A/N: Yes, I know this story is technically on hold until August 2012. However, here's your gift for Zutara Week 2012: the final installment of "Some Say in Ice." Here we get this story's version of "The Drill" (which does follow canon events closely), an accidental encounter between two characters with great repercussions, and the final aspect relating back to the titular stanza. We have seen ice as unfriendliness and reserve and even as cold water, but not yet as the simplest definition: water frozen solid. It's coming. It's all coming.

Edit: Thank you to JackieStarSister for pointing out a canon-conflict that has now been revised.

We haven't even taken a step when there's shouting at the open doorway to the infirmary. Troops bustle in, some limping and a few straight carried on the backs of their comrades. The injured find empty futons to rest on while their fellow men step back to make way for my friends and a man dressed differently from the others. He nervously tugs on the thin points of his beard, narrow and straight as chopsticks pinned to his face.

"What happened?" I ask, running over.

"This is General Sung," Aang explains, gesturing at the chopstick-bearded man. "He sent his Terra Team earthbenders to fight off the drill, but—"

"Two girls ambushed us," one of the soldiers moans from a futon. "One of them hit me with a bunch of quick jabs, and suddenly I couldn't earthbend."

"Yeah. I could barely move," another adds.

The first nods. "And then she just cartwheeled away."

I flashback to a certain pink-clad braided girl who is more acrobatic performer than typical fighter—one whose unique style lets her attack the pressure points in the human body. Just to confirm, I kneel by one of the futons and spread healing energy over one of the soldier's arms. I sense for injury. I sense for broken pathways.

"His Chi is blocked," I say, dissipating the energy. "And Ty Lee's the one who did it."

It occurs to me that if my brother was up and around, he'd probably take the opportunity to giggle at how a bunch of soldiers had gotten taken down by two girls—although, those same girls had already proven a challenge twice in our past. I look at Sokka again and how he lies there peacefully, breathing like he's asleep. Focus on what you can help, I instruct myself. Focus on these men and the drill.

But inside, a dark dread is growing.

"Then we are doomed!" General Sung yells suddenly. "If my finest platoon of elite earthbenders can't stop that machine, there is nothing we can do."

"Hmm," Jet says, chewing thoughtfully on his prairie grass. He wanders to a window of the infirmary and gazes down at the drill.

Aang and I walk over to join him. "What is it?" I ask.

"There are two kinds of people in world," he says with exaggerated slowness. "There are those who find excuses, like that general guy over then. And then there's us. We're the people that find a way." He pulls out the grass and twirls it between his fingers. "And I think I've got a way."

I blink. "You're sure you're Jet?" I ask, not sure if maybe Zuko's uncle decided to play his own game of dress-up.

He grins. "Did that sound smart? Good, I've been waiting to use that. Anyway, I've heard of chi blocking. That's when you take your opponent down from the inside by using his own weak point against him. That's how we can take down that drill."

"From the inside . . ." I echo, but Aang gets it first.

"We can hit its pressure points from the inside!" he says.

Jet proudly sticks the grass back between his teeth while the airbender runs back over to the gathered crowd of soldiers and our friends to explain the plan. I lean against the window ledge looking out, listening and watching all at once. All this reminds me of what Gran Gran once told me about water and why it's possibly the most powerful element in its perfect nonresistance. The drill is so immoveable, so hard and strong. But the one thing more powerful than rigid control is adaptation, a malleable force that knows true power doesn't lie in being strong but instead in the right use of strength.

The Fire Nation is about to get a taste of her words exactly.

"Before we go anywhere, I gotta get out of these women's clothes," Jet says, fingering a tear in his dress. "I know I pass for the prettiest lady in the room, but I've done enough running around like this. Prettiest except for you, Smellerbee," he adds quickly at a glance from Longshot.

Toph grins. "I think I've got a great plan for getting us to that drill," she announces. We all gather to hear her idea while the woman in pale brown robes brings fresh clothes for the Freedom Fighters and ushers them off to a separate room to change. Before we go, I squeeze Sokka's hand and lay my fingers on Zuko's arm. He's asleep and doesn't stir, though his mouth is smiling. Whether it's because of a dream or my touch, I guess I'll wait to find out.

"Hey." The small voice at my shoulder belongs to Toph. She sits down on the edge of Sokka's futon and folds her hands in her lap.

"Hey," I say gently. "Don't worry, he'll be okay. Maybe he'll even be up by the time we're back."

