Archive of Our Own

The problem comes on a day like all the others: if she was to look out of the window, it’d be the same vast void of space to greet her, a myriad of twinkling stars scattered in the swirling colours of the galaxy’s gases. Nothing different about this one in all the others she’s spent out here on this Watch Station, yet it’s burning in her retinas like a sun stared at wrong.

The notice comes in early in the simulated morning – which is to say, it’s a number on a clock that apparently corresponds to a morning somewhere, to give Mai a way up in this place. Otherwise it’s all dark, all the time. Stood in the emptiness of space and this station with nothing to hold onto. Privately, May’s always sort of thought she’d cope anyway. Find a routine of her own. It’s the loneliness of this station that’s gotten the ones who’ve served it before her, not the darkness, and Mai is more than acquainted with loneliness.

But the notice comes in, a subtle chime in what should be the quiet of the beginning of her day, something to puncture her mood before it’s even really had time to begin. The subject line catches her; a guest visit, something to make her frown. They never get visits out here. It’s maybe why Mai even chose to come out here in the first place. None of that diplomacy to worry about like in the other places. She doesn’t have to drag a smile to her face, put on airs to her voice, act like any and every comment is just rushing water over her head. If she listens to her mother, she’s always been shit at that anyway. It’s reading the opening paragraph that makes it clear just how much of a problem this is going to be.

The Avatar’s coming to the station.

The Avatar, and his little group of friends.

So: the Avatar, and Zuko.

Which is. Complicated.

And unavoidable.

Mai sighs.

Fuck.

The day arrives quicker than she somehow expected, despite having been living on an irritating edge for the last week. It’s like she blinks and suddenly her terminal’s all lit up, informing her of the ship coming into the station’s bubble. Asking for the permissions to fly close and lock on the transport tube, a plain dialogue box that pops up on her screen. Mai has no choice but to press yes, transmitting the codes, lifting open the access hatch doors, yet a part of her wants to hesitate. Bask in the burning pixels of the screen, always supernova-bright in the darkness of her control pit, the moment where she both does and never has to see Zuko again. Live with a foot in both worlds, neither one with a silver lining. But Mai has no choice, so her fingers punch the button and has her moment of hesitation afterwards, fingertips curling in towards her palm. She does not breathe faster, because she’s not letting this situation get to her like that, but her heart gives an extra thud, heavily laden.

The Avatar’s going to be piloting in his ship. Mai’s going to be playing host to a group of people she doesn’t give much thought to personally, and the one person she’s buried deep in the sediment of her mind, letting it fossilise against her spine. But even fossils get found again.

The hesitation doesn’t even get to last longer because she’s done it afterwards; there’s a pace to be met, objectives and all that, because Mai’s not letting this engagement ruin this job for her. So it’s brisk, how she checks the rest of the station’s diagnostics as the Avatar’s ship draws close, checking that everything will hold stable for the tube’s attaching. It’s brisk, the way she turns away from the pit and strides towards the loading bay, pulling on her fingerless gloves as she goes. And if her knuckles clench a little harder as she does, well. That’s a secret between her and the dim corridors.

The loading bay is a sparkling brightness compared to the rest of the station where Mai prefers to lurk. Weak, yet transcendent compared to space’s blackness, lights run in strips across the ceiling, highlighting the cargo boxes scattered around, the crates of tools for any ship repair that might need to be handled, a fragment of Mai’s belt she lost and now apparently has found, crushed by one of the boxes. Of course, they highlight the raised platform where the transport tube’s mouth will spit out each of the Avatar’s group and all their equipment, a lofted place accessible by metal steps that ring in a distinctly unnerving way every time a boot clops down them. Mai comes to stand somewhat in the middle of the hall, arms locked behind her back, chin sharp, the picture of a controlled servicemember. Just what her bosses would want: Mai, the first thing they should really look to see, ready and waiting.

Her fingers catch against her wrists. Enough that, if she wished it, she could press down for a reminder of that control she’s got to have.

For a moment, there’s nothing. No noise, just Mai’s even breath, the faint buzzing of the lights that never goes away. A background hum of electricity, vaulting in the empty spaces around. Then comes the fainter sound of footsteps, the echoed edges of words she can’t yet understand. The evidence of other people, coming trekking towards the mouth of the tube.

Mai takes another even breath. Does not flinch as a form darts out. Breathes out – it’s not Zuko.

Dressed in brighter colours than Mai’s seen since she first came out here, a spot against all the silvers and greys, the Avatar takes a quick glance around from his position up the stairs. As if there’s anything interesting to absorb here. The station’s not exactly the cream of the crop. His eyes flutter like butterfly wings, and alight upon her.

Something far more interesting, or at least important, by the way the Avatar is suddenly in motion. Taking the steps like a stone skimming a perfectly smooth lake, Mai’s startled before he even arrives. Why the hell is he being so enthusiastic to greet her?

“Hello!” The Avatar beams, coming to an abrupt stop in front of her. His grin is wide, as bright as a freshly born star, impossibly energetic and full of power. Mai almost wants to blink in the sight of it, clear her eyes from the sun spots. As it is, she keeps her face rigid and tells her eyes to learn to deal.

“Hello,” she replies; compared to his voice, she sounds flatter than ever. “Welcome to the station.”

The Avatar’s smile does not fade, even in the wake of her tone. “Thank you for having us,” he says absurdly, like this is her place, like she had a choice in the matter. There’s an urging at the back of her skull; the Avatar’s here, there’s a shorter looking woman coming out of the tube’s mouth now, but the elephant’s still waiting to try and trample Mai’s self-control.

“I’m Aang, by the way,” the Avatar continues even more absurdly, as if she wouldn’t know who he is, the most important person of their universe. He holds out a hand, gives her a fresh swipe to that smile. Mai regards the offering with a grain of suspicion, takes it anyway. A short, perfunctory shake for the sake of politeness before she can return to the finger pressing.

The Avatar’s hands are vaguely calloused.

He’s looking at her expectantly, she realises a couple beats late. In the tube, a small scuff of footsteps that has her eyes flicking faster than the speed of light, but no one comes to darken the mouth.

“Mai,” she says. Surely her name would have been in the email. Surely there’s no need for these demonstrations. But by the way the Avatar’s face cracks open in something pleased, maybe there is a need for him. Stranger still. There’s no real point to acting overly nice with someone you’ll only meet for three days.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mai,” he says, just compounding his strangeness. “My team’s just bringing through the equipment – they’ll be here to meet you in a few moments. You have a room prepared, I was told?”

So he has read the email. Wanting her name is just him being extra polite for whatever reason. Mai nods shortly anyway, not happy in general but certainly more to be on about business. There’s no emotion when it comes to business, arrangements. No need to be anything but base flat.

“I’ll show you and your team there and you can get on with your tasks as soon as you want.”

“Thank you.” Again, so polite. Mai’s got no idea what she’s meant to say next in this waiting: just stand here in the silence she’d prefer, stony faced and strong shouldered, but she gets the impression the Avatar won’t just let the silence pile up. No, he’ll do the very thing she’d so prefer to avoid. He’ll try talking again, maybe small talk even worse, so it’s halfway a relief when the stairs creak far more than they usually do, announcing the short woman’s arrival. No longer waiting up by the tube, she’s coming stomping over to the Avatar’s side, a twist to her mouth.

“They’re taking forever,” she announces, a tone to match her mouth. While the Avatar looks fond and amused by it, all Mai can think is, maybe they’d be quicker if you helped? She doesn’t know what they’re bringing in, but if it’s a bunch of stuff it’d be faster with more hands. Yet maybe it’s just impatience, since the Avatar’s not helping and Mai gets the impression he would if it was a ton of stuff – the expression lines up with that theory.

Before more complaints can be uttered, noise comes, loud and brash.

“I know what I’m doing!” A woman’s voice snaps, echoing against the mouth of the transport tube. Her furious steps come next, a beat pounding against the floor, and someone else’s march behind her, coming faster.

“I’m just saying, maybe it’d be safer if you let me carry-”

“I can handle it!” The woman shoves out of the tube. Or at least Mai presumes it’s the woman, because all she can see are a pair of legs, gripping hands, and a stack of boxes that goes way over the top of the woman’s skull. It’s gently swaying yet doesn’t look like it’ll fall. Even still, the Avatar bites his lip.

“There’s stairs, Katara!” he calls helpfully.

“Thank you, Aang.”

“Oh, so he can help you, but when I suggest I carry one more box-” Somehow getting caught on a loose edge of the transport tube’s curtains, the other person exits far less elegantly than how the woman, Katara, is delicately descending the stairs. They scowl, dark but ultimately still somehow fond, and there’s someone else distantly bounding down the tube, but Mai’s-

She knew it was coming. Knew it, so why has it still come as such a shock?

The stairs clank, two sets of footsteps coming traipsing down them. The woman Katara, her fingers gripping in so tight to the boxes, and she lets the Avatar take one off of the top of the pile to more easily set them down on the floor. Mai hasn’t gotten around to leading them to the room they’ll be storing the stuff in – maybe if things were a little more organised, that would have happened first. But her bosses shove it on her, the Avatar’s come up with his own schedule, and it’s no sweat off her back if the Avatar’s team have to put down and pick up boxes awkwardly.

“Sokka’s coming after us,” Katara says, and the other set of footsteps stop behind her. Two boxes – not high enough to hide his face. Two seconds, and that’s the amount of time she resists before looking and-

Mai does not let her breath be stolen away.

She has to have that control, that firm hand over herself, a gift from her parents and she exerts it now. The fingers gripping in tight enough to bruise, to smash; her lungs remaining as steady as an engine cruising, her face an impassive mask. No one notices there should be anything wrong, just as it should be. Mai ignores the evidence to the contrary seeping into her bones. Aims for cool assessment, even as her heart tries to kick up.

He looks older. Naturally – that’s what time does, and it has been time. He looks older, filled out into his early features. Scowling still, that part looks similar, and the strop to his feet, apparently still so easily riled. Katara’s eyes are like the moon against the Avatar’s sun, until she looks towards Mai where they form something more narrowed. Easily suspicious, maybe.

“This is Mai!” The Avatar says, and her vision is flickering back.

To Zuko.

He’s found her too. Maybe it’s the same instant, blindingly wrought, magnets slamming into one another. It’s a second she allows herself, the grip remaining taut. The way his eye widens, the gold in them at home among all the little lights in here. The way his lips part, his hands fumble on the box he’s holding. The way the second hangs like something heavy, surprising, unsure.

The way Mai cuts herself off with a steely sweep, glancing towards the rest of the team now exiting the tube.

Let that serve as the indication, she hopes, of how this is going to go. Mai’s prickly private: she doesn’t need a group of people she’ll never see again in three days prying at her old memories. Irrelevant memories, really. She has her life, he has his, and hopefully he’ll get it’s better to leave the past where it is. Hopefully, he’ll respect what her look means.

