Song 1 - Causing Trouble - Saint Sister

What the fuck am I doing?

Korra gave her grimacing, practiced frozen smile while Asami insisted on a parting embrace.

What the absolute fuck drove me to agree to this?

The minute she heard Asami leave the studio, the twisting in her stomach had her sinking to her knees. Index finger balanced on the seal of a closed door.

"Ah fuck," her face still hurt, her eye still stung, her heart pulsed relentlessly. I can't keep doing this. She didn't speak the words aloud. Every time she thought about preserving her sanity another masochistic part of her stifled the idea quite expertly.

That same clandestine organisation mobilised her hands and feet, already she was seeking her tools, knowing old doors would need oil, old bolts would need tightening, old splinters sanded down. She remembered that she had an old nail gun downstairs she could use to blow her old brains out.

She had them laid out on her kitchen island, imagining the evenings to come.

Korra wanted to scream, but in that moment a flash of red stilled her, a digital 1 beaming from her answering machine. Korra only remembered Asami's request after hitting the play button.

" Korra…Hey,

Iroh's asleep, but you probably guessed that."

She sounded scared, her voice breathy and shaking. When she paused, she seemed steel herself.

Korra hadn't heard her best friend sound this way in a very long time.

"…I had a nightmare and you were in it.

I just, I needed to hear your voice,…but I guess, I'll settle for hearing your voice in the machine, and pretending to talk to you…"

All of Korra's twisting stopped as she listened, and listened carefully.

"…before I knew it - I had already dialled your number…"

She knew, on the surface of their lives, Asami cared for her. She knew that in a lot of ways Korra was all Asami had left. For the most part it went unspoken, and her best friend seemed satisfied with that. Alas here she was, speaking it.

"…I need to be better for you Korra…I will be better."

Her husband in bed beside her, Asami had reached out and called Korra in the dead of night.

In a moment Korra felt adored, pouring over her in so many waves she hardly knew what do with it all.

I can't keep doing this.

She took a deep grounding breath, coming to an awful, gut wrenching decision. That everything, once more, had to change beyond recognition.

I can't keep hoping.

She rewound the tape, and played it again for good measure.

Asami had spent the morning bolstering the rooms of her new-old house with boxes. She felt small walking among the stacks. In her haste she'd ordered appliances that the movers had installed but hadn't removed the plastic. Beds lay unassembled upstairs. The back yard a ruin of time and neglect. Her bravery waned when she rediscovered a mosaic that her mother had started, and never finished above a bath. Her parents had separate bathrooms, the way their relationship had been going at the time, it wouldn't have been long until they had separate wings of the house.

Asami relived her time there, from room to room, once a sanctuary, now a tomb.

A lot of her father's and her own possessions had been taken, but her mother's were left stood in place, very much abandoned. For the better part of her plans, Asami couldn't conceive of moving them. Still when the felt strong enough she sat at her bedside, and opened the top drawer.

Her eyes sought for the handwriting since she set foot in the house. Would it be too much to expect a lifelong treasure hunt left behind by a mindful mother sensing the end of her days? However inadvertently, she seemed to be doing just that.

It was with a keen sting that Asami recognised that she hadn't had closure in almost any part of her life, and she had grown numb for it. It was why she was drawn back to her childhood home, it was why she scratched at the bottom of the wood in the hopes of a false bottom.

With a reluctant pop the panel raised, Asami's heart began racing as she scrabbled to release it. A leather bound book with a golden date embossed on the front. It was a journal, but it was the Sato way to never leave evidence, if so, it was with great reluctance.

Incomplete, the last of its kind, a pen still nestled in the pages. The book fell open, and Asami before she could to question the ethics of reading her mother's diary, she was already scanning it hungrily. How could she not when it was all she had left of her.

When I return, I shall take my daughter away from this shallow life, and this shallow man who takes us for granted. This I swear.

She stared at those words for the longest time, unable to take them in, what they meant.

"Hey," she was so lost, she nearly jumped out of her skin at Korra was at the door way, "Where do you want us to put the couch?"

Asami hadn't expected her today, so soon, bruises barely healed.

"Us?"

