Chapter Text
“Do you want any of this? It’s delicious!” Kya offered a stick covered in deep-fried eel to Lin.
“Ugh! I’m going to have so much heartburn tonight already!”
“I have a special preparation all ready for that at home. I made extra for the Festival.”
They strolled the midway of the carnival, paper lanterns aglow, while Republic City celebrated the Winter Solstice. The sun was down but the street lined with food stands and games was packed with children and their harried parents.
WHOOSH --- POP POP --- BOOM!
Kya cringed at the sound of the firework exploding over her shoulder. She turned just in time to see a kid running away, following a bunch of other young miscreants.
“Hey! You kids be careful with those!” she shouted angrily.
She turned to Lin, whose eyes were wide and focused somewhere else. Her expression was pure terror.
“Lin?”
“Look out!” she cried. “Su!” The Chief dove, rolling away and throwing up a wide wall of stone between her and the place where the kids had been.
People jumped out of the way of the curved wall, and a hush fell over the crowd,
Kya dashed to be at her side, but Lin was up and on her feet again, running hard toward the food stands.
“Lin! What—?!”
Suddenly there were huge rocks being lifted from the street and flung into the crowd. People screamed and ran from the onslaught, and Lin leapt behind another wall that emerged from the ground.
“Please! STOP!” Kya shouted, catching her with a stream of water like a lasso. She jerked and Lin came down hard on her backside. The earthbender struggled for a little, until Kya picked up another blob of melting snow and splashed Lin’s face with it.
She spluttered, and stopped.
Kya hurried and knelt down beside her. “What’s going on? Lin? What’s the matter?”
Lin looked at her, as though she’d just awakened. Then she rolled onto her knees, and vomited.
The police assigned to the Festival helped repair the street that Lin’s earthbending had damaged, and Kya tended to the few injured that Lin had struck with the stones. Lin sat in the back seat of a cruiser, wrapped in a blanket, shaking and pale.
When they were finished, Officer Eun took Kya aside.
“What happened before she went off like that?”
“A kid shot a firecracker at us.”
“Was she hurt?”
“No. She said ‘Look out! Su!’ before she started bending. Su is her sister. It had to have been a flashback. I think the sound reminded her of something.”
“I’ll have to file a report.”
“I know. Be sure to let Mako know. At least before Raiko hears about it.”
“Sure thing.”
She climbed into the back seat with Lin, took her hand, and asked the patrolman to take them home.
Lin would not speak. All the way home, into their house, and even into the bathtub, where Kya climbed in with her and used her healing skills to calm Lin’s racing heart.
Eventually her muscles relaxed, and she lay against the sloped back of the tub, her eyes downcast.
“Sometimes it happens,” Kya said, gently. “The memories come back, all at once, and it’s like you’re there all over again. All those emotions, they come back just as vivid as the first time.”
“I saw her die,” Lin said, at last, the first words since the incident.
Kya ran her foot up Lin’s calf under the water.
“The Red Lotus… P’li. The combustion bender.”
“Oh, Lin.”
“We fought against her, Su and I. She had me in her line of sight. I saw her eyes. The ‘whoosh, pop pop’... and then Suyin wrapped her head in steel.”
Kya had heard that sound too, once, after Ming Hua and Ghazan had driven them off the cliff. P’li had tried to kill them, too, but Bumi let go and they were falling down the mountainside during the explosion.
“She dropped like a sack of wet rice. There was…” Lin swallowed. “Smoke and blood. And… bits… Her head was gone.”
Lin paused. Kya stretched out a hand, touched her knee.
“I thought I would die. I saw her eyes. She was so close, and I knew I would die then.”
Kya waited.
Lin sunk back into herself.
“You never told anyone.”
“We had other things to take care of. After that, we had to find you and the airbenders. Korra had been captured. There… there was a lot going on… that day.”
“But you never talked to anyone about it after?”
Lin seemed to be collapsing inward. “Who?”
Kya leaned back, closing her eyes, and letting out her breath. “I wish I’d known.”
“I… didn’t know you… then.”
Tenzin, Bumi, Su… anyone… why didn’t you tell anyone? But who would you have told, after all? Who could you trust?
“And. And I just. Forgot about it. Kept busy. Work. Kuvira. I always had something else to think about.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kya said. It felt empty.
Lin shrugged. Her eyes were fixed on the bathroom lights reflecting in the water.
She rose from the tub, reached for a towel, and put her hand out for Lin. Lin grasped it and was pulled up from the water. Kya wrapped her in the soft cloth, and pulled her close, enclosing her in her arms, putting Lin’s head on her breast. She held her for a bit, and then began to dry her off, gently. Then she took her hand and led her to bed, and pulled her near again.
“You’re safe now, and I’m here, and you can say anything you need to.”
