I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Lifting his head, he met the girl's shocked expression. Wide eyes, glistening sapphire pools from which twin streams trickled, peered at him from beneath arched eyebrows, from above an 'o'-shaped mouth. But underneath the shock…disbelief, but not distrust, and a hint of…was that sympathy in her –

Standing, he turned away from the Water Tribe girl. Her words had reopened the wound of his mother's absence, and he wasn't helping himself. Why did he even respond?

His mother's face drifted across the landscape of his mind's eye.

"Remember this, Zuko…"

He always remembered. Remembered that she left in the night, disappeared from the Fire Nation, from his life. Leaving him alone.

"No matter how things may seem to change…"

Alone to be unloved, to be challenged, to be banished. Alone to be scarred.

"…never forget who you are."

Yeah. Who he was. Everyone who sees my face recoils, or sneers, or runs. Only Uncle looks at me with something other than fear or revulsion, and I ignored his advice. Stupid. Why did I think Azula would give me a chance for honor?

"I…I'm sorry I yelled at you."

He shook his head.

"No…it was wrong of me, you didn't deserve…what I mean is, you're in here too. I should have realized –"

A sharp hand gesture cut off whatever else she had meant to say. The last thing he needed right now was her apology. "It doesn't matter. Like you said, we're in here. And unless you know how to Earthbend, that's not going to change anytime soon."

Silence settled on them once again. He wondered when his sister would arrive. Surely she didn't intend to leave him down here for too long? If she'd wanted him dead, she'd have done so aboveground, and there were far more effective ways to torture him.

He winced. Azula always had a motive. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"It's just…"

His right eye twitched as he grimaced. Was the girl ever going to give this up?

"For so long now, whenever I thought of what was chasing us, every time I wondered why we needed those precautions…whenever I imagined the face of our hunter, our enemy…it was your face."

The words slammed into him. He blinked rapidly, his mind reeling. Quickly he sucked in a deep breath, forcing air into the hollow cavern where his heart should have been. But of course. What other face is so memorable? "My face." Slowly, he turned his head, glancing at the girl with the slit of his left eye. "I see."

Her eyes widened, her face a picture of guilt and regret. "No, no, that's not what I meant."

A laugh, harsh and humorless, escaped him. "It's true, though. My face…this scar…"

Fingers were caressing the drawn crimson skin. His fingers.

Facing the girl, he sighed. "It's ok. I used to think it marked me. A badge of shame. The mark of the banished prince, doomed never to return home. To hunt the Avatar forever."

Her eyes weren't piercing or taunting like Azula's yellow orbs, weren't blindly embracing like Uncle's bronze. The blue didn't judge, didn't demand…they pulled him in, allowed him to see himself without bias. He found he wanted her – what was her name? Ka-something? "Katara"? – to know more, for those blue eyes to welcome him.

To accept him.

"But lately, I've realized…there's often a second path, or more. Destiny isn't set…it's…it's something I'm free to choose." His lips quirked in a shadow of a grin. "Even if I can't be free of my mark. Of this."

Water dripped from the ceiling. Methodical, rhythmic.

"Maybe…maybe you could be free of it."

His world flared. He gasped, stumbled, whipped his head to face her. She leaned away from his tight expression, clearly surprised by his reaction…but she didn't flinch. If she wasn't serious…but if she was…

"What?"

Her eyes were watery mirrors reflecting the hope he knew was in his own. "When I was at the North Pole, I learned how to control my healing abilities. I can fight, but I'm a healer, too."

"It's a scar. You can't heal a scar."

But the words crept through him, a slow burn that lit his blood with an unquenchable fire. The tingle began in his fingers, almost as if he were preparing to Firebend. It ran a wild course up his arms, exploding within his breast, warming him with its intensity. His scar tightened, the skin pulling at his face, pulling, until with a deep, shaky breath he forced himself to stay calm.

"I have water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties from the spirits who live there, so I've been saving it for something important. If anything could heal a scar…I don't know…if it would work, but…"

Something important.

She was…had been…his enemy. And yet she offered to heal his scar. Could she? And if she was willing to help him, after all he'd done…the Avatar, too, all those months ago, had offered friendship, and surely he would be grateful for Zuko's freeing his bison…could it be that somehow in this world – and not now, no, now was too soon, but maybe in the future, after he'd shown he was worthy of trust – there might be people he could call "friends"?

And she didn't flinch.

He couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't even blink. Yet she understood anyway – she saw him, and she wanted to help – and slowly drew closer. Warily. Not in the way one approaches a feral tiger-dillo, but in the way one might approach a traumatized soldier or a wounded child.

