Author's Notes: Part Three of my Maikka Week submission. This story fits in the same Time Line or Universe as The Dragon and the Wolf and takes place 1-2 years previously. Thanks to those who requested I finish uploading. :)

The Raven and the Wolf: Part Three

Mai was not happy.

Her clothes were drenched, her hair hung limp around her face, and water had long since soaked all the way through her good leather boots and was now squelching between her toes with every irritated step through her slowly flooding prison.

There had to be something useful, some forgotten item or hidden lever that would stop the pouring water or maybe even a secret passage to get them out. Mai refused to believe that a deathtrap had been built below the palace district without anyone complaining about it. But then again the former Fire Lords, unlike Zuko, weren't all about love and rainbows.

She sighed. Again. And glared up at the opening far above her. Odds were good that the Raven Hawks had posted sentries to watch for any escape attempts. It wouldn't be a problem if she could only find a way up there to deal with them, and then find a way to haul Sokka out before he drowned.

Sokka.

She cast a glace over at his prone form and tried not to feel bad about the fact that he had sacrificed himself to protect her. It wasn't like she had asked him to do so. In fact, from where she was standing it seemed like he'd gotten the better deal. How hard could it be to lie there and bleed while she was stuck trying to solve the impossible, lethal puzzle with nothing but her wits and her knives?

She kicked at the ankle-deep water, just to let out a little steam, and the rippling wave drew her attention to something wedged between some rocks. For a moment, her predicament seemed to fade away to be replaced by curiosity and a sudden, burning desire. She picked up the tool and wiped it clean on her pants, holding it up for inspection.

There was nothing remarkable about it. It was lighter than she'd expected, cracked and scraped, but otherwise well cared for. His hand had worn grooves in the handle that were too spaced apart to really fit her grip, but she didn't mind. It just showed how much he loved and used the weapon. An odd concept for Mai, considering she rarely retrieved her daggers, darts, or knives after using them in battle.

The shape was unique, to be sure, but Mai couldn't figure out exactly what caused the projectile to return when thrown. There had to be a trick to the technique. Casting another glance over her shoulder, she made sure Sokka was still unconscious before taking her stance and looking for an appropriate target for her first attempt.

Sokka's other beloved weapon was wedged halfway up the wall. Mai took aim and tried to hold the angled projectile like she'd seen him do. She threw with all her experience and training.

Apparently, everything she knew was wrong.

Boomerang spun off course and noisily struck another wall before ricocheting off and falling to the ground with a clatter. Mai flinched and turned back to Sokka, feeling guilty. He was still out cold, and she sloshed over to where the projectile had fallen, picked it up, cleaned it off, and reappraised the weapon.

"So you're going to be difficult, hey?" she muttered. Of course there was some stupid trick to it. She really hadn't expected anything less from Sokka and his toys. Taking the previous flight path into consideration, Mai realigned her aim and adjusted her grip.

Her second throw was even worse.

The weapon shot straight up into the air and while Mai was busy being annoyed, she forgot to take in to consideration the fundamentals of gravity. Quick reflexes saved her from her very own debilitating head injury.

"What… are you doing…?"

Mai winced, mentally kicked herself, and schooled her expression back to one of casual boredom before turning to her not-so-unconscious companion. She'd made him a nice pillow out of her bundled cloak and he was propped up enough to see her without moving his head. He watched her through half-lidded eyes and she couldn't tell if he was really aware or not, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and treat him like he wasn't brain damaged.

She lifted her shoulders in the tiniest shrug. "I was practicing."

"Your technique's all wrong," he drawled.

She scowled. "You think I didn't notice?"

He started to grin and then stopped, closing his eyes and groaning instead. When he opened them again, his gaze was unfocused and roaming, and she regretted passing up a moment of lucidity with a pointless argument. She sighed and picked up Boomerang before trudging over and crouching beside him, doing her best to avoid getting any wetter than she already was.

"How's your head?"

He winced and put a hand to his bandaged forehead, probing for injury. "Hurts… What happened?"

She exhaled another sigh and slid the warrior's weapon back into the sheath at his side. "Not this again." He blinked at her, hazy and disoriented, and she shook her head and fought the urge to take pity on him. "What happened is, you were an idiot."

