Song 1 - If You Think It's Love - King Princess

Song 2 - Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

Asami's eyes burned, her jaw clenching, and her thumb crunched down on her index and ring fingers sequentially as she listened to Mako. She didn't have to go, she didn't have to subject herself to more trauma, they had him on witness testimony alone, whether or not he would take an insanity plea for lenience, she and Korra were safe.

Korra wasn't here to talk this through with her. For comfort, for guidance, for her vilified opinions on her soon-to-be-official ex. As disheartening as it was there was a single pro; that Asami could murder Iroh herself and her best friend wouldn't stand in the way. Just have to get Mako to be cool with it.

She looked him up and down, with his hair quaffed back, air of authority and badge firmly clasped on his hip even on his day off. Who am I kidding he'll never be cool with it.

"I'll go," Asami cut him off, "For closure."

"Are you sure?" Mako questioned.

"Are you sure you're not insane?" Opal pressed.

"No, and unclear," Asami blinked finally, "The wound is fresh and frankly so are the nightmares," Her brain throbbed as it conjured the searing memory of Korra screaming. "If I see him, ensconced, it'll help, I think."

"He's there, locked up, there's pictures," Opal snatched the mugshot from the files and pushed them into Asami's hands, "There's a police report, he's not getting out, not until the trail,"

"I did this to him,"

"No, you are not doing this out of some sense of misplaced guilt. He shot you, any loyalty you had left to him is off."

Asami's eyes skimmed the type, courier new, her fingers could feel the indents under the paper, warm and fresh.

Diary of Y Sato.

She didn't know what she was looking for, but it wasn't that. The words were barbs, as if Iroh hadn't taken enough from her, he had to steal from her mother too.

"There are things I have to say,"

"Say it through a lawyer like a normal divorcee, god, Korra just left town and asked us to take care of you-" Opal seethed.

"So come with me, we'll go tomorrow morning, set up an appointment," her tone shut down further protest. She turned the files over to her Assistant in a power move she usually reserved for the boardroom, still her rage was unbridled and it was difficult to reel in, "About that divorce…"

Already Asami could see the chain reaction in Opal's brilliant mind, silently planning the course of the day, removing obstacles and burdens without so much as saying a word. All Asami had to think about was the outfit that would be the most devastating. A pant suit with fuck you stitched into the pin stripes. The black Prada with the pencil skirt would have to do, paired red pumps with steel in the heel.

In the early hours, she left the firehouse guided by a cavalcade of undercover cop cars, evading press. Bejewelled, bruised eye shaded, lipstick dark and bloody like war paint, silk gloves covering the ring she now refused to take off, hair sleek and in a cogent wave balanced on her shoulder. Her adrenaline coursing through her every vein, warming her cockles in the crisp morning light.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Opal asked, handing over the minted divorce papers with the same reluctance one would have giving bacon to someone about to go swimming with sharks.

"I'm being brave," Asami whispered so quiet, Opal took a moment to understand what she said, "like Korra," and another to wonder if Asami knew what her counterpart was really up to.

Her heels against steel floors petered off behind closing doors and turning locks, and Opal listened for them until the last moment, barely present until she felt the calm circles Bolin was rubbing between her shoulder blades.

Instinctively, she leaned into him and his lips and scruffy chin brushed her temple.

"Tell me they'll be okay," she breathed.

"Z'ey'll 'e o'ay," Bolin murmured against her skin, and she smiled.

"They have you, us, mainly you," Mako chimed in, eyes up at the first signs of PDA. Opal rolled her eyes, and let Bolin sway her.

"This is crazy." she breathed, "we were at their wedding a month ago,"

"Now we know why Korra looked like she was about to jump off a bridge."

"The sapphics of Republic City would have been devastated." Opal chagrinned.

"They still might," Mako smirked, "now she's found her mark."

"They've been in front of each other all this time," Opal hummed, "just orbiting for a decade and a half,"

The trio fell into silence as they observed the memories of their friends fondly in their mind, searching for signs of what they'd found in each other, in the before. Scandal, betrayal and secrecy aside, Bolin found clarity in his most recent memories; the breakfast that morning and the tender embrace they' d walked in on that preceded it; the rosetta stone for all that had occurred.

"Have either of you seen them this happy before?"

"Asami," Iroh's voice was a husk, his wife could hear the soreness in it, from shouting, from screaming, but here it was soft, eerily so, "It's good to see you finally,"

He stood, in his jumpsuit raising his shackled hands as high as they would go above the table.

