When they stepped into the hospital, they felt everyone staring at them and for the first time realized how they were dressed. Tara was still in her pyjamas, and Asami wore comfortable, but not very ladylike trousers and one of Korra's blue shirts (because she had thought the smell would calm her nerves when she went to bed without her girlfriend). Both were missing their shoes. The silver lining was that Asami had still not removed Korra's necklace for the night, else it might have been gone for good. Together with Qiang in his police uniform they looked probably rather silly.
Asami did not care much for that, she rushed to the front desk and slammed her fist on the wood to get the attention of the nurse: "Where's Korra?"
"Avatar Korra", the nurse questioned and seeing her name tag, the engineer had no choice but to think Korra would have gotten a kick out of her, since her name was actually Lee, and the Avatar had a knack for calling people that.
When Asami nodded at the last question, the nurse got out some form from of the desk, writing something: "Are you family?"
"Yes", Asami answered quickly and tugged on the betrothal necklace, "her wife."
Lee looked at her for some seconds, then started to laugh: "Haha. Good one."
"Then I'm her sister", Asami quickly corrected, she did not care much for what she had to do at the moment, she was so close to seeing Korra and she was sure she would even use force if she had to.
"And your sister gave you a betrothal necklace", Lee had evidently recognized the necklace, and was just refusing to acknowledge the implication. Or maybe she did even that, and was now just being mean.
"Her daughter", Asami questioned, even though the nurse was not really listening to her, "I heard people do that, handing down these necklaces from mother to daughter." She remembered that Katara gave hers to Kya, a reminder of a long dead love.
"I'm really sorry", Lee stated, reading over some of her documents, "Avatar Korra is really popular, but sadly, in critical condition, we can't just let anybody in there. It's family only."
"But she is not popular enough for you to know she lives with a woman", Asami snarled and realized she was breaking at that point. She had always taken pride in the fact that she could talk her way out of any situation, but now with Korra's life on the line she was reduced to a rambling pile. Since the nurse did not react, the engineer added: "Could you please go talk with somebody treating her. She has a living will with her stating that she wants to see me."
"Must have burned off", Lee mumbled, not really engaging in the conversation.
It was getting worse and worse. First Korra was in critical condition, now some document she had on her body was evidently burned off. How exactly was Asami to stay calm and relaxed that way? She needed some way to prove who she was.
She shuffled back to the waiting area, where Qiang had taken a seat and Tara was playing with some toys, annoying the other patients. Asami did not care. For the first time in her life she actually wanted to be recognized by random strangers on the street.
As Korra had stated, newspaper were scarce outside of Republic City. But Ba Sin Sei was a pretty big city, and while it was probably to expensive to deliver the newspapers to the city, it might be lucrative to print them out here. Asami had to find one of the Republic City magazines that had reported about them, and she started right there, in the big pile of paper in the waiting room.
"What are you doing", Qiang stated, "are you giving up? Are we going to wait by the entrance until Korra either walks out or they carry her out on a stretcher?"
Asami gave him an icy glance that made him believe it was not entirely coincidental that she had taught Tara how to icebend.
After some frantic searching, the engineer groaned when she found the one copy that actually had her face in it. Since beggars should not be choosers, she walked back to the front desk and slammed the newspaper in front of the nurse.
Of course, it had to be the Elemental Times, more precise the one with the headline "LIAR, LIAR! Avatar misleads world about inappropriate relationship to Future Industries' CEO".
"That's me. Asami Sato", Asami stated, pointing to one of the photographs.
"So now you're the famous Asami Sato", the nurse stated and stood up to inspect the woman in front of her head to toe: messy hair, no makeup, blue dirty shirt, not matching baggy red trousers, no shoes.
"I was just about to go to bed when the mountain between Yi, Xun and Lu exploded, and I've driven the entire night, and now I really want to see my wife", Asami was close to shouting at the woman, but was barely holding on.
Lee did not react to her outburst for some moments, but only looked at her in shock. "You know what, I'm sorry", she finally mumbled, "but there is no way for me to get away with letting you visit Avatar Korra."
Asami stood there defeated, with no idea how to overcome the hurdle, when a female soldier approached the desk and saluted.
"Lieutenant Kyoshi of the United Forces, infantry", she stated tersely, "I'm the Avatar's sister, I want to see her."
The nurse eyed her suspiciously, but the soldier was lucky to have dark skin. Lee searched for a document, and when she found it, she smiled.
"You've been here before! So you know the drill: sign here, and she's in 101", the nurse stated and slid the paper over the table for the soldier to sign.
"Lieutenant Kyoshi", Lee questioned when she took the form back, then pointed with her head towards Asami, "do you know this woman?"
The soldier looked Asami over with visible distaste and shook her head, then left to visit Korra.
"You do realize Korra is an only child", Asami questioned after a while of standing around uselessly.
Nurse Lee just shrugged: "I don't argue with military people."
Asami groaned when she sat down in the waiting area next to Qiang. She only needed some moments, after that she would know exactly what to do. But after summarizing what the problem was (and how that stupid military chick had just sneaked in to see Korra), Qiang had an idea, and he took Tara with him to try his luck.
"Officer Qiang, Republic City Police Department", he told the nurse on the front desk with a smile and showed his police badge, "I have my orders to guard the Avatar's daughter." He picked Tara up and sat her on the desk, which would have earned protests if it were any other child, but the little girl was just too cute, and that her face was all puffy and teary eyed even helped some more.
"Aren't you a cute little girl", nurse Lee cooed and almost intuitively started wiping the child's face with some handkerchief, "you look just like your mother."
"She wants to see her mom", Qiang explained, and Tara corrected him with a "my mommy", which made him hit her lightly.
Lee looked at Tara, then at the police officer, then back: "Are you sure? Avatar Korra got hurt pretty badly."
Qiang nodded solemnly, even though he could see Tara starting to tear up at that. Maybe that was not the best of ideas.
"So what's your name", Lee questioned, and the girl answered, so the nurse filled out the next line on the visitor document. Suddenly she frowned and addressed the policeman: "Wait, you're not her legal guardian? I don't think I can let little Katara in without one of those."
Qiang pointed at Asami, who was sitting with her eyes closed trying hard not to cry, when he stated: "You see that lady over there? With the mismatched clothes and the missing shoes? She's the guardian."
"Really", Lee was clearly not amused, "she already claimed to be the Avatar's wife and THE Asami Sato."
"You really should follow the news more closely, because she's all of these things", Qiang answered with a laugh.
"Just let her sign here", the nurse stated tersely and held the form for him to bring to Asami, and he did.
"How did you do it", Asami was baffled when she signed her name on a line that stated her daughter was going to visit Korra, and Qiang shrugged proudly.
"Just wait out there for a moment", Asami told the other two when they had finally managed their way to 101, the room Korra was in. The policeman nodded and led Tara away.
The child protested: "But I wanna see her, too!" And he explained something to her Asami could not understand, because she was concentrating on what she found once she opened the door. Would Korra be awake, would she be sleeping? Would she have bandages all around her, maybe even a cast? The nurse had said she was burned, so would she even look like Korra? Horrible images of burn victims flashed before Asami's eyes, and made her stall even longer.
But she knew there was only one way to find out, so she took a deep breath and opened the door.
The first thing she saw was her, since her red military clothes really attracted attention. And the second thing she realized only a second later was: The soldier was holding Korra's hand in a loving manner.
Lieutenant Kyoshi had turned around when she heard the door, and now both women were staring at each other in shock: "You! What are you doing here?!"