"What'd I do?" The glazed, wide-eyed look he gave her was so earnest and endearing, she couldn't help but soften.

"You saved my life…"

"How silly of me…" He managed a slow smile. "But sounds like… something I would do."

"Yeah well, don't feel too smug about it. You hit your head pretty bad." She paused. "And you might be paralyzed, but we'll worry about that later."

He chuckled, whether unconcerned or simply delirious, she wasn't sure. His hand found its way into her own, and for once she didn't mind the contact. Even if he was cold and wet. "But you're okay?"

"I'm great," she deadpanned. "Minus the fact that we're trapped in a huge iron tank that's slowly filling with water and we have no way to escape."

"Oh good," he said with just a hint of his usual humor before patting his legs. "I thought I wet myself…"

"Soggy bottoms are the least of our concerns," she said, but couldn't help feeling that maybe that wasn't true. It would have been a lot easier to plan if she wasn't so waterlogged and miserable, and Sokka would have been a lot better off somewhere warm and dry and clean.

And now that she thought about it, she was pretty hungry, too. Dinner back at the palace had probably been canceled, and Zuko was either moping around his chambers or out looking for them. She had made sure her note was vague enough to drive him crazy, though in hindsight, it might have been better to tell him where they were going.

A rescue would have been nice, but mostly she regretted missing what had been shaping up to be quite the feast. There might have even been fruit tarts for dessert. Her stomach chose that moment to give an unladylike gurgle.

Sokka grinned and tried to look around without moving his head, padding down his chest with slow, clumsy movements. "Hey, where's m' bag? There's sum komodochicken… You can have."

She gave him a blank stare. "You forget everything else, but remember the hunk of meat you shoved in your pack?"

"It'was tasty," he continued, not really listening to her. "And 'm kinda hungry too… for some reason." Mai tried to ignore the telltale chunks still floating around them and chose, out of the kindness of her heart, not to fill him in the details of his empty stomach.

Before he hurt himself searching, she reached over and retrieved his pack from its mostly dry resting place atop a large rock. "Here."

"Nuh uh," he slurred, holding up his hands. "Ladies first."

It was a true testament to the direness of their situation that Mai actually stuck her hand inside the bag, hoping to find a half-eaten leg of meat. When her fingers brushed against the greasy skin, she tried and failed to repress a shudder.

Sokka grinned stupidly. "Ah, c'mon. S'good."

Mai withdrew her hand. "I changed my mind. We'll probably be swimming soon and you're not supposed to do that on a full stomach. Or so my mother always said."

Sokka blinked at her and she saw the battered wheels in his head grind to a complete halt. "We're goin'… swimmin?"

"Well," Mai began and met his blank, fuzzy look. "You have no idea what's going on right now, do you?"

He reached up with both hands and touched his face, probing around with uncoordinated fingers. "M'head feels really big… Does't look really big?"

"It's huge." She took his wrists and lowered them while he stared back at her, mystified. It wasn't even fun teasing him anymore. "It's always big."

His gaze drifted and he lowered his brow in confusion. "Are we in the sewers…?"

"Yes," Mai said, trying and failing to be patient. "Listen, I know your head hurts, but you really need to try and focus and figure a way out of here before we die."

He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. "My head hurts…"

"I just said that. You need to concentrate."

His eyes snapped open and he glared, snarling with sudden, out of the blue, animal ferocity. "I'm trying! Just! With the! Shut your! Gah!" He growled and slammed a fist in the water, splashing both of them.

"Okay then," Mai said, scooting away as he slammed his fist a second time in frustration. His brain was obviously not functioning properly, and she didn't want to rile him up any further. "How about you just relax, instead? No thinking. Everything's fine."

He clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring as he exhaled, and shook his head a fraction of a fraction. She could see him struggling to break through his own confusion, but there was something else in his expression, something pleading, that seemed to be calling out to her. When he held up his hand a third time, she took it with both of hers and tried to rub some warmth back into his icy fingers.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay. I'm right here. I'm with you. Whatever you need, I'll do it. We'll figure this out together."

Gratitude was written on his face but she could see he was having trouble putting it into words, like the effort of talking would undo any measure of control he had. If her choice was between a talkative, forgetful, stupid Sokka and a mute, intelligent, determined Sokka with anger management issues, it really wasn't a hard decision to make.

