All good things must come to an end. I'm so #blessed to have gained such a wonderful readership with this overhyped trash novel. For the final time, guys: Onward!

"So I've agreed to take the case in the Earth Kingdom," Keisai said, his eyes on the road. The night sky gave everything a deep blue tint, and as he glanced at the woman beside him in the car he couldn't resist a small smile. "I… uh, don't know when I'll be back in the city. They might hold the trial in the republic though, so Baatar can continue serving his time and Kuvira can stay under her probation officer's supervision. We'll see."

"Sounds inconvenient, and not very stimulating. You can spin it and go for a plea deal, what with the clout they have there," Meilin said, adjusting his jacket around her shoulders. "You could also probably find someone else to take the case, you know. Don't tell me that you haven't received offers back in the Fire Nation, or that you don't have contacts."

"Oh, there's no shortage of offers," he said carefully. "Actually I meant to tell you, the firm left a message, asked me to interview and everything..."

"The firm?" She turned to him as they reached her apartment, the city lights reflected in her large eyes like the stars in the expanse of sky blanketing the horizon.

"Do you know of a different one?" he said, parking and leaning back in his seat. "I sure don't."

"Keisai, that's fantastic," she said frankly, covering his hand with her own. "You took the offer, of course."

He looked away, rubbing at the stubble that dotted his jaw. "Right," he said lightly. "Of course I did."

"I can't believe it," she muttered, bending and craning her neck as she tried to get an unobstructed view of his face. "You didn't."

"See, here's the thing," he said, swatting her hand away as she reached for his chin. "I don't want to work for them, not anymore."

"Everyone wants to work for them! It's a huge privilege!" she said, her tone scandalized. "This trial is going to be analyzed for decades, and they're already contacting you about an interview? And you told them no?" She shook her head. "For someone so intelligent, you're really an idiot."

"Thanks, Meilin," he teased. "I guess you had a bad time, then."

"I was having a wonderful time until I learned that you didn't even consider an offer that could be a complete game changer in your career," she said, shaking her head. "If Fazle and Kimura had contacted me—"

"Give it time," he suggested. "I'm sure they will, you just need a few more high-profile cases in your brag sheet."

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Freelancing is risky. It's not something I want to fully commit to, and I'd have to if I wanted to stop taking cases for the United Republic government right away. I don't like the idea of it, not when I don't have a sure thing lined up."

Keisai had started to open the car door, but paused, turning his attention back to her. "What if you had a sure thing lined up? So you'd have time to look for a place in a private firm?"

"That's a different matter entirely, but I don't waste time wondering about hypotheticals that will never happen," she said.

"What if it could happen?" he pressed, taking her hand in his. "What if you got an offer right now? I know someone who needs a devilishly clever lawyer to assist with a pretty high profile case."

She looked down at their hands and back to him, the blue of her eyes amplified by the cerulean silk of her dress and her cheeks flushed from the praise. "A case worth leaving my current post for?"

"I'd say so," he said softly. "Meilin, I wouldn't ask you this if I wasn't dead certain—"

"Stop," she said holding up a hand. "We've been on fewer dates than I have fingers—"

"No, not that kind of proposal," Keisai said in disgust. "I'm not Baatar. Don't insult me."

Her jaw dropped. "He proposed to her again?"

"No, but I think he's planning on it," Keisai said irritably. "Kuvira's more than ready to give things another go, but him? After her sentencing he was talking my ear off about how complicated this made everything, how he doesn't know how he feels, how he's still in love with her but he now he has to think about whether or not their relationship will dead end…" He sighed, rubbing his chin again. "And then he made a joke about platinum wedding bands earlier today. Loverboy's in deep."

She quirked a brow. "There's no need to be lewd, and it's not as though they just got together; they never formally ended their engagement, after all."

"What? What do you—" He stopped, a slow smirk spreading over his face. "Meilin, that's obscene."

"And this is after a few days," she said, returning his smile. "I shudder to think what will happen in a few weeks."

"But you could find out," he said earnestly, an unfamiliar sense of nervousness twisting his insides. "I wanted to ask you if you'll take their Earth Kingdom case with me."

"I doubt you can force an opening," she said skeptically. "Your employers—"

"I can take you on as assisting legal counsel," he said in a rush. "But you wouldn't answer to me for anything, it would just be on paper to get you on the case. We'd be partners, there wouldn't be any boss-subordinate dynamic at all—"

"Give me a day or two to think," she said, holding up a hand. "I would love to, but you know I can't make a decision without weighing the possible outcomes."

