’s an angel on earth.

Adora makes her feel things, amazing things, feelings of blossoming romance and the electrifying nervousness of a crush. Catra didn’t even know she was still capable of that, so focused on trying to hang onto the tiny will to keep on living to think about anything else.

When she kisses Adora, and Adora pushes her away, she still doesn’t entirely understand. Everyone has always just taken advantage of her, and Catra is practically begging Adora to kiss her, even if it would be a bad idea.

Adora is so respectful, and tells her that she wants her, but explains that Catra isn’t in a place for a relationship. Catra knows that – of course she knows that – but it doesn’t stop her from wanting it.

It doesn’t stop her from wanting Adora.

The day after Catra signs the termination agreement and comes out to the world, she wakes up terrified that it’s all been some dream. Nothing ever goes well for her. Whenever something good happens, usually a whole lot of bad is around the corner.

But when she opens her eyes, bright blue ones are looking back at her. Adora is already awake, a soft smile on her face and a gentle hand around Catra’s waist. “You’re cute when you’re sleeping. And when your beautiful eyes open and I have to pick which colour I like best before deciding they’re both so pretty I can’t choose, just like the rest of your beautiful face.”

“Stop flirting with me,” Catra grumbles tiredly, like Adora’s words about her eyes hadn’t meant the world to her, “what happened to we can’t be together right now?”

“Nothing, but it doesn’t mean I can’t flirt with the girl I like,” Adora smiles, but her expression turns slightly serious when she murmurs, “I don’t- I’m not trying to like, say you have to be with me when you’re ready for that kind of thing, you could meet someone else and that’d be fine-”

“Adora,” Catra interrupts Adora’s adorable rambling, “I’m not going to meet someone else.”

“I mean, you could,” Adora mutters, “you can’t tell the future.”

“Oh, no, I totally can,” Catra says, reaching under the covers to find Adora’s hand and tangle their fingers together, “it’s one of my secret powers.”

“Aw, look at you,” Adora smiles proudly, and Catra can already feel herself blushing embarrassedly, “you’re making jokes.”

“Don’t make a big deal about it,” Catra rolls her eyes, “but on a serious note… can you give me that Sparkly girl’s therapist dad’s contact details? I was thinking I might give it a try.”

There’s a lot she needs to work through. Catra knows that. While the contract and label are gone, it’s not like the whole world has suddenly forgotten who she is. She still has to deal with fame and the pressures from it and learn to deal with it effectively.

(Tweeting and asking everyone to forget who she is probably isn’t an option.)

“Of course,” Adora looks just as proud, and Catra has to look away in embarrassment. She’s not used to anyone being genuinely proud of her – after all, Weaver was only faking it to manipulate her. “I’ll give you Micah’s details.”

“Thanks,” Catra says, and she sighs quietly into the touch when Adora’s fingers brush through the now short length of her hair, “so… do you have to work today or anything?”

“Nope. School’s out for summer and Etheria High doesn’t need an assistant coach when there’s no kids there to participate in gym class,” Adora shrugs, “I’ve been looking around for a summer job because I need to pay off Razz’s medical bills-”

Catra rolls her eyes. “I told you, I’ve got that.”

“No, you don’t,” Adora rolls her eyes right back, “I’m not letting you-”

“Adora, I have more money than I’ll ever know what to do with,” Catra says dryly, because that’s the only area of her old contract that was actually decent, the percentage of royalties she earned. “You saved my fucking life. I can pay your grandma’s medical bills. No arguments.”

Adora sighs, and Catra can tell she doesn’t want to agree, so she makes sure to look as stern as she possibly can until Adora rolls her eyes again and caves. “Alright. Fine. But only because I know you’ll go behind my back and do it anyway.”

“Yeah, probably,” Catra agrees, “so… breakfast?”

“Sure,” Adora sits up, then pauses and laughs at something that pops into her head, “hey, serious question… do you know how to cook?”

Embarrassingly, Catra doesn’t. It’s not like Weaver ever taught her, and the last few years she’d been a little busy. “Nope.”

“Aw,” Adora reaches out with a hand and pinches Catra’s cheek, “you’re so cute.”

“Get off me,” Catra laughs and bats Adora’s hand away, “that’s not cute.”

“You’re nearly twenty-two and you can’t cook,” Adora retorts, “that’s adorable. Come on, I’ll teach you how to make my special pancakes.”

“The ones you made on Tuesday?” Catra asks hopefully, finding it hard to believe that was only six days ago. “With the chocolate chips?”

“Obviously,” Adora smiles, and holds out a hand to help Catra up, “come on. Mondays are Razz’s girls days with her friends from bingo, so we’ll actually be allowed in the kitchen.”

Catra reaches out and takes Adora’s hand, and she doesn’t let go all the way to the kitchen.

“Oh, by the way,” Adora says casually as she’s getting a pan out of the cupboard, “I know you’re taking a break from social media, but I thought you might like to know that Double Trouble came out too. It was all over Twitter when I checked this morning.”

“Oh,” Catra says, and makes a mental note to text and congratulate them, “that’s good. Their contract was even longer than mine. Five album deal with the homophobic and transphobic label.”

“Well, you did say in your statement that it was PR,” Adora points out, “their label probably figured people would put two and two together, and since you also mentioned artist working conditions…”

“They probably let them come out for their own personal gain,” Catra finishes for her, “money rules everything in the music industry. I’m not sure if I ever want to go back. Maybe I should just buy a little cottage in the middle of the woods in some small town and become the scary old lady that everyone thinks is a witch.”

“That’s a weirdly specific fantasy,” Adora laughs, “as long as the scary old witch lets her cool, pancake-making friend come and visit her sometimes, I think I can let that happen.”

“Of course,” Catra says, “and I’ll curse anyone you want for free.”

“Let’s start with Weaver and see where to go from there.”

“You think I won’t have gotten her first?” Catra laughs. “Cute.”

“Speaking of cursing her, though,” Adora says, “since my NDA is void… I was thinking about releasing a statement about everything I witnessed, and it wouldn’t be totally illegal if you gave me some insider information, would it?”

“Maybe it would,” Catra says, “but it’s not illegal if nobody finds out about it.”

“Perfect.”

Adora goes back to school in the fall while Catra stays in Etheria to keep an eye on her grandmother. It’s more like a mutual agreement, because Razz looks after Catra too, treating her like another granddaughter.

She hasn’t been on social media all summer, and she’s kind of terrified to, even though she knows that the general public had reacted incredibly well to her coming out – thanks to Adora showing her a few articles. But she’s also terrified because Adora, Scorpia and Entrapta had all posted statements exposing Horde Records and everything they’d witnessed while Catra was one of their signed artists.

People are going to ask her about it, and Catra isn’t sure what she can and can’t say. The termination agreement stated clearly that she couldn’t say anything negative about Horde Records. But she’d heavily implied that her relationship with Double Trouble was PR in her coming out statement, and nobody had come after her. They were even allowed to come out from it.

The terms in the agreement expire in ten years. As much as she wants to hide away until then and then come forward with a tell-all statement, or maybe even a book, she misses music.

When Catra started posting covers on her YouTube channel, she was doing it for herself. For fun, because she was scared of performing anywhere else.

She’d moved everything from the LA house into the house she’d bought in Etheria. She’s never actually stayed there overnight, preferring to sleep at Adora’s even when she’s up in Bright Moon at college during the week, and she still has her old camera in one of the boxes left there, still yet to be unpacked.

She’d barely left the little cottage since arriving there in summer. She knows it’s probably an unhealthy level of reclusive, but it’s not like she has a team of security here. Checking the time on her phone and making sure it’s the middle of the day, when most people are at work or school, Catra takes the spare keys Adora had given her, tells Razz she’ll be back in an hour, and sets off to walk to the house for her camera.

She’ll post a YouTube cover and end her social media hiatus that way. It seems like the most painless way. She goes back to her channel and scrolls through the covers she’d already done. They’d all grown massively in views over the last few years. So had her subscriber count – when she left YouTube, she had seven million. Now she’s on twenty million. The channel itself had remained active despite Catra never posting on there. Horde Records had used her established channel for music videos and behind the scenes footage, but Catra hadn’t logged in since she posted that final video where she assured her subscribers she’d post a new cover in a couple of months.

Four years later, and she’s finally making good on that.

She’s mulling over song ideas as she walks and trying to keep her head down, hoping that nobody will notice her. Naturally, someone does. A teenage girl who looks like she’s skipping school.

“Oh my god,” she whispers, like they all do. Catra pretends like she hasn’t heard and keeps walking, but she hears quick footsteps behind her and then the girl talks normally, “um, excuse me?”

Catra stops and takes in a breath to calm herself before answering. “Can I help you?”

“It’s really cool to meet you,” the girl says, and Catra doesn’t know what to say to that, “I just wanted to say that you’re really, really brave for putting up with everything that happened at your record label. I read all the statements… I figure you probably can’t talk about it, but I just want you to know that everyone is on your side and will support your decision if you’ve like, decided to leave the music industry.”

“Oh,” Catra says quietly, “well, thank you. But I’m not- I’m not quitting music. Just- you know, taking some time for myself.”

“Yeah, totally,” the girl smiles, “well, it was nice to meet you.”

She walks away without asking for an autograph, or a selfie, or a follow back on Twitter, and it makes Catra feel a little better. Maybe the fans aren’t so bad after all.

Her first YouTube cover is of The Lucky One by Taylor Swift. The song feels a little too fitting not to cover it.

It’s not one of the high production covers she was making right before she posted that ‘not a goodbye’ video telling her YouTube audience that she’d been signed. It’s just Catra, an acoustic guitar, and her old camera.

(And Melog wandering around in the background.)

It’s a strangely healing experience, and she knows that this is what she wants to do. Making covers, writing her own stuff, and doing it all herself. On her own terms. Even if it’s not internationally charting, Catra doesn’t care. She loves music, and she wants to keep pursuing it, even if the only person listening is Adora.

The video shoots to five million views in half a day, and Catra spends two hours replying to fans on Twitter. She changes her Twitter username from the label-selected wildcatra back to catradriluth, and it’s laughable how easy it is to come back to the ‘public eye’ when it’s a weekend so Adora is home from college, and she can talk about everything with her.

Taylor herself quote retweets it with a joke about how she’s honoured to be Catra’s first cover after so many years, and that sends the video up to eight million views. Even though Catra had never really bothered with other musicians she’d met, partially because Weaver always tried to force her to network, she was polite with a few of them, and had a surprising amount of phone numbers from people Adora had scrolled through with wide eyes. Mostly the ones whose music she actually likes. She retweets Taylor’s tweet and texts her to say thank you for retweeting it in the first place.

