Chapter Text
“Sit. Down.”
Her daughter ignored her as if she hadn’t said anything at all, continuing to march around the room angrily with her arms crossed. Senna knows she should let her daughter blow off her anger in her own way, but she needs Korra to listen to her, and Korra isn’t listening. She’s being frustratingly stubborn and angry and she won’t listen, and Senna was never the kind of person who would easily get angry or loud, but she was a mother (isn't she?) and mothers could be firm when she has to be. So, she says what she needs to say.
“You’re being selfish, Korra.”
That seemed to get her attention, because the girl stopped abruptly and turned to her with the angriest, most betrayed look she’s ever seen and said, “How am I being fucking selfish? She - wh - “ Korra threw her hands up and decided that she’s had enough, decided to go off and end the conversation right there - but Senna caught her arm and held her ground, giving her the look that makes Korra groan angrily again.
“Come on,” she says, firm but gentle, guiding her back to the kitchen table. “Take a seat.”
“She’s dying!” Korra doesn’t even give her time to say anything else before she’s banging her hands against the table, pure anger radiating from her. “She’s dying because of herself and she wouldn’t tell me, she wouldn’t tell anyone, she wouldn’t let me help - and I’m the one who’s selfish? She’s the one who wants to die!”
“Do you think Asami wanted that, Korra?” Senna asks, trying to level her daughter’s energy and fails terribly - she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Not when Korra was worried and confused and scared. She’s not actually angry, no - Senna had been in this exact place before, being driven past the point of insanity because her own daughter is dying and there’s nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t make her stay, couldn’t piece her back together no matter how hard she tries, couldn’t exchange her life for hers even if the spirits would allow it. No, she’s stuck here watching, and there’s nothing she could do, and it’s torture.
Sitting here now, she knows that’s how Korra must be feeling. She’s been there, she’s there right now, worried for the other girl that’s seemingly sick and dying because of herself. And handling (not) anger with anger wouldn’t work, so she takes her breaths and tries again, this time softer. “Do you really think, if she could choose, she’d want this?”
“But she wouldn’t let me help!” Korra exclaims, but her tone was less angry and more desperate, now. “She wouldn’t - she wouldn’t let anyone help, she locks everybody outside and - and what am I supposed to do then? Should I just let her die inside? Is that what I should just do?”
“Korra,” Senna sits beside her, aware of how fast her daughter’s breathing became. “Korra, breathe.”
“No, you don’t - you don’t understand - “
“No, I don’t,” she agrees, holding both of her arms firmly. “I know I don’t. Which is why I need you to breathe and tell me what’s going on, yeah?”
“I - I just,” Korra shakes her head, her voice breaking, and finally, finally falls apart into her arms, a sob tearing out of her chest. “I don’t know what to do, mom.”
“I don’t either, baby,” Senna shushes her softly, returning her hug back. “But we’ll figure it out together, hmm?”
“But what if - what if we don’t?” She asks, and Senna could feel the tears soaking into her shirt - not that she could care less about it. “I care about her, mom, and I don’t know why she couldn’t understand that - “
“She understands that, Korra.”
“Then why does she still - “
“Korra, listen to me," Senna says, holding on to her daughter's chin gently. "When you were sick, after the Red Lotus attack, and you went back with us - I loved you didn’t I?”
Korra looks up, frowning, but nods.
“But you still left, didn’t you?”
If Senna’s heart could break into two physically, it would, as she watches her daughter’s face unravel into something so... heartbroken. But she needs to do this - she needs Korra to understand that it’s not up to her that Asami is dying. It’s not because of her; there’s nothing she could do to make it better, even if she’d move mountains or give her the moon.
“I didn’t - I didn’t mean to, I - “
“I know you don’t, sweetheart,” Senna strokes her cheek softly, “which is why you need to understand that Asami doesn’t mean to, either.”
Korra stares at the floor for a long moment.
“Hey,” she lowers her gaze to meet hers. “You need to accept that there’s nothing you can do to fix this. Not if Asami doesn’t want to do it herself just like you did.”
“But there must be something,” Korra whispers to her. “What - what did you do when I - what did you do, mom?”
“I loved you,” Senna tells her. “And when you left, I sat there for three years and waited.”
Korra stares at her, expressionless.
“I’m not angry at you for that, baby,” she says, taking her hands into hers and squeezing them tightly. “I knew you did what you needed to do. And look at you now - you’re back here, stronger than ever. What I’m saying is - it’s not going to be as easy as telling someone you love them and expecting everything to be okay. You sit there for them and show them that you do love them and you wait.”
“But -” Korra frowns, tears streaking her cheeks once more, “but what if that’s not enough?”
