Chapter Text
“No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
“‘Where hast thou stayed so long?’”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807-March 24, 1882). American poet. “Endymion.”
Chapter One
Zuko stared out the window at the planet below him. He was transfixed at the sight of his world in blue, green, and white. Never had he imagined he would be so high up as to the nation of his birth, glittering green jewels in a blue sea, and the ice-covered land that had borne two of his closest friends at the same time. If he shifted his eyes just a little, he could see a storm over the city of Ba Sing Se, with white bursts of lightning through dark gray clouds pregnant with rain.
He and his friends were in Enterprise’s conference room, as it was the only space large enough to comfortably fit all of them for this dinner. The smaller table, lit from below with glowing white light that had been there previously was gone, replaced by a large metal dining table, covered in white linen. Aang, the Avatar, and Katara, the darkly beautiful young woman with caramel-covered skin and piercing blue eyes were sitting on the right side of the dining room table. Ty Lee and Mychi, in full dress uniform and white and black face paint, were sitting on the left side of the table. He pursed his lips. Something about this whole situation seemed off. People who should have been here weren’t. His uncle for example. At least that was justified, as he was still coordinating relief operations with the United Earth Army units that had arrived last week when he wasn’t involved in the negotiations. The transports that had bought those units were still there, hanging in orbit, even if they were too far away to actually see. As for Mai and Sokka, they were cagey, smart, and, if he knew them at all, keeping themselves busy.
Zuko felt a flash of jealousy at the notion of the two of them spending long hours alone with each other as they kept an eye on what the newcomers were doing in Ba Sing Se. He wasn’t an idiot. He had seen the way they had looked at each other back home when they had clearly thought no one was looking. He had written it off before, assuming they just appreciated how the other looked. But now everyone involved was single. Now there was nothing to keep them from pursuing each other. Which shouldn’t be any of your business, he thought sourly. You both called it off.
“It’s beautiful,” he said to no one in particular, forcing himself to return his attention to the window. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Aang remarked as he got up and walked over to stand on his right. “I can see why they work so hard to build ships like this.”
“It’s probably a bit more complicated than that, Aang,” Katara said walking up and putting herself on Zuko’s left, keeping him between her and Aang.
Zuko’s sighed, trying to keep his frustration with his two closest friends off his face. Aang and Katara hadn’t spoken more than a perfunctory word to each other in weeks. At the time, he had thought it was just because she had been sleeping with Chan. A relationship that had since ended. Though one couldn’t exactly call it a relationship, he thought.
But then he remembered something else. What had happened right before he had left on that mission to the Southern Air Temple. Katara had killed their would-be assassin, Aang’s would-be assassin, right in front of him. Watching someone die was difficult at the best of times, no matter how awful they were. Aang was not the kind of person who handled that thing well. It was something Zuko had always found irritating in a boy of his responsibilities. But he was also more than a little envious Because alone out of all of us you managed to somehow come this far and still remain…innocent. I can only conclude that you haven’t been paying attention.
He made a decision. I’m going to have to say something before this is over, he thought. I can’t have my two best friends, one of whom is the fucking Avatar, ignoring each other like this. Not now. Not after The Fire and the fact that we’re on a ship like this. In orbit.
“I know,” Aang said, continuing to stare out the window. “But it is beautiful.”
“Would you three like to be alone?” A teasing voice said from behind him. Zuko whipped around, his face heating as he saw Archer, T’Pol, and Shran standing in the doorway. Zuko froze, pulled between the monarch’s need to project authority in all situations and the very junior naval officer’s need to come to attention to avoid rankling the senior officers in the room. Maybe because some part of him would much rather be the junior officer again. Especially now that he knew that ships like this were possible.
Archer had a knowing look on his face, the face of a man who had been their ages once and had probably reacted the same way to seeing his world from above for the first time. He looked over at Archer’s executive officer, who would have come across as human if it weren’t for the ears. She wore an expressionless face that reminded him more of a little of Mai. From what little he understood of vulcans and their beliefs, their entire cultural matrix revolved around suppressing their emotions. Yet they also came from a screaming hot desert world and had a tendency to act like they knew what was best for everyone around them much like his own people’s unfortunate reputation.
It was something to the Andorian. Unlike T’Pol, the blue-skinned man with antennae sticking out of the top of his head would not pass for human under even a cursory look. But he also came from a society that was very much like the Water Tribes. From what little he had seen of Shran he shared the same passion and drive he had seen in Katara and Sokka. Their world was even primarily a frozen, icy moon who’s territory abutted on the Vulcans.
