AANG

Two days earlier…

The moonless sky bears down on him as he skims the treetops, his glider leaving no shadow on the sleeping forest below. He doesn't know where he's going, and he doesn't care.

Classic airbending technique, a voice in his head taunts. It sounds suspiciously like Toph's. Running away when things get rough, that's real admirable of you.

He ignores head-Toph, irritated that her chatter follows him even here. He's forcefully banished himself from the only people he knows on this side of the world, but his thoughts won't leave him alone.

"I was banished from the Fire Nation for offending a member of the royal family." Aang supposes Zuko was technically telling the truth while sidestepping the fact that he himself was a part of that family. Not anymore, though. He remembers snatches of stories Zuko told him about his life pre-banishment. Seems he's just exchanged his prodigious bratty firebending sister for an earthbending one.

Does that make me the older cousin, the battle-weary saint who could do no wrong? Aang thinks wearily. Well, sign me up for the next war.

His arms are starting to ache; flying is so much more tiring without Appa. The sky is greying—he's been gone six, maybe eight hours. He wonders if Zuko is worried.

But of course, he is. Blood doesn't bind them, but they're as good as family. For so long, Aang's had no one besides his mother and Appa, that the notion of an outsider becoming as blood to him is… inconceivable. What about Zuko, though? Can one's family in name fail to form any chains of attachment or emotional bonds? Zuko's father, at least, seems to be an exemplar in this regard.

Aang's had sixteen years to get used to the fact that he has next to no one on this earth. Zuko was still struggling to come to terms with his own abandonment when they met. Small wonder he wouldn't want to immediately alienate his savior and new friend by telling him about his genocidal forefathers.

"If I had, do you think we would have still been friends?"

He notices a break in the forest, an area of some several acres liberally crossed by slender, clear streams at the foot of an upcoming mountain. May as well land and take a break. He'll ponder what to do next, though it's just a question of when to return to his friends. He can't keep running away.

Aang frowns at his reflection in the shallow creek. He gets the sense that someone's watching him, but looking around—nothing. Paranoia induced by lack of sleep? It's possible. He scrubs his face in the cold water to wake himself up a bit.

Maybe it was for the best, that Zuko didn't tell him outright. He's not sure he could have seen past it initially, and perhaps their relationship would never have blossomed into what it is now.

What is their relationship precisely, though? Aang would venture to say it exceeds friendship and brotherhood, but then again, he doesn't boast much experience with either. There's a kind of unbridled awareness that he feels whenever Zuko is nearby, a subconscious urge to always keep him in the periphery of his thoughts. He feels out of sorts now, so far away from Zuko, like he's… lost without him.

He supposes it began the night he found Zuko on the stormy sea, but not much has changed since then. All his life, it seems he's been searching for something without realizing it—a home in a person, in Zuko. And now he's lost it, like a fool.

I can find him again. I don't know how, but I didn't know how the first time around either. I'll just have to trust in the bond that connects us.

That chance never comes. He feels the arrow hurtling towards him before he hears or sees it. A twang of taut leather, the sound of a sharp blade slicing the air, and an about-face too late to dodge—all hope of regaining what he's lost is dashed.

ZUKO

Present

"So… how exactly are we supposed to find Aang?" Toph asks precisely two minutes after Appa clears the treetops, leaving the Freedom Fighters behind.

The problem of locating one (1) airbender in a forest of thousands (1000s) of trees has occurred to Zuko as well. "Well, he has his bison whistle with him, so he should be able to call Appa if he wants to."

"If he wants to," Toph echoes.

Zuko sighs; he can hear what Toph's thinking. "Barring that, I suppose we'll have to hit up the nearest town, see if he's been by." They don't have much in terms of alternatives.

"So, we could be flying in completely the wrong direction and we'd never know it?"

"Well, something tells me that we'll have better luck finding an airbender by air. If it doesn't work out, we'll land and try the ground instead," Zuko says, trying to infuse the situation with some logic. "Besides, I have a feeling we're going the right way."

"Oh yeah? What's this feeling like?"

"I feel… a bit nauseous, actually," he admits.

"That's called motion sickness—welcome to the club," Toph rejoins waspishly, a gleeful spite in her words.

ZZZ

A few hours later, Toph is looking decidedly less gleeful and more in need of immediate medical attention, or at least a trash receptacle to vomit into.