Her hands are shaking and of course it's because she knows my words are only a half-truth. Part of me doesn't even want to leave here until my brother's really okay, but what if I'm the difference between stopping the drill and letting it turn this city into Na Sing Se? There is so much truth to the idea that destiny in hinged on choices and any one can change everything. But there is also truth to this: the one way to live is to decide on something and walk looking forward without looking back over and over at all the crossroads of life you can't change once you've gone through.

I sigh. "We'll be back soon," I tell Sokka, hoping nothing will happen while I'm gone. Then I take Toph's hand and lead her off, a little surprised that she'd accept this hand-holding gesture without any resistance at all. But then there's something about worry that quietly moves people together.

I stop suddenly. There's another possibility. "Hey, maybe you should stay here and look out for my brother and Zuko. Aang's an earthbender. He'll throw up cloud cover and get us to the drill. It'll be good practice for him."

She glances back at Sokka. "You think so?"

"I know so." I let her hand go and she walks back over to the futons, sitting down again on the edge of my brother's mat.

"Aww. Look at that," Aang says, coming over. He smiles at the sight of Toph laying her hand down on Sokka's.

"Come on," I say, steering him away. "Are the Freedom Fighters coming to help us?"

Smellerbee falls into step beside me. "You bet. Since Ba Sing Se's going to be our new home, we'll fight for our city."

We troop out of the infirmary. Some of the passengers we rescued from the Titan gather on the wall to watch Aang earthbend us back to the ground far below. Momo croons softly from his shoulder. The lemur's ears twitch as we jump off the earth platform at the base of the wall. We are right in drill's path. Jet flicks away his prairie grass as he watches its spinning face draw ever closer. Longshot touches a feathered arrow but then looks to Smellerbee, who looks to me.

"Ready to go?" I ask Aang.

"Kind of," he admits. "I wish Toph was the one doing this instead of me. None of us have seismic sense. How are we going to see?"

"It's not a far run, and we'll stay together. We'll make it."

He nods. "Thanks, Katara. Okay, I guess I'm ready."

"Good. I'm getting bored over here," Jet says helpfully.

Aang sends a blast of dust and stone in a torrent towards the drill. "Run!" he calls, plunging into the swirling cloud. We follow close behind, dust sticking to my arms and hair and lungs. He sweeps up more dust for better cover, but a fresh current of thick air sending Jet into a coughing fit. I grab him by the arm and drag him onwards until we reach clean and open air. Jet stops for a breath, but there's barely time to spare. We're near the front of the drill, cloaked only by its shadow.

Aang bends open a shallow pit. "Get inside."

We jump down and duck as the ground seals shut above us. We're all breathing into the darkness now as the earth trembles around us under the weight of the drill. It's about a minute before the ceiling opens us and Aang climbs out with the rest of us following. We're under the drill now, its body our new ceiling. Its long rows of wheels frame the walls of our enclosure.

Longshot points. "Good eyes," Jet says, following his arm. "There's an opening up there."

"I've got it," Aang says, leaping up to grab hold of a horizontal length of pipe hanging out of the opening. "Come on up!"

I'm first to jump and grab on to his arms, helping him pull me up into the opening. The trio of Freedom Fighters follows close behind. Then we're moving through a maze of pipes and valves, all lit faintly by a red glow.

"Uh . . . this way!" Jet says. He pretends to purposefully lead the way, but really he's as lost as any of us.

"Wait, wait," I say, stopping amid the pipes. "We can't just go running around. We need a systematic approach. A specific plan of action."

Longshot looks at Smellerbee. "Hmm," she says, nodding slowly. "Maybe that'll work. Hey, Jet. Listen to this."

The silent Freedom Fighter turns his gaze on Jet. "Ha! Good point," their leader says, drawing his hook swords. "Now that's a game plan."

"What plan? What are you talking about? No one said anything!" I complain.

Aang tugs my sleeve. "I think they've learned to speak with body language gestures. It's probably helpful if you're trying to sneak around and stay quiet." He waggles his fingers mysteriously. "Or maybe they read minds."

"Uh . . . Jet?" I ask uncertainly as he draws a hook sword. "What's this plan of yours, exactly?"

He chops off a steam valve with a single sharp swipe. Aang gasps as steam fills the room. "What are you doing? Someone probably heard us!"