But that’s the point, isn’t it. She knows he’ll respect that.

“She’s the one heading up this base,” the Avatar is saying as everyone draws in, holding their various equipment. Mai takes a quick scan, but it’s all weird odds and bobs she has no idea to their purpose. That’s the Avatar though, a strange entity to themselves. Mai’s never wasted too much time thinking about it before and even with it all in front of her now, she’s not changing that tune. She’s not here to wonder anyway. She’s here to work.

She’s sure she’s probably seen all of this group on the news, their names scrolling by, but Mai’s never paid much attention to all of that and she hadn’t really bothered with it this time either. It’s not like it really matters. She’s here to do what she always has, man the base and keep it steady while the Avatar dives around doing whatever sort of stuff he does, all in the name of unity or something. Again, Mai doesn’t concentrate to the news and all their explanations.

“We all heard the email, twinkletoes,” one of the entourage drawls – the shorter woman. “The important thing is where we’re putting all of your stuff and whether I’m fine to stroll around this base.”

The Avatar gives Mai an expectant look. A sliver of her vision tracks Zuko, the last to come in, pace slow. Reluctant, maybe? She’s not wasting time trying to figure him out.

She doesn’t smile. “This way.”

The base is nothing special; she’s sure they’ve visited bigger and better places. This thing is hasty, functional enough but shabby on the edges. A far cry from the station of her youth, where opulence glimmered from every tower, computers glinting with their bright glows and powers. The shadows would always be harsher for the simmering lights, she always found. The blacks drawn with ruler-straight lines, plunging hollows tucked in weird crevices and shapes. She was small enough then to fold herself into them, bring all her limbs in so nothing could be spotted, drown in the quiet places of a world aloud.

It'd been a tighter squeeze when Zuko had found her.

Mai doesn’t glance over her shoulder as she leads the group through it all. First to the room sectioned off for Avatar activity and equipment – last week it was a larger cargo room and now it’s apparently to be blessed. Mai looks at one panel of exposed pipes while the others dump down their burdens, the shorter woman barking orders that seem to be met mostly fondly.

“So,” one of them say loudly, and it’s a moment before she realises he’s speaking to her. The other man among them. Her gaze is cold and fleeting when she looks over, and she gets to see how he frowns under the freeze. It’s not enough to counter him however. “You’re the one who runs this place?”

“That would be the obvious,” Mai says, cutting and dry, and looks back to the pipes. It’s the far side of the space where Zuko is. She can feel him like a supernova about to burn, a heat-rash itching itself across the side of her face. Her skin, red and peeling, her insides squashed down by an iron control. She doesn’t even know if he’s looking at her because she’s not going to look at him. She doesn’t know if this is how it’s going to be for all of the three days – but she’s going to get through it. Three days, and then the past will be gone and Mai won’t have to deal with the horrendous horror of feelings.

The man who spoke to her mutters something under his breath. Probably something about her tone, or that she’s rude, or what’s her problem. It’s the sort of thing she’s heard before, people offput by her sharpness. This time it’s half justified.

But then he’s part of the group bringing hell to her doorstep, so he might deserve it anyway.

“There’s not a load of space here, so we hope this is sufficient enough for you.” Mai’s voice, barely an inch from sounding bored, and it’s her boss’s words coming through. She’s sure everyone else would be bending over themselves in the presence of someone like the Avatar. It’d be faker than what she’s pulling; the Avatar doesn’t even care regardless. He smiles at her, all brightness and lemonade.

“This’ll be fine, Mai,” he says, adding an extra sparkle to his eye. “Thank you. I’m hoping we’re not an inconvenience.”

“We’re here to help,” the man who spoke to her before grunts as he picks up one of their non-descript boxes on orders of the other woman, moving past the Avatar to carry it somewhere else in the room. Mai’s eyes flicker over it with actual boredom. It’s not her place to care what the hell they’re bringing in – it’s all cleared with people above her – and she’s not really curious either. It’s just stuff the Avatar probably needs for whatever reason. Pointless for her to know.

She wonders how many people they’ve met think the opposite. Most, she’s sure.

“We can still be inconvenient while we’re helping,” the Avatar chides, and Mai’s face doesn’t twitch at their back and forth. Internally, she’s just counting down the seconds until she gets to leave, gets to retreat back to her Comm Pod, pretend there’s no one out there that makes her uncomfortable. Of course, just as she thinks that, here comes Zuko.

He’s already in the room, but as he drops a box down to the floor it makes a louder sound than he obviously expects. The wince that ripples his shoulders is the wave that yanks her back in, eyes flickering over to the far side. Interest, cleared from her vision still, and she pulls back before he can look up and clock her direct glance. She keeps an eye on him out of the corner of her vision, tracking how he scans the room, grimaces at the Avatar who seems lightly amused.

“Let’s try not to break anything – ours or Mai’s,” he cautions. Mai feels a muscle in her face threaten to jump at the sound of her name repeatedly in the Avatar’s mouth. They’re not friends, there’s no need for the friendly use, and it just feels wrong.

It’s not like she can tell him not to. Even if it was socially applicable, her bosses had made it very clear how important the Avatar’s mission is. So Mai feels it like fuel to the acid that’s been creeping up her windpipe, a constant thanks to the presence she can just not shake. And on that, Mai has to confront the thing she’s figured out on the way here. She can look away from Zuko, make it clear that way – but what if. What if that’s not enough? She knew who he was, the loose tongue on him. She should make sure he’ll keep it.

She doesn’t know who originally looked at the other first, that moment in the loading bay. Her, him, the moment divided so impossibly. But she does know who looks now, who waits for the attention to be caught, the brief millisecond it is until Zuko feels the frigidness of her gaze. Because of course it’s her that makes sure business will be done. After all, she knows how he tackles problems.

She catches his eye. A weight settling on her rib bones, almost too much for them to bear, but bear it she does. No one else is paying attention at the moment, so when she jerks her head towards the door, it’s only Zuko who gets to hear her message. Outside. The later is implied.

Zuko’s gaze is heavy too. A creak under her skin. Mai’s fingertips press to her wrist joint. Finally – it’s been less than a second, some part of her feels it like eternity – Zuko jerks his head into the smallest of nods. Just in time to squeeze by before one of his friends are turning to look at him. Mai won’t allow herself to think about what it feels like, seeing his gaze divert, grow so buoyant in the face of someone else.

She thinks about the nebulous later instead. Where she’ll make it clear.

Where she’ll be alone with him.

Mai waits until she’s certain the Avatar’s explored the room, understood the small flaws with the space – the piles to take care around, the way the door can get stuck so leaving it open is best. While the other guy’s frown grows with some of her measured rote comments, the Avatar looks like he has no idea what a cloud is, he’s so bright.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she says eventually – not soon enough. Her eyes flicker, traitors or maybe just checkers, to Zuko. She can tell herself it’s that latter, that she’s just checking Zuko still understands. When he can get free without notice, come and find her. “I’ll be a few corridors away if you need anything.”

“Thank you!” Another bright smile to scorch her eyes. Mai’s glad to leave, a brisk pace and several blinks to clear her vision, and still somehow not fast enough to escape hearing one of the others say:

“Well, she’s uh… interesting.”

She is fast enough not to hear whatever the reply is. To not hear what Zuko doesn’t say in response.

Mai buries herself in her own work. Mostly, just checking that all of the looser stuff has been properly tucked out of the way, having no idea how these lot might traipse through the station. They shouldn’t need the whole place, she’d been told, but equally she’d been told that what they need they get. It’s clear who’s the priority here, as it’s clear that if something gets ruined it’s not Team Avatar they’ll be irritated with.

Plus, it’s good busy work while she waits, her gut somersaulting the whole time. It’s like she’s got her feet planted on a ship’s deck at a choppy sea for how it’s moving, and she grits her teeth and tells it to behave.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t obey.

It’s the scrape of a foot outside of the door that alerts her, purposeful so she’s not spooked. Mai doesn’t look up immediately. Doesn’t really look at him at all other than the smallest glance when she stands, jerking her head for him to follow her. This isn’t the room for it; for one, Mai doesn’t want him contaminating more spaces she has to frequent regularly. For two, it’s too exposed. The Avatar or his friends could come wandering, which quite defeats the purpose of this conversation. One tiny glance, and it doesn’t even count. One more tiny glance just to check he’s following.

She takes him to one of the smaller corridors edging the room. Not too far from the rest of his friends, far enough that she feels assured in their privacy. The overhead lights don’t really exist in these places, the shadowy greys and deeper blacks swimming around their bones. Brighter light comes from the portholes stuck along one wall, ringed by LEDs. Mai stops by one of them, midway down. In the dark, no one can see how tense her jaw is. Small as it is, it splashes out a view of space. Sheer black as far as the eye can see, cold and distant, and Mai can kind of understand the feeling as she turns to face Zuko.

In contrast to his purposeful alert in the doorway of the room, he’d followed her here in near silent stalking steps. So much so that if she’d wanted to, she could have forgotten he was following, if not for the fact she’s been dwelling on nothing else since she left the storage room. Stuck in the taut minutes of waiting, before the plunge she’s teetering on the edge of right now. Mai prides herself on her control, but this doesn’t quite feel controlled, the way her emotions are burning the back of her throat. Simmering, much closer to a boil than she’d prefer. Her fingers clench into the insides of her elbows when she crosses her arms, a tight press of potential bruises, and it’s all narrowed sharp eyes when she meets Zuko’s gaze. Here, in the glow of the artificial lights ringing the porthole, casting one half of his face into the glare and the other half to the rest of the shadows, his eyes look more gold than ever. Shards of engine crystal, spinning into their final motions. They always did have such a talent for capturing light even in the dark. His expression’s set – which direction, Mai’s unsure. She doesn’t know all these new edges to his face.

“So,” he says. First. She’d let the moment for her own beginning pass to an assembled look, a thing that irks her for a second and feels better in another. Maybe it is better him starting. Tossing up the ball because where would she even begin? Even now, uncertainty dodges around her tongue.

Anyway, he’s the one who created this problem.

Her lips press together. So do her fingers against her arms. He’s grown older, but his voice still sounds the same.

Zuko swallows, light highlighting the bump to his throat. “I-” She watches the hesitation wrap around his mouth, shred between his teeth. It’s the same way it always used to behave, the confliction sparking like embers between them, the way he’d pull back for that moment. Mai used to wait for those moments and feel something conflicting of her own in response. Something like worrying. Insecurity, her mother might have said. Maybe she’d been right to feel that way, considering what would end it.

“I didn’t know you’d joined Base Watch,” is how it settles, words stepping out of a hastily buried corpse of his original hesitation. Mai feels something shutter on her face.

“I suppose,” she starts; her first words to him in what feels like eons, “we can both surprise the other, then.”

