EDIT: Ok, due to the slightly overwhelming amount of people who said 'Nooooooo' in response to this chapter, I have decided to open one last poll. Now this one will be slightly different to the other. Your choices are: Zuko & Katara, 'Keep all relationships as they were in the show', or 'no relationships'. I never intended for the 'romance' to be the main point of the story anyway, so it wouldn't bother me if it didn't exist – I just thought it stronger ties to the group. So if you feel a romance that you don't approve of totally ruins the story for you (and I can see that some of you do) then you might choose no romance. And then, I'll go with that. I don't know if editing this chapter brings it to your attention again – possibly it doesn't – so I'll put this at the start of the next chapter and just build the relationships in a friendly way until a decision is come to.

A/N: I'm going to preface this by saying that none of you are allowed to abandon this story based upon how this poll turns out. Ok? Because that isn't really a good reason to abandon a story that you previously enjoyed reading. As long as the romance is well written (I'll try my best!) and is plausible, it shouldn't be too irritating. So please read on and, if you feel I've completely screwed it up and can't write for nuts, then you may feel free to tell me as much, and then promptly abandon it. I'll tell you, I originally went 'wha?' in response to this particular pairing, but I think I can see how it would work quite nicely.

So, the final poll stands as follows:

Zuko & Katara: 10

Zuko & Mai: 8

Zuko & Sokka: 8

Aang & Katara: 10

Sokka & Suki: 5

Aang & Toph: 3

Sokka & Toph: 1

No relationships: 1 (sorry Reader P, I think you've been outvoted...;)

Oh, I think this is obvious but just in case you were wondering; this story is focused on Zuko, so votes surrounding him are given first precedence. Therefore the zuko pairing with the highest vote will occur, and then the other characters will follow from there. Although, I don't really want to pair everyone up...and even if there are other pairings in this, they won't receive a lot of spotlight...which should be ok for everyone since this is a Zuko story and that's the section you would have been looking in order to find it. Even though there will be a 'romance' so to speak (as I think it benefits the plotline) it won't be the main idea of the story, so don't worry those of you concerned about what the relationship ends up as. This is really about exploring his relationships with all of the gang. Thus the whole 'Zuko' and 'Any character' thing.

According to the poll they are as follows:

Zuko & Katara (for all those of you who just groaned, mentally slapped me, or literally threw your computers in what you hoped was my general direction; I have, in fact, been provided with some very insightful information on why those two could work together. If you're interested and have an open mind please see the review by 'sokkantylee' for chapter 3. If you crossed your fingers and hoped for a Sokka/Zuko outcome, well maybe you could be satisfied with the close friendship I think is quite capable of forming...you could always imagine the rest yourself I guess. As for Zuko/Mai, well, you guys do get the TV show so...)

Sokka & Suki: I think this works well in the TV show so I'll just keep it in here. Although, Suki won't play an awfully large part in this story.

Toph/Aang: No relationship, I think. I just can't see Toph and Aang working to tell you all the truth. Plus, I only intended to focus on Zuko's relationship so...

Now it's not my intention to ruin this story for anyone, and I know that a romance you find to be bizarre, just plain impossible, or slightly stupid, occurring in a story can wreck it. I hope it won't affect anyone too much though Just so you all know: you don't want to stop reading now...trust me.

Thus ends the longest authors note in existence...

...

Zuko was walking through an endless darkness. It seemed to stretch on for miles and miles and he had no idea how long – or how far – he had walked for. The inky blackness seemed infinite in all directions and, try as he might, he could make out none of his surroundings. He raised his hands and examined them; strange, he could see them perfectly. So there was light, then. He continued walking; surely there was an end? Suddenly the air seemed green with refracted light. The blackness seemed to shrink and recede as crystals burst from its dark maw. Zuko looked around in alarm; he was in a cave. He shuddered; he had never liked being underground, there was just something about a limited air supply that gave him the creeps.

He bent down to examine one of the crystals, curious as to how they reflected light when there seemed to be no source. A flash of blue gleamed through the crystal, eyes staring out at him. He spun around, but there was nothing. Just endless forests of crystals, as infinite as the blackness it was born from. A cry echoed around the cave.

"Zuko?" Someone was yelling, "I thought you were different!"

"I am different," he said, without meaning to, into the echoing darkness.

He hurriedly began walking in the direction of the voice, determined to find its source. But the echoes bounced off every crystal until he was no longer at all sure as to where he had first heard it.

"Please Zuko," a rougher, male voice, echoed through the cave, "I beg of you, look into your heart. Do what is right."

"Who are you?" He called out, but no response came. Frustrated, he kicked the nearest crystal and then swore.

"What do you want from me?" He yelled, now frustrated and in pain.

