"Her number's on the dresser." Korra had told her, before shutting the door.

Asami felt a piece of herself she had finally begun to recognise leave with Korra. It waved at her as she passed by. The heiress stood, watching the wood, half hoping Korra had forgotten something, that she thought better of their interaction and decided to stay. The seconds ticked by, and of course no-one came.

I told her to go, she mused finally, sitting back down on what was to be her bed for the foreseeable. She hadn't asked, but looking now she could see they were parallel to the beds in Kya's house, Asami's the left, furthest from the door, Korra's the right, closer.

She looked down at the partially shredded paper in her hands and put her feet on Korra's bed.

A part of her, a large piece of her that was growing larger every moment she spent her, wanted to ignore it all. What exactly would it take to run away here and convince Korra to stick around just long enough to fall in love with her?

So it was love now was it?

She felt a wave of shame wash over her then, so soon after Iroh left her, she had allowed this unprecedented sense of magnetism drag her into Korra's orbit, and all the ice sculptor ever did was be kind to her.

Turning the letter over, she noted that after she had torn it out, Korra had tightly folded it, before slipping it back in the envelope.

Dear Asami,

If you're reading this, I did the unthinkable. I have left you.

I'm sorry that it had to be this way. I felt this the second we were engaged and when I did I prayed for it to be jitters. But the date came closer and I felt the world sliding past my feet.

They say you fight more when you get engaged, that the stress of the wedding turns you both in to monsters fretting over every tiny decision, but strangely I let it all wash over me, and it was because this wasn't anything I cared about. Not the color scheme, what we should serve, the toast to our futures - none of it. I sat down to write my vows and, well, I wrote this, the night before. I should have been thinking about this before we were even engaged.

I'm looking at the way we lived, the roles we took on outwardly, all the while taking separate shifts in the same bed. Everything we built in that apartment, I was putting the bars up on my own prison.

The time we did spend together was this or performing the art of monogamy in front of your business partners or friends. Hell, for everything I missed, Korra was ready to pick up the slack, and I was fine with that, but often I found myself wondering if I was even your friend much less a lover. I did the dishes, held your hand, binged shows on the idiot box. The only time we connected was during sex.

I'm writing this at your desk, and I checked you have more pictures of Korra here than me, considering all she's done for you it's not that surprising. I guess it just goes to show you what you really care about, and I'm thinking what I'm feeling here is pretty mutual.

I will always cherish the time I spent with you, and its difficult to say why I know it should be over when you're as perfect as you are. It only got so far because we were going through the motions, never checking to see if the person we had chosen was right for us.

I did that check today, finally, and I realised - You are not the centre of my world.

You deserve better.

Goodbye,

Iroh

Asami found her fingers clutching the paper so tight she almost tore it. She wanted to scream, except, the moment she decided to she realised she already was, vocal chords ripping as she ripped the words.

She swore and called him a coward and then stopped.

You have more pictures of Korra than me.

She read the words again, but this time, threw her mind back to her mahogany, hand carved writing desk, in the study of their apartment. They'd had black and white professional photos done, Iroh looked the perfect part, arms around her, dressed in white so their shockingly brilliant facial features and hair took pride of place. These were littered across the apartment, but her desk, only Asami ever sat at her desk.

"A general should be out there," Iroh had nobly stated, "with his troops, as much as he can be,"

So no desk was ever needed for Iroh.

In her minds eye, she studied the monochrome poster-couple wet dream in the silver frame, and then she slipped onto the other pictures. Mostly group shots, of her friends, and yes Korra was among them. Korra with Mako and Bolin and Opal. Korra re-taking her first steps again at the physical therapists office, it wasn't a moment to miss. Her and Korra, lounging that day at the beach. She never questioned it, she had so little desk space to fill with perfect memories, why not fill them with her favourites?

Another photo called out to her, tucked in safe behind the nest.

After Hiroshi, her father's, indictment, Asami had thrown the family portrait of them, mother alive and smiling, daughter, small and innocent, father, demure and well not as innocent, across her study. She'd mourned him, specifically the man she thought he was, and Iroh did what he could but he'd only just been promoted at the time, he had to make a good impression. In comes Korra, with arms full of exactly what she needed.

Upon last seeing the portrait, its shattered frame had scratched the ink, but while there Korra had reframed it and put it behind the others. Waiting for when Asami was ready to look again.

