Note: Lines you recognize are from episodes of Legend of Korra.

Part IV: The Blood in His Veins

Things only got worse after the night of the stadium attack. Tarrlok called for Lin's job, and won. She was forced to step down.

Though he'd gotten just what he wanted, it didn't feel like a victory.

She was kept in the hospital for observation. Tarrlok called in some favors in the administration department, getting them to delay her release papers in the hopes of keeping her safe until he had the city back under control.

He ordered a curfew put in place for non-benders. Searches and seizures of Equalist equipment. Raids on factories that had ever been associated with Hiroshi Sato. The council bent before him . In this time of war, he emerged as a leader.

A king.

Perhaps his father would be proud. Tarrlok wasn't sure.

Though it was all he had ever wanted, he accepted his newfound authority with a sense of unease. Whatever people thought of him, he hadn't wanted it to come to this. He had wanted to rule the republic, yes, but not because their world was tearing itself apart.

Everywhere he looked, he saw danger. It was almost paralyzing. He felt more and more like the scared little boy who grew up in the Northern Water Tribe, forced to be a bloodbender, forced to hurt animals...

He felt more and more like the boy who had watched his brother disappear into the night, never to be seen again.

So he put every Equalist he found in prison, until the cells overflowed. And then he sent out spies to find more. He wouldn't let it all happen again. He wouldn't be powerless again.

He wouldn't lose Lin the way he had lost Noatok.

He wouldn't lose the city the way Yakone had.

He wouldn't let even the Avatar or her friends interfere with the capture of suspected Equalists. When they tried, he had them thrown in jail with the others.

That was when Avatar Korra came to visit.

It didn't take long for things to escalate to a fight. Korra was determined, and she had a temper. In many ways, she reminded Tarrlok of himself when he was a younger man.

And she was a powerful bender. Almost as good as Noatok had been. She even looked like him, with the way she wore her hair.

But Tarrlok was better. He had a greater mastery of water. Whether it came from being zealously trained by Yakone, or whether it was because water was the only element he could bend, and so he understood things about it that the Avatar could not, he didn't know. It mattered only that he was able to hold his own.

And then he went further. Not completely certain he could defeat Korra with waterbending alone, at least not quickly, and not without their battle drawing unwanted attention, Tarrlok took a deep breath and opened his eyes wide, sinking into the state of concentration required for his father's secret skill.

He used bloodbending on Korra.

He could feel every pulse of her veins. Every beat of her heart.

When he had used bloodbending in the arena, against the Equalists, it had been to protect Lin. He did it out of love.

This, too, was an act of love, Tarrlok told himself as he watched Korra fall to the ground.

-l-

Tarrlok considered not telling anyone that he had any knowledge of Korra's disappearance, but when he returned from stowing the Avatar at one of Yakone's old hideouts, it became apparent that he was going to have to provide some kind of explanation for the damage to his office and the council chamber caused by his fight with Korra.

So he retrieved the Equalist weapons he had taken during the attack on the probending arena, staging things to make it look like he and Korra had been set upon by Chi Blockers.

Then he took a deep breath, electrified himself with the Equalist glove, and slumped over to wait to be found.

The moon is bright tonight, he thought as its light played over his face.

Then all was darkness.

-l-

When Lin heard that Tarrlok had been attacked and Korra taken, she couldn't breathe for a full ten seconds. It was as if a weight was crushing her chest.

Then she was told that Tarrlok's bending was still intact and she was able to inhale.

She needed to see him. To make things right between them. He was always so savvy, so in control that Lin often forgot the kind of pressure he was under. It was no wonder they had snapped at each other.

But these attacks, this war they were fighting… It did a lot to put things into perspective.

She'd been foolish, and selfish to make Tarrlok keep their relationship a secret. No wonder he felt she didn't love him.

She did.

She was just afraid. After Tenzin, and all that pain, she had been afraid. And so she told herself that so long as she and Tarrlok never said 'I love you' and no one knew they were together, she was protected. Safe.

But not saying the words out loud didn't mean they weren't true.

