"Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

-James Russel Lowell (February 22, 1819- August 12, 1891) American poet and abolitionist. The Present Crisis.

Chapter One

Sokka stood on the balcony, as the sky began to fade from red-and-pink to dark blue. The white pinpricks of the stars beginning to peak out from under the stars. He knew if he stared long enough there would be new stars out there. The glowing bright pinpricks of ships floating in orbit over the city they had been living in for the past few weeks. The city that had just undergone the single worst disaster in his world's history. Which was a large part of why those bright pinpricks which should becoming visible in the next hour were here.

There were two ships out there he wished he could see: Enterprise and Columbia. The Starfleet ships, the ones that had been the first on the scene. And had already saved the lives of two of his friends. Which is why he was rather less angry than he could have been about being left out of the dinner tonight on board Enterprise. That he understood, intellectually, why.

He took a deep breath, got up out of the chair and turned to go inside. He'd already eaten, and he should probably think about turning in for the night.

He had just crossed into the bedroom when there was a rapping on the door in the sitting room.

Sokka took a deep breath. Despite his irritation about being left out for dinner he had actually looked forward to getting some real sleep. Which had been in short supply since that terrible explosion.

And another damned crisis probably, he groused mentally even as he walked to the door. That's just perfect.

He opened the door to see a serving girl in green robes about Toph's age with brown hair.

"My Lord Sokka," she said in a soft voice. "The Chief Steward begs leave to move in one of the other guests whose rooms were damaged in the Fire. He apologizes for the inconvenience and will have her moved out as quickly as possible."

Sokka sighed. "Is there really no other room available?"

"Not until repairs are complete,"

Sokka took a deep breath. Considering what had been going on, it'd be worse than selfish to risk someone being put out at a time like this when everything else was being stretched to the breaking point.

Besides, he thought, shying away from his memory of the conversation Suki had had with him. She might be cute.

The serving girl, who was easy on the eyes herself, turned down the hall to her right. "You may come in, now, my lady," she said.

"Well hell-," before his words gagged and died as though he had been punched in the throat.

Mai was standing in his doorway. The sharply pretty young woman was in her red dress, dark hair falling to her shoulders, brown canvas bags on both her shoulders presumably carrying the rest of the things she had brought with her. A roil of emotions filled him as he looked at the woman who had saved his life that day on the gondola dock at the Boiling Rock and had come unthinkably close to sacrificing hers.

Out of the three young women he had termed the "dangerous ladies," it was Mai who had always caught his eye the most. There was something about the way she carried herself. The way she moved with poised, sinuous grace. Even when they had opposed each oth Ty Lee, as good as a friend as she had become to him and Katara in the last year, simply came on too strong for his tastes in lovers. Azula was darkly beautiful, and almost dangerously intelligent, but there was no universe in which he would ever forgive her for what she did. She had claimed to be torturing Suki as some kind of sick joke to purely to get a rise out of him, and what she had tried to manipulate him with she really had visited on Ty Lee and the woman standing in his doorway as revenge for standing up to her. And to the shame of everyone on that gondola dock that bright and terrible day, they had left her behind to face that. And then he had just assumed she was doing fine.

His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, trying and failing to find some words to say to the woman whom he owed his life and that of his father. Before he took a deep breath, stepped to his left and gestured her inside.

Mai stepped inside, pushing the door closed with her foot. "Sokka," she said simply.

"Mai," he responded.

The two of them stood staring at each other in the fading sunlight.

"If this is too awkward," she began, "I can go see if-"

"It's no trouble," Sokka said, a touch too quickly "Not for you."

Mai cocked her head. "Not for me? What's that supposed to mean?"

"You didn't just save Zuko's life that day. You saved my father's, Suki's, and mine. I owe you everything. So, by all means, take me to bed."

Mai's warm brown eyes widened before his brain caught up with what he said.

"Uh," Sokka began, babbling. "I mean take over my bed. I'm, uh, more than willing to sleep on the divan. And…thank you. I'm here if you need anything. Anything at all."

Mai stood there another moment, and he could have sworn he saw her blushing under her eyes. "Thank you. I'll admit there's somewhere else I'd rather be."

Sokka smirked. "The Enterprise."

Mai nodded. "I mean I'm pretty sure they're not all they're cracked up to be, but it might be cool to see their ship and all."

Uh, huh, Sokka thought, cocking his head. "Try the 'too cool to care' thing with someone else. Someone who doesn't remember your outburst from the other day. Or what you did that day on the gondola. I know how much you can care."

