Sorry it's been a while - I'll spare you all the lovely details of school, but suffice it to say it's been nothing short of a week from hell. So here, finally, is the next - somewhat long - chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of the affiliated characters. If I did, someone else would be doing all my homework/essays/ projects/presentations...

Oh, and to goldenrosebud: yes, the Blue Spirit is supposed to be super silent. I think I mention that a few times, but if I ever made him anything more than just barely audible...oops! that was an accident - feel free to point it out!


Night Three

Now that he was fairly certain of her identity, Zuko was not surprised to find the Painted Lady sitting on the roof, staring at the building across the street. She felt his presence but acknowledged it with no more than a finger directed at the house.

"A man died there today. He had two kids."

"I know," he replied solemnly. There was really nothing else he could say.

"I guess we can't save them all," she murmured.

He hesitated, but decided to put his hand on her back. "We do what we can."

"It's just not enough." His hand had sent through her a comforting warmth, even though it didn't take away the feelings of uselessness and despair. But when he withdrew, she was overcome by a chill that wrapped itself around her. "Where are you going?"

Barely a second had passed, and he was already standing at the edge of the rooftop, poised to jump onto the next. It was impossible, how swiftly and soundlessly he moved. "To set it as close to right as I can." He tilted his head, considering her. She wished she knew what was going on behind the mask. "Care to join me?"


Katara hadn't gone to the back of the village, let alone even thought about it. It was a row of great and awe-striking mansions, smaller than the Fire Nation palace, of course, but immensely larger than the three room houses in the rest of the town. If given the task, the entire enclosure that was her village in the Southern Water Tribe would only be able to fit one of the buildings, maybe two if they knocked down the igloo.

Zuko was not impressed by the size; he'd grown up in grander buildings, and was fully aware that bigger homes meant little about the people that inhabited them. The best places he'd been were small camps in the forest and simple Earth Kingdom apartments, with his uncle.

"This one belongs to governor Canku," he said as they approached one house and crept into a side alley that Katara probably wouldn't have noticed on her own. Hiding in the dark shadows cast down by the balcony from the second story, he took her to the back of the dirty, dingy lane, where there was a door closed with a padlock. He reached over his shoulder and pulled his sword from its sheath, sticking the point in the lock and wiggling it.

Katara furrowed her eyebrows, because even though she clearly saw him draw the sword and it was in his hand at the moment, it remained in the sheath. She stepped closer to him, trying to see through the darkness, and was just able to make out the hilts, perfectly halved. Dual swords, she realized just as the lock clicked and he pushed the door open.

It creaked on hinges rusty with daily use and neglect of care, but after a minute of crouching in the black of the servant's hall, they were both convinced no one had heard. They continued creeping down, Zuko leading. He cast a glance into the first door on his right and grimaced; it was the kitchen, exactly what he was looking for, but the light was on.

Katara stopped when he did. "What is it?"

"There are people inside." His voice was annoyed, but he kept walking, a new idea dawning on him - not one as good, but one that could get them something until the kitchen was empty. Barely five steps away, on the opposite side of the hall, was the storage room. He was pleased to find that wasn't locked. Inside, though, was pitch black. He felt his way in the darkness along the wall until he reached the oil lamp, but his attempts to turn it on failed.

"Do you have a match?" she asked from somewhere behind him.

"More or less," he replied, glad for the darkness as he shot a flame at the wick. It caught, and lit up the storage closet. He surveyed the food. It wasn't what he'd wanted, as he knew he could get from the kitchen things that were actually cooked or baked. But at least it was something.

Katara saw it too, and immediately started pulling open bags. She ignored the multiple sacks of flour, but grabbed one filled with rice and one containing cabbage. On the other side of the room, the Blue Spirit was filling an empty sack with little bags of fruits and vegetables: Ash bananas, cherries, leechi nuts, lettuce, pink and purple berries, tomato-carrots, pomegranates.

Closing the door, they crept out of the storage room and back into the alley, where Katara was surprised to see him put down the bag, careful not to bruise any of the fruit inside. He turned back to reenter. "What are you doing?" she asked.

He looked at the food they'd collected. "It's not enough. I'm just going to see if I can get into the kitchens."

"I'm coming," she told him. Behind the mask, he smiled, and they went back inside to the kitchen door. The lights were still on, but they were dimmed, and no one was inside.

This was what he wanted: baskets of breads and rolls, meats and fish in the ice locker, and barrels of prepared dumplings that only needed to be boiled in water.

Katara watched in amazement. How did he know where everything was? She distractedly put rolls in an extra sack as the Blue Spirit went through the cabinets, pulling down containers of all different sizes. He tossed a few to her and instructed her to fill them with dumplings. In the meantime, he drew both swords and began slicing duck, komodo chicken, squid, and sea slug. He then put them in containers, which he neatly stacked on top of each other. He never once used his hands.

Wiping his swords on a nearby sack, he decided that they definitely needed to be cleaned soon. He sheathed them, picked up the containers, and turned to look, for the first time, straight into the eyes of the Painted Lady. They were blue, deep, clear blue, like the pure water of the oceans she lived near.

Without a doubt in his mind, he knew it was her.

He realized they had remained staring at each other, and he was glad for his mask. "What?" he asked.

She shouldered the sack filled with bread, turned to leave, and answered, "Nothing."


Ladened with their bags, it was slow and tiresome moving back to the main area of the village, but the strained muscles were nothing in comparison to the feeling of being able to leave food at the doorstep of the new widow. They used the extra to distribute around, depositing a loaf of bread here, a container of dumplings there.

"I knew the governor ate well, but I didn't think so little of his food could feed so much of the village," Katara said as she finally emptied their sack by placing a container of sea slug and a bag of purple berries at the door to a house near the gates of the village.

"Fire Nation officials eat like pigs," Zuko replied as they left the town and began climbing the hill to reach the forest. "Even if they don't deserve to." He'd been on both sides of that, having grown up always having a piece of food available if his stomach so much as gurgled, and also being so hungry he'd nearly passed out. "Just for one day, I'd like to see them eat like everyone else." He smiled at the thought. "I doubt they'd survive."

Katara couldn't help herself; the words just came tumbling out. "How do you know so much about it all?" At the tree line outside of the city gates now, he stopped and his head snapped to the side to look at her. "About the Fire Nation, I mean." It took him a second before his heart rate slowed and he reminded himself that it wasn't an accusation; she was just curious.

"I've been doing this for a long time."

She left it at that, but watched him until he disappeared into the shadows of the forest. He was tall and muscular, but she couldn't imagine him being that much older than she was. How long was a long time?


Hopefully the next update will be sooner - I'll do my best :/ In the meantime, reviews are much appreciated!