On Freedom

"Scrolls?" Katara asked, and Bee nodded.

"Old ones," the first mate replied, expression strained, gesturing with a spoon and prodding her plate of protein mistrustfully. "Lots of 'em, too."

Katara thought about that for a long moment — the old woman's surname was Sila, the same name as a Water Tribe god of wind that she'd heard stories of from Gran-Gran when she was young. And if the woman was Water Tribe, they might be waterbending scrolls. It made sense, but how was she supposed to get her hands on them?

"Don't even start," Zuko said, startling her out of her reverie. "I know what you're thinking. There's no way," he insisted, and she scoffed.

"You have no idea what I'm thinking," she huffed, but she knew by the look on his face that he did. He looked worried, and a little annoyed (although he was always annoyed, with Jet and with the ship and with the food and with Toph and with — everything), and looking straight through her, something he was starting to get disturbingly good at. "Okay, but what if they are waterbending scrolls? Toph... I could help her."

"It's not worth the risk," he said. "That woman's too dangerous."

"Well, I'm pretty dangerous, too," she replied fervently, and he made a face.

"I'm not losing anyone else — " he started, but Bee cut him off before the conversation could turn to Iroh, prodding Katara with her spoon and talking loudly.

"Not this kind of dangerous," she said gravely. "You didn't see the woman she had hanging in her torture room."

"I know," Katara sighed. "But there's so much more I could be doing for her if I just..."

"You're still learning," Zuko said firmly. "It takes time."

"You're lecturing me on patience?" she teased, trying to smile, and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not lecturing," he grumbled. "I'm just... saying."

"Right," she said lightly, resting an elbow on the table and leaning on it. "You're not lecturing, you're just telling me important things in a teacherly tone." She looked to Bee, eyes wide and innocent. "Two completely different things, right, Bee?"

"Mm," Bee replied, taking a bite of the protein as though she was really hoping it would suddenly turn into a steak, or at least real food, "most definitely. Lecturing requires a podium," she added, and Katara snickered.

Zuko scowled and looked away, but she poked him in the side. "Hey, grumpy-pants, we tease you 'cause we like you. Don't get all huffy on me."

"I'm not huffy! That isn't even a word!"

"Sure it is. Means snooty," Bee chimed in, and walked over to the kitchen island, ignoring Zuko's glare. "I'm making some hot cocoa. You want any?"

"We have cocoa?" Katara asked incredulously, glancing at her, and she winced.

"Well, no," she replied, "but we have had a box of chocolate flavoring for about a century, and I was thinking we could maybe mix it with protein and dissolve into water and it might taste a little less like ass."

She cringed, and glanced at Zuko, who just looked disgusted. "Um, thanks, but I'll pass," she said, turning so that she was facing the island and leaning against the table. "I could make tea? That's sure to taste better than... that. Probably not as good for you, though."

"This stuff is good for us?" Zuko asked, pretending to be surprised. "Because it tastes like dirt."

"It's got all kinds of essential vitamins," Bee said, pulling out the chocolate flavoring and measuring out a careful teaspoon of it to mix with her protein. She stopped, looked at it, and then looked back at the chocolate flavoring and just poured the whole thing into the cup, setting it on the burner. "Immunizations, minerals... it's all the stuff you need food for, except... without the food. At least it doesn't go bad," she added, making an obvious effort to look on the bright side.

"Well, there is that," Zuko said sarcastically, and Katara nudged him admonishingly.

"You know, there is this thing that some of us try," she said, in a tone of sudden realization, "it's called optimism." He rolled his eyes.

"I tried that once," he replied, leaning back in his chair. "And then I discovered pessimism. We go together much better."

"I think you're just grumpy," she muttered, turning away and sighing dramatically. "You just hate that I've figured you out."

Bee interrupted them with a huge coughing fit as she tasted the hot cocoa, making a face that suggested she was trying to will the taste away.

"Experiment failed?" Katara asked unnecessarily, but she actually shook her head.

"It tastes exactly like I expected it to," she replied weakly, eyes watering. "It'll be great when I hit up Pipsqueak's vodka stash."

And for the first time since they'd landed on St. Albans — Zuko laughed.

On Beaumonde

Suki peered at Sokka in the darkness of the room, shadows long on the wall.

She wasn't sure where they stood on the spectrum of romance — friends with benefits, just sleeping together, in a relationship, or, heaven help her, in love — she couldn't pin it down. She hardly knew what love even was, and she was only good at dealing with boys when she had a weapon in her hand or acid on her tongue. Boys were always scared of her, and so were any girls she'd been interested in, too... romance just wasn't what people saw when they looked at Suki.

