part one
On the Firefly-class transport ship Freedom

Katara hummed as she made tea for herself and Aang. He had come to her earlier, a strange look on his face, and had asked if they could talk. He didn't seem agitated or afraid, so she wasn't worried, but there was an odd light in his face that she didn't recognize.

"What are you singing?" he asked, and she smiled. Since they'd been on the ship, he'd made leaps and bounds in learning English; there were still many words that tripped him up and he was only just starting to grasp contractions, but he could form complete sentences and finally communicate his feelings to people other than her and Toph. She was proud of him, how quickly he learned and how well he was adapting.

"It's a Water Tribe lullaby," she replied, placing the teapot on the dinner table between them, earning a glare from the Duke for interrupting their never-ending poker game, but Pipsqueak got up and grabbed a mug to join them. "My mother used to sing it to me," she explained, pouring the three cups of tea.

"It is pretty," he said, grinning, but then he looked into his tea intently. Abruptly, he turned to her. "I need to learn waterbending," he said firmly, and she sipped her tea, nodding.

"You're right," she said slowly, tapping the teacup with her fingers. "I found my mother's waterbending scroll at the Tribe," she started, although she tried not to talk about any of it at all if she could avoid it. "The next time we're planetside, you and I can learn some things from that. Zuko showed me a few firebending moves, which I think I can convert to a waterbending kata... I'm not sure, though, they don't feel at all the same. Iroh was better at that kind of thing. I wish he was here," she added darkly, and Aang frowned.

"Me too," he said quietly.

"Me three," Pipsqueak added, peering at his cards. "He was a much better dealer than this little punk."

The joke lightened the mood, and Aang laughed, a clear sound that made her happy to hear. Since they'd left the Water Tribe, he'd been rather morose about all that had happened and his role in it, but he was coming out of it with a strength that surprised her. He was still worse for wear, and she doubted he would ever be the boy he must have been before being frozen, but he had an infectious smile and a cheerful demeanor that he hadn't let the weight on his shoulders stamp out.

"Well, if you didn't cheat," the Duke muttered, and then yelped as Pipsqueak kicked him under the table, and grinned at them.

"Wanna join the game?"

"Not anymore," she replied, and Aang shook his head, eyes wide.

"I do not know how," he said, and the two mercenaries looked at each other.

"We could teach you," the Duke started suspiciously, but Katara huffed and shook her finger at him like a schoolteacher's reprimand.

"Oh, no you don't. I'm not letting either of you corrupt him."

"You should not worry," Aang said off-hand, shrugging, "Toph already corrupted me." She choked on her tea and tried to cough out a clarification, without much success. Both Pipsqueak and the Duke roared with laughter, and for a moment, Aang looked confused before suddenly catching on with a wince. "No, I meant — " he started, and then ducked his head, either to hide his embarrassment or his laughter.

"What's so funny?" Jet asked, rolling up his sleeves as he shuffled into the dining room, apparently having only just woken up. "That black tea?" he muttered, pointing at the teapot. Katara shook her head.

"Jasmine and green," she replied, and he grumbled.

"Am I the only person on this gorram ship who drinks coffee?" he growled, pulling out the aluminum canister of coffee grounds.

"Yes," Pipsqueak answered immediately. "You are, indeed."

"No, Toph drinks your coffee — oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to tell," the Duke said in a deadpan tone, because he was always getting into some kind of tiff with the mechanic and they both took savage glee in sabotaging each other in small ways. Jet turned, realization on his face.

"So that's where it all goes."

Katara rolled her eyes. Since she'd been with Freedom, she'd discovered altogether too much about Jet and his addictions, which flip-flopped between nicotine and caffeine depending on which one he was trying to quit. She definitely preferred him without the reek of cigarette smoke, but he'd been in a nasty mood and had taken to fidgeting when he wasn't inhaling coffee.

It had been almost two months since they'd left the Water Tribe (and her father) behind, escaping to the safety of the black, but fuel was short and money was shorter, and they'd have to land somewhere before they ran out of food or killed each other out of little more than cabin fever. Aang had lately begun making himself a nusiance by skating around the ship on an air scooter because he was getting claustrophobic without being able to see the sky, which left the ship in a state of disarray that most of the crew didn't mind (but Mai despised; Aang was, for the fifth time, banned from her shuttle, after an incident involving air marbles and a teapot). He tried to stick to skating around in the cargo bay where there was less to disrupt, but he got antsy if he stayed in one place too long.

Now that he was speaking more confidently and knew the crew and their world a little better, he had told them that he was a nomad, or at least had been one before going into cold sleep, which explained most of his tension. That was, she suspected, why he was so eager to start learning waterbending: he was desperate to do something new.

She, on the other hand, was uncomfortable at the thought of visiting other people. Her initial display of bending power at the prison had gone down as an accident involving busted pipes, but her breakdown at St. Albans had made the rounds on the rumor mill as an attack by a demon. She sighed; first freak, now blood-bathing demon. She'd almost rather be called whore.