"You're joking."

"I'm not, you look well considering…I'm so-"

"Save it," Asami seethed, "You didn't call me here for some measly apology,"

"I'll admit I thought there was a chance we'd both make amends,"

Asami scoffed.

"You shot me."

It only took a simple jab for his true colours to bleed through.

"You went behind my back and whored around with that-that dyke," there was a slam that had Asami flinching, her eyes snapped to the point of impact and saw Iroh's meaty palm pressing the cover of her mother's diary, amongst other publications, "your parents must be rolling in their graves to see what you've become. Oh wait, you had them obliterated so they wouldn't do that."

She bore down at the need to snatch at her mothers words, that he'd read, and invaded on secrets that Asami was not yet party to herself. She wanted to weep, she wanted to scream, but instead she said in a tone even and measured.

"What do you want from me?" as she spoke she removed her shades, revealing the bruises still purple framing the jade of her eye. She hoped they would cut him from sight alone. He winced, as though he himself were, however briefly, afraid of the man that had made them.

He spread the pages beneath his hands, calmer now, the headlines Asami read for the first time.

FUTURE INDUSTRIES CEO IN LESBIAN AFFAIR

SECRET LOVE GETAWAY NEAR GAO LING

SATO BRIDE BEDS MAID OF HONOUR

"The truth," though he was gentle now, the words brought back the memory of the last time he'd asked for it, the sting in her cheek, her nose, her shoulder.

"I told you before, Iroh," she spoke nonchalantly, still reading, removing her gloves, hoping the flash of silver would kill him stone dead, "I love her,"

"Before our wedding?" He gave pause before saying, Asami knew it was from the acute piercing sting of the ring she wore, deep into his chest, preferably twisting.

"Always,"

"You've always been gay. Is that what you're saying? You're infatuated with her as a tween, daddy says no, so years later you marry me?"

"Its complicated," her fingers traced the diary, the leather notches rough and smooth all at once beneath her thumb and forefinger. She looked up, recalling her own evidence, "You never wanted to be with me, not forever, you were going to leave me at the altar, why didn't you?"

"It's complicated,"

Asami sat now, drawing her fingers, skimming the articles while he waited. Drawn to the pictures, the moments she'd thought sacred, desecrated by the press. Korra's smile, only for her, captured and sold, stolen like pieces of her soul. She pointed to a date, speculating when if all began, the paper was wrong, it missed so much out. How Asami felt when Korra kissed her, at once powerful and vulnerable, alive and astral. How safe she made her feel, the conflict that marred those early days. The agony of just the thought of losing her best friend, or betraying her husband.

"We slept together on the fourteenth," She pointed at a timeline in the Sun, "we kissed for the first time a few days before, it was raining, and she ran into it, and I wanted to follow but… she said she couldn't do this, that I was making a mistake...as if it hadn't already been made." she made a point of looking him in the eye as she said this.

"You kept going?"

"When we got to Gao Ling I said I didn't want to fight this, and she…she showed me everything she felt," her lips smiled fondly at the memory. Trailing off she relived the moments, in claps like thunder, Korra on her knees, her face between her legs, holding her up, her fingers filling her on the couch, the bed, a cacophony of mouths and lips and breasts and shaking hands. "Sex with her is more intense and emotional than I have ever felt with anyone else," she tried not to jab him with it, despite its implication, "still she wanted me to test my feelings with you, but the more time I was with her I knew."

She swallowed an apology, she couldn't not for that, but it seemed to fit right there.

"In our bed?"

"Never,"

He paused and inspected her, his own memories.

"You kissed her before I left," He deduced aloud, recalling the clothes they were both wearing, the red on Korra's lips and neck, "in the gym?"

Asami pursed her lips, averting her eyes, nodding. After all she'd done she thought she'd be used to the sensation of a tonne of bricks falling on her head by now.

"Did you fuck her in the gym too?" he accused, "In the kitchen? The parlour? The stairs? Were you rolling around the board for a lesbian fucking cluedo?"

Asami snapped her eyes back to his, sharp viridian's had him flinching back into his seat.

"You don't want to know, Iroh, you don't want to know she stripped me how she went down on me on the kitchen counter after you left and had me seeing stars! Your pot roast cooling on the stove while she fucked me against the fridge, or how I spent three days testing the limits, learning every inch of her with my tongue," she went too far she knew, but every word that seemed to whip him gave her vindication. The wound on her shoulder still howling, began to simmer instead she she struck each blow, sated by them.

