Varrick shakes back his sleeve and glances down at his wrist. "Mr. President..."

"Chief Beifong will be here in short order, I am sure."

"So you say," replies Varrick, "but time is money and I'm getting poorer by the minute!"

Asami, sitting in a leather-backed armchair in front of the President with arms folded and foot tapping, turns with a thin eyebrow raised. Varrick raises his hands.

"It's just a figure of speech," he says, before looking at his watch again. "Six figures at this rate."

Korra huffs impatiently. "Where is she? Lin was right behind us when we left."

Just an hour ago she, Asami and the Chief stand around the recovered debending machine, its creator nervously chewing on her lip as they all stare at the tall, steel-cased device atop which sits a cylindrical glass tube housing a pair of rubber clasps. A shrunken twist of spirit vine lies at the bottom, pulsing with soft light. Lin and her metalbenders fall on the Equalists just as they sap the bending from another unfortunate soul.

A large case sits on the ground between the women in which are stored small, glowing vials recovered along with the machine. One among them, the brightest, flits between radiant hues of colour with the rhythm of a heartbeat. Korra can't take her eyes off it as Lin announces she's going to organise a meeting with the President neither of them have any choice but to attend.

It's at that moment Raiko's door swings open, garnering the immediate attention of four pairs of eyes. The woman who walks through it, however, is not the one they are all expecting.

Korra blinks, hood slipping back to expose her shaven head. "Kuvira?"

Indeed. Dressed in loose trousers and a plain shirt beneath the long coat provided to her, the former Great Uniter projects none of the intimidating aura that was once synonymous with her presence. Instead, she brings into the room a great deal of a different sort of tension. That which is sparked the moment she and Asami meet eyes.

Kuvira pauses in her stride and the silence that follows thickens the air like syrup. Her throat pulses as though she has something to say, but then Asami's gaze shifts – first to Korra, who is effectively standing between them, then to Raiko.

"Why is she here?"

Raiko looks stumped; not exactly an uncommon appearance in the man's political career. But then his skin is saved, yet again, by Lin, who marches into the office a moment later. Raiko wastes no time jumping right on the woman.

"Chief Beifong, what is the meaning of this?"

"Of what?" she replies, pulling Kuvira forward by the elbow into the room proper - who the President immediately gestures towards.

"I was not given warning that you would be bringing a guest."

"Appropriate security measures are in place," Lin tells him.

"That is not all I have concerns about," Raiko says, with a certain glance in the direction of the woman beside her.

The Chief rolls her eyes. "For goodness' sake. Kuvira, hands."

There's almost a hesitant second before she complies. The sleeves of her coat slip away to expose bare skin as the woman holds out her arms. Lin reaches down to her belt, retrieves a pair of cuffs and slaps them over her wrists.

"Is that better?" Lin asks the room at large.

"I feel slightly more comfortable," Varrick replies.

Raiko, however, disagrees. "The fact that you restrained a metalbender through such means?"

The Chief's eyes roll once more. She turns and cinches Kuvira's cuffs tighter. "There. Not much else I can do besides have her stand in a corner and think about what she's done while the grown-ups talk."

"She isn't a child, Lin," Korra speaks up.

"No, but this argument is childish," the Chief says plainly. "I wouldn't bring Kuvira here if I had concerns for anyone's safety, and certainly not if she wasn't going to be useful."

"Useful?" the President repeats, with more than a little scepticism.

"Yes, Raiko, because she's going to help save your ass."

"I need to say something before you begin."

Kuvira is seated, occupying one of two armchairs situated in front of the President's desk. Asami, stoic and silent, has not moved from the other. Not much more than an arm's length separates them. It's to her that Kuvira eventually turns.

"Ms. Sato," the woman says with a careful tone, "would it mean anything to you, if I apologised?"

Asami finally speaks for the first time since Lin entered the office. "No. But you should do it anyway."

"Then, I'm sorry. I have no excuses."

Asami doesn't reply, doesn't nod or even look at Kuvira in acknowledgement of her words. Standing just behind her, Korra's grip loosens ever so slightly on the back of the leather chair. Met with silence, Kuvira blinks, and then her eyes fall to her lap as she sits back in her own chair.

"Right," Varrick says then, "shall we get on with it? Zhu Li is a nightmare to deal with when I don't stick to her daily schedules. Hell, it took some work convincing her I had to attend this meeting, let me tell you!"

"Yes, what is this about?" Raiko directs at Lin.

"I assume you heard my address this morning," the Chief says without preamble, standing at Kuvira's shoulder.

"I certainly heard the gaggle of reporters clamouring to get into City Hall right afterwards."

