"to forgive, to forget"
A/N: Fixed some typos; thanks to the kind anon who pointed them out! :)
It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Asami learns this at a young age of five, when she wanders into her mother's vanity and uses up half the makeup to paint her face with rouge and lipstick, piling her mass of dark curls upon the crown of her head with a vintage jade clip.
When Asami's mother finds her, she laughs until she's very well near tears, and then proceeds to wipe off the mess with a damp washcloth, still chuckling to herself every so often.
Two days later, for Asami's sixth birthday, her mother presents her with a hairpin from her own collection – the same jade clip that had put her daughter's hair into a tangled mess only days before.
When asked by her puzzled daughter why she wasn't angry, Asami's mother only laughs.
Forgive and forget, sweetheart.
Haruka Sato was always the forgiving one.
When the fire takes her mother, Hiroshi Sato burns all that his wife left behind, save for a single black and white family portrait that yellows and crinkles around the edges with time and bitter memories.
At the age of six, Asami watches the ashes spiral up toward the sky from her bedroom window, and fastens the jade clip into her hair, one last time.
The next morning, her father presses a tearful kiss onto the crown of her head and begs her to understand.
She wishes her father had asked for permission, instead.
(slowly, Asami starts to forget the scent of her mother's perfume and the colour of her eyes)
When the hatred takes her father, Asami Sato burns all the blueprints for the killing machines he's left behind, and visits her mother's grave with a bouquet of fresh flowers, all in the same day.
Weeks later, Chief Lin Beifong hands Asami a document detailing her father's trial and subsequent detainment at the Republic City Correctional Facility.
Asami burns that, too.
It's always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
In the end, Hiroshi Sato never asked for either.
(and somehow, that always hurt the most)
Korra relays the unsurprising news four months later, after they collapse onto the training mat, exhausted from their biweekly sparring sessions.
"Chief Beifong wants to speak with you –"
"I know."
"Your dad asked –"
"I know."
Korra starts to unwrap her wrist bindings. "So, you're not going to visit him?" There's nothing accusing in her voice – just a tone of neutrality and curiosity, but Asami feels the hurt inside anyway.
"Why should I?" she replies, struggling to keep her tone even.
Korra shrugs easily. "Because he's your Dad?"
At that, something inside Asami snaps. "Well sometimes I wish he wasn't."
Tension pulls the air thin, taut like a fraying rope, and she immediately regrets the damage she's inflicted on them both. But before Asami can open her mouth, blue eyes look down at the ground first.
"Sorry."
They sit in silence for a little while longer, and Asami recalls Korra's fantastic hunting tales with her father, remembers how she had eagerly showed them the spearhead her father had carved for her before she had left the Poles.
Korra will never truly understand.
The hurt inside turns sour, curdling into wistful longing. Asami thinks of her own father's distant eyes, the long days shut up behind his study doors, the empty halls and corridors of a house too big for two.
And when Asami speaks again, there's a bitterness in her voice she can't shut out. "He may be my father, but you don't know what he's done."
Korra stands, dusting herself off and moving over so that they're shoulder to shoulder, her knee knocking against Asami's, radiating solid warmth.
"So talk to me."
Asami hesitates, and before she can stop herself, thinks of the roar of those machines of hatred, of the chill that had run down her spine from the ice in his murderous stare, of the angry sorrow that follows her like a shadow these days, threatening tears that never came.
Korra will never truly understand, but she will always be the first to ask.
And for now, that's all Asami really needs.
So she talks, letting the hurt evaporate just a bit with each word, and at the end of it all, Asami finds that she feels just a little less angry, a little less empty.
(the rest can come in time)
That night, Asami dreams of her mother, in shades of black and melancholy.
When she wakes with a start and finds the sky is still an inky mass outside her window, Asami plucks the jade hairpin from her nightstand drawer and sits in the dark for a long while afterward, fingers curled around the cold stone, eyes stinging dangerously.
(forgive and forget, sweetheart)
But in the end, Asami is not her mother.
