Disclaimer:I do hereby disclaim all rights and responsibilities for the characters in this collection. Kudos to Bryke, indeed.
Word Count: 4,556
Author's Notes: 4/15/13. Over the next few chapters, I'm going to try and bring back the choppier, faster-paced flow to this story, which is what I'd originally intended. 4.0 was a huge moment and it deserved the length that it was given, but now it's time to get back into the swing of things—especially since we're nearing the end. ;) Thus, as we creep closer to the final weekend, 5.0, I'm going to be posting shorter chapters. (Hopefully this will make the updates more frequent, too!)

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET READ 4.1, THE TAHNO-POV COMPANION ONE-SHOT, PLEASE READ IT NOW. Having read it is not necessary to understand the upcoming chapters, but it will help give you an even deeper understanding of the events to come. And hey, it's Tahno's perspective after the race, so WHY THE HELL NOT. You can find it on my FFNET profile!

Musical Inspiration: "A Drop in the Ocean" by Ron Pope. This song usually hits me pretty hard in the Delena feels (for those of you who watch TVD, you know what I mean), but I listened to it a bunch of times while writing this chapter, too. Plus, its lyrics are perfect. The reference to rain, weekends, and New England autumn, I mean, seriously. (Not to mention the connection to their water elements everywhere, okay, I'll stop now.) Also, "Up in the Air" by 30 Seconds to Mars.

Beta'd by ebonyquill.

4.25

"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

Korra gently shook her head.

Asami set her own mug of tea down on the low coffee table and carefully arranged her limbs until she was seated on the rug directly across from her sullen teammate. Korra didn't even know it was possible to have a coffee table in one's room, but her captain certainly had the room for it; she felt like she'd entered a different era, rather than just a different part of town.

"Are you sure?" she persisted, wrapping her fingers around the pretty floral design. "I've got Biscottis, you know."

Against her will, a small smile drew warmth from her lips. "No, thanks," she said quietly. "I really appreciate just being here." And it was true... there were plenty of distractions to look at, to keep her mind off things; bleary eyes trailed over the rows of ribbons and trophies and tiaras hung along the walls. She had a separate shelf for her running medals and bibs, too.

"They're chocolate Biscottis."

Korra's eyes narrowed, if only to hide the genuine gratitude she could feel tearing apart her eyes. "Are you trying to tempt me?"

"Only if it's working. C'mon," she pushed the matching mug closer along the glass tabletop. "Your tea's gonna get cold."

With a sigh, Korra lifted her head off of her arms and sat upright, gingerly reaching for the cup. "Mmm," she hummed, feeling the heat burn pleasantly down her throat. "This is good stuff."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she nodded absently, taking another sip. "I'm usually forced to drink really leafy green stuff, but this is nice and sweet. With a little bit of spice. My cousin would really like this, actually."

"Is she a tea fanatic, too?"

"He," Korra corrected, taking another hearty sip. "Ah, hot."

"See?"

"Hmm?"

"I told you that you needed three things: a place to rest, something to drink, and..." Asami reached down under the table, pulled open a small cabinet that she hadn't realized was there, and pulled out a medium-sized container of biscuit-cookies. "Something to eat."

Korra nearly spit her tea back into her mug. "You—you sneak," she accused, wiping off her lip with her wrist. "How long have you been hoarding those in there?"

"I snuck them in while you were putting your stuff in the bathroom," Asami said with great satisfaction, offering Korra a mischievous smirk. "I had a feeling we might need them."

Korra shook her head, slowly at first, but soon her head was tossing from side to side, and a low growl of frustration reverberated all the way up the back of her throat. "Oh, man," she cried, throwing her hands over her eyes.

"Yikes. Should I have gotten dark chocolate instead?"

She burst out laughing, feeling more than a little hysterical. "Ahhh, god," Korra groaned into her clammy palms. "I don't deserve any of this."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I can tell you that you're not the one who gets to make that decision tonight," Asami said, authoritatively cracking the protective ring of plastic around the twist-top. "Now eat a cookie."