"Of course," Keisai said, nodding. "Well… you know you can always give me a ring," he added, opening the door and circling around the front of the car to help her out.

"Naturally."

They stood on her porch, the wind blowing the glossy brown waves framing her face into disarray. His jacket was still draped over her shoulders and he tugged her a step or two closer by the sleeves, appreciatively noting how well the red suited her complexion. "I know I've said it before, but you really should wear your hair down more often."

"It gets in the way," she said, blowing an errant wisp out of her face with a puff of breath. "I didn't want to tell you, but you really don't need to shave as compulsively as you do, I don't have a real preference for facial hair."

"That's very direct of you," he said. "What makes you think your opinions dictate my behavior?"

"I have multiple instances I could cite," she said, "but the earliest one that comes to mind was during the time shortly before Kuvira's trial, when you ran into me at the café."

"And you effectively told me to stop making an ass of myself," he said slowly, nodding. "And I listened. Fine, point taken."

"I'll call you soon," she said, giving him a quick kiss before disappearing inside her apartment. It wasn't until he was halfway home that he realized she had never given his jacket back.

"That conniving wretch," he said to himself, grinning. "I didn't plan for another date, so she goes and makes sure she has an excuse to arrange one. Couldn't have done it better myself."

oOo

The Beifongs had returned to Zaofu following Kuvira's acquittal, and life seemed to have an element of normalcy again. Baatar had endured plenty of good-natured ribbing from the twins and Opal about how quickly he had patched things up with Kuvira, and more than enough less-gentle reminders from the lawyer about not taking things too quickly.

"Remember man," Keisai had said on an impromptu visit, "I'm not trying to be an asshole, but she fired on the warehouse. You're in love with her, fine. For the love of all things holy, don't jump back into an engagement before you've had the important conversations or the relationship will just blow up in your face again. I know for a fact that you spent more time messing around in her cell than you did talking out your issues with one another."

"You have no way of proving anything," he had retorted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I don't need proof," the lawyer had said. "You face tells me all I need to know."

Though Keisai's admonitions were the last things he wanted on his mind when he and Kuvira were together, they had a way of creeping to the forefront during those scant moments of stillness and calm. When their limbs were entangled and her back to his chest, her mess of hair in his face and their bodies between cool sheets, he couldn't shake the misgivings. Sometimes his body would tense and he'd regard her with a wariness he was unconscious to until she pointed it out, her voice sharp and her eyes betraying her hurt feelings. Sometimes he instinctively recoiled from her touch when she threw her arms around his neck, a gesture that would have instilled nothing but feelings of affection and tenderness in the past. More often than not she pretended she didn't notice, but she knew. And he was painfully aware that her knowing hurt her more than she let on.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him quietly, her arms drowning in the sleeves of one of his old shirts. Kuvira had been hesitant to discuss what they had become after her release, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they had to stop pretending their difficulties had ended with the new sentencing.

"The cost of platinum wedding bands," he said without thinking. "So if you're arrested again, they wouldn't need to confiscate it from you."

"I'm not going to get arrested again," she said, the hope in her voice making his throat ache. "Why wedding bands? That's very specific."

"By now, we should've been married," he said. The harshness in his words cut through them both like a jagged knife wound, and he winced at his tone. "No, sorry. What I mean is—"

"You can't keep doing this to me," she said accusatorily. "I was so afraid that your feelings for me had changed for the worse, and then for a while I felt like everything would be fine. I can see now that it was wishful thinking on my end. Why'd you reassure me by lying to me?"

"Kuvira, I never lied to you. At the time—"

"You did!" she insisted, propping herself up on his chest and turning his face to hers. "You told me you didn't care, that it didn't matter anymore—"

"Because I thought I might lose you!" Baatar sat up without warning, leaning against the headboard. "I didn't know if you'd end up in prison or dead, how could I let that happen without telling you I loved you for a final time? You wouldn't let me say anything-"

"So I'm right, then," she said. "You're still not over it, you just were saying that." She crossed her arms, the oversized shirt doing little to dull the force of her gaze. "Why'd we act like we were together again? Couldn't find anyone worth dating with me locked up, so you had to improvise?"

"Disgusting," Baatar said, his face darkening. "Absolutely not. You of all people ought to know that since we were teenagers, you were the only one I ever had eyes for."

"And do you still?"

