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i.
When the airship is at cruising altitude, Asami asks one of the Zaofu guards to watch the controls for her, assuring him in a hollow voice that it should be smooth sailing from here to Republic City. As she leaves the cockpit and heads into the foyer, something cold and sharp like fear pulses through her. She stops abruptly in the doorway. A terrible, gnawing feeling holds her in place as she realizes—she doesn't know if Korra is still alive.
She stands in that doorway for too long, leaning all her weight against the doorjamb. Korra was hanging on when they first boarded the ship, though she didn't look it; she was unconscious within moments of the poison being removed, and something about the way her father carried her limp body to the big bay door made Asami feel like she might vomit. She was alive, but for how long? The poison could have done its work already. And if not the poison, then the beating, the trauma, the inhuman way her body rocketed through the air, through stone. How long was she without oxygen? How long could anyone survive that, even the Avatar?
As sick as she felt Asami could not look away—an irrational, battered part of her thought that as long as she kept looking, as long as she kept tracking the shallow rise and fall of Korra's breathing, then she would be fine, and they would all make it to Republic City alive. But Lin had put a gentle hand on her shoulder and reminded her that she was the only one who knew how to get them home, and Asami, always dutiful, always helpful, nodded resolutely and went to the cockpit to get them on their way.
It only took about twenty minutes to get the ship off the ground and to a good flying height, but twenty minutes can be a lifetime, she's learned. Twenty minutes is plenty of time to die. It didn't take her own father twenty minutes to try to kill her; it didn't take twenty minutes for her mother to die, all those years ago. Twenty minutes is more than enough—and now she does vomit, leaning over the wastebasket beside the door, so forcefully that she nearly falls to her knees.
She stays there long enough for her stomach to stop turning over, bracing herself against the wall, then spits out the worst of the bile and shakes herself back to reality. Whether she stands here all night or not won't change anything, she reminds herself. She has nowhere to go but forward.
She finds everyone in the galley. No one is speaking. Instantly, she feels like she's going to be sick again, but she steels herself, trying hard not to read into everyone's body language. Bolin is looking at the floor; Mako is turned away from the group, staring out the window, but his reflection in the glass is haunted. The airbenders and most of Suyin's metalbenders are nowhere to be found, though she supposes they would have felt out of place here, at what could very well be a deathbed.
The adults of the group are all standing around one of the galley's sofas (maybe it's because she's feeling increasingly unhinged, but she almost laughs out loud at the thought that she and her friends are anything but adults by now, after everything that's happened). The first thing Asami notices is that the light green fabric of the sofa is wet with blood, and now she trembles from head to toe as she comes closer. Lin, the closest one to her, looks back and meets her gaze, but Asami is unable or perhaps unwilling to read what that expression is meant to tell her. Tenzin is sitting in an armchair nearby, almost heaped in on himself, still bruised and scraped from his own fight, his face twisted into a mask of pain. Pema and Bumi lean against either side of the chair, each with a hand on Tenzin's shoulder.
Tonraq is looming over the back of the sofa, arms braced against it like he can't hold himself up on his own two feet, and Asami doesn't blame him; she feels like she might topple over at the slightest breeze, too. Suyin stands next to Tonraq, looking like she's ready to catch him if he falls. The last person she makes out is Kya, a shell-shocked look on her face, kneeling in front of the sofa, arms outstretched. A pale blue sheen covers her face—it's the glow of the healing water in her hands. Finally, Asami lets herself look at Korra.
More specifically, she looks at Kya's hands on Korra, because she can't quite bring herself to take it all in yet. Kya is in the process of guiding the healing water over Korra's back, and if Asami tries not to contextualize it, it's almost beautiful—the rhythmic nature of it, the easy, peaceful motion of Kya's hands in a figure-eight pattern over Korra's skin. But there's no way to take a moment like this out of context, not with everyone in the room holding their collective breath, wondering what comes next. If anything comes next.
After another short eternity Asami looks at Korra's face, or what she can see of it, anyway. Her eyes are closed and she seems to be unconscious, but even so, her face is not peaceful—even in sleep, she looks like she's in pain. Asami shuts her eyes until her own nausea subsides.
All her life, Asami has been good in a crisis. When her mother died, she was there for her father; when her father was put behind bars, she picked up the pieces of Future Industries, got it back from the brink. She's never known how to break down; she's always found solace in action, in putting her hands on something and letting her mind turn off.
She feels herself teetering on the edge now, so she looks for something to do, anything. Her eyes fall on Korra's hand, lying limp next to her face, and with a feeling that must be heartbreak she notices that her wrist is still shackled, a length of chain dangling down to the floor.
This is something she can do.
She turns so abruptly that Lin nearly puts a hand out to catch her, then drops it when Asami strides back to the door and lets it shut unceremoniously behind her. She's glad for the umpteenth time that she built this particular airship—she knows exactly where everything is, down to the simple toolkit she's looking for now. She finds it in a maintenance closet near the foyer, complete with a pair of welding goggles.
When she returns, everyone looks up at her with mild interest, maybe just to have a distraction from the wounded Avatar they've all been staring at for the last half hour. She feels a strange tinge of sheepishness as she pulls the goggles on and kneels beside Kya, near Korra's head.
"What are you doing?" Su asks. Her voice sounds flatter than Asami remembers it.
"Getting these off." Asami lays her fingers on the shackle around Korra's wrist and is shocked by how cold it is, even through the tough material of her gloves.
