Water

The Secret

The mittens were too small.

Realistically, Zuko should have known that much from the start. They were Katara's mittens, and Katara was smaller than him. Of course her mittens were going to be too small for his hands. Still, he'd wedged his fingers into the dense fur as well as he could, and as uncomfortable as they felt, he wasn't thrilled by the idea of taking them off either. At least the mittens were warm. The only bit of clothing he had that was warm enough for the North Pole, in fact.

Of course, now that the sun had risen high enough to reach him at the bottom of the pit, his dark colored blankets were doing a decent enough job of absorbing its rays. Zuko was almost perfectly comfortable in the sunlight.

Almost. And unfortunately, he was also acutely aware of the fact that this comfort couldn't last long. There was just a small wedge of ice at the bottom of the pit that the sun could possibly reach, and it was just a matter of time before the shadows overtook that wedge again. Soon enough, Zuko would be in the dark again, left to fend off the cold with his bending since his clothes were nowhere near suited to this climate.

For now, though, he allowed his head to rest back against the ice wall and closed his eyes. He probably didn't have enough time to sleep before the sun retreated again, but at least he could rest for a while. Maybe that—along with the food that Katara had brought him—would be enough to fuel his bending for another day. Maybe. It was probably best not to count on that.

What he really needed were some clothes or blankets or something that was actually suited to the cold up here. Because otherwise, he would inevitably become too tired to continue firebending, and whether it was tonight, a day from now, or not for another full week, he would eventually freeze to death. Katara's too-small mittens would hardly make a difference when his bending finally gave out.

Zuko didn't exactly manage to sleep. It was too close to midday for that, and he couldn't shut out the brightness the way he used to on his ship. But it was, at least, fairly comfortable for the moment. He could think, if nothing else.

He exhaled slowly, feeling a soft rush of sparks pass his lips. He'd have to tell Katara why he'd come to the North Pole before too much longer. As important as that was, he still wasn't looking forward to that conversation. The beginning might not be so bad—Katara, when I was on Zhao's ship, I overheard him trying to blame you for the explosion. I came here to warn you that he's on his way here, and once his crew finds out that you're alive, you're going to be in a lot of danger. The problem was what came after that. What was he supposed to say if she asked what exactly Zhao was planning to do, or how they could stop him? Zuko didn't know any of that stuff. He'd been lucky just to find out that Zhao was treating this like some sort of twisted revenge mission. He certainly hadn't figured out what to do about it.

Maybe he would be lucky, though. Maybe Katara wouldn't need to know any more than that. Maybe she would be able to come up with a plan all on her own once she knew that Zhao was coming. She had, after all, come pretty close to a successful escape from Zuko's ship. That had to mean that she was decent at planning.

Or, failing that, maybe they could work out a plan between the two of them. For all that they argued, Katara was far from the worst person he could imagine working with. As long as she didn't turn him in—and once she knew why he'd come, he doubted that she would—he would probably be fine cooperating with her. Annoyed, possibly. Impatient, almost definitely. But fine.

Even being stuck in the bottom of this stupid pit wasn't all that bad, he supposed. Sure it was cold, but if Katara hadn't stuck him down here, then Zuko would just be cold somewhere else. Somewhere that he was in much greater danger of being captured by someone else. The pit wasn't any better than wandering, but he didn't think it was much worse either.

It could still get worse if anyone else found him trapped out here, of course, but Katara seemed reasonably sure that that wouldn't be a problem. Zuko thought he trusted her on that. Mostly. It wasn't like he had many other choices.

A shadow fell across his face. "Are you sleeping again?"

Zuko jolted, and he squinted up at the rim of the pit. It was almost too bright to see anything at all in the midday sun, but he knew even without looking that the dark smudge dangling over the edge of the ice was Katara. He blinked a few times, then shaded his eyes with his hand.

"I haven't slept at all."

"Are you sure about that? It looks like you're drooling."

Scowling, he swiped his sleeve across the lower half of his face and held up his arm to prove that it was dry. "I'm not drooling."

"Fine. Whatever you say." Katara was lying flat on her stomach over the pit, and she folded her hands smugly under her chin.

"Are you just here to make fun of me? Because if you are, up. You can go now."

She shook her head. "Shockingly, I don't actually have that much free time. Teasing you is just a convenient bonus." A pause. "I think I still need some time to come up with something clever to say about your hair."