"What should I do?"

His hand slipped from hers, down her wrist, and wrapped around her concealed dagger sheath.

"My daggers?" she asked, and he blinked an affirmative. "What do you want me to do with them?" She slid one free and tried to give it to him but he held up two fingers. "Two daggers?" He twitched a nod and when she slipped the second blade free, he took them in his fists and held up his hands, miming one stab, then another, higher than the first. He repeated the motion a few times and questioned her with a look as he put the daggers back into her hands.

"You want me to use my daggers," she said, and then looked toward the nearest wall. "To climb out?" It wasn't an impossible idea, though it would certainly be a challenge and didn't really solve all their problems.

He blinked a yes, one corner of his lips turning up wryly as he reached out and squeezed her upper arm, testing the muscle, joking and poking fun without a word.

"Oh, I'm strong enough, believe me," Mai replied, giving him a smirk of her own. "But what about you? I can't just leave you here."

He projected confidence and shook his head, smiling, but there was doubt in his blue eyes despite how hard he tried to cover it. He spread his hands over the rising water and lifted them away, stopping incrementally to indicate passing time and water level. Somehow he'd already calculated how long it would take for the water to cover his face, but Mai didn't want to take any chances.

"I'm going to move you," she said. "You can sit against this rock and that will buy us both more time." She patted the small boulder his bag was still lying on. He didn't like the idea but conceded after a few moments, untying his cloak and tossing the edges back. Effectively, he was lying on a very basic stretcher. "Good idea," she said, and gathered the corners and hood as she stood up. "Sorry if this hurts."

She started to pull, doing her best not to disturb him too much as he slid along the flooded ground. There was almost enough water to float him, but Mai tried not to think about that as she did her best to shift him around toward the rock. His legs were slow to follow his upper body and he sucked in a breath as the angle tweaked his back.

"I did apologize," she reminded him as she crouched down before him. "I'm going to help you sit up, but if it hurts too bad or feels wrong, you let me know right away, okay?"

He nodded and she leaned in to him, sliding her hands under his arms and cradling the back of his head, careful to avoid his bandaged gash. He wrapped his arms around her, nearly crushing her to him, and she could feel his heart racing in his chest.

"Alright, steady." She sat him up and scooted him against the rock, and though he gasped, he didn't seem to be in any unexpected pain. She bundled her cloak behind his head again and tried to make him comfortable, though it was an exercise in futility. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

He exhaled a few shaky breaths and looked at her, trying to be tough and reassuring with lips turning blue from the cold and skin paled from blood loss. Mai was a big fan of irony, but he was taking it a bit far for her tastes.

"Look," she said, sitting back on her heels. Their life or death situation could wait while she clarified a few things for him. "I know this might be hard for you to understand, especially with your limited brain function right now, but you don't have to pretend to be anything you're not when you're with me." He met her gaze and she could almost see his thoughts swirling with understanding. "If you were just yourself all the time, it would be a lot harder for me to dislike you."

His chest shook with silent laughter and she patted him on the shoulder. He smiled and she smiled back, and for a few heartbeats, nothing else really mattered. It might have been the stress of impending doom or their imminent separation, but for some reason, Sokka reached up and brushed a wet strand of hair from her face and Mai found she didn't mind the gesture, even when his cold fingers remained there, touching her cheek.

She cleared her throat lightly and he lowered his hand, looking about as pleased with himself as a concussed warrior could be.

"I have to go," she whispered, her words almost lost to the sound of falling water. "I'll be back for you, so just hold on." She got to her feet and his eyes followed her, watching her every move like he knew he'd never see her again. "Don't do anything stupid," she said, putting as much forcefulness as she could into her words since pure encouragement wasn't really her style. "That means no dying."

"No dying," he said, making one parting attempt at speech. "Got it…"

"I'm very serious about this."

"I can tell…"

"I don't recommend disappointing me."

He grinned like a tragic hero. "Just give me my sack o' meat, and I'll be fine, woman."

She almost laughed. The sound ended somewhere in the top of her throat, but that was further than usual and Sokka seemed to know it.

She handed him his bag. "You'll be out of here eating a warm meal before you know it, so don't ruin your appetite." And then because she couldn't handle meeting his gaze any longer, she turned and headed for the wall, pulling her two sturdiest daggers as she went.