She sets the toolkit down and cracks it open, now aware of the fact that she's become the center of attention. She removes a handheld buzz saw and sees Bolin wince out of the corner of her eye.
"Are you sure you know how to use that?" Tonraq eyes her with all the suspicion he can muster, though he mostly just looks profoundly tired.
"I don't make mistakes," is all she says. She meets his eyes and he nods.
The sound of the buzz saw turning on, a whining, unnatural sound in the formerly silent galley is hard on everyone; Asami can see them bristle when she flips the saw on, but no one can look away, either. She takes Korra's hand in hers and is suddenly gripped by the intimacy of the moment, complicated somewhat by the fact that everyone in the room is staring at her intently.
It's delicate. As the saw begins to grind into the thick platinum cuff, it sinks in that the slightest error on her part could slice into Korra's wrist. The last thing she needs, in other words. But Tonraq watches her with a calm, trusting expression, and just knowing that he has some modicum of faith her is all the encouragement she needs. And besides, she wasn't exaggerating before—she doesn't make mistakes.
She pulls the saw back. The shackle falls away, cleaved in two by her precise work. Her audience seems to all sigh in relief, or at least relax somewhat. With some difficulty, Asami tugs Korra's other hand out from under her, careful not to disturb Kya's movements, and then she sets to work again. The second cuff comes off even faster. She shuts the saw off for good, plunging the room back into the deafening silence they'd been stewing in before.
Asami knows that she should re-position herself on Kya's other side and get to work on the shackles around Korra's ankles, but when she tries to get up she finds that she doesn't have the strength to move at all. Her gaze falls on Korra's wrists, the dried blood that had pooled under where the cuffs had been, the skin that had scratched away from straining against the platinum, the fresh, deep purple bruises over everything, and it hurts her so much that she thinks she might be weeping behind her goggles, though she can't be sure.
Everything feels surreal, in the worst way. The adrenaline must be gone now; her head feels heavy, her body slow. She takes one of Korra's hands in both of hers and doesn't care if anyone is watching anymore.
ii.
She stays there for most of the flight, kneeling by Korra's head, and would have been content to stay there the whole time had the Zaofu guard from before not appeared in the galley and awkwardly asked her if she planned on landing the airship.
"I'll be back," she says, not really addressed to anyone. No one responds. She can see something like hope in some of their faces—they've made it this far and she's still alive. Maybe the worst is behind them.
Asami returns to the cockpit and settles down in the engineer's chair, allowing the process of their descent to clear her mind. For the next few minutes, at least, she can focus on the concrete act of landing this airship. Through the window, she sees the imposing statute atop Avatar Aang Memorial Island just beginning to poke over the horizon. They're home.
From there it's a haze of voices and movement. Someone walks into the cockpit and leaves before she can turn around to see who it was. Conversations float to her through the open doorway, little snippets of information that she can hardly piece together as she steers the ship towards Air Temple Island. Tenzin gets on the radio with the temple; the White Lotus sentries will be expecting them. A healer is on the way too, to relieve poor Kya, who can finally tend to her own wounds. Lin mentions something about President Raiko.
She keeps hearing the word spine, and it chills every drop of blood in her body.
Asami finds a suitable courtyard on the upper end of Air Temple Island and begins to guide the landing, pulling back on the throttle as gently as she can, unfolding the lower wheels with a flip of a switch, killing the engines before the ship has even touched the ground. She needs to get back to everyone.
The bay door is open again when she returns. A pair of White Lotus guards climb aboard with a stretcher. Asami looks away when Tonraq sets Korra down on it—somehow this is all too real, too frightening, and she can't bear to look again until she hears Tonraq instruct the sentries to take her inside. When they leave, she goes too, not giving a damn about the airship anymore.
She follows the stretcher, though her eyes are blurred slightly from exhaustion, and her knees feel like they might buckle at the slightest misstep. She follows until the stretcher disappears into the room where a healer has set up a tub, and before Asami can react, the door shuts, and she's alone in the hallway. She doesn't know what to do anymore. She leans against the wall, but now, at long last, her knees do buckle and she slides down to the floor.
"You alright, kid?"
The fogginess in her head makes her slow to react to the voice, coming from somewhere above and to the right of her. She tilts her head up and sees Lin looking down at her, her usual scowl softened now. Asami has never seen Lin's face so smooth, so young.
"No," Asami says, because it's the truth. "Are you?"
"No." Lin makes no move to sink down next to her, but Asami is glad for this. "You should go get some sleep. There's nothing else we can do now."
Asami supposes she's right, but a powerful directive inside her is willing her to stay right there on the other side of that closed door. Leaving is not an option that her rattled mind can fathom right now. "I don't think I'll sleep, honestly."
"Just take care of yourself," Lin says, but her eyes are on the door and it feels like she's talking to herself more than to Asami. "The worst is far from over."
iii.
It's late when the healer finishes up. The White Lotus guards parade down the hallway past her—how long has Asami been sitting against this particular wall, just waiting?—and they have Korra on the stretcher again, though someone has had the sense and decency to throw a white sheet over her body this time. For a detached, disjointed moment, Asami wonders if she's dead—isn't white a burial color? But when the sentries come close enough she can see Korra take a labored breath, still unconscious. Asami follows behind them again without thinking much about it.
