Chapter 10: Asami's Summer Cabin

"Are you sleeping?" asked Asami quietly in case the answer was yes.

"No," answered Korra. They were laying on the bed in what was Asami's bedroom in the cabin, her home away from home. Korra's head was resting comfortably on Asami's shoulder, and they hadn't spoken in quite some time, instead just floating in the warm, happy haze that had descended over them.

"I've been thinking about that car," said Asami.

"You have? I didn't give you enough to think about for the last two hours?"

Asami laughed. "Korra, when we're making love, I can't think about anything but you. But just now when I was remembering how hot you looked when you were intimidating those guys, I had a thought about the car."

"Alright," said Korra. "Let's hear it."

"Did you notice anything about it when it was driving away?"

Korra really didn't know the first thing about cars. In an attempt to not sound like a total idiot, she said: "Um, it went really fast?"

"That's right. It went really fast."

Propping herself up to look at Asami, Korra's blue eyes reflected her skepticism. "Are you teasing me?"

"No, not at all. The driver of that car did a really impressive thing on that road. He swiveled the car around very fast and took off down the mountain. I'm not even sure I could have pulled off that move in my satomobile. That road is unpaved and it's on a steep incline, but he drove off like it was nothing."

"Well maybe he's just a really good driver," suggested Korra.

"Not to sound conceited, but I doubt that guy is a better driver than I am. No, I think he was able to do it because of something about that car. Did you notice the way it was shaped?"

"Yeah, I thought it looked like a box."

"It did, kind of. I suspect that vehicle was a lot heavier than one of my satomobiles, and I bet if we were to measure the tire tracks, they would be much wider than my tires. Before we head back to Republic City, I'd like to test that theory."

"Sure," agreed Korra. "But I don't see what you're getting at."

"If Cabbage Corp and Sen Industries really did work together on that car, then they're building pretty interesting cars. Satomobiles work great in cities because the cities were designed for them, but the car those guys were driving seemed perfectly suited for driving on more rugged terrains," explained Asami. "That's a market that Future Industries has no part of. I'm not sure there's ever even been a market for that kind of vehicle. It's a new idea."

Korra considered this. "So what does that mean? Will they steal business from you?"

"It's certainly a possibility. But it's not a crime to compete in an open market, so why were they acting like criminals? Why follow us up the mountain? Why attack instead of talking?"

"Why threaten us?" added Korra, thinking of the earthbender's sneer as he had issued his 'warning' about Asami's safety. "Listen, Asami, about that. I want you to promise me you'll be careful. I don't care if guys like that attack me all the time, but that guy specifically said he would go after you, and that's a risk I'm not willing to take. I know you can fight and take care of yourself, but just promise me you'll bring your glove with you wherever you go. A bender always has a weapon with them, so you should too."

Asami nodded, reaching out to hold Korra's hand. "Alright, I promise. I'll keep the glove with me, just in case."

"Thank you. It will make me sleep better when I'm all alone in Ba Sing Se."

"You won't be alone," said Asami, partially to make Korra feel better but also to feel better herself. She couldn't stand the thought of Korra being lonely. "You'll have Mako there, too."

"Yeah," agreed Korra, "but it's not the same." She leaned down to place a soft kiss on Asami's lips. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"I'll miss you, too. But it won't be like last time, right?" asked Asami hesitantly.

"No, absolutely not. This time I'm going to call you every day, and we can write each other letters, too. And you'll visit, right?"

"Every chance I get," confirmed Asami.

"Good. I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot I'll have to get off my chest, and you're the only person I feel like I can really talk to."

Asami smiled at her. "You can tell me anything. I want to know everything that's going on up here." She kissed Korra's forehead.

"It's always been that way," said Korra. "When I wrote to you from the South Pole, I knew you would listen without judging."

"The way I see it," said Asami, "you're the only Avatar in the world right now, so if there's something going on with you, there's no way anyone else could understand. But at least I can be there to help you figure it out."

"You have been there for me, Asami. Even when I didn't let you in you always wanted to help. This time, and every other time from now on, I'm letting you in. I need you."

