I will try and update, your reviews inspire me. Just a straw poll, how many people listen to these songs? Or else I'll stop putting them! The song is Who Are You? by The Who and can be found here - http://wwwDOTyoutubeDOTcom/watch?v=l_FZVD5lsAw


Chapter Twenty Seven - Control

What do you do when the one thing you want most in the world comes to you? And what if it has become the one thing you feared most? Toph is frozen. Almost literally. She is in a near-catatonic state, staring straight ahead, unable to take in anything.

She doesn't know where she is, just that the room is almost empty. She doesn't care about this room. All she remembers is the last one, with the coffin that she had carved out of stone for Aang, only she herself knowing what it had cost her.

And now, with this familiar stranger, Toph finally lets herself cry for Aang. Once she starts, it's impossible to stop.

She had loved him, she knows that now.


Katara continues to hammer away at stone. It's almost as hard as trying to convince Toph of something when she doesn't want to listen. Her head has healed, but she's still unbelievably tired. She's been up all night, and the stone feels weaker, but she's nowhere near to breaking through to anywhere else.

She doesn't even know what awaits them in the room they're trying to break into. For all she knows, it could be Dai Li headquarters, and they'd just be put back in this room. All she knows is that Zuko can feel the sun from that direction.

She can't fault Zuko for his dedication, at least, although in the last few hours she's wanted to stab him a few times. He's stayed up with her all night, though he had no need to. She knows he feels helpless, and suspects he stayed up not to keep her company but to reassure himself he had some role in this. She's suggested using sweat to get some additional water, but sensed Zuko was overworking himself and stopped him (to his reluctance) after a while.

It's stupid, of course. At the moment, Katara finds everything annoying. She's cranky, and knows it's best to keep her mouth shut. Luckily Zuko stays silent, although it is a sullen silence, full of stubborn unsaid words of anger.


Their 'relationship' consists of Jet teasing Mai to get a reaction, and her imperturbability to his repeated attacks. It's not the same with Katara, she was an ideal, gorgeous and head-over-heels in love with him. He wasn't stupid enough not to know that.

Mai is not beautiful - not by Earth Kingdom standards where voluptuous, smiling girls are the norm. Ice cold and expressionless, she seems to be above all the squalor of the rebel camp. He can't understand why he sometimes wants to chase the detached look from her face.

So he continues to play the idiot with her, joking and sacrificing his dignity in the hope of a reaction, something different from the dispassionate look she always wears. Anger, annoyance, anything will do. He won't hope for a smile, knowing that was probably what she had once saved for Zuko.

They're both sinners, different from Zuko and Katara, and somehow he needs a reaction from her.

"Hey, did you hear the one about the Fire Nation girl who had half a brain? She was gifted!"
"Pfft." No reaction.
"I like you." Cringeworthy silence.
"Good for you." But he's happy, because he thinks he saw the hint of a blush.

A head peeks into the room. "Bumi needs you, to plan the strategy for the final takeover of the Fire Nation. And to decide what to do with the prisoners."

They leave, and even Jet is serious.


Thank you very much to anonymous reviewer MGK, whose suggestions about sweatbending were something I'd completely forgotten about! I wished I could contact you somehow to thank you for your amazing reviews and so I did!