A/N:
So, I had a comment a while back, (from I think a guest), that said that he or she thought that I meant "hunted" in the second chapter (while Zuko was being dramatic) when I said "haunted." Nope. I meant "haunted." Essentially, Zuko did "haunt" Team Avatar around the world, having them constantly watch their backs. (Imagine if you had a presence of some sort that constantly followed you around.)
In this chapter, actually in the first paragraph, I played on words again. It's not an error, but intentional.
Disclaimer: I don't own A:TLA.
Chapter Four: Welcome, to the Western Air Temple
Aang grabbed Katara by the arm as she passed him, stalking back to her spot at the front behind where Aang sat at the head.
"Thank you," he said to her as sincerely as he could muster at the moment, still mildly disappointed at how his hospitality towards Zuko wasn't being showed by anyone else. Katara could only make herself grumble a barely audible "your welcome," angry with herself for falling a victim to Zuko's 'feelings' again She vowed not to be as gullible as she was back in Ba Sing Se with him. Fool her once, shame on her. Fool her twice, shame on him.
The rest of the trip was lead in relatively uneasy silence. Haru, Teo, and the Duke dared to whisper among themselves while Toph and Sokka muttered back and forth occasionally, all passengers on board afraid to wake Princess and make their current situation even more awkward. Katara sat mute, refusing to take her eyes off the sleeping figure of Zuko, and tried not to think about his issues and how she didn't want them to become hers. Aang kept to himself as well, focused almost obsessively on steering Appa toward their new hideout and trying not to think about the invasion, still terribly distraught and disappointed for failing everybody yet again. He kept telling himself that a clear mind was essential to deal with the now and that nothing ever good came out of dwelling on the past, hoping that he could brainwash himself to move on and start a plan B.
It was a much quicker journey to land than anyone thought it was going to be, and soon they touched down quite far away from the Fire Nation.
"Uh, Aang? Is this is the Western Air Temple?" Teo said, voicing everyone's question about Aang's directional skills. The landscape rolled along with tall, grassy hills as far as the eye could see, no buildings or signs of past inhabitations visible to anyone on Appa.
"The air temple is a few kilometers ahead, but Appa can't fly anymore. He's tired," Aang explained, dismounting. Appa was now noticeably panting, with the wind no longer deafening his rider's ears. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way."
Listening to Aang, the rest of the fleeing party all dismounted.
"What about Zuko?" Toph asked.
"Leave him. He can't walk anyways," Katara said, starting to continue forward. Plus, the more I don't have to look at him, the better, she thought.
"A few kilometers ahead" was an understatement. If Aang had been good at estimating distance, he wouldn't have gotten everyone else excited at the prospect of their trek to the Western Air Temple being almost complete. Instead, they all walked for a good hour, almost two, before remotely coming close to their destination.
"This is embarrassing," Katara said, right as she finally able to stop obsessing over the thought of a certain prince of fire.
"What? Having to walk all the way to the Western Air Temple or getting thoroughly spanked by the Fire Nation?" Sokka asked.
"Both."
"Well, a day of back and forth, armor, and eight people to fly cross-country takes a toll on a skybison," Aang said, rubbing Appa affectionately on the nose.
"Hurry. Someone knock me out like Sparky up there. My feet are tired," Toph added.
"Not funny, Toph," Katara seethed.
"I like 'Sparky' as a nickname, though," Sokka said.
"Let's not get attached you two," Katara snapped at them. Not wanting to piss Katara off more than she already was, they kept quiet.
On Appa's saddle, Zuko twitched in nightmare. The dream was fitting for the day. In his mind, he was thirteen years old again, swimming in sheets and suffocating in his own sweat. Younger Zuko woke up with a blood-curling scream and shivering, a bandage wrapped tightly around the left side of his face. His head pounded, heart raced, and body shook, despite the sweat bath.
"Zuko!" He had heard Uncle call from the hallway. Soon, he was right beside him, trying to draw Zuko from the trance he was in.
"Nephew, how are you feeling? Price Zuko, answer me!" His uncle demanded, tears of his own welling in his eyes.
"I'm no prince anymore," Zuko remembered himself saying, hot tears streaming down his one un-bandaged eye.
"No, no! Don't think like that!" Uncle Iroh exclaimed, moving to get a better view of his nephew. Zuko was forced to look at his uncle in the eye. They both broke.
"I'm so, so sorry Uncle! I should have kept my mouth shut! I should have listened to you!" Zuko sobbed, embracing his Uncle Iroh.
"And I should have never let you in to the war meeting. It's my fault. All my fault!"
"No. Don't blame yourself. It's, it's on me," Zuko had whispered to his uncle, clutching onto him for dear life. Iroh sobbed harder, amazed at this kid's intensity and brutal honesty.
