Disclaimer: I don not own Avatar.
Author's Note: Only two POV splits. I got so confused trying to figure out how to fit everything in order that I had to eliminate the Zuko/Katara/Clivian parts altogether. But on the upside, you'll be able to follow story better.
By the way, I've corrected some inconsistancies in the story, mainly about Toph who is given a smaller role than anyone else for some reason. I seriously have to fix that. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter!
+Ethan Jones+
When the truck finally screeched to a stop in front of one of the pink bricked apartments of Xai Apartment Complex, Jones hurled out of his seat with a muttered thanks to "Johan" and sprinted up the short steps to the front door.
Xai Apartments were notably the most bucolic residential structures in all of West Verklay. This statement might have been laughed at mere decades ago when such apartment buildings were quite common and considered not in the least bit rural before they started popping up in shorter heights in country towns. Subsequently, modern city people started pining for a way to segregate themselves from hicks and most of these apartments had been torn down and replaced.
The residents might boast that their apartments were quite charming compared to the aesthetic architectural masterpieces which were considered real apartments in today's light, but at that moment, Jones was cursing Xai Apartment's lack of high-speed elevators. He hadn't encountered elevators this slow since his last visit to his grandfather's retirement home at the age of sixteen.
When the elevator finally came, Jones was glad to see that there were some advantages to this lack of renovation. The elevators weren't even equipped with any forms of security measures such as finger print scanners or card slots. All Jones had to do was shift his face away from the surveillance camera.
When he reached number 2102, he rang the bell and waited for the door to open. Belated anticipation began to spread from his head to his foot. Heart pounding, he slipped through the door when it clicked open.
"Hey-"
He barely had time to take in the pink wallpaper and the numerous flowerpots overflowing with colorful plants when something slammed hard into his back sending him sprawling to the floor.
Before he had time to register what had happened, a pair of hands grabbed him roughly around the collar and slammed him into the opposite wall so hard that a potted plant on a nearby table smashed to the floor. He was still trying to clear his head as he was dragged and shoved roughly against a wall.
"Who the hell are you?" Jones snarled, frantically calculating how best to use his free limbs.
Something pressed menacingly into his backbone as a surprisingly feminine voice said quietly, "Nice to see you too, Jones."
A vacuum seemed to suck the breath from him. He could feel blood draining from his face as his voice asked incredulously, "Kim? Is that you?"
The hand holding his collar slackened and Jones, legs suddenly too numb to support his weight, slid to the floor. In his kneeling position, he slowly turned his head and came face to face with the mouth of a pistol. Just above that he could make out Yumi's cold brown eyes.
"I think," Yumi said in her iciest voice. "that it's time you talked. Oh, and to quote a little saying you interrogators so love to use, 'omission is a syllable short of lying', so don't even think about it."
"Kim, what the hell are you talking about?" Jones was surprised to hear his voice sound so calm when his insides were shrinking just by having eye contact with her. Sure, she had a gun, but Jones was betting that she if she chose to, she would willingly kick his ass without it.
As though on cue, Yumi whipped out something black and thin from her coat pocket.
Without lowering the gun or looking away from him, Yumi swiftly worked the flat device, angling it so he couldn't see the screen. When she was finished, she shoved the MT 3000 (a multi-tasking, information storing device issued to all high ranking police personnel in most States) into his face so he could see it.
It was a list. It wasn't exactly long but Jones raked the list several times, trying to figure out what it meant. It consisted mostly of phone numbers but halfway down, he caught sight of an unfamiliar e-mail address. After that there was something else which he couldn't decipher due to the fact that the bottom half was cut off by the screen. It started with S but he couldn't make out the rest.
"I don't…" Jones shook his head, trying to remember. "I don't… understand. I-"
"Don't try to act stupider than you already are, Jones." Yumi sighed with exasperation. "You're the one who told me, remember? Back in my office? Or are you so goddamn retarded that you can't even tell what's real anymore?"
And that was when it finally dawned on him what she was talking about. He knew what the thing at the bottom of the list was. It was an address, the very place where he had spent the last week lying in bed.
