DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor have any rights to, the content, characters, or story of Avatar: the Last Airbender. The story depicted herein is a re-imagining of the story, and has no ties to the owners, writers and creators of the show.

Aang wasn't getting better.

After eating as much as she could and sleeping for several hours, Katara had woken and immediately went to check on Aang. His back looked just as raw and damaged as it had the day before, and he was shivering on his pallet, covered in sweat. Katara sighed in frustration and left the tent to retrieve some water - she had used all that was in the pots during their session yesterday.

Stepping into the sunlight, she looked around their camp, her eyes squinting until they adjusted. Her initial reaction was surprise: all the bustling activity from the day before had calmed, and there were barely any warriors out. Those that were had gathered into small groups to make new clubs, sharpen weapons and fill massive skin barrels with what looked like jelly.

As curious as she was, Katara decided not to pursue it - Aang needed her right now. She walked down the beach to the waterfront, feeling the ebb and flow of the waves drawing her to them. Setting down the pots, she morphed into her bending form. She barely had to concentrate to carefully separate the water from the salt that infused it, and then casually guide the now-clean water into the pots.

Sometimes it was hard for her to remember how much of a struggle bending had been just a year ago. She had always been good at concentration, but doing something without actually doing something had always been difficult. And yet, Master Pakku had said that he had never had such a gifted student - a statement which still brought a smile to her face when she thought of it. If only I had a teacher like that in the South Pole.

Bringing the jugs back to the tent was a whole other matter. Katara struggled under both the weight of the now-filled pots, as well as the sloshing of the liquid inside that threatened to over balance her.

She was able to get one jug to the mouth of Aang's tent, then went back to the waterfront, stretching her stiff shoulders on the way. She paused before lifting the second jug, almost tipping backwards before finding her footing and proceeding back towards the tent.

About a quarter of the way there, she misplaced her foot; instead of the steady uphill angle as before, she stepped into a hole in the sand, probably made by her on her previous trip. She tried to correct herself, and ended up falling backwards.

A strong pair of arms surrounded her, steadying her and returning her upright. Katara, mildly dizzy from the sudden correction, looked to see Zuko standing next to her, his arms still outstretched. His close proximity brought Katara back to the Crystal Cave - him warmth surrounding her - Aang, dead in her arms -

"Zuko!" she exclaimed, shuffling away from him. The sand, already disturbed, now seemed intent on tripping her.

He dropped his arms and backed away himself.

"Thought you could use some help," he said to the pot, tensing his shoulders.

She huffed, frustrated at her clumsiness. "I did - thank you."

He glanced at her eyes briefly, then looked back at the pot. He paused for a moment, then said, "Need a hand with that?"

"Oh! Um," she hesitated, ready to say that she could handle it. But the thought of not carrying this pot for one more second was far too tempting; her shoulders shuddered with the thought of another hundred feet of weight.

"Yes," she finally said, her pride tempered for the moment. "Please."

Zuko instantly reached out for the jug, and Katara happily handed it over. She noticed that he had much less difficulty adjusting to the weight than she did. Mildly put out, she promised herself that after Aang was healed, she would do 15 lotus crunches a day.

"After you," Zuko said, looking at her expectantly. She nodded, and started off towards Aang's tent.

Once they reached the entrance, Zuko asked, "Would you like this inside?"

"Please," Katara responded, eyeing the first jug that she left by the entrance. "At the foot of the mat, if you can."

Zuko entered the tent, pushing open the entrance with his shoulder, as Katara squatted down to grab the other jug. Heaving, and making every effort to be silent about it, she followed after Zuko.

Inside, nothing had changed: Aang still lay on his stomach, his head turned away from her, and the lamp was burning low by his head. Zuko had set the jug down by Aang's feet, within easy reach of her bending, and had stepped back, staring at the limp body before him. Katara set her jug down next to his, and straightened out, stretching her back.

"Thank you," she said quietly, looking over at Zuko.

His eyes shifted to hers, and he gave a small nod. He slowly looked back at Aang, and silence fell in the tent.

Katara realized that this was the first time the two of them had been alone since they left the catacombs. Her eyes traveled over to examine him; he looked well, all things considered. He had cleaned his clothing in the time that they had been here, and had scrubbed off the various dirt and debris from their battle.

