IRumoI - I just wanted to say thank you for kind reviews. I tried to message you about it and about Ao3, but maybe you didn't see it. But anyway, thanks a whole bunch :) and to answer your question about why Katara didn't heal his bruise, I figured Jet WOULD be too stubborn to say anything about it and play it off as not as bad as it was. But anyway I usually post to Ao3 First because I'm slackkk so if you're wanting faster chapters that's the way to go because that's my preferred site. Much love to you and yours - LaoTzu :)

"They only have one beast of burden here," Tiguaak said, "the shirshu."

"Pack the rice on it," Smellerbee ordered. "We need to leave quickly."

"Yes sir," Tiguaak agreed.

The sun had yet to rise and outpost was already filled with sounds of hurried footsteps, the clink of weapons and the rustle of fabric as the men packed their scarce belongings.

Yachi was missing, and that was a problem. Who knows how far he'd made it in the middle of the night.

The sound of forty sets of boots against dampened earth faded into the distance, and the outpost was left a ghost town.

1 Week Later

Jet was fully aware of what he was doing. He was doing what he always did, with everything. Rushing headlong into this – whatever it was he had with Zuko. Zuko was too, he could tell. But it was like neither of them could really do anything about it. Both of them seemed so desperate for some sort of companionship, some sort of space where the world stopped turning for just a little while. He was helpless for it, and Zuko seemed to be too. Which wasn't much comfort, but some.

He knew somewhere at the back of his mind that they were just setting each other up. That one day, when they weren't amidst a war, and the air temple wasn't some shelled off place they could hide from reality and kiss, where they could sleep in the same bed, sharing warmth, stealing stilled moments from each other whenever they needed it, that one day; it would have to end. Like everything good in his life. But right now, he felt a thousand miles away from anything. From the war. From the pain. From the facts. From everything.

He was sinking, and he knew he should put a stop to it, before he could get any deeper. But the thought was a drowning one, suffocated by the absolute amazing way that Zuko felt against him. How Zuko's head turned over his shoulder, golden eyes expecting him now as he tried to sneak up on him to spin him on his heals and press his lips to his. His insults that were only feigning protests that Jet was sure he didn't mean, and were even somewhat endearing at this point. How Zuko still slept the opposite of the bed, but yet somehow even without the actual cuddling it still made him feel so warm and fluttery as if they actually were.

He didn't deserve to wake up to see tussled black locks, the shade of pink that overtook Zuko's cheeks every morning when he woke up and remembered where he was. Again.

He didn't deserve this beautiful child that awakened him every day. He didn't deserve The Duke coming by almost every afternoon to pick her up and spend time with her. Or how Katara would spin her around and laugh or how Sokka would shoot jokes to him about how he shouldn't encourage her with children because they had enough going on. How Toph would talk shit to him better than he ever talked shit to anyone. How Aang would smile shyly at him like he didn't quite know how to connect with him, but was trying anyway. Or how Zuko tried not to blush from across the campfire when their eyes would lock, and how his eyes would dart away like a spooked doe trying not to be seen. Oh, and his half remembered tea jokes that were absolutely adorable.

He didn't deserve any of it. He didn't deserve this sense of… family? If you could call it that already. He hadn't felt it in such a long time. It almost felt wrong to. Like he was betraying his old one. Betraying his gang. But where ever they were, he hoped they were happy. Wished that they could see him now. Wished that somehow, they could be here with him. It wasn't quite the same without them.

And he was afraid. Afraid of losing it. It felt so good. All of it. But he knew, somehow, he was going to fuck it all up. Just like he did before.

But he couldn't bring himself to put an end to it. To draw himself away from it before it had a chance to swallow him. He wanted it to, somewhere below the fear and the loathing. Or maybe above it. He wasn't sure.

Now, he just watched Zuko in his sleep, still propped up in the corner like he did every night for the past week. But Jet knew, at some point, he would stir and slip down onto the bed. He looked so peaceful, the lines and the grumpiness somehow melted away and left a boy much too young for what the world had already put him through. Like himself. Like the outcasts the two were. He wanted to reach across and run his fingers across the lines of the scar, but not wanting to chase Zuko away, he didn't. He ran his eyes over it instead, something he tried not to do while he was awake, and wondered.