The heiress couldn't breathe, she was laughing, in a terrified, mad sort of a way. Every time she tried to stop she doubled over and the tears came pouring.

She had wasted so much time with this man who didn't know what he wanted. She had it all planned out, and everything had happened just as planned, right until the crucible moment., and she had loved him all that time. Yanking back a few, painful, calming gasps she came to on the floor between two beds. Leaking, flat out, wondering just how forced every smile Iroh had ever given her actually was.

She reached above her, taking the phone from the dresser and paper beside it, and dialling.

"Kya's place, how can I help?" it was Kana, putting on her perfect customer service lilt as she spoke. "Hello?"

Asami listened and struggled with her voice to say anything coherent. It was over, he was gone, and it was all a lie, for what? Finally, with one important thought alone, she managed.

"Korra,"

"Asami? Sweetie is that you?"

"I need Korra."

"Tell me where you are, Kya and I will come get you. Can you tell us where you are?"

Asami's chest was fluttering then as the wave of anguish came back with a vengeance, she made a keening sound she couldn't control as she tried to reclaim her breathing, and Kana told her,

"Breathe, honey, in, 1,2,3,4, hold, out, 1,2,3,4…now tell me where you are?"

"Hotel." Asami managed.

"Okay, stay where you are, see you in forty-five," Kana hung up, and Asami felt the rawness of everything claw back into her again as she lay on that floor knees to chest.

She tried eagerly to centre herself, listening to the waves lapping at the ocean outside, remembering the calm tranquility of being immersed in it with Korra as her guide. As she always had been.

"You kicked my butt!" Korra had told her, the day they met, after their first spar, wiping blood on the sleeve of her Gi from her nose, "we're gonna be friends!" that memory of Korra jutting out her hand for Asami to shake had her laughing again, and when her sadness washed in it swirled into that perfectly strange form of panic attack only Asami knew too well.

She knew why she did it of course, a lifetime of suppressing emotion for business taught her from an early age to hide her feelings. Smile through the sadness, don't let them know you mourn your mother or that your father betrayed you. Laugh through the pain, laugh through the happiness, sooner or later the two merge. It was all the more twisted when she felt those emotions at the same time.

She wondered if she had dissociated much, until she realised she was not in a car with her head in Kya's lap with an unfamiliar jacket over her shoulders. Kana was driving them, the car was draped in the silence.

"What did he do to you?" Kya had muttered it, and when Asami realised that while petting her head, the older woman was reading Iroh's letter with an objective eye she dared not look up. "What a cock."

Asami sat up and Kya folded the pieces of it together, but made no move to give it back.

"Hey, you feeling better?"

"I'm sorry." Asami blurted, "I shouldn't have called. I wanted-"

"Korra," Kya cut her off, pursing her lips, once again inspecting, "She's on her date isn't she?"

Asami nodded soberly.

"We'll take care of you for her." Kya told her firmly, gripping Asami's hand on the seat before opening her arms. It took the heiress longer than it should have to realise what was being offered here, slowly she edged into Kya's embrace, tucking her nose into her shoulder.

It felt good to be hugged for no other reason than to be hugged.

For the first time in days, the heiress felt calm, and she realised it was because she was at the bottom of it all. Nowhere to go but up.

When they got to the house, Kya led her to the couch and sat her down there. A moment later Kana came around with hot camomile tea and made her take it with both hands. Asami gave a watery smile at the gesture, trying her best not to cry anymore in front of these strangers. They sat beside her, rubbing her back and watching her drink and making it very difficult to do so.

"Can I ask you something?" Asami asked, desperate to ease the kind cannon they had been shooting her with.

"Anything," Kana urged.

"Was I a complete idiot for coming here? So soon after Iroh?"

"You were trying to make the best out of a bad situation." Kya reasoned.

"And bringing Korra was a stroke of genius," Kana gushed, earning a sharp look from her partner.

"You don't think I'm just torturing her? With all my emotions and having to fill in for…him?"

"Korra tortures herself." Kya retorted, "The shenanigans she pulls?" she nudged Asami, who sure did know about those shenanigans. "I think she would be more miserable if you were here alone with no support."

