Who do you work for baby?

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Wherein Hei has important news. As does Korra. 

 

[ In the days that follow, Hei's life seems locked in stasis -- he may as well be frozen in a cryo-chamber. In the gray dawn every morning, the brute vestige of habit wakes him up in time to go to the factory. Sprawled on the futon, he lies with his back to Korra. Eyes open to watch the sun spread across the bottom of the windowsill, immersed in that strange post-sleep clarity. Sometimes he takes a full five minutes to rise, lulled by Korra's breathing: long, slow inhales, smooth exhales. Just a sliver of space dividing their bodies -- but it might as well be a minefield. ]

[ In the late evenings, stiff and dull-eyed, as if he's been engaged in a low-wattage war someplace, he hits up the Triad hotspots, propped up on a stool with the opium-puffing, betel-chewing low-lives, listening to the scratchy music on the jukebox and inhaling the sour whiff of spilled sake as they talk shop. Almost every night he gets fresh info about the Red Lotus -- their agendas, their movements. It never quite makes the eleven o'clock local news, but from what he's gathered so far, this new threat plans to transform the world into a free-for-all disaster zone, with public figures and political leaders toppled down nightly. ]

[ To separate fact from fiction, he turns to the air-bender held captive in his safehouse. She is tight-lipped and defiant at first. But after he's spread and u-clamped her fingers to a table, and meticulously dismantled them one by one from cuticle to knuckle, she grows chattier. From her, he learns the names of the Red Lotus' leaders. Learns of their failed attempts to kidnap Korra once before, which ended in them being locked up. ]

[ Now they're out, and determined to pick up where they left off. ]

[ The details leave Hei quietly unnerved. He needs to warn Korra. It's true, things have been tense since she'd learnt about his affiliation with the Triads. At home, it is as if they are guests at the same small hotel, who have been introduced for politeness' sake at the table d'hote. Meals are spent in near-silence. Little or no physical warmth passes between them; lying back-to-back in the futon each night, there seems nothing to distinguish the bleak well of sleep from the bleak stretches of wakefulness. They don't talk about desire. It is there -- in him, if not in her -- but as if by silent consent, he acts on it separately, or else not at all. The air in the house seems laced with a dark spell; it burns dim and low between them like creeping resignation.]

[ Still, her safety is his first priority. As the smoky dusk encroaches, he cuts a brisk path through the noise and steam and clamor of the city. Hops on a ferry, and heads to Air Temple Island, where Korra is training with Tenzin. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Maybe that's what draws him to Korra? A prodigy who forces herself to walk with childlike grace on the balanced edge of a razor, who deliberately chooses everything that is epic in proportion and difficult in life over everything easeful and easy -- loving someone like that is brutal and exactly the sort of challenge Hei is built to rise to. Constancy and the ability to thrill -- these rarely dwell within the same person. But when you find both, you have to seize the chance and hold on to it. ]

[ Hugging her now, he can feel that low buzz of tension. Again, he can't quite put his finger on it. Instead he skims his hands around her back, squeezing gently, wanting to ease her strain, before he reluctantly detaches. ]

Yeah.

[ Keeping the fingers of one hand folded with hers, he tugs. Leads her away from the beach -- but is unable to leave an amorphous unease, a flicker of premonition, behind. ]

[anatural]

[They walk back to the temple in a silence that's almost comfortable. Like this, she can almost pretend that the past few weeks haven't happened and nothing has changed between them. It's not like what she saw was really a surprise. She's known the kind of person he is for awhile, and chosen to ignore it because she loves him and he never shoved it in her face. If he could just go back to not reminding her with how late he comes home, the way he reeks of booze & drugs...

That's not going to work anymore. She can pretend that he doesn't have an unsavory way of gathering information, but neither of them can pretend there's not a baby once it's there, once she really starts showing.

Lost in her own thoughts, she doesn't notice that they're approaching Kya. The older waterbender immediately notices the way they're holding hands and smiles.]

See? I told you he'd react better than you expected.

[Korra goes stiff as Kya wraps them both in a warm hug.]

Congratulations, both of you.