"How could you betray me like that?" he looked sick, weepy, a startling change from the anger he'd held a minute ago.

"We were liars, to each other, to ourselves… and then you shot me,"

Iroh heaved a sigh, regretful, but without remorse it seemed.

"You were in the way," he said simply.

In the moment of impact, of bullet piercing shoulder, Asami had known this. He had been aiming for Korra, but hadn't cared if he hit her in the process, or at least hadn't thought Asami cared enough to shield Korra with her own body. Still her repressive memory had shielded her from this until now, and the idea that anyone could or would hurt Korra, made her hungry for blood.

Rising, slowly, fingernails prone on metal of the table between them as she loomed over him, she spoke, her voice even, deep and dark.

"Listen very carefully Iroh because I need you to understand - If you so much as look at her ever again - I will kill you. I don't need a gun to do it."

His eyes dimmed in her shadow, his aura wilting in her fury, new and devastating all the same.

"So you have absolution then,"

Asami pushed aside the papers and placed her own in front of his hands. He looked down at the divorce papers, disbelief in his visage however inexplicable.

"I want you out of my life." she took a pen from inside her lapel and dropped it on top without finesse or care, "Sign these,"

She snatched a newspaper and the diary while she could, turning on her heel and making for the exit as though she'd stolen from the vault. She didn't make it far when his hand folded around her still tender wrist and she lurched away from him.

"Wait," there was a weakness in the crack of his voice that, against her better judgements, gave her pause, "I am sorry since we started…I need help, its not an excuse…"

She watched him, rescinding his hand back into his lap and cradling it with the other as though he'd been burned. She went over the revolving door of personalities he'd seemed to have of late, one after the other, that followed tangents each more different than the last.

"I read in your personnel file before coming here today," she murmured, soft, sympathetic but for this, he gave her a confused look, as one would give when admitting to what was essentially a crime. Technically one Opal had committed by digging up his confidential black ops files. "You'd been on some pretty rough tours this past year, working up to the promotion. Saw some things. Forwent therapy. You told me none of it."

"What does it matter?"

"I was your fiancé, and then your wife, whether I loved you or not, I couldn't connect with you. I couldn't help you,"

His gaze turned up to her then, earnest, curious.

"You hurt me Iroh. Potentially worse than even my father. Maybe your job did this to you, maybe its the world we come from - you have a laundry list of issues that you kept from me and it created such a massive overreaction. Affairs happen and people can get through them without drawing a weapon. If you'd have listened to me, on the day…I would have said I'm sorry for my part in it, and clearly in the public eye I'm more humiliated than you - but I can't apologise for actually falling in love. Korra and I…we should've been together before you and I even met."

His eyes fell onto the diary in her hands, instinctively she clutched it closer, her mother's ring digging into the leather cover.

"I know,"

Asami's breath was snatched from her then, as though she'd been holding it until that exact moment. Eyes closed and lips pursed she felt it, the bind around her chest relinquishing, finally, finally, free.

"I just…" he babbled, lost, confused, conflicted, "tell me there's forgiveness in our future."

"Even if you deserved it," she opened her eyes, flickering between him and the documents that would purge him, "I wouldn't know where to start,"

With that she bolted as fast as her heels and decorum would take her, clutching the writings to her breast until she sprung out into the open air. Opal stood straight upon seeing her, shoulders falling, relaxed, until she saw what Asami was holding.

"You knew about this? Coffee no paper this morning, I thought you were frazzled but you knew," the trio balked in silence, watching her, breaths heaving, shoulder howling in pain finally, gloves and papers contorted in her hands so she could show them the front page.

"Stop looking at me like that you knew, I know I had you keep it in confidence, Korra, Iroh everything, but I- I had a plan and it was going to happen slowly, we could control the press and everything would be okay and the company and our lives - Opal I'm sorry," she shook her head, tears leaking. A hard lump formed in her throat as her mind followed the stream of consequence behind a simple headline. The company she'd ripped up from the ground after her father's scandal, surely couldn't survive another, not of this magnitude. Of course they know, I was an idiot to think anything of mine is private.

