The pretty girl stormed through the forest, ignoring the branches that pulled her braided brown hair, and the sharp twigs that scratched her arms and face, cracking back as they flung out behind her. If you stood in front of her, you would be bulldozed over, because her face was murderous, and her azure eyes flashed icily, daring anyone to try and stop her.

Matching her pace, step for step, was a considerably shorter girl with black hair, fair skin and pretty, misty eyes. Her green dress was being tugged at by the forest, but she brushed them away carelessly. The wind seemed to howl in protest, but the two girls ignored it and pounded on.

An older boy with the same stunningly blue eyes as his sister tried to get into step with the two girls, but kept getting smacked in the face, chest and stomach from the backlash of the harsh pace of his friends, continually winding him. The scratches on his face were bleeding, and he received a black eye from one furiously snapping twig. Clapping a hand to the bruise he gasped out, "Katara-"

The girl with the braid trembled and stopped suddenly, causing her brother to almost walk right into her. The trembling continuing, she spun around, and there was a maniac glint in her eyes. The short girl stopped, but stayed where she was. "Sokka," Katara's fists were clenched, her nails biting into her palms. "If you say you're hungry, or that you wish that Appa and Momo were here, I'll- I'll-" Apparently Katara didn't have words to express her disgust.

"No, Katara, we need to find shelter. There's going to be a storm."

Katara took a step towards her brother, but he didn't back down. Angry that she wasn't intimidating him, Katara swore and turned away, fully intending to walk away from them, but a young voice stopped her.

"Katara, Sokka's right. I can feel it. I was going to bring it up in a bit." The small girl said. Sokka glared at the blind earthbender, silently cursing her for not saying something sooner. She didn't notice, looking to where Katara had stopped again.

Her shoulders sagged and she turned around. "Toph…" she muttered, looking down at the ground, eyes half-lidded.

"We're all tired," Sokka told her firmly yet gently, ready to argue the point now that she had been diffused. "And since there is a storm coming, they will have to stop too."

Katara said nothing, but walked at a much slower pace, looking left and right for shelter. Sokka smiled and glanced at Toph, who was also grinning. Katara could be gotten through to. She was not consumed… yet. The two friends were just going to have to stop her from getting to that point. They followed her, Sokka scanning and Toph feeling the vibrations of the earth to see.

Katara had not been herself for the past few days. She was enraged all the time and ready to snap at anyone. She wanted to march day and night to get Aang back, no sleep, no food, not even water, which was her element. The searing, agonizing pain that clawed at her stomach seemed to lessen when they were moving. Her face was gaunter and her eyes more sunken than normal. In fact, all of them were. No one was getting much sleep, or wanting base desires such as food, even Sokka. No one had ever captured Aang for this long. Ever. They found him not being there extremely disconcerting, and habit made them look for Aang's face when they saw a butterfly or squirrel, but it wasn't there. No wide smile when an animal crossed their path, no excited words when he learned a new bending move. There was a gaping hole in all of them.

Toph sighed. She had become so used to his light footsteps, carefully walking beside one of the three. Twinkle toes, she had called him. The young earthbender smiled weakly at the thought of her teasing him. And his footfalls were so light and gentle, he deserved the nickname. Toph sighed again before she realized what she was feeling. "I found a cave you guys," she called out over the now howling wind, making her shiver. "This way."

The two water tribe children followed their friend into the shelter of a fairly spacious cave when the first raindrops started to fall. It soon turned into a deluge of water, pounding down on the trees and ground outside. The trio moved further back into their cave. They huddled together, and Sokka dully commented, "Looks like we're not going to have a fire tonight." Toph turned her head and stared at him, but Katara didn't move. She sat straight-backed and rigid, staring out at the pouring rain. Her eyes were glazed over, remembering. Then she turned and waterbended some of the liquid onto her hand as a glove, healing Sokka's black eye and cuts quickly. Her brother sighed and relaxed, the stinging disappearing. Then, as if on orders she robotically and automatically laid out her sleeping bag.

The other two hesitated before following suit. Toph made her earth tent, and Sokka lay down beside his sister. She stared up at the ceiling of the cave. Sokka nervously closed his eyes. She was giving into it; it was going to control her soon. She had to calm down. Why did she have to be so susceptible to her feelings? Sokka wondered as he rolled over. Why couldn't girls just let things go…?

Toph covered her eyes with her hands and breathed deeply. She knew how Katara was feeling. She also knew that if her rage didn't simmer down soon, she would destroy herself. The waterbender was already beating herself up too much over that day. Aang did not blame her, she was sure of that. He wouldn't do that…

Katara shifted so she was looking out at the curtain of water falling from the heavens. She wanted to scream and rage, and run away, far away from everything. She wanted to let out the animal trying to force its way out of her stomach. She… she didn't know what she wanted to do, but she knew that she couldn't stand doing nothing. Looking at, but not seeing, the rain outside, her mind wandered over to the memory that she had been holding back, and it started immediately, as though it had been waiting for her.

