Fade to Black: Chapter Thirteen

Mako heard Korra impart some departing words to the group that had just spent the noon hour with them, and close the door soon afterwards. He himself was chewing on a piece of seal jerky that Korra had put out for him. He chewed slowly on the piece, listening carefully for Korra's approaching footsteps while he savored the salty flavour of the jerky, enjoying the taste of it.

He caught the sound of Korra's footfalls as she walked back down the hall and towards the kitchen; she sighed heavily as she entered before taking a seat down opposite him. He watched her flop down across the table that was amid with dirty dishes.

"I can't believe them sometimes," he watched her say, her voice muffled.

He raised a composed eyebrow, taking another piece of jerky. "Why is that?" he asked her.

"They each gave me a talking to about the accommodation arrangements," she said, sounding like she was sitting up, " 'I don't know about this, Korra.' 'I'm not comfortable with this, Korra.' 'Be careful, Korra.' Honestly!"

He smirked slightly, "It's not like we weren't expecting something like this."

"I know, I know—I just thought that they would be a little more understanding, and not so against it. I mean, we both are clear of the situation, we're sensible, and it's not like it's going to be forever," Korra replied wearily, then after a moment, added with a tone with grim amusement, "It's kinda funny—they were all worried about you trying something, but nobody seemed worried that I'd try and seduce you. A little unfair if you ask me."

"I'm single, a supposed criminal, older and male," he told her simply, "I fit the stereotypical profile."

"Yeah, yeah," Korra replied offhandedly, "But I would have thought that Bo would have trusted us…"

She trailed off and sighed. She got to her feet, and after a few seconds he heard a cupboard open, followed by the clattering of dishes.

"I could have sworn I saw a teapot around here somewhere…" he heard her mutter to herself; Mako just put another piece of jerky in his mouth, "—Aha! Do you want some tea, Mako?"

"Sure."

"Any particular kind? I bought some regular tea, green tea and some ginseng tea," she asked him kindly while he heard the tap come on.

"It doesn't matter," he replied, poking around the dish for any more pieces of jerky, but found no more. He set his chopsticks aside and watched Korra scuffle about the room; he put his chin in his palm and thought about his own share of lectures. As he listened to Korra prattle on happily about being able to find everything that was on her shopping list, he found it hard to imagine her in the depressive state that Pema had described her in.

Bolin had said it was bad; Pema had said it was worse. Yet as he sat in the kitchen, Korra brewing a pot of tea and chatting away, he couldn't help but get the feeling that he was missing something. She had missed him, they said, but she showed no signs of being overjoyed at his return. She had been so depressed, they had told him, yet she was so cheerful now, and showed no indication of ever being in that state.

He jumped slightly as there was a light 'thunk' of a mug of steaming tea being set before him, the noise jolting him out of his thoughts.

"I made it mild, but I can get you a stronger cup if you like," Korra said warmly, seeming to have gotten over the lectures she got.

"This is fine," he told her, feeling for the mug in the direction of the noise.

He found the cup to the left of his hand, and wrapped his hands around the warm crockery, feeling the heat in his hands. Taking a sip, he noted that it was a little weaker than he usually liked, but did not want to bother her for more, so he just drank it quietly.

Within the single week he had been back in Republic City, he had come to grow used to Korra helping him, and didn't mind so much anymore. She in turn had become accustomed to warn him about little things in the area that he would be unaware of, giving him the heads up before he discovered it the hard way. Her descriptions were still so-so, but he supposed they were a little better than before, and they sufficed enough to understand what it was that she was talking about.

She hadn't described the house to him, not that she needed to really; he had lived many years in this place, and there were memories of each room that he held clear in his mind—some considerably less pleasant than others. Unless the City council had upended his apartment in order to come up with any more non-existent evidence that he had long-term dealings with Amon, things should have been left the same. He didn't know if anyone had bothered to sort through the belongings from his apartment and wondered if they were sitting in some heap in the house somewhere.

"You seem preoccupied," Korra told him from across the table, "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing important," he replied before taking another sip from his tea, "What were you planning on doing this afternoon?"