The urge to cry passes.
Asami puts the pin away and drifts off into an uneasy sleep.
She wakes to the sound of the doorbell ringing.
Beyond the backs of her eyelids, her room is swathed in soft sunlight, and the old wooden cuckoo clock on the wall from her childhood days places the time to be around two in the afternoon.
Asami groans, and reluctantly throws back her covers, promising herself to leave company matters and documents downstairs tonight.
A few minutes later, she finally opens the door and comes face to face with a bright scarlet scarf.
Mako grins sheepishly, and adjusts the handlbars of a crumpled, sad-looking bike leaning against his side.
"Hey."
Sometime later, they're in one of the many Sato estate garages, and Asami's lost herself in her work, unscrewing bent wheels and dismantling rusted gear chains.
"Thanks for doing this – the shop said it would take a week, and I couldn't wait that long."
She waves an airy, gloved hand. "It's no problem. Screwdriver, please."
Mako hands her the tool, then jams his hands in his pockets, regarding the high ceiling and scattered mechanical trinkets with interest. "Nice place you got here."
Asami has to rack her memory to realize that she's never before brought anyone into her personal garage – it has always been reserved for the worst of Hiroshi Sato's spells of day-long disappearances into his study, for the worst of the emptiness that Haruka Sato left behind.
And so, Asami's next words surprise even herself.
"I'm thinking of selling the estate."
To his credit, Mako doesn't seem very surprised at all, and for the next few minutes, the garage falls quiet, punctuated only by the sound of clicking gears and dripping oil.
He finally asks. "So where are you moving to?"
She shrugs. "Doesn't matter." Then, quieter: "This place is too big for two people, anyway."
It takes Asami a moment to realize what she's said – not two, but one; it's just you, now – and when she finally gathers enough courage to look up, Mako is watching her with soft eyes, tinted with sad knowingness.
For the first time, Asami realizes that Mako may understand the pain of watching a father die, after all.
She walks him out the door, down to the front gates across the unkempt and scraggly garden, the bike clicking along contentedly at his side.
"So, what's training like, Rookie?"
"Great. Getting my badge in three months – if I can pass the driving test."
Korra's vaguely mentioned this before. Asami's curiosity is piqued. "Oh? What kind of vehicle?"
He takes his time answering. "Motorcycle."
Despite the sky of solid grey above her head and upon her shoulders, Asami feels her spirits lifting a fraction. "That's great! What model?"
Mako ducks his head. "Actually, I don't have my own. Anymore."
Asami stops walking. Crosses her arms. "You totaled it, didn't you."
"Yeah."
"And Chief Bei Fong –?"
"Threatened me with bodily harm and put me on mop duty for an entire month."
Asami has to double over with laughter at that, and Mako endures it with commendable patience. When she finally gets enough air into her lungs to speak, the sky seems a little bluer than before.
"So that's the reason for that poor bike? Your temporary patrol vehicle?"
He puts on an offended front. "Hey, I'm still learning, okay?"
She smiles, shaking her head. "You know what? Drop by some day, and I'll give you some tips on how not to drive into lamp posts."
Mako shakes his head. "That's really nice of you Asami, but I can't afford to wreck another bike; Chief Bei Fong was kind enough to let me off without payment –"
Asami waves an airy hand, cutting him off. "Relax; I've got plenty of models you can practice on. Besides –" her eye gains a mischievous glint here, "that's what your helmet's for, right?"
Mako rolls his eyes. "Your confidence in me is astounding." But his elbow bumps her arm playfully, and by the time they reach the end of the winding driveway to the streets below, Asami feels considerably lighter than she's been in weeks.
He raises a hand in farewell. "Thanks for fixing my bike."
She thinks of the empty, silent house waiting behind her, and the words leave her mouth before she can stop to think.
"Thanks for dropping by."
Mako smiles, and it's a little bit tired. "It's the least I can do."
That strikes her somewhere deep in her chest, but the reason slips through her fingers like water, and Asami can only think of her father uttering those lines instead, asking for forgiveness with open arms – of things that could have been but are not.
