AN: Okay, so it's been a stupid long minute. To be perfectly honest, I had given up because I simply could not come up with a way to continue to the story. I must have rewritten this chapter, from scratch, a couple dozen times before throwing in the towel. Then there was a lot of death of friends and family, some due to COVID, some not, and my creativity went down the toilet for _years_. Somehow the idea for how to complete this story managed to fight it's way out of who knows which muse's basement, and I'm giving it another go. Another handful of chapters, I think, and our tale will finally be told.

No idea if anyone is left to read this, so this is probably just for me at this point, but what the hell here we go!

Awareness comes slowly. Fitfully. I can neither see nor hear, nor, I come to realize, feel, anything. There is only blankness, which frankly at the moment is a relief compared to my recent past. The stench of blood and smoke is gone, as are screams of dying men and dying ships.

Eventually I realize the blankness has been replaced. A rich blackness now envelops me, but after a while I start to make out faint points of light. The silence is still absolute, and I am reminded of the first time I ever saw space up close and personal, the inaugural "float" we all took as first year cadets, tossed out of the airlock in sealed flight suits by our instructors to see how we'd react to the challenge of zero gravity with no individual ability to do anything other than wait to be retrieved.

More than one cadet washed out that day, as I recall, unable to bear the vastness of our environment, and our utter helplessness in the face of it.

It's also where I happened to meet Kuvira, and soon after Mako and Iroh, by accidentally floating into each of them in turn, and the four of us managed to negotiate linking our arms together as if we were a strange type of leaf, our helmets pressed together in the middle as our legs fanned out in all directions. This allowed for sound waves to pass between us, and we spent the remaining hours telling jokes and occasionally laughing at the periodic fellow cadet vainly attempting to "swim" towards the nearby troop ship. If I'm honest, that day was the true birth of the Fire Ferrets, even if the official unit formation was still years away.

There's an ache in my chest from how strongly I miss them, Macho and Ironman. Years gone now but in my quietude the grief feels very fresh. I swallow hard, noting in passing that I'm starting to feel my body again, and try to relax in the view before me.

Space, after all, is a friend I've come to know over many long years, its vast darkness a comfort more than something to be feared. Idly I start to pick out familiar landmarks. There's the dusty glow of Theta Quadrant with its extra large stars and gas giant systems – a place both utterly beautiful and completely uninhabitable. To the left I see the brightness of the Fire System sector where its stars and megastructures burn in perpetual warning, though after the last war and the destruction of most of their military they aren't in a position to cause their neighbors much trouble, finally.

If only they had remained our biggest threat.

I start to become aware of more sensations, and I am nonplussed at the familiarity; I'm in the cockpit of a space fighter, my hands on the controls, HUD glowing faintly in front of me. Gradually I realize I can see the dull shine of two more hulls, just visible in the starlight.

"Macho to Avatar, do you copy?"

My breath catches at the familiar, impossible, voice.

"Mako," I whisper, almost dizzy with shock.

My comm crackles again. "Ironman, do you have a visual? Not getting a response to the hail…"

I realize I haven't thumbed my mic but before I can I hear another voice, it too, is achingly familiar.

"Give her a minute," says Iroh. "Knowing her she hit her head again. Probably doesn't have any working brain cells left."

Mako snorts and I see one of the fighters roll away. "Yeah, probably. We should get a drink in her first."

Iroh chuckles in response. "Copy that. Let's go."

I blink, and I'm sitting at a table, my hand resting loosely around a pint of beer. Around us is the very familiar main room of the Officer's Club of the Space Fighter Corps, adorned with unit banners, countless photographs, framed newspaper clippings of laudatory actions, and behind the bar the blackboard is covered with the inevitable standing bets and the latest results of speed runs through the asteroid belt.

Across from me sit two ghosts, each sporting their own beers and wide grins. They're wearing the more casual and definitely more comfortable daily BDUs that normally would not be allowed in the Club. Traditionally we're required at a minimum to wear the more formal service uniform and on special occasions, full dress. Mako's feet are propped on a nearby stool, which normally would result in an angry reprimand from the bartender.

Iroh lights up a cigar, to Mako's instant outraged sputter. I can't help but chuckle at the memory of how often this exact scenario played out over the years.

"Oh, give it a rest, Macho," Iroh sighs. "It's not like it's against any rules here."

"It's the principle of the thing!"

My brain finally decides to get into gear, first noting the usual foul stench of Iroh's cigar is somehow not nearly as awful as I remember. I raise the glass of beer with some hesitation but a cautious sip turns into a long pull. I can't quite place it, but it has to be the best beer I've ever had.

"Damn, that's good," I sigh. I sit back and look around again, steeling myself. "So. Am I dead?" To my disgust there's a slight shake to my voice, and I clear my throat.

Mako and Iroh look at each other then burst out laughing. "Figures you'd get straight to the point," Iroh chokes out eventually.