How did he get it? He supposed it has always been a question he had. But seemed too brash a thing to ask outright, even for him. Zuko had said his country did it to him, but what did that really mean? It was so vague, it left him with more questions than answers.

The more he thought, the more he grew aware that he had no actual idea of who Zuko was. He was a prince, sure. He was Fire Nation, sure. But why was he here? Why had he gone to Ba Sing Se all that time ago? What was his family like? He almost feared the answers. He wondered if Zuko feared what his answers would be too. Like either way, what ever they had, these stolen moments of stillness in a churning world, would be shattered by them. Leaving a ghost of what could have been had they left it all a mystery and just went with the little that they did know.

Yet somehow, he felt like he knew so much about him anyway. He wasn't that hard to read, really. Every emotion he had showed so clearly on his face at all times that Jet never really had to wonder about them. And spirits, he was so bad at lying. Always. It was like he didn't even worry that at some point Zuko would be untruthful, because he could see it on his face. He supposed he should just ask whatever questions he wanted to ask and just read his expression. Zuko didn't even have to speak the answers out loud with his awkward, grumpy words.

But right now, he tried to be content with being content. Content with being two boys needing something from each other, and not yet knowing what it might be. Or where it might lead.

Jet liked to tell stories, Zuko found out. None that where particularly invasive or personal, but still somehow threw little hints at him about the inner mechanisms of his mind. How it turned, how it worked. Like only seeing one gear but being imaginative enough to fill in the rest.

When the day was coming to an end, and most others were busy, the two (well, two and a half) would walk, sometimes in silence and sometimes not, around the temple grounds, ignoring the occasional looks it garnered from the others. To them, they were just friends. Unknowing about the sharing of a bed or the frequent locking of lips. It was like their little secret, whether it really had to be a secret or not. Something almost sacred about it. Like it was their time and their time alone.

Jet told him about breakfasts in the woods where he lived before, almost wistfully, but a fondness in his words that seemed to tell Zuko everything he needed to know about him. Scrambled robins eggs because most kids would eat it, no matter how many mushrooms or vegetables he chopped and hid amongst it. He looked up to Tikka, who was sat atop Rosebud (with help from Jet, of course), and Zuko assumed he'd pulled the same trick on her before.

Zuko wondered if he should tell a story or two too, but didn't quite feel his were nearly as interesting. Or at least, that Jet wouldn't find them so. How does palace life really compare with that of woodsy, outdoorsy tales? Where was the common ground with it all? Unable to think of anything that he thought might interest Jet, he kept his mouth closed, and Jet filled in the space, almost like he was conversing with himself and Zuko was a spectator. But he didn't miss the short pause Jet gave him, as if waiting for him to say something, maybe a tidbit about himself, without ever asking for it outright.

Jet ran his hand through a rosemary bush growing up through cracks in the stone, and Zuko was pretty sure that was where the aroma that frequented him had come from.

"Forest perfume," Jet confirmed, then plucked a twig of it and examined it.

"Why are you looking at it like that?" Zuko asked curiously.

"Spiders like it," Jet answered. Once thoroughly pleased with the spiderless twig, he tucked it into his pocket. Zuko wondered how many random items were actually in there. How long did he keep these things? It was a little cute he had to admit, this quirk Jet had about putting random things in his pockets - like a child. Flowers and rocks and twigs and stalks of seeding grass. Did he ever do anything with them? Besides chew them? There was something innocent about the habit though, and innocence wasn't what he normally correlated with Jet. He wondered if it stemmed from somewhere; this holding onto of useless things.

Times like these, Zuko could almost forget about everything. Forget that he was training to kill his father. Forget that he was a banished prince and fade into nothingness, the sounds and stories of maple forests and nature's treasures filling his head instead. Like the world, while in this temple, had slowed down enough to see it. See a beauty in it. An appreciation of things he'd taken for granted while living on the road, miserable and hungry and unknowing of what really was out there for him to utilize. He wondered what it would have been like had Jet been with him the whole time. Able to point out the things that he knew were safe to eat, and not leaving it for Uncle to guess and inflame his face with hives.