"Dammit," Korra sighed, more relieved than she'd like to admit. She gladly took one of the long cookies and crunched nosily between bites. "You're going to make a fearsome grandmother one day. Do you usually stow tea biscuits in your bedroom coffee table, or am I just really that special?"

"Actually," she said slowly, playing with the plastic lid in her hands. "I bought them last night after I dropped you off. I figured it couldn't hurt to have them around."

Korra's chewing slowed, and then stopped completely. The cookie crumbs were melting in her mouth, but she couldn't bring herself to swallow. "You did? For... me?"

She nodded nonchalantly, taking another delicate of her pretty-tasting tea. "I mean, I didn't think I'd be able to offer them so soon—or need to provide them for such an emergency situation, but I wanted to have them on hand, and well, you know how things... were. With our eating plan and all." After an awkward beat, Asami laughed, looking just as uneasy and bewildered as Korra felt. I should tell her, she thought suddenly. I should tell her about— "Mako was the one who asked about you, you know."

"What?"

"I was so caught up in what was happening at the medical station that I didn't realize you weren't still beside me until he pointed it out," she admitted guiltily. "I'd just assumed that you'd followed. And then Bolin said that he'd seen you head off in the direction of the pavilion and I remembered that you weren't feeling well, and... Yeah. I went to go look for you."

Korra swallowed, processing. "How... how is he doing?"

Asami heaved a tired sigh. "He'll live."

Korra nodded half-heartedly, remembering the guilt she'd felt for not being able to get to him in the medical tent. But now... n0w she didn't think she could face any of them—not Mako, and especially not Bolin, not yet; her cellphone was shoved into the pocket of her jeans, the ringer volume turned up high, but it was glaringly silent. She swallowed and asked, "Will it be okay at practice on Monday?"

She scoffed out a breath of laughter. "That's a harder question to answer. He's mad as hell—and with the way people are probably hovering over him, I can guarantee you that he won't be cooling off anytime soon. I just hope he can get his act together before the weekend's over... He's still way too fired up to really think straight. And I'm just grateful they got him out of there before he did anything stupid. But don't worry," Asami said quickly, noting the deepening crease between Korra's brow. "It'll work out... somehow."

"Do you think he did it?" she whispered suddenly.

Asami blinked. "Who?" she asked. "Tahno?"

Korra's heart skipped.

"I just can't believe that he would do something like that," she argued immediately—half-defense, half-appeal—though Asami had yet to put up any opposition. "I mean, why would he cheat? This meant so much to him—to—to all of us, you know? He didn't need to cheat."

"Even I won't pretend to understand how deep that animosity goes," Asami sighed. "But I know he and Mako have been neck-and-neck from the beginning of time."

"I just feel like there's some missing piece or something," Korra said softly, in something akin to a plea. "I mean... what really happened on that course? It can't have been just the two of them. I refuse to believe that he'd do something that stupid. I mean. He wouldn't."

(Would he?)

"Well, whatever happened, it's certainly left us with a giant mess." Asami dropped her chin onto her knees, absently running her fingers through the threads of the rug. "Our team carried us through to Regionals, thankfully, but it will still be a few days before we know any of the other side effects."

"Do you think Mako will be allowed to compete?"

Asami considered this for a moment. "Yes," she replied carefully. "Tenzin managed to remove him from the situation before he did anything... rash. But even if he hadn't, Mako would still have a whole other year to let things blow over before college. You know, somehow..."

"What?" Korra demanded, noticing her pause. "What is it?"

Asami looked up, guiltily. "I hate to sound like a traitor, but... somehow I don't feel like Mako was really the one who got the worst end of this deal."

"You... you think that?"

"Tahno's a senior. He's had all these eyes on him for years, just waiting for this moment to scoop him up, and... well, now look at him," she shrugged, as a lump welled in Korra's throat. "Who's going to want anything to do with a suspended athlete notorious for cheating? I mean, there'll be an investigation, obviously, so there's still a good chance that he might scrape by, but... not all colleges are going to want that kind of controversy tainting their records. Some might, but... not all."

