Standard disclaimers apply.
"I can't believe you did that!"
As Hakoda swam back up in to consciousness, he had the strangest sensation of floating. It was like being on a small boat in utterly becalmed waters. Voices were arguing and he could hear the occasional distinctive woosh of firebending, but it didn't sound like a fight otherwise.
"Look, I already said I was sorry three times and I'll say it again when he wakes up, but-"
"I mean seriously, I thought it was pretty clear that the plan was to rescue my dad, not concuss him, but maybe I should have said that explicitly?"
His dad?
"Well, I'm afraid the plan didn't include a response to your dad not wanting to be rescued and gut punching me, so I had to wing it."
"Oh like you even felt it with those abs..."
"I don't feel it when you punch me, but sorry, Sokka, your dad hits harder than you."
Sokka?
"And you couldn't come up with any way to wing it that didn't involve smashing his head in?"
Hakoda managed to force his eyes open and saw two figures. One was the pirate from before, though he had removed the scarf revealing both shaggy black hair and a large scar on the side of his face that had been obscured by the trailing end. He was using fluid bending gestures to fill a metal box between them with flames, while arguing with...
Sokka? Well, maybe. Last time he saw his son, he had been pretty sure he wasn't a pirate. But there he stood, in high black boots stitched in gold thread, a black hat with a tattered plume sitting on his head at an unaccountably jaunty angle and an outfit of blues and greens that looked like he'd robbed an Earth Kingdom ball and just worn all the bits he liked. His 'space sword' was belted at his waist but he made no move to draw it on the firebender he was yelling at.
"Besides blowing our entire cover, no, I couldn't think of anything else at the moment, sorry."
"Well, maybe next time I'll bring someone who doesn't try to solve every problem with- Dad, you're awake!" Hakoda tried to get his bearings as his pirate son hugged him and began peppering him with questions. "How's your head? Can you sit up? How many fingers am I holding? Are you nauseous at all? Any memory loss?"
"Sokka, give him some room to breathe!" The firebending pirate scolded.
"It's okay, son, my head hurts a little, but I think I'm all right... Why are you working with pirates?" Firebending pirates no less, he thought in confusion.
The boy gaped at him for a moment then started laughing. "Oh no, it's... it's okay, Dad, we aren't really pirates, these are just the disguises for rescuing you!"
"But, he was looking for that captain who was on the other transport?" Hakoda managed to make his way to his feet and lean against the railing of the... balloon?
"Exactly! Brilliant, isn't it?" Sokka apparently realized his father was missing a few pieces of information. "See, Zuko was worried his crazy sister would track us down if she found out you were rescued, so we decided to stage a rescue for someone else, and 'accidentally' free you in the chaos. I thought the pirate captain would be a good target because he'd be expected to have a crew."
"And because you wanted to go shopping for fancy clothes," put in the firebending pirate... well, firebender. Wait, 'Zuko'? With a scar like that?
"And because I look good as a pirate, yes, but can you bl-"
"I'm sorry, is this Prince Zuko? The Fire Lord's son?" He was on a Fire Nation war balloon with the heir to the throne who had helped try to kill the Avatar and his own son who had apparently gone insane. He had never missed being chained to a bench so much.
"Er, well..." Said son coughed in a slightly embarrassed way.
"Of course, I'm sorry Sir, I should have introduced myself. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation." He had placed his hands at his chest in the fire salute Hakoda had seen the prison guards give when the warden approached, then fluidly shifted them to bow Water Tribe style as he said, "It is an honor to meet you, Chief Hakoda."
The chief looked rather helplessly to his son, who coughed again. "Um, he's teaching Aang firebending."
As if that made more sense. "I... I thought the Avatar didn't want to firebend."
"Well he didn't, and he was having trouble because of that, and then Zuko couldn't firebend as well, because apparently his power was based on being an angry jerk and he couldn't perform once he decided to be nice, but then they went and met some dragons who taught them a cool dance and they both felt better about-"
"It is not a dance, I didn't decide to be nice and why can he call Aang 'the Avatar' and I can't?" Zuko was giving Sokka a decidedly grumpy look.
"Well, he's using it as a title, not... you know, a label like you used t-"
"Sokka!" Hakoda fixed his son with a serious glare. "I know I took a blow to the head, but could you please explain to me why the prince of the Fire Nation is suddenly on our side?"
"Um... well, you see, when we fled the invasion he followed us and said he wanted to train Aang and help end the war and we didn't believe him, except Toph who knows when people are lying and said he was sincere, and Appa but I haven't ruled out the honey hypothesis on that, but then Toph went to talk to him and he accidentally burned her feet but felt bad about it then when Combustion Man showed up Zuko helped fight him and almost got killed so we decided to give him a chance and now he's really proven himself and dragons like him, so..."
"I... see." The chief found himself somewhat distracted from his next line of inquiry by the look of annoyed affection that the pirate, er prince, was currently shooting at his son.
"Maybe you should both get some sleep," Zuko suggested. "We've got an hour before sunset, then I'll change our course to take us straight towards the Air Temple." At Hakoda's questioning glance he elaborated, "We're on a heading for the Earth Kingdom now, taking us closer to where the others are but not on a direct path, just in case."
