A/N: Whew! Been awhile, sorry about that! Well, at long last, onward and forward! Questions shall be answered!

The previous day:

As these things go, the day had started out much like any other for the old fire bender. The need for food becoming more pressing had prompted Iroh to range a bit further in search of game. The rabbits, which were their primary food source, were beginning to either thin out due to over hunting, or were simply vacating the premises because of a 'hunter' in the area. Either way, it meant he was forced to hunt much farther away from Zuko and the shelter than he wanted. He struck out very early that morning in hopes that he could be back either before, or not long after Zuko had awakened so as not to alarm him. He knew the boy was gaining a little more independence each day, but he also knew that true independence for the young prince was further away than Zuko wanted. His nephew was dependent on him, and he had no desire to alarm him.

Iroh trod quietly through the forest, checking for burrows and hollow logs and rustling bushes occasionally, hoping to scare out a rabbit he could sear with a small, quick blast of fire. Suddenly a large rabbit darted out of a hollow log almost right under his nose. He had tapped the log and nothing had happened so he decided it must be empty and had begun to move on when it jumped out in front of him. He was so surprised he almost forgot to attack, but recovered fast enough to shoot a small burst of flame at the frightened creature which quickly ended its life. He had perfected the technique and was considering giving it a name. It was a very small and precise, almost sharp burst of flame, which killed quickly and cleanly.

Grabbing the dead rabbit by the ears, he turned to go back to camp, and then reconsidered. It might be possible to find another large rabbit nearby such as the one he now carried, and he could easily make the meat into jerky. He pointed his feet once again away from camp and moved on as he had been. It wasn't too long and he saw another lone rabbit, it appeared to simply be crouching, not moving at all. He knew better though, he could see its nose twitching. He slowly set down the dead rabbit he'd been carrying and straightened back up, preparing to unleash his death flame, when suddenly, almost out of nowhere, a fox burst out of the underbrush to his side, very near the rabbit. Instantly the creature was in motion, bounding through the air in a sharp zigzag motion with the fox hot on its trail. Iroh huffed through his lips and muttered to himself "of all the rotten luck…". He reached down and picked up his lone rabbit and, with a bit of a stomp to his step, made his way onward. He had only gone a few steps when, in his irritation, he didn't notice a tree root somewhat raised out of the ground and tripped neatly over it, falling less than gracefully through the air to land on his ample stomach; the air flying from his lungs with an whoosh and an involuntary "umph!". Iroh lay there for a moment, slightly stunned and gasping for air. Not much was hurt but his pride; and he grimaced but was glad he was in the forest where no one could see his embarrassment. He groaned and rolled over onto his back; flopping his arms out with a thump. Suddenly, he felt the earth move underneath him. His first thought was 'earthquake', but that notion was quickly dispelled when the ground beneath him simply opened up and swallowed him whole. He knew a momentary panic and was falling, clods of dirt thumping him as he fell. He attempted to relax his body for the inevitable impact that would soon be coming up to meet him and was only mildly surprised when it took longer than he would have expected. After what seemed like forever to the swiftly dropping man, he landed with a giant splash into what he surmised later must be a relatively deep body of water underneath the ground. At the time, all he knew was, he'd gone down deep and had to fight to keep his head about him and swim back to where he hoped the surface was. For a moment he felt as if there was a presence there with him, as if the water was embracing him and almost pushing up upwards towards the surface. In his slightly panicked and shocked mind, he dismissed it for more important things like thoughts of survival.

The old general burst through the surface of the water gasping for air and sucking it greedily into his lungs. He tread water for a bit, then quickly began to get tired after his adventures and realized he would have to strike out in some direction if he had a hope of getting out of the water before he was too tired to swim. He could see nothing but light from the hole far, far above his position where he'd fallen from. It cast scant light down where he was, and he was unable to discern anything of value. He simply decided to pick a direction, and hope for the best. He went to move his right hand to start swimming and it was quite heavy; that was when he realized he was still holding the rabbit! He blinked and barked a laugh, then remembering his situation, and still treading water a little tiredly, he grimaced; putting the tips of the now waterlogged rabbit's ears in his mouth as far as he could get them, knowing he'd need the food, and struck out with a strong stroke straight ahead to what he hoped was the closest dry land.