"Good," Lin replies, "because the reason I sent them over here was the fact that you turned your nose up at a perfectly good proposal offered by the Avatar – one we all agreed upon – in favour of the current mess we now face courtesy of the infernal machine you two dreamed up."

Varrick raises a hand to his chest in offence as the Chief points in their direction. "My good woman, we were innovating!"

Asami sits up in her chair, her sullenness vanishing in an instant at the blunt accusation. "Lin, I -"

"Spare me," she says curtly. "I've no words to mince with either of you. Or you," Lin adds, jabbing a finger at the President. "You signed off on their proposal with no outside consultation and withheld information as to its design and purpose until the day of that blasted demonstration."

"I acted as such in the best interests of the public," Raiko replies, but Lin cuts him off before he can get out another word.

"Spare me," she says again. "You acted in your own interests which you thought the public would best approve of, as always. Well let me tell you something, your approval rating is going to plummet unless you listen very carefully to what we're going to do about it."

The tightness in Raiko's face is evident as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I'm listening."

"Good," Lin says, and then rounds on the industrialists. "Tell your wife your schedule is fully booked, Varrick, because you and Asami are both going to be working full-time coming up with a solution to the problem you helped create."

Varrick, predictably, has his complaint ready. "Full-time? I have a business to run, ideas to borrow from their originators, leisures to pursue!"

"I'd wager Zhu Li Global Industries will run just fine, as it always has," the Chief replies shortly, before turning to Asami. "And your excuse?"

Asami swallows, glancing up and behind her at Korra. "I don't have one," she tells Lin, "I'm prepared to commit as many resources as necessary to reversing the effects of the debending machine."

"Glad to hear it," the Chief says, now turning back to the President, "and so will the public."

Raiko is already taking notes.

"While you're at it," she tells him, "we're going back to the original plan, starting with Kuvira training my metalbenders."

Raiko begins to frown. Lin rolls her eyes a third time. "What's the problem? You agreed to this idea in the first place."

The President clears his throat. "I do not believe, given recent...unfortunate circumstances, that the public will be as receptive to it."

"To it, or to you?"

"Kuvira is a war criminal, Chief Beifong."

"I'm aware. She's also the only person in the entire world who can bend platinum."

"Who do you think that mere detail will appease?"

"It appeases me," Lin replies, "because by way of platinumbending I will have more secure facilities in which to put up the worst of the city's scum - at a lesser cost to Republic City might I add, which in turn frees up more space in conventional facilities for the regular scum, which means I'll not only be saving you a tidy sum of yuans in the long term but also effectively clearing the streets upon which you can safely campaign for re-election."

Raiko takes pause. "On one condition," he says then.

"Which is?"

"Your metalbenders should be able to pass on the knowledge they will gain themselves. So, as a show of a good faith, Kuvira will agree to be confined once a suitable number of people have been trained."

The woman looks up as the President speaks. He carefully avoids her eyes.

"You want me to go back to prison?"

"Lin?" Raiko says.

She folds her arms, mouth a thin, tight line. "I believe my metalbenders are capable enough, yes."

Kuvira sits up. "You want me to go back to prison."

"So we have an agreement," Raiko replies, looking over her head. "In a show of good faith."

Lin gives an arguably non-committal shrug. Raiko is quick to interpret it otherwise.

"That's settled then," the man says, collecting his notes together. "Kuvira, I think you should be able to understand the need -"

"I refuse!"

The room jumps. The chain between her cuffs jangles as Kuvira's fists slam down onto the President's desk. He is no longer so confidently poised in his seat.

"E-excuse me?"

"I will not be placed under the care of your system ever again."

Raiko stares at her for a long moment, before chuckling disbelievingly. "Kuvira, you are certainly not in the position to -"

"Those guards are fortunate I only opened the door of my cell," she cuts across the man, voice cold and sharp, "and that I did not drag every last one of them into it."

"By goodness, look at the time!" Varrick exclaims out of the blue, shaking back his sleeve to show them all. "Wonderful meeting but I must be off, the wife will flay me alive. Asami, call me. Actually, call Zhu Li; I never answer telephone calls!"

And without another word (though he does spare the time for a nervous backwards glance) he dashes to safety.

Lin, who moves around to the side of Raiko's desk so she can look Kuvira in the eye, pays no attention to Varrick's sudden exit. In fact, it seems Asami is the only one to notice, half turned in her seat with an uncertain gaze being cast back and forth from the door Varrick just disappeared through. Despite his many (many) flaws, the man had an uncannily timely sense for when things were about to go wrong.

"What are you talking about, Kuvira?" the Chief asks then. "What happened?"

She is slow to answer, partly because she turns her head towards Korra, and when their eyes meet Korra is standing across from the woman in Lin's apartment, for the first time truly understanding what she's been through.

"Abuse," Kuvira says then, "of power and position."