"How bad is it?" 'It' didn't need to be defined.
"The healers say that they've done the best they can, and that it's all up to you now."
Zuko could feel the thick, gooey cream underneath the bandage, and pulled away from Uncle to examine the rest of him. Nothing else seemed burned, but he smelt like fire and felt a bit clammy. His phoenix tail was still in, but he could feel a lot of hair burnt away on the left side of his head. He found it a bit difficult to keep one eye open and the other shut underneath the bandage.
"Prince Zuko, please. Take it easy. Quell your curiosity, I beg of you," Uncle pleaded. He did what he was told, and instead played with the edge of the blanket, suddenly concerned what had happened after he had passed out.
"I dare not tell you, right after you have just woken up…"
"Please Uncle…" Zuko had pleaded and pleaded with his Uncle, dreading what was to come from his mouth. But he needed to know. He needed to know what he was up against. Eventually, Iroh did give in and, taking Zuko's hands in his own, told him what had transpired.
"Your father has banished you, and will only allow you to return with the Avatar."
In real time, older Zuko twitched and muttered something incomprehensible, still lying on Appa's saddle as he trekked towards the air temple with everybody else.
"No…" Young Zuko choked out, fresh tears stinging his eye. He couldn't hold them back. "Uncle…" He had moaned into his shoulder as Iroh wrapped him up tight. In a matter of hours, Zuko's world had fallen apart for good this time. He was being kicked out of everything he had ever known, and had ever loved.
Zuko's dream suddenly fast-forwarded to the next day, when he was surrounded by healers and his uncle, trying to suppress tears. Someone was unwrapping the bandage around his head, and another pulling off the oversized eye patch. He felt exposed, now that his mark of shame was visible for everyone to see. Before a healer could replace and reset new bandages around his eye, he demanded a mirror.
"Prince Zuko, are you sure…" His uncle had started.
"Yes! I am!" He remembered yelling, threatening to start bawling again. Someone found a small hand-held mirror and gave it to him. He held it out in front of him to see, but not before taking a deep, shaky breath in, and letting it out.
The sight of the horribly marred swath of skin covering almost the whole left side of his face made him recoil. His breath was taken away instantaneously.
Three and a half years later, Zuko woke up with a start. His wrists hurt from him twitching against his shackles, and he could feel more tears coming to his eyes from the realization of the relevancy that dream had on the events of today. Embarrassed, he cursed himself for all this, this emotion and sobbing that had to stop. The little scrap of pride and self-worth he had left for today demanded it.
It took Zuko a second to remember where he was and why he was a bit damp and handcuffed, and another to gather his wits about him and truly calm down. Over the years, he had learned how to take his nightmares in silence, so he was revealed when the Avatar's group below him didn't seem to realize he was up.
Lastly, he registered the light, throbbing of his side. Comparatively, it barely hurt anymore, but there was still room for improvement. It was tender and raw, and due to past experiences with such injuries, he knew his leg and hip was going to be stiff for a bit. But, most importantly, Katara had almost patched him up completely. The roughly circle-shaped burn was now only a bit bigger than his first, and thankfully it would be a lot less visible. With Katara's healing, he imagined that it would be very faint by the time it was healed to its full capacity.
"Hey!" We're here!" He heard Toph call from the ground. Zuko leaned over the top of Appa's saddle, glancing down at his travel party. They were all standing at the edge of the giant canyon in front of them.
"Umm, Toph? I think you need to get your feet checked," Katara said, looking around to see if she was in fact missing something.
"No. Toph is right. We are here," Zuko heard Aang say as he stepped up to the edge of the gorge. "We've made it."
Zuko, remembering the Western Air Temple from a previous visit here a few years ago, knew that in fact they were at their destination, and that everyone but the airbender of course was in for a treat.
"Wow, Aang! It's amazing…" Toph trailed, awestruck. "Really stunning, if I do say so myself. How'd they manage to make everything…"
"Shh Toph! Don't ruin the surprise!" Aang exclaimed, climbing back on Appa. "Everyone get on!"
Zuko didn't bother to pretend to be asleep as everyone climbed back on board.
"Good afternoon, Sparky. How was your nap?" Sokka asked him, grinning mischievously. Katara and Toph snickered, not bothering to hide their joy in seeing the heat rise to his checks.
"Fine, thanks. How'd your stroll go?" Zuko forced out. Sokka sighed, sitting down next to him.
"These boots weren't made for hiking."
"Everyone holding on?" Aang called to them in the back.
"Yes!" Katara called, trying to ignore Zuko.
"Yip yip, Appa!"