Thankfully the closest dry land wasn't as far away as it could have been, and soon he was laying on what felt like rock, and panting from his exertions, having spit out the wet, furry rabbit ears. It felt like hours since he'd been walking along, fat, dumb, and happy in the forest carrying his and Zuko's dinner. He groaned again and pulled himself into a sitting position and tried repeatedly to peer into the darkness around him to try and make out anything, but he could see nothing except the light from the hole he'd fallen through. Suddenly, feeling like an idiot, he felt like slapping himself and took a deep breath, spitting out a jet of flame into the dank air of what he was sure was a large cave. He was right. It WAS a large cave. In fact, it was a VERY large cave. He probably couldn't have fallen into a larger one if he'd tried. He spewed another breath of flame out to look about himself again. He figured the ceiling where he'd fallen through must be about 40 or 50 feet up, and as luck would have it, he had actually been dunked into the water relatively close to the edge and nowhere near the middle, as it was a massive underground lake that he could hardly see the other side of from his position. He stopped bending for a moment to sit in the dark and consider how fortunate he was. He would be dead right now had he not fallen in the water, also he might not have made it to shore alive had he not landed near enough to the shore. He took a deep breath and attempted to calm himself somewhat. He closed his eyes, a pointless motion in the darkness; and took a few more deep breaths. He invoked a little inner fire to warm him from his sudden dunking and reached out for the rabbit, patting the ground till he found it, not bothering to bend to create light. He stood up, staggering a little, and reached out in front of him with his free hand, creating a goodly sized flame that flickered and hovered over his hand, illuminating everything around him with an almost eerie glow; shadows dancing with the movement of the flames. He was in a large cavern of course, but as he raised his arm and fed the flame in his hand, he could see where the cave wall, close to the water in many places, gave way where he was and widened, pulling away from the water and branching off into at least 3 tunnels. He frowned; this would not be easy. There was absolutely no way he was going to get out the way he'd come in, and he could spend the rest of his, possibly short, life in the cave without ever seeing the sun again should he leave the water's edge and be lost in the tunnels. It was that moment he realized that his life was truly in danger. Immediately he thought of Zuko and true panic began to take hold of his heart. The boy was still very dependent on him, especially for food and water, much less everything else. Iroh felt sick to his stomach and began to shake, the flame in his hand shrinking until it flickered out of existence. He stood there frozen, trying to gather his shattered wits from wherever he'd dropped them in his sudden realization.

They might both die. He, lost forever deep down in a massive cave, and Zuko, starving to death or dying from dehydration. Shuddering once again he tried to corral his destructive thoughts. It would not do to stand in the dark and fear the worst. There might be a way out of the cave he'd been dumped into, and he was going to find it, or, he grimaced, die trying. He thought his flame into being once again and pressed on, looking at each tunnel and watching the flame for any signs of movement other than the usual flickering. When he stood in front of the tunnel on the left there seemed to be an ever-so-slight leaning of his flame in towards the tunnel. This was it. With a flame torch in one hand, a soggy dead rabbit in the other and his mind made up, he stepped forward resolutely.

Present day:

The euphoria he was feeling was rather heady, and Zuko smiled as he lay in the stream, letting the water flow over his body gently. He could swear he felt energized and the pain from his exertions was simply vanishing. He wondered why he'd never done this before! Perhaps it was because he was a fire bender, and as such, was inherently less than completely comfortable in water. He blinked when the words "fire bender" flitted through his mind. That's right, he was, he had been; he reminded himself, a fire bender. He remembered that much of his life before the explosion. He knew he was chasing someone, for some reason he was unable to remember whom, or even why. He knew his family and rank, some childhood memories and memories of training. It just seemed like there was this block in his mind, some part of his memories and his training, including his bending, that he was unable to access somehow. He'd tried on numerous occasions and he was completely unable even to summon a tiny flame into existence. He'd even tried bending the fire that was already there, in the small shelter, the one that was meant to keep him warm, but he had failed miserably. His bending, wherever it may be, was buried deep.

As these thoughts ran through his mind the smile faded from his lips. Zuko sighed. He was quite hungry; and with his mind clouded by worry, the stream seemed to have lost some of its euphoric properties. He sat up slowly, reaching up to squeeze the excess water from his hair. It was probably best he didn't lie in the water too long, the day was passing quickly and, while he had found the water, and could find it again, he still had no food and was unsure as to how to procure some. He wiped water from his face and eyes and blinked, looking around him. Suddenly something barely brushed by his hand in the water and he jumped in place, making a splash. He looked down. Just downstream from him was a decent sized fish, disappearing as it swam away. He felt a slow grin cross his features. Here was how he would survive. If he could find a way to catch fish he could eat! He held perfectly still and watched the water carefully on either side; utilizing every bit of peripheral vision he had in an attempt to watch both sides of him at the same time. It was his intention to simply swat the fish onto the shore, since he had nothing with which to catch one. Suddenly another silver fish flicked by him on the right, he moved a bit too slowly and slapped the water just behind the fish, causing it to tumble a bit and then swim rapidly on downstream as if glad to have made it away alive. He glared at the lucky fish and then once again took up watch on either side. After missing another lucky fish he decided to watch only one side, and tried to position himself in the best possible manner so he could actually successfully catch a fish. He didn't have to wait long. This time the fish was bigger and before he could even register what he was doing his hand had come down and in one smooth motion he was actually half scooping half slapping the fish out of the water, his hand making contact with its smooth scales momentarily as the fish flew through the air, tumbling end over end and landing well past the bank, flopping energetically. Zuko cheered, "yes!" he cried out exultantly and laughed in wild abandon. He wasn't going to starve! He was going to be ok!