Zuko clamped his jaw tight. He'd seen that coming for ages. If anything, he was surprised that it'd taken her so long to get around to the subject.

"Right now," she said, "I just have a short break between lessons. Since I don't know whether I'll have a chance to sneak out this evening, I thought I'd better come while I had the time."

That might not be such a bad thing. Zuko had to tell her why he was here, and the less time she had to spare when he did, the less they would be able to argue about it. Maybe if he got it all out quickly, then they would be able to simply move on and begin planning the next time she came to see him. It had to be worth a try.

"Katara—"

"Here." She reached around behind herself and tossed a large blue bundle down to him. "You might want this."

The bundle landed with a soft fwump just in front of him, and Zuko cut himself off. What was that? It looked like some sort of dyed animal hide—a bit like Katara's parka, and roughly the same shade as well—but it was far too large and heavy to be clothing.

"What's that?" he asked after a pause.

"Sokka's sleeping bag," Katara answered. "You look a bit pathetic with all your little blankets, and we don't need sleeping bags at the house we're staying in. Someone might as well use it."

With a scowl, he pushed to his feet. "I don't need your pity."

One eyebrow raised. "Who said that I felt sorry for you?" With that, she pushed back from the edge of the pit and stood.

Shit. Zuko really had to learn how not to say the very first thing to cross his mind. If he kept arguing with Katara, he was just going to lose his chance to explain himself.

"Wait. Katara, I have to tell you—"

She shook her head. "You can tell me later. I need to get going so I'm not late for healing lessons."

"This is important! You've been bothering me about why I came here ever since you found me."

She paused just long enough to meet his eyes. "You have really awful timing, you know that?" She sighed. "Listen, I really don't have time right now. I'll try to come back here tonight. Whatever it is can wait that long."

"You have to be kidding. It's only going to take a few—"

Katara cut him off. "I'll see you later, Zuko." Then, before he could speak again, she turned away and disappeared from view.

With a prolonged groan, Zuko dropped back to the ground. That had to be the worst part of this entire situation. Katara only came to see him when it was convenient for her, and she could cut him off whenever she liked. There was nothing he could really do but wait.

He wondered whether he'd done that to her back on his ship. Ugh. If he had, then he wouldn't put it past her to do the same thing to him until she decided that she'd gotten enough revenge. That could take ages.

Zuko let his head hang for a few moments before he looked at the bundled sleeping bag again. Though she probably was trying to get even with him for the whole kidnapping incident, it was a surprisingly nice gesture to leave a sleeping bag for him. Sure, it belonged to her brother, and it probably had an odd smell to prove that, but it looked warm too. Warm enough to hold up against the frigid winds of the North Pole.

Possibly even warm enough for him to get some sleep, if he was lucky.

With a frown, he scooted closer and tugged one of the strings to release the sleeping bag from its bundle.


By the time that Katara made it back to the city, she had learned an important lesson. Isux Lake was close to the city, but it wasn't close enough for her to ditch Aang after waterbending lessons, get a sleeping bag out of Appa's saddle, visit Zuko in the middle of the lake, and still make it back to the healing huts in time for her lesson. It was just too far to walk in such a short time, even if she'd been able to resist the urge to gloat a little.

All she could really hope was that Imiq would be willing to overlook her tardiness. Katara was late, but not that late. Hopefully not late enough to be in any trouble.

Breathless, she skidded into the healing hut and nearly crashed headfirst into Sokka.

Oh no. This could be very bad.

"I'm here," Katara said in a rush. Her face was hot, and she couldn't tell whether it was because of the running, the warmer air inside the healing hut, or something else. "What's going on? Sokka, did you get hurt?"

He scoffed in a not-at-all suspicious sort of way and wouldn't look at her. "What? No, of course not. I was just—being a nice person and making sure that someone else got here okay." He puffed out his chest. "I had absolutely nothing to do with it."

"You're a fucking liar," someone shouted from the other side of the curtain.

Hahn? Was that Hahn? It sounded like him, except possibly a little more whiney than usual.

"That's enough bickering, you two." Imiq poked her head out through the curtain. "I'm glad you're here, Katara. I was beginning to think that I'd have to take your first patient so that his yelling wouldn't disturb the whole city."