Korra covered her eyes and tried not to think of her cellphone, heavy in her pocket. Not a single message all day, her mind whispered. She wanted to text him, but what could she say? Would he even want her to? "This is so messed up," she announced into her hands.

Asami regarded her very carefully. "This is really getting to you, isn't it?"

Korra looked up, confused.

"I mean—it's all awful, but I didn't necessarily mean it as a bad thing, or... I just—look, as terrible as it sounds, it's... nice to see how attached you've gotten. That all of this could mean that much to you. I guess I'm just surprised."

She blinked, stunned.

"Here. I know exactly what else you need."

"Holy mother of—"

"Yep," Asami muttered decidedly, quickly snatching the foam roller out from underneath Korra's calf. "Definitely going to need a lower density roller for those legs. Try this one instead."

Korra hissed in pain as her hamstring rolled over the new styrofoam cylinder-stick on the hardwood floor; there was a lush rug beneath her fingertips and it was kept pristinely white, but it was hardly like she could muster the proper level of appreciation.

"This is insane."

"Oh, we know," Asami smiled down, inspecting her teammate's movements; Korra had always suspected a bit of sadistic streak in her captain, but she could never have foreseen this. "Of course, we'd be even more insane not to."

Korra grunted, preparing to respond. Her arms were shaking from balancing her upper body weight on her wrists, and both legs were stretched out across the strange athletic tool, with one toe hooked over the other so that her full weight was placed onto her flexed right calf muscle... precisely at the point where it met the foam roller. What the—

"This is supposed to be helping?"

"It's one of the best ways for us to get some really deep tissue penetration."

"Ugh," Korra groaned, dropping to the floor. "And I thought stretching was bad!"

"Well," she smirked. "Sometimes stretching isn't enough. Keep going."

"Ugh. Dude, if someone had told me two months ago that this was going to become a part of my typical routine, I would have punched them in the face."

"With the foam roller?"

She blinked. "It wasn't a part of the original fantasy, but it's more than—ah! Ah...appropriate. This thing could probably swipe a head clean off somebody's shoulders if—" A hiss. "Ouch... if aimed the right way."

"Okay," Asami laughed. "Now you're definitely exaggerating."

Am I? Korra wondered, as agonizing awareness of the tightness in her calf overtook all capability of speech. She certainly didn't feel like she was exaggerating. In fact, she was not-exaggerating so much—she wasn't ever going to complain about Tenzin's stretching routine again.

Well.

Okay, maybe not that much.

"You're really feeling this, aren't you?"

Korra merely gurgled.

"What other kinds of stretches do you normally do?" She stiffened, offering Asami a sheepish grin. "Korra! No wonder! If you only stretch after meets, you're practically begging for injury! You need to help your muscles recover—after every practice!"

"Man," Korra sighed. "That's what everyone keeps telling me."

"And you haven't listened because...?"

"I just don't—do—stretching stuff, you know? It's just so... boring."

"Korra. I know it's not always as—as exciting as the running itself, but your flexibility is just as important as your strength. And besides, stretching is such a nice way to wind down, and to just let go all of this tension—what's so funny?"

"Oh, sorry," she muttered, dropping herself onto the floor. She covered her eyes with her hands, feeling slightly delirious. "It's just that you sound so much like Tenzin right now. Really, you have no idea." When the silence stretched on for just a fraction too long, Korra glanced up. Asami was still looking down at her, curiously.

Oh, shit.

"You know," Asami quietly began. "I've been meaning to ask you about something."

It was only a mere five minutes later, but Korra was waiting with bated breath.

(She should have seen this coming.)

"So?" Korra prompted, trying not to sound as anxious as she felt.

"Hmm," she hummed. "I thought so."

"You... You knew that I was living with Tenzin's family?"

"I suspected," Asami corrected. "I mean, I did drive you home yesterday, after all."

Oh, Korra thought, feeling foolish. Duh. "Why didn't you say anything?" she demanded.

Asami blinked. "I didn't think you wanted me to. You didn't bring it up yourself and, well... you seem like a pretty private person."

Am I? She'd always felt the opposite; someone who wore her heart on her sleeve, whether she liked it or not.