"Well, there are an endless number of things that need to be done this afternoon," she said serenely, and there was a small noise that suggested she was stirring her tea in an absent-minded fashion, "Having already cleaned the apartment shortened the list considerably, seeing as all the clothes, bedding and dishes have been washed. But I still need to wash the dishes from lunch today and unpack, which I'm guessing might take half the afternoon."

"You brought too many things if it is going to take you that long to unpack," he mused quietly.

"Well, we'll just see how long it actually takes," she replied in that tone of voice that made him imagine her smiling, "And I'm feeling really tired too. Having a low energy reserve and dealing with Asami are taking their toll."

"I don't think I've heard anyone shout like that before," he told her smirking, and to his amusement, she managed to choke on her tea.

"Were we really that loud?" she asked him, sounding embarrassed, "I didn't think you'd be able to hear us."

He shrugged slightly.

"Yeah…" Korra laughed uneasily, before abruptly changing the topic, "I think I'm going to start washing the dishes."

He snorted slightly in amusement and drank the rest of his tea, setting the mug out with the tray that had held the jerky strips. Korra cleared the dishes away in a few minutes and there was the sound of running water as she filled up the sink. The quiet sound of scrubbing reached his ears as Korra began to wash down the dishes; he could see her in his mind's eye standing where his mother would have stood, quietly ridding the tableware of bits of food. Seeing Korra standing there in that exact same spot, seeing her in his mind, standing happily and quietly, he was strongly reminded of his mother. And it was strange, but to him, Korra just seemed to fit there, to sit nicely in the picture, to just…belong.

"You're quiet," she said after a moment, "Quieter than usual, that is."

"I haven't been in this apartment for nearly two years," he replied, she turned to face him, a concerned expression on her face.

"Oh, that's right," she said kindly, the quiet scrubbing noise in the background, "This must be a memory-invoking experience for you right now."

Though it was left unmentioned, the event of his parents murder came to both their minds, hanging suspended tensely in the air. She had no idea.

"Hm."

"The familiarity of the apartment should help you adapt to the new location fairly quickly. I hope that in a few weeks you'll be able to make your way about the building on your own," Korra continued, veering the conversation in a slightly different direction, causing the tension to go slack, "It should help you get used to walking around without having another reference point to gage your direction off of. I mean, you'll always need help when presented to new locations, but once you're familiar with an area, you should be fine on your own. –You're a private person, Mako, and I know that having to rely on me is probably not how you would normally have things, but its only for a little while."

"How long?" he asked, sounding a little ruder than he had intended.

"It's different for each person, but knowing you, it could be two month to three months," Korra replied thoughtfully before she pulled the plug in the sink and allowing the water to drain away; an interesting sound, "I was planning on training you throughout the processes, and help you master the basics in your current state, however when the rehab is finished, you can have me continue to stay here and assist you, or you can send me home and I can come over everyday instead."

"I see," he considered both options in his head. While it would be more convenient for Korra to stay living in his apartment he thought maybe sending her home would be better. There would only be more controversy if she stayed longer, and he did not enjoy being threatened by Bolin, no matter ridiculous or empty the threats sounded.

"You don't have to decide now," she said, as there was the occasional clanks of dishes, now that she was water bending them dry, "It's still a little early to tell where we'll be at that point. You might have gotten a handle on your skills before rehab is finished, though I doubt it'll be that easy."

That was true, he pondered to himself, raising his chin off of his palm and lacing his fingers together, resting his hands on his lips. He would see how things went with Korra living with him before considering what action to take—she was being almost the opposite of her former self, and he supposed that she had been very tolerable up to this point, so living with her might not end up so bad. And as she said before, it was only for a short time—a couple months—and even if he couldn't stand her presence, she'd be gone after a time.

"After you've unpacked, what were you planning to do for the rest of the afternoon?" he asked as she placed the dishes in their respective cupboards.

"Well, it's up to you really," she said passively, closing a cupboard door, "I was thinking we could go out for our afternoon stroll, or we could skip that and go directly to object recognition, or we could go out into the jungle that's your courtyard and begin preparing you to get back on training—but I wouldn't recommend that…I want the grass to be mowed first, and the weeds cleared out. I was going to see if the air bender kids wanted to help out."

