Chapter Text

(Book 4, episode 7)

"What's going on with you two?”

Mako had wandered into the men’s room after Prince Wu, leaving the girls outside in the hall to stew. Three years had passed since Asami and Korra had been in the same room together. Despite all that time piled between them, despite now finally having a chance to clear the air, they had only managed to snap at each other.

Asami’s chest burned. She wished that they could be back in their happy reunion, holding each other in relief. Not standing at arm’s length, silently staring at the floor. Hurt. Awkward. Distant.

It had only taken one ill word about Hiroshi for her to bite Korra’s head off. Her nerves were raw when it came to her father right now. They had barely begun rebuilding their relationship. It was still new. Delicate.

In her protectiveness of that small, fragile hope, a bitter cold had sliced through her. What did Korra know? At least Hiroshi was trying. Korra hadn’t been here when he’d reached out. He had actually bothered to send letters. Dozens upon dozens of them, begging Asami to consider visiting him in prison. He’d realized that he’d been carrying a torch for his wife, and had let that grief blind him to the fact that he still had a daughter to love, and protect, and share his life with. He wanted to prove that he’d changed. He had actually been here for Asami. More than she could say of Korra.

She’d surprised herself, not just Korra, with her outburst at the table. All the bitterness, the self-consciousness, the ugly little impulses that Asami had thought she’d moved passed, had all bubbled up at once.

For three years, Korra hadn’t been here.

Exactly, she scolded herself. Korra hadn’t been here. How could Asami be so angry at her for questioning Hiroshi’s motives, if she didn’t understand? Korra hadn’t see him in his cell, frail and exhausted, sobbing an apology to his daughter. Asami was the only precious thing Hiroshi still had in this world, and he’d vowed to prove it to her.

Words clawed out of Asami before she realized she was speaking up. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she murmured.

Korra’s face visibly relaxed at the break in the silence. “Please don’t apologize,” she sighed, “I shouldn’t have made assumptions about your father. I’m just worried about you.”

Asami nodded softly. “I know what I’m doing.”

“And I should trust you,” Korra agreed.

For months, Asami had struggled with the decision to let her father back into her life. She’d kept her visits to the prison to herself. Somehow she’d gotten it in her head that if she didn’t tell anyone, she wouldn’t have to justify herself. With Korra in front of her now, she realized that all along she had desperately wanted to feel safe enough to share her concerns, her doubts, her fears. But the person she needed for that had run away.

“I want to be able to talk to you about him,” she admitted. She ventured a glance up to Korra’s face, unsure if she could hold it together. Her throat fought hard against a swallow. “Three years is a long time to go without your best friend.”

Pangs of guilt flickered behind Korra’s eyes. “I’m so sorry I left the way I did. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just needed time. But...but I should have done it better.”

In the lobby, Korra had been happy. Her smile had etched itself into Asami’s brain. With more time to watch her, and the way she moved, the way she carried herself, Asami realized that Korra felt...whole. She couldn’t think of anything more of a comfort than how solid, how collected, Korra looked. Maybe all she had needed was time. Time and distance.

“You do seem better,” Asami said.

Korra nodded. “The last few years, I’ve figured out a lot about myself.”

Asami managed a smile of sorts. “That’s good.”

So much time had passed between them, and so much had changed. Despite the awkwardness, Asami felt this powerful urge to unload it all, to talk to her about everything. The anger, and the joy, and the uncertainty. Korra’s absence had been painful, more than Asami could admit to herself sometimes. She had patched up the hurt as best she could, stitched her life back together with frayed thread and a prayer. And it seemed to be holding. Now that Korra was back, shouldn’t the last missing piece of Asami’s life have just slid back into place?

The only thing filling that empty space right now was anxiety. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Korra now. Perhaps three years was just too much time. It suddenly occurred to Asami that Korra had been away for longer than she’d lived in Republic City. They’d spent more time apart than together. What if Asami didn’t know her anymore? What if the things that Korra had figured out about herself didn’t include her?

“What’s wrong?” Korra asked. She was watching her with a frown.