“Right.” Zuko winces, just a little. His head tilts, glances towards the porthole for a second, gifting his cheek a fresh blinding blast of white blue. His cheekbone goes sharp, the line of his jaw. Mai’s throat works. “You’re entitled to say that.”

Sometimes, not responding is as powerful as responding. Mai employs that lesson here with the pointed silence, as honed as one of her knives, the dark set of her eyes. Zuko’s eyes travel back from the porthole, and it’s his throat that seizes a little now.

She waits, then. On tenterhooks already, that’s where he’s got her, wondering if he’s going to go there right now, so soon. Her defences rock, damaged by a bomb yet to launch. Her rib bones bear the hammering beat of an organ unsure what it’ll feel when he brings it up. What will she say? She’s never quite thought it through past a few sentences of anger.

She should probably stop it. Cut it in its tracks. A pair of scissors, blunt it so badly nothing will ever grow there. She should just say what she called him out here to say. Don’t tell your friends about me. Don’t act like we know each other. Make what she thinks is implicit solid, move on, go right back to ignoring him until he moves on and she buries this. But there’s this. He left her. He’s in front of her, skirting so close to that pain.

Loathe to admit it, but Mai wants to know what he’ll say. The time for that should be over. Call it old habits.

“I wasn’t aware you were going to be here.”

She’s disappointed, again. Not that she lets it show on her face, that flutter down in her gut, something smashed again. She just lets the smidge of flat unimpressed irk show instead. She wonders, has she changed so much he won’t read that from her subtleties? Or is it just this. She stayed the same, he moved on and became someone new.

If you had, Mai thinks and doesn’t let her tongue snip out, would you have stayed behind? The Avatar seems friendly enough, good to his friends: if Zuko has said he couldn’t, the Avatar probably would have understood. Mai would just be dealing with something like a missing tooth. Knowing it was meant to be there, prodding the empty space and tender flesh, but ultimately relieved.

“Did you-”

“I thought,” she interrupts; cold, harsh, “it would be prudent to make this clear. I assume you haven’t told your friends about us.” She doesn’t hold herself back there, the plunge on friends, the scorn on us. Make it clear, obvious, and she gets another little wince for her trouble.

“It’s not because-”

“Make sure it stays that way.” Another interruption. Her heart’s beating faster despite her decisive words. Her heart’s holding his words, unsure what it wants to do with them. Her brain has the easier option. Do nothing with them. Do nothing with him.

Zuko blinks – once, twice. The light hits a smear of lashes. Mai can’t help but notice. Like how she sees the way his jaw twitches, a slight open, a slight grind back.

“If that’s what you want.” He nods stiffly. “And… what about me?”

Mai looks down her nose at him. “What about you?”

“Do you want to talk?”

Now she just scorns him with her eyes. “What would we have to talk about?”

There’s nothing. There’s nothing but the small voice whispering in the back of her head, a piping up refrain she ignores, because it doesn’t matter. Not the way he left, the way he hurt her, the way she had to wake up and find out months later that he was alive and okay, just doing it all with other people. Not the way he didn’t even really tell her, the way he didn’t even ask her if she’d go with him.

There’s nothing to talk about.

Zuko flinches, so light.

“Right. Of course. It’s just-”

Mai isn’t the one to cut him off. She should – the fact her tongue’s not even ready for it is disturbing. She doesn’t need to hear all his excuses. She doesn’t need to hear any of it; it changes nothing, only serves to make this harder. But she doesn’t cut him off, he does it to himself, and that’s what makes it all more disappointed. He’d have a chance, in her delay. His silence says more than anything, a distorted mirror to Mai’s own silent power move.

“Can you do what I’m asking, then?” She doesn’t resist the urge to cross her arms, elbows so sharp it’ll cut him just to look, a stinging pain drip drip dripping down his face. Zuko looks at her – feels the cut, she hopes – and it’s a long look. A couple seconds at least, though they feel like eternity from him. For a moment, Mai’s on the station burning, clenching her hands against the nooks of her elbows. For a moment, Mai’s sat on her couch and he’s gazing at her like there’s a puzzle underneath her skin, enough to make her gut flutter and enough to put her on a strange edge because she’d liked it. No one had tried to find out if there was something to be discovered under her droll atmosphere. Mai shivers, or shakes out her shoulders, whatever sounds better, and tries to turn the motion into a ripple of impatience. He doesn’t get to see if he’s underneath her skin.

“If it’s what you want,” Zuko says finally. Mai’s eyebrows tighten – it’s hardly an answer that accepts his own place in this mess. It’s a non-answer, actually, typical of a guy who just up and left her, and it’s probably that which flares the volcanic spurt of rage clawing its way up her throat, exploding in words.

“What I want is for you and your lot never to have needed to come here. This is the bandage over a seeping wound,” Mai hisses, and only after the words are out does she realise the admittance they’ve gave. Seeping wound.

Her face keeps stiff.

Zuko’s twitches.

“They won’t know we knew each other,” he tells her. “They don’t really- I mean, I did mention- briefly. Once or twice. But- they won’t know. I can promise you that.”

Briefly. Mai feels her eyebrows tightening so impossibly, knows what’s burning her oesophagus so painfully now, so she clamps her lips down so no other revealing explosions can embarrass her. Instead she gives a tight nod that’s more of a blow than affirmation, and without further ado turns on her heel to stalk off.

She feels his eyes harsh on her shoulder blade, the few steps it takes to get out of this short space. The few steps are still a few too far.

Once she’s two corridors away, far away enough that neither Zuko or his damn friends will find her, Mai stops. Slams her back against a wall, so hard she should dent it, tips her skull back too.

Today doesn’t even count as the first day. Mai allows herself to shut her eyes, squeeze them until something goes white on the other side. Her nails bite at her palms. Not even the first day truly; there are three more to go. Three lots of twenty four hours, each an opportunity for an unpleasant reminder of her past. Each an opportunity for a burst of pain. Maybe she’d prefer not to admit it, but that’s the truth. Seeing Zuko is painful.

Three days.

Mai exhales. Harsh and heavy. Three days.

Day one begins with the beeping of the rote alarm, and then the burst of sunshine that is the Avatar. A light that should not exist all the way out here, inside the old metal of the station’s walls; the sun it is technically in orbit around is far from one that’s fresh and bright. Mai is used to artificial, dim whites and glinting colours only on the screens and buttons of the control pit. Something like this has her blinking back stars.

The Avatar keeps grinning, apparently uncaring or unaware of the effect he’s having. “I was hoping I’d run into you, Mai!”

Mai blinks again, tries to clear the watering in her eye. “You were.” It’s neutral, it’s bordering closer to flat than her bosses probably want, and it doesn’t even matter to the Avatar who just keeps on grinning.

“Yeah! I wondered if you wanted to come and help us sort through the equipment.”

There is nothing I would hate more. The storage room isn’t big; Mai would feel the metallic edge of Zuko’s orbit like a blade to her teeth.

“I’m sure you and your team have it handled,” she says, perfectly measured this time, almost pleased with herself for how well it’s done. Polite, dodging. It’s probably just the Avatar being polite, why he’s asked. Probably thinking he ought to, considering she’s out here all alone, considering he’s the Avatar, all peace and love and that shit. Now the refusal’s given, an easy out, Mai can slip away to continuing to avoid Zuko – who, even without seeing, without being in the same corridor as, she swears she can still feel, a black hole pulling at her edges, trying to drown her in it, in him. She’ll hole up in the control pit, keep out of the Avatar’s way and report that as a good thing to her bosses.

The Avatar, however, is the one blinking now.

“I was hoping you’d come anyway.”

“When I’m not needed?” Please, Mai thinks, please do not say I’m needed. If he says that, she’s obligated. One complaint from the Avatar’s lips and Mai can say goodbye to a job she’s good at, that doesn’t bother her too much at all.

“Well, I thought you could tell me about the station?” he shrugs, smiles a little more earnestly, shyly almost. “I like hearing about the places we go, hearing from the people. It’s the best way to understand a place, talking to the person who runs it. Gets an honest review of it and then if there’s any issues, I can try fixing them! People in charge tend to listen to me on the whole Avatar thing.” He deadass gives a cheeky grin there, another shrug along the same lines, day and night to the sincerity of the first. Mai stares for a second – the Avatar’s apparently less lofty than she’d assume.

Then Mai curses. The Avatar’s less lofty than she’d hope.

Is saying no to him now going to be impolite? Sure, he apparently likes to hear from the people: doesn’t mean he wouldn’t report someone going out of their way to avoid conversation. This isn’t just anyone either, and even an innocent comment from him could doom her. Then there’s the way he’s watching her, the earnestness creeping back to his gaze.

Three days; she was never going to avoid this.

“Fine,” she says, just as measured as before, and this time it’s less of an achievement because it’s to hide the irritation baying under her tongue. A shooting star bursts from the Avatar’s eye as he stands a little straighter, grins wider.

“Excellent! You look like an interesting person to get to know.”

Mai’s staring again. She’s not trying to look interesting.  

“How long have you been running this station?” The Avatar wants to know as Mai reluctantly joins him towards the storage room. She knows other people might be jumping with excitement at this. Being invited to see some of the Avatar’s preparation process: she’s sure there’s whole fan groups out there, thirsty for this sort of content. To them, she’d be so ungrateful right now, but if she listens to the things her mother’s said about her before, that’s nothing new.

Mai shrugs in response, flexing her fingers slightly in the shadow of her leg. The gloves cracking gently, it’s a sound attempting to reassure her. It’s not really working.

“A few years, I guess.”

For some reason, that answer makes the corner of the Avatar’s mouth crinkle, a dogeared page of a book. “It’s an interesting place, this station,” he comments. “Pretty far out from other people. That your vibe, then?”

“I guess,” Mai repeats. Her voice is going flat again; she doesn’t quite fight it this time. Maybe if she’s a little unfriendly this won’t repeat tomorrow.

Or maybe it’ll just keep rolling off the damn guy’s back. His shine just does not dim.

“Must be nice and quiet. Peaceful. Your own little corner of space.” His mouth crinkles again – is that fondness? He doesn’t even know her.

“I suppose.” Doorstoppers of responses; Mai’s skin is twitching from the way the Avatar is being. So friendly and empathetic, and he’s said like one question. It feels unnatural. It’s almost distracting enough to make her forget about the black hole waiting for her.

The corridors never take long in this place. Short and looping, the most efficient use of space, everything piled upon each other. So of course they’re already halfway there, Mai’s boots slipping against the sleek floor. For as empathetic as she thinks the Avatar tries to be, he’s certainly not picking up on those feelings.

“We won’t be intruding for too long in your space,” he tells her. Mai flicks her eyes: I know. It’s all in the email, it’s all facts they both know, so why does he keep telling her stuff like that? “And hey, I’m told it’s quite a cool thing, watching us do our thing. So there’s sort of a positive to any inconvenience we’ve caused!”