He smirked slightly; "Bolin would disapprove of you giving a lame task to a group of capable benders."

Korra gave a musical laugh, "I suppose he would, but if he has any complaints, he can do it himself—without lunch. Anyway, here's my question for you: what do you want to do while I'm unpacking?"

"I'll keep you company," he replied after a moment; he didn't need to look at her in order to know that Korra was giving him a surprised look. He gave a light shrug—it wasn't like he had anything better to do anyway.

Korra spent the better part of the afternoon unpacking her things, putting her packed clothes in the other end of Mako's wardrobe, and setting up her toiletries in the bathroom out of the way. She took the small lamp that was sitting on Mako's desk and set it up in a convenient gap between her futon and the wardrobe door. She also managed to find a place to put a number of her books where Mako wouldn't accidentally stumble over them; she wanted to keep on top of her studies, despite the time she would have off from the hospital.

Mako had sat around on his bed, his back against the wall, silent for the most part. She tried to make chitchat, but his responses were direct, abrupt and impossible to build on. It was hard to tell what Mako was feeling most of the time, and she was wondering what he was thinking about that caused him to be distant today—more distant than usual, she added mentally. There wasn't much for him to do around here—It was too early for him to be training; he still was having difficulties standing on his own for extended periods of time.

The garden was not ideal for training at the moment either, as she had said earlier to him, and this set back plans yet another day. She knew that Mako didn't like to sit around and do nothing; he would always find some sort of training to do, to refine his skills. But wait—there was perhaps something they could do as far as training went.

"Mako?" Korra inquired straightening up and stretching out as she finished organising the last of her things, "I think I thought of something we could do for training."

"Hm?"

She smiled slightly at the inquisitive sound, "We could practice your fire bending forms. You haven't been at practice with those in days—I'm sure you don't want to get rusty."

"There's a small lake in a park near here," he told her, reaching for her arm as she came to help him stand up, "I used to practice there in order to keep from burning anything down."

"We'll go there then," she smiled, leading him carefully from the room.

The journey through the apartment was fine, as Mako knew the area, and apart from a little miscalculation in relativity—being a lot larger than he was when he was seventeen—he did just fine. The trek through the side path was a little more treacherous as she was afraid a branch would poke his newly healed hands. It was when they were maneuvering around a particularly invasive bacui berry bush that Korra found herself rather frustrated.

"You know, this really is impractical," she remarked with a frown, hating the introduced species—bacui bushes thrived in Republic City and if it was left alone could cause a ton of trouble when someone tried to get rid of them.

After making it through the yard again, Mako told her that there was no spare key to the front gate, which meant they'd have to jump over it again. Considering that Jinora was unavailable to assist Mako, and they had no idea if there were any people on the other side of the gate, Korra was a little uncertain about the jump.

Korra had jokingly suggested that she use her lightning bending to blast the gate away, but she received a blunt and serious answer of 'no.' It was only after Korra had checked that there were no people on the other side that the decided it was probably best if they just jump, whether Jinora was there or not. As they sailed through the air, Korra hoped that they would land all right, because she really did not think she was up to healing any snapped bones at the moment. Apart from Mako stumbling so terribly that it was laughable, he managed to get over unscathed, and Korra wondered dimly in her mind how on earth she could help him regain his jumping skills.

There were numerous, unmerciful stares at the two of them as they walked down the road, Mako giving her directions, and Korra glowered at anyone who had their gaze lingering too long on the both of them, knowing that the gossip around this part of town was notorious. Korra was determined to make sure that Mako would never hear any of these rumors, knowing that they would probably make him angry.

"I remember this park…" Korra said as they approached it from down the path, "I sometimes would come here with Jinora and Ikki to gather flowers for Air Temple Island. It hasn't changed much from that time…the trees are bigger, as is to be expected, but…"

"And the lake?" he asked her as they drew closer.

"It looks a little gross today because it's reflecting the overcast sky, but it's not raining, so I suppose I shouldn't complain."