Sokka couldn't help but smile at the fact that he had seemed to score a point on the Fire Nation ice queen, as she flushed and turned around to pretend there was something fascinating about the window. Then his face fell as he remembered her outburst. An outburst that had been so utterly unlike her.

Then it hit him, all at once, like a ton of bricks, knocking the breath out of him. Underneath that ice-cold calm was a young woman coming apart at the seams. What have we done? What have I done? We were all so wrapped up in ourselves we left you alone, didn't we?

Taking a deep breath, he walked over to her.

What are you doing, Sokka?

The right thing.

Sokka gently slid her canvas bag off her shoulder and took her smaller right hand in his. Mai turned to look up at him, an unreadable look on her face. But she didn't take her hand away. "Mai. I don't pretend to understand all you went through because of what you did for us that day. But I'm unspeakably grateful for what you did, all the same. I'm also ashamed more than I can say that you had to endure it because we couldn't take you with us. But we just left you alone to deal with…what you must have been feeling since it happened. No more. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

She yanked her hand out of his, and Sokka flinched. Great job, Sokka. You made it wor-

The breath was knocked out of him as she flung her arms around his neck and buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing quietly into his tunic. He wrapped his arms around her back and held her to him. One hand drifted up to stroke the back of her hair.

"Shh, shh," he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he rocked her back and forth. Right here, right now, more than he wanted his next breath, he wanted to hold her until she stopped crying in his arms. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm here."

Mai stood there in the comforting circle of Sokka's strong arms, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face and soaking into Sokka's tunic. Part of her knew she should be ashamed of her meltdown in Sokka's arms. In the mad scramble to get ready for the peace conference, Zuko had not asked her what had happened once. She understood intellectually why, but being left alone to face the storm of emotions… To wake up in a cold sweat only to have no one there because Zuko was pulling another all-nighter to get ready. It had been his clear duty to both his nation and humanity as a whole to end the war. If anyone understood that she did. Ty Lee had had clear duties too. Duties that had kept her too busy to talk too much of the time as well.

She felt Sokka press another kiss to her forehead, as one of his large, calloused hands continued to stroke the back of her hair. "You're not alone anymore."

"Hope," she said, looking up from his shoulder into those sky-blue eyes. Eyes that, not for the first time, she thought she could get lost in forever if she stared into them long enough. "Hope that you never truly understand what we went through."

Sokka opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he was going to say was lost in the sudden knocking on the door.

Mai closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of Sokka's musty scent, a scent that seemed to travel straight down her spine. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to force her to disentangle herself from him. She smiled as Sokka pressed another kiss to her forehead before walking across the floor. She reached out to steady herself, taking a deep, cleansing breath.

Get it together, Mai. You want to break down around Sokka, that's one thing, but there are people coming.

Her eyes widened as she realized just how much she wanted to let her guard down around him. She had barely wanted to let her guard down around Zuko. Which probably explained a few things about why they couldn't make it work. What was it about Sokka that made it so easy?

"Oh," Sokka's surprised voice said, drawing her back out of herself. "Mychi. Hi."

"Hey, Sokka," Ty's first officer said from the doorway. She then noticed Mai standing near the window. "Oh, hey Mai," she said brightly. "The Chief Steward said he moved you in here. Which is good because it saves me a trip. I'm here on behalf of the Firelord and Captain Archer. Captain Archer's complements to both of you, and he apologizes for any offense he gave either of you for not inviting you to dinner aboard ship, and requests that the two of you join your other friends aboard immediately."

"Why?" Sokka asked as she walked over to stand next to him.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it until we're aboard," Mychi said pointedly.

"Well, we seem to be ready to go," Sokka said, heading for the door.

Mychi held up her hand. "That won't be necessary. Just stand next to each other."

"Huh," Mai said as a curious Sokka moved to stand next to him. Mychi walked over to stand in front of them, withdrawing a small black box with a silver lid from the pocket of her uniform trousers. She flipped it open and raised it to her lips.

"Kurorsawa to Enterprise. Three to beam up."

She and Sokka had a heartbeat to look at each other, eyes widened in shock, before she felt a tingle run down her spine as the world around her dissolved into white light.

After a heartbeat, two at the most, the white light faded from her vision, and she stared around her in shock. She, Sokka, and Mychi were standing in a glowing alcove. The roof of the alcove had twenty lights arranged in a circle around a glowing white and black circle. The bottom platform had another intricate swirling pattern of white, black and gold. The walls were separated into six brown metal panels, each with a glowing golden light in the center.

