A/N: Bolin always smiles with his cheery optimistic self, because that's the only way he knows to cope with his innermost feelings. Smile, and pretend things will be okay.

But unrequited love stays, and worsens, and darkens over time.

For her forever is all he needs, and all he cannot have.

The night has cast its dark blanket over the city, cloaking the world in shadow broken up by clusters of white-gold light, towers and windows and satomobiles painting the sable canvas awash with colour. And nowhere else is the colour more evident, streaking out against the black vibrant as the robin cardinal red against winter's snows, than before the doors of City Hall, the massive behemoths opened to the chill of the air outside, spilling warmth and light into the streets, beckoning, inviting. And the call is answered by multitudes of guests robbed in flashing tints and feathered dress, more like birds than humans with glittering eyes and crested heads, come to frolic in the garden of the future, flowers transformed into stylish garlands stretching over the heavens, fruits manifesting themselves in the connections to be made. Young politicians, plucked from their proverbial trees. The next leaders of Republic City, delicate blossoms to be devoured by movers and shakers.

A finer wedding, they say, has never been conceived, especially not for something as important as the Avatar. Music sings from pipa strings, carved flutes, and crafted bronze horns, the classics fighting with the jazz for dominance, the past and the present unable to connect but filling the air with the melody of a pitched battle, two brothers caught in an endless game of tug-of-war. With Future Industries supplying the crystal chandeliers bringing sunlight at midnight and the council overseeing the shipment of delicacies from every corner of the globe – spicy fire-wine, sugar-dusted fruit pies, wet seal leopard steaks and intoxicating white jade tea – a festival of this calibre will never, ever happen again. Not this one, the garden bursting with harvest, teetering on the last dredges of autumn about to give way to winter, a final burst of heat and hope and light the last any will see for the months to come.

Or, at least, that's how he feels.

The green suit is a second layer of skin, a façade, his true hidden somewhere below like a cicada waiting desperately for its seventeen years to be up. Or a caterpillar, hiding from the flocking birds freewheeling overhead, clutching the edge of the scalloped leaf. But he's not hiding, his colours bright as anyone else's, a hollow shell devoid of confidence.

He wishes he'd put something else on. Something muted, something shaded enough that the upper class girls, all make-up and tinkled voices, would stop approaching him. Masters of body language, toying with him however they see it.

He ignores them. Oh, he's polite. He'd never tell them to leave. But acting disinterested . . .

Slowly he scans the room for a fifth time, the drink perched between the third and fourth fingers of his left hand conspicuously damp on the sides, perspiring as much as he is. He isn't even sure why he came here. Sure, Chief Beifong mentioned it, told him he might consider it, meet the United Forces generals if he wishes. Since his six-month metalbending training is winding down, and soon he'll be at the crossroads to decide where to go next in life. The police, maybe, to find himself darkened once more by his brother's long shadow. The United Forces, perhaps, to save the world every day, the war more gory than glory.

Or something else. A journey across the five nations, seeing the sights and living the lights prior to making a decision.

His life stretches away in front of him, glittering and beautiful with its endless paths, but every single one is ashen grey and empty without her.

"Bo?"

Her voice, playing over and over in his mind, quivering now into reality. Unable to believe his ears and his luck – but is it good or bad? – he turns his head slightly to look behind him.

Despite himself, he smiles broadly, his lips forming the old words, embittered with age: "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you."

She waits for him, clad in a gorgeous navy dress clinging tightly to the curves of her body, straddling her hips, fanning over near her ankles. Her hair drops spill over her shoulders, a pair of waterfalls chestnut brown to brush below her collarbones. But for all its beauty it looks nothing like her, nothing like what she really is. The only part of her he recognises is the colour of her eyes, the sky and the sea swirled up, blended, captured forever in her irises.

And the betrothal necklace at her throat, a choker leashing her to his brother's side, light from the chandeliers dancing radiantly through the etched lines of a miniature flame. The same betrothal necklace that has haunted him for months, hiding in his dreams, tearing through his waking hours.

He should be happy for her, happy for his brother. And he is.

Right?

"Congratulations, Korra." His voice is hollow. "I hope the party's been good."

The blush spreads like wildfire across her cheeks, burning them red instead of brown. "It's been the best," she confides, her eyes sparkling with her joy, her right hand fluttering to her throat to touch the necklace, confirm it's still there, clasp her fingers about Mako's promise. The folds of the dress shift, and he can see the reddish marks in her flesh where the straps of the white wedding dress have clung during the recitals, where they will cling again once the wedding moves into full swing.