"Korra asked us to keep the papers away from you,"

"What?" Asami keened, ripping open the front page to the second, a double page spread on Korra and her family. Quotes and testimonies given by correspondents at the Water Tribe Tribune. Her father the mayor, in all his regalia complete with family portrait, dimpled Korra in her wolf tails. It was such an old family picture that it was new even to Asami.

"Oh God," she covered her mouth, "they all know,"

I don't think they'll like it. The pain on Korra's face when she'd said that filled her minds eye and had an already pounding heart clenching.

"She knows,"

"Her mother isn't sick?" Opal shook her head, unwilling to say the rest, but it was clear in her silence. "Get the jet,"

"It's already on the runway," Opal gave a smirk, that disappeared as Asami snatched at her, yanking her into a strained, tight embrace.

"You're my best friend," she laughed helplessly.

"Korra's your best friend," Opal admonished, but couldn't help the mist in her vision then.

"Korra's my soulmate," Asami let her go, "So you've been promoted."

Korra resolved to hide in the sleeping cabins for as long as she was on the ferry. The twelve hour journey had all the amenities passengers of all kinds, might need for making the trip, a bar, a deli, arcades, duty free, and for Korra, potentially hundreds of people who would recognise her from birth.

More than once these trips had become impromptu high school reunions - the absolute last thing Korra needed given the nature of her own.

In the middle bunk of a triple bunk bed, hood up, arms folded, chin down she feigned sleep for as long as she could. Until the passenger on the upper bed opposite her started tipping over the edge with the curl of the choppy sea. She spent the better part of an hour nudging him back up on his bunk with her foot, as he snored loudly, rolling, unconscious and seemingly barrel like.

Eventually he gave a large snort and woke himself up, squirming deeper into his little pod that gave Korra the time to feel her hunger brewing. She hadn't had anything to eat since Asami's breakfast that morning, already that felt an age ago.

When the brewing; became gnawing, became nausea, she got up, shielding her face as best she could with her hood, pacing the corridors before she heard the din of passengers milling, and machines lighting up dropping prizes, coins, money and food. Something about the idea of home and being on the boat gave her a craving for Water Tribe cuisine, however disappointing it might be out of a vending machine or canteen.

It wasn't until she had a cup of steaming seaweed noodles in her hands did she begin to relax a little, in her own little world as the fragrant dish sent her senses sizzling with a lifetime of memories.

She looked about the lobby and the bar, at the families and travellers coming home or visiting for a long list of traditional festivals that Korra no longer bothered to keep track of. For a moment she considered the notion that no-one here knew, that no-one here cared, that she shouldn't worry so much about what people thought because it was simply more likely that they didn't think of her at all.

Until of course, a sallow, snark voice taunted her from her periphery.

"Come to grovel for Uncle's forgiveness, have we dear cousin?" Desna sneered.

"It is bold of her to return after completely humiliating herself and her entire side of the family." Eska followed, the twins in their matching robes and hair cuts sidled into place looming over her at her table.

She'd almost finished her comfort food, swallowing the last bite turned bitter at the sight of the spectres in blue, and in Eska's case, purple eye shadow.

"No matter, we should be thanking for her salacious activities, after all our father shall be reaping the benefits soon,"

"He was always the better Mayor - "

"You know what?" Korra tossed her spoon into her cup on the table and stood, "I'm sorry cousins, I can't listen to this," she snapped, pocketing her hands and turning them up empty, "for I am fresh out of fucks to give you,"

She gestured again with her empty palms for emphasis.

"And I am just so sorry, that you two are either going to die alone lonely bitter people never knowing love, or together with only the other for company, and I cannot fathom which fate is worse truly."

Korra felt her eyes darken as her own vengeful soul creeped out through her eyes, and for a moment she thought she watched her relatives pale at the sight of her,

"Worse than either of those two horrible ends; is that a newspaper could look at how inseparable you two are, and see it as salacious, or something a thousand times worse than the love I have found with a woman. So. Back off. Or I'll start a rumour even you can't crawl out from underneath,"

Their cousin had been unassuming and meek in their eyes before this point. A weakness of their father's opponents political campaign that they were aching to exploit. Yet at her venomous words, the twins looked sick and actually recoiled from her.

Wordlessly she stalked back from the bunks, not exactly proud of what she'd said, owing that they were in close enough proximity to be heard by literally anyone.

The ferry was pulling into port soon any way, so she made to get her bag and coat from the luggage check with what felt like a thousand eyes watching her.