Lin nodded, a very small nod, but said nothing, even as the night closed around them.
In the middle of the night, Kya felt Lin reach for her. A hand caressed her hip, and she stirred, barely conscious. Then lips, soft as anything, touched her shoulder.
She rolled toward Lin, and when she was on her back, Lin kissed her mouth, again with softness, and her hand moved from Kya's hip to her belly, and upward. Her breast was cupped, and then kissed.
"Wha?" she mumbled, as Lin rose onto her knees, and began to climb over her, guiding her thighs apart with that gentle hand.
"I need you," Lin whispered, lowering her torso down to put her lips to Kya's throat.
Groggy, she struggled to come awake, even as the caressing of Lin's hand nearly put her back under. But when Lin moved the sheets aside to move between her legs, the cool air of the room cleared Kya's mind.
"Lin?"
Lin said nothing, but lined the insides of her thighs with more kisses. Lin's hands moved up and down the toned muscles of her legs. Kya lifted her knees almost without thinking, and Lin slipped her shoulders underneath. When she felt Lin nuzzling the soft hair of her mound, she sighed deeply, and moved her own hands to stroke Lin's hair.
The very tip of Lin's tongue slipped between the lips, and Kya sighed again, savoring the pleasure beginning to warm her from the inside. With tremendous tenderness, Lin circled her clitoris, and Kya shuddered slightly.
"More," she said.
Lin complied, and soon Kya felt Lin's tongue curl to envelope the swelling bud, followed by a light suction. She gasped, and moved to create a rhythm for Lin to follow.
The heat within her began to flow, and Lin took advantage of this, pulling in her hand to slide a finger inside Kya. She was rewarded with an arched back and a quiet moan. Another finger entered her, and curled, all the while encircling the clit at the pace Kya had set.
When Kya groaned again, Lin stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, and Kya nearly whimpered.
"No, don't stop!"
Lin returned to her position, again curling her tongue deftly around the center of Kya's pleasure, circling, lapping and sucking, listening intently for signs that Kya was reaching her peak. Kya's breath began to become short, and her movements stronger, until she was nearly bucking against Lin's head and shoulders.
Moments later, Kya's legs began to tremble, and Lin felt a gush of warmth as the walls around her fingers spasmed tightly. She heard Kya wail between gritted teeth. She did not stop right away, but waited for Kya to come again, which she did almost immediately. Hands gripped her hair, and she took this as her cue to pull slowly out and away.
Kya's breath slowed, and she heaved a great sigh. Lin moved back up and lay her head on Kya's shoulder, resuming the soft massage with which she'd started. Her eyes still closed, Kya reached her hands up to find Lin's face, and pulled her into a kiss, tasting her essence on Lin's lips.
"I love you more than I can say..." Lin said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her mind hazy with the afterglow, Kya took Lin's hand and kissed her palm, and yawned, "Love you too."
"Shh," Lin said, and Kya drifted back to sleep easily.
The papers had not missed the episode. There were photographs of Lin tearing up the street, and of her being soaked back to reality by Kya.
Lin was gone before Kya rose; not at all unusual.
She put her hands around the hot cup of tea at the table, looking out the window at the garden. Brown and tangled stems poked up from the half-melted remnants of the last snow. The sky was overcast.
"Don't read the articles," Katara said.
"No," she answered.
"What really happened?"
"She had a flashback. Some kid popped a firecracker at us, and it reminded her of that combustion bender she and Suyin fought against when they were trying to rescue Korra from the Red Lotus."
Katara sipped and shook her head.
"She never talked to anyone about it."
"Not surprising," her mother answered.
It wasn't. Kya had to remind herself that this was long before she and Lin had developed the relationship they had now. They were practically strangers then.
Kya put her teacup in the sink, and moved to the doorway, to pull on her parka and boots.
"Don't be surprised if it's not you," Katara said.
"What?"
"That she wants to talk to about it. If she needs to work this out, she may... "
"But I love her!"
"We all love her. She knows that. But you may be too close. Just. Don't be hurt if she finds someone else to help her."
Kya dropped her hands helplessly. "How... I want to help. How can I? I don't want her to push me away again."
"Give her the space so that she doesn't have to push." Katara rose from her own seat and came to her daughter's side. She looked up into her eyes.
"I know how you feel. I wanted to help your father so much, so many times, but he had to figure out some things on his own. Same for me... Zuko helped me find the man who murdered my mother. Aang was there for me when I came back. That's what I needed then.”
Kya's eyes blurred with tears. "I just..."
Katara put her arms around her, and they swayed together in a tight embrace.
The morning dragged. The clinic was filled with sniffling people, colds passing around during the damp, chilly weather. Kya tried not to think about Lin’s muted response after the bath, but she could not forget the way Lin made love to her, or her words in the middle of the night. I love you more than I can say .
