Song 1 - Rats - Pillow Queens

In the kitchen Asami sank to her knees, sobbing, clasping her hand over her mouth.

Outside, Korra ripped open her car door. She struggled with her keys, the ring snapped and they fell. The only thing she could do was thwack her forehead on the steering wheel and sob. The sky was weeping too, clouds gone dark throwing torrential streams of rain that within a few feet of the house, Korra was unrecognisable.

Perhaps it was knowing this that led her to just sitting there, this and the weakness in her soul. She could still taste her lips, when her eyes were closed she could relive it, better than any dream. The fierce way she had gripped her arms still burned her skin.

What am I doing? What am I doing? This is everything I wanted! But she's married, she chose him, she kissed me. Asami kissed me. Why did she kiss me?

In the swirl of self loathing, her memories of the kiss were becoming tainted with the look on Asami's face when she swore her off.

Why did I do that to her?

A rational adult would go back to talk to her, and for a moment she imagined it. How unfortunate that the first and only thing she could think of would be kissing her in the rain. The urge curled every muscle in her spine, her own body was fighting her, wrestling internally to stay, to leave, to move on with her life and stick to the plan.

I can't leave her like this.

A cheerful knock on her window had her flinching, slamming her hand on the horn, blaring above the din of the storm.

"Hey Korra!" Iroh chirruped, holding on his hat against the wind and rain. The respectable gentleman, bracing the weather in his trench-coat with a smile.

"Fucking hell," Korra seethed beneath her breath.

"You done with the mural already?" he smiled at her, the poor sap, he has no idea.

"What? Yes, no!" I kissed your wife, shut up! "What are you doing back?"

"I'm such a dunce I left some files here, I'm out of sorts in this new place, but I'll get the hang of it. Are you okay?"

"What?" Korra was having a hard time processing anything beyond Your wife kissed me. So. Many. Times. "I'm fine, Kai called, he needs help with a client - urgent, gotta go."

"But your face?"

Korra yanked down the mirror to take a look and flinched, scarlet sunrise smeared her mouth and cheek and fuck, her neck.

"It's blood," she hurriedly used Asami's shirt to wipe it away, "We fought, training, and she got me… right in the mouth. It's normal for us,"

"I'm sure we have a first aid kit-"

"I said I'm fine," Korra snapped, frazzled, the fact that she loathed this man to her core certainly wasn't helping. She snatched the key from the floor at her feet and slammed it in the ignition, twisting.

"Boy the world is really taking it out on you this week, huh?" Korra could only roll her eyes and stare ahead. "What happened?" he seemed genuinely perturbed by her outburst, a man she had tried to ignore for all the years he was pawing at her best friend. Korra softened, eyes falling towards the house.

"She's having a rough day, just…" she closed her eyes, "go easy on her." when she looked back at him he seemed to understand only part of it, if any of it at all. Korra felt numb when she added, "Let her come to you,"

Resolute, he nodded, turning his attentions towards the house. Korra drove home in a daze.

Asami had fair warning her husband had arrived from Korra's car blaring. Cursing under her breath, she instinctively wiped her mouth and tears. She wasn't ready for this utter failure to come to a head, not until she herself understood what exactly was going on.

She had to act, she knew, but her emotions held her hostage. This something her husband had yet to experience in her. In fact it was new to her up until recently.

She had fought, kissed and lost her best friend all in a single afternoon. The impact of which had yet to crush her when her husband was ten feet away.

She bolted for the stairs.

"Honey?" she didn't respond beyond a non committal hum. "You okay?"

"I'm fine!" she called back. She went straight to her desk, a grand mahogany beast she'd had moved to the room across from the master bedroom. Her body started to search its contents frantically before she realised why.

"What are you doing?"

"The last letter from the prison," she seethed, "I stuffed it in here, years ago,"

"What happened?" He kneeled beside her and closed a drawer she left open.

"I just-I need it,"

"Why?"

"Because," she was scratching at the wood bottoms now. Like mother, like daughter.

"Asami?" He scooped her wrists turning her away from it.

"Because I need answers, I'm stuck in the mess he left me in and-" he leaned to embrace her, to hug her tight only she flinched, "Don't touch me," her eyes widened, "I'm sorry," she stood. "I'm not…I just don't want to be touched right now."

