Chapter 2: Six Months, One Week Until the Race

"You're in the papers again."

Asami didn't even have her second foot through the doorstep when Korra's voice, flat toned and almost bored, reached her. Both of them were too used to this routine to be surprised.

"Which one?"

"Republic City Enquirer."

A half shrug and another step and she was through the door, stumbling on the crooked stairs before landing safely in their apartment. The town house was small, taller than it was wide, but it suited them both just fine. A kitchen and living area on the first floor, Korra's room on the second, and Asami's on the third, with a small roof deck on top. Had they been in a better part of town, that roof deck would have been nice.

Asami shrugged. "Nobody really listens to the Enquirer anymore anyway, not since they insisted Councilman Cheng was organizing an underground drug ring. What are they saying this time?"

Korra grinned from her perch on the couch, large boots propped up on one arm of the fluffy purple monstrosity. Salvaged from her family manor before the sale was finalized, she was oddly fond of it. It took up a disproportionately large amount of the small living room, but it could also fit four people across if you really set your mind to it.

It also made a good makeshift bed for the impossibly vivacious Avatar, who had dissolved into decisively unladylike snickers. "They're insisting that you, Mako, and I are in a three-way relationship."

She let out a short, barking laugh at the absurdity of it. "And what did Mako do when he saw that?"

Korra's eyes danced in merriment. "He turned a bit purple and set the paper on fire."

Asami chuckled at the thought and shrugged off her maroon coat onto the coat rack standing next to the door, leaning at a somewhat precarious angle. The Future Industries logo on the jacket caught the light and flashed in her vision, sinking her heart just a bit. Did she really enter an airship race today? Right, she did.

Oh well. Asami put the airship out of her mind to focus on her current predicament. "I still don't understand why they can't just let that go. It's been five years."

Truth be told, Asami could hardly remember her relationship with Mako. Between her father and the war with the Equalists, it was the most turbulent time in her life. By the time the revolution was over, it almost felt like they'd never been together. She hadn't been angry, she had hardly even been sad. It constantly surprised her how people could still be fixated on something so unimportant after everything that had happened.

"Because it fits their story and sells papers." Korra's response answered her internal musings as well. Asami sighed. Until she provided them with juicier gossip, they would likely never leave her alone.

She could only thank the spirits they had never found out about Iroh.

"Anything interesting happen at the job today?" Korra worked with the Republic city council, fulfilling her avatar duties and doing her best to reshape the city into a better place after the revolution. She had grumbled about it at first, but in true Korra fashion had managed to plow through the red tape that the rest of the council was too polite to ignore. Asami was sure she secretly enjoyed her job.

The dark-skinned girl pulled her feet back and sat up, a bored expression on her face. "Nothing at all, just had to listen to different proposals and old grievances all day. What about you?"

Asami shrugged. "Koji wrecked another racecar."

Korra's nose wrinkled as she tried to hold in a chuckle. "So nothing out of the ordinary today for you, either."

Asami couldn't help but smile at that. "I suppose you're right." She crossed the living room in two long steps and collapsed into another chair, running her hand through her hair.

"So...did you read the city newspaper today?"

Asami pulled her hand away from her face and eyed the other girl with suspicion. Even for Korra, that was blunt. "Parts of it, yes. I saw that the Fire Lady is holding an airship race, which was rather surprising."

"Ah." The response was too short, too quick. Korra had never been good at lying. Asami's eyes flickered to the floor, where Korra not-so-subtly was kicking a folded newspaper under the couch.

Aha. "You knew."

Korra shrugged unapologetically. "I did. But I knew you'd see it too, so I wanted to hear your reaction first. Are you entering?"

"Nobuo's looking into it, but I think so. Yes."

Korra grinned. "Good, I'm glad. I've seen what you've done to those racecars, it's about time you get some recognition for your work. Those silly old men at Cabbage Corp won't know what hit them!"

Asami's smile was thin, drawn across her face as she narrowed her eyes in worry. "I hope that's the case. We haven't worked on the biplane in four years, so I don't know what we're going to do for a racing plane." She drew a hand through her hair, rubbing out some of the tension in her forehead. "Not to mention it's going to be at the Fire Palace, which is the last place in the world I want to go, what with..." She trailed off, not wanting to say her worries out loud. Maybe if she never spoke them, they wouldn't materialize.

Korra's dark brows knitted together in concern as she picked up the older girl's incomplete thought. "Iroh." She reached out and put a hand on Asami's shoulder. "You'll be fine, I know how you get when you focus on your work. Besides, I'm going to have to be there as the Avatar, aren't I? If you're going too, I'll drag Mako and Bolin along and it'll be just like old times!"

Her proclamation made Asami feel unexpectedly lighthearted, like a heavy weight had lifted from her chest. It was easy, sometimes, to forget how good of friends she had.

"I appreciate that, Korra,"

Korra's grin stretched ear to ear, threatening to take over her entire face, and Asami had to laugh. Straightening her legs in front of her, she slowly got up off the rickety chair and turned towards the kitchen. "I'm making tea, you want some?"

"Only if there's sugar in it!"

Another laugh and Asami stepped into the kitchen, pulling out two mugs and an intricate teapot with a golden dragon curling around it. A gift from Iroh, one she was too fond of to throw away. This was a routine for them, tea and gossiping about the gossip magazines after work, so Asami allowed herself to sink into the comfortable familiarity of it and forget about everything else. Just for now.

It wasn't until much later, after an exuberant Bolin came bounding through their front door talking incessantly about pro-bending finals and the fire ferrets chances, followed by a much more sedate Mako, when Asami was finally able to escape to her room. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy their spirited discussion of the upcoming championship games. But after such a long, emotional day she had been craving that little bit of solstice being alone could offer.