He wondered how many near fatal mistakes Jet had to make to have this endless knowledge of survival. Did anyone teach him these things? He'd never spoken of a mother or father, that he just knew these things like one knows the back of their hand. Though, Zuko himself had never spoken to him of his own family, so perhaps he already knew the reason why he didn't speak of it. It was a painful thing most likely. Perhaps why he holds onto useless things, like Zuko held onto his mother's theatre masks. Maybe Jet didn't have anything to hold, so he found things instead. Filling his pockets with memories.

Like with all things in life, especially something as big as a war, there were constant reminders that broke this leisurely pace they had finally been able to slow down to.

Jet raised a brow at something, and Zuko's eyes suddenly followed, breaking his silent reverie. Sokka was approaching, looking somewhat sheepish but determined and serious at the same time.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" Sokka asked, looking like he was trying not to dart his eyes between him and Jet, trying to set aside this putting together of dots that made the blood want to run to Zuko's cheeks.

Zuko nodded, and him and Sokka stepped a good distance away.

"So, what's up?"

"If someone was captured by the Fire Nation, where would they be taken?"

Smellerbee's head hung low from exhaustion, her lips bloodied and swollen, her body aching and the arrow wound in her leg still fresh and ripe with pain. She was strapped to a chair in an interrogation room, but it wasn't a very intimidating one. Only a chair in an empty, dark cell - the only light coming in from the slot on the metal door.

Tiguaak and Ping had been right about Yachi. He led the eel-hounds and the cavalry of rhinos right to her men. But it didn't matter. Longshot got his final say when he sent an arrow through his chest plate. What mattered was every other man fought back, even the ones that just joined, and they all got away. Her men would be fine. They still had Tiguaak and Ping to lead them, for now.

But her body ached with fury. Damn Longshot and his loyalty. Damn his commitment for her. It got him thrown in here right alongside her, presumably, and now she didn't know where he was. He could be dead. She didn't even know where she was. They had put a bag over her head for three days, and somehow she ended up carted here; bloodied and beaten but not broken. But admittedly, very close.

She had gone down with an enemy arrow, and she threw every obscenity she knew Longshot's way to get him to leave her behind. She chucked dirt and twigs and rocks at him from the grass around her. Cussing him. Telling him she hated him, her throat raw from screaming, and told him over and over again to leave her. Please, leave her. Please.

But he didn't. He stayed steady, bow up and drawn with a level headiness she wished to possess; picking off riders one by one as they came to collect her. He had turned to Tiguaak, who was batting off arrows with his club.

"Take the men and run. I'll hold them off," Longshot told him, authoritative and final.

So, Tiguaak did; Ignoring Smellerbee's cries to drag Longshot with him. And eventually, Longshot had to surrender. His quiver had emptied, and he put down his bow and put his arms up. Now he was gone - and she was alone.

And pissed off.

She wondered if this was how Jet had felt. Like an animal lonesome, backed into the corner of a cage, nothing to do but fester and rot with this rage and pain and hate inside of him. No other options. The ache too much to bear. The anger giving something to hold onto. A person to blame. Something to blame. Something to fight. She surely couldn't fight the ache in her bones from the arrow, or the bloodied lip, or the fact that the only person she ever truly loved was torn from her.

All sitting in this cell was doing was amplifying it, stewing it, feeding it like kindle to a fire. If the interrogators before thought she was bad, snapping at growling and snarling like a rabid animal, she pitied whoever came next; Now that her anger had bubbled into a stagnant, breathy calm.

The metal door creaked open, and the light flooding in made her squint her eyes. But she sat her head back, prideful, and someone snapped their fingers, bringing the torches on the walls to a flickering, painful glow.

It was a woman this time. How quaint.

"So, this is the one?" the woman hummed, every bit of malice and spite in her words despite the tone. "They told me you were a girl, but looking at you I'm not quite sure I believe them."

"That's the point, bitch," Smellerbee snipped.

