"She's gone unresponsive again! We can't rely on waterbending anymore, we need to rush her to surgery!" a doctor exclaimed, as she and two nurses pulled Kuvira's stretcher to an operating room. The woman had been going in and out of a coma for a few hours now, and her chances of survival were looking slimmer every second.

Once an operating room had been found, Kuvira was anaesthetised immediately. Her surgeons predicted it would take half a day for them to fully rectify any crushed organs, so she would need all the luck and support she could get. Or in case, double the luck to compensate for the lack of support.

Except Kuvira wasn't alone in her struggle. Suyin had tagged along for the whole journey to the hospital, by her side all throughout. Kuvira hadn't registered her presence even while conscious, but Suyin was unwavering in her determination to stick by her former protégée's side. In part because she knew she would be the only person doing so.

Not even Baatar was here. Not that he had any obligation to- after all he was under house arrest until the trial resumed- and if he wasn't ready to support his ex-fiancée who had tried to kill him, Suyin couldn't blame him. She was just surprised that he had moved on so quickly. Happy, but just surprised.

So Suyin waited alone. An hourly update was sent her way as the surgery progressed. Kuvira's lungs were still weak, but the other organs were fine after a few stitches. The surgery would still take half a day, so Suyin was told she'd better go somewhere else, but even the reassurance of a call when the operation would finish didn't deter her from staying in the hospital. She wanted to be there when Kuvira woke up.

Had she been unfair to Kuvira? Not about the most recent incidents, but the three years. Then Kuvira was still genuinely doing what she promised, repairing the fractured Earth Kingdom. Her style of doing things seemed too militaristic and orthodox for Suyin's liking, but it worked. She had actually helped people back then.

But then the power went to her head. Suyin thought so- it seemed the only reason as to why such a good woman would become a dictator almost seemingly overnight. That was the reason Suyin denied the offer to govern after the Queen's death. Being in charge of Zaofu was alright, but of one of the four original nations? That would've made her a megalomaniac as well.

She would've resumed her old, criminal ways- if she had accepted the post offered to her. That was why she refused the offer. Not because she feared the responsibility that came with such a position, not because of what she'd have to sacrifice, but because of what she could've become. And Kuvira had become that, or at least, a version of that.

And then Suyin started crying. It was her fault. If she had just fought harder to keep Kuvira with her, not abandoned her, or at least accompanied her and kept her in check, none of this mess would've occurred. Her son would still have a fiancée, Kuvira would still be a good woman, and their family would still be happy. The chaos of everything could've been avoided, if she had just approached things differently. She should've been on trial, not them.

"It's okay" she heard a familiar voice whisper into her ear, as a warm hug embraced her. She looked up to see Baatar, her son, hugging her with a smile. As glad as she was to see him, she was now terribly confused. How was he here? Wasn't he under house arrest?

Suyin voiced these questions to her son, but he casually dismissed them, pointing to a guard stationed five feet away from them. Suyin breathed a sigh of relief. As it turned out, Baatar's house arrest was less of a house arrest and more like an extra strict probation. Unlike the other three, Izumi and Raiko hadn't been so kind as to allow him to go off scot free until the trial, in part because the citizens of Republic City wanted to see him punished, so he was under a form of house arrest. He said that the same thing would most likely happen to Kuvira once she recovered.

"Why are you here?" Suyin eventually asked. She hoped her son hadn't rekindled an affection for Kuvira. Even if Suyin was starting to forgive Kuvira, she hoped her son wasn't. While Suyin could trace her problems with her former daughter in law to be at least in part to herself, Kuvira had manipulated Baatar shamelessly, and she then tried to kill him. If her son tried to kill her, Suyin would totally understand.

"To be with you" Baatar said, with a small smile. Suyin smiled back, as the two caught up on some missed mother and son bonding. It was somewhat fun, as they conversed about various insignificant matters to distract them from the general atmosphere of panic in the hospital. They talked about Huan's latest attempted artistic endeavours to construct collages out of bronze to symbolise the "harmonious discord" of the eventual deconstruction of the Earth Kingdom.

"When will the surgery finish?" Baatar asked. "I guess in several hours" Suyin answered, hoping that Baatar would leave before that. She wanted him here, but she knew that him being at home would be better for him than waiting for the woman who tried to kill him to recover from surgery.

"She's sort of a hero now" Baatar remarked. Suyin thought on that statement. Kuvira had just nearly sacrificed her life to save a whole group of people, many of whom only hated her. In that way she was a hero. But it took more than just a few good deeds to establish oneself as a hero after they did what Kuvira had been doing.

Nevertheless Suyin answered her son with a "I guess so". The conversation between them stagnated for a while until Baatar informed his mother that he was leaving. Suyin saw him off and returned to her seat, continuing her wait, now alone again.

But not for long. A figure sat down a few feet away from her. It was a middle aged woman, who looked uneasy and somewhat sick. Suyin felt like offering help but something about the woman's demeanour told her that she didn't want to acknowledged. So Suyin set herself on just figuring out who the stranger was.

She got up from her seat and pretended to go to the bathroom, to get a better perspective. She got one. Within a few minutes she had managed to figure out who the stranger was. Buttercup Raiko?! What was she doing here?!