There was a steady thwip of the chopper blades above them, beating heavy against the smoky winds as they soared away from the island, onto the next, where the hospital was.
Asami couldn't hear beyond this, in truth she wasn't paying attention to any of it, when Iroh was done patching Korra she kept her back and shoulders cushioned on her thighs. She traced her thumb from her temple, her cheek, to her lips, there she stopped, and that's when she noticed those blue eyes, open slightly.
For a second she thought Korra was looking at her like she was a stranger, and the worry throttled her insides, but those feelings dissipated when Korra took her hand with her own and pressed her cheek fully into her palm.
Asami didn't know she was crying until her own tear landed on Korra's cheek, and she swiped it, Korra's voice was too hoarse to speak but her lips started to move.
I'm okay, they said. but Asami spied dried blood still marring her temple, the bruised circles under her eyes, and the slow, pained way she blinked up at her. Asami fell forward and kissed her forehead, not missing the way Korra's fingers tangled weakly in the locks she could reach.
The next words caught in her throat, trying to think of something to say to make either of them feel better. Don't do that to me ever again, seemed superfluous, What were you thinking? Pointless; when Asami knew the answer was simply; being Korra.
She was a hero through and through, and to a flaw. Asami made a mental note to convince her to be villainous every once in a while. She'd settle for selfish in times like these.
"I love you," Asami told her, "I'm in love with you," she clarified in a voice she intended clear and sober, but she felt her eyebrows arch inward, her throat constricted with the thought of just how much she'd wanted to say it, as though all the ones she'd kept in came out all at once. "I love you Korra,"
Jinora, Meelo and Ikki were alive thanks to her, the gravity of that wasn't lost on the heiress. The trio were huddled in blankets in the clipped into the seats of the chopper, Iroh checking reflexes and letting them toy with medical supplies to calm them. Jinora couldn't take her eyes off Korra, namely her chest and stomach, visual assurances that the older woman was still alive.
She also watched the precious way the heiress held her, something in that gave Jinora hope, even though she couldn't hear what she was saying. That mystery was reserved for Korra, and Korra alone.
Her eyes could only widen in response, perhaps it was the loss of blood or the fact that she felt like she was literally floating. She tried to move her lips again, she was sure she at least formed the words, you and too, exclusively and in that order, but with everything fading but Asami she couldn't be so sure. She focused on her fingers on her skin, neither warm nor cool they were her anchors into this world. Korra tried to move her own fingers again, only she wasn't sure where she left them.
"I was so scared I wouldn't see you again, but you're okay, you're going to get through this…"
Asami was crying and stroking her head, and venting her anxieties now that she finally felt a semblance of safety. Korra felt none of it, as her vision fell inch by inch, further and further away from reality.
Iroh couldn't help but watch the exchange, he missed words, and couldn't see past Asami's curtain of hair, but he'd never heard her voice break that way. He'd never seen her hands shake before she touched him, or ever hold his face so intensely.
Korra's hand fell when she lost consciousness this time, luckily it was on the landing part of the trip. Iroh crouched beside them and he and Asami guided her onto a stretcher. The paramedics snatched her away so quickly Asami barely had time to say goodbye. She felt skinny arms reach around her hips. She opened her arms and three heads pressed against her in varying levels.
Asami couldn't say anything to comfort them, she felt a rift tear into her the minute Korra's skin left hers, it was infantile and stupid but she couldn't stop crying.
"She'll be okay Asami," Jinora squeezed her, "Korra's tough."
"Come on," Asami sucked in a breath and levelled her head, "Let's get you guys checked out."
She took small hands, and followed the doctors, but more had already come up to greet them.
She walked with them to the wards and stood by as the children were treated for smoke inhalation, breathalysing and sucking oxygen through nose tubes until their eyes rolled back into their little exhausted heads. Asami sat vigil twisting her fingers, until Iroh returned, their parents in tow.
Pema looked mortified and both stepped in doted on their children. The mother turned to Asami and took her hands.
"I don't know how to thank you enough."
Asami turned red as she hugged her, mostly because she was at capacity, and her emotions rushed north with no where left to go.
"I, it was Iroh and the military, really,"
"He told us how you wouldn't give up and the algae trail, you were our angel."
Asami's words caught in her throat, partially because she didn't know what else to say, mostly because she couldn't process anything without seeing that Korra was okay. For the moment she was gone from her, and no doctors had thought to tell her why.
"How's Korra?"
"I don't know I didn't want to leave the kids."
