AN: Hey there, readers! Thanks for the warm welcome back and for all those great reviews!

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Aang fought his restraints for days. He shouted at the top of his lungs and sliced at the chains with wind and the scant water he could get in the dry chamber until exhaustion held him flat to the floor. When it became clear that that approach wasn't going to work, he tried sweet-talking the guards who brought his meals and gave him water with a cup at the end of a long staff. He tried to convince them to unchain just one of his hands.

"So I can stretch," he said, smiling hopefully, "because, uh, jeez, my shoulders are so sore…"

The two armored men who had come in with his bowl shared a look, then shrugged. One of them produced a key. Aang tried not to grin as it slid into the lock.

"What do you think you're doing, Private?" demanded an ill-kempt captain as he marched in from the corridor. The other two guards straightened to attention at once.

"Er- The prisoner wanted to stretch his shoulders, sir. I was only unlocking one hand, and we're here to watch him, so…" The guard shrugged, already blushing on either side of his pointed mustache.

"Are you a complete idiot, Bochee? This is no simple prisoner! This is the Avatar! With one hand, he could destroy us all and send the ship to the bottom of the crushing depths!"

Aang smiled winningly. "That really doesn't sound like something I would do. Besides, if I sank the ship with one hand, wouldn't I still be chained to it with the other?"

The captain fixed him with a sour look. "Obviously, you'd break out of your other restraints, first. Guards! From this day forth, you are not to talk to the Avatar, and you are most certainly not to remove any of his restraints."

And so it was. Aang still chatted at the guards in his usual friendly manner, but their responses were limited to smiles and nods from the ones who liked him and scowls from those who took their jobs more seriously. Aang himself was relegated to long periods of solitude and the loneliness and boredom weighed as heavily on him as the knowledge that his friends were headed toward their doom as surely as he was.

So when, late one night, he heard a purring chatter from the air duct, he thought at first that he had become unhinged. It was only when the grate swung open and a dust-stained head poked out that he recognized the sound.

"Momo!"

The lemur squirmed out of the vent and glided down in a tight spiral to land on Aang's outstretched arm, cocking his ears out of the way for a hug.

"Boy, am I glad to see you! I thought you'd stayed behind on the island."

Momo churred, his green eyes huge and blank.

Aang grinned ruefully. "Yeah, I guess I would rather eat Fire Nation prison food than more onion-and-banana juice, too." He petted the lemur for a moment, then flopped back on the pallet his chains kept him on. "Oh Momo, this is all my fault. If I hadn't gotten impatient with Guru Pathik, I could have unlocked my seventh chakra and mastered the Avatar State by now. Katara and the others are in this mess because of me."

The lemur scurried onto his chest and loomed into his line of sight, enormous ears blocking out the ceiling. Abruptly, the little creature sneezed and shook the dust from its fur in a grubby cloud. Aang sneezed in return, then folded his arms behind his head and brightened.

"I guess it's not too late to try, though. After all, to unlock my seventh chakra, the only thing I have to do is let go of all my worldly attachments." His smile faded and he rolled his head to the side. "Just that one thing. Nothing hard about that, right?"

Momo turned a few circles and settled down in a weary ball on his chest. Aang stroked the long ears thoughtfully, but went on frowning at the door.

"I've been trying to get out of here for days, Momo. A week or more, I guess. I know that I can't save Katara without the power of the Avatar State, but I can't just let her go, either. Every time I think about her, my heart feels like it's going to burst out of my chest. She came all that way to help me, and I just ended up getting her hurt and captured along with her brother. I don't want to let her down again, but if it takes not caring about her anymore to save her, I… I don't know if I can do it."

Momo sighed out a sleepy purr and, suddenly, Aang sat up and grinned. The lemur squawked and tried to fly away, but not before Aang snatched him up and held him at arm's length.

"But now that you're here, maybe I don't have to! Momo, I want you to go find me a key."

He mimed unlocking the cuffs with an invisible key. The lemur looked on, head cocked to one side.

"A key, Momo. A key."

Momo turned a few circles in preparation to lie down again. Aang threw up his hands.

"How can you think of sleeping at a time like this? Momo, this is really important! You have to go!"