Lin blinks. It takes her a moment. But then it dawns on her, and her nostrils flare like they're about to spit out flames.

"What?" the woman hisses. "When? Who? Why am I only hearing about this now?!"

"Because the only time I saw you was the day you put me away."

"Then why didn't you tell me after you went and pulled open the damn door?" the Chief demands.

Kuvira looks at her with hard, fierce eyes. "You don't understand. I would have ripped that whole place to pieces. You have no idea how difficult it was to merely sit there and wait."

Lin frowns. "Wait for what?"

"For Korra."

Who swallows as the weight of the room's attention suddenly falls on her, having no idea where to point her own eyes until Kuvira starts to speak again.

"Korra was the only one who visited me; she was the only thing I had to remind myself I wasn't living in a recurring nightmare. Without that, I..."

Kuvira trails off uncharacteristically, staring down at her bound hands. Lines are etched across her face, into the pained frown across her brow and the sunken look to her cheeks. It's a surprise to all when her head practically whips around to face Asami.

"I know what I did," she says solemnly. "Nothing I ever do or say will give you any comfort. So take from me like I did you. Take my bending; just take it. Lock me away in a box and let that be the end of it. Because I've learned I don't deserve anything more. I've learned -"

Kuvira falls short again, but this time not of her own accord. Rather because Korra has just grabbed her arm and proceeded to drag the woman out of her chair.

"Excuse us," she says simply, "we need to talk."

Korra rounds on Kuvira the moment they're out of earshot of the pair of metalbenders posted outside the President's office, which is a good length down the open corridor. With the balcony that overlooks City Hall's atrium to her left, Korra spins round after pulling Kuvira past her and practically snarls in her face.

"I don't ever want to hear something like that from you again, got it?"

Kuvira blinks, clearly taken aback by the force in Korra's voice. "Yes, ma'am," she replies eventually.

Korra narrows her eyes. "And don't call me that."

"Ma'am?"

"Yes, that."

"As you say..."

Korra waits. The two women watch each other, Kuvira taller, thinner and in time, perhaps despite herself, with the smallest of quirks to her lips as Korra pre-emptively huffs.

"I'm not going to say it," she tells her.

"Good, because it makes me feel old."

"Not wise and respected?"

"No," Korra answers. She turns and leans against the balcony, folding her arms on top of the railing. "Just old."

"Be honest with me, and yourself," she says then. "Did you really mean what you said?"

"I did when I was in there," Kuvira replies after a quiet moment.

"What does that mean?"

Kuvira shrugs. "You pulled me out here to talk."

So talk.

And Korra does so.

"I want you to help me rebuild Republic City."

Kuvira stares at her.

"I want you to help me rebuild people's homes," Korra continues, "their lives, their communities. I want to change the way they look at the world for the better."

"I'm a war criminal," Kuvira says quietly. "You heard the President."

"And I think you can make a bigger difference not being locked up in a box to rot away for the rest of your life."

Kuvira's answering smile is completely devoid of humour.

"Who do you think you're going to convince with that line, Korra?" she says. "After all the things I did? The people I hurt? No one is going to believe I've turned over a new leaf. No one will want my help."

"You said you trusted me," Korra reminds her. "You said you wanted me to find the woman I helped save when they rang the alarms after you broke open your cell, and I did. Now I want to show the world what that woman has to offer it."

"Bloodstained hands?" Kuvira says, raising the cuffed pair and shaking the chain between them.

Korra brushes that aside. "You have a gift," she tells the woman. "You can do something no one else can."

"That just makes me dangerous," Kuvira replies, looking away.

Korra slowly lowers the hood she's been keeping tugged up over her head. "Then what am I?"

It takes a while for the woman to turn back to her, and Kuvira sighs heavily when she finally does. "You're the Avatar."

"Being able to bend all four elements was a nice perk," Korra says with something of a sad smile, "but it's not all there is to it. I've learned that lesson. It's about making the calls no one else can, or will. It's about believing in people, believing in the good of humanity."

"How can you believe there is any good in me," Kuvira says, "after what I did to you?"

Korra exhales through her nostrils, turning once again to look over the railing. "I know what monsters – real monsters – look like," she replies. "You're not one of them."

Kuvira snorts. "You can't say that -"

"Yes, I can," Korra interjects, rounding on her, "because I believe you deserve a second chance. A chance to put things right again."

"What if you're wrong?" the woman asks eventually, quietly, as though the question ought not to have been asked. But it's too late to pull it back.

"Then my name and reputation will be utterly ruined. Maybe that of the Avatar for generations to come. Because that's what I'm staking on you."

It's a long moment before Kuvira finally sighs, shaking her head in disbelief. "Alright," she says, meeting Korra's determined gaze, "I'll help you."