Zuko's arms loosened around her only enough so that he could pull back and see her face.
He smiled at her with a relieved an happy expression. He'd feared what had happened to her, and he'd worried almost as much about how she was feeling about him after what he'd done. At the Boiling Rock she'd made it pretty clear that she wasn't particularly cheering his decision on, but her betrayal of Azula had to mean something. Still, he felt that she must be hating him after his deeds, yet she didn't.
"I'm glad you don't hate me. I'm so sorry for that letter." He felt that he had to say it.
Her face turned into something halfway still smiling, halfway a frown, and she said solemnly: "Let's not mention that letter again – ever! That's too embarrassing for you."
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Embarrassing for me?" he asked.
"Yes." She raised her hand to her mouth and coughed dramatically, before she quoted: "'Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving'." She looked at him with an expectant glance, but when he only smiled at her – and seemed like he was close to laughter – she glared at him. "What?"
"You memorized it," he pointed out.
She gritted her teeth. "I did not … That's because I …" She halted, not sure what to say, and this time Zuko laughed and forced her into a hug, which she tried to stop with all her might, but it was a lost cause. He buried his face in her hair and laughed his amusement out while she tried to get her hands free from his so she could punch him. He really had a face and personality that invited in quite a few of those.
I'm in love with an idiot, she thought as she felt his extraordinary business in her hair loosen up her hair buns. As she thought the sentence, a deeper blush than the one from before spread on her cheeks.
"Zuko … My hair," she said in as deadpan a voice as she could manage, but her smoky voice was a bit shaky.
"Oh …" he murmured sheepishly. "Sorry." But she could still see the smile in behind the apologize, and she sent him the most evil look she could – she'd learned from the best, so she thought it might work.
It didn't.
"Don't be such a buzz-killer, Mai," he sighed, and reached out for her. A blush spread on his cheeks, much like on her own. "Isn't this supposed to be a happy reunion."
"Buzz-killer?" she asked, leaning back from him. "That's right, I'm just a big blah!" She didn't act very well on the old comment that had marked a special day in their relationship, but he apparently took it very seriously and didn't – as always – didn't get the joke.
"I didn't mean that," he said in a rush, stumbling over his words. "I was just trying to make a –"
"There's something I want to know," she cut him off, not wanting him to embarrass himself any further than he already had. She leaned into him, and he confused held her up to his chest.
"What is it?"
"Remember that time I said I didn't ask for your whole life story?" she asked.
His brows furrowed. "Yea …?"
"Well …" She looked away with a new blush on her cheeks. "There's a lot of unclear points on that spot. So … I'd like to know it … What happened after you were banished?" She looked up at him again, hoping she hadn't hurt him too much.
He was quiet, just looking at her. His face was serious.
"Come," he said. He lead her through the room and to another one, through a hallway and then to through another little door, that led to a little staircase. Mai raised an eyebrow, but he just dragged her on. Mai felt claustrophobic as they continued downwards, but she tried to concentrate on Zuko's hand.
They ended up in a little garden that Mai had never seen before.
"Where are we?" she asked?
"It's a little garden I found when I moved into the chambers. I think my father made it for my mother."
He led her to a little bench. They had a view to the hills, and the reddish light of morning bathed them in a sort of orange light. Mai couldn't really mind it right now.
He held on to her hand, but let the rest of her go, and then he breathed in a deep gush of air. He was nervous of telling Mai his story. What if she changed her opinion of him? What if she would rip her hand away from him and tell him that it was over, like that one time?
He held tighter on to her hand, imagining that this might be his last chance to do so.
He sighed deeply. "So what do you want to know?"
Mai, who had become a bit curious as to whether he was going to tell her anything or not, leaned forward to see his bowed face. His scar was clear to her, even though his hair was loose.
She put her hand on the mark that would always remind him of this father and the struggles that he'd had to gone through because of what it represented. "Start with this," she answered him.
He tilted his head away from her so her hand hung free in the air, and she pulled it back, looking away.
Then he finally spoke.
"You know about the war meeting. I spoke out of term. I was punished."