With compassion. With tenderness. So foreign to him. So desperately needed.

Please.

She nodded as if he had spoken aloud. Perhaps he had. Perhaps it didn't matter.

Fingers were caressing the drawn crimson skin. Her fingers.

The gentle sadness in her eyes as she took in the disfigured skin …the relaxing of her body, less than a foot from his own, from him, the trust in her stance…a wordless language as powerful as any ever spoken…his heart rising in his chest, a light pressure that he hadn't felt in so long, the feeling that someone other than Uncle cared…

He believed her. By all he knew, by all he'd been through, he trusted her.

His eyes flicked down to the humming glow that emanated from the bottle –

An explosive boom smashed the silence, breaking the connection. He leaped back, dimly aware that Katara did the same, as a hailstorm of rocks and boulders burst forth from the far wall.

And when the dust drifted apart, there stood the Avatar.

"Aang!"

He blinked. Katara was no longer beside him. She had run for the Avatar and plowed into him, sweeping him off his feet with a tight embrace.

Zuko nearly toppled over as his uncle rammed into him and enveloped him in a massive, fleshy hug. An electric happiness bolted through his being, but it was short-lived. Beyond his uncle's shoulder a pair of storm clouds overshadowed his joy, promising confrontation.

He could feel his expression tighten, mirroring the expression of the younger boy. The mild atmosphere of the cave soured with the threat of violence, with the history between them.

Caution. Distrust. Anger. Why had he expected anything different?

And why did it hurt so much?

"Aang, I knew you would come."

For a moment, Zuko forgot how to breathe.

She…she what?

So all the talk about her mother, about the spirit water, about his scar, the understanding that he thought had developed between them (of course it had, he had felt it, hadn't he?), her fingers on his scar, his empathy with hers, the moment that had almost been…did it mean anything?

The truth, or just a stalling tactic?

Why had she even bothered?

He needed time to clear his head. "Uncle, what…why are you…you're helping the Avatar!"

The other boy removed himself from Katara's embrace, orienting his small frame toward Zuko. "He and I are working together. We're here to save you."

Zuko snarled and lunged forward, held back only by Uncle's powerful grip. No. You're here to save Katara. I just happen to be here. You couldn't care less about me.

"Go help your friends, we'll catch up later," Uncle told them.

Zuko hung his head, but after a heartbeat his eyes found the kids he had hunted for so long. The sight of them returned the weight to his chest, the brooding chill to his tired bones. Friends. Of course.

They walked off into the tunnel the Avatar had created, moving earnestly, a vibrant energy in their stride. And why shouldn't they be so lively? They were off to help their friends.

Leaving him behind.

Katara looked back only once.

The blue of her eyes glimmered uncertainly from her shadowy silhouette. Her expression seemed downcast…more than Zuko might have thought from someone in her position. She looked guilty, torn, as if she wanted to come back, as if she meant to keep the promise she had made him, to answer his hope.

You said you could heal my scar.

Or maybe there was no guilt. Maybe he just imagined it.

Then she disappeared, and Zuko's hope went with her.

"You're free to choose."

Flicking a hand to dismiss her Earthbender pets, his sister departed down the cave through which the Avatar and Katara had fled. Zuko remained among the brightly glowing crystals.

This was his crossroads, then. Two girls, and a road with two paths. An offer of redemption, a promise of betrayal. Fire and water, nation and world, years of hunting and failure and the elusive promise of success, the young Avatar and the Fire Princess and honor and shame and glory and a father's approval and an uncle's love and a mask and a scar and a girl in a simple dress with kind cerulean eyes –

And at the center of it all, him. Alone with all the lies.

Free.

Shedding his robes, he walked after his sister, his stride purposeful, war on his mind. He tamed his breathing – "Power in Firebending comes from the breath, not the muscle!" – and shook his lethargic limbs to match the adrenaline-fueled clarity of his mind. The fire crackled in his veins, singing for release. His muscles twitched with the memory of years of practice.

I am free. I must be. This is my choice, the chance I have needed.

Following the path that had been chosen, he strode toward his destiny, leaving his uncle behind.

A/N: I was discussing this scene with another author recently when it occurred to me that Zuko was betrayed as well. Katara offered him freedom...and then never delivered. Perhaps this is another part of why it takes so long for her to forgive Zuko? Because his betrayal, and all its ramifications, resulted from her own inaction, her own failure to be kind? Food for thought ;)

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