A/N: I want to thank Rohain Tahquil, doctor anthony, Gibsonmar, sokkatylee and the unknown review 'Sammy' for their awesome reviews regarding the previous chapter.

Chapter 9 – Down the Dark Tunnel

It was the dead of night, the darkness hung persistently like a blinding veil, refusing to give him any sort of relief from the perpetual blindness he was in. His amber eyes were fixed on the guard who was carefully surveying his surroundings atop the makeshift outpost. While waiting for the guard to pass on, Zuko's eyes shifted towards his intended destination.

Earlier that day, he and Lee had speculated possible areas where the attackers could hide. The two of them had come to the quick conclusion that the only possible were the Dai Chi Mountains themselves. But despite the mutual agreement, Zuko had his doubts, the ravines were almost impossible to scale even with mountain climbing equipment, furthermore, it was not the ideal place to locate your army, the mountains were dry and dusty, meaning there was no water and with the exception of cave shrews, there was little food available. But Zuko was determined to scout the Mountains, and he was determined to do it alone.

The guard was finally satisfied with his surroundings and disappeared from Zuko's view. The prince waited, as he was for a few minutes, before leaping from his crouching position and running as silently as he could on top a broken beam. He needed to be a bit more cautious; he had nearly alerted the guard a few yards back when he accidentally tripped over a metal rod that stuck out of a broken wall.

That's the result of not having practiced in over two years he thought to himself, as he leapt atop a crumbling wall and slid down smoothly.

After a few minutes, Zuko stopped, not to catch his breath but to look around. The Dai Chi Mountains was located further away from the coast than he had expected. He couldn't feel the cool breeze he felt near the ocean. He wondered just how large the city was and made a mental note to look at the archives on Sozin when he returned to the Imperial City. Zuko looked ahead at the looming mountains that seemed to gleam a glaring white under the moonlight. He was standing in an area where ruined buildings met grass, which meant that he was in the outskirts of the city. If he could just….

"Going somewhere?"

Zuko reacted in an instant, he spun on his heels and brought out his dual swords, pointing them in the direction he heard the voice.

Lee was leaning against the wall, his arms raised in surrender. Zuko lowered his swords but did not cease his glare at his officer.

"How did you know that I would be here?"

"I know you, my prince" came the reply. "I walked into your tent only to find it empty"

Lee sighed and rubbed the back of his head.

"Given our discussion that morning, it wasn't hard to figure out where you were going. Which direction you were going though, that was a little hard to figure out"

Zuko raised an eyebrow in question.

"The mountains practically surround the city" said Lee, gesturing around them. "You could have gone anywhere, luckily a guard thought he saw something move and someone speak. I figured it had to be you"

Zuko held back a curse, one little mistake brought him to this point, he didn't expect Lee to be so sharp.

"Look, prince" said Lee. "I know what you're planning to do, and I have to say that it is ludicrous"

Zuko sighed and clenched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, there was no point in beating around the bush.

"You yourself stated that whoever attacked Sozin could be hiding in the mountain range"

"It was speculation" said Lee, sounding slightly exasperated. "There is no concrete evidence to prove that they're attackers up there"

"But there is no concrete evidence to prove that there isn't" replied Zuko, he turned away from his friend and looked up at the mountain range.

"Try and understand, Lee" said Zuko, his eyes fixed on the mountains. "I have to do this, there's no way we can rebuild this city and return the people to their normal lives while these attackers are so close by. I have to do this, I'm asking you not as a prince but as a friend"

Lee sighed and ran his hand through his hair, and when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm.

"As your friend, I understand" said Lee. "I understand that you want to save these people, I also know that you would rather put yourself in harm's way rather than let your men suffer"

Zuko smiled to himself, Lee can be a bit of a pushover he thought to himself.

"But as your Lieutenant, I feel it is my duty to inform you that what you're planning is crazy"

Zuko frowned Okay, I spoke too soon he thought.

He rounded on his friend, who was now speaking.

"Think about what you're trying to do!" he snapped. "You're trying to scout a mountain range where people have died , we don't even know for sure if they're attackers up there! And even if there were, they can see you coming from miles away and ambush you. At least send scouts up there before taking another step"

"If the attackers are up there" said Zuko. "It would mean putting my men in danger-"

"So what!" snapped Lee, losing his patience. "The harsh reality is that everyone here, the people, our men, me, everyone is dispensable, everyone except you"

Zuko glared at his friend. "I will not see it that way!" he snapped.

