Author's Note: THANKS, GUYS! I got a LOT of hits and 6 reviews on the last chapter. It excites me so much to wake up and look at my phone to see e-mails from , showing me that you guys have reviewed, favorited, and added me to your watch. I REALLY hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'll keep updating! Oh yeah, when darkdaysofsummer has given me and idea that I haven't messed with, there will be one star (*). When we've both come up with an idea, there will be two stars (**) at the end of a paragraph or something. If I forget to add them, please keep in mind that darkdaysofsummerHAS helped me get motivated enough to start writing again, and she's contributed many ideas to the fic. I love you guys!

Zuko's POV:

I shook Kiyah firmly. "Stay with me." I ordered her. Her eyes popped open for an instant, but she was losing so much blood so quickly, I didn't know what I was going to do. What a gruesome sight the two of us made – bloody lovers. My hands and torso were covered in Kiyah's fresh, red blood – it dripped from my fingertips.

Once again, Kiyah's eyes began to slowly close as she spluttered. "NO." I shouted into her face as if I were scolding a small dog. "You're not going to leave me, Kiyah! I love you too much to let you go! I've worked too hard!" I cried, adjusting her weight in my lap. She looked up at me with pleading eyes, causing me to only cry harder. "Don't leave me," I begged, burying my head into her chest. My cheek was now warm with her blood and my tears. Soldiers didn't cry. I couldn't be crying. I shouldn't be crying. But I was.

"ZUKO!" a voice yelled. I sat up quickly and snapped my head around to see the one and only Avatar and his peasant friends from the Water Tribe. I was relieved that someone was going to help me...or were they angry at her for coming after me? "What did you do to her!" the brown-headed girl demanded, tears flowing down her tanned face. "I didn't do ANYTHING!" I shouted, angry that she would accuse me of such a thing. The Avatar and the Water Tribe boy only stood with looks of horror on their faces. And then snow began to fall lightly.

"What the hell are you waiting for!" I snapped at them, all standing there like idiots. "Help me!" I shouted. I looked down at Kiyah, whose eyes were rolling into the back of her head again. She coughed once, sending blood all over my hands. The girl moved quickly and quietly to my side, her eyes still filled with tears. She looked how I felt, minus the blood.

"Kiyah?" she whispered gently, touching her bloody face. Kiyah wheezed and looked up into the girl's face, pain in her emerald eyes. "I'm going to bend the blood out of your throat," she whimpered, as if it hurt her to see Kiyah in this state. And then she did what she explained. Kiyah's mouth opened against her will and blood came out of her mouth in small streams. The Water Tribe girl threw the blood to the side as if it were a poisonous spider as Kiyah gagged. "Can you speak?" I asked, hopeful. "I need – a healer." she choked out, attempting to move her hands over her wound. But she was too weak.

The Water Tribe boy made a muffled sound and I looked as he covered his face with a gloved hand, turning away to cry. The Avatar even had tears in his eyes. Did my girlfriend really mean this much to these people? "We need to carry her to the castle, the Chief will know what to do." the Avatar whispered, picking up a sad-looking lemur. The lemur was chattering away in protest, and jumped from his shoulders to run over to Kiyah, who was still barely conscious. It nuzzled her face sadly.

Within minutes, we were at the castle, and in a healer's ward. Kiyah was screaming bloody murder, and it pained me so much to see her like that. The healer had already cleaned up her wound, and was now attempting to sew it closed, which wasn't working out for him. The waterbender undressed and redressed Kiyah once the healer was finished, and even offered to clean the blood from her body.

And then Kiyah and I were alone. She was put in a small room off the healer's ward for special patients, which I demanded. I didn't want those stupid soldiers looking at her when they were all healed up. The room had a small bed, the mattress made of straw and the pillows made of feathers. There was a small fireplace in the room, and an end table. Kiyah was sleeping now, and I sat at her bedside in a wooden chair, exhausted but afraid to sleep. I had no intentions of letting death take her in her sleep.

The healer, who was a complete ass, said that she may not make it through the night because of her blood loss. But I believed in her, and so did the Avatar, the waterbender, and the seemingly upset Water Tribe boy.

Kiyah's chest was under heavy gauze, and she still bled slightly. I watched and counted the times that her chest rose and fell, and moved to kiss her hand. She was so precious to me. She made my whole life better, from that night that she stayed with me on the deck of my old ship.

"I love you," I whispered to her, kissing her lips and brushing some hair from her eyes.