Appa lurched forward off the edge of the cliff, and glided down into the canyon. There were many 'ooos' and 'ahhhs' as everyone finally feasted their eyes on the Western Air Temple. To Zuko, the temple was pretty magnificent in its own right, functionality and design wise. With everything upside down, though, it made him feel like he was going to have a serious issue with orientation while he stayed here. Well, if he was allowed to stay there with the Avatar and his group.
"I know the perfect place where we can camp out!" Aang hollered to them, steering Appa toward the temple buildings. Aang was trying to be excited, that much was evident, by the way he was insanely thrilled about archaic and hollowed out buildings that were the scene of a mass genocide.
Zuko, completely out of the blue, had a flash of him as a kid after things really started to go to hell, about how his younger self had made this desperate attempt to find things that even remotely made him happy or brought him some solace. It unnerved him, that flash, showing him how much things had changed. He was scarred, traumatized, tired, and worn at only 17. At Aang's age, well, how old was the airbender? He had spent a century in ice, preserving himself, but he looked easily 13. 13. At 13… Zuko didn't want to remember again.
But another realization hit him as Zuko reviewed what had just occurred to him, and it made him a bit dizzy. Aang and him, he and Aang… He remembered what Uncle Iroh had told him only a short time ago.
"Your mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku. I'm sorry, nephew, but good and evil, light and darkness, are destined to fight and wrestle for control inside you."
Zuko sighed, now officially and utterly done with his thought processes for the moment, but as Appa landed on the courtyard he suspected was going to be camp, he forced himself to stay focused and proactive. Stage two had come.
He tried to quickly run through the apology speech he had partially come up with before the Day of Black Sun to give to the world's last hope. It was a pathetic, groveling speech that he felt entitled to spew, no matter how painful.
"Oh, you guys! I can't wait to show you the all day echo chamber! And the giant Pai Sho table! There are some good spots for earthbending practice here too, Toph, Haru," Aang started, eagerly jumping off and gesturing to their new hideout. Zuko suspected that one could get lost for days in here.
"We would sometimes come to visit, wouldn't we Appa?" Aang asked his bison.
"Umm, Aang? Shouldn't we talk? Sokka asked, eyeing Zuko rather sheepishly as everyone else moved from atop Appa. Katara sighed.
"Haru, Teo, The Duke? Will you give the rest of us a minute?" She asked more matter-of-factly than questioningly.
"Sure, Katara. I'm really interested in that echo chamber," Haru said, gesturing to the Duke and Teo.
"Yeah! A Pai Sho table? I haven't played in ages!" Teo exclaimed, following Haru away.
"Wait up you guys!" The Duke yelled, tearing after them. Once they had disappeared, Katara, Sokka, Aang, and Toph all waited for someone to break the silence.
"How are you holding up?" Aang asked, finally. It took Zuko a second to realize that the airbender was addressing him, for he had been too distracted by thinking up his plan of action.
"Oh. Yeah. I, I feel better, thanks," he answered, blushing a bit from being the center of attention.
Katara coughed rather obnoxiously from beside Aang, glaring up at Zuko sill sitting on Appa. Zuko sighed, anger flickering through him. He quickly directed his anger towards himself and not Katara, though, realizing that he was the only one to blame for her distrust in him.
"Thank you Katara." He added her name for emphasis. She still eyed him unwarily, and it unnerved him a bit.
"Toph, will you please help Prince Zuko off of Appa?" Katara asked, keeping her focus trained on him. Toph huffed, yet obliged, and sent up a rock pillar to help escort him down. Sokka helped Zuko up and over to Toph's elevator, immediately weirded out that he was in such close contact with his enemy.
"Zuko, you can have your own room and bed and such inside the temple so you can rest up," Aang said when he and Sokka reached solid ground. Zuko was touched at the Avatar's hospitality, and was unsure how to react besides nodding awkwardly at him.
"Toph, would you please let Zuko go?" Aang said, daring Zuko to do anything hasty with the amount of trust he was bestowing upon him.
"What?!" Katara and Sokka both exclaimed, Sokka in turn almost dropping Zuko.
"Why the hell would you do that?"
"You possibly can't trust him that much, Aang! After the last year you're willing to bend to puppy-dog eyes over here?"
"Not over my dead body!"
Aang sighed, suddenly looking considerably more hampered compared to a few minutes ago. While Katara and Sokka told him and Zuko off, though, the two of them calmly met each other's gaze.
Zuko saw himself: tired, weighed down, ashamed, and confused.
Aang saw himself: worn, responsible, old, and troubled.
"Sokka! Katara!" Hesitantly, they both stopped yelling at Aang's request. "I want to hear what Zuko has to say for himself. Toph, release him," Aang said, eyeing everyone in turn. Katara held her tongue, but Sokka wanted one last word.
