Disclaimer: The Avatar world and characters belong to Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.


"Do you want the good news first, or the bad news?" Sokka asked his father as they sat side by side on the floor of a dark and cramped prison cell. Hakoda was dressed in the prisoner uniform of a simple red tunic and matching pants, whilst Sokka still wore his prison guard disguise.

"Bad news," Hakoda replied grimly.

"Well, uh, we came to rescue you," Sokka began. "'We' being Zuko and I – well, technically Prince Zuko, as he's the prince of the Fire Nation. But he's on our side now, so it's fine! Anyway, our plan sort of failed and he got captured during the rescue attempt because his psychotic sister arrived on board the ship and, well, he's probably being tortured for the information about the Avatar as we speak," Sokka babbled.

Hakoda sat in silence, giving his son a quizzical look whilst absorbing the information.

"Son, do you trust him?" Hakoda asked after a moment. "You're sure this wasn't the plan all along, to reunite Zuko with his family and give the Avatar's location to his sister?"

Sokka shook his head firmly. "I felt the same about him at first too," he said, "After all he's done… it was hard to trust him. But I'm sure this isn't a trick." Sokka gave his father a small grin. "He deserves to be rescued too."

Hakoda nodded slowly. "What's the good news?"

"Oh! Uh, well, I haven't been captured! I'm disguised as a guard, and so far, so they don't know that I'm here. And I overheard one of the other guards complaining that they don't have the necessary chains and room to lock Appa away properly, so, we still have a chance to escape."

"Alright, so what's the plan?"

Sokka hugged his knees, letting out a sigh.

"We had one, but now i don't know how we're all going to get out of here with Azula nearby."

"Sokka," Hakoda said, reaching over to place a hand on his son's shoulder, "there is no prison in the world that can hold two WaterTribe geniuses."

"Then we better find two," Sokka grumbled, causing Hakoda to let out a hearty chuckle.

"Come on, son, we'll figure something out."

Sokka looked up at his father, a smile playing on his face at his father's confident tone. With a nod of his head, Sokka began to explain his initial escape plan to Hakoda.


While the pair began to work out their escape route, Zuko had been tied tied to a chair in a cell of his own.

The Warden loomed over him, his thin face cut with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. He didn't wear a prison guard mask, instead donning a gold and red headband decorated with the emblem of the Fire Nation. The Warden threatened to throw Zuko around the room during his interrogation in an attempt to shake him.

The Warden told him constantly that he didn't care that Zuko had been a born prince; he was a traitor now, worse than a banished prince, and the Warden treated all Fire Nation traitors the same.

"You will talk, Prince Zuko. Maybe not to me, but you will talk. In fact, there's a lady here who'd like to speak with you," The Warden cackled. He knocked on the back of the cell door and, as the guards opened it, stepped outside.

Zuko braced himself for the arrival of his smug sister. He was momentarily stunned when, in the Warden's place, Mai strode into view. She wore her usual mask of indifference; her mouth was set in a grim line, her face was pinched, and her eyes looked simultaneously alert and bored. She glared at Zuko as she stood before him; at least Zuko could understand why Mai was giving him evils.

"Fancy seeing you here," Mai commented dryly as she stood by the door, a scroll clenched in her fist.

"Mai…" Zuko said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"All I get is a letter?" Mai stepped forward, extending her arm to let the paper unroll as she pushed it in front of his face. "You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped out my heart."

"I didn't mean to –" Zuko began to protest.

"You didn't mean to?" Mai began to pace around the room as she read the letter in her hands. "Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving."

"Stop!" Zuko snapped. "This isn't about you. This is about the Fire Nation."

Mai threw the scroll at the back of his head.

"Thanks Zuko, that makes me feel all better," She replied sarcastically as she walked around to face him again. Mai crossed her arms over her chest as she glared daggers at him. "I hear you got married."