“It is,” Senna held her firmly. “Korra, I wondered to myself for three years if what I was doing was enough. I searched for you, even tried going after you, wherever you were - and I know it’s going to feel like whatever it is that you’re doing is never going to be enough, but it is. It is.”
Korra stares at the ground again, trying to process her words, and Senna keeps stroking her hair.
"So what… what do we do, now, mom?"
"Now?” Senna asks, voice turning serious again. “Now, first of all - you apologize.”
Asami remembers the first time she woke up from a violent nightmare like it was yesterday.
It was a week after the break-in, she thinks - when, exactly, she doesn’t remember. What she remembers were the black and yellow tapes being all over the house, “DO NOT CROSS” written in harsh, bold font. If the other kids associated black and yellow with bees and flowers, little Asami had associated it with faint blood marks and detectives. What she really remembered was, days after the break in, she woke up screaming for her mother only to find out that she woke up from a nightmare into another nightmare, except everything’s real and there’s nowhere you can run to - nothing you can do to escape even if she pinches herself as hard as she can and screams “ WAKE UP!” in hopes that she’ll truly wake up into her mother’s welcoming arms, her soft voice shushing her, telling her that “ it’s okay, it’s just a nightmare, it’s not real.”
No, the worst kind of nightmare are the ones you can never escape from. And for Asami Sato, she’s been living in it for sixteen years and counting.
She wakes up scared and gasping again like she’s done a million times before, this time enveloped in the pitch black darkness, and she couldn’t drive herself to even breathe let alone figure out where she is, or if she’s safe or not. There’s a slight opening on the door, the light from the corridors penetrating into the dark room, and Asami figures out if she could just take a step towards it to call for help -
THUD.
She fell, barely avoiding her face off the floor. Sudden pain spreads all over her body, and she could hear hurried footsteps approaching, footsteps that aren’t her mother’s -
“Hey, hey , it’s okay, kid,” the door opens with a creak, and there’s someone hovering beside her, hesitant and unsure. “Can I - can I hold…?”
“ Please,” she sobs - it feels like she’s drowning, losing her grip on herself like she lost everything else. A pair of strong arms wrapped around her, gathering her like she’s a mess on the floor - which she is - and held on to her tightly like nobody except Korra ever did. But this isn’t Korra - this isn’t - who is…?
Her father has never held her like this.
“Asami? Oh, thank spirits,” Senna’s voice says, and Asami wonders when she had started recognizing it like a child to their mother’s. “Shhhh, sweetheart, come here - let me hold her?”
Her shaking body transferred from arms to arms, handled with so much affection and care that she couldn’t help but to finally let her sobs out, ending her days of begging whoever it is that’s out there to send her someone, someone who’d care, who’d tell me I’m enough, who wouldn’t leave me. Send me someone who would hold me, stroke my hair, tell me it’s alright, please -
And there she is, finally, her prayers answered.
(There’s a silhouette of a girl standing on the doorway, a girl yelling for her, banging on her door, demanding to get in. She loves her, Asami knows she does, but it’s the kind of love that’s furious and burning and suffocating . And Asami doesn’t know how to tell her that she can’t save her, no matter how hard she tries, because Asami had been gone too far. Gone too far.)
Answered too late.
Korra doesn’t like her room much.
It’s… suffocating, to keep it simple. She’s always hated being closed inside a room for too long, even when she knows that she always has the option to leave. It always felt like it was, though. Probably had to do with being locked in all her life.
Now, though, she finds herself sitting on her bed for no particular reason, opening her drawers aimlessly. It’s not like she has much to do - they still have a week here, and everything that’s in her to-do list wouldn’t be done any time soon. She’s thrown that sad list to the trash, anyway - it’s not like she’ll ever do it. Not when Asami is sick and weak and probably hates her by now. And to be honest? Korra doesn’t blame her anymore.
And then she finds those letters.
The letters, the ones sent by her friends for her back from her recovery days. There were ones from Bolin and the air kids, cheerful and full of drawings. Ones from Mako, a bit awkward and filled with weather reports and news from Republic City. And then the ones from Asami - warm and genuine unlike the others (not that the others’ were necessarily bad), and the only ones that she replied to out of all of them.
To this day, Korra still doesn’t know why. Was it because she was in love with her? No, it was the opposite - even in the state she was in, Korra could still read the love in Asami’s letters, how it pours from her writings, her words. The difference was that Asami truly cared about Korra, not the Avatar. Just Korra. Just her. Not who she’s supposed to be.
It gave her some sort of comfort, she guesses - knowing that someone out there cared about her recovery as Korra and not only the Avatar. That they wished she could return soon so that they all could drive around and eat street foods and have fun like the old days again, not so that she could go back to her Avatar duties. No, Asami fell in love with Korra - and now Korra wonders if she truly fell in love with Asami, or just the idea of her.