"Go!" Pema urged, squeezing her arms and letting her turn from the ward. The heiress nodded and made for the door. Just out of it a strong hand grasped her wrist.
"Asami," Iroh stopped her.
"Iroh," she bore down on her annoyance when she remembered with a warm aching chest what he did for her. "Thank you, they wouldn't have made it without you."
"You really think so?" he smiled quickly and modestly, "They seem like smart kids, I'm sure they would have figured something out."
Asami's eyes dropped as she remembered all too vividly the pool of blood they found Korra in.
"I have to go."
"Wait,"
She paused once, but swore to herself this would be the last time.
"You forgive me?"
She watched his face then, open, smeared with soot like theirs all were, still hopeful that doing the right thing meant undoing the wrong. As he stood there, mind flooded with the memories of the way his fiancee held Korra, spoke to her and kissed her on the chopper, certain things clicked into place.
"I forgive you, I thank you, but that's all there is to it." she watched him carefully as she said it, arms folded, body tense.
"Asami, you're my closest friend."
"What?"
He struggled with his response, jaw flapping a little as he struggled with his emotions and his adrenaline.
"I knew she was yours but, you were mine. I shared everything I could with you."
"Everything that wasn't classified." Asami snipped back, it was a knee jerk reaction.
"Please." She softened when she saw a tear score the ash on his cheek. "I'll help you pack, I'll seal the boxes, just, don't cut me out of your life. You're still important in mine. I still want you to love me."
"I don't think-"
"Forgiveness means moving forward - together."
Asami pursed her lips and watched this once-goliath, shrink before her.
"I'll think about it."
Asami didn't look at him long enough to let the guilt set in, she found a nurse and got her attention nearby, leaving Iroh dumbfounded where he stood.
"The woman who came in by chopper, with the burns on her side and shoulder and head wound where is she?"
"Are you family?"
Asami knew the caveat, and understood if she said the wrong thing here the medical staff would shut her out. She said it quickly, without pause and with utter conviction. Still it felt loaded on her lips, as though she were jinxing everything by speaking the words aloud, especially in the light of recent events. Well, as recent as a week ago.
"I'm her wife." she lied, for a good cause. It wasn't until moments later she realised Iroh must've heard.
The lie worked, and the nurse smiled at her and led her to the intensive care unit where Korra was.
The curtain around Korra's bed had been pulled, but the nurse pushed through and Asami was pushed in as a nurse was wringing a sponge with Korra's blood on it.
"This the partner?" said the nurse to her colleague, and Asami nodded. "We usually give the spouse an option to administer sponge baths…"
Asami stuck out her hand without waiting for the second option. Korra was unconscious on the bed, and letting another person touch her just felt wrong. This is insane your jealous of medical staff now?
She switched places with the nurse, running the sponge over her temple and cheek gently. She didn't like the way her face pulled when she did this, and so ran her thumb over her cheek as she asked.
"No one's told me anything about her condition," she tried to yank her emotions back into their former cages, but right then it was impossible and her eyes had an insidious habit of leaking as of late.
The nurse rattled off a list of medical terms in quick succession. Asami barely registered as she concentrated on watching Korra just breathe.
"We're treating her for smoke inhalation and third degree burns on her ribs and shoulder, avulsion wounds on her ribs, and puncture on her shoulder. She has substantial bruising and has lost about two pints of blood, we've got her on antibiotics, morphine and O pos. Her wounds have been cleaned in surgery but there's still a lot of ash that needs rid. She'll be coming around soon, but really she just needs rest. Will you be okay to work around this?"
She gestured to the bandages, now finally no longer soaked in blood and dirt, but delicate underneath none the less.
Asami nodded weakly.
"When can I take her home?" she asked, wondering herself where home for her might be.
"It depends on how she does." the nurse replied cooly, and the heiress nodded.
She was wiping her hands now, black soot and blood covered her fingers, as well as a glittering of algae. Asami laughed, a desperate mad panicked laugh, through the tears and said.
"I think I'll need more water soon."
The nurse only nodded and left to retrieve some. Asami wrung out the cloth she was using and changed for another, following a patch of ash that marred her jaw and neck, she leaned over the bed to get it.
"Are you coming on to me?" the voice was small and hoarse, but she could hear the smile in it. Asami was over her face, her lips an inch or so from her own, yet she continued with her ministrations unperturbed.
"Trust me, if I was, you'd know."