All she really knew about love was what she'd learned from her parents, which was "love will make you blind," and from the Companion House, which was "love will ruin you."

She sighed and ran her fingers lightly over his shoulder — he usually slept like a log, if he slept at all, and she figured that she could probably scream in his ear and he wouldn't wake up right now. She envied him; she was too agitated to close her eyes, and sleep never seemed to hold onto her.

On his chest were a series badly-healed scars, a thousand details that she didn't know about him, and she traced a few of them idly. She knew his story, the clinical version, like she'd read it in a history book, but Sokka was more than a collection of words from his past — Sokka was the adorable, dorky boy who had won her affection and nearly hanged with her in the palace, but he was also the inhuman creature who had beaten Admiral Zhao with the butt of a rifle until there wasn't anything left to tell who it was.

She didn't want to be able to reconcile the two, but she knew that demon, the taste of that emotion. Family mattered to Sokka, the same way her warriors had once mattered to her, and after Katara had crashed to the battlefield with the tower, he had just — broken. That Katara hadn't been dead was probably the only thing that had saved him from becoming his father, chasing vengeance down and further down, into the black hole. Suki had managed to escape its gravity once, but she had been trained her whole life in how to shut down on the desire to scream and the need to make them pay; she was the exception, never the rule.

She wanted to save him from ever falling into it again, teach him how to survive it, but she just didn't know what to do. Her "system shut down" function was a failsafe she'd been taught from such a young age that she didn't even know how she did it anymore: it had become instinct. Even then, it had taken everything she had, and a long string of false starts, to leave Shadow behind — was it even possible to save someone else when she barely had the strength to save herself?

She'd already taken so many blows, one more might just be the death of her; reaching out to this save-the-'verse cause she'd fallen into — reaching out to this man who wasn't afraid of her or trying to change her — was such a risk, a terrifying risk, a bet she knew better than to make. Suki knew the numbers, she knew the odds, and she knew what would happen when — if — when — they failed. Suki knew a losing battle when she saw it, but she was maybe the only one.

Was it worth it?

(Was he worth it?)

They were on Beaumonde. This was her chance to leave, and probably the last.

"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly, voice rough, and she started — when had he woken up? — and opened her eyes. He was watching her as intently as she had been watching him.

"Nothing," she replied, smiling, but he didn't smile back.

"You're lying," he said, propping himself up on his elbow. "What's wrong?" he repeated, and she glanced away.

"I was just — I was thinking about — all of this, all of — St. Albans," she answered hesitantly, quietly, and he looked down, but continued to trace circles on her shoulder.

"What I did to Zhao," he said bluntly, and then fell back onto his back, running a hand through his hair. "I don't — I don't even remember," he croaked. "I just — "

"I know," she cut him off, and he looked at her. "It's all a blur, you can't even focus on it. It's like something else took control of your body. I've — I know."

He watched her carefully, and then swallowed. "Kyoshi Warriors operated out of Shadow," he said softly, apparently randomly, a question as much as a statement, and she blinked it all back, drank it down, swallowed memory whole.

"Kyoshi Warriors are gone," she replied evenly. "Long gone, now, didn't even make it to the end of the war."

"How many are left?" he asked, and she turned to the wall, dried salt and iron on her lips.

"...one."

He pulled on her shoulder, turning her back toward him and kissed her, hard and intense and filled with things unspoken. She was the last of her kind, a lineage that stretched back almost four millennia, and she was the weak link, the reason they had fallen. The things she didn't tell him explained everything: her shame, her memory, her fear, her hate, fires still smoldering under her skin, over seven years after the fact.

The next morning, a pair of golden fans was sitting on the pillow.

At the Staggering Naga bar in Xīnbei

Jet scowled as he made his way through the bar; this was a much seedier dive than the Maidenhead (which was saying something) and even he felt a little unsafe, but he was pretty sure he'd never be allowed in the Maidenhead ever again. Almost as soon as he walked into the room, a woman with white hair stopped him — white hair — that hit something on his memory, something other than Diana, standing in front of him. He raised an eyebrow; she didn't look like herself.

"Jet, I'm so glad to see you," she gushed, but it wasn't her usual lilt. She sounded scared. "I need your help."

"No," he replied shortly, pushing past her. She grabbed his arm.

"I have payment," she insisted, and he shrugged her hand off of him. It was bad enough that he'd had to deal with Hama — Hama! That was where he'd seen white hair recently, the woman Hama had been torturing.

"Pretty rare hair color," he said slowly, and she scowled.

"It's a dye job," she snapped. "Will you help me?" she pleaded. But he was all charity-ed out, and wanted neither to give nor receive.

