#so anyway basically catra nearly dies and adora can't make herself bring the sword down on her and instead heals her

[parts-of-spop]

Where Catra lets Adora fall in the First Ones Temple... and she doesn’t come out

Part 6: In which Adora realises that letting go just isn’t that easy and Glimmer, despite it all, supports her.

CW: suicide mention. Please don’t read if this will trigger or upset you.

“I couldn’t do it…” Adora murmurs, head hanging in shame.

“Adora?” Glimmer coaxes gently.

“I thought I’d let her go… but I hadn’t… I saw her dying and I couldn’t let it happen… I can’t ever let her go,” Adora says quietly and her hands curl into fists.

“What do you mean?” Glimmer implores and Adora reels towards her, tears staining her face.

“I’m in love with her! I always was! I always will be! And no matter what I do…” She deflates, curling into herself and looking so painfully small for the first time since she returned to Brightmoon. “… I can’t let her go… I need her, Glimmer.”

“… You love her?” Glimmer presses gently and Adora winces.

“She… She scouted the Temple. I left it open for her so I could tell her that we were… were done but it just…” She hesitates, tears spilling down her face and her eyes are dim. “… She looked so helpless and hopeful, even after everything. She told me she didn’t think the Temple would kill me, that she figured I’d get out of that fall just fine… and it’d broken her, Glimmer. To hear I’d… I’d died…” She stops again, staring at nothing. “She’d tried to kill herself after… thinking she’d killed me… and when she came to the Temple I was just… just going to tell her it was over but she looked so sad and lost and I didn’t know what to do…”

“Adora?”

“She told me she loved me…” Adora rasps and she drags her hands down her face. “And I kissed her and it was so stupid but I couldn’t say no. She needed me to and so I gave her everything I had to offer and she still didn’t want to leave and I was so stupid because I can’t get it out of my head… How she looked at me like I’d gifted her the stars… and I felt just the same.”

Glimmer stares at her, silent and pained for her friend… because Adora is still her friend no matter how hard she tries to deny it.

“I spent four years getting over her and in one night… it all got swept away,” Adora adds, voice shaking.

Catra has hurt people, Glimmer knows this. But she’s also seen her step down from Force Captain, fighting robotically against Rebellion soldiers and never leaving them with much more than a concussion. She hasn’t hurt anybody badly in months.

And she leapt in to save her life. Likely for Adora but still, Glimmer is in one piece because of her.

She’s had constant bags under her eyes for ages, never smiled during her attacks or did more than was asked of her. She’d not been interested in fighting since that moment Glimmer told her Adora was dead.

She can still remember the look on her face.

She looked like somebody who was dying. The life draining from her eyes every time and her smirk long gone.

She’d given up.

With a few short words, Catra had given up on life.

She looked like Glimmer had just ripped her heart out of her chest and honestly, it had confused and even frightened her that Catra could look like that. That just a few words could do that to a person.

A person who she was so sure hated Adora but was suddenly looking at her like she’d just… destroyed her. It hadn’t felt good. She’d wanted to stay angry, spit insults, snarl words of malice and hurt her but… there was no point. Catra was already done.

She really had just… given up.

And Glimmer remembers her lifeless eyes, her actually stumbling a step back as if she’d been shot. Her eyes had flickered, darkening by the moment, distant and lost like she just… couldn’t comprehend it. Like she couldn’t believe something like Adora being gone.

That she didn’t exist anymore.

Then she’d turned away and the fight was over in mere minutes.

It doesn’t really surprise Glimmer after seeing that that she’d turned to suicide to free herself. She was little more than a walking corpse after a month of hearing the news.

And suddenly it clicks to Glimmer just what a horrible situation this has become.

Her best friend is desperately, irrevocably in love and she isn’t allowed to love her.

“Oh Adora…” She rasps shakily and the blonde chokes on a sob, her head clutched between her hands.

“I don’t understand! I tried so hard! But one night! One look and it ruined four years of trying to accept that it’d never work! I can’t have Catra and be She-ra! It won’t happen and now I can do neither!” She cries frantically and then she’s falling, sinking to her knees and curling into herself. “I can’t do anything right! I’m the worst She-ra in existence because I can’t choose!”

Glimmer feels her heart break for her, her eyes stinging with tears as she approaches her, crouching beside her and resting a hand against her back.

“It’s okay… We’re holding up just fine. We’ll manage,” She tries to soothe and Adora shakes her head, sniffling through her sobs.

“No, you don’t understand. There’s something worse out there that’s waiting and once the Horde get the Sword, it’ll find us and we’ll be done for because I’m lost and confused and…” She chokes off into more tears and Glimmer curls around her, hugging her tightly. A warm hand rests over her own.

“We’ll survive… We’re the Best Friend Squad… We can do anything…” She says, shaky but vehement.

“Horde Prime is coming, Glimmer… and he’s so much worse than Hordak… I can’t protect you like this,” Adora wheezes, leaning into her.

“You don’t have to do everything. We’re a team, Adora… and I don’t know what Light Hope told you but never in my life has having friends made me weaker… We can do this…” She says firmly, leaning further into her friend; her stupid, brilliant, loving friend who has fought so hard and so long for them all and she closes her eyes, “… together.”

Adora swallows hard and chokes back four years of training.

“Together,” She echoes, desperately wanting to believe it.