Chapter Twelve

"Wake up!" A voice screamed startling Zuko and Katara. It was Cain, the malevolent main guard, according to Zuko. They bolted upright and tried to appear alert. "Bathroom break." He growled at them through the bars.

Katara turned to Zuko and he nodded. Apparently this was normal procedure. Cain made a motion and the chi blocker stepped from the shadows and waited to be useful. Zuko held out a hand in cautious trepidation to her.

"Hurry up or you can just stay in there!" He barked at them. Katara patted his shoulder and came even with him as they approached the bars together. Zuko and the guard stared down one another as the chi blocker was signaled to rob them of their bending. Zuko never flinched, but Katara couldn't help but shy away after. She felt naked and vulnerable without her bending.

"Get them." Cain muttered a little ways down the hall and four guards appeared, all in the same black uniform. The door was unlocked and Zuko was stiff as they man handled him, but he didn't resist. Katara followed his lead. Her muscles tensed, ready for a fight as they clamped down on her shoulders and steered her in the same direction Zuko was being led. She watched as he set his own, quick striding pace, his back straight and head held high as he was marched before her. She tried to take note and straightened her sore body and stared defiantly ahead. Her guards ducked into an offshoot tunnel while Zuko's kept pacing him ahead, down the tunnel.

One guard gave her a rough shove into a little room that roughly resembled a bathroom a hundred years ago. "Hurry up." She slammed the rickety wooden door in his face and smiled in small satisfaction before attending to business. When she emerged again, the guard clenched her shoulder once more and she winced. "Too tight?" He asked in mock sympathy.

"Fine." She dismissed it and calmed her features, standing tall and proud.

The man shoved her forward into a brisk walk. She was deposited in her cell shortly before Zuko was returned. After they were locked in once more, a new guard holding a measly breakfast on a dented tray and a tin cup of water appeared and shoved their meal under the bars before disappearing down the hall once more.

"Breakfast." Zuko declared hollowly as he retrieved it and brought it to the back of the cell where Katara was situated.

As he set the food down she stared at the gooey, soupy, colorless mash on the tray. "What is that?" She asked disgusted.

"I try not to think about it." He spooned a mouthful up. "It's not that bad." He said after swallowing.

Katara took a bite and had to strongly resist the urge to spit it out. "Ugh! That's disgusting!"

"I never said it was good either." He added the tiniest tug at the corner of his mouth.

"You eat it." Katara said pushing the tray across the floor between them.

"You eat too." He said, shoving it back equidistant from them both.

"I'm not hungry." She said eyeing it warily.

Zuko sighed. "You have to eat. They're trying to break you and starving yourself will only do it faster. You need to be strong when we have an opportunity to escape." It was the look on his face that convinced her more than his words.

Katara accepted the spoon and poked at it before bringing another mouthful in. She swallowed and grimaced.

"You get used to it." He said sympathetically.

"We shouldn't have to get used to it." Katara bit out between bites.

Zuko looked down. "I know."

She could barely hear him. She reached for the cup and took a drink, but the water had a metallic flavor. "Aang and Toph will find us soon." It was said matter of factly, offering no chance to argue or room for doubt.

Zuko shoveled in another spoonful and had the same disgusted look she was sure she had been wearing. "I just hope it's soon." And Katara couldn't help but let out a low chuckle.

They were scrapping the rest of the gelatinous meal from the tray and draining the cup when Cain barged back in. "It's time." He cracked his knuckles in a threatening manner and grinned at Zuko.

Zuko surged to his feet and Katara followed his lead, taking up a defensive posture.

"You want to be difficult? Fine." He grinned again. "Have it your way." He put two fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle. A black garbed guard strode towards him, followed by three others. "He's being difficult." Cain explained in a conspiratorial whisper. The lead guard nodded and took up a bending pose. Stone shot out at them, pinning them against the far wall by their ankles and wrists. Cain marched in and punched Zuko soundly in the gut and he doubled over choking for air as much as the stone cuffs would allow. While he was slumped, a cheap blow to the face and he fell completely slack, his weight supported by the stone restraints. Cain gestured and the stone holding Zuko up fell away and Zuko barely caught himself, shaking on the hard ground.