"Of course," he said, reaching for her hand and raising his eyebrows when she slapped it away. "Kuvira, please. I love you—"

"Then why haven't you forgiven me?" Kuvira said, her voice stilted. "I thought… I had hoped by now…" She trailed off, holding her knees to her chest and resting her head atop them, curled up into a ball. "We're acting as though everything is fine, but nothing really is. I keep waiting for you to say you want to stop, that you don't think it'll work outside of that suspended-in-time prison setting, that you're not over it—"

"How can you expect me to get over something like that in two years?" he said incredulously. "I poured my heart out to you and you tried to kill me."

"Stop," she said, her voice too loud as she squeezed her legs to her chest even more tightly. "See, you're doing it now. It's always there, even when you kiss me or tell me you love me or… or… everything. I can see it, Baatar. You don't look at me the same way anymore. It's like the second I wasn't a prisoner of the republic you lost interest—"

"Kuvira, I don't want to fight with you right now," he said tiredly. "Can we sleep? I have a long day tomorrow."

"We can't keep putting this off," she said warningly, still seated when he rolled over and closed his eyes, his back to her.

"Well, maybe if you didn't snap at me the second I try to bring it up, we wouldn't have to. I don't know what you want from me."

He heard her sigh, heard the mattress creak as she adjusted her limbs and lay down next to him, her breath tickling the back of his neck despite the deliberate gap of space between them. "You know I've always been bad at this. You know me better than anyone else in the world."

"I know," he said, craning his neck to see her, "but I don't know if it's enough right now."

"My sentence in the Earth Em—Kingdom starts next week," Kuvira said warningly. "If it's not enough, do me the courtesy of telling me before my departure date. Just because I'm no longer scheduled to die, we don't have unlimited time for you to make up your mind."

He lay on his back again, interlacing her fingers with his own. "I'm trying," he said. "Can you be patient with me? I was patient with you the whole time you were locked up."

"I'm sorry," she said, and he closed his eyes as he felt the familiar weight of her head on his shoulder and her arm over his chest and her hand at his cheek. He pulled her closer, his arm instinctively falling to her waist when she kissed him. "Then I'll be patient for as long as I need to."

"Are you sure?" he said skeptically. "You had me build that colossus in a week."

"You still brag about how quickly you had everything put together," she said, warm pride in her voice. "And besides, things are different now. Certain things are more worth waiting for than others."

He kissed her, his breath hitching when she responded to his touch, her body molding against his own as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Baatar closed his eyes, letting his fingers ghost along her back and kissing away anxieties they couldn't bring themselves to verbally address. It was easier this way. For the better part of two years it had been easier this way, and even after she had fallen asleep, the reassuring rise and fall of her chest synchronized with his own, he wondered when things would return to how they had been.

oOo

"I'll wait," Korra said, crossing her arms over her chest and nodding. "Go on, it's not as though you can bend your way out of here."

"Thank you for the reminder, Avatar." The chi-blocking was a necessary measure that she had to endure so long as she wanted to be free of the suffocating wooden walls of her cell, and Kuvira gave Baatar a little wave, trying to listen to Korra as she rattled off the itinerary for her waiting period until the Earth Kingdom trial. She was to begin contracted labor in the western provinces, one of the more impoverished areas even after empire rule. Until Korra's diplomatic obligations concluded, she would be under the supervision of United Forces officers and be with other war criminals in a hybrid detention facility-encampment.

"Remember sweetheart, if you blow this I can't help you," Keisai said, patting her shoulder. "You got a second chance. Please don't screw it up."

"I won't," she assured him. "Avatar Korra, may I..?"

"Go ahead," Korra said, nodding. Kuvira felt their eyes upon her as she joined Baatar a small ways away. Lin left his side to go talk to the lawyer, and as soon as they were comparatively alone she took his hands in hers.

"I'm leaving in an hour," she said simply.

"I know." He tried to smile. "On the train with the other convicts being transferred?"

"Watch yourself. You're a convict too, you're not an ordinary contracted employee of the republic. So you came to see me off?"

"Yes, and don't bicker, not when this is our last bit of time together," he said. "So, I actually wanted to… uh, show you something."

"Here?" She glanced around skeptically. "You could've showed me at your place, with relative privacy…"

"I couldn't," he said. "Okay, come here…" He steered away from prying eyes, pulling her down beside him on a bench in the shade. Baatar slipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out a small drawstring velour bag, pausing nervously before he swallowed and took her hand in his. "Kuvira, this isn't another proposal," he said, "so don't get your hopes up."