She sat leaning against the wall to the exit, heart thrumming, stomach churning, desperately concentrating on her breaths to centre herself.

In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth…

On she went until the final clamps had been secured and the doors swung open. Korra pelted down the walkway into the oncoming storm. She was so riled and feverish that the icy shards and sharp wind were welcome as it seeped into her open coat. Flurries of snow swirling above and around her, errant flakes landing on her skin and evaporating instantly. She'd missed this feeling. Her body knew that this was meant to be her home, but her memories told a different story.

Korra got in a cab and was grateful the driver had to concentrate on the road in the blizzard.

He said no more than, "It's going to be a long one, but the worst is a while off."

Korra already knew this, her scars tingled before bad storms, for a moment she wondered if Asami's would too. Asami, she thought, it was enough to just hold her in her mind then and get lost in the memories. Her smile, her hands, Korra loved her hands, she missed them.

She held her own and traced her thumb over the crook of her left. It wasn't the same.

Before she could dwell the car pulled to a stop. She fumbled putting cash into his hand at the window and she watched after him as he peeled off into the building white fog.

Her boots met with the crunch of snow, eleven steps to the porch, and another to the bell.

Senna opened the door and stared. Heart in her throat as she watched her daughter, looking back, pensive, tense, twisting the strap of her bag with both hands.

"Can I come in?"

Her mother was numb to everything except hospitality, stepping aside for Korra to enter. Still she stepped back in to the house and while Korra closed the door she didn't remover her coat.

"Well," she began, dropping her bag on the floor "I'm home,"

"Why are you here?"

"Are…are you kidding? I came home… to talk about this?"

"There's nothing to talk about," Senna's response was reactionary. Korra knew her mother had done nothing but think about what she'd learned. She also knew from her tone that she hadn't come to the conclusion she'd hoped.

"The world is talking about this, the tribe, hell you started the conversation by calling me."

Senna's jaw worked, her arms coiled tighter over her chest.

"Now isn't a good time. Your father he's dealing with the tribe and-"

"Who cares about a bunch of bigots frozen to their traditions until they die clutching them - I am your daughter - I've found someone I love-"

"A married someone," Senna snapped, the bone exposed, reeling, hand gesturing wildly to expel the energy of something she found truly bizarre, "a married woman someone you never told us you were interested in-"

"You know her name, it's Asami, Asami Sato, Asami Sato who took care of me and loved me before she even knew what it was. You don't know what we've both had to get through to get to this point, the self loathing, the doubt, her husband-"

"We raised you to know right from wrong Korra, you just- you can't expect to do this and have us be okay with it,"

"Do you mean the affair or the homosexuality?"

"I-"

The phone trilled from inside the house but it gave Senna a fright. It was part of the storm procedures, call around, check in. It was probably Tonraq. Korra remembered; lock the windows, seal the shutters; check on the elders, the neighbours.

All Korra could think knowing this was that she still had time to find somewhere else to stay. The last thing she wanted was to be trapped here.

"I can't deal with this right now," Senna whispered, and made for the phone to cut it off.

"Then don't," Korra croaked. When Senna turned to gauge her meaning, she was already gone, sprinting with tears stinging sharp on her cheeks.

She didn't know where she was running until she had the coast in her sights, she didn't particularly care. She came to a skidding halt on the cliffs, and with nowhere to go or hold her anger she could only stand there and let it consume her. She wept and cried out only to have her voice drowned out by the wind.

I'm such an idiot. She swiped at tears and sore cheeks as she thought, I should have brought her.

Asami was with their friends in Republic City, an ocean away from being able to hold her through this, yet in that very moment, it was all Korra wanted.

She was so lost in her self loathing and brooding she barely noticed the figure pottering over the cliff side. When she did she did a double take. An elderly woman was embarking on the steps that hugged the cliff face, in a bath robe.

"Katara?" Korra followed, and felt relief that the elder looked up at her with recognition in her face.

Still Korra inspected her for perhaps too long looking for signs she'd finally gone senile.

"Korra! What a surprise! Well don't stand around, you should head on home, storms coming,"

"I can't," Korra yelled back over the wind and Katara took her turn to inspect the younger woman. She held out her hand.

"You can hunker down with me," she told her, eyes crinkling in that gentle way. As Korra took her fingers she noted that she was decidedly being dragged away from Katara's home near the cliffs, and yet further down them, down down, until the steps stopped at a door way, and Katara produced the only key.

