Firestarter

Firestarter

Inspired by the novel by Stephen King.

Aang

Gran Gran Kana was not angry at Aang and Sokka for coming home in the middle of the school day – she was furious that they hadn't arrived earlier.

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE!" She exclaimed, appearing in the hallway as the two of them came through the front door. In the onslaught of lecturing that followed, Aang managed to gather that Kana had received two phone calls: one from the school informing her that the boys had gone missing, and another from Bato checking in to make sure that they'd made it home alright.

For all of her shouting, Kana seemed primarily concerned for Aang's well-being, leading him into the kitchen and checking his temperature even as she reprimanded Sokka for failing to bring him straight home. Aang felt a bit guilty, when he realized how worried she must have been.

"It wasn't Sokka's fault," he told her, "he took me to get something to eat because I haven't had anything today. He was trying to take care of me."

Kana's scolding ceased momentarily, but then her irritation resurfaced. "And just what were you two doing out of school anyways?" she demanded.

Sokka and Aang traded worried glances, knowing that this was the moment of truth. Doubtless, Sokka had a lie up his sleeve that he had prepared for exactly this question, but didn't use it, looking to Aang to decide whether or not they should tell the truth. Whether or not they should tell her what they were planning now. Certainly, their plan to aid Zuko couldn't move forward without her help.

It wasn't a responsibility that the younger boy was accustomed to, and he doubted himself. It suddenly occurred to him how little thought he had put into this plan, and how much could go wrong. He hadn't even stopped to consider whether or not Kana would approve of him inviting a stranger into her house, or if she even could if she was willing. Could the Arnaaluks legally take Zuko in without being accused of abduction? He wondered what sort of risk he was asking her to take. He was willing to risk his own safety for Zuko's sake, but what if the family was somehow targeted because of Aang's behaviour? How would she react?

He wanted to bend again; to reach out to her mind as he had with Zuko, but he resisted the urge. It was an irrational feeling, and he had no idea what would happen if he tried it.

Zuko would be back in the evening to retrieve his things. If he walked out, Aang had a feeling that it would be final.

He took a deep breath.

"Actually, we sort of needed to talk to you about that," he began. He could hear Sokka let out a sigh of resignation behind him.

Kana's frown remained fixed in place, but she was listening.

"There's this guy at school," he started.

"Lee," Sokka added, perhaps worried that Aang would let Zuko's real name slip, "he's in some of my classes."

"We found out he was homeless when – a while ago. He's been staying alone in a tent near the school."

"Today he didn't show up for school, so Aang and I went looking for him. It was my idea," Sokka confessed. "But while we were looking Aang had a fainting spell-"

"-passed out! But then we found Z-"

"-Lee was at Bato's so we got a chance to talk to him anyways-"

"And then I stole his stuff and made him go on a date with Jin." Aang finished.

He wasn't facing Sokka, but the other boy slapped his forehead with such force that Aang could hear it.

"Aang!" his foster brother growled, "that doesn't make any sense!"

"Go back," Kana sighed, "and this time, no talking over each other."

The boys managed to construct a more sensible story the second time around. They had agreed on how much they would reveal on the walk home, so it was simply a matter of delegating who would say what, when. When they finished, Kana breathed a long, deep sigh, and remained silent for several minutes. Aang had the sense that she had already made up her mind about what to do, but was drawing things out just to keep up the suspense.

"So," she said, pausing just long enough after she said it to let the boys know that she was not pleased, "this young man doesn't seem to have a place to live, and you want to convince him to stay here when he comes to visit this evening."

Both boys nodded, and she frowned.

"So you knew that Lee was living alone before this, but you failed to mention it to me, or any other adult who might have been able to help," she summarized.

"Err, well-" Sokka began, but before he was finished Kana intervened.

"Not only that," she continued, "but you confronted him alone. And brought Aang along with you."

Aang didn't like the tone of her voice, the way she talked about him as if he wasn't standing right there. As if he weren't old enough to have made his own decision on the matter. Even so, he held his silence and hung his head. She had taken him in, after all.

When neither boy answered her, Kana let out a long, disappointed sigh.

"How old is this boy?" she asked.

"Sixteen," Sokka responded, quietly.

"Well then," she said, returning to her usual, business-like attitude, "he's old enough to decide for himself whether or not he wants to stay. You had better set up the spare cot and clean out the attic – not you Aang, you're going to sit down and take it easy for the rest of the afternoon - it would be a fine thing to invite him to stay and then have no where to put him if he agrees."

"But-" Sokka began, having obviously braced himself for the worst. "Wait, you're not mad?"

"Of course I'm mad at you," the elderly woman stated curtly. "But I'm not going to turn away that poor boy because of something you did! I wouldn't have signed up for emergency foster care if I was the sort of woman who would turn someone like that away; I was a runaway once myself, you know."