"Who cares if they get disturbed? I'm in agony!"

Yes, that was definitely Hahn. Katara shot a suspicious look at Sokka, but her insides did relax a bit at the same time. Maybe whatever was going on between him and Hahn would suffice to pull attention away from her own late arrival.

Imiq inhaled like she was trying to brace herself. "I'm sure you are, young man. You and every other training accident I see here."

Katara stepped through the curtain to find Hahn sitting half-hunched on the edge of the cot, puffy-eyed and sniveling. There was a bit of swelling along his right cheekbone and a shallow gash running up his temple. Beyond that, though, there was nothing. No limbs hanging at odd angles, no significant cuts or bruises, or even anything bandaged. He was just sittingthere with a small bump on the side of his face and writhing like he'd been tortured.

She felt her brows lift. Agony? That was what he considered agony?

"Now." Imiq crossed her arms. "There's a bit of minor bruising and bleeding to deal with. It should be something that you can handle easily, Katara." She paused, her voice turning fierce. "And if you can't hold still, Hahn, I'll call your friend in here to help hold you down."

Hahn screwed up his face into what he probably thought was a convincing look of pain. "I don't want either of them anywhere near me. That little weasel out there did this to me deliberately, and—"

"Did not!" Sokka yelled from the main room. "It was an accident, and you know it."

"Polar leopard shit! And I don't want that little freak trying to heal me either. She's probably working with her brother."

Imiq's voice raised over both of them. "Enough, you two. And Hahn, if you have a problem with being healed by a student under my supervision, then you are more than welcome to opt for a good cleaning of the wound and a bandage instead. You may end up with a small scar, but you will heal perfectly well all the same. Am I clear?"

Hahn's fake pained look gave way to a glare. "You wouldn't dare let your future chief scar."

"Wouldn't I?" Imiq's expression was steel. "Then as the future chief, you should know that Chief Arnook has had to wait for us to finish with all of our other patients before getting his own injuries healed in the past. I'm sure that he would understand my position."

"But—my father—"

"I've known your father much longer than you have been alive. I'm perfectly happy to explain the situation to him as well."

Hahn's glare darkened, but Imiq didn't waver. After a bit more staring, he began to squirm. Then at last, "If she messes my face up, I'll make sure that you all regret it."

"How terribly frightening," Imiq answered dryly, then motioned Katara forward.

Katara grimaced. She didn't want to heal Hahn. She didn't want to come anywhere near him, actually. If Hahn had to sit around and wait for that tiny little cut to heal on its own, it wouldn't upset her in the least.

But if she didn'theal Hahn, then he would just sit around and complain. Probably without moving an inch. And Katara was fairly certain that she'd rather deal with healing him than listen to his whining for the rest of the evening.

Hahn jerked away when her hand approached his face, and Katara scowled, grabbing his chin so that he couldn't pull away again. The sooner he was healed, the sooner he could leave.

"Believe me, I'm not any happier about this than you are," she said, bringing her water up to his cheek before he could squirm out of her grip. The water brightened, washing away the cut and the swelling all at once.

"Katara," Imiq said sternly. "Don't rush. How many times have I told you not to assume that an injury is superficial?"

Katara sighed. She'd been getting better about that in the past few days, she really had, but this was Hahn. She knew for a fact that he was faking most of his distress, which made it extremely difficult to care whether anything else was wrong with him.

Well, his attitude and his personality in general definitely needed work. But unfortunately, no amount of water would fix those problems.

Holding the water up to his face again, Katara concentrated harder. The bones were intact, the muscle smooth and unbroken, and all the blood vessels and nerves seemed perfectly fine too.

"That's it. There's nothing else to fix."

"No, it isn't," Hahn whined. "That idiot didn't just hit me in the face."

Katara raised an eyebrow, and Imiq interrupted before she could speak. "Yes, Hahn, and from what you described to me, I don't think it's wise to subject my students to that injury." Imiq propelled Katara back out of the room. "Wait out here for just a few minutes. We have other patients to look after once Hahn's problem is sorted out."

She found herself face-to-face with Sokka again. "What happened?" Katara hissed.

He gave her a crooked smile. "I think what really matters is that no one could prove that it wasn't an accident," he answered in a whisper.

"Sokka."