He tried his best to school his wounded gaze when he ghosted his hands over hers.

"This was supposed to be a new start, but if you can't handle it-"

"This is my mother's house."

"And it's driving you crazy,"

"Of course it is! My mother died in this house, my family died here, I have to start it again and Korra-" she stopped, speaking her name was like being socked in the throat.

"What about Korra?"

"Was there too…she knew what it was like for me here… she said if I talked to my father, in prison, maybe I could get some closure, and she's right." She pulled the bottom draw, and shut it deflated. She stood pacing away from him, "I'll get the number from Opal,"

Iroh stayed on the ground as he watched her leave, weighing Korra's instruction, and wishing he'd followed it. His heart was pounding, and it was now he chose to show it, exhaling heavily, opening the one draw Asami seemed to miss. He pulled out a letter of his own pen, crumpled and folded tightly. He'd forgotten about it til seeing Asami so close to finding it.

Dear Asami,

If you're reading this, I did the unthinkable. I have left you.

He reread it, his heart performing a pendulum swing as he weighed this day with the ones he dreaded, and the ones he hoped for.

"I'm sorry," Asami stood timid at the door. He cooly slipped the note into his jacket pocket and fed her a smile.

"It's alright." he assured her. "I dread to say this but, I've been called away on special manoeuvres."

His wife eyed him calmly, trying to decide if she would need him there to figure out if her future was with him, or if he'd just get in the way and get his heart broken.

"For how long?"

"Until we get the bad guy."

"Oh,"

"Yeah."

"One of those." she turned away and this time he followed.

"It'll be a few days, two weeks tops…Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine."

"Asami-" he began.

"Really, it'll be good to get out of my path while I go through this," she indicated the house, and felt ever so cowardly that she was ignoring the still lingering taste of Korra on her lips. "You'd better start packing. I need to go take a shower."

"Korra it's me, we have to talk about this…"

Korra had become something of an expert on screening calls.

"You can't throw away a decade of friendship over something I believe we can work through…"

If she were at work in the studio blasting angry feminist punk rock she couldn't even hear the phone ring.

"…Don't let this be the thing that ruins it…please I couldn't-"

She'd pull the plug in the evenings, knowing Asami was in a nine to five. Admittedly this did make it difficult for customers to book commissions.

"Please pick up…please…I miss you."

She'd listen to the tape, every night, because she couldn't stop thinking about it to get to sleep.

"I understand if you never want to speak to me after but please…please say goodbye. I can't keep losing people without goodbyes…"

After listening, it was definitely impossible to get to sleep thereafter.

"I'm calling the prison today…wish me luck."

The calls stopped sometime after this message. She knew she should delete the evidence, but after everything, a twisted part of her relished in just the sound of Asami's voice. She wanted to reach out just as much, but again, she felt weak, and couldn't get her thoughts past kissing her to know what she wanted to do or say.

"You unplugged your phone again?" Opal snapped, kicking her front door open, making Korra reel into a fighting stance before she recognised Asami's assistant.

"Jesus Opal! What are you even doing here?"

"What do you think? Is she here?"

"Who?"

"Asami,"

"We're not speaking,"

"What? Oh god this is bad, this is really bad."

"What?"

"Have you checked your messages?" Opal made for the machine, but Korra leapt to block her.

"No, I mean yes she hasn't called me - what's happened to Asami?"

Opal looked mortified, shaking and cradling her own head, very much feeling that she'd been trapped in her own blunder fuelled nightmare.

"They sent her his ashes."

"What?"

"Her father…Hiroshi, she called the prison to lift the non contact and they told her he'd died a month ago…This morning I signed for a box and she opened it and it was his ashes, and now nobody can find her and Iroh is deployed and I thought she'd come to you!"

"He died?"

"She never wanted to hear from him again - she made it illegal for them to tell her anything about him and when she reached out…well most people who make that order don't undo it,"

Opal was a spectacular assistant, an exemplar time keeper, tactful, impeccable organisational skills and incredible attention to detail, but today she had been plowed over by the unthinkable. It made the anxious panic more acute knowing it was her friend who was suffering because of her mistakes.

