Chapter Text
She heard shrieking.
Entrapta walked down the stairs, she had decided to wear her tweed jacket today like she did every morning. The screaming didn’t make her jump, it wasn’t a warning, it was the lead in to the laughter and light that was their children. Sam ran full tilt past her as she finished her descent down the stairs. Entrapta was adjusting her bow tie like she had done a thousand times before. Lilly was there then screaming after him.
“No running in the house!” came the authoritarian voice of Catra. Their kids obeyed quickly,
Sam was complaining, “Noo! She said I could have a turn with Melody!”
Lilly shouted, “But only for a minute!”
Catra drew closer, “We don’t have time for this. There’s only-” Catra glanced at the wall clock, “Oh hell, ten minutes before we need to be in the car and moving. Sam? Backpack! Lilly? Breakfast dishes. Now!” And the issue was settled. Sam dashed to the bedroom and Lilly was clearing her cereal bowl with just a few crispy critters left in it.
Entrapta felt the twist in her chest of anxiety, love, and urgency that every morning seemed to bring.
She took a few seconds to look Catra over. She was in her red silk blouse, black slacks and was slipping on her black suit coat. She had her full warpaint makeup on that she always spent too long applying. So many times Entrapta had told her that her natural beauty was enough. Secretly, though, she was happy that her job at the university would never require her to go to such lengths. Every story that she heard from Horde co. sounded like a social nightmare.
Entrapta offered, “You look good, sorry I wasn’t more help with the kids this morning.”
Catra’s expression was sharp for the briefest second, she smiled, “Less compliments, more wrangling. Is Sam on track with his space model? He said that it’s due on Friday.”
Entrapta nodded, pointing over to the dining room table, “It’s a solar system, actually. I still don’t like how inaccurate it is. First the sun being the size of a basket ball? That would make the earth the size of a peppercorn across the street–”
Catra patted Entrapta’s shoulders, “Oh my god, not now Entrapta! Focus! I need you to get the kids in the car while I find my briefcase.”
Entrapta grinned, parting her lips just slightly, “I love you.”
Catra’s hands slipped from her shoulders, a tired smile came to Catra’s features, “I love you too, now get moving!”
Catra moved beyond her starting up the stairs towards Sam’s room shouting a warning that he better have his backpack.
Entrapta was lost though. Her gears moving, was that a pause? No–
Lilly was shoving her stuffed giraffe into her belly suddenly, “I want to take Melody to school today!”
Entrapta didn’t have time to figure out what she was just thinking about, “I- I think it’s–” She remembered the last time she gave permission, “What did momma Catra say?”
Lilly pouted, “She said she would distract me.”
Entrapta pressed a hand to Lilly’s back towards the front door, “What Momma Catra says, I say too, so go put your jacket on. It’s going to be 50 degrees today.”
Lilly threw the well hugged giraffe to the ground, tears in her eyes but didn’t have time to finish her tantrum, she just weakly sobbed as Entrapta wrapped her coat around her. Entrapta smiled encouragingly, coming up with a story, “Let’s give Melody a day off. She wouldn’t even have that much fun at school.”
Her daughter sniffled and wiped her face giving a nod. Entrapta ruffled her hair, “Hey, we wouldn’t want her feeling sad on her day off, right? Let’s be brave for her, okay?”
Lilly was still frowning but nodded again. Thundering footsteps came down the stairs, Sam was dashing to the front door followed by Catra who had a worried hand on her forehead, “I have my keys but no briefcase!”
Entrapta pointed at the table, “I think it’s there.” The professor oriented her son, “Sam? Get your backpack on straight and help Lilly with her shoes. I’m going to get my jacket.”
Catra rushed to the kids as Entrapta left. Everything was buzzing at the door, somehow they all piled out into the yard the next moment and were hurrying towards their cars. Entrapta felt Catra’s hand on her arm moving to face her, they shared a brief smooch but when Catra drew back she quickly planted the seed, “We should have a talk tonight.” before she was hopping into her car. Entrapta absently nodded and was moving into her own car. Only then did the little phrase settle on her mind. She stopped dead in her motions looking over at Catra’s car revving up in the chilly autumn morning. She didn’t glance back at her, instead she was pulling back out of the driveway.
She thought ‘What did that mean?’
Sam went after Lilly, slamming the car door harder than he should have.
“No slamming doors!” Catra barked after. She tossed her head back into the seat rest of her Honda Accord shaking her head ‘no’ to Sam’s developing brazen outbursts. She sarcastically asked herself ‘ I wonder where he gets -that-? ’
She took a moment to look out as the other parents were deploying their children to the war on learning. One of them, older, was wiping his cheek as he exited the passenger seat exclaiming, “I’m too old for good-bye kisses Mom!”
It made her heart thump harder once, soon that would be Sam, and what Sam did, Lilly would follow. Guilt bled from her brief scold at Sam, then came the other things she was feeling guilty about. She shook her head, physically trying to dislodge the thoughts but she knew they would be there soon enough. She twisted to look out the back and pulled out of the diagonal slotted parking space. Off she went towards the highway.
She knew what was waiting for her at Hordeco. She knew that Adora was there. She remembered yesterday when Shadow Weaver literally had called a meeting to show off their new recruit.
Catra and her team had been pulled into the meeting unannounced. While something like this usually had everyone already nervous, Catra kept a strong presence up. She knew that looking ‘in charge’ and confident was key to keeping her team rallied instead of defeated in moments like this. Any crack would make them suspicious. Like when Adora entered the room. Just like that, like the last six years hadn’t gone by. She had a few more distinguished lines, a little more muscle, but it could only have been her.
