Zuko couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so soundly. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so relaxed and untroubled. Which was exactly why he was doing his best to ignore the insistent tugging at the corner of his consciousness. He wasn't quite ready to move away from the calm of half sleep and return to the reality of the world around him.

"Zuko, please, we don't have much time."

The urgency in Katara's voice made him open his eyes. He groaned, struggling to sit up, the torn muscles in his stomach making it known that he was far from healed after his comet-fueled duel with Azula. Katara crawled onto the bed to help him, tugging him and coaxing him to stand. She sniffled, and Zuko rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times before looking at her, finally and fully realizing that something wasn't quite right. The unshed tears in her eyes put him on full alert. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. The tips of his fingers tingled. Zuko forced himself to stand, quickly surveying the room. His room, the room he'd slept in as a child in the Fire Nation palace. There weren't any signs of battle, no bodies lying around, which was a good thing. Two hooded figures waited in the doorway to his bedroom, one of them holding a cloak, the other looking back into the sitting room. Katara was wearing a cloak. Zuko took a shaky breath, hoping to fully push sleep away and calm his racing heart. It was pitch black outside, and with a pang in his heart, Zuko knew they would be leaving the palace. Escaping the palace.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

Katara was whispering something to him as she helped him dress, her eyes wide and her hair wild the way it always was when she tugged at it. Absently, Zuko smoothed it down and Katara jumped, the near constant flow of words stopping. She blinked at him and a few tears spilled over, but she didn't wipe them away, just grabbed his hand and led him to the door. Zuko looked over his shoulder as they moved further away from the bed, and he waited. He looked back at his bed, the bed he'd longed to sleep in for so many years, and waited. He waited to feel…what? Pain? Fear? Maybe the numbing tea Katara had made for him the night before hadn't quite worn off yet, but Zuko knew he would be grateful for it when they finally had to talk about what happened. Or didn't happen. He stopped, standing in the middle of his bedroom, trying to breathe.

"Your majesty, Master Katara is right, we must hurry."

Zuko looked at the hooded people in the doorway. They'd thrown their hoods back, and Zuko had a sick feeling that he knew exactly what happened. His head spun, and he was starting to feel woozy at hearing Hau's voice. And if Hau was there, the other person was Yina. Two people who held prominent places among the palace staff, Yina managing all of the servants, overseeing their hiring, training and firing, Hau being a Chief Secretary, in charge of managing official schedules, setting up appointments and organizing the princes' days, though before they'd left, he'd reported more to Iroh than Ozai. When people finally started to emerge after the fight with Azula, it didn't surprise Zuko at all that Hau and Yina were right at the front, demanding that people bow and acknowledge their Fire Lord. They'd led the injured and exhausted teens back to the palace and made sure they were patched up and fed, and gave them rooms to sleep in. They'd arranged for guards to stand watch over them, and through the whole night, no harm had come to them.

Zuko nodded, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat, the dread firmly planted in the pit of his stomach. It seemed their good luck was finally at an end. He spared himself a small smile, remembering when Yina was first hired. He'd hated her until she made him a peace offering—a dessert custard with a crunchy sugar coating on top. Once, he'd told Aang about how great they were, how you could mix in your favorite fruit, and Aang had been so excited. He'd made Zuko promise that, after they won the war, they could all have some of this delicious sounding custard. He felt like he would throw up.

"Zuko…"

Katara's voice was weak. He'd never heard her sound that way. Even when she was exhausted, or when she was near tears after they'd seen that stupid play at Ember Island, her voice always had a steel behind it. She'd always been strong. Now, she just sounded…broken.

Stiffly, Zuko walked back to the bed and opened a drawer in the nightstand, feeling around for the secret compartment. He pulled out the pouch of money and valuables that he'd stashed there, then hobbled back over to Katara, his body aching already. He'd need it to hold out quite a bit longer. Katara came forward to meet him, helping him into his cloak with shaking hands, and he stuffed the pouch into an inside pocket.

"We won't be coming back for a long time, will we, Secretary Hau?" Zuko asked, trying desperately not to sound like a scared child.

"I do not think so," the older man replied quietly, a slight tremor in his voice.

Zuko nodded and the group left, Katara throwing his arm over her shoulders to help him walk. She leaned against him almost as much as he was leaning against her. That was fine. They would support each other. They would have to support each other. At least they had each other. What about Toph? Or Sokka and Suki? His heart beat even quicker, his legs going weak. They had to be alright. It couldn't be possible that one of them… They were with Aang…

"This was supposed to be it," Katara whispered, trying to bear more of Zuko's weight. "We were supposed to win."

Katara took another shaky breath and Zuko stopped in the hallway to hug her. She clung to him tightly, a few sobs escaping, even though he could tell she was trying to hold it back. He tried to talk to her, to tell her that they would find a way, that at least they had each other, but every time he tried to say something, his own voice cracked. Sighing, he gave her a final squeeze, then held her hand as they slowly went down the hallway. Hau, Yina, and the guards who'd been watching over them kept a respectful distance, perhaps realizing just how hard this was going to be.

