First of all, I am trying to make this as close as I can to the show, such as character behaviors and what would most likely happen. Like, I wouldn't have Zuko suddenly overcome with the need to break into song and hug fluffy bunnies. Although hugging fluffy bunnies is fun, it's not a part of his character. This is a Zutara fanfic, so expect a small amount of change for the better on his part.

Secondly, if you could please point out any errors you spot, I don't care what kind. Grammatical, spelling, punctuation, characters' behaviors, I swear I mean anything. I hate it when authors have so many grammar and spelling errors that you have to make up a new sentence so that there might be some chance of comprehension. So I ask you, please, correct me like my life depended on it. (I don't care if your life depends on it! I don't know you!!!)

And lastly, thank you for reading my story, and now… on with the show!!!

Oh yeah sigh…

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender. Actually I don't own anything. I mean seriously! Check out my purse!! Even the little cartoon moths that live in empty purses to accentuate the emptiness and lack of money or anything at all have left me for people with more nothing!!! I'll say it again!!! I OWN NOTHING!!!

Chapter 1- Finding

A young man stood in the helm as his ship approached a small Earth Kingdom island. He was tense, ready for anything, hoping that this would be the last real encounter with the tattooed boy with command all four elements. Maybe this time he would just come peacefully and the banished boy could finally return home.

"Bring the ship as close as you can to the shore," barked Prince Zuko to the helmsman as dusk approached.

"Yes sir," was his automatic answer.

"Uncle, I will be taking a group of men to the island to search for the Avatar in the forest where his bison was spotted," the prince informed his Uncle Iroh. The elderly fellow was sitting calmly in the helm, drinking a cup of perfectly prepared tea. The steaming cup permeated the air with the man's newest blend of tea, creating an almost calming aura in the room with the incessantly hostile teenager.

"I will be accompanying you on this mission, too, Prince Zuko," Iroh told his nephew, calmly sipping his tea.

"Why?"

"I want to help you in your quest, nephew."

"Since when are you interested in my quest?" Zuko asked a harshly, unnecessary hostility spilling out of his words aimed at the only family that still loved him.

"I gave you my ship and my men, didn't I? I have been interested in your search for the Avatar since the very beginning," he countered, turning to face the prince with an expression full of reprimand.

"True," he acquiesced, "but since when do you go out and help me search woods for child Avatar and his companions?"

"Since I have run out of ginseng tea," Iroh replied sullenly, though not without a certain sparkle in his eye for his favorite of hobbies. "I was hoping to find a small town later on to purchase some more."

About an hour later, the sun had set and by its last rays, Zuko, Iroh, and a group of ten or twelve of his most skilled men lowered two long boats into the water, leaving the other men to tend to the ship. Soon, the men pulled up onto the shores of the nearby island where Zuko's men reported seeing the Avatar and his friends land. The teenage prince sent the two quietest men ahead of the rest to scout out the area. Maybe this will be the time, thought Zuko. Suddenly the two men burst out of the forest, panting for breath.

"Sir! We think we've found the Avatar's campsite!" one panted out urgently.

The soldiers led the rest back to where they had come from. They came upon a clearing with a dying fire but no one was there, save the bison and lemur. Scorch marks dotted some of the surrounding trees. The animals were fidgety and nervous.

"Search the area," Zuko whispered.

Iroh slowly, carefully walked over to the bison. He seemed to become more aggressive as the retired general approached, growling and baring his teeth, but seemed to know the man would cause no harm to him and again became his normal friendly self, but still cautious. As the man walked around to the other side of the bison, he grew noticeably more nervous. Iroh saw this and was even more curious about what the bison might be hiding.

"Prince Zuko! Come quickly!" Iroh called worriedly.

Zuko jogged over to his uncle, now bending over to examine the something of interest more closely.

As the prince came around the bison to stand beside his uncle, who was kneeling next to the young waterbending girl that traveled with the avatar, he saw that she looked as though she was asleep against the animal, sharing in its warmth. But this was most definitely not the case, as proven by the pool of blood around her vulnerable figure. His uncle checked for a pulse on the girl's neck, while the prince inspected the area around her.

She had small burns on her arms and a dark red spot on her right side with a bloodstained fire nation knife lying nearby. Zuko walked over the knife and absentmindedly picked it up to examine it.

The hilt had the symbol of the fire nation engraved into the silver plates on both sides of the ruby red handle. It was very detailed around the edges of the plates, depicting miniature versions of the fire nation palace and its gardens, the main ports and other pictures of important features of the fire nation. Only one knife like this existed that he knew of.

"Prince Zuko!" his uncle called and pulled him from his thoughts of the dagger. "Her pulse is weak. We must get her to the ship and have the doctor tend to her. She will not make it long if she is not looked at soon."

"And why should I care if the water peasant dies?" Zuko asked coldly. Taking care of only himself was what had kept him alive for as long as it had. Caring for others was not an automatic reaction to any situation for the boy with scars deeper than the ship's healer could reach.

"Prince Zuko! I can't believe I'm hearing this from you! To stoop so low as to let a defenseless girl die because you are too interested in capturing the Avatar is beneath you. I thought your mother and I taught you better to honor and respect women and to always remember the honorable thing to do. And by walking away from her right now will contradict both those lessons," Iroh scolded. The young man looked about to crack, but uncertainty still clouded his features. Then, in an attempt to drive that uncertainty away, "I guess she could always be used to lure the Avatar into your grasp," he sighed.

"Fine. Bring her and let's hurry back to the ship," he huffed, his will broken against his uncle's wisdom.

"I'm an old man, Prince Zuko. You will have to carry her." With an action that revealed the prince's age, he rolled his eyes and walked over to her prostrate form.