[Shit.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei is completely unaware of her fears. Unaware -- for now -- of that curl of surprise burgeoning in her belly. In a knot of conflicting strategies, thinking about the Red Lotus, he's too busy wondering how Korra can be best protected. How the threat to her can be eliminated. At the first sign of trouble, his first doubts and paranoia, it's easy for him to default to the professional tools and tactics that in their proper context divide the world into operators and assets, assassins and targets. Ironic, too, because his concern for Korra is purely personal. Because Korra had gotten through to him precisely by bypassing his Contractor's persona and somehow accessing the person beneath it. ]

[ He glances sideways at Korra, in that way he's so good at. Maybe that's why it's so important for me not to lose her. He's hidden himself for so long behind an accretion of lies and layers, masks and manipulations. The few glimpses he's had of his real self -- or the fragments of self left intact -- has disgusted him. ]

[ Except around Korra. With her, it's easy to feel like a real, cohesive, mostly complete person. Not always a happy one, but at least someone whose face isn't claylike, masklike, a facsimile. ]

[ He squeezes her hand as they approach a beaming Kya. A silent instruction that they should tell her about the Red Lotus. But Kya's words -- her unexpected hug -- make a dizzying mess of his intentions. ]

'Congratulations?'

[ It's not 'Li's voice. But it's too bewildered to carry Hei's usual edge. Suddenly his exposed skin feels so chilly he can't feel his hands or face. When he tightens his grip around Korra's fingers, it's both with the anxiety of a boy treading into deep waters, and a hunter making sure his quarry doesn't escape. ]

What's going on?

[anatural]

[Kya backs off immediately.]

Wait, you didn't tell him? But — you're holding hands — I thought —

[Korra's in full panic. She'd been terrified to tell him when they were alone, but having him find out like this is the worst possible way she can think of. Now there's no hope of her having time to get her thoughts and feelings in order, no chance to figure out how to handle it.]

There's a group called the Red Lotus and they want to kill all the world leaders including me. We need to talk to Tenzin.

[The words come out in a jumbled rush. It's the only way she can think of to delay the inevitable.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei glances from Kya's mortified face to Korra's stricken one. Blinks once, twice as Korra babbles in a wild landslide about the Red Lotus, panic leaping in short shocks off her skin. A moment of quiet hangs in the air, punctuated by the push and pull of the tide and he's perfectly still. Another beat and he tips his chin, eyes narrowed and fingers lacing tighter with Korra's. ]

[ When he speaks, finally, it's -- ]

What the hell is going on?

[ His voice is mild but that hard-gravel pitch is a full octave lower than Li's usual range. He waits to see anything shutter over the two women's faces, and thinks -- fuck. He's waited longer for worse things. There's no hurry for better. ]

[anatural]

[Kya looks between the two of them like she's not sure where her attention should go. After a moment, she comes to a decision.]

I'll go find Tenzin. You two go sit in there and talk. [She reaches out and squeezes Korra's shoulder sympathetically, but doesn't budge at the younger girl's look of utter terror and betrayal. Before leaving, she leans in and whispers "You can do this."

No I can’t. Even as Korra walks with Hei into the little conference room, she contemplates bending the earth open and disappearing into the planet's crust. She has to hide from the Red Lotus, doesn't she? Two birds with one stone. Perfect plan. Let's do it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches Kya go, and his heart skips like a stone over deep water before time resumes. It takes him by surprise, but then, he's always been good at catching the currents of tension in the air. Right now it radiates most strongly off of Korra: she feels like a quartz rod at his side, giving off dizzying waves of energy. ]

[ Mechanically, he follows her to the narrow room. Although the window is open, he can barely breathe; the air in the room feels stifling, spent. His gaze drops to where he's holding her hand, a light tremor running through the fingers, like he's not sure if it's okay to do something as simple as touch her anymore. In the next beat, almost like he loses physical courage, his palm drops back down to his side. ]

[ When he speaks, it's low and calm, a barrier against the tide of anxiety swelling within. ]

Korra. What's happened?

[ Is she sick? Is she going away somewhere? His mind shuffles through the list of options, but none of them connects to the present. None of them sheds any light on the way she's acting. ]

[anatural]

[He drops her hand, and it's like a knife to her gut. He doesn't even know yet and he can't touch her. She looks at the past few weeks and can see them stretching out for nine months. Longer. Who knows if he'll even stick around after she tells him she's not going to terminate the pregnancy. He'll disappear, because that's the other thing he likes to do, and Korra will be doing this on her own.

You’re not alone. Korra reminds herself what Kya said. She has Kya, Tenzin and Pema, Jinora, her parents, Master Katara... She's surrounded by people who support her. She takes a deep breath.]

I'm pregnant.