"Maybe your secondary role in the group should be the Paranoid Guy... Here dad, you can have the sleeping bag, I'll wrap up in my new cloak. Man, we should be pirates full time, just look at how well this goes with the hat..." The prince grumbled that Sokka would be paranoid too if there were less than six people on the planet who didn't want him dead, but went back to filling the balloon's burner with flames. Hakoda settled down on the sleeping bag and allowed himself to drift off again.
lineline
He woke at night to the sound of firebending and his son's snoring. Without stirring, he opened his eyes slightly, to observe the Fire Prince heating the burner again. His movements were very different than the firebending Hakoda was used to seeing in combat. More fluid, almost elegant. He closed the iron door, checked the stars to confirm their heading then knelt to take something out of a bag at his feet.
"Would you like some water, sir? I'm afraid we didn't bring much in the way of food, but there are some moon peaches. We should be back to the others in three or four hours." He was startled, but simply sat up and nodded to accept. The teen, who had taken off the garish boots and some of the more ridiculous finery, settled beside him cross legged and handed over a waterskin and two fruits. "I'm, er, very sorry about your head, Chief Hakoda. You moved away before I could tell you Sokka was there and I couldn't exactly yell it out, but... um, sorry. I'm sure your daughter will be able to heal any remaining pain when we get to the Air Temple."
"Is an Air Temple really the best place for an airbender on the run to be hiding?" He took a drink.
"I've had my concerns about that as well, but Fire Nation propaganda works with us in this case." Zuko leaned back against the side of the basket and took a bite of his own peach. "The Air Temples don't appear on any modern maps, and aren't even discussed in the official histories. Those who know they exist tend to assume most were physically destroyed in Sozin's attack on the Air Nomads. I know I was shocked at how much remained when I visited them the first time. And while we may eventually be looked for there, at least we won't be spotted there."
He stood for a moment to heat the burner, then sat again. Hakoda finished one of his peaches and drank again. Not exactly filling but better than prison food. "Sokka didn't really answer my question earlier."
The prince nodded. "He was trying to explain why the group accepted me, but you were asking why I wanted to join with them in the first place." He added in a casual tone, "You don't trust me."
"That doesn't bother you?" The chief didn't bother denying the observation.
"It would have a couple of days ago, but I've toned down my expectations on that front. The only person I need to trust me is Aang, because teaching him would be almost impossible otherwise."
"You don't care if my son trusts you?"
Zuko smiled affectionately over at the still snoring boy. "I'm very happy about Sokka's trust and friendship, but it's a bonus. I didn't become a fugitive again to make friends, I did it to help end the war and bring some balance back into the world. And the trust I need for that is the Avatar's."
"As I understood it, you spent three years doing whatever it took to get back to the palace," Hakoda's voice was blunt and he didn't try to hide his skepticism. Aang might be the Avatar, but he was also a child and sometimes children needed an adult to second guess them. "I'm finding it hard to imagine what would have made you give it up again."
The prince leaned back and gazed up at the moon. After a moment of quiet almost long enough for Hakoda to push again, he spoke contemplatively. "You know how people always say 'you don't know what you have till it's gone'? It turns out that works the other way around too. You can want something so badly it seems nothing else matters, sacrifice everything to get it, and then realize that you never really understood what exactly it was you were striving towards."
"I've been trying to gain my father's approval a lot longer than three years... I suppose the first sign I actually paid attention to was that I finally got that approval when he thought I'd killed a 12 year old boy who wanted to bring peace to the world." He got up again and returned to heating the burner, but stayed there, seeming to find peace in the movements of the flames. "Just before the eclipse, he invited me to a special war meeting - he actually wanted me there and wouldn't start it without me. Sat me at his right hand, asked my opinion on the issue of the Earth Kingdom rebellions... I told him that I didn't think the people of the Earth Kingdom would ever give up. I wanted to encourage him to let go of the need to have the entire world as Fire Nation, make a peace of some sort and be satisfied with the colonies we had there. He... took it a different way."
Hakoda didn't speak. He remembered the talk of the comet, knew what the Fire Nation had used it for the last time it came. He found himself thinking that for all he'd done, this boy wasn't much older than his own son.
"So that's what made me give up what I spent my whole life trying to get. Turned out the approval I wanted came from a monster, but I couldn't see that until I actually had it." Zuko glanced back over at Sokka, and Hakoda realized his son hadn't been snoring for a while. The prince gave that affectionate smile again, that seemed almost out of place on his face. "You should try to get some more sleep," he said and seemed to be addressing it to both Water Tribe men. "Unless we can somehow sneak in without waking anyone, I wouldn't anticipate being allowed to go to bed once we get to the Air Temple."
Hakoda agreed and from the snores that began again as he drifted off, so did Sokka.
A/N : And this concludes Hakoda's perspective. Next chapter will return you to your regularly scheduled Plan Guy. Maybe we'll come back to Hakoda later if I think the boys need some parental disapproval angst in their lives.
A/N2 : I wrote an M rated one shot of the Zukka variety, and if you ever want this or my other ongoing fic to become lemony, you should review it to tell me what I did right or wrong. If you think these are better T rated, you should tell me that in reviews here. Basically you should send me lots of reviews because I get this silly little happy PING inside when I see one in my mailbox. *blushes*
