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“Mako? She’s here.”
“Already?”
Suddenly I’m eighteen again, broody and unsure what to make of the avatar barging into my life with little to no warning. There has never been any ceremony to receiving Korra, not since the day we met in the pro-bending arena. Not our first kiss, not our first date, not our breakup. Not even our second breakup. She lived and loved fiercely, something I didn’t appreciate until she was gone. She throws herself into everything without holding back, faces her challenges head-on, loves with abandon. And now she’s throwing herself into her first proper meeting with me in years, and I feel myself regressing. Suddenly I’m eighteen again, and I don’t know what to do as the door opens and Korra walks in.
"Hey,” she says. Her hair is still short. “Asami likes it this length,” I remember her telling me once, many months ago. Not long after their return from the spirit world, and long before she went to the Earth Kingdom to help rebuild and to oversee Kuvira’s sentence.
I don’t realize I haven’t spoken until she’s quickly moved her feet and punched upward, launching me out of my seat behind the desk and bringing me to standing. We’re both laughing, and I can’t help but wonder if my desk will be flipped over and my office in disarray. It’s not a real worry this time. It’s nostalgia. The best kind of nostalgia.
“Hey, city boy,” she says, planting her hands on her hips. “I don’t get a hello?”
“Oh, you’re still here?” My voice sounds strange to me. Strange from too little use, and too few laughs.
“Oh, you’re still a jerk?”
I don’t know what I had expected. But on impulse I hug her hello, and when I pull back I see that look in her eyes I didn’t know I had missed. “Guess so,” I say. I want to add something else, but I don’t know what.
Korra’s arms are still corded, her shoulders still bare. Her collar bones stand out like twin ridges under the fabric of her shirt, the high neck replaced with twin rows of buttons that end just at the center of her sternum. The dusky skin above her arm sleeves is sprinkled with freckles I don’t recognize, little mementos from her time abroad under the hot Earth Kingdom sun. She still has to tilt her head back to look me in the eyes, something that always confused me-- I never did tell her how often I felt the heights ought to be reversed. She does it now, tipping her head back and her crooked grin spreading over her face, and I notice a criss-cross of scars starting at the base of her neck and extending down out of sight. I don't look for long. Something is wrong but she doesn't know it yet, and I still haven't figured out what it is. So I don't say anything. I'm happy just to look at her. It's been three years again. I didn't think I'd feel the breadth of lost time the way I'm feeling it now.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." I jerk my head toward the desk. "You caught me at a bad time, actually. I have about an hour to go before I'm free..."
"That's fine," she says, throwing herself down into the empty chair and running a hand through her tousled hair. "Finish your stuff, officer. Working with Kuvira makes you learn patience real quick."
I laugh out loud. I can't remember the last time someone other than Bolin has made that happen. "Yeah. I bet it does."
o0o
She talks to me about Asami when we're downtown, walking past the spirit portal. The way she talks, I know there's no topic she likes more. Tells me how the legal battle for Kuvira's pardon in the Earth Kingdom made things awkward, how her extended time away made things strained. Tells me how her injury made things worse, maybe beyond repair.
"I was wondering about that," I say. "When did it happen?"
"Around the time I was the witness to Baatar and Kuvira's wedding," she says, like it's nothing. "We had a little trouble with the loyalist party in Gorou."
"How far down does that scar go?"
"Farther than you get to see." Her eyebrows slant down and then up, her blue eyes half-lidded, and I feel my heart stutter for the first time in far too long. No amount of companionship, whether that's a royal or another blue-collar worker, has had the effect those eyes have always held.
"So Kuvira supporters tried to take out the newlyweds?" I say at last. "Bet they didn't think 'til death do us part' would come into effect so soon."
She laughs. I'm surprised by how much I missed the sound. "I got the worst of it," she says. "Kuvira got the metal out, Baatar did the sutures. He did a great job, too," she adds, her fingers trailing over neat, surgical cuts and raised whitened ridges. "We didn't have a healer at the camp, but I was in good hands. Once they took care of me, I could work the healing myself."
"Why didn't you write to me?" I don't add to that, but there's more I want to say. Why didn't you care enough to answer a letter or two? Why didn't you write me all those years ago, why is our friendship not enough, when will it be?
"I didn't want to worry you." She doesn't look at me. "You know Asami couldn't deal with it, not all of it one after the other. I had to tell her about the injury, it's not something you lie about to your girlfriend. You remember when she left to visit me?"
"Yeah."
"That was why. When she left, I don't think there was an us anymore, not really."
"She couldn't handle your job always putting you in danger." I say it matter-of-factly, because I really can't judge. There was a time when I couldn't handle Korra's job, for much less excusable reasons.
"Yeah," she says. "But it's okay. I'm fine."
"Korra..."
"How's the arm?" she asks, and I know the subject is over. She's twenty-five and too old to rehash something she's already dealt with.
"It's been fine for years," I say. I'd taken to wearing a tooled glove over the burned hand, a birthday present from Asami. The scars acted like little conductors of flame, snakes of tissue that threaded through my arm and down my fingers. I still can't direct fire properly without the glove. Asami thinks it blocks the interference from scrambled nerve signals. I don't mind. There are some things you do for your country, and some things you do for love. That had been a bit of both.
"Asami said you still can't bend without the glove on that arm," she says, her voice concerned. "I still feel bad about it."
"You didn't make me zap the vine," I point out.
"I wish I had healed it," she continues, stretching her arms overhead as we walk down to the pier and stand together, watching the little boats . "I wish I had gone back to you sooner."
Suddenly, I know exactly what is wrong. She still hasn't figured it out, but I have. "I'm just glad that you're here now."
"Me too," she agrees. Her hand finds mine, fingers folding over my palm as naturally as ever. They aren't long and tapered and callused at the tips from endless switchboards. They aren't manicured with elegant nails either. Korra's hands are compact and strong, hands that have held the fate of the world in their grip, hands that have filled me with anticipation and unease and admiration. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asks softly.
Suddenly I am eighteen again, and it comes through in my voice when I answer. "Because you never cease to amaze me." And when her eyebrows slant up, all the lights of Republic City reflected back at me in those blue mirrors, I feel the best kind of nostalgia. The kind that makes me want to try again, if only she'll let me.
"Is this because of avatar stuff?" she teases. "I didn't even do anything this time."
"I don't care about that." And it's true. It was true when I almost saw her die in her father's arms, loaded with mercury and that beautiful white glow fading from her eyes. It was true when she was recovering in the South Pole, and it was true when she tore a new portal into the sky, risking her life and the avatar cycle to do it. She has always inspired me and pushed me to be the best version of myself, and standing next to her I'm more aware of it now than ever.
"So what do you care about?"
My fingers tighten around hers, and I marvel at the quiet intimacy of holding the hand of a person you love. "Like you don't know."