The parallels couldn’t have been more obvious if they were crafted deliberately, he thought wonderingly.
Aang was the first to recover, even as his cheeks notably flushed. “It is an honor to be aboard your ship, Captain,” he said with a formal deep bow.
“Thank you,” Archer said formally, bowing back and gesturing to the linen-covered dining table. “Please, be seated.” Once they had all sat down, he smiled, taking them all in. “I hope you’re hungry, I’ve had a selection of dishes prepared for all of you.”
“I am very hungry, sir,” Ty said gratefully. “After a week of thin broth, I could eat a riding lizard.”
Enterprise’s healers had finally pronounced her ready to return to a normal diet a couple days ago, to Ty’s immense relief, and the relief of everyone else who had had to put up with her increasingly irritated mood at watching everyone else around her eat solid food. For his part, he was relieved that she and her executive officer hadn’t been killed along with almost a quarter million people that first terrible night. Those two have been through enough for five lifetimes. The fact that they are still willing to wear Our uniform and risk their lives in Our service is enough to make one weep.
As if on cue, the door slid open again, and a young woman roughly Zuko’s age, in what he recognized as the blue jacket, trousers, and undershirt worn by Starfleet enlisted personnel. He was wheeling in a metal tray with platters of food covered by silver metal lids, accompanied by seven sets of chopsticks in red silk wrappings.
“Avatar Aang,” Archer said, as the steward put the platters of food on the table. “Our chef got his hand on a cookbook from the nation of Greece in western Eurasia back on my world. I understand your beliefs don’t permit you to eat meat, so our chef prepared rice-stuffed grape leaves and broiled mushrooms with vinaigrette. For the rest of you, we have also prepared herb-stuffed veal shoulder, and stuffed bell peppers.”
“I don’t know what most of those are, but it smells delicious, sir,” Ty said, gray eyes wide as she took in the food on the cart.
Zuko found himself nodding along until his stomach burst out with an inappropriate growl. The young monarch found himself studiously ignoring the noises that suspiciously sounded like laughs from Aang and Katara as he unwrapped his chopsticks
“What do you think?” Archer asked after a few minutes.
Ty Lee, chopsticks in hand, only paused long enough to mutter something about how good it was before going back to stuffing her face.
“I hate to potentially ruin a good meal like this,” Archer responded, putting his own chopsticks down. “But there are questions I, and my superiors, want answered.”
“Such as?” Zuko asked, a sliver of meat suspended in front of his mouth.
“Like how people as young as you have the clout you do?” The older man replied, getting straight to the point. “I understand you played some role in the ending of the late war down there, but I’m not exactly clear as to how. Every person we have asked so far has given a different version of events. We have some documents we’ve recovered, but we’ve barely started translating it. There are some holes there too. So if you could help us understand the events of the last local year, we’d appreciate it.”
Zuko slid the sliver of meat into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He had had a feeling this was coming. All in all, he couldn’t blame him. Aang had upended everything when he had done what he did in the council chamber, and he still wasn’t entirely clear why. Though he was fairly certain that object they had found in the Southern Air Temple had something to do with it. Maybe it granted him a vision. A vision that told him he had to do what he did. But he’s the Avatar, and he’s my friend. I’ll trust his judgment.
“It’s a long story,” Katara said from next to him. “It may take some time.”
“That we have plenty of,” Shran pointed out.
Zuko sighed, wondering how the officers in front of him would think of him once they knew the story. The full story. He had told some of it, that day in the Council Chamber. Now it was time for the rest. “The events leading up to the start of the war are somewhat murky,” he began. “But what we do know from that time…”
So, they told them. He told them of the start of the war, of how his great-grandfather had betrayed Roku, Aang’s predecessor and his best friend…and in an attempt to ‘neutralize the Avatar’ exterminated Aang’s people and launched the war. The rest of them chimed in, telling the story as they understand it. Part of it couldn’t be told from that perspective. The part of the final battle when Sokka, Suki, and Toph had very nearly laid down their lives to stop his father’s fleet. Suki was back in the Fire Nation, as was Toph. They couldn’t just disappear again for more than an hour or two without an explanation, and besides the soldier he had once been did not approve of the notion of leaving his capital totally defenseless against an enemy that shared at least a fraction of the capabilities of the people he had been eating with. Not that even they could do much, but if anyone could do anything until they got peer reinforcements there, it was those two.
Stay safe, my friends, he thought, at the pang of worry that passed through him. Wouldn’t want to lose you.