"We were going to wait until you were an Elder to show you this, but given the circumstance,"

"How do you know I'm still going to…" Korra trailed off, the door had been opened, and in the glassy cliff face was a hidden cave, warm and green, "…be here when I'm old,"

Korra watched seals that had been lounging near a pond disappear in to a river behind bamboo and tufts of actual grass. Soft looking and manicured to a tee.

"You can leave the tribe, leave the country, leave this planet, but it'll always be a part of you," Katara answered simply. As though it were that easy, as though Korra's father weren't writing a declaration of banishment as they spoke.

Katara folded her robe upon the grass, and in her striped swimming suit dipped into the crystal pool waters without hesitation.

"Aren't you freezing?" Korra couldn't keep the concern from her voice.

"Quite the opposite actually," but she could hear the smile in Katara's. Gingerly she knelt by the pool and dipped her hand, it was as warm and soothing as bath water.

"What is this place?" she snatched it back.

Katara popped an eye, floating on the surface.

"Tell me your parents told you about the Spirit Oasis?"

"It's a myth,"

"You are myth-taken," Korra only balked, looking around the ice above them, the seemingly bottomless pond below, she could even spy fish dancing in the darkness, "My husband would have laughed at that,"

"I'm sorry it's just, I need a minute. There's so many ridiculous stories about the tribe, it's hard to know which are true,"

"Of course they're all true! What do you remember about the Oasis?"

"Warriors would come here," Korra recalled, eyes closed, feeling the swathes of churning steam caress her face, "and the moon and ocean spirits would heal them, keep them warm, give them shelter. It was usually the part in the story, right before the end, before the real conflict took place,"

"What would it give them?"

"Resolve, level headed-ness, strength, wisdom."

"Now you know why I'm here," Katara cupped the water to her cheeks as though it were an elixir. Korra couldn't help but admire her faith in it. "The warriors who used these pools were changemakers, every story started in adversity and ended in a new tradition being born. As an elder, it's important to understand the value of the changing world."

"I'm not a warrior," Korra thumbed her palm, still wet from the pond, "or an elder,"

"No one is, in the beginning," Katara mused, still floating.

Korra didn't pack a bathing suit, she wasn't expecting to need one in the southern most tip of the country, of a town that was essentially oil, ice and bears. Still it had a certain draw. When in Rome and all. She copied Katara and washed her face in the warm, even throwing some over her neck for good measure. Her muscles eased, and the tension headache in her forehead faded, eyes closed, body calming, she listened to the trickle of the woman in the water, and tried to remember how those stories ended.

At least until a shrill electronic bleeping cut the air.

"Could you check my pager? It's in my robe,"

"I thought you were retired from being the towns only Doctor, Katara,"

"I'll retire when this town get's another one. For now I listen in for any trouble,"

Korra laughed.

"Like a vigilante."

Her smile faded when she saw the screen.

"That's my address," and like that her heart started pounding again, "Katara, my parents,"

Asami's pilot informed her they had a small window of time wherein they could evade the storm. Unfortunately it was so small, the jet couldn't stand by, and would have to leave immediately.

This was Asami's hail Mary, she was here for Korra wherever she was and missing that window was out of the question.

She thought this right up until she watched the jet take off from the runway, freezing cold enveloping her as it never had before. Her coat was too thin, hell her shoes were too thin, the leather turning brittle rather than soft. She rolled a modest suitcase through the private airport, suddenly desperate to hail a cab.

"You know where the Mayor's house is?"

"I don't think I can-"

"I'll give you triple your rate, thank you,"

Asami was clear she wouldn't be taking no for an answer, as the cold continued to grip her even as she clutched and rubbed her arms.

"Is the heating on?"

"Full ma'am," the driver replied, adjusting his mirror to get a good look at the wealthy heiress that had mysteriously flown her way in to a storm, "you come this way often? You've got a familiar look about you."

"Never," Asami shivered, "first time,"

"What a time to pick, the storms going to be a big one, my wife said not to take another, but I said woman coming from the airport, one more can't hurt."

"I'm glad you did," Asami forced a smile, gazing out the window. From their vantage point all of Harbour town was laid before them, winking, fading fast as the snow thickened, "Where are we going?" she craned her neck, looking for anything that looked remotely mayoral.

"Two miles ahead, left, grand old house on the edge of the forest, say I think I've seen you in the news, have you been in the news for something?"