"I don't understand; you've never had it this bad." Zuko tries not to sound so dispassionate, but Toph is really trying his patience. "Is it because we haven't flown for two whole days?"

"What does it matter? Just kill me please, O great Avatar," she implores. "I said you need to trust yourself to decide between saving lives and ending them, didn't I? Well, this is definitely one situation in which you need to end a life."

"It's not your time yet." He squints at the map, tuning out her dramatics. "You know how I know? You still have breath to spare giving me snark. Until that's gone, you're still for this world."

"It was worth a shot," she mutters, visibly trying to suppress a retch. "Please, Zuko. Everything's spinning out of control. If I weren't blind, I'd be blacked out right now from dizziness. I feel like I'm trying to give birth to a baby through my throat. Did you know it can take up to a day for some mothers to give birth? Not through their throats, though."

"Seventeen hours for me and my sister, my mom told me," Zuko says, mostly to stop her from delivering more gruesome images. "Anyways, don't worry, there's a city on the mountain coming up, and an herbalist who lives up top." Perhaps they'll be able to find respite for Toph there and possibly some insight into where Aang could be.

The city, named Taku on the map, turns out to be utterly abandoned, vines and shrubs growing wild over the faces of buildings and statues. The whole mountainside is covered in stone carvings and leafy foliage, devoid of any life. It's unnerving. They approach the top of the mountain, and here at least Zuko finds someone living, in a humble conservatory cluttered with plants. A withered old woman tends to a pure white cat as they land and hardly bats an eye at the huge flying bison on her front lawn and the scarred boy carrying a small blind girl reeling with nausea—she's seen stranger things in her long life.

"Excuse me? My friend needs some medicine, she's dying of—"

"Calm down, young man. She'll be fine." She doesn't even spare a glance for Toph, fussing with some orange blossoms on a potted plant. "I've lived up here for half my life—used to be others, but they all left years ago. Wounded Earth Kingdom troops still come by now and again, brave boys, and thanks to my remedies they always leave in better shape than when they arrive."

"Okay," Zuko interrupts, "but do you know what—"

"Patience!" she exclaims, brandishing a wooden spatula sternly at him. "You both have the rest of your lives to cure yourselves of whatever's wrong with you. Now let me finish Miyuki's dinner. Just set your lady friend down over on that table in the corner; she can't be too comfortable from all your chivalric jostling."

"Ground, please," Toph mumbles indistinctly as Zuko goes to put her down. Right, so she can see. "Should I be more worried that she's obviously senile, or that you didn't correct her when she called me your lady friend?"

"Worry about yourself, Toph."

The herbalist finishes feeding her cat and turns back to Zuko. "Where is your airbender?"

How…?

"Oh, don't look so surprised, boy. I've been around for a while." She picks a shriveled leaf from another plant and with some coaxing, puts it under Toph's tongue ("Eurgh!"). "You're traveling with a flying bison, so reason stands to suggest that you have an airbender since you're not one yourself."

Okay, so not senile. "You're right, at least in part," he concedes. "I…I'm the Avatar. From the Fire Nation," he adds helpfully, though with her unusually canny powers of deduction, she probably already knows. It feels strange to just throw out this fact so casually. "We had an airbender, but we… lost him."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she demands. "Go and find him. I'll take care of her. Goodness knows you can't tell bay leaf from hollyhock, so make yourself useful elsewhere."

"Err…" She's not wrong, but Toph…

"Go," Toph echoes around a mouthful of leaves with mysterious properties. "Find your airbender, Zuko, I'll be fine."

He goes.

ZZZ

Okay. Time to find my airbender. He tries not to think how on the mark that particularly possessive designation is.

He flies with Appa over the ruins of Taku. Aang once told him about the temples of the Air Nomads, cities in themselves, carved into the sides of cliffs and mountains, separated from everything else by stomach-dropping ravines and clear open skies. The Air Nomads metaphorically and literally detached themselves from the world.

Of course, these were second-hand tales told by Aang, heard from his mother but never witnessed in person. The temples must be forlorn and overrun by vegetation now, much like the abandoned city below him. Zuko thinks one day he would like to visit one of the air temples with Aang and walk in the footsteps of the culture that he lost to the Fire Nation's devastation. If Aang can find it in him to forgive Zuko, that is.

