Disclaimed.
A/N: This is kind of meh, but it's my first attempt at writing a straight oneshot (I think).
The others - her friends and family - are all meeting outside. He stoops over her sleeping figure and kisses her on the forehead, a farewell kiss, the first and only they will share. Because somewhere along the line of things, he's found that he has fallen in love with her.
The window he entered through and neglected to close rattles in a gust of wind, and he jumps up quickly to shut it, drawing the sash and barring the shutters. Then he returns to the Avatar's side and brushes the back of her hand with the tips of his fingers. She looks exhausted, centuries older than she should. His heart aches to think of the suffering she endured during the final battle with Amon. She must feel so empty, so alone, to have been stripped of her bending.
"I understand," he says, breathes it into the musky air. "I know how you feel."
It's like losing a limb - or three in her case and two in his - and bleeding continuously from the stump. You're unable to staunch the flow, and you spend what seems like eternity knowing that you're dying, dying. It never ends, and it kills him to know that she will feel that way for the rest of her life.
But it's what Amon is best at doing. He builds cities, razes them to rubble without a second thought, and moves on. And Tarrlock hates him for it.
Go get the Avatar, Amon said to him when he was released from his cell. We're taking her with us.
He still can't understand why Amon trusted him to procure the Avatar. Surely what brotherly bonds existed between the two of them were broken by Yakone and Noatak's thirst for revenge. Perhaps this is Amon's way of getting rid of him - he's useless now, anyways. A last-ditch effort made by ex-Councilman Tarrlock to capture the Avatar, in Amon's eyes, is probably a flamboyant finale to his ragged revolution and a glorious unraveling of the remaining shreds of Tarrlock's pride. Amon must know that his brother will stay behind any lock he is thrown behind, now.
Tarrlock doesn't believe Amon will keep his promise of waiting at the docks. He expects him to be halfway to the South Pole.
He looks down at Korra again, smiling lightly. He'll stay with her for a little while longer, he decides, then he'll go and meet - or rather discover the absence of - Amon.
Looking back, he can't remember when he first fell in love with Korra. He had felt an ember of attraction, a few flying sparks, the time they first met and her eyes, blue and hot, had touched his gaze over Tenzin's dinner table, but he had thought to himself, She's too young, Tarrlock, even if she is the Avatar.
After that, he tried to quell that piquing interest by drowning it in lavish gifts he knew she would have no use for, gifts that would draw her further away from him. Gifts that warped his perception of her and made her seem, to his power-crazed mind, as a trophy, a weapon to wield. She's only the Avatar. Just an avatar.
And, oh, how he hated when his weapons didn't obey. In his fury, he bent her blood, hoping that it would bend her will. Don't you understand that the world doesn't revolve around you? Hasn't anyone taught you that you can't have everything you want? He confined her to a metal box, certain that she would be made meek by a situation she finally couldn't control.
And he couldn't have been more glad that she wasn't.
He awoke sometime after his bending died. It was a cold submergence, accompanied by a violent gasp, as if iced water had been suddenly splashed onto his face. What have I done? What have I done?
She was the first person to whom he told his story. She was the one who set him free. She shaped him from a simple tool of revenge into something more, something that could feel and cry and love. And for that, he will be forever grateful.
"Thank you, Korra," he says, and stands.
I love you.
He can't say it aloud, because that would mean commitment, and he has no place by her side. Their destinies are repelling each other as forcefully as the poles of the Earth, and Tarrlock has a premonition - a small one, but he has learned to respect his premonitions over the years - that the river of his destiny is about to peter out. His time is up, and he accepts it.
He gives Korra one last forlorn look before climbing out the window.
His brother is waiting in a shadowy corner of the pier with a small motorboat. Tarrlock sees the Equalist weapons stuffed hastily in small storage crevices, and he knows that the ideals of Amon have not been abandoned. His brother plans to try again, construct an empire from the burnt foundations, a golden tower from ashes, pure intentions from withered revenge. And he will fail; he will fail every time, because hate cannot support what Amon envisions.
Tarrlock greets him with a clap to the shoulder. Amon smiles, an unattractive twist of the corners of his lips.
"The Avatar?" he asks.
"I couldn't get to her." Tarrlock looks away as he says this, and he can feel Amon bristle at his lie. "Tenzin and her… boyfriend were there. I waited, but they didn't leave."
Amon is silent. Tarrlock can tell he is clenching and unclenching his jaw, as he does whenever he is trying to hold back his anger.
"We all have our poisons," he says finally.
Tarrlock says nothing.
"We just need to learn how to control them."
"I told you, I couldn't get the Avatar."
He can feel himself shrinking under Amon's penetrating stare. His brother's hands twitch, and Tarrlock flinches at the wave of pain that will come. But Amon does not bloodbend. Instead, he smiles wanly and steps into the boat.
"Let's go, then." His voice is thin and uncertain, and he seems to be looking to Tarrlock for approval.
"Yes, let's go."
He follows Amon into the motorboat, instinctively reaching his mind out for the water. There is no reaction, no hissing, no undulation - only silence and death.
"Where do you plan to go?" he asks as the engine revs and they zip out into the bay.
"I don't know. Somewhere we can start anew."
"Your next life?" He feels cruel for saying it, but Amon doesn't notice.
His next words are full of grit and hope:
"Our next life… brother."
FIN