"You are many things, Zuko, but traitor isn't one of them." A voice sounded directly behind him. He spun around but no one was there. Suddenly the crystal in front of him cleared. Slowly, cautiously, he stepped down the path and came into another cavern. There was a large cluster of crystal in the centre of the cavern and it was glowing brightly. He stepped closer to it and reached out a hand to touch it. The crystal shattered and he leapt back as the glowing light seemed to pulsate. Through the blinding brightness he could just make out a small humanoid figure. The light subsided and withdrew, leaving Zuko staring straight into the face of Aang. Only he was different, somehow. His eyes and tattoo's were glowing eerily. Aang seemed to stare pleadingly at him and Zuko had just opened his mouth to ask what he wanted when he felt an incredible amount of energy fill the cavern. The air around him seemed to hum, and a static shock shivered through his body. In the blink of an eye, lighting had streaked past him. His eyes widened in shock as he saw Aang convulse and fall to the ground.

"No!" He ran towards the fallen boy, and suddenly he was floating in the blackness again. Only, he was awake; or at least he thought he was. His foot still flared with pain, which was odd, he supposed, since he'd 'hurt' it in his dream. Groaning, he started to get up in order to check it (and find a torch or something) but found that he couldn't. His head hit something hard and he winced, a metallic smell filling his nostrils. He stretched his arms out and began to panic as they hit solid rock. Total blackness. He sniffed the air; stale air. And rock on all sides...he was buried alive! Zuko blanched and began frantically battering the sides of his rock prison. How had this happened? His attempts were futile and served only to rub his fingers raw. Giving up on that front, he breathed deeply.

"It's only a dream," he muttered, "only a dream."

But it felt so real. He shuddered. He breathed deeply again, well if this was real then he had to conserve his air. He could feel the panic rising and fought to keep it down, if he lost control of his breathing he'd use up his air in no time – he had to stay calm. He felt that slight edge of hysteria colour his breathing, he couldn't stand this! He hated the feeling of being trapped underground. He even hated closed in buildings. He had to have space and plenty, plenty, of air. But he was running short of both. He had only one option, it seemed. He had to try and call for help. Even though it would use up a lot of air – what else could he do?

"Help!" He yelled, already somewhat convinced that his efforts would be futile, "someone help!"

Minutes passed and he could hear nothing outside of his ragged breathing – he was losing air fast and already he felt light-headed and queasy.

"Please," he pushed futility at the roof, "help!"

Still nothing. Suddenly, something within him snapped, and he was pushing and shoving with all his might. He felt a searing hotness pass through him – a fire – that streamed down his limbs and exploded from his fingertips. The heat, trapped within the rock, was sweltering and Zuko began to see red. Closing his eyes and burying his face in his arms, he waited as the fire raged against the rock, heating it to a point where it plumed through the surface. Gasping – the fire had used up his remaining air – Zuko gulped in the fresh air that invaded his former prison. He collapsed onto his back and simply lay there for awhile, weak and tired in the wake of his burst of manic energy.

Behind him he heard voices and a cry of "zombie!" He vaguely recognised Sokka's voice as responsible for the latter comment.

"Hey, he did rise from the earth all creepy like." He heard Sokka defending himself.

"Zuko?" someone asked worriedly.

Zuko just groaned, he was one big bundle of pain.

Someone knelt down beside him and he opened one eye – it was Katara.

"Zuko, are you ok?" she seemed to be saying. He felt a sudden coolness over his head and flinched slightly.

"Umm, ye..sur...ybe." he said vaguely, lungs still slightly raw from the dry heat of the fire. Katara moved her hands over his throat, and he felt the soothing coolness spread through his larynx.

"Thanks, Katara," he breathed once she was done, "what...happened?"

Katara glared, but Zuko realised it wasn't him she was glaring at –for once – when she spoke.

"Maybe," she started to heal his raw hands, "you should ask Toph."

"Toph?" Zuko asked, confused.

"Ah ha ha," Toph laughed nervously, "er, you see, the thing is..." she scuffed the dirt with her foot, "I sort of might have, kind of, buried you." She finished so quickly Zuko could barely make out the words.

'Huh?" He started to sit up, but Katara pushed him back down, "stay," she ordered.

"She buried you alive," Sokka informed him, "and then you rose like a zombie from the grave." He stressed the last part.

"What?" Zuko sat up so quickly Katara didn't have time to force him back down, "down." She glared at him. He ignored her.

"Why would you do that?" He asked, feeling somewhat betrayed.

"I, uh," Toph defended, "thought it might help you remember. And I, well I did warn you that you wouldn't see it coming."

Zuko blinked, "you did it as a training exercise?" He growled.

Toph backed up at the steam forming around him; "It worked!" she tried.

"No," Zuko yelled, "I thought I was going to die." The only thing keeping him from leaping up and...Strangling Toph, was Katara's firm grasp on his arm.

"I'm sorry," she cried, "I didn't know, I thought you'd just bend your way out."