"You didn't think we'd let you do this alone did you?" Asami hadn't realised she'd been clenching her jaw until her best friend smiled at her, and her muscles turned to goo. Seeing her was almost enough to assuage the bomb that had just gone off in her mind.

Following her downstairs, the rooms somehow seemed less haunted.

Bolin had already hauled a box labeled 'books' to the empty library, happily unpacking the many manuals and textbooks onto the bare shelves. Mako balanced a stack of pizza's between two hands, only identifiable by his sharp eyebrows peering over them.

Opal was lounging on a corner couch piece left by the movers waving at her friends as they descended the stairs.

"Guys, you don't have to the movers-" Asami began to protest.

"Have been sent home." Opal informed her grinning, "You don't need them when you've got a crew."

"Can the crew get off her butt and help me organise these by colour?" Bolin teased.

"Guys, furniture first then incidentals," Korra instructed.

"The yard too, dinner is a barbecue so we have to sort the yard out." Mako deduced, peering through bay windows to the jungle outside.

"Fine we'll split into teams," Opal concluded.

"I call team yard!" Bolin raised his hand.

As her friends argued over who got to help her in which way, Korra fell in line beside her, arms folded to match.

"You didn't have to," Asami protested quietly, gentle smirk on her lips.

"I wanted to." Korra told her brusquely, "We wanted to…show you you're not alone." she corrected herself. Avoiding eye contact she paced to the sofa Opal still lay on and lifted one end with an impressive ease.

"Where do you want this lump?"

"Hey!" Opal protested.

"Oh I'll show you," Asami grabbed the other end and the pair lifted her assistant to the living room like an Egyptian queen.

"Actually, I could get used to this."

It all happened so fast, Asami felt her friends galvanising at super speed around her, arranging, shaping, building, peeling off plastic with a collective satisfied awe. All the while carrying her through swathes of sadness by just being with her. She couldn't remember the last time they'd spent a day together, focused on a single task.

She found herself standing in the kitchen, staring out the window at her friends. Lawn now tamed, the tall grass in a pile at its corner, Korra and Bolin wrestling over the hose.

Korra turned him in an instant of trained precision, and soon Bolin was careening nose first into a pile of greenery. She didn't have long to bask in victory however, Bolin sprayed her directly in the face.

Asami smiled, or at least, she thought she was smiling.

"Hey," Mako stood beside her, offering her tissue for the tears on her cheeks. Asami pursed her lips and took it without speaking.

"This isn't- I'm not,"

"I know," Mako gave his wry smile.

"I'm grateful for this," her throat closed up.

He touched her arm gently, squeezing.

"We'll always do this for you," he assured her, "This and more."

"Who are you and what have you done with Mako?" Asami chagrinned. He saluted awkwardly, before tripping over the door jamb and passing Korra on her way in. "There he is,"

"Look what I found," Korra placed a box on the counter, turning knobs it began to crackle and sing, until music poured out with complete clarity. "It was in your shed," she was still dripping on the linoleum, hair tied up and gardening gloves crumpled in her fist. "Your little workshop was just as you left it,"

Asami knew her friends would always show up for her, but she also knew it was Korra leading the charge.

Korra was where she never hoped to be again; alone with her. When she found the station she stayed squat, watching the little pink radio that had amazingly remained intact after all these years.

Korra doesn't know what possessed her to say it, and one part of her was kicking her for speaking at all.

"I'm going away for a while." she didn't look up as she added, "after we're done here,"

"Where?"

"I haven't-I'm not sure," Korra stammered. "South, maybe farther,"

"For how long?" Asami tried to keep the panic from her voice.

Korra stood, not facing her, watching their friends debate the best way to spark up an ancient grill through the window.

"I don't know," Korra answered honestly, omitting the as long as it takes to get over you.

"Is this about June?" Asami pressed, and Korra tensed, feeling sick. "Because you can't…be with her?"

"No," she answered simply, "Not it's not,"

"Then why are you doing this?"

"Well, I was just grossly overpaid for a huge wedding commission," Korra shrugged, attempting nonchalance, "I missed out on so much waiting to be better, I just…I feel restless now. I need to go. Just for a little while."

"You said you wouldn't let me do this alone." Asami couldn't stop herself from saying it, or from sounding petulant.

