a/n:Time travel au, been looking forward to this

"My past is everything I failed to be."

― Fernando Pessoa

They were falling, end over end, in a world of fire.

While Avatar Aang was locked in combat with Fire Lord Ozai, airships were crumbling, and falling out of the sky. Like so much refuse, metal bent and broke, crashing together and grinding with enough noise to make a war sound peaceful.

Sokka was running across the top one shattering zeppelin, feeling like his world was falling apart just like the ships he'd just destroyed. He really did a number on them, to disastrous effect.

First, he lost Suki, somewhere far behind them as the metal split in two between them. Sokka had yelled her name, just before he lost sight of her. Soon enough only splitting metal was the only thing he could see.

Then as the fleet crumbled to its final legs, the smooth metal beneath their feet collapsed inward, and Sokka lost his hold on Toph's arm. Heartbeat racing into a rising panic, he called out for her uselessly, falling out of sight as the ship tilted to the side. His feet slid rapidly down the hull, trying to stabilize himself with a blade that sank much too easily through sheets of iron.

He lost them. Lost them both.

Sokka finally managed to claw his way back upright, where he wasn't in danger of falling down to oblivion, but by the time he'd made it up, Toph was already missing. He ran across what little of the ship was still intact, calling out for her, for Suki. Though with the crashing, the noise, it would take nothing less than a miracle for his voice to reach him or theirs to him.

And Sokka didn't believe in miracles.

He started to cough and choke as the blanket of smoke from the flames the Fire Lord had loosed upon the land finally rose up high enough to reach him. Or for them to have sunken low enough to….

He didn't get the chance to really think it through. Sharp pings of bolts flying from their sockets caught the warrior's attention before the surface he was standing on veered upward abruptly as it disconnected from the rest of the ship. It was so unexpected and fast that Sokka didn't get a chance to steady himself. He was thrown from his place as the ship split, rotating slowly. As he passed near the underside of the zeppelin, Sokka barely managed to catch a hold of a long piece of catwalk, howling in pain at the strain it put on his fingers. He dropped his sword, the spinning black blade flung up out of sight.

The treeline was in sight, rushing by rapidly as the falling ships got closer and closer to the ground.

The first impact jostled Sokka's hands lose, and he was forced to let go before the pressure broke his fingers. He closed his eyes at the rush of wind surrounding him, flying from the wreckage. Sokka was helpless to wherever he would land.

The charred skeleton of a squat tree broke his fall, collapsing into ash and crumbly coal beneath his body. Sokka survived the crash, but only just. Upon striking the ground, an audible set of cracks heralded his spine fracturing in several places, and through the cloud of agony that assaulted him, Sokka realized with a dim certainty that he couldn't get up. Even if he could fight through the pain with everything he had, with a broken back, his body just couldn't physically support itself anymore. It was an utter ruin of an injury that would be certain to permanently debilitate him if he even survived the day.

And, just when he thought that was the worst, the distant sound of wind reached his ears. Sokka looked up to the sky, seeing a blur of plummeting metal and turned away from the sight.

The searing sensation of Sokka's own sword sinking through his chest was impossible to ignore. The blade pierced all the way through, impaling him like a fish on a spear.

In some ways, the irony was the worst part. The warrior attempted to wrestle with the hilt for just a few moments, thinking to pull it out, humiliated by the very thought of dying on his own sword. But his hands were shaking and useless from pain, tearing gashes in his palms on the razor-sharp black iron before dropping his hands to his sides, defeated.

Sokka closed his eyes, breathing hard.

This was how it would end.

He was lying on a bed of ash and charcoal in the middle of a destroyed forest, a swath of destruction far larger in scale to the land devastation that had angered the Hei Bai spirit. The worst of the fire had moved on, but embers and smaller blazes still surrounded him, and sooner or later, they'd take him too. And there was nothing Sokka could do but lie there and wait for it to happen. And who knew if Toph and Suki were alright.

His cynicism reared its head again. 'Mucked it up again, didn't you?'

They could still be alright. He didn't know. Sokka clenched his jaw, shaking madly, and tried not to think, knowing how close he was to breaking down.

At the very least, they'd stopped the Fire Lord, right? Even if he died for it, that meant something.

But when he opened his eyes, the sight in the sky stopped him cold. The horizon was awash with colors of blue and red, flickering, growing and shrinking. Slowly, inevitably, the crimson light swallowed up everything until it's rival vanished entirely. This was heralded by a victorious wave of flame, spiraling high into the sky.

The dread that fell upon everything was unsettling, frightening. And it sent his instincts haywire.

Sokka raised his hand to the sky, waiting for the sound of wind, rushing of water, crashing of rock. A voice. Anything to tell him that the worst hadn't happened. But there was nothing. Nothing except for the sound of fire, cracking and consuming everything.

And Sokka knew as he dropped his hand, in that horrifying moment, that his best friend was gone.

There wasn't a force in the world that could stop the tears then.

He didn't know how long he laid there, unable to move, unable to do anything but think about how badly they failed. Sokka started to cough and choke, spitting out blood. The sword had ruptured something inside him, causing him to bleed both inside and out. It wouldn't be long now.