The fish had stopped moving on the bank and he scooped some water into his mouth to slake his thirst. It was time to get out of the stream and figure out how to get his fish home. The fact that he didn't have any fire didn't even occur to him.

Moving carefully, he scooted to the edge of the stream and rolled over onto his hands and knee. Using his stump to steady him, albeit painfully since the stones on the bottom of the stream bed were digging into his wound; he moved forward slowly at a crawl, getting dirt and twigs etc. on his stump and leg. Finally reaching the fish he glared at it rather balefully. There was only one way to get the scaly thing back to his shelter, and although he wanted it in his mouth, this was NOT how he wanted to do it. He balanced himself with one arm and grabbed the fish by its tail. Turning slowly, he moved the short distance to the stream and quickly rinsed the dirt off the fish and grimacing, placed the tail into his mouth and bit down to hold it. It tasted strange, and it felt stranger in his mouth. It wasn't a terribly small fish and he hoped he wouldn't accidentally bite through the tail on his way back to camp. Zuko made his way to the bush he'd used to lower himself down with; grabbed his crutches in one hand and the bush with the other and heaved; pulling and pushing himself to a standing position, straining to balance himself and get his crutches under him before he fell. In moments he was standing steadily with the fish tail firmly, but gently, clamped between his teeth and a determined gleam in his eyes.

The way back seemed shorter this time, he actually remembered it, and the marked trees were also helpful. He realized he'd left the stone where he'd dropped his crutches but had no way to carry it. The fish presented less of a problem than he'd expected, although it slapped annoyingly against his chest and chin; he had plenty of time to remember he had no way to cook it, but he was too tired to care.

It was actually beginning to be early evening when he finally reached the shelter. He was half-expecting uncle to be there, sick with worry, wondering where he was. There was no one there. His heart clenched. Telling himself to man up, he sat down carefully on a smooth log uncle had placed outside for sitting on to do the very job he was about to attempt, and spit the fish out into his hands. He stared at the thing, trying to figure out just how he was going to get meat off of it, much less eat it. He'd had raw fish before, it was quite tasty, but that had been prepared by professionals, and he was pretty sure that the fish in question had NOT been swatted from a stream and then hanging from someone's mouth by its tail for an indeterminate amount of time. Never mind that he was the one doing the swatting and tail hanging, it was still strange, and he had no clue how to clean a fish. Zuko was beginning to lose the majority of his glee at catching the fish in the first place. What good was it if he couldn't even eat it? He was beginning to regret leaving the sharp rock back at the stream; he could really have used the thing.

Somehow he was going to have to find something to scrape the scales off with at least; otherwise he was going to find it very difficult to eat what he'd worked so hard to catch. Zuko glared again at the offending item and placed it on the log beside him. He hoisted himself shakily into a standing position with his crutches; it was getting harder to do, his leg was getting tired and sore from all the use. Luckily for him, uncle had placed a rather sharp rock around the little fire pit he'd built Zuko in the shelter, it wasn't long before the boy was busily scraping off scales, and some skin, in his eagerness to get into something edible. He was absolutely famished.

It took much longer than he'd wanted it to, but he managed to get down into something he considered edible, and carefully extracted the bones from what he was attempting to eat. It was tedious and not exactly the tastiest thing he'd ever eaten, but it was food, more or less, and he was glad of it.

Once he'd consumed as much of the fish as he was able, he simply used the end of one crutch to scratch out a small hole off to the side, where it looked softest, and dropped the leftovers down into it. He leaned down and did his best to cover them up. He didn't want to draw any unwanted creatures, but he was far too exhausted to actually take it out and try to dig a larger, further away hole, to dispose of it. It wasn't long before he dragged his tired body into the shelter to collapse onto his bed. He felt like he should be much more tired than he actually was, but still, he was very, very tired. It had been a long day, and uncle was still gone. He missed him. The old man was occasionally strange, but he was caring and kind and Zuko knew uncle loved him. He wondered if he'd ever see him again.