"Everything hurts," Korra told her, before finding the morphine button and clicking another 10cc's of bliss into her veins, "I told you so." she murmured sinking further into the bed as Asami perched on the edge and started untangling her gown with shaking fingers.
"That's what you get for going up death mountain without me,"
Korra let out a laugh and then a wheeze as it pained her.
"You should sleep." Asami told her, turning so she could wipe away the block of ash that stopped shy of where Korra's shorts had been.
"And miss this?" the ice sculptor whispered, excitement lacing her weak voice. Asami felt her own lips twitch into a smile despite herself. She went on to wipe away the sweat and blackness on her feet and legs, limb by limb cleaning and caring for her in silence. It wasn't especially romantic, but it represented something much deeper between them, Asami was sure she'd tapped into this feeling before, but in this context it was entirely encompassing. Finally Korra spoke, when she was scrubbing her palm free of the dirt in the grazes.
"I feel loved by you."
Asami looked up at her, her eyes were closed, but her face loose and calm. It's probably the drugs, Asami mused.
She was no longer tensing when she touched her, and felt safe enough to be touched and drift on the verge of sleep. It was then Asami stepped to the head of the bed and leaned over, kissing Korra's lips tenderly, softly, with only the intention of giving comfort as well as taking some for herself. It was as though her lips slid into place, a perfect fit that was gentle and secure. She noted the way Korra's oxygen tube jutted into the space between her top lip and nose, but tried not to let it bother her.
"It's about time." she told her matter of factly. "Go to sleep."
"Whatever you say Mrs Missus." she mumbled, more than a little blissed out.
Asami watched her go, stroking her hair as she settled deeper into the bed and drifted off.
Asami wished to collect herself, but it was too late she'd already let more tears seep. She sniffled and swiped them away, before peeling back a corner of Korra's gown to reveal the ugly yellowing bruises peeking out of her bandages here and there. The air left her lungs as though she had been socked in them.
The nurse came back then, replacing water and bringing new cloths and noted how shaken the heiress was.
"The worst of it is over," she assured, "How long have you been married?"
Asami's heart began to skip in anticipation at the lies she was just about to spin, eyes down, wiping at Korra's right shoulder now, careful not to veer too far left she replied.
"This was our honeymoon." she responded, deciding it was easier to keep it all close to the truth as possible.
"You've gotten through this," the nurse assured, eyes soft, "the rest should be easy,"
Asami only pursed her lips.
"You don't think it's a bad omen," she couldn't help but let the bad though eek out through her lips, and hated herself for even thinking it, but as she looked down at Korra's bruised and wounded body she couldn't help but think of how she'd made Korra come here.
"Bad would have been if you and your helicopter friend hadn't been there. Four casualties, four survivors," the nurse shrugged, "We're not always so lucky."
Her logic was difficult to argue with, given what her days must've been like here, but still it didn't assuage the blame Asami put on herself. So she set her mind to the task of washing Korra's body, in apology, in regret, in a need for her to simply be okay. She'd done this before under different circumstances, in a hotel room not far from here, yet felt a million miles away. At a time when they showered together for the first time, explorative and triumphant as they shared every piece of each other with affection and adoring touches.
When finished, she combed her fingers through Korra's still wet hair and noted how eyes closed, skin glistening she looked re-born in it. Now all that was left was to wait for her to come around again.
Asami sat on the chair beside the elevated bed and waited until her head hung forward as her own exhaustion began to take over, and she balanced her forehead on the sponge of the mattress at face height. On the cusp of sleep but too anxious to let it take her fully. Some hours later Korra woke, sober, in pain, and out of sorts. Her gasping roused the heiress, and as she looked up at her, it was clear the realisation of where Korra was, or what had happened, hadn't quite hit her yet.
"'Sami?" in the darkness her voice croaked, and she pulled a face that was surprised by how alien it sounded.
"I'm here." The heiress stood and took her hand, Korra reached over with her left, wincing and hooked her fingers over Asami's wrist, to be sure to keep her there.
"The kids,"
"Are fine, they're with their parents." Asami smiled at her with watery eyes, fingers of free hand stroking her hair over her temple, "They're being treated for smoke inhalation, but they're okay, thanks to you,"
Korra studied the words intently and finally nodded when she felt like she understood them. A lot of overwhelming things were happening, and all she had in her to do was cling to Asami.
Suddenly she began to shuffle, and Asami's heart skipped and body bubbled with anxiety as she struggled. She lifted the blanket and held onto the heiress' hand, not tugging, just waiting.