St. Carol's Hospital was where he had first woken up after the explosion at Microbe, right before some guy posing as a detective came in to question him. Later, while in bed, he had read in the papers about the death of the technician he had worked with at his last interrogation. It had not taken him much time to piece enough information together to figure out that Zuko might not have been a criminal which would then make Microbe the puppet master, the one pulling all the strings.
But if Yumi had all this information-
"You're with them, aren't you?"
For one head-spinning moment, Jones thought that he had spoken aloud, had voiced his conclusion that Yumi Kim was actually affiliated with Microbe, making him a naïve moron for ever having sought her help in the first place. But next second, his senses seemed to come back to him and were telling him that it wasn't he who had spoken out.
Perhaps it was due to the current situation but Jones's abilities seemed to come more naturally to him just then than at any other time. To the unpracticed eye, Yumi might have appeared to be the image she was desperately trying to hold together: calm, dominating, completely in control. But in her moment of weakness, Jones could read her plainly for what was perhaps the very first time.
He looked directly into her eyes and he imagined that in another lifetime, he might have seen tears of frustration there. It was surprising to him how he could not have understood it before but he now saw an inkling of why Yumi was doing this, of why she had agreed to help him in the first place.
"Listen, you've got this all wrong." Said Jones, not breaking eye contact. "Yumi, I'm not working for-"
The lip of the barrel kissed his forehead, sending a cold chill down his spine. It was a light touch but the message couldn't have been more clear had Yumi shouted it. Jones didn't recoil but stopped talking when he saw that the semi-automatic was shaking slightly.
"Think this is some kind of joke, do you?" Yumi's whisper was low that Jones almost had to lip read her next words. "Well, if I've got it wrong, Jones, tell me… what are half a dozen armed men doing outside the fucking door at this very moment?"
There was a commotion outside. Jones couldn't see the door from his location on the floor, but didn't miss the racket made when the door was knocked clean off its hinges. No matter how technology advanced, it seemed, the easiest way to open a locked door would always be by running into it.
Heavy footsteps pounded over the threshold and Jones heard the unmistakable clicks of firearms. One the men stepped into Jones's limit line of vision and he saw that someone had sent in the bloody SWAT team full equipped with assault rifles and black wardrobe.
It came as an ominous sign to Jones that the SWAT team had decided to make an overly conspicuous entry when the hostage was being held at gunpoint. Jones had never really had anything to do with SWAT so his knowledge of these kinds of rescue procedures might not have been extensive, but if he hadn't known any better (which he technically didn't) he would have guessed that they didn't really care if he died either way.
One of the officers spoke out in a loud voice, "Drop your weapon. If you do not comply, we will shoot."
Yumi took one step back, both hands raised at shoulder height in a sign of submission. She was holding her gun by the top of the barrel so that the handle faced Jones. He chanced a glance at her, wondering if she would glare or just kick him. To his surprise, her eyes showed no sign of defeat. In fact, they were almost close to smiling at him, mockingly or otherwise, he could not tell.
Suddenly, time itself seemed to screech to a standstill. He saw the corners of her mouth curl slightly and her eyes roll slightly to the right to her gun. Then, in slow-motion, her eyes moved back to meet his and the grip on her gun slackened. The semi-automatic began to make its torturously slow fall to the floor…
Never had Jones moved so fast. He hurled himself to his right, caught the gun midair and fired blindly at the SWAT team before crashing into a coffee table.
There were cries of surprise, pain and-
Crouching in the wreckage of splintered furniture, Jones thought he was hallucinating. The large rug on which the SWAT team was standing was whipped out from underneath their feet as though by magic. They all toppled backward like bowling pins but he could see no more as he was wrenched to his feet by the collar, choking slightly in the process.
"Come on!" He heard Yumi shout in his ear as the disorganized men behind them started bellowing in confusion and a strange beeping noise started to grow louder and louder.
"What the-" Jones started but next second, Yumi had shoved him outside onto the veranda and was attempting to throw him over the railing.
When he resisted Yumi hollered, "JUST GO!" and without waiting for his reply (though admittedly, he had none), she grabbed his forearm and rolled over the railings herself, dragging him with her.