"You have to" said Lee. "You're not the Banished Prince who roamed the Earth Kingdom, anymore. You're the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation! The father of 'Reconstruction' Do you have any idea what would happen if something happened to you? Or worse, if you were killed?"

Zuko looked away and did not respond. Lee took the silence as his signal to continue.

"Don't you think it's odd?" he said. "That they destroyed practically every building except the docks?"

Zuko did not respond, yes, it had occurred to him as odd that the docks were the only functional building left standing amidst the sea of destruction.

"I thought it was weird" said Lee. "Because if your goal is to make the people submit to your will, then why not destroy the only chance of getting word out to the Imperial City? Why not destroy the only building that would grant entry to the army? Destroy the docks, Sozin is cut off from the Fire Nation. It then occurred to me" continued Lee. "That maybe the point wasn't to takeover Sozin"

Zuko looked up, positively alarmed.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"Think about it, my prince" said Lee. "We're the only regiment up here. It will take days before word reaches the nearest city. Anything can happen in that period of time"

"What are you saying, Lee?" said Zuko.

"The point of destroying Sozin" said Lee. "May not be to take over the city, but to draw you into a trap that will be hard to get out of"

Zuko's blood went cold; he glanced at his surroundings in horror.

Buildings were destroyed, people were killed he thought. Just to get to me? By Agni, am I hated that much? Are there so many people who will do absolutely anything to get rid of me?

"You need to think this through" said Lee. "We need to send scouts to the area. Based on what they find, we can make our next move"

Zuko pondered Lee's words. Lee was not as preposterous as he sounded, Zuko realized. Being the Crown Prince, Zuko was probably one of the most important people in the Fire Nation, chaos would follow if something happened to him. There was no concrete evidence to prove that whoever attacked Sozin was hiding in the mountains, for all he knew, the attackers could have abandoned the area when the Dragon Regiment arrived. Lee's theory wasn't all that outrageous either, he realized. Riots had taken place right across the country, it wasn't that far fetched to think that there was a group of angry people waiting to pounce on him. Somehow, the thought didn't seem to scare him. Zuko looked up and his eyes seem to glow in the moonlight, he had made his decision.

"You're right, Lee" he said. "We don't know that if the attackers of Sozin are still out there. There's every chance that whoever attacked Sozin, did it as a ruse to call me here, where we can only reach the rest of the country by ship"

Lee sighed in relief.

"However"

Lee groaned.

"I simply refuse to just sit back and wait for the attackers to come to me, I refuse to put innocent people between me and my enemy, if these people are willing to destroy an entire city and starve the populace just to get to me, then I cannot just step aside and let them do as they wish"

Zuko's eyes glinted with malice, as he looked at Lee. "If these people want me" he said. "Then I am going to them. They asked for trouble the moment they decided to do this"

Lee sighed in resignation, he knew Zuko well enough to know that once the prince had made up his mind, there was no stopping him.

"You're too stubborn for your own good" he said.

"Qin will be in charge of the refugee camp" said Zuko. "You're in charge of the regiment"

Lee nodded and turned away, he walked a few steps before he stopped.

"Come back alive, Zuko" he said. "I'm not asking as your officer, I'm telling you as a friend. Come back alive"

Zuko smiled and placed his dual swords back in it's sheath. Without saying a word, he turned around and made his way towards the mountains.

"You should have seen how the hog monkey reacted, I mean, it was furious when we took it's children…"

Katara listened to Aang with a small smile on her face. It heartened her to know that the task of being the keeper of world peace had not prevented him from having fun. As Katara watched him rant about the wild hog monkeys he encountered in the Earth Kingdom, her mind couldn't help but go back to the time when she had begun seen him as more then just friends.

It was mid autumn, a time when the breeze was cool but not freezing and a feeling of anticipation hung about in the air. Katara watched the trees shed their brown, red leaves remembering the man who had once taken her up those trees on a pulley.

"Katara?" It was Aang, the waterbender turned around to face him and smiled.

"What is it, Aang?" she said.

The avatar sighed and looked away, he rubbed the back of his head, nervously.

"I…"

"Aang?"

"I just wanted to know if you are okay," he blurted out.

Katara gave him a smile, though it did not reach her eyes.

"Why would you think that I'm not fine?" she asked.

"You've been really preoccupied lately" he said. "Distracted" He added, somewhat lamely.

Katara smiled at his good intentions. "I'm fine, Aang" she said. "Really, I am"

"Are you sure?" he persisted. "You haven't been yourself since we left the Fire Nation"

Katara's smile faltered, she didn't want to think about the Fire Nation, thinking about the country would inevitably draw thoughts of it's leader, and he was the last person she wanted to think about at the moment.

