Work Text:
Asami knew the moment she woke up that something was wrong.
Opening her eyes revealed nothing out of the ordinary, just the familiar pattern of soft golden rays filtering in from the window, lighting up the peaks and valleys that Korra’s sprawling figure had created in the bedspread. Korra herself was still, arms and legs all akimbo, mouth hanging open to fill the room with the sound of rough snoring. Asami had long since grown used to the noise, almost to the point of being unable to sleep without it. Whatever had woken her, it was not in this room.
She stared at Korra’s peaceful expression for a moment, watching the rise and fall of the part of her chest that was exposed by the bed sheet that had likely been flung aside in the night. The imprint of a dream flickered in the back of her brain. Somewhere, the details lay locked away, dancing just beyond the reach of her consciousness. The only thing she could discern from the impressions was a deep sense of foreboding that seemed to spread, filling the pit of her stomach. The impulse to move closer to her wife and let herself be comforted by the Avatar’s impressive body heat was strong, but not as strong as the urge to locate the source of her discomfort.
The silk robe that she wrapped around her body felt soothing against her hypersensitive skin as she stepped from the bedroom, scanning the familiar hallway on her way to the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place at all, and she began to relax. It almost seemed rather silly, to let herself be so preoccupied by absolutely nothing. It must have been her dream, she quickly decided, opening a nearby cupboard and pulling down a mug from the shelf. The details seemed even fuzzier now, completely beyond the realm of her understanding. She told herself it was probably better that way as the coffee machine whirred to life.
That was when she noticed the envelope sitting on the kitchen table. It was rather unusual for her to receive mail at the Sato manor, as she had the vast majority of it forwarded to the box at her workshop. The maid must have brought it in from outside. She picked it up for inspection, and the feeling of disquiet came back full force as she noticed the return address. Republic City Penitentiary.
She was well accustomed to ignoring her father’s letters, but she could immediately tell that this one was different. It had been addressed with official-looking type rather than her father’s orderly handwriting, and it lacked the tell-tale creases that usually signaled that it had been opened and read by some warden before reaching her.
She wanted to drop it, or to fling it across the room, or to wake Korra up and ask her to torch it with firebending, but she did none of those things as the unsettling flutters in her gut reached a peak, threatening to double her over with a sudden bolt of agony in her stomach. She couldn’t understand why the sight of the envelope filled her with such dread, or why its arrival had bothered her even as she slept, but she instinctively knew that this was one letter she shouldn’t ignore. She ripped it open with shaking fingers and pulled out the single, folded sheet of paper within that bore just a few simple lines.
We regret to inform you that inmate #4725, Hiroshi Sato, has passed away of an apparent heart attack…
Asami stopped reading and set the paper back down on the table. Her mind cleared, the nervousness fading into an infinitesimal point until there was nothing but a feeling of numbness, beginning in the tips of her fingers and spreading up her limbs until it had consumed her like fire. Her ears rang with the oppressive weight of silence so complete she could hear every heartbeat, every shallow breath she took with intense clarity. After a moment, even those sounds had faded, and she was left with only a faint rushing that her brain produced to mask the sound of such deep stillness.
She had no idea how long she had stood beside the kitchen table, lost in the absence of thought or sensation before she became dimly aware of footsteps behind her, of a loud yawn accompanied by several pops of aching joints.
“Asami?”
Korra’s voice sounded as if it had filtered through a distant tunnel, echoing in the empty space, a single hook that shot through the void and grabbed onto her. She was pulled back to reality by it, and by the pair of soft blue eyes that were now gazing at her with concern.
“My father is dead,” she said simply.
The week that followed passed in a blur of arrangements, calls, and stressful conversations with investors who were highly upset by the sudden time off she was taking. She found herself surrounded in a sudden whirlwind of strained looks and awkward “I’m so sorry”s. It was painfully obvious that no one around her had any idea how to react to the news.
Not that she could blame them. She could hardly figure it out herself.
The funeral was depressingly small. Korra was beside her the entire time, a rock to cling to in all of the turmoil, saying very little but offering a hand to squeeze whenever Asami found herself drifting. Mako and Bolin arrived shortly before the ceremony, nodding in acknowledgement and offering their condolences, which she accepted with a forced smile. Tenzin and Pema entered right behind a small crowd of former associates who were grim-faced and avoided Asami for the most part.
She tried not to dwell on the size of the crowd, or the tense atmosphere as everyone present wondered at the appropriate way to react to the news. Finally, a priest stepped in front of the closed coffin and began to deliver a canned speech about life and death and great accomplishments. Asami stopped listening very quickly. The man had been sent from some agency recommended to her by the penitentiary, and she had given him little thought, knowing that her father would not have really cared who was hired to speak at his funeral. Still, the guilt caught in her throat, especially when she could feel the man’s eyes on her. He had asked her days before when she would like to be called forward to speak, but she had immediately shot down the idea, not trusting her words when it came to her father.