She turned around to see a yellow-haired young man in his early-to-mid thirties standing by a gray console about two-thirds of his height, clearly used to operate the "transporter" device that Ty and Mychi had told them about before.

I'm Commander Charles Tucker, chief engineer," he said with a curious accent, a winsome smile on his face. "Welcome aboard Enterprise."

"My name's Mai," she said immediately, the manners that she had been raised in as the daughter of a Fire Nation governor the only thing keeping her from screaming in shock at the idea of being in Ba Sing Se one minute and on a ship in space in the next. "This is Sokka."

He bowed slightly. "Charmed."

"If I may ask," Sokka said. "How does this thing work?"

"Basically, it disassembles you molecule by molecule in one location and reassembles you in another in the space of a few seconds."

"I was disassembled?!" Sokka squawked. He wheeled around to face them before patting himself everywhere. "Is everything there? My eyes are still in the right place, aren't they?"

"That reaction happens about half the time," Tucker muttered, rolling his eyes.

A few minutes later, Mai was resisting the urge to gawk as their little party followed Enterprise's chief engineer down the brightly lit metal corridor. Her emotions were a confused jumble. She was on a ship in space, something she had no idea was even possible until a few weeks ago. She kept stealing glances at Sokka out of the corner of her eye, as he walked around the corridor, badgering Tucker with questions. She had quietly considered Sokka one of the most handsome men she had ever laid eyes on, along with Zuko. Not that she had ever had any intention of letting him no. Especially not as long as she was with Zuko.

But then preparations for the peace conference began in earnest. She wasn't an intimate of Aang, or a natural leader or genius like Katara or Sokka. Or had decades of policy experience. She was just an out-of-work soldier whose military career had ended before it could even begin because Ozai didn't trust the girl his weak, failed son had a crush on before he was banished. The only reason she had been allowed back into the center of Fire Nation power at all was because Azula had recruited her "school friend." So she had been alone while all the real leaders devoted every spare second they had to the monumental task of formally ending the war. As a result, she had been left alone. Alone with her nightmares. Waking up in a cold sweat alone. And still she had persisted. Because she knew, intellectually, why Zuko couldn't devote all her time to his traumatized girlfriend. The conference would come, then go, and then they could work on building the relationship they both wanted.

Then nearly a million people died in one terrible night in Ba Sing Se, and unlooked for out of the darkness came hope riding in on ships from the homeworld of humanity. Forcing her to confront everything she had tried to bury in the last year. As well as the fact that, for now, Zuko was not going to be able to lead his country and build his first real romantic relationship at the same time. Maybe if Iroh had taken the throne, things would have been different, but he hadn't. They could either be a couple in name only, or she could be the friend that would stand on the bridge between him and his enemies. The latter she would do again without hesitation. Supposedly being the lover of one of the most powerful men in the world and yet going to bed alone night after night but for her ghosts was destroying her. Something Zuko, to his credit, had understood. So, he had let her go. But she had still been alone.

Then in one moment of empathy, Sokka had reached out to her. There had been something about the earnestness, the eagerness to help her just to help her, in those beautiful blue eyes; eyes that she had, more than once, thought that she could lose herself in forever if she stared at them long enough. The dam she had built in her heart had finally broken and she had broken down in his arms.

Arms that, had Mychi not come around when she did, she would have never wanted to leave.

Tucker stopped in a front of a blue metal door on the right side of the corridor and pressed a white button on the panel to the side. The door slid open to reveal a conference room of some sort, with a glass table illuminated from below with glowing lights surrounded by chairs made of black leather. But that wasn't what drew her attention.

No. What drew her attention was the window looking out on the planet below.

"The captain will be along shortly," Tucker said, looking out the window. "Lieutenant, he wanted to see you back in the dining room really quick."

"Yes, sir," Mychi said awkwardly from behind her, perhaps sensing the tension that had cropped up between them. "Just…stay here until we get back."

She heard the door slide closed behind her even as she and Sokka rushed to the window, roil of emotions forgotten.

"Oh, my," she said softly, unable to take her eyes off the sight below. Her world seemed to be this glorious mutli-hewed jewel, even in the night. It was dark blue, almost black. Then layered above was a hue of orange and green fire, which she belatedly realized with the airglow she had only seen on the darkest nights. Interspersed in this glory of dark blue, orange, and green was the occasional burst of white from what she realized was lightning.