"Hey, it's not my fault that Hahn stood way too close when I was pulling spears out of a target. He should have realized that his tender parts were right in the line of fire."

There was a horribly undignified scream from the other room, and Imiq scolded Hahn to sit still.

Grinning, Sokka leaned back against the wall. "So. You were late. That's weird for you."

Katara's jaw tightened just a bit. Of course he couldn't just let that slip past. "And I see that they must be teaching some pretty keen observation skills in your class."

He was apparently too pleased with himself for whacking Hahn in the groin to be bothered by her sarcasm. "So what's the deal? Where did you go that you couldn't get here on time?"

The nosy jerk. What made him think that it was any of his business?

"I'd forgotten something back at the house," she lied. "It took a little longer than I expected to run back there."

"What did you forget?"

"Mittens. I forgot my mittens." The answer came almost reflexively, and Katara regretted it as soon as the words escaped her lips.

Sokka's cheerfulness dissipated, and he raised an eyebrow. "Mittens? Really? That seems weird, since you aren't wearing any mittens."

She pulled her hands up inside her sleeves. "Yeah. Right. I couldn't find them. Maybe I lost them again."

"The day after you lost them the first time?"

"Don't act like you haven't done the same thing, Sokka."

"You're being a much bigger weirdo than normal, Katara. What's going on?"

Ugh. Why did he have to be so stubbornly protective? She had things under control. All she really needed now was one more day without questions, one more day to sneak out on her own, and she would have all the answers she needed. She wouldn't have to lie anymore when she knew why Zuko was here.

"Nothing is going on, okay? I'm just really busy, and it gets hard to keep track of everything when I have to be running around the city all day long."

"Yeah," Sokka said, dragging the word out far longer than necessary. "That's not the tiniest bit suspicious."

She glared. "Talk to me when you're spending all morning learning to fight and all evening working in the healing huts. Until then, I don't want to hear anything about how you think I'm acting weird."

"And that's all," Imiq announced from the other side of the curtain. "You're fixed up, Hahn. Now off you go."

"But it still hurts."

"The way I hear it, that usually happens. Go home and lie down. There's nothing wrong with you that won't fix itself in an hour or two." The curtain pushed aside, and Imiq gestured Hahn toward the door. "Go on. We have other patients, and I doubt that they'll be happy if their healers are delayed by their future chief's bruised privates."

Hahn didn't stop grumbling—of course he didn't—but he did seem embarrassed enough by his injury to leave without much fuss. After shooting a glare at both Sokka and Katara, he stormed out, slamming the door after him.

Imiq sighed and rubbed her forehead. "That took much longer than it should have." She turned toward Sokka. "And were you hurt at all?"

"Nope! I just came here to—"

"To gloat."

His face darkened a shade.

Imiq shook her head. "You're not as subtle as you think. Now unless you'd like to stick around and help—"

"Got it. On my way out now." But Sokka paused one more time, just long enough to nudge Katara's arm. "By the way, I know something weird is going on. I saw which way you came from when you got here. That's not the way back from the house."

Crap. This was going to make it a lot harder to keep Zuko hidden. Her nails dug into her palms, and she did her best to hold her expression steady. Tonight. That was all the time she needed. After she saw Zuko one more time, she would know why he'd come, and she wouldn't have to keep him a secret anymore. If she could just hold Sokka off for a little while longer, she could tell both of the boys about Zuko before they discovered where he was hiding, and everything would be fine.

For a while, Imiq watched Sokka's retreat. Then, "Keeping secrets from your friends, I see."

Katara's face warmed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I should act like I disapprove, shouldn't I?" Imiq asked. Then she paused, turning a sly look toward Katara. "But I'm well aware of the sorts of stories that my mother has probably told you about me. And nothing is more frustrating than hypocrisy." She closed the door and crossed her arms. "So I'll offer you a deal. If you can heal five patients properly without needing any reminders, I won't ask what that was between you and your brother, and I'll let you leave a little early for the night."

Katara felt herself crack a small smile. "Deal."


Waterbending games, Aang had discovered, were actually quite a lot of fun. Nearly as good as airbending games, even though there was less floating around and more throwing things at people. Air and water were both very flowy elements, which meant that Aang was pretty good at both, even though he hadn't practiced waterbending outside of class nearly as much as Katara did. He knew enough for the games he'd invented, and right now, that was what mattered most to him.

