Notes: This story is complete at 11,000 words, and I'll be putting it up in five chapters over the next couple of days. It was written between autumn 2012 and spring 2013, so well before s2 aired, and is not remotely s2 compliant. Take it as you find it. It's really one big expression of affection for a character I kept feeling was being really mistreated by canon.
Chapter 1, and Korra has big ideas.
"I mean," Korra says, "I totally get it if you don't want to." She looks flustered, and no wonder; they haven't spoken properly in a couple of months. Asami had assumed that their friendship was done, or maybe that it had only been her wishful thinking which made her believe it had existed in the first place.
"I don't know, Korra," she says. "You haven't been in touch, and now you want me to drop everything and travel all around the world with you? I have my father's business to get in order, and..." she smiles awkwardly. She's trailed off in part because the list of things she has to do really is so long that she doesn't know where to start, but mostly because she doesn't dare comment on the possibility that Korra might actually be emotionally clueless enough to invite Mako along for the ride as well.
How would one say that? Yes, fine, but your boyfriend can't come. And anyway, Korra sounded like she meant a serious trip; a long one. Asami can't blame her for not realising, but running a business isn't nearly forgiving enough an occupation to allow for spontaneous month-long disappearances – even if it's a business which is in good order, which hers certainly isn't. Channelling profit into secret equalist factories for years on end plays hell with the bookkeeping, and then there's the loss of reputation the Sato brand has suffered.
"I know," Korra says, "I mean... about that..." and she sounds so desperately confused and upset that Asami finds herself coming to attention. This isn't about a road trip. It's something else. Something is wrong.
She studies Korra carefully. "Come in properly," she says at last, with a smile she hopes is steady and friendly, reassuring. "I'll call for tea."
Korra almost creeps in, and follows Asami silently to the small reception room to the left of the hallway. A comfortable space, designed for small, intimate social gatherings. Not her father's style, so probably a remnant of her mother.
Their footsteps echo across the hallway, and it's a relief to close the door on the wide open, cold space.
"I'm sorry," Korra bursts out. Asami, half way through gesturing for her to sit, is caught off guard.
"What-" she begins, stops herself, tries to hold her expression neutral and questioning, suspects that she does a worse job of it than she ought.
"Damn," Korra says, taking in her expression – which is showing what, exactly? "Damn, I'm such a jerk. I just mess everything up."
Asami can't really deny that she's messed up plenty of things, but all the same – it's hard to feel as angry as she thought she would when faced with Korra's obvious distress. "Sit, and tell me what's going on," she says levelly.
"We had an argument," Korra mutters, and there's really no need to ask who we is. Korra seems to realise belatedly that that's probably a bad opening, looks up awkwardly, "um, about you."
Asami raises an eyebrow. "Korra, I really don't think that's something you should bring me into."
"No, I mean," Korra begins, and seems to fumble after words, "it all just, everything went so fast, you know, and it's been such a mess, I've been such a mess. And I've been really unfair to you and..." she waves a hand helplessly. "I just wanted to say sorry. And that I don't know if I really do want to be with anyone at all right now. But that I wish we could all be friends again."
She looks away, bites her lip. Asami stays silent, watches her expression shift; it doesn't seem like she's quite done yet, as though she's still looking for words.
Eventually Korra looks up again. "I mean, I want us to still be friends."
Asami stares, feeling something begin lighten in her chest like a physical weight being taken away, though it's a poor excuse for an apology, though she'd really love to hear what Mako would say about all this, though she's still feeling hurt and abandoned and uncertain. "So you thought maybe we should start by running away together for a month or three," she says, and she can feel the laughter forcing its way up towards the surface, a kind of hysterical relief that's going to burst out of her any moment.
"Yeah," Korra says, and looks sheepish, "Uh, when you put it like that..."
And then they're both laughing, Korra is laughing so hard she's crying and Asami isn't far behind.
"I'm such an idiot," Korra chokes out, and starts laughing harder again.
"-sooner or later," Korra is saying. "I don't know, Tenzin, I don't think it's a good idea for me to keep pretending that this city and the South Pole are the world, you know? People keep telling me how clueless I am and the thing is they're right, so- oh. Sure, uh, later."
She puts down the phone and looks up, catches sight of Asami, breaks into a grin. "Hi!"
"Did I come at a bad time?" Asami asks with a smile.
"No, no!" Korra hops up, waves her into the room. "Just talking with Tenzin about avatar stuff. It's cool."
