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Mako wastes an hour at the market trying to figure out if he should buy flowers. Buying flowers is something you’re meant to do. Korra’s never really cared about flowers, though. And lots of people have got her flowers already. Then again, if lots of other people have got her flowers and he *hasn’t*, then that won’t look too great.
He should’ve asked Asami about gift ideas. He’s not had much practice at this sort of thing.
In the end, he gets Korra a cactus.
A cactus is a plant. Flowers are plants. So cactus is just a step away from a flower. And a cactus is low maintenance. A cactus lives a long time. A cactus is practical.
He ignores the nagging feeling that Asami would probably laugh at him for this.
—
The closer he gets to Air Temple Island, the less he’s sure he should visit. Korra probably doesn’t want to see him. Or rather, she probably doesn’t want him to see her. And that’s to be expected, knowing Korra, and he guesses he should still visit her anyway, but he doesn’t want to make her feel worse.
And he’s going to be pissed off if she tells him to go away.
She’s being taken care of, and she’s already surrounded by people who love her. (Things could be worse.) He’s not sure what he’s got to offer other than a show of concern, and she might not even want that.
In the end, he decides that he’s going to visit purely for his own sake, because he just needs to see how she’s doing.
He stares out the window during the ferry ride, and lets his mind chew over the fact that he hasn’t seen Korra in a week.
He might, just possibly, be a little bit of a coward.
—
Mako passes Pema at the dock. She smiles at him and asks how he is. He gives her answers that won’t invite further questions.
He’s informed that Korra is on the south side of the island, by the pavilion. Mako thanks Pema, and takes a route that should (hopefully) allow him to avoid most of the Air Acolytes and White Lotus guards milling around.
He finds Korra sitting alone. She’s facing the sea, one elbow propped on the armrest of her wheelchair.
He pauses when he’s a few steps away, clears his throat, and asks, “You mind some company?”
Korra’s head moves slightly, but she doesn’t turn to look at him. “Oh. Hey. Sure.”
Mako looks down at the cactus in his hands. Then he looks around at… nothing in particular. The pavilion is a new addition, freshly-painted - there have been a lot of new additions since the arrival of the other airbenders - and the flagstones have been swept clean of sand and straw. Someone's put in some flower beds. The flowers are all a deep red. They look expensive.
He half expects an Acolyte to appear out of nowhere and ask him what he’s doing here.
He moves closer to Korra, and stands next to her.
She hasn’t changed much. Her hair is loose, and some of it has fallen over her face. The shadows under her eyes are actually a little worse. It’s warm, and the breeze is blowing offshore, but she has a heavy blanket draped around her shoulders.
"What?" Korra says, flatly.
"I just…" Mako begins. "I mean… Do you mind if I sit down?"
Korra now turns to look at him properly, and gives him an odd stare. “No.”
Right. Mako sits on the flagstones next to her wheelchair, and carefully places the cactus next to him.
He’s already decided that he’s awful at this.
Bolin was always easy to comfort. He just needed a hug and a pep talk. Same for Asami: she usually just needed a hug, as if your physical presence was enough by itself.
Korra, though…
Korra has stopped staring at him, so he just looks at the sea. There are barely any waves.
Mako realizes that he’s frowning, and he does his best to arrange his face into a more neutral expression.
Korra has resumed staring ahead.
She’s probably mad at him. This could be his fault, for not visiting more often. Or she might just be mad at everything in general.
This isn’t like any anger he’s seen from her before, though.
He pulls at the collar of his uniform, and steels himself.
He has to attempt a conversation.
Great. Fine. He can do this.
He could ask her about her treatment, but she’s probably sick of having to talk about that. (Is there even any point in dwelling on her health? She's ill. People say she should get better. She should all the support she needs. That's as a good as it gets.) Or he could tell her what he’s been doing lately, but he’s not good at talking about himself, so…
He thinks.
He clears his throat again.
(That’s twice now. He needs to stop clearing his throat.)
Mako takes a deep breath, and announces: “Bolin… wants to know if you can score him a free wheelchair so he can ride down Cat’s Foot Hill on it.”
Korra’s reaction isn’t immediate. For a few seconds, he’s not even sure that she’s heard him.
Then she shifts her weight, absently tugs at the blanket over her shoulders, and frowns.
Her right hand slowly scratches at a mark on the chair’s armrest.
Then she says, “Is… Is he going to put a ramp at the bottom of Cat’s Foot Hill so he can get some airtime?”
"No," Mako says, cautious yet hopeful. "And I won’t be the one who’ll suggest that to him."
Korra tilts her head to one side. She sluggishly lifts her hands, and holds them apart. Her voice is quiet and distant. “He could ride straight down Cat’s Foot Hill, earthbend a ramp to jump over to Persimmon Street, and fly off Diamond Pier into the bay.”
Mako gives a nervous little ‘ha’, and changes the subject. “I got you a cactus.”