“Your world has…been through a lot,” Shran said after a moment, a troubled expression on his face as he leaned back in his chair. “As have you personally.”
“Yes,” Aang said, softly, unshed tears glistening in his eyes. “We have.”
“Yet, you’re all still here,” Archer continued. “That is an accomplishment in and of itself, one that makes me honored to meet you even without everything you’ve already done. There are a few things I’m not entirely sure I believe, especially the whole reincarnation thing, but after everything I’ve seen since we left spacedock I’m willing to keep an open mind about even that.”
Katara smirked. “You sound like my brother.”
“Unfortunately,” T’Pol said, ignoring their banter and focusing on the task at hand in a manner Zuko respected. “We still have to deal with the local threat forces.”
“It makes sense that the units responsible for the dirty work under his father would want business as usual to continue,” Shran pointed out.
Zuko leaned forward in his chair. “I moved against them as soon as I took power. In large part, initially, because of what they did to the major here.”
“That was hardly the first atrocity they engaged in, sir,” Ty pointed out. “And it’s not like our regular armed forces fought a clean war either.”
“Which, unfortunately, is not the issue we need to address right now,” Archer continued, putting his hand up to forestall the argument that even he was pretty sure had been about to break out. “The question is what we do about the situation we’re in now. Other issues can be addressed down the road.”
The sound of ceramic being scraped across metal filled the compartment as Ty pushed her plate away from her. “Sir,” she said pointedly, her gray eyes, normally so lively and engaging blazing with sheer anger and rage. “If you think they can be convinced to see reason, that you can make them realize that they’re being used, don’t bother. Medora’s a bloodthirsty bitch but never underestimate her intelligence.” She watched the woman’s fist clench around her chopsticks. Hard. “She must know that whoever’s behind all this has an agenda of their own, but she doesn’t care. As far as she is concerned, she has the tools she needs to bring down Zuko and replace him with his sister. Everything else is a problem for later. In her own head, she probably justifies this on the need to unite our world to stand the best chance of defeating the inevitable invasion.” Ty Lee grimaced, the notion of agreeing with anything the person who murdered her people thought clearly turning her stomach. “Unfortunately,” she said, with the look on her face of someone who had just swallowed something unpalatable. “She…isn’t wrong. But she still believes that we from the Fire Nation are a superior race. Anything else is just compromising with the backwards peoples who ‘forced’ us to launch the war to save them from themselves.” A single, mirthless, bitter laugh ripped out of her. “Don’t worry, Captain. Any shallow, simplistic notions of our supposed superiority I or Mai may have possessed,” she growled, her fist continuing to tighten, “died that day on the Rock along with all those girls.” The sound of cracking wood filled the compartment as her chopsticks finally snapped in half.
Ty went stiff as a board, her face reddening in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Aang said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What happened after Zuko and Sokka left was-,”
“Unforgiveable,” Katara muttered darkly, no doubt thinking about the reports of mass rape and murder that had swarmed around that horrible night. When she had been his First Councilor, she had personally signed off on the executions of many of the people they’d managed to catch before.
“Yes,” Archer said, shooting pointed looks at both him and his opposite number, and a look at pained sympathy at Ty Lee. “But again, also a little ahead of ourselves.”
“I have my own intelligence people looking into that. But either my people are unbelievably inept, the enemy is just that good, or the very people responsible for running down the Lightning Swords are reporting to them.”
“If it was the latter, though,” the young Water Tribe woman pointed out. “We’d all be dead and none of us would be having this conversation.”
“It seems to me,” Archer said, leaning back in his chair. “We need at least one person you all unreservedly trust, and you think has the skills to succeed where your official intelligence service as failed. Preferably two so they can watch each other’s back. With them acting as our eyes and ears, with the support of our intelligence service, maybe, just maybe, we can go after them surgically, without tearing your world apart again looking for them.”
“My brother,” Katara said immediately. “People tend to underestimate him, even I do sometimes, but he has a keen mind and his tactical instincts have gotten us out of more than one scrape or two, even when it’s gotten us in them.” She shot a curious look over at the two Kyoshi Warriors. “Maybe Ty could-.”
Zuko shook his head immediately, ignoring the surge of jealousy that shot through him ever so briefly at what he was about to suggest next. “No,” Zuko responded in a tone that brooked no argument. “I need Ty where she is. Besides, she’s too high profile after the Rock. Any whiff that she’s in the field would send the spider-rats scurrying for cover.”
“And your brother isn’t?” Shran asked sharply. “After everything that happened? From what you’ve told us, he has been loitering about your palace for the last few months since the war ended.”
