The next day was same as the one before it. Azula came to take Katara away, and Sokka and Suki were left behind, hoping that nothing bad would happen to her when she was gone. They had no means of amusement, so they passed the time by playing tic-tac-toe and other things in the dirt. The games that Sokka had loved so much as a child now seemed hollow and pointless, when his mind was dwelling so much on the safety of his sister, of Suki, and of himself.
He was trying to guess what the picture that Suki had drawn in the dirt was, when a soldier came down the hall with their daily rations. Upon closer inspection, Sokka discovered that it was not the regular guard, but…Zuko? Sokka was confused and disgusted. The nerve of that boy. Coming to rub his freedom in their faces. He slid back into the darker recesses of the cell and put his arms around Suki protectively. Suki looked up at the prince, no fear or bad feelings at all in her gaze.
"Hey," said Zuko, in a much softer voice than Sokka expected. He passed them the tray of food through the bars. "Nice to see you again. I wish I could in better conditions."
"Maybe if you did, you would let us out of this hellhole," Sokka spat.
Both Suki and Zuko turned to look at him for a moment, but then turned their attention back to each other. "He just got here," Suki explained. "He doesn't know how great you are." She attempted a smile. It was a weak one, Sokka admitted to himself, but to him it still lit the jail cell brighter than any of the torches burning in the corridor, in Sokka's opinion.
Suddenly, a hot rush of anger came over him. Suki had smiled at him. At Zuko. Suki hadn't smiled the whole time they had been there. And then she smiles at Zuko. Zuko who had tried to capture them so many times, he lost count. It made his insides boil.
Zuko looked at Suki, and his eyes softened. "Trust me, if it were up to me, you wouldn't be here. And I wouldn't either. It's all up to my sister at this point." He looked down and shook his head. "It's always up to my sister." He sounded resentful, with poison lacing his words and a fierce look on his face. Sokka gathered that he had changed a lot since the last time they had seen each other, but he still couldn't forgive him for what he was doing to Suki. What was Zuko doing to Suki that he didn't like? He asked himself. Sokka couldn't answer this.
Suki kept looking at Zuko, and tilted her head. Sokka saw something warm pass between them for a moment. Sokka crawled over to the tray of food, purposefully breaking their eye contact. When he reached the plate, he noticed that there was a piece of bread for each of them, instead of one to share between the three. For a moment, he wanted to turn around and thank Zuko, but he squashed the emotion immediately.
He watched Suki for a long time. Wondering if she would ever be that warm, that caring towards him. If she would ever smile at him. Hoping so.