"I never understood what it was that happened," Mai cut him off, her eyes glancing at him to see how he reacted to it. "We were never told."
His face was still hidden, but he answered a little while after.
"They were planning to sacrifice troops. Younger ones. People willing to fight for our country. I spoke out against it, and this was my punishment." He touched his scar lightly and quickly let his hand fall, like it hurt to touch it. He looked up towards the sky, and Mai could see his face properly now. The shadows of the little garden made him look sad, but there was no moisture in his eyes. There were actually a little smile on his lips. "Do you know the feeling that you're glad something that hurt happened?" he asked quietly.
He turned his head towards Mai, not really expecting an answer from her. He wasn't exactly sure why, but he just assumed she couldn't relate to this feeling, especially since it was strange to himself, too.
But Mai hesitantly nodded. "Twice. On Ember Island, when we broke up, and on the Boiling Rock when …" She looked away.
Zuko noted to himself that that was a story he, himself, would like to know some day.
"I didn't think about that," he murmured and looked away yet again, feeling angry that he didn't think of her sacrifices. She'd given up on so much for his sake, risked her entire life and her bright future, and then he didn't even remember it.
"Go on," Mai encouraged impatiently. He was stopping already. That wasn't a good sign.
He sighed.
"My uncle followed me. We started by looking at the air temples. I think … Well, I think he, all the time, was trying to make me see something different than the war and," he smiled sadly, "my honor." He shook his head, as he often did at his own stupidity. "But I was too preoccupied by the Avatar." He turned his head back towards her. She was looking at him with serious eyes, and he could see that she was really listening carefully to his story. It made his stomach twirl and warm all up as if he was in a hot shower. Without being wet, though.
"We found him on the South Pole because of a strange light in the sky. Then we began chasing him." He laughed. "That didn't go very well."
He shook his head and looked into the thin air in front of him, thinking about where the next important point in his story was, and he found it.
"Do you remember general Zhao?" he asked.
Mai shrugged. "I know my father had political relations with him, but other than that I only know that he was the one that failed on the North Pole."
"That's not exactly true, though," Zuko murmured, shaking his head. "But I'll get to that," he cut her off as she opened her mouth, and with a slight smile she nodded.
"Anyway, Zhao caught Aang at one point, and I knew that my honor and future would be lost forever if I didn't stop him from taking him back to my father, so I …" He closed his eyes, knowing that he had to mention something else, too. "I'm the Blue Spirit."
Mai didn't give off much of a reaction.
"I figured as much," she responded.
He turned towards her in astonishment. "What?" he asked.
Now Mai was blushing so hard that Zuko thought he would be able to fry an egg on her forehead.
"What is it?" he repeated, and now it was her turn to look away so he couldn't see her face.
"Well, you were always pretty skilled with broad swords, and …" She shook her head. "It's just, I hadn't thought of it before, but now, when you tell me … It makes sense, so it can't surprise me." She took in a deep breath and looked further away.
Zuko was close to laughter again, hearing Mai struggle so much with her words.
"Well, he continued, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable. "In the disguise of the Blue Spirit, I freed the Avatar from Zhao, meaning, of course, to take him captive myself, but things didn't work out that way." He rolled his eyes and smiled down at her, now that she had turned back towards him.
"Zhao tried to get me annihilated later, but –" He stopped. Mai had risen from the bench and was staring at him with sparkling eyes. In the light of the sun, she looked breathtakingly beautiful. He had to close and open his eyes a few times to make sure that he wasn't seeing lies.
Her mouth was set in a hard line, and he noticed that her hand was cradled in the way it always was when she was planning to pull down knives.
"He's dead, right?" she asked in a deadly soft voice.
"Yea," Zuko answered, not understanding her question.
She nodded. "Good," she said coldly, and then she sat down again. "Go on."
He nodded.
"I hid on his ship as a regular soldier with my uncle as a companion. Then I infiltrated the Northern Watertribe's greatest city, and I got my hands on the Avatar, but because of a blizzard, I once more didn't get a good enough grip on him." He sighed.