[She can't think of a way to soften the news, so she just puts it out there.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Pregnant. The words, rather than being spoken, seem rather to materialize before him, as if printed on a bright red balloon. A balloon floating dangerously close to a pin. Then -- pop. Deflate, retract. Hei blinks, once, twice, and feels his face go blank as he processes, and processes, and processes, for three long heartbeats, before his stunned eyes seem to turn themselves inside out. His heart skips like a faulty stylus on a turntable. Chest tightening, skin draining of color. ]

[ To an impartial observer, he might seem like a man on the verge of a stroke. So filled with suffocating dread that he can't even express it. He's just white. ]

Damn...

[ It comes out in a seventeen-year-old's croak. He doesn't know what else to say. The hitch-skip in his chest intensifies, his body understanding fully even as his mind struggles to catch up. It makes no sense. They've been so careful. They've used protection each time. Except -- fuck it. He knows better than anyone that no birth control method is 100% effective. ]

[ In a blank, blindish way, he stares at Korra. Tries to pull himself together, but can't really manage it. He is still processing. Pregnant. He thinks he might be processing that possibly forever. If he doesn't blink out, between each airless breath, each juddering heartbeat. ]

[ Eventually, though, he's able to revert to some sort of operational default. He finds himself asking, ]

How far along?

[anatural]

[As she waits for him to react, Korra stops being quite so scared for herself and more scared for him. He looks like he's going to pass out. It might even be funny, if the circumstances weren't so...not. It's a relief when he finally speaks. Her voice is quiet, as though she's afraid to speak too loudly and break through his shock and release his anger.]

A few weeks... I had no idea until Kya told me earlier. She saw the change in my chi. She says it has a heartbeat.

[A heartbeat and, according to Southern Water Tribe custom, a soul. The Northern Water tribe believed that children didn't have souls until they left the womb; their spirit came to them with their first breath. For all its sexism, the predominance of female healers helped ensure that the mother's health was always top priority. And as family was considered part of the woman's sphere, it was of course up to the woman to decide how many children she would have. But of course, the Northern Water Tribe was large and flourished even during Sozin's War, while their sister tribe has always been small, and particularly after the Fire Nation attacked, on the verge of dying out. Preventing pregnancy was acceptable, though not encouraged, but once pregnancy happened, the baby came first. Even Katara, who was the tribe's strongest proponent of physical and sexual autonomy for women, balked at the North's willingness to terminate pregnancies at any point. She had a tribe to restore, and a nation of airbenders to bring back from extinction.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei hears her words as if from under the pounding ocean. It is exactly like being underwater, like trying to stay upright in heavy surf while the sand is sucked from beneath your feet. His face is wan, drawn, with a sharp little indent between the brows. ]

A few weeks...

[ He is aware of the almost sacred emphasis the Southern Water Tribe places on children. But it's not one he can share. He's never given any thought to children. He's a killer, a Contractor. They don't care about posterity. They are posterity -- their own past, present, and future. And the Hei who had navigated through the world differently ... Well, he'd died the day the stars fell from the sky. Died with his real name, with the memories of his parents and his still-innocent sister. Died before he had a chance to grasp anything he'd thought he wanted, and no matter how many decades the Black Reaper might exist in the human sphere, how passionately he might fuck his women, he'll leave nothing of himself behind when his end comes. A dead breeder of death. That's just the way it is. ]

[ He's never expected anything different. ]

[ Swallowing, he tries for a level voice. ]

It's still early. Tell me you're not going to -- ?

[ Keep it? He can't bring himself to say that. But he can't yet bring himself to demand she send it down the toilet, either. ]

[anatural]

Hei, it has a heartbeat. [She'd expected his resistance, and yet somehow she's still indignant that he could even ask. Of course she's keeping it!]

[mortemscintilla]

That doesn't make it a person. Not yet.

[ His voice is low, rough, and his look carries a flat precision that doesn't betray his interior. He's pretending at logic and calm, but he feels shipwrecked, his pulse a cartwheel, his heart a small, grotesque thing uncoiling behind the cage of his ribs, ready to do battle with the cold-eyed Reaper at the helm of his brain, to plead mercy with his trigger-loaded instincts -- an epic battle of judge, jury, executioner, all rolled up inside him. ]

[ Swallowing dryly, he rubs his temples, then scrubs all ten fingers distractedly through his hair. ]

It's just a fertilized egg. It's unaware of its own existence and does not have a brain. If you end it, it won't even know it existed.

[ He needs to make her understand that. (More to the point, he needs to make himself understand that. It's why he keeps referring to the fetus as It. It is distancing, objectifying. The kind of thing many Syndicate operatives learn to do before pulling the trigger.) ]

[anatural]

It does to me. [Any ambivalent feelings she might have had herself, internal debates on how much she accepted the south's ideas on pregnancy and life, vanish in the face of his arguments. He's an outsider attacking her culture, and she will defend it.] And while that may not matter to you, I care. I'm not going to end a life just because it's inconvenient.

