Re-watching the show has made me think about a lot of things. Some insights, if you will, into the characters and events that are not quite as they seem. This is what I have come up with. Hope you enjoy. More is to come.

Technically…Zuko is Aang's grandson

Zuko unpacked the handful of possessions he had brought along, wondering if it was even worth it. The incense holder for his meditation had been his uncle's, the dagger from his uncle, and the portrait of his mother were the most precious, physical things he had. Would any of the group come in and wreak them for revenge?

He shook his head. Surely they were all too good to stoop to that level. He wasn't in the Fire Nation any more. He wasn't dealing with spoiled noble children.

"Hey, jerk bender."

Mostly, he knew that any member of the Avatar's group had more creative methods of revenge than property damage.

Zuko turned his head to the open door and saw the Water Tribe boy, Sokka, he reminded himself, leaning against the door frame, boomerang in one hand.

"Sokka. Is there something I can help you with?" Zuko asked carefully. The water bender had already leveled her threat against him, quite clearly, and Zuko wondering if the coin was about to flip to the other side.

"Sure," the boy answered casually. Zuko didn't trust it. "I was hoping you could tell me that this is all just an elaborate trick of you and your insane sister to finish what you started in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se."

"I thought that you people valued honesty," Zuko replied evenly. "I've said nothing but the truth since I've gotten here."

Sokka straightened and entered Zuko's room without waiting for an invitation. Zuko raised his only eyebrow and made a welcoming and sardonic hand gesture behind the other boy's back.

"Yeah, honesty is nice," Sokka agreed, now leaning against the wall. Zuko matched his posture though refrained from drawing either his dagger or his dao to counter the boomerang.

"So what did you really come here for?" Zuko asked.

The casual demeanor was dropped, replaced by intense scrutiny.

"I want to know why, after everything else that has happened, you suddenly came to the revelation that helping Aang is your destiny. The exact reason. Right now."

"That's private," Zuko answered, testing to see if his privacy would be kept. No such luck and he had figured it wouldn't.

"Not good enough," Sokka informed him.

It was a foregone conclusion that Zuko would be giving Sokka some sort of answer before the other boy would leave. The former prince considered his options, not to conceal anything or lie, but to determine what to say that the warrior would understand. Uncle had told him once that the Water Tribes valued family, that was the angle.

"One night, I found a note left on my bed that said I needed to know the real story of how my great grandfather had died," Zuko began.

"You mean Sozin," Sokka said.

"That's what I thought," Zuko confirmed. "But after, after he started the war and wiped out the Air Nomads, Sozin just kept searching for the Avatar until he died in his sleep as an old man."

"So what was the truth?" Sokka asked.

"The note had a hidden message that directed me to the Fire Sages' hidden library. I read Sozin's journal that he wrote before his death." Here, Zuko paused. "He wrote about how he and Roku had started off as friends."

"Yeah, yeah. Roku even spared the guy's life and your evil great grandfather left him to die in that volcano just to get him out of the way," Sokka interrupted.

Zuko couldn't have been more shocked if the boy had declared he was secretly a fire bender.

"What?" he demanded. "How could you possibly know that? No one else in the Fire Nation even knows that!"

Sokka grinned as the former prince sputtered. "Aang went on this spiritual journey thing and Roku told him."

"He did? He spoke with Roku?"

"Yeah," Sokka said, starting to look concerned at Zuko's reaction. "He's talked with Roku a couple of times. Why is that so important? And what was so important in Sozin's journal that told you something different about his death?"

Zuko shook off his discomfort and continued, "That was my question when I went to my uncle in prison. He was the only one who would have sent me that note. He told me that Sozin isn't my only great grandfather—"

"Well that's obvious," Sokka drawled. "You've actually got four great grandfathers or is that not good enough for the Fire Nation?"

Zuko ignored the insult. "The great grandfather my uncle was trying to tell me about is Roku."

It was Sokka's turn to look stunned. "Wait a minute. Roku is your great grandfather?"

"Yeah. My mom's grandfather."

"Okay, say I believe you. What does that have to do with your suddenly revealed, grand destiny?"

"It helped show me that I had two choices about how to live," Zuko explained. "Two paths that I could take to be either more like Sozin or more like Roku."

"And you finally chose Roku," Sokka surmised.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you are."

The two boys stared at each other for long moments, Zuko waiting for judgment and Sokka deliberating said judgment.

"So, one of your great grandfathers was the Avatar," Sokka finally said slowly. "And Aang is now the Avatar.'

"So?"

The grin that broke across Sokka's face was disturbing.

"So that means that Aang is your great grandfather!"

Zuko's jaw dropped, he was certain while Sokka burst into laughter.

"It doesn't work like that!" Zuko protested once he broke free of his stupor. "The Avatar, this, Avatar isn't my great grandfather!"

"Whatever you say, Sonny-boy!"

Sokka practically skipped out of Zuko's room and went meandering down the hall, shouting, "Aang! Did you know that Zuko is your great grandson?"

Zuko pelted after him, initiating a chase that covered most of the air temple. "It's not like that!" he shouted after him.

Zuko wished that Sokka would just keep calling him 'jerk bender.'