Chapter 2: Ringing

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"What do you want to do when you get out?"

"My contract isn't up for another five years Korra."

"There's nothing wrong with thinking about the future."

He scoffed. "The future huh…" he mused quietly. After a short moment he shrugged. "I don't know. This is probably the best I've ever had it to be honest. And I kind of like it."

"Really? But there's so much more out there to do."

"I don't really know how to think in terms of… experiencing the good stuff… of, I guess, living. Really living, as people say. It's always been Bolin and me against the world. I just want to survive."

She sighed. "That's pretty shitty you know."

He was silent for a moment. "It's all I've ever known."

"Well… Hopefully we'll survive this. Then maybe one day I'll show you how to live." He looked at her then. She raised her eyebrows at him and he smiled slowly out of the corner of his mouth.

"Sure."

She shouldered her rifle as he brought the jeep to a halt outside the gate. "Alright, let's go."

Korra was sore and exhausted by the time Asami drove up to her house. There was a particularly nasty bruise on her stomach that hurt every time she breathed. She felt as if she had been hit by... well, a girl flying off her dirt bike at eighty miles per hour. Her head still throbbed and her fingers kept unconsciously brushing the bandaged cut at the nape of her neck. She was in fact so out of it, she hadn't even noticed Asami had cut the engine off.

"Here let me." Before Korra could protest, the woman had jumped out of the car and walked around to open her door.

"I'm not actually gonna sue you, you know," Korra said irritably as she climbed out of her seat. She grimaced slightly at what it took to move, and a look of pain passed through her face. "I mean, you shouldn't have been out on that trail, and you could have killed me but… whatever. I'm not dead. So you don't have to go kissing my ass, your money and assets and shit are safe."

"I'm not afraid you're going to sue me," Asami said, her brow furrowing slightly.

Korra scoffed. "Yeah, sure."

Asami cocked her head to the side and put her hand on her hip as she studied the brown skinned blue-eyed young woman before her. "Is it really so difficult to believe I might actually just be worried about you and your health? You know, because I'm a decent person?"

"What is a decent person…," Korra mumbled, walking around her to open the back door and let Naga out.

"Okay so fine, maybe I was a little worried about a lawsuit." Asami said from behind her.

"A little?" Naga bounded out of the car and jumped the fence to the backyard to take care of business.

"Yes. A little." Asami replied forcefully. "I honestly wouldn't care that much if you sued me. What I wouldn't be able to bear would be if you'd gotten seriously hurt… or worse."

Korra faced her again. "Well, I'm fine. And I'm not going to sue you so you don't have to worry about that. So.." she shrugged.

Asami shuffled her feet. "So."

A short moment of silence passed between them. "Well, goodbye." And she turned towards her house but Asami called out.

"Wait!"

Korra stopped and half turned. "What?"

"Let me take you to dinner."

"What?"

"Dinner." Asami repeated with a smile. "Please."

"Why?"

"Because I'd like to."

Korra turned all the way around. "You-,"

She never finished that sentence. Suddenly her ears were ringing violently and her head felt as if it had been smashed with a sledgehammer. She fell to her knees and screamed. "AAAAAAAAAAGHHH!" her hands flew to her ears and tears blurred her vision. Distantly, she heard someone scream her name.

"Korra!"

"Mako?!"

"Korra!"

And right before her bleary eyes, Asami's form blurred and the quiet suburb she had resided in for the past five weeks drifted away. There was an explosion and Korra felt herself fall hard on her back. Dust and rubble were all around her, her ears rang with a vengeance, it was all she could hear. And then she saw figures running by her, small figures... children. And Mako's face appeared above her.

"We need to get out of here!"

"What?"

She couldn't move. Her ears still rang, and as Mako yelled at her she realized she couldn't feel her legs. "I can't feel my legs!" She shouted. "Mako I can't feel my legs!"

"Get up Korra we need to run!"

"I can't feel my legs!"

Then suddenly Mako was gone.

Suddenly she was at home, on the couch in her living room, her father bent over her, talking to her in earnest but as she looked at him she realized she couldn't understand a word he was saying.

"Dad?!" she gasped, sitting up quickly, panting, coated in sweat, with her dads hands firmly on her arms.

"Whesf srgjbs dsfjr?" Her father said.

Bewildered, Korra frowned at him and she could feel tears had made their way down her face. "What?! Dad what are you saying?!"

"I said are you alright?"

When he became comprehensible to her, Korra put a hand over her racing heart, and willed her breathing to slow down. She heaved a sigh of relief, then suddenly, she was sobbing. "I was back there..." she croaked. Her face in her hands, she felt her dad wrap her in his arms and shush her.

"It's okay Korra, you're not there anymore." She cried and cried and he comforted her until finally, it felt like her body had been wrung of all tears.

"Let me get you some water." Tonraq said quietly. Korra nodded slowly.

"Get Naga too." She said as he got up.

She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, almost in trepidation, fearing that if she closed them too long she would be back in that horrid place.

"Korra?" A soft voice said. Korra's eyes flew open, a quick moment of fear passed through her, that she had been transported back again to someplace else. She was relieved when she saw she was still in her living room, and she found the source of the voice sitting a little ways away from her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked more out of surprise than contempt.

"I hurt you." She whispered.

Korra sighed exasperatedly. "You didn't send me to war."