[mortemscintilla]

I never said. It didn't matter to me.

[ He glares at her through a fog of headache and escalating tension, anger burning under the surface of his words. While her eagerness might be touching, he knows it's just that stupid Darwinian thing. They fuck with your head so you'll reproduce like a good little member of your species, never mind whether it is the world's worst idea ever. She is too damn young. And he's too ... well. Not young. Not the way he survived. But he is much too fucked-up. ]

[ Yes, he loves Korra -- an imperfect, wild, hilarious and desperate love. Nothing, no one, right now, is more important than she is. He is sure of that. More to the point, she has a job to do -- a duty -- and he's made it his job to help her do it. Anything that pulls her concentration from that, that puts them off their game, is a liability that can be fatal. ]

[ So. Distracting. Idiotic. Impossible. End of discussion. ]

[ Except that understanding, that determined belief ... does nothing to make any less sore the place inside himself where a more infinite future has opened out and must be demolished for the good of logic. ]

[ He ignores a pounding in his temples, an ache in his chest. Says, with effortful calm. ]

I'm not trying to be ... insensitive. But you need to be real. You're the Avatar. You have a ton of other responsibilities. Not to mention threats to your life. Having a kid isn't something that you can try, then, if you don't like it a year down the road, undo. There's no reset button. Just take a breath and think about the next few years. Your mind's not on 2 Am feedings and teething and dirty diapers and babysitters and measles and colds and schools and homework and having to be there almost every moment to make sure they don't get hurt --

[ With a breath, he cuts himself off. Glowers at her, but underneath that burns a plea. ]

Children need. And they never stop needing, Korra. I'm just asking if you're prepared for that. Because I'm not. Pai -- [ and he loved Pai more than anything, anyone ] -- was a handful enough.

[anatural]

[Korra steps back and looks away from him.] Avatars do have children. I believe you've met three of them.

[His point still stands. She's not ready for this. She never thought she'd have to be, even after that scare in the City. She thought protection would be enough. And he's not saying anything that she hasn't been thinking about obsessively ever since she stopped obsessing over the How it’s not possible! part.

It changes nothing.]

I'm not prepared. [Her voice comes out too small and she takes a deep breath.] I know I'm not prepared for any of this. I haven't been prepared for anything since I first came to Republic City. Not Amon, not my uncle, not the spirits... It doesn't change my responsibilities. I can't kill a child just because it's inconvenient.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's fingers clench and unclench at his sides, heartbeat sounding off like hammer strikes in his temples. His jaw feels like it's tightened to shattering point; he feels like he could seize Korra and shake her until her hair flies loose from its ties and her teeth fall out like chiclets and she gets so stirred up inside that she miscarries. ]

[ He could do it. He's done it before. He's taken out plenty of pregnant women and children. Non-principals. How else would he have survived this far? Killing is killing -- regardless of your target. There's a fine line between chivalry and chauvinism. Similarly, there's a fine line between selective morality and deluded stupidity. All he's ever cared about is getting the job done. ]

[ Except this isn't a job. He recognizes that his mind is swooping around these violent fantasies so it won't have to land on the rock of fact she's dashed down upon him. ]

[ That tiny creature inside her, whose presence so inflames his paranoia and dismay and disbelief ... is his. ]

[ He waits for Korra to finish speaking. Focuses on his breathing, ignoring the way his vision wavers at the edges. A child, he thinks. My child. It makes no sense. Tenzin has children. His parents had children. Not him. ]

[ Except, even now, logic hasn't shaken its grip off his whirling brain. ]

It's not just an inconvenience, Korra. It would also make you a little more dead than I'd like you to be. Avatars have children, yeah. But Aang didn't carry his babies -- or deliver them. You'd be too vulnerable with a sprog. Distracted. And the baby could be gruesome kidnapping waiting to happen. Are you ready to risk that?

[anatural]

Aang didn't, but Katara did. And she was in just as much danger as he was. [One of the quickest ways to make Korra angry — imply that her beloved sifu was any less important to saving the world than her husband.]

Ready or not... I'm going to be a mother.