"Did you try the old apartment?" Korra's own heart hitched into high gear.

"Yes, and the new house, every room, I-"

Opal kept talking her through her day, but Korra's mind was elsewhere. In that old house, when Asami still thought well enough of Hiroshi, she would sneak into the garage to watch him work. Of course his was a lucrative business, and being exceedingly eccentric in tandem with being obscenely wealthy, Korra recalled the secret entrance to such a place father and daughter once held dear.

"I know where she is,"

Korra snatched her keys and made for the door.

"You do?" Opal balked, "Wait why aren't you two speaking?"

Korra made a point of not answering, she barely held it together long enough waiting for Opal to get in the car. It seemed improper to speed off to the old Sato Mansion without the agitated messenger.

"I don't understand, I was just here,"

Korra rolled her eyes, marching with purpose, the masochistic parts of her cheering her on. She came to the bookshelf, now stacked in a chromatic scale of colour thanks to Bolin. She fumbled between the tops of the books and the underside of a shelf, until an imperceptible panel gave under her palm, and the library began to slide apart.

The stairs between them lit up, and Korra began the descent without waiting for Opal to pull her jaw from the ground.

"You knew this was here the whole time?"

"We played hide and seek here for years." Korra shrugged, pushing on the final door. Windowless, filled with blinding light and new age looking tech, at least for a decade ago, belied an engineers dream workshop. In the centre of which sat a Satomobile unseen by the public eye. Hot rod red, gold and black, it was set to be the hottest car of the era, but its prototype never saw the light of day.

Asami was curled up on the passenger seat. Korra watched her for a moment, whether she was too lost in her own thoughts to notice them breech the sanctuary, or simply unable to deal with acknowledging them at all, Asami didn't look up. She cradled a notebook to her chest, breathing softly, as her eyes let out tear after tear.

"What are you waiting for?" Opal enquired.

"You go," Korra told her.

The assistant knew better than to question, her heels clipping on the marble she made for her boss. Every movement gentle, apologising profusely as she opened the door and tugged Asami stiff into her arms.

Korra watched the exchange from afar, and strongly considered ducking out before Asami noticed her.

"It's okay," she heard her say, and Korra felt the lie twisting in the pit of her stomach. "It happens,"

Opal let out a wet laugh, holding her tighter. Asami was so kind, Korra remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of it.

"I still have a job?" she joked, leaning back and swiping at her boss' tears. Asami started to laugh too, only those who knew her knew that this wasn't the happy one.

"I need you to take over for a few days," she sniffed, "I can't,"

"I know,"

"Oh," Asami recalled, "I had a meeting with Cab Corp at five what time is it?"

"I'll go," Opal assured her, looking above her head to Korra still standing there, cursing her ennui. "Korra?"

Korra's body clenched everything that could be, her jaw, her fists, even her toes, arms folded. Sensing this Opal marched towards her, patting her arm.

"Get over your shit, she needs you," muttering under her breath.

"You don't even know what it is," Korra seethed back, but the Assistant had already left, and Korra was already getting in the drivers side.

No-one was more surprised to see her than Asami was then. Korra took the wheel, mostly so that she had something to do with her hands. Asami herself was doing very much the same cradling that book.

Korra only snatched a look at her, dressed half way between work and casual, jeans and a button down and boots. Korra could imagine her pacing, lost, trying to come up with a plan and starting halfway between running away and going back to work. Her leather jacket draped over the back seat, like she was going for a drive, but the weight of driving her father's unfinished masterpiece impeded her forward motion.

Her eyes stung red with tears, making the jade of her iris striking as she looking back at her best friend.

"You found me, didn't you?"

"I remember hiding here once," Korra told her, lips numb, "I'd come looking for you and he was on the phone. He was talking about me…he didn't like me, but he didn't know I was there. She's too wild Yasuko…she's no good for our daughter." Korra's smile turned grimace, her attempt to make light turning to ash quickly in her mouth.

Asami didn't have a response, but simply glanced down at the white box between them.

"Sorry to speak ill of the…dead," Korra winced.

"No, he wasn't…good,"

"He could be, some of the time…on that trip. Remember when I set fire to my marshmallow and he said, only the best smores have char,"

"like a fine steak…" Asami finished, a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips.