She gets back into writing and creating and she can’t believe she ever took such a long break. She works on whatever she wants to work on, and talks through her issues not just with the fame thing, but all the way back to the childhood bullying with Micah when she starts attending therapy properly, and Catra feels like finally, she actually has a chance to be happy.

She gets Adora on weekends; weekdays, she stays with her friends Bow and Glimmer up in Bright Moon. As much as she begins to enjoy Razz’s company, and the board game nights they have, she misses Adora too much during the week. Melog is a good cuddle substitute, but Catra finds herself wanting to be held, rather than the one doing the holding, and Melog doesn’t have long enough arms. Catra occupies herself by helping out at Netossa and Spinnerella’s animal shelter during the day, in the back with the cats. It’s peaceful, and it’s a nice escape from the house in a place where she doesn’t have to feel like she’s being watched all the time.

She has her PRS private stock guitar here with her, but something makes her pick up Adora’s guitar instead whenever she’s working on things, the one Adora never learned to play. She plays around with a cool sounding riff, and when a tired Adora walks in after her drive back from Bright Moon, she doesn’t hesitate to ask, “what do you think of this?” and play it for her.

Adora smiles so gently and says, “it’s cool. Is this… for an album you’re working on?”

“Yeah,” Catra nods, “I was thinking of hiring Entrapta to help produce and mix it, but I mostly want it to be an independent thing. I want to release music that’s a hundred percent organically mine, you know?”

“I’m glad you know what you want,” Adora says, and there’s one other thing that Catra wants, but she isn’t sure if she should make a move for it. Or her. “You deserve everything you want, Catra.”

“I want you,” Catra says casually, and Adora blushes and opens her mouth to say you’re not ready or whatever, “but I need to learn how to be happy on my own first, before I can be happy with you. You deserve that, and… and I do too.”

She understands that now. At first, she was a little angry, and incredibly hurt when Adora pulled back from that kiss. Even though she said she understood, which she kind of did, it was hard not to feel like it was somehow an excuse on Adora’s part to rebuff her affections without hurting her feelings.

In therapy lately, Catra has been trying to figure out how she feels about Adora.

She thought she knew, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realises that you can’t know someone like that in a week. Micah had mentioned that in passing, and said that it sounded a little bit like Catra had latched herself onto Adora because she was so desperate for someone to love her, having never received that before. Adora was there, she was beautiful, and she was kind, and Catra may have attached herself to that.

She needs to figure out if this is what she really wants, so neither of them get hurt. She still feels butterflies whenever Adora looks at her, still finds herself captivated by her beauty, and she’s certain that it is what she wants, but she’s scared because she has nothing to compare it to.

Adora is the only person in her life around her age that treats her like a real person. And currently, besides the texts she gets on occasion from Scorpia and Entrapta, there’s only two people in her life. Adora, and Adora’s grandmother. And her cat, too.

Adora smiles – that proud, hopeful smile – and she pounces on Catra and pulls her in for a tight hug. Catra expects some cheesy I’m so proud of you speech, but instead, Adora seems to understand that she finds that kind of thing embarrassing. “Your birthday is next Wednesday.”

Catra had barely noticed that. She’s never celebrated her birthday, besides that one year she bought herself a new guitar and used her birthday as an excuse for it. “It is. At least one of us remembered.”

“I was going to skip the week at school,” Adora admits, “and stay with you. I had a feeling that you’ve never really celebrated it, and I want you to have a good birthday.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble for me,” Catra shrugs, “it’s just twenty-two. Not exactly a special birthday.”

Adora raises her eyebrows. “What’d you do for twenty-one?”

Catra winces. “Collapsed from exhaustion and ended up in hospital for two days.”

Adora grimaces, and then she’s hugging her again. Catra buries her face in Adora’s shoulder and holds onto her as tightly as she can. “What do you want to do for your birthday? We’ll do anything you want.”

“Could we maybe just… hang out here?” Catra asks, even though they do that all the time. “Going out- I mean, fans come over, and people take pictures, and it sucks, and I really don’t want you to have to deal with that.”

Adora shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

“You would,” Catra sighs, “trust me. It’s not as bad out here as it is in LA, but any time I go out, I can feel people staring at me, and taking photos, and I fucking hate it. I’m not making you deal with that too.”

“You know that I have over a hundred thousand Instagram followers now because people kept seeing you in the background of my stories?” Adora says, and Catra hadn’t known that. She still hasn’t been on Instagram. It’s not like she has a lot to take pictures of right now. “And people come over to me at college asking to meet you. And I don’t mind. Because it’s a small price to pay to call you my future girlfriend. I mean, do you seriously think I haven’t thought about that stuff?”

“I mean,” Catra shrugs, “it’s not exactly a normal thing to have to think about.”

“No,” Adora agrees, “but it’s something I had to think about relating to you. And I’m okay with it. If I’m going to be your girlfriend one day, that’s something I’m going to have to deal with, and it’s okay.”

“I’m just… I’m just trying to give you a choice,” Catra says quietly, “that’s something I never had. I need you to be sure, because once they know you, there’s no going back.”

“They already know me,” Adora laughs quietly, “like I said, Instagram. And the people at college who’ve come over to me. One girl actually asked me to get her a lock of your hair, which I politely declined to do.”

Catra isn’t sure if she’s joking or not. “Yeah, maybe not a good idea. I don’t need some crazy college girl cloning me.”

“Why not?” Adora says, “The clone could tour and do all of those award shows and interviews, and you could stay right here with me.”

“Okay,” Catra hums in thought, “you raise a good point.”

Adora laughs softly, and for a moment, they just look at each other. Adora’s pretty blue eyes glance down at Catra’s lips, and despite what she said before, she’s so tempted to lean in. It’s not like they haven’t kissed before.

Adora is the one to break the trance, tearing her gaze away and feigning interest in the guitar Catra was using. “So, um, you were using my guitar. I thought you brought your fancy one here.”

“I did, but I wanted to feel closer to you,” Catra shrugs, and Adora takes in a breath. After a few moments, Catra decides something, and reaches out to take Adora’s hand. “Hey. I… I think the ball needs to be in your court on the whole dating thing. I’m notoriously impatient.”

Adora takes in a deep breath and nods quietly. She moves her hand, so her fingers slip between Catra’s. “Okay. I think that might be best.”

Catra squeezes Adora’s hand once and then lets go.

“I told you we could just hang out here.”

“And I told you that you’re being stupid,” Adora laughs, “it’s a nice, quiet restaurant in the middle of Etheria, aka the smallest, most boring town on the planet. It’ll be okay.”

Catra rolls her eyes. “People are going to think we’re on a date, you know.”

“Let them think whatever they want,” Adora shrugs, “but it’s your birthday, and we’re going out for a meal to celebrate.”

“Fine,” Catra mutters, “but you’re paying.”

Adora laughs. “Said the multi-millionaire to the college student.”

Catra doesn’t laugh. She hates it when people bring up money, regardless of how much she’s donated over the last few years. She just recently anonymously donated a million to Netossa and Spinnerella’s animal shelter, and denied it when they asked her if she was responsible. Adora herself got all weird when Catra paid off Razz’s medical bills from her stroke, and outright refused to let Catra pay her tuition.

“Whatever,” Catra rolls her eyes as she heads out to the car, “I’ll pay, then.”

“I was only joking,” Adora says as she gets into the driver’s side and flashes that stupid, earnest smile of hers, “come on, lighten up. It’s your birthday.”

“And I told you I didn’t want to fucking go anywhere,” Catra snaps, feeling that fiery anger flaring up for the first time in months, “but you didn’t listen, did you? Of course not, because you think you know what’s best for me. You don’t know a single fucking thing about me.”

Usually, when Catra lashes out, whoever is unlucky enough to be on the receiving end fights back and shouts at her until she breaks.

But Adora just frowns and says, “okay. We don’t have to go anywhere, and I’m sorry if I pushed you. But I don’t appreciate being spoken to like that. I just thought it might be nice for you to get out of the house, since you don’t really go anywhere.”

Catra pauses in surprise. She blinks at Adora, waiting for her to shout like everyone else, but Adora doesn’t. She sits in the driver’s seat, both hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead at the peeling paint on Razz’s garage door.

“I’m sorry,” Catra says after taking a breath, “I shouldn’t have lashed out.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Adora says, and she turns to look at her, letting go of the steering wheel. She doesn’t look angry, or annoyed. Just patient. “What’s wrong? You don’t act like that unless something’s going on.”

“I think…” Catra pauses, and lets out an irritated sigh, “I think I’m turning into a hermit.”

Adora laughs and quickly tries to stifle it, but when Catra looks up at her, something in her switches. She laughs too, unable to believe those words just came out of her mouth, and Adora flashes that soft, gentle smile.

“Okay,” Adora says, “can’t say I expected you to say that, but okay. Why do you feel that way?”

“I just… I don’t like going out,” Catra says, “people take pictures without my consent and stare and whisper and expect things from me and I fucking hate it. When I’m with you, in there,” she nods towards the house, “I’m just me. I’m normal. But out here I’m a celebrity, and I fucking hate that. If I could stay in there forever and get away with it, I think I probably would.”

“Alright,” Adora hums in thought, “so, it’s the fans that you’re trying to avoid?”

“And the paparazzi,” Catra adds, and then frowns and admits, “actually, mostly the paparazzi. At least fans come and bother me because in some fucked up way, they care about me. Paparazzi just want to make a quick buck.”

“Catra, baby, I don’t think there are any paparazzi in Etheria,” Adora laughs softly, and Catra has to take a few minutes to recover from being called baby by the prettiest girl she’s ever met. “But even if there are some lurking around because they know you’re here, you shouldn’t let that stop you from living your life. And if we see any, I’ll jump right in their shot and stick my middle fingers up at them.”

The mental image of that is enough to make Catra laugh. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would,” Adora smiles, reaching over to take her hand, “you know that.”

Catra smiles back for a moment, and then turns to look out of the window. She runs her free hand through her short, messy hair, and sighs. “I think I’m kind of terrified to go out without bodyguards, too. You don’t know how bad it got. I started to get really paranoid and I guess it’s just hard to shake that. Nothing… nothing good ever happens to me, and I feel like because everything’s been so good the last few months, that something bad has to happen. That’s the way it’s always been.”

Adora frowns. “You feel like someone’s going to hurt you?”

“Yeah. I mean, it happens,” Catra says, “look what happened to John Lennon. Murdered by a fan. I’ve been stalked before. He wrote all these creepy letters about how if he couldn’t have me, nobody could, and he killed himself after I took out a restraining order. I couldn’t stop thinking about how that bullet was probably meant for me.”