They bring her to a bedroom in the female dormitories. Asami expects the room to be full of their concerned friends, but the only person waiting for them is Tonraq, who looks so beaten and worn that she's worried he'll collapse any minute. This late at night, it seems that everyone else has trickled away, looking for a bed or a place to lick their own wounds; she thinks she remembers seeing Mako and Bolin lie down right in the middle of a courtyard when they got off the ship, looking up at the stars, and she'd bet anything they're both fast asleep right now on the concrete. She isn't upset. They deserve it, after everything they did today.
Asami watches the White Lotus sentries transfer Korra to the bed and something about it, their brusqueness, their mechanical movements, makes her seethe quietly. It doesn't subside until the sentries leave the room, and it occurs to her for the first time that perhaps she shouldn't be here, alone with Korra and her father, intruding on a painful, private moment.
But Tonraq doesn't react to her presence. He stares at his daughter's sleeping face with an expression that Asami has never seen before, not on Tonraq, or any man, really. Despondent, but still raging under the surface, his eyes darker than she remembers them being, his jaw slack with weariness. She notices that one of the bandages around his muscular upper arm is wet with fresh blood; the wound must have opened sometime during landing, though he makes no indication that he can feel it at all.
"Tonraq," Asami says gently, still afraid that she's overstepping just by being in the room. "You're bleeding."
He tears his eyes away from Korra and glances down at his bloodied bandage. He looks so old at that moment that it startles her. When they ran into Tonraq in the Misty Palms Oasis, Asami had been struck by his youthfulness, the strong inner flame that reminded her so much of Korra. Now, he looks far beyond his years.
"I can take care of it later," he says, his deep voice scratchy with disuse.
She knows what he really means—he can't leave Korra right now, not for anything. She can see the way his eyes search his daughter's face, scanning for the slightest clue that she might be waking up, ready to spring back into action.
Carefully, the way she might approach a wounded animal, Asami comes further into the room so she can better look him in the eye. She doesn't know why, but she needs him to see her, to see that her intentions are earnest and true. "I'll stay here, Tonraq. I won't go anywhere. You can take care of yourself now."
His broad shoulders slump a touch as he looks down at Korra again, then back to Asami. "I should stay."
"You're hurt, and you need rest. I'll be here until you come back. It's okay."
He takes one last look, but his eyes tell her that he's somewhere else entirely. "You know, when she was little, and I'd get hurt on a hunting trip or taking a ship out on the water, she wouldn't let anyone else heal me but her—she was so proud that she could do that, I suppose. All she ever wanted—wants—is to take care of people."
"I know," Asami says. She hasn't looked at Korra's face the whole time they've been talking; she's afraid it'll be enough to set her over the edge she's been walking for the last few hours. "But now we get to take care of her. Go rest so you can be here when she's up. I'll be here as long as you need."
Tonraq gets unsteadily to his feet, kisses his daughter's forehead, then gives Asami's arm a grateful squeeze as he shuffles out of the room. No words are necessary. He knows that she'll keep her promise. When the door shuts softly behind her, Asami takes a seat in the chair Tonraq vacated at Korra's bedside.
Still she can't bring herself to really look. She's so tired. She fears that it was a mistake to volunteer for this, to offer to keep a vigilant watch when all she wants is to lie down on the most comfortable patch of ground she can find and sleep for days. But no, she reminds herself, this is more important than her own tiredness. If Korra wakes up and Asami is asleep, she'll never forgive herself.
Part of her hopes that Korra won't wake up tonight. She needs the rest, for one thing, but more so than that, Asami is afraid of what state she'll be in. Terrified? In pain? As caring as Asami is, she doesn't know if she's enough to get her friend through that. Idiot. She shouldn't have sent Tonraq away. She should have called for Pema or Suyin, someone with a strong, mothering presence, who knows how to hold someone through trauma. That's something Asami has always had to do for herself.
She leans forward, puts her elbows on her knees, holds her face in her hands. It's just uncomfortable enough to keep herself from falling asleep. She focuses on Korra's wrist on the bedspread beside her, now bandaged, still scared of what she'll see if she looks at her face. She thinks she might be hallucinating when she hears a soft groan, but no, it's real; the fingers she's been staring at curl suddenly into a fist.
When Asami works up the strength to look up at her, Korra's eyes are open and they lock gazes. For a brief, suspended moment they're both absolutely still, and Asami can almost pretend that things are okay, that it's just another night on the island. But the moment shatters as quickly as it came. Korra winces, eyes snapping shut, and now her hand is twisted in the sheet like it's holding on for dear life.
"Korra," Asami whispers, hating how scared she sounds. Come on, Sato. Be brave for her. "It's okay. We're home."
Korra opens her mouth as if to reply, but all that comes out is another groan, this one drawn out and strained through her teeth. Asami has never felt more useless. She reaches her hand out and pulls it back in the same breath.
"Do you need me to call a healer? Or your dad? How can I help?" Now her voice breaks. Damn it all.
She finally closes some distance and takes Korra's hand in both of hers like she did back on the ship, untangling her fingers from the bedspread with some difficulty. Asami doesn't know if it helps or not, but Korra squeezes her hand so hard that she fears it might snap, and Asami thinks this might be a good sign. Even through this, she's still so impossibly strong.
Whatever had come over her passes. Korra goes very still again, her hand slack in Asami's, and for a second she thinks that she's fallen asleep. But then her eyes open. They're wet. She stares directly at the ceiling.
"Asami, I—" She stops. Her voice cracks; it sounds foreign to both of them. She licks her lips and tries again. "I—I can't feel my legs."