"Leave him alone!" Katara cried, struggling.

"Shut up." Cain snarled.

"You bastard!" She cried as he kicked him in the stomach, making Zuko collapse onto his side and curl in on himself.

"I said shut up!" Cain cried as he struck her across the face and light exploded in her vision before turning to dark patches that slowly cleared.

"Zuko…" she bit out as the other guards hauled him to his feet and started dragging him out of the cell and down the hall.

"Don't worry, your turn will come." Cain said as he slammed the door shut and the earth bender let her fall to the ground in a miserable heap. She curled against the wall and cried.

She didn't know how long it had been before she heard the approaching steps. She bounded to the bars and peered down the hall as the guards dragged a limp Zuko back to their cell. "Zuko!" She cried. "What did you do to him?!" She demanded, but Cain wasn't with them and the guards ignored her.

"Back away." One guard threatened as he held the keys near the gate door. She glared at him before stepping back a bit. He opened the door and the men tossed Zuko to the floor. She raced to his side, kneeling and carefully rolling him onto his back, lifting his head into her lap.

He groaned and his eyes fluttered. "Katara?"

"Shhh…" She soothed, smoothing his hair, a few tears escaped and landed on his bruised face. His skin was singed and bloodied, his body beaten. "You're going to be okay." She whispered. She blew her icy breath on some of the more severe burns, trying to lessen the pain and some of the lines in his face smoothed as she did so. There wasn't much she could do. There was no water to heal him with and no amount of begging produced any, she tried before the guards had left. She did as much as she could for him though. Sleep was best so she tried to make him as comfortable as possible, worrying over him as he fell into a deep state of unconsciousness.

Hours must have passed once again before Cain showed up at their cell. "Get up!" He barked. Katara ignored him, back to Cain and her body between the malicious man and her unconscious friend. "I said get up and get over here!" He screamed at her.

She watched Zuko and was relieved that he was still out. If he'd been awake he'd have tried to defend her and end up worse off. The next thing she knew, a hand made of stone clenched her shoulder painfully and jerked her back towards the bars. As soon as she struck, so did the chi blocker, robbing her of her bending. The door swung open and Cain marched in and right up to her. She met him with a defiant glare, her shoulders back and chin up and he struck her across the face. Her head snapped to the side dazed, but she turned back to face him, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt.

"You should have listened to me the first time." He grit.

Katara refused to answer him and stood straight and insubordinately before him.

"You are a stubborn one." He murmured. "That won't do you any good here." He mad e to punch her in the stomach and she twisted out of the way but he caught her arm, wrenching it painfully behind her back and grabbing her hair with his other hand, tugging it, making her neck stretch and strain. "It's no use trying to resist." He said, giving her hair an extra yank and making her wince as her head was pulled back even further. He slammed her up against the bars and delivered two swift kicks to the back of her knees, making her collapse. She winced again, her legs throbbing in pain, but she refused to make an outburst.

"Take her!" Cain snapped and a few of the guards came and hauled her out the door and down the hallway. They were rough, dragging her along because she could not stand on her own. The tunnel winded and curved the stench of mildew in the air. She tried to calm herself. She knew what she'd be facing and she couldn't decide if that made things worse or better. According to Zuko, she'd face a firing squad, literally. It would be hard to dodge with her legs protesting so much they wouldn't even hold her upright. She feared the worst, but meditated on the fact that they weren't supposed to kill her, that she would get out of this, that she was strong.

There were several off shoots from the tunnel they took, but they stayed on course. The smell of something burnt, flesh, hair, stone, wafted towards her from the next corridor. This was it. But to her great surprise the guards continued to drag her past and turned the other way on one of the later hallways, weaving through a maze of turns from one passage to another. They stopped before a heavy wooden door and Cain dug through a ring of keys and unbolted it. Inside was a round room lit with sconces on the walls. In the center was a large, deep pool of water with a chair on some contraption hung above the surface.