“Jesus,” Adora mutters, and Catra hums in reply, “I didn’t know about that.”

Catra sighs and rests her head against the cold window. “Look, realistically, I know I’m being paranoid. But I’m just… I’m scared, Adora.”

“Okay,” Adora’s fingers drum against the steering wheel, and she looks over with a soft smile, “we’re going out and ripping the band-aid off. We’re in our small, boring little hometown, where the worst that can happen is a bunch of teenagers come over and ask for a selfie. It’s not like I’m dragging you out in LA, right? And if anything happens, or if you feel uncomfortable, you can tell me, and we’ll get right back in the car, go home, and cuddle and watch stupid reality TV shows.”

Catra considers her for a moment and tries to stay rational. She nods, and absently grabs the aux cord to plug her phone in. “Okay. Drive before I change my mind.”

Adora smiles, and she doesn’t immediately set off. She leans over, presses a kiss to Catra’s cheek, and then starts to drive while Catra is being a blushing mess in the passenger seat.

When they get to the restaurant, Adora makes sure to hold her hand all the way inside. Catra knows she probably looks a little crazy, looking around constantly, trying to make sure nobody notices her, and it seems to be okay as they’re taken to the table.

But then the front of house lady who’d taken them there smiles at her nervously and says, “I love your music.”

Adora looks over at her carefully, like she’s expecting Catra to immediately stand up and walk out of the restaurant. But Catra tries to relax and says quietly, “thanks.”

The woman walks away, and Adora smiles across the table. “See? Wasn’t so bad.”

“Guess not,” Catra says, and reaches out to grab the menu, “so, what made you pick this place?”

“Good food,” Adora laughs, “and it’s pretty quiet, which I thought you’d like.”

Catra looks over the table at her, and she suddenly feels incredibly guilty for the way she’d spoken to her earlier. Even though she’d already apologised, she reaches over and takes Adora’s hand. “Hey. I shouldn’t have snapped at you earlier. It’s- I mean, the anger stuff… it’s something I’m working on in therapy.”

Adora squeezes her hand. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

If anything, that just makes her feel guiltier. “You’re too good for me.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Adora says easily, “you’re a good person, Catra. You’re just going through a lot, and everyone gets a little snappy sometimes. I won’t blame you for that.”

Catra frowns. “You really think I’m a good person?”

“Duh,” Adora smiles, flicking through the drinks menu, “so, since we’re celebrating tonight, what do you say to a little champagne?”

Catra shakes her head. “I’m done with alcohol.”

“Oh,” Adora looks surprised, but after a few moments, she hums in thought, “yeah, I just realised I haven’t seen you drink anything since the week we met.”

“My mother… like, my biological mother,” Catra starts, and she’s never told anybody this, probably because she never had anyone to tell before, “she was an addict. It’s why I was taken away from her when I was younger, but she reached out to me two years ago and basically just asked for money to fuel her drug addiction. I wasn’t a complete alcoholic, but I was getting there. I know just having an addict parent doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up like that, but I don’t want to risk it, with the way I was going. I’m never going to drink again.”

“That’s understandable,” Adora says, immediately putting the drink menu down and flipping the main menu for the soda list, “I think I’ll just get coke or something, then.”

“You can get all the champagne you like,” Catra says, rolling her eyes, “if you want a glass, get one. It won’t bother me.”

Adora raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, dummy,” Catra says, pushing the drink menu towards her, “get whatever you want.”

Adora eventually orders a glass of white wine, while Catra gets some lemonade. They still toast to her twenty-second birthday, and Catra really hopes that this year is better than the last. It wouldn’t be hard to top it, but twenty-one is also the year she met Adora, so that’s probably going to be slightly harder to beat.

She remembers what Double Trouble had said to her all those years ago, the night she’d broken up with Starla. “There’ll be another girl out there, one that you’ll meet exactly when you’re supposed to meet her, and you’ll be able to be out and proud with her the way you deserve.”

That girl is Adora. Catra knows that in her gut.

2021

“Hey, so, I was wondering if you’d want to come and celebrate my birthday in Bright Moon.”

Catra hums against Adora’s chest. Despite being just friends, they really don’t act like it. They don’t do anything physical besides cuddling and hand holding, but they do enough of that for it to feel like it crosses some kind of line.

Neither of them have talked about the picture that someone leaked to the internet, of the two of them holding hands in the grocery store. There were countless articles, titled with some variation of ‘Pop sensation Catra spotted holding hands with woman months after coming out as a lesbian.’ Catra hasn’t read any of them, and she isn’t sure if Adora has, but she’s certainly not going to ask.

“You mean with your friends?” Catra asks, pointing out the thing Adora had skirted around. “Probably going out clubbing? I’ll pass on that. Clubs are only fun if you’re a dangerous level of drunk. You have fun though, okay? And stay safe.”

“We’re not going out clubbing,” Adora says, “we did that last Friday, when you told me I wasn’t allowed to come home for that exact reason.”

It wasn’t like that. Adora could’ve come back to Etheria if she wanted. Catra had overheard her talking to that sparkly girl on FaceTime, and she’d been complaining that Adora was never around for nights out because she always went home at the weekend. Catra then firmly suggested that Adora stay at college next weekend to spend time with her friends.

“It’d really mean a lot to me if you’d come,” Adora says quietly, “I know twenty-three isn’t like, the biggest birthday to celebrate, or whatever, but it’s the first birthday I’ve had that I’ve been friends with you. I’d like to celebrate it with you. It’ll just be me, you, Bow and Glimmer. I told them I want drinks, takeout and movie night.”

Catra laughs lightly. “Is that really what you want, or did you just suggest that because you think I’ll only come if that’s what you’re doing?”

“What I really want is to spend time with you on my birthday,” Adora answers, “besides, my birthday is a Tuesday, and Bow, Glimmer and I have always had a strict no clubbing rule on weeknights, so…”

Catra raises her eyebrows, but she nods against Adora’s chest. “Alright then. I’ll come with you. But if your friends are weird, I’m calling a cab and leaving.”

“They won’t be weird,” Adora says, “anyway, you met them before, that day you got out of your contract.”

They seemed alright, that day, Catra has to admit. Still, Catra is dreading it just a little bit, and she feels all kinds of awkward when Adora takes her to her friends’ apartment building. Apparently, she’d been staying in their guest room during the week, and that’s where they’ll be sleeping tonight.

The friends pull Adora in for a tight hug when they open the door, and then Adora hurriedly introduces them. “Catra, this is Bow,” she gestures to the friendly looking guy next to her, “and Glimmer,” gesturing to the sparkly girl now. “Guys, this is Catra.”

Bow smiles, “it’s nice to see you again!”

“Uh, yeah,” Catra says quietly, hating how awkward she feels already, “hey.”

Adora takes her by the hand and pulls her inside of the apartment. Catra can feel the sparkly one watching her, but she doesn’t say anything, and she’s not sure if that’s worse than if she freaked out at her.

Adora’s friends break out the alcohol immediately, and Catra refuses the glass of wine Sparkles offers out to her.

“Catra doesn’t drink,” Adora says quickly, taking the glass for herself and placing it down on the coffee table, “come on, we’ve got soda in the refrigerator.”

She guesses that it’s nice to see where Adora spends her weeks, but at the same time, Catra feels so out of place. She’s never exactly hung out with people her own age. Starla doesn’t count, because that was romantic, not platonic. Rehearsals with her band don’t count, and she was literally legally obligated to spend time with Double Trouble. She guesses she could count award shows. One time, a couple of fellow musicians around her age had invited her to snort coke in the bathroom with them at the VMAs. She politely declined the invitation.

“Relax, okay,” Adora flashes a soft smile as she passes Catra a can of root beer from the refrigerator, “Bow and Glimmer are cool, and they don’t see you as a famous musician. Just… you know, their best friend’s potential future girlfriend.”

“Yeah, I think that’s actually worse,” Catra tries to joke to calm her own nerves. It doesn’t work, but at least it makes Adora laugh. “Ugh, I don’t know, I’m not good in this kind of situation.”

Adora laughs. “A social situation?”

“Yeah,” Catra says, even though she knows Adora was being sarcastic, “I don’t really know what to say.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Adora smiles, “you made me like you, and that’s after you told me to fuck off on like, six separate occasions.”

“It definitely wasn’t six,” Catra rolls her eyes, and Adora laughs quietly, “and anyway, you already liked me, you were a fan.”

“Yeah, and then you were an asshole, and I changed my mind on that,” Adora retorts, “changed it back not too long after, but still. And anyway, Glimmer and Bow are fans too.”

“Oh, great.”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Adora pokes her in the arm playfully, “I just mean that they like your music, so they’ve already got a positive impression. Just be yourself, and I know they’ll like you just as much as I do. Well, okay, maybe not just as much, because then we’d have a problem and have to fight to the death for your affection.”

Catra finally does manage a laugh. “No fighting necessary. You’ve already got it.”

“I know,” Adora smiles and nods back towards the lounge, “come on. Let’s go sit down.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, Catra nods, and follows her back over to the couch. She makes sure that she sits on Adora’s left, away from her friends, and admittedly, she’s a little bit quiet. And by a little bit, she means that she doesn’t speak unless Adora literally forces her into the conversation, and usually sticks to one-word answers.

Until Adora gets up and goes to the bathroom, leaving Catra alone with her friends. Once Adora is down the hallway and out of earshot, the sparkly one, Glimmer, shuffles a little closer to her on the couch and says, “I have a question, but I think Adora might yell at me for asking it because she told us not to ask you about the music industry.”

“Glimmer,” Bow whispers, sending her a stern glare, “don’t you think we should listen to Adora?”

The preface of the question doesn’t bode well, but Catra is curious. “Ask whatever. I don’t care.”

Glimmer sticks her tongue out at Bow triumphantly, and then turns to Catra. “So, I know you know Taylor Swift.”

“Uh, yeah,” Catra says, “that wasn’t a question.”

“I just need to know,” Glimmer says, “is she nice in person?”

“I’ve only met her a few times, but yeah, I guess,” Catra shrugs, and Glimmer lets out a dramatic sigh of relief, “I don’t have anything bad to say about her, which is good because she’s basically one of the only mainstream artists I actually listen to.”

“I’m cool, I don’t listen to pop music,” Adora says dramatically as she flops back down on the couch. Catra rolls her eyes, and Adora just keeps teasing her. “I’m not like other girls.”

“Okay, I am not like that,” Catra laughs, “those people do that for male attention which is the last thing I want.”

“Fair enough,” Adora replies, and then she turns to Glimmer and mutters, “told you not to mention that kind of thing.”