Momo yawned hugely and blinked his big eyes, but then scurried up one of the wall-mounted chains and launched himself toward the vent in the ceiling. Aang watched his chubby hindquarters struggle and then vanish through the snug hole, followed swiftly by the lemur's striped tail. Even though the chains locking him to the floor were just as heavy as ever, for the first time since his capture, he felt like he was floating.

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After sending Sokka away, Zuko lingered on the observation deck until a light rain began pattering down. Even then, with pin-sharp beads of water sticking his face and quickly wetting his outer robes, he did not want to go back to his quarters. He didn't even want to go back into the steel corridors of the ship, because going inside would mean taking one step closer to facing Katara and keeping the truth from her.

Instead, he spent the next few hours walking the length and breadth of the main deck, watching the rain fall in sheets onto the surging waves. The sea was growing rough by the time he finally paused to peer upward, his eye drawn is if by magnetism to the yellow glow of his sitting room window. It was easy to tell that one from the rest, with the painted steel criss-crossing it.

Zuko drew a breath and let it out through his teeth. Perhaps Katara would be watching the rain through that window. Maybe she would even remember, as he did, that night she had goaded him into a fight on the edge of a pond in the rain. The thought filled him with bitter longing, because of course she would not remember that, not now. Not with Sokka there to report every detail Zuko had stupidly spouted off about the bleak fate awaiting her in the Fire Nation. More likely, she would be looking out at the rain and planning how to kill him with it.

He did not want to go up there, but his clothes were soaked through and he was keenly aware of the meals he had missed already today. In this, as in so much else, he had little choice.

He climbed the long stairs slowly, trying to stop thinking about his healed knee and the events of the previous night, and passed the guards and servants in the wide corridors of the royal suite before a footman opened the door for him and he strode into the sitting room.

More guards stood at attention on either side of the door, and they stiffened as the prince passed them. Sokka and Katara sat at the table, playing a simple game with stones and a cross-hatched board. They both looked up at him, Sokka with a furrow in his brow that was difficult to read and Katara with a cool frown. She scanned him with a disinterested sweep of her eyes and lifted one eyebrow. Zuko braced himself.

Then she looked back at the game and sniffed. "Looks like someone's been swimming."

Sokka shot her a warning look, but directed his words elsewhere. "Prince Zuko, please tell me dinner is soon? Because I'm starving."

"Dinner isn't for hours, Prince Sokka," Zuko grumbled as Yotsu helped him off with the sodden weight of his robe. "You can't possibly be that hungry."

"I don't know," Katara cut in as if it hardly mattered to her one way or another. "Sokka has a pretty high metabolism. You wouldn't want us to arrive at the Fire Nation unfit to be presented to the Fire Lord, would you?"

Zuko frowned at her, but she didn't look up at him, focusing instead on moving one of her stones, so it was difficult to gauge her sarcasm. Sokka watched him with a hopeful grin. At last, Zuko rolled his eyes and sent Yotsu to see if the cook could manage an early meal. He considered adjourning to his bedchamber to change out of his damp clothes, but realized that would look like retreating to all the watching guards and servants. Instead, Zuko settled across the table from his captives with dignified ease and, exhaling slowly out his nose, began to steam his clothes dry.

Sokka smiled in a not-entirely-friendly way. "So, how is the weather looking? Are we in for a storm tonight?"

"The navigator tells me it's nothing to be concerned about. He's charted a course that should miss the worst of it. We can expect choppy seas, and perhaps some lightning."

"Mm, lucky thing you came down from the observation tower when you did, then. Wouldn't want to be up high on a steel ship in a lightning storm."

Katara's mouth curved as if she was on the verge of contesting that, but then Sokka placed his stone and she made an irritated noise instead. Zuko watched the pucker in her brow and the pensive slant of her mouth. She didn't seem any angrier than usual, certainly not in the middle of the sort of rage he had expected.

Sokka himself was watching Zuko with concealed dislike. Puzzling on that in the back of his mind, Zuko looked back to Katara as she moved a stone to one space, hesitated with her fingers still on the piece, and then slid it to an adjacent space before finally letting go. It was jarring to see her at-ease after so much anger. It made his chest ache.

"How was your visit with Toph?"

Katara's eyes flashed as she looked up at him. Zuko had no real skill at reading people, but even he could see the smirk she tried to conceal. It at once pleased him and made him deeply suspicious. "Oh, I'd say it was pretty illuminating."