They had barely cleared the railing when an explosion more deafening than the one at Microbe tore apart the apartment they had just vacated. The sliding glass door that led to the veranda was blown out completely. Glass was sprayed in every direction as the fire roared in unison with the cries of agony from the men left inside.
Outside on the pavement, frightened pedestrians were fleeing the vicinity, some screaming in terror. One of the women who were running across the street was carrying her small son. The son in question was babbling incoherently, his stubby finger pointing at the blazing wreckage twenty one floors above where he could just make out two figures hanging on for dear life.
+Avatar World+
Sokka and Hakoda managed to move the Avatar several rooms down the hall. Together, father and son laid Aang on a sofa after shooing the snoring medic who was napping there. There was an elegant canopied bed in the room but the sheets were damp and sticky from Aang's nonstop sweating. Even as they stripped the mattress of its sheets, beads formed on Aang's creased forehead and slid down the side of his face.
After they had moved Aang to the freshly made bed, Hakoda placed a wet towel on the ill boy's forehead and stepped back. It was rather difficult to tell if he was really asleep or not. For one thing, his limbs kept jerking at odd intervals and his lips continuously muttered something incoherent.
Sokka pulled up a chair to sit by Aang's bed and stared helplessly at his friend. Hakoda pulled up a chair next to Sokka and together they sat, wondering what was happening to the Avatar.
"Dad," Sokka said suddenly as though a sudden thought had occurred to him, "when you said that Madam Wu was already dead when you got there, do you mean you were the first to find her?"
Hakoda shook his head. "I was too late even for that, Sokka. The village folk found her first. I'm afraid I walked straight into the middle of her funeral."
Sokka sat up a little straighter and Hakoda was bemused to see his son looking so eager.
"Then did you have a good look at her body, Dad?" he asked.
"No, Sokka, I didn't." answered Hakoda, now staring down at his son in surprise. "Like I said, the funeral was already in progress. The villagers told me that she'd been found murdered in her house."
"But Dad, this is important. What about her casket?"
Hakoda burst into laughter at this and it was Sokka's turn to look up at his father in shock.
"Sokka…" Hakoda chuckled, observing his son through twinkling eyes. "I've forgotten how young you are. You've never had to go to a real funeral, have you?"
"Actually, there was mom." Sokka said without meeting his father's eyes.
"Yes," Hakoda said gently, placing a warm hand on Sokka's shoulder, "your mother's funeral was an extremely special one. And not just because of the funeral itself."
Sokka nodded and his remembered as vividly as Suki's features, the ship he and the remaining members of his heartbroken family had sailed out to sea. His mother's body had been sealed inside an intricately carved casket, one that the entire family and a few close family members had worked on to complete in time for the funeral.
"Goodbye." Sokka had managed to whisper as his mother's casket had been lowered into the sea. He had watched it sink out of sight, had watched his mother dragged to the bottom of the sea by the covetous fingers of the dead. He had watched a small shard of himself sink with it and had closed his eyes as anguish pulsed through his veins.
"Sokka," Hakoda said softly, bringing Sokka out of his reverie, "Madam Wu didn't need a casket. She was cremated."
"What?" Sokka said incredulously. "But why?"
The look his father gave him was a little too understanding, the kind of look a grown-up would give a small child for believing that babies were born via stork delivery.
"Well, Sokka," Hakoda began, considering how best to explain it, "there isn't a law saying that everyone has to be buried. I know cremation was, and still is, quite rare back home but for people around these parts, it's customary for one to be cremated. After all, land is quite precious to farmers who grow crops and using up all that land burying hundreds of caskets wouldn't really be the smartest thing to do. Instead they cremate the bodies and either keep the urns or spread the ashes over a significant location."
Sokka stood up at once, knocking his chair over in the process. Hakoda looked alarmed at his son's reaction and stood up as well.
"Sokka, there's no point feeling angry about-"
"Dad, this has nothing to do with the funeral. Well, maybe a little bit but I'll explain on the way." And without another word, Sokka sprinted out the door with an utterly confused Hakoda hot on his tail.
