Space Girlfriends
549 sols. Almost 560 Earth days alone on this godforsaken rock. And now she was about to do quite possibly the stupidest thing ever attempted in the history of mankind. But hey, fastest woman in the history of space travel did have one hell of a ring to it. Korra checked the fastenings on the tarpaulin that was supposed to serve as the front of her ship for her brief ascent one last time and strapped herself into the chair. Any moment now, any moment...
For the first time in 549 days her comms crackled to life, and the voice she’d been dreaming of came through.
“Mars Lander, this is the Appa 7. Come in, Mars.”
Korra swallowed hard, trying to keep down the wave of emotion. Despite her best efforts her voice shook.
“This is Mars. I hear you, Commander. Fuck...I...” her voice broke. “Thanks for coming back for me.”
High above the surface of the planet Asami wiped her eyes at the controls, and Opal pretended not to see.
“Yeah, well, your mum would never let me play with Naga again if I didn’t.” She shot back, and the answering half laugh, half sob was one of the best sounds Asami had ever heard.
“Well Asami, I know you like showing off but please, no fancy flying with this thing,” Korra choked out, and Asami laughed.
“Ok, no loop-the-loop. You’re probably going to black out, Korra, but it’s ok. I’ve got you.”
“My life in your hands, ‘sams. But I wouldn’t want anyone else launching me into space in a freaking convertible. If nothing else then because you’d get jealous and demand a repeat performance so you could have a go.” Korra quipped. She double checked her restraints as the crew of the Appa sounded off.
“Korra. On your signal. Are we good?”
Korra closed her eyes, taking a few deep, steadying breaths.
“We are good. Go, Asami. Go.”
Asami flipped the switch. The engines roared. Korra was slammed back into her seat, the force of the acceleration crushing her. She could hear Asami’s voice in her ear but she couldn’t even raise a finger, couldn’t even draw a breath. The last thing she saw before the blackness claimed her was the sky falling away behind her, stars exploding before her eyes.
Opal reached across the consol, putting her hand reassuringly on Asami’s shoulder. The module was launched and separated, no guidance left to be done on Asami’s part, but there was no response from Korra.
“She was pulling 12 Gs coming up, she’s probably just blacked out. Give her a few minutes, ok? How’s the intercept looking?”
Asami nodded, fighting down the nerves inside her. She checked the readout, and the knot inside her loosened.
“We’re perfect. Spot on fucking perfect. Intercept at 90 meters, speed 7 meters a second.” Asami let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
“Is this kind of physics applicable for a Nobel? Or engineering?”
“Fuck the Nobel.” Asami’s fingers ghosted over the screen tracking the module’s ascent. “I just want Korra back.”
When Korra came to all she could see stars all around her. She unbuckled herself, pulling the tarp into the module, and seeing for the first time in what felt like a lifetime the outline of the Appa 7, drifting towards her. She blinked hard, trying to stop her eyes welling up because there was no way she would be able to wipe them away inside the suit if she started crying now.
“Well hi there, guys. I left my bus pass back on the planet, that’s not going to be a problem, right?”
There was what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief.
“Smooth enough flight for you?” came Asami’s voice, and Korra gave a watery laugh in response. “We’re ten minutes from intercept, ok? So you just sit tight because I swear, if you manage to fling yourself into space at this point I’m putting a suit on and chasing your ass down, you got it?”
“I got it, Asami.”
Six hundred and twenty four of the longest seconds of Korra’s life later and she saw the figure floating out towards her, trailing a line. It took everything she had not to throw herself towards it, knowing that it would be easier for him to grab onto the module instead of her. Mako landed gently beside her, beaming, wrapping an arm around her.
“Well hey there stranger. Need a lift?”
He clipped the line to the ring on her suit, giving it a tug to test it.
“You want to do the honours?” He asked, and Korra nodded, clunking her visor against his.
“Bolin. This is Korra. I’m all hooked up. Reel us in.”
It’s hard to hug in a spacesuit, but they just about managed it in the airlock. Asami was waiting for them when the inner doors opened, slightly out of breath, as if she’d sprinted the length of the ship to be there for that moment, Opal trailing along in her wake. She was barely holding back tears as she helped Korra out off her gear. Her hand grazed Korra’s cheek as she removed her helmet and Korra’s shaking hand came up to hold it in place. Asami stopped. Korra’s eyes were closed, silent tears running down her cheek as she savoured the first moment of real, human, skin-on-skin contact since she had been left on Mars. Ever so carefully, as if Korra might shatter under the touch, Asami brought up her other hand to cradle Korra’s gaunt face, and press the lightest of kisses to Korra’s forehead. Korra sagged, crashing against her, and Asami barely caught her. She was light, too light from her virtual starvation diet but Asami couldn’t have cared less as she wrapped her arms around her.
“It’s so good to see you,” Asami murmured into Korra’s ear, feeling her nod against her, feeling her gripping fistfuls of Asami’s shirt as if she was afraid she would drift away again. “And I’m loving the hair.”
And Korra finally stopped trying to keep any kind of handle on her emotions and let herself break down right there and then, cradled against Asami’s chest. Thirty four million miles away the planet Earth was exploding into celebration as the news of Korra’s rescue was relayed around the world, but right now all Korra could think about was staying just as she was for the rest of eternity.
It took time to readjust to being around people. To not having to count and recount every morsel of food for fear of starvation. Sometimes even Asami’s presence was too much, an overload of Korra’s brittle senses, but the crew understood. Or at least they were understanding; as Opal pointed out not one of them would ever really be able to understand unless they’d endured it themselves. At which point Korra, who they had thought was dozing, had sat up and told them not to even joke about that. Things had got a little tense after that, and Korra had vanished to lurk by the airlock, having been banned from the gym until she’d regained a little more weight. But that night Korra had crawled into bed alongside Asami and, instead of just linking fingers with her which had been pretty much all the contact Korra could manage, wrapped her arms tightly around her.
It was a year to the day they landed back on Earth when Korra got down on one knee and presented Asami with a rather curiously made ring of steel and braided gold wire. Korra had made it herself, from salvaged components of the HAB that had been her home on Mars, kept it safe with her on her return to the Appa. She’d worked on day in, day out. To eat up the time. To remind her why she had to get up each day and keep pushing, and pushing, no matter how bleak things got. Asami saw it for what it was in a heartbeat and she didn’t hesitate to say yes. After all, she’d already gone to the end of the Earth and quite some way beyond that for Korra.