I roll my eyes and wait for my chuckleheads to compose themselves.

Eventually Mako collects himself with a half shrug? "Kinda but not exactly?"

I scowl at him.

Iroh thwacks him on the back of the head. "Not helpful, bro." He turns to me. "I don't think you're dead, but you're probably not in the best shape. Most people who end up here seem to have died, but we've noticed the occasional temporary visitor who gets pulled back. Maybe a miraculous rescue or something."

Mako nods. "Yeah, or something." He swirls his beer a bit. "You know me and Bolin weren't much for school stuff, but do you remember that class we had to take on flight physics at the academy? You were bitching up a storm because of all that 'mumbo-jumbo bullshit'." He wiggles his fingers in airquotes. "Something about not ever exceeding light speed too close to a big gravity well because of multi-dimensional something something blah blah blah."

I squint at the scuffed tabletop, trying to recall this, and after a moment a memory flits past. "I thought it was stupid because it was all theoretical. Nothing had ever actually happened."

"That anyone could prove," Iroh murmured.

Mako nods again. "Yeah, well, then Ironman and I ended up here–"

"And after we got through freaking out."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Mako waved his comment aside. "Eventually we decided it maybe wasn't as stupid as we thought. And our existence here doesn't have to be physical. So maybe in the right circumstances, with a sufficient amount of energy, and probably with some mass energy conversion math that my brain hurts even contemplating, the part of us that wasn't just mass–"

"Like our thoughts and memories and shit," Iron comments around his cigar.

Mako glares at him. "Yeah, that. Our personal energy maybe, or whatever you want to call it, can… travel." He shrugs helplessly and finishes his beer. Then he glares at the glass and its full again.

"And this is, what," I rasp out after a moment, "Space Fighter Corps Valhalla?"

Iroh blows out a smoke ring that forms into the shape of a ship before dissipating. "Probably not, but maybe?" He stubs the cigar out on the table. "No gods that I've seen. Plenty of people we knew though. My theory," he pauses and blows out a breath. "Is that these dimensions are formed when there's enough energy that wants them to exist. So all of us who loved being fighter pilots somehow have congregated here."

"But it changes," Mako continues. "Sometimes we're both here. Sometimes we're out flying, like where we found you."

"And sometimes we're alone, but never for long." Iroh kicks Mako's chair playfully. "Asshole always seems to find me."

"Love you too, jerkface," Mako grumbles. He grabs a pretzel from a bowl I would swear was not there before and deftly chucks it at Iroh's forehead.

I rub my aching temples before zeroing in one of Mako's comments. "What do you mean it doesn't have to be physical?"

"Like how we went from the fighters to here." Mako gestures around us, and now I'm seeing more figures around us, and am starting to pick up a low murmur of conversation. "We just think of things and it happens."

"Within reason," Iron adds. "For some reason we can't just go wherever. I've only ever seem to to to places that were on the base or where we've had missions."

"And sometimes it's like I'm meditating and I don't seem to have a body at all for some reason. I mean, I won't lie that was weird ass shit at first, but it got to be nice after a while."

I think back to my own experience with that and agreed on both counts.

Mako suddenly perks up. "Oh hey! There's Boss again!"

I whirl to where he's pointing to the bar and see Kuvira standing with a tumbler of whiskey in hand. She raises it up and tilts her head with a smirk before draining the glass. Then she disappears.

I leap to my feet in a panic. "Boss!"

Iroh puts his hand out. "It's okay, I'm pretty sure." He trails off, his face thoughtful. "I think she's dreaming. She's flickered in and out a couple of times, but only for a few moments." He shakes his head ruefully. "So anyway, we think the scientists were sorta right, but for the wrong reasons. I don't think the dimensions just happen, I think we create them with the part of us that's all energy, especially when that's all that is left, and all we have are the things–" he hesitates, his lips pursed. "Well, my theory is our energy is really focused when it's on something we love a whole lot." He flushes, but his expression is troubled. "But, even if you're not dead, you and Boss must be in some serious shit to show up here."

Mako makes a grunt of agreement. "You were doing that flicker thing more at first." He says to me, and he looks a little worried. "The fact you're sticking around more now might be a bad sign." He sighs. "Sorry, Skipper."

My stomach churns at the implications and my eyes sting.

"Asami," I whisper.

Then I jerk and gasp with a sudden pain in my chest.

I see Mako and Iroh exchange a knowing look as my hands clench. I force myself to stand, will a whiskey into my hand and when it appears, toss it back. "Guys, I love you. And I dearly hope I see you again. But," I look down at myself and see my battered flight suit, covered in dust, scorch marks, and Kuvira's blood. "I've got places to be."

Mako whoops and they stand up, their glasses raised in salute.

"Ferret's forever, Avatar," they both shout as blackness closes in on me once again.

Fly Ferrets, fly.