It was the one thing that Asami had been hoping to hear from Korra. When Korra had blocked her out after her confrontation with Zaheer, it had broken her heart. By that time, she had already come to terms with her feelings for Korra, and the rejection of her support had hurt deeply. On top of that particular hurt, she had ached for her friend's pain. In a very real way, Korra's darkest time had been Asami's darkest, too. She reached up to put her arms around Korra's shoulders and buried her face in Korra's neck.

Korra felt the wetness of tears against her skin. "Hey, no crying," she said, raising a finger to brush off the salty trail.

"Happy tears," Asami assured her. "You can't imagine how wonderful it feels to hear that. For years now, all I've wanted is to be close to you, Korra."

"Well you're more than close to me now. You're a part of me. You're in here." She took Asami's hand and placed it over her heart, and then she gently kissed away another tear. "And I want you to know that you can always count on me to be there for you, too, okay?"

"Okay," said Asami. "I like the sound of that."

Hunger eventually roused them out of bed, and they sat on the back deck eating the lunch that Pema had prepared for them. As she ate, Asami inspected the car door they had taken from the box-like car. "Anything interesting?" asked Korra.

Asami shook her head with disappointment. "Not really. I can tell it's made out of high-quality metal though. Was it easy to bend?"

"Yes," said Korra. "The roof was, too, although that isn't necessarily a good indicator. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a very talented bender."

"You know, I did actually notice that." She turned the car door around and around, inspecting it from every angle. "Well, I'll have to take it in to the lab to get a closer look."

"No offense, but what could you possibly learn from one car door?"

"Not much," admitted Asami. "But maybe I can figure out what region the steel came from. Sen Inc tends to get its steel from various mines in the United Republic territories, but Cabbage Corp goes through Ba Sing Se. There are some purity tests we can do in the workshop that will tell us how refined the metal is, then we can ascertain what altitude its natural rock components were from by how aerated the minerals are." She looked over at Korra, who was giving her a bewildered stare. "What?"

"Asami, you're really smart," said Korra.

"Anyone would be able to that," replied Asami modestly. "It's just basic geology."

"I wouldn't be able to do it, and I bend basic geology on a daily basis."

"Well, I studied it a bit in university. If you're going to be laying brick roads, it's a good idea to know what kind of stones to use." But now an interesting idea was bouncing around her head. "Actually maybe you would be able to figure it out. Metalbending is just earthbending in disguise, right?"

Korra nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

Hefting the car door up on to the table, Asami suggested, "Why don't you take a look? Is there a lot of earth in it?"

Putting down the orange she had been peeling, Korra placed her hand on the metal and concentrated. She could feel that there was earth, but there didn't seem to be very much of it. As an experiment, she closed her fingers and bent the door. The result was five tiny dents in the steel. "It seems decently pure. I've definitely bent metal with a lot more earth in it than this. But it's still pretty easy to bend."

"Then it's probably easy because you're a good bender. Do you ever have trouble bending any metals?"

"Not recently, no." Korra thought back to when she had first learned to metalbend. "But at first, yes. I suppose the skill just grew over time, like my airbending. So you're probably right. Lin might be a better person to ask than me."

"We should probably tell her about the attack anyway." Asami took the door off the table and accepted half of the orange that Korra had just finished peeling.

"I agree. I have a theory that the people who attacked us have to do with that factory we looked at last night."

Asami had completely forgotten about that incident. It had been totally overshadowed by the night she and Korra had shared afterwards. "Wow, I can't believe I didn't think of that," said Asami with a laugh. "Shows how smart I am."

"Don't feel bad. Not everyone can be as naturally amazing as me."

"And so modest, too."

"Aren't I just?"

They left the cabin and took a walk around the mountainside. The altitude made the air much cooler than it was back in Republic City, so the weather was perfect. "I love it up here," said Asami. "My parents and I used to come up here every summer, but after Mom was killed Dad stopped coming with me. He always said it was too painful. But once I learned how to drive I started making it a point to come every year." She looked around at the familiar scenery, feeling a sense of peace. "I never felt like it was a bad thing to remember Mom up here. We had some great times those summers."

"What was your mother like?" asked Korra.

"Well, I was only six when she died, so I don't really remember very much about her. I remember thinking she was so tall."

"Just like you," teased Korra, bumping shoulders with Asami.

"Just like me," agreed Asami. "She was taller than Dad, which might be why I don't mind that I ended up with someone shorter than me."

