A/N: One more part after this. I've been working on it at the same time as this one, so expect it in the next couple of days.
Every night, Mako comes back to Air Temple Island with a stack of case files under his arm. "I can concentrate on these better over there," he says to Bei Fong, who doesn't even look at him as she waves him out the door.
The stack sits next to him during dinner, where he tries not to get caught watching Korra pick at her food. And it stays propped near the table while he helps with the clean up. And when he re-enters the family dining room with a pot of tea and two cups, there is a folder on the table in front of her, and she is carefully turning the pages.
She looks up when she realizes he's back, and the look she gives him is slightly embarrassed, hand coming up to shade her eyes. He knows better than to acknowledge it. He just plops back down on the floor next to her and takes the next file off the top of the stack, pulls a pen out of his jacket, and starts looking back over a witness report.
It's quiet, just the flutter of pages and the scratching of a pen, and every once in a while, she makes a hmmm or a huh.
"Did you…" she starts.
He looks patiently at her as she ponders the question.
"Did you look into the girlfriend's story? Because what the other witness says here doesn't match the…"
"Yeah, I did," he says. "And you're right. Something's really off. We can't account for her whereabouts between 10 pm and 1 am that night."
"Hmmmm…" Korra's brows furrow, and she taps her upper lip with one finger as she keeps reading.
The truth is that they closed that case weeks ago. But he doesn't have a lot of open cases right now, and this has been helping. Or at least it seems to be. Though Bei Fong would probably flay him he she knew he was letting the Avatar in on police work.
Her eyes stay on the page, but he can see her concentration shift from what's in front of her to something inside of her, and he holds his breath. He can never quite tell if she's just daydreaming or if something darker is going on. She'll just fade away for full minutes at a time.
A deep inhale lets him know she's back in the present, and just like that, she's scanning the page one more time, her hand brushing over the creases, her teeth tugging at her lip.
"Where'd you go?" he asks.
"What do you mean?'
"Nothing." He laughs a little – because she never seems aware that she does it – and reaches over to the stack to pull a folder off the bottom. "This case has been cold for a while. See what you can make of it." He flops it down in front of her, and she grabs at it eagerly.
Ten minutes later, her head keeps nodding forward, and he grabs her by the shoulder to keep her from smacking it on the table.
"You should go to bed," he says.
"I want to finish reading this."
"Finish it in the morning."
"Don't tell me what to do."
He looks up and sees her grinning at him. Her face is soft, but her eyes are red, and her smile turns into a yawn so big he can see the back of her throat.
"Yeah, ok," she relents.
"You need help?"
"Just help me off the floor."
He stands up and grasps her by the arms and lets her use him as leverage to get on her feet. They're close when she stands, close enough that he can smell her hair. And for no reason he can think of, he loops one arm around her shoulders and pulls her into an awkward hug. It's quick, but she leans into him a little bit, and he feels like he could stay there forever.
"What was that for?" she asks, her look slightly sarcastic when she pulls back.
"Just saying thanks for the help." And thank you for being alive.
He reaches down to the floor and grabs her staff, which she's been using as a cane.
"Well, good night," she says as she takes it from him.
And he watches her make her way slowly out of the room, one foot in front of the other.
"Yell if you get into a jam," he calls after her. And she waves him off as she rounds the corner.
…
He takes the tea things into the kitchen and doesn't even bother to turn on the light, though the sun has almost settled behind the bay, and the room is full of shadows.
As he sets the cups on the counter, he hears a shifting in the corner and turns to see a small figure sitting at the tiny table by the window.
"Oh!" he says.
With a wrinkled but steady hand, she places her own teacup back on the surfac. "Mako, right?" she says.
He has never been alone in a room with this woman, whose white hair collects the fading sunset and radiates it back outward like a halo.
"Master…uh…"
"You can just call me Katara." Her voice is slow and precise and commanding, like she is accustomed to people doing precisely what she tells them.
"Right," he says. But he can't quite bring himself to say her name. "You didn't have to stay in here. You could've come in there and…"
"I didn't want to intrude," she says, and before he can offer a protest, "Besides, this is my favorite window in the house."
His tongue feels strangely dry. He has never been intimidated by Korra's ever-impressive retinue of living legends, but this feels different. It's like being trapped in room with a spirit older than time itself. It feels like an opportunity, like he's one of the heroes in Jinora's books, who is gets a rare audience with the oracle. And he doesn't want to blow it.
"Young man, make us some more tea, would you?"
He nods and turns to fill the kettle and reach back into the cupboard for clean cups.
"It's not easy," she says, and he can feel her gaze on him without even turning around. "Being in love with an Avatar."
He scorches the hairs on the back of his hand while lighting the burner. "We're just friends," he says reflexively, turning the gas down a notch and setting the kettle on top of the grate.
"My mistake." But when he glances at her, he sees that she is smiling at his discomfiture. The lines around her deep blue eyes are laughing at him. They look like Korra's eyes.
A minute of silence passes, and the only sound is the kettle heating up, the agitated water pinging like the pebbles Bolin would bend at roof gutters when they were kids.
"How did you manage it?" he finally asks.
He hears her breathe deeply and turns to see her looking out the window. "You have to hang onto the parts of yourself that are just your own," she says. And he is confused but doesn't want to ask too many questions. The kettle starts singing, and he reaches to take it off the stove and pour the water over the leaves in the diffuser.
She continues looking out at the bay as he walks back toward the table.
"I never really liked Republic City, you know. This was Aang's dream. But my home was always in the South."
He looks at the blue robes she is wearing, a strange contrast to the yellows and oranges he is used to seeing on everyone in this household except for Korra. And it strikes him that at one point, this used to be her house. Or at least it might have been called hers.