“Adora, it’s fine,” Glimmer says, “she said she doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Catra says quickly, before Adora can argue, “and anyway, what else are they going to ask me about?”

“I don’t know, you?” Adora rolls her eyes, “your life, your interests.”

“My life has been music, and my interests are also music, so,” Catra shrugs easily, “they can ask me about it. I don’t mind. You don’t need to brief your friends on what they can and can’t say around me.”

Adora looks a little concerned, but after a few moments, she sighs and nods. “Alright. I just didn’t want any sensitive topics to come up.”

“I get that, but if they do, I just won’t answer if I’m not okay with it,” Catra shrugs, “it’s fine.”

Before Adora can say anything else, Glimmer leans around her and says easily, “okay, who’s the most famous person you’ve slept with?”

Catra snorts with laughter. “Yeah, you’re asking that question to the wrong person. I’ve only ever slept with one person, and she wasn’t exactly famous.”

“Your ex wasn’t famous?” Adora asks, and Catra shrugs. She wasn’t not famous – back in her debut album era, her fans knew her band members – but she wasn’t A-list famous either. “I didn’t know that.”

Catra explains, “she was my drummer.”

Adora opens her mouth to comment, but Glimmer jumps in first, “who’s the worst person you’ve ever met? Like, famous person, I mean.”

“Ellen kind of sucks,” Catra says, “I did an interview with her once and it was really uncomfortable. But most interviews are, because they don’t ask about the music, they just ask you about your personal life. She’s especially bad with that.”

“Damn, I love watching her show, too,” Bow sighs, “that sucks.”

“Okay,” Glimmer smirks, “but what about other musicians that are assholes?”

“There are some obvious ones that you probably can figure out,” Catra says, “I won’t name names, but at certain award shows, there are two separate carpets. Which one you walk basically depends on how famous you are, because the photographers want to get a better shot of the ‘A-listers’ so to speak. I saw one person throwing a whole tantrum because she wasn’t directed towards the A list side of the carpet.”

Bow laughs and nudges Glimmer. “Sounds like something you’d do.”

“Hey!” Glimmer rolls her eyes, “if I was invited, obviously it’d be because I’d be an A lister. I’d clearly be there to pick up my first Grammy. Or Oscar, depending on which route I end up going. Have you been to the Oscars?”

“I’m not an actor,” Catra points out, and Glimmer lets out a quiet oh, yeah, “I’ve been to the Grammys, though. Performed a couple of times. And won Best New Artist and Album of the Year.”

“Okay, we get it, you’re famous,” Glimmer says, and Catra is almost offended until she realises she’s joking, “can I have one? You don’t need two, sharing is caring.”

“Have both, if you want,” Catra shrugs, because they don’t mean anything to her. She didn’t win them for her own music, not really.

Adora says, “I saw both of those on the mantel at your place in LA. You don’t know how tempted I was to stand in the mirror with one and practice my fake acceptance speech, but I figured I’d either drop it and break it, or you’d walk in and think I was crazy.”

“I mean, I do think you’re crazy, but okay,” Catra retorts, and Adora rolls her eyes and nudges her playfully in a silent shut up motion, “I probably would’ve just laughed at you.”

“Actually, I’ve got a question, now,” Adora says, “now that I know it’s okay to ask.”

“It’s always been okay to ask, dummy,” Catra laughs, “you know I’d tell you anything.”

“Okay, so,” Adora starts, “Wildcat. That song was everywhere, like, overnight. Everyone knew who you were in the space of twenty-four hours. I guess I just want to know how weird it was. Like, I can’t imagine waking up one day, and suddenly everyone knows me.”

“It sucked,” Catra says, and maybe that’s a little blunt, but it’s the truth. She almost hesitates, but then she remembers that Bow and Glimmer were there that day, that they heard Weaver on the phone, so it’s not like she can get sued for talking about it here. “It was when we were in the process of recording that album that I realised how fucked up my contract was. After trying to find a way out and talking to so many lawyers, it eventually became pretty obvious that the only way out was if the label let me go. If the album completely flopped, and I lost them money, then they would.”

Adora cringes. “And it didn’t flop.”

“Nope. The single ended up going nine times platinum, the album debuted at number one on the US charts, and also went platinum,” Catra says, “the moment that song hit number one, I knew I was screwed.”

“That’s horrible,” Bow says, “it’s something you should’ve been celebrating, but the money-hungry record label ruined it.”

“I stopped caring after that,” Catra admits, “I knew that they could make me do whatever they wanted me to, and there was no point in arguing. There’s only one song that I managed to get away with keeping as I originally wrote it on my third album. Lyrically I got away with a lot more on Wildcat besides pronoun changes, but on Fright Zone, whatever I took to them, even if it was just lyrics, they’d twist and warp into something completely different just to sell it.”

Adora’s arm is around her suddenly, and Catra realises she must’ve looked pretty upset. She leans into Adora’s touch and doesn’t say anything else on the subject.

“You should pull a Taylor and remake your albums,” Glimmer says, “release them the way they were intended to be. Even though the songs on Wildcat and Fright Zone are pretty much pop genius, they’re not really yours. You should release them the way they were when you first took them to the label. But if you do, I expect at least fifty percent royalties for giving you the idea.”

It’s a thought, but at the moment, Catra just wants to move on and forget about it all. She’s already made a pact with herself that no matter how many people ask her, she’s never going to sing Wildcat ever again.

“Yeah, to be honest, I think I just want to forget it all,” Catra shrugs, “I’m surprised I haven’t just pulled both of those albums from streaming services in a fruitless attempt to get rid of them.”

“Ugh, no way,” Glimmer laughs, “Wildcat is my jam. It’s in my cooking and laundry playlists.”

Catra snorts. “You have a cooking playlist?”

“I have a playlist for everything,” Glimmer says easily, “cooking, cleaning, laundry, studying, etcetera.”

“And Crimson Waste from Fright Zone gets played at my yoga class every week,” Bow says, “it’s actually really relaxing, if you forget how sad the lyrics are.”

“That was actually the one song they didn’t change on that album,” Catra says. It’s a sad breakup piano ballad that she’d written a few weeks after the breakup with Starla. Because it fit the album’s ‘theme’ aka it fit the narrative of the supposed breakup with Double Trouble, and it wasn’t a rock song, the label let her keep it as it was. She’d been smart enough to stick with second person, referring to the person who broke her heart as you, so the label hadn’t changed anything.

(Catra had been more than a little smug when every single album review critic had said it was the best song on the album.)

Glimmer smirks at Adora. “I can tell that Adora is about to lie and say that it’s her favourite, but you should see her when Wildcat comes on in the club.”

“It actually did, last week,” Bow says, and Adora cringes and buries her face in Catra’s shoulder, muttering a quiet oh no, “she was really drunk and basically went around the entire club saying that it was her future girlfriend’s song.”

“Oh really,” Catra laughs, “you forgot to mention that when I asked you if you had fun last weekend.”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” Adora retorts, reaching out to grab her glass of wine and draining it in one. “I’m really glad you weren’t there to see it.”

“She talks about you all the time, you know,” Glimmer says, and Adora hides her head in her hands, “any time she comes back on Sunday night, it’s Catra this and Catra that and look at this cute picture I took of Catra while she’s sleeping.”

“Remind me that I need to take a quick look at your camera roll for any other stalkery pictures,” Catra says, and Adora splutters to defend herself, “just to make sure that you don’t have like, an entire album of pictures of me sleeping.”

“Oh god, make it stop,” Adora mumbles, her face as red as a tomato, “first of all, I only took one picture, because you were cuddling with Melog and it was adorable. And second, I don’t talk about you all the time.”

Bow laughs. “Yeah, just most of the time.”

“You’re not supposed to be mean to me right now, it’s my birthday,” Adora groans, and when the doorbell rings, she jumps up to avoid any further embarrassment, “I’ll get that.”

She shoots off towards the door, and Catra watches after her with a small smile until Glimmer laughs and says, “wow, you’re just as obsessed with her as she is with you.”

“Don’t start on me, Sparkles,” Catra retorts, “I’ll kick your ass.”

“Yeah, sure,” Glimmer says, “we’ll pretend that’s true.”

Catra snorts. “It is true.”

“I’ve got the food, but you’re only allowed it if you all promise to be nice to me for the rest of the evening,” Adora says, holding two large pizza boxes and two other big boxes of curly fries on top. “Anyone makes fun, and no pizza for them.”

She sits down and puts the boxes on the coffee table as Bow goes through Netflix to find something to watch. Eventually they settle on Friends, and Adora flips open the pizza that they’re sharing and offers Catra a plate.

“I can’t believe you’re actually sharing a pizza, Adora,” Glimmer laughs as she takes a slice of the one she’s sharing with Bow. She looks at Catra and explains, “normally she gets a whole large one and eats the entire thing. She really is whipped for you.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?” Adora questions and goes as if she’s going to steal Glimmer and Bow’s pizza. “No more teasing me. It’s my birthday.”

“You could’ve got a whole one to yourself, you know,” Catra says as she gets a slice and a handful of curly fries, “I would’ve been fine.”

“It’s fine,” Adora says, shooting Glimmer an annoyed look, “I don’t normally get fries, so…”

“Okay, dummy,” Catra says, and Adora’s expression softens into that look, the one where she looks like she’s thinking about kissing her. Catra breaks the eye contact and looks around at Bow and Glimmer. “Anyway, I know that this dumbass is studying sports science, but what’re you guys doing in school?”

As they eat and half-watch Friends, Catra learns that Glimmer is a theatre major (no surprise there) and Bow is doing an engineering master’s degree. He graduated last year, like Adora should’ve, and Glimmer is a year younger, so she’s in her final year of undergraduate. Catra mentions that she knows a few Broadway people, if Glimmer ever wants an opportunity to network.

When she says that, Glimmer looks at Adora seriously and says, “marry her. Seriously. If you don’t, I will.”

Catra doesn’t know how Adora is going to react, and she isn’t sure if she’s surprised or not when Adora just smiles and shrugs easily. “I plan on it.”

Once Adora and her friends are sufficiently tipsy, everyone retires to bed. As she slips into the guest bed next to Adora, she says quietly, “I like your friends.”

“Yeah?” Adora smiles. “They liked you too. Thank you for tonight. I know… I know this kind of thing is really new to you.”

“Being treated like a normal person?” Catra says sarcastically, but it’s not really a joke. “Honestly, I had a good time. Especially when they were teasing you for your gigantic crush on me.”

“That was the only part where I wasn’t having a good time,” Adora laughs quietly, “I’m really glad you came, Catra. I- I wanted you to meet my friends. I know you’re not my girlfriend yet, but you’re going to be, and it’s important to me that you know them.”