Her words fall so wrong on Asami's ears that she can't respond. It's exactly what she feared—a situation where she's massively out of her depth, unequipped to react to that earth-shattering admission. Long seconds of silence pass between them. With each passing moment Asami feels even more useless than she did before—because what can anyone say to the Avatar, the bridge between humans and spirits, the most powerful being on the planet, hero to millions, when she tells you in a soft, broken voice that she can't walk?
"Everything is going to be fine," Asami says, convincing neither of them. "Don't worry about that right now."
The tears that have been building in Korra's eyes start to fall now, barely visible in the darkness that holds them both. She tries to speak again but fails, only managing to take several rattling, shaky breaths, eyes still glued to the ceiling like it's the only thing keeping her together. Asami wipes some of the tears away, not caring anymore if it's overstepping a boundary, if there are any boundaries at all in this waking nightmare. Neither of them speaks for a long time.
She knows that she should go and fetch Tonraq, who would want nothing more than to be at his daughter's side here, in her darkest moment—but that's exactly why she stays in place. If there's anything she's learned about Korra in the past year, it's that she resents her own vulnerability. Asami has seen the way Korra hides her fear, her pain. This isn't the time for a gang of friends and family crowding her bedside. There's little Asami can give her right now, but she can at least give her this.
Asami strokes her cheek even after the tears have stopped falling. Now Korra is the one who can't look at her; she's trembling, stripped of something too monumental for her to even begin to grasp. They stay that way for hours, blanketed under the darkness and the silence of the room, and any desire to sleep trickles out of Asami as she watches Korra's face and tries to understand what's happening in her mind. She doesn't look sad, necessarily, or even angry—rather, her face is frightfully blank. Empty. Asami has never seen her look like that before, and she never wants to see it again.
The first traces of light are starting to bleed through the sky outside of their window. It fills Asami with a terrible sense of dread. Whatever peace they've struck up between them will be gone with the daylight, she knows that much. Their friends will come in, guards, healers, voices, all interrupting the delicate tranquility of this night, of Asami holding Korra's face in one hand and Korra's hand in the other. She doesn't have the words to explain how, but she knows this for a fact. The weight, the intimacy of this moment is once-in-a-millennia. Just thinking this makes her breath hitch in her throat, tripping on its exit. Her heart has broken so many times tonight she's lost count.
iv.
On the heels of daybreak comes noise, unrest, bodies moving to and fro. Asami can't remember the last time she slept. Bleary-eyed, she watches the room dissolve into orderly chaos, weakly holding onto one of Korra's hands as she reports in an increasingly hollow voice that she's lost the feeling in her legs. First to her father, his face falling in like the walls of the Red Lotus caves; then Tenzin, bandaged and weak, who can only bow his head when he hears the news. Whatever hopefulness they might have had on their way in is gone now.
Finally Kya arrives, looking better than she did yesterday but leaning heavily on a cane. Lin, Suyin, Mako, and Bolin hover behind her in the hallway, seemingly unwilling to enter. Kya draws the sheet back. Korra, mostly undressed, doesn't seem to react at all to being exposed—she's staring at the ceiling again, that haunted look in her eye, and Asami tightens her grip on her hand.
She watches mutely as Kya bends gloves of healing water onto her hands and runs them over Korra's legs, lingering near her hips, a discouraged look on her face. She has Tonraq turn Korra on her side. Her hand slips out of Asami's; her face twists with something like embarrassment. Kya moves her hands to Korra's lower back now and her expression crumples at whatever she finds there beneath Korra's skin.
"The damage to your spine is more severe than I thought," Kya says, her voice softer than Asami has ever heard it. "It may have been weakened by the poison, though we can't be sure."
"So what does that mean?" Korra asks. She tries to sound tough, maybe, but mostly she just sounds like she's going to cry again.
"We won't know for a while," Kya hedges, looking up at Tenzin and Tonraq for help. "We just need to watch and see for a few days. Then we'll know if—we'll know."
We'll know if you'll walk again. She won't say it, but they're all thinking it. Kya clears her throat and steps away from the bed. "Tonraq, Tenzin, let's talk outside for a minute."
Korra doesn't protest them going out into the hallway, though they're obviously talking about her. Asami can see it in real-time, Korra shutting down, falling into herself, the chasm that must be opening in her mind right now. The worst-case scenario is written all over her face. Asami takes her hand again, says nothing—what is there to say?—and things happen quickly after that, too fast for Asami to react much. White Lotus guards appear with another stretcher; Kya directs them to take Korra back to the healing room. It feels like Asami blinks and the bed is empty. Another blink, she's alone, staring at her own hand on the sheet. The tidal wave of exhaustion finally crashes over her head. She leans over, into the spot Korra left behind, and falls asleep.
v.
Asami doesn't see Korra again until that evening. She wishes she could say that this doesn't bother her, but in all truthfulness, their separation leaves her on edge for hours, imagining a hundred different nightmare scenarios in her absence. She tries to keep her hands busy nonetheless, helping Pema coordinate room and board for the new airbenders to pass the time.
In the evening, once the island's many guests are all squared away, she cautiously returns to Korra's room. Kya and another healer are on their way out, faces grim. Asami doesn't bother asking for an update. The room is surprisingly empty; it was starting to feel like they'd never leave Korra alone again, but when Asami steps inside and shuts the door behind her, she finds Korra by herself, the covers pulled up to her chin. She looks like a very young child.
