Hello, everyone, and welcome to the fic! This is my first Avatar fanfic, and I'm pretty proud of it. I desperately hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Disclaimer: I don't, and will never, own these characters or really anything recognizable in this fic. They're just so good that I can't resist playing with them a little.

Team Avatar -

Meet at the tea shop the night of the new moon. Come in the back door.

- Zuko

"I'm telling you, Suki, this doesn't feel right," Sokka said, following her cautiously through the streets of Ba Sing Se. "Something's up. Look at the note. Since when does Zuko call us Team Avatar?"

"You're being paranoid, Sokka," she sighed. "Look, it's Zuko's handwriting. The tails of the letters always go up like that."

"It's his, all right, but it's sloppy. I mean, for him. And meeting at night on a new moon? Something's definitely up."

"Okay, we'll play it safe. We'll go back to the embassy and get Boomerang…"

"I've got Boomerang. And my space sword." He raised his eyebrows at her rolled eyes. "What? I don't like being unprepared."

"The nations are at peace, Sokka. People aren't trying to kill you anymore. Relax."

"I'll be the one laughing when we're attacked."

She walked on, not dignifying his suspicions with a response. "The sun won't set for another hour," she said. "What should we do until then?"

"We could visit Toph," he suggested.

"Toph's on that training expedition with her students," Suki reminded him. "We don't know if she's back yet."

"She'll be back for the tea shop meeting. Tea shop meetings are sacred."

"He didn't give us a whole lot of warning," she pointed out. "We're lucky we were on Kyoshi when we got the message. We barely had time to find someone to look after the kids. I wonder if Aang and Katara will even make it."

"He's the Avatar, and they've got a flying bison. It shouldn't be a problem," Sokka shrugged.

"We don't know where they were. And Katara's getting on. She might not be able to travel."

"Zuko's obviously in trouble," Sokka said positively. "They'll be there."

"It's only obvious to paranoids like you, Sokka!"

"Hello? Katara's my sister. She's easily my equal on the paranoia scale."

Katara read over the note for the tenth time. "Aang, something's not right," she said.

He looked back at her, something like panic in his wise eyes. "Do we need to stop? I think there's an island a few miles back-"

"No, I'm fine, Aang. We're both fine. I'm talking about Zuko's note. Something's wrong."

The Avatar relaxed visibly. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"When have we ever met at night? On a new moon? And why would we need to come in the back door?" she pondered. "And look at the handwriting. He looks like he wrote it in a hurry."

He frowned, thinking. "I think you might be right. The timing's wrong. It's usually a few months between meetings, but it's only been a few weeks since the last one." He reached for the reins. "Appa, yip yip," he said, spurring the beast on. Appa groaned in reply.

"How far away are we?" Katara asked, resting a hand on her belly as the baby kicked.

"A little more than an hour," Aang replied, speaking from long experience. "You're sure that you're okay?"

"Yes, Aang. Plus, if anything happens, I can take care of myself." she touched the flask of healing water on her left hip, and the emergency fighting water on her right. "I just hope Zuko's okay."

"Me too."

Toph felt the earth cooling beneath her feet. It was getting close to sunset. She needed to hurry if she was going to make the tea shop on time. She knew she should have wrapped up the trip earlier, but some of her students were making such excellent progress that she couldn't tear herself away. At eighteen, she was already the most sought-after earth bending master in the world. A surprising amount of earth benders wanted to learn how to bend metal, but very few of them had the power to do so. She hand-picked the best of the best in the Earth Kingdom to train with her, and so far, they'd impressed her with their abilities. Thus far, four of her students had been able to bend metal. For the others, it was only a matter of time. She allowed herself a smug smile as she thought of how her parents would react to her fleet of metal-bending prodigies.

The street told her she was getting close to the shop. She went there almost every day to spend time with Iroh, the other Ba Sing Se-based veteran of the avatar's war. She liked being there much more than being in the Bei Fong family's opulent vacation house, where her parents spent every spare moment arranging meetings with brave suitors. It had reached the point where they would only come on a bet. That was more than fine with her; everyone else had settled down, but she still liked her freedom.

The shop was less than a block away. It was closed, of course, with only two people in the back room. Iroh and Zuko, she was fairly certain. But as she got closer, she noticed that their hearts were beating too fast in their chests, especially Zuko's. His breathing was off, too. He was injured. Her footsteps sped up until she was almost running to the door. Freezing abruptly, she checked to see if anyone was following her. Then she balled up a fist and hammered on the door.

She felt Iroh approach the door, then heard the sound of the hatch sliding back. "Toph," he greeted in a whisper, opening the door.

"Iroh. Something's wrong," she stated, striding over to where Zuko sat. "Zuko, what happened?"

"Not now. We'll wait until everyone gets here before we talk about anything."