“Ugh, tell me again why we’re being responsible and waiting?” Catra groans, rolling over to curl up next to Adora anyway. “I’m serious. Tell me. Or I might kiss your dumb face off right now.”

“You’re such a flirt,” Adora laughs, running her fingers through Catra’s hair. It’s growing out a lot more, and lately she’s been keeping it up in a small ponytail because she’s so used to it being out of the way. “You know why. You’ve got enough to focus on right now without a relationship on top of it all.”

“Yeah,” Catra sighs dramatically, “I know.”

It’s starting to feel less like that, though. Catra can’t remember the last time she got angry. She hasn’t touched alcohol since June. She’s been writing and creating more than ever, and it’s always been such an emotional outlet, a therapy in itself. And actual therapy is going better than ever.

Plus, any time she feels a little down, she goes over to the Horde Records twitter account and enjoys the sight of a) their dropping follower count, and b) the statement they released after Adora, Scorpia and Entrapta spoke out against them, saying that Weaver had been fired.

Catra is okay. Happy, even. And after tonight, she’s surer than ever that she wants Adora. After all, Bow and Glimmer had never once freaked out at her. They’d asked her questions about the music industry, but since that’s her job, it’s basically the same thing as her asking them questions about college. Tonight, Catra had felt normal.

But there’s still something there with Adora. Something special.

She learns that the more she spends time with Adora, Bow and Glimmer. She likes Bow and Glimmer, but there’s just something about Adora that pulls her in. A deeper connection that she shares with her.

When she leaves the next day to go back to Etheria, Bow and Glimmer give her their numbers say she’s welcome to come back any time, and after a while, they become her friends, too.

She meets up with Scorpia not long after Adora’s birthday, and after a bone-crushing hug that Catra assumes cracks three of her ribs, she finds out that Scorpia has been so busy because she’s working for Perfuma now. Catra hadn’t really spoken to her all that much when she opened for her on the Fright Zone tour, but apparently Perfuma and Scorpia’s relationship had developed into less of a professional one and more of a romantic one.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know, wildcat,” Scorpia says as she takes a sip of her coffee, “there’ve been articles about it in the press, and we’re not exactly subtle.”

“I haven’t really been going on social media that much,” Catra says, which is true. She goes on YouTube once a week to post a new cover, tweets it out, posts a link on her Instagram story, and answers a few fan tweets before logging off for the rest of the week. She’s too busy writing and recording demos for her fourth album, and she’s already got a working title.

Freedom. It seems fitting.

She’s been working with Entrapta online, sending tracks back and forth for production that she’s recorded in the home studio she had built in her Etheria house, the one she’s never actually spent the night in. She’s thinking of a twelve-song tracklist right now, but toying around with fourteen.

“Well,” Scorpia looks over her coffee interestedly, “how are things with Adora? You two are together, aren’t you? It’s all over the internet. You even have a ship name: Catradora.”

Catra is fully aware of how into shipping her fans can get. Seriously, she’s scarred for life from some fanfiction she accidently stumbled across about herself and Double Trouble.

“It’s… complicated?” Catra says, even though it isn’t, really. “We’re not together, but we both like each other, and we both know we like each other. She thinks I’m not ready for a relationship. At first, she wasn’t wrong, but right now… I don’t know. I feel- I feel good, Scorpia. I’m happy.”

“I know,” Scorpia smiles, and then admits sadly, “I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually seen you happy. You deserve it, wildcat.”

“Thanks, Scorpia,” Catra says, “I told… I told Adora that she should be the one to make a move, when she thinks I’m ready. But it’s like, how can she know what’s going on in my head? We both know that I’m really good at acting like everything is okay. I did it for years for the cameras. How can Adora know?”

“She’ll know,” Scorpia says, “seeing you now, seeing you actually happy, it proves that you really weren’t all of those years. I saw a thing on Twitter, actually, let me show you.”

Catra waits as Scorpia taps around on her phone for something, and a few moments later, she holds her phone out for Catra to look at. There’s a tweet up on the screen from a fan account, with two pictures of her side by side. One is from some random interview from a year or two ago, and the other is from the Q&A YouTube video she did two weeks ago, the caption of the pictures reading I can’t believe we didn’t see how depressed she was.

The difference is astronomical. The smile on her face in the first picture would be believable, if you didn’t see the second one. But because the second picture is there, the first one looks obviously fake. You can tell from the look in Catra’s eyes. In the first picture, they’re just as depressed as she was. In the second, they’re bright and happy. So bright that her blue eye almost reminds Catra of Adora.

“Whoa,” Catra murmurs as she gives Scorpia her phone back, “that’s… wow.”

Scorpia tucks her phone back into her pocket with a small smile. “I’m really happy to see you happy, wildcat. I’m not going to lie… before, I was really worried about you. Worried that you were going to… you know.”

“I probably would’ve,” Catra admits quietly, because she knows just how close she was getting to doing something stupid, “I nearly did, once. But I don’t feel like that anymore. I want to live my life. I want to make music and perform and settle down with a girl and maybe… I don’t know, maybe be a mom, one day. Adopt a kid like me, stuck in some children’s home wishing for a family.”

Scorpia smiles at her. “You’d be an amazing mom, wildcat.”

Catra can’t help but wonder if she’s right.

It’s Spring Break, the first time Catra sees Adora cry.

Adora has been weird ever since she got home from college. She’s quiet, which isn’t normal for her, because between the two of them, Adora is the extroverted one. She’s the one always talking at a mile a minute about anything and everything, and Catra just listens with a smile on her face.

Catra isn’t sure what to do, because she’s not used to seeing Adora so closed off. Razz goes to bed early, and she’ll probably already be asleep, so it’s not like she can go and ask Adora’s grandmother what’s going on with her.

She’s never been in a position where there’s someone she wants to comfort. She doesn’t know what to do, and she’s just going to ask Adora if she needs a hug when Adora stands up suddenly and mutters, “I’m going out.”

Catra frowns at her. “Wait, what?”

“I’m going out,” Adora says like she’s assuming Catra hadn’t heard, “I’ll be back later.”

“Adora, you’re tired,” Catra grabs her hand and stops her, “you should just get some rest.”

“I can’t,” Adora snaps, and it’s so foreign to hear her angry, “I can’t get some rest. I’m going out. It’s important.”

As tempted as she is to just back down, the way she always has when someone raises their voice out of fear of being hit, Catra stands her ground. “Where are you going to that’s so important you can’t go tomorrow after you’ve got a decent night’s sleep? You’ve been up early, you just had a long drive, and you need to rest.”

Catra looks into blue eyes that are usually so bright, and she sees the pain in them. She reaches for Adora’s hand, and Adora lets her take it, limp and tired. She starts at the touch and looks down at their hands, and then her fingers slowly wrap around Catra’s.

“I need to go to the cemetery,” Adora murmurs, “my mom died five years ago today. I need to go see her.”

Catra softens. She understands loss of a parental figure, even if it’s not in the same way. She hadn’t understood that it was for the best, when she was taken away from her own mother when she was four. All she knew was that she was a scared kid who wanted to go home.

“Okay,” Catra says, prying the keys from between Adora’s fingers, “but I’m driving. You’re too tired and too emotional for that.”

Adora looks like she’s going to argue, but after a few moments, she nods. “Okay,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, “I think that makes sense.”

“Yeah?” Catra says, and Adora nods again. “Okay.”

There’s still a strange silence between them as Catra drives to the cemetery, but she really can’t blame Adora for it. She casts the occasional concerned glance over at Adora, just to check on her, and when they get to the cemetery, she reaches out and takes her hand.

“I’ll wait here,” Catra says, “give you some privacy.”

“No,” Adora mutters, reaching out to open the car door, “I want you to come with me.”

Catra is surprised, but also a little honoured that Adora wants her there. She gets out of the car and follows Adora through the long rows of gravestones, until finally, Adora stops at one. She looks at the stone with tears welling in those beautiful blue eyes, and then they spill over into loud, aching sobs.

Adora turns and wraps her arms around Catra tightly, burying her face into her shoulder. Catra holds her just as tight, rubbing comforting circles into Adora’s back as she cries herself dry. In a way, it’s nice to be there for Adora in a fraction of the way Adora had been there for her, but she wishes she didn’t have to. She wishes Adora didn’t feel so bad right now.

Catra doesn’t know how long she holds Adora for. Eventually, she pulls back, when she’s cried out everything she has in her.

“It still hurts,” Adora whispers as she looks back to the gravestone, “she was my best friend. I know that’s dumb to say, but she really was. We were always so close. I told her everything – even when I first started questioning my sexuality, I was never scared to tell her. It was kind of funny, actually. I told her I thought I might be a lesbian, and she decided that was the perfect moment to let me know that she’d realised she was a lesbian, and that she had a girlfriend who she wanted me to meet.”

Adora lets out a watery laugh, and Catra feels like it’s okay for her to laugh too. “Yeah, probably not the best moment to spring that on you.”

“I was so surprised, because obviously, I exist. I knew my dad before he died, and when I was little, they always seemed happy together,” Adora says, “but I guess nothing is ever as it seems. We were a proper family, me, Razz, my mom and Hope. But then my mom got sick, and at first, they said she could beat it. Two months later, she was gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Adora,” Catra says quietly, “life… is the fucking worst sometimes.”

Adora lets out this weird, bitter laugh. “Yeah. God, I feel like I’ve been so stupid all week. I’ve been so tense knowing that the anniversary is coming up, and I wanted to talk about it, but I guess I thought- I thought it’d be selfish of me to talk to you about it. Not only do you have your own stuff to deal with, but it’s like- I feel like I’m being ungrateful, complaining about my mom being dead when you… when you never really had one in the first place.”

“Yeah, you were being stupid,” Catra says, and Adora looks up sheepishly. She nudges against her gently. “Just because I don’t know what it’s like, it doesn’t mean I’m not here to listen to you. You’re my best friend, and if something’s bothering you, I want to help you out. And you’re not being ungrateful, okay?”

Adora blinks back a fresh wave of tears and reaches out to pull Catra in for another hug. This time, she kisses her cheek and mumbles, “I’m so proud of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t be weird,” Catra mumbles embarrassedly, “you’ve been there for me more times than I can count. I want to be there for you when you need me, too.”

Adora manages a weak smile when she pulls back. “I know,” she says, and then sighs quietly, “sometimes I wish Hope was still around. My mom’s girlfriend, I mean.”

Catra hums quietly. “That’s a coincidence. The woman who taught me the basics on guitar was called Hope. Ms Light. She was the music teacher at my elementary school and she caught me hiding out in her classroom.”