"I didn't know how to!" Zuko yelled out of a rage born of pure fear.

"But you did," she tried.

Zuko abandoned his restraint and leapt up, only to have Sokka and Aang block his path.

"Enough," Sokka said, "she's sorry, calm down."

Zuko closed his eyes and breathed deeply, allowing the fear inside him to dissipate along with the rage and hurt anger.

"We already got mad at her for you," Aang added.

Zuko nodded and sat back down so that Katara could finish healing.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "it's just...I'm terrified of being caught in an enclosed space like that. I need, I need air. I feel so...I can't even explain it."

"You're claustrophobic?" Sokka questioned.

"Yeah, I guess." Zuko looked down.

"That makes sense," Aang thought out loud, "I mean air is an integral part of fire bending as well."

"Of course," Sokka nodded, "without air there is no fire."

"But then wouldn't all fire benders feel the same?" Zuko wondered.

"Maybe," Katara joined in, "but bending is stronger in some than others,"

Zuko looked over at Toph, standing to the edge of the group looking forlorn and thoroughly sorry for herself.

"Don't worry about it, Toph," he said softly, knowing she could hear him, "it did work, after all."

"Really?" She looked up, "you mean that?"

He nodded, then remembered she was blind, and verbally confirmed it, "yeah."

She smiled at him, "I promise I won't do that again."

"You had better not," he shuddered.

"All right," Katara finished up, "you're all good as new – no scars from this..." she halted, "sorry." She muttered.

"I don't even..." He paused, then remembered, "oh," he ran his fingers over the scar, "...yeah."

"...so," Sokka broke the awkward silence, "breakfast, anyone?"

...

Once they had finished the remainder of the previous night's fish, which served as breakfast, Katara called a meeting to decide what to do next.

"I vote we stay here," Toph suggested, "it's good for training."

"I don't know," Sokka said slowly, "it might be best to keep moving, less chance of being found that way."

"Maybe," Aang added, "but Combustion man hasn't found us yet, and I like it here."

"Doesn't mean he won't" Katara said bleakly, "he's found us everywhere so far."

"So two for going and two for staying?" Sokka smirked, "...and Zuko gets the deciding vote."

"Er, what?" Zuko shook his head, "can't you just...play shougi for it or something?" An image filled his mind – a man, grey-haired and pot-bellied, with kind, wise, eyes – and then dissipated. Zuko shook his head to clear it. Who was that?

"No, you have to vote." Sokka informed him smugly, "and you better vote right."

"Umm," he glanced around at everyone. Aang was looking pleadingly at him, Toph was very obviously trying to do nothing –probably still feeling guilty – Sokka was giving him a stern, calculating, gaze and Katara, well, her glare said 'just you dare speak against me.' He decided that currying brownie points with Katara couldn't hurt in the near future – her being the resident healer and all – and Aang's pleading gaze had nothing on Sokka's steely one, so he hastily added his vote to the sibling's.

"Aw, Zuko," Aang groaned.

"Sorry," he shrugged.

"Alrighty," Sokka laid out a map of the fire nation, "the invasion's taking place here," he pointed at a place on the map, "and we're here," his finger moved over to a large forest, "so we should probably start inching over towards the invasion point."

"Is that what your instincts tell you?" Katara joked.

"They do, in fact." Sokka turned his nose up as they all burst into laughter. Zuko was the only one left silent and wondering.

"Inside joke."

"I'd gathered," he muttered. At times he seemed to really fit in with the group, but those times were somewhat rare and often fleeting. Usually, he just felt incredibly out of place and awkward – like there was some massive secret they were keeping from him. It loomed over his head like a grotesque clown (cookies and a short story to anyone who gets that reference), invisible and intangible yet constantly there. He knew it had something to do with Katara; he could see it in her eyes every time she glared at him, a tiny ripple of hurt amongst a sea of anger. She seemed the most affected, the least able to forgive. He wondered fervently what he had done, but feared to ask.

He hadn't realised he'd tuned out to the conversation until Aang's voice broke into his thoughts.

"Zuko?" He was saying, "Are you ok?"

"Huh?" He looked up and found them all staring at him.

"You spaced out there for a sec, Jerky," Sokka informed him.

"Oh, sorry," he said absentmindedly.

"Yeah, ok." Sokka said slowly, sharing a suspicious look with the others.

"Really," Zuko misread the look, "I'm just...distracted."

"Are you still mad about the earth tomb thing?" Toph asked, "'cause I said I was sorry..."

"No," he said loudly, and then sighed, "I'm just, I...can I talk to you?" He said to Katara. He read the mistrust in her eyes, "please."

"Ok," she got up and walked off, leaving him to follow behind her. When they'd walked out of hearing distance she turned around.

"Yes?"

Zuko looked her straight in the eye, this time he was getting answers.

