AN: I love the Mai/Zuko reunion at the end of Sozin's Comet, and I think it was perfect for their first moments together, but it seems to me that there would need to be more of it to work through their issues. This is a look at what else might have happened. I hope you enjoy!
Making Up is Hard to Do
Chapter 1
Mai once thought she had understood boredom. She had inexplicably considered her life in the Fire Nation boring. She had once declared New Ozai unbearably bleak. But over the last few weeks she had been forced to recalibrate. Compared to sitting in a room all day with no weapons, no news, no correspondence, no alteration of routine at all, her life in New Ozai had been practically stimulating.
She was, however, sensible enough to recognize that her situation was better than most. As far as she knew, she was the only traitor to the Fire Nation allowed the privilege of house arrest. Her uncle, bless him, had called in a few favors on her behalf. And while she enjoyed her comfortable bed, her own clothing, servants, and the good food, poor Ty Lee was rotting in some filthy cell in an awful prison. Because she came to her defense.
It was a terrible feeling, knowing she was the cause of someone else's suffering.
She dearly hoped she wasn't the only person eaten up with this particular brand of guilt.
Mai steeled herself against that line of thought. It wouldn't do to wallow; it wasn't all Zuko's fault. She had made her own decision, fully cognizant of all the consequences. As crazy as it sounded to her now, she had been willing to trade her own life for Zuko's. She had been furious with him, heartbroken and betrayed, and still she had saved his life with the full knowledge that she would probably be executed for her actions.
Truth be told, the fact that it hadn't happened yet worried her. The worst part of her confinement was the terrible anticipation. Each day could be the day Azula returned to deal with her. Each day could be the day she was given the punishment traitors deserved. The mental strain of preparing for one's death each day was immense.
She wondered if that was how Zuko had felt when he was being hunted by Azula.
With a dramatic sigh, she picked herself up off of her couch and idly wandered around the room. She had to stop thinking about Zuko.
But like every other endless day she'd spent as a prisoner in this suffocating home, thoughts of Zuko turned into thoughts of the Avatar. Because the only way her sacrifice could really mean Zuko's life would be if the Avatar won.
Turning against Azula to save Zuko had been an act of love, and for all that she was now labeled a traitor, she had not seen herself as truly betraying her country. But rooting for the Avatar to overthrow Fire Lord Ozai… that was something entirely different. She was still unsure how she felt about that.
She glanced idly at the sun in the sky. Still a few hours before she could eat lunch, and too many more to consider before she could sleep. Hours with no agenda, with no company. Hours where the only available occupation was introspection.
Sometimes she wished her uncle hadn't pulled so many strings for her, so she could have had at least some distraction from her own reflections. What she wouldn't give for a distraction.
And then, at the exact moment she had this thought, something finally happened. Before her eyes, a strange orange glow came into the sky. The orange was quickly overtaken by red, and a quasi-darkness came over everything.
Sozin's Comet! How had she forgotten that it was arriving today?
As a formerly trusted member of Azula's elite team, she had an idea of what was planned for today. She knew, of course, like every other Fire Nation citizen, the power that the comet gave firebenders, and she knew how helpless the other nations would be against an all-out assault.
If the Avatar had not yet defeated the Fire Lord, it was unlikely that he would have any luck today. This was it, then. Zuko was as good as lost. Her sacrifice had been in vain. But she still wanted to know for sure.
She climbed the stairs to her room, where one window provided a limited view of the royal palace. When news came of the outcome of the destruction of the Earth Kingdom and the end of the war, there should be some sort of signal from the palace. She pushed one of her chairs over to the window and waited.
She did not move for the rest of the day. She did not eat, she did not doze, and she did not take her eyes off the palace. It was nearly evening before there was any sign of anything. At first it was just a speck in the sky, but soon it was close enough that Mai could recognize it: the Avatar's bison.
She felt the vise on her heart lift momentarily. Surely it was a good thing that the bison was here, and not in the Earth Kingdom. It might even mean the Fire Lord had been defeated!
The bison descended behind the walls, where Mai could no longer see it, but she was only in the dark for a few minutes before the sky was lit up in a brilliant fire fight. Blue flames warred against yellow. So the Avatar was fighting Azula. But that confused Mai. Azula was supposed to be in the Earth Kingdom today. Why had she stayed behind? What did it mean?
The fight was intense, and long. The flames were so much brighter and larger than she had ever seen with firebending before. It appeared the Avatar felt the influence of Sozin's Comet, too, and that Zuko's teaching had been effective. The Avatar's fire was powerful, though Azula seemed to be holding her own just fine. Mai wondered briefly why the Avatar was not using other elements, when all of a sudden the fight stopped. Had someone won?
There was a sudden crack of lightning that shot up to the sky. Mai drew in a sharp breath. Azula didn't usually miss with her lightning. Had she been beaten? Had the Avatar learned lightning bending?