It terrifies her.
Korra folded the letters carefully, tucked it back into the drawers, and left the room. All day, she kept wondering how scary it must be for everyone else who cared about her three years ago - her parents, her friends, Asami. Just sitting there knowing that they could do nothing but pray so she recovers - Korra begins to understand it, now, how it feels.
It feels like torture.
A selfish part of her mind asked her if this was her payment - if this was some sort of payback from the universe, for how she had been years ago. A horrible part of her screams this is your own fault, and you’re paying for it. And Korra tries so desperately to not listen to it, but fails anyway.
She just wants everything to be okay. But then again, that’s not how this fucked up universe works, right? How the hell was she supposed to keep Asami safe from herself?
How did you keep yourself safe from yourself?
She didn’t.
And now she sits here in front of Asami, the tension between them so thick that she could cut it with a hunting knife. She apologized to her just as her mother advised - no beating around the bush, just “I’m sorry I lashed out at you” and left it at that. And Asami stares at her, just plain staring at her, like she didn’t know what expression she should put on her face. Her usually bright green eyes were hollow, and it terrified Korra so much that she had to look away.
Did she look like that, too? Had her mother dealt with her like this years ago? Is this punishment? Is this payback?
Sometimes Korra wonders if she had been too late for Asami’s love - like two comets that missed each other after waiting for millions of years instead of passing by like an eclipse. That Asami loved her when she was gone and now that she loved her, Asami was gone. Funny how the world works.
Did you? She wanted to ask her. Did you love me? Do you love me now? Did I miss you?
She wonders if Asami spent her lonely nights in Republic City looking out the window and thinks of her when she sees the city lights the same way Korra looks at the constellations in the southern sky now and thinks of her . She wonders if Asami wanted to put her confessions in her letters, wanted to write to her I miss you instead of we all miss you here, wanted to write the words I love you over and over again the same way Korra desperately wanted to repeat those three words a million times to her now.
They missed each other, they missed it, she missed it, and now there’s nothing here but lingering regret.
Maybe it was better like this. Maybe it’s better to miss each other and be sent into the endless oblivion for another million years rather than collide into each other and burn. It’s better like this - it’s better to miss something you’ve never had. It is better like this, it is, it is, they’re too far gone into the darkness of space to even see each other again, and it’s better to let it go.
“You can’t save me,” Asami whispers.
Too far gone.
“You look like you need some tea.”
Korra chuckles, shaking her head. “Anything stronger?”
Senna raises her eyebrows.
“What? I’m twenty-two, mom,” she laughs, “I can legally get drunk!”
She didn’t expect her mother’s expression to turn sad so suddenly. It made her feel like she’s stepping around eggshells, not knowing which of her words are going to turn out terribly. “I… sorry, mom.”
“No, it’s - it’s fine,” Senna brushes it off, shaking her head. “I was just thinking for a moment.”
“About what?”
“About… how much you’ve grown.”
“Oh,” Korra blinks, unsure of what to say. I’m sorry? “Why are you sad about that?”
“I guess every parent feels sad about that,” Senna smiles softly. “But for me, I… I feel like I missed you, you know.”
There’s that word again. Missed. Korra feels like she’s beginning to hate that word in particular. “You didn’t miss me, mom, I’m right here.”
“No, I meant - when you were little,” her mother says, and to her surprise, a tear starts running down her cheek. “I let you go when I shouldn’t have, and I should’ve - I should have made you stay because you’re my daughter before the Avatar, and I’m sorry I failed to do that - “
“Mom,” Korra reaches for her hand, a bit panicked. “Mom, it wasn’t your fault - it’s not like you had a choice, right?”
“But I did,” Senna tells her, “and I should have made that choice for you, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
“I - “ she stared at her, speechless. “I didn’t… mom, I’ve never… you did what you had to do the same way I did what I had to do when I left, mom.”
“I did what I had to do as the Avatar’s mother. But as your mother?”
Silence.
“Is that why you keep looking at me like… that?” Korra whispers.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re looking at your biggest regrets.”
Senna sighs, walking over the table to wrap her arms around her. Korra leans into the crook of her mother’s neck just a little bit too fast, this time. “My biggest regret was letting you go, over and over again.” Her mother pulls away for a moment to stroke her cheek and look her in the eyes. “I feel like I’ve missed you your whole life.”
“Well, I’m still right here, so,” Korra smiles, and she smiles back.
“My baby girl,” Senna whispers, stroking her cheek, and she thinks about how it was fated - the universe chose her to be the Avatar’s mother for a reason, but most of all, Korra’s. And even if she didn’t do such a great job on it - well, nobody says she couldn’t keep on trying. A child will always be a child to a mother’s eyes, after all.
