A/N: Thanks everyone for all your suggestion and reviews, you guys are so awesome! I especially want to thank Arwey for her/his idea because I have decided to use it in my story, well sort of. I decided to use the general idea anyways :p Thanks to everyone though because you all had some great suggestions and now the story can go on!

Chapter Nine

Katara crossed her arms and glared out over the water as the first light of dawn began to break over the horizon. I am never doing this again. I would rather be trapped on that ship with Zuko than out her bobbing around in the ocean! She was in a very bad mood. Over the course of the last three hours in which she had been paddling ferociously she had over turned the canoe once, dropped one of the oars, and finally gave up all together when a giant wave had knocked the other one out of her hands and swept it into the sea. Now she was to exhausted, hungry, stranded, and still slightly wet from her earlier dunking. So she was not in the mood to see the outline of a menacing silver ship sailing towards her.

"Oh great." She huffed, smacking the water angrily with her fist. "That is the last thing I need right now. A bunch of fire nation creeps!" Part of her hoped it was Prince Zuko because at least then she wouldn't be in danger yet another part of her wanted it to be anyone but Prince Zuko because her pride couldn't stand his gloating when he pulled her dripping from the sea.

Whether it was a curse or a blessing she wasn't sure but the ship that sailed along side of her was definitely not Prince Zuko's. It was much to large and much cleaner. Suddenly there was a splash. Katara looked to see a tiny row boat, much like her own, making its way around the back of the boat. It had dropped into the ocean unnoticed on the side opposite to her. The man rowing was a Fire Nation guard, still wearing his mask and armor. Katara thought for a second about trying to out row him but seeing as he was going twice as fast as she had when she'd still had her oars she decided against. If need be maybe she could fight him, with that armor he would sink like a stone.

He pulled back and came to a stop beside her canoe. The light that was now filling the sky glinted off his helmet.

"Go away." Katara croaked half-heartedly at him, it was pointless really, she knew that he would listen to her about as well as Admiral Zhao would listen to Prince Zuko. "Shoo. Leave me alone. Be gone." She glared at him.

He continued to stare at her then spoke slowly. "I have orders from my Commander to bring you to the ship at once."

"How about no?" Katara snapped, her stomach rumbling as it reminded her that she was starving.

"If you do not come peacefully I will take you by force." The guard continued to look at her but made no movement to grab her.

"Why don't you drop dead?" Katara said coldly.

"Aww come on. Is that anyway to speak to your rescuer?" With that the guard pulled of his helmet to reveal his black hair and laughing brown eyes.

"Sokka!" Katara gasped in complete and total shock. She gaped at him in absolute disbelief. "Wha- How..Where? What is going on!" She sputtered finally, gazing from Sokka to the ship.

"Well, just out confiscating some Fire Nation ships, rescueing damsels in distress, you know, the usual."

"Sokka!" Katara said angrily.

"Ok, ok." Sokka's grin faded and he took on a serious look. "Me and Aang were worried sick about you Katara! We found your note and we've been hunting frantically for you ever since. What were you thinking! You snuck off as a Fire Nation soldier just to find out about that stupid temple thing!" His face glowed with anger and Katara could tell he had wanted to say this for a long time. "We thought you'd been killed or captured or something! We didn't know what to do!"

Katara kept silent until she was sure that Sokka had run out of steam. "I'm sorry." She said. "I'm sorry I made you worry but I had to know. I couldn't risk Aang getting hurt if there was a way I could prevent it."

Sokka rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well did you find anything out?"

Katara looked away from his gaze. "No." she said quietly, pushing the images of her and Zuko out of her mind. "Hey wait." Katara looked up again, "What are you doing here on a Fire Nation ship!"

"Oh well, funny you should ask that." Sokka flexed his muscles. "After you left we decided to come after you so we stole this ship that was in the harbor. Of course we had to battle a couple guards but I took care of them." He grinned at his biceps.

"Wait, Aang's here too?" Katara asked in excitement.

"Yeah. He's waiting on the ship. Come on let's get onto the ship and we can talk later. All this bobbing around is making me sea sick."

"Ok." Katara held onto the end of Sokka's canoe with her hands as he turned and paddled to the giant ship behind them.

Well this beats anything that's happened so far. Katara thought to herself as Sokka paddled along. After all that's happened these last few weeks I don't think anything could catch me off guard now. But as she was to soon find out, she was very much mistaken.