"Quickly," Yina said, opening a secret passage in the hallway. "The others are waiting for us outside. We'll fly as far as we can tonight before resting again. We need to be far from the capitol when…"

Yina busied herself with a flint and spark, lighting a torch just inside the passageway. She stepped back so a few of the soldiers could go in front. The rest would follow behind them. Yina's nickname among the servants was the Iron Maiden because she was always so strict with them, demanding nothing less than perfection. She rarely showed emotion, and Zuko could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen her openly smile, but when she turned toward them to make sure they were following, there was terror in her eyes. Behind them, Hau cleared his throat.

"We need to be as far away from the capitol as we can by the time…Ozai returns," Hau said.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, and when they finally emerged into the night, the dim light of the moon almost seemed too bright. Zuko shielded his eyes as he waited for them to adjust. When they finally did, he was completely unprepared for what he saw. The tunnel opened up close to the ocean in an area shielded from sight by high cliffs. From here, several boats could be launched without much fanfare or notice, and several boats were on the shore. Scores of people moved around, loading the ships with supplies. When they noticed the newcomers, they all stopped to bow, their mouths moving as they whispered something to him, but Zuko's mind was drawn away by something else, his ears filled with a rhythmic thumping and a low wail.

Appa.

Further down the beach, the sky bison raised his massive head toward the moon and let out a low, keening sound that shook Zuko to his very core, made him hurt in a way that no amount of medicine could cure. The people stood and resumed their tasks as Appa slapped his tail against the sand then wailed again. No one needed to tell him what happened. If there was some lie that Zuko was able to fabricate, some way to shield himself from the truth, there was no longer any way he could deny the outcome of Aang's fight with Ozai. Appa's song of mourning made it clear to anyone within hearing distance that the world had changed again. None of this stopped Zuko's mind from fighting against the truth, and he felt the pain is his abdomen as sharply as he had when Azula's lighting first ripped its way through him. His legs gave out, and he didn't try to support himself, didn't try to stand and put on a brave face. He couldn't. He just couldn't. His heart twisted, and the tears finally started, and he didn't even try to stop them, because Katara was right. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Aang's heart was soft, and he was compassionate, but he'd always used that in his favor. He'd always been able to find a way around the hard things, and no matter how much it frustrated Zuko, no matter how jealous he was that Aang always managed to come out unscathed, he'd come to depend on that. Aang had always just managed. They'd all trusted that he would manage this time, too.

How could Ozai, Ozai of all people, be stronger than the Avatar? How could this happen? It wasn't right, it wasn't fair. They'd all worked so hard, had fought and won in ways that people thought impossible. Aang had worked so hard. Soft arms were around him, and he reached for Katara, and they clung to each other, shaking and terrified, knowing that the longer they mourned here, the closer Ozai was getting, and they could not be there when he landed. There was no way to know what he would do to them before he killed them. There was no doubt in Zuko's mind that Ozai would kill them.

"I'm so sorry," Hau said. "I know this is hard for you both, but we must leave. We must protect you, all of you. You are all this world has left."

When the soldiers tried to lift them, Katara fought like a wildcat, scratching and kicking, not even using her bending, just flailing about, and finally they let her go. Zuko lay in the sand, his body feeling too heavy to move. He watched Katara stumble toward Appa and collapse against his side. Appa nuzzled her, stopping his song. The silence pressed against Zuko as he rolled onto his back and stared at the stars above them. The comet was long gone, and with it, their chance at saving the world. Their hope was gone. Everything they fought for, every inch they'd gained… Gone.

"Your majesty, we must get you and Master Katara to Ba Sing Se. The Order of the White Lotus is there, and they will be able to protect you far better than we can."

A young Fire Sage was talking to him, and Zuko recognized the words, but they didn't have any meaning to him. People were lifting him out of the sand, trying to be gentle, but he didn't have the strength to help them. There was no help for them. For any of them.

"Why bother?"

The voice didn't sound like his own, it sounded too dead, too flat, and he could feel his face crumbling again, the tears stinging at his eyes as Appa started his mourning song again. Then shame at crying in front of people who were addressing him as "your majesty." He was weak. He was weak and he was a weak teacher, and he'd probably made Aang weak. If he'd been better, if he'd been stronger, then maybe…

"Leave them be," Yina said, shooing away the Fire Sage. "There will be time for talk of plans later. Let them have their grief."

She was the Iron Maiden again, and she and Hau organized the last of the things, instructing the guards to take Zuko to Appa and help him in the saddle. Katara was already there, curled into a ball, clutching something yellow, and Zuko crawled over to her. They just lay there, holding each other as tightly as they could, the scrap of yellow fabric between them.

"I watched him grow," Katara said between sniffles.

They barely took notice as the ships began to launch, as Hau asked Appa for one final favor before climbing into the saddle with Yina, the Fire Sage and a few others. He could barely feel the blanket that Yina carefully draped over them or the cold air as Appa soared into the sky. Appa gave one last mournful cry as the islands of the Fire Nation became little more than specks on the horizon. They slept. They woke. They cried. Neither Zuko nor Katara uttered a word. No words could express their pain. None, except three, whispered quietly between them like the only prayer they would ever say:

He will pay.