When she saw Tarrlok again, she would say the words. For everyone to hear. And ask him to move to the Bei Fong Estate. He kept more clothes there than she even owned, so it wouldn't be a very big change.

Lin smiled a little smile.

But she had a job to do first.

Discharge papers or no discharge papers, she was getting out of bed, getting Korra's friends out of jail, infiltrating the Equalists, rescuing her men, and saving Korra. In that order.

-l-

Tarrlok thought his plan was going well. Everyone was looking for the Avatar among Amon's followers, and heralding Tarrlok himself as the heroic man who had tried to save her. And now the rest of them would realize how dangerous the Equalists were. They had thought him extreme before, but now, with Korra's life hanging in the balance, they could all see that what he did was necessary.

But he hadn't counted on Lin leaving the hospital to join the rescue efforts. With her help, the Avatar's friends were able to move much more quickly. They discovered Korra wasn't present in the Equalist holding cells before Tarrlok had had time to plan his next move.

And then there was his assistant, the little rat. The man spied on Tarrlok, and then shouted what he had seen for all and sundry to hear.

That was how he came to this moment. Surrounded, in the damaged council chamber, with the cry of "Bloodbender!" still ringing through the air.

Lin looked at him, and he saw betrayal written across her face.

It hurt that she didn't hesitate at all. She was ready to believe that he had kidnapped the Avatar, that he was a bloodbender and had been hiding it from her all these years, that maybe he had some sort of nefarious plan for the city. She didn't cry 'It can't be!'

She didn't even look surprised.

Of course, he had kidnapped the Avatar. He was a bloodbender.

But just because those things were true didn't mean that it didn't hurt that Lin was so ready to believe them.

Lin and Tenzin started forward, the Avatar's friends not far behind. Tarrlok widened his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nose, raising his arms.

They all stopped in place as Tarrlok froze the blood in their veins.

One by one, his assailants dropped. Tarrlok moved his fingers, using bending to carefully slow the blood to their brains and lungs in order to knock them unconscious.

He left Lin and Tenzin for last.

We always hurt the ones we love most.

Tarrlok turned Lin so that she could see Tenzin fall.

"Why?" Lin croaked, fighting past Tarrlok's bloodbending grip to spit the words at him. "Why?!"

Their whole lives were compressed into that single word.

Why had he asked her to dance that night, so long ago? Why had he stayed with her, despite her insistence on secrecy? Why did he join the council? Why did he fight the Equalists? Why did he kidnap Korra, why did he tell so many lies, why did he betray her, why did he spare them now when it would be so easy for him to kill them all?

Tarrlok moved close, his hands still up in a bloodbending stance to keep Lin from being able to strike at him. Pressing his forehead against hers, his answered in a hoarse whisper, "Because I love you."

He kissed her lips, as gently as she had kissed him that night in the hospital.

Lin spat in his face.

Feeling his ears pound with the blood in his veins, Tarrlok stepped back. With a twist of his wrists, Lin passed out, joining her companions on the floor.

-l-

They found Korra out in the snow, near an old cabin just outside the city. She was babbling about Amon, and Tarrlok, and Yakone. Amon had taken the bloodbender.

Tarrlok was Yakone's son.

Lin felt like a fool.

Everyone rejoiced at finding Korra safe, relatively unharmed. It was better than they had all hoped for when they set out to rescue her, thinking she was in Amon's clutches and in danger of having her bending taken.

But Lin sat apart from the others, her back stiff, clutching at the sleeves of her coat. Everything she had ever thought she knew about Tarrlok was a lie.

He had shared her bed for ten years. She wondered now if any of their tender moments, the playfulness, the fights – had any of it been real at all? Or was it all some giant manipulation, some tangled web of deceit designed for an end that made sense only to Tarrlok?

When she thought how she had pledged herself only that morning, vowing to set things right between them and declare their relationship for all to see…

She gripped her sleeves harder.

I love you, he had whispered, even as he turned her own body against her, her muscles seizing and spasming with pain.

How silly it all seemed now, her recent worries of being left for a younger woman yet again.

This was worse.