But first, he's got to locate his lost airbender.

Zuko leaves Appa to rest in an abandoned temple in the lower levels while he proceeds on foot down to the valley. Maybe some time alone will clear his mind and give him inspiration to find Aang. The dark is rising; he earthbends his way down the mountainside (Toph's harsh tutelage came in handy) without much hope of finding anything, honestly. Aang has two days' head start. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be.

He stops by a creek to drink. Surprisingly, the water is freezing, compared to the river by Jet's hideout, which wasn't that far south. His fingers brush against something stony in the water, and he reaches in to withdraw—a frozen frog. How curious. He thinks to melt it and free it from the ice, but a thought stays the fire in his hand.

"Nature created this barrier between yourself and the world, so that you can protect yourself from the elements." Can it even hear him through its ice prison? "Even if my intentions are good, I shouldn't force you to unthaw. I have to let you come to me."

Surely he's not talking about the frog anymore.

He places it back into the creek bed. He still needs to find his friend, but the choice to open up to Zuko and reconcile? Well, that's up to Aang.

Zuko raises his eyes from the water, blinks at the opposite bank. There, amid a shower of red-fletched arrows, lies a staff that looks remarkably like—

Oh no.

He rushes to pick it up. Aang wouldn't leave his staff behind unless he was detained against his will. He must have been captured, and Zuko thinks he know by whom. The only military outpost in this area is Pohuai Stronghold; he recalls seeing it on the map.

Base of the legendary Yuyan archers, who can pin a fly to a tree a hundred yards away without killing it. A memory resurfaces, of Azula's sing-song recitation to one of the court history tutors, years ago. And she always accused him of not paying attention to their lessons.

It's also the base of Colonel Shinu, Lu Ten's commanding officer, his own memory supplies, though this isn't particularly helpful. If they've got Aang, there's no way he can bust in to rescue him, not without resorting to the Avatar state. Even if Toph were in a position to help…earthbending in and out of the guarded fort is hardly subtle. They can't trigger an alarm. The Fire Nation is on alert for his face, but he'll do whatever it takes to gain an advantage.

Jet's words spark an idea in him. Azula always wanted to be the Dragon Emperor, and maybe she was right: she did make a better one than Zuko. Very well then. He will be the Dark Water Spirit, the scourge of the Fire Nation.

ZZZ

It proves easy enough to smuggle himself into Pohuai in the back of a supply wagon, and once inside, he sneaks between the shadows and the walls. He spares a moment to observe a mass gathering of troops in the main courtyard. Their attention is concentrated on the high tower above the courtyard, the place of honor. Perhaps Colonel Shinu is planning to address the men?

As it happens, it is not Shinu. Behind the mask, Zuko gasps as another figure enters the spotlight and begins to speak with a confident, smug voice. Its strident peal takes him back to that hellish week after his banishment, on the ship to Meikuang, under the command of Zhao.

What is he doing here?

"We are the sons and daughters of fire, the superior element! This is the year Sozin's Comet returns to grant us its power! This is the year the Fire Nation breaks through the walls of Ba Sing Se and burns the city to the ground!" he crows. The crowd responds mechanically in its cheers, but he seems gratified, resuming: "Only one thing stands between us and victory: the Avatar. He is a traitor to the Fire Nation, a coward crawling in service to the other nations. I entreat you all to leave no stone unturned in helping me to find him and bring him down!"

Zhao's fiery speech redoubles Zuko's initiative to escape Pohuai with Aang. He won't be able to see the look on Zhao's face, but imagining the commander's defeat and shame once he realizes he's fouled up his plans again—that's enough to go on.

He enters the belly of the fortress, dodging through the empty halls, unsure as to where to search first. Aang must be held somewhere deep inside—Zhao cannot risk losing this feather in his cap, capturing the last airbender. He shrinks against the wall as he hears footsteps approaching the juncture up ahead and a monotone grumble accompanying them.

"Who does Zhao think he is, ordering court scribes around like his own personal courier service? Whose fault is it that he left important documents lying around in his quarters?" A sour-faced man wearing the ludicrous ruffled hat of the royal court scribes slouches past Zuko's hiding place. He creeps closer, noting the room that the scribe enters. The coast remains clear, but he's curious to see if he can finagle an opening now, while everyone else is at the mandatory pep rally.