"Well, I obviously don't know you that well, but... If you don't mind me saying so, although you arevery outgoing and forthright, well... I guess I just... felt like there was always some guard around you that we just couldn't break through. I can't speak for any of the others, but I know I've felt that there was a distance between us." Asami bit her lip. "Do you know what I mean?

Unfortunately, Korra knew exactly what she meant.

"Asami," she sighed, setting the foam roller aside and dropping her elbows onto her knees. "I think... I should explain. The truth is..."

The truth is that I suck at talking to people when it counts. Give me a megaphone to pump up a crowd—set! Show me somebody in trouble who needs a defender—done! Ask me to offer a decent apology to someone I've wronged?

Ugh.

"The truth is...?"

"I didn't just peg you wrong," she admitted quietly. "I kind of... dug you a hole and buried you there. And layered cement on top. Glittery, sparkly cement. I think it was pink, and had marbles lodged inside, but then we drank tea and ate Biscottis-"

"Um. Okay," Asami said uncertainly. "I... think I know where you're going with this. I mean, I got the whole burying me into my own stereotype analogy—at least until the marbles came in."

"Argh!" Korra groaned, collapsing back onto the rug. "I'm not making any sense," she complained into her hands.

"No," Asami agreed, nodding slightly. "But lucky for you, I'm pretty good at reading between the lines... as squiggly as they are."

"Seriously," came her muffled reply. "You can feel free to kick me out anytime now."

"Honestly, I think I'm mostly confused about the glitter."

"Oh, god," Korra laughed to herself, which trailed off into a groan. "I shouldn't be allowed to talk."

"Really, Korra," Asami said sincerely. "I get it. And... I don't blame you for it. I really do try to monitor how I come across, especially with new people, but. Well. People have told me that I can be a little... intense."

"Funny," Korra muttered from the floor, with a touch of awe. "That's usually what people say about me."

Asami merely shrugged, allowing a small smile. "I guess our differences aren't really so different, after all."

It made sense. It made somuch sense—and not only because Korra wanted to believe it did—but... it made sense because they—together, as friends—made sense, or at least, were starting to... but there was still so many more questions that Korra couldn't answer.

(It was now or never.)

"Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked quietly. It only occurred to her then that Asami was still up while she was down; she hadn't even noticed the imbalance.

"Honestly?" It took Asami a moment to answer. "I guess it's because... I guess I feel like I know what it's like to have to work a little bit harder to fit in and... maybe how it feels to have to sort through all the people to find the ones you can trust." A great warmth surged in Korra's chest; she was made really happy by this admission... but also hugely guilty.

"How do you figure out if a person is someone you can trust?" she asked, with more curiosity than she thought was appropriate.

"I don't know," Asami laughed lightly, and to Korra's dismay, it held a bitterness that she'd never heard before from her captain. Again, she realized just how little she knew about the others on her team. "For all of my annoyance over people making assumptions about me, I'm not really the best judge of character either... I guess I've just been pretty lucky so far."

Korra swallowed hard.

"Asami," she began unsteadily. "As long as we're... as long as we're talking about all this stuff, I think there's something else I should tell you. Well. A couple of things, actually."

"Shoot!"

"Um, okay," Korra swallowed uneasily. "Well, first, let me just say—"

"Ahh, no, no, sorry," Asami exclaimed hastily, quickly rising to her feet. Korra blinked. "I just realized that I never responded to Mako's texts! Oh my god, sorry, hold on just a second—ugh, dammit," she muttered, nursing her stubbed toe as she hopped on one foot back to the rug, her phone in her other hand. Korra had never seen her so graceless. "Damn," she hissed, staring into the screen.

Korra waited patiently, but silence reigned. "Um. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered distractedly, then snapped the phone shut. "No, you know what? No. Ugh, I don't know." Asami tapped the phone awake and peeked at her message once more. "I guess so," she replied, less certainly.

Korra's heart was still pounding from being on the brink of her near-confession, but curiosity killed the Korra, so. "What's happening?"