Jet grins. "Yeah, some engineers heard and now they're coming down to fix things. We're going to get the schematics delivered right to us and can search them for a weakness. Shh." He holds up a hand, listening. "Get back, someone's coming."

We step away as a man's form approaches through the steam. One hand holds a wrench, the other . . .

"We need that document, right?" I say. "I'm on it." I sneak ahead through the steam, circling around the engineer and coming up behind him. The moist air responds to my outstretched hands, condensing into an icy shell that freezes him in place.

"Thank you kindly," Jet says, snatching the plans with his usual smirk. He runs off and we follow close behind, scaling some metal stairs and stopping when we're alone again to unroll the document across a pipe.

"Anyone know how to read schematics?" I ask.

Jet strokes his chin. "Hmm," he says, a word which in this case means nope, not a clue.

Longshot traces a circle on document with his finger. The other two Freedom Fighters lean in close while Aang and I stare blankly.

Smellerbee nods. "Interesting."

"Yeah, that could work," Jet says.

The airbender taps me on the shoulder. "My vote is with mind reading," he whispers. Momo flicks his ears in agreement.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Jet says, comfortable in his usual bossy role as leader. "This drill seems to be made of two main structures. We're in the inner mechanism right now, but there's also the outer shell. The two parts are connected by braces. Know what happens if we cut through them?"

Aang's face lights up with a grin. "The whole thing will collapse!"

"You got it. Let's get to it."

We run through a series of halls and up steps and between pipes, searching for any kind of doorway or open space that will bring us to these braces. Though the drill is a slow-moving metal monster, we still don't have as much time as I'd like. Besides, how much longer before the ice melts off that engineer and he runs off to tell whoever is in charge that there are intruders on the drill—

Wait. It's not just whoever who's in charge. If Ty Lee attacked that Terra Team and there was another girl with her, it was probably the knife-thrower. And if both girls were here, Zuko's sister must not be far behind. How interesting that two siblings could be so close in physical space but still so far divided, one fighting with and the other against the Avatar. I couldn't imagine having to fight my brother, not for anything. I'm sure glad Zuko didn't come along so he doesn't have to fight his sister either if we end up caught.

"I think that's what we're looking for!" Aang says, pointing ahead at a doorway leading into a wide and open space.

We run out onto a massive steel beam. There's a brace right ahead of us, only it's not exactly the thin line drawn into the schematics.

"Looks like we're going to have quite a job on our hands cutting through that," Jet admits.

"We? You mean you're going to help with your amazing mind powers?" I grumble.

"Eh . . . or you and Aang can handle it. A couple of waterbending slices should do the trick. Go, go. Get to it."

I bend water out of my flask and resist the tempting urge to splash the grin off Jet's face. Instead I send the slice of water against the edge of the vertical beam. On the other side, Aang catches it and bends it back towards me along the same path. We keep going like that, cutting back and forth and back and forth again as a gash wears slowly in the thick beam. But we're going too slowly to make a real difference. The Freedom Fighters keep exchanging glances, but not one of them is brave enough to risk unleashing my building frustration with a misplaced attempt at motivation. At the midway point Aang and I pause to bent over and gasp, exhausted, but we quickly resume because it's the only chance the city has. The whole world's counting on us, I tell myself. And Sokka. And Toph. And Zuko.

At last we cut fully through and the upper section of the beam grinds down the angled cut. But it only slides a few inches before shuddering to a halt.

"We're not going to do enough damage before the drill gets to the wall," I admit, panting again.

Aang sits down to rest. "We have to keep trying," he says, though both of us know we don't have many more slices of water left in us.

Suddenly there's a shudder and a groan passing through the machine. "Hey, I think we did it," Jet says. "Let's get out of here."

I'm grinning as we run for the doorway. Not so bad after all, I guess. But we've only just reached the entrance when a faint crackle comes across the overhead speaking tubes, followed by an unfamiliar voice.

"Congratulations, crew," it announces. "The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!"

"No." The word slips out of me unbidden, but it's a fair expression of the horror and anger and disbelief passing across all of us. With only one beam severed, there's no way to cut through all the others in time.

Aang shakes his head. "This is really bad."

"Two kinds of people," Jet reminds us. "Let's prove to the Fire Nation we're the find a way ones." He glances from the sliced beam to an intact one. "Hmm . . . okay, idea. Maybe we're putting too much effort into individual braces. Could you two split up and go twice as fast?"