Mai thinks about the major inconvenience. There’s no positive that can make up for that.

“Oh, we’re here!”

Short corridors; of course they are. Mai doesn’t permit her shoulders to bristle.

“Guys, I found Mai!” He ducks into the room, announcing with such joy and familiarity Mai would assume them best buddies instead of relative strangers. Is he always so overly familiar? Mai’s fairly certain Zuko won’t have broken the agreement. Why would he, bringing up a part of his past he’s so clearly tried to have buried? She’s the living embodiment of proof that there was something before the Zuko the universe sees now. He had attachments. Why would he want to remind his friends of that?

Why would he want other people to dwell on something like her, unsignificant under the boot of his greater cause?

“The station’s Head?” Mai follows – reluctantly – to see the woman Katara frowning. At least someone else is as confused by this sudden need to have her around as Mai is.

“Yep! I thought she could come help us out, tell us about her experiences with the station.”

“Tell you,” the other woman – Toph, was it? – mutters. “You’re the one who likes hearing that stuff. No offense, by the way.” This part’s shot towards Mai. “I’m sure your experiences are valid. But it’s Aang who’s got the perk for it.”

Mai, predicably, says nothing. She concentrates on her breath, short and even, the oil of the station and the oddly plain taste of the recycled air, and not on the throbbing draw at the edge of her left eye.

He’d almost fumbled with a box when she’d stepped in. She’d noticed that through the corner of her vision before she’d caught herself.

“We sure she wants to be here helping?” The other guy, Sokka, thinks he’s muttering too. His voice is a little too loud for that though, so it’s basically like he’s just said it. Katara elbows him, he yelps. Mai doesn’t take offense. After all, he’s actually got her straight. Maybe if he pulls more of a fit, she’ll have to leave.

But of course he doesn’t. He’s part of Team Avatar – aren’t they all meant to be about niceness? Instead she gets a squinted look as if a second glance might change the reality her expression’s probably hinting at.

Zuko says nothing. As predictably as her.

Mai’s really not sure what the Avatar expects her to do. Everyone else seems to have it under control. What she is, nothing but a distraction. What this room is, nothing but a horrid itch down her spine. She doesn’t fit here. She doesn’t belong.

And the Avatar doesn’t seem to have gotten that hint, because he’s still beaming at her.

“You can help me over here,” he says, indicating towards one corner of the room. Mercifully, it’s on the other side from Zuko; less mercifully, it means that Mai’s going to feel him at her back this whole time. She doesn’t let her twitchiness show in her stride though, another reluctant follow into the chaos of the room. It’s already a bit of a tip, a couple empty crates piled up in the worst space-taking way, half a table that Mai’s never gotten the answer about. The pile of assorted pipes that have nowhere else to go, and now it’s seven people plus countless boxes strong. They’ve built a proper table too, against the back dingy wall, awkwardly shoved against a few of the exposed pipes built into the wall. Mai eyes it with a passing look – is that a safety hazard? –; steps around the guy Sokka who seems to accidentally fall into her path as she walks by, steps over a box with its guts half ripped open by Katara, who gives Mai a slightly guarded look. What, does she think Mai’s going to get in on their little friendship group? Steal shit from them, maybe? There could be a more innocent explanation too, just usual wariness, but Mai’s irritable enough not to be charitable. The Avatar doesn’t get such looks, of course, and just waves yet another bright burst towards her as they fit themselves to the corner. If it’s cramped to him, he doesn’t let it show, effortlessly falling to the floor in crossed legged. She’s a lot more jerky with how she organises her limbs.

“We’re just fitting these pieces together like puzzle pieces,” he explains, taking two button sized chunks and snapping them together. Mai’s pretty sure she’s seen something like this – some sort of space-net, to harmonise energy or whatever. She’s seen it, doesn’t mean she paid attention, especially because she probably saw it back in Caldera. That time was all buried head, peeking from under her fringe at only a few choice things.

It's definitely something he can do alone. Still, he’s the one presenting her with a couple, as if she’s incapable of pulling pieces out of a box.

“You’re from the Fire Nation, right?” The Avatar wants to know now they’re settled. Mai’s eyes go sharp, muscles taut; he’s easy breezy. “You’ve got the look, I think.”

“I am.” No matter how long it’s been, the Fire Nation liberated and redone, Mai’s still got the shiver across her shoulders to admit it. For the longest time, to be Fire Nation was to be dominion. Then it was a different sort of horror around her neck. It’s meant to be better now, apparently. Mai wouldn’t know. She hasn’t been back since she left.

“Zuko over there is from the Fire Nation too.” So oblivious, and he doesn’t notice how the corners of Mai’s eyes narrow. She’d skim open her fingertips to touch them; her hands twitch against the pieces, the slightest ripple before she’s back in control. Someone snorts – Toph.

“Aang, I’m pretty sure she knows about us. We’re famous, remember?”

“This place is fairly far out!” The Avatar argues, right over Mai’s shoulder. She concentrates on clipping the two pieces together. Breathes out through her nose. She does not want to be here right now.

“You’re trying out the humble approach this time?”

“I’m always-”

“Last time, you were all like ‘oh, don’t mind me, I’m just the Avatar, you know, the guy who saved the universe? That’s why I need a whole wing for me and my team’.”

“Yeah, because those people were already into the whole appeal! And we did need a whole wing.”

Mai hasn’t reached for another set. She’s holding the pieces more firmly than she needs to be, because stars does she hate bickering. Friendly bickering, that’s just as bad. All those inside familiarities waved over her head like she’s not even sitting here. All those familiarities that Zuko-

She shouldn’t go there. Wasn’t that what she agreed? Him with his business, her with hers, which would be easier if the Avatar hadn’t come to seek her out.

Three days. Day one isn’t even done yet.

“Anyway,” the Avatar says, a little louder to drown out Toph; his tone might be a touch embarrassed, maybe, a friend ruining the impression he’s trying to give Mai. She could put him out of his misery if it was appropriate – she doesn’t care. “The point is-”

“We’ve got to keep in mind that not everyone knows all of us.” Another interruption, from Sokka. Not even over Mai and she’s twitching from it. Is this the life everyone in this room lives? Just piling in, everyone speaking when they want, over each other, dismissing each other? Even over the damn Avatar? Mai wonders if the other places the Avatar’s gone have had this realisation too. “I mean, me, Katara? We’re the originals, so naturally everyone knows us.” Mai’s never heard someone sound so smug. “But you Toph, and especially Zuko – no offense, of course –, you’re secondary. Not everyone knows about you guys.”

“Call me secondary again, and no one’s going to know about you ever again.”

Zuko says nothing. Strangely, she thinks that bothers her more. She doesn’t know him well enough anymore to know whether it’s just usual behaviour or put on for her, awkward about her presence, and a feeling tells her it’s the latter without any contradicting evidence. Him, swallowing his tongue because he doesn’t know how to act in her presence. That’s infuriating. Mai grabs another pair just for the click they make, the closest to a clench of her jaw she’s going to get.

“I’m just saying-”

“And I’m saying, lets stop the bickering, okay? I had enough of this on the flight over.” Katara’s voice is deeply displeased. It’s hardly a firm sword slice, but it does the trick anyway, quietening them all up mostly. The guy still mumbles a few protests, quiet enough not to be pulled up on it. For a second, it’s blessed silence. Or would be, if Mai could stop counting the breaths. If she wasn’t pretty certain she knows which one is Zuko’s.

The Avatar leans in towards her, all conspiratorially. “We do chatter a bit. Big groups, you know. Always something to prod at.”

“Mmm.” Mai wouldn’t know. The biggest group she’s been part of was three, halfway to four, and even that wasn’t really the way of the Avatar’s, all on equal footing. Mostly she’s a little unnerved how now he’s leant in, she can see that there’s not a whisper of concern on his face. Not from the chatter, not from her halfway to bored expression. Has he known concern – of course he must have. Mai hasn’t listened to it too much, but you’d have to live in another universe not to hear the story of the Avatar and all the struggles he’s gone through. Right now, though, Mai would believe that there’s been nothing. His friendliness unnerves her. He doesn’t even know her – how would he be if he knew, then? The secret that’s making the back of Mai’s neck itch?

Honestly, she doesn’t want to think about how that’d be.

“Must be a bit of a burst of noise for you, out here on your own.” And he’s so conversationally lubricated it’s strange, unsettling. Even the way he makes Mai being out her on her own sound like a wonderfully exciting thing, instead of the drabness it can sound with those words. Mai’s fingers twitch about the pieces.

She snaps a new set together to stop the spasm and hopes to whatever god’s out there that this doesn’t go on too long.

Anything out there does not listen to her.

Mai spends more time than she cares to count listening to the Avatar prattle on, snapping pieces together and tossing them into a box. The whole time, it’s like someone’s trailing burning fingers down her neck. Telling her, reminding her over and over. Behind you, behind you is-

And because she’s not a conversationalist, there’s not even an escape with all the things the Avatar wants to chat about. There’s not even an escape in the Avatar getting bored, because despite him wanting to know things about her day-to-day, he easily fills in gaps of silence with anecdotes from various trips. Luckily, this is where Mai catches her break. He at least doesn’t mention Zuko. By the end she’s twitchy and hiding it, like her skin’s but a sugar coating so fragile so she has to keep everything coiled underneath the surface. It is uncomfortably like what being around her parents is like. It’s not really the Avatar’s fault, the similarities, because nearly all of the problem begins and ends with the thing she is not looking behind her at.

When the box is done, there’s still little salvation. Mai exhales quietly, the Avatar looks at her like he’s about to let her go – probably with something like oh, I’ve monopolised you, how terrible despite that’s your actual job and he’ll mean it so seriously honest. But that’s when the woman Katara exhales too, louder and demanding, the sort of sound that makes eyes flicker towards her, and somehow Mai gets caught up in taking her around the station to take some base measurements.

It's Mai’s job, she knows that. Still doesn’t mean she can’t be frustrated.

When she leaves the room, a stride behind Katara despite being meant to guide her, Mai fails herself. The fleetingness of a bird’s rustling feathers, the slickness of a blade through meat are her eyes, and the plummeting drop off a bridge is her disappointment in herself because her eyes take a snapshot towards the side of the room she’s meant to be ignoring.

He’s bent over something, deep in conversation with the other guy. Dark hair, and she can just about glimpse the furrow of his brow.

Her stomach falls harder.

The silver lining is that Katara isn’t like the Avatar. She doesn’t chatter Mai’s ear off; she just gets the job done, concentrated wholly on herself while Mai stands and waits around and tries not to think. When that’s over, it’s not even true salvation Mai gets then. She’s free from the Avatar’s group – when she walks Katara back to the room, the Avatar sticks his head out and thanks her profusely like Mai’s hauled a galaxy onto her shoulders instead of attend to her allotted responsibilities, and she doesn’t see Zuko and thinks about him for a second anyway and gets irritated by it for longer – but her work waits. It’s not as mind numbing as she wants it to be. Not as distracting. She prods and checks and records by glowing dots of lights, and remains painfully aware of how she’s trying not to be aware.