Zuko narrowed his eyes, but before he could demand what that was supposed to mean, Katara had shrugged and looked to Sokka.

"She gets cookies in the brig. And her own maid."

"What?" Sokka squawked, "All I got was gruel and insomnia! How is that fair?"

"Well, she is the heir of the Bei Fong fortune."

"So? I'm a prince! I at least deserve cookies in my internment." This last was directed at Zuko. "What's the big idea?"

"I don't know anything about any cookies." On a hunch, Zuko turned a sharp eye on the guards at the door. One in particular, a tall junior lieutenant with scruffy facial hair, was in the act of shuffling his feet. Zuko made a note to have a talk with that officer later. He turned back to the table and managed a threatening smile for Sokka. "But since you mentioned it, it's about time I did a security inspection."

Sokka frowned back, but Katara just smiled sweetly. "Inspect all you like, Prince Zuko. It's your ship."

"Actually, it's my sister's ship."

Sokka moved a stone seemingly at random and Katara turned a narrow focus back to the board. "Then maybe," Sokka said with a lightness belied by his frown, "she should be doing more inspecting and less prying into other people's personal business."

"Maybe you should practice that shutting up we talked about earlier."

They shared a hard look, but it ended swiftly as servants came in with an array of dishes. Steamed vegetables and cold ginger hog-chicken, accompanied by bowls of a light, clear soup. The game was cleared away and the three ate in silence for a time. At length, Katara spoke.

"Thank you," she said stiffly. Her look said the gratitude was grudging, but Zuko felt electricity crackle up his spine all the same. "I was surprised to see Toph at all, honestly."

Zuko grasped her meaning at once. She had thought he would refuse her the visit because he had been so angry last night. He scowled at her, but spoke softly. "I gave my word. You can trust that I'll keep it."

Katara's face twitched, but she went on looking at him with just a slight furrow in her brow. "Can I?"

Stung, he nearly shouted at her. He nearly snapped that she was the one who kept changing her mind. Instead, he glowered down at his food and remembered how he had told her once that she would never be a slave. And yet, now he would condemn her to life as either a prisoner or his concubine - and what was a concubine if not a slave?

When the meal ended and the servants replaced the dishes with tea, Zuko was still brooding. He startled when Yotsu poured tea into the cup by his hand.

"So, what do we have tonight?" Sokka asked, sniffing at his own cup. "No ginger this time. Ginseng?"

"Yes," Zuko managed.

"Just ginseng?" Sokka's brow screwed up and he eyed Zuko. "No special frills or fancy ingredients or anything especially princely? Not even, say, cinnamon cookies?"

"No."

Sokka made a thoughtful noise and sniffed the steam again. Katara, on the other hand, wasn't touching her cup at all. She had been so adamant in refusing tea last night, but Zuko had just figured then that she was looking for reasons to be angry. He had certainly seen her drink tea before. Presently, though, she just seemed to be frowning at the amber liquid as if lost in thought.

"Uncle always…" Zuko hesitated, not sure why he was saying this, and kept his fingers on the sides of his cup even as it burned him. "Uncle always said the flavor of ginseng was a pure note and should be allowed to sing alone."

Katara shot him an assessing look. Sokka spoke before she could, though. "Well, our gran-gran always said tea was just an excuse to eat cookies, but I guess she never met your uncle. Hey!" He grinned and elbowed Katara. "I'll bet Gran-gran and Iroh would probably make a pretty cute couple…"

"Ugh! Sokka!"

Zuko burned his tongue on hot tea and coughed. "That would never work."

Katara rounded on him. "She's not that much older!"

"Yes, she is," Zuko choked out, "but it doesn't matter. Uncle Iroh's wife died before I was even born. He'll never remarry."

Katara's look softened at that. She peered at him, then at her teacup for a long while as Sokka went on about how Iroh just hadn't met the right old lady. Zuko tried to blot the conversation out of his memory and fixed on the only other thing he could think of to say.

"Your tea is probably cool enough to drink by now, Katara," he said in his best courteous host voice. "Don't you even want to try it?"

She fixed him with a glower, then shot a sideways look at Sokka. "See?" she hissed. "I told you."

Zuko fought a scowl as a bubble of irritation swelled in his gut. Nothing he did ever pleased her. "You told him what?"

Sokka looked between them with uncertain twitches of his eyes, then frowned as he fixed his stare on Zuko. "She told me you would push her to drink a little medicinal tea."