Asami glanced up to her teammate, deliberating; Korra tried not to fidget, reeled in her absurd eagerness, and apparently passed whatever test Asami might have been administering. She closed the phone and clutched it tightly in their hands. "I don't know if you heard or not, but Mako and I have been nominated for Homecoming King and Queen."

A queasy feeling swirled through Korra's gut. "Oh," she nodded absently. "Yeah. Right, I... I hadn't heard. Well," she swallowed, too unsure of what to think anymore. "That's good. For you both, I mean. Right?"

"Yeah," she quietly replied, still twirling the phone in her hands.

"So," Korra nodded, feeling a solid, heavy weight take up residence in her chest; the rest of her limbs felt light, like the rest of her could float away, and leave her heart behind. "I don't really know how I'm supposed to respond to these things," she admitted. She didn't want to think about the last time she'd found out someone had been one of these supposed Homecoming royalties, and what his reaction had been. She swallowed. "So do I congratulate you, or something?"

Asami laughed a quiet, gentle laugh. Korra felt silly—until the laugh turned broken and tired, and then Asami was suddenly lying right next to her on the rug, their bent knees nearly touching as she tried to regain her sense. Korra was more confused than ever. "Oh, god," she whispered, slightly crazed, and a little sad. "I'm sorry, Korra. I bet this makes even less sense to you than before."

"Well," Korra began, not entirely capable of arguing. "It's not—"

"I want to break up with Mako," Asami confessed, staring straight into the ceiling. "That's the problem."

It was a good thing that Korra was already on the ground because she was floored.

"Wha—what?"

"Oh, god," Asami stretched, shutting her eyes tight. "I have been waiting to say it for so long... I just couldn't admit it out loud. Ah," she sighed, relaxing the tension in her muscles. "I knew I shouldn't have let myself fall into a relationship so easily... And by the time I realized that it wasn't working out anymore, I already felt like I was in too deep—there just weren't any openings for me to end it," she explained, while Korra's mind went alkdf;iasfpoiajsf;ksfos. "Because we were both captains and we had to get the team started off on the right foot, and then there was the opening meet and he needed my support, and then I just needed someone to lean on with all the shit that I've been going through with my dad lately, and now this with the meet and the suspension and this stupid Homecoming court business, and... I don't know how I'm ever going to find a not-terrible time to break up with him like a decent person should." She sighed again, while Korra watched on incredulously. "God," she laughed suddenly, looking just as delirious as Korra felt. "This week is gonna be a mess."

"I... don't even know where to start."

"Oh," Asami sighed a laugh, cracking open the lid for another biscotti. She held it open for Korra to take one as well. "Don't worry; I've had more than my fair share. It's totally your turn to vent, if you're still feeling up to it."

"I'm not sure..."

"Ahh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to pry. You don't have to feel pressured to share anything you don't—"

"Look—IreallylikeTahnoandIthinkwemightbemeantforea chother."

"I... haven't actually said that out loud before."

"Okay," Asami said very slowly, carefully straightening herself to an upright position. Mystified, Korra followed suit. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"No. Not yet," she said quickly, rubbing a fingertip to the corner of her mouth in thought. "I'm... Could you repeat that?"

To her horror, Korra blushed. "I'd really rather not."

"Oh, god—you do like him!"

"Forget I said anything!" she begged, but Asami's eyes were alight with discovery.

"Just look at you—you totally do! But how—and when did you—all right, explain."

"Do I have to?" she whined.

"Yes," Asami smiled deviously, handing Korra a pillow. Morosely, she clung to it in her lap. "Now go. Wait!" The cookie jar returned, and was set directly between the two of them on the floor. "Now go."

"So let me get this straight."

(The Biscottis were long gone.)

"You've been meeting up with Tahno—the bane-of-our-existence, would-be King of the arch rivals that continue to best us at everything under the sun—at least once every week for the past... for the past how many weeks?"

Korra continued to hide under the pillow Asami had provided for her, smooshing her face into the floor. "Four. I think."

"And then, two days ago, you also went on a really amazing, romantic—"

"Never, ever did I ever say the word romantic, Asami!"

"—run with him through White Falls, and then you went over to his house and he made you dinner?"