The problem was that it was sometimes hard to find other people to play with. The other boys in waterbending lessons seemed interested when Aang asked them if they wanted to play, but Pakku didn't allow games in class, and most of the kids were too little to go anywhere after lessons without a grown up. Then there were the kids closer to Aang's age who trained a little farther up the street, but they were mostly interested in wrestling each other. Which, Sokka had assured him, was a sort of game for them. Just not a very fun game, in Aang's opinion.

Which really only left Sokka and Katara. And although Katara said that she liked games like this, she didn't actually join Aang very often. Most of her time after Pakku's class was filled up with healing lessons, and when she had free time to focus on waterbending, she seemed more interested in practicing the forms that they'd learned from Pakku and from her old scribbly scroll. Which, to be fair, did seem to be working. She was doing really well in lessons. So well that she might get to advance to the next level ahead of Aang.

He was happy for her. Mostly. But he was also a little disappointed that she wouldn't spend time on fun things like waterbending games.

And then there was Sokka. Aang had thought of a few brilliant ways to make the games fun for him too, but Sokka really seemed to dislike the idea. It was like he didn't believe that Aang would do his best to avoid getting him wet.

So now, Aang was just trying to make the best of the situation. He was good at that.

"Okay, Momo. You have to listen very carefully." He scratched parallel lines into the snow with his heel. "We each have to stay on our own side of the lines. Since you can't waterbend, I'll give each of us ten snowballs to start, and then the goal is—"

Momo cocked his head to the side, then rolled halfway over to lick his belly.

Aang heaved a sigh. Maybe lemurs weren't the best at listening to directions.

"How's that going for you?" Sokka called as he meandered his way over from the street.

"Not very good." He sighed and flopped back into the snow. "I don't think Momo wants to play with me."

"Did you think he was going to?"

"No, not really. I just kind of hoped he would." Aang sat up again. "I don't suppose you want to play snowball ice hole toss with me, do you?"

Sokka raised his eyebrows as he sat down beside Aang. "That would involve you throwing a lot of snow at me, right? No thanks."

"Not just that."

"Still not gonna happen, buddy."

Aang pouted. He'd expected as much, but it was still disappointing.

After a brief pause, Sokka let out a puff of air and announced, "Katara's acting weird."

Aang waited. There had to be more than that.

"Right? Something's off. You must have noticed it too. Ever since her mitten thing last night—"

"Yeah, I noticed." Aang answered. It had been a little weird—weird enough to catch his attention, at least—but he didn't think that it was worth worrying about.

"Like what?" Sokka asked, leaning forward. "What else did she do?"

He felt his eyes widen. Sokka hadn't acted this intense since—well, since before the Northern Air Temple. Which wasn't exactly reassuring. He remembered all too well how that had turned out. "Umm—well, nothing much. She seemed a little distracted in Pakku's class, I guess. Distracted for her, not for anybody else. And then—"

"What? What happened?"

"Then she ran out right after class, and I couldn't figure out where she went."

"Ah! That!" Sokka pointed excitedly at Aang. "Did you see which way she went?"

"I'm not sure. The last time I saw her, I thought she was going back to the house, but she wasn't around when I got there." Aang paused. "But maybe she just came out here to visit Appa or something."

Sokka shook his head. "No, she told me that she went back home to look for her mittens. So she wasn't there?"

"No. Not unless she got there really fast and then left." Aang had stuck around at the house for almost an hour before he left to visit Appa and play with Momo. If Katara had come back, he'd have seen her.

"So that definitely doesn't explain why she was late to the healing huts, huh?"

"Nope. Wait. How do you know that she was late?"

Sokka flushed a bit and stared somewhere off to the side. "Well—Hahn got hurt in training. Nothing serious, but he was complaining pretty loud, so I decided to be nice and take him to the healing hut so everyone else could focus."

"Did you two get into a fight?"

"What? No, of course not. What gives you that idea?"

"Probably because you kept talking about how you wanted to fight Hahn."

Sokka scoffed. "Yeah. I would have fought him. I still kind of want to." He paused, then shook himself. "But that's not the point. The point is that Katara lied about where she went. And she even used the same excuse as last night! I'd bet that she was lying to us then too."

