Asami was good at being alone. After all, he had spent most of her life being on her own, and it usually didn't bother her.

After her mother died, her father locked himself off for such a long time from her. He had a really hard time with it, and threw himself into his work to keep himself occupied, but that ended with not giving as much attention to Asami as he probably should have.

And sure, she was six, so he did make sure there were nannies and babysitters to make sure she was ever wanting of something, but that didn't mean Asami wasn't on her own for a lot of the time. Her first nanny was okay, but after a few years, she retired due to her old age. Asami herself was 11 at that time, and the nanny she got to replace her was extremely strict. She wouldn't allow Asami to play with boys, or even do mechanical things. The young girl wanted to take everything apart and find out how it worked, what did what, and how it all fit together, but no, that was boy's stuff.

That was what brought Asami and her father closer together. On the weekends, he would be at home and they would be able to spend some more time together, usually by taking apart old cars and motorcycles. It taught Asami how fulfilling working with her hands could be, as well as her impressive range of mechanical skills.

But that did not change the fact that that was only two days out of the weeks. She had a few friends going to her all-girl school, and even fewer that weren't friends with her for the status, but that only lasted until her nanny caught her kissing one of the girls she was friends with. After that, she wouldn't even allow Asami to play with other girls either.

Also, and even though she wasn't sure at the time how that had happened, she was pulled out of her school at the end of the year, and was homeschooled from that point on. Her father could easily afford the best tutors in Republic City for everything, ranging from literature to self-defense classes, and she got them, but now Asami really did spend all of her time on her own.

She wanted to do more mechanical work, so when she was 16, she convinced her father that she no longer needed a nanny. This finally allowed Asami the freedom to do what she wanted, and she took apart everything in the house and put it back together to kill the time. She took up racing as well, see the fruits of her labor, usually against the clock, and only sometimes against a Future Industries test driver, ensuring once again that she was on her own for most of the time.

Her life was thrown upside down when she met Korra though. First through the Equalist Revolution, where, even though she became a part of the new Team Avatar, she was the outlier. Everyone was nice to her, especially considering her father betrayed them and had both financed and engineered the Revolution, but it just wasn't the same. Mako was becoming distant and she soon learned why, Korra spent a lot of their time together in a jealous funk, and Bolin was too dense to notice.

After the Revolution was over, she did travel with Korra to the South Pole to see Katara, but she was seriously considering going with General Iroh to join the military. There, she would fit in, be an engineer, and she'd always have someone to be around, even when everyone else in her life seemed not to care.

But with her father's arrest going on, she knew it was up to her to save what was left of his legacy. Not for him, he betrayed it himself, but because of the thousands of people who had previously counted on him for their livelihoods. They were the victims here, and Asami knew it was up to her to save them.

And yet she was on her own once more. Investors left because they didn't want to be associated with the company, so did many engineers, and now Asami had to fulfill both roles on her own, at an age far too young to be responsible for so many people.

What made it worse was there was no one to support her. Sure, she had seen her father do the same work, but it was hard when everyone was busy with their own lives. Korra, Mako, Bolin, they all pursued their own goals, and that made it all the harder for Asami. Her first friends in years, and they were too busy themselves, leaving her on her own again. And yet she pushed through.

So after things had calmed down in the Water Tribes, her company had been saved by and from Varrick, it felt good to be going out again with her friends on a mission to change the world for the better: rebuilding the Air Nation. They did come across the Red Lotus and Asami got captured with Korra by the Earth Queen's forces, which made her realize something: for the first time in over a decade, she was not on her own. Working together with Korra while in the desert came so... natural, that she hardly stopped to absorb just what they could achieve together. This was also the point where Asami thought her feelings for the Avatar might be more than just platonic, but with everything going on, now was not the time to act on those feelings.

With Korra in a wheelchair, all she could do was be there for her friend, support her, and respect her decisions. So when she said that she wanted to go to the South Pole to recover further, Asami knew she would soon be on her own once more. Korra assured her with would just be for a few weeks, but weeks turned into months, months into years. Asami wrote letters, stacks of them, but Korra almost never wrote back. It felt like she was talking to a void, and someone could hear her, but never said anything back.

She received letters from Korra's parents, thanking Asami for her own letters, but also saying that Korra did not feel up to writing one herself just yet. It was understandable, but this was the first time in her life that Asami was not just alone, she was lonely.

