He gets an hour to himself every afternoon while Prince Wu takes his "beauty rest." Some days he just hangs out in the hotel lobby. And on some he grabs the kind of greasy food he's been missing from one of the noodle carts on the street. And then he usually takes it over to Avatar Korra Park and finds a bench near the center where he can stare at her colossal feet and think.

It's then when his head runs scenarios.

Maybe it will go like this:

He'll be walking through the park one day and all of a sudden she'll appear. He doesn't know anything about "energy," but maybe, just maybe some of hers is in the statue. And maybe she'll just be drawn to it. And maybe he will be standing there, looking up, and out of nowhere, there will be a tap on his shoulder, and he'll turn around to see her looking up at him, her hands on her hips, a smirk on her face, a huffing polarbear dog behind her.

Or maybe he'll be the one to approach her. Maybe he'll open with a joke. Don't stand too close to that thing. People might get confused. No. So now we have two Avatars! One bends four elements and one is an element! He makes a mental note of that one. He'll work on it more.

And at that point, he'll offer her a box of noodles. He usually buys enough for two. And she'll shrug and sit on the bench with him. And they will talk all afternoon. Because in this fantasy she has nothing better to do. And neither does he.

…

In the early evening, he checks in with Bei Fong, who briefs him on any possible threats to the Prince's security and on the evolving plans for the coronation. And she usually drops some tidbit like, "We don't yet know when the Avatar is coming or whether she'll be able to make it." So that he won't have to ask. And he nods like it's no big deal, but his heart jumps a little bit whenever he hears her name.

Maybe this will happen:

She'll show up at the coronation unexpected, and he'll be in his best uniform. He'll look out into the crowd, and there she will be, sitting between Tenzin and her father. And he might wave to get her attention, and she won't realize that it's him at first.

And maybe afterward, she'll come up to him and call him a nickname. And then Bolin and Asami will be there, and they will all sneak off together like the old times. And they will have a thousand questions to ask her. And she'll be her old, animated self, describing long runs with Naga on the tundra and quiet moments in the healing hut. And maybe she'll reserve a special look for him, one that tells him that they still have a connection, however strained it might have become. And maybe he will take her hand when no one else is looking, and he'll squeeze it, to let her know that he hasn't forgotten. That he has kept his promise.

…

Most nights, the Prince wants to go to a fancy dinner club, which drives Mako crazy because these places have too many entrances and exits and there are people all over the place. And it's so damn loud. He insists on the booth in the back corner, where he can see the kitchen, the main entrance, and the door to the powder room. But Wu always complains because Mako has to take the seat where you get the best view of the dancers. And Mako has to admit that it isn't a terrible view.

Maybe like this:

Prince Wu will leap up to offer his hand to a woman, and Mako just won't stop him. Instead, he'll watch, and all of a sudden the crowd of couples will part. And he'll see her, dancing with someone, his face indistinct. And he'll catch her eyes from across the room and hold them.

And he'll leave his post and cut in, her partner giving up her hand up readily. Because there is only one person she should be dancing with. And he'll slip an arm around her waist and feel her hand rest on his shoulder. And she'll raise an eyebrow as he moves her out onto the floor, and she'll be impressed because he's been learning. And then the song will change, and it will be slow. And he'll pull her just a little closer, his mouth level with her hairline. He'll whisper that he missed her, and she will sigh and relax into his arms until his cheek is pressed against her temple.

And as they dance, he will ask her how she's been, what she's been doing. And she will say that there is too much to tell in the space of one dance. And as the music ends, they will make a plan to meet, later, just the two of them. To say what needs to be said.

…

He gets home after midnight to catch just a few hours of sleep. His apartment is dark and silent, and he wishes he hadn't moved to this quieter street when the jump in pay allowed him to. And sometimes he thinks he should have stayed in the old one. Because if she came back, she wouldn't know where to find him.

He doesn't ever really breathe until he undoes the gold buttons on his uniform jacket, which he puts carefully back on a hanger so that it won't crease. But the undershirt and pants he lets fall to the floor. He needs to take those in for cleaning anyway. And then he steps naked into the bathroom and flips on the shower and stares into the mirror, massaging the scruff that has formed on his cheeks since the morning. And he realizes he has to shave a lot more often than he used to, and he wonders if he looks very different. And he wonders if she does.

She looks the same when he thinks about her. Like, maybe this:

The buzzer will ring, and he will know it's her. Because they have planned to meet. And he will pull her past the threshold of the apartment and straight into his arms. And her hands will pull his head down, and she'll be rough. She will tug at his carefully gelled hair until it forms a dark, spiky halo around his face, and he will work his way deeper into her mouth until she groans and grabs at the towel around his waist.

And maybe he will pull her into the shower, and they will both wash clean the leavings of the day, the strain of spending every waking moment with a person he cannot even begin to like while trying not to think too hard about the one he somehow can't stop loving, no matter how long she stays away. And as the hot water beats down on them, she will drag her nails across his flesh and probe the dip at the base of his spine. And he will kiss his way down her neck and bite a tender spot near her collar bone.

He thinks about this in the shower while he is alone, and by the time he grabs the bar of soap, he is painfully hard. His hand goes where it needs to, and he tilts his head back into the spray as he pumps himself to the thought of standing behind her, cupping her slick breast with one hand while exploring her with the fingers of the other, listening to the rising pitch of her voice and feeling glad that he has never met his neighbors.

He thinks about her hands braced against the wall as he bends his knees and enters her from behind. Or about gathering her up and wrapping her legs around his body. He tastes the tap water and imagines it dripping off her skin, salty with her sweat. He breathes and feels her chest heaving against his, back arching as he thrusts into her. And he squeezes himself so hard it almost hurts, and he tries to remember what it felt like when she would come around him, her mouth open and eyes squeezed shut. And what it was like to mash his lips against hers one more time before he sailed with her over the edge.

He thinks about holding her against him, content and carefree, a thousand I love yous spilling from their mouths before the water runs cold,

And it does. And he has to clean himself off quickly before wrapping a towel around his body and drifting into the cold darkness of his room, where a thousand memories and dreams and worries are waiting to crawl into bed with him.

Maybe it will go like this:

He will work up the balls to finally go down there. To burst in the front door of the palace and ask her why she stayed away. Why she stopped writing. Why two weeks turned into six months and then a year and then another. He will ask all the questions he has no right to ask. He'll take her by the shoulders and force her to look him in the eye.

And then … what? How does that confrontation go from there? He could never answer that question for himself. And thus somewhere in his dresser drawer, he still has a ticket for sea passage to the South Pole. Never used.