Korra didn't respond right away. She turned leaning against the counter, inspecting her . Her mouth flapped searching for something to say, until she managed the obvious.

"You have Iroh and your new life, your new house, you'll be okay…right?"

Asami pursed her lips, of course she should be, would be, but imagining a life where she couldn't call on her best friend at any time sent her anxiety into a spiral. She had to remember this wasn't about her. Korra needed what Korra needed.

"103," she told her, green eyes flicking down to the radio on the side.

Korra crouched and did as she was told. Turning the wheel, changing the channel.

A hand between her shoulder blades made her tense, warm fingers burning through her partially soaked vest. The song was soft, and gentle, as was the moment that followed.

Korra stood, turning slowly, a hand graced the bare skin of her upper arm and stepped into her space. Arms crossing behind her neck, Asami gave her that sad smile, trying to make the best of it all.

"We didn't finish our dance the other night,"

Korra thought she was going to have a heart attack until her cheek found her neck once more, and settled there, like she belonged. It was becoming a pattern of hers, whereas before she was clinging for life and catching her breath, now she was simply with her, holding her close in solemnity, and calm.

Korra couldn't think of anything else but taking her in, holding her up, until she took her fingers to her chest, and started to sway.

Korra often forgot how much taller Asami was, especially when she buried herself in her arms in such a way, but when her chin met her temple she was reminded. Her breath fell out of her, but Korra did everything to remain silent.

She was convinced her palms were sweating before her mind began to shrink. Her body thrummed as the electricity she'd spent a decade avoiding coursed through her. Despite it all, Korra was powerless.

"You have to call me wherever you are," Korra could feel her breath warming her skin, "Let me know that you're safe."

In leu of an answer Korra let her arms take her in, pretending that they were anything more for but a moment. The danger being that those three irritating little words, were battling their way up her throat. Don't say it.

Luckily the song ended, and Asami spoke first.

"Follow me,"

Korra was numb to anything that wasn't Asami's hand curled in hers.

She barely registered the turning of a key, the opening of the basement door, the seconds between loud painful heartbeats.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

They descended stairs, Korra grabbed the banister to steady herself, fingers skimming ribbon and polished wood in the dark.

"I found it on my own a few days ago," Asami switched on the lights, "and I thought I just, I had to share it with you,"

Korra blinked slowly, more of less because her senses took their sweet time returning.

"I don't understand." but she quickly caught up. She caught the framed Gi on the wall, and another, slightly smaller. They were Asami's, robes from childhood til the last time she was there. There were climbing bars ready on the walls, weights in the far corner, training mannequins and the entire floor was covered in foam mats. Each and every free standing item had a bow around it.

Korra saw a 16th birthday balloon, long since wilted beside them.

"Oh Asami,"

"We totally forgot about my birthday that year," she deadpanned. "Mom was so good with her secrets."

"She was amazing." Korra said matter of factly, "like you," she tacked on without thinking about it but the impact it had made her want to hug her again.

"I was thinking, since you got your butt kicked, we could train again, but you're leaving so…"

Her fingers were around Korra's heartstrings, and tugging ever so slightly. She was doing this on purpose, Korra knew, but that didn't mean it wouldn't work. Korra cupped and gripped the back of her own neck.

"I think we can squeeze in a training session to put your mind at ease, although I did I beat you enough times." Korra defended.

"You call 89 over 73 even?"

"You counted?"

"You didn't?"

Korra's mind boggled, they'd fought hundreds of times, but she'd never looked at the numbers. She might've guessed why Asami had won so often though; it's hard to fight against your crush with conviction.

Korra pointed with her pinkie and index finger, eyes narrowing.

"You're going down,"

"Right now?" Asami's cheeks burned, body tensing, she hadn't meant now, with everyone upstairs.

"Hey guys the food is-whoa," Saved by the Bolin, he was admiring the gym from the top of the stairs, his big body builder eyes glittering in awe.

"That's great, I'm starved! Come on guys lets go!" Asami rushed, swiping her hair behind her ears as she marched.

"What about?" Korra pointed.

"But I…?" Bolin whined.