"How'd the healing session go?" Asami asks, assuming what's quickly become her chair beside the bed.
She knows the answer won't be good from the way Kya looked walking out, but she asks nonetheless, because what else is there to ask now? Korra looks down at her hands, folded sadly in her lap. "Nothing new."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Hey, how about I stay here tonight?" Asami offers, trying to sound cheerful but falling a little flat.
"I don't know."
"Come on, it'll be like a sleepover. Like kids do."
Korra smiles at this, but it's a sad, wistful smile, devoid of humor. "I never had any sleepovers growing up. Not a lot of other kids running around the secret Avatar compound."
"Can I be honest with you?" Asami leans back in the chair, a conspiratorial look on her face. "I never had any sleepovers as a kid, either."
"Really?"
"Really. I was . . . lonely," she says, suddenly feeling exposed. The less-than-stellar memories of her young childhood hit her like a splash of cold water. "After my mom died, I was just—scared, all the time. And sad. I started school right after that, so I didn't really have a lot of friends. No friends, no sleepover invitations."
Korra looks at her sympathetically. It's the first expression Asami's seen on her face in the last twenty-four hours that isn't pain, sadness, or anger. "I'm sorry. You've been such a good friend to me, I would have guessed you were the most popular kid in school."
Asami matches her wistful smile from before, drawing her knees up to her chest. "Being the girl with the dead mom makes you the opposite of popular, unfortunately."
"I guess we'll figure out this sleepover thing as we go along. Come on."
It's not the first time that Asami has imagined lying down to sleep with her best friend—she's never dwelled on it, necessarily, but it's certainly something she's thought about in private moments. All those long, lonely nights at the Sato estate, in a bed that's too big for one person, she's thought about Korra: how strong she is, how protective, and what it must feel like sleep next to someone like her. Asami has never felt safer with anyone than she does with Korra, so she always supposed it was a natural progression for her to hold onto Korra's image in her mind when she has trouble sleeping.
Now it's a real scenario and not a dream, however, and something like nervousness grips her. She feels awkward, her legs too long as she stretches out beside Korra, who's taken to sleeping on her stomach to help with the pain in her lower back. Asami lies down on her side. They face each other, and only now does she realize just how narrow this bed is, how close their faces are. It's too close—Asami can see the still-healing bruise sitting on top of Korra's cheekbone, the minuscule little cuts she hadn't noticed before.
They don't really touch, though Asami would have liked that. Maybe if things were different, if Korra had any feeling in her legs, if they weren't both holding themselves together with everything they had, Asami would have been brave enough to bridge that gap. Instead, she settles for laying her hand on the back of Korra's, not quite holding it. In turn, Korra turns her hand over so that their palms are together and intertwines their fingers, looking Asami in the eye all the while. For the life of her, Asami can't read the look on Korra's face—intense, searching.
She feels like she's supposed to do something, but the unfamiliar thrill she gets from Korra's expression strikes her silent, unable to act. If this was some kind of test, she's failed. After a while, Korra squeezes her fingers, then finally opens her mouth to speak. But all she says is, "Goodnight."
vi.
A few days later a fire sage arrives from Ember Island, and this makes Asami's stomach turn, because it all feels terribly serious—how severe are Korra's injuries that Kya and the other waterbender healers can't handle it on their own? Korra hasn't improved much at all since they're returned to Air Temple Island, but Asami has been holding out for a miracle nonetheless, waking each morning with the wild hope that Korra will turn to her and smile because the feeling is back in her legs. Each day, this couldn't be further from the truth.
If anything, she's getting worse. Every time Asami has to leave her side, to shower or eat or check on the estate, she comes back to Korra and can't help but feel that she looks even more unwell than how Asami left her. The dark circles under her eyes are getting darker (Asami knows that she isn't sleeping, because Asami doesn't sleep much, either, and every time she wakes in the night, she usually finds Korra wide-awake, too). Maybe it's the natural effect of being bedridden, but Korra looks thinner, paler, the life gone out of her. Even her eyes look like the color has been bleached out of them.
When the fire sage sweeps into the room, the scattered conversation dies out. Korra doesn't look up when she comes to the side of the bed. Asami watches, enraptured, as the sage runs flames over Korra's lower back, working in small circles. Korra's eyes are screwed shut the whole time; Asami can't be sure if the healing flames are painful or not, but she puts her hand over Korra's just in case, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
"Your spine can heal, Avatar," the fire sage announces, breaking the tense silence that fell over the room when she began her ministrations. "Your bones are broken, but not destroyed."
"Can heal?" Tonraq cuts in, standing protectively at the head of the bed.
"It will not be easy," the sage says simply, folding her hands respectfully in front of her. "Indeed, she will have to undergo intensive physical therapy to even come close to her former power. But she can heal."
Korra still hasn't opened her eyes, and Asami guesses that this is to keep the tears from spilling.
"What do you recommend?" Kya asks.
The fire sage considers this, her eyes falling on Korra's back again—Asami can't look there anymore, the gashes and bruises make her feel physically ill—and replies, "I believe that your mother, Master Katara, is her best chance at rehabilitating. I would have the Avatar return to the South Pole as soon as possible."
They all fall silent, watching Korra for a reaction, but get none. Selfishly, awfully, Asami's first thought is no. Since they've returned to Republic City, the need to be close to Korra has quietly become an almost tangible thing to Asami, a physical ache, flaring up whenever they're apart. The prospect of being half a world away steals the breath out of her throat.