"He could be a good dad, he was always looking out for you."

"He did deplorable things."

"I know."

"He hurt so many people."

"He did,"

"Then why does this hurt so much?"

Korra gripped the steel and leather beneath her hands to keep from embracing her, but Asami had already reached out instinctively.

"Careful," Korra warned softly, as her cheek met her shoulder, and finally, she let one arm loose to keep her upright against a small portion of her side.

"I don't even know what to do with him," his urn had found its way into Asami's lap, balancing over her mother's diary, "What cemetery would take him?"

Korra looked down at her hands, timid in their hold of the little white box.

It was then she remembered the gentle moan she gave her when those nimble fingers carded through the locks at the back of her head.

She rescinded her touch, and threw her gaze anywhere else. For a car that wasn't finished, it certainly looked polished and ready to drive, leather gleaming, fuel gauge full, keys in the ignition.

"Put your seatbelt on," turning the keys, she was grateful the engine roaring to life. Say what you want about Hiroshi, he made a damn fine car.

The storm hadn't ended since Korra left days before. On and off, Republic City was doused in its famous down pour. Driving through the metropolis, to the outskirts and beyond, they fell into a tense, unyielding silence.

Still Asami felt the sharp grief she felt for losing Korra fading, salved from simply sitting next to her. The angry rain patting on the window was soothing enough to have her body relaxing. She hadn't slept since that day, and the relief was enough to let heavy lids close.

This wasn't what Korra was expecting when she imagined a reunion. Racing out of the city in a muscle car heading for half an idea she was forming in her head. Particularly with the shallow visibility the rain allowed.

For the first time, an idea about how to move past her feelings for her best friend began to materialise, she would see her through this, and then Asami would have no choice but to let her leave in peace. The kiss was a mistake, there was no doubt in her mind, Asami was better off without her, she would use this trip to prove it.

"Where's Hiroshi?"

They were parked, and Asami flinched, waking, scanning foggy windows and an empty car seat. Korra had draped her jacket over her shoulders a while ago, now it pooled on her empty lap.

"I put him in the glove compartment," Korra's face grew hot as she procured him from the latch, "I'm sorry…after a while I felt judged."

Asami pursed her lips and took him from her, before her eyes caught hers as though snagged. She gave a deep sigh.

"Korra, we have to talk about this."

"No we don't." Korra's voice sounded strained. "We really don't," it was hard to make herself heard over the din of the storm.

"When I kissed you," Asami watched her slam her eyes shut and hackles raise, "it wasn't a mistake to me,"

"Please," Korra begged.

"It felt like my first,"

"I can't do this."

"I know," Asami's hand graced her cheek, soft and warm, "You're a good person you're not like me…I know I'm a mess, and I'm sorry I'm doing any of this…I just…" she shook her head, "I had to tell you…before it was too late."

Korra didn't move to push away her hand, her own two gripped firmly on the steering wheel as her oceanic blues gazed mournfully at her above the palm caressing her cheek.

As though by a conductor the cacophony of rain came to a sudden stop. It was then Asami took a look out side.

"Banyan Grove," Asami breathed.

"The happiest hike on Earth," Korra quoted the sign they were parked next to weakly, before finding her door handle and ejecting from the car.

She was already marching ahead, when Asami got wind of her intention, discarding the diary on the back seat and picking up the obliterated pieces of her father. The guilt of storming off seemed to get to Korra, and soon enough she fell back into step with her, hands deep in her pockets.

"Isn't this the off season? Are we even allowed to do this?" Asami asked, attempting less heart wrenching small talk.

"I don't know," Korra shrugged, "No one's stopping us." it should have been an omen that when she lunged over a log her foot almost gave way on muddy ground. Catching herself she reached to steady Asami by her arm, "Careful," she warned again, before retracting her hand back.

Muddy tracks became stone became roots, something that enthralled Korra when they came here as kids. Miles and miles of obstacles to show off on, climbing, dangling, flipping to impress her best friend. As an adult she added the fear of breaking her neck onto the growing list.

After a while of painful silence, of reaching out only when she thought the grip of Asami's boots couldn't hold on, she spoke.