Most of the crew understood that she wasn't a danger to them, but they knew her — what might strangers think if they found that she was the demon from the Water Tribe?

What she had done to those people still terrified her if she thought about it too much. The way she had ended their lives by ripping the blood right from their veins... that wasn't supposed to be possible. Even her limited knowledge of waterbending seemed to indicate that she needed water on-hand, and Aang hadn't heard of anyone bending blood — and he came from a world where bending was commonplace!

What did it say about her, that she could?

"Are you okay?" Aang asked, pulling her from her reverie, looking concerned.

"I'm fine," she lied, and smiled.

"Cap'n says we've got a job," Toph said, tapping her feet nervously. Haru was rearranging the Infirmary, like always, and he turned to her.

"Well, that's good," he replied. "I'd like to get out of the ship, maybe eat some real food." His voice sounded like he was smiling, but she couldn't be certain unless she was touching him, and for some reason, the thought of going up and putting a hand to his face seemed a little... like a bad idea.

"Yeah, well, it's with Fanty and Mingo," she snapped, covering her anxiety with annoyance. "And let me tell you, they're obnoxious pricks from the bad side of Beaumond's bad side. Probably best you stay on the ship — they'd have fun with a Core-hound like you," she said, and she felt him shift.

"Core-hound?" he asked, sounding slightly offended. "What's that mean?"

She shrugged carelessly. "Just means you're rich," she explained. "Hell, I'm a Core-hound, you wanna get technical about it, born on Ariel and all. But don't," she said suddenly, holding up her hands, "go to tellin' anyone else. They don't know. I'm pretty sure I've lied about never being to the Core, too," she added thoughtfully.

"How do they not know?" Haru asked incredulously. "You're a Bei Fong, I thought they were famous."

"Yeah, in the Core," she replied, like it was obvious. "Maybe Katara or Sparky would recognize the name, but they haven't heard it yet, and you better not tell 'em. I've killed people for less," she lied, and then realized that he probably wouldn't think it was one, unless he had an incredibly shining opinion of her.

"My lips are sealed," he said, and she felt him hold his hands up. "Why did you leave?" he asked, leaning against the counter. She made a face.

"You have to ask? Look at me, do I look like a Bei Fong?" She sighed, and leaned against the bed, mentally switching gears from Toph to Mistress Bei Fong. "When the Lord and Lady Bei Fong decided to have a child, they pictured an angelic princess, all sweetness and light, who would grow up to be the perfect, demure socialite, who they could dress up and show off and marry off to some wealthy family, a daughter just like Lady Poppy Bei Fong who would do just what Lady Poppy Bei Fong had done.

"Instead," she said, shifting back into Toph, "they got me. When they figured out they had a blind daughter, they completely freaked, kept me under lockdown. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere - not that I, you know, listened," she added, and grinned. "I snuck out all the time, my favorite place to go was the zoo - you know they have badgermoles at the New Gaoling zoo?" she laughed. "I got to know all of 'em, even talked the zookeeper into letting me in to pet 'em once. 'Course, my parents heard about that one," she muttered darkly. "They... shut down even more after that. They were so..." she started, biting her lip, trying to find the right word, "scared," she landed on finally. "They were scared of everything, treated me like a doll they had to protect. It got old."

"I can imagine," Haru mused, moving around the bed. "Did you try talking to them about it, at least? It seems rash, to just... abandon everything and become a mechanic."

"I tried," she replied, running a hand through her long hair. "I told 'em I was perfectly good to take care of myself, have a life of my own. They thought my "show of defiance" meant they weren't teaching me how to be a real girl hard enough. They put a servant on to watch me twenty-four-seven," she snorted derisively, the memory still raw even after five years. "I couldn't even go to the bathroom alone, she had to be with me all the time, holding my hand like I was an invalid."

"That's... wow," Haru said, and he leaned against the bed next to her. "How'd you leave - and end up here? I've been wondering, but, well," he sighed, shifting like he was uncomfortable, "no one seems especially forthcoming about their pasts on this ship. It seems like everyone pretends they didn't exist before they joined."

"That's 'cause they do," she replied sagely. "I don't know much about Pipsqueak an' the Duke, just they've always worked together. I think the Duke is Pipsqueak's son, maybe? Or nephew, somethin' like that. I'm not sure, but they were here before me. I know the Cap'n and Bee served together in the war, and they were at Serenity Valley - " she heard him draw in a sharp breath. "Yeah," she said gravely. "They don't talk about it. I dunno, the ship is just... this whole thing, it's what people do when they got nothin' else, you know? I was in prison on Ariel, but I managed to sneak out and get to the docks when my guard fell asleep, and Jet was here and he was looking for a mechanic, and I'd never done it before but I bluffed my way through it, and well," she said, shrugging.

"You bluffed your way onto the ship?" he asked, and she could hear him smiling. She grinned.