For the most part, Asami loved living in such a lively home. Between Korra and the airbending family and Mako and Bolin, she had good friends and certainly plenty of company. But on those days when things got to be too much, her small room was a welcome escape. It wasn't much-a wide, comfortable bed across from a mirror and armoire, with a small closet and one window letting in the moonlight-but it was hers.

As she sat on a plush stool in front of the mirror-both kept from her childhood room-she heard the soft mumbling and creaking stairs meaning that Bolin must have departed and her roommate and her boyfriend were going upstairs to her room. From the third floor, she could still hear the muffled conversation.

"He just gets so excited about it, somethings. I worry that they aren't going to do as well this year, and he'll be crushed."

A low chuckle. "He's not a kid any more, Mako. And they'll do fine. You seem to be conveniently forgetting how crazy you would get about probending back when you were on the team."

Asami heard a low huff from the stairway and had to press a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. "I wasn't that bad."

"Yes you were." Then, the unmistakable sound of a kiss, short and tender. "Now come to bed, you have that big case tomorrow and Bei Fong is going to kill you if you're late." The sound of Korra's door closing echoed through the hallway, and then silence.

It was sweet, chaste even, so seemingly unbefitting of the Korra most people knew that Asami couldn't help but smile. It wasn't that she was less vivacious, less stubborn with her friends. But she was also more relaxed, more at ease than the rare occurrences Asami saw her at the city council or giving speeches to the public. And with Mako, she was thoughtful, tender. After their whirlwind courtship, nobody would have guessed that the avatar and the rookie probending firebender would have had such a long, stable relationship. One with knowing glances and gentle smiles and that feeling that everything would be alright.

Asami had had that once, too. Not with Mako, no. That relationship had been based too much on attraction and excitement and not enough on that something deeper, somethingmore than themselves that it had started to fizzle even before it became obvious her then beau was smitten with someone else. It had hurt, of course. Oh how she had cried, those first few weeks alone. But that ache had dissipated quickly. It hadn't lingered, on the edges of her consciousness, for years and years. Like now, when she still ached for someone else.

Asami Sato had never had the best luck with men. Starting with her father and working all the way down to the Fire-Lord-to-be, she had been disappointed and let down more times than she could count. When she was younger, her father would clap her on the shoulder and tell her that there were "plenty of other koi in the pond" or any of those other silly phrases until she couldn't help but laugh and feel better. But now...

Asami screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. Even a passing thought of her father had her heart wrenching uncomfortably tight in her chest, as if suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room to properly breathe. Her father, who had raised her and taught her everything there was to know about automobiles and engines and machines. Her father, who used to buy her action figures of swordsmen and archers instead of pro-benders and battle her over their worn, living room rug because they were both non-benders so why would they want to pretend otherwise? Her father, who was now rotting under a cell beneath the city council, sending her word whenever he could that he was sorry and that he was wrong and if that she would only listen to him she would see...

"Enough of that," Asami mumbled to herself, the noise from speaking the words out loud interrupting her thoughts. Self pity would get her nowhere, and, despite his pleas of change after the fall of Amon, her father had made it abundantly clear where his loyalties stood.

The reflection in the mirror stared back at her, eyes drawn and tired. She pulled the elastic out of her hair, letting it fall limply around her face. The strands were getting long again, brushing nearly to her shoulder blades. The stubborn ends were already starting to show a slight curl, despite the absurd amount of straightening product she had dumped on them this morning. She wrinkled her nose, wishing that just once out of the last four years she didn't have to fight with it to keep it straight and out of the way, as if it was a living creature with a mind of its own.

Iroh loved your hair, a small, treacherous part of her mind started to say. Asami slammed her brush down and jumped out of the chair, forcing the subconscious voice into submission. She had meant to relax tonight, but instead she dove into her filing cabinet instead and focused on finding and organizing the old schematics she stashed there for the biplane. At least then her mind wouldn't run away with her, throwing old memories and dreams at her when she was normally so good at focusing on the present, on what made her happy.

It was only later, as she lay down in bed staring at the ceiling, counting paint flakes and trying to see pictures in the water stains, that she allowed herself to think of Iroh, just a bit. She had been so smitten, so happy during those short six months they had together. He had stayed in Republic City a year following the fall of Amon, rebuilding the United Forces and establishing an outpost in the city. They had talked and flirted and teased for the first six months he had been there, playing the honorable prince and the proper lady until he had finally thrown caution to the wind. Asami had loved every minute of their courtship, thinking foolishly that they would have all the time in the world to be together.

If she had known then of his mother's slowly failing health, his duties to the throne, his little brother needing him to return home, she would have told him of her feelings earlier. Maybe if they had more time, things wouldn't have ended the way they did. Maybe if she hadn't said the things she did, or let him walk away...

Asami quickly shut that thought off before it could escape, twist out of control like a fourteen year old's fantasy. Thoughts like that had no place in her world-pragmatic, proper, cautious. Asami was never one to be a lovestruck fool. She knew about duty, about loyalty, about all those things that were more important than that one person you dreamed of at night.

Maybe if she had been someone else. Maybe if she had been more like Korra, she would have run after him and made him regret leaving her. Maybe she would have risked everything to follow him, and somehow it would have turned out alright. Maybe they could still be together.

But she was Asami, and he was Iroh. She was proper and he was honorable and spirits only knew they never had a chance.

A/N: And so ends Chapter 2. I'm sorry for the barrage of exposition, between this chapter and the last there was a lot to introduce. And still a lot more to come! Next chapter includes more antics and excitement at Future Industries, and appearances by more familiar characters.

Thank you all so much for the fantastic feedback from the first chapter! As always, comments and reviews are very much appreciated, and be sure to let me know if any plot points are confusion or not explained well enough!

Hugs and kisses,

Korrallaries