Soon enough, the scribe returns the way he came, carrying several scrolls and still muttering about feeling ill-used. "Glowing testimonials from all the ranking officers present! I'm sure Shinu will be thrilled that I put words of support for you in his grudging mouth." He trudges off, and Zuko has to feel a little sorry for the man and his undesirable job.

Not sorry enough to resist a peek through the door he left ajar, though. On a whim, he ducks inside even as the fussy scribe turns the corner. Can he afford to waste time rifling through Zhao's personal belongings? Not really, but there's a chance he'll be able to garner something useful. Mission reports, battle schematics, news from the Fire Nation—anything. The room is spare and spartan in its furnishings, and even more so with regards to décor. Even so, Zuko spots his prize, ostentatiously mounted on the wall across from the door.

Bingo.

He takes them in hand reverently, nostalgically, and there they are: his dual swords reunited with his arms, whole once more. Their weight and length is just as he remembers them, comfortable, familiar, and ready to be tested. He reads this as a sign that his mission cannot fail.

ZZZ

Zuko follows a harried-looking guard down to the dungeons. The entire fortress seems deserted; everyone's outside listening to Zhao's blather, except for this one who clearly forgot he was due to relieve the previous shift. What could be so important to guard—other than a VIP prisoner, perhaps the last airbender, known to be traveling with the Avatar?

The four guards posted at the door are promisingly slow and dull. He lures them out one by one with deliberate clamor and strings them up like smoked rooster-pig hams with some conveniently placed chains on the ceiling (perhaps there are so many prisoners that they need to keep spare chains around?). It's interesting that the drill sergeants never teach their charges to be on the lookout for attacks from above. He hasn't even had the opportunity to draw his swords and let steel taste blood. Well, best to keep things that way.

He slices the padlock on the door and kicks it open. The room appears empty, and for a moment, he fears he's been duped, that Aang isn't here at all, until his eyes track the movement of a figure in its darkest recesses.

Aang looks up, and Zuko feels the temperature drop several degrees as cold grey eyes land on him, devoid of any recognition.

What have they done to you?

Aang rears his head back in a preparation for a colossal air blast that Zuko's seen him do many times—it's rather all he can do with his limbs restrained. Only instead of producing a current that knocks Zuko off his feet, he manages a sort of hacking inhale and a gasp that's more choking for air than anything else.

Zuko lifts his mask, revealing a glimpse of his face before dropping it again. "Aang, it's me!"

His eyes widen, but he still says nothing, incapable of forming any words, it seems. Zuko approaches with trepidation. Voiceless and restrained, Aang seems… smaller, more vulnerable. Several tentative steps away, he's finally close enough to confirm what he feared. A ring of bruises covers his bare throat, staining his skin a visceral purple. A nauseating scene flashes to his mind's eye—greedy hands gripping Aang by the throat and squeezing without remorse, blood pooling beneath his skin, making the act of drawing breath excruciating.

"Zuko."

It takes him a second to register this sound as his name. He meets Aang's eyes, and his heart breaks a little.

"Shh, don't talk. We're going to escape from here, but it won't be easy. I'm going to get you out of these chains, okay?"

Aang sways a little unsteadily when Zuko cuts away the bonds supporting him, and Zuko takes an arm over his shoulders, guiding him towards the door. He pauses at the sound of Aang's voice, damaged as it is, but full of grit and resolution to have these words out now.

"Zuko, why?"

Why what? Remorse follows on the heels of fleeting irritation at the tense moment. Why didn't I tell you? Why did I let you go? Why did I come for you at all?

"I'll tell you everything later," he promises. One finger ghosts over Aang's bruised jaw line—an afterthought or a prelude? It depends on if they get out of here or not, no matter what Zuko's false optimism says. "I'm going to try not to use any bending here. Zhao knows I'm the Avatar and that we're in the area. Let's just slip out of here quietly and avoid rousing any suspicion."

They move silently through the empty halls of the fortress. Zhao's hubris does them a world of favors, though he won't know it until it's too late. He's on the tail end of his speech as they emerge into the innermost courtyard. Everyone's still distracted, good. They make for the ladder up to the wall. He lets Aang go up first, worried that the other won't have the strength to keep up. It's slow going, and more than once, Zuko wonders if they should just call Appa and bust their way out.