Korra casually used earthbending to level a rocky portion of the path, allowing them to continue walking with ease. They followed a curve in the path and Korra could sense that there was a large body of water nearby. "What else do you remember about her?"

"She was very smart," said Asami. "Dad may have been the one who created the satomobile, but Mom created Future Industries. She helped him get it off the ground. People loved her because she was beautiful and she had a way with words; because of her, Future Industries found plenty of investors to get the company up and running. I can still remember the two of them entertaining important-looking men in our parlor, Dad explaining his satomobiles and Mom explaining their business plan."

"That makes perfect sense," said Korra. "You got the best of both of them. You invent, and you run the business." Asami looked at her and smiled.

"You know, I've never thought about it like that before." Then the smile disappeared and she looked off down the mountain. "Maybe if Mom had lived, I would have been able to keep the business afloat after Dad got arrested."

"But if your mom had lived, your dad would never have been arrested in the first place. He wouldn't have worked with the Equalists, and you and I might never have met."

"Maybe," said Asami. She sighed heavily. "We spend too much time thinking about what it might have been like if things had happened differently. I wish that I hadn't lost my parents, but I'm glad that I have you now, and that's all that matters."

Korra knew she was referring to their conversation the night before in front of the restaurant, and about the fact that Korra still felt guilty about her three-year absence. In the long term, the death of Asami's parents was a much bigger deal than what Korra had done. Finally, Korra decided it was time to let that guilt go and move on. "You're right," she said. "We have to stop wasting so much energy on regret and spend it on more fun stuff instead. Fun stuff like this!" Then she scooped Asami up in to her arms and jumped off a nearby cliff. Her waterbending senses had been correct; the two of them landed with a huge splash in to an icy cold mountain lake.

After a moment, Asami's head came above the water, her hair plastered to her head. She looked absolutely furious. "Korra, I don't think we should see each other anymore," she said, her teeth chattering with cold.

Korra laughed loudly, the sound echoing around their empty wilderness surroundings. "Are you sure?" She swam over and took Asami in her arms. "Is it because you're cold? I'm a firebender, Asami. I can fix that."

When Korra kissed her, Asami was pretty sure she would have been warmed up even if Korra hadn't been able to bend fire.

Later, after they had stopped splashing around in the lake and Korra had bent the water off them, they headed back to the cabin with the intention of going back to Republic City before dinner. They wanted to eat dinner at Air Temple Island before returning to Asami's mansion for the night, and they also needed enough time to stop in and report their earlier incident to Lin Beifong. "Thank you for bringing me here, Asami," said Korra as they reached the cabin.

"You're welcome. Hopefully this is just the first time of many. This is a family place, and you are my family."

"You're mine, too. I love you."

"I love you, too. But if you ever throw me in that lake again, it's over between us."

"Oh Asami," said Korra with a devious smile. "I wish I could promise you I'd never do that again, but I only make promises I intend to keep."

On their way back down the mountain, they made a brief pit stop at the scene of their earlier fight with the two benders. Asami got out and crouched near the tire tracks the pursuing vehicle had left behind. "Definitely wider," confirmed Asami. "And I can tell from the depth that the car was heavier."

"You totally called it, Miss Smarty Pants Sato."

Asami gave a little bow. "Thank you. I do know a thing or two about cars." They got back in her satomobile and resumed their drive home. "So we know Cabbage Corp and Sen Inc worked together on a car that is intended for rough terrain driving. Assuming that you're right and the two guys are somehow related to that factory we saw last night, then they obviously don't want us butting in to their business there, and they're vehement enough about it to follow us up the mountain and attack us."

"Technically," said Korra, "I attacked them first."

"Yeah, but you felt threatened because they were following us up a remote, uninhabited part of the mountain. If you want to get technical, they were actually trespassing on my property."

"Still, I'm not sure that gives me the right to suddenly beat up on them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sorry I did it, but I'm just trying to look at things the way Lin will see them."

Daytime construction activities were drawing to a close by the time they returned to Republic City. Asami took a route to the police station that would take them right past the construction site where she had visited her foreman Lee before they had left. She slowed down and peered at it with a critical eye. "Looks good," she finally decided, giving the car more gas and continuing on her way.

"We have time to stop if you want," said Korra.

"It's not necessary. Lee is good at what he does, I trust him to get it done without me being there."