"You really were useless," Mai noted.
When he looked up to defend himself, he saw a little, petite smile on her lips, and he, for once, knew that she was teasing him.
He smiled. "Yea …" he breathed, shaking his head. "One thing went to another, and I was suddenly fighting Zhao. The water sort of … swallowed him …" He blushed when Mai laughed.
"Swallowed him?" she asked.
"Water is strange. What can I say?" he asked, blushing even deeper. He looked at the ground with dark eyes, grabbing his knees tightly.
"We came to the Earth Kingdom then. Azula gave us a few problems, but we traveled through the Earth Kingdom and ended up in Ba Sing Se."
Mai nodded. "I know, and then Katara came running and gave Azula all the information she needed. And then she locked you in the catacomb where –" She narrowed her eyes and leaned toward him in such a frightening way, that Zuko leaned back. "What did you two do in those caves?"
He raised his hands to protect himself from her, smiling with the same grin he had a little ago.
"Nothing, nothing. We just talked." He let his hands fall down again, his eyes going blank. "That's probably when I started to really realize that I was on the wrong. But when Azula offered me my honor, my throne and my father's acceptation ..." He looked away from her. He was ashamed of his choice, but he was also, in a way, happy that he had. If he hadn't, what about him and Mai?
He tried to think about it for a moment. If he had joined up with the Avatar already back then, he and Mai would have been enemies, but … In the end, when they had beaten Azula and his father, they could have been together. He believed that.
Although in that case, Mai wouldn't have betrayed Azula …
Or would she?
He shook his head and turned back towards her with an apologetic smile.
"You know what happened from then on," he said.
"Yea, you wrote a bad letter that couldn't possibly have been composed any worse, and then you left me."
"I thought you said we were going to ignore that letter," Zuko murmured.
She ignored him.
"There's something I don't get, Zuko," she stated.
"What is it?" he asked, prepared to clear out her confusion. He didn't want anything to be in the evasive anymore.
"Why did you bother?"
"What?"
She sighed and reformulated her question. "Why did you bother writing the letter? Why didn't you just …" she looked away with a light blush, "take me with you?"
He stared at her sad eyes, looking away from him. They'd been fixating on him all this time, giving him the strangest feeling. They'd been smoldering towards him, filled with the same pain that filled him. Filled with understanding that hurt her.
When he decided to leave to join the Avatar, the hardest thing he had to do – the only hard thing, actually – was leaving behind Mai. He had decided that he wouldn't drag her into it. It had torn him later, and now … Now that he had finally found peace, he regretted yet another decision.
The decision to leave behind Mai.
"I didn't want to put you in that decision," he murmured. "I know you ended up in it anyway, but it wasn't my intention." He hid his face in his hands. "I was just trying to protect you. I was hoping that you'd be okay when I returned, and that maybe … Maybe you wouldn't hate me." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."
"You should have taken me with you," Mai stated. "I would have followed you."
They were silent for a while, listening to the wind, looking at the sun rising.
"Why were you at the Boiling Rock to begin with?" Mai asked then.
"Sokka," he responded. "He wanted to find his father, and I helped."
She nodded. "Fine." Her eyes turned towards the sky and she stood up. "It's starting to get late. Your coronation is not many hours away. Do you want me to help you get ready?" She raised an eyebrow and put a hand on his hurt side. It was so gentle that it didn't hurt. "You'd probably need it."
He smiled and stood up. "Yea," he answered. "I probably would."
Then they went back up to his chambers to get him ready for his first moments as Fire Lord.
Of course, when Zuko told Mai about the speech he had prepared, she hurriedly changed the most awkward passages so that it made more sense.
Zuko suddenly understood exactly why Mai would never stop complaining about his letter. He was a terrible writer.
But she said she would help him with that.
So sometimes bad luck came followed closely by good luck.
-
Maiko fluff. This was inspired by arelia-dawn s picture on Deviantart, and we discussed why her eyes were sad, and we ended up deciding that Zuko was telling her his story. So I wrote this.
I hope you enjoyed it :)
Please review ^^
Dawn