Korra slowly raises her head again. “A cactus?”
"Yeah. I don’t know," Mako says, apologetic.
Korra pushes her hair away from her face so she can peer at him. “Thanks?”
Mako shrugs.
Korra keeps scratching at the mark on the armrest of the wheelchair for half a minute, then sits up straighter, and crosses her arms.
“…What sort of cactus is it?” she asks.
"It’s, uh…" Mako says, then just gives up and offers the cactus to her.
Korra carefully takes the pot in both hands, and gives the cactus a blank look. “I like it.”
"Good," says Mako.
Korra sits the cactus on her lap.
In the distance, a fishing boat crawls along the line of the horizon. The sea breeze has stopped blowing. The day is going to be airless, dry, and too long. Mako hopes for a storm, but the sky is clear.
He listens. There’s no city noise, just the lap of the waves against the shore. He can’t even hear seagulls.
It takes a lot of self-control to not grab the handles of the wheelchair and take Korra away from this place. She needs to be around people.
"What’s wrong?" Korra asks, and there’s a nasty edge to her voice, like he’s managed to insult her without realizing.
"Nothing," Mako says, a bit too sharply.
Korra leans towards him. “Uh, don’t lie, because you’re bad at it.”
Well, *that’s* not true. “Korra, look…” Mako begins, then flusters. “I’m a terrible conversationalist, alright?”
Korra blinks, and sits back. “…Yeah, but since when did that ever bother you?”
Mako gives up on trying to keep a neutral expression and lets his face relax into a comfortable scowl.
"You don’t have to say anything," Korra says. She pauses to rub her eyes, then adds, "You can just sit there. Unless you’re bored. Then you can go. Don’t feel bad about it."
"I’m not bored," Mako tells her.
"*I* am," Korra says, and there’s something in her voice that unsettles him.
He needs a distraction. He can’t afford to feel angry, or sad, or useless. Not when he’s sitting right next to her.
Then he remembers something:
"Watch this," he says, and stands up so he’s insulated by the soles of his boots.
Korra gazes at him, tiredly.
Mako runs his fingers through his hair to loosen it up. It’s a good job he didn’t bother with pomade today. The fact that the air is dry and still should also help.
He his removes his gloves, and rubs his hands together as if he’s trying to warm them. The friction between his palms makes it easy to build up a charge. He’s not sure how it works, exactly, but… It’s weird. Like the energy in his body is moving in a circular motion, from his arms to his feet, and the air around his shoulders has changed somehow.
And slowly, gradually, a few wisps of hair rise from his head, and waver gently.
Mako keeps rubbing his hands together until most of his hair is standing on end. He looks like a boar-q-pine.
Korra stares at him. Her eyes widen. She clamps her mouth shut for a moment.
"Ta-da," Mako mutters.
"Your hair," Korra says. He was hoping she’d laugh, but she actually looks too surprised for that.
Mako wonders how ridiculous he looks right now.
"That is…" Korra says, clearly awed, "…the dumbest thing I have ever seen you do."
Mako almost bows.
"You look like a grumpy dandelion," Korra adds.
Mako shrugs at her.
Korra grips the armrests of her chair. “How are you doing that?”
Mako blows some strands of hair away from his eyes. They float as if he’s underwater. “Uh, Asami can explain it better than I can.”
Korra snorts. “She’s explained it to you already, but you’ve forgot what she said, huh?”
Mako makes a face. “Yeah.”
Korra nods knowingly. “How did you figure out how to do that?”
"Oh, I learned it from some old lady." A woman who used to run a fruit stall. She’d give him and Bolin any over-ripe fruit she had left over at the end of the day. Mako had gone to her once after a bad run-in with a guy who’d caught him stealing, and she’d shown him the trick to cheer him up. Like Korra, he hadn’t laughed, but he’d liked being taught how to do a new thing.
Mako quits rubbing his hands together, and goes to sit back down.
Korra sits bolt upright again. “Uh, who said you could stop, mister?” There’s a slight gleam in her eyes.
Mako pauses, crouching. “What?”
"What’d happen if you touched someone while you were doing the hair thing?" Korra asks.
"They’d get an electric shock."
Korra scratches her chin. “How bad?”
"Not too bad." He’s zapped Bolin plenty of times, and all Bolin ever did was let out a theatrical shriek and pretend to drop dead.
"Hey. Give me an electric shock," Korra orders.
Mako shakes his head. “No.”
"Why not?"
"It’d hurt."
Korra squints at him. “What, like, more than being poisoned’d hurt?”
Mako sighs, and stands up again. He touches the back of Korra’s hand with his index finger. There’s just the tiniest arc of electricity. Korra yelps.
"Happy now?" Mako asks. His hair should go back to normal now.
Korra rubs the back of her hand. “Yeah.”
"Can I sit back down?" Mako asks.
"I guess."
Mako sits back down. Sheesh.