Zuko smiled in an almost painful way, knocking her forcefully against a tree. Katara's head hit the trunk hard, and she saw stars popping colorfully in front of her eyes. She shook it to get rid of them, and a pounding started thudding in her brain. The waterbender realized that she had slid to the base of the tree, but these thoughts were coming very sluggishly to her mind. She watched everything that happened next as though it was an old movie.

Zuko knocked out Sokka easily with a fireball to his head while he was busy with the old man. Toph seemed rather reluctant to fight him, for who knew why, but she attacked Zuko viciously. The banished fire prince fell to the ground, rocks under his feet rumpled. He jumped up and away just in time to avoid Aang's air blast. It caught Toph instead, and the young earthbender flew into the air. Aang would have caught her but Zuko bowled him over and pinned him to the ground. Toph fell to the earth, unable to bend enough to save her, although her earth bed stopped her from being killed. She fell unconscious as her head hit the ground. The old man sedately walked over to his nephew as Zuko hit Aang in the back of his head. The Avatar went limp.

"I have him," Zuko said, his voice sounding like he couldn't believe it himself. "Let's go." The two firebenders left, dragging Aang along behind them.

The scene flickered, and Katara's last few thoughts were scattered.

'I'll have to heal them…'

'Zuko's gotten better…'

'The sky's really blue…'

Her vision left and everything went dark. She could feel blackness creeping up on her.

'Where'd everyone go?'

And she fainted.

Katara growled quietly. From the absence of Sokka's usual snores, Katara could tell that she wasn't the only one lying awake. The waterbender closed her eyes, listening to the rhythmic pounding on all objects. It soothed her slightly until a thought floated up from the depths of her mind.

'If only I'd been better…'

If only she hadn't been so easy. If only she'd let all she had loose onto those two firebenders! She could have saved Aang; she believed it deep in her heart. Beside that was another memory that played before her shut lids.

Katara opened her eyes to find a horrible pounding in her head. She stared up at the leaves above her head for a moment before trying to sit up. Bad idea. The pounding tripled its beat and she started to become dizzy. Katara moaned softly and leaned back down.

All at once, everything that had happened earlier that day hit home to her.

Despite her protesting brain, Katara sat bold upright, staring around. Toph was leaning against a tree, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. Her brother was sitting and staring at the ground. His eyes were unfocused, and he didn't seem to hear her get up.

"Sokka?" Katara croaked hoarsely. Sokka jumped and looked around. Seeing his younger sister, he tottered unsteadily over to her. Katara could see the large welt at the back of his head where he had been hit, but it didn't really register. Sokka grabbed one of Katara's hands, his blue eyes the reflection of her own. "Katara," he whispered, gripping her hand tighter. "Katara, they took him."

Katara's free hand went to her mother's necklace. The waterbender staggered back as though hit. Her vision swam as she felt tears well up in her eyes and begin to overflow-

No! Katara almost shouted, turning over and slamming her face into her pillow, shattering the flashback. No! She screamed again in her head. No more tears! No more crying, no more weakness!

All three companions had been devastated at the loss of their perky friend, and were sad for three days straight, especially once they realized he really wasn't coming back. After that, Toph and Sokka hid their grief from view, trying to act as normal as possible. Katara, however, hardened, and the new rage she felt was ready to bubble up at any moment and snap at anyone who tried to talk to her. She felt a passion for trying to find Aang preparing to overwhelm her, but her friends stopped her, knowing she would kill herself if she let it take over.

Since Katara viewed it that it was her fault Aang was gone, she almost wanted to die. He was in the clutches of two Fire Nation men, one of them Zuko, who might do anything to him at any time. Katara wanted to shout with the injustice of it. He should be here with them. Perhaps then they would be pretending to laugh at one of Sokka's stupid jokes, or watching Toph and Sokka get into an argument.

Katara shook herself and rolled to look at her two traveling companions. It looked as though they were asleep. They were both completely healed from that fateful day, as Katara had waterbended them back to health, but their pain went deeper. This blow hit them hard, hit them home. It hit them in their very souls.

Katara shuddered and snuggled deeply into her sleeping bag. The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner she would wake up and continue their tracking for Aang. Katara knew that when she got there she would kill Zuko. Kill him for taking Aang away from the world and from them. Kill him for making her worry, kill him for almost making it back to the Fire Nation with him. Kill him for existing. Katara knew she would.

With the comforting thought, the waterbender drifted off to sleep, a slight smile on her face, which was a nice change even considering that it was a mean one.

The other two fell asleep as well, knowing that they would have to deal with Katara's rage in the morning, but knowing, deep down, that they would be right by her side when she turned onto Zuko.