“Wait, did you just say Hope Light?” Adora blinks at her. “That was my mom’s girlfriend.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Catra says, and Adora shakes her head seriously. Catra hums in surprise and looks down at the gravestone. “Should I be totally cheesy right now and say that it was fate linking us together?”

“Yes, because it made me smile,” Adora says quietly, holding out her hand for Catra to take. She looks down at the gravestone and breathes out shakily. “I haven’t seen Hope since the funeral. I was really mad at her for a long time, because when my mom died, she just left. Literally. Ran away from Etheria and disappeared to god knows where. I kind of understand it now. Being home always reminds me of mom, and when the wound was fresh, it was so hard. But she was like family, and I don’t... I don’t know, I guess I just wished that she stuck around. I wonder what she’s doing now.”

“Probably teaching some other future rockstars how to play guitar,” Catra says, and then lets out another quiet huh, “I can’t believe that. Hey, maybe I met your mom one time, too. I was trying out guitars at the store and a woman complimented me on my playing and said she wished the strings she was picking up were for her, but it was her girlfriend who played. I said something about how much I loved it, and she said Hope is the same way. I remembered it because I always wondered if she meant that Hope.”

She says it mostly as a joke, because that woman had looked nothing like Adora, but Adora frowns and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She taps around on it and brings up a picture, holding it in front of Catra. “Was this the woman you saw?”

Catra looks at the picture. It’s a photograph of a younger Adora, scrawnier and a mouth full of braces, and a woman who looks physically nothing like her, besides the eyes. They’re both smiling, the woman’s arm around Adora’s shoulders, and when Catra examines the woman’s face, she looks up in surprise.

“Yeah,” Catra says, “that was her.”

She doesn’t know what she expects Adora’s reaction to be. She locks her phone, tucks it back into her pocket, and stares down at her mother’s grave again. “You met my mom.”

“Apparently I did,” Catra replies, “I actually am starting to think that this is a fate thing. Us meeting as kids in that sandbox then never seeing each other again. Your mom’s girlfriend being my guitar teacher. Me having a random conversation with your mom. And then you winning that contest. It feels like the universe really wants us to be together, huh?”

Adora smiles down at the grave, and then up at Catra. She doesn’t look like her usual self, but she doesn’t look as sad anymore. “When I think about… about being with you, in the future, I always wish that I could’ve introduced you to my mom. I had this feeling that she would’ve loved you, and knowing it was impossible for you to meet her really sucked. And now I find out that you did meet her and she did like you. I just… it makes me really happy that you at least got to meet her once, even if it was before you and I knew each other.”

“She seemed really cool,” Catra says, “and I’m glad I got to meet her, too.”

Adora smiles again, softer this time. After taking one last look at the gravestone, she lets out a long breath and admits, “I feel a lot better now. It still hurts – it always will, on the anniversary – but I feel okay now. I think we should go home.”

“Alright, nerd,” Catra holds out a hand, and Adora reaches and takes it, “let’s go home.”

A month after that, Catra finally releases the first single from her fourth album. It’s the title track, called Freedom, a heavier rock song that she’d once played an early version of for the label in the hopes that maybe, now that she’d reached international fame, they’d let her experiment with her sound like they’d promised all those years ago.

After the song had finished, they told her the usual thing – that won’t sell, but give us a copy of the lyrics so we can revise it, and then we’ll figure out a nice synth track for it. She knew why they didn’t like it. Not only was it a rock song, but the lyrics were about being trapped, and it was obviously not referencing a lover. They probably would’ve switched it into some kind of toxic relationship song, which still wouldn’t be too far off an accurate description of her relationship with the label.

She refused to send them the lyrics, and mid-argument with Hordak about it, Weaver had jumped in with a smug smile. “Perhaps it is for the best that Catrina is so stubborn, Hordak. After all, why waste our time editing the unsuitable lyrics she brings in, when we can have professional songwriters write appropriate, heterosexual songs for her.”

That was the day they’d taken even more creative control. From then on, Catra was told not to bring her own songs in. The label would write what they deemed suitable, and she would have to sing it. They’d involve her enough in the melody to give her songwriting credits, because it’s not like her fans didn’t know she’d been writing songs since she was sixteen. It’d look a little fishy if she suddenly stopped.

Back then, Catra had been too tired to care about the control they’d seized. She’d tried to take some of it back, when the contest was going on and Adora was there to witness. Maybe they’d humour her if there was a fan in the room, but that hadn’t happened.

Now, she’s just glad she managed to save this song, as well as a few others she’d written during the worst time of her life. Freedom goes from a depressing set of lyrics about being trapped in a cage and dying in it to being trapped in a cage and fighting her way free. The opening riff, the one she’d been messing around with on Adora’s guitar so many months ago, is one of the favourite things she’d ever written, and she puts in a fast guitar solo with a little sweep picking section just to spite all of the stuck up metalheads who claim she only knows four chords because she’s a pop artist.

She’s nervous the day of release, after so much build up on social media. Partially because it means her year of rest is basically over – she’ll release the single, go to LA to meet the new management team she’d hired, do promotion for the album, and eventually tour again. She’s also nervous because it is a big switch in genre, and after years of being told rock music doesn’t sell, she expects she’ll probably lose some listeners over it.

But she also doesn’t care. She’s excited because she’s finally releasing music that’s a hundred percent her own, with no outside creative input. It’s hers, and even if it completely flops, she doesn’t care. She finally gets to do what she loves.

When the song is released, it’s almost like she’s throwing a grenade, how fast she logs out of every social media account she has and puts her phone and laptop out of sight. Adora is still at college – the single has a midnight Friday release, so she’ll be back tomorrow evening – so Catra just has Melog for company.

She watches a few episodes of Keeping up With the Kardashians, because Glimmer had gotten her into it somehow. Catra justifies it by saying she’s laughing at them rather than watching it seriously, and it does help cheer her up a little bit before she rolls over and gets some sleep.

She finally braves checking her phone the next morning, after her shower and her breakfast. Razz is oblivious to Catra’s obvious nerves as she potters around the kitchen already preparing the chicken marinade for dinner, and when she opens up Twitter, she notices immediately that she’s trending. She has the top five trending hashtags, all some variation of positive freak out from her fans.

The first affirmation of anything real that she sees is an article announcing that her first single since leaving her label had shot to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 overnight. It’s number one in the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and top ten in an overwhelmingly long list of countries she only just skims over. The article says that it’s the first rock song to reach number 1 on the Billboard charts since 2001.

There are a couple of other articles calling her a queer icon, and she doesn’t manage to hide the grin on her face.

Catra puts her phone down with a relieved sigh. Part of her feels smug – she almost wants to call up Weaver and Horde Records and tell them both I told you so – but she also just feels content. People like her real music, and that means more than she can say.

A congratulations text comes through from Bow. Just heard the song! It reads, Glimmer and I love it, and it looks like everyone else does too! :)

She texts back just as Glimmer texts with a similar message, but an added Adora won’t shut up about how proud she is so brace yourself for lots of gooey emotions when she gets back.

Catra decides that she’s perfectly fine with gooey emotions if it means Adora is finally going to get it together and kiss her. Catra considers doing it herself, but she knows what they’d agreed on, and she doesn’t want to cross any lines too early. Adora is so important to her, and the last thing she wants is to mess anything up.

When Adora finally gets home, she rushes through the door and pulls Catra in for a hug so tight it rivals one of Scorpia’s.

“I’m so fucking happy for you,” Adora whispers into her ear, and Catra just smiles and savours in the hug, “you deserved this.”

Catra flashes a teasing smirk as she pulls away. “So, you like the song, then?”

She already knows Adora likes it; she’d played her the finalised version the moment she perfected it. But Adora grins, nods, and says, “I love the song. The album is going to be amazing. How close are you to finishing it?”

“Fairly close,” Catra admits. She could probably set a release date sometime soon. “Just got to finalise a few other tracks.”

There’s one song, the only piano ballad with a build-up to the full-band final chorus, that Catra wants Adora’s help with, but she isn’t sure how to ask. For lack of a better term, it’s a love song, the only love song on the album. She’d poured everything she feels for Adora into it, and even though Catra technically has a finished version, it doesn’t feel right.

She wants it to be a duet, despite wanting zero collaborations on the album. The label had always forced her to have at least two or three, usually with some sexist rapper she’d never heard of, but back in the PR with Double Trouble, she had to work with them a few times. She’d never wanted to do collaborations – she rarely did them in the YouTube days – because her music was part of her soul, and why would she want to share that with anybody?

But whenever Catra listens to the supposedly finished version of the song, all she can think about is that she wants Adora to sing it with her.

She doesn’t know how to ask her, especially because they’re not actually together. And it’s not like Adora is a singer. For all Catra knows, Adora could be tone deaf. She realises that quickly, and decides that if she is tone deaf, Catra can overlook it on account of Adora being the most amazing person on the planet.

Adora finally kisses her again a month later when she moves back from college after graduating and asks her to be her girlfriend. It’s a normal Monday, almost exactly a year after Catra got out of her contract, and she can’t say she was expecting it to happen just like that. So easily.

Part of Catra had wondered if it was ever going to happen at all. She realises that the fans and paparazzi don’t exactly make it easy to be with her, and Catra had worried that Adora had really thought about that and decided that it was too much. Catra hates the paparazzi herself, and while it hasn’t been so bad in Etheria, people still come over, and people still take pictures and stare.

When Catra asks Adora about all of that and brings up all of the articles and the Catradora thing for the first time, Adora just smiles and pulls her in for a gentle kiss.

“I’ve thought about that,” Adora shrugs, “and it doesn’t bother me. I told you that forever ago.”

“Yeah, but…” Catra lets out a groan, “that was forever ago. And because you were taking so long to woman up and kiss me, I figured maybe you changed your mind.”

“I could never change my mind about you,” Adora says, “I mean, you probably know just how hard it’s been over the last year, to be so close to you and not kiss you. I probably should’ve done it sooner, but I just… I wanted to be sure you were ready. And, to be honest, part of me worried that you’d change your mind. You’re this super-cool rockstar, and I’m just me.”

Catra snorts. “I’m definitely not cool, and you’re definitely not just you. I am a rockstar, though, I’ll take that part.”

“I guess I just thought you’d want someone, like, on your level,” Adora shrugs, “in a fame way. You could relate to her more, if you’re both dealing with the same thing.”

“I like that you’re a regular person,” Catra replies easily, and then admits, “plus, I’d rather die than date a celebrity. They’re all crazy.”

Adora laughs. “Even you?”

“Oh,” Catra smirks, “especially me.”