"But that.. this, it happened because-,"

"I have PTSD, that's not your fault," she said irritably. "You don't have to go making yourself feel responsible so that you can have some little charity project to solidify your stance as 'decent'. Go build a fucking church somewhere."

"Your dad said this never-,"

"Goddamnit just get the hell out of here!" she snapped. Asami's jaw clicked shut as Tonraq returned with the glass of water. She stood quickly.

"I'm sorry." She said steadily. For a visible moment, she tried to find something else to say, but decided against it. "It was nice to meet you." She said to Korra's father. He nodded and with one last glance at Korra, she showed herself the door.

With Naga on the couch beside her licking her cheek, Korra downed the glass of water.

"Korra," her father said quietly. She neglected meeting his eyes and resumed to rub Naga behind her ears. "You need to get help."

Korra shook her head. "I just need to sleep. And walk. And run. And get back in school. I'm fine dad."

"This has never happened to you before."

"You don't know what's happened to me," she said, perhaps more harshly than she needed to.

"This isn't healthy. Denying the severity of your condition will only make it worse."

Korra sighed tiredly and close her eyes. Naga, forgetting that she was just about as big as Korra, settled down in her lap and wined in concern. "I'm fine." She was so tired. She wanted to sleep for a year. The truth is, she had been struggling ever since she had returned from the battlefront. She had struggled through her last year in the service, and struggled while she had been with Mako. There was not a day when Korra did not think about the past. Most days, it was a passing moment, and she could keep herself grounded in the present, but some days it consumed her and was all she ever thought about. Some days, she hadn't been able to leave her house because she was too consumed with anxiety and depression.

She had learned that keeping busy was the best way for her to cope with it, which was why she started school as soon as her contract ended. The effects of the war on her were more bearable then too, because she had been with Mako. When they fought, it was a distraction; an unhealthy distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. When they weren't fighting, the two of them had the same nightmares, and would often wake each other up with their screams, then fall asleep again, or lay awake, together, holding hands and reminding each other that they were safe, and home. But Mako wasn't there anymore. Korra had had a few nightmares when she had moved back home, but her father was right, nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

"It's just the breakup," she said softly, tiredly, trying to convince herself as much as her father that it truly was nothing. "My brain is just…. On overload. I just need to keep busy." Her eyes had drifted shut and Naga's warm tongue on her had lulled her to sleep.

Korra…

Korra!

Her eyes flew open, there was Mako leaning over her, a look of relief, sadness, and fear worn into the lines of his dirty face.

"Mako?"

"You're okay," he said, tears that looked as if he had been holding them off for far too long spilled from his eyes, she felt him squeeze her hand.

"What happened?"

Mako shook his head, squeezed her hand even tighter, pressed his forehead to her arm. "They're… they're dead. They're all dead."

She frowned. "No…No that's not right."

"They're dead…"

No…

They're all dead.

After she had passed out on the couch, Korra slept like a rock for three straight days. Dreams and memories mingled together, but mostly, it was darkness. When she finally woke, the first thing she was aware of was the cool and gentle darkness around her that told her it was nighttime. Then next thing she knew, she was laying somewhere soft and very comfortable. Too comfortable. This wasn't her bed. Or any bed in her house. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she did not recognize anything.

"Dad?" her voice was raspy as her throat was very dry. On the nightstand was a pitcher and a glass of water. "Dad?" she called again after she had a good long drink. She couldn't make out much, but she knew the room was big. The bed she lied on was a king size, with a canopy. There was a meager amount furniture, a wardrobe, and a dresser, and Korra saw that most of the light came in through the east wall which was completely made of glass and held two open doors. There were white curtains billowing in the wind, the soft wind, which smelled like the ocean.

The ocean? The ocean was almost three hours away from where Korra lived. For a moment, she panicked, afraid she was somewhere in her mind and at any moment there would be an explosion. When the moment passed, and she remained in the soft bed, in the peaceful night, with the sweet ocean breeze dancing through her hair, she made the decision to get up. Her feet touched fur when they swung over the bed, and the next thing she knew, Naga had awoken and was standing with her front paws on Korra's chest, joyously licking her face.

Korra laughed. "Hey girl," she said happily. "Wherever we are, I'm glad you're with me." She kissed the dog's great head and the two crossed the room to the beckoning wind. The sand started right outside the doors, and felt wonderful on Korra's bare feet.

Is this… a dream? After so many years of nightmares, could this be what a dream is like? Keeping a hand on Naga's back for security, she warily ventured out further onto the beach. It was beautiful. The moon was full, the beach was empty. The only sound was of the waves crashing against the shore, pulling back into the ocean, then crashing again into the sand; the soft, white sand, which glowed blue in the moonlight.

They walked right up to the water's edge, and Korra lifted her pajama pant legs and sighed in contentment as the cool water ran over her feet. Oh it was delicious! Peace and tranquility like she had never known passed over her. She sat in the sand, and Naga sad beside her, and the two of them remained there for the rest of the night.


While I was writing this my dog kept trying to jump into my lap and cuddle. She thinks she's still a tiny puppy but she's a big girl. A lot like Naga really... :) This chapter was actually spurred by some of my own experiences; after I got out of the military, to this day I still experience anxiety and depression. It's been getting better but ending it with my boyfriend seemed to have set me back a quite a bit and I've only realized this pretty recently, it's like I've had to start the healing process all over again. Writing this helps a lot. Like... a lot. Anyways, thanks for reading, reviews are always wonderful.