"Love involves compromises," she says. "But Avatars come and go. And they belong to the world. And when they leave, you are left with yourself. With others, of course, but mostly yourself. So you had better know how to tend your own soul."
He clings to his cup as she turns her eyes back to him, and he feels suddenly transparent.
"We make our sacrifices. But you still need a life of your own. You still need to want things that have nothing to do with them. This is true of all lovers, but especially… especially…"
The air in the room feels alive, and he stares at the horizon line until it is almost totally dark, and all he can see of her is the silhouette of her face, a shadowy hand lifting the cup from the table.
"I saw him die twice," she says. "The first time, we were still children, and I brought him back. The second time…"
He feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And a strange and ghoulish thought enters his mind. "What is it like?" he asks. "Being around her, when she's…you know, when he's…" He can't quite find the proper words. Because the concept of one person dying and coming back as another has always felt abstract to him.
"When I went to meet her for the first time, I wondered the same thing." The waxing moonlight reflects in her eyes. The shadows that are her hands pull her cup closer to her body. "But when I saw her, she was just this little girl – so wild and so completely this other person…"
He thinks back a year to Korra pushing and shoving her way into his life despite all the ways in which he tried to resist her, until the point when he would have done or said or given absolutely anything to keep her with him. One time when she was storming out of their office (not the last time, but not the first time either), Bei Fong just laughed and shook her head. She couldn't believe how different…
"The Avatar Spirit is what lives on," she says. "We love the human – the mortal – who bears it. I loved Aang as Aang. And I love Korra as Korra. And you will find, if you continue to stay in her life, that they desperately need someone who knows the difference."
He has seen Korra take on the aspect of a god, and he has seen Korra pushed to the limit of human endurance, and he has also felt her blood hot and her breath heavy and her skin pliable beneath his touch. It's this last version of her that was, for a time, his and his alone.
"Love her well, Mako," she says. "Love her in whatever way you choose. But guard your heart."
He tries to drink the dregs from his cup, but he nearly chokes on it. He is thankful for the dark, because his eyes feel hot.
…
The next day is his day off, and he has forgotten to make any plans whatsoever. The morning is warm, sun heating the paving stones of the courtyard as he comes out of the men's dormitory in search of some way to occupy his time.
A sound that he thinks is a grunt comes from the direction of the training platform. And then something like a whoosh of air. All the airbenders are gone…
He jogs toward the sound in time to see her finish the form – sort of. She's unsteady on her feet, using her staff for stability. She is breathing hard, sweat beading on her forehead.
He freezes, knowing he has walked in on something he isn't supposed to see, but he isn't sure how to make an inconspicuous exit. She starts the form again but stumbles out of the first turn and catches herself with a hand on the ground. It's then that she sees him, her shoulders slumping forward as she just sort of lets herself collapse.
"Don't tell anyone, ok?" she says.
He jogs forward and helps her off the ground. She leans heavily on the staff, and he wonders if he should go find her wheelchair. Instead, he whistles at Naga, sitting several yards away. And in seconds, the polarbear dog provides a nice place for Korra to slump.
"How long have you been at this?" he asks, taking her arm to help her sit on the ground. She leans back into Naga's flank, and he settles down next to her, knees drawn up to his chest.
"About two minutes before you showed up," she says, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply as she catches her breath.
"Do you want my advice?" he asks.
"No, Captain. I do not."
"Well, your form looks like shit," he says.
Her incredulous expression dissolves as bursts of laughter shake her body in between hard breaths, and finds himself smiling at her as she takes a corner of her shirt and dabs at her sweaty face.
"When you feel up to it, I'm going to teach you how to bend lightning."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
Her head drops back against Naga's white fur, and she closes her eyes, as content as he's seen her since the fight. But her forehead still creases, and he wonders how much pain she's still in.
He looks ahead, giving her that much privacy as she finishes composing herself. His back is slightly tense, and he stretches his legs out, settling against the polarbear dog himself, so close to Korra that their shoulders are practically touching. The sun is back over the mountains, casting it's long rays over the island and flooding the bay with light.
"Are we ok now?" Her question is weary, like there's a "finally" hanging onto the end of it even though the word never left her mouth.
"I think so," he offers, hoping she'll take up the thread with some conciliatory statement of her own.
Instead she sighs and lets her head fall against his shoulder, the gentle weight of her sinking into him a little at a time. And even though he's touched her countless times since she was hurt, lifting her from her bed to her chair to the dinner table and just about every other place on the island, there is a tightness in his chest this time. As she shifts, the backs of their hands touch where they rest next to each other. And even though the warmth of her skin practically burns him, he doesn't move away.
"At least you aren't still sleeping under your desk."
He laughs a little; it was so long ago he can barely believe she remembers.
"Shocking as this may sound, it was even less comfortable than the Air Temple beds."
She sighs again. "Well, Asami said you just needed some time to get over it."
Asami is too damn smart.
"Over … you know …"
"Yeah. I know," he interrupts. The last phrase he wants to hear from her mouth is "break up."
He shuts his eyes, suddenly weak and weary. And the next thing he knows, his cheek is pressed against the top of her head, and his knuckles are gently brushing against hers, fingers extending slightly. She sighs deeply. He feels her entire body heave upward and carry his with it. And he closes his eyes and turns his face so that his lips are pressed into her hair. "I'm still not," he whispers.
A breeze from the bay picks up strands that have sprung loose from her wolftail and tickles his face with them, but he doesn't move. Her body shifts slightly, pressing against him just a little deeper. And though he can't see her face, he is almost sure that he feels her smiling.