"There's other beds Korra,"
"That's never stopped us before,"
Asami's heart skipped a beat. So much of her former life she had fallen into, done as she had been expected to, the right education, the right career, the right husband, and she'd never really cared for any of it. Korra however; she'd chosen. She'd elected to share a bed when they had the option of two. She'd decided to kiss her, the minute she saw who she was.
Korra had given her time, and a little too much space for her liking, but Asami had made her choice, entirely on her own. She loved her.
Asami gingerly arranged herself alongside Korra, careful not to touch until she took her hands and placed them in safe spaces. Korra even tugged her close until her cheek rested on the unburnt shoulder. Together they settled, and Korra, eyes closed, started to feel a certain familiarity with Asami's with body sleepily twisting into her.
"Do you remember what happened to you?" Asami whispered, even though they were relatively alone in the ward, they kept to nighttime voices out of instinct.
"How can I forget my worst nightmare come true?"
"The chopper? The surgery?"
"Those are a blur." Korra whispered, rubbing her tired eyes.
The heiress' heart fell through her this time, she's forgotten I said I love you.
"Hey I'm clean." Korra noted, "I don't even feel sea water on my skin. Did they wash me?"
"I-uh did." Asami admitted and Korra turned to look at her in surprise.
The heiress felt blood hot in her cheeks, but continued.
"You were awake I thought you knew, and you seemed pretty into it, and we- I'm sorry I didn't mean to cross a line-"
"No- no, Asami, it's okay really I just," Korra's hand found Asami's cheek in the darkness, levelling their eyes as best she could tell, "I'm glad you're the one looking after me…I trust you."
Korra used her hand on her jaw as a guide, and pressed her lips against Asami's cheek in the dark. The heiress relaxed into the hold, keeping it firm her herself by cupping her neck, praying this would jog memories of being cradled in the air.
A nurse came and went in the room, uninterested in the pair as they sprung apart only to have Korra wheezing when she was gone.
"Are you okay? Do you want me to call her back?"
"Yeah I'm sorry it's just, so instinctive to hide."
"You might want to work on that…" The heiress trailed off, and Korra caught the tension seeping into the air as they lay there.
"What?"
"Remember how you trust me?" Asami began, searching for signs that this was about to go as wrong as it could get, that she'd gone too far and Korra would pay back the time she kicked her out of the bed.
She then decided, given her current physical state, the latter was unlikely.
Asami bit her lip, like a child pondering the consequences of a ripped band aid.
"There was a chance they would only speak to family so I…" Asami trailed off, boldness waning, she'd remembered the last time Korra was in hospital, the staff had kept so much from her, even though Korra had called her first. It had been a mind numbing ten hours until her parents could fly in from the Great White North, talk to doctors in a locked soundproof room and then update her with the fact that Korra would live, only after a long tortuous night of imagining what her funeral would look like. She couldn't go through that again.
"I told them we're married."
"Wh-at?" Korra said it breathlessly, covering her mouth. At first Asami thought she was angry, her gasps harsh and confused, but as she heard her sniff and watched her wipe her eyes, and saw the flash of teeth, she saw something else entirely.
"Oh God I've broken you."
Korra was laughing, and crying quietly as was her way, but her eyes were bright and her hands didn't quite know what to do.
"I didn't want to be kept out again so I told them this was our honeymoon and, that Iroh was a friend-"
She stopped blathering when Korra gripped her elbows at the shirt and pressed her forehead against her clavicle. Asami urgently tangled her fingers in her hair and held her until she could level her breathing.
"Korra what's wrong?" Unbeknownst to Asami, it was just the opposite.
Korra's chest was an echo chamber of emotion, the bitter ploughed over by the sweet reverberating in her ribs.
We're married hit her so hard that even though it was just an idea it changed her.
When Korra saw the smoke of Makapu, the first thing she felt was anger. In the past it had kept her going, and kept her alive, and it may well have helped in her determination to keep those kids from being taken from her. Korra was angry at a universe that hurt her and once crippled her, she was angry at her own inability to to go after what she wanted and felt a certainty she wouldn't survive to see it through now that she was. She was angry it decided to blow up her worst fear on right at the crux of her dreams coming true and she was angry; right up until the moment she lost consciousness on the boat speeding away.
In the moments in-between, her body weakened, and before she'd had a real say in it, had begun to let it go. It was with those few words that Asami had taken the last of her anger out of her, pulling out the poison that blocking chi for years; Korra was left gasping. We're married - The minute Asami had said it those emotions forced their way to the surface like a geyser.