"I went to his apartment because it was closer and it was raining and he made himself dinner and then threatened to kick me out if I didn't try some and will you stop looking at me like that?"

"You are so fucking precious, I think I might die."

"Asami, you are not helping!"

"Right, right, sorry," but she didn't look very sorry at all. "It's just that—oh, god, this is so great! This is wonderful."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you see? Oh, god, this totally explains why you looked so upset when I dropped you off at your house—I should have known better than to run my big mouth—"

"But—but isn't all that you said true?" Korra sputtered. "I mean, even you said that you didn't throw around those labels casually, but that... that his records—"

"I didn't know about any of this!" Asami exclaimed, as if this somehow made a difference. "Tahno is a total player—er, sorry—but I promise you: he's not the kind to actually put in any real effort for a girl; they usually come flocking to him."

"Not helping," she reminded her dryly.

"No, no, no, don't you get it? He's totally into you!" Korra blinked, feeling her stomach churn. "And—oh, man—this totally explains why those Wolverine chicks were glaring at you so badly today!"

"What do you mean?" she asked, still feeling queasy. "There's no way they could have known."

"Yes, but it's totally obvious that they've lost their rank in his priority list; they're usually all over him during races, even the big ones."

"But," Korra protested, clinging to every defense she could muster. "This was such an important race. There's no way they could have expected to... to whatever, and there's no way that they've associated... whatever with me!"

"Korra, if they remembered you from the first race of the season when you insulted Tahno's hair—which is still fucking hilarious, by the way—then it means something; they're very territorial girls, and whether or not they truly have any idea what's going on, which—I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, they don't—they're still gonna be super-protective over their claim and stare down any girl who comes within range—especially one who had the balls to call him out on his shit before."

"Do you always swear this much?"

"Do not change the subject, Korra! I'm excited because I am onto something."

"You are on something, all right."

"It's called female intuition!"

"I don't care what it's called, it's freaking me out!"

"Korra, trust me," Asami pleaded, taking hold of Korra's wrist; she looked down at uncertainly, and clung to the pillow more tightly with her other hand. "I told you—reading between the squiggly lines is sort of my thing."

She swallowed; Korra had plenty of scribbles to sort through, and she really hoped that Asami wouldn't be able to see through all of them—at least, not before she got them sorted out herself. (During her retelling of the last month or so, Korra had at no point mentioned ever having worn Tahno's clothes, or undressing in his bathroom to change into them.)

"But it still doesn't change what you said about Tahno being a player," Korra insisted, throat tight. "Even if he hasn't shown these girls attention or whatever, and even if his behavior towards me is unusual, it doesn't make up for the fact that you admitted to me in the car the day before yesterday that he couldn't be trusted."

"That was before I knew about all of this!" Asami repeated desperately. "Seriously, I know you don't really know from firsthand experience because you only just got here, but trust me, this is huge."

(She didn't dare hope.)

"Look, I'm not gonna lie: everything that I said was true, and I really do think that he's a bit rougher around the edges in some ways, and—hey, you know, his personal records are a little shady, but the point is... I think he's coming around. For you, I mean."

Korra bit her lip, trying to school her expression. (Her cell phone burned in her pocket.)

"So now what?" she whispered raggedly. "I mean... Asami, I know he didn't attack Mako in the woods today."

And it was here that Asami paused.

"Do you?" she asked.

(Korra swallowed.)

"Of course."

"Korra, look," Asami sighed. "I don't mean to play Devil's Advocate, but... Have you at least thought about the possibility? I mean, this is a very high-pressure—"

"Trust me," she said, defiance in her tone, and a gentle firmness as she took the other girl's hand in hers. "I may not know a whole lot about much of anything... but I know this."

Asami looked at her then, down at their hands held together, and gave a gentle squeeze.

End Note: I, for one, am immensely enjoying the dramatic irony provided by 4.1. I hope this was a nice change of pace from all the soul-crunching drama that took place last chapter... and that it will prepare you for the nonsense in the week to come.

(THE DRAMA ISN'T OVER YET, FOLKS.)