No—it's one thing to be at ease as the Avatar in public and quite another to announce it to an entire heavily armed hostile fortress. They've got to be stealthy. Without warning, an alarm rings out, and shouting commences.

Well, so much for that. They freeze, all hope of escaping easily abandoned. Up on the wall, a guard rushes to slash the rope ladder. This is going to be a painful landing.

Or not. Aang twists in midair, and Zuko has a brief glimpse of his eyes set in determination before both of them are enveloped in a huge gyrus of air, falling towards the ground, and touching down rather lightly.

Air cushion. Damn it, he needs adrenaline now, not nostalgia. Swords out now, and he hasn't forgotten their ways. The mask doesn't afford much in the way of peripheral vision, but Aang is there at his back, all aches and pains cast aside as he fills in Zuko's blind spots.

More soldiers are coming, though, and they'll soon be surrounded. As if reading his thoughts, Aang lashes out with a particularly forceful blast, clearing their path for a moment. He's gotten himself a pike, which he whirls between both palms like a glider. An emphatic jab skywards, and Zuko understands the intent a second before the act. He leaps and catches Aang around the waist just as he launches them into the air, the makeshift glider rotating wildly.

They rise above the commotion, Aang's airbending pushing them over the first two walls. He continues, and Zuko can feel his body shaking uncontrollably with the effort. He kicks aside an errant spear flying their way and notes how this throws them off balance. They're already far from aerodynamic; it'll be impossible to make it to the third and final wall, at this rate.

Indeed, they fall short of the wall just as Aang's arms give out, going limp with exhaustion. Zuko can do no more than slightly soften their landing as they find themselves on ground level again, largely outnumbered. A wave of fire rushes towards them, and Zuko prepares to derail it—only for Aang to suddenly rally and push Zuko behind him, instead taking the brunt of the attack on himself.

Oh right, no bending for me. Though at this point, does it matter if we don't make it out of here either way?

No, I can't think like that. We've got to escape.

Aang's shield blocks the flames from reaching them, but the soldiers regroup almost immediately from their surprise and prepare to strike again. Then…

"Stop!" A voice rings out. Zhao has arrived.

The soldiers about to cut them down pause in confusion. Why would Zhao want to spare them?

"The Avatar must be captured alive!"

How does Zhao know?

He's not expecting it, which is almost certainly why Aang, even in his weakened condition, is able to yank the swords from Zuko's slackened grip and press the lethal blades to his throat.

Ah, that's how.

For just the space of a single, ragged breath, Aang rests his forehead against Zuko's shoulder, willing him to hear the words he can't say now, entreating him to trust, in this knife-edge of moments.

And Zuko does. Because this is Aang holding his life in gentle hands, Aang who runs when the ghosts of the past rise up but stands steady, now, when the present comes roaring down upon them. Aang who is equal parts human and transcendental, stuttering breath and divine wind in one, everything Zuko's never had and more. Of course, he does.

The gate at their backs opens, slowly, painfully. Zuko lets himself be guided backwards by the unerring press of his own swords at his throat. The soldiers look on grimly as they clear the gate, still within sight of the wall. Pohuai stares back at them, sullen and resentful that anyone could leave it unscathed. Zhao watches their escape, his face lined like the cracks of a pot fired for too long in the kiln. The glory and honor of his big day have been all but subsumed by this incident. Zuko smiles, and behind the mask, it feels like a guilty secret.

But why should he feel guilty about betraying his country thus? This is war, and all warfare is deception.

He realizes, a split second too late, that Zhao knows this too and is planning to act accordingly. An arrow whistles past his head, and foolishly, he thinks it must be a novice archer with terrible aim. Then Aang falls to the ground behind him, swords clattering uselessly from a lifeless grip.

No. Surely not—he can't be. Dead, that is.

In the blind fray of a thick dust cloud, Zuko throws himself to the ground beside Aang; he has to be sure. He can't lose this too. Trembling fingers trace the vein of that fragile neck, already so abused, but there! A faint murmur is enough for Zuko to ascertain that Aang has only been knocked unconscious, thank God.

They're going to be all right.

A/N: Brief notes on the chapter: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/21584009