The day Suki meets Ty Lee is a fairly ordinary day.

Corpses, endless corpses, she is passing over them. And then one of them is alive. One of them is hurt and Suki is pulled down beside her. She looks into her eyes and sees no will, no will to continue. Or maybe something else; perhaps the lack of will is Suki's eyes reflected in her.

All the same, this girl is dying. Suki has gazed at a thousand corpses and tried to pretend they were worth something. For some reason, saving one feels like it might ease a little of the aching in her.

And so she takes the younger girl into her arms, and goes to find a healer for her. This battle is not won until everyone is spared. No one left behind, is a mantra Suki does not just say. She means it.

As Suki is cleaning up, she is approached by her healer friend.

"She's Fire Nation," he says and Suki just looks up. She chews on her lip.

"That doesn't matter right now. If we let her die in pain, we're no better than them," Suki insists and no one ever disobeys or disagrees.

Suki decides to watch the girl herself, even if she has better things to do. Her group is too wary of the Fire Nation in general, but Suki keeps seeing something in her eyes. At first, Suki thought it was sadness. But it is not sadness at all. It is this darkness inside that everyone here shares, but her eyes still have hope.

Hope was lost a pretty long time ago, even to Suki.

Optimism is even more of a joke.

The first time Ty Lee speaks to Suki is on a disgustingly grey and cloudy day. Suki is out hunting, and attempting to teach the Fire Nation girl how to do it too. She has been declared mute, shallow and utterly useless, but Suki somehow feels determined to change that.

She does not even know this girl. But she knows that there is something about her.

"You know what your aura is like?" asks Ty Lee quietly as she watches Suki set up snares. Suki pricks her finger as she looks up in surprise that Ty Lee has spoken.

"No," Suki manages to breathlessly answer.

"Like a grey sky. But not a bad way. You're beautiful, even though you really don't seem to want to be."

Suki has no idea how to reply to that. Ty Lee returns to her silence, and Suki returns to her snares, still confused. But reassured, all the same. She thinks this Fire Nation girl will be good for her.

Two weeks pass before Ty Lee says anything else.

Suki asks her a question this time, without really thinking of it. "Do you need soap?" she asks as she enters the tent, before feeling like a fool.

"Not now. If you can even call this gross stuff soap. It smells like... dirt not flowers."

"Well, flowers grow in dirt," Suki suggests mockingly and Ty Lee scowls. "What's your name?"

"Ty Lee," answers the girl as she emerges from the bathroom. "And yes, flowers grow in dirt, but I would really rather smell like flowers. And you're Suki, the girl who helps everybody else but just keeps hating herself."

"I don't..." Suki trails off because she knows that Ty Lee is right.

"I think you have no reason to hate yourself. I've seen how you work with all of these people. It's nothing like the Fire Nation. They don't have any leaders like you." And Ty Lee says nothing more before fumbling around for clothes and wringing out her wet hair again.

Suki looks at her and something inside clicks. It is like she has spent years messing with complicated puzzles only to discover she was looking at the wrong one.

As weeks pass and Ty Lee slowly assimilates into the rebels, although with reluctance about the poor living conditions, Suki cannot quite describe her feelings. But the more she stares at Ty Lee, and the more she takes her on missions, the more she sees the grief and shackles around herself, and the pretty wings that Ty Lee has.

Or maybe Suki is just finally losing her mind from all of the pressure.

More time goes by, they share a first kiss and it tastes like those grey, sweet rainfalls that Ty Lee kept going on and on about. Suki admits to herself that having someone is better than relying on no one.

Two years into their relationship, they go on a final mission, a final mission that they have no idea is their last.

It is dangerous. And exceptionally dangerous.

"I want to tell you something," Suki says as she tries to adjust her stupid spyglass and keep an eye on the convoy.

"Mhm," Ty Lee replies brightly, also scoping out the scene.

"If we do die, you're exactly the kind of person I want to die with."

Days after she said those words, Suki awaits her fate, in a pretty little prison on a cold, dark night.

It has been nearly a week since her capture, and three days since she stopped struggling and realized she would have to find a cleverer way to fight than simple defiance. She watches the days pass through the window, the sky half blocked by thick bars that Suki can stick a finger through, or her nose, as she peers out and examines the very, very long drop down from this high level of the obsidian fortress of a palace.

Sozin's Comet passed four years ago, and since Kyoshi Island was untouched by the blaze that brought down the Earth Kingdom, she was suddenly thrust into a leadership role, at the forefront of the rebellion. Suki was a great and powerful leader, and also kind, also compassionate when she knew she needed to be.

She met a girl she truly loved, and said girl had given her even more to fight for than just her home, her friends and hope for the future. But now, Suki can barely remember that life. It almost feels like a very far-off, distant dream. So little time has passed, but... there seems to be nothing but the suffocation of capture anymore.