Not long ago he had been happily hunting rabbits, now he was hopelessly lost in an endless labyrinth of cave tunnels, hungry and thirsty, having only the dampness from occasionally wet cave walls to lick for moisture. His saving grace was his fire bending; with it, he was able to keep some sanity; it helped him focus and dispelled the endless dark that threatened to overcome him. Iroh had started out following whichever tunnel his flame reached towards, but after this much time, it seemed as if it was a hopeless cause; he was still very deep in the cave as far as he knew, and while the tunnels had actually become smaller, he had found nothing that might indicate a way out. He wondered about Zuko with every step he took. Was the boy doing alright? Was he thirsty and hungry too? "Oh Prince Zuko, I'm so sorry." His voice was rough with disuse, and he coughed and shook his head. Depression would get him nowhere. Walking was getting him nowhere too it seemed, but he'd keep doing that. He wouldn't give up, he'd keep walking, keep trying, until he could no longer move.

The next day found a slightly hungry and very thirsty Zuko headed down to the stream once again. Thankfully the fish had not made him sick, or perhaps he had an iron stomach; either way, it was time for more fish, and more water.

This time it was faster getting to the stream, he wasn't quite as tired, was steadier on his crutches, and he knew the way. The small sharp rock he'd left was still there and he glared at it momentarily before lowering himself down once again into the stream. He found he enjoyed lying in the stream, it was soothing and calming. It was also quite easy to drink water that way. Almost the moment he lowered his head into the water he felt calmer. It amazed him how the water had that effect on him, and so quickly too. He wondered about uncle, imagined his quirky face and wondered if he, too, had lain in the water and enjoyed its soothing properties. All of a sudden those soothing properties were gone, and in their place was a sense of urgency he couldn't shrug off. He felt a jolt of fear deep down at the immediate change, and confusion. The soothing he could understand, but the urgency, that wasn't something that should be able to happen simply by laying in water. He sat up. The emotions he felt were nowhere near as strong, but he still felt an underlying urgency that he couldn't ignore. He dared to lay back down into the water. This time he was, at least slightly, prepared for the onslaught of urgency he felt the moment his head came into contact with the water. Now he knew there was something strange about this water. Before he had just attributed it to just being moving water, but this was a completely different thing altogether. He took a deep breath and decided to be open to what the water was trying to tell him. It wasn't lost on him that it was right after he'd thought about uncle that the water affected him this way. He thought about the old man once more, this time with a question of 'where?' in his mind. Somehow he wasn't very surprised when he received an answer. This time it was in the form of actual images in his mind, not just impression or feelings although those were there too. He saw uncle underwater and a jolt of fear shot through him. Then the old man was walking out of the water, and he saw him make a flame in his hand, illuminating what he saw was a huge cave. He also saw a large, dead rabbit in uncle's hand, and suddenly it all came together. The man had been out hunting, probably further than usual and had fallen into some water in a deep cave and was now hopelessly lost. Zuko felt a sense of despair, how could he ever hope to find uncle if he was even still alive? That cave could be anywhere, and it was probably quite a ways away.

Once again the picture changed and uncle was, was…what? It looked like the old man had submerged his head into a glowing pool of water and was drinking thirstily, it almost seemed like it was happening as he watched. Uncle was definitely alive, Zuko was sure of that now. He had no idea what crazy kind of water this was in this forest, but if it could show him how to save uncle he didn't really care. Suddenly the image disappeared and he was simply left with the urgency and something else. Somehow, he felt as if he knew where uncle was going. He wasn't sure how he knew, but then again, right at that moment, he wasn't sure of much besides the fact that uncle was alive and he would find him; no matter what.

With his resolve hardened once again, the old man's steps were a bit quicker as he moved through the dark, unchanging scenery of endless cave walls. Turning down another offshoot tunnel, guided by his errant flame's gentle pull towards 'something', he found himself in a small cavern. In the middle was a gently glowing pool of water, and he saw blind cave fish swimming languidly in the still water. If fish lived in it, he knew it couldn't be poisonous, so he quickly bent down and scooped up a handful, bringing it to his lips only slightly hesitantly. It was delicious. He dropped down to his hands and knees and dunked his entire head into the pool, drinking deeply. Suddenly, he could see Zuko in his mind. The boy was lying in the stream he used to draw water from and, Iroh's eyebrows shot up, slightly less impressively, because he was underwater, but, nevertheless, he couldn't believe Zuko was smiling! The scene changed again as if the day had also changed and he saw Zuko again lying in the stream. This felt much more recent though, in fact, it felt, current, as if he were looking at the boy, the way he was right that very moment. In his shock, Iroh had forgotten to come up for air, so when he realized he was running out he jerked his head out of the water and gasped, wiping water out of his eyes and coughing. It seemed impossible, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if that 'horse' happened to be…water. He felt sure he'd seen Zuko as he was just moments ago, and that meant the boy was doing fine and looking out for himself. The old general heaved a sigh and smiled for the first time in nearly two days. He felt a sense of peace; he also seemed to know which way to go too. He would get out of this cave alive, and Zuko would be waiting.

A/N: Soo….the plot thickens! But I did deliver questions answered! ;) Reviews feed the muse!