Coming to an abrupt halt at the doorframe of the room where Mai and Iroh sat deep in discussion, he left a hurried "We'll be back later" before dashing away again.
"Sokka, slow down!" Hakoda called to his son in protest as they scrambled down the palace steps to the courtyard. "Where are we going this late?"
Moonlight flooded the courtyard and illuminated a snoozing Appa who had fallen asleep against the wall.
Sokka climbed up on Appa's back with ease but his father, who was not as accustomed to riding on the back of a flying bison, just stared up at his son in disbelief.
"Sokka," he began again, "where are we-"
"Dad, just get on already! I'll explain everything on way!"
Without another word, Hakoda climbed the ladder onto Appa. The bison yawned and shifted as he felt the unfamiliar weight on his back.
When Appa was fully standing on his six legs, Sokka flicked the reins and called out, "Yip yip!" The giant bison yawned again before lifting off into the night sky, moving his various limbs up and down like the oars of a Viking ship.
"Dad," Sokka said when they were cruising smoothly in the darkness, "do you remember that letter Aunt Wu sent us?"
From the saddle Hakoda answered, "You mean that message telling Aang he was in danger? How could I forget? You're sister went crazy over it."
"Well, don't you think it's a little strange?" Sokka asked again, looking over his shoulder at his father.
"Well, I'm not entirely inclined to believe that fortune telling is real but what with things turning out the way they are, I can't say it's all a big joke either."
"No, I don't mean that, Dad." Sokka said, turning back to face the front. "I mean, isn't it strange that Aunt Wu already knew that she was in danger and yet she didn't do anything to prevent her own death?"
"Well, we can't judge her so easily on that, Sokka. Whoever murdered her was obviously not playing around. Whatever precautions she took were just not enough."
"But Dad," said Sokka, "think about it. What would you have done if you knew someone was hell-bent on killing you?"
Hakoda pondered this for a moment before answering, "I suppose I would have alerted the authorities or else have gone into hiding."
"That's just it, Dad, why didn't she go into hiding? Why did she stay in her house until the murderer came?" Sokka said, talking faster now that they had reached the crucial point.
"Like I said, Sokka, maybe she alerted the authorities in which case she might have not thought that she needed to resort to such measures."
"Did she alert the authorities?"
"Well, that village, as you probably remember, isn't big enough to have its own prefect. I'm not even sure they have a subprefect, so it would have been difficult for her to report her suspicions."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about." Sokka said. "If she was under threat of being murdered, she couldn't just recklessly leave the village to complain to the local magistrate. In other words, she had no choice but to go into hiding."
"Which she decided against, Sokka." Hakoda reminded him.
"You're right, Dad," said Sokka, "she probably just stayed in her house. After all, she was no longer in danger after she faked her own death."
"What?" Hakoda exclaimed disbelievingly. "What do you mean?"
"Don't you get it, Dad? It all makes sense!" said Sokka, smiling over his shoulder at his dumbfounded father. "If she really wanted to hide from her would-be-killer, the best way would be to fake her own death and make it look like someone got to her first. Even if the killer found it fishy, he couldn't exactly hang around with the whole village on the look-out for Aunt Wu's murderer, could he?"
"You make a good point, Sokka." His father acknowledged. "But you're forgetting that the village found her body and had it cremated. I've already told you that I witnessed the funeral firsthand, Sokka, and I don't think everyone in that village is a wonderful actor."
"What if she confided in only a select few to help her out with her plan?" Sokka suggested. "What if she asked them to pretend like they had found her body and then replicate a cremation before anyone realized?" At his father's obvious skepticism he added, "Those villagers weren't exactly the brightest. A couple of convincing witnesses and they would have swallowed the thing whole."
"So that's where we're going?" Hakoda asked as he poked his head over the edge to peer down into the blackness below. "We're going to the village to find Aunt Wu?"
Sokka nodded. "I'm sure she knows more than she wrote in that message she sent us. She might even have been waiting for us to figure it out and go look for her."
They swerved around a forest of evergreen spotted a cluster of roofs further away. The first rays of sunlight were starting to appear. Dawn broke out as Appa readied to land in the small village below.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated!