The door moves slightly and Suki swallows, digging her fingers into the mattress beneath her. She wonders if she can convince herself to fight or attempt an escape again. But she has had no progress yet, none at all. None.

A week ago, Suki was blindfolded, but kept her jaw squared as she was led to where she knew that she would be executed. The chains around her wrists were useless to break free of, and she was not going to waste any of her energy wriggling, while her fellow captive was doing everything in her repertoire of flexibility in order to attempt escape.

"Don't let them see you weak," Suki said warmly, disregarding the warning words from the soldiers who were leading them. "It will be okay, Ty Lee. I promise you that."

They were forced onto their knees, Suki pushed down by the blunt side of a sword. She seals her jaw in order not to show the pain that was just inflicted, and the bruises she could already feel growing on her back.

Suki sniffed in and focused on keeping her breathing managed as she felt the strong heat of fire near her. Burned alive. She knew it. She knew that she would be burned alive, and she wondered why she never thought about what to do in this situation.

Was she truly too young and foolish to know that there was a chance she would be captured?

Her blindfold was ripped from her at the same time as Ty Lee's. Suki looked around quickly as her eyes adjusted to the sudden, painful blinding light from the burning fire.

"The Throne Room," Ty Lee whispered to Suki, looking at her with a quiet longing. For some reason, Suki had a feeling that Ty Lee was implying that this was much worse than a brief execution.

"Very astute, circus freak," stated a low, gravelly voice that Ty Lee had never forgotten. Ty Lee dug her fingernails into her half-bare legs, and Suki noticed the very gentle arch of her back and lowering of her sparkling grey eyes.

Suki refused to bow, Ty Lee tried to make herself look too appealing to kill. It was destined not to end well.

It was then that Suki realized that Ty Lee knew the man who was speaking to them, and she moved into a bow after she saw him. Suki looked up, still remaining prepared for a fight, and saw that, before her, was Fire Lord Ozai.

"I should be honored to be in your presence, Miss Kyoshi."

Suki hesitated and licked her lips before saying, "Suki is fine."

"Right, right, of course," Ozai replied and Ty Lee's pursed lips revealed that Suki likely just said the absolute wrong thing. "I have many things I would love to learn from you both. Any suggestions, before we start?"

"I don't know anything," Ty Lee blurted out and Suki grimaced.

"I completely believe that," Ozai said earnestly, looking at her with disdain. Ty Lee blushed, but was glad that her dumbest-person-in-the-room act was already working. Suki might not have been so lucky. "You, however, I'm sure, know everything. You're the sole leader of the rebellion."

"I won't give up the people I serve," Suki said respectfully, looking to him as if they were peers. He contemplated striking her to the floor before remembering that he would have to play this game carefully if he wanted to get anywhere.

"Would you give up one person?" Ozai inquired and Suki did not know what to say. Of course not. "Let me rephrase. Would you give up one person, if it would save all of the rest?"

She thought perhaps it was some stupid test of her integrity, or a question to mess with her. But, on the other hand, he could have been serious.

"Maybe," Suki said quietly, breathing in and out.

"So, your love of your rebels is very strong," Ozai continued and Suki furrowed her brow. "But is your selfish love of that one any stronger?"

Suki's heart stopped as she wondered how he could have figured that out. She and Ty Lee had not been separated since their capture, and they certainly had shown no clear signs of how deeply involved with each other they were.

"I..."

"No, no, take time and think about it. Take them both away."

Suki could not do anything before she was grabbed and taken again.

Ty Lee gently pushes open the door to Suki's room, hating herself for it. She was sent here for a purpose, but Ty Lee does not want to fulfill that purpose; she wants to utterly disregard it.

"Hi," Ty Lee says quietly, walking inside and shutting the door behind her.

Suki rises quickly, and does not bother to think about the fact that it could be a trap. She just throws her arms around a girl who is used to it being the other way around, and messily crashes their lips together.

"Have you been hurt?" Suki asks fiercely, pulling away and examining Ty Lee closely.

"Not in a... not in a bad way," Ty Lee says hazily and Suki examines her, wondering if she is drugged or just nervous or simply weary from whatever she has been through.

"It's not been too bad for me," Suki admits as she slowly steps back, sitting down.

Ty Lee is silent and Suki notices that her eyelashes look different. She cannot place a word to how, but they are different. More defined, much darker.

"I want to... tomorrow you have to decide something," Ty Lee says quietly, picking fiercely at her fingernails. They look freshly trimmed, while Suki's are accumulating filth and grime. "I want you to do what's right, and not want you want."

Suki stares. "I have no idea what you mean."