"You know, we don't really have to cut all the way through," Aang says. "In my earthbending training, I've learned that you don't have to give all your energy to any one strike. I just have to weaken my opponent, break his stance, and his own body will become his downfall."

"So we just have to weaken the braces!" I realize.

"And I'll deliver the final blow from the top."

The water from my flask hovers between us. "Let's do it."

We slice back and forth, back and forth, inflicting cuts into one support beam and then another and another one again. "This one's good," I tell Aang as soon as we've cut a fairly deep way in, our cue to move it. The Freedom Fighters follow along from one beam to the other, but all of us are really wondering how much time we've got before we're caught sabotaging the drill—

"Watch out!" Jet yells suddenly, ducking down as a blast of blue fire sizzles above his head. Longshot pulls an arrow from his quiver and aims it at the three girls who've run out on a girder far above us.

Aang ducks lows and misses a second shot of fire. "Run!" he calls, as Ty Lee swings towards him from the girder. He knocks her back with a gust of air as Longshot sends an arrow for Azula. She leaps out of the way, but the momentary distraction is enough to get us safely to the doorway. Corridor, doorway, corridor, left turn, right turn, corridor down to a three-way junction. We come to a halt, looking left and right.

"Guys, get out of here. I'll take care of the drill."

Longshot and Smellerbee exchange glances. "We've got your back," she says, the two of them following Aang down one arm of the junction.

"I'll be your backup," Jet says, chasing after me.

"What? No, go with Aang!"

"I trust my Freedom Fighters to take care of him, and you shouldn't go alone."

We take a turn and run right into a dead end. "Oh, no," I groan.

"Hold on. That reads slurry pipeline," he says, pointing to a sign above a large hatch. "Slurry is just rock and water mixed together—and this pipe might lead to a way out!"

He opens up the hatch just as Ty Lee and her knife-throwing friend turn into the hall behind us. "Guess we'll find out!" I say. "Go, go!"

"Hurry up, I know. Zuko's waiting, right?" he teases, then notices the girls too. "Okay, okay, I'm going!"

I look back to Ty Lee grinning wickedly and her dark-haired friend narrowing her eyes just slightly. Jet plunges into the slurry and I follow close behind, leaping in just as a throwing knife clings against the open hatch. We ride the slurry until we're splashed out on the ground in a gray puddle at the rear of the drill.

"Ugh," I groan, wiping some ooze off my face. "Well, at least we're out."

"Katara, is that you? Need some help?"

"Toph?" I gasp as the earthbender comes running out from beneath the drill. "What are you doing here?"

"I figured you guys were in trouble when the drill hit the wall. Don't worry, your brother's safe in the infirmary."

Just my brother? What about—

"Company," Jet says, pointing at the slurry pipe. Ty Lee's riding waist deep in the flow, still grinning wildly. I raise a hand to bend the slurry back and trap her in the pipe, but a second person appears in the flow behind her. The knife-thrower lives up to her nickname, sending a blade at my upraised hand. I duck, and this small distraction is just enough time for the two girls to land safely on the ground and jump out of the way of my bending. The dark-haired girl's eyes narrow as her gray-splashed hand closes around a fresh weapon. Her gaze falls across each of us in turn. She sighs as if expecting something else.

"That slurry is a mix of rock and water," Jet tells Toph while there's a pause for breath. "Try to bend it into that pipe. You might be able to plug the drain and mess up the drill big-time."

"Mudbending? I'm on it," she says.

"I'll take the acrobat," he says, running for Ty Lee.

I guess that leaves me with the knife-thrower again.

It's only me and her and the stretch of earth between us. She charges, several blades extended from her right hand. My feet find a waterbending stance as I draw water from my flask. Her hand moves and the blades come at me. I crystallize the water to a shield of ice and deflect the knives. The water coils into a whip at my slightest motion. I sling it forward but she leans back to avoid the strike. Her sleeve and hand are moving too quickly, another knife at the ready, and this time I can't block the blade she throws. It sinks into my arm, cutting down to blood and bone. I drop the water; it splashes at my feet. I grab the knife handle but know that ripping it out would only make the bleeding come harder. Past the pain radiating from my right arm, I can only think to throw up a curtain of the ice and water against the new weapon in her hand. She lifts the three-pointed device and unfolds it into a throwing star. I watch her run at me through the gloss of water between us. And I want to think. And I try to think. I freeze the water into a thousand tiny shards, all cutting pinpricks that would slice her skin to pieces. She stops, weapon raised, and we both know that the next to strike is the next to die. But my hand is shaking, the blood coming down my arm. Beneath her mask of calm and control she's really smiling because I've lost anyway. I've squeezed my eyes for just a moment, but I know she's smiling—

"Mai, stop!"