Zuko wanted to tell Mai that the wedding had been an accident, that he hadn't intended on just dropping her like that. He wanted to say that she was the girl he thought he would marry one day; that is, if she would have forgiven him once the war ended for leaving her so abruptly. But Zuko knew that it would be dishonourable to the girl he had married and the marriage itself to talk about it like that, even if Katara was being petty and dishonourable about it herself.

"Yes," was all he said instead, guessing that Mai wanted to hear him confirm it.

"To the watertribe peasant?" she asked coldly.

"Yes."

"Then I suppose it's no coincidence that you attacked the Fire Nation ship which has her father on board," Mai said, rolling the scroll back up and gripping it tightly.

"Well, you worked it out faster than the Warden." Zuko attempted to pay her a compliment; he knew denying it would be useless.

"The Warden is my uncle."

Zuko grimaced; he'd forgotten that. Typical.

"So why didn't the chief's children come with you? Seems pretty odd that they wouldn't try to help. Maybe you're not actually here alone," Mai continued to speculate.

"It's a test," Zuko lied. "If I come back with their father, they'll finally trust me."

"There are two flaws in that," Mai said, her voice flat. "Firstly, why wouldn't your wife already trust you if she married you? Secondly, if they don't trust you, why would they let you escape when you could tell everyone where they are? Aren't they worried you'll betray them?" Mai's voice lingered on the word betray, a reminder that Zuko now had a history of letting people down.

"I'm sure you already know the real story of how I got married, he replied coldly. "And it doesn't matter if I give them up, they've eluded capture dozens of times thanks to their earthbender's senses."

"So you care enough to do their life threatening test, just to win their trust?" Mai asked sceptically.

Yes," Zuko said, earning an eye-roll from Mai.

"Well, they'll realise soon enough you can't be trusted."

"Mai, I never wanted to hurt you. But I have to do this to save my country!" Zuko insisted. "It's the right side to be on. They can bring peace to the world and save thousands of lives."

"Save your country? You're betraying it!"

"That's not how I see it," Zuko replied as Mai turned away from him, scowling at the floor. "Where's Azula? Why did she send you?" he asked.

"To humiliate us both, as usual. I'm sure she just wanted me to get 'closure' or something." Mai knocked on the door, signalling that their session was over. "Azula doesn't want to see you again; she said it was a waste of her time." Mai walked out of the room without a backwards glance.

Zuko sat, waiting bitterly for the Warden's return, and tried to think about how they were going to get out of this mess.

They should have gone back to get the gang's help. He had known it when they were on their way to the ship holding Hakoda, and he most certainly knew it now. They had been insane to think that they could take on an entire ship with just the two of them. But there hadn't been time to go back for help, Zuko reasoned with himself; they would have forfeited their only slot to rescue Sokka's father before the ship had arrived at the meeting point to complete the prison transfer.

It had been reckless, but they'd had no choice. Now, trapped and bound with no chance of escaping by himself, all Zuko could do was hope that Sokka came up with a rescue plan, and did it soon.


Sokka checked the coast was clear before quickly slipping out of his father's cell. The room was positioned behind the corner of a long corridor which they had failed to notice during their initial rescue attempt. Sokka tried to walk down the corridor naturally, like a normal guard would, but he stopped short when he saw guards patrolling outside of Zuko's new cell. He paused for a second before coming up with a quick plan.

"Hey!" Sokka called to the guards, attracting their attention. He pointed to the door of the cell with his thumb. "Give me a couple of minutes with that traitor to rough him up a bit. I want to show that dirty low-life what I think of him!"

"Fine," one of the guards sighed, shrugging. "You get one minute." They opened the door and Sokka strutted inside before slamming the door behind him. He then quietly lifted his helmet so Zuko knew who he was.

"Sorry about punching you earlier," Zuko whispered as Sokka grabbed a pillow, propped it against Zuko, and began fake punching him.