He was watching her, she knew, so she did her best to show off. Ty Lee hadn't been the only acrobatic one in their group and Azula couldn't claim all the strength. The steel of her blades found cracks and weakness where she could, and punched holes when the metal was a solid sheet of resistance. It didn't take her long to find a rhythm, and even the burn in her arms felt good after all the cold.

She had chosen a very specific path, and before she knew it, she drew level with a line of pipes running along the wall. Tucking one dagger in her mouth, she reached up and wrapped her hand around the leather handle of Sokka's sword, giving it a good shake to try and dislodge it. He'd be thrilled that she retrieved it, she knew, and couldn't help but cast a smug glance back over her shoulder, though she knew it was better not to look down from precarious heights.

Sokka wasn't watching her.

She'd left him propped up but he was slipping, his face sliding closer to the rising water. He'd either passed out again or fallen asleep or… The dagger dropped from her mouth, but Mai barely noticed. "Sokka?"

He stirred, opening his blue eyes and lifting them to her, the effort seeming to sap his remaining strength. He tried to smile and even gave her a half-hearted thumbs up, and Mai knew in that moment, if she left, even if she returned as quickly as possible with help, she would never see him alive again. She'd never see him smile or hear him joke or watch him do something stupid. Ever. Again. And then she realized that beyond it being a bad thing in general and awkward to explain to everyone, the more pressing concern was that she would actually miss him. A lot.

He could be loud and obnoxious, yes, uncivilized and socially clueless, to be sure, but he was fun and intelligent and shared her love of weapons and excitement and even had the same dark, realistic outlook on life. Now that she thought about it, she had more in common with the doomed warrior than her own boyfriend.

Mai knew how to be decisive and with the meteor blade in hand, the trip back down was a simple matter of a short freefall and a repeat performance of Sokka's slowing technique. She stabbed Space Sword into the wall and reveled in the feel of the blade screeching through metal and stone and earth. It was exhilarating.

She touched down and drew the sword from the iron with a flourish before sloshing the short distance back to the fallen warrior. He was confused, but for the first time since his fall, it wasn't from his head injury.

"Mai, what are you doing?"

"I'm saving your life. You can thank me later." And then without wasting any more time, she jammed his sword into the ground and reached out, grabbing a handful of his tunic and sliding his arm over her shoulder.

His eyes nearly popped from their sockets when he realized what she was doing. "Oh sweet seal jerky, Maaaiiiiiii!" Her name became something of an expletive as she dragged him out of the frigid water and up to his feet, his vowel sounds rolling naturally into a girlish cry of surprise and pain. He didn't even try to stand on his own, or simply couldn't, and his waterlogged deadweight was quite a lot to manage. Especially with him squealing in her ear like a little girl.

She tightened her grip and shot him a dirty look out of the corner of her eye. "Do you mind?"

"Iiieeee… Mmmmhmmhmmhmmmmm, ahhhh haha… Ahh, you're trying to kill me! I should have known. It's too hard to give up your old, evil ways!"

"Do you want me to drop you?"

"Yes!" he said, missing the threat. "But gently! I'm hurting in places I never knew I haaaaad!"

"Suck it up, already. I'm not leaving you here and I don't really want to drag you the whole way."

He made some more unintelligible, complaintive sounds as he tried to get his unsteady legs under him. He took some of his weight, buckled, and took it again with one foot, huffing from the exertion. "That's all I got, Mai. My other leg's shot, I must have landed on it."

"That's fine," she said, hoping he wouldn't remember her earlier part in gimping his bad leg. "We can do this." She pulled his sword free and started forward.

He clamped a hand on his back and hunched into her, shuffling and staggering along. "Ungggh, I feel like Gramp-Gramp. Where are you even taking me? Aren't we trapped down here?"

He had a point.

"Well…"

"That's deep," he joked, lolling his head against hers. "Get it? Like how we're kinda in a deep well, right now?"

She looked up, an idea crossing her mind as Sokka giggled at his own poor, delirious humor.

"You know a lot about sewers, right?"

He puffed out his chest a bit and straightened up. "More than I ever wanted to know."

"What can you tell me about this place we're in?"

He glanced around with casual, groggy disinterest. "It's an overflow tank. It handles excess water during storms or flooding."