At one point, like torture, she’d spent some time imagining what his face might have looked like when he’d walked away. Would it have bent to confliction, carried regret heavy, or would he have had not a single passing thought for her past the decision? Was she irrelevant in his emotions. Did she matter. She’d thought about it and tried to move on, and the horrid thing is how it’s all coming back. Acid regurgitated.

She wonders, even if she shouldn’t.

Is he thinking about what she’s feeling right now? Or is she still irrelevant? It’d be so much easier if that’s what he was for her, but there’s the harsh frustrating truth. Mai exhales too heavy, a gust to destroy a mountain’s top, her nails jabbing into a console’s top. It’s been years. He’s still not irrelevant in her head.

Day two comes to her with a chunk of her repetitive tasks, something to bury herself in while her guests throw themselves into their own work. All the while, Mai finds her mind falling into old tricks.

Do you remember, it asks her, and reminds her of Zuko’s palm against hers. Do you remember, it murmurs, and reminds her of the bright taste of a fruit tart. Do you remember, and it’s the way Caldera tasted like smoke, and how that followed off Zuko’s shoulders when he’d come back from that last meeting. Do you remember, and it’s the way her heart had thudded so sickeningly when the news had flooded in. The Avatar, splashed over a comm screen. Zuko, next to him.

She curves her fingers, takes a breath, wraps her palm around her control deep inside of her. She is not going to unravel just because of one irritating ghost. Not when he seems to be fine enough, at least on the outside, and that’s the only part that should matter to her.

The guests interrupts her eventually. Mai’s gotten a hand on herself by then.

We’ve got to set some stuff up out in space, the Avatar tells her with the most apologetic face, like it’s some big burden to ask Mai to do her damn job. It’s all honest, his emotion, and that’s what probably makes it worse. Mai doesn’t want all this kindness. She wants brisk professionalism. The Avatar and his team needing her to work as she’s been ordered to. The Avatar and his team acting how she would, if they were in the others position, where Mai doesn’t have to dwell on the fact that her ex-boyfriend’s friends are kind enough to feel sorry towards a frankly menial space worker. Maybe it’d be better if it was one of the others dealing with her. That Katara – a little irritating but certainly seems like someone who could stick to professionalism after the first instance of Mai not grinning widely back. Or the other guy maybe, as perturbed by her he seems to be. As it is, the Avatar just gives her the look, Mai gives him something utterly steel in response and says fine. What do you need me to do?

Like she’s meant to do.

What the Avatar needs her to do is apparently help co-ordinate.

It’s an endeavour to set things up for whatever’s happening on day three’s eve. Something she’s sure other people might be insanely curious about, gizmos that apparently help the Avatar’s power or whatever, but mostly what Mai concentrates on is that the gizmos are definitely what she helped assemble a day before.

So. She’s had her hands on something that’s probably going to be amazing to most people.

It’s good that someone has to monitor things from the station and the ship, otherwise Mai has a terrible feeling that the Avatar might have tried arranging things differently when it comes to setting up the preparation mission. He couldn’t have moved her away from her own work but he certainly could have come in, leant over her shoulder. Maybe he wouldn’t have – he doesn’t seem the type to try and be rude – but Mai can’t dismiss it as a possibility, curiosity getting the best of him. He can’t ask her to the ship either, since the station’s needed, for which Mai’s grateful. They are already too close in her space, in her mind. She doesn’t need another thing to show her the stark differences between the Zuko of before and the one of now.

The Avatar takes his team to get suited up and into position around the station in the vastness of space. Mai takes to her own command station, alone.

It’s soothingly dark in the comm pit. Just Mai, the chair that’s pressed right against her spine, two dozen dials and lit up buttons, the screen in front of her so blinding. The earpiece fit to her skull. Mai lets out a breath: this is the closest she’s been alone since the Avatar and team arrived. This little hollow; her own private universe. Black, spots of light. Only the sound of her own breathing.

And still over too soon.

Life spurts against her ear drum, the others checking in. Mai confirms their positions, logs it on the screen until there’s a little map of them all. Like glowing stars open in a galaxy.

“Alright, I’ll manage Katara, Sokka can handle Toph, and Mai, can you keep an eye on Zuko please?” The Avatar chirps; it’s almost enough to make her wince, his sincerity. His allocation. It’s not like the Avatar knows what he’s doing, she’s certain. It’s probably some misplaced kindness, thinking of them as two Fire Nation people, maybe she’d prefer to work with someone from her culture. It’s not like he knows it’s burning salt.

“Fine.” All clipped, but shortness is preferred on the comms. The Avatar responds brightly anyway, still so unfazed in the face of it. Mai wonders if she could ever faze him, if she had the time.

“Great! Okay, and we’ll check in with you too to keep us all on track. Has everyone got their objectives squared?”

A chorus of their voices, a tangled mess to Mai and perfectly understandable to them. Familiar with the tones of their friends, and Mai’s the one sitting in the middle of it all, the blot. The thing out of place, a borrowed shoe. Soon she’ll be put back into the lost-and-found bin. They’ll go on doing their thing. Dispersal begins, everyone parcelled off to their own locations. Spinning out the little devices to build whatever net the Avatar needs for his work, teamwork, while Mai sits in her private hollow conscious of whose voice she’ll have dripping down the side of her throat.

Is Zuko’s stomach tightening too? Is his jaw settling with the accidental allocation? Mai doesn’t know if she’d want to know.

“Moving now,” Zuko says, the first to break into this arrangement. Another thing she doesn’t know, whether it irks her that it’s his words to first test the glass between them, see if the spiralling cracks will give in. A silly thing to get irked by in any case, considering it doesn’t matter. He talks, she does, as long as the work gets done, as long as these days go by. She shouldn’t want to draw any part of it on.

“Okay.” The dot on the screen, she watches that in the quiet that follows. If she is irked, it’ll pass. This should be boring. A tension-soaked boredom, telling herself not to wait for his next words, having to wait for them anyway. What a horrid juxtaposition to be in.

His dot gets closer; hesitates, a gentle pulse-pulse.

“You’re going to want to move to the left,” she tells Zuko, unfailingly professional. Her heart gives an extra thump regardless, ignored in her chest.

“Thanks.” There are no visuals on such a station like this. Just plotting by receiver, a voice in her ear. Is it worse this way? To have the emptiness around her, to fill it in herself? The space that’s at his back, the station at his front, delicate movements around it to plant the Avatar’s little net. Mai taps her fingernails against the console. Doesn’t look for the answer.

For a moment she hears his breath. Warm against her skin, that’s just her imagination. Remembering how it’d felt before, his head leaning in against the curve of her neck, fluttering against her collar bone. Her lips press together. Her fingers still.

Zuko keeps breathing.

“How long-”

“What?” Mai’s ready for the professional in turn, but Zuko’s tone wasn’t quite that. It was hesitant. Asking.

It takes another beat. Mai traces it against her mouth, the way her throat’s gone strangely still. The orange dot that is Zuko on her screen holds steady, hanging as an ember in the sky.

“How long have you been out here? Manning this station, I mean.”

“… A few years.”

“Has it- You like it?” Another note of hesitation, another memory there. Zuko and all the ways his words would pause in his mouth, clotting; Zuko and all the ways his words would explode, a volcano. Mai doesn’t twitch, not even as her throat goes a little thick. He’d hear her.

“It’s okay.”

He huffs, a small current of amusement. “You’re still moderate, then, in enthusiasm.”

“It’s a job, not something to jump up and down about.” Her words could be cutting, maybe should be. Him, remarking on what she was. Thinking of her moderate, well she could tell him of all the ways she wasn’t afterwards. How it was an ocean roiling until she’d forced it down. Left it burning bitter scars. Maybe she should silence this before it can even begin.

She doesn’t. Maybe that’s just her being a fool.

“So that’s you, I’m guessing.” She clears her throat, fine with that noise being transmitted. She shifts her ankles, one over the other. Stares at the screen, feels the dark of the pit some comfortable around her.

“Huh?”

“Enthusiastic about your job.”

“Which one?” Zuko’s dot moves, starting towards the next location. Mai watches the route projection, checking for any deviation, issues to crop up. “No, I suppose I am, about both of them. The nation-” he pauses again, a heavier breath, and Mai shuts her eyes for the smallest of seconds. She can’t risk more than that. Her spine twitches in the way she wouldn’t let it earlier. “It’s different now. Have you gone back to see it? Since you- left.”

The awkward bump on left, another place for Mai to dive this underneath the waves. Another place for Mai to leave it.

“I haven’t gone back since I left.” She saw it in the final months of grandeur. Burning incandescent, so hot it hurt just to gaze out of a window. Every colour imprinted on her eyes. The lurid of the banners shadowing over even the ones loyal. The sky in turmoil like it knew what was festering underneath it. The mix of people, those on the streets, all clad in their pride that’d be their downfall. Those in the houses, chewing on lips.

It's meant to be so different now. A softer brightness, diffused and easy on the eyes. Her mother seems to like it well enough, and that’s a woman that can complain about everything in existence. It’s meant to be remade, a new place for hope to grow. It’s meant to be good.

Mai’s still not gone back.

“Oh.”

“Does that,” should she be asking, indulging, “surprise you?”

Zuko makes a sound half-considering. “I’m in the right position, right?” he checks, so the mission is still in his mind, good. She confirms, finds herself waiting for his answer to her question. Her fingernails aren’t tapping but they’re curved, a light arc of tension. She’s staring at the dot on the screen. Listening to the breaths.

“I don’t think it does,” he admits a handful of breaths later. “It’s your home, but. It wasn’t at the same time, if that makes sense?”

“It does.” Mai’s not sure how she feels, hearing her own thought off him. Instead of stopping to consider such things, she balls it up, tosses it to one side to deal with once she’s gotten over whatever madness this conversation has started from.

“It’s different,” he says. “Better. You’d like it, I think. It’s… brighter.”

“I hear good things off the news.”

The noise Zuko makes next, Mai can’t quite read. “Do you- hear the stuff I’m trying to do?”

“I don’t pay that much attention.” A sharper edge, forgotten for a while, and now a touch of a whip. Enough to remind him of the line, herd him back to the side he needs to stay on. She’s not been pining after him, endless waiting for a scrap on him. She’s not exactly been healed either, to the point where hearing about his life going on just feels like salt in wounds. Zuko quietness in the way that means he’s gotten that. She wonders if he’s wincing, out there in space.

“I’m trying, anyway,” he says finally. “Uncle too. He’s Fire Lord officially, it was the only option that made sense, but he’s determined to get me to take over sooner rather than later. Says it’ll be the best thing for the nation.”