"Sorry, sweetcakes. Find some other wángbādàn to con," he said, stalking over to the table Fanty had told him they'd meet him at, although they weren't there yet.

"Jet!" she cried, but he waved her off.

"Bye, Diana," he said pointedly, and she let out a frustrated sound before storming off. Bee and Longshot joined him at the table, both watching Diana march away curiously. "She wanted my help," he explained, shrugging. "I'm not that stupid."

He peered at Bee — since the train job, she'd been closed off to him, but she must have talked it over with Longshot and decided to put it behind them. He hoped she had forgiven him; it might help him forgive himself.

As though she could read his mind, she smiled at him and elbowed him in the side. Longshot, on his other side, smirked. "Is Jet brooding?" he asked, a teasing note in his quiet voice. Bee grinned.

"I think he is. What, you think that acting like Zuko will make one of our Companions suddenly fall madly in love with you?" she asked, poking him in the side, right where he was ticklish. He jerked away from her, but then Longshot poked him in the other side.

"This is insubordination," he growled, as they tickled him, but couldn't keep the relieved smile off his face. "That's what this is. Mutiny!"

Suki lounged at the bar with Sokka and Ty Lee; Katara, Zuko, Aang, and Haru were back on the ship, and Mai was running some kind of errand involving her bank account, the nearest government building, and her knives, while Pipsqueak and the Duke played a drinking game with a few strangers, everyone trying to forget the missing piece. Toph was still asleep in the Infirmary, and although she had stabilized with the medication Jet had gotten for her, nothing else had really changed.

It made Suki's stomach clench to think about — Toph had grown on her since St. Albans, and it just wasn't right, for her to be so still and quiet. Toph was supposed to be boastful and loud and taking over the whole ship with her presence, not... this.

"She'll be fine," Ty Lee said suddenly, shattering the silence. "I just know it," she added, and then smiled hugely. Ty Lee was good at that: smiling when there wasn't anything to smile about. "Haru fixed her up really good, and with Katara there helping out... plus, Toph's way too belligerent to die like this," she said, then turned and took a menu, staring hard at it. "She'll be fine," she repeated, and Suki wondered if she found it any more convincing than they did.

"Who'll be fine?" someone said, and Sokka and Suki both stiffened. It was the white-haired beauty that she had hit the last time they were on Beaumonde. The woman smiled brilliantly, if insincerely. "No hard feelings, darling," she told Suki, and then looked to Ty Lee. "What's gone wrong this time?"

"None of your business," Sokka replied tightly, and the beautiful woman smiled.

"Sokka, I'm so happy to see you," she trilled falsely, desperation badly hidden, "I was just thinking that I had this fantastic job offer, but no one around to deal with." She leaned against the bar and studied the menu as though she wasn't dangling a job in front of them. "Nice and lucrative," she added lightly. "Wanna know more?"

"Why should I trust you?" he asked, arms crossed.

"I'm being completely up-front with you," she replied, voice taking on a hard note as she dropped the act. "This is a hard job, dangerous, and it'll make you a few nasty enemies... not that that's anything new. But I have payment, good payment, million-square easy." Suki raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sokka — for a moment, naked greed crossed over his face, but then he masked it with indifference. They'd been two months living off nothing more than tasteless protein bars; if the woman wasn't lying, then they couldn't afford to turn down this job.

"Why are you offering it to me?" he challenged her, covering his hunger with a blank expression. She shrugged.

"I need someone to do it, and fast," she sighed, "and you're here. Besides, you've had to step lightly since that show at St. Albans — oh, don't even try to pretend that wasn't you," she said, catching him before he could do just that. "Me? I couldn't care less," she said, desperation exposing the lie. "But after that, you'll be wanting to steer clear of the Alliance. Meanwhile," she explained, clicking her tongue, "that kind of force happens to be exactly what I need."

Sokka looked to her, and she nodded surreptitiously. There was a familiarity in the way the woman spoke, carried herself, explained herself — she had Companion training or something similar, Suki had a lot of experience with reading through lying Companions. And the woman was honest about the job, it was all over her.

"All right," Sokka said, walking over to one of the tables, followed by all three women, "let's talk."

On Freedom

Waterbending, Katara knew, required at least reasonable freedom of movement, so they had filled buckets and buckets of water at the nearest washing station and hauled them back into the ship, claiming that they were stocking up for a long trip, and scattered them around the cargo bay. She had wanted to use her shuttle because she was paranoid about being seen, but after the first attempt had ended with both she and Aang tripping over her table and drenching her bed, they had made the diplomatic decision to move.

