"I thought they were dead" Ghan spoke, after a prolonged silence "I thought I had killed them by leaving them alone" the room felt cold. Ghan's statement was so painfully personal that every soul listening felt like an uninvited guest "I should have never left them alone" he cried softly.
Asami and Korra held on to each other. Asami's nails inadvertently left little crescent moons on Korra's hand, while Korra's knuckles lost circulation clenched around Asami's waist. It was a strange feeling, watching this man break in front of them, and not be able to do something about it.
"I tried going back to the desert" he wiped his tears with a dirty sleeve, leaving a dark stain across his face "I tried joining the other tribes, but I couldn't forget. No one believed what happened and it didn't take long for the desert to start messing with my head. It was driving me crazy" he sniffled "I saw mirages of Jaya everywhere, telling me I'd let her down, left her children out to die" he looked down, tears continuously streaming down his face "A part of me thinks she gave herself up to it. To the Spirit. So it would leave the kids alone." he laughed darkly "I know it sounds crazy. I've been told so plenty of times already. But they weren't there, they didn't see it: that thing went away with her. Half a dozen sailers it destroyed, yet it didn't stop until it had Jaya" He sighed, her passionate tone quickly replaced by the usual grief "She gave us time to escape. She died for them, and I still couldn't save them" the silence returned and everyone held their breath, not wanting a sigh interrupting the man.
"I loved her; you know. Jaya" he confessed "I loved her with all my heart, but she had gone through so much already. She came to us pregnant looking for refuge from the man that killed her husband and Akemi's parents. She adopted the girl as her own, and shortly after gave birth to her son. She was exhausted, you could see it in her eyes. So, I decided to wait, I didn't want to add up to her troubles" his words came out heavy with regret "I loved her, but she died, and I'll never get to tell her how much" he looked up, and stared at the one-way mirror "But then you told me Akemi was alive. At least I did that much for Jaya" he looked down again, his voice breaking "I just wish I could've saved her little boy too" he broke down crying, hiding his face in his hands. Lao-Tzu approached him, and rested a hand on Ghan's shaking shoulders.
"Thank you so much, Sir" he then said, his voice weak.
Lin shivered and looked at Asami and Korra, who still seemed a little spaced out. She then obscured the one-way mirror, the man disappearing behind it along with the heart wrenching whimpers.
"Can we thank him?" Asami blurted out in a whisper, still looking at the darkened mirror.
"I think it's best if we leave him alone, he's been through enough as it is" both women nodded absentmindedly "Any thoughts?"
"It can't be a coincidence that Jaya was running away only months before being taken down by a spirit. Nilak has to have something to do with this. He must have been hunting her down" Korra responded, missing the point.
"Yeah, I know, I don't need you two for that, I have agents working on it as we speak" Lin was only talking to Korra, Asami still looking at nothing.
"Then why did you want us here?" Korra complained.
"Because this proves Akemi is an orphan" Asami answered, and Korra knees weakened. Stupid. She had been so convinced they were going to take Akemi away to her real family, she never stopped to consider the opposite.
"That's why the social worker is here, to evaluate Akemi and update her status" Lin clarified.
"Don't you need proof of death?" Asami asked.
"Not after a year without a missing child report, no. And besides, we wouldn't know whose proof of death we'd need. We couldn't find Akemi in the system; she didn't exist in our records until you found her." Lin breathed in "Look, I thought I was giving you guys good news"
Asami and Korra looked at each other, knowing exactly what the other one was thinking. It was good news. Such good news in fact, that they both wanted to cry and laugh and hug the little girl waiting for them in the other room. But there was this other bitter feeling; the feeling of knowing that for them to find Akemi, the girl had to lose so much first.
"Do I call the social worker to start the paperwork or what?" Lin snapped, losing her patience.
"We need to talk to Akemi first" both women responded at unison. Lin breathed out and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Fine" she agreed reluctantly "But don't take toolong, I hate having Social Services looming near my precinct for too long" she opened the door to let them out.
