Adora waited patiently in the room, pacing back and forth, too consumed by the anxiety to do pretty much anything else - eat for one.
She would have waited all night, but she really only had till sunrise and it was all a huge risk itself at this point already.

The blonde was torn by her morality: it was against the rules, the ethic, the respect for her job - but she had also made a promise long time ago, a promise she broke for almost a decade, but Adora couldn't close an eye on it today.
She collected her shame, her courage, her loyalty and sent the message.

A message she was almost sure would be accepted.
Almost.

Then, a click from the entrance made the blonde flinch visibly.
Shivers ran down her spine with the sound of each step.
Then she - as the vision she was - appeared in all her beauty and strength, no matter the grimace on her face.
"Hey Adora." The familiar greeting slipped out of her lips raspy and cold.
And she just dumbly couldn't breath, as she took in the attitude, the traits, the shorter hair, the smart look, the polished nails.
"Hi, Cat" Adora mumbled out softly, caressing the name.
The brunette stilled, but was soon standing straighter and serious as ever.
"So, what's so urgent? Did something come up with Weaver or our documents?" The woman asked, throwing gently the jewel back to its owner.
"No, I-I checked it years ago, and Sharon entered in a house for elders little after I graduated: I didn't manage to send her in prison, but at least she can't foster either." Adora hurried to assure her.
"Wow, that-that's actually great." The brunette admitted relived, yet more concerned about this sudden encounter.
"I also found out some stuff about our biological families, if you ever want to see my researches...they are pretty much still hints, but better then nothing, you know? If- " The other rambled anxiously.
"Stop and breath Adora, it's just me after all...so, can we get to the point now?" Catra stopped her, intentionally ignoring the whole biological-family shit.

Would she ever stop searching?

The blonde inhaled and exiled deeply, sitting down for the first time in hours of waiting, then moved her gaze to fix it on mismatched eyes.

"Right after graduation I started training at the law firm of a friend's mother, but she said that before hiring me I nedded some experience somewhere else, to build myself in different environments...then I ended in the attorney office. Little did I know that the procurator was corrupted. Someday this intelligence agent contacted me and I helped them in finding evidences...then I was hired by the firm I went first. There I did mine as a family lawyer, untill some months ago, when I encountered a pregnant woman who had been suddenly fired...But there was something more I couldn't grasp, so I called again the agent to ask for a favour, and in no time we found ourselves building a massive case - a class action - for water and soil pollution against H-industries, owned by Hordak Eaton, whose brother is ahead of a colossal criminal organisation the intelligence has been detecting on for years.
I was doing researchers on all their more or less legal activities...so you can imagine my surprise and alarm when your name popped up in my files this morning.
I studied the numbers of DrylTechs and they are impressive, Cat! You did an amazing job and you guys are raising fast - which means you could turn into the Eaton brother's main source of legal money soon. - And this is where it gets dangerous: the moment we will start moving legally, two things could happen to you: the bad advertisement will make you weak in the market and the second - and worst - is that Prime might turn to your company to compensate the damage on H-industries." Adora told in a grave tone.
Catra didn't seem shocked by her speech - neither surprised - she just covered her face with her hand and rubbed the aching head.
"You- agh! I'm so- So your plan was what? Contact me to tell me this nice story and then? Expect me to leave everything and ruin my life? You- do you even have an even remote idea of how many people work for me? Or how much I spent in my job? I'm giving up no shit! You-you can't! You blew up my fucking life once, Adora, I'm not letting you do it again!" She hissed with rising anger.
"And that's not what I'm trying to do! I'm here to warn you, Catra! I'm risking it all: my career, my friendships and the case that would help hundreds of people - only to help you! Prime is dangerous! Like really dangerous - like deadly dangerous! I'm not here to ruin your life, I'm here to keep you safe." The blonde insisted.
Catra turned and sighed, throwing her bag on the perfectly tucked bed.
Her head hammered and she was so tired she could hardly remember words - she was in no place to go in full-arguing mode.
"I've always known that Hordak wasn't clean, but DrylTechs are and he trusted me with it, he hired me and promoted me, untill I started running the place. It was so important to me - the company is important to me. Agh! This shit is- it's hideous! Tomorrow I'll think of a plan to protect us and not expose you..." Catra said exasperated, drained of any energy.
And she still had to drive home.
"Thank you" Adora whispered, keeping her eyes fixed on the figure of her ex-best friend.