“I agree it’s not ideal,” Aang said for the first time in this conversation. “But I don’t think there’s anyone ideal we can pick. Besides, I don’t think most people know what he looks like.”
Zuko sighed, finally giving in to the conclusion that he had been trying so desperately to avoid. You said you wanted to do right by her, he thought. Now’s your chance.
“I know who the second person should be,” Zuko said softly, fighting down the bugs in his stomach.
“This Mai women you used to be involved with?” Shran asked. “Sokka and Mai wouldn’t by any chance be the boy and the girl who have been shadowing United Earth’s patrols and spying on the field hospitals, would they?”
Zuko sighed, his face heating again. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t tell them to do anything. It’s just-,”
“It’s just that we showed up out of the blue a week ago and you still don’t fully trust us,” Archer pointed out. “I understand. We kept an eye on the Vulcans whenever we could when they showed up on our doorstep a hundred years ago. At a time when our war had just ended and yours was just heating up.”
“Yeah, they’re just naturally suspicious.”
The andorian commander smirked. “They sound perfect.”
There was a drizzly rain over the city of Ba Sing Se, as Sokka held his spyglass to his eye, looking at the field hospital out the window of the abandoned apartment across the square. Once, this had been a prosperous Upper Ring neighborhood, walled off from their ‘inferiors’ by Ba Sing Se’s infamous “internal concentric rings.” That had been before the Fire, before the freighter ran by those “Klingon” lifeforms had exploded in orbit and sent debris raining down the city. A good chunk of which had never even made it to the surface, exploding in the atmosphere as they ran into midair pockets that were denser than they were. The sheer power of those explosions, and the shockwaves they had generated, had accounted for most of the destruction that had laid this city low. It was one of the reasons they were in this particular building: it was the only one to remain both standing and reasonably physically sound enough for them to camp out in to keep an eye on the field hospital. He wished he could say the same about the people who had lived here, but he knew that was asking a lot.
Once, not too long ago he had been inclined to suggest that this “Starfleet” had done it themselves to wear down their target’s capacity to resist them. Until Ty Lee and Mychi had ran into these “Klingons” themselves…and nearly died when they had decided to fight rather than surrender themselves. Only the timely arrival of Enterprise had saved them. The fact that they had saved the lives of two of his friends was one of the reasons he was inclined to believe that this group, at least, had mostly honorable intentions. Wanting to believe was not enough, however. He had wanted to believe in Jet, but his instincts had screamed at him that he could not be trusted, and he had been proven right. When it had taken Katara right up until they had seen the bombs on the dam to believe that the boy he was ninety percent sure his sister had made out with was a bloodthirsty terrorist willing to take out an occupied Earth Kingdom village just to wipe out it’s Fire Nation Army garrison.
A Fire Nation Army garrison that had risked being wiped out to rescue the civilian population of an enemy village. Something that these people had also done. So why wasn’t he trusting in their good intentions as his idealist sister and friends were doing?
Because he’d been burned before…and frankly so had everyone else. He pursed his lips as he thought of that hideous scar on Zuko’s face. Some more literally than others.
The square had changed from the horror story Mai had described when she got back to the palace that night. The wounded, dying and dead that had carpeted the square, and the harried, frustrated healers that looked like they had tried to empty the Mo Ce Sea with a thimble were now gone. In their place were half-a-dozen large, metal prefabricated structures that looked like cargo containers. United Earth Army guards, in the mottled garb of the soldiers that had secured the Palace, were now holding sentry positions around the square. There was also a voice, that of a woman, repeating the same thing over and over:
“This is a field hospital established pursuant to the Second Geneva Convention of 1949, and the additional protocols of 1979 and 2005. Any attack on medical personnel, buildings, and vehicles flying the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Crystal and Red Star of David is now forbidden by law. Such personnel and equipment are there to ameliorate the condition of wounded, sick, and injured combatants and noncombatants alike regardless of national, factional, or ideological affiliation. The use of such symbols to shield hostile military forces from attack is likewise forbidden by law and will be met with all deliberate force.”
“Well,” the dry voice of the woman next to him on the ratty divan said as he watched a clearly injured young woman about their age being wheeled into one of the metal structures in the square. “They’re saying all the right things.”
From what he could puzzle, out the “Geneva Conventions” were a treaty or series of treaties between nations on Earth, and the numbers were years in their local calendar they used. He wished he knew more about how to compare their calendar, to the standard calendar in use on their world. He had a reasonable idea what the first three symbols he described looked like, and he could only assume the “Star of David” was the two red equilateral triangles superimposed on each other.
