Chapter Text
Katherine woke up choking, with tears in her eyes, vision totally blurred.
Her hands shakily traveled to her neck, making her hiss in pain and widen her eyes at the blood coating her skin, her breath quickening.
Once her throat cleared a bit, she managed to let out a scream, trembling when someone came barging through the door, exclaiming things Katherine couldn’t understand before wrapping something around her wound.
Katherine had tried pushing the hands aways, jumping into a panic as she remembered the feeling of palms against her skin, almost like she’d been burned.
“It’s alright, niña. I’ll make it stop bleeding, you’ll be fine. Please, try to breathe slowly.”
After a few moments, she could feel her lungs working more easily, but the situation had clearly drained her. Feeling her eyes heavy, Katherine let her head fall back against the pillow, close to the other hand of the person - the woman - helping her.
She couldn’t understand why or how, but something in the back of her mind kept telling her that there was nothing to fear. Not that time.
That, for whatever reason, Katherine wasn’t at risk.
…
It was just her and Catherine of Aragon - or Catalina. Katherine learned the older woman had nursed her neck until the scar properly closed, allowing her to regain consciousness and get to know more about her housemate.
The first wife of Henry VIII, married to him for 24 years. Katherine couldn’t imagine what that had been like, and her face clearly said it all, having made Catalina let out a lighthearted chuckle.
“Well, he was certainly unpleasant, but at the time he was quite handsome and was my daughter’s father. I wanted to keep our family together, if only for her sake.”
The memory of Mary Tudor flooded her mind instantly, and Katherine could see the resemblance between mother and daughter. Looking back, Mary certainly looked a lot like Henry, she had his eyebrows and eye shape, but the blue in them was just like Catalina’s, as well as her nose and hair color.
Catalina was so kind and caring with her, that Katherine didn’t have the heart to tell Mary had hated her to the core. And that, maybe, the feeling had been mutual at the time. By the time she’d been sent to the Tower, Katherine had tried to make her peace with the people she had wronged and felt wronged by, Mary being one of them.
The idea that a girl in her mid-twenties would ever accept a teenager as a stepmother sounded so ridiculous now, that Katherine couldn’t fault Mary for not liking her, especially since she had been mean and rude, abusing her power as Queen to offend and mock her.
Still, Katherine wondered how Mary would’ve turned out if she had gotten the chance to be with her mother. She certainly took after her. Katherine could see Mary when Catalina kneeled down to pray, when she walked around the house and with the way she spoke with carefully thought words.
The poise and elegance were there, almost like they’d been passed down hereditarily, and she was more than glad to tell Catalina about it as soon as her throat didn’t feel as sore and she could speak again, her heart warming with the way the older woman’s face lit up and her eyes filled with tears, hugging Katherine tightly before apologizing profusely after noticing the way her body tensed up.
Their interactions began to be more natural, but it was obvious that Catalina had been not only shocked but disgusted to learn Henry had married 17 year old Katherine, whilst being almost 50.
However, that didn’t stop them from entering a comfortable routine. Catalina would cook and Katherine offered to clean the house, which was bigger than expected, with rooms that were still locked and untouched.
She’d learned Catalina had woken up alone on January 7th, heartbeat so fast it hurt and her head a bit fuzzy. Experiencing everything about that new ‘life’ and place all alone had been scary, but she had managed to learn the basics and was thrilled to have another person around.
Having been raised catholic, Katherine was more than happy to accompany Catalina to a church close to where they lived, even if she had never been as devout. Catalina’s faith was so strong it captivated Katherine, and, once again, she could understand why Mary hadn’t abandoned her religion. Not only could it offer comfort, it was the last bit of her mother she’d had left.
Catalina also took the time to brave the modern technology with Katherine, who was much better at grasping its functions. Katherine had been the one to discover the telenovelas Catalina had been immediately drawn to, not even caring that she couldn’t understand a single thing that was said, as long as she got to watch the older woman beam or scream at the TV, moved by the narrative of each character.
The two Queens sometimes would stay up until late at night, almost playing a silent game of who would fall asleep first, the 'loser' feeling obligated to look for any signs of a nightmare, which were - unfortunately - common for both.
When none of them felt at peace enough to rest, Katherine would lay against the couch, buried under warm blankets, listening closely as Catalina told her stories of Spain, from before she had been sent to England. She would share details of her love story with Prince Arthur, about all their letters, making the fifth Queen giggle as she went on about how they couldn’t speak each other’s languages well enough to further conversation.
Her eyelids fluttered and relaxed as she heard Catalina’s melodic voice in the form of a lullaby, a small smile on her lips.
Needless to say, they were very comfortable with each other, and it all seemed to be a set up from the universe, God, or whatever entity was responsible for bringing them back on their death days, because no longer after that, both of them had gotten a surprise.