"It's a bit odd" she said, turning away from him.

Aang frowned at her words.

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

Katara looked down at her feet, struggling to find the words that were appropriate.

"It's just that" she said. "I never thought that I would be travelling after the war ended"

"But Katara, travelling is great!" said Aang. "We get to see the world! We get to have adventure! What more do you want?"

Katara didn't know how to answer that. She simply smiled at Aang's exuberance.

"Katara, you've got to lighten up" he said, walking up to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "The war is over, all the fear, the destruction, the tyranny, it's all come to an end"

"Yes" whispered, Katara. "Thanks to you"

To her surprise, Aang shook his head.

"No, Katara" he said, with a surprising touch of firmness. "It was all thanks to you"

Katara was surprised, she had never considered herself the saviour of the world, that title had always gone to Aang, it was meant to be ever since he came into the world, it was his destiny, she was simply the girl who saw him achieve what he was always meant to do.

"Aang, that's really sweet of you" she said. "But the war ended thanks to you, everyone knows that"

"And I could never have done it if it weren't you" he said, smiling. "Our travels were fun and all, but there were some hard times, really hard times which I could never have gone through without your help. You kept us going when things went bad. You saved me, Katara" he added in a soft whisper.

In spite of herself, she felt a warm glow envelope her insides.

"The world may thank the Avatar for bringing peace" he said. "But I will always thank my friends for giving me the world"

Katara's felt a surge of love for the boy before her.

"Oh, Aang" she said, embracing the slightly shorter boy. "That was so sweet!"

Aang smiled and blushed, and all at once he returned to being the nervous boy he was only a few seconds ago. A brief silence followed, before Katara spoke.

"We're we going now?" she said.

"The Eastern Earth Kingdom" said Aang. "Zuko told me that many of the Fire Nations' former colonies are there. He said that he had given orders for troops to pull out. He advised me to be there lest there be trouble"

Katara resisted the urge to frown at the one name she didn't want to be mentioned.

"It's going to be a mess" she said.

Aang sighed, "I know" he said, sounding nervous.

Katara felt the motherly urge overcome her and she placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be nervous" she said, encouragingly. "You can do it, I know you can"

Aang smiled at her, though he did not say anything. He turned around and began walking towards the town where they were staying for the night.

"We better get back" he said. "Sokka will wonder where you had run off to"

Katara wondered when he had grown so much, was it while Zuko distracted her with a flimsy relationship that had no hope? She continued to smile as her thoughts overtook her mind, completely neglecting Aang's words. That was where she had begun to see him in a different light, under the autumn trees she was able to see a more mature and wiser Aang.

That was where it started she thought to herself.

The relationship began to change from that day on, as they went from platonic friends to lovers. She could remember the day of their first kiss, a few weeks after they had left the Fire Nation.

"Not so hard" she remembered herself saying. "You need to be a little gentler"

Aang was visibly flustered at having floundered his first kiss.

"Oh, Re-really?" he said.

Katara nodded.

"I'm sorry" he blurted out. "I mean… It's my first time, I've never done this before"

Katara already knew that from the way he had clamped onto her lips like a crab.

Katara shook her head.

"Don't be," she said. "In time, you'll get used to it, it's just like bending, you get better with practice"

Aang looked at her hopefully.

"Here" she said, in response to his unasked question. "Let me show you"

It was nothing like Zuko was the first thought that ran through her head. With Zuko the kiss had been gentle but intense, passionate but soothing. His warm, gentle lips had sent her to the Spirit World and back. With Aang it had been wet… there was no other word to describe it, he was completely clueless and Katara had done all the work. But she refused to draw comparisons between the two, she thought to herself. Zuko had been far more experienced than she was, while Aang was relatively new to the whole scenario of kissing. The relationship had taken on new heights after that night.

It was amazing how a few good kisses can affect one's relationship she thought.

Since that night, Katara had fallen into her obligatory role as the Avatar's girlfriend, it somehow seemed fitting that the girl who had guided him through the world should eventually become the only woman in his life.

"Katara? Are you alright?" said Aang.

Katara snapped out of her reverie and pulled out a dashing smile.

"Of course I am," she said. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because you looked completely spaced out," he said, sounding worried. "Are you alright? Do you want to lie down?"

Katara resisted the urge to smile at his concern.

"I'm fine, Aang, Really"

Aang didn't look entirely convinced. Katara merely smiled at him.