I expect the weapon to cut me through, but I open my eyes and see the throwing star hasn't left her hand. She's holding it very tightly, in fact, her head now turned to the person half-running, half-limping toward us. Her eyes are wide with recognition and awe and simple disbelief.

"Zuko," she says, and in that word I hear more than just the firebender's name. I hear the laughter of small children sitting under a tree with its blossom-laden bows drooping low. I hear nights of picking out patterns in the stars and feeding turtleducks in a pond and growing up together in the world. She slips the throwing star back inside her robe, but it might as well be a secret note two schoolmates exchanged while the professor was running off on some blabbering tangent. "Zuko?" she asks, this time a question, one that wants to know are you the Zuko I knew before you were exiled? Do you still remember me? Do you know me?

All she's said is one word that means his name, but in her eyes and in his face and in her small smile and in the softness of his gaze I know they're not strangers in the least.

"Zuko? Oh, hi!" Ty Lee sings out as she vaults over Jet a distance away. She stops to wave, and the distraction is just enough to let Toph trap her in a shell of earth. "Hey!" she yells. "Not fair!"

Mai ignores her friend's predicament. Her eyes are only for Zuko. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I'm with the Avatar now," he explains between pants for breath. For my part, I take the lull in the fighting as a chance to rip the knife out of my arm and ease healing water over the cut. My skin seals over, the bleeding stemmed.

"With the Avatar? You're his friend?"

"Uncle and I. We both are." He pauses, wincing at the pain probably shooting through his barely-healed chest and back. "What are you doing here?" he asks, but suddenly rock swallows Mai up to the neck. "Toph, let her go!" he yells.

"Sorry, Sparky. Right now, she's the enemy."

I run to help Toph bend a ball of slurry deeper into the pipe. Jet watches the two trapped girls struggle against the earth holding them in place. Zuko doesn't try to free them, but he does stay close to Mai. They're saying something, but I can't hear from this far off.

"What is he doing here?" I whisper to Toph. "He should be resting. He was just dying an hour ago!"

She shrugs. "He wouldn't let me come down without him. He can be very convincing and said he was fine."

Of course, by this she really means he asked maybe once and how could she say no to any request of his? I sigh and glance over my shoulder. "Leave them alone and come here!" I call.

Jet grabs Zuko's arm, but he resists the urgent pull and instead looks back to Mai. He says something I finally hear: "Are you going to Ba Sing Se?"

She nods.

"I'll find a way to meet you there."

She sighs, her dark hair shining in the sun. "Your friends are waiting."

There is longing, there is worry, there is wonder in the look Zuko tears from her. He's tired, he's hurting, but he and Jet come running towards us. At least, a part of him comes along with Jet. I don't know how large of a fraction, but at least some piece stays behind with the dark-haired knife-thrower. I know this because he looks back twice, the sun shining off his eyes. There's hesitation in his steps and in his grimace and in his the sighing breath he lets out when he reaches us.

He'd told Jin I have a girlfriend and then denied it to me later. But all of a sudden, I'm not so sure which was the lie and which the truth.

In the next moment I'm angry with myself for even thinking about that when there's a drill to deal with. I turn back to the slurry, channeling all my rage into forcing that ball back deeper and deeper into the pipe. We hold the slurry inside until we hear a chain of eruptions coming from front to rear. Plumes of gray ooze burst from the top of the drill, meaning Aang and the Freedom Fighters have clearly done their job.

"Get close!" Toph yells, lifting us both and Jet and Zuko on a pillar of rock. The force of the slurry pouring from the drain is enough to break the rock holding Mai and Ty Lee trapped. They're washed off in a rush of goo as Toph breaks off an earth platform and carries us back to the base of the wall where the others are already waiting.

"We beat them!" Aang shouts, grabbing me in a hug. We topple over laughing, slurry dripping off us both. "Longshot, Smellerbee"—he grins widely at them—"I owe you one for today. You too, Momo."

"See, I knew it from the start. Team Avatar and the Freedom Fighters make a good team after all," Jet says, smiling like he's won some long-standing argument.