Asami tried to force herself to say something. Anything. “I feel like I’ve been…” She hugged her arms tight, latching onto them, holding back the fluttering in her chest and the rocks in her stomach. “I guess I was just nervous about today.”

Korra stepped forward, re-entering that comfortable space that they’d once shared. “You don’t have to be nervous around me.”

A smirk trembled out. “Hard to help, after what Mako said.”

“About what?” Korra asked.

Asami’s mouth went dry. She fought a dizziness in her chest, like she was tipping over the edge of a very steep cliff. One more step and she wouldn’t be able to climb back.

Biting down on her fear, she finally let the words fall out. “There is something going on with us,” she said. “Isn’t there.”

Korra blinked. Silence fell on the hall for an unbearably long second.

Hands clamped around her middle, Asami leaned into the wall and stared down at dead air. “Before you left, it seemed like there was.” An awful, itching panic flushed up to her cheeks. This was a mistake, her brain screamed. What was she doing? “And then...” She risked a glance up. “...and then you only wrote to me.”

There it was. In the open. As open as Asami could manage right now, anyway. Leaping off the edge hadn’t been so bad. It was the waiting, the hanging in midair, that suddenly felt unbearable. Her throat threatened to close up on itself as Korra stood there in agonizing silence.

Then something solidified behind Korra’s eyes. Her back straightened.

“I did,” she agreed.

Asami felt anchored to the wall. She couldn’t move, other than to turn her stare towards Korra. Patient, beautiful, confident Korra. She was finally here. Finally home.

Two words. It had only taken two words to leave Asami speechless. She waited for her brain to catch up and respond. All day, Asami had practiced mundane talking points in her head. Again and again. As though being over-prepared would somehow make it easier to face their long-overdue reunion. But she had lost grip of every polite question she’d resigned herself to asking, every anecdote she’d carefully tailored to ignore the topic of Korra’s absence. Instead of her meticulous words, her mind was flooded with a rush of what-ifs, of every good and every painful memory of their time together, of how desperately she wanted to close the space between them. It was a step, maybe two, but it may as well have been a canyon.

All the while, Korra never stopped staring back. She was waiting for Asami to make the next move. The hint of a smile that crept onto Korra’s mouth was hopeful, relieved. With it, the room suddenly brightened.

Asami had to remind herself to breathe. Her hands reached back to brace the wall. You’re in love with her. You’ve been in love with her this whole time, and you’ve been a damn fool.

The tension that Asami had been building herself up with suddenly shattered when the bathroom door shoved open. Mako barreled into the hallway in a panic. “Wu’s gone,” he said. “Something’s not right.”

The worries of the world all came crashing back down. Every inch of Asami’s body exhaled at once, and she felt herself drift limply back against the wall.

A missing Earth Kingdom prince was not a small thing. No matter how much Asami wanted to just wish the problem away. World peace was at stake if anything were to happen to the future Earth King.

Something caught Korra’s eye down the hall, and Asami followed her gaze to movement at the open exit door. A laundry attendant was pushing a cart of towels and tablecloths towards the loading dock. In a rush, by the look of it.

“Come on,” Korra urged. She quickly reached out and squeezed Asami's arm. Had the distance been that easy to cross? Three years was long enough to forget how warm Korra’s skin felt. But it wasn’t long enough to forget the sensation of being touched by her. The drumming in Asami’s chest was as vivid as the first time.

All business suddenly, Korra pulled away and made a line for the exit. Asami finally pushed off from the wall, following her and Mako in a march.

She had made the mistake of waiting too many times. She had tried to be the bigger person and walk away, or had let her fear and uncertainty silence her, or had pushed her feelings down in order to be the emotional support that Korra needed. Every time, she’d convinced herself that it had been the right thing in the moment. And every time, it seemed that life, or war, or tragedy had managed to pull Korra even further away. Their lives were complicated, dangerous, full of too much responsibility. Asami couldn’t be sure when the next crisis would come. How many second chances were they going to get to find each other?

They needed to talk. They were going to make time to talk. Asami swore it to herself, to the spirits, the universe, the damn Earth Kingdom, and anything else that was conspiring to push their words down. Despite everything Asami wasn’t sure about right now, she knew down to her bones that they were going to make time.