It was the cool sensation of someone's hand wrapping around his that startled Sokka back to awareness. His gaze shifted, turning to his right side to find a beautiful young woman sitting on the charred ground next to him, long white hair flowing like water down her shoulders. She was immaculate; the dust and ash didn't so much as mar her pale dress, and drifted away in the air without touching her. Even the blood running off his hands couldn't do anything to stain her. The air around them had grown quiet, almost muted, and a calm aura bubbled in the warrior's chest that eased his racing heart and slowed to dripping of blood. When she held onto his hand, the pain dulled, like a cool compress for a pounding headache.

"Yue…" He rasped, fighting through everything just for the chance to speak to her, "I'm sorry-"

Yue used her free hand to press a finger to his lips, a small, bittersweet smile on her face. "Please don't. This isn't your fault. None of this is your fault." Sokka shook his head weakly, wanting to disagree, but she pushed on regardless, "I don't want to see you hurting yourself like this." Yue quieted, a wounded look appearing in her gaze.

For a moment, they looked out over the ruined landscape, fire and fallen metal as far as the eye could see. Maybe they were in over their heads right from the beginning.

"Did you come because I'm going to die?" Sokka said, voice barely above a whisper.

It wasn't the right thing to say. He knew it from the moment the words left his mouth, but couldn't take them back. Yue was already so sad, for him. There was no reason to twist the damage further. But curiously, the words only seemed to make her straighten up, a more determined countenance coming over her. "No, Sokka. This isn't the end. I'm going to save you."

"...What? Why?" He couldn't understand. The Fire Lord had won. The war was lost. What good could there come from saving him now, after everything was said and done?

She looked briefly disappointed before continuing on in a certain voice, "Because there's still hope." Yue didn't give him a chance to give words to his confusion before she turned her head and gestured at the offending sword still implanted in his body. "Did you know that the heavens remember, Sokka? When a shooting star fell on this world, you took it and made it into your weapon," She paused, admiring the sleek blade, the blade that Sokka made with his own hands. And then turned towards him again, "But there was a memory inside it too. It is a memory of the last time the foreign metal within that sword circled this world."

In spite of how his mind was growing progressively more muddled and hazy with blood loss, Sokka's mind was still working madly, "The...last time…." The past? That's what she meant?

"I can't force you. I won't," She said, somber. "If you want me to...to let you go. But there is one more chance to fix this. With your sword, we can send you back to that time, using this memory as a waypoint. Before any of this ever happened."

Despite the pain, Sokka's eyes brightened in shock. If he weren't paralyzed and pinned to the ground, he would have jumped to his feet. "You...can do that?"

"Well, not alone."

And for the first time since she had appeared before him, Sokka noticed that Yue wasn't the only spirit in his presence. There were the shapes of other spirits all around, hanging close by, far more translucent and indistinct but undoubtedly present. The air seemed filled with fog, the world rendered surreally silent by their very presence there. He stared for a moment as they waited silently, hanging on his word, and started to understand.

Aang talked about spirits and balance and for longest time Sokka had derided it. To be honest, he still saw a lot of spirituality as being unnecessary, but…. Spirits were real, he knew that. And what happened here affected them as well. Them, his world, his people...they all needed this decision. Lived and died for it even. Even if part of Sokka may have wanted to give up, he couldn't. He had an obligation for everyone he cared about to keep going.

"Yes…" Sokka said, with all the certainty his battered body could muster. "I want to try."

"Thank you…" Yue smiled, soft and sincere for a moment, before her expression sobered. "Fire Lord Ozai is at the center of this vortex. In order to undo this, you must stop him from reaching this point and prevent this tragedy from ever happening."

"By any means necessary," Sokka said, feeling his hands curl into tight fists.

Yue stared quietly and lowered her face, "If that's what has to be done." A moment passed and the girl turned spirit lifted her hand to the sword's handle, pausing just before her fingers touched the surface. "We don't have any more time, but I can only warn you that this will hurt. I...I won't be able to shield you from it, Sokka. I'm sorry."

He nodded firmly, closing his eyes and bracing himself.

Sokka was already beginning to fade away. It had to be now or never.

Yue's own nerves steeled as she wrapped both of her hands around the grip of the warrior's sword. She was only partly corporeal, but the weapon's otherworldly metal responded to her, to the call of the moon. A glow spread from her fingers and over the hilt, down the length of the metal. The spirits who gathered to her side pooled their power into her grasp. Enough to tear a hole into Now and Then. It wouldn't last; maintaining the power to open a doorway through time for longer than a moment or two was far beyond the power of any amount of spirits. Not daring to hesitate, lest this fail, Yue tightened her grip and yanked the sword up out of Sokka's chest. His howl of pain was agonizing to hear on so many levels. Her hands shook from the torture.

And then she cut it short, plunging the blade down into his heart.

With a sudden rush of air, they were enveloped in white light, consuming her, the blade, Sokka. Everything else disappeared into the abyss, out of existence. And the world moved backwards. As Then became Now, everything after it crumbled.

The world's clock rewound thirty-two years into the past.

To the last memory of a shooting star, and a hope for a better future.