A/N Wrote this in notes bc I'm bored and inspired. Also yeah sorry i've been mia for years at this point but it just be like that sometimes

"Wake up, Lightweight."

Hiromi opened her eyes just in time to see the silhouette of a tall, messy haired boy toss something at her. She moved her elbow up to protect her face from whatever it was, but the object only landed with a light thud next to where her head was laying.

Hiromi closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out of her nose before she shot up off of the mat she had been sleeping on. She picked up the burlap sack Jet had thrown towards her and looked inside.

"This sack is empty." She said, looking up at him.

"We're checking traps this morning," he nodded, "You need to know where they all are."

Jet crossed his arms as he leaned back onto a wooden post that was behind him, habitually spinning the piece of wheat that never seemed to leave his mouth.

Hiromi nodded her head and carried the sack at her waist, walking behind Jet as he left the tent she shared with some other members of the gang. She had spent the past couple days getting to know her way around the treehouse and trying to learn everyone's names. She didn't have an official job with the Freedom Fighters yet after a week in their hideout, but she'd heard that Jet didn't usually take newcomers under his wing as much as he had with her unless he had really big plans for them.

"Hey Jet, I have a question." Hiromi asked as they began their way to the first of the traps.

"What's up?"

"Is Jet your real name or is it a nickname?"

"It's my real name." He smiled.

"Why are you the only person who doesn't have a nickname?"

Jet shrugged his shoulders in response, "I mean I guess I kind of chose the name Jet for myself, so it could be considered a nickname."

Hiromi nodded, accepting his answer.

"Honestly I was hoping for a more exciting nickname than Lightweight." She confessed.

"Well you could've chosen your own name like I did, you're the one who decided to leave it up to the gang, short stuff." Jet winked at her and pulled a rope hanging from a tree branch, lowering a wooden cage that held inside of it a good-sized bird of some sort. He picked it up and tossed it into Hiromi's bag, motioning for her to hand it to him while he walked her through resetting the trap. They continued to walk and talk to one another as they emptied and reset various kinds of traps throughout the woods. As they neared the last of the traps they had to check, Hiromi noticed for the first time the amount of dark clouds in the sky.

"I think it's gonna rain soon." She said, looking up at the dark masses above her.

Jet looked up, squinting his eyes. "You're probably right. Let's get these last few traps cleared and we'll try to get back to camp before it starts pouring too bad."

Jet picked up the sack and threw it effortlessly over his broad shoulders. Hiromi watched him walk for a moment before following behind him, his legs taking long strides in front of her. He walked with a certain confidence that she'd never seen in anyone before, he seemed so intent and relaxed at the same time. It was as if he knew he had an impossible task in front of him but that he had no doubt he was going to be the one to complete it. It was honestly a very conceited attitude to have, but Hiromi thought it suited him.

Before Hiromi could stare at him for a second longer it seemed like all the rain that the clouds were holding fell from the sky at once. Jet turned around and grabbed her wrist, pulling her behind him as he ran towards some unknown destination.

After a few seconds passed, her arm grew too slippery for him to hold onto while they were running and he shouted to her "Make sure you keep up!" Before letting go.

After they ran for a minute or two, they came upon a tree and stopped. Were they really going to check more traps in the rain like this?

Jet tossed the bag up into the tree and immediately began climbing, Hiromi following behind him. They were no more than 15 feet up the tree before they reached an old structure that had been built on its lowest branch and was surrounded by leaves. The inside of the building was covered with leaves and dirt, but it was evident that Jet had been here before. After he pulled himself inside he walked over to a chest that was in the corner of the room and pulled out an old blanket that smelled terrible.

"Did you build this place?" She asked as he handed her the blanket.

"Yeah, Longshot and I put together this one and a few other lookout posts when we were first starting out. We have a handful of them all around the forest but we don't use them very much anymore."

Hiromi didn't blame them for not using them. This place wasn't absolutely awful but back at camp was a utopia compared to it.

"That's pretty neat." She sat down and rung her hair out as she wrapped herself up in the blanket.

"You can't just keep that all to yourself, you know." Jet smiled as he sat down next to her.

"Oh!" Hiromi began to falter, "Sorry, I didn't mean to, uh-"

He laughed and waved a hand dismissively at her, "I'm just messing with you, Lightweight."

Hiromi laughed nervously and blushed as he spoke again, "I am pretty cold though."

Hiromi set the blanket in front of Jet as he took off the shirt and weapons that he adorned and laid them out in the corner of the room followed by taking off his shoes and emptying the water from inside of them. Taking his shirt off revealed a strong, dark back and broad shoulders that shone from being wet. She also noticed a scar that ran from underneath his armpit all the way down to his hip. It was long and deep and was probably many years old. Hiromi wondered for a second what had happened to him before Jet turned around to catch her staring, causing Hiromi to look down and blush with embarrassment.