"Why is coming here so important? I know it's idillic but coming under the wrong circumstances its just throwing me through a loop, I'm beginning to think it was a mistake to even try to salvage this…honeymoon and as I say it yep, I'm a pshyco."

"Look you may not have ended up here in the most conventional circumstance but Ember Island is a magical place." Kana reasoned, "Give it a chance, and it can help you understand yourselves and each other."

The older woman leaned over to the coffee table and took one of the perfectly rounded rocks decorating its centre.

"The beach has a special way," she continued and Asami watched as she lifted her hand and placed the cool stone into her palm and enclosed her fingers, "of smoothing even the most ragged edges."

Asami looked down at her still manicured nails as she felt the weight of the stone in her palms.

"Excuse me, I gotta use the bathroom," the heiress hurriedly placed down the tea and rock and made for upstairs.

"What was that?" Kya seethed when she was out of earshot.

"I don't know I was trying not to say Korra's into you and you should bone down when you have the chance!"

"Bone!"

Asami couldn't hear the older couple bickering, on her fingers she felt the weight of the last piece of her wedding day still adorning her. When she closed the door she sought the clippers which she found in the medicine cabinet, cutting her fingernails short so the white pearlescent tips could no longer be seen. When she looked at herself, she saw her usual make up was long gone, but her cheeks were still marred with streaks from her tears. She washed her face and neck, towelling away the embarrassment and humiliation of the last few hours.

When she returned downstairs both Kya and Kana stood up, awaiting instructions.

"I want one alcohol please." Asami told them.

"Oh honey do you think that's-"

"And a fire," she added, looking pointedly at the letter left on the coffee table. "Will you help me?"

"Absolutely," Kana told her, squeezing her arm as she squeezed past her to the beach-back yard.

They ended up surrounding a barbecue, Asami clutching the paper at her hip with one hand, and rum sans ice in the other.

"Would you like to say a few words?" Kana encouraged.

The heiress took a sip, pondering.

"Fuck you coward." she spoke to the letter, "for not knowing what you wanted. For wasting my time. For making me feel like I'm not enough. Fuck me, for believing it."

She threw the paper on the flame, watching it slowly blacken, burn and curl into itself. They watched it in abject silence, the three of them, until Kana noticed something.

"You cut your nails?"

Asami held her hand out and tried not to remember what it was like to admire a ring there.

"Last piece of the wedding still on me so…I wanted rid."

"No other reason?" Kya nudged her wife and Asami caught her.

"Like what?"

Kana mumbled into her drink, eyes looking mock-sorrowfully up at her partner, "Korra?"

Asami's ears turned red, but she was grateful the pair she was with could hardly see it.

"I'm lucky that she came." Asami wasn't oblivious to what Kana meant, and even then she was thrown back to all those entangled fantasies she'd found herself having, but still, she couldn't give in to any of it. Korra was no longer her crutch here.

"I think I need some air." she gestured into the house away from the smoke, but just as she went inside she found a need to explore the new light outside.

Her heart dropped when she saw them, standing in close conversation under the street-lamplight. Kuvira looked over Korra's shoulder and locked eyes with Asami, before whispering something to Korra and-

Her mouth was on hers, purposeful, taunting and Korra just stood there. Asami stumbled, in which direction she didn't know but suddenly a vase was in bits at her feet and she had been caught spying.

"I just came for some air." the heiress stuttered out before finding the doorhandles behind her and running inside.

She went up, to the last place she felt safe in the twin bed she had shared with Korra that first night.

When Korra closed the door she felt like she should go back and yell, but her heart wasn't in it, it was upstairs.

Kya came out from the back and looked around.

"Where is she?"

Korra shook her head and looked upstairs.

Kya inspected her, and Korra swore the older woman could see the kiss that had been planted on her lips just then. Vying from scrutiny she followed the heiress to the guest room.

"Asami?"

She heard nothing, except the few sniffles that came emanating through the door.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing we don't already know - I am perfect and unlovable," her heavy breathing quickly became that panicked laughter.

"That's not the good laugh is it?"

"How was your date!"

"Oh there was a beginning middle and end. It ended. Pretty badly. We might be banned from Kya's bar I have to check-"

The door was yanked open then and Asami threw her arms around Korra, holding her tight, selfishly pressing her face into her neck.

"You are loved," Korra crooned, holding her upright and swaying a little as her tears spilled into her skin. "I've got you."