Sokka had woken up in an infirmary room with several other guards, and had realised through his stinging headache that Zuko had ensured his disguise better than Sokka's acting ever could have . However, he'd still been tempted to not use a pillow during his 'beating up' of Zuko.

"You seem pretty upbeat given that you've been captured and imprisoned," Sokka whispered back. "Take that, and that!" He yelled for the guards as he punched. "I'm used to plans going wrong. Sometimes clouds have two sides, a dark and light and a silver lining in between," Zuko said. "As my uncle would say, you have to look for the silver sandwich."

"Uh, ok. How hard did they hit you?" Sokka asked, genuinely concerned. "Dirty scum of our glorious nation!"

Zuko let out a small chuckle that made his sore ribs ache. Iroh's sayings had never made any sense to him, either, though he figured Iroh was probably better at giving his advice than Zuko's impersonation of him.

"Ugh, ow! Argh"" Zuko yelled as Sokka's blows failed to actually hurt him. "So what's the new plan?" He asked Sokka, who quickly moved behind Zuko's chair to begin picking the lock on his chains.

"Well, the new plan is the old plan!" Sokka explained quietly. "Azula has gone back to her ship to sleep for the night, leaving the Warden in charge. I'm going to open all the cells doors at the same time - you, Suki and my dad are going to rush to the deck and help me untie Appa, and then we're going to get out of here before your sister even makes it back on the ship! Be ready to go within the hour." Sokka quickly worked on the lock as he spoke, leaping back to his feet to resume his fake punching once he'd released Zuko's hands. "Take that you treasonous bastard!"

"Alright, that's enough," one of the guards called as he unlocked the door and began to step in. "Time to break it up." Sokka dropped the pillow, throwing it across the room, and punched Zuko in the face before the guards could see it. They rushed in as his fist made contact and pulled Sokka out.

Zuko glared at the smug look on Sokka's face as the guards escorted him away. He was fairly sure that the hit had been more about selling the story to the guards than an act of malicious revenge, but Zuko had no doubt that Sokka had enjoyed getting his own back.

Once the door had shut on Zuko and the guards had released Sokka, the water tribe boy sauntered away from the cell and headed to the staff room, which he had discovered was pretty much deserted at this time of night. He made sure to discreetly whisper the same information about the escape into Suki's cell on his way.

As his father had explained, most of the cell doors could be open simultaneously from a control room at the Boiling Rock during their break times, and Hakoda suspected that the cell doors on the prison ship might be the same. Sokka had been dubious, given that all the doors had been opened by keys so far, but his father suggested that in case of a fire or the ship sinking they would probably want all of the doors to open at the same time.

Sokka sat down in the empty break room, and took a few deep breaths as he prepared himself for their next escape attempt. The ship had stopped earlier while Azula boarded the ship with her entourage, putting the transfer an hour or two behind schedule and buying Sokka more time. He had suspected that security around the ship would have increased tenfold as the ship began to run its last leg of the journey, but the Warden seemed to be overconfident in his ability to manage his prisoners.

The security around Zuko's cell and Appa (from a safe distance) was constant. Sokka guessed that, as the Warden believed that Zuko and Appa were the only two newcomers, the man in charge saw no reason to keep the majority of the guards awake for the entire night. Perhaps they thought that Zuko would make his next escape move during the actual transfer, a plan Sokka and Hakoda had considered before deciding that it was much too close to the Fire Nation capital and mainland for their liking.

Sokka sat, still trying to even out his breathing. It was strange, but he felt like he could feel the atmosphere of the ship; as the adrenaline of the previous escape began to wear off, the people on board were being lulled into a false sense of calm by the late hour and quiet ship.

He made his way to the control room of the ship, nodding at the occasional guard he passed during their patrols. The control room door was closed, the heavy steel door standing in his way. Sokka gripped the baton which came with his security guard uniform tightly in his hand, and knocked loudly on the door. A slot in the door slid open, and a masked guard looked out.

"I've got a message from the Warden," Sokka stated.