"N-no, never," Asami lied badly, but she hoped the shivering would cover up the bad lying.

"There's been some crazy things going on in the paper, soap opera level stuff, the Mayors daughter, woof she's a fag,"

Asami went numb, and she either stopped shivering, or stopped being able to feel it when she straightened her spine and glared at him as he continued to babble.

"Can you imagine, doing that with some one the same- well I daresay it's uncouth talking about it with a beautiful lady such as yourself ma'am, probably got a handsome husband at home,"

"Actually no," Asami was truly out of her body and mind at this point, a spectre of rage possessing her lips as she spoke, "I'm a lesbian, raging, my partner is from here, I believe you know her - the Mayor's Fag daughter! Her name is Korra, by the way, and we're planning a commitment ceremony on the cliffs in the summer, during the Glacier Spirits Festival - and then we're talking about kids, sperm donor, or maybe even a gay friend - DIY sort of thing, after all the turkey baster only comes out at thanksgiving anyway right? But we'll be sure to have just lots and lots of full-filling, awe-inspiring lesbian sex for the rest of our meaningful happy lives, and," she leaned in as though sharing a conspiratorial anecdote, she noticed the driver didn't seem to lean back to meet her as she finished, "between you and me - we make each other orgasm more times in a single night than I suspect your wife ever has in your entire marriage, or you know, at all, so,"

Asami folded her hands in her lap and sat back to survey the damage. The man before her, who had thankfully stopped the car, had now turned red and was caught between screaming back at her and wanting to make his fare.

"I'll make this easy then," she tossed bills into the front seat and got out, slamming the door and marching victory from her furious tirade kept her warm for about 40 steps. Soon she was lost in a sea of sameness. White road, white fog, white sky. She had the shape of tyre tracks to follow, but even that was shrinking fast. She felt the cold mostly in her shoulder, her bullet wound tingling in a cacophony of icy pins and needles.

She tried to figure out how fast she was walking, and how long it would take her to walk two miles. It didn't seem like such a long distance hearing it, but as her mind slipped with her feet on the ice, and her extremities became numb to the point where she couldn't feel her suitcase in her grip, or remember if she had left it in the cab in the first place.

When she came upon a door she was almost worried she'd hallucinated it, still she knocked and found the wood pliant beneath her already chapped knuckles.

When Senna opened it she looked at her around her chest height, as if she'd been expecting someone else.

"Is K-Korra here?" Asami's teeth couldn't stop chattering, despite the fact that she now felt quite warm, and sleepy, already her eyelids were drooping.

She couldn't recall of Senna taking her in, her coat her shoes, guiding her to a bed that smelled familiar and unfamiliar all at once, wrapping her in sheets as she shivered.

It was then she faded. Voices warming her in and out. It was perhaps the third time waking that Korra was knelt beside her, fingers hot and prone on her wrist, checking her pulse there.

"She was blue," Asami could hear Senna speaking now, "I couldn't get a word out of her if it wasn't where's Korra and I didn't know what to tell her,"

"You did the right thing," Asami didn't know this voice, but from the authority it gave she guessed they were a medical profession of some kind.

"What were you thinking?" Korra whispered.

"I was looking for you," Asami breathed, finding her shivering hadn't stopped, only increasing in wakefulness.

"In a blizzard?"

"I pissed off the cabbie," she laughed, but Korra hadn't the energy to find it funny. "I'm so cold, Korra,"

"She's awake," Senna whispered.

"Easy, dear, you have hypothermia,"

"Maybe I should get in with her Katara?" Korra asked, eyes pleading, desperate not to look at her mother.

"Yes that would help, no rubbing her arms or any of that, it could stop her heart,"

"No heart stopping please," Asami whimpered turning her face into the pillow as her body continued to jolt and twitch against her will.

"I'll get changed," she stood rifling through her bag, and looked up, "if we could get some privacy?" it somehow felt rude to say it, even though this was her bedroom. She tried not to think about why Senna had taken Asami here, tried not to let it give her hope.

When she made to close the door her mother lingered and she paused.

"Look I get this isn't convenient but we'll get her warm and lucid, and we'll go okay…? Unless you're kicking us out right now?"

Senna looked stung at the notion, shaking her head.