"Why do you hate me?" He said bluntly, he'd never been particularly subtle and he certainly wasn't in the mood for it after his early morning burial.

"I trusted you once," Katara said, "and you betrayed me."

"What?" Zuko blanched, "I did cheat on you!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Yesterday morning I asked Sokka why you seemed to hate me," Zuko buried his head in his hands, "and he said I'd cheated on you...I thought he was joking, but..."

"He was." Katara stifled a laugh at the look on Zuko's face, "as if I'd ever date you."

"So why then?" Zuko asked, ignoring the insult, "what did I do?"

Katara hesitated, unsure of what to tell him. She didn't want to spark memories of his avatar-hunting life, but she didn't really want to fabricate something. She finally sighed, deciding to go with the generic 'you're fire nation so I hate you'.

"You're fire nation," she shrugged.

Zuko's eye twitched, "you're kidding, right? You're judging an entire race of people on their tyrant's actions."

"Hey," she poked him in the chest, "you're no saint, yourself. You weren't just fire nation, you were part of the problem."

"...I was?"

Katara mentally kicked herself; she wasn't supposed to tell him that.

"Er, yeah," she hedged, "you were a...soldier."

"Sokka said I was a refugee in Ba Sing Se," Zuko pointed out.

"Well you turned good, but you were bad." Katara crossed her arms, "and maybe the others can forgive you, but I know better."

Zuko frowned, "you said I betrayed you?"

"This isn't the first time you've 'turned good'." She told him, eyes hard, "and last time you were good for about five minutes. I believed you, a mistake I won't repeat."

"Oh," he said quietly, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well," she looked away, "it means nothing."

"...right," of course, he didn't even remember what he'd done after all.

"So why do you hate the fire nation?" He asked, then quickly elaborated when she glared at him, "I mean, more so than the others."

"The fire nation killed my mother," she said softly, "and took my father away."

"I'm sorry," he said again, "I didn't know."

"Yeah I know," she smiled slightly and then frowned, remembering the first time she'd told him.

"But Sokka's your brother, right?" Zuko asked.

"He deals with it differently." Was all she had to say on the matter.

"Well," he attempted to lighten the situation, "I don't even know if I have a mother or anyone really."

She looked at him and realised, for the first time, how hard his life must be – and not just with the memory loss. As far as she knew he didn't have a mother, his father had banished him when he was fourteen, his sister was an evil prodigy, and he'd spent the last three years scouring the world for Aang just so he could go home. Her father at least loved her, even if he'd left her to go to war. And her brother she loved and could depend on absolutely to have her back in anything. Zuko, she realised, had never had that support. If he hadn't had his uncle watching over him, he would truly have been alone in the world. Her heart went out to him, in that moment, staring dejectedly at the floor – desperately trying to remember what he'd done to merit her hate – and she relinquished it, hoping she'd made the right decision in trusting him again. It was hard to let go of it, but she decided she'd at least try, he was difficult to resist with that kicked-puppy look he had going on.

"Zuko," she sighed, "I don't hate you, I just, you hurt me and that's difficult to get over."

"I don't expect you to," he said softly, "and I wish I remembered so that I could apologise properly."

How could one person be so very, very different? The Zuko she saw before her was almost nothing like the angry, determined, one that had chased them around the globe. It was difficult to believe that the two were one and the same person.

"I like you better this way," she told him.

"I was afraid of that," Zuko said quietly, he wasn't so sure he wanted to know the kind of person he'd been before the memory loss. It seemed he hadn't been particularly nice to be around.

"If you two are done sharing secret feelings over there," Sokka yelled, "we'd like to start moving."

"We're coming" Katara yelled back and then offered Zuko a tiny, tentative, smile before turning around and walking back to where the others were finishing packing up camp. Zuko stood there for a few minutes more. He watched her join the others and joke effortlessly with them. They were a real team – so different, but in such a way that they complimented each other perfectly. He wondered if he could ever truly be a part of it. His thoughts drifted back to the strange dream he'd had before he'd woken up buried, was it a memory? Could that, perhaps, be the betrayal Katara had alluded to? Had he struck Aang down? But...he'd been hit by lightning, not fire. And who were those voices? What did they mean? He'd have to ask Aang. If he truly had struck him down, then it was nothing short of a marvel that the boy had forgiven him and, seemingly, so easily. He resolved to ask Aang about it, he wasn't sure he wanted to, but he definitely needed to, know.

...

A/N: Hang tight for the next one, oh few who remain. (Although hopefully, you've all stuck around)

So remember, I promised cookies and a short story to anyone who can guess the reference in this chapter. It's not avatar, by the way. The short story will be whatever you want (probably avatar related), characters your choice, plot your choice etc. But it is a slightly obscure reference so...one last hint – TV show. Maybe the closest guess will get it if I'm feeling nice (and appreciated)