She knew that grumpiness, that rubbing, the clenched jaw, the frustrated frown and stuttering.

"Hey, you seem tired...overstimulated, maybe?" the blonde asked tentatively.
Catra huffed and turned to her.
Was she that transparent?
"Yeah, long day: lot to do, many people to deal with - Not to mention the creepy package on my desk." She scoffed not too meanly.
Adora's lips twitched in a brief guilty smile, then she turned serious and looked for her phone in the bag.
The blonde picked a smoothing playlist with slow and quite songs, some older, other just old-fashioned.
As the music started, she stood to switch the light off and then looked at the woman.
"Better? Have you eaten yet?" She asked softly and caring.
"A little, but I should go home..." Catra said as quite.
"I have a protein bar in my bag, if you want." The woman offered, chawing her lip.

Catra's eyes burned and she was so hungry that her stomach grumbled in the worst moment, obviously.
The songs, also, made her remember the evenings of her teenage years, when she would lay next to Adora and just get a break from the world to rest her racing brain.
It was so warming the way the blonde seemed to instantly fall in the habit, in their best ritual.
If only she didn't leave, they would have enjoyed it who knows how many times in those ten years.

Maybe it was the memories, maybe the tiredness, but Catra suddenly felt her eyes get watery...and she sniffed, betraying herself.

"Yeah, that sounds good." The brunette muttered.
Adora immediately rushed to the bag and started looking for the bar, then handed it to her.
"Now I wish I had stopped to buy those nut mixes you like." The blonde whispered jokingly looking at the snack she was holding.
Catra scoffed and unwrapped it.
In the peace of the room, with her mouth full of flavour and the presence of someone she used to always perceive as the safest, the brunette couldn't help but finally relax and lay on the soft bed.
Adora, rounding the forniture, rested next to her in the opposite direction.

And they stayed there, again beside each other, lidded eyes, fingers ever so tempted to graze her skin, listening to one, two, tree, four songs...

"Hey" the blonde eventually whispered slightly above the music.

"Yeah?" Catra asked, eyes closed.

"Do-do you still hate me?" She wondered, her heart stopping on the spot, eager for an answer it had been waiting for eons.

"No, I just despise you." She admitted, no longer bitter by the fact she never really managed to hate her from the very beginning.

The woman sighed relived, struggling to contain her emotions.

"I can live with that." Adora eventually said awfully tender.

And she meant it: she finally felt like breathing again, free from the echo of the worst words that had scarred her soul for years.

For ten years, the place meant to keep the "love you too, dummy"s from her favourite person, had only hold her last "I hate you"- the most heartfelt.

Adora thanked the darkness to hide the traitorous tears that welled up and left her blue irises.

"I think I could even forgive you, someday." Catra added gently - and that was it: the blonde was a sobbing mess.

The brunette turned at the burst of cry, the ugliest and most bottled up.
The pale skin had shaded into crimson, the cheeks were wet of tears, the body shook with every sob, no metter how hard she tried to restrain it.
"I'm sorry! I-I'm sorry..." she struggled out in between the whimpers, covering her face with her hands.

Honestly, fuck that.

Seeing Adora cry, no metter when, no metter why, made Catra want to cry, to get closer, to comfort.

But before she could move, the blonde was sitting, far from her, curling in a trembling ball of human.
So the brunette sat too and crawled to her side, gently bumping her head with hers, just like when they were children.

Yeah, honestly, screw their thirties too.

Adora opened up a little, her storming eyes looking in Catra's for a moment, and she collapsed in her chest, surrounded by her embrace and new perfume, but the same warmth.
There, they let a little more silent tears out.
Whatever happened, finally finding what they had been seeking endlessly for a decade was too precious to not hold on it a little longer.
And right there and then, both couldn't believe they had given up each other at some point and tried to forget, whether it had lasted one moment, one night or even some months.
Catra's head was aching more then ever, but the way Adora's hands gripped her shirt really had no price.
Those fucking 80 bucks for each hour of therapy? Once a week? For months of emotional torture called "healing"? Fucking worth it.
Eventually, the blonde did regret leaving her, betray her, abandon her to live their life.
Eventually, Adora had understood her mistake and apologised.
Eventually, Catra really had done the right thing - and even the blonde recognised it.
With her first love in her arms, the latina had never felt more realised, happy and satisfied.

She had proved the world that she was much more, that she could do it, that they had underestimated her.
She, who was degraded, abandoned, betrayed and abused - she had been right all along.

