Disclaimer: It's all Bryke's, except what's not.
"She's gonna be okay, right, Jet?" The Duke asks, plonking down onto the tree stand to sit beside the older boy and pointing a stubby finger after the girl who recedes into the distance, walking swiftly beneath the foliage.
Jet only shifts the stalk of wheatgrass between his lips and scoffs as he reaches out and taps The Duke's helmet. "She's gonna be fine, kid. She knows how to take care of herself."
She does, and that's how he met her in the first place—at the wrong end of her knives during a street fight. Mai, Jet has gathered, is on the run from a past life that doesn't seem all too intent on pursuing her, judging by how little they've been disturbed during her stay here in the forest, and that night he'd been in town listening for news of the colonial disturbances in Yu Dao (and as long as the Fire Nation leaves the Earth Kingdom, he doesn't much care one way or the other how they settle their own country's affairs).
With little learned and his nerves jagged from corralling kids day in and day out, his step to join in the developing fight had seemed like the perfect chance to calm his restlessness. Things are different now, since Ba Sing Se, since the war's end, but just because he takes a little more care in the fights he chooses doesn't mean he wants to stop fighting. That's in his blood, and it sings along with the sap in the trees and the rustle of wildlife underfoot in the forest. It's nature, he figures, and it's never going to change.
He stepped into the fight; she pinned him to a wall with her blades.
He asked her to come see the forest; she did.
And he has to give his Freedom Fighters credit—should he even call them that now, when they're more a group of playful miscreants than anything else these days?—because they've become excellent at adopting strays. The war left plenty of orphans, and he'd picked up a few stragglers on his way back from Ba Sing Se. The group accepted the new kids with little fuss (life has made them all skilled at taking in, and letting go, and killing regret with as much vigilance as if it were a Fire Nation soldier), and now they've taken in Mai, too, with enthusiasm.
When she first saw their treetop compound full of running children, she'd rolled her eyes and observed drily, "Well, you never have to worry about flooding, do you?"
Jet's inclined to think that means she kind of liked the place right from the start.
He hadn't known whether she'd stay or not, but she had, and his duties now include avoiding—and helping others avoid—ill-thrown knives as Mai teaches the children her skills in a series of sharp instructions and put-upon sighs.
(She has a set of sighs for everything, he's learning, and in her months with them, he doesn't know if he's getting better at reading them or if he's just imagining things, but he thinks that some of those sighs are tinged with affection, now, for his motley crew.)
Those times, when Mai breathes out sighs of almost-affection, Jet's heart aches with pride. They're good, his Fighters, and smart—and he dodges fewer errant knives as time goes by.
It's nice, anyway, having someone to help him break up squabbles and pull overconfident children out of too-high tree limbs. The older kids should help, always should have, but they mostly just laugh and prod the younger ones in their misadventures.
The Duke shifts beside him, wiggles and kicks his heels against the wood underneath them, and drawls, picking his nose lazily, "Where's she goin', again?"
Jet pulls on The Duke's wrist, gently, and shakes his head when the boy gives him a disgruntled stare. "That's gross, kid," he says, although for all the time it's been since he's lived in civilization, he really doesn't have much right to judge what's appropriate or not. But Mai would wrinkle her nose at such behavior, he knows, and so he does what he can in her absence.
"She's going to see a friend of hers in the circus," he says, nodding off into the trees where they can't see Mai any longer. "She'll be back in a few days."
"The circus?" The Duke pulls a pout that makes him look even younger than his few years. "And she didn't take us?"
"Well, can't take you kids everywhere." Jet shrugs. "There are too many of you to make long travel easy."
The Duke's chest puffs out in indignation. "We're fighters, Jet," he reminds the older boy. "We're good at being stealthy."
Jet snorts. "As stealthy as a herd of hog-monkeys." He doesn't tell The Duke that Mai's visit has less to do with enjoying the circus than it does with seeing an old friend and making sure that that friend is safe and healthy. Mai had looked worried ever since she'd found out the circus was coming to town, but she hadn't elaborated on her concerns when she told him she was going.
"I gave Ty Lee the money to run away the first time," she'd said, prim and efficient as she'd packed more knives than clothes or food into a small sack, "and I need to make sure she's all right now that she's back in the circus, even after what happened to…even though things are different now."
She'd quirked an eyebrow, dared him to challenge her, as if she were used to having things in her life dictated, but he wouldn't put that kind of claim on her—if nothing else, she could leave him badly injured, and he favors his opportunities to sit peacefully in treetops, something he knows from experience is difficult when he's overly bandaged or bruised.
So he'd only said, "Ah, have fun, babe," and knocked her bag out of her hands, maneuvering himself into its place as he kissed her goodbye.
"Hm." The Duke frowns at the group offense and brings Jet back to the present. The child kicks his feet against the wood again, then hops up. "Maybe Mai will bring something back for us!" His spirits renewed, he shoots away, pudgy feet running to find his companions.
"Don't count on it," Jet mutters, but he knows his words are lost to the wind.
Mai returns, three days later, with a storm at her heels and looking less worried than Jet has seen her look for a few weeks. The scrap of concern that had lodged itself like a fog around the edges of her yellow eyes, that had made them seem darker and greyer and more like his own, is gone now, and when she ducks under cover to shield herself from the first raindrops, the younger children crowd around her while the older ones watch from a distance.
The youngest ones shoot questions up at Mai, pull at her skirts with demands to know how she spent her time, what animals she saw, and whether or not she brought anything back for them. Jet will have to scold The Duke for perpetuating that rumor later. Shouldn't get kids' hopes up. Mai comes from money, he knows, but that doesn't mean she's going to spend it on a group of snot-nosed troublemakers.