"Come on,"

When the night seemed to draw to a logical close, Asami barely held it together, and lost it completely sometime between Mako's forehead kiss and Bolin's hug.

"This was a barn raising honey," He told her, rubbing his cheek enthusiastically on her head which couldn't help but make her feel small and sheltered.

"Come on you big moose," Opal rubbed his back.

"They grow up so fast!" he swiped his eyes and let himself be led away.

"I'll see you," Korra gave that odd three fingered wave, "I'll pick up the tiles from the hardware store tomorrow."

"Korra wait," The others were far enough away that it wouldn't feel selfish to ask, "I had a bottle of wine I was saving, if you're free."

"Don't you want to save if for-"

"He's out on War games, he won't be back for a few hours and I…" she trailed off, her fears simple and obvious.

"Alright,"

They sat on the couch they'd assembled that morning, and although it, and the glasses in their hands, were hers from her old place, here they felt jumbled and confused.

"How do you feel?" Korra pressed, eager to keep the conversation away from herself.

"I- next question," Asami's smile turned into a grimace, swirling her red and sipping. A laugh fell out of her companion.

"That bad?"

"I loved today," Asami told her, "having you all here, but I, this place, it's just not easy."

"I know."

Asami looked at her face in the flickering candle light left over from their living room dinner. It seemed preferable than seeing the it in all it's former glory, and made it instead a warm cosy place.

"Do you really have to go?"

"I…do," Korra nosed her own wine. She hadn't acquired the taste, she did appreciate the levity it brought to her in a few simple sips now that she could stomach it. "It feels like the last part of what I need to heal,"

Before she could even flinch cold soothing fingertips framed the marks under her eye and cheek, faded now, but still visible.

"He really did a number on you didn't he?"

"I will fight you now,"

Asami found her laugh, hiding it in her wine as Korra grew more indignant.

"I will, I will kick your ass, I'm telling you,"

"You love me too much," she teased.

"I will break your teeth," Korra added unconvincingly and Asami snorted, swatting at her, catching her hand to keep from falling.

Her laughter petered off as a thumb traced her own, and Korra fell back into watching her quietly.

"Do you think I'm a fool? For doing this?"

"I think you're brave," Korra answered without hesitating, "You're older and more equipped to deal with this place, honestly, I'm surprised you never looked back sooner."

"I couldn't I," Asami hadn't meant to start down this road, a thought she hadn't yet herself examined, "I've been so numb," she admitted, "and this place is opening it all up for me. I'm enthralled…but I'm also terrified."

"The past is scary," Korra mused, concentrating very hard on her wine for that moment. The silence stretched, and all the heiress could feel was the heavy pounding of her own heart that came coupled with a secret.

"I think my dad was cheating on my mom, before the end."

"What?" Korra tensed, well aware of her own brush with extra marital affairs, and very much still sore from it.

"I found her diary…I read parts. The last thing she wrote was, she was going to take me and go, and god it would have changed everything. I hesitate to think that maybe, I'd be happy."

Another beat, longer than the last, as Korra's blues studied her.

"You're not happy?" she breathed, a revelation that felt like a curse pinning her here.

"I'm not sure you'd want to hear it…I don't know anyone who would…" Asami looked down at her wine, dark and swirling. She could fall in it and keep falling if she let herself, if she didn't know Korra was behind her to catch her.

Korra's fingers couldn't help but reach out, and graze the side of her palm before retracting instinctively.

"I'm here."

Asami took a sip, and let the words tumble from her red lips.

"This doesn't feel like it should, being married," she subconsciously illustrated what she meant via the turning of Iroh's ring, "I don't know if I was this empty before, but I am now and I don't know if it's this house, or, or him or me," she closed her eyes, "all my dreams were in this, but right now I just…I don't feel content like I hoped. And now I read this and…I look like my mother but…I feel like I'm turning into him, caring less, back sliding I-"

The idea of Korra presented itself to her more readily than the actual Korra did then, the amalgam of mystery women, and June, the married woman she loved, but could not be with.

Her eyebrows arched in their worried way, mouth gulping a larger taste of liquid shame.

"You are not your father," Korra's hand had found hers instinctively, and held tight "Iroh's got his new job so he's not around, and this place has got to be dredging up all these memories you're not used to… but it'll level out."