She followed suit and began removing the outermost parts of her soaking wet clothing. She took off her water-filled boots and rung out her socks along with the maroon sweater she'd been wearing, leaving her in her pants and a dark sleeveless shirt.

"What happened to your side?" Hiromi asked, looking over at him.

"Happened when I was young. It's not a long story, but it is a bit depressing to hear and I'm sure you can guess where it's from without me telling it to you."

Hiromi frowned and pictured a young Jet, helpless and afraid, being attacked by a Fire Nation soldier. It made her sad that she knew so little about what really went on outside the palace, she then found it ironic that she'd literally grown up in the Fire Lord's backyard but knew nothing about what he did, or what he ordered people to do.

"I'm so sorry." she said, not knowing what else to say.

"It's not your fault," Jet said, "It was those damned fire nation soldiers."

She nodded her head in understanding. She looked out of a makeshift window in the side of the small building at the pouring rain. She watched as animals ran to the trees for cover, just as her and Jet had.

She looked back over at Jet, who was looking at her.

She watched his golden eyes staring back at hers, his shining chest heaving with every breath.

She thought of Lu Ten.

She thought of his shining eyes, of his strong shoulders and chest. She thought of his loving heart and how he'd always make her feel so important. She thought of conversations where he would just stop mid-sentence and stare at her, then when she asked what he was going to say he'd just look at her and smile.

She thought of the day he proposed to her, and how unbelievably happy she felt, a happiness she never thought she'd know.

She thought of the day she found out he was gone forever.

Jet stepped closer and closer to her until he was sitting down next to her, his hand outstretched and holding the blanket in front of her face.

"You're shivering, put this blanket around you."

He handed her the old, smelly blanket and she tossed it over Jet as he sat down across from her and pulled the other half of the blanket over her legs.

She looked up into his golden eyes and smiled.

She thought of Zuko.

Hiromi decided that she should try to get in contact with the prince and his uncle to let them know she was still alive and breathing. She made a mental note to look at her map when they got back to the hideout so she could try and deduce where they might be. It hurt her heart to think that they thought she was gone, she remembered how she felt and still feels about Lu Ten and almost teared up thinking that they could be going through the same pain.

"What are you thinking about?" Jet asked, nudging her leg with his bare foot.

She really wanted to talk to Jet about everything that had happened to her, but she couldn't bring herself to confess anything too personal to him even though he had this way about him that made you want to trust him.

"So what's your plan for the freedom fighters?" She asked.

He smirked at her and crossed his arms behind his head, lying almost completely flat on the ground but still looking at her. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would, actually." She laughed, genuinely curious.

"All right." He sat up and scooted closer, his legs now perpendicular to hers. "I mean, isn't it obvious what we're trying to do? We're taking down the Fire Nation little by little."

She nodded her head, "Yeah, but what's your plan to do that?"

"We've done a few things here and there, mostly focusing on getting the Fire Nation out of Gaipan. Stuff like raiding the soldiers campsites and things like that. We haven't been able to do too much outside of this area but I think with your help we'll be able to start doing some big things."

She nodded her head in understanding, though she didn't really mean it. He still hadn't answered her question about what his plan was.

"So what are those big things that I'll be able to help with?" She decided to ask, realizing that she wasn't content with the vague clarification he'd been providing her.

She noticed his eye twitch slightly when she asked the question and wondered if he'd winked at her, had a facial tick, or was just that taken aback by her further questioning of him.

He smiled at her and studied her for a moment before responding.

"You'll see."

They sat talking for about half an hour before the rain stopped and went back to camp. While they were talking, Jet asked Hiromi where her strange bending abilities had come from. She told him a half-truth about her journey to the spirit world, leaving out the parts about her having been a fire bender. He didn't seem to fully understand the ways of the spirits, though neither did she, so her story seemed plausible to him. When they arrived, Hiromi went back to her room to look at her world map. Based on what Drisana had discussed with her while they were on Whale Tail island, they were able to deduce that the Avatar would be making his way to the Northern Water Tribe to attempt to find a water bending teacher. If they had been traveling straight there, they would more than likely be traveling along the coastline and with their flying creature could be as far as Makapu by now. Hiromi decided to stay with Jet for a few more days and see what the Freedom Fighters were really all about before she would leave to an Abbey in the Earth Kingdom that claimed to be neutral in the war. She wasn't too sure about the intentions of the Freedom Fighters yet, most of them seemed to have valid grievances against the Fire Nation but there was something about Jet that just seemed off to Hiromi. She thought he was charismatic and even handsome, she wanted to trust him but just couldn't bring herself to. She thought of how she had "answered" all of her questions throughout the week. He just seemed to be hiding something and she started to feel like finding the Freedom Fighters so early in her quest really was too good to be true.

Early the next morning, Jet came to her room.

