#kamanzi

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Shadow Weaver returns. Also, Adora experiences an atypical Valentine's Day.

Part 6 of 11: “Fifth”

The second Saturday of February found Adora at her kitchen table, poring over the scant contract that she’d signed five months earlier.

“She charges a flat fee for everything,” Adora sighed into her phone, which was carefully balanced between her cheek and her shoulder, “but all of the service descriptions are pretty vague. Like, here, the engagement letter states that matching services are forty thousand on their own, but it doesn’t say what exactly is involved with matching services.”

“Is there anything there under the label of birth-mom expenses?” Bow asked from his end of the line.

“Uh,” Adora answered, flipping a page forward. “Yeah. Fifty thousand. Like, obviously, that’s not true.”

“I don’t know,” Bow sighed. “If that’s supposed to include medical procedures, counselling, and legal services, fifty thousand dollars doesn’t sound way too out there, you know?”

Adora cradled her chin in her hand. “But does it? Does it actually cover that? It doesn’t say that.”

“That’s the thing. If it doesn’t explicitly say that those expenses are covered under any other label anywhere else, Shadow Weaver would just have to execute some kind of affidavit stating that that’s what’s covered under it.”

“What if Catra doesn’t actually use those? Like, what if she declines counselling and legal services?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bow answered. “It’s industry standard to charge a flat fee based on average cost of services rather than actual charges incurred. A judge wouldn’t blink twice at approving adoption expenses like those.”

Leaning back against her chair and carding one hand through her ponytail, Adora said, “Okay, so, assuming that a judge would approve the agency expenses, however exorbitant they might be—”

“Which they will,” Bow cut in.

“What’s my next strategy, then? Just cut the agency loose and have Catra and I operate on a private agreement, or what?”

“No,” Bow said. “Any agency with a modicum of sense will have some provision in there that payment is expected in full if the adoption takes place through any means. Probably for this exact reason. Plus, you know, Shadow Weaver is Catra’s mom. She’ll find out one way or another.”

“And if she does?” Adora asked.

“She sues you? Duh.”

(read more here)

[mkandas]

have I found you | flightless bird

(spoiler w/o context from a yet-to-be-posted chapter of my own fic like you)

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Adora decides that she's ready to be a parent. Without a partner, and incapable of doing the dang thing herself, Adora elects to use artificial reproductive technology, including engaging the services of a surrogate. In doing so, she finds that the professional relationship that she's supposed to have with her future child's birth mother gets kind of (read: super) complicated.

Part 1 of 11: “Before”

The conversation was not part of Adora’s plan—at least, not for that morning. She’d wanted to do it somewhere more intimate. Private. Maybe even later that night, if they’d agreed to come over for dinner. But as she walked from her car to the cafe, Adora was given every sign that now was the moment. Every sign being, of course, that it seemed like every single baby she passed was staring at her expectantly.

The moment that Adora joined Glimmer and Bow at their table, tucked into a corner between a pillar and the window, she came right out with it.

“I think I want to have a baby,” she said as if she were commenting on the weather (which was much too hot to be sitting outside, truth be told, but Adora was grateful that her friends had managed to score a table under an umbrella).

Adora’s casual tone, however, did nothing to lighten the weight of her news. Bow, who had been taking a sip of water at precisely the wrong moment, choked into his glass and soaked the front of his crop top. Glimmer went slack-jawed and, while giving Bow a few solid thumps with her fist between his shoulder blades, could only reply, “What?”

“I said I think I want to have a baby,” Adora said again. Then she picked up her menu and began perusing it. “Do you guys know what you’re getting yet? I always get the cast-iron baked eggs, because, duh, they’re unbelievable. But should I—”

“Adora, stop talking,” Glimmer said. “Back up. Start again. You think you want to have a baby? Like, a real, actual, living human baby?”

“God, preferably,” Adora responded with a wince. “The alternative’s kind of dark, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.” Glimmer placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Am I missing something? Something between, Hello, and, I think I want to have a baby? Because I am not following.”

“I’ve gotta side with Glimmer on this one,” Bow said, a bit hoarsely, as he took a tentative second attempt at his water glass. He swallowed, then frowned. “Where did this come from?”