The night that Asami realized that, she cried herself to sleep. In all those years spent on her own, without real friends or people who just stuck around her for her father's money, she had learned to cope with being on her own, but never had she been lonely. Now, even that safety was gone.

So when she finally got a letter from Korra herself, she literally cried tears of joy, though the meaning of those tears did change as she read the letter. It had taken two years for Korra to build up the courage to write, and going by this letter, Asami knew that it might be a long time before she would truly see her friend again.

Wu's coronation had gotten her excited, not the actual event, but mostly because she would get to see Korra again. Mako and Bolin would be there too, which should be nice. She had corresponded with them as well over the past three years, even met up when their schedules allowed it, but it was never the same as it had been before.

She was gutted when she realized that Korra wasn't on the ship that carried Tonraq, and that she had lied to all of them. But also, Asami was worried. When she got another letter in the mail, for the briefest moment, she hoped that it was from Korra and that it would hold some answers, but no. She recognized the handwriting as being that of her father, which finally pushed her over the edge.

Going to the prison to tell him off once and for all was one of the hardest things Asami had ever done. She just made herself even more alone than she already had been, but this time around, it was completely her own doing. He had reached out, and she pushed him away. Of course, she had every reason to, but that did not make it any easier to deal with.

Finally seeing Korra again was the best feeling she'd had in years. Asami hugged her tight, and felt safe in her arms. For just a moment, she knew that she was not alone anymore, and that as long as she kept Korra close, she might never be again. The reunion did have a rough start, but they made it work in the end. It was good to have Team Avatar back together, even if Bolin was missing from the group for now.

Forgiving her father was tough, it was hard to try and see past everything that he had done to hurt her. But working with him on the hummingbird suits felt just like good old times, when she worked with him on cars and motorcycles on those weekends. At that moment, Asami was truly not alone.

So when she was forced to watch him die, it was a blow. That was only made worse when the blast of the spirit cannon swallowed Korra and Kuvira whole. She couldn't lose both her father and her best friend at the same time.

But it wasn't that easy to kill Korra. Watching her walk out of the Spirit portal with Kuvira was a mixed feeling for Asami: on the one hand, utter joy that Korra was alive and well, but on the other, she was practically carrying the woman who had killed her father right before her eyes. She decided not to focus on the bad for now, the good was more important.

Korra was there for her during the ceremony for her father. It was a small affair, and what stung even more for Asami was that she couldn't even give him a proper burial. The hummingbird suit had been crushed so completely that there was no way any recognizable remains could have been recovered, and they buried and empty casket. But what did make it so much better was that Asami was not alone for this. She couldn't have handled that.

Going with Korra to the Spirit World had been amazing. Their first kiss, the first time they made love under the stars, it was utter joy. Her thoughts before might just come true: as long as Korra was by her side, she would never be alone again.

But it wouldn't be so easy. Being the Avatar, Korra was extremely busy, and since Asami had a company to run, so was she. The time they got to spend together was rather minimal, but at least her job kept her from being totally on her own once more.

That is, it did, except at night. Asami lived in the Sato Mansion that was far too big for just her alone, and even when her girlfriend was there, it felt kind of empty. Right now, Korra was out to settle some dispute in the newly created Earth Federation, while Asami stayed in Republic City. It was two in the morning, and she found herself staring at the ceiling from the bed that was far too big for just herself. There was nothing to do here but focus on the fact that she was alone again.

So imagine her joy when she heard stumbling downstairs. Naga didn't bark, she instead trotted over, and the faint laughter coming from downstairs confirmed to Asami that Korra had in fact come home.

When the bedroom door opened, she smiled at her girlfriend. "Hey."

"Hey. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, don't worry about it. Couldn't sleep without you here."

Korra gave her a faint smile and left a trail of clothes between the door and the bed as she crawled under the covers as well. She wrapped and arm around Asami, who instantly felt much safer. Sure, Korra might smell like sweat and smoke, indicating that whatever had happened had to be solved with force, but she still felt safe.

And Asami knew; she was no longer alone.

I'm not dead! I know my last update was one that nobody cared for, namely my Winter Olympics one-shot, and that was a while ago, but I have had a lot of things going on in my personal life since then, all of which more serious than stressing for an exam, which kind of bumped me out of the mood of writing. So I don't know when the next update is going to be, either for my running stories or for this. I hope it's soon, but I honestly can't make any promises right now. I at least hope you enjoyed this slightly more off-beat story. Take care, people!