Was this Azula's sign of victory?
But then the blue fire started again, though without the accompanying yellow fire fighting back. In fact, it appeared like the blue fire was fighting on its own. This fight did not last as long as the one before. The blue fire came less frequently, then ceased altogether. Though Mai sat in front of the window until the comet had long gone and the palace was shadowed in the darkness of night, no sign came of the outcome of that fight.
The next morning, Mai woke to a pounding on the door of her home. She stirred and cracked her eyes open. Every muscle in her body complained that a chair was not the most comfortable place to sleep.
The pounding on the door suddenly stopped, and she could hear muffled speech as her guards spoke with whoever was at the door. Their voices sounded urgent, and perhaps a bit excited or frightened.
She heard quick footsteps scaling the stairs, followed by a knock at her door. She stood up, stretched to get some of the kinks out of her body, and walked to the door. The guard on the other side bowed to her as she opened the door.
Mai blinked. The guards had spent the last few weeks acting as though she didn't exist, or if they did acknowledge her, making jokes about her foolish decision. She wasn't sure how to interpret this change of attitude.
"The Lieutenant has decided that you are free to go, My Lady."
Mai's eyebrows lifted. "Free to go? And who gave the lieutenant this order?"
The guard actually blushed. "No one, ma'am. He just feels that - all things considered - it was time for your sentence to end."
All things considered? Mai had been branded a traitor, imprisoned by the direct order of Princess Azula. The only two circumstances that should change that would be a direct order from the Fire Lord pardoning her or an order for her execution.
"The Lieutenant should be careful disobeying the direct orders of the Princess."
The guard, if possible, looked even more embarrassed. "The Princess is in custody."
"In custody?!" Mai's usually measured voice was plainly shocked. She fixed the guard with her best obey-me-now stare. "Tell me everything you know."
"Almost nothing!" he cried defensively. She narrowed her eyes, and he caved. "The Lieutenant heard from the palace that Princess Azula lost an Agni Kai to Prince Zuko, and that he is claiming the throne. And there was a messenger hawk from the front lines claiming that Fire Lord Ozai was defeated by the Avatar."
"Zuko is here?" she whispered. "He beat Azula?"
She gripped the door with her hand to steady herself. The Fire Lord defeated. Zuko claiming the throne. It was so much to take in. And suddenly she burst out laughing. "And the Lieutenant decided that imprisoning the Fire Lord's girlfriend might not look so good on his record, did he?"
The guard had the grace to look abashed.
Mai found that she could not keep the smile off her face, no matter how hard she tried for impassive. She pushed past the guard and hurried down the steps, pausing at the bottom to hastily fix her hair before strolling out the door. She took a deep breath of outdoor air, and headed for the palace.
She was waved inside the gates by wide-eyed guards, and immediately directed by servants to the royal physician's quarters, despite not saying a word about why she was there.
The door to the physician's office was open, but Mai paused. A nagging voice at the back of her head warned that this could all be an elaborate trick of Azula's. If she turned around now, she could still escape.
But she knew she wouldn't. Just like at the Boiling Rock, she was willing to risk Azula's wrath for the sake of Zuko. Despite how much he'd hurt her. Despite how he'd left her. Despite their often turbulent relationship.
Despite the fact that she wasn't even sure they still had a relationship.
She stood in the doorframe, deciding to wait and watch for now, before she was discovered. She may have been willing to risk everything again, but that didn't mean she was reckless.
There he was, standing at the window with his back to her. His torso was covered in bandages, likely injuries courtesy of Azula. He reached for his robes and groaned in pain as he attempted to put them on.
A tender feeling came over her, and that unfamiliar smile would not be suppressed, though she did manage to tone it down to the merest smirk before speaking. "You need some help with that?" she asked in the most casual voice she could muster.
Zuko spun around, and the look on his face went directly from shock to elation. "Mai! You're okay!" He started walking over to her, and opened his arms as if to hug her. She dodged his arms and instead grabbed the sleeve of his robe. He didn't seem fazed. "They let you out of prison?"
"My uncle pulled some strings," she said vaguely as she helped him into his robes. She reached in front of him to help tie it shut. "And it doesn't hurt when the new Fire Lord is your boyfriend."
"So does this mean you don't hate me anymore?"
She blushed. She certainly had plenty of uncharitable thoughts about him in those weeks she'd been imprisoned, but in the relief of seeing him alive, of seeing him beaming at her with love evident in his eyes, she could hardly remember that she'd felt that way.
"I think it means," she said as she cradled the back of his head in her hand, "I actually kind of like you."
He leaned in close to her, and their kiss felt like coming home. More than a month of heartbreak, worry, and suffering brought to an end.
She never wanted to feel like that again.