[Saying the words out loud makes her feel faint.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei grits his teeth. Rage and frustration are climbing toward his hairline, making him itch with forced self-restraint. His head sings, aching from a current that hums under his wild pulse. But he stays where he is, rooted to the spot like a tree. Cranked up, it'd be easy -- too easy -- to pop loose a few rounds. To launch himself at her, shake her and force her, make her talk sense, make her be a sane human being he knows how to cope with. ]

[ Not ... this. This infuriating person acting dangerously like how he himself wants to react, madly making absurd precarious essentially unworkable plans for how they can have the child after all, and still be the same people, do the same things, enjoy the same freedoms. ]

[ Except that's impossible. ]

Aang and Katara were lucky. You might not be. The second your enemies get a whiff of the news that the Avatar's got a bun in the oven, every megalomaniac will be beating a path to your door. When it happens, you're going to be second-guessing yourself every moment, nauseous, with backache, your feet swollen, and you're going to look at your belly, at this life you're so hellbent on preserving, feel that kick of reality coming from inside you, and all of these sentimental notions you feel right now will disappear.

[anatural]

Then I better be lucky.

[She's not going to be swayed. He can logic all he wants, but nothing will change the fact that she's keeping the baby. She doesn't have a choice.

Where’s Tenzin?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She has a billion-and-one choices. She's just being too obtuse to see them. She's convinced herself she can have this baby -- when there is just no way. Her life as the Avatar might be a collaborative team production, with Tenzin and his family and her friends all helping her. But expecting them all to commit years of theirs to helping her raise a child she is singularly ill-equipped to deal with -- that is a non-starter. Expecting the delicate balance of his affair with Korra to survive that real-world test of his many limitations -- another non-starter. Easier to imagine that she'd soon came to resent -- even hate -- him, than that he'd ever be capable of rising to her expectations that way. ]

[ And apart from that -- he knows he isn't ready for this. Playing a caretaker and protector to Pai, to the extent he managed that, was difficult enough, and he knows he'd made his share of mistakes. A helpless infant needing constant care and attention ... would be a nightmare. There are just some situations in which even love doesn't find a way. ]

[ He wishes she'd understand: the best way to cherish this creature they've inadvertently made together, is to let it go. ]

[ In a different voice, almost bitter, he says, ]

Look. I know whatever happens, you'd be a good mom. Or try to be. But it's not the same case for me. I barely manage to behave myself for you. And I'm not good, Korra. You should be worried about me being a bad influence. Because I'm the last person who should have anything to do with an impressionable mind.

[anatural]

[It all comes down to a fundamental difference in belief. To Korra, this baby is just as alive as Jinora or Meelo or Hei himself. What he's suggesting is akin to say that "Jinora is a liability, so you should kill her."]

So I should kill this baby because you're an asshole? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Yeah, well. Then her beliefs are flat-out idiotic. (Except he knows, doesn't he, how very easy it is to ignore facts that don't support your beliefs and to actively seek sources that support your convictions? They're so deeply planted that they become your personal code -- the core that navigates your behavior.) ]

[ He doesn't want to disparage these beliefs, these things that are so tied up with her very Korra-ness. But he can't step back and let her go through with this momentous mistake. It aggrieves a small part of him that is hopeless and bereft, contemplating the loss of a marvel he's never even met. But this is a well-known itch of sentiment that he is used to resisting. ]

[ Flatly, ]

You should. You know I'd be a terrible father. There's no guarantee that kid won't end up like me. Is that what you want?

[ Don't trust me with your child. I'm a killer, and I'm weak, and my love for you isn't going to be enough. He doesn't say it. But he doesn't need to. ]

[anatural]

You don't have to be involved.

[If it's a choice between breaking up with Hei and taking a life... She'll break up with him. Not happily, not without regrets and tears, but she'll do it.

The door opens before Hei can continue beating a dead horse, and Tenzin bursts in, robes swirling around him.]

Korra, are you all right? What's going on?!

[mortemscintilla]

[ You don't have to be involved. She says it so casually, so easily -- but there's still a skittering, a sinking in Hei's chest. Suddenly he feels the heaviness of her words, their implication, and the heaviness of difference that lies between them stronger than ever. A child she doesn't even know yet. Just a corpuscle of possibility in her belly. But she's already willing to give up whatever's between them to safeguard it. He wonders, with a surge of both hurt and bitterness, if he'd do the same, were their positions reversed. ]

[ He doesn't say anything. But his face reflects a slow shift from simple anger to a more complex kind of emotion, a deeper level of unhappiness. ]

[ It doesn't last long. In the next beat, Tenzin is storming in. ]

[ Suddenly it's easy to step away from Korra, to detach his gaze from hers, a quick cold slice like from a blade. Flatly, he says, ]

It's the Red Lotus. They're coming after Korra.

[ The news of the pregnancy, he keeps to himself. It's not Tenzin's business. Not yet. ]