He was a bitter man who became consumed by his own prejudice, dragged our family name through the mud, nearly started a war, and rotted in jail for the rest of his life because of it.
No, it was best that she leave the talking to someone else.
If Asami had been paying attention, she might have noticed the increase in the number of odd tasks that Korra was performing for her in lieu of conversation. The Avatar had grown uncharacteristically quiet following the news, and Asami had been too preoccupied to muse as to why that might be. But she said nothing when Korra slid into the driver’s seat of her Satomobile after the funeral, making the long drive back to the mansion in silence.
“I’ll make us dinner,” Korra offered when they arrived, opening the front door and clicking on the lights on her way to the kitchen.
“I’m not hungry,” came the reply that was almost too soft to hear as Asami slid down into one of the sitting room’s armchairs.
Korra’s footsteps halted and the silence returned, each second feeling longer than the last. “Please tell me how I can help you,” she finally asked, her voice shaking, weak, full of uncertainty. It startled Asami to hear such a tone coming from the hotheaded Avatar, and she lifted her head to meet her wife’s pained gaze.
“Korra…I…” she struggled to find the words. “You’ve been great. Really. Thank you.”
But she was shaking her head. “You’ve been floating off into space. I’ve never seen you look so lost before,” she explained quietly. “Not sad. Just…gone. Like you’re not here. Like you’re not even sure what to do with yourself,” she stepped closer to Asami, rested a hand on the arm of the chair she sat in. “I’m not here to tell you what to feel, but you’ve barely said a word all week, and I’m honestly worried.”
Asami let the words sink in, breaking eye contact in favor of staring at the floor. The numbness in her limbs that had been ever-present since the morning she had read the letter began to recede just slightly as she carefully thought out a reply. “I don’t know how to feel about this, Korra,” she finally admitted in a voice that was very small.
“Neither do I,” Korra admitted. “That’s why I haven’t said much, either. You seemed like you needed to be alone, and…well, I’ve been afraid of saying something really bad and making you more upset.”
“I know you didn’t like him. And you’re perfectly justified in that opinion,” said Asami, remembering the last conversation Korra had had with Hiroshi Sato nearly two years ago, when they had gone to receive his blessing for their wedding. He had taken one look at the intricate, beautiful betrothal necklace clasped around her neck and thrown a fit that had injured three prison guards and pointlessly added two years to his life sentence. “He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. And I know that I will never, ever be able to forgive him. But…”
“He was your father,” Korra finished for her when she trailed off.
Asami’s head swam under the words, under the realization that he was really and truly gone, more so than he was before – permanently absent from this world. There would be no more letters to ignore, no more strained trips to the penitentiary, no more attempts at extending the olive branch. “He was,” she echoed, and for the first time since receiving the news of his death, Asami’s eyes began to fill with water.
Korra sat on the wide arm of the chair and wrapped her arms around the other woman, pulling her head against her chest when the sobs began – jarring, full-body jolts and a fountain of tears that seemed to come out of nowhere, staining the dress shirt that Korra had worn to the funeral. The Avatar made no indication of caring about this fact at all as her hands began to rub soothing circles into her wife’s back, moving closer when Asami responded by gripping her shirt and pulling at her in an attempt to achieve more contact.
Asami had no idea how long she cried for, only that she did not stop until she was physically incapable of producing any more tears, nodding in appreciation when Korra took a moment to bend the residual moisture from her face and press a comforting kiss to her forehead.
“Tell me about him,” Korra asked softly in the silence that followed.
“What?” Asami scrunched up her face, wiping at her reddened cheeks. “You already know about him.”
“No, I don’t,” Korra disagreed gently. “I know about the equalist who created weapons, hated benders, and asked you to turn on your friends. I don’t know anything about the man who raised you to be an amazing woman and a brilliant engineer.”
Asami paused, looking up at the Avatar with grateful eyes. For so long had the memories of that day in his secret underground workshop overshadowed the earlier memories spent in his garage, watching with wide eyes as he worked under the hood of a Satomobile, giggling as he accidentally rubbed grease all over his face when he went to wipe the sweat from his forehead. She had almost forgotten the first robot he had ever built for her that walked alongside her as she took her first, hesitant steps and clung to the moving metal parts for support.
As she looked at Korra’s calm, serene expression, she was met with the realization that the Avatar was now truly the only family that Asami had left, and that she had never and would never know this side of the man who had claimed to hate her so much just because of her abilities. So she began to tell stories from the comfort of Korra’s arms, hoping to convey even a tiny fraction of the love that Hiroshi Sato had shown her early in her life. Korra sat perfectly still and listened with full attention, long into the night.