“Why don’t you just do it then? Didn’t you want it?”

“I’ve got things to tackle with Aang and the others first. It’s a whole universe that my father and grandfather tried ruining. I- I want to make sure I can do my part to fix that.”

“Idealistic.” But isn’t that him all over? The clouds have cleared; he’s on the right side of things, against everything they’d grown up believing. But Zuko’s always been earnest and determined, ready to take the universe on his shoulders despite the weight. It’s oddly good to see that’s still persisting, even if it should be obvious. The Avatar’s very presence probably makes any other option impossible to hold, against all of his bubbly light.

“It’s not a bad thing to be.”

“No, I suppose not.” It’s something to hope about, at least. To look at a world and see it nicer must be a good way to live.

“Anyway, I need a bit more experience before I take over, in my opinion. Katara’s and Sokka’s too,” and there’s a dry chuckle, fond on the edges, a sound Mai doesn’t quite recognise in his mouth for how open it is. How plain and honest it is. Like it’s easy for him now.

It wasn’t, before.

“They’re right, even if sometimes they’re joking. It’s a big responsibility.”

“It’s a whole nation.” That is responsibility. Mai’s never known why anyone might want it, the burden on their shoulders. She’s always understood what Zuko saw in it though, that idealistic nature, even if she’d struggled to understand why he’d throw himself in the grinder it was. Nowadays, he’d come out the other side whole. The nation might be lucky to have him.

“You know about responsibility, running this place,” he says, and they’re not even the same things by an inch but it’s such a factual way he says it that it’s so clear he’s not making fun. That’s maybe what’s the most different: Zuko’s calmer.

He’s older, he’s happier, and he’s calmer.

What’s Mai?

“I suppose,” she says instead of the meaner biting response of it’s not the same, don’t pander to me because that’ll only make her look bad because he’s not even pandering. But, because she can’t help herself entirely: “I don’t know if I’d call it like that, though.”

“Just because it’s smaller doesn’t mean it’s not important. I’m going to move to put the other clip into position now, okay?”

“That’s fine.” She watches his dot anew. Flickers over the others; none of them have interrupted. Is that good, or does it only make Mai feel on the edge of a cliff? Dancing close to something fatal, engaging in conversation like this, in a way she doesn’t understand the feelings about. Knowing any moment it can come crashing down, from their own sourness or a bright comet come to implode without knowing?

“I always thought you’d be good, running somewhere,” Zuko comments, and it’s so strange to Mai that she snorts, openly, without meaning to, a sound her mother would be horrified to hear. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“I don’t think I’d be.”

“Why not?”

Stars, he’s so earnest. Mai presses her lips together, hard enough to ache a little. She could lapse into silence right now. End it. Right now.

“I’m not the most friendliest.”

“You don’t have to be friendly to run something. You just have to be dedicated and aware of people. You just have to not be cruel, and you-” Zuko pauses, or maybe something catches. Maybe a memory of his own; he knows cruelness. His own past. The gentle brand he’d given her. Either way, it’s chewed up with a cleared throat, his own moment to end this gone like her own. “You’re not cruel.”

“You need to keep moving,” she says. Her heart feels thick in her throat. Zuko’s swallow traces against her eardrum.

“See, you’re good at this,” he tells her even as he obeys.

“This isn’t usually my job.”

“You coordinate with other ships though, tell them where to go when needed, so it sort of is?” Despite the fact that Mai’s job is technically menial – she likes it, but she’ll admit it – he makes it sound like he’s impressed by it. Silently, Mai snorts again. Someone who does battle by the Avatar’s side, impressed by a little station management.

Or maybe, a tiny voice deep in the back of her skull whispers, maybe he’s just impressed by you.

“You need to move a little quicker.” Instead of acknowledging that, she concentrates on the thing they both should be. Work. The safe thing. “The others are going to beat you.”

Zuko huffs a laugh. It blows against the speaker, far too intimate for Mai’s liking. “We’re trying to come on top then, against the other teams?”

“There’s not a competition here. It’s making sure you’re not delaying everyone.” Her voice goes a little sharper, maybe to try and cover her heart’s jump to we’re.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Mai,” he says, but he gets a move on regardless.

And Mai’s ears ring with her own name now. Falling off a tongue it disappeared from an eternity ago.

Day three arrives quietly. Mai’s eyes paint her ceiling. Later will be the Avatar’s display, and then it’ll be over. The lot of them, packed up and ushered from her peace. She’ll be left to it again. It’ll be just like it was before.

But not quite. Mai feels it, a loose floorboard in her chest. Something’s been stirred, not put back right. She’s dragged out parts of the past without thinking and now how is she meant to package it up? She never should have talked to Zuko. Reflected with him.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s a small stir, so what? She’ll calm right back up once he’s gone and she’s got her life back without his irritating reminders tripping up. All she needs is to get through this day and then it’s done.

Simple.

It’s not simple.

The Avatar and team are… doing something. Hard at preparations she’d assume, or maybe resting up – it’s not like Mai actually knows what they’re doing tomorrow, what’s needed. She’s got her own work to attend to, the station not one to understand the demands of others. There’s a regularity to how she has to walk its halls, check it over. She’s looking forward to the menial tasks, because maybe it’ll soothe down that small part of her that feels all rustled, tape peeling up with Zuko at the edges. But the tape’s peeled right up, because walking up the corridor towards her is nonother than Zuko.

Mai stares. Maybe a little in dismay. Maybe a little in something curious, especially when his face brightens a touch when he spots her.

“I was looking for you.”

If her heart gives a twist at those words, well: Mai’s not admitting it even to herself.

“What do you want?” Too flat, but of course Zuko doesn’t seem to mind. He’d never minded her tones. Maybe it’d taken him a bit to grapple with them, narrowed eyed trying to translate at times, but he’d done it in a way that made Mai feel interesting.

“Is there anything I can help you out with?” Zuko asks, his hands at his side, faintly curled. Mai has no idea why she’s noticing that. Maybe because they’re an excellent reason not to look at his face – not that she resists that for long. Old habits, she’ll claim; there’s not a part of her she’ll admit to wanting to. His eyes do have a rather incandescent glow. She can’t blame herself for getting ensnared more than she’d vowed to be. It’s a moth to a candle sort of situation; she doesn’t let herself think about why the moth goes to the light.

“Aang wanted me to check,” Zuko adds – perhaps Mai’s been quiet a beat too long, he’s hasty to fill the gap. “Before- later. The big thing.”

“The reason you came.” Whatever magic the Avatar will pull out. Mai’s halfway certain she’ll be watching it whether she’s interested or not; the Avatar hasn’t exactly given the impression of someone who would want her to ‘miss out’. She should, anyway, if it’s such a once-in-a-lifetime sort of event. She’s reserved, not uncaring.

Zuko, for whatever reason, pauses before he answers, tone sounding a little dusty. “Yeah.”

“So you came to help me out.”

“If you need it?” Zuko’s looking a little hopeful now, like a horse eyeing an apple just out of reach. “We’ve been a bit of an inconvenience to you, so this could help make up for that.”

“What,” Mai says – can, when it’s him, because he knew her – “is you and the Avatar’s obsession with inconvenience? You remember that this is my job, right? Opening the station to your lot, doing what you need. That’s technically my job.”

Zuko gives her a small smile. “Could still be an inconvenience to you personally.”

Mai narrows her eyes, but her tongue stills. He knew her. Knows a bit of her.

“I’m doing general maintenance checks,” she says instead, brisk and short. “You can tag along if you want. Make some of the tasks go faster. Stars knows when this thing the Avatar’s doing will happen and knowing my luck, it’s going to be early.”

“Aang’s not actually that much of a morning person.” The smile is a tentative grin, and it was before the Avatar comment, though that’s another thing relegated to the do not think about bin in her head. It’s getting rather full, another thing not to think about. “When I had to train him in fire bending, it was like dragging teeth out.”

“I can only imagine that training was very fun for you both.” The sarcasm drips, and Zuko’s laugh bursts out of him bright and short. It echoes in Mai’s ears long after it’s stopped, warm against her skull.

Her fingers flex.

“It wasn’t the easiest time,” he admits, his eyes flickering at her, and the corridors are short so why is this one stretching on right now? It feels like Mai’s got hours to walk before she finds the first vent. Hours to stand in Zuko’s company – a torture she invited upon herself, because even torture can come with bits to enjoy – and hours to entertain or crush this discussion of the past. The time after her. “We were all… tense.”

“It was a tense time.” Mai thinks she’s still got a knot between her shoulder-blades from that time. Thinks the knot’s getting worse as they speak.

“Yeah.” For a moment, she’s lost him again. He’s off in his memories. Mai’s spotted the vent, here to bring some mercy to her door.

She doesn’t really need his help; she’s been doing this all by herself for years now. But instead of telling Zuko that, she asks him to hold onto the gauge checker like she needs another pair of hands and finds herself watching how the line of his jaw matches the sharper edges of the panels as he gazes about the corridor.

“Is this the place you want to be working forever, then?” Despite the words having a chance of being judging, it’s another plain honesty to his voice. Earnest, truthful, and it’s parts of him Mai recognises from when they were younger, in embers flickering towards the end. Are you calmer now? She wants to ask. Happier, but that word catches on her tongue. Anyway, she knows that answer.

So she shrugs, taps one of the machine registers inside the vent until the gauge checker spurts to life, always a little sedentary. Like most things on this station, it’s a sundown type of thing. Not energetic, full of life and vim, ready to call at a touch of her hands. It takes patience; this place has tested her in that like nothing else has managed, and she’s found that soothing in time. Something else sets the pace and it’s without shrill demands. This is just the way it is here, no expectations really for it to grow better.

“It’s not the worst place.”

“You don’t want a different station?”

“I haven’t really thought about it.” Mai’s never really gotten into the habit of forward thinking. Didn’t get the chance as a kid. Didn’t see the point in years past. The moment, that’s easier.

Zuko’s eyes flicker back to her, a thick cloud hesitating on the horizon. She waits his words like someone gazing up at that cloud, hoping it’s not about to crash down upon her like an avalanche.

“Fair,” is what he says. Somehow both a relief and disappointment, to have it a mere snowball falling apart against her toes rather than ploughing her down. Mai would prefer if she was just consistent with herself, stuck to one thing to want. Him drowning her in it all. Him not touching her with it at all. But she’s always been less regimented when it’s come to Zuko. Less consistent with what she’s always had to be.

“It’s a bit far out though,” he adds. “You like that about it?”

What is with him asking her about liking it? It’s not quite small talk. Mai doesn’t want to catalogue it as anything, because then she’ll actually have to think more about the way she’s responding.

“Are you referring to the fact I’ve never been a big people person?”

Zuko lets out a small huff of laughter; gentle like a breeze, bright like wind chimes, and the way his mouth crinkles so softly shouldn’t be sticking in her eyes.