Shadow Weaver introduced her proudly, “Hordeco Employees? This is Adora Keene. She recently found herself discharged from Fort Lewis with honors. She was awarded an Army Achievement medal and holds a certification for combatives level II. She will be taking the first office next to mine as data entry assistant, but I strongly believe that she won’t stay in that position for long. Please take some time during your day to introduce yourselves to her. Dismissed.”
After that, the people shifted in their chairs, filtering up to the front of the room to shake hands and nod, only after talking with Rusty did Adora notice that Catra hadn't moved from her chair. It was a shadow passing over the room when their eyes met. Catra knew that she was looking intensely at her. The acknowledgement was all she was waiting for. Kyle was talking to her when she had stood from her seat and simply left the room.
Catra was now pulling into her spot. She wasn’t exactly early but she could spend a few moments in her spot thinking that moment over. There weren't any words to share really. She thought about the final days of high school that she had spent with Adora. They had never really talked about the future together. Catra had always assumed that they would talk about college in the summer. After all, why bother preparing for something when you don't have a full picture of what your grades were? When she had bounced that off of Adora she had nodded, agreeing with her. Her claws dug into the steering wheel leaving marks as the knife slid into her ribs again, so why did she disappear?
She had dragged it out of Adora’s parents that she had left for the military, but they wouldn’t tell her what branch, what base, anything. She had screamed at them, they had shouted back, the usual back and forth that they had. They argued how Catra was a “bad influence” and if she had stayed with Adora it would only tarnish her reputation, even force her out of the bright future she had with the armed services. She shot back with her usual common sense arguments that they weren’t in control of her life anymore, people grow into what they are, not what you want them to be but it was all pointless. At one point it was a screaming match on their suburban lawn. Some neighbor must have called the cops to break it up and about a week later she was issued a restraining order.
A breath left her. Now the painful past was here. The noxious ghost was waiting for her inside. Her gold and blue eyes stared at the building, its pristine monolithic gleam let no comfort in today. They were going to interact at one point. She rolled questions around in her mind. To her annoyance she spotted her car’s digital clock reading 7:50. She needed to get inside if she wanted to avoid another, fresher hell: Shadow Weaver noticing that she was late.
The car door popped open and she marched towards the glass doors that turned into floor to distant ceiling glass panes that made up this side of the huge building. She skipped up a low set of black stairs marbled with white veins. Wind tossed her hair around before she shifted through the doors into the expansive mezzanine. Inside was nearly 30ft by 60ft with three stories of balconies looking out over the center. Hanging in the middle was the great dark red wings and diamond of Hordeco.’s logo. Drones from different departments walked here and there, each having their own take on the business’s dress code of formal business, mostly black and one accenting color of red. About ten people squeezed into the elevator, this was the last one to take if any of them wanted to punch in on time.
At least this made the ride impersonal enough that Catra could begin spinning questions for Adora to answer. Where had she gone? What was she thinking? How could she just leave her like that? So many were competing for her favor that she barely noticed when they hit floor 15, her floor. Her hand shot out at the last second to the mild surprise of the few remaining employees in the elevator.
Out she came into the short hallway and banked a left, passing by a glass wall. She looked out into her department’s workspace. Before her were the entry level cubicles where around ten people clacked away on keyboards, their eyes focused on their screens lighting them up like the pallid zombies they were. Around these feeding troughs were the next level, those that got the gift of slight privacy with full cubicle walls. Being paired with the right person meant that your business would be your own, the wrong one and you’d end up like Geoff and Nate whose literal tape down the middle of their cube was the stuff of office gossip gold.
She turned left again and walked towards her office that she had worked for seven long hard years. Years of sucking up, making deadlines, and throwing Kyle under the bus at every opportunity. She hesitated, seeing that Rusty was at the office next to Shadow Weaver’s. Her eyes squinted as he was sliding away the ‘vacant’ placard with ‘Adora Keene’.
Catra moved into her office, attacked her punch-in software and was out of her door in a flash. She felt herself coiling as she zeroed in on the vulgar office, unsure of what she was going to say, her mental library had purged all questions into a dumpster fire and out came the arsenal of scathing remarks. She crashed into the-...
The empty office.
Like a thousand volts through her spine, her name sounded in Adora's voice, “Catra!”
Catra pivoted ninety degrees.
There she was, a happy smile on her face, her stupid poof above her huge forehead. Those icy eyes crinkled in a sweet smile. Adora was wearing a black suit coat, white blouse and dark red tie wound into a smart windsor knot, something Catra had never mastered on her own. She was in a thigh-high pencil skirt, nylons and high heeled black shoes which made her tower annoyingly over Catra.
Catra’s ears flipped back. She felt her mouth bearing her needle sharp canines, but before she could scold Adora for sneaking up on her; a styrofoam cup of coffee came into view in Adora’s offering hand. She said, “Extra dark, two sweet still?”
All of Catra’s fuses were shattering in her mental control room. All the weaponized language floundered in her hands and she ended up venomously saying, “Just one sweet!”
Adora’s brow crinkled.
Catra snatched the cup and took a big swig painfully searing her tongue.
Tears welled in her eyes but she wouldn’t react, not in front of Adora, not after seven years of pain. This was nothing. She was going to show it.
Adora winced, clearly knowing just how hot the coffee was.
Catra’s throat was tight from the fiery sensation, her stomach screamed at her about the magma it now held. Somehow she kept her face grim. She choked out, “Welcome to Hordeco.! ” before she gave up the trench, turning away, tail lashing.
She was back in her own office. She coughed and winced terribly, the physical pain almost as difficult to endure as the completely ineffective performance she just made.