With a sigh, Adora put her menu back down. Scratching the back of her neck, she said, “See, I was hoping I could breeze past that part.”

“That was never in any world going to be possible, Adora,” Bow replied.

(read more here)

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Adora learns of at least one life-altering change.

Part 5 of 11: ”Fourth”

Although the drive from the hospital only took twelve minutes—which was especially fast by most standards, as the drive should’ve taken seventeen—it might as well have taken hours for as much damage as it did to Adora mental and emotional wellbeing. She floored it, praying hard that she would not pass any cops itching to meet their monthly ticket quota so soon after the New Year. Catra, meanwhile, was completely silent, staring wordlessly out the window at the world that they passed, her hand limp in her lap, fingers a centimeter away from her stomach.

When Adora pulled through the emergency-room driveway, she stopped the car long enough to ask, “Are you okay to get yourself checked in?”

Catra nodded, eyes still pointed out the window at the automatic sliding doors.

“Okay, go do that.”

Catra turned her head then and, in a voice much smaller than Adora had ever heard come from her, she asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

“Of course,” Adora answered, eyebrows knitted together. “I just have to park the car, and I don’t want to waste any time. I’ll catch up.”

Slowly, Catra nodded again. And then she was out of the car. Adora watched her go through the front doors (looking very much like she was in a daze of some kind, which freaked Adora out to no end) before she slammed on the gas pedal once more to find the parking garage and sprint back to the emergency-room check-in desk in record time.

Much to Adora’s chagrin, Catra was still checking in and not already back being seen. Why was she not back being seen?

“How have they not let you back, yet?” Adora half-whispered into Catra’s ear as she joined her at the counter.

Catra blinked at her, like she was trying to figure out who she was. “I’m still checking in.”

Turning on the poor soul who had the unlucky task of manning the front desk that evening, Adora said, “Excuse me.” She hooked her thumb at Catra. “She’s pregnant and needs immediate medical attention. We need to get into an exam room. Now.”

(read more here)

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Adora and Catra enter into a new, vastly more complicated arrangement.

Part 4 of 11: “Third”

Adora woke early the next morning. Not yet fully conscious, she stretched out her legs, toes curling in the chill air of her bedroom until, suddenly, they were curling against something warm and soft. Her eyes shot open, and she scanned the far end of her mattress when she found Melog, sitting unnaturally upright and glaring at Adora’s foot like it had offended her.

“Hi?” Adora said on an exhale, and Melog’s attention snapped to her. Her pale, blue eyes were wide, kind of scary wide, and looked very much as if Melog was weighing her options between attacking Adora and running off. “It’s okay,” Adora said, keeping her voice low as, slowly, she extended her fingers as far as she could without moving her body. Melog hesitated, then leaned forward, sniffing the air between her nose and Adora’s fingers curiously.

The doorbell rang and, in the blink of an eye, Melog had bolted out of sight.

Adora removed her phone from its charger to open her security-system app. From there, she tapped on the notification, Somebody is at your door! Stifling a yawn as she waited for the live camera to load, she wondered offhandedly whether Glimmer and Bow had decided to visit her. That would be weird, though, considering that, one, they usually texted to make sure she was home first and, two, they never rang the doorbell because they each had a copy of her key. It would be weirder still for them to come so early, Adora realized, as she checked the time in the corner of her screen and discovered that it was just past six o’clock in the morning.

Adora’s heart gave one great thud against her sternum when the video feed finally loaded and showed a police officer standing on her welcome mat.

(read more here)

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Adora blatantly ignores Shadow Weaver’s advice.

Part 3 of 11: “Second”

On a Monday in mid-November, at eight forty-two in the morning, Adora was pacing back and forth in front of a doctor’s office that she’d never been to before. The air was relatively cool, but in the arid, hot climate in which she lived Adora found that the world had a little trouble retaining a real chill until early December anyway. She’d definitely be shedding her blazer by noon, and even then, on what must’ve been her hundredth rotation down the pathway lined with decorative rocks and flowerbeds, she could already feel the heat building under her arms that might later necessitate a change of her blouse.