"And how do they empty something like this? Where does the water go after it collects."

"There's a big drain," he said, matter-of-factly. He continued rambling on about a secret underground river and something about old invasion plans and the Avatar making a picture of Fire Lord Ozai out of noodles, but all Mai really heard was the word "drain".

"Drain? And you didn't think to mention this before?"

"Before what?" he asked, eyeing her like she was the delirious one.

"Never mind," she said, resisting the urge to sigh. Or scream. "So where does it drain into?"

"Probably the secret underground river, like I was saying," he drawled.

"And where does that go?"

"I dunno." He shrugged and then put his mouth to her ear, tickling her with a whispered, "That's why it's a secret." It still had to be better than their current options. Mai searched the floor, looking for any sign or swirling hint of where the drain could be. Sokka pressed his frozen forehead against the side of her face, distracting her. "Mmm… yer warm. Like a fire." He nuzzled against her. "And soft. Like… soft like something soft…"

"You are a true master of words."

He sniggered. "And yer funny. People don't… people don't realize that. About you. But you are."

"Okay, not that I don't enjoy compliments as much as the next girl. But we really need to find that drain."

Sokka pointed back to his old resting place. "It's over there. I was lyin' on it earlier. Was kinda annoyin'."

Mai stopped, blinked, and exhaled one long breath of frustration through her nose. She wanted to be mad at him. She really did. But he was grinning at her with stupid, boyish charm and pain induced delirium that somehow made him more… adorable? Likable? Loveable even?

"Consider yourself lucky," she said, and dragged him grunting and groaning over to the drain.

"Now what?" he asked, staring down at the perforated metal plate under the lightly swirling water. Her plan was only half-formed, more of a thought than anything workable, but she had no better ideas and couldn't expect more from Sokka. He'd done his part, now it was time to do hers.

"Now. We escape." Before he could object, she rammed Space Sword down into the small whirlpool and through the solid iron grate, cutting through it with ease. Water rushed past her ankles as she carved away the metal, and though it was only up to her mid-calf, it moved with a surprising amount of force.

"Mai…?"

She ignored the warning tone of his voice and gave one last mighty hack. A large jagged square of metal fell away into the underground, and she had just a moment to appreciate her accomplishment before Sokka lost his footing in the torrent, took her balance, and dragged her with him into the unknown. Again.

"Do I even need to point out how lucky you two are to be alive? I mean, what were you thinking?"

Sokka held up his hand, politely interrupting Zuko's lecture. It had certainly been going on long enough, not that Mai was really paying attention.

"To be honest," Sokka said, sounding properly contrite, "there wasn't a whole lot of thinking involved, and that was entirely my fault. I should have - OW, Mai, too tight too tight!"

She stopped wrapping his swollen ankle and undid a few passes before continuing.

"Shouldn't you let the doctor do that?" Zuko asked, folding his arms into his Fire Lord robes and looking every bit the concerned monarch.

"It's just a minor sprain, big guy. I'm fine. And Mai's doing a great job," Sokka said, but Mai could tell he was only complimenting her efforts to get Zuko to shut up. She undid the whole bandage job and started over, paying closer attention to the tightness and how the fabric overlapped over his tender, bruised flesh.

"I just don't understand why you were gone for three days," Zuko said, going back to his earlier argument. "Do you know how worried I was? My advisors wanted me to declare you both dead and start planning a huge State Funeral!"

"Everybody loves a party," Sokka joked.

"They were just after the free food," Mai quipped, not looking up from her work.

"Could you two try and take this seriously?"

"Look, Zuko, buddy, we're sorry. The secret river dumped us in the middle of nowhere and I was, well, I don't really even remember most of it, so I can only imagine I was quite the handful."

"Quite," Mai agreed, smirking so only Sokka could see.

"So you came back," Zuko said, piecing their story together, "as soon as you could."

"Right," Sokka said, nodding then wincing and placing a hand on his freshly bandaged forehead.

"And you didn't, I don't know, stop and take the time to teach Mai how to throw a boomerang or skin wild animals with sharp rocks or something?"

Sokka scoffed rather convincingly. "Oh please, Mai wouldn't touch a dead wild animal with a three foot stick!"

"Unless it was already cooked," she clarified, "and drizzled in a nice wildberry sauce."

