"Do you understand what to do?"

I nodded slowly.

"Do you remember what will happen if you don't?"

I nodded again.

"Now, if you do what you're told, that doesn't have to happen. If you disobey however, it happens immediately. Got it?"

I looked down and closed my eyes angrily. I single tear dripped down the side of my face onto the floor.

"Good." I could almost hear the smile in her cold voice.

Suddenly, the girl whipped around and narrowed her eyes at something out the window that I couldn't see from the ground. She turned to the two girls whispering to each other off to the side.

"Quiet," she hissed. "Someone's coming."

And I was alone.

I wiped the side of my face off on the blood-red fabric that concealed the skin of my shoulder, and then let my tired head hang. I prayed to Agni and Yue and every other god and influential person I had ever met or heard of, I even sent a prayer out to Koh, the face-stealer.

The door swung gently open. I heard soft footsteps on the floor. I dragged my heavy head up to face the new person in the room, dreading what I knew I would see. I squeezed my eyelids together, afraid to open them, just delaying the moment really. I pressed them together as tightly as I could. Wishing with all of my being that the person was anyone else. Praying that they leave, would spare themselves. The door creaked open another inch and a shaft of light fell onto my face.

"Katara?!"

My eyes opened in a flash at the sound of the voice. It was, of course, who I'd expected, but hearing the pure, sweet sound of that voice sent a wave of shock through me. Maybe shock wasn't the right word. More like shock, disbelief, panic, sadness, and fear all rolled into one. Nevertheless, I knew that my pupils had shrunk and my breathing had become quite labored, as was the case whenever I was afraid. And although every part of my being was crying out to run and yell at the person to get out – get out while they still could – I just sat there. Sat with my eyes as wide as they've ever been and my lungs straining against my chest so hard I thought I might explode, but not moving a muscle.

"Katara! I can't believe I found you!"

The person fell to their knees in front of me and threw their arms around my neck. I felt my arms wrap around them to answer the hug. Under their arms, the cloak I was wearing shifted slightly.

The person pulled away, and the huge, beaming smile fell off their face as they caught sight of my own distraught face.

"What's wrong? Are you all right?"

I wanted to say no. Every inch of my being was again screaming that I should take off out of the open door and pull this person along with me, or at least shove them out the door and block the way, but just as before, something stopped me. I was thinking, pondering… choosing.

My lips tugged up at the corners slightly as I attempted to smile at the person, and I tried to make my face look less hysterical then I felt. I didn't want my eyes to betray me, so I closed them, and when I opened them a second later, they were empty. I wasn't sure how it looked, but it felt forced to me.

Apparently, the person believed my acting skills, or at least pretended to for the time being, because they smiled slightly back at me and stood up, offering me a hand.

"C'mon, Katara. Sokka's are worried sick. You and Zuko left yesterday to look for Azula. We've been looking everywhere for you two."

I stared at his hand, and was temporarily distracted from my mental debate by his words. I didn't want Sokka to worry.

I shook my head (both in response to his words and to clear out my head again – I had, after all, only a few seconds left to make the terrible decision)

"Why?" he asked in his small, perfect voice.

Automatically, I glanced at the door opposite the open one he had entered from, and then quickly glanced back at him. The look had been almost instantaneous, but he caught it anyway. He turned towards the door and took a few steps. His hand rested on the doorknob.

"What's this–"

"No–" I started to gasp. And then I winced. Stupid Katara.

He glanced back at me.

"Is everything okay, Katara?"

I froze. Alright. I really couldn't put it off for another second now. I had to make the choice right then, because how I responded would change everything.

It would have been easier if my heart and my head had been screaming different things. But they were screaming the same thing: they couldn't decide.

Could I really take away the world's last hope for peace? Of course not.

I dug my nails into my palms so hard I felt blood squishing under my fingernails. I didn't care.

Logic couldn't help me. Not when my head couldn't figure a way out of it, and I had both the beautiful expression of the person standing in front of me and the feeling of the black iron on my ankle. I rubbed the chain against my skin with the other heel in thought as I pondered this (rather frantically, I may add) for a second. Logic couldn't help me.

In my mind, centuries had lapsed since I'd heard the voice that sounded like music, but it had really only been two or three seconds. He probably wouldn't notice. In fact, I realized, I didn't want him to. I was going to make the choice from my gut… at the very last second, so my mind would not have time to interfere.

"What?" I said, pretending I hadn't heard him.

Pathetic. I'd heard him. I just wanted to hear his voice, in case it was the last time.

"Katara is there any reason why I shouldn't go in there?" he asked gently, lowering his voice as if he was speaking to a child. It was the most bitter kind of irony, I had always thought of him somewhat like a child of my own. And yet, what I needed to do…

ALL RIGHT! My mind screamed. DO IT NOW!

My brain shut down.

"No," I heard my mouth say in an empty, unrecognizable voice. "No reason at all."

He nodded at me with another barely-there smile and turned to the door. He twitched the doorknob and stepped cautiously inside.

"Hello, Avatar," I heard Azula say.

I felt the static of the lightening whip through the air, and Aang's body flew out of the room and landed with a hard thump in the middle of my room.

I winced and closed my eyes as he hit the floor, but I didn't move from my place.

Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee walked in through the door followed by a few Dai Li agents.

"Well, that was… interesting," the Princess said.

"A deal is a deal," I hissed at her through my teeth.

"So it is," she said.

She held out a hand out towards the Dai Li agents dangling a key. One man disappeared back into the room, while a second man took the key, walked over to me, and shoved it into the lock on my ankle. The lock popped open, freeing my ankle, but leaving an exposed red ring on my skin. At a sound, Azula glanced beyond the doorway into the connected room. She nodded, and then turned back to me.

"Hurry up."

She glanced down at Aang, who lay motionless but for a shock or two of electricity that ran through his body, twitching it involuntarily. She kicked him lightly in the arm.

"We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him, would we?"

I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Show me."

She raised one eyebrow slightly in an amused way.

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yes," I growled back. "Show him to me, or I'll let Aang die."

The last part appeared to shock her for half a second, before she regained her smooth face, with a hint of a smirk playing on her lips.

"Fine."

She waved into the adjoining room, and the first Dai Li agent walked back in supporting a limp Zuko. He looked horrible, but still, I almost smiled seeing him alive and (mostly) unharmed.