A/N: Wheee, this story is finally getting some traction! Thank you so much to IrishDreamer4 and slippingmask for leaving reviews, and thanks also to i didnt do itttt for adding this to alerts.
4. I've become so numb I can't feel you there
His arm is numb.
He stares down at the expanse of scarred flesh revealed by the newly-removed cast, wondering why he isn't more concerned that he still doesn't have much feeling from anything below the elbow of his left arm. His fingers bend more or less the way he intends them to, but he only knows this because he sees them do so — he hardly feels the actual sensation of moving them. It's like the opposite of what he's heard called the 'phantom limb', and it's extremely unsettling to feel so detached from his own arm.
"Stretch out your fingers as far as you can and then close them in a fist," Kya tells him. "Keep doing that as many times as you can — you need to re-strengthen the muscles."
He does as he's instructed, but he has to keep his gaze on the digits to make sure he's moving them correctly. It both frustrates and discourages him that his own body won't work the way he wants it to, and he wonders if this is how Korra felt after the Red Lotus poisoned her.
"Mako, stop." There is a note of alarm in Kya's voice, and he looks down to see his fingers clenched in a white-knuckled fist that trembles with exertion. He's pressing hard — harder than he would have if he'd been able to feel it — too hard for a healthy hand, let alone one that's fragile and damaged.
The pain flares an instant later, starting with the bloody marks his nails have left in his palm and radiating all the way up to his elbow. He cries out as his weakened muscles spasm out of their death grip, but a part of him relishes the pain as the only true feeling he's had in his arm for over a month.
Kya grabs his hand and coats it with water. The gentle glow of her bending suffuses his flesh, but he barely feels the soothing coolness that accompanies water-healing.
"You're trying too hard," she informs him. "Getting your arm back to the way it was is going to take time — you can't rush it. If you do you'll end up hurting yourself more."
"Don't you mean if it gets back to the way it was?" The bitterness in his tone surprises him, but Kya takes it in stride.
"If it's going to get back to the way it was, it'll take time and patience."
"It's been seven weeks."
"Seven weeks is nothing," Kya says bluntly. "Some wounds take years to fully heal."
"What if it doesn't?"
It's the first time he's put words to the nebulous fear that's been haunting him since he realised how badly the lightning screwed up his arm. At the first healing session with Kya, her eyes had widened fractionally before she assumed the smooth professionalism she's been treating him with ever since. She'd told him the nerves were fried, the chi-paths blocked, and that there would always be scarring — but if he was patient and dedicated to recovering, with spirit water treatment and intense physical therapy, he might regain full use of his arm. That was good enough for him back then, but now it simply seems like a fading, futile hope.
Kya meets his eyes carefully. "It's too soon to make that assessment. If you still have no feeling in your arm a month or so from now, then I'd be more pessimistic. But for right now, you're making good progress."
He glares mutinously at his arm. "Doesn't feel like it."
Kya exhales. "Come here." She directs him to one of the benches around the Air Temple's plaza, which provides a clear view of Yue Bay and Avatar Aang Memorial. "Out of all types of bending, lightning is the most unpredictable, and the injuries it causes are the most complicated to heal. There aren't just the physical wounds to deal with, but chi damage as well. My father knew that better than most."
He glances at the statue of Aang, remembering the old tales: how Princess Azula had struck the young Avatar with lightning, and the whole world thought he was gone; how that had put him out of commission for weeks and left him unable to enter the Avatar State for months. And then he realises that he's speaking to the daughter of the woman who healed Aang from all that. Katara surely taught Kya all she knew about healing; he is literally being tended to by one of the best healers in the world.
"I've heard that story," he admits. "That must have been hell for Aang."
"It was. He felt the same way you do now, I'm sure."
"You really think he did?"
Kya raises an eyebrow. "Feeling useless, wondering if you'll ever recover, worrying what life will be like if you don't, wanting to do more and move faster but unable to because your body just won't cooperate, frustrated because you should be able to do better, and terribly afraid that you'll never be as good as you used to be?"
He blinks and flushes slightly. Kya smiles knowingly.
"Okay, yes, but…Aang got better. What if I don't? And I'm sure being the Avatar helps with recovery — better energy reserves, or more spiritual power, or something. I don't have that — I'm no one special."
"If Korra had never recovered from what the Red Lotus did to her, would she be any less of an Avatar?"
"No," he says at once. "Of course not. She saved the Air Nation, she defeated Zaheer — she's incredibly strong, in ways I could never be. She's Korra, and I'm just…" His gaze trails back to his arm, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "I'm just numb."
"The reason why you don't have much feeling in your arm right now is because your chi there is blocked. The physical damage has mostly healed, but the chi-paths are going to take longer to recover."
He understands that, but he's also realised it isn't just his arm that's numb — it's all of him.
"I know it's frustrating," Kya says compassionately. "And I know it's scary to think that you'll never really get better. But it's early days still, Mako — it's way too soon to give up." Her tone drops lower, taking on a more solemn cadence. "And even if you never do regain the use of that arm, would you really have made any other choice?"
He doesn't have to think. "No, I wouldn't have." He still remembers the determination that pulsed through him that day, the willingness to die if that was what it took to keep Korra, Bolin, and Republic City safe.
"You bear the mark of a hero, Mako." Kya's voice is wise and utterly sincere. "Those scars — the numbness in your arm — they represent the thousands of lives you saved by destroying Kuvira's mecha-suit. Be proud of that."
He meets her gaze and nods once.
"Now come on. We still have a few more exercises to get through before we're done for the day."
He performs the remaining exercises under Kya's watchful eye while reflecting on what he remembers about the day of the Colossus. It doesn't change how empty he feels right now — but he made a decision that day and he knows it was worth it. He'd poured everything he had into spirit vines, and he hadn't cared for whatever collateral damage he sustained.
As Kya concludes their session with the usual bout of water-healing, he thinks maybe that's the problem — maybe that's why he's so numb.
Maybe he'd given everything that day — and that's why he's left with nothing now.
A/N: Let's be real, though - having an injury like that is going to have long-term consequences, even if they aren't permanent. And I really wish they would have explored Mako's would-be death further in TLOK - they didn't have to kill him, but they could've made it look like he'd died for longer than 30 seconds. That way it would've had a greater emotional impact.
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