"The Warden's in here," The guard replied, unimpressed.

Sokka tensed. "Yeah, I know that, I've got a message for the Warden. It's urgent, Sir."

The guard hesitated before nodding. The panel shut, and then the steel door slowly opened. Sokka strolled in, attempting to fake confidence. He thrust his shoulders back and held his head up, loosening his grip on the baton as he walked.

"What's the message?" The Warden barked.

"One of the cell doors opened by itself in the brig, giving us reason to believe that the machine is malfunctioning. I can take a look at it, Sir," Sokka replied, saluting the Warden as he gave his false report.

The Warden angrily pointed to a machine on the right side of the control room. The device looked simple enough: it had a few buttons, wiring and a large lever, and Sokka presumed that it was what opened all of the cell doors at once.

"Which cell door? Did the prisoner get out? Is the situation in hand?" The Warden shouted questions at Sokka while he tinkered with the machine.

"Well, I'm not sure, Sir," Sokka said. "They told me about the machine, and I came here as quickly as I could to fix it. I'm pretty sure the situation's in hand, but…" The Warden was already charging out the door at Sokka's words to check on the situation himself.

The door shut, and Sokka knew he had to act instantly; there wasn't much time before the Warden found out that none of the cell doors had been opened by mistake. Sokka pulled the giant lever, praying that it would open all of the cell doors.

He could hear a faint bell go off in the brig, and the sound of many doors clicking open.

"What are you doing?" One of the guards asked Sokka in alarm, taking a step towards him.

Before they could reach him, Sokka raised his baton and started attacking the lever, wedging it into a position that would make it impossible for them to use it to shut all the cell doors. Dodging the guards who began to converge on him, Sokka ran through the door which had been left open by the Warden.

It was easy enough for Sokka to run back to the cells, as the few guards that were awake were doing the same thing. He reached the stairwell down to the brig, and from the balcony he stood on Sokka could see chaos slowly unfurling below as prisoners woke up and ran out of their cells. Zuko, as far as they were aware, was the only prisoner that was chained up, a problem they had already sorted out.

Sokka ran down the stairs, surveying the frenzy of fighting to find Suki, Zuko and his father. He watched as the guards to Zuko's cell were distracted by trying to control several other prisoners, giving Zuko the chance to escape unnoticed. He ran towards Sokka at the same time that Sokka spotted Hakoda trying to make his way through the corridor.

"We've got to free Appa." He told them both when they reached him. "Where's Suki?"

Hakoda pointed up, and the trio watched in surprise as Suki hiked herself up onto the platform, binding the Warden's hands and gagging him with the rope on his own headband. She looked down at them, and they gestured towards the stairs.

Sokka and his father ran ahead to free Appa whilst Zuko provided cover for Suki, who was holding the Warden hostage. They ran out of the brig, struggling to get past the guards who were running to contain the prisoners in the corridor. Zuko ran to the front, using his firebending to push the guards back up the stairs. Hakoda picked a baton off one of the fallen guards as they ran past, holding it in front of him to fend off any attacking guards.

"We need something sharp to break the ropes!" Sokka shouted once they reached the deck, beginning their sprint towards Appa.

"I could burn them?" Zuko suggested.

"No fire! Appa will freak out."

"I also need something sharp!" Suki shouted, using the Warden as a human body-shield.

"Well if you need something sharp…" One of the guards offered her in a menacing tone as several non-bender guards pulled knives from their uniforms.

"How come we get batons and they get knives!?" Sokka shouted in alarm as he attempted to fight against a small knife with a wooden baton.

Suki threw the Warden to Hakoda and then dived forward to avoid being stabbed by the first guard. She grabbed his wrist, locking it into an uncomfortable position, and kicked the legs out from underneath him. The guard fell into a heap on the floor, and Suki held the knife proudly as she winked at the boys.