Adora leans in and kisses the tip of her nose. “Good to know.”

“So…” Catra bites down on her bottom lip and glances at her phone, “what do you want to do about, like, the public? Should I make some announcement that you’re my girlfriend, or do you want me to deny it?”

“Neither,” Adora says, and when Catra looks obviously confused, she leans down and kisses the tip of her nose, “you’re cute when you’re all confused. We don’t need to make some big announcement, but I definitely don’t want you to hide this or deny it.”

Catra frowns. “You’re saying that we just… what? Act like girlfriends and let everyone else catch on?”

“Basically, yeah,” Adora shrugs easily, “if anybody asks me if you’re my girlfriend, I’ll tell them the truth. You’d do the same. But we’re not making some big public display. We’re just… being a normal couple.”

Catra hums in thought. If Adora hadn’t already sold her on the idea, the normal couple part definitely did. “Alright then. I like that plan.”

They get away with it for long enough. The media keep speculating, the fans comment Catradora on anything Catra posts, and they go particularly wild when Catra posts a selfie they took together after she asks Adora to put her hair up, and Adora gives her the signature hair poof. She captions it my new hairdresser sucks and it becomes her most-liked post of the year.

Her album releases not too long after that and goes number one instantly. Maybe it’s a little immature, but since Weaver is no longer associated with Horde Records, and her termination agreement only said she couldn’t say anything negative about the company, Catra captions her screenshot of her number one album suck it, Weaver.

It takes Catra four months of being Adora’s girlfriend to finally cave and go to the gym with her.

She’d been shying away from the gym for multiple reasons. Mostly, she’s just trying to relax, but for years, she was forced to the gym with a very mean personal trainer who yelled at her if she said she ate anything other than carrot sticks. Touring and performing requires a lot of stamina, so she knows she should get back into it when she’s planning on going back out on the road next year, but she mostly just caves because she knows Adora basically lives at the gym, and she wants to be a good girlfriend and share in her girlfriend’s interests.

Adora walks her through most of the equipment, talking her through it like she was born with the knowledge of how to work each and every one and how it works out your body. After her brain is sufficiently overloaded, Catra points to the treadmill and says, “I think I’m just going to go on that.”

Adora laughs softly and pulls her in for a kiss before she can go. “Okay. Make sure to warm up before you go on!”

She skips away to the elliptical to do a little cardio herself, and Catra watches her with a small smile before making her way over to the treadmill. She’s going through a pattern of running and then walking and then running again when she looks around for Adora and sees her lifting an incredibly large looking dumbbell.

Catra’s jaw drops as she watches the way Adora’s bicep strains, and she stops in her tracks until she realises she’s literally on a treadmill, and you can’t just stop. She pushes the big red stop button quickly, but she can’t hide the way she fumbles and almost flies off the end.

Naturally, Adora notices, and she puts the heavy dumbbell down and rushes over. “Are you okay, baby?”

“That was your fault,” Catra mutters irritably, her eyes glancing down to Adora’s bicep again. She can’t believe she’s never noticed them before. “You and your stupid biceps.”

Adora laughs. “Did you really just fall off a treadmill because you’re too gay?”

“I didn’t fall off it,” Catra reaches out and shoves her lightly, “asshole.”

“Okay, you nearly fell,” Adora laughs, “I’ll make sure to clarify that in my tweet about this moment.”

“Please no,” Catra says quickly, but Adora is already pulling her phone out of her pocket and typing something. She holds it up in the air when Catra makes a swipe for it, and she can’t believe that she’s actually using her height against her right now. “Adora! Don’t you dare tweet about this!”

“Too late,” Adora smirks and shows her the tweet, “I expect that’ll go viral in the next five minutes.”

Catra reads the tweet with a scowl. Catra nearly just fell off a treadmill because she saw my biceps and decided that she’s actually too gay to function omg with five laughing emojis. The retweets are already flooding in, and a notification pops up on Adora’s screen to say that Double Trouble had retweeted it to their millions of followers too.

She smacks Adora’s arm lightly, and then blinks and reaches out to squeeze her bicep.

“Yeah,” Adora laughs, flexing her arm, “you’re definitely too gay to function.”

“I can’t even be mad at you because you’re so hot,” Catra rolls her eyes, “seriously, how did you get them like this?”

“Hard work,” Adora shrugs, “besides, can’t be the coolest future personal trainer ever without awesome muscles. I could show you, if you want.”

Catra raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think biceps like that would suit me.”

“I’m not saying you have to bulk up, but… but you said you wanted to work out for tour, right?” Adora questions, and when Catra nods, she grins. “Okay. You can be my guinea pig. I can test out my personal trainer skills on you, and you’ll be ready for touring. It’s a win win.”

Catra raises her eyebrows. “You’re volunteering to be my personal trainer?”

“Yeah,” Adora smiles and reaches out to pull her closer. She kisses Catra’s cheek gently. “I mean, don’t you want a real workout routine as opposed to just going on the treadmill? And you clearly like my biceps… I could help you work yours out.”

Catra snorts lightly. “Yeah, I don’t think arms like yours will suit me.”

“I said before, you don’t have to try and bulk up,” Adora shrugs, “just toning work. I mean, you’ll still gain muscle, but with your little noodle arms, it’ll be easy to get muscle definition.”

Catra bursts out laughing. “Okay, did you just say I have noodle arms?”

“Well,” Adora blushes, “I was only half serious.”

“Sure,” Catra laughs, not believing that for a second, “but okay. We can work out some kind of gym routine together, and you can test out your training skills.”

Adora works her hard, but she’s never mean or pushy about it, and according to her, food is your best friend. Apparently, a lot of people have a thing for biceps, because when Catra posts some progress pictures a few months later and captions it slide a: noodle arms, slide b: slightly less noodle arms, slide c: she’s a better personal trainer than a hairstylist it has more than a few people being thirsty in her comment section. There are the usual Catradora comments referencing the third picture, a gym selfie that she and Adora take together, but Catra expects that by now.

While Adora is submitting her resume to different gyms for a permanent job, Catra points her towards the gym she used to go to in LA. It’s mostly just a centre for celebrities and their personal trainers, and it’s a private, pretty elite place that Adora laughs and rolls her eyes at.

“I’d never get in there,” Adora says, “I don’t have enough experience. Especially not training celebrities.”

Catra stares at her blankly for a few minutes and waits for her to connect the dots. “Uh…”

“What?” Adora frowns, and Catra stifles a laugh. “I don’t! Since when do I know any celebrities?”

Catra raises her eyebrows and waits for the penny to drop. When it does, Adora lets out a quiet, “oh, wait a minute,” and Catra finally lets out the laugh she’s been stifling. She reaches out with her hand and pulls Adora closer by the waist.

“You’re an idiot,” Catra laughs, pulling her in for a gentle kiss, “and I love you.”

She realises exactly what she’d said just when it’s too late. Those three words have always been the bane of Catra’s existence. She’s never once heard them directed at her. She’s heard them from fans, but that doesn’t count. They don’t know her, they don’t really mean it.

No parent, guardian, friend or girlfriend has ever told Catra that they love her before. She’s never felt someone’s love, never had anybody who genuinely feels that for her, and she promised herself that she wouldn’t say those three fucking words to Adora, no matter how much she feels them.

She expects it to be some depressing show of pity, the way it was with Starla. I love you, Catra had told her seriously, and Starla had smiled sadly and mumbled, that’s nice. She expects the same from Adora.

As sad as it is, Catra has almost accepted that she’ll never hear that.

Adora realises the words a moment after Catra does. She blinks, looks at Catra in surprise, and then this gentle smile settles on her face. Catra is so scared, because she knows this will crush her.

“I’m so in love with you that I actually feel like I just died and went to heaven hearing you say that,” Adora murmurs, resting her forehead against Catra’s, “say it again, please?”

“You say it first,” Catra whispers, because she can’t believe that Adora just told her she loves her, “I need to hear that.”

“I love you,” Adora closes the small gap between them and presses her lips to Catra’s in a kiss, “so much.”

“I love you too,” Catra says, looking over Adora’s face to make sure that this is real. That she’s really there, saying those words. “Tell me again.”

Adora laughs, and her blue eyes are sparkling like sapphires when she looks right at Catra and promises, “I love you.”

They sleep together for the first time after their very first I love yous, and Catra has never, ever felt happier.

2022

Adora gets the personal trainer job at the gym in LA, which means they officially move there together. Catra is only slightly surprised when Bow and Glimmer bring up getting a place together, but the four of them end up moving into a house together. Or five, technically, with Melog. It’s nowhere big or fancy like Catra’s old LA house, but she likes it that way. Living in a place with her girlfriend, and their friends, and her cat, it’s a little slice of normalcy outside of the rest of her whirlwind life.

Being back in LA means being back on paparazzi radar, which is something Catra will never be okay with, but she deals with it. Mostly by flipping them off so they can’t sell their pictures to magazines. The fans are okay, though. Most of them are respectful, and a lot of the time, she has actual conversations with them as opposed to getting screamed at for selfies or a follow back on Twitter.

She still doesn’t like being famous, and she doesn’t think she ever will. But she’s happy regardless, with an amazing girlfriend and real friends and the career she always wanted.

Catra is the one who ends up confirming their relationship to the public. When they all move into the LA place together, Catra decides to take Adora, Bow and Glimmer sightseeing, since Bow and Glimmer have never been to LA before, and Adora didn’t exactly get much sightseeing done the one time she did for the contest.

They’re finishing up the day at Santa Monica pier, and they’ve just gotten off the rollercoaster when a group of fans come over.

“Catra!” They call out to her, “hi! Do you mind if we get some pictures?”

“Of course not,” Catra says, already leaning in for the first of many selfies. She nods to Adora and says, “I’ll meet you guys at the big wheel.”

After taking pictures with everyone from the group of girls, one of them says quietly, “you’re a lot different now.”

Catra raises her eyebrows. “I am?”

“Yeah,” the girl says, “I met you a few years ago at a meet and greet on the Wildcat tour, and you really didn’t seem like you wanted to be there.”

“That’s because I didn’t,” Catra says, and the girls laugh at the joke, “I hope you mean I’m different in a good way, though, because otherwise I might be a little offended.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” the girl says, “you seem happy now.”

“I am happy,” Catra says, and she knows in her heart that it’s true, “anyway, if you guys don’t mind, I should probably be getting back to my girlfriend and our friends now.”

“Oh my god, did you just say girlfriend?”

“She said girlfriend!”

“You meant Adora, right? Please tell us you meant Adora.”

Catra just smirks in reply. “It was nice meeting you guys.”

“Oh my god, she said girlfriend.”