"Shall I get you some tea?" she said. "It's awfully cold"

Awfully cold seemed to be an understatement to describe the weather, but Aang did not seem to notice, he looked slightly downcast but he shook his head.

"No" he said. "I'm good"

Katara nodded and walked away, trying her best to ignore the empty feeling inside her.

"Katara?"

The waterbender turned around, Aang was not looking at her, his eyes fixed on the small fire.

"What is it Aang?"

Aang opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it.

"Nothing, I'd just like some tea"

Katara frowned in confusion. "But you just said-"

"I know what I just said!" said Aang, raising his voice. He paused and his grey eyes focused on his feet.

"I'll be outside" he said, getting up and leaving the Katara to stare at his back, a look of hurt and confusion on her face.

The scene of the sun setting against the crimson horizon was a familiar sight to Iroh, standing at the balcony, his hands draped over the balustrade, he could feel the cold winds whip his cloak, as he contemplated his next move. There were telltale signs that the Fire Nation was in trouble, signs that the people were not pleased with the Dragon Throne. His thoughts turned to North Chung-Ling, was the Governor's corruption an isolated case? Or was it the tip of the iceberg?

He took a sip of jasmine tea and turned towards the familiar garden with the pond of turtle ducks. It was Zuko's favourite place to be, Iroh knew that much, because it was where the prince and Ursa had spent much of their time together. But Zuko did not know that the pond held memories, of his wife and Lu Ten as well. Iroh closed his eyes to prevent the tears from seeping through, now was not the time to be emotional. When the Firelord opened his brown eyes, the first thing he noticed was a small speck in the sky flying in his direction. Frowning, Iroh continued to watch the speck until he was able to recognise what it was. It was a hawk, but it was not the typical scarlet messenger hawks people used. Instead, this one was large and dull brown, and it had a rather wild look as opposed to the more elegant image of the messenger hawks. The hawk approached Iroh and the Firelord immediately held out his arm, frowning at the scroll tied to it's claw. The old man unfurled it, scarcely noticing the hawk taking off into the skies. It was a letter from Zuko, his ship had berthed at Sozin. Iroh read the contents of the letter and his eyes widened in horror. For a moment, his breathing quickened and his muscles tensed. The situation had been worse, much worse than he had anticipated. Iroh stared at the letter, unable to believe what Zuko was planning to do.

"You never learn, do you, my nephew?" said Iroh, shaking his head.

There was no other choice now, Iroh hated to admit it, but the situation was spiralling out of control faster than he realized, and the members of the royal family could no longer handle it all by themselves.

"It is time to call for aid" murmured Iroh.

The wind picked up speed, as if approving of Iroh's decision. The Firelord left the balcony and with it, his sense of serenity.

Scaling the mountains was no easy task, and Zuko began to understand why people avoided this place like the plague. The terrain itself was steep and awkward to climb and there were several lose rocks and boulders that clung to the mountainside with deceptive firmness. Zuko had nearly fallen off the mountain on countless occasions, and he suddenly found himself cursing the attackers for choosing this city of all places to attack.

The prince tentatively tested a rock to his right before shifting his weight onto it. He had grown thinner in the past two years, and he was suddenly grateful for the loss of weight, even though it may not have been the healthy for his body. With remarkable strength, he pulled himself up and grabbed onto the ledge. His muscles were burning with exhaustion but Zuko chose to ignore his body's complaints, he was almost at the end. He could feel it. With a sharp intake of breath, Zuko hauled himself over the ledge with one quick leap and looked around. Nothing but rock and gravel met his eyes, as he surveyed his surroundings.

Out of the gloomy darkness, he could see a yellow pinprick of light. Zuko's eyes narrowed with focus, the light was cast across a wall of rock, and the reflected light was orange yellow, indicating that the source of light was a very small campfire. Zuko smirked, and began to move cautiously amongst the boulders, trying to avoid any loose rocks. It suddenly occurred to the prince, that he could not bend in such an environment, his objective was to scout the area and firebending in such a situation would only alert the enemy.
The prince positioned himself behind the natural wall, providing him with convenient cover. Hiding under the wall, Zuko stood still, hoping to hear signs that there was someone on the other side. Nothing but silence and the soft crackles of a fire greeted him, the silence made him uneasy. Zuko looked over the rocks, and observed his surroundings. There was indeed a small campfire flickering and flitting against the wind, but the prince could see no one in sight. Before the prince could move, he felt a sickening crunch followed by a blinding pain at the back of his head.

As he fell unconscious, Zuko could hear the faint echoes of laughter.

A/N: Please review!!