"Am I a bad person?" Asami heaved a breath, still looking ahead, not daring to look at her best friend. The sound was enough to finally draw her comforting touch, like a beacon of warmth, the sculptor's hand graced her neck. "I feel like I did this because I had to but I wasn't feeling anything, and now I'm awake, but I didn't know, Korra I didn't know I could ever feel like this again, and he's gone all the time and we can't sort this out, but I'm not even sure if it's him-" her pitch rose and breath escaped her, for the first time in a decade Asami's facade slipped from her cheeks and shattered on the ground.

Korra acted without thinking, as she tended to around Asami, plucking her wine from her grasp and turning her face back into the warm crook of her neck. Her body twisting instinctively into her arms.

"I can't tell you what you're feeling right now is temporary, I can't tell you to forget it and move on because this feeling is real and it's uncomfortable." Asami seemed to still as she listened to her, softening, letting Korra hold her up, "You're the smartest person I know. Remember why you did this."

"Because…it's the dream, isn't it?"

"Who's dream?" she couldn't tell how wide Korra's eyes were, she couldn't tell how her heart raced, even with her ear pressed against her pulse.

"Everyone's, it just makes sense… doesn't it?"

"Does it?"

"All my life I've thought about that painting, and wanting it, it was my blue print, and I'm so close but it just isn't…" she could hardly bear to untangle the knot of thoughts she was in, that she'd apparently spent a lifetime weaving.

"It hasn't been long," Korra's voice sounded soft, and small, "you've been through a lot…" she hesitated to ask if she'd been sleeping. The corner stones of Asami's life were being pulled into question, and every word fanned the flames of Korra's hope.

The hope that she was trying her level best to stamp out.

"Yeah," Asami conceded as they parted, and Korra seemed to put in more distance than before. She swiped at her tears. "More wine?"

Asami knew Korra would stay if she finished her second glass, that she would fall asleep there. She knew that Iroh would find them in the small hours of the morning, slumbering side by side.

She knew that he would lay a blanket over them, and quietly attempt to familiarise himself with what was to be his new home.

It all made sense, and it soothed her to an extent, that she understood at least these two people.

She could never guess she'd spend that same night dreaming of lips flush with hers, of fingers carding through her hair, clothes being parted in the shuffle and a body soft and supple pressing hers into the couch she'd fallen asleep on. She had to admit it had been a while since she'd felt the urge, perhaps it finally feeling a semblance of safety in her new home that allowed her psyche to let loose, and relax. She'd taken the first big step, and now was time to reap the rewards.

The dream was visceral, filled with sensation and burning heat. It didn't matter she couldn't see who kissed her, who's fingers skimmed her abdomen and had her core clenching. It was obvious to her, who she should be dreaming about, and had no qualms over scoring her nails down a muscular back, and sliding her own hand into parted jeans.

Turning her head to let lips kiss the column of her throat, she moaned and the name fell out of her quite unexpectedly.

"Korra,"

"Shh," came her reply, those perfect lips smiling evenly for once, before capturing hers again in the dark.

Asami woke with a start and rose sharply. Blanket falling, she found Korra out for the count. Using her own folded arm as a pillow, sleeping mouth still pouting as expected.

None of it was real, but the effects were undeniable.

Oh my god, Asami's hands clasped her mouth. She stumbled over the coffee table, tipping long extinguished candles over, before peeling open bay doors to a freshly mowed garden in the throes of a crisp, cool, morning dew. Sunrise a mere hour away, she hoped the cold would sober her, would make her skin less feverish and her heart slow it's rampant pulsing.

Her nerves were balanced on a blade as she pushed her palms over chest for fear it could wake Korra, and oh the questions that would ensue. When she closed the door she spied Korra's jacket, still slung, forgotten over a bistro chair, more importantly she found the cigarettes nestled in the inside pocket.

She scrambled for them, desperate for anything to make the world stop. She had already sparked the end and taken a drag before she remembered she quit five years ago. These were death sticks and she swore them off, so had Korra. It only made sense to turn to them when her feelings became too much for her, when everything in her life was spectacularly falling apart.

Fuck.

Song 2 - Animal - Sir Chloe