She suddenly pulled back out of their embrace, and sternly poked him in the ribs, which due to his injury was perhaps not the nicest thing she could have done at that time. Whatever. "But don't ever break up with me again!"
He grinned at her guiltily, then pulled her back into his arms. She rested her head on his chest, closed her eyes, and soaked in the delicious feeling of being back with Zuko. She could stay like this all day. So naturally their reunion was almost immediately cut short by someone calling for him.
"Zuko, are you dressed? You're needed for some important matters that need official approval."
Mai opened her eyes to see the Avatar's waterbender standing in the doorway. She had singed, tattered robes that Mai recognized as Zuko's draped over her left arm, and she was holding his crown prince headpiece that he wore over his top-knot in her right hand. Mai felt a pang of something that might possibly have been jealousy grip her. What was the waterbender doing here? Shouldn't she be off with the Avatar? Why was she carrying Zuko's clothes as though she was used to doing it? And why was she using his name as if she was on intimate terms with him? Mai could count on one hand the number of people outside of family who were allowed to call him just Zuko.
The waterbender, in turn, took one look at Mai and nearly dropped it all. Her hand went reflexively to her water pouch. Mai would have grabbed a blade, but seeing as she still had not been given any of her weapons back, she opted for leaning up to give Zuko a deep, tender kiss that there would be no way to misinterpret before extracting herself from his embrace and turning her gaze on the waterbender.
"What-" the girl began spluttering "-what is… did she just kiss you?"
"Katara, it's okay!" Zuko said quickly holding up both his hands in a peaceful gesture. "This is Mai. She's my girlfriend."
"Your girlfriend? You're dating Azula's knife thrower?" The Katara girl apparently thought that there was nothing 'okay' about this situation.
"Yes, and she's not Azula's. Didn't Sokka tell you? She saved all our lives - Sokka's, your dad's, everyone's - at the Boiling Rock. She betrayed Azula at the risk of her own life to save ours. I wasn't even sure if she was… I mean I just now learned she was safe."
Katara pressed her lips together. "Sokka never tells me anything," she muttered. Then, with a sigh, she turned her gaze to Mai and bowed in a strange foreign way. "If that is true," she said in a grudging tone of voice, "I owe you my thanks."
Mai shrugged. "You didn't need to make it sound so noble, Zuko. I did it to save you. The rest of them were just lucky to be on the same gondola."
Mai could practically see the steam rising from Katara's head. It gave her a kind of strange satisfaction that she could get a rise out of her so easily.
"Well good," Zuko said quickly. "Now that you two, uh, know each other... I mean, you knew each other before but you didn't know… Anyway. You said I was needed somewhere, Katara?"
"Yes," she handed him his headpiece. He fixed his hair into a quick top-knot, attached the headpiece, and then reached for Mai's hand. Katara's lips pressed into a very thin line, but she motioned for them to follow her. "Apparently there's a lot of confusion as to who is in charge here now. I mean, obviously you are, but there's confusion as to whether Ozai is going to eventually come back and take the throne for himself again. No one wants to be the one to make proclamations about the outcome of the war or to decide what happens to Azula, or any of those things until they know for sure. Now that you're up and moving, they would prefer that you handle it all."
Zuko laughed harshly. "So in case Ozai comes back, they can all claim it was my fault and save their own necks."
Ozai? Since when did Zuko call his father by his name?
"What did happen to Fire Lord Ozai?" Mai couldn't help asking.
"We're not entirely sure," Zuko said. "We've gotten several messenger hawks saying that the war is over and that he was defeated by Aang, but I want to hear it from Aang himself."
"You think the reports were false?" At Zuko's look, she nodded. Of course he thought that, or at least couldn't outright dismiss the idea. He'd been on the receiving end of that kind of manipulative treatment from family since he had been a little boy. "But what will you do if he does come back?"
Zuko was silent for a moment. "I'll fight him. I'm not thirteen anymore. If he beat Aang, then we have no choice. Katara and I beat Azula. We might stand a chance."
Katara turned around slightly and sent Mai a knowing look. "We'd stand even more of a chance if we had help."
Mai's mouth went dry. Could she bring herself to fight the Fire Lord, even in defense of Zuko? Azula was her friend, so to speak. She knew what to expect. And really, all she was doing was saving Zuko's life. She barely knew the Fire Lord, and this would be open rebellion. Well. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.
"The funny thing about being a criminal is they take away all your weapons," she said dryly. "Right now I'm pretty helpless." Zuko snorted, but said nothing.
Katara stopped in front of a very official-looking door. "This is where they told me to bring you." She turned around. "Do you want to go in alone?"
"No," he said quickly, shaking his head. "I want you both to come in with me. It's probably not a good idea for any of us to spend much time alone in these walls right now."
AN: Please read and review!