We ran through the hall and came to a halt. Zuko peered over the wall and placed an arm behind his back signaling me stay there. I guess the coast was clear because he was running again. We're a good 15 minutes away from our base, but because we are running that time may be shorter. I wonder where the others are.

"Zuko, have you seen any of the other players before we ran into each other?" I ask him.

"You mean before you ran into me?" He says with a chuckle and then continues. "No, I haven't. What about you?"

I think back. Did I see anyone? No, and if I did I would be too caught up in my own thoughts to notice. "Nope. Doesn't really matter though let's just make it back to the base."

He slowed down, I didn't take him as someone who became weak or tired easily, but then again we were running pretty fast. I could hear his uneven and heavy breathing, Zuko turned towards me and I could see sweat glistening parts of his face. Usually, I find sweat unattractive and gross, but the way it showed and sparkled on his skin made him much more attractive, and caused me to blush.

"The base shouldn't be too far from here, and I doubt we are near the others so we can walk, if that's okay with you." Zuko said with his intense stare. He looked down for my response, the way he focused on whatever he was staring at which was me in this case, was overwhelming and my blush only grew deeper and warmer.

"I don't mind." I tell him quickly, hoping he missed my blush. He nodded and we fell into step at the same time. "It's nice around here." I look up to the crystal blue sky and then back to the old ruins of the temple. I love the fire nation, earth kingdom, and of course the watertribes architecture, but the nomads had something very special to the way the constructed their temples. This one, being a lot more special because it had for a fact been built upside down!

Zuko chuckles. "Yeah, it is pretty nice I guess."

I take a quick glance up to the tall and lean fire nation prince standing beside me. What could he be thinking about right now? His expression is as blank as a piece of paper, and hard as a rock. I really do wish he would smile more, but I just appreciate that he can at least manage a small one and a light laugh on occasion. When he was hunting us, he seemed even more angry and confused. What am I thinking? Why do I want to know what he's thinking, or more about him. He's just Aang's firebending teacher and that's it. I bet he doesn't even consider us friends.

"So." I start. Placing my hands behind back nervously I hope he can strike up some form of conversation.

He eyes me and has a confused expression on his face. "So how's Aang's waterbending?" I look down at my feet as we walk and smile. I'm glad he's trying to talk to me. Looking from the corner of my eye I see Zuko throw a hand silently in the air to lightly smack his head.

Giggling, I place my hand on my hip and cock my head to the right. "What was that about?" I ask him stopping our walk.

He turns to me shocked, like he wasn't expecting me to notice that. "Eh it was a dumb question." Zuko shrugs and looks away. I place my hand on his shoulder and turn him around. I pray to Tui that he doesn't mind me doing this.

"First off it wasn't a dumb question." I say letting my hand leave his shoulder. "I'm happy you're trying to talk to me. It counts for something.

He actually smiles. "Thanks, I know I'm probably the last person you want to be with at the moment so.."

I cut him off. "Actually no, believe it or not I'm started to get used to you."

Zuko smile widens and we begin to walk again. He really does have a lovely smile. We pass a couple statues of sky bison and I can't help but smile and think of our furry bison. Such a same such a beautiful and peaceful animal is partially extinct, and probably will be after Appa's…. No! I Shake my head I furrow my eyebrows. Why am I thinking of such horrible things right now.

"Something wrong?" He asks looking down at me. Zuko speaks with concern in his voice, it sounds so sincere I could hardly believe it came from him.

Before I can answer I'm interrupted.

"Sneak Attack!"

We turn to see Sokka running towards us. What is with him he should know by now that yelling stuff out like that won't get him anywhere. Zuko nudges me out of my thought.

"Come on!" He grabs my wrist and we start running past the statues and through the long hallways. Zuko lets go and it's a good thing too, my heart was beating so fast from his touch I thought I would die.

He jumps over a stone bench and I copy his movement.

"Run in front of me!" Zuko shouts. I have no idea why he wants me to but it doesn't matter I have so much adrenaline right now it's insane.

I turn back to see him lash out a harmless flame that is aimed towards my brother. He ducks and shouts that it's no fair to use bending, and I hear Zuko laugh as he nears me.

We make a quick turn and see Toph laughing menacingly as she runs towards us as well. I shriek as a boulder comes flying towards me and we're lucky that the hall divided into two so we took the new hall going towards the right.

There I see the fountain from here, we just need to run down these flight of stairs and we should be safe. I turn to Zuko to see him smiling from this little game.

"Hey Zuko want to make a quick deal right now?" I ask him whipping the sweat coming off of my forehead.

We're still running and he glances over to me. "What do you have in mind?" He says playfully.

I smirk and look up to him. "The second one to arrive at the fountain, between you and me of course has to make dinner tonight." Honestly I could use a break from cooking, besides I want to head to bed early tonight as soon as we are done eating and not have to worry about collecting the dirty dishes.