And now they laid - once again - in the dark, with soothing music, on a soft bed they would have never guessed they could have afforded, essentially cuddling and collecting back themselves to enjoy the warmth.

Adora snuggled further in Catra, grateful to the universe, and the latter's chest rose and fell rhythmically, evenly, and her fingers brushed through her hair.

"I know it's silly, but the very idea of your forgiveness for what I did is so comforting, I regret having been such a coward..." the blonde whispered, still buried in her intoxicating old partner in crime.
"I've been angry for so long...but it only makes me prouder of what I have accomplished, despite Shadow Weaver and despite you. It sucks that you chose wrong and can't be part of it, because the world was damn beautiful." Catra said.
"I thought so much about what if I had been more honest, how much college years would have been better..." she muttered, her sigh warming the tanned skin of the other woman.

As the latina recomposed from the goosebumps and analysed her last words, she harshly separated from Adora.

"College?!" She repeated, tension growing back in her body.
"Ye-yeah...if I was honest, if I talked with you about the offer before and didn't wait for you diagnosis, maybe you would have come with me for real, or we could have visited each other, or kept in tou-"the blonde said, but she interrupted herself mid-word because of the slap that turned her head and screeched the music that filled the room.
Adora cheek reddened and burned, as the woman reached to graze it silently, too shocked to cry.
In front of her, tho, streams ran down Catra's face, stronger then before.
"Are you fucking serious?!" She snapped, escaping the embrace to stand next to the bed, far from the blonde.
"Ten years! Then-then you ask me to meet you! You say you want to protect me, that you are impressed, you act all gentle, you finally apologise...and now you are telling me that if you could go back, you still would leave me?" Catra cried furiously, while absent stormy eyes looked at her.
"I- I-" Adora stuttered "I never meant to- it never was about leaving you...I just- it was such an opportunity and I- it was the right thing to do...I get to help so many people and- and right the wrongs..." she tried to explain, astonished by the fast switch of mood.
"The right- the right thing to do? Me! Staying- keeping your word to me was the right thing to do! How can you not see it? There- there were other ways, other times...but you just had to fulfill the expectations about your oh, so potentialful future!" Catra was now shouting, angry as she hadn't been for years.
"No! You-you don't get to say that! I- I did so much! I dedicate my whole life to help others! All the free time on pro-bono cases, all the- all the bad guardians I've stopped! I couldn't live like that anymore, I had to do something! I had to protect those kids, I- I couldn't fail again...I can't fail again, Catra..." Adora cried again, gripping the sheets, as the woman turned.
"There it is- the fucking hero complex...I always hated it. You try to win an endless war and sacrifice anything good in between. That's why I don't trust you anymore, I should never have." The brunette said anguished and hurt.
"Cat..." the blonde pleaded softly.
"I'm done with you. Let's make this our ultimate closure. Don't contact me, don't pry in my company or my life. I will protect my employees and won't tell anybody about tonight, but that's it. And take a piece of advise: it's time to understand how the world works, Adora - to make it better you need money and occasions, which mainly come from people who earned them the wrong way. Life is gray, there's no good or bad, we are painted in shades." Catra said with low, steady voice, eventually starting to collect her things and fix her clothes.
The blonde took a beat to stop her turmoil, look at the person she loved the most rejecting her again, and digest her words.
As she saw her silhouette leaving the room - some feminine soft voice still singing sweet lyrics in the background - her body and muscles snapped alive and she took Catra's wrist, which immediately tried to sneak from her grip, the other hand reaching to open the door - but Adora was faster and pinned the woman against it.
The brunette growled, their faces an inch apart, and mismatched eyes glared to the stained angel.
Ok, Adora did not think through...so she had to improvise.
"Please, I- you are right! You said the world is grey, that we are painted in shades, so please, Kitty, please believe that I'm not black too...there has never been an instant in my life I wanted to be away from you...but there's also so much more, today like ten years ago." The blonde begged for the last time, closing her eyes and colliding their foreheads in their old sign of fondness.
Catra's breath itched, as her eyes closed too and she tried to contain herself - because she was so angry, but she also felt Adora all over her, and as always that woman could unleash any imaginable emotion in her, all together.
"Let me go" she whispered desperately, before she would set the hotel on fire - or worse, kiss her.
The blonde scrunched her face, tightened her grip on her for a second, pressed a long kiss on her forehead, and swiftly run away in the bathroom.

Eventually, Adora heard the door opening and closing, allowing her to cry.