"That was pretty tasty," Sokka said, grinning at her. "And you were so sure it would taste horrible."

"And so these reports I have," Zuko interrupted, pulling a scroll from his sleeve pocket and waving it in the air, "must be mistaken then?"

Mai and Sokka looked at each other and then turned their innocent, blank expressions to the Fire Lord. Sokka coughed into his hand, and blinked up at Zuko. "What reports?"

"Just something about an assassin ring getting broken up last night. But I'm sure you two had nothing to do with that."

Sokka questioned Mai with a raised eyebrow and she shrugged. "Doesn't ring any bells."

"Yeah, no idea," Sokka said. "We were out in the wilderness, fighting for our survival."

"Alright!" Zuko shoved the scroll away and threw his hands into the air. "Fine! Keep your secrets. I don't care. But just so you know, there's no way I'm going to leave you two alone, unsupervised, while I'm gone."

"What?" She blurted, finally giving Zuko her full attention. "That's not fair! You can't just-"

"Maiiii?" Sokka cut in with a strangled cry and she looked down at his leg on her lap. She'd tied off the bandages in her anger, cutting it tight into his swollen limb.

"Sorry." She retied the wrap and refused to meet Zuko's amber gaze though she could tell he was watching her rather intently.

"So that's why I decided," Zuko began, using the same official, no arguments allowed, tone he used with his subjects, "that as soon as Sokka is up for it, you two will accompany me and my taskforce in our efforts to find and capture Azula."

Mai looked up just in time to see Sokka give Zuko a conspiratorial thumbs up and try to hide it by running his hand back over his wolf tail. Mai didn't care if the last few days had all been some kind of elaborate plot, as long as she got to leave the palace and actually do something with her time. She was on her feet in an instant, hugging a rather surprised Zuko tighter than she'd ever hugged him before. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her, resting his cheek in her hair.

"So you're not mad at me, anymore?"

She pulled back, giving him one of her rare smiles. "No, I think I'm actually kind of… happy. With you." He kissed her, and as much as Mai enjoyed the sensation, she couldn't help but think of a certain bruised and battered warrior lounged out on their royal sitting couch.

Zuko finally broke the kiss and stepped back, running his hands down her arms tenderly. "Alright, I'm going to go do my Fire Lord thing for a while. You two are attending dinner tonight, yes?"

"I am so there," Sokka said, giving two enthusiastic thumbs up. Zuko laughed and left them with a wave. Once he was gone, a strange awkwardness crept over Mai. She returned to her spot on the couch and Sokka slid his injured leg back into her lap with a contented sigh. "That went pretty well, huh?"

Mai turned and met his cool, blue gaze, but his expression was unreadable. The last three days had been some of the best of Mai's life and she felt that she finally understood Sokka and had really seen beyond the façade he showed to the world. But his mask was back, more impenetrable than ever, and she couldn't help but feel like she was missing out.

"So what about you?" she asked, hoping to get another peek at the man beneath the layers of sarcasm and deflection.

"What about me?"

"What do you get out of all this? You don't expect me to believe you came here just to help smooth over some relationship difficulty between Zuko and I?"

He grinned. "Who says I didn't already get something out of it? Oh, and by the way," he said, searching his pockets until he found a small velvet bag. "This is for you."

She took it and watched his face while she reached inside the pouch and removed a White Lotus tile. He smiled, broad and genuine, and sat up so he could scoot next to her and share his excitement. He was the real Sokka again, and that was a much better present than one piece out of a Pai Sho set.

"I talked to Grandmaster Iroh," Sokka said, nearly gushing, "and he agrees that The Order needs a sister branch for women. And I thought, who better to help start something like that than the future Fire Lady, am I right? I mean, you're perfect. You're exactly the kind of smart, resourceful, subtle, talented individual that The Order looks for, and let's face it, it's going to be a long while before Zuko has what it takes to-"

Mai could claim that she wasn't sure why she did it, but as her lips met his for one flawless kiss, she had no regrets. He was the perfect gentleman, taking only what she gave, and when they pulled apart Mai could see her own satisfaction mirrored in his blue eyes.

"So, this White Lotus thing," she said, full of confidence and wry humor. "Do I have to call you brother now? Because that's a little creepy."

END