He seemed different now, standing before her. While they were prisoners in the caves, he had seemed tense, angry, and full of sadness and loathing. Now, though…he seemed to have found a modicum of peace, as if he was finally letting go of his anger.

We've been fighting him for so long…I wonder what it's going to be like, having him on our side.

Zuko must have felt her eyes, as he began speaking.

"Three years of my life," he began, his voice soft in the dim light of the tent. "I spent three years of my life trying to redeem my honor. Three years of traveling the world searching for him." Katara glanced at the sleeping boy before them, then looked back at Zuko as he continued. "So much of my world was about anger - anger at myself, for my disrespect. Anger at Uncle, for following me on my quest. Anger at the Avatar, for daring to elude me all those years."

Katara was surprised; it seems like they had been thinking the same thing. We have more in common than I realized.

Zuko closed his eyes, his arms taut at his sides. Katara saw his hands clench, and just then realized how warm the tent was getting. He breathed in deeply, then breathed out slowly. After a moment, his hands unclenched, and he sighed, opening his eyes to meet hers.

"Thank you for giving me a chance to redeem myself," he said, his face open and honest. "Thank you for letting me try to right the wrongs of my past…of my country's past."

Katara raised her eyebrows, amazed at the turn the conversation had taken. She had never considered it a kindness, what she had offered him; she knew that either way he had gone, they would still be fighting a war. There would still be battles, injuries, and death on both sides. But, looking at their conversation in a new light, she saw this for what he must have seen: the Avatar and his friends offering him a chance to make up for the sins of his past.

"Zuko," she said, still unaccustomed to addressing him directly. "You are here because you want to fix things. Not just for yourself, but for the whole world. We aren't holding you accountable for the things you did. Well," she glanced down, thinking about Kyoshi island burning, her necklace torn from her neck, the North Pole in flames. "Most things."

His eyes had closed, and his face had scrunched in sadness at her words. Katara saw this, and knew that this wasn't what she was trying to say.

"But that's not the point!" she interjected, causing him to look at her again. "The point is that we need to end this war. We need to stop all of this fighting, and allow the nations to move forward in peace. That's why we're here." She paused, and gave him a soft smile. " And you're welcome here if you want the same thing. You don't have to prove yourself to me - you already did."

He stared at her, his amber eyes wide. Then, a small smile came across his face. Katara had never seen him smile; it altered everything about his appearance, and changed him from a sullen, dark cloud to a warm, sunny day.

"Thank you," he whispered, his eyes drifting down to the floor. Katara smiled, and they both drifted off into a peaceful silence.

You always have a chance.

Katara smiled slightly at the recollection of yesterday's events - could it have only been one day since their talk? One day since they had finally seen eye to eye? One day since Aang…

After a moment, she shifted, and felt Zuko's eyes on her again and she stretched upwards.

"I had better do another healing session," she said, looking down at the boy before her. Sometime during her and Zuko's conversation, Aang had begun twitching either in pain or from his dreams. Based on the amount of swelling that had happened around his wound, it was most likely pain.

"Ok," Zuko responded, looking again at Aang's limp form. "I'll let your brother know that you're awake; he was wanting to talk to you."

She nodded without looking at Zuko, already moving forward and calling the fresh, cool water onto her hands. As she bent the streams onto Aang's back, she distantly heard the mouth of the tent rustle as Zuko left.

Once again, Katara lost herself in the gentle, calming flow of healing. Instead of general healing, like she had done earlier, she instead decided to focus on the areas with the most damage. Feeling her essence inhabiting the water, she guided it into the seams of the wound, gently expanding the liquid around and through the deepest point of the injury.

As she wove in and out of the tattered skin and muscle, she was shocked at the amount of damage she encountered. The nerves that had previously stretched across his back had become jared and coarse, each of them showing some damage from the lightning blast. Some of them had died completely, and had left long, thin lines painting his back.

Katara reached deep into the soft tissue of Aang's back, and began coaxing the body through the slow, steady process of healing. Each dead nerve was calmly absorbed into the surrounding tissue, and then manipulated to create new nerves to take over the empty space. Nerve endings that had previously been fried and deadened were meticulously realigned and strengthened.

Katara knew that she shouldn't focus on the nerves too extensively; while not fixing the damage soon could have a lasting impact on Aang's agility, she also knew that healing too many of them at once could cause more pain to become apparent, and would slow the overall healing process even further.

