Suki stepped lightly on her toes, manoeuvring every step with perfect precision between the mats of her sleeping comrades, careful not to make a single sound. Once she had safely slipped around a snoring Momo and curled-up Appa, she allowed herself a deep breath.

The warmth of the night was relieved by a cool breeze that skirted across the crumbling tiles of the Western Air Temple, billowing up from the deep valley below the inverted buildings. A strange feeling of loneliness had been welling up inside Suki's mind, stopping her from sleeping and making her feel restless. It didn't make any sense to her: she had just escaped the total solitude and isolation of prison life to now live in freedom with her old friends and boyfriend; and yet now, she felt more lonely than ever.

Ever since her conversation with Zuko on the day of the eclipse, when she had divulged the secret of her true heritage, a wall seemed to separate her from Sokka and the others. The secret weighed in her heart like a stone. None of them knew – she wondered what they would think if they did know. And something else had been dogging her thoughts along with this secret: she had been thinking of her brother, Jai. Aang and Sokka had gone on little field trips with Zuko… Was is wrong of her to ask for his help in finding Jai?

But then there was Zuko. In and of himself, Zuko had been flitting in and out of her daydreams, his face always digging up feelings that frightened her. For so long he had been an enemy – the vile enemy who had burned her village and tried to kill her friends – and yet she had been the first to trust him and she had somehow known from the very beginning that she was right to do so. He had revealed his true self to her in the palace prison. He was the one who had given her hope, he was the one who had saved her from the Boiling Rock, he was the one who held all her deepest secrets. She couldn't deny the connection that had forged between them; they had been through so many things together and knew so much more about one another than anyone else in the group. But this feeling? She recalled that emotion that had flooded through her when she had first seen his face at the Boiling Rock: relief, of course, but there was something more… something she was reluctant to analyse any closer.

Suki moved around the fountain, the tips of her fingers trailing absently through the cool water, before she sat down at the edge of the temple. She leaned against a broken stone pillar and allowed her legs to dangle down to the cloudy abyss below.

Jai. Her gaze drifted to the night sky where she watched her memories shape the stars: Jai's face, still chubby with baby fat and dotted by a pair of dimples, laughing with her in the bay of Kyoshi Island; the awe in his face as he watched her perfect the Tessenjutsu forms; his brow, furrowed with concentration, his tongue between his teeth as he dodged her fans and punched little balls of fire at her… all the adventures they used to go on, pretending they were in a great battle, leaping, jumping, sparring and laughing…always laughing…

'Something on your mind?'

Suki gasped and whirled around to see Zuko a few feet behind her, leaning against the fountain with his arms crossed. She turned back sullenly to face the open cliff and he came to sit beside her.

'You've been distant,' he noted. 'Is there something you need to talk about?'

'Not talk about…' Suki hesitated. 'There's something I need to do, and I've been thinking that I might need your help.'

She looked over at his face in the dark. His expression was slightly curious but there was reservation underneath.

'You helped Aang figure out firebending, you helped Sokka rescue his dad,' she listed. 'I'm sure Katara or Toph will ask you for something sooner or later… But it's time for me to do something I should have done a long time ago. I have to find my brother.'

The statement seemed to ring out through the valley, carried on the breeze that rippled Suki's robes across her front.

'Suki,' Zuko said, his voice uncharacteristically cautious. 'I don't know how to say this but, have you considered the possibility that maybe your brother –'

'I've considered all the possibilities,' she said coldly. 'But I can't just leave it alone. Jai is my little brother. I should have been there to protect him that day and – I wasn't.'

'You were ten-years-old. You can't beat yourself up for not protecting him from a bunch of Fire Nation raiders. Consider yourself lucky that you didn't try, it could have turned out all the worse for both of you.'

'But I'm not ten-years-old anymore,' she said angrily. 'I'm the leader of an elite team of warriors and have spent the past seven years of my life mastering our fighting technique. I am more than ready to take back what's mine.'

Zuko bit back an exasperated sigh. She sounded just like Katara – too headstrong for her own good; but somehow, coming from Suki, it was strangely admirable. Simultaneously, an inexplicable feeling of envy burned in Zuko's hands, envy that Suki had the leads to uncover the secret of her missing brother, and he was intensely jealous of her. But, this resentment was softened by the deepest sympathy. All these responses came clashing, unprecedented, into Zuko's mind as he sat listening to Suki's speech. He knew how she felt and he was determined to help her.

'Do you know who took him?' he asked. 'Do you remember anything about their uniforms or what their head ship looked like?'

'They were a navy division under General Huo Meng. I will never forget his name, or his face. He was the one who found us sparring by the bay. I didn't realise it at the time but they must have come to speak with our father for they didn't stay and Kyoshi Island wasn't bothered by the Fire Nation again – or at least until you came.'

She finished the sentence in a pointed mutter.

'Oh, right.' Zuko rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. 'Well, I know Huo Meng, he was the leader of the Portsea Fleet in the south. I've actually met him a few times; he was a southern adviser to my father.'

'You're speaking in the past tense,' Suki pointed out, narrowing her eyes slightly.

'He lives in the Fire Nation Capital now.'

Suki gasped.

'Oh, no! Is there any chance of finding him?'

'Yes,' said Zuko firmly. 'He was injured in a raid a year ago and now works purely as an advisor to the entire south division of the Fire Nation fleets. We can find him but – it will be very dangerous for both of us. You, a wanted fugitive, escapee from the Palace Prison and the Boiling Rock –'

'And you, the Fire Nation Prince and betrayer of his own father and country,' Suki finished wryly. 'The risk makes it sound all the more interesting, doesn't it?'

'This is not a joke,' Zuko reprimanded harshly. 'If we get caught, we're both done for.'

'I don't care,' said Suki dismissively. 'I can do this on my own if you don't want to risk it. Huo Meng is the only person that I know of who knows what happened to Jai; and now that I have this information, I feel like I have no choice but to go after him.'

'I didn't say you would have to go alone,' Zuko backtracked. 'You'll need help finding him in the first place. But we have to stay hidden.'

'Zuko, you can't risk your safety and freedom for me,' Suki reprieved, though she was inherently touched by the gesture.

'I'm not going to. I just want to help you. I – know how important finding lost family members is.'

By his tone and the way he averted his gaze, Suki knew immediately that he was speaking from very personal experience. Her touch on his shoulder gave him the confidence to confess.

'When I was young, my mother sacrificed herself to save me,' he said tightly. 'At the invasion, my father told me that she might still be alive.'

'Do you have any idea where she could be?' Suki asked quickly.

'No. I have no idea.'

Suki, too, averted her gaze, clasping both her hands in her lap. She felt an overwhelming feeling of compassion towards Zuko as they sat there side-by-side, both sharing their deepest and most isolating secrets. She wanted to tell him, to convey this to him somehow, but the thought of confessing her affection made her blush silently in the dark.

'I wish there was some way I could help,' she said gently, 'seeing as you're helping me.'

'So do I. But there's nothing that can be done. For now, we should focus on finding Huo Meng, and finding your brother.'

'So you'll help me?' Suki couldn't keep the hope from her voice.

Zuko nodded once, his face set.

Suki threw her arms around his neck briefly before they broke apart and she leapt to her feet, retreating back to the camp before he could see the colour on her cheeks.