She forces herself to look away. The register needs her attention anyway, numbers to be logged on the palm-sized recorder attached to her belt. The busywork settles her shoulders. The LED readouts burn her eyes and all their stuck images.

Silence falls again, like the rise and fall of a wave. Ebbs. It’s not something Mai can truly enjoy, not with who she is, with who he is, but she’d be lying if she claimed there wasn’t something about this. Mai, tending to her station. Zuko keeping her company, oddly comfortable in their quietness. The conversation too, not too riling. The very act of it being less off-putting than she’d have assumed a handful of days earlier almost makes Mai want to rebuke this. Get unnerved, because it shouldn’t be like this. Mai shouldn’t be tolerating him.

It makes this easier to do so, with the Avatar.

It feels easier than it should.

Mai glances at him, low under her lashes as she taps her fingernails against the metal wall, waiting for the gauge to start counting the power meters. The familiar angle of his jaw, she can find that under all the change growing up’s done to him. She’d cupped that once, put her hand right on his face and turned him from the immeasurable darkness of his own fairly justified broodiness, and he’d looked at her like she was a candle in the dim. She still remembers what it was like, holding hands with him, being eye to eye with him. Still remembers the way she’d dug the hole inside of herself after packing to return to her parents. To be safer. To escape the way his absence had made her room suffocating. He wasn’t meant to be that way with her, and yet that’d been what he’d done. Ruined her space.

But at least being out of Caldera meant she was spared getting caught up in all the shit that followed. It was, and is, a bitter silver lining.

Do you, she thinks quietly, like a whisper against her skull, think about it? Has he thought about her, she supposes she’s really asking. Before he saw her again in the loading bay. Was that surprise him being reminded? Was she important, once?

Mai doesn’t put her worth on whatever Zuko’s been thinking or not thinking about. Sure, he left her. Sure, it devastated her. Sure, she’s never quite been able to move on – but that’s what happens when a knife touches bone. Healing is messy, rarely complete. If he hasn’t been thinking about her, it doesn’t mean she’ll fold right here and now, an inconsolable mess. More like, she’d be pissed, steam between her teeth. The least he could have done is think about her once. She meant that much, she’d hope.

The only way to know for certain is to ask, and Mai won’t debase herself that way. The gauge gives the tiny beep to tell her it’s ready, like a squeak of prey against a powerful predator, despite the kind way Zuko’s cradling the thing. Maybe it can pick up on whatever waves Mai’s emitting.

“I don’t think I’d have assumed you join Base Watch,” Zuko says, showing Mai the readout. She purses her lips – at the readout mostly, a little at him – and sticks her arm back into the vent to find the adjustor dial. Sometimes she’ll stick her head in too, for visuals, but not with his eyes on her.

“What, it doesn’t suit me?” Crispy autumn leaves, just the same as her words. Her fingertips reach. Her eyes watch, narrowed, absorbing every tiny flicker to his face. The light, harsh as it is, seems to have settled a compromise on his face at this angle, casting a rim light down the line of his nose. His mouth too, probably, but she’s not going to glance at that.

“I didn’t say that.” So hasty. It would be endearing in another life. Mai finds the dial.

“So what are you saying?”

“It’s just surprising. It’s not really the job you seemed to be aiming for.”

“I wasn’t aiming for any job before.” How does everything keep coming back to before despite Mai’s vows? She knows the answer even if she refuses to entertain it. It’s her own fault, engaging like this. In not shutting Zuko down the moment he mentioned assumptions and started querying in the first place. In making it obvious what she could tolerate, and Zuko’s always been one to gently poke at any boundary he finds. She wonders what his friends think about that before she reminds herself of how little she’s meant to care.

“Huh. Right.”

Neither of them were meant to be. Back up things. There to star in the backdrop, something to be over the moon with.

“It does, by the way. Suit you,” he adds on, and adds a small smile to the words too. So small, precious little embers, and Mai finally finishes adjusting the dial. Zuko tilts the gauge towards her; it gives her another place to put her eyes other than on that smile.

“You seem happier with yours.” Half reluctant, not because he’s happy but to admit it. The embers flare, his smile getting fonder. Broader. What does it say, that she gets the small little things, warm enough for palms, compared to what he’s capable of? They don’t know each other, she shouldn’t doesn’t care, but. Well.

It’s unfair he doesn’t have to suffer comparisons of people treating with her.

“I am.” Zuko smiles again, this one private, a spreading across his chest. Mai can’t watch it, so she disconnects the gauge and stands, maybe too abruptly but she won’t feel guilty for it. Neither will she for the way she begins to stalk to the next vent, leaving Zuko to scramble up after her. His long legs and short corridor spaces mean it’s no time at all anyway.

She kneels before the vent, and Zuko sits down beside her. Crossed legged this time, as easy as anything, and Mai’s eyes flicker to check his knee’s proximity to her before she prises the front off. His hand is already waiting for the gauge checker; how easily he falls into routine with her. It’d been like that with him before, she remembers. It’d taken merely a day to get his hands in the habit of catching her hairpins when she’d escaped public sight, yanking the damn things from her as soon as possible.

For a moment it’s quiet, and for that moment it almost gets to be comfortable again, so of course something disturbs those waves. Mai’s just found the dial, set up the checker and is retracting her arm when Zuko says, all too-quick in that way he used to have:

“Look, I know you said we have nothing to talk about, and I swear Aang did ask me to check with you, I didn’t lie about that to talk to you, but- about before.”

Mai’s shoulders tighten. An old knot between the blades, pulsing with her heartbeat. The torrent of words. The words. She schools her face, forces herself to keep still, calm. Zuko’s all heat next to her, barrelling. He’s looking at her, and she doesn’t have to look at him, could keep focused on the work in front of her, but her eyes have a mind of their own. Butterfly wings, flickering graceful, bringing his face into her orbit.

“I wanted to say sorry, Mai. I’ve wanted to say that the whole time. Since I’ve been here; since the moment I left. It wasn’t- it wasn’t what you deserved, and I know it now and I knew it then, but I thought it’d be easier that way.” He quietens for a moment. “Easier for both of us.”

“Both of us?” Mai speaks, her first words since the apology. Zuko stirs at the sound of her voice; had he not been expecting her to speak until afterwards? He wouldn’t be alone in the assumption.

“If I told you to your face, I didn’t know if you’d disagree. If you’d turn me in. It was easier not to have to face that, the idea of you scorning me.”

Which you got anyway, Mai thinks.

“And for you, I guess I thought people wouldn’t tar you with my traitorous brush. You didn’t know I was going. You didn’t know what I was planning. You were innocent. People couldn’t hold anything against you. I didn’t want to risk that.”

“Did you ever consider that I might have gone with you?” Mai keeps her voice so, so steady. Enough that she could be proud if she wanted: like a tightrope walker over a pit of fire, keeping herself so balanced even with the heat licking the air.

Zuko starts. Something visible visceral, eyes widening. “I-”

Her answer, then.

“That’s not me saying I would have.” Mai doesn’t know what she would have done, because he never asked. She’s not spent time wondering about it since, being pointless.

“Seems like I hadn’t grown out of my me-centric thought pattern enough,” Zuko says; it’s a different pit of fire lighting up in both of their memories.

“No, you hadn’t.”

It’s quiet for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says again.

“Tell me about it.” Maybe this is stupid. But maybe Mai’s always wanted to know what the hell even happened that day, and if he’s really sorry he’ll tell her anything she wants.

His swallow – she hears it, dragging through her ears. The pause he takes, so weighted, adds focus to whatever’s going to follow. Despite herself, Mai feels her heart’s thumps take the same turn in weight. A heaviness to flood her rib cage, each thud like something banging against her bones.

“I’d realised what it all was. What I was helping. That I was on the wrong side, at probably the worst time to realise. And I knew I had to make it right before it was too late, before there would be no other chances because the Fire Nation would have crushed all of them. But,” Zuko pauses, a pinch of air, “it was treason, what I was doing. Forsaking my nation for the ultimate enemy. I knew I had to go, knew that Aang had been right all along, but you- I didn’t know how you felt, about everything. I didn’t want to drag you into my mess even if you did agree. I felt that the only reason any of it was happening was because I’d refused to accept Aang earlier, it was my mess to fix and danger to face.”

“So you thought just leaving was the best option.”

For his credit, Zuko winces quite badly at the reminder. Mai watches him, feels how her hand isn’t curling up too sharp this time around. Remembers how it’d felt walking into the empty room, knowing he should be there, feeling his absence like the most terrible sense of foreboding. How their last conversation had gone: his frustrations, the hints of concerns on the edges, the way he’d trailed off and never quite finished. She’d not told anyone about that, the inklings. Out of a want to protect him still, even when it’d become very obvious where he’d gone. She’d just buried her head down. Not gotten involved.

“I’ve had time to think about it, since. Not quite regret it, because-” He cuts himself off there, and she understands what he’d say anyway. He can’t regret someone that worked out, that saved the universe, liberated his home and gained him all the friends he has now. Can’t regret something that was right.

He’s not stopped really looking at her so direct, and the reason she knows that is she’s not stopped looking at him either. Not even caught; Mai’s choosing the angle of her gaze.

“I’ve had time to think about it, and… miss you, I guess.”

Mai’s heart gives a painful thump.

He doesn’t ask her if she’s missed him. It’s a good thing, because Mai’s not even sure what words are turning clotted in her throat, a cotton candy choke through the column. His words settle underneath her sternum, above that pained beat, like a temperature turned up a few degrees past comfortable. Heart burn, but there’s no way to easily clear it. Mai keeps looking. So does he. The gauge checker is the furthest thing from their minds.

“So I wanted you to know I was sorry about all of it. How I left. How I was before too, I think. And that you did mean something to me. I don’t-” he clears his throat. “I hope that was still obvious.”

No, it wasn’t, Mai thinks and does not say. It’s half untrue anyway, a gnawing fleet of rats she couldn’t quite shift in the days and weeks that followed. Her wondering if she’d meant nothing, because of how he’d left. Her tracing a knife’s tip and wondering if that’d been why, and feeling that so sour. Her eventually telling herself it didn’t matter either way, because neither did he. Was it still obvious she’d meant something?

No. And yes.

“Yeah,” Zuko finishes quietly. His eyes flicker, the first break to them. In the freedom, Mai swallows.

The cotton candy still clogs.

It feels like Mai’s lived a week.

It feels like Mai’s been in a parallel life, really. A series of strange moments that she would have said never should or could be, and yet here she is. The day’s arrived. The Avatar has her run the last checks, making sure the space is ready for him. He tells her she might be able to see it from one of the portholes, if she wants. Most of the others are aboard his ship to watch for a better view; she’s glad he doesn’t offer her that. She passes the shorter woman, napping in a corner, on her way to a porthole. Clearly this is a sight not rivalling the opportunity of some shut eye.