That last statement brought to mind the conversation she had had with Mako after he had finished talking with Kya, questioning him casually over why he had been concerned over why she was out in the rain or not. He gave a typical Mako kind of answer, and Korra wondered why she had been so surprised. Of course Mako wouldn't want a sick healer, why else would he care? Her own illness would hinder his recovery.

She hadn't bothered to explain to him that you could not catch a cold from being out in the rain, but the cold weather would weaken your body so that you were more susceptible to catching something from someone else. Either that or you could get hypothermia, but only if you stayed outside for a ridiculously long time and it was a lot colder than it had been when they were outside.

"Is the dock fastened down?" she asked him as they descended the walking path down to the lakebed, "Or does it change with the water level of the lake?"/pp

"It is fastened down," he replied evenly, "Why?"

"Well, you feel dizzy and unsteady without my holding onto you, and I can't imagine a wobbling dock would make you feel any better," she mused lightly, taking a turn towards the dock.

"How wide across do you think the lake is?" he asked her, not going further into the matter.

"Um, about a hundred meters across both ways," she replied, taking her turn to ask a question, "How come?"

"For when I practice my bending. My techniques are more powerful than before I left, I don't want to scorch the other side," he replied, "It should be fine as long as I just practice the minor ones."

At the end of the dock, Korra let go of Mako's arm and took a step away from him, close enough to grab him if the lightheadedness overrode his sense of balance and caused him to fall over. He braced his feet into a defensive stance, preparing himself for training.

"Show me all the forms," she instructed, clasping her hands behind her, "Just to see how well you do them without hand-eye coordination—remember how _ would always reprimand the students who looked at their hands while doing the different forms? Yeah, well, just checking."

He showed her each of the twelve different hand signs that were unique to each different fire bending forms, starting with the _and ending in the_ form. Impressed, but not the least bit surprised, she uttered a small 'okay' and stood behind him as he began to work out a pattern of hand signs to use the first fire bending move. But of course no flames erupted from his hands. Korra smiled sadly. His form was a marvel to witness.

"Do you mind if I try?" She asked a moment later, making her way to stand beside Mako.

"Hm. Go ahead."

As she took her bending stance and performed the last position, she brought her hand to her mouth, and holding her fingers together so that it looked like a pipe was between her fingers, she exhaled with a great force, fire spilling out over the lake's waters. Mako couldn't remember the name, but he had seen this technique before; this time, however, it was probably eight, or ten times larger than he had seen it before. The huge fireball easily covered the lake's entire surface, reaching a height as tall as the hospital. His eyes widened as she continued to blow, the duration lasting considerably longer than he had expected. The scorching heat of the flames washed over him and he gazed in amazement as the center of the enormous mass of fire glowed white hot. After a couple more minutes, the fireball died away, and Mako straightened up, a crooked smile on her lips.

Mako stared out over the lake, the water level was lower and there was a distinct dampness from the steam in the air. "Wow, Korra, that was just—" he started, absolutely amazed, but then was cut off as he noted on the far side of the lake, the grass had caught fire, "—flameo."

"What?" she asked him, turning to face him, realising what it was that had caught his eye as she did.

She used the last of her expendable energy to force the water's mass to roll up onto the far shore, extinguishing the flames that had begun to spread. After all the flames had been encompassed by water, she let her grasp on it go, and it rolled neatly back down the hill into the lake. She blushed as she saw that a number of people who were out for a stroll had stopped and stared at the two of them on the dock.

"I think you underestimated yourself," he told Mako as her inquisitive look had turned into a troubled frown, "Don't worry, you extinguished the flames on the other side of the lake, but I think we need a better practice spot."

A grin passed over Korra's face, and she was sure that he found the whole prospect amusing rather than alarming.

"And we'll have to wait for a torrent of rainstorms before the lake water level will return to normal," she added, a smile coming to her face, "Either we can continue to evaporate the lake, or we can work instead on energy control."

"It always had too much water in it," he told her, turning towards the lake again, starting a routine of different bending forms, "But try not to incinerate the other side."