Of course Mom was right, but it didn’t feel that way, and doing nothing felt awful.
But did giving her space mean actually staying away from her? Maybe… maybe bringing her some lunch, to show she cared. She didn’t have to bring up last night’s incident. That would be all right, wouldn't it?
She determined to do it, and this gave a little purpose to her work. She eased the coughing and medicated the congestion of dozens of patients, all smiling when they left, their fevers lowered and feeling better. It felt good to be able to help people.
It was a little later than lunchtime when she made it through the queue of people at the clinic, but this was probably better for Lin anyway, once her officers and detectives were back from their own lunches and she could get away for a bit. She stopped by Narook’s and picked up two boxes of the noodles that she knew Lin liked best, with a side of steamed buns.
A spring in her step, she proceeded to the station, passing the huge statue of Toph, foreboding against the white, overcast sky. It cast no shadow, but she felt one fall over her.
Inside, her arrival turned a couple of heads, and the usual station hum softened slightly. Kya felt a flicker of nervousness buzz through her, but tried to shake it off, tossing her hair and striding toward Lin’s office. She rapped the door quickly, and pulled it open.
Saikhan was at her desk, another officer sitting next to him, papers everywhere.
They both looked up at her, their faces shifting quickly from surprise to dismay.
“Where’s Lin?” she asked.
“You don’t know,” Saikhan realized.
“Know what?” Kya trembled with alarm.
“She resigned,” Saikhan replied. “Raiko was here when she got in.”
“She WHAT?!” Her shout caused the hum to stop completely. None of the police officers were unaware of Kya’s waterbending abilities.
“It wasn’t… voluntary… Please, Kya, come in and close the door.”
She shook with anger. “Raiko FIRED her?”
“Please. Come sit down.”
Kya drew a few long, deep breaths, trying to quell the fury rising in her. Lin didn’t deserve this. She deserved far better than this. This wasn’t going to help her at all!
Saikhan stood, and the other officer took the opportunity to leave the room to them. He guided her to a seat and sat her down.
“None of us wanted this. But Lin… Lin was… it was strange. Like she was almost relieved that he was forcing her to resign. Mako was as mad as you are. He resigned too, in protest.”
“Nooo,” Kya wailed.
“I think it will all blow over in a few days, or a week. You know how Raiko is about bad press.”
“The opportunistic bastard,” she growled.
“He’s a politician. I don’t think he can help himself.”
This made her snort, but it calmed her too. “Do you think he’ll retract it later?”
“Lin’s too good at what she does for this to stand for long. She’s got a lot of respect not just inside the force, but in the business community too. She keeps everyone safe. If that slips, there’s not a lot Raiko could do except bring her back.”
“What happened last night was some old trauma from the Red Lotus, when they captured Korra and the airbenders. Keeping everyone safe has taken a toll on her too.”
“I understand. I think the best thing you can do for her now is go home and be there for her.”
Kya nodded, and rose. “Thank you for… stepping up.”
Saikhan laughed. “I’ve had this job before. It’s more like stepping in it.”
The sack of cooling noodles weighed more as she trudged back to the clinic. Kya considered taking a bus home to check on Lin, but now it seemed as though it might be best to let her be alone for a while.
Why had she accepted the demand to resign? This wasn’t like her. Neither was the way she let herself be put into and pulled out of the bath last night. Lin was rarely so pliant and passive.
Far fewer sniffling patients awaited her return. She treated them each, rewarded and uplifted by every relieved sigh from someone whose nose and lungs she freed from the gunk caused by the illness. Crying toddlers laughed and babies fell asleep in her arms as she examined them after a quick go-over with her healing water.
It was so simple for her… a few quick moves of bending, a slight concentration with her qi, and the unhappy were made happy. She took a few minutes to eat some cold noodles, fortifying her own strength, and then a few more to meditate while moving through waterbending forms to rebuild her own qi.
The afternoon was short; it was already dark when Kya waved goodnight to her colleagues and caught the bus for home. The vehicle was full of more people sniffling and coughing, and she couldn't just let them suffer, nor spread it further. She brought out her waterskin and healed everyone on the bus who wanted it.
Rounding the curved street toward their house, she noted there was no cruiser in the driveway, but remembered that having resigned, Lin would likely have had to find another way home. The lights were on inside.
Before she could even open the door, Katara was standing in the doorway.
"Mom! You scared the daylights out of me!"
"Lin's not with you?"
"She's not home?"
"The radio news said she'd resigned. I thought you'd be with her."
"I went to bring her lunch but she wasn't there. I assumed she'd come home."
Katara shook her head sadly.
"Oh no," Kya breathed.