When she caught sight of him, Korra expected a fight, some cursory words about how this was all her fault - not that he would have been wrong to accuse her. It had been her fault, in a way. Instead, she was greeted with silence. Tahno sat slumped against the wall, his eyes downcast, another shade in the darkness. Had she not been paying attention, she might have thought him one more piece of equipment in the darkened gym. "Tahno?"

Nothing.

"Hey, Republic City to Tahno. Come in Tahno."

"What do you want, Uh-vuh-tar?" The way Tahno looked at her gave Korra pause. His skin had taken on the hue of curdled milk, and the sharp cheekbones that had once drawn him a flock of female fans now looked as though they might burst out of his skin at any moment. But the worst part was his eyes. As hollow as his cheeks, they stared right through her. In short, he looked awful.

"I…" What did she want? It wasn't as though she'd been looking for him in particular. She'd just come out to escape another of Mako and Asami's 'so-cute-I could-puke' moments and this was where her feet had carried her. She'd spent so much time training for the finals lately that heading to the gym had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. It was the only place where nothing had changed. The discs remained stacked in piles that towered above her head and she could still make out scraps from the papers that had been heavily featured in the Fire Ferrets' pre-finals training regimen. Each bore Tahno's face. At the time, Korra had wanted nothing more than to best him, to show him that he wasn't the gods' gift to pro-bending and taking those pictures out one by one had been more than just a little satisfying but now...now she wished that they'd cleaned up after they'd finished practicing. Now, she looked at the torn likenesses littering the ground and guilt gnawed at her in the place of rage. If Tahno noticed them, he didn't mention it.

"How are you?" It sounded lame, even to her own ears. How was he? He was sitting in the place he'd once spent all of his time training, the place where he'd once made a name for himself (even if he had been underhanded about it), and now it was just one of the many places that he was no longer welcome.

"How am I?" he echoed, voice hoarse. His hands lay in his lap and he twisted them together, watching them, rather than Korra, as he spoke. "I'm…alive."

"Oh, come on. It can't be that bad, plenty of people live without being able to bend and they do just fine." She tried to sound cheerful, but her voice sounded hollow. She'd never really been any good at lying. "Besides, Tenzin said there might even be a way to get your bending back."

A sharp intake of breath was all she heard before Korra found herself staring into Tahno's furious gaze. In that moment, the blaze from the tournament raged in him once again and he looked as though he was sorely tempted to throttle her. "I don't think you understand, Uh-vuh-tar, you can't lie to me, not about this" he snapped with none of his usual silk.

He was all venom now. Venom and rage as he regarded her. "It's over. It's all over. I'm nothing now. It's never coming back! I've lost my fans, my job, my home, everything." To Korra, he seemed as dramatic in his self-indulgent pity-party as he had been in his over-confidence. Gods she hated people like him!

"It can't be that bad. You're Tahno of the White Falls Wolfbats, everyone in Republic City loves you." A fact that he'd reminded her of time and again before they'd met in the arena. He was the champion and she, she was the loser.

"That's not how it works, Korra. I'm nothing to them now, just a washed up has been with no future potential. That's how Republic City works, you entertain the masses or you're nothing to them. No, less than nothing. Without my bending, I'm a bug waiting for a boot."

What could she say to that? He looked like he'd all but given up, the circles under his eyes even darker than they had been when she'd met him at the station and he'd been hauled in for questioning, and they'd been pretty bad then. It wasn't right. It just…wasn't right. But what could she do about it? And then it hit her.

"You…you could stay on Air Temple Island with us, you know, if you wanted." Korra regretted the words as soon as they'd had left her mouth. This was Tahno. What was she even thinking, inviting him to live with them? He'd probably laugh in her face, tell her he didn't need her help, even now, and she could already imagine Tenzin's reaction when she brought home yet another unexpected guest, never mind her teammates' reactions when they found out that that guest was none other than the man who'd been hell-bent on humiliating them for the past few weeks. This was just, not a good idea. But how could she say no? He just looked so…so…so dejected, so not like Tahno right now.

Tahno looked her over carefully, as if trying to ferret out some hidden intention before his lips quirked upward into a gross parody of an all too familiar smirk. "Finally decided to take me up on my offer, huh, Uh-vuh-tar? I knew you'd come around." And she'd thought he'd changed.

"As if! You can't even bend right now, let alone—" Korra clapped a hand over her mouth, noting the way Tahno recoiled, as if she'd reached out and slapped him, the way his shoulders sagged all at once, like the weight of the world had been placed upon his shoulders and he was struggling to stay upright under its weight. Struggling and losing. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I just…" she trailed off, biting her lower lip as she looked for something, anything to say to make it right knowing, all the while, that there was nothing that she could do. What he needed, she couldn't give him, and it was all her fault. Never mind that it had been Lin Beifong that had made the council reconsider their decision to shut down the pro-bending arena, she, Mako, and Bolin had been the ones to fight for it in the first place. All she'd wanted was to knock Tahno on that smug ass of his and wipe that stupid smirk off his face.

Well, technically, you succeeded. Korra winced. "I'm sorry," she repeated again, at a loss, surveying the floor, the equipment, anything but Tahno. "Look, the offer still stands. Tenzin would never turn away a fellow bender in need, especially with things the way they are now."

"And what about you, Uh-vuh-tar?"

I'm the reason you were dragged into this whole mess. Korra couldn't meet his gaze. "I wouldn't have offered you a place to stay if I didn't want you to stay, alright" she huffed. "Take it or leave it because I won't be offering again."

Tahno laughed, a broken sound that bubbled up like a sob. "Save your pity."

"Maybe I will! Ugh, why are you always such a jerk? I'm trying to help you out, and you clearly need it. Can't you just say 'thank you Korra, I really appreciate it,' like a normal person?"

"Thank you, Korra, I really appreciate it," he deadpanned.

"Rrrrrgh, you're impossible!" Korra threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "Fine, sit in here and feel sorry for yourself. See if I care!" Her footsteps echoed in the silence as she made to stomp off, only to be stopped in her tracks by a soft voice. His voice.

"Wait, I…I accept." His eyes were dark when Korra met his gaze, and she found herself holding her breath as she waited for him to speak again. His voice was so soft, so unsure, so…defeated. As angry as she was, she couldn't help but hear him out. She owed him that much.

"Why?" Korra's eyebrow rose in question and she began tapping her foot, waiting for Tahno to say the wrong thing so that she could storm out on him without feeling guilty all over again.

"Because…" he looked away and the tapping grew louder, more impatient.

"I'm waiting."

"Because I don't want to be alone."