Zuko says nothing. He's looking out at the broken drill, but the haze in his gaze lets me know his eyes are really on something more distant. Toph's face is turned the same way as his, like maybe she's trying to figure out what he's searching for.

I sigh. "Guess that's our official nickname if other people are using it. Team Avatar. Sokka will be excited to hear—" A shiver runs through me. "Let's get back to the infirmary."

We crowd together as the earth platform shudders. A current of air presses our clothes to our bodies as the ground drops away below us. We rise above the scattered remains of the drill and the gray ooze of slurry splashed across the dirt everywhere. The outer wall streams past us, its well-worn rock running down in a vertical wash of stone. It has stood here forever, will continue to stand here forever. We're speeding faster against the side of the wall. I feel the height pressing against my eardrums. The sun fills my eyes. Wind gusts my hair back. Far off, the line of earth cuts the sky. I look out at the horizon and keep looking until it's only the brown of the land and the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun and air filling the empty spaces between all of these forces.

The platform comes to a halt and we step off on the wall. I head right for the infirmary and my friends follow. The long room is nearly empty, all save for a few Terra Team fighters and my still-sleeping—

Not sleeping. Because at the sound of footsteps in the doorway, my brother tilts his head and waves us over.

"Sokka," I cry, jumping on him as if we'd been apart for years and not hours.

"Woah, woman! Good to see you, too," he says, trying to push me off.

I'm not letting go for anything. "I'm glad to see you're okay."

"Glad to be okay." He finally pushes me to one side and sits up on the futon, only to be knocked over again by Toph.

"Hey, Snoozles," she says, hugging him so tightly into his pillow that he's choking for breath.

By this time Zuko and the Freedom Fighters have joined us. The firebender sits on the nearest empty futon and rubs his chest, probably feeling the strain of newly-healed skin.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

Zuko shakes his head. "I'm fine. I'm glad we're all fine."

"I'll make sure we get you some food," I tell Sokka. "Can you stand?"

"Can I? I don't know. Toph, can I have my body back?"

She blushes fiercely and climbs off the futon. My brother grins and sits back up—but he doesn't get up. His face contorts in concentration as a black drop of fear plops into my stomach.

"Sokka?" I probe gently.

"Something's wrong with my legs," he says. "I can't feel anything."

The black drop dissolves into a cold solution that runs through my veins, through my body, through the shaking hand I lay on my brother's exposed lower back. If he was thrown against something on the Titan and that thing was his spinal cord—

There. Right under my touch is a fresh swelling of tissue I didn't notice before, compressing the vertebrae below. And if my brother can't feel his legs . . .

"Sokka, I think you should get some rest. I'll bring you some food," I tell him, forcing my face to reveal nothing of the diagnosis to not worry him. "Guys, stay here. I'll be back."

Keeping my gait calm and controlled, I walk over to the woman in brown robes. She looks up from the Terra Team soldier she was attending. "I heard you saved our city from the Fire Nation. We owe you a great debt."

"I think we're about to get even. Do you keep stores of herbs and oils for healing purposes?"

She nods. "Is there a problem?"

"Can I see them? There's a special oil I need for my brother. And if you have anything meat-based around here, I think he's hungry."

She leads me down the aisle between two rows of futons and leaves me in a storage space in the back. I pick through shelves until I find a bottle labeled with a name Yagoda taught me in the north. By the time I return, Toph's feeding my brother some mushy-looking stuff.

"What's wrong with your arms?" I yell, hoping it's not worse than I thought.

"I'm a wounded warrior," he moans through exaggerated gasps. "I deserve some pampering." Clearly he hasn't grasped the seriousness of the situation. Or maybe he just thinks it'll wear off quickly.

Toph doesn't seem to mind his apparent helplessness much. "Shut up and eat," she says, poking a glob at his mouth.

He accepts the mouthful but then stares at the bottle in my hands. "Uh . . . seriously, little sis," he says. "I'm going to get my legs back, right? Like, in a few hours? Right?"

The others watch intently as I massage the oil into Sokka's lower back. "This stuff should help. Don't worry, you'll be okay soon," I tell him, making sure the earthbender's feet are safely off the ground. "I'll come back in a bit to rub some more on. You guys, uh . . . hey, dinner's here."