Katara began to panic. This wasn't what she was prepared for. She had been readying herself for fireballs. But this is water, your element; it can't be as bad as being burned. A small voice in her head assured her. She stayed silent, wary of evoking the wrath of Cane. The guards supporting her approached the platform and pressed her into the chair, securing her wrists and ankles in stone cuffs, a sturdy leather strap across her torso kept her pressed to the back of the chair.

"We've made this just for you. I hope you enjoy it." Cane said with a sardonic smile.

"What're you going to do to me?" She called out.

"You're about to find out."

A lever was pulled and the chair plunged below the surface. The inky black water was so cold it stole the air from her lungs. Her breath exploded from her in an eruption of bubbles and her eyes bulged. The cold constricted her chest and her lungs burned for oxygen. She struggled against her bonds, but they held her tight and she was starting to lose feeling in her extremities. She broke the surface, gasping in shallow breaths, unable to expand her chest enough. Just before she got a decent breath in she was pitched back under and the panicky sensation of drowning started over. She managed to hold what very little air she had this time, but it hadn't been enough and she held it as long as she could before it streamed out her mouth and nose, frigid water rushing to replace it. She was so cold, so numb, she couldn't breathe and it was terrifying.

As she was reeled out of the water, dripping wet, the moving air making it impossibly freezing, she gasped for air, forcing her lungs to expand more than the constricting band around her chest from the cold allowed. Water dribbled from her mouth and nose as she hacked and gasped, desperate to replace the water with air. Everything was so cold it burned. It hurt to take a breath, but she had no choice. She felt the chair drop and desperately inhaled as deeply as she could before being pulled down again.

Each time she was dunked, it grew harder and harder to breath and fight. Her limbs were numb and no longer fought the bindings. Her lungs, throat, mouth and nose burned from all the abuse. She was exhausted and was almost willing herself to drown and get it over with. She'd come close so many times, but despite her exhaustion, her body wouldn't let her quit. It put her through the adrenaline charged panic each time and she was pulled from the pool just before drowning each time. Time seemed infinite, she didn't know how long she'd been here but surely it had been forever. Finally when she barely had the energy to gasp for breath, she was aware of rough hands jostling her, though she couldn't feel anything through her numbed body. She dripped and shivered and breathed shallowly as the floor moved beneath her, presumably being dragged back to her cell by the guards.

"Katara!" A voice screamed from the halls, echoing toward her numb ears. That was Zuko's voice. She heard tense words exchanged the view below her no longer shifting and the next thing she knew she was being tossed through the open door. Something wrapped around her and she was lowered to the floor. She turned her bleary vision and saw Zuko stooped protectively around her.

"Zuko!" She sobbed, voice rough from the cold and coughing water out of her lungs. She tried to embrace him, but her cold numbed limbs were still too clumsy. He pulled her against him, cradling her carefully.

"You're soaking wet. And freezing." He took her hands in his and blew what she supposed was super heated air across them. He raised his body temperature and warmed her before hypothermia could set in. As her body thawed, it burned painfully as blood flowed to the starved tissues, bringing them excruciatingly back to life. She whimpered and sobbed as she clung to him. Not only had it been painful, but it had been terrifying. She thought she was going to die so many different times, but the worst part was being helpless. Water was supposed to be her element, but with her bending being robbed and strapped to a chair, she had no control. Eventually she was sufficiently warm and watched her clothing steam until she was completely dry.

It took a long time for her to come back to herself and explain to Zuko what had happened. It took even longer for her to realize how badly hurt Zuko still was and that her bending was back, but the water was now gone. She felt like a failure on so many fronts.

"They're trying to break us." Zuko reminded her solemnly.

"We won't let them. As long as we're together, everything will be okay." She reassured them both. Their next meal came and went and finally they were left in peace to sleep after a long and torturous day, curled beside one another for heat and comfort.

Sarahplainntall here! Hope you liked it! Let me know what you think! :D