“I’m glad I have you, mom,” Korra whispers back. “I just - I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Makes me think of Asami,” Senna suddenly says, stopping her strokes. “Korra... you love that girl, don’t you?”
Korra stops, too. “What?”
Senna waits.
She frowns, shaking her head slowly. It felt like her mother had opened her chest and ripped her heart off. “I - what? Mom?”
“Korra,” her mother’s voice was impossibly soft, as if she was careful not to scare her away. “It’s okay.”
“It just - I know it’s okay, mom, it’s just - “ why are you lying? Why are you ashamed? Why are you scared?
“You know we’d love you no matter what, right?”
Tears fell off her eyes without permission once again, her voice no more than a whisper when she spoke again. “Mom .”
“It’s okay to be scared, Korra.”
She nods, even if she doesn’t want to. “I don’t know why I’m scared.”
Her mother shakes her head and smiles softly. “I think you do.”
We missed. We missed each other and maybe it’s better that way. To be in the dark than to crash and burn. It’s better to miss what you’ve never had. I’m scared of our collision. I’m scared of having a chance, I’m scared of taking that chance.
“I don’t - “ Korra feels a lump in her throat. “I don’t know how to not be scared.” She didn’t want to be saved. “She said that I can’t save her.”
“You can’t,” her mother agrees, “but you can love her. You can choose to love her no matter what, and that’s almost the same thing, isn’t it? So the real question is, do you love her? Are you willing to, even if you’re scared?”
She doesn’t know what to say to that.
“You know,” Senna says softly, stroking her hair again, “she doesn’t need you to piece her together, or to make the dark go away. Sometimes all she needs is someone to sit in the dark with her.”
And Asami did that for her back then, didn’t she? All those letters, all those words she held back, all those days she spent back in Republic City waiting for their turn to pass by - so why couldn’t she? Korra loves her, doesn’t she?
Yes, she does.
Sit in the dark with her, her mother says, and Korra thinks, well, maybe I can.
Korra hates sleeping in her old bedroom.
Back in Air Temple Island, there’s always someone knocking on her door for all kinds of reasons. The sliding doors couldn’t exactly be locked except if you install one on it, and Korra isn’t exactly very great at those things either. Besides, the other residents are very respectful (except for the air children who don't - or just don't want to - understand the concept of privacy, not that she hates that either), and she never sees any need to keep her doors closed and locked. She’s always hated locked doors, anyway. It reminds her too much of home.
Home?
She’s never truly been home. Not here, that is - not the locked doors and high walls and the guards surrounding her at all times. The first time she’s truly managed to see the idea of this place being a home was from her recovery days, where her mother, protective and angry as any mother should be when they found out that their daughter had been and is dying, shuts out all the guards and made sure she was safe and comfortable at home. They had dinners
and spent time together like any other regular family would, and that’s when Korra finally first experienced something normal, more or less. As normal as the Avatar could have.
It still doesn’t change the fact that she hated being locked inside, though. It felt like the walls around her were breathing, surrounding her, and on some bad nights it would feel like they were closing in to suffocate her. At least now she could go on walks by herself without having to wake anyone up and eventually just bother them. At least now she’s free, even if she doesn’t feel like she is. Not quite yet. But as she walked her way down the dark corridors and breathed in the fresh, cold Southern Pole air, she thought maybe she finally could learn how to be free. Maybe.
She can hear the quiet sounds coming from the kitchen before she could see who was there. The only light source was from the dim kitchen lamp, and Korra walked in before she could stop herself. Curiosity killed the cat.
Asami was there, sitting with her face down on the table. There’s a plate of dumplings her mother had left in case she was (finally) hungry in front of her, untouched.
Korra approaches her, slow and careful (don't miss the chance, don't miss the chance). Asami looks up just as she was warming the dumplings up with her firebending, looking at her with the same no-expression look, the same hollow eyes. This time, it doesn’t terrify her as much anymore.
She sets the steaming plate between them and sets two smaller ones in front of each other. And then, she began dividing the dumplings with her chopstick, placing one each on their plates.
Sit with her in the dark.
Korra blows the steam off her dumpling and takes a bite.
Asami watches her, the expression in her face turning into something more… fond.
I’d let us crash and burn if it means that I wouldn’t be missing you, Korra wanted to tell her. I’d spend a million years travelling in the dark waiting for us to pass by each other again if it meant I could tell you I love you.
But she doesn’t think she’d have to say it out loud for Asami to understand. She thinks, by the way they looked at each other, by the way Asami finally takes a small bite out of her dumpling and ate together with her - no words need to be said.
They sat there in the dark together, and the dark has never felt more like home.