"Knife one - start on the ropes." She passed the blade to Sokka, who started cutting at Appa's ropes whilst Hakoda and Zuko continued to defend the group against the guards. The number of attackers continued to ebb and flow as more guards arrived to fight before disappearing into the brig to prevent other escaping.

"Knife number two!" Suki called as she disarmed the guard Zuko had been facing. She threw the knife to Hakoda once he had pushed the Warden to Zuko.

"And knife three!" She cried as she held another guard's arm at a terrifying angle. "Thank you for the knives, they really were helpful!" Suki grinned at the guard before throwing him into another oncoming guard. She sprinted over to Zuko, who had a tight grip on the Warden whilst simultaneously using his fire-bending to keep his attackers at bay. Zuko threw the Warden back to Suki, and she turned him so that she was holding her knife to the Warden's throat.

Several of the guards paused.

"If you try to stop us from escaping, I'll kill your Warden," Suki growled.

Suddenly, the ship began to slow. The change in momentum sent everyone stumbling across the deck. Several guards resumed their attacks against the group, but Zuko's steady stream of counter fire kept them from doing any damage to his group.

"Come on, we've got to go! The ship is slowing down which means that Azula will probably be on board any minute now!" Sokka shouted to Zuko and Suki once he and Hakoda had finished breaking the ropes that were binding Appa. The sky bison roared in appreciation, shaking out his now unrestricted legs.

Suki continued to step backwards towards Appa, standing near the edge of the ship whilst still holding the gagged Warden at knifepoint. She was debating whether to haul the Warden onto Appa and push him off once they were in the air, or if she should let him go sooner and hope the guards didn't cause them any grief. After a few seconds, Suki made her choice; she decided that they needed a distraction.

Suki pushed the Warden over the rail, and he fell into the water with a loud splash. It was too dark to see him clearly, but they could hear his muffled shouting well enough. It was obvious to the guards that the Warden was struggling to swim in the ocean with his hands tied behind his back, and with their attention diverted to locating and rescuing their Warden from drowning, Suki dashed onto Appa. The sky bison pushed off from the boat as Zuko threw a steady stream of fireballs at the guards to keep them at bay.


Azula, who had been woken and informed of the riot occurring on the Warden's transfer ship, had ordered that both ships stop so she could board and, once again, sort out the Warden's mess. She stood on the deck, ready and waiting in the moonlight, staring out at the dark water. Azula watched in disappointment as her ship continued to sail past the prisoner ship which had slowed to a halt with the fighting prisoners.

Azula rolled her eyes in frustration - did she have to do everything herself? Bracing her leg against the railing, Azula prepared to use her bending to help power her to jump across onto the other ship. She didn't like uncalculated risks, but Azula was confident in her ability to make the distance over the water, and was aware that she only had a small window of opportunity to jump before her ship was too far ahead. She was about to make the jump when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, several guards hauling Mai across the deck towards her.

"Why haven't we stopped? What's going on?" Azula demanded as several guards stood in front of her. Mai was being held by the arms, and she looked particularly sulky as she hung in their grasp. "Mai?" Azula moved away from the rail, aware that she had missed her chance to make the jump successfully. However, she was too distracted by the apparent insubordination to pay her missed opportunity too much attention.

"We caught her jamming the control machines. It'll take a little while to repair before we can stop the engines or activate the walkway plank to board the other ship," one guard admitted sheepishly.

"She also injured several of our guards using these." Another guard held up one of Mai's classic silver and red throwing knives. Ty Lee hovered nearby, watching the exchange nervously.

Azula's eyes narrowed. "I never expected this from you."

Mai refused to answer, instead directing her steely gaze t the floor in defiance.

"The thing I don't understand is why," Azula said bitterly. "Why would you do it?"

"I guess you just don't know people as well as you think you do," Mai said icily. "You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you." Mai lifted her chin to look Azula in the eye while she answered.

Azula bared her teeth as her eyebrows knit together in surprise and confusion. "No you miscalculated," she shouted. "You should have feared me more!"

