A/N: Look at me, having the chapter ready well in advance but being unable to update on the exact day...because life. Thanks again for your patience!

Thank you to Sharpe, Lightbrightfury, FireLordAziz, Raider, AsahixMe, Black Dragon Master, devilfiredog18, StevenBodner, and Guest for reviewing Chapter 66, and thank you to FireLordAziz and Emma for reviews on previous chapters. We've now hit 800 reviews and I'm THRILLED! Thank you all for making it happen!

67. My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold

"What the fuck were you thinking?!"

He's never seen Juno so angry. The normally unflappable detective is glaring daggers at him, her brows creased so severely into a frown that he swears they'll leave wrinkles. The minute he'd returned to HQ, she'd dragged him into a conference room to tear into him.

He blandly admits, "I wasn't thinking. I saw a chance and I took it."

"You completely disregarded protocol," she rails at him. "You didn't communicate, you didn't defer to the ranking officer — you just took off without a word!"

Minsu attempts to defend him: "To be fair, we all do that sometimes…"

Juno impatiently waves the waterbender's input aside. "This incident by itself wouldn't be a huge deal, but after the way you've been acting throughout this entire case…I think it's safe to say your past with Korozo is overriding your common sense."

He shoots Minsu a look of betrayal, but there's no real heat in it. He knows he deserves this.

"Don't get mad at Minsu — you should have told me upfront that Korozo killed your parents," Juno admonishes. There is a hint of sympathy in her tone, but her justified ire currently takes precedence. "Minsu went above and beyond keeping your secret until tonight made it obvious that it's doing more harm than good." She levels him with a withering stare. "So, what happened? Seeing how you're here without Korozo, I'm going to presume he got away from you."

He cringes. "Maybe."

Juno scowls ferociously. "What do you mean, maybe? It's either 'yes' or my next question is 'where the hell is he?'"

He drops his gaze, ashamed and disgusted. The guilt is setting in now. "I…don't know whether he escaped or…whether I burned him to nothing."

The charged silence that meets his words is profound, the horrified stares of his colleagues damning.

"Explain," Juno demands.

So he does, quietly and distantly, doing his best to shove aside the horrific possibility that he may just have committed an atrocious, cold-blooded murder. He tries to console himself with the fact that if he had killed Korozo, he would likely have seen some remains — it takes an immensely hot fire to vaporise a human body — but then again, his fire has never burned that intensely before; he cannot say for certain that it wasn't hot enough to incinerate the triad.

After everything he's done — the work he's put in to be a better man, to overcome his internal self-loathing about firebending, his efforts to let go of past traumas — and he's lost it all with one rage-filled outburst. Even if he hadn't succeeded (and he hopes to Agni he hasn't), at that moment, his intent was to kill Korozo — and does that really make him any different from the murderer Korozo is?

Bolin was right. He's screwed up his present (and very possibly his future), because he couldn't let go of the past.

Minsu is staring at him with a mixture of horror and compassion, and he averts his eyes because he can't bear to look at the younger man who placed so much faith in him. Minsu is the closest thing he has to a protegé, but he's utterly failed as a role model…and as a friend. He doesn't deserve the waterbender's admiration — not after he exploited it to muscle in on this case. The only reason he was even able to get as far as he did was because Minsu granted him that favour, because he felt he owed him something. Had it been anyone else in charge of investigating Korozo, he wouldn't have had even a sniff, let alone gotten away with being on the case as long as he has.

Spirits, he's broken so many principles in his quest for revenge…

"You're off the case. Hell, you're suspended." Juno's expression sobers into something immensely grave. "I know you know how serious this is, Mako. You'd better hope Korozo shows his face somewhere soon, or you're the one facing murder charges."

Minsu startles, looking distraught. "Would we really have to do that? We don't have any proof."

Juno sighs. "He just confessed to the possibility, Minsu. If Korozo doesn't turn up, we're going to have to assume he's dead."

"But…" Pure dismay from Minsu. "Juno, it's Mako."

"I know." Juno's voice is sombre; she takes no pleasure from this. "But we're the police, Minsu. That means catching the bad guys and enforcing the law…even against one of our own." She glances at him, her face inscrutable. "I really hope I don't have to arrest you."

He nods glumly. There's a nauseating, heavy weight in his stomach. "Me too."

Juno steels herself and holds out her hand. "Badge and ID."

He wordlessly unpins his sergeant's badge and fishes his police ID card out of his pocket and drops them both in Juno's palm, watching dispiritedly as Juno closes her fingers over them. It's been less than two years since Lin promoted him, but it feels like a lifetime ago. He'd been so proud to earn that badge…

"I'll make sure Beifong knows what's going on." Juno nods towards him, softening ever so slightly. "Get out of here, Mako. We'll call if we learn anything."

He wants to say something, try to salvage whatever remains of the respect they had for him — but he doesn't, because there is nothing he could say that would justify what he's done. His actions tonight were indefensible and he only has himself to blame.

So he bites his lip and turns tightly on his heel and walks despondently out of the station, feeling as though every step is carrying him farther away from the person he wishes he could be.

As much as he wishes this were a nightmare, he knows by now that he cannot escape the cold, hard truth.

A/N: This chapter's song - the classic 'Bring Me to Life' by Evanescence - reflects how this encounter with Korozo has regressed Mako almost to pre-mental development state. The juxtaposition of last chapter's title Burn with this chapter's Cold is also very deliberate, to show how cold Mako feels at the realisation of what the heated, vengeful rage of last chapter has cost him.

'I've become so numb without a soul'; 'My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold'; 'Frozen inside without your touch' - it's a chilling realisation to know you might have deliberately murdered someone, and we already know Mako's default method of coping is to detach himself. Moreover, the guilt of what he's done makes him feel like nothing ('save me from the nothing I've become'), unworthy of the regard he used to command from Minsu, especially. Now he needs someone to 'lead [him] back home' to the light where he once was, to 'wake [him] up inside' and 'bring [him] to life' again.

There won't be an update next week (sorry) but look out for one the week after!