She bustled out of the room in a manner that suggested that she was going to prepare for their guest, and Aang and Sokka were left to gawk after her in surprise.

"I didn't know your Gran Gran was a runaway," Aang said.

Sokka merely shrugged, obviously mystified by the whole thing.

Aang didn't know much about Kana's history before her arrival in Omashu. He had picked up on quite a bit of that story though, and had learned quite a bit from Sokka and Katara, mostly by asking them about their house.

Kana had first come to Omashu shortly after marrying her late husband. With both their salaries put together, they had been able to afford a mortgage on a small cottage on the outside of town. Back then, the house had been a death trap, but Kana had still recognized it as the place where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Over the years of Kana's marriage, the house had slowly expanded to fill the property it occupied. Her husband, a skilled carpenter, had built several additions to the main floor, and he had left signs of his presence in the very woodwork of the building. The house was his legacy; everything in it was the product of hand-crafted care. It meant the world to her.

Once, Aang had worked up the nerve to ask why Kana's house had so many bedrooms. He had gathered from what he had heard that Hakoda had moved back into the house with his children under rather unexpected circumstances, and wondered how she and her husband had known that they would need so much space. She had taken on a distant look then, and told him that she had been expecting more children back when her husband was still alive. Aang hadn't pried again.

The attic was one of the original rooms in the house, and had once functioned as the tiny building's primary storage area. It could only be accessed by a ladder, which folded up into a trap door in the ceiling to conserve space. These days it was mostly empty, aside from a few boxes and chests in one corner of the room.

Aang went along with Sokka to help set everything up, despite Kana's instructions to the contrary. He felt that it was his responsibility, as he had instigated negotiations with Zuko and convinced Sokka to cooperate with his plans so far.

Despite the narrow entry way and slanted ceilings, the room itself was surprisingly large, and mostly empty. A wide sky light in the ceiling contributed to the sense of space in the room, and assuaged Aang's concern about how Zuko would take the room's bottle neck entryway. The roof was too high to jump down from, but there was no reason that a ladder couldn't be left against the out wall or stored in Zuko's room for emergencies.

In case of fire, Aang thought, already plotting how he would rationalize the arrangement to Kana and Hakoda.

The room didn't require much in the way of set up, as Kana kept it relatively clean so that it would be ready for unexpected guests. There was a foldable, twin sized cot already set up in one corner of the room, with a thin mattress on top. It was hardly glamorous, but Aang knew that it was probably much more comfortable than what Zuko was accustomed to sleeping on.

Between the two of them, Aang and Sokka had a clean duvet, pillows and fresh sheets set up in no time. Sokka brought up an old lamp, as well as piece of patio furniture from shed outside: a slated wooden side table that he placed next to the bed. They also decided to clear out the small chest underneath the skylight, moving the old clothes downstairs and storing them underneath Kana's bed. It would be nice to give Zuko somewhere to keep his things, even if he didn't have much to put there.

Provided that Zuko decided to stay.

The two boys discussed what they were going to do when Zuko arrived that evening at great length. Sokka wanted to put Zuko's bag in the attic, and tell the boy that if he wanted it he would have to come inside and get it, but Aang disagreed, insisting that they leave his things in the front hallway.

"I just don't like the idea of forcing Zuko into a small room he can't get out of. Especially one that's so…" he wracked his brains, trying to pinpoint the source of his discomfort. "Wooden."

"Who's Zuko?"

Aang jumped, and he and Sokka turned to see Katara's head poking out from the trap door in the floor.

"Cartoon character," Sokka answered, without missing a beat.

Katara rolled her eyes. "You're too old for that stuff, Sokka."

"Never!" Sokka exclaimed, in mock horror.

"So, what are you guys doing up here?" Katara asked. "I saw the ladder down so I came to see what you were up to. Is someone coming?"

"Kind of," Aang answered. "You know Lee from school?"

Katara's pretty blue eyes narrowed in distaste immediately.

"What about him?" she said.

Seeing her obvious displeasure, Aang realized that, while he had been agonizing over what Kana and Hakoda would think of his idea to bring Zuko into the house, he hadn't stopped to consider Katara's feelings about it. It was an odd thought, because most of the time when Aang made plans, he took what Katara would think into account before anything else.

"We kind of talked to him this afternoon, and convinced him to come over this evening and… well, I want to try to convince him to move in here again. Your Gran Gran said it was okay so we set up the room, just in case."

"Aang, this isn't like taking in someone in a foster care program. Sometimes new kids move in and things don't work out, but with Lee we don't have anywhere to send him if things don't go well…" Katara frowned, worried. "Not to mention the fact that we barely know anything about this guy. What if her turns out to be dangerous? I just… I don't trust him. Something is off about that guy."