"This is gorgeous," for this one moment unable to take her eyes off the scene below even to look at the man next to her. "Isn't this the most beautiful sight you've ever seen, Sokka?"

"Yes, it is," Sokka said softly, just as entranced as she was. "And I'm glad that I'm seeing it with you."

Mai found the willpower to tear herself away from the sight of her world below, her face burning, as she turned to look at Sokka. Any other time, she would have scoffed, figuring the boy telling her that was just trying to get under her dress, and she had no doubt in her mind that that outcome would suit Sokka right down to the ground. Especially if what he had heard about him and Suki breaking up was true. He had seen her checking her out when he thought she wasn't looking. Had returned the compliment more than once. But she had seen him with Suki. Whatever he had said about her capacity for caring and self-sacrifice, she knew just how caring he could be.

He felt Sokka's calloused hand snake around her shoulder, pulling her against him. She leaned unambiguously into him, resting her head against his shoulder as they watched the world of their birth in all her glory below them.

Katara's stomach was in knots as their little party walked down the corridor behind Archer and T'Pol. The mission she, Zuko, Archer, and T'Pol had just spent three hours putting together after dinner was perhaps the most dangerous mission she had ever planned. This coming from the woman who infiltrated a Fire Nation prison rig and managed to spark a rebellion that brought it down from within. This is much more involved, and complicated. The risk to Sokka and Mai is…extreme.

"Will you relax?" Zuko muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "This is Sokka and Mai we're talking about. If anyone can pull this off, it's those two."

"Sokka's not the stealthiest human being alive," Katara pointed out. "It's why we left him behind when we infiltrated the Starfleet operation near the tea shop."

"Mai is stealthy," Zuko pointed out. "And Sokka is perhaps one of the best tactical genius's of his generation. For that matter, Mai is no slouch in that department, anymore than you are. They'll keep each other out of trouble."

"Are you sure you'll be okay? I mean this is Mai we're talking about."

Zuko took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, I'm worried about this. But Mai will be fine, and she was right. We can't give her what we really need, and maybe we never can. But it's more important that Mai find her happiness somewhere than I have her."

Katara put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "That's very big of you, Zuko."

She looked at Aang walking in front of them behind Archer. She knew hooking up with Chan the way that she had while he and the others had gone off to the Southern Air Temple had hurt him terribly. But she was certain that she had done the right thing for her. Kissing him a couple times, in the heat of the moment, had been one thing, but she could just not quite convince herself that he was ready for a real relationship. Not yet, at least.

Even if he is starting to get tall, she thought idly, and fill out nicely.

Then she thought about Chan, going about his duties in Ba Sing Se, waiting for her to return. Her hand went to her neck as she thought about how his kisses felt against her skin. The adoration that shined in his eyes as they made love. It is making love, isn't it? For both of us.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Aang needs to see me. The real me. Or anything between us will never work.

For the moment, she realized, Chan really does.

Katara was jolted back out of her head by the door to the conference room, and she shook herself to regain her focus.

Then stopped, at the sight that beheld her. Sokka with her hands around Mai's waist, as the latter rested her head against her brother's shoulder as they looked out at their world below. Well, she thought. This I didn't see coming. Though maybe perhaps I should have. She does kind of remind me of Yue sometimes.

She turned to look at Zuko, eyes widened in confusion, shock…and just a hint of sadness.

She would follow up on what exactly was going on here later. For now though, she had to get this meeting back on track. She cleared her throat. Loudly, and the two of them jumped and turned around, faces flushing in embarrassment

"Should we leave you two alone?" Archer said conversationally, clearly enjoying tweaking their noses, judging from the smirk on his face as their embarrassed babbling filled the room. Which is probably something dad would do. Speaking of which I'm going to have to tell him about this.

After a few moments, they had managed to get themselves seated around the conference table. Sokka and Mai, she noted, sat next to each other. She was willing to bet that, if she could peak around the small table without Sokka seeing it, that they would be holding hands under the table.

"Your Majesty," Archer said, "this involves your country, so why don't you start?"
"Of course, Captain," Zuko said, formally, retreating into the dignity of his position in an effort to stay focused on the mission at hand. "A little over six days from now, Enterprise will begin shuttling the delegations back to their homelands. Our delegation will be landed at Half-Moon Cove, fifty miles south of the city where we will proceed overland. It needs to be done this way because…

The night was as glorious as usual. Yue's moon was shrouded in darkness, not the darkness that had inflicted it when it was all but forced out of their reality by Zhao's insane plan to destroy the moon, but the natural darkness of the new moon. Which left the full glory of the stars visible to all to see, an endless blanket of red, blue, and white pinpricks of light twinkling in the black. Running through it, the river of white and black that was Tui's Tears. Astronomers had of course long determined it was the light from all the rest of the unresolved stars of their home galaxy, but that took away none of its beauty, it's capacity to inspire awe.