She lunged forwards, her hands extended towards Mai to strike her with lightening when Ty Lee suddenly hit her in the back, one fist pummelling under her right shoulder blade and then the left. Azula gasped, falling forwards onto her face with no control of her arms to brace herself against the fall. Ty Lee looked down in surprise at her own actions as more guards rushed forward, seizing Ty Lee and helping Azula to her feet.

"You're both fools," Azula hissed, allowing the guards to assist her in standing up.

"What shall we do with them, Princess?" A guard asked.

"Put them somewhere I'll never have to see their faces again. And let them rot," Azula ordered. The guards escorted her to the rail so she could see the prisoner ship, and Azula watched furiously as her idiot brother and his friends escaped into the distance.

"Follow that bison," Azula demanded.


Gliding through the air on Appa's back, Suki, Sokka, Zuko and Hakoda watched the two ships disappear from view as they began to sail back to the Western Air Temple.

"Won't they follow us back to your location?" Suki asked Sokka and Zuko in concern.

"I know from personal experience that Appa is much faster than steam ships, and we're harder to track at night," Zuko said reassuringly. "We'll lose them long before we reach the Western Air Temple."

There was a moment of contentment, and Zuko let his companions relish their success for a moment.

"But if Azula does try to follow us," he continued, "she may gain a better idea of which area we're hiding in. I recommend that we leave the temple sooner rather than later. We shouldn't stay anything longer than a few days."

"I've already marked on the map a few contingency places we can go to," Sokka replied.

Hakoda reached his hand out to Zuko. "I would like to thank you for helping Sokka and coming to get us," the Chief of the water Tribe said politely. They shook hands, and Zuko nodded at Sokka's father. A lump formed in his throat as he exchanged a nervous glance with Sokka - should he tell Hakoda that he had married Katara?

Sokka subtly shook his head at Zuko. Katara had broken the news to him in Appa's saddle, and Sokka remembered how furious and confused he'd initially felt; strong emotions mixed with the confined space of the saddle and the terrifying heights at which they were travelling were not a good combination.

Suki caught their little exchange, but stayed quiet; she figured she owed the pair their little secret after they had help her escape, and Suki hoped everything would become clear when they arrived back at the temple.

The group flew on through the remaining hours of the night, everyone descending into an exhausted sleep while Zuko moved seat to steer Appa. When dawn broke, Sokka took hold of the reins, and let Zuko finally rest.

After giving the sky bison a brief reprieve on an empty island, they spent another day flying on Appa, who was noticeably slower after all of the long journeys they'd put him through with little sleep. When they arrived back at the temple the following evening, Sokka and Zuko stumbled into the courtyard first, where the remaining group sat eating dinner.

"Where have you been!?" Katara yelled, standing with her fists clenched as she shot daggers at the pair, her face a mixture of fury and relief. Aang sprung up from his seated position, smiling at Sokka and Zuko.

"How was your fishing trip?" He asked cheerily, waving from behind Katara.

"Did you get any good meat?" Toph called out.

"I did." Sokka's face split into a grin. "The meat of fatherhood and friendship." Hakoda and Suki walked into the courtyard, causing the groups jaws to drop simultaneously.

"Dad," Katara whispered in shock, tears began to spring from her eyes as she ran forward into his arms.

"Hi Katara," Hakoda murmured as he wrapped his arms around his daughter, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"How are you here?" She asked, before looking over at Sokka in awe. "Where did you go?"

"We kind of went to a Fire Nation prison ship," Sokka said with a shrug. Katara reached over to him and pulled Sokka into the family hug. Hakoda cradled both of his children to his chest.

"Thank you," Katara whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. She was thanking the spirits, Tui and La, but mostly she was thanking her brother. Katara opened her eyes to glance over at Zuko, who was watching the family reunion with goofy smile on his face.

She was even thanking Zuko, a little bit.