It was a little weird. Definitely a bit suspicious. Aang wasn't convinced that it meant anything important, but he could at least see why Sokka was worried. It was at least possible that something was happening with Katara.

He frowned. "So what do you think we should do about it?"

Sokka rubbed his chin. "We figure it out, obviously. Between the two of us, it can't be that hard, right?" He paused, then sat perfectly straight and whacked Aang in the arm. "I've got it! You just have to play along with me, okay?"


Sokka could feel Aang's skepticism hanging heavy on the air. Which did not seem fair. It wasn't that crazy to duck down in the shadows outside the healing hut and wait for Katara to get done with her lesson. This was a perfectly reasonable way to make certain that Katara couldn't sneak off on her own again.

"What are we gonna say if Katara turns around and sees us right away?" Aang hissed. "She'll be angry if she finds out that we spied on her."

A scoff. "First of all, this isn't spying. It's—surveillance. You know, for safety. And there's no way she's going to spot us. We're going to keep our distance, and you are going to hide behind me." He gave Aang a slight shove and shifted in front of him. Seriously, why hadn't they found some proper Water Tribe clothes for the kid yet? He stuck out way too much.

"Yeah, but if she does—"

"Then we're just out for an evening walk. There's no rule against that." Sokka heard the door start to open, and he spun on the spot, clapping a hand over Aang's mouth. "Shh," he hissed.

Aang yanked his head back. "Hey, I wasn't the one who was—"

"I said shh!" Sokka craned his neck back just in time to see Katara emerge into the street. Ha. They had her. She wasn't going to sneak away this time.

Holding a finger to his lips, Sokka motioned for Aang to follow. He didn't appreciate the eyeroll that Aang sent his way, but he wasn't going to stop to linger on that. Sokka was going to be the bigger person. At least for now.

Besides, they had to move fast if they were going to keep up with Katara. She was clearly in a rush and trying to be sneaky, pulling her hood up to partially conceal her face. Unfortunately for her, Sokka was much sneakier, and much too smart to be tricked by ridiculous lies about mitten searches and early morning bending practice.

He doubted himself for just a moment or two when they drew toward the house—maybe she was going home after all—but then Katara looked furtively up and down the street. Sokka ducked around a corner just in time to stay out of sight, dragging Aang along behind him. And when he poked his head back out again, she had darted past the house and was making her way hastily down the street.

"We've got her," Sokka whispered, squeezing Aang's shoulder. "She's definitely up to something funny. Come on."

"That would be a lot easier if you let go of me," Aang hissed back, wriggling until Sokka released him.

"And that attitude isn't helping us either," Sokka replied. But he did release his grip and step out into the street, then broke into a run.

Between Sokka's long stride and Aang's habit of boosting his own speed with airbending, they made up the distance quickly. Katara seemed to stiffen as they approached, and Sokka snagged her by the shoulder.

"Hey, Katara."

She shrieked and spun on the spot, swatting his hand away. Then, "Sokka? What are you trying to do, you big jerk? You scared me."

"Yeah? Well, I could say the same to you." He paused. Wait. There was something wrong with that. "The question part, not the scared part."

Crossing her arms, she glared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Where do you think you're going, Katara?"

"I—" She huffed, then tossed her arms out to the sides. "Home, okay? I'm just walking back to the house after healing lessons. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Yeah, actually I do," Sokka snapped. He pointed vaguely back in the direction of the house. "Aang and I watched you walk right past the house."

She looked back and forth between Sokka and Aang, mouth opening and closing. "I—I don't—" She made an infuriated little noise. "So what, now it's a crime to forget what I'm doing and walk a little too far?"

"Katara, we saw you stop in front of the house and look around," Aang chimed in. "We know you're going someplace else. We just want to make sure everything is okay."

Sokka shot a quick glare at Aang. He made it sound like it was okay if Katara didn't tell them the truth. Which was very much not the case. They had to know what was going on.

And exactly as Sokka expected, that was the part that Katara chose to listen to. "Everything is fine, Aang."

"No, it's not." Sokka crossed his arms and stood as tall as he possibly could. "It's not fine, Katara. Remember the last time you lied to us?"

"You mean the last time you assumed that there was something wrong with me? Yeah, I remember that. Vividly."

"Then you remember how bad things went because you didn't want to say what happened."

"No, I remember how badly things went because you wouldn't stop bothering me before I was ready to talk about it."