Adora couldn’t just go sit in her car, though. She’d tried that for the first twenty minutes after she arrived, and that had resulted in her chewing each of her fingernails down to their quicks. She feared what she would’ve started chewing if she hadn’t left her car to begin the marching portion of the day’s exercise routine, and didn’t feel it was worth the risk.

Luckily, she got a ping from her phone to distract her and, still pacing, she opened the texting app to find a message from Bow.

Morning! You on your way to the doctor now?

Adora chuckled, and chose not to tell him that she had been on her way to the doctor’s an hour ago. Instead, she typed back: Just got here!

Did you? So you haven’t been waiting there for the last hour?

Sighing, Adora texted: You looked up my location didn’t you.

As soon as I got to work, yes.

You set me up.

A text came in from Glimmer to the same chat: Out of love, Adora. Out of love. Baby mama there yet?

Nope, not yet.

Here’s your daily fun fact before she gets there, Bow texted. Your baby is currently between a sweet pea and a blueberry in size!

And here’s your daily weird fact, Glimmer added. One in two thousand babies are born with a full set of teeth. Here’s hoping!

(read more here)

[mkandas]

Like You (a Catradora fic)

Adora anxiously awaits the results of Catra's procedure.

Part 2 of 11: “First”

By the time Thursday was upon her, Adora was a nervous wreck. That much was clear when Glimmer and Bow both showed up, unannounced, to Adora’s house during their lunch hour.

“Guys, hi!” Adora yelled over the sound of her vacuum, which she pushed back and forth even as she stood in the doorway, a feather duster wedged under her other arm. “I didn’t expect you to be here, sorry the place is a bit chaotic right now. . .”

“I’ll say,” Bow mumbled, sidestepping Adora and taking in the scene. “Wow. Adora? Where are all your blinds?”

“Outside!” Adora replied, closing the door behind Glimmer and wheeling the vacuum around them.

“Uh. . . Why?”

“They’re drying.”

“Did you—did you hose them off, or something?”

“Yeah! Oh, my god, you guys, you would not believe how disgusting they were. I tried just dusting them, but they were shedding gunk all over the tile.”

“Hence the vacuum,” Glimmer said, pointing at it.

“Oh, yeah,” Adora said with a grin, kicking the vacuum’s switch off with her socked toe. “And halfway through I lost my duster, and I just figured, hey, why not, you know? I’ve lived here for years and realized I’ve never washed them before.”

“Are you supposed to?” Bow muttered.

“The duster that’s under your arm?” Glimmer asked, moving her finger to point at Adora instead.

Adora looked down. “My duster!”

“How did you take down your blinds without lifting your arm?” Bow asked.

“Well, I was being really careful. I thought it was my phone.”

“And where’s your phone, then?”

Adora blinked, then shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Okay,” Glimmer said, clapping her hands and then leaning forward to take Adora’s. “Let’s take a break!” Glimmer led Adora, with Bow following, to the living room. There, Glimmer stopped in her tracks. “Adora, did your closet throw up on your couch?”

Adora said, “I’m just organizing! Putting aside stuff I haven’t worn in a while to donate. You get it.”

With his thumb and forefinger, Bow plucked a pair of leggings, ripped to hell and back, from where they draped over the closest cushion. “Is this the trash pile?”

“No, that’s keeps.”

Gingerly, Glimmer extracted the duster from Adora’s armpit and placed it on the back of the couch. In the same movement, she pried Adora’s hand from the vacuum cleaner, which she was still dragging behind her. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air, okay? Bow, will you get Adora something to drink?”

(read more here)

[mkandas]

hey do you remember when I wrote a lapidot summer camp au

Well here’s the thing

I am so so so close to achieving 1000 likes on ao3, which will promote me to a legendary fanfic author status the likes of which I never thought I’d know

I know I stopped posting fan fic literally a calendar year ago, and I know it’s been even longer since cph was completed with the promise of a sequel that never came through

But

Get me to 1000 likes and maybe I’ll post a lil something that’s been two years in the making

begin reading (and giving kudos) here