"So where's Mako? You wouldn't think the groom would miss his own wedding."

She smirks proudly and folds her arm across her chest. "Lin's introducing him to some of the councilmen. She says she's never seen anyone shoot up the cop ranks that quick." Her stance loosens slightly. "She's excited to see you on the police force. Mako's little brother's bound to be good as he is, right?"

He couldn't feel any shorter right now if she cut his legs out from under him.

"I've been thinking about it," he answers levelly. "I mean, maybe the United Forces would be better for me. Iroh's takin' a liking to me. Says he could really use me in the ranks."

A nod. She's distracted, not entirely here and not entirely there, on the brink of leaping into an adult life but still trapped in an eighteen-year-old body, her responsibilities as the Avatar and now as a wife fit to burst out of her, an overripe fruit.

The music changes, from a waltz to a foxtrot, from a breakaway to a bachata, the harmonies rising and falling, civilisations and empires each. His throat constricts with a memory: Her hands on his, leading him through the steps of the Water Tribe tradition called the wave, the same dance plucked up and dusted off for the newest bachata craze. The last time he ever truly had a chance with her.

Until his brother proposed, and she accepted, and whatever hope he had was sunk in the storm, the debris dashed on the rocks, a shipwreck the final vestige of his love.

And even that is sinking, ever so steadily, under the dark waves.

Come spring, he will be eighteen. An adult, eligible to join the police force or the military or whatever else he wishes.

But for now he's the cicada.

Waiting for the seventeen years to be up.

She perks up at the beat of the music, her right foot tapping to the sounds of her home, the rhythm of the Southern Water Tribe pounding with her heartbeat. "Oh, the wave!" Her smile is worth more than the entire world. "Mako doesn't like it too much, but I've missed it."

A chance.

Not a chance, no.

But a dance.

Bowing with a flourish, he offers her his hand, his old charm remembered, rekindled. "May I have this dance?"

Her cheeks flush. "I'd love to dance with you, Bolin."

Love.

His heartstrings, dusty from disuse, begin to sound out the quiet melodies of love once more, drawing the bow across the lines of his life. Somehow his hands slip into positions familiar enough he doesn't have to think, only do, his left hand touching hers, his right supported by the curve of her hip. The bachata flows through them both, lightning coursing through their veins, connecting them.

Even for all of the time he hasn't seen her, they sync, coordinate, move as one, lifting their feet at once before rocking back, the heat of her body radiating into his, her breasts pressed against his chest. He senses her spins, anticipates her turns, their steps in time with the beating of their hearts and the shared breaths warming each other's faces Patterns of light and shadow cascade down the fabric of her dress, her muscles rippling like water beneath her dark skin. But nothing can compare to her eyes, filled with fear of the unknown, courage to face it, hesitation of marriage and confidence of her love, a blossom that thinks it's prepared to be a fruit.

It's the last dance he will ever have with her, like this. While she can still, in some distant future, choose him as he chose her so long ago, the ache of love unrequited settled into his very bones, wearying him with every breath he takes and every move he makes.

After tonight, the last exhalation of autumn will be gone, and winter – frigid winter – will set in.

As they continue to dance, the bachata winding down into its last few measures – into the last few moments of his life – he wants to lean in, close the centimetre distance, until he can breathe into her ear: "I love you."

But he doesn't.

He doesn't for the same reason he didn't.

He loves her.

But she loves him not.

His heartstrings quiver on the highest note, begging the sea and the earth to collide, to defy logic, to come together as though tied by the red strings of fate.

The notes fades, the instruments rustling, insects in the garden. Silence spans before the next piece. His last chance, now, his hand still in hers, her eyes still locked onto his, his reflection still caught in her irises. A gentle smile still curves her lips.

A perfect moment.

And then that moment ends. The carefully constructed house of cards topples in on itself, her fingers gliding out of his, her gaze moving outwards towards the crowd, her eyes lit up not from his little gifts or his turn of phrase or anything else he could do but from the mere appearance of his brother.

She is slipping away like water through his fingers, on the cusp of adulthood, the blossom quivering there on the brink like the very cup of trembling.

But at least he has this memory to warm him through the icy nights to come.

This dance.

The last dance.