Zuko had to grit his teeth and think for a second to keep from scoffing at the ridiculousness of this conversation. "I guess ginseng does have some health benefits but I fail to see why that's such a bad thing."

They both watched him steadily, Sokka as if searching for an answer he was afraid to find, and Katara as if she was afraid of not finding it. Zuko became more aware of the guards and servants lingering in the room. With a curt word, he dismissed them, then stared back across the table until the door was shut behind them.

Rain beat against the glass as the silence stretched between them.

"Alright," Zuko said, drawing a calming breath through his nose. "You think I'm trying to poison you. I'm not, and both of you are acting crazy."

"Not her," Sokka said at once, grimmer than he had been moments before. "The baby."

Heat flashed through Zuko's face, then drained away. A long, brutally silent moment passed, and he shoved his fingers through his hair and pinched his eyes shut tight, bracing his elbows on the table.

That she would think that of him, still… That they both would…

A part of Zuko wanted to rage at them for their suspicion and assumptions, to burn the room to cinders. Yet there was another part of him, too, a voice that rasped gently at the back of his mind. It hurt him to listen to it, and he had fought so hard to ignore what it had been telling him over the past weeks, but in this moment it seeped through.

He would hold her against her will, lock her up like an animal, condemn her to misery and dishonor - and if he would do all of that, could he really blame her for suspecting him of doing worse?

Zuko's mouth twisted into a sour frown and he looked Katara in the eye. She stared back askance, expression guarded. She had no clue how the loss of their child ate at him.

"You told me you want your son," she said abruptly, shaking her head and squinting as if to see him more clearly, "and despite everything you've done, I still want to believe that, Zuko. I really do. But-"

"Stop." Zuko swallowed, glared at the far corner of the room, then back at her. He knew she didn't trust him, but he couldn't stomach hearing her say it. Not now. "There's something you need to know."

Katara stiffened minutely. "What do I need to know?"

He had to swallow before he could go on. "Last night I confronted Azula about her talk with you. She said… She said there was no baby, and the healer would have known if there was."

Katara's eyes widened, but then she only sat frozen in place. Beside her, Sokka sputtered. "I think Katara would know if she wasn't pregnant. Right, Katara?"

Katara did not look away from Zuko, but her brow furrowed slowly and she dipped her chin in agreement. Her arms came up across her chest. "I would know."

Her words should have thrilled him, but there was an undercurrent in her voice that Zuko did not understand. He clenched his jaw. "Look, I know tomorrow is the full moon. I know you're planning to escape - and so does Azula." He pointed toward the door as if she might burst in at any moment. "She wants to use this against you. She thinks you won't fight as hard if you believe you could hurt the baby. That's why she met with you and offered you the tea in the first place - to maneuver you into doing what she wants."

"And you expect us to believe you're just telling us out of the goodness of your heart?" Katara curled her lip. "Jeez Zuko, that's really noble of you."

Sokka jumped in. "Yeah, for all we know, this could be the real deception. If Katara really is pregnant, then it's in Azula's best interest - and yours I might add - that she drinks a little medicinal tea and has a miscarriage."

"I would never want that," Zuko barked, but he couldn't hold the glower on his face as what Sokka was saying really sank in. His eyes slid to Katara, who was gripping her own arms tightly. He hardly dared to ask, but he had to. "So you're sure? Azula was lying?"

"Of course I'm sure. It's my body. I would know."

The words came out fast and hard and, even though they were exactly what Zuko wanted to hear, he felt as if he was looking across a field of ice that would shatter the second he tried to step out on it. He searched Katara's eyes for some hint of what lay beneath, but she only frowned back at him.

At length, Zuko nodded and rose from the table. "I'm tired. Stay up and play your game if you like. I'll summon the guards back in."

Sokka and Katara said nothing and, by the time Zuko had gone to the door and the night guards were coming back into the room, the siblings had closed their bedroom door behind them. Zuko adjourned to his own chambers and allowed Yotsu to help him off with his now-dry clothes. All the while, his head was filled up with the pounding of his own heart.

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"No, Momo. That's not a key." Aang held up one of the shriveled lychee nuts and then popped it in his mouth and grinned half-heartedly. "Your efforts are appreciated, though!"

The lemur cocked its head and snatched up a lychee nut for itself. Aang only sighed and watched.