"You are a good person," Korra told her, looking up at the trees.

"What?" Asami asked, mostly to be sure it wasn't the wind speaking to her. The way Korra was icing her out, it seemed more likely.

"Earlier, when you said I'm good, it made it seem like you didn't think you were too,"

"Good people don't kiss their best friend if they love their husband," Asami sneered sarcastically, aiming her loathing squarely at herself. "I guess it's just one of the ways I'm like him, right?" She adjusted her grip on her father, wishing she'd brought a bag to hide him from her view.

"You're nothing like him." Korra told her firmly, stopping, looking up at her on the incline. "He wouldn't care this much."

"It doesn't matter if I care," Asami snapped, "I did the bad thing, I feel all these feelings I-"

"We can go back," Korra interrupted, "we can stop, pretend we never… and stop speaking for a while,"

"Then we go back to being just best friends?"

"It's less complicated than whatever this is becoming. Especially owing to you being in this typhoon." Korra indicated toward the little white box and all it represented. There was no denying the shifting tectonic plates in Asami's life, and when they settled, the complete mystery of where would it leave them.

Only Asami found herself shaking her head.

"I locked away those feelings, that anger, that pain, and hid them in that house when I left it and I'm back and I feel alive. I can see, and feel, everything again. I see the way you look at me K, and I'm looking back."

"Right now, you can't escape those feelings…" Asami's heart was in her throat when Korra walked up to her, "but you didn't have them last week," and was without words when she walked right by her, "come on," she barely heard it, turning to follow she saw that Korra refused to look back, "we're almost at the top,"

Korra was eager to end their hike, and it showed in the distance growing between them. The great Banyan Grove Tree was up ahead, but Asami found her gaze drawn into its roots, and the memory of bandy legs hopping over them, and shaking young hands entangled as they helped each other up.

It was the first time Korra had ever held it, way back when, not yards from where Asami now stood, and for the rest of the way up she had refused to let it go.

"It's not natural," She could hear her father's voice, huffing gruffly, followed by her mother's.

"It's just a phase, I'm sure they'll grow out of it,"

Asami had a vague recollection, but like much of her childhood she'd repressed it. At the time she had done her best to concentrate on Korra, whom was less attuned to Asami's parents concerned patter. Returning here seemed to bring it back in full force clear as day.

"She's infatuated with her,"

"Which one?"

"Both!" Hiroshi complained. "If we don't do something soon 'Suk, I fear for what life she'll lead,"

"She's a smart girl, whatever life she chooses will be a good one, I'm sure."

"She'll choose what we offer her."

"Hiro," Yasuko warned.

"Is that the top!" Korra had yelled happily, launching ahead, threatening to drag Asami with her until her father called for her.

"Asami! A moment," Asami wished she had been less dutiful, more rebellious, or had learned to follow her own whims. She of course went back for him.

"Dad?" her father kneeled in front of her, on her level, holding her shoulders square.

"What does family look like?"

"Hiro," Yasuko admonished, keeping an eye out for Korra blissfully unaware up ahead.

"It's people you love," Asami answered honestly, instinctively gazing to whom she was referring, her father, her mother, and turning around to get a glimpse of Korra. Hiroshi turned her, his grip a little too tight.

"No that's not what I mean, true family, it's, it's like the portrait in the den, remember? A mother and a father and their natural born children, it's tradition, it's what's right, I need you to understand this."

At the time Asami didn't understand, but she'd always tried to at least appear an exemplary student, so she nodded.

"Good girl, I want you to think of that painting as the blue print of your life, and save your hand holding for the man who will complete yours,"

Asami remembered finding it hard to swallow, but her only instinct led her to once again nodding.

"Are you ready?" Korra's voice knocked her out of her reverie, and the memories, as they came to the clearing. They were above the canopy of a deep and endless forest, and beside them the base of the trunk of the banyan tree loomed over them.

She felt the weight of him heavy in her hands, looking down at the box, until Korra's palms came under it and cradled it steady.

"He doesn't deserve this." Asami shook her head, resentment boiling in her stomach that he should be given a beautiful resting place, and be absolved.

"This isn't for him," Korra told her, it was then Asami looked up, caught her gaze, held her there.