They pulled up in front of the station and Korra grabbed the car door from the back seat. Outside Lin's office, there were police officers milling around and chatting—true to what Mako had said in city hall, they didn't seem particularly busy. Korra raised her hand and rapped on Lin's door.

"Come in," called Lin, and Korra and Asami entered her office. Lin barely glanced at them when they entered, instead taking a moment to finish whatever she was writing. Finally, she looked up. "I think those things tend to work better when you leave them with the rest of the car," she said dryly, gesturing at the car door.

"It's not ours," said Korra.

"Well then you two are the worst car thieves I've ever met. You're supposed to take the entire thing."

"Ha ha," said Korra sarcastically. "Are you going to let us tell you what happened, or do we have to stand here and listen to you crack jokes all evening?"

"Take a seat," replied Lin, gesturing to two uncomfortable-looking chairs in front of her desk. They sat and Korra told her their story, starting with the factory they had investigated the night before and ending with the logos imprinted on the car door. Lin instructed them to lay the door on her desk, and she leaned over to inspect it. "You two would make terrible detectives," she finally commented, pushing the door away.

"What?" asked Korra with surprise. "What do you mean?"

"This isn't a Cabbage Corp logo. It's a Cah-bage Corp logo," said Lin, rhyming the word 'Cah-bage' with the word 'mirage.'

Korra and Asami stared at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

"Cabbage Corp doesn't exist anymore, you're right about that," explained Lin. "But the RCPD released Lau Gan-Lan over two years ago because we determined that he had never actually intended to work with the Equalists. He had been tricked in to it by Amon's lieutenant. Since he was an unknowing victim, we lightened his sentence a great deal. After he got out, he formed a new company and called it Cah-bage Corp."

"But why didn't I ever hear about this?" said Asami. "How could I have competition I didn't even know about?"

"And Mako didn't know about it either," added Korra. "He would have mentioned it last night."

"It's not my fault you guys bury your heads in Republic City's sand," snapped Lin. "Cah-bage Corp is based in Ba Sing Se. We've been keeping tabs on Gan-Lan as part of his parole agreement."

Both young women sat and tried to process this information. "Well," Asami finally said, "I guess that about covers it. If Cah-bage Corp is a legitimate company, then they really aren't doing anything wrong."

"Great," said Lin, standing and gesturing to the door. "So you can take this thing off my desk and get out of here."

"You go, Asami," said Korra. "I'll catch up."

She watched Asami's green eyes move from her to Lin, but she didn't try to fight with Korra about it. She took the car door and left the office.

After she had gone, Korra turned to Lin. "Look, Chief, even if this really is just healthy capitalist competition it doesn't change the fact that those two guys threatened to hurt Asami. I'm leaving for Ba Sing Se in five days and I won't be around to look after her. I need to know that you're going to be keeping an eye out for anything having to do with her, Cabbage Corp, Cah-bage Corp or Sen Inc. If I can't be there to protect her, then at least I know that you're aware of what's going on."

"Sure, Korra. The RCPD will keep its eye out," said Lin.

"I don't care about the RCPD," said Korra. "I trust you, Chief. After everything we've been through, I'm asking you to do this as an honorary member of Team Avatar."

Despite herself, Lin was flattered. She had no idea why it should matter to her that Korra trusted her, but it did. She remembered a story her mother had once told her about her adventures with Avatar Aang. Her mother believed it was possible that friendships could last more than a lifetime. Well, thought Lin, maybe it could be passed down through generations, too. Reaching out, she clasped hands with Korra. "Alright, kid," she said. "I'll watch out for your girlfriend for you."

"Thank you," was Korra's sincere answer. She turned to leave, but remembered something else. "Oh yeah, by the way, do you think you could have metalbent that door?"

This time, Lin was the one giving her a bewildered look. "No, of course not," she said. "There wasn't any earth in it. I assumed you used firebending to melt it off the car."

"You're not serious, right?" But Korra could see that Lin was. "I felt plenty of earth in it. I metalbent it right off."

"I guess maybe you're just a better metalbender than I am," said Lin.

"I don't know. Maybe," said Korra. "I gotta get going though. Thanks again, Chief."

She turned and left the office, leaving Lin standing behind her desk, deep in thought.