The porthole waits for her, innocent. Space swims outside; she can see the tail end of their ship if she cranes around the edge. The Avatar will be erupting into the openness in front of the glass soon, a vague number of seconds and minutes that leave Mai in suspense, if she cared deeply. As it is, the vastness of the empty universe all around gets to settle about her skull. Act as a cooling compress to her brain’s tissue, swollen slightly in confusion from these last couple days. She breathes it in for a handful of moments, packing it against her head like ice from a cooler. Lets her eyelashes flutter a moment, show herself her own black, and the nothingness she’s trying to keep in her thoughts. Unlike last night, when her sleep was plagued by all the words Zuko had said.

He's told her he’s missed her twice in his life. She can’t believe she’s thinking this, but it was an easier thing to deal with, him fresh off exile and a jumbled stranger than him saying it now.

She doesn’t hear the steps. Too silent, and this time she’d had no idea he might be following. Mai gazes out at the blackness of space, and the next thing she knows is an exhale, and-

Zuko stands next to her.

Mai hardly even twitches this time. Finally, exposure therapy’s come to make her reactions easier; finally, when he’s about to leave again. It’s something hollow against her tongue. It’s not like she should care: so what, he was here and now he’s going to be gone again. Nothing would have changed. She’d have gotten an apology. She’d have gotten to see what he looks like now.

She’d have gotten to have talked to him again.

Those are the only differences. It’s not like she should care. She shouldn’t.

So why-

“It’s a good show,” Zuko says. Quietly, so quietly. His voice still does the light rasp when he whispers, and that’s what makes her shiver. The way it feels like something touching the very tip of the hairs down her neck. The way it feels familiar, reminds her of moments with his mouth close to her ear. “What Aang does. I’m glad you’ll get to see it.”

“Because I’ve always loved a show?” Sarcasm and truth, a good mix. Zuko smiles a little – and Mai’s a traitor to herself, because the only way she knows he smiles it because she looks.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve grown to like firework displays.”

The ones of their childhood were always too loud, too bright. It’d been her third time hiding from them before Zuko had discovered her trick and promptly never stopped copying her. It was, in retrospect, a little concerning no one had immediately ruined that for them. Zuko was a prince, even mostly ignored. He probably shouldn’t have been mostly forgotten too.

“I really haven’t.”

“Then it’s a sight I think everyone should see. Or- it’s a sight I want you to see.”

The correction hovers, a storm cloud with the sweetest rain. Mai tips her face up, lets a drop hit her skin. There’s no backing away from the intensity of Zuko’s gaze when she glances again – and he’s looking. Seriously solemn.

“Good thing I’m watching it then,” she says, terribly dry, just to see if he’ll smile again. Her last strange interactions, before it’s over again. The smile cracks, the sun through the rain, and it’s less supernova than the Avatar and yet more fascinating than anything else.

“I’m going to watch it with you,” Zuko tells her. Mai flicks an eyebrow. I assumed, it says. This is too familiar, her gut churns against the walls, but it’s quieter than it should be.

“Okay.” He’s not waited for her permission. Still, there’s a new warmth flooding his smile at the word. She pauses in its heat for a second she could treasure for so much longer. A flame so pretty orange.

Space seems darker when she trades the smile for its vastness.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither does she. They probably shouldn’t be speaking before seeing something that’s apparently important. It makes it easier, maybe. Standing in silence, in the dark specifically. If Mai doesn’t concentrate, then maybe he’s not beside her. If she doesn’t remember, then maybe it’s something long gone. A moment in the past; they’d gazed at the stars together then. Her habit, him coming in with that way he’d done – sort of still done, if she thinks about it, how he’s just silently slipped in, pushed his shadow across her feet. So things don’t all change, because just like now, she’d tolerated it then too. Him, in her personal space. Them, together bathed in glimmers of silver specked across a complete void.

Them, doing it again.

Mai counts her breaths, even and yet so shallow. Counts his, as familiar as her heartbeat. Even, yet so shallow too.

It begins without much fanfare. A blackness, and then motion, and Zuko’s shoulder doesn’t quite nudge her – he’d have to touch her for that, and that’s a line she must uphold against – but the air he collides with brushes across the rise of her shoulder, and Mai’s forewarned to keep her eyes peeled. Her breath comes out a little less even; the Avatar creeping onto main stage hides it. Out there, surrounded by parts of the net they’d cast out to surround the station, Mai guiding Zuko with his voice so rough down her ear. A brightly coloured dot against it all. His hands moving, ancient understandings to the palms, and there, Mai catches a glimpse of something blue beginning to light up against his skin. A charge, a battery or an engine slowly growing to its power, and it’s all so strangely gripping that Mai can’t take her eyes from it. She watches, the way the blue grows, the way the Avatar moves, watches it all.

The Avatar’s power explodes. Without warning, the detonation. His smile is supernova bright but this more than rivals it. Mai’s eyes are blasted watching as they are, bathed in it all, and even with the light spots clustering her vision she finds it hard to look away. From this myriad of things happening out against the blackness of space, a vibrant blue glitter that seems to keep her heart’s beat steady, calm, despite the way that Zuko is standing close enough that she can practically feel every breath he takes like it’s right against her cheek. The inhale to trace, exhale to touch, and if she reached out her hand a little further than she used to have to, she’d be about to hold his hand.

The Avatar’s power fades, as gently as falling asleep, leaving a wash of that strange calmness. Mai blinks, more than a few times. Swallows.

She thinks she understands why people want to see that.

In the aftermath, the quiet floods, the ocean around their ankles. The ebb and flow, and Mai just breathes with it. The blue light of the Avatar is still clinging to her lashes. Zuko’s breath to her ears.

It feels like it could last forever. It can’t. Mai’s no dreamer like he was and is. Mai’s feet have always been grounded in the obvious outcome, pessimistic maybe. The moment can’t last forever, nothing can, and especially when it comes to moments with Zuko, so much history with him teaches her that. It can’t last forever yet for this moment, Mai lets it feel that way.

It’s like before again. Her waiting, a foot in both words. One where Zuko is here. One where Zuko is gone. And just like with her pressing that button at the start of all of this, Mai’s the one to action them into the second option.

She turns away from the porthole, space gone truly dark again, though Mai’s eyeballs are going to remember what they witnessed until they die. Zuko follows, albeit slower – reluctant? She doesn’t let herself think that – and then they’re face to face.

Practically the same height. There’s no getting away from gazing so directly back at each other.

“You’ll be all getting ready to go now, I assume.” Mai’s voice – it’s not flat, though to the untrained ear it might seem that way. It’s the closest to actually neutral she’s had this whole time. The closest to just her voice. Zuko’s eyes glitter, scattered embers over sand; his ear hasn’t lost its training.

“Getting out of your hair finally,” he says, a little rueful. “I’m sure Aang would love to stay a little longer – he’s quite intrigued by you, you know – but well.” He gives a little shrug. “Business calls.”

“Of course, the Avatar is in high demand.”

She wonders how much longer she’ll have him in front of her. Seconds? A minute, before his heel turns or she slips by him, closing this chapter again. Mai’s not too sure how she feels about this conclusion. Is it satisfactory, leaving her still somehow wanting? On one hand, she’s got her explanation. That’s an old current she can lie to bed. On the other… well. She doesn’t know.

Somewhere out there, the Avatar’s climbing back into his ship. Somewhere out there is a timer trickling away their time, and Mai can feel it down the back of her neck, the countdown. Her fingers twitch, spasm.

“You’ll all be off attending to another universe outpost or something, then?” Mai shouldn’t be curious. Shouldn’t wonder, because then she’s not closed the book properly. But here she is, stirring the pot, continuing their seconds.

“I think so. Then it’ll be home. Caldera.” He smiles, a dawn of a new sun for one small second. Mai stares – has she ever seen him so happy to think about Caldera?

“I wanted-” he hesitates, and she finds herself waiting for whatever words are going to make their way out of him. There are many ways the words can end. Does she know where she wants them to go?

“I wanted to say- I’d be there waiting. If you did want to come visit home anytime. Give you a tour of the place now it’s all changed.” Zuko gives her a hopeful twist, lopsided on his mouth. Hoping the offer’s not a deterrent. Hoping it’s something she’d want to do.

Go back when Mai hasn’t gone back since she left – more than just Caldera, more than the nation too. Mai left and she’s been moving out into any part of space she’s never been before, where no one who knew her has been before. Going determinedly forward so she never has to confront her past. The place where she was insecure and alone, happy for a moment and then alone again. It’s easier, being in a fresh place where she’s made it her own. Where she doesn’t have to find in the rubble what she was and build off of that.

It's not just Zuko she’s been avoiding all these years.

“It’s changed so much I’d need a guide?”

“It’s strange to return to.” His eyes haven’t faltered. Liquid piles of gold. “And-”

This is the waver. Not to his eyes, but to his voice, turning a blush pink, matching the shade of his cheeks in their fondness. “I’d like to. Show you it all.”

And it’s that, and it’s the fact Mai lingered instead of walking off, and it’s the fact that Mai hasn’t really blinked so her gaze on him isn’t disturbed, to suck up these last moments. It’s a glimpse she imagines, a smear, not really anything and yet enough to give her another burst in her chest. Him, in deep burgundy and gold, confident in his changed streets. Her next to him. Maybe getting that confidence rubbed off onto her.

She doesn’t answer. Zuko seems okay with that, maybe he’d assumed it. His hope’s undashed at least, still in his features.

“I should go check on Aang,” he says finally, and just as she’s been expecting, the divergence again.

“I should go check on the readings,” she says, a tiny bit irked he diverged before her, but it’s like their first conversation all over again. Zuko nods like hers is more important; it probably is, considering the Avatar’s got a whole gang of them to fuss over him, and the station only has her.

Zuko hesitates, and then reaches forward to brush his lips against her cheek. Sweet, chaste. A goodbye; better than the one he gave her last.

“I hope I see you again, Mai.”

And that’s a better one than he gave her last too. I’m sorry, Mai; words that have haunted her.

Mai’s cheek gives a light twinge, a bright spurt of nerves.

“Maybe,” she says.

The Avatar’s ship requests the detachment permissions. Again, Mai sits in the quiet dark of her command pit; presses the button before the hesitation, because that’s just the way it’s got to be. Mai doesn’t have a choice in the coming or going of other people. But she watches the readout on her screen, telling her the ship’s decoupling, starting off back into space. She thinks about how she felt three days ago. Acid bubbling, stinging all the way up her throat and the way she’d wanted to dig tiny crescent moons into her hands. She thinks about how she doesn’t quite know what she feels now.

It wasn’t the way she’d thought, seeing Zuko again.

I hope I see you again, Mai.

Mai exhales. Presses her fingertips to the console.

Maybe he will.