Katara was right, of course. Now that he thought about it, Aang realized that Katara had been on to Zuko all along. She'd been the first person to notice that there was something unnatural about him, and he and Sokka had brushed her off when she had shared her suspicions with them.

Aang wanted to tell her everything, to reassure her that she had been right all along. She had been there for him ever since he had come to live with the Arnaaluks, and he trusted her implicitly to believe him and guard his secrets. More than that, he wanted to share his newfound ability with her. He suddenly had this incredible new knowledge about himself, and he desperately wanted to include her in his new discovery.

But he couldn't. Revealing that he was a bender would almost certainly mean giving away Zuko's identity, and he didn't want to betray the paranoid boy's trust, even though he knew that Katara wouldn't turn her back on him if Aang asked her not to.

"This is going to work," Aang reassured her. "He's not a bad person, and I know he seems suspicious but he needs help!"

Katara clambered into the attic and came over to sit next to Aang and Sokka on the cot, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I know you want it to work. I know that you feel like you can relate to this guy and what he's going through, but we don't know for sure what's going on. I just don't want to see you get hurt if he doesn't turn out to be the person you think he is."

"I know," Aang smiled at her. "It's okay, I'll be careful, but I have to try."

"Okay." Katara attempted to return his smile, but he could tell that she was worried just the same.

Zuko had warned that he wouldn't come over until late, so Aang spent most of the afternoon fretting over when he would get there. Sokka told him that he was fairly certain that the other boy worked at a restaurant, so there was no telling how long his hours would be.

Kana made extra dinner anyways, just to be on the safe side.

"It's just spaghetti," she told Aang, while he was setting the table for her, "it'll keep in the fridge if he doesn't show up, and if he hasn't had dinner when he gets here he can heat it up in the microwave."

The soft sound of the front door's weather strip coming apart as someone entered the house was nearly enough to cause Aang to drop the plates he was carrying, but then he remembered that it was about the time that Hakoda usually got home from the police station. Before he had a chance to relax, though, he heard Katara shriek from somewhere in the hallway.

"YOU!" she shouted.

Aang charged out of the kitchen just in time to see Zuko freeze in the middle of a very large step forward, crouched low in the front hallway with one hand wrapped around the strap of his portaging pack. He looked like he had been tiptoeing.

Katara came hurtling down the stairs from the floor above, gripping a cheap decorative vase from the second floor in her hands as if it were a club.

"Thief!" she hollered, "I can't believe this!"

"Katara wait!" Sokka's pleading voice followed her down the stairs from the top of the steps.

Zuko had hefted the heavy bag up into his arms, and whirled around, but instead of cheesing it out the front door he yelped out a startled curse word and started backing up in the other direction. Hakoda appeared in the door frame, still dressed in his full police uniform, and before the scarred boy could scamper out of the way, the man's hand clapped down on his shoulder in a firm, professional gesture.

"Get off me!" Zuko exclaimed, nearly falling over backwards in an attempt to move away. Hakoda would have nothing of it, and held steady.

"Sit still," he told the uncooperative boy authoritatively. "Now does someone want to tell me exactly what's going on here?"

From where he was standing he couldn't see Zuko's face, but Aang knew that the older boy was freaking out. It hadn't occurred to him to warn Zuko that Hakoda was a police officer.

"It's okay!" Aang called out.

Zuko turned as much as he could with Hakoda holding him in place. Aang expected him to look frightened, but he had assumed wrong. Zuko's good eye was wide with pure fury, his lips pulled back into a half-snarl.

"You traitor," he spat.

Aang felt the force of the other bender's anger ripple outwards through the air, as the temperature suddenly started climbing. Hakoda jerked away from Zuko as if his hand had been scalded.

"I trusted you!"

"It's not like that!" Aang tried to reason, "Just listen!"

He had to throw his hands up to shield himself as the ceiling light cracked and burst overhead, blooming with red flames. Aang heard a loud, metallic crash behind him, and Kana cried out in distress.

"Gran Gran!" Katara pushed past Aang to get into the kitchen, but Aang's attention was still fixed on the raging teenager in front of him.

"The hell is going on?!" Hakoda demanded.

"Zuko, back off!" Aang shouted, "You've got to stop!"

Zuko wasn't listening anymore. He wasn't even looking at Aang. The scarred boy was bent forward with both of his hands on one of the walls, leaning against it so heavily Aang thought for a moment that he might be trying to push it over. His face was twisted in an expression of anguish and his lips were moving silently, forming the same words over and over again; all the while, the temperature of the room was still climbing.

"Zuko!" Aang shouted again, uselessly, afraid to move forward to touch him. "Zuko, back off!"

But it was no use. Zuko was losing control.

Edit: Added in page breaks.

(A/N): Big thank you to Sev7n, for making the exploding lightbulbs possible, and to everyone who reviewed, faved, alerted and sent private messages. As for the rest of you: Dooooo eeet.