She'd started letting everything go, what was happening around her, all her fears for the future and with all that gone; past memories flooded in, first steps after her accident, lying with Asami on the sand for the first time, sleeping with her hand clasped in her own, eating poi with scuba goggles perched on her head, camping with her high school friends in the rain, and sharing champagne with her best friend as their tent slowly filled with water.
These spontaneous visions gave way to something else, a future she had formerly never let herself imagine, the pair moving boxes and falling over them in a new apartment, a vacation in snow with her parents watching them hold hands from behind, the heiress waiting for her at an altar, and later pressing flowers from her bouquet in a wedding album.
Eventually she peeled away her hands from her face to knot them in a lattice over her chest, the heiress stroking her arms, confused and in awe of a behaviour she had not yet seen from her best friend; weeping and smiling.
She was coming down from it, the surge of adrenaline unhindered by channels usually blocked.
Korra felt new appreciation for the hands holding her, trailing a path of electricity on her skin as her touch stirred her heart in a deeper way. Asami's eyes were a brighter more lustrous green than she had ever seen them, even the most familiar things were new again.
It was then she knew, all that anger, and that the universe had thrown at her, was worth it, to feel hope like this for the first time in her life.
Asami felt her shaking still and her hands grip hers with purpose. Her eyes that were practically glowing and it was then she kissed her, hard and full on. Asami tasted the joy burning on her lips. This was old Korra kissing her now, no holds barred, nothing in her way, I'll take your breath away, and you'd better deal with it.
Asami reciprocated by holding tighter, the idea that she could hurt her small in the back of her mind as each kiss felt like a second chance they'd never get.
"I love you." When Korra pulled back the confession fell out of Asami, who touched her tingling lips with her finger tips just to prove they were still real. She sucked in a breath, and collected herself, "I told you before, but you don't remember so I'm saying it again, I love you, Korra."
"I love you," Korra said back, omitting the 'too' because it wasn't a response, it was a statement that rang true with every part of her being.
When the intensity had faded, which took some time as their bodies had spent the night thrumming with adrenaline, Asami once again lay tucked into Korra's good side. Both flat out exhausted, Opal found them in a deep sprawled out kind of sleep.
She'd spent the first twenty minutes of her visit debating wether or not to wake them from their tangle, but something in the way they held each other, Asami sunken peacefully on top of Korra's arm as though nestled in a wing, her own hand slipped in her gown to feel the heart beat beneath her chest. Checking, even in sleep, that Korra was still ok.
Eventually the bustle of the ward did the waking for her, at least for Asami anyway who woke with the expression of a confused pouty teenager, training her one then working eye on Opal as she stood, baring gifts.
"I got you some clothes," Opal explained, and Asami slammed her eyes shut from the alarming fluorescent lights that now seemed blinding.
"What time is it?"
"Almost eleven." Opal explained, "Most of the ash has passed over the island and there were minimal casualties as most of the lava went in to the sea. They let us go back to the hotel to collect some things." she lifted the armfuls of folded clothes, and placed the blue pile at Korra's feet.
"Thanks," Asami begrudgingly mumbled, taking the red from her assistant.
"Is she?"
"She'll survive," Asami told her, "We were…talking last night… She has third degree burns and avulsions and punctures, she's been given blood and antibiotics…the nurses said the worst is over."
"Did they tell you all that?"
"I…I didn't want them to keep her from me so I told them we were married."
"How-" Opal studied Korra's sleeping features, anticipating the bad reaction she might have had, "How'd she take it?"
Asami didn't take her eyes off of Korra as she responded.
"We said 'I love you', for real this time." Asami should have smiled, but couldn't help but feel like Opal was an omen she couldn't bare to look at.
It was then Korra began to awaken, but rather than open her eyes, engage and be part of the conversation, she lay there feeling Asami move above and beside her and listened to them speak.
"Iroh's still here, outside."
Korra tried not to let her tension show, and it must've worked, because Asami still pressed against her lay her head on her shoulder and breathed her in.
"He still loves me." Asami mused, she turned her head, letting her lips brush the gown warmed by Korra's body. "Even though he did what he did."
"Why do you think he's still hanging around?"
"Because I forgave him." She said turning from Korra, slipping off the bed, Korra felt the distance a thousand fold then.
"Did you really?"
"Yeah." Asami told her simply, "I'll always be in debt to him." she took the clothes from her friend and made for the bathroom. When she was gone, Opal took her place as vigil at Korra's side as she pretended to sleep.