It was late evening when the two of them arrived home, having spent the duration of the afternoon reviewing Mako's basic forms and Korra's fire bending techniques, leaving the lake considerably emptier than before. They made a stop at Air Temple Island on the way home so that Korra could pop in and ask if the air bender kids wouldn't mind coming over to come clean out the yard. Korra was impressed that Mako managed all the stairs just fine, only stumbling once when she had failed to tell him when the stairs ended at the top. Korra was still reeling for letting it slip.

By the time they reached the apartment block, the both of them were feeling exhausted from the over-use of energy, and Korra didn't want to deal with jumping the fence again, so she merely used her last remaining strength to tear the lock off of the gate.

Mako had snickered slightly at her impatience and she decided to just ignore it, not knowing what to say in response anyway. She had then made a light supper, in which they had lightly discussed the upcoming night's sleep; Korra had then quickly washed the dishes and helped Mako to his feet, holding on to his arm as they both headed to the bathroom.

"Here, let me help you with that," she said kindly, taking the toothbrush from him, which he was determinedly trying to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush, without missing it. He handed her the toothbrush roughly, shoving his hands in his pockets afterwards, glowering in a frustrated manner. She merely smiled as she dabbed a pea-sized gob of toothpaste on the end of the brush before rinsing it with a little bit of water.

"Here—it's mint, I hope you don't mind," she said as he pulled his hands out of his pockets, extending one towards her. She took his hand and brushed her thumb over the back, handing him the brush with her other hand. She watched with slight interest as he applied toothpaste to the head of the brush before sticking it in his mouth.

Korra applied some toothpaste to her own brush as she watched Mako in the mirror. It was easy for him to brush his teeth, as it was a task mainly done by feel, not requiring much hand to eye coordination. A spark of curiosity came to her as she noted that Mako was brushing his teeth in a somewhat hurried manner, brushing quickly over one spot a number of times for a short duration before switching to another spot. She herself was brushing her own teeth at an slower pace, and as she was only switching to the second portion of her mouth, Mako put his free hand on the vanity. He elbowed her gently and she shifted away so that he could spit the toothpaste into the basin. She blinked at him.

"Do you always brush your teeth that quickly?" she asked him, her own toothbrush still in her mouth.

He nodded in response as he began to open the vanity cupboards in search of a glass.

"Upper right," she told him, leaning against the vanity while his hand clasped the cup.

When he was finished filling the glass with water, Korra took the moment to spit her toothpaste into the sink and reach for her own glass. They had really pushed their limits that day; she had sat him through a two hour healing session that morning, which had drained almost all of her energy, and the last of it had been used to extinguish the flames that had sprung up after she had used the _. Meanwhile, he himself had used his energy on the forms of bending, and while he had been holding back, the performance had been spectacular—and draining.

"I'm going to go to bed," he said putting his glass down on the vanity, his hand bracing against the wall of the small room. Even though it was a basic statement, she knew that he was asking her to take him to his room.

"Okay."

Walking over to him, she grasped his arm securely and led him out of the room and the short distance from the bathroom to his bedroom. She sat him down on the edge of the bed and then proceeded to make her way to one of her bags by her futon, digging around for the pair of pajamas she had brought. Behind her, she heard Mako moving around, and glancing over her shoulder, she saw that he had taken off his shirt and let it drop to the floor. Despite his near 24 month interment his physique had not suffered. 'Woah…'

Either ignoring her, or simply not noticing that she was watching him, he crawled into his bed. He lay down, pulling the covers up to his chin, facing the wall.

She turned back to her bag; after grabbing the folded pajamas she had set on top, she straightened up and headed to the doorway. "I'm going to go change," she told him, lingering in the doorframe of the room.

"Okay."

She quickly changed in the bathroom, pulling on the pale blue flannel pajama pants and a white tank top, her mind rather fogged, as though she were running on autopilot. Wandering back to Mako's room, clutching her dirty clothes in her arms, she looked over at his form in the bed before putting her laundry aside. She went over and picked up his discarded shirt and frowned faintly at him. Tossing the shirt at his resting form, she mused at his small jump when it landed on him.