He looked over at Mai. The tall, dark-haired young woman, of age with him and almost his height, was kneeling on the ratty divan too, squinting intently out of her telescope at the scene below. He took a deep breath, even as his heart began to race. She never failed to always attract his attention…maybe it was her fine-boned face. Maybe it was the way she carried herself, all poise and sinuous grace. Maybe it was the far crasser fact that he had run into her at the Royal Beach occasionally, had seen every inch of her long shapely legs and toned athletic body. He had drunk her in then too, even if he’d tried to be discreet about it, especially when she could have caught him. Whatever it was, whatever it meant, whenever he saw her, he had always found it difficult to take his eyes off her. Even when they had been on opposite sides.
But they weren’t on opposite sides, not anymore. In every sense of the word, as she was literally right next to him. His question was why. He had not recruited her to join him on these little excursions, she had volunteered. Not that he was complaining, but the fact remains she had suffered so much because of the decisions he’d made. So why is she here? By rights she should barely stand to be around me.
Sokka sighed, turning away from the window. He had to ask. He had to know.
“Mai,” he said, butterbugs beating in his stomach for reasons that had nothing whatever to do with her being one of the most gorgeous women he had ever laid eyes on. Sure. You keep telling yourself that. “May I…ask you a personal question?”
Mai, still looking out the window, muttered. “You can ask.”
“Why are you here?” Sokka asked. Mai looked up from her spyglass, looking at him as though he had sprouted a second head.
“I’m not complaining,” he said quickly, his hand coming up. “I’m…actually really glad you’re here. I just,” he sighed, feeling the butterbugs in his stomach start to swarm now. “It’s just I never got the impression you liked me all that much.”
Mai sat there, eyes wide, staring at him as if he had gone insane. “What in the world gave you that impression?”
“Well,” Sokka said, face heating in both shame and embarrassment. Like anything could ever happen between us after what I did to you.“You were always avoiding me. I either didn’t see you at all or when I did see you, you always seemed to find something else to do before we could do anything more than exchange pleasantries. I can’t say I blame you.”
Mai pushed her retractable spyglass with an audible clack as she gave him an unreadable expression. “Funny,” she said finally. “I was under the impression you were the one who didn’t like me all that much. After all,” self-loathing seeping into her voice. “I tried to kill your sister, I helped Azula bring down Ba Sing Se from within, and oh, yes, I was a naïve bitch who was paving the way for the destruction of our world, and I was too stupid to realize it. You probably,” Mai snapped bitterly. “Think I got exactly what I deserved.”
The bitterness and self-loathing in her voice was like a punch to the gut...and a slap to the face. “I can’t sugarcoat it. Yes, you did all those things and yes you were naïve. But you were also a warrior. A warrior doing your duty as you understood it, same as me. And you did it with uncompromising skill and bravery. And when the chips were down you saved my life, my father’s life, and my friends…and suffered so terribly because of it. I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you. But you should hate me. Why don’t you?”
“We both did what we did that day because of love,” Mai sighed. “But…more than that. What you did ultimately saved my life and that of my best friend…and our honor.”
The non-sequitur slammed into him almost as bad as Mai’s obvious self-loathing had a moment earlier. “What,” Sokka bit out, his own self-loathing thick on his voice. “You mean putting you in a position where you had to protect Zuko to try to save two people who, as it turns out, had not been in any real danger? For repaying the fact that you saved my life by leaving you behind to watch your uncle be replaced by a slavering psychopath who initiated one of the single worst massacres in decades all because Ty Lee fucking pissed her off! That wonderful thing I did?”
Mai rolled her eyes. “In all the time, you’ve been beating yourself up over this, has it ever occurred to you what would have happened the day of the Comet had we not ended up replacing your father and Suki on the Rock?”
“What does that have to-,” Sokka began before it finally clicked in his brain what she was saying. “Oh.”
“Clearly you haven’t, so let me enlighten you,” Mai rasped, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “One of two things would have happened. Either we learned about Ozai’s plans and decided to do something to stop it ourselves and almost certainly died in the attempt…or we never would have learned a thing about it until it was all over. At which time…”
“At which time,” Sokka said, comprehension dawning. “You would have taken your own lives rather than live with your guilt over what happened.”
Mai nodded wordlessly, eyes glistening with unshed tears. There was something in her eyes that suggested she had considered taking her own life anyway.