"Thank you for coming," Tonraq says diplomatically, bowing to the fire sage. He turns to Korra, who's staunchly looking away from him, her eyes open now but narrowed into angry slits. "What do you say, honey? Let's go home."
He's asking, but not really. The room stills uncomfortably. Asami can feel the tension in Korra's hand where it rests under hers. Finally, her voice low and detached, Korra says, "Fine."
Tonraq can read her mood well enough to back down. He ushers the fire sage to the door, Kya on their heels. Lin and Tenzin take the hint and bow out as well. Asami teeters on the edge of her chair, wondering if she should leave, too, but Korra makes no move to take her hand away. Gently, she pulls the sheet up to cover Korra's back again.
"Do you want to go to the South?" Asami ventures, barely above a whisper, because she can all but feel the volcanic amount of emotion building in Korra, ready to erupt.
"I don't have a choice," Korra says shortly.
"But do you want to?"
She shuts her eyes again. She does this a lot now, when the frustration and pain become too much, which is all too often under the circumstances. "It's not about want, it's—I have to go. I have to get better. I'm just—upset that I have to get better in the first place."
Asami doesn't know how to respond; the hot tears are already brimming in Korra's eyes when she looks up at her. "Why did this happen?"
The million-yuan question. Asami has wondered it herself a thousand times since they left the Northern Air Temple.
vii.
Eventually, it's decided that Korra can stay till the end of the week. In light of everything that Jinora did during the assault of the Red Lotus, Tenzin announces that afternoon that she's earned her tattoos. The ceremony to anoint her as an airbending master will take place in a few days, right here in the temple, with the newly-revived Air Nation carrying out a ritual that hasn't been properly performed in over a century. Jinora comes sheepishly to Korra's bedside and asks her if she'll come.
"Aren't you happy?" Asami asks. "We'll get to see Jinora get her tattoos."
It's a quiet morning. Lin came back from the city with a wheelchair yesterday, which Korra had patently ignored for hours, twisted up with anger at the thought of needing it to get around. It took all morning for Asami to convince her that getting out of her room would be good for her, that they could take a stroll around the island and get some sun, and Korra didn't agree so much as she ran out of energy to argue.
She refused to let Asami help her, too—though Asami assured her that she was plenty strong enough to lift her from the bed to the chair, it didn't matter; the powerlessness she felt from her disability was becoming an increasingly sore spot for her, and so Asami was forced to hold the handles of the wheelchair and watch as Korra painstakingly scooted into the chair, the muscles in her arms straining unnervingly against her skin. It was obviously painful—as soon as her back hit the seat, she bit back an anguished cry, and she trembled for several minutes after that.
Now, they're near one of the island's many gorgeous cliffs, looking out over Yue Bay, the tallest buildings of Republic City winking back at them across the water. Asami sits down on the ground and takes in the view. Korra's slouching back in the chair, arms crossed, and she looks so small that Asami doesn't know what else to say. So she focuses on the good, the only good thing to come out of the horror that was their battle with the Red Lotus: Jinora's ceremony.
"I'm happy for her," Korra says, but her voice is flat, her eyes empty.
Asami flounders, searching for the right thing to say, if there even is a right thing to say. She's seen Korra in plenty of moods—angry, excited, jealous, sad—but this is new territory for her. Apathy. Withdrawal. She's somewhere deep inside of herself, out of reach.
"How's the pain today?" Asami's almost afraid to broach the subject, but there's no point in pretending everything's fine.
"My back hurts," she says tightly.
"And . . . your legs?"
It's immediately clear that she shouldn't have asked. Korra looks away, turning as much as she can in the chair. "Nothing."
They don't have to say anything. They're both thinking it—what if this is forever? What happens next? The fire sage said she could heal, but it's far from a promise. Asami hates it but her mind is working ahead, a mile a minute, considering a handful of possibilities at once. Maybe Korra will walk again, but will she run? Fight? So much can go wrong before anything goes right.
"I want to go back inside now," Korra says, and she starts to push herself away, though they both know it's only aggravating the pain in her back. Her hands shake where they touch the wheels.
viii.
It takes her all day, but Asami works up the nerve to say what she's been thinking since the fire sage left. They're back in the little bedroom she's growing to hate, Korra lying on her side, staring at the wall, falling into herself again.
"I can come with you to the South Pole," Asami blurts out, breaking the uneasy silence. "I mean, if you want me to."
Korra looks surprised by this, maybe. Her expressions are hard to read recently. "What about Future Industries?"
"I can take another leave of absence," she replies, though truthfully, she has no idea if she can take yet another leave of absence—her advisory board might have her head on a platter if she asks, but she'll worry about that later. "I want to be there for you."
She's telling the honest truth, so it completely disarms her when Korra looks at her with tears in her eyes, as if Asami just broke terrible news to her. Heat rushes to Asami's face; how embarrassing, how presumptuous of her, thinking that Korra would want her to come to her home at a time like this.
But when Korra speaks, it doesn't match up with her shattered expression, further confusing an already bewildered Asami with how sincere she sounds. "Thank you. I mean it. Thank you. But—I think I need to be by myself for a while."
"I understand," Asami says, but hot tears are springing to her eyes, too. It feels a little absurd—they're staring at each other, crying, though they'd both struggle to say why exactly. "I thought I'd offer, just in case. I just want you to get better."