"Do you know who you're speaking to?" the woman hummed. "I'm Princess Azula of the Fire Nation."

Smellerbee gathered the moisture and blood in her mouth and spat it in front of her, narrowly missing the Princess's curled boots. "Don't care."

Azula's lips curled into a vicious smile, one that Smellerbee had become well accustomed too. That was Jet's old smile, through and through. She kept her head leaned back against the chair, glaring, and eventually the smile faded back into a tiny smirk. If it was any indicator, this woman wasn't as complicated as she tried to seem. It was a shield. One she had to break.

"They told me you were feisty," Azula purred. "But let's just keep this short, shall we? Tell me where the rest of the traitors went, and we won't have to bloody you up anymore."

"You don't scare me," Smellerbee murmured, low and calm, her throat raw and dry from screaming obscenities at the ones before.

"I should," Azula said, looking to her nails, unbothered.

"But you don't," Smellerbee reiterated.

Azula smiled once more, amused. "Your friend is a quiet one. What is he? A peasant and a mute? How unfortunate."

Smellerbee's eyebrows twitched, but probably not for the reason Azula thought, but it was just enough for Azula to latch onto. She smiled at the opening, pushing it further. "He wasn't so quiet when we broke his fingers."

So Longshot was alive. That's all she needed to know. Smellerbee wouldn't give this the chance to accelerate any further. This woman was trying to manipulate her, she could smell it. She was used to it. She had to rein this conversation in, switch it around. Give this woman an inch, and she was going to take a mile. "I've met you before," she said, not completely a lie. She's met enough of her to know what she's all about. She was a manipulator like Jet, without the charm or any of the other good qualities. Just a cruel, spiteful bitch.

"Oh? Must not have been very memorable," Azula retorted. "Because I don't remember you."

Smellerbee smiled a little, which seemed to dent something in Azula. Good, she was getting her on the run. "You think you're so scary, but I pity you. Everyone around you pities you," Smellerbee said, the same low and calm tone.

That seemed to do something too. The dent turning into a crack. Insecurity bingo.

"Ha!" Azula chimed. "That's hilarious. Now, back to you telling me where your little traitor friends went. Before I decide to break your friend's legs instead of his fingers."

"He's not scared of you either. And where are your friends, Princess?" Smellerbee asked. "You seem a little too worried about mine."

"Stop wasting my time," Azula snapped. And there it was.

"You're jealous of me, aren't you? I can see it on your face," Smellerbee mused.

"Jealous? Of you?" Azula laughed, quick and mocking. "What is there to be jealous of? You're an ugly little girl locked in a cage with a festering arrow wound in her leg."

"Tell me, who hurt you to make you this way? Was it your Father?" Smellerbee asked. "I wouldn't know. Mine loved me. So do my friends, and my men. Do you know what that's like, Princess?"

When Azula's face fell into a scowl, Smellerbee pressed forwards. "No? Was it Mother then? Mommy issues must be tough."

"Guards," Azula said with a flick of her wrists. "Make sure this one doesn't eat today."

Oh, but Smellerbee wasn't done.

"My friends are loyal to me. Yours will turn on you in an instant. Just like your soldiers left your army to help me, you fucking cunt."

"Put this animal in the cooler!" Azula barked.

"But Princess Azula, she's not a firebender," the guard said.

"Does it look like I care?!" Azula spat. "I want to never see her face again."

"Just like a coward," Smellerbee hissed as the guards began to unstrap her. "Get your men to do your dirty work for you so you don't have to get your precious hands dirty! How does it feel?! Knowing no one around will ever really respect you!"

"You shut your filthy, peasant mouth!" Azula spat.

"You're scared," Smellerbee spat back, the guards lifting her onto her tired legs. She winced at the wound, but continued despite it. "And you should be. You've never met anyone like me before. Someone who isn't afraid of you."

"Put her in and let her freeze," Azula snarled, then turned on her heals to exit the room. Smellerbee smiled, probably a little twisted, but she couldn't help it.