Zuko sighed as he kneeled down and lifted the unconscious girl into his muscular arms and began to carry her back to the boat that would take him to his ship. Her face twisted into momentary pain when he first picked her up. A small voice in the back of his head hoped she would feel no pain. He then mentally pounded the voice back into the recesses of his mind and carried her towards the little boat.

He tried to walk quickly but only enough so that he might get her as quickly as possible to his ship but not fast enough to disturb her wound. He had ordered the large bison be brought back to his ship, although as it was approached by his men, they surrounded him, not sure of how to move the ten ton monster. But to everyone's surprise, the little lemur hopped upon its back, still loaded with supplies, and they flew off towards the ship. The bison then began to circle the deck from a relatively low altitude, although high enough the firebenders on board could not touch them, and began to wait until it deemed the area safe to land. Maybe it will be helpful to me in my hunt for the Avatar, Zuko thought. The boy seems to have a strong emotional attachment to the large beast. Maybe it will be more leverage for me.

The short walk back to the small boat was uneventful, even as his soldiers gave him odd looks behind their masks, wondering why their prince was carrying the peasant in his arms, close to his body, back to where the long boats were pulled ashore, with his uncle in tow.

Iroh gathered the men on his way back and he and Zuko tried to stop the already slowing bleeding of the girl's wound. The men meanwhile prepared to leave for the ship, still puzzled. A few minutes later, they piled into the now crowded boat, with the young waterbender lying across Prince Zuko's lap, supported by his arms, and the soldiers still looking at the girl confusedly, with one thought going through their minds. Nobody tells us anything.

Upon reaching the ship, Zuko single-handedly lifted the girl out of the boat and took her to the sick bay without any help from his men. He left the waterbender with the doctor and threatened him within an inch of his life if she died. She's my hostage after all. I need her to get the Avatar, Zuko thought to himself as he headed off to find his uncle. He walked onto the upper deck first, and seeing his nervous men prepare to fire at the bison landing on the deck, told them to escort it to the animal holding area. Now all of his soldiers were confused.

After sailing away on his makeshift raft with his beloved uncle, the prince and old man came upon a great ship. Hoping it to be friendly fire nation sailors, although highly doubtful of it, the two men boarded the ship to the smiling faces of his crew that he had not seen since the explosion of his ship. They explained to him and his uncle, over a cup of tea, of course, that while the Avatar ravaged the fire navy ships with the help of the Ocean Spirit, Lieutenant Ji took over the ship he and the men were on and left before it could be destroyed. They were lucky that all the men from Zuko's ship had ended up together, or else there would not have been much of a fight against the fifteen or twenty soldiers from Zhao's fleet. Then the men set out to find their prince and follow him wherever he led them.

Zuko quickly learned the way around his new ship that was slightly larger than the old one he used to call home for the past two years. He found his uncle in the galley with a small group of men surrounding him and a Pai Sho game that his uncle was obviously winning.

"I'm sorry Captain, but I've won again. It was a good game! You are definitely improving!" Iroh said happily and took a sip of his tea as the men left.

"She is in the doctor's care now," Zuko stated dryly as he slid onto the bench recently vacated by the captain and his following of lads, all only a few years older than the intensely driven prince. The old man filled his own cup and then proceeded to fill a second cup for his nephew.

"Are you going to question her when she awakes?" his uncle asked as he handed the steaming cup across the table. It gave off an aroma most enticing, although the boy had his mind elsewhere, as always, and failed to notice.

"Of course! I must capture the Avatar and return home!" Zuko said emphatically, trying not to shout, but doubt tinged the end of his outburst. Then a Commander, now an Admiral, Zhao had been confident in saying his father never wanted him back home again. But that can't be true, Zuko thought. He's my father and he loves me. He remembers the day, a few months ago, when he and Zhao had one of their many arguments.

"You can't compete with me," the commander said with utmost certainty. "I have hundreds of warships under my command. And you, you're just a banished prince. No home. No allies. Your own father doesn't even want you," Zhao sneered at the young prince, condescension pouring from his every word.

"You're wrong," he assured not only this man opposing him. "Once I deliver the Avatar to my father, he will welcome me home with honor, and restore my rightful place on the throne," he spat back.

"If your father really wanted you home, he would have let you return by now, Avatar or no Avatar," Zhao taunted, fire in his eyes at knowing he was getting under this naive boy's skin. "But in his eyes you are a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation."


"That's not true."

"You have the scar to prove it," Zhao said icily.

My father will welcome me home with open arms! Zuko argued with himself. He must be busy, the boy tried to reason the way any boy who looks up to an abusive father would, trying to make sense of the hurtful words and actions that fill the days. A word flashed through his mind, unwanted by the scarred young man.

Disgrace.

"No," the prince hissed under his breath.

"What is it prince Zuko?" he asked, looking with concern at the boy who might as well have been his son. A pained expression showed the inner turmoil his corrupted brother's son tried to hide. "Is there something wrong?" Iroh queried, trying to pull him from his inward barrage of thoughts and memories.

"No… nothing at all," he sighed. He had forgotten his uncle was still with him in the galley. "I'm going to my room to meditate, Uncle." And he stalked off quietly, his cup of tea left forgotten on the table, untouched.

A/N

Well that was interesting. Now you just have to worry over the future of Katara. Will she survive? WELL DUH! IT'S A ZUTARA STORY!!! IF THERE'S NO TARA WHAT WILL ZU DO? Silly people… I'll bet I scared you for second there…

A/N2

I have decided I'm going to rewrite this story. I can't believe how little description I used and yet I got so many reviews! So I humbly thank all of you that have reviewed on my first go around and thank all those that may review for my new and improved version!