"This is still your home Korra," she bit her lip and her eyes dropped to Asami behind her, "This is just a lot to process,"

"I know," Korra conceded, fingers finding the ring on her left hand and turning it mindlessly. By the time she realised Senna could see it was too late, and she flinched. "We're in this for the long haul, despite how it started, and I've always loved her-"

Senna's hand was on her clavicle, soothing and gentle and stopping her panic before it started.

"Later," her thumb traced an arc, and it was enough, Korra wrapped her arms around her mother without hesitation. They weren't there yet, but they'd started, and given the circumstances that was enough. "I'll bring you both up some soup," Senna told her on parting, "Your father will be home soon."

Korra wasn't sure what to do with the warning, but when her mother left, she closed the door and started to change.

"You got anything in there for me?" Asami asked, and Korra dug luckily she'd packed a thermal undershirt, but when Asami yanked it on after shedding her own clothes, she reached in for more, her fire ferrets t shirt, her favourite hoodie, the matching tapered tracksuit bottoms. Korra watched as she shuffled in her bed, in layers of her clothes pulling the quilt up to her nose and rubbing it against her cheek.

"I can't believe you came," Korra said, stepping in a manoeuvring herself behind her, wrapping her arms across her stomach and tugging her between her legs. "I'm so glad you did,"

"After you lied about your mom and told me not to," if there was annoyance in her tone, Asami hid it well, or the shaking did. For something that started like the beginning of a fight, it lost its edge as she burrowed into Korra for search of heat, and Korra clung tighter more than willing to give it to her.

"I was an idiot,"

"You were reactionary," Asami normally would have looked into her eyes to chide this way, but found much more satisfaction in rubbing her cheek on her neck, letting her body curl into her, and feeling Korra curl back. Feeding fingers into her hair, taking her hand and blowing her breath, slow for heat, into her fingers. "You should have told me,"

"I know,"

"We should've done this together," if Asami's teeth weren't chattering so she would have gone on a tirade. She spent the plane ride in a swirl of confusion and agony, how could Korra keep this from her? How could she let her do this alone?

She found in Korra's twin bed, in her childhood bedroom, her priorities had shifted somewhat. She was grateful to be there, and in her drowsiness and shroud of intimacy it was impossible to truly hold on to that anger. As Korra's lips graced her temple, nothing else seemed to matter.

"I know…I just wanted to spare you reliving what you went through with your parents,"

"I wanted to spare you that Kay, I was alone, you aren't," Asami took the hand that held hers and held them aloft, turning her wrist back to hold both hands together, rings almost touching. "I'm still wearing mine because it means I want to be bound to you…all your pleasure and all your pain, I want to share it because I love you…and I don't really want to take it off and put it back on when we…you know,"

Korra laughed once, biting her smile at the very idea of it, trying not to jynx it by thinking of it too fondly, the idea of it however lighting up her every sense.

"We've taken so long to get here, I feel like we've earned the chance to rush," Asami confessed, "At least that's why I'm still wearing mine," she slipped her hand away, and Korra made for it again, tangling on the sheets in a gentle caress.

"I feel the same way,"

"Same feeling?"

"Same feeling," Korra confirmed, "But just to clarify, we're not engaged,"

"No,"

"These are like best friendship rings?" Korra offered.

"Opal's my best friend now,"

"Wh-hat?"

"She's been promoted,"

"And what does that make me?"

Asami dared put an inch of space between them to look her in the eye. Her shivering had reduced to a slight but constant tremor but she had enough control to guide her gaze to meet her with a hand to her cheek.

"You're not my best friend anymore Korra," and with that she kissed her, soft and sweet, Korra kissing back, gentle and tender.

"My god your hands are cold!"

"My everything is cold! I was standing for like an hour in like no clothes in the frigging Yukon!"

"Why didn't you bring more clothes?"

"I don't know!" Asami lamented, hands slipping through the barrier of her t shirt to warm her hands up on her abs. "Come to mama,"

"You're still delusional aren't you?" Korra teased, pressing Asami's hands against her to better warm them.

"Why aren't you flinching?" Asami asked her. Every other partner she'd had, retreated from her icy feet and hands. Never Korra.

"Your hands may be the ice equivalent of a branding iron, but it's my job to fix that," she tightened her grip, "This is so hard without rubbing," she lamented, ignorant for the moment, of how her words moved Asami to her frozen core.

She'd tell her one day, but for now she just wanted to bury her face into Korra's chest and let her legs tangle with her own. So bury she did.

Song 3 - Runs in the Family - Amanda Palmer