Zuko was on the lookout, lounging tensely on a chair in by the door, ostensibly to give them prior warning if anyone decided to prod them. They had closed the main cargo bay doors, but the last thing Katara wanted was for someone to look through the window and see her and Aang bending. Even though, privately, she wasn't really sure why anyone would bother.

"Okay, let's try this one," she said, and tacked an again onto it in her mind. Aang was a quick study, having already mastered all of the simpler moves on the scroll and had even begun crafting his own techniques, but she was learning much, much slower. It didn't make sense — she knew she could do this, why was it so hard when she was trying?

"You look like you firebend," Aang chirped, and she swallowed an angry retort. So, she was getting shown up by a twelve-year-old. That was all right — he was the bearer of phenomenal cosmic power all squashed into a little kid. It was only natural that he would be remarkably good at waterbending. "You are stiff."

And you're a brat, she thought, and instantly felt bad. Aang wasn't a brat, he was just precocious. She had liked that when she was teaching him English, but now it annoyed her. "All right," she said sharply, "let's walk through the moves together."

With agonizing ease, Aang walked through every move on the scroll, obviously going extra-slow so she wouldn't feel as bad (which made it worse, but at least he was trying to be nice), and then finished in a splash of water that dazzled in the light right up until it drenched Zuko. "Oops," he said, and Katara tried not to laugh at the soggy prince. "I... um, was not paying attention."

She suspected that he was lying, and didn't want to think about why.

"That's great," Zuko started sarcastically, but she pulled the water off of him and shot him a mock glare before he could continue.

"He's still learning, go easy on him," she said, but it was clear that she and the scroll had taught Aang all he was going to learn today. Still, she thought, there was merit in it — now that he'd learned the basics, he was experimenting with water, and he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit; maybe now he wouldn't be skating everywhere. She'd rather him play with water in the cargo bay than the air scooter — it left less of a mess to clean up.

She took a deep breath. Zuko insisted that breathing and meditation were important parts of bending, and Aang had agreed with him, so they had all been doing breathing exercises every morning at 0530 sharp (which usually meant that they both had to wake her up). It helped somewhat, but she still struggled with moving the water unless she wasn't thinking about it. "Ugh," she sighed, and leaned against the wall. "Why is this so hard to do when I'm trying?" she groaned, and Aang turned to her, eyes wide.

"You think too much," he replied bluntly. "Bending is your spirit, so it is natural."

"He's right," Zuko said, looking at Aang with a calculating look. "You have to feel it. When you're reacting to a threat — " he didn't say it, but she remembered that horrible image of the blood-splattered snow, the icy hills and the bruised-black bodies strewn about " — you're feeling, not thinking. Try to feel it."

"Waterbending is the most... uh, sam ling soeng tung of the elements," Aang added, sounding like he was reciting something he'd learned long ago. "I do not know what that means in English," he said sheepishly.

"Try to explain it in another word," she told him absently, and he bit his lip.

"Um, emotion. Feel. Understand..."

"Sympathy?" she offered, and his brow furrowed.

"Empathy?" Zuko suggested, and she looked at him.

"That sounds better. It would explain... a lot, actually," she said, thinking about it. Iroh had told her that the element a person bent was related to their personality as well as their genes — thus, Toph, with her brusque and straightforward personality, was an earthbender, and Zuko, rash and smoldering, was a firebender, and Aang, flighty and eager, was an airbender. If water was associated with empathy and insight, then it made sense that she was a waterbender.

"Right!" Aang crowed. "Waterbending is the most empathy of the elements," he said, and then made a face. "That sounds wrong."

"Empathy is a noun," she said, "when it's an adjective, it's empathetic. The quality of having empathy," she recited, glad now that she had studied English in Companion training, since speaking the language properly — and not like, for instance, Jet's sorry excuse for English — was an important part of being a Companion — and, she was learning, a much more important part of teaching it to a young boy.

"Anyway," Aang went on cheerfully, "you have to feel waterbending, the monks at the temple said."

She smiled at him; it was good that he was talking about his past a little more today. He didn't often talk about the people he had known — and she never pushed him, because that obviously hurt him to think about — and she suspected that there was one person in particular he was thinking of whenever he said that the "monks" had taught him something, but he hadn't yet given them a name. Still, even if he wasn't telling them everything, he was talking, and that was enough, for now.

"How do I do that on cue?" she muttered to herself, and then sighed. "Well, I think that's all we can do with the scroll, anyway. I'll have to learn it on my own."

"So," Aang asked, tilting his head, "what do we do with all these buckets?"

At the Staggering Naga

Jet was gonna give him hell, he just knew it. But he had reason to believe that Ceri-Dian-ebe was telling the truth about this job, and probably the payment as well, although obviously she'd never just give them anything, even if they had already had an agreement — that just meant that they had to come up with a way to con her if she tried to stiff them their pay.