Korra seems more and more like her old self for every week that takes her further away from the revolution. More energetic, less worried about every single thing that she has to deal with. But it's changed her, Asami thinks. It's changed all of them.
They wander out onto the terrace, make their way down towards the shore of Airbender Island. On the far side of the water the lights of the city are stretched out, and ships' lanterns move back and forth across the harbour like fireflies. "I'm probably going to go away before the end of the year, though," Korra says. "I can't... I've got to know about the world if I'm going to protect it. But I've got to find someone to travel with. Tenzin's decided it'd be stupid to go alone. And I don't want to travel with just his stuffy initiate guys. I mean, ugh." She pulls a face.
Asami covers her mouth to hide a smile.
"It would be stupid to go alone, he's right," she says.
"Yeah..." Korra glances sidelong at her, glances away again, stretches, something she often does when she's thinking about something or feeling awkward, Asami's noticed. It's not very subtle, and neither is the hint in Korra's words. "OK, where are we heading tonight?"
"Good evening," Asami says, and realises she's using her best grown-up speaking-on-the-phone voice as though she was twelve years old. Something about Tenzin does inspire that kind of reaction, somehow, even though she's lived with him for a short period and knows exactly how ruffled and bleary-eyed he is first thing in the morning.
"Miss Sato," he says, and he sounds so honestly delighted to hear from her that she's a little taken aback. "A very good evening to you too. I hope you're well... oh, but I'm sure you wanted Korra, isn't that right?"
She laughs a little, "I'm afraid so. But I'm very well. I'm sorry I haven't had more time to keep in touch."
"Not at all," he says kindly. "We all have our rebuilding to do. I'll get Korra."
"Asami!" Korra says happily a minute later. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to ask you something," Asami says. And I'm doing it by phone so I can look mortified in peace if I've interpreted wrong, she doesn't add. "Ah, you asked once if I'd like to travel with you. I know it was in strange circumstances, but did you mean it?"
Silence.
"Hello?" Asami says carefully.
"Yes!" Korra says. Almost yells, actually; she's got a lot better, but she's still not a perfect telephone user. "But the business...?"
Yes, the business. Asami knows she's taking a gamble with this, and it could easily go horribly wrong. She doesn't let herself hesitate, though; she's got that out of the way already. "If you can wait until spring I'll have a deputy in place to keep things under control and send me regular reports," she says. "I can make trips with you then. I don't think it'd be a bad idea to look into introducing some of our products to new markets."
"Yes!" Korra shouts again, and this time Asami is fairly sure she's punching the air at the other end of the phone line.
There's the sound of indistinct conversation taking place, Korra talking away from the receiver and an answering hum that's probably Tenzin, trying to keep the conversation on some kind of reasonable level.
"It's perfect," Korra says, talking to her again. "I mean you're so much better at social stuff than me, I bet you can stop me making all kinds of stupid mistakes, it's going to be awesome, have you travelled much before? Do you want to drive or take the train or I don't know maybe we could-"
"We have plenty of time to plan," Asami says gently, though she's feeling a little giddy herself, full of a warm feeling that hasn't been around much the last half year: she's wanted and liked and cared about. Someone is glad that she's around.
"I hope you haven't felt pushed to sell this house," Tenzin says, looking around at the empty entrance hall, stripped of furnishings. He sounds concerned, in his own mild kind of way.
Asami smiles carefully. "What would I do with all of this space? It seems obscene to keep it, in the circumstances."
"Well of course that's... that's a very sensible attitude." Tenzin gives her another hard look, and she wonders what it is he's thinking. "Miss Sato, I just want you to know that no-one expects you to be perfectly knowledgeable about everything. Korra is a very enthusiastic girl, but don't let her drag you out of your depth. You should also know that we are providing the pair of you with an escort. If that could be information the board of directors might consider comforting."
"I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it," she says politely. "And thank you, Tenzin. You've been very kind."
He flushes slightly, coughs in embarrassment. "It's nothing, I assure you. Ah, Pema wanted me to give you this, as well." He holds out a package that he's been cradling under one arm.
That coaxes a genuine smile out of her. "Please thank her." Pema has started doing this since Korra took up contact with Asami again, sending small packages of food, things that Asami has mentioned liking when she's eaten with Tenzin's family. Sometimes Korra brings them, and sometimes Pema hands them over discreetly as Asami is leaving to go home. She wonders if this is some kind of spontaneous gesture of appreciation, or if Korra said something, or if Pema just has a deeply-rooted need to take care of people. It's hard to tell; Asami doesn't know her that well, although she likes her.