Now the woman is passing around vegetable stew for all of us. Everyone but me and Aang and Zuko takes a plate. When I stand up to go, they both stand with me. I move quickly past them and see Aang start to follow, but Zuko rests a hand on the airbender's shoulder to hold him back. Then I'm out of the infirmary, breathing in the calming air of early evening. My whole head's swimming by the time I reach the low stone wall meant to keep people from plunging over the sheer drop on the other side. I gather my arms in close and lean against the wall. I'm shaking, and the ground and the sky are shaking with me. With all the attention I'd given Zuko, I didn't catch the one critical hurt done to my brother earlier when more could have been done. A small sound breaks out of my throat, and as it fades I drop my head straight down on my arms. Now the tears are coming because out here in the dark I'm free to grieve openly for the horrible person I've been to my brother these past hours. I'm free to drop to my knees, crying, angry with myself for not staying here with him and doing more before when I could have—

I gasp as arms move around me in the gentlest embrace there is. Look at me, the warm pressure around my body says. Turn and look and tell me what's the matter.

I sniffle to keep my nose from running along with my eyes. Wiping my cheeks, I turn to see Zuko on his knees holding me close like he'd held me after the serpent's bite. Despite all the loss he'd seen in his life, and I bet there's so much he has yet to tell me, the sun is still shining inside his eyes. Or maybe everything glows when your soul is breaking to pieces and someone is trying to keep you together.

"Uncle showed me that oil once and told me what it's for. Your brother's temporarily paralyzed because of swelling, isn't he?"

Temporarily. If only I could say with absolute knowledge this was in fact the case. But all I know as dust particles float around us in the edging darkness is my brother won't walk for some time.

"I'm sorry. At least it should get better with time and that oil. I guess we all lost something in the Serpent's Pass," he says.

"You didn't," I say, trying to steer the topic away from something I'm about to cry over. I lay my hand on his shirt where I know the chest wounds lie just below. "I'm glad I was waiting to use the water from the Spirit Oasis for something special. I . . . I still can't believe you're okay."

"I owe you my life. I'll remember that."

"You joined the team, didn't you? Debt repaid."

"No, I'm serious." He tilts my chin up so I'm looking at him. "I owe you. And one day, I'll pay you back."

A very insignificant thing occurs to me, but sometimes you just need to bring some useless thing into a heavy world to lift off the suffocating weight. "You know what I skipped this morning?"

"Sword practice." He's way ahead of me.

"Guess we'll start again tomorrow morning."

He looks off across the world beyond the wall. "We'll have to wait for the city."

"How come?"

"I told you we all lost something. I was trying to find all of you when I realized the ship was sinking, and in the panic I left my sheath back in my room. By the time I realized it, I was in the kitchen closet with Sokka. I couldn't leave him to go get it, so it's down there now with the ship. But it's not a big deal. When we get to Ba Sing Se, we'll make new swords. For me and for you."

I thought I'd cried myself out, but fresh water rises to my eyes because I know now, as always, that as long as this team is together we'll always find a way to go on. "First, I think I'd better tell my brother what's happened. I just wanted to come out here and figure out the best way to tell him. He won't take it well."

"Good. I'll go with you."

Zuko stands up, and when I stay put he reaches down. "Give me your hand," he says. A wash of dizziness comes over me. I get up with the feeling that I'm coming up too fast, but when I stumble he catches me in his arms. A feeling rises in my throat, but by the time it gets to my mouth it's nothing but breath and longing. Standing on the edge of the wall, we look over at the faint red line of sunset far off on the horizon. We look out at the world. We look out at the world together.

And in gazing out at the wide earth below us, I realize that Zuko's embrace is one of the safest places there is. Once long ago he was my enemy and I was afraid to turn my back on him for even a moment, but now I know we will never fight each other again.

We can't.

We're a team now and will help each other through any loss or challenge. We're Team Avatar, the one unbeatable force whose members will stand by one another and never betray each other for anything.

And I have no doubt it will always remain this way.

A/N: Worried for Sokka? Loving Toph's growing bond with him? Excited about Katara getting her own swords? Wondering if the Freedom Fighters will stay with Team Avatar? Can't wait to see what happens when Mai and Zuko meet up? If you're pumped for part three, let me know with a comment below (or a favorite/follow)! Besides, for the longest chapter to date, hopefully there's something to say. :D Oh, oh—and one more thing. I got my first interview for medical school in September! Here's to hoping for good luck (*raises teacup*).