Korra looks away sharply, like an invisible hand struck her face. "Yeah, well. That's the plan."
A beat too late Asami realizes her mistake, and it feels like her stomach drops through the sandalwood floor. All of Korra's insecurity, her doubts, her mangled self-worth—it's all tied up in the idea of "getting better," of going back to the way she was before. But they both know that "getting better" is a goal, not a given. It's a someday, a maybe. And what is Korra in the meantime, if she's not better?
"I didn't mean—" Asami stops. Her face is uncomfortably warm. "Korra, I don't care what happens next. I just mean I'll be here, and I want you to be happy."
"Let's just go to sleep," she says stiffly, but the rigid set of her shoulders softens almost imperceptibly, and Asami knows that she got something right.
ix.
When Asami opens her eyes on the morning of Jinora's ceremony, Korra is already awake, sitting up arduously in bed, her stoic gaze turned to the window.
They don't talk much as they get up. Asami can sense a stormcloud developing under Korra's quiet exterior, and for the first time, Asami truly understands why the sparrowkeets disappear when they know thunder's coming. As a final touch when Korra's not paying attention, Asami slips a studded gold clip from her own hair and fastens it in Korra's. She holds a mirror up, and Korra looks but doesn't seem to really see herself. Outside the window, down in the courtyard below, Meelo and Ikki chase each other on air scooters, shouting gleefully. It's not lost on Asami how Korra turns away as soon as the kids pass.
"You know, nobody expects you to bounce back right away." Asami drops to her knee—a motion that's becoming almost instinct to her now—and puts her hand over Korra's. "It’s only been two weeks. You need time to heal . . . I want you to know that I’m here for you. If you ever want to talk, or anything. But let’s just try to enjoy this today. For Jinora."
Later, under the grand high ceiling of the Air Temple, as the first airbending master in decades reveals her tattoos to the world, no one notices the tear that falls fast and silent down Korra's cheek—except Asami, of course. All those people in the room, and still, she's the only one who's looking.
x.
Asami has never used the phrase "in the dead of night" before, but when she wakes to find Korra looking at her with a strange expression, it's the first thought that comes to her sleep-addled brain. It's the dead of night. When she opens her eyes, Korra doesn't look away.
"Everything okay?" Asami mumbles, afraid of breaking the silence.
Korra doesn't say anything for a while, still watching Asami with a look that throws a chill down Asami's spine. She chalks this up to being half-asleep. "I don't want to be here."
"What?"
"I don't want to be here," she repeats, though with less conviction this time. "I'm leaving tomorrow and I don't know when I'll be back. I don't want to just sit here."
"Korra, it's the middle of the night." Asami pushes herself up on her elbow, rubbing her eyes with her other hand.
"So?"
Fair point. "Well, what do you want to do?"
xi.
It's the first and only time that Korra lets Asami help her out of the chair. They go down to the water's edge; it's a quiet, naturally-partitioned little pocket of water on the northern ridge of the island, cove-like in its tranquil privacy. Yue Bay is a wide black expanse beyond them. Asami can't see but one inch into the water, and it calms her.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
Korra just nods, a faraway look on her face. The distant lights of the Republic City skyline gleam in her eyes. With some difficulty, Asami slides one arm under Korra's legs and the other behind her back, then picks her up as gently as she can. Her arms don't shake from the strain. She turns and walks into the water.
There's a distinct, tangible moment, when she's hip-deep, where Asami can feel the water take the burden of Korra's weight from her. She doesn't let go. The bay is holding them both up now. Korra's arms loosen where they rest around Asami's neck, but she doesn't let go, either.
"Is this what you wanted?" Asami's voice strikes her own ears strangely—she doesn't know if it's because she's breaking the almost ritualistic silence, or because it sounds so raw, it shocks her.
"Yes." Korra's fingers tense against Asami's neck as if searching for the right words across her skin. "It feels so heavy, you can't imagine how heavy, being in this—" Another beat of quiet. Her fingers go still. "I just wanted to feel weightless for a little while."
Asami opens her mouth to respond and closes it just as quickly. Inexplicably, she feels that if she tries to speak she'll just start to cry; so she tightens her grip, her hands firm against Korra's ribs, her thigh, and she stays quiet. Korra brings her head down to rest on Asami's shoulder, a small, nearly imperceivable motion, but it feels impossibly significant to her—a surrender. Asami holds her breath and thinks about submission, ice walls crumbling, the way Chin the Conqueror must have felt falling to his death, the way the great city of Ba Sing Se knelt to a Fire Nation princess. And now, the way the Avatar gives into her, a coup that she would put in the history books too, if she could.
"The last time we were in this water together," Korra says—her mouth is so close to Asami's throat that it makes her shiver—"we were hiding from the Equalists. Is it messed up that that seems like a good problem to have now?"
"No," Asami says. "Everything was so much simpler then, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was."
"Would you do anything different, if you could go back?" Asami feels like she's standing on the edge of a deep ravine, toeing a line she might be better off staying away from. But the moonlight is heady, the gentle surge of the water is soothing, and for now, at least, she can make believe that they're the only two people in the world.
"I don't know," Korra says, and her voice is leaden with emotion, brewing just beneath the surface. "What else could I have done? I don't understand why any of this happened, but—I don't know what else could have happened instead, either. Would you have changed anything?"
"I wouldn't have let you give yourself up to Zaheer," she replies, so resolutely that it surprises them both.