"I mean that you're going to be asked to choose between saving everyone and saving one person. Save everyone, because I'm going to be fine," Ty Lee says as she edges closer to Suki. She wants to be close to her, wants to breathe her in and have her for this last night.

"If they're going to kill you... I can withstand plenty of torture or whatever they want to throw at me. I will not let a single person die. Not because I'm slanted─"

Ty Lee swallows. "You are slanted. I believe that you believe that you wouldn't sacrifice anyone. I had never met somebody like you before I met you."

Suki has heard it before from Ty Lee, but never with such graveness in her tone. In fact, she does not think she has ever heard Ty Lee speak with such seriousness, even in dire situations. "Don't be noble. It's not your job to be noble. It's your job to be that dumb Fire Nation girl who stuns everybody when she knows more about combat than how to fend off other shoppers during the lip paint sale..."

Ty Lee laughs too hard, as she always does. Suki noticed almost immediately that Ty Lee laughs late, laughs hard and laughs long after she probably should have stopped. It was at first unnerving, but became endearing.

"Because I'm that Fire Nation girl... I'm gonna be okay."

"They won't execute their own kind?" Suki asks, confused. She considers the Fire Nation ruthless enough to enjoy the massacre of traitors.

"Have you ever heard the phrase, 'to the victor go the spoils'?"

"And to the losers go the chains," Suki replies softly, still unclear. She wishes for once Ty Lee would just be straightforward about what she wants.

"I'd take being a spoil of war over accepting the chains," Ty Lee says quietly and Suki makes a small growling sound. At that moment, Ty Lee knows she is going to get a long, articulate lecture about the need for clear communication in romantic relationships, and so Ty Lee cuts her off as quickly as possible with a long kiss.

They have one night. One night at the end of the universe, and Ty Lee is not going to waste it explaining herself or trying to find the right words. Suki takes the embrace warmly, although she will not let Ty Lee go when this is over. Not until she has answers.

Ty Lee pulls back and before Suki can speak, she slides her thumbs to her sleeves and starts stripping. Her clothes are different, Suki notices for the first time. She is not in the charred remnants of a uniform, like Suki. She is dressed in pricey red. But Suki is distracted by the slow, carefully timed motions that gradually bare more and more flesh.

Her body is exposed, and parts of her are masked by things that were not there before. She used to have the same maneuverable, cheap underclothes that everyone in the rebellion had. But she is now garbed in lovely lace panties and a taut, restricting bra that her breasts press fiercely against. When she sees Suki's face, she refuses to make eye contact, and instead reaches out and grabs her superior's wrist.

Ty Lee pins Suki down and kisses her neck, refusing to let her go. She slides her hands to every sensitive area that she knows will elicit sweet, addictive moans. Ty Lee kisses Suki's shoulder, and then there are more, a thousand more of those kisses from painted, smooth lips against sweaty, bloodstained skin.

Suki then takes control, driven by her own insatiable desire. She pins down Ty Lee's hands and Ty Lee smiles and laughs, almost forgetting their situation for a moment.

The grinding is utterly perfect. And so is Ty Lee reaching out, grabbing on to any part of Suki she can hold, and then accepting a kiss that she wishes she could live in forever.

It is quiet now. The End of the Universe is not here yet, but it is imminent.

"So what happens?" Suki asks, her voice that of a strong woman who gets what she wants.

It is not all that different from the one that Ty Lee has been reintroduced to, save for the fact that Suki's has integrity, and honesty. Ty Lee cannot think of a time Suki has ever lied to her, even if it was about their dismal odds in battle.

"What happens is that you pass his test, you give me up, and then I..." Ty Lee clenches her jaw. "Okay, I... I might have done something a little unexpected. I arranged with the people the Fire Lord intends to liberate before locking you up. They'll free you, and I know you'll get back to the rebellion."

Suki is speechless.

"I didn't think you had that in you," Suki says slowly, almost laughing but knowing it will hurt too much if she does. "The girl who I found and took in three years ago definitely wouldn't have pulled that together."

Ty Lee shrugs. "I think your attitude might have rubbed off on me a bit too much. You're a really good leader, and they need you. And, uh, I guess, thank you. Thank you for picking me up and saving me that day even though I was the enemy. And thank you for... just things. Let's not... I don't like being so sad."

Suki thinks about protesting before slowly breathing in and out. She is not cold; that has been proven by how many times she has ensured the survival of friends and foes. But she also knows when to accept a deal she cannot pass up. She knows when to take certain kinds of defeat.

"Thank you too," Suki says, swallowing.

The End of the Universe approaches, and Ty Lee forces herself to leave.

Suki sits, speechless and distant, and nothing is right.

She realized far, far too late that Ty Lee is not the kind of person Suki would want to die with.

Ty Lee is the kind of person Suki would want to live with.