(and somehow, that always hurt the most)
He's halfway out the front gate when she salvages the words at last.
"Mako?"
He turns. "Yeah?"
Asami smiles, and it's a little bit sad. "You don't need to make up for something that's already forgiven."
"So. Mako told me you were moving."
Asami tosses the last few bread crumbs into the City Park's turtleduck pond. "Yeah. Found a place uptown."
Bolin actually lets out a sigh of relief. "Oh good. We were freaking out and Korra was half-convinced for a while that you were gonna move halfway around the world to Ba Sing Se or something."
Asami raises an eyebrow, but glows with fondness for her friends on the inside. "Why would I do that? I've got you guys, I've got the company – Republic City's the only home for me!"
Bolin's eyes turn serious. "We're worried about you, Asami."
She looks away. "I can't imagine why."
"Wanna talk about it?"
"There's nothing much to talk about." She pauses, the glow of fondness inside turning cold and barren. "He really was a horrible father."
A group of children run past, sending the flock of turtleducks into a frenzy, and amidst the chaos, Asami speaks so quietly she doesn't even hear herself.
"But he's still my father."
Bolin's eyes betray the lightness of his grin. "Yeah, well, what can you do, right? Besides," he clasps a large, warm hand on her shoulder, "you've still got us, Asami."
His words help a bit, and she manages a small smile as they turn to walk in sync, footsteps following the same patterns along the cobblestone path.
"Do you know," Asami says after a while, tipping her head back to the sky, "what my Mom used to say all the time?"
Bolin's humming a light tune under his breath, and Asami thinks she might recognize it. "No, what?"
"Forgive and forget. I don't remember much about her, but I remember that."
He smiles warmly. "Your Mom sounds like an incredible woman."
"Bolin?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I can forgive and forget this time."
The words sound a lot uglier out in the open than they seemed in her head for the past few weeks, and Asami braces herself for the quiet pity, or maybe even for shock melting into faint disgust – that's too cruel; he's still your father; this is still a one-person family –
Because Haruka Sato was always the forgiving one, and Asami will never be her mother.
Because Hiroshi Sato never asked for forgiveness nor permission, and Asami has none to give, anyway.
And so she braces herself and waits, but the sharp words and cutting stares never come.
Instead, Bolin only slings a strong arm wordlessly around her shoulders, friendly and warm and there, bringing the dull, damp ache of tears to her eyes, and Asami decides it's all the validation she'll ever need.
(the rest can come in time)
The Sato estate sells in two weeks to some wealthy Fire Nation aristocrat, and Asami spends another week gathering her belongings and readying herself for the move.
Korra, Mako, and Bolin drop by in intervals to help, lifting boxes and mopping floors, and Asami welcomes their presence, taking comfort in the way their echoing voices and lively laughter fills up the bare walls and empty quarters.
By the seventh day, there's only one room left untouched.
Asami confronts her father's study, alone.
The rich velvet curtains are only half drawn, throwing parts of the room into the light and the rest into shadows. Hirsohi's office has already been searched and cleared once by the police, and Asami hasn't dared to step foot into the room since. Now, her father's desk sits, forlorn and thick with dust, its partially empty drawers hanging open sadly amidst the papers littering the floor.
Asami breathes in.
The air in the room is heavy with the scent of parchment bleaching in the sun and the remnants of the pipe smoke Hiroshi sometimes took up on rainy afternoons – a time capsule of distant memories that closes up her throat and dampens her eyes.
She hesitates for several more minutes, lingering in the doorway with fingertips trailing the old wood grain of the heavy frame.
(forgive and forget)
Asami breathes out, and forces herself to move.
The first few drawers and shelves are the hardest, but eventually, normalcy sets in, and she's propelled by the momentum she's built for herself, tossing scrap paper and useless trinkets into the trash, wiping away dust with washcloths, throwing open windows to welcome in the crisp autumn air.