"What other tricks do you know?" Korra says, leaning over the side of her wheelchair.
Mako looks up at the girl looming over him. “None. That’s it.”
"Yeah, *right*."
Mako rolls his eyes. “Alright. Alright…” And he’s only going to admit this because she’s ill and he wants to cheer her up, so here goes: “If I stick a peanut up my nose, I can make it come out my mouth.”
Korra now stares at him in horror. “What, like… A whole peanut? In the shell, or…?”
"Without the shell."
Korra still needs a moment to contemplate this. “Okay. That’s really gross. I’m not sure I want to see that.”
"Good."
Korra now gives him a sideways look. “Is that how you impress girls? By sticking peanuts up your nose?”
"No," Mako says - again, a bit too sharply. He’s not been trying to impress any girls lately.
"Does Asami know about the peanut thing?"
Mako turns that question over in his mind, inspecting it for any hints of jealousy, but there aren’t any. “No. Why would I tell Asami about the peanut thing?”
"Can *I* tell Asami about the peanut thing?" Korra asks, with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
"What? No."
Korra now looks sly. “So is this just between us, then? That you stick peanuts up your nose? Is it our little secret?”
"I don’t stick peanuts up my nose."
"If you don’t stick peanuts up your nose, then how did you find that you can make them come out your mouth?"
She’s as bad as Bolin. “Can we change the subject to something less disgusting?” Mako asks.
Korra hmphs, but seems satisfied. Her gaze settles on the cactus, while Mako pretends that he’s gone back to watching the sea.
"Mako," Korra says, quietly. "You should’ve visited more often."
Mako fights off the inevitable wave of guilt which follows that statement, and glances up at her, trying to see her face. She has her head bowed again, and he wants to brush her hair out of her eyes.
He spends far too long trying to think of a good way to say ‘I’m sorry’.
"I think I need to go back to the South Pole," Korra adds, before he can say anything.
Alright. He’s going to make a determined effort to be reasonable about this, and not jump to conclusions. “How long for?”
"I don’t know. A while." She glances at him. "Not forever. Don’t worry."
"Oh," Mako says. "When are you, um…" When is she thinking of leaving?
Korra cuts him off. “You’d better write to me, okay?”
Mako is even worse at writing letters than he is at making conversation. “Okay,” he says, automatically.
"Just… Write to me and tell me anything you can think of," Korra says, "like what you had for breakfast, or what the weather’s doing…"
"Sure."
"…Whether or not you’ve shoved any peanuts up your nose lately…"
Mako eyes her.
"Stuff like that," Korra finishes.
Mako forces a smile. “Fine.”
Korra smiles back, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “And keep me updated if you come up with any good one-liners.”
"Oh, uh…" Mako says. "…I don’t think I’ve said anything lately…"
"You can bend lightning, but you can’t come up with one-liners? That’s shocking."
Mako stares.
"Sorry," Korra says, and takes a deep breath. "Anyhow-…"
Whatever she’s about to say is cut off by a yawn so huge that it makes her jaw click, and she screws her eyes shut for a moment.
Mako watches as she rubs her face. She presses the heel of her hand against her left eye, then stares at her palm, and blinks.
Mako realizes with a sinking feeling that he’s tiring her out.
"What was I saying?" Korra asks.
"That you wanted me to write you," Mako tells her.
Korra nods slowly. “I’ll take your cactus with me. It’ll be the first cactus in the South Pole. Probably. I guess.”
That doesn’t sound very sensible. “Can a cactus live in the South Pole?”
"If it’s kept indoors, maybe. Katara has to keep her place pretty warm, so-"
Mako steals one last look at the poor doomed cactus.
Korra rests her elbow on the armrest and props her chin on her hand. She blinks a few more times, as if trying to make her eyes focus.
"I’m naming the cactus after you, you know," she murmurs.
"Thanks," Mako says.
"Because you’re prickly."
"*Thanks.*" Like he didn’t see that one coming. He remembers when they first dated, and she seemed to admire him, like he was some sort of hard-won prize, a bit (but not too much of) a challenge. She’d wanted his attention, and sometimes she’d wanted his approval. Now she just sees him as a surly young man who takes everything too seriously and doesn't talk enough. He's become someone she can tease.
And that might be an improvement.
He could say that he's just a friend to her now, but technically they were always friends anyway.
Maybe they could get back together some time in the far future. Maybe when she has less to deal with, and when he’s figured out how his own mind works.
*If* she’ll have him. Which is a big if.
But that seems irrelevant at the moment. There are so many other things to worry about.
Korra gives him a small smile, then hands the cactus over. “Hold him for me.”
Mako accepts Mako Jr. and places it back on the flagstones.
"Seriously," Korra murmurs. "You’d better write."
"I will."
"I mean it."
"I said, I will."
"Yeah, you…" Korra says, "I’m just going to rest my eyes for a moment…"
Mako sits with her while she falls asleep.