Chapter 2: How to Save a Life
He blinks, maybe the image will go away, but what lies before him is still the same, the ever present reminder of the nightmare he has been thrust into. The worst part is that the more he stands there wondering if this is just some bizarre dream he's having, the more he realizes that it is all real. Very real, as he finally gets up the courage to go over and touch her (well, her body, as it looks like to him right now), feeling the stickiness of the blood on the back of her head (she must have hit her head on a rock or something), and the overall wet feeling that one only gets from being in water of some kind.
The fact that this is not a dream becomes ever so more evident as he touches her face and feels the coldness emulating from it. If she is not dead already, she will die soon without help. Without his help he thinks silently, knowing that he is the only one who can help her now. (As he is too far away from any place where he can get help from someone else; even Katara is too far away to help even if she wanted to.)
And this is where confliction and confusion sets in. If his first thought upon seeing her was any indication, she is better off dead. But another thought comes into his head, a soft little voice saying that nobody, not even Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, the girl who almost killed Aang and took over the Earth Kingdom in one fell swoop, (as well as possibly even killing Suki; for Azula and co. obviously took the Kyoshi warrior clothes, who wasn't to say that they didn't take their lives as well) deserved to die.
He tries to brush that thought away, but guilt gnaws at him and he can almost hear Aang's voice in his head, telling him to forgive, though he will never (and can never) forget. Eventually he succumbs to that voice, cursing his conscience for putting such a thought in his head, and leans down to feel for a pulse. He realizes that he should probably flip her over first, and mentally slaps himself for not paying close enough attention when his mother taught Katara and him first aid.
After he gets her on her back, he brushes back some of the hair covering her face, reveling in her beauty even in such a situation as this one. For once, there is a look of calmness on her face that is not faked or filled with cruelty and twisted joy at watching other people suffer. For once she looks serene and graceful, and for a moment he wonders if what he had seen of her since day one had all been an act.
He ponders this for only for a moment, quickly dismissing the thought. He reasons that all people at death or near death probably look just as serene, remembering the look on Aang's face before Katara healed him.
As he checks for her pulse, he ponders how she got in the situation in the first place. He decides she must have fallen off a ship or something to have fallen in deep enough water to not be able to swim back up or be able to swim back to shore. But he wonders why that would have been a problem, because she must have learned how to swim back at the palace.
Then again, maybe not seeing waterlogged she is and the fact that she's either dead or near death right now. Well, she's alive, though just barely he thinks to himself as he finds her pulse. Her heart is beating, however faintly. A snide little voice in his head comments that she doesn't really have a heart, but he pushes that thought to the side to deal with the situation at present.
He quickly checks to see if she's breathing, though he has a feeling she won't be. For there is no possible way that anyone could have survived what she did and still be breathing…
She isn't breathing (he's always right) and suddenly he finds himself lost for breath as well. For he suddenly remembers what to do when a person is not breathing, and the compromising position both of them would be in if she regained consciousness. For it would mean that he would have to breathe into her, breathe for her, and to do that he would have to put his mouth on hers.
Basically, he would have to kiss her to save her and a moment ago he was just going to sit there and let her die.
He really hates it when he's right.
A/N- I was originally going to make this chapter longer, but it fit perfectly to cut it off here, and makes the title fit so much more perfectly with the chapter. I promise the chapters will get longer; and I'm going to try and write the next chapter now or soon so that you all won't be left hanging. XD
EDIT (12/22/07): I fixed more grammatical issues and added some more content, making this chapter flow better. :) Hope you enjoyed this chapter and, as always, please review!