Korra held the box as Asami opened it, unfurling the bag, staring down at the ash inside. The wind was already taking him.

"It's okay," Korra assured her, and it gave her the courage to take a handful of remains and drain them over the cliff's edge.

After a handful, she took the box and kneeled, pouring her father over the edge, watching the updrafts take him over the treetops and farther away, and all the answers with him. On shaky, bandy legs she stood, lighter, emptier and clearer in her mind than she felt in days.

After the hike they'd had she didn't expect Korra to be stood so close beside her. She didn't protest when Asami turned into her, and tucked her face under her chin in a hard, tight embrace.

"Thank you," she uttered into her throat. Korra didn't respond, but held firm, watching the last clouds of Hiroshi fall away over the horizon.

It was then she felt a large, salty drop hit her eye, and another.

"Ah!" she winced, "Again?"

Instinctively Korra grabbed a hand and began to drag her back down the trail with her. The downpour catching them despite their efforts to outrun the storm. It couldn't help but become a chase, Korra attributed it to the serotonin coursing through her body that her lips found their smile, and Asami's did too. They were soaked in minutes, and had many more to go before they reached the car.

"What's the use!" Asami laughed, and it was the good laugh. They had come to a plateaux where the forest met lake, beside them a platform for boats to moor off. Abandoned for the off season.

"I didn't dress for this," Korra lamented, running her fingers through locks of wet hair. "Well don't stop now! Let's go,"

"Why? You don't want to relive the good old days?"

"What?" Korra turned to face her, but Asami already had her hands prone, aiming for her shoulders. "Asami no-!" but she was already falling, clawing at Asami, yanking her quite unexpectedly down with her into the drink, waist deep and floundering until she found her grip on the deck.

"Why did you do that?"

"What difference does it make? We're already soaked!"

"Not my underpants! Hey…" Korra trailed off. Even through the downpour it was clear that Asami was staring at her, her expression had dropped into something far darker than the mirthful trickster that had pushed her in. The look she gave snatched her breath and locked her where she stood under that jade gaze.

Asami waded close to her, chest to chest, hips to hips,

"What are you doing?" Korra protested, softly, so that she herself could barely hear it. She was already raising her hands to her waist, and angling her head. "What part of the good old days was this?"

Asami guided her lips over her mouth, the press was gentle and tantalising, and while the rest of the world dropped its temperature and filled with the white noise of rain hitting water, they were their own fire, burning slowly, and building over time. It was softer than the last, more exploratory and tender. Caught off guard Korra gave in, enthralled with just how amazing it felt to kiss her best friend.

"I don't want to fight this," Asami's voice was small, her breath ghosting over Korra's lips, Asami nosed her the corner of her cheek possessively, her fingers fisting the sides of Korra's T-shirt.

"There's a reason you haven't seen this," Korra whispered, as gentle as pillow talk, as though the world wasn't rushing at them with icy sensation, "you wanted more than I could ever give you…if this is what you want I need you to be sure,"

Asami's hand came up to cup her jaw, her gaze enamoured with Korra's mouth, she rose her thumb to trace its curve, stroking lovingly.

"Before, when I felt nothing, I knew you were my home, now I can't stop shaking when I see you. I've made mistakes Korra, kissing you is not one of them."

Korra instinctively surged forward, kissing as firmly as the first time, feeling the tug of Asami's fingers thrilling her at the back of her head. She was of two minds, battling all the while, dark, light, right, wrong, at the time she had a hard time distinguishing which was which.

"I can't."

"I know," Still Asami kissed the corner of her mouth, and Korra didn't move to let her go, "Korra I-"

"Don't say it," Korra opened her eyes, she was confused and desperate but this she was sure of. "Not unless you're free to,"

Asami gave pause, inspecting her, the other two words trapped behind her teeth. She understood, and respected Korra's reasoning. Nodding, she pulled her close, cupping the back of her head and guiding her cheek to her own shoulder.

The cock of a gun had them flinching and clinging tighter.

"The signs say no trespassing," said a wizened cantankerous voice.

Slowly they twisted to face the twelve gauge shot gun pointed their way, and the tiny, grey haired, silver eyed woman pointing it at them.

Song 2 - Mary - Big Thief