She wakes in the dead of night, in the hour when no one is conscious.

She does this every night. Every night since that moment, that moment when Amon pressed his thumb to her forehead and proclaimed that he was going to rid the almighty Avatar of her bending. Every night, and no one knows.

Except him.

He cannot stand it, hearing her cry. He cannot stand waking up to hear sobs, sobs coming from somewhere, sobs racking the body of the girl he loved. He's known that he loves her, he's known it for a while, but now is not the best time to reveal it. She is at her weakest point. And it hurts him, to hear her cry.

So he wakes with her.

At first, she was unwelcoming. Go away. I don't need you, she had said. But he knew better. So he sat there, and listened, listened to her cry, and he let her grab his hand, because it was the least he could do. No one knew how she felt right now, no one had their bending taken away like she did. No one knew how much of a part of her it was. But he wanted to try to come close to understanding how she felt, how weak she was right now.

Soon, she waits for him. She waits until he sits next to her, and then buries her face in his warmth and cries, cries all her pain. The amount of trust she must have in him, Mako cannot imagine. He holds her, he buries his face in her hair, and lets out a tear or two of his own.

Because it hurts, seeing her cry like that. It hurts, and the worst part of it is he can't do anything to make it better except sit there.

They're on the boat, heading to the South Pole. And she doesn't say a word.

What they don't know is, she's already given up hope. Korra already knows, there is nothing anyone can do.

Mako tries to meet her eyes. Mako tries to talk to her. But she blatantly walks past him. Ignores him. And he knows, her days of crying in his chest are over.

He doesn't like it. Because she isn't showing any emotion anymore. Not even sadness.

It's like the stubborn, infuriating, amazing fangirl has given up. Something Mako thought was never possible.

She's done it again. She's shut her emotion off.

I love you, Korra, he had said. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Let her know that to him, she wasn't a failure. No one thought she was a failure. In fact, he had fallen for Korra, not the Avatar. He thought he should tell her that.

But she ran away. She ran off, ran away from him. Somehow, he knows that she is going to come back, but still he worries. Bolin comes out of the hut a second later to tell him bro, she's gonna be okay, but Mako doesn't listen.

He runs after her. He's run after her all this time, and he would gladly do it for a lifetime more. She is something worth fighting for. He is not going to let her go.

She has been the only good thing that happened to him since a long, long time.

Mako gets there right in time. Suddenly, Korra is bending, and she's not Korra anymore, she's the Avatar. So much strength, so much power, so much fragility and invincibility all at once. Mako is in awe.

He waits for Korra to come back.

And she does. Her feet touch the ground, and her blue eyes stop glowing. From his place behind her, he can see her hesitation, her utter surprise at what just happened. She turns, and she seems him.

His face melts into a smile.

Mako takes it steady, walking up to her with his open arms. But she runs into them, and all of the sudden he can't help it either, and he's spinning her around and laughing and everything is perfect.

Mako knows that they will run into so many problems together. Many times, they will feel close to breaking. He and Korra will fight, will get angry, sad, confused with each other. Like any other couple, they will go through lows.

But like any other amazing, invincible couple, they will stick with each other.

Because he and Korra are meant for each other. They've fought, all this time, not only a war against Amon but a war against their feelings. And their feelings won. That wasn't such a bad thing, after all.

So, ten years later, when their beautiful baby is placed in his arms, with her eyes and his hair, he isn't surprised.

Mako and Korra, no matter what, were always meant to be.