"Come with me, we're going to stake out a nearby Fire Nation camp and see if we can find a window to ambush them and take their supplies."

Hiromi grabbed her hooded jacket and baton to put in her belt and followed behind him, picking up a few other Freedom Fighters on their way out.

They jumped and made their way through the treetops until they were overlooking the campsite. Jet motioned for her to join her on the branch he was positioned on and handed her some rope, instructing her to tie it to the branch so they'd be ready to drop down when the moment was right. As they sat in silence, Hiromi looked at the soldiers to see if there was anybody she recognized before realizing that most of these soldiers were low-ranking and had more than likely never been in the palace city.

As the sun began to get higher in the sky, rays of light shining through the leaves began reflecting off of her hair. She pulled the hood of her jacket over her head so it wouldn't catch the attention of anyone below just as she noticed a disturbance in the brush nearby the camp.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Look guys, I'm tired too. But the important thing is that we're safe from the-" Sokka pushed through the brush in front of him and paused, noticing a large group of Fire Nation soldiers sitting around a campsite, "Fire ... Nation."

All of the soldiers turned to look at the trio, grabbing their weapons as they stood.

"Run!" Sokka shouted, turning to run away just as a firebender sent a blast just past them, cutting off their route away from the camp as it set the brush behind them ablaze.

"We're cut off!" Sokka shouted, not noticing the smoke coming from his clothes.

"Sokka, your shirt!" Aang exclaimed, causing Sokka to scream as Katara put out the small fire with her water bending.

Sokka turned to face the soldiers, puffing up his chest and feigning confidence as he addressed the camp, "If you let us pass, we promise not to hurt you."

"What are you doing?" Katara whispered angrily at her brother.

"Bluffing?" Sokka whispered back, losing the feigned sense of confidence he had mustered before.

One of the soldiers seemed amused by Sokka's threat, "You promise not to hurt us?" The eye-patch wearing soldier laughed just as an object seemed to fall from the treetops above, knocking him out.

"Nice work, Sokka! How'd you do that?" Said Aang.

Sokka, genuinely confused, replied "Uh, instinct?"

Just as he said that, several people began jumping down from the tree tops. A man with two hooked swords jumped and took down two soldiers before running forward and swinging the hooked swords in a circular motion, taking down an additional two soldiers by flipping them above his head and directly into the ground.

"Down you go." He said as another soldier charged at him, only to be taken down swiftly with another swing of the hooked swords.

The Fire Nation soldiers began shouting about the people coming down from the tree tops while Sokka attempted to use the surprise distraction to his advantage. He held up his boomerang as he approached one of the soldiers, but stopped when a hooded figure swung down from the trees, sending a blinding light into the eyes of the soldier and kicking him into the ground as they landed.

"Hey, he was mine!" Sokka yelled in frustration.

The person smirked at him, "Gotta be quicker next time." Sokka was initially surprised by the feminine voice that escaped the person's lips but quickly diverted his attention to the more pressing matter at hand.

Fire Nation soldiers began dropping around Sokka left and right as he struggled fo focus on a single soldier that wasn't fighting someone already. Sokka found a soldier and approached him, his boomerang at the ready, when the man with hooked swords skillfully took down another soldier, causing the soldier's weapon to hit the man Sokka was going to fight in the head, knocking him unconscious.

"Man!" Sokka yelled angrily.

Hiromi was using her baton to take down soldiers along side Jet, the two of them outfighting every soldier that they came across swiftly and accurately. Jet disarmed the last soldier as Hiromi knocked him in the back of the head with the blunt side of her weapon. As Jet's momentum carried him forward, he was face to face with a girl from the group of people who had distracted the camp long enough for them to make their move. Hiromi noted that the girl looked eerily familiar, then studied the other members of the group, nearly dropping her weapon in shock as she immediately recognized the Avatar among them. She made a point to pull her hood tighter around her head in case any of them recognized her from weeks earlier.

"If the Avatar is here," Hiromi thought to herself, "Zuko can't be far behind."

As Jet was talking to the Avatar and his friends, Hiromi stood quietly alongside the other Freedom Fighters, doing her best to remain inconspicuous.

"My name is Jet, and these are my Freedom Fighters, Sneers, Longshot, Smellerbee, Lightweight, The Duke, and Pipsqueak."

The Avatar and Pipsqueak had a brief misunderstanding about the large man's name, causing the two of them to laugh hysterically. Hiromi worked in silence as they gathered supplies from the abandoned camp.

Jet and the girl from the Avatar's group, whose name Hiromi had learned was Katara, were talking under a tree and Hiromi noticed the girl's face blushing as they spoke.

Hiromi kept her hood on until they got back to camp, walking silently and avoiding eye contact with the new members of their entourage.