"Aang, this isn't a good idea. I know you're the Avatar and all, and you last name is 'forgive and forget,' but…"
"Then you understand. I want to forgive, and forget." Sokka had to pause and stare bewildered at his best friend's resolve, but he sighed, giving in.
"Zuko, you have one shot buddy. Make it count," Sokka said sternly, clearly fairly irritated about how this was going.
Zuko knew they could all see him nervously shake a bit as he held out his hands. Toph, grabbing the band of each shackle, pinched apart his restraints with metal bending.
"Impressive…Metal bending?" Zuko asked, trying not to sound like a suck-up.
"Yeah!" Toph exclaimed, taking the handcuffs off Zuko entirely. "I invented it myself."
"Alright Toph. Zuko, spit it out already, would you? I'm not getting any younger here, nor is the Fire Nation getting any less tyrannical," snapped Sokka.
Zuko purposefully ignored that last comment and instead un-tangled himself from the volatile Water Tribe boy and rubbed his wrists. The cuffs gone, he could clearly see them starting to bruise.
Zuko thought of what to say first that wouldn't get this conversation off to a sour start more than it already had.
He could feel his heart begin to pound and his mind reel. What to say, what to say?! Come on, Zuko. You've practiced this…Not enough, but you've at least thought ahead this time! Just start talking! You'll eventually get to the point!
He had planned on time to work out the kinks of his apology speech and how to skirt around all his past infractions against the Avatar and his friends, since all the ways he had thought about initially addressing them started out with throwing all the reasons why they should continue to hate him in their faces. It was crucial that he didn't get started off on more of a wrong foot, though, for knew he needed to show them that he was taking full responsibility for his actions and hated himself for them now.
Now just say that, but out loud this time!
Zuko tried to make his mouth work, but all he was able to do was make helpless, pathetic, incoherent noises. Katara scoffed at him under her breath, and Sokka rolled his eyes.
"Here, lets start with this: Why did your sister attack you?" Aang said, trying to prompt him along since he was painfully struggling. "I know you started to explain that at least."
Zuko sent him a silent 'Thank You.'
"I know that you know that I went back home…"
"Yeah! After you betrayed us!" Katara snapped, not going to let him get two copper pieces in if she could help it. Zuko acted as if he hadn't heard her.
"…and, well, I had thought at the time that if I earned back my father's love and appreciation I'd be happy; I'd feel as if I was back where I belonged. But, that month home didn't turn out anything like I'd imagined. I was still so on edge; I felt as if something was just out of my reach…"
"Was it Aang?" Katara butted in again. Aang glared at her while Zuko continued.
"…and I finally figured out what it was, only a few days before the Day of Black Sun. Well, my Uncle was the one that finally gave me some context to what I was feeling…"
Oh great here we go again, talking about feelings. Give it a rest, Zuko. You know I'm not going to buy any of your bullshit, especially if you start talking about you mother… Katara sneered at him, though only in her mind.
"…It turns out that I didn't know my family as well as I thought I did. My grandfather, Firelord Sozin, is my grandfather on my father's side. But on my mother's side…"
Spirits! Why are you out to get me today?
"…my grandfather is Avatar Roku," Zuko finished, looking pointedly at Aang. Katara could only muster a deeper scowl, for Sokka took her words right out of her mouth.
"Ha! That's a total lie, saying that your grandfather is Aang in a past life!" Sokka jeered. "Can you believe this guy?"
"It's true. Avatar, ask him when time permits, if you so need to," Zuko added. Aang did nod, though still a little shocked out of his mind, and gestured for Zuko to continue.
"It all made sense after I found that out, especially since I had always gotten along better with my mother than father anyways. I started doing some thinking afterwards, and I ended up coming to the conclusion that, well, my destiny didn't lie in the Fire Nation and with my father and sister quite yet. Instead of spreading fear and hatred in the world like my father's predecessors did, I wanted to reinstall the peace, like my mother's predecessor had done. My travels showed me that the Fire Nation was only really doing just that: causing chaos and ripping lives apart," he quickly glanced over at Katara as he said this, hoping that she could voluntarily agree to admitting that last part to him.
"So I decided to leave. I, during the Eclipse, officially denounced my loyalty to the Firelord. That's why I was down there in the tunnels. Then, well, you know the rest."
"But, I believe that I can help aid your cause. Your plan of taking out the Firelord and ending the war during the Eclipse didn't work; my sister came back from Ba Sing Se with the knowledge that you were going to attack us today. But, as far as I know, the Avatar has only mastered air, water, and earth. Those three elements alone won't be enough to finish my father off. Aang, in order to stand a chance of winning this war, needs to learn firebending. I'd be honored to teach it to him."