But Mai only passes slim fingers through the youngest girl's hair as she kneels down and mutters, "You all talk too much," as she reaches into her pack and draws out a package of candied fruit. She hands it to The Duke. "Here. Share."
Excitement over her return is lost in excitement over sweets, and she slices through the small group with practiced ease. She nods at the older children, who are slowly inching forward to see if they might bargain a few pieces of fruit from the younger ones. When she passes Jet, she reaches out and flicks his epaulet with one of her blades, and she's gone toward her part of the generally designated "girls' corner" of the treehouse before the ting has stopped reverberating in the air.
Jet turns on his heel and follows her. He says nothing when she reaches her bedside, only leans against the wall by the door and watches her, and she doesn't turn around before she starts unpacking her bag. Her fingers handle her belongings with care and her blades with an ease brought by years of practice, and Jet's not surprised when she says, "Are you planning to hold up that wall all day like a useless creeping vine or are you going to say something?"
The rain pounds above them and below them, and for a few moments more, Jet just chews his wheatgrass stalk reflectively. He'd known he liked having Mai around, even though an older part of habit revolts at the idea that she's Fire Nation—but a weaker, newer part of him is recognizing that she's Mai, and that that's more important than where she was born and where her family comes from.
He knows she spent time in Omashu when her father was governor there, but even though he can't saw how much that time in the Earth Kingdom makes her less tainted by her upbringing, even though he should hate himself for bringing an occupier, an enemy of the worst sort, into the treehouse, he likes her presence here, and he missed her while she was gone. She's becoming a habit, someone he likes sneaking in to wake up with kisses before breakfast.
"I didn't think you'd bring anything back for the kids," he says when he finally finds his voice. No accusation, just observation. "I told them not to get their hopes up, but you know how they are." He shrugs, an apology for the fact that life hasn't yet crushed all of their spirit, yet.
"I have a little brother," is the only explanation Mai offers, when she turns her head to stare at him for a long moment before she resumes her motions.
"Oh." That's new information. His voice is falsely casual. "You thinking of going back to see him someday?" He would, if he had any real family to go back to. That's what brought him back to the treehouse after that firebending brat—Mai's ex, he remembers uncomfortably—was crowned Fire Lord, after the war ended. There isn't a war to fight anymore, but these kids are the closest thing he has to a family these days, these years, and he wouldn't let a woman keep him away from them, not in the long run.
"Someday," Mai affirms, and Jet pushes away the uncomfortable clench in his chest because he doesn't want Mai to go, even though he shouldn't ask her to stay. Family's important—family comes first—but he wants himself and the kids to be her family, because surely they're better than any kin the Fire Nation can offer.
A part of him recognizes how ridiculous that thought is and squelches it, but he's selfish, and he wants her around. For all that he's experienced loss, for all that he tries to teach the kids not to get attached, because people are uncertain and traitorous, he's not always so good at letting go, himself.
"But not anytime soon," Mai amends. She sighs, and this one is full of frustration. "I'd be married and living in some remote corner of the Fire Nation if I hadn't left. It's not like I'd see him that much, anyway."
Anger coils in Jet's stomach toward Mai's intended husband—the man she might be married to, if she hadn't met him, if she hadn't run away—dark and choking. At this point, his relationship with Mai is nothing so formal as that, and they haven't ever talked about them, together, in any sort of future. They don't talk about much, really, although the words flow more easily as time passes and old wounds begin to mend. But they kiss, and spend long, stolen hours sitting together in treetops, sharpening knife and hook or listening to the wind and the leaves and the children below them, if they're within hearing distance. They forget, together and slowly, what it means to hate based on birth, and what it means for birth and social status to define, and to dictate.
Someday, if things don't change, Jet will probably ask her to move over to his room, and he suspects she'll drag him through some sort of official ceremony—or torture—or both—before she lets that happen, but for now, at least, he contents himself with kisses and the chance to find companionship, to sort out the new future with someone who's as lost as he is.
He clears his throat. "So your friend. She's good?"
Mai smiles; Jet can see it from the way the curve of her cheek changes. "Yeah," she says, "she's good."
"I'm glad." He crosses the space between them, steps up behind her, and wraps lanky arms around her torso. She lodges the knife in her hands into the bedcover and leans back into him. That's an improvement, one he's appreciated over the past months; the first several times he'd tried this, she'd variously slapped him, held him at knifepoint, and threatened parts of his anatomy that he was rather keen on keeping intact, thank you very much. Once she'd decided he wasn't going to try anything too suspicious, the threats had stopped. And now, she just sighs against him—a happy one, this time—and he can't quite bite back his words before he speaks. "I'm glad you're good, too—I mean, safe, and back. I missed you."
"Really?" Mai's voice holds a lilt of amusement, and she wiggles herself around in his arms and tilts her head to the side. She smiles (he's starting to earn those more easily, too, the longer Mai stays here with them under the canopy) and her words sound ironic but he's pretty sure they're not. "Yeah, well, maybe I kind of missed you, too."
"Yeah?" The wheatgrass shudders in the space between their faces, and Mai glowers at it as though she'd like to cut it to pieces with a blade, and maybe she does, but she only threads her arms around him and replies, "Yeah," in a tone that dares him to defy her.
He doesn't.
That night, after the rain stops and the whole world smells like damp leaves and sodden vegetation, Mai curls herself against Jet on one of the platforms, her head against his shoulder and his arm draped over her waist. They watch the night together and listen as the leaves drip leftover rain into the earth.
Mai absentmindedly fingers one of the blades hidden in her sleeves, and Jet smiles into the dark air. She can certainly take care of herself, but he thinks he wouldn't mind if she let him help, sometimes. And he certainly wouldn't complain if she deigned to save him from time to time, in return.