Sokka scowled. Sure, maybe she'd ultimately blown up because he'd kept nagging her for details, but he still stood by his own decision. If he hadn't badgered her for the truth, then they might never have figured it out. And none of his assumptions had been the least bit unreasonable. A bunch of firebenders could have done terrible things to her in the time that she was gone.

"Well, I seem to remember that we all promised to stop lying to each other after that," Sokka said. "Now you're doing it again. You can't expect me to be okay with that."

Katara's scowl deepened. "One day. That's all I'm asking. Just let it drop for one day, and I'll tell you both what's going on. Is that so hard? I'm just trying to make it so that you don't have to freak out for no reason."

He shook his head. "Nice try. Not gonna happen. If we have to take turns following you around until we figure it out, we will." He jabbed Aang with his elbow. "Right, Aang?"

"Oh. Um—I guess so." He didn't sound enthusiastic about the prospect.

"Fine, then. I'll do it myself if Aang doesn't want to help. Point is, if you're not going to tell us what's going on, I'm going to annoy you for every waking minute until you give up."

Katara opened and closed her mouth a few times. "Wow, that's really mature, Sokka."

"Who said that I was trying to be mature? Now spill it or brace yourself for weeks of annoyance."

She pressed her mouth into a tight line. "If I tell you, will you promise to stop being a pain for a week?"

"Please. As if I would ever be a pain on purpose."

"Sokka."

"Fine. A week off from deliberately annoying you."

"And," Katara added, "You both have to promise not to freak out or to tell anyone. Break that promise, and I'll shove you into a sleeping bag and sew it shut."

"I promise," Aang answered quickly, almost eagerly.

Sokka glared, though. That wasn't how this was supposed to work. She'd been caught lying. What made her think that she was allowed to make demands like that?

"Come on, Sokka," Aang said, nudging him. "Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll be able to handle it between the three of us."

"Ugh, fine."

"Good." Katara turned away.

"Hey, wait." Sokka jogged after her. "You have to tell us—"

"Not here. Besides, it's probably better if I show you. Now shut up and follow me, would you?"

Frowning, he jogged until he caught up with her. He wasn't sure that he liked this new arrangement any better than just not knowing. Especially since she kept checking over her shoulder like she was afraid that someone would follow them. If this was a big enough deal that being followed was even a possibility, then it had to be bad. Really bad.

Katara led them further down the street, further from the center of the city, until they left the houses behind them and climbed a short incline before dropping back down to a huge frozen lake.

Aang perked up. "So you were telling the truth about coming to Isux Lake for practice this morning."

It was getting harder to see in the growing dark, but Sokka thought he could see Katara frown.

"I came here, anyway," she said. "I didn't really practice my waterbending. At least not much." She sighed, then motioned for both of them to stop. "Let me go first."

"How come?" Sokka demanded.

"Because if you follow me right away, then you're going to freak out, and I'll have to sew you up inside of a sleeping bag, that's why." With that, she marched off across the ice.

Rolling his eyes, Sokka followed a few paces behind her. There was no way he was just going to wait at the edge of the lake for her to decide when she was ready to explain herself. He'd give her a head start of ten paces, no more than that.

About halfway across the lake, Katara stopped short, and Sokka halted too. She looked downward into what appeared to be a decently large pit. "You know, the whole idea with mittens is to keep them on your hands, right?"

There was a pause, then from the bottom of the pit, a very grumpy voice answered, "Excuse me for not having dainty little girl hands to fit into your tiny mittens."

Wait. Sokka was pretty sure he knew that voice.

"Then you can't blame me when all your fingers fall off," Katara said.

A low, incoherent grumble, and then the voice from the pit replied, "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Hmm. Nope. Not a thing."

The muttering that came in response was positively unmistakable. Sokka ran forward, barely managing to keep himself from skidding straight into the pit. He righted himself at the very last second and took a good, long look at the person who waited at the bottom.

"No way. There's no fucking way."


Author's Note:

I love writing all of these kids so, so much! They're all such a perfect blend of genius and utter dumbassery that I just have to smile whenever I'm working on this fic.

We'll be getting into a lot more actual communication next time around, so I'm not going to say much more than that. I hope you enjoyed today's chapter, and I'll see you back here next week! As always, reviews are very much appreciated!