"Don't leave your dirty clothes on the floor," she reprimanded, throwing back the covers of her own futon, "This is my room too now, and I don't want it messy."

She heard a quiet 'tch'.

"Don't 'tch' me," she said with a small smirk, "Leave anything more on the floor and you'll end up tripping on it—or I'll throw it at you."

Flopping down onto her futon she snuggled down amongst the blankets, rolling onto her side, her arms reflexively seizing one of the extra pillows. She had always been that way, ever since she was a child—she had always felt the need to hang onto something when she slept.

As a child her favourite stuffed animal had been squeezed to death while Korra slept, but now she usually snuggled into Naga's warm fur.

"Just so you know," she said to Mako after a quiet minute, "I hardly move in my sleep, just so you don't think I'm dead or anything."

"I know you don't move around a lot in your sleep," he replied quietly, "Sometimes on our when we'd be staying at Air Temple Island Bolin would get up and check on you, just to make sure that you weren't dead. I hardly got any sleep because of it sometimes."

So that's what Bolin had been doing when she woke sometimes to find him peering down at her. Whoops, guess she owed him some apologies for hitting him so hard. But she had forgotten that Mako had been there with them, too. She blushed; sometimes it was hard to remember that Mako was the same person who had been on those sleepovers with his brother and herself just a year ago. Some elements of him were familiar, but others made him seem like a total stranger.

"Well, sometimes I couldn't sleep because he was moving around too much," she retorted quietly, burying her face in the pillow she had clutched to her chest.

He gave a light snort in amusement.

Closing her eyes, she let out a tired sigh, looking forward to the sleep that was needed. Not only as energy was low within her, exhaustion from the past week was catching up with her. Dimly she noted that she needed to find some time for her own training; if she needed to train Mako as well, it would not do good to fall out of shape. She should probably see if she could find some others willing to help her train Mako, because training against one opponent wouldn't help him improve.

"Korra?"

"Yeah?" she murmured sleepily, her mind hazy.

"Pema's a great woman," Mako said after a moment.

She rolled slightly onto her back, and peered at his bare back from over her shoulder in an inquisitive manner. "Huh—? Well, I mean, I know, but… Why? What did she say to you?"

"I was given a lecture," came the quiet reply, seemingly amused.

"Not you too, Pema," she muttered quietly to the ceiling, then glanced over at Mako again, "And that makes you think she's a 'great woman'?"

"She's looking out for you," Mako stated evenly, still not moving from his position, "She expressed concern for your well being."

"Sometimes I wish she wouldn't," Korra sighed, rolling to lie fully on her back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"You are lucky to have someone who does," Mako said sharply, rolling onto his back so that his face was turned towards her, an intense and serious frown on his face, "And don't ever take that for granted, Korra."

A surprised look came to her own face, staring back at him in shock. There was a severity in his words that just challenged her to tell him that she couldn't care less about how Pema felt about her. Which wasn't true, of course. She blinked, and then slowly realisation dawned on her, a notion coming to her. It would explain why he felt so strongly as he did about the issue.

"She's very mothering, isn't she?" she replied so quietly that she was barely audible to even herself.

"That's not the point," he shot angrily, rolling onto his side again, facing the wall.

Korra firmly believed that it was, but didn't say anything else. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have grown up without parents, but couldn't even begin to grasp what Mako had felt to watch his parents cut down in front of him.

"Pema and I are close."

"How long have you known her?" Mako asked after a contemplative moment.

"Since I was first proclaimed the Avatar." Korra replied, her need for sleep seeming to have been dissipated and forgotten, "Both her and Tenzin have always looked out for me when my parents weren't able to."

Mako was silent for a moment, like he was thinking about something. "They're great people," he told her again, before falling quiet.

She knew what he said was true—having been on a team with both Mako and Bolin, who both had no family left, she had come to appreciate her own family more than she had before. But right now, as she stared a Mako's back, she would have given anything at that moment, even her family, to have Pema be a mother to Mako and Bolin like she was to her.

Not a particularly plot based chapter, but part of the story none the less. Review! :)