It’s all over Twitter by the time they get off the big wheel, and Catra goes through her camera roll to find her favourite pictures of herself and Adora together. She posts them to Instagram with the caption just gals being pals… historians will say we were very good friends.

Catradora trends for twenty-four hours straight.

Her first award show run after everything is terrifying.

She worries for ages about what she’s going to wear, what the interviews are going to be like, and oddly, she’s worried she might win an award. She’s never been good at the speeches stuff, and it was actually one of the few positives that the label would write her acceptance speeches for her.

At the Grammys, she’s nominated for Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Performance. It’s the first event of the year, and she’s completely terrified, and basically begs Adora to be her plus one.

“I’ll do it, if she won’t,” Glimmer makes sure to say, “I’ll just make disgusting heart eyes at you all the time and nobody will be able to tell the difference.”

Adora goes with her, but Catra remembers Glimmer’s offer - the non-sarcastic part - for any time Adora somehow isn’t available.

(Glimmer ends up being her plus one to the VMAs and embarrassing the hell out of her when she screams at the top of her lungs at Taylor Swift that she’d leave her boyfriend for her if Taylor wanted to elope.)

At every single event she’s ever been to, the label had everything planned. When she’d show up, how she’d show up, what she’d wear, what she’d say. Catra gets a car to take them there, and knows that she’ll answer the interview questions honestly, but when it comes to clothing, she has no idea. She hasn’t worn anything other than jeans and a t-shirt for two years now.

The label usually got some stylist to loan her an ugly dress that she hated and felt madly uncomfortable in, and she knows that’s not the route she wants to go. Catra has never felt comfortable in dresses and skirts, and like Weaver had known that, she always made sure to dress her up in them. Femininity will project heterosexuality, or something like that.

Catra decides that she wants to wear a tux to the event, and even though she feels a lot more comfortable in it, she’s still nervous that she doesn’t look good. After dressing, she steps out to meet Adora and asks her what she thinks.

Adora’s mouth works, and she blinks in surprise. “Wow.”

“Is that a good wow?” Catra asks, and Adora nods wordlessly. “Okay. That’s all I needed to know.”

“You look amazing,” Adora says; she’s in a simple flowing dress, and looks effortlessly beautiful. “No pun intended, but it really suits you.”

“I know you,” Catra laughs, “that pun was definitely intended.”

She feels good by the time they show up to the award ceremony. Still nervous, but good, and she feels confident in the way she looks, which is something that’s never happened on the red carpet thanks to the dresses she’d always been forced to wear to them.

Catra wins three out of four of the Grammys she’s nominated for, and this time, they actually mean something. She makes a nervous acceptance speech, and she wraps it up with, “and last but definitely not least, I want to thank my beautiful girlfriend.”

Catra finds her in the crowd and relaxes when she imagines it’s just the two of them. “Adora, I wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for you. You’re my best friend, my biggest supporter, the love of my life, and I am so grateful every single day that I met you. You saved my life, and taught me how to be happy, and I love you so much.”

Despite all of the cameras, Adora kisses her the moment she gets back to her seat.

Going back on tour is a lot to adjust to.

For one, Adora has to stay back in LA to work. She’s so used to being with her every single day, that being without her for months on end is something she’ll never adjust to. Adora always makes sure to stagger her holiday time so they get to see each other semi-regularly, and Catra FaceTimes her every night. Sometimes at stupidly early hours of the morning, because of time zones.

She misses Melog, too. Adora sends her daily pictures of him and reassures her over text that Melog won’t forget about her. He always looks confused when she brings him up to the camera on FaceTime, and he looks around adorably when he hears her voice.

She misses stability the most. Being on the road, in a different city every night, is amazing, but also so tiring. Sleeping on the tour bus and hotels is hard because she just thinks about how comfortable the bed she shares with Adora is, and the fact that Adora is in it. She sleeps well whenever Adora comes to visit but tosses and turns the rest of the time.

The shows are phenomenal, though. Catra puts her heart and soul into it, and anyone can see how passionate she is when she’s performing. As much as she misses home, the fact that she gets to do this for her job is never taken for granted.

She just misses her girlfriend a lot.

2023

She makes sure to take regular breaks from touring so she doesn’t burn out, as well as takes her time between albums. She’s in the writing and creating phase right now, which means she’s home with her girlfriend and her friends and her cat.

Weirdly, she finds herself missing tour. Performing is one of her favourite things to do, and it makes her laugh that she misses tour when she’s not on it and misses home when she is.

Where the last album was her pain and suffering being controlled by the label, this one is about Adora. Album five gets given the working title for her, because that’s what it is. It’s a love letter, from Catra to Adora.

There’s one song in particular that she loves the most. It’s the one that was supposed to be on her last album, the song she wanted Adora to sing with her. It’s where she gets the album’s title from, and as Catra revisits it, she finds herself changing it.

This song is Adora’s song. Catra might have written it, and sung it, but the song is Adora’s. It’s everything Catra has ever felt for her, all wrapped up into a neat little bow, and Catra knows what she has to do with it.

She doesn’t even send it to Entrapta for production. This song needs to be completely from Catra’s heart, to Adora’s. Nobody else.

When she has the perfected version, she listens to it once all the way through, and she knows she can never release it. It’s probably the best song she’s ever written, and it’s literally the title track of the album, but she’s going to take it off. This song… it belongs to Adora. It has to stay with Adora.

Besides, sonically, it’s nothing like the rest of the album. She sits and stares at the track until Adora gets home from work. Then she carefully nudges Melog off his favourite spot on her lap, jumps up, and grabs Adora by the arm.

“There’s something you need to hear,” Catra says, and Adora goes along with it – she’s used to Catra grabbing her and insisting that she needs to listen to something by now, “it’s important.”

Adora laughs. “Okay. I’m guessing this is a song?”

“Yeah,” Catra grabs her headphones and puts them over Adora’s ears, skipping the track back to the start, “ready?”

Adora nods, and Catra stares nervously at the paused track before she presses the spacebar and plays it. Adora listens carefully for around twenty seconds, and then…

“Hey, wait,” Adora pauses the song and pulls the headphones from over her ears, “this is a pop song.”

“It’s…” Catra lets out a nervous laugh and sits down next to her, “it’s not for the album or anything. I’m not going to release it. It’s just… it’s just for you. It’s everything that I feel for you, and I know that pop is your favourite genre. This isn’t my song. It’s from me, but it’s yours.”

A small smile tilts up the corner of Adora’s mouth, and she nods, pulling the headphones back over her ears. “Okay. Skip it back to the start. I need the full effect.”

Catra nods, and she watches anxiously for the entire three minutes that Adora is listening to the song. When it ends, Adora pulls the headphones from over her head, and when she looks at her, there’s tears in her eyes. She cups Catra’s jaw and pulls her in for a kiss, and when she pulls back just a little bit, her forehead still rested against Catra’s, she says those precious three words.

“I love you.”

Catra sighs happily. “I love you too.”

“I know that, from this,” Adora nods towards the computer and reaches up to wipe at her eyes, “I loved that so much. I loved the song almost as much as I love you, and it means even more that you made it a pop song. I know you hate pop music.”

Normally, Catra would respond to that with an eye roll and a comment about how she doesn’t hate pop music, she just didn’t want to make it, but right now, it’s different.

“I…” Catra bites down on her bottom lip nervously, and then lets the words out, “will you marry me?”

Adora blinks. “What?”

Catra doesn’t let herself wimp out. “Will you marry me, Adora?”

Adora stares at her in shock, and slowly, Catra pulls a ring off her finger. She holds it out, and Adora looks down at it, still stunned.

“I know it’s not- I mean, it’s not actually an engagement ring, but it’s…” Catra breathes out quietly and explains, “I bought this ring years ago. I was seventeen, and it was before everything with the label got bad, and I thought I was happy. It was like, a symbol of that, to me. Like I finally got what I’d always wanted, which was just to be happy one day. My entire life, I always felt like I was looking forward to one day. Whenever something bad would happen, I’d just think that one day, I’d be happy.”

“I lost hope for a while,” Catra admits quietly, “back when I was stuck in that contract. There was a point in time where I thought that I was just destined to be unhappy and unlovable. A few months before the contest, I drank almost a lethal amount of whiskey. I ended up with alcohol poisoning, and I would’ve died if Weaver hadn’t come over to drag me out to some interview. When I woke up, the first thing I really saw in my tired, still half-drunk haze was this ring on my finger. At the time, I felt bitter about it. I bought it for myself to celebrate that I was finally happy, and there I was, lying in a hospital bed after a suicide attempt and pretending like I just had a really wild night out. Because that’s what it was, no sugar coating it, even if I didn’t know what I was doing while I was doing it. I didn’t call for help when I realised how much I drank.”

“I threw it in the back of my jewellery box after that,” Catra says, “I was bitter and angry that I was alive, and I thought- I thought there’d never be that one day where I was finally happy, and that everything would’ve been so much easier if I just stopped existing. And then I met you. I was the lowest I’d ever been, and thinking about ways I could end it all, and then you came along and you helped me. Something that felt impossible, being happy… it was something I finally learned how to do. On my own first, and then with you.”

“I remembered this and found it in my jewellery box a little while ago,” Catra says, “because one day is finally here. It’s all the days I’ve had since I met you. It’s all the times you make me laugh and all the times you keep pushing me for just one more rep at the gym and every time you listen to whatever lame song I’m working on. It’s when you kiss me and hold me and touch me like I’m the most precious thing in the world to you. It’s in the things that haven’t happened yet, like when I do get to call you my wife, and when we’re laying in bed on a lazy Sunday morning and our kid comes running into the room to wake us up for breakfast, or when you’re old and grey and I’m kicking your ass at checkers in the old folks’ home I still find you just as beautiful as you are now.”

“One day… it’s the rest of my life, with you, if you’ll have me,” Catra holds the ring out and says it again, “so, Adora, will you marry me?”

“Yeah,” Adora whispers, “of course I will.”

Catra smiles gently and takes Adora’s hand. She slides the ring onto Adora’s finger and then brings her hand up to kiss the back of it. “I love you, Adora.”

“I love you so much,” Adora reaches out and pulls Catra in for a tight hug, burying her face in her shoulder, “and I’m so- I’m so proud, and so happy when I see how far you’ve come. You deserve every good thing in this world, Catra.”

“I’ve got you,” Catra shrugs easily, “so I already do.”

2024

They get married on the four-year anniversary of the day Catra was released from the contract that she thought ruined her life. She looks into Adora’s beautiful eyes and says the words I do, and Catra sees the rest of her life in beautiful colour.

When she kisses Adora at the altar, Catra knows in her heart that she’s got her happy ending.