The galaxy that seemed both bigger and smaller than it did only a few weeks ago.

Sokka heard the door slide open and closed behind him, heard Mai's light footfalls as she walked up to stand next to him.

"I managed to get a servant in here to start the fire," Mai said. "Things are still a little unsettled."

"Thank you," he said feelingly. "I could have done that when I went to bed."

Mai took a deep breath. "You did more for me in two minutes, than any of our other friends have done for each other in two months. I know they were busy, and I know why. I'm not begrudging them that. But…"

"But you still got the short end of the stick."

"Yeah," Mai sad softly. "Do you think we can do this?"

"I like to think we're pretty smart," Sokka said. "But I'll admit I'm …worried. I mean I've never operated independently for more than a day or two. And we're supposed to do what all the intelligence investigators with years of experience haven't been able to do in six months?"

"We haven't cleaned house nearly as well as we thought," he said. "But we need to do it, especially with what's coming next."

Sokka nodded. "That also worries me. Zuko and Aang are taking a huge risk. Turning what amounts to a mutiny by a few disaffected military units into a full-grown popular rebellion the likes of which hasn't been seen since this city exploded on Avatar Kyoshi."

In six days, they were going to be taken home, which, given the time already spent in this city, was just long enough for them to meet and come back in the shortest amount of time. Two days after that, the shortest amount of time needed to get the necessary orders to cooperate to the military and law enforcement hierarchy he could no longer fully trust, a second tactical corps of the United Earth Army would arrive in orbit and be deployed to garrison Crater City. In fact, the current deployment plan was to assign a corps each to the national capitals as nodal defense forces. An a standard UEA tactical corps consisted of four divisions, each consisting of fifteen thousand troops.

Nearly a quarter million soldier's total. A ridiculously small overall percentage of their local population, which was well into the hundreds of millions even with the war. And if people got it into their heads that they were just trading one set of oppressors for another…

He shuddered. But he knew they had no choice. Not with an enemy that could kill every force on the planet in open battle. And another enemy behind them.

"So," Mai said lightly. "Is it true what I heard about you and Suki breaking up?"

Sokka's face heated slightly. "Yeah. I don't know what happened. I guess all that time apart made us realize that we were never all that committed to each other to begin with. Or maybe it was me not being all that committed to her. At least not as a lover. She's one of my dearest friends and always will be."

Mai nodded in approval right when she started to yawn, moving her hand up to cover her mouth. "Sorry."

"We have plenty of time to worry about all this," Sokka said. "We should get some rest. Just let me get my clothes out of the bedroom and I'll take the divan. You can have the bed." Sokka turned to go back inside when he felt Mai's warm, calloused hand on his shoulder, turning him gently, but firmly, to face her.

"No," Mai said, her fair skin faintly glowing in the starlight. "I don't think that will be necessary."

"No, no," Sokka said, a touch too quickly. "You're the guest, you should get the bed."

"No," Mai said, her voice husky with lust. "I see no pressing reason for either of us to sleep on a divan. They're not very comfortable."

The breath left Sokka's lungs in a rush, as though she had belted him instead of propositioning him. He swallowed the lump in his throat even as the blood began to rush to a certain spot between his legs.

"Look," Sokka said. "It's not that I don't want you, but-,"

Mai swooped up and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. She tasted of the darkest, richest berries he had ever tasted, and for one heartbeat, two, he closed his eyes as he yielded to her kiss.

Mai pulled back, one hand reaching up to stroke the side of his face. "I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it, I do. But we have more important things to worry about."

Sokka's hands slid down to the small of Mai's back, their mouths still so close. "What's that?"

Mai drew back further, running a hand down his chest, that sent shudders straight down his spine. "Well," she said playfully. "We went through that transporter thing twice. They said we were fine, but just to be on the safe side we should probably see if everything is in working order."

Sokka pulled her back in, pressing a hard, bruising kiss, as a year of pent-up attraction broke through at last.

He broke the kiss, admiring his handiwork as Mai fought to get her breathing under control. "Well that works," he said with a satisfied smirk.

"I'll say," Mai said, before grabbing her hands and tugging him back towards the door.

"Come to bed, Sokka."