I see a smile take over his lips. "You're on."

We exit the hallway and begin to run down the wide set of stairs. I can't help but laugh with how childish we we're all acting today. When we both step on the last stairs we both start running as fast as we could to the fountain when Suki appeared to my left.

Zuko easily dodges her, and when she decided that he would be too fast for her, and locked her eyes on me Zuko began to jog backwards and shrug seeming pleased with himself and turned around to make it to the fountain.

Think think think. I believe I can bend the water from this distance. Reach my arms in the air I summon the water, that seemed to distract Suki when the water went around her and suddenly when it turned to ice so I could use it as a type of board to make my wait over there. I bring my arm in front of me to make the ice move faster as I tilted my arm so the ice obeyed my command to tilt to the right to avoid Teo.

I catch up to Zuko and he looks over to me and chuckles. "I won't be losing today." He picks up his pace so I have no choice but to do the same. Too bad for me that the cement was starting to melt the ice so I used as much of the ice as I could to make it to the fountain before I hopped off it and began to run to the fountain.

"I won't lose either! See ya!" I laugh as I bend just a bit more water for my ice board because we we're now in the shaded part of our base so the floor shouldn't be as hot. Once again I jump off the edge of my ice board and land on top of the fountains ledge.

I shoot my arms up in victory. "Thank you! Thank you! I'm wonderful I know!" I basked in my own victory and smirked at the approaching Zuko. He places a hand on the ledge and is breathing heavily when he looks up to me in defeat.

"Pretty good. Pretty good." He smiles up at me. "Guess I'm the chef tonight, but I know my cooking will never be as good compared to yours." Zuko compliments.

Blushing I thank him. "My Zuko, I didn't realize you appreciate my cooking so much!" I tease.

He chuckles silently and placed both hands on hips. Zuko shurgs after and looks up at me once again. "Well then again it shouldn't be too hard to stir some soup and berries together."

I snort. "Yeah, we'll see!"

…..

We are all talking about today's events when Zuko began serving the meal. Our group wondered why he was the one cooking for once and we all laughed when I told them it was because he lost our little bet.

Zuko bent down and handed each person a bowl when he finally made it to me. When he sat down by me he whispered in my ear.

"Well aren't you going to taste it?" He asks. I blush and look away. The soup was a muddy brown color but it kind of smelt alright?

I raised the bowl and took a small sip. Squinting my eyes I look around to see how others reacted to the soup and their expressions seemed to be similar to mine. It was very bracing, but tolerable.

I lean back over to Zuko to whisper back in his ear. "Remind me never to make any kind of bet like that with you again."

He raises an eyebrow, and takes a sip. Zuko furrows his eyebrows and when he swallows he makes it look like it is the worst thing he has ever encountered. "Ugh! This is..!"

I smirk at him and he looks back trying to seem proud of his work. "Amazing."

I laugh because I know he's lying, oh well. Sighing I take another sip of this "soup" if we even want to call it that.

…..

"Mom? Mom!" I run towards the figure facing the other way.

She turns and smiles the smile I have missed for years. "Mom!" I shout again running with all my might, but even though I'm running she grows farther and farther away.

"Mom, please wait! Don't go! Mom I need you! Please don't go!" I shout louder and feel the tears stream down my face as I try and catch up to her. I fall down into some mud and call out to my mom again when suddenly the green landscape with the clear blue sky that we had been in changed into a fire wasteland. I try to stand up to call out to her again. But the smoke that was around from the fire was making it hard to breathe.

"Mom!"

She's in front of me now, reaching out to take my hand but a dark force is pulling me back. I dig into the land and try to stay with her when the fire slowly traps my mom and she is gone.

"Mom! No! Give her back! Give her back to me!" The tears are streaming faster now as I hit the floor with anger and greif.

"Moooom!"

I sit up instantly. My breathing is fast and I look around to check my surroundings. Next I feel my face, practically soaked. It's so sticky, I was actually crying in my sleep. Then, I remember why I was crying and I close my eyes and try to sleep again when the images pop into my head. I shed another tear. Why did I have this dream tonight? It's been so long since I've had a dream involving my mom. And everyone I've had since her death has been the same. Sad, unpleasant, and always ended with her being taken away from me. Again.

Wow. What a way to end a chapter. I actually started to choke up a bit writing the ending. Sorry for the 2 week wait! I really meant to get a lot of chapters done because of Thanksgiving break but I never found the time with events that took place. Speaking of Thanksgiving even though it was yesterday I'm thankful for everyone reading this story, and I'm thankful that I finally got this chapter out! As always review if you have time! Oh, and we made it to 20 reviews so you guys can ask a character in the story a question with your review and it will be answered in the next authors note! Thanks for reading :)