They drug her backwards down the hall, her arms tide behind her, and she spotted the Princess on the walkway. She piped her voice up, so that everyone in this damned prison could hear her fury, despite her aching throat.

"Trust me, Princess!I'm going to kill you one day!" she shouted, the sounds echoing against the metal walls. "With my bare hands."

She just caught a glimpse of the Princess turn to look over her shoulder, and she couldn't place the look on her face, but she'd like to think it was fear. Or maybe it was the beginning of a snarl, but either way. It didn't matter.

A metal door closed her off from it before she could tell, and she grunted as the guards shoved her into what she presumed was the 'cooler'. They slammed the door shut, and she was left alone once more, slumped at the bottom of the freezing cell.

She finally took the time to fully grimace at her leg, the movement seeming to tear open the wound, sending blood tricking down her thigh from under the haphazard bandages they had wrapped around it. It puddled a little on the cold, metal bottom, and eventually it started to cake with ice. Her breath was visible, and her fury calmed into a dull, painful ache once again.

Time was a strange thing whilst locked in a tiny, freezing cell. The pain and shivering was immeasurable, and though Smellerbee would like to think that nothing could ever really break her, this was going to be what did. She wished they'd just kill her already. Put her out of her misery.

She'd been in here at least a day, her wound left open to gush random bouts of blood onto the floor. Fading in and out was the only thing keeping her alive, and somewhat sane, a break from the intolerable, frigid cold and the ache of what was probably an infected wound. She had prepared to die. Wrote her sentiments in her head long ago. But never expected to die like this. Humiliated and alone. Tortured and starved and broken. No shred of dignity besides the fact that she had gotten the last word. Nothing to hold onto despite the fact that Longshot could be still alive. Jet too, she supposed, though that thought wasn't nearly as tangible or believable. Maybe, she just didn't want to believe it. It was easier not to. Hope was a painful thing, and she was in enough pain already.

Even the thought of Longshot being alive wasn't much of a comfort. They were probably doing the same thing to him. Though, she hoped he'd kept his mouth shut more than she had. He probably did. That's one of the reasons they worked so well together. He always had this way of meaningful silence, a respectable stoic ease that complimented her rash, almost animalistic way of dealing.

Sitting back against the cold metal wall, unable to even draw her arms around her legs for warmth, she could feel herself fading, scrubbed out of existence in the cruelest way possible. Freezing to death and bleeding out while her belly was so empty it didn't even feel hunger anymore and with a throat so dry it was hard to even swallow.

There wasn't even room for anger. The cold had snubbed it out hours ago, and replaced it weary exhaustion. She just wanted to cry, but she couldn't even manage more than a sorrowful tear or two, icing as they ran down her cheeks. Staring at the ceiling, she wondered if Longshot knew she loved him. He had to of, somewhere deep down. She regretted never telling him, none the less. Regretted never acting on it, more so. Too scared he saw her how everyone else seemed to; an ugly, boyish little girl with a scratchy voice and a tongue much sharper than her looks.

She pressed her eyes shut, the tears still prickled in her eyes, as the door to the cooler swung open. Hoping, praying they were here to put a knife in her chest but honestly too afraid to meet it, she kept her eyes pressed shut tight - and thought of happiness. Imagined what it felt like. Living on a farm or something with the only worry being where she and Longshot would position the candle on the table for dinner. Not war and ache and pain. Just a simple life she wished she would have taken the chance to live instead of this. She smiled and tears ran down her cheeks at the prospect. It would never be hers. This was the end, and her only comfort was what could have been had she just opened her stupid, stubborn, ugly mouth.

A voice broke through the cold.

"Oh, jeez," it said. It was another woman, though not nearly as fake sounding. More dull and gloomy, maybe even somewhat bored. "Get her off the floor and clean this blood up."

"But Lady Mai, Princess Azula-" a guard replied.

"I don't care what Azula said," she said plainly. "This is my Uncle's prison; a respectable one. Not a sadism den."

"Yes, Lady Mai," the guard answered.

"Take her to the infirmary and get her leg closed up. I would like to speak with her once she's eaten and gotten some rest," Mai said.

"Yes, Lady Mai."

…