He remembered their conversation the other day at one of their own local field hospitals, the one at the University, about how she’d basically been alone all this time. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to go through something like that and have no one to lean on. He got it: Zuko, Ty Lee, all of them really, had duties and responsibilities. They weren’t always going to be conveniently done by sundown each day…and quite frankly they all had their own issues. But whether or not they fell short had no bearing on his duties to this woman who he was starting to realize met so much more to him than he ever realized.
The realization that he had left this brave, beautiful woman, who had risked so much because of him, alone with her demons was as bitter as gall. At that moment, he made a decision, as if he had walked through a door and locked it behind her.
What are you doing, Sokka?
The right thing.
He reached out to gently, but firmly, take her hand in his. She froze, eyes wide, but did not move to take her hand away. “I…can’t imagine everything you and Ty must have seen on the Rock. What you must have experienced.” Sokka took a deep breath. Even during the inquiries, she had been notoriously tight-lipped, more than Ty Lee certainly, about what exactly had happened to individual prisoners that terrible night. “Actually, I can, but I wish I couldn’t. No more. I’m here for you and I’m not going anywhere.”
Mai suddenly yanked her hand away. Great, Sokka thought brokenly. I’ve made it worse.
All the breath left him as Mai flung himself at her, her arms wrapping around him as she buried her face in his tunic. He could feel her tears soaking into his shoulder, but that was the furthest thing on his mind as he pulled her close, stroking her jet-black hair as he rocked back and forth. Trying to ignore how good it felt to finally hold her after months of quiet longing and wondering what her skin felt like under his hands because now was not the time.
“Shh,” he said softly, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
Mai took a deep, shuddering breath as her tears soaked into his tunic as he felt Sokka’s mouth pressing kisses to her forehead, felt his massive, calloused hands, running down her back. How often had she wondered in the back of her mind what those massive hands would feel like on her bare skin along with his mouth? What about Sokka makes it easy for me to unload like this? Why him?
“Hope,” she said, even as her lower lip trembled uncontrollably, looking up from his shoulder into those sky-blue eyes. Eyes that, not for the first time, she thought she could get lost in forever if she stared into them long enough. “Hope that you never truly understand what we went through.”
Sokka opened his mouth to say something when there was a rapping on the door. “Mai, Sokka,” Ty’s muffled but unmistakable voice said. “It’s me. Open up.”
“How do we know it’s you?” Sokka said suspiciously as the two of them looked at each other before standing, hands going for their weapons. “Or that you aren’t being held at knifepoint?”
Mai rolled her eyes. Did you really think we hadn’t considered this? “What flashes in the dark?” Even so, she felt her breath hitch as she waited for the response.
“A peal of clear thunder,” Ty’s voice responded firmly, telling her that it was both her closest friend and that she wasn’t under duress.
“It’s her,” Mai said, as she let out a sigh of relief. “We came up with those passphrases when we were in school for this very situation.”
The door opened to reveal Ty, alone, in her full-dress face paint and armor. She had clearly just come back from a formal function. “Before you ask,” she said without preamble, stepping into the small sitting room, “they made you a week ago. They’ve just been letting you keep an eye on them as a gesture of goodwill to the rest of us.”
I kind of figured, Mai thought, thinking about what they had seen over the last week. Given their capabilities.
The notion still smarted, though. She did not like to lose, a trait she shared with Sokka in spades.
“As a matter of fact,” Ty said continuing. “We’ve been talking to them, and we all agree that the two of you are perfect for a mission we’ve been putting together. We want you to come and hear what they have to say.”
The two of them looked at each other, and she could see her own curiosity about what the newcomers had in mind reflected in those piercing blue eyes of his…and a worry for her safety that stirred emotions that she wanted to shy away from.
“Sure,” Mai said, still looking at them. She took a deep breath and shook herself and turned to face Ty Lee. Her face heated as she found herself face to face with the same look that Ty had always given her when she picked up that she had a crush on someone. “When do we leave?” She asked, squelching an urge to sway back and forth on her feet like a lovesick schoolgirl. Which I’m not, really.
Are you sure?
Ty smirked and Mai sighed internally at the unmerciful teasing she was going to get later. “Right now, actually.”
The other woman reached into her pocket and pulled withdrew a small black box with a silver lid from the pocket of her uniform trousers. She flipped it open to a loud chirping sound and raised it to her lips.
“Lee to Enterprise,” she said. “Three to beam up.”
She and Sokka had a heartbeat to look at each other, eyes widened in shock, before she felt a tingle run down her spine as the world around her dissolved into white light.