Water-Katara turned her attention to the musculature, and began her process anew there. The lightning had struck the exact center of Aang's back, nearly severing the tendons and sinews on the top from those on the bottom. Working her way around the edges, she made gentle, soothing passes from one side to another, guiding the flesh back into its previous position.

As she made another pass from right to left, her mind was brought back into her body by a gentle hand placed on her shoulder. She opened her eyes, blinking in the sudden light, and let her eyes adjust before looking over her shoulder.

Sokka stood there, watching her work. He was carrying a small bundle of scrolls, and looked about as tired as she meeting her eyes, he nodded and whispered, "Can that wait a minute? We need to talk."

Withdrawing the water from Aang's still-unconscious form, she nodded. After winding the water stream back into the pot, she slowly rose to her feet, allowing her own muscles to contract and stretch. Ever since she had taken her Healer training in the North, she was almost hyper-aware of her body and all the parts within it. Now that they had names, locations, functions, she understood just how complex everything was - and how easy it was to break.

She followed Sokka out into the sun, shielding her eyes against the ocean glare. Some time had passed while she was healing, but it wasn't nearly as long as it had been before.

"So," Sokka began, walking a few paces from the tent then turning to face her. "We have a plan."

"What?" she said, trying to focus on her brother's words. "What do you mean?"

Sokka dropped to his knees, and began laying out the scrolls as he continued.

"While you were sleeping, Dad gathered everyone together in the big tent. We went over our options, and after some helpful input from Zuko, we figured out our next steps in the War."

Katara blinked down at her brother, her mind jumbled. They made a plan…without me?

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asked, her anger rising to the surface. "I could have helped!"

"I know that!" Sokka said, looking up at her. "But Dad called the meeting, and told me not to bother you. I thought I would hear what he had to say, and talk to you later, but too many things happened at once." He puffed up his chest indignantly. "It's not like I was trying to keep you out!"

"I know," she said placatingly, her anger fading just as quickly as it came. She sat down next to him, making her next words more kind. "I'm just used to being a part of things, is all."

"Yeah, I know," her brother said, effectively ending their little spat. "But believe me, we are in really good shape. After our meeting, we realized that we have a few disadvantages to our old plan, but even better advantages."

"What's wrong with the old plan?" she asked, looking down at his scrolls.

"I'm getting to that!" Sokka said, shuffling his papers. Katara had to tamper her exasperation; Sokka had a thing about presentations.

She waited as he finished aligning the scrolls, then looked up at her and began his pitch.

"Our old plan was fairly simple: train and utilize the Earth Kingdom army to do a multi-faceted attack across the entire Fire Nation army on the Day of Black Sun."

That doesn't sound simple, but ok. Sokka, ignorant of her internal response, continued.

"Well, we have a few problems with that now. Problem one: no Earth Kingdom army. We are now down by about 50,000 troops that would have fought with us. Problem two: no Earth Kingdom. With Azula having taken power, and the Dai Li shuffling out anyone who would have fought against her, the Earth Kingdom is effectively out of the game."

He paused, and both of them sat in silence, thinking about what a massive blow that was to the war effort.

"And," Sokka continued, trying to keep his momentum going, "We also found out another interesting thing during the meeting: the Fire Nation knows about the Day of Black Sun."

"What?!" Katara exclaimed, completely thrown by this revelation. "How?"

"Azula," Sokka said, his face now lined with frustration. "While she was impersonating the Kyoshi Warriors, she was able to get King Kuei to tell her about our plans. No doubt that she has already sent word to the Firelord. So basically, we're doomed."

Katara struggled to wrap her head around this news. She had been working so hard to coordinate between all the generals, and had worked closely with them to refine the smaller details. It was hard for her to think that all of this was for naught.

"But," Sokka said, a gleam in his eye. "We still have a few tricks up our sleeve."

Sokka reached down and gestured to the scroll open in front of them. This page had a standard map of the world, with the territories lined in the colors they were associated with: Watertribe land, Fire Nation territories and occupied lands, and Earth Kingdom land.

"First off," Sokka began, "We have the Southern Water Tribe army with us. While we had planned for this before, it's good to confirm the numbers."

Katara nodded, encouraging her brother to continue.