When they arrived at the hideout, the boy with a ponytail who had fought with Zuko at the south pole almost activated a release mechanism that would've sent him flying into the hideout. Hiromi caught the rope just as his feet left the ground and before he would've shot upwards then handed it back to him safely. He awkwardly thanked her and she nodded at him in return as he floated up into the trees.

So far, nobody seemed to recognize her. However Hiromi knew that her hair was too easily recognizable for her to risk taking her hood off before she had the trust of the Avatar.

All of a sudden, Hiromi had an idea. Drisana had told her what she needed to do, but the most effective way for her to end the war that had ravaged the world was to join the Avatar and his friends. Would they even trust her? How could she prove herself to them once they found out who she was? She remembered the Earth Kingdom passport her father had left her that showed her heritage and she breathed a sigh of relief that she'd always kept it and the letter her father wrote her on her when she was on Zuko's ship in case anyone decided to go through her belongings. It was a little warped from when she fell into the ocean, but the writing inside was still fairly easily readable because of the high quality material it and the letter was made from.

She'd wished that she had her other things with her, namely her letters from Lu Ten, and she wondered if they had thrown out her belongings when they realized she was gone. She doubted Iroh would have let anyone throw away his sons letters, so this thought quickly left her mind.

Hiromi was lost in thought as they walked along the bridges of the hideout, coming out of her trance when she heard Jet say her name.

He turned towards her and put his arm around her shoulders, earning her a glare from Katara "This is our newest promising member, Lightweight. We had a friendly spar in the forest some time ago and I think she's more hell-bent on taking down the Fire Nation than any of us." He winked at her and ruffled her hood around, some of her hair falling out from underneath it before he pulled the hood back and brushed his fingers through her bright hair.

Hiromi's heart stopped, studying the Avatar and his friends' faces for any sign that they recognized her. Aang didn't seem to, and Hiromi thought Katara was too jealous of the attention Jet was giving her to make any connection. Sokka seemed distracted and didn't really appear to take note of what had happened.

"Her parents were also killed by the Fire Nation, they killed my family when I was 8."

Jet continued walking alongside and talking to Katara as she asked him questions and Hiromi decided to leave her hood down. Hiromi began lagging behind the group while she thought of a way to introduce her idea to Aang. As she was thinking, she felt a tug on her jacket and turned around to face Sokka, the rest of the group walking ahead not seeing this interaction.

"What are you doing here?" He asked accusingly.

"I can explain," Hiromi said, looking up at him.

He let go of her jacket and crossed his arms expectantly, "Go on, explain then."

She motioned for him to follow her to her room, checking to make sure it was empty before she pulled out her backpack.

She showed him her passport and the letter her father had written her, nervously watching as Sokka examined the letter.

"If all of this is true, why were you with the Fire Nation when they took Aang?" Sokka asked, remembering that he hadn't seen her since then and slowly realizing that her story could be true after asking the question.

"Aang killed me when he went into the Avatar state and attacked Zuko's ship. I was rescued by a hundred-year-old psychic woman who had a vision that I would drown in the ocean, she helped me recover and taught me how to do this." Hiromi produced a small beam of light from her hand before she continued, "I never knew what the Fire Nation had been doing to the world, she showed me the horrible things that they had done and I decided to leave that life behind."

Sokka nodded his head and thought about what the girl was saying to him. He took another look at the passport she had given him and he decided that, for now, he would accept her story as true.

"Does Jet know all of this?" He asked her.

She shook her head, "No, I don't know if I trust him. I feel like he's always hiding something."

Sokka smiled slightly, that was enough to win her some points in his book.

"I don't trust him either, something seems off about him."

Hiromi breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she wasn't the only person that had picked up on this.

He stood up and handed her back her things, "I think I believe you."

She smiled at him and wondered if she should bring up the idea of joining their group, "How long are you guys going to stay here?"

"I'd like to leave right now, but I don't know if my googly-eyed sister is gonna be up for that."

The pair walked to where the Freedom Fighters took their meals and Jet motioned for Hiromi to come sit by him as he gave a speech.

"Hey Jet, Nice speech." Katara said, smiling at Jet.

"Thanks. By the way, I was really impressed with you and Aang. That was some great bending I saw out there today."

Katara blushed, "Well, he's great. He's the Avatar. I could use some more training."

Hiromi noticed an almost sinister look in Jet's eyes as Aang's identity was revealed to him, "Avatar huh? Very nice."

"Thanks Jet!" Aang said excitedly.

"So," Jet began, Hiromi practically watching the gears turn in his mind, "I might know a way that you and Aang can help in our struggle."

Sokka shot up from his seat at the table, "Unfortunately, we have to leave tonight."

"Sokka, you're kidding me!" Hiromi was surprised by the distress in his voice, "I needed you on an important mission tomorrow."

Sokka turned around to look at Hiromi, who shrugged her shoulders. "What mission?"