"Yep. He got so ticked when he found out I'd lied about all the experience I had fixin' ships," she said, laughing at the memory. "But I'm still the best mechanic in the 'Verse, I just don't have any trainin'. The real question," she continued, leaning forward a bit and tilting her head slightly, "is what you're doing on the ship. We all got stories, reasons to be here," she said, "but you had this cushy life on Persephone. Why throw it away?"

She heard him take a deep breath and shift. "I... My family was pretty... bad," he said, wincing, "not bad like yours, but bad like... criminals," he explained finally, "bad criminals."

"Bad like 'so evil that Reavers tell stories of 'em to scare their kids into actin' right' or bad as in, 'they really suck at not getting caught'?"

"The second one," he said, laughing. "My father is still in prison on Londinium - yes, I'm from Londinium," he added, cutting her off before she could comment. She smirked; Londinium was only good for ponces and thieves. "Originally, at least. I left when I was seventeen, to pursue a career in medicine. Like you, I was... showing up my family."

"It's okay," she said brightly, "you can say you were flipping 'em the bird."

He laughed, and a little part of her felt warm at having made him laugh. "Well, that's how I ended up on Persephone. But... it never felt right," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "But this ship... it... this sounds so stupid," he grumbled, "when I say it out loud."

"It was home," she said, reading between the lines.

"Yeah," he breathed. "It was just... home."

Mai rearranged her shuttle irritably - the little airbending brat had completely ruined two of her tapestries, and now there were great big gashes in the red silk, showing the ugly metal beneath and throwing off the decor in a way that made her twitch. The boy was not allowed in her shuttle anymore; if Katara wanted to pawn him off on someone so she could go have sex with Zuko, then she would have to find someone else to do it.

The door opened, and Mai swallowed a scream as her blood pressure spiked. "I seem to remember that there's a standing rule to knock before entering my shuttle," she growled before turning, already knowing it was Jet - he and the boy were the only ones who didn't knock, and the boy was too terrified of her at the moment to dare coming in here.

"Sorry," Jet replied insincerely, "I was just so eager to see your shining face."

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Ooh, someone's in a bad mood - that Aang's fault?" he asked, pointing to the tears in her silken tapestries as he sat on her bench and propped his feet up on her low table. She glared at him. He knew how much she hated that.

"Yes," she drawled, hitting his feet with one of her accent pillows. He grinned - she noticed that he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and a tiny part of her whimpered just a little. She couldn't deny it; even though all of her clients were well-to-do, proper, and ultra-respectable, she had a thing for scruffy boys, and Jet wore scruff better than anyone she had ever met. "He was playing with... air marbles?" she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"You keep doing that, your face'll get stuck that way," he said, chewing on his lip like he was craving a cigarette. He knew better than to smoke in her shuttle, though - the last time he had, she had pulled a knife and threatened to take his balls as compensation.

"You should really work on your nicotine addiction," she told him, and he rubbed the back of his head.

"I'm tryin' to quit," he replied sheepishly.

"You suppose the eighteenth time might be the charm?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, but internally she hoped that it might be. Jet already lived on the edge in so many ways - the last thing he needed was to add any other risks to his life into the mix. He shrugged and looked away, the way he always did when there was something he wanted to say but wasn't sure how to say it. "What's wrong?" she asked seriously, and he gave her a lopsided smile that made her stomach drop a fraction.

"How is it you can always tell when something's botherin' me?"

"You refuse to look me in the eye," she explained, making her bed to avoid looking at him and his grin and his scruff. "Also, you barge into my shuttle unannounced and make small talk," she added. He laughed.

"Yeah, I guess," he conceded, then sighed. "We got a job," he said abruptly, and she turned.

"I don't suppose it's on a somewhat decent planet where I might screen some respectable clients?" she asked, but he shook his head, all humor gone from his eyes. There was something hidden there, something she could probably discern if she looked hard enough. Instead, she turned back to her bed. "What sort of job?"

"Illegal sort," he said, shrugging, "not sure of the details yet. We're meeting with the clients, pair o' twins by the name of Fanty and Mingo, we've dealt with 'em once or twice."

"And I should care because?

He made a face. "They ain't exactly known for hanging around safe places, or safe people," he said seriously, "dunno what they and their friends'd do to a woman like you. It's probably best you stay on the ship."

"Are you trying to be noble again?" she asked coldly, but he didn't smile, instead staring at her with burning eyes.

"Maybe," he said quietly. "Just best if you make yourself kinda scarce."

"I have no intentions of leaving the ship unless there's something better for me off of it," she told him, and it was more true than she liked. She'd flirted with the idea of returning to Sihnon at some point relatively soon, but she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Freedom, even though she knew, deep down, that she had to eventually, for the same reason she had left Sihnon: the family history, the shaking in her hands, the words on the doctor's chart.

Mai's clock was running out, and pushing her further off the ship with every tick.