He had been sending Momo out for days now. Sometimes his little friend would stay away all day, sometimes only for a few hours. The things he brought back were almost never keys - and the one time Momo did bring back keys, none of them fit the locks on Aang's cuffs. Mostly, the lemur brought bits of food clearly filched from the ship kitchen. Aang tried to stay positive about it.

"You know, Momo, I have heard that lychee nuts are actually a key ingredient in a lot of Earth Kingdom pies and tarts. So, in a way, you're getting better!"

Momo ignored him, scurrying across the floor to catch a nut that had rolled away.

Aang watched, propping one cheek on a fist and his elbow on his knee. "Oh, who am I kidding? This is never gonna work. Don't get me wrong, you're great at going and getting stuff, but I'm starting to think the sphere of your interests does not coincide with what is really needed, here."

Aang did his best to stand, which, thanks to the chains, was more of a hunched crouch than the dignified posture he had been shooting for, but he did his best to pace in what little space he had.

"I've been thinking and, the harder I fight against letting go of Katara and opening my seventh chakra, the farther I am from achieving my goal and actually being with Katara. I don't want to do it, but I'm really starting to think there may be no other way. So, Momo, your responsibilities have been restructured." He held out his arms to either side. "Congratulations! This is actually a promotion!"

Momo rolled over and peered at Aang over a swollen belly. Aang held up a finger.

"I know what you're thinking; why me? I don't have the experience to council someone on an issue of this importance! But you're wrong, Momo. You'll see in no time - your potential is limitless."

Aang threw himself in a gust of air onto his pallet and folded his arms behind his head. "I guess my biggest problem with letting go of Katara is... she's kind of my only friend. I hated leaving her behind at the mountain. But I had to - we needed different things, and letting her pursue her own path while I pursued mine was the right thing to do. I guess... I guess that was an act of letting go, even then, but this is different, too. I mean, Katara's not just a friend. She broke me out of the ice. I was frozen for over a hundred years and it was only when she came along that I finally woke up. What are the chances of that? I think… she might be the one for me, you know? The one! Who am I to deny fate? I can't just let go of my forever girl," Aang said hotly. "What if this is my one shot in life to find true love and I never meet anyone else half as brave and kind and beautiful as Katara? I may just be twelve, but this is a big deal!"

Aang twisted his neck to look at Momo, who was delicately licking one armpit. At the pause, Momo looked up and churred softly.

Aang sighed and flopped back around. "Alright, so you have a point. People do change and twelve is pretty young for a big commitment... but it feels so right. How can something that feels like it was meant to be possibly be wrong? The monks always said that falling in love was one of life's most precious gifts. It doesn't seem right that the Avatar should be denied something that should happen for everyone." He rolled his head to one side to peer at the steel door, eyes half-lidded. "But I guess life isn't always fair or right for the Avatar, just like for anybody else. I knew there were sacrifices I would have to make. From the second the other kids refused to let me play with them, I knew being the Avatar wasn't any kind of lucky break. It was a heavy responsibility, right from the beginning."

He drew one more deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, pained but determined. "And now, if I'm going to help Katara and restore balance to the world, I have to make a sacrifice. I have to let go of my worldly connections to truly be the bridge to the Spirit World."

As the words left his mouth, Aang shut his eyes. Something in him shifted, an obstruction broke free and pure light spilled through him. On an astral trail blazed through the stars, he took a final step and reached out toward a giant boy with glowing eyes and arrows. Aang opened his eyes to find he was standing, free of his chains.

"Woo!" He threw up his arms and danced around the room. "Way to go, counselor Momo! I'm even-"

He pulled up short, staring at the body sitting in a meditative pose on the floor. It was him - a thin monk weighed down by massive chains - and yet Aang could walk around himself, seeing his resting body from every angle. He nearly tripped over Momo in his distraction, but even when Aang waved a hand in front of the lemur's face, the little creature didn't even seem to see him.

"Am I... in the Spirit World?"

"Not exactly," said an aged voice behind him.

Aang leapt in the air and spun to face the tall man behind him, a man in Fire Nation robes with an ornament pinned to his topknot. Though Aang did not know how, he knew the man's name at once. "You're Avatar Roku!"

The old man smiled just faintly. "Yes, Aang. I have been waiting for you. There is much that you must know."