Outside in the waiting room was Akemi, and alongside her Jin-Li sat on the ground, her brown pencil skirt no longer looking so uptight laying on the precinct's dirty floor. She was presumably the one levitating the pebble Korra gave Akemi, making the girl chase it around the room. She stopped running around as soon as she saw the two women stepping into the room and exclaimed excited:
"Look! I'm an earthbender!" she extended her hand towards the floating pebble and smiled wide. The women looked at Jin-Li, confused. Akemi didn't seem the same kid they had left her with.
"She insisted on waiting for you guys out here" the Social Worker said and with a small move of her finger made the pebble jump onto Akemi's hand.
"She seems… happier" Korra pointed out.
"Yeah, I'm good with kids" she dismissed, standing up and dusting herself off as she approached them. "And now that times aren't as pressing: a pleasure to meet you Avatar Korra, Mrs. Sato" she bowed, and the women followed suit. "I guess we have a few things so go over"
Turns out Jin-Li was pretty decent when she wasn't trying to rip their child out of their arms, although them not being so on edge might also have something to do with their change of heart. Korra and Asami talked to her for a while concerning the adoption process and agreed there was no need to rush things, as long as the girl stayed with them. They wrapped up the conversation after sometime of Akemi tugging on Asami's clothes insistently. The girl had grown bored after trying to levitate the pebble herself with no results other than strenuous looks.
"Can we go now?" she asked.
"Yeah, let's go home" Asami said and the girl immediately ran to the door. "Hey wait up" and there was no time left for goodbyes as the two women ran after her.
The arrival home came as a relief, they were so convinced they would return to an empty house, without the laughter, the running around and the casual fire related incident, that when they opened the front door and the girl jumped onto a sleeping Naga, they thought they would never be happier.
Naga startled awake, and greeted the kid lying on her with a lick to the face. Akemi let out a series of disgusted noises mixed in with laughter.
Korra looked at Asami, and squeezed her hand. It didn't come without weight, though. They still had Ghan's story on their mind, and the touchy conversation they'd need to have with Akemi later.
Although, later came sooner than Asami had expected, as Korra interpreted her gaze as a go ahead to discuss one of the most important topics of their life with the four-year-old.
"Akemi, can you come here for a second?" Both Naga and the girl rose their heads. Akemi approached them meekly, alarmed by the unusual seriousness to Korra's tone. The Avatar kneeled down to her height.
Okay, this is happening. Asami accepted the fact, joining Korra on the floor, were most life changing discussions should be had.
"You know while you were playing with Jin-Li, how we were in another room?" The girl nodded hesitantly. Korra looked at her wife and placed a hand on her thigh, Asami grinned and gave her a barely-there-nod.
Yes, we are definitely doing this. And Asami hadn't even taken off her coat yet.
"Well, that was because we were talking over some things, some grown up things. About you" Korra didn't notice the flash of fear that crossed the girl's face for the briefest of moments, but Asami took note and almost warned Korra to stop talking, but Korra kept going before she could speak up "About how you've been living with us for a while now and well... we wanted to talk to you about that" Akemi froze up in place, the glimpse of fear Asami had noticed a second ago came back with a vengeance.
Korra saw something was wrong, and looked at Asami and then at Akemi for answer, only finding the girl distraught look. She didn't know where she went wrong, but opened her mouth nonetheless, trying to find the words to fix it, but none coming out. Instead she only heard:
"You don't like me anymore!" And before their very eyes, Akemi disappeared upstairs.
A/N: Surprise! Jaya is not Akemi's mother.
Didn't plan for it to be a plot twist, but there you go. I just wrote this two chapters back to back and even though I could have sworn I mentioned it in ch19, upon rereading it, turns out I didn't.
Sorry. My bad. Hope you are not too disappointed. The origin story is still to come, as in, I still have to write it.
About the uploading schedule, because I hate myself, and love you, expect another chapter on Thursday. And again two new chapters by next week if I manage to get over this writing block *sweats profusely* Take care!
-TypingMitten