"Even with him going after the airbenders?"
"Even still," she says, softer now, but just as earnest.
The conversation stalls. A charged silence takes its place. The tears that have been teasing the backs of Asami's eyes all night are here again, but she keeps them away, focusing instead on the rhythm of Korra's breath against the side of her neck, perfectly in sync with the tide beating calmly against the island's shore. Her concentration breaks when Korra pulls her head back, and suddenly they're eye-to-eye, too close and too immediate; everything in her wants to look away, to shield herself from that great big ravine, but she can't. They're both looking over the edge now. She sees nowhere to go but down.
"I thought you were dead," Asami says. Matter-of-fact. If she's going to fall in, it'll be an honest fall. "After you brought Zaheer down, the way you just—collapsed. I thought you were gone, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. So no. I wouldn't let you go, if I could go back and change things."
She thinks she can see the wheels turning in Korra's mind as they stare at each other, her words sitting heavy between them. Somewhere far across the bay, in the city proper, tires screech against asphalt. She imagines the worst. The water seems to have gone still around them, but maybe this is in her head, too.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," Korra finally says, after the silence has stretched on for so long, Asami was beginning to wonder if she'd made up the whole exchange.
"I know."
"I'm sorry." Korra's voice is thick; the tears well up a beat later, reluctant to fall.
"Why are you sorry?" Only now does Asami look away—a last-ditch effort to keep from crying, too.
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. They both understand what's passed between them, the way that Asami opened the cupboard and emptied all the shelves inside of herself just now. The light is on. There's nothing left to hide.
Asami swallows and it hurts. The water that had been so cold when they'd first stepped in feels all too warm now, suffocating, pressing up against every side of her body. She looks up at the waning moon dipping low to the western horizon. If nothing else, they'll be looking at that same moon no matter where they are, no matter the distance, no matter the time.
"Go home, Korra. You just go, and get better. However long that takes. I'll be here, for always."
It's not a blessing, exactly, but an offering; Korra nods, not even attempting to speak through the tears, and puts her head back down on Asami's shoulder. Her arms constrict around Asami's neck, harder than before, and this, finally, is what brings Asami's tears to fall—bittersweet tears. She could jump for joy to think of how much stronger Korra is now than she was just two weeks ago, a shade of her former power palpable in the way she holds herself fast to Asami's chest. It's twice as bitter to know that this is goodbye.
Trance-like, Asami looks slowly to the east and sees the very first swatch of daylight starting to slip over the lip of the horizon. How long have they been here, holding each other against the soft cadence of the waves, swaying just-so with the tide? It doesn't matter how long, she thinks. It will never be enough.
xii.
The bags are all packed, the bed stripped. A bar of sunlight thick as gold cuts across the room and separates them, and this feels consequential—though Asami is beginning to wonder if she's simply looking for meaning anywhere she can find it now.
They haven't spoken today. The ship headed for the Southern Water Tribe will be docking any minute, not far from where they stood last night. Korra is turned away, looking out the window, or at least pretending to. Asami sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the back of her head, wondering numbly if she will have the strength to look at Korra's face today, if it will be better for them both if she starts to feel Korra's absence before she's even left.
"Asami?"
So much for that. Asami gets to her feet, wobbling when her weight hits her knees, which have felt weak for days on end. She goes to Korra's side, kneeling next to the chair, and finally brings herself to look into her eyes.
"Thank you for everything," Korra says. Her voice is off, stilted. It reminds Asami of her "diplomat voice," as they jokingly call it. A voice reserved for scowling presidents and police chiefs. Asami isn't hurt. She knows it's a front, a dam desperately holding something back for the both of them. "I know I haven't been easy these last two weeks. So, thanks for being there. For being you."
"I'm always here for you," Asami responds, evenly, judicious in her own right.
"We'll write to each other." But it sounds less like a promise and more like wishful thinking.
That's enough pretense for Asami. The façade slips. Her hand comes up unbidden and cups the side of Korra's face, and it feels so much like the first night back on Air Temple Island, when she felt like she was holding Korra together with that palm to her cheek. At the same time, it's so different—the mortal terror has mostly subsided, the existential unknown of it all washed away. In its place, numbness. When Asami tries to take a deep breath, it comes haltingly down her throat, as if the way was bricked up and sealed.
"Don't worry about me," she says, steady, and for once her voice does not betray her. "Just go. Heal. I'll wait for you."
The dam is well and broken now. A tear slips from the corner of Korra's eye; Asami swipes it away with her thumb, and no more come to follow it. There's no time for that now. Through the window, the hulking bow of the Water Tribe ship is coming into view at the mouth of the bay. The proverbial curtain is closing. Whether this is the final act or not, Asami doesn't want to know.
"None of that, alright? Let's go say goodbye," Asami says, with all the artificial cheeriness she can muster. Korra nods, eyes still wet, and looks down at her lap.
There are voices in the hallway now, footsteps, the startled exclaim of one airbender kid or another. Before she stands Asami presses a kiss to Korra's cheek. Chaste, but lasting—just prolonged enough to say something she doesn't have the words for now, enough for her to commit it to memory, she hopes. She lingers; for a moment, their faces are maddeningly close. But the footsteps are just outside now.
She gets to her feet, steps behind the chair, and points them both to the door. Someone knocks on the other side. "Coming," Asami calls, and as it opens, she puts on the widest smile she's ever worn in her life.