"Great opening," she said drily. "I feel so loved."

"Let me finish," he said, opening the little pouch and shaking the contents into her hand. In the midday sun, she recognized the unmistakable gleam of platinum, and she felt her eyes well up as she took in the sight.

"I thought you said—"

"These aren't for us," he said, letting her examine them, "not yet. Not anytime soon. But you've always told me to trust my intuition, and I wouldn't have bought them if I wasn't sure that somewhere down the line, I'll be able to—"

She kissed him, pressing the rings into his hand as she cupped his cheek with her spare. "I can be patient, Baatar." She pulled back, tracing her finger down his jaw. "Take as long as you need."

"It's not just a timing thing," he said warningly. "You can't keep blowing off the topics we need to discuss. And you can't keep saying it's too soon to talk about what you did, because then we'll never be able to work past it. If it's hard for you, imagine how I feel."

"You're right," she said, smiling despite the weight of his words. "I don't mind in the slightest. I think the time apart will do us good, too. I'll write to you, maybe I can figure out what I need to say by putting it all on paper."

"Please cooperate," he said, kissing her forehead. "Good behavior means more privileges, you saw that firsthand—"

"You always worried too much about me," she said, pulling him to standing. "I can take care of myself."

"If you want us to work, you can't just think about yourself," Baatar pointed out. "And you can't just think about the greater good, either. Besides, you aren't alone anymore. I've only ever wanted to make you feel as loved and valued as you are, so would it kill you to let me make good on my intention?"

She laughed. "It nearly did."

She was still holding his arm when they returned to the others, and she could've sworn she saw Keisai trade conspiratorial smirks with Lin. "He proposed, didn't he," Keisai said, shaking his head. "Baatar, your poor mother is going to have a fit—"

"I didn't propose," Baatar retorted. "Mind your own business."

"I guess you can be wrong, kid," Lin said, punching the lawyer's shoulder. "Junior, I'm guessing you're coming with us to say goodbye?"

"Of course."

"Then let's go," Lin said, leading the way to the station platform. "Kuvira, if I get word of prison riots or rebellions, I'll make you live to regret it."

"I'm offended, chief," she said, surprised by the joke in Lin's gruff tone. "You know I was a model prisoner."

"Fooling around with my nephew on the premises isn't something model prisoners do," Lin retorted. Keisai smirked, but he hugged her goodbye all the same before she joined the entourage of United Forces officers overseeing her removal from the republic.

"Be good, okay?" he said bracingly. "Baatar and I will be in the area in a matter of months. Meilin and I are negotiating the plea bargain and we ought to get a court date in good time. Don't do anything stupid."

"What do you think I intend to do while I wait?" she said. "Taking your advice has always worked, I trust you."

"Take care of yourself, sweetheart," he said, bringing her hand to his lips and winking at Baatar. "I'll keep your boyfriend happy while you're gone."

"Believe it or not, I'm not so whipped and lovesick that I can't be happy without her constantly by my side," Baatar said irritably, nudging the lawyer aside and pulling Kuvira in for a hug as the passengers began to board. "I love you," he whispered into her hair, barely audible over the din. "I love you, more than anything… I promise you, we'll figure out a way to make this work."

"It's an unorthodox setup, but we'll make it happen," she agreed, closing her eyes and tipping her face back for a final kiss, for once unembarrassed by the spectators. "I love you too," she added. "I'll see you for the trial?"

"Yes," he said, reluctantly letting go. "It won't be long."

"I'm good at waiting," she reminded him, and he smiled as she held his eyes to the last possible minute, even as she boarded the train for her departure.

Even with her bending suspended and the exit blocked by security, she felt a growing sense of freedom that swelled with each successive mile from the borders of the United Republic. Everything about their situation was less than ideal, but theirs had always been an unorthodox arrangement. The promise of a second chance was something she had been afraid to even dream of during her incarceration, but now she looked to the future with more excitement than trepidation. Until that moment, her world had been at a standstill, but with each chug of the train along the ironclad tracks, she finally felt as though she could begin moving forward again.

A/N: Fun fact: there's a "World Spins Madly On" lyric reference in there. I think of that song as the Baavira anthem.

I don't like to think of this as an end, but as a new beginning. It's been a wild ride, loves. I can't wait to start our "Unorthodox" journey together. Head on over to my author page to start reading the sequel!