It takes exactly two hours before the office begins to shape up, sunlight painting the walls golden and catching dust motes in the air, until finally, there's only one drawer left unopened, waiting patiently at the bottom right corner of her father's desk.
At first glance, it seems the police have already been through it as well, and the first few layers consist of nothing more than scrapped documents and useless memos. Asami is ready to overturn the drawer above the wastebin when her fingers catch on something different beneath the chaos – solid, smooth, and heavy.
Something inexplicably familiar, like from a fast-fading dream.
She ends up giving herself a papercut digging through to the bottom of the drawer in a haste, and is finally rewarded with a bulky leatherbound photo album, musty with the dull scent of old film and fading ink.
Asami realizes her hands are trembling.
It takes a few minutes before she finally stills her fingers long enough to open the album, and when she does, Asami finds every slot filled with photographs; black and white and yellowed with age, some with dates scribbled in her father's sharp cursive and others with smooth, rounded letters – her mother's hand, probably.
And the deeper Asami probes through the crackling pages, the still more that she distinctly remembers, ingrained into her memories of childhood as they are on the photoprint: her first bike ride, featuring a thinner, black-haired Hiroshi Sato with one hand safely supporting the seat (look Daddy, I'm flying!); eating cotton candy at the zoo while seated upon her father's strong shoulders (can I be this tall when I grow up?); making sticky rice rolls in the kitchen, with more grains stuck in her hair than on her hands (happy birthday Dad!).
Puzzle pieces and glass shards from happier days.
Eventually, Asami loses track of how long she spends on the floor of her father's empty study – tracing blurred lines and peeling corners with a fist around her heart and fire behind her eyes – before finally, she flips one more page and sees it.
At the back of the album, wedged after the last sheet of photos, is a single letter-size portrait of a woman with a jade pin in her hair and laughing eyes. A young toddler balances in her lap, pudgy hands outstretched toward the camera.
They wear identical smiles.
(forgive and forget, sweetheart)
Slowly, Asami draws the album against her chest, and at long last, the tears begin to fall.
When the fire takes his wife, Hiroshi Sato burns all that she left behind, except for a daughter with familiar smiles and a lifetime of black and white memories.
Hiroshi Sato never forgot.
Asami supposes she won't, either.
That night, Asami sits at her vanity and slowly fastens her mother's jade hairpin into her hair for the first time in twelve years.
And for the first time in years, Asami finally remembers the colour of her mother's eyes – a vibrant green of summer grass behind the faded grey of old photographs and monochromatic dreams.
Haruka Sato was always the forgiving one.
Asami supposes she may get there, too.
(forgive, but never forget)
The visitor's badge sits heavy over her heart, and Asami breathes in the scent of stale air and cold metal bars.
On one wall of the barren waiting room, a clock ticks on, counting down seconds from the moment of reckoning. Then, as if right on cue, the heavy door to her right slides open with a thick, muted whisper. A guard sticks his head out, notices Asami.
"Miss Sato?"
She nods, once.
"Follow me, please."
The halls are lit with hard, white lights, but the guard's face is soft with sympathy. "This must be very hard for you."
Asami's prepared herself for these words. "Yeah, it is." She smiles here, a bit tightly, and the next words are for herself.
"Because he's still my father."
She wants to say more. Because he's hurt her with scars that will never fade. Because she remembers the photo album and realizes that sometimes, being family leaves scars.
Because she may never forgive, and she knows she will never forget.
But in the end, Asami only keeps walking.
The next while is spent in contemplative silence, and when the guard finally stops just short of the last door, Asami takes the moment to close her eyes, drawing courage from the thought of the other three waiting for her outside on the concrete steps; thinking of Korra's knee knocking against her own, of Mako's understanding eyes, of Bolin's strong arm framing her shoulders.
Thinking of a different kind of family.
The doors open.
Asami tries a tentative smile, and finds that she wears the bittersweetness with ease.
It will be enough, for now.
(the rest can come in time)
Asami takes a breath.
"Hi Dad."
End.