"Of course," Tenzin says, and makes his incredibly polite but vaguely hurried escape.
The year goes fast. Her father's house sells, and all she feels is relief; she could never think of it as her own after the discovery of his activities, and moving back into it after the revolution was a strange, uncomfortable experience. She takes an apartment instead, a large penthouse overlooking the harbour that still costs a tiny fraction of the mansion's value. It's newly built, completed shortly before the bombing of the city and repaired in the months since, and it's as free from associations as she could hope for.
Despite her insistence that she can just pay for people to sort everything out for her, Korra helps her move.
So, to her surprise, does Bolin.
In the end she's glad of it, as they sit around on the balcony in the cool evening air, backs against half-emptied boxes, laughing and eating fried noodles from cartons. This could have been her sitting here by herself when the moving team had gone home for the night, watching the city and feeling just as apart from it as she had in the mansion. Bolin and Korra ground her and make her feel as though she may almost be a part of it after all.
"Seriously though," Bolin says, "this is one sweet apartment. You just need to get them to put a pool on the roof and it'll be as good as the old place. Or even better, 'cuz you know, no secret equalist factories."
Korra chokes on her food. "Bolin!"
"Well, he does have a point," Asami says, and actually manages to laugh.
Towards the end of the winter worry begins to set in. Is she doing the right thing? Is everything going to collapse as soon as she's gone?
In reality it probably won't make any difference. She's smart enough to know that she isn't really very smart about business; she wasn't meant to inherit this company for decades yet. She may have ideas, sign contracts and give orders, but other people put together all the drafts and make sure her decisions won't doom the company. The point of fact is that she may yet prove to be a better mechanic and designer than businesswoman. It's such early days that she has no idea how anything is going to turn out.
"Nah, you're doing great," Korra tells her, and Asami wants to feel reassured, but Korra has hardly ever solved a life problem without punching it, and has enough trouble managing pocket-money. She also does seem to believe Asami can do anything, which is baffling coming from someone who can bend all four elements - and which doesn't really help Asami take her confidence seriously in specific cases.
"I hope I am," she says.
They're going to drive, which mostly means Asami is going to drive. This is Korra's fault.
"I know," she says, "we can take trains and ferries and airships all of that. But think about it! We'd get to see so much more of the land in a car!"
"You just don't want to keep track of timetables," Bolin teases. He's not coming along, but he seems to be really enjoying telling them what they should do. He's never left Republic City and its immediate surroundings in his life, so it isn't so much the voice of experience as a kind of attempt at travel by proxy.
"I just really like cars," Korra corrects without any apparent shame, a huge grin plastered across her face. "But OK, that too."
Asami happens to know that Tenzin has vetoed polar bear dog as a method of cross-country transport, which may also have something to do with it. It's probably a good point - polar bear dogs are presumably not that great with running all day in warm climates.
It's not as though she minds driving.
They're leaving in the morning. Korra, who's been hyperactive all day, running around and bothering the airbender kids and being bothered back, has gone quiet and thoughtful without warning.
She sits out on the balcony of Asami's apartment, watches the lights of cars and trains passing below. She seems to like it out there, especially in the evening, when the city lights are switched on. The sight of her there is an echo of the day Asami moved in, but the scene has a more subdued mood.
"Something on your mind?" she asks, and Korra starts, as though she'd forgotten where she was. Possibly she had; who knew, the Avatar's mind could end up in all sorts of places.
"No, nothing," Korra says, so hesitantly that it definitely means yes.
"Hmm," Asami says. She sits down carefully beside Korra, smoothing her skirt under her, curling herself against the railings. "What sort of nothing?"
Korra looks at her, wide-eyed. "Uh, I... what if I'm no good? I mean, if we just keep meeting people with problems I can't solve?"
"No-one can solve all the problems," Asami says, lays her hand on Korra's head, strokes her hair lightly as though she was the polar bear dog puppy she kind of resembles right now. "Haven't you read the stories about you?"
"Oh," Korra says, gives her a sheepish look, "um, I guess."
"There you go," Asami says. "You'll work it out. I mean, you've worked it out before, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Korra says, and sighs.
It wasn't the right answer, Asami thinks, but she doesn't actually know what the right answer would have been.
She thinks, though, that Korra is going to be fine.