Conning the con-artist — he hoped Jet would appreciate the irony.

Ceri-Dian-ebe's job was simple: she wanted them to free a prisoner. The problem lay in who the jailer was: naturally, Hama Sila. He'd personally made it a point never have anything to do with her, ever, but apparently someone Ceri-Dian-ebe was close to had made that mistake and was now in the madwoman's clutches. Their recent experience with the woman would be useful, either in doing the job or in choking out an explanation for why they wouldn't do the job whenever they stopped laughing long enough to speak.

All she wanted them to do was get that person out. No frills, no secrets. In return, Ceri-Dian-ebe promised them the Lassiter, the first laser weapon, something she had stolen a while back and still had on-hand. She even said she would give them the name of a contact who had already agreed to buy it.

All for going in, guns blazing, to the most dangerous skyplex in the 'Verse and plucking someone out of Hama's clutches. Suki had asked what they were supposed to do if the person was already dead, and Ceri-Dian-ebe had replied that the job was still the same... It reminded Sokka eerily of his hunt for his sister, the single-minded determination to find her — or her body — at any and all cost.

He wondered just who this person was, that their little con-artist was so desperate to save them. She refused to say anything about them — she wouldn't even give them a gender! — but she insisted that they would know who it was when they found the person.

Of course, she didn't trust them anymore than they trusted her, and so she had every intention of joining them on this mission.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Suki murmured, arm-in-arm with him. "She can't be trusted."

"No, but I'm working on a plan," he replied in a low voice. Ty Lee suddenly grabbed his other arm, taking a leaf out of their books and using the close proximity to talk quietly.

"I don't like this at all," she said quietly, and both he and Suki stared at her for a moment. "What?" she whispered. Sokka sighed.

"Trustworthy or not, she isn't lying about this person, and I wouldn't wish Hama's brand of torture on anyone," he said.

"What kind of torture is that?" Suki asked, and he almost tripped over his feet. Walking with two women on his arms was much cooler in theory than in practice. "I've never heard any details."

"I have," he replied darkly, "and it's bad. We'll talk to Jet, he's finished with Fanty and Mingo by now. C'mon." He shrugged Ty Lee off his arm and sauntered causally over to where Jet was sitting, alone, at the bar. Bee and Longshot had taken the money and were now stocking up on supplies, but Jet had apparently decided that he'd rather start drinking. Sokka had noticed that he was always off when he wasn't with either the pilot or his second-in-command — or else Mai, who had a way of balancing out his behavior, but she was currently either reopening her bank accounts or being arrested for multiple homicide; and so, Jet drank.

"What did Diana want?" Jet drawled, when they reached the bar. He looked at them, and then grumbled something under his breath and knocked back a shot. "Don't tell me she tried to con you, too."

"She has a job," he replied, hopping up onto a stool. "Seems legit, and she has pay."

"You sure about... any of that?"

"She showed us the payment, and told us everything about the job up-front. I think she's serious."

"She's had Companion training," Suki said, and they both turned to her. Sokka gaped. "I recognize some of the things she does, I've seen it a million times. Ty Lee can confirm that," she added, turning to Ty Lee, who was busy flirting with a strange man. "Ty Lee," she snapped, and the girl jumped.

"Huh?"

"Our white-haired friend, wouldn't you say she's had Companion training?" Suki asked, and Ty Lee nodded several times.

"Oh, definitely," she replied, "she pours drinks just like Katara and Mai do, didja see?" The guy she was flirting with looked unhappy at the sudden shift of Ty Lee's attention, but she didn't seem to care, or even notice. "We talking about the job?"

"Yeah," Suki replied, and started to say something else, but Ty Lee began talking again.

"She was definitely telling the truth about it, and whoever's trapped in that woman's skyplex," she said lightly, looking surprised as a drink appeared in front of her. "Is this from you?" she asked the man beside her, and then beamed when he nodded. "Oh, thank you!" she trilled, and then turned back to the conversation. "Whoever it is, she's super-worried. I think she's been crying a lot, too. It's probably her husband or sister or something like that, someone really, really close. She's too desperate to lie."

"You mention a woman who has a skyplex," Jet began, a strange look on his face, "tell me you're not talking about Hama."

"We are," Sokka confirmed, and Jet laughed shortly.

"Yeah, that's about seven kinds o' no," he chortled, "she'd have to have damn good pay for that kind of - "

"She has the Lassiter," Sokka said, cutting Jet off.

"Somethin' like that, yeah," he said thoughtfully. "All right, I'll think about it."