"Next, we have our very own Fire Nation insider." Sokka gestured over towards the central fire pit, and Katara looked over to see Zuko working on starting the fire. She continued to look at the young man as Sokka said, "Zuko has agreed to give us a full layout of the capital city, as well as something called the Caldera?"

Katara looked back at Sokka as he shrugged. "Apparently, it's the name of the location in the center of their capital that houses the Royal Palace. Zuko said that there are miles of tunnels stretching from the edges of the city, right up into the heart of this Caldera thing. Which could definitely come in handy."

Katara had never heard of a caldera before, but shook her head as Sokka moved on.

"We also have a secret weapon," He said, catching Katara's interest. "We had a few scouts go to the local villages in the area. According to them, word has been spreading across the countryside that not only did the Earth King fall to an invasion by the Fire Nation, but that Azula killed the Avatar."

Katara was surprised that the news had spread so quickly. But, after waiting for 100 years for the Avatar to return and save them, people were bound to talk about his actions.

"Now that you know the basics," Sokka said, pulling out another scroll from his pile. "Let's talk strategy. With a lot of things being different from our original plan, we've decided on a modi-"

A low horn echoed around the rock face of their small cove, cutting off Sokka's words. Knowing the alarm sound for what it was, the two siblings instantly leapt to their feet, looking towards the origin of the sound.

A lone scout, perched on top of the highest cliff nearby, blew his horn again. Another figure was quickly climbing his way down the cliff face, and a crowd was gathering at the base. Katara and Sokka raced towards the group, their scrolls left forgotten.

When they arrived at the foot, the man had just reached the ground and was panting from his quick descent. The waiting crowd was agitated, trying to be respectful but wanting to act.

As Hakoda emerged from the crowd, the man spoke.

"Fire navy ships… are approaching," he panted, still breathless. "At least… a dozen are headed through the bay… towards Ba Sing Se."

The warriors reacted as expected; muttering broke out, and many turned to Hakoda to see what their chief wanted to do.

"How long until they get near enough to see us?" He asked, his strong voice cutting through the crowd.

"Not long," the scout said, straightening to look at Hakoda. "We have about 10 minutes, max. At that point their own scouts will be able to see our masts."

Hakoda nodded, and rubbed his gristly cheek in contemplation. After a moment, he called out to the surrounding Water Tribe warriors.

"We can't let the Fire Navy see us, or it will cause more trouble than we need right now," he began, looking out at the gathered crowd. "Since we can't completely disguise our ships, we have to tear them apart; take down the sails, roll them to their sides, maybe put one or two holes in their hulls. If they look abandoned, we might be able to escape their notice."

The warriors nodded, and started running off towards the boats. Hakoda gestured to a smaller group that had stayed behind, and gave them their orders.

"I need you to all go and tear down the tents, and hide them," Hakoda said, going from man to man and giving them orders. "Unnuk, take Sokka and gather all the weapons you can find. Don't bother with the boomerangs or torches, we only need spears and clubs."

"Dad," Katara began, trying to push around each man as they exited to complete their task.

Hakoda ignored her, turning to Harrik and telling him where to stash their food supplies.

"Dad!"

Hokoda stopped, and abruptly turned his gaze on Katara.

"I don't have time, Katara, we have too much to -" he began.

"If you would listen," she said pointedly, cutting him off. "I was going to tell you that you don't have to do anything; I can take care of it."

Hakoda blinked, and looked down at his daughter.

"Katara," he started. "I know you're a bender, but you can't take on a full Fire Navy ship by yourself, let alone a dozen. Just let us handle it."

Her mouth dropped open as he turned away from her again. How DARE he dismiss me like that! White hot rage burned inside her, and she lunged forward. Grabbing her father by the arm, she forcefully turned him around to stare at her blazing eyes.

"You will listen to me, and stop trying to tell me what to do!" Her shouting drew stares and gasps from the warriors still around them. Her father looked down at her, at a loss for words. He watched her as she stood straight, dusted the sand off her dress, and stared him down.

"Now," she said calmly, her voice tight, "Tell your men to get off the beach and out of the water. The visibility will be bad enough, and I don't want to have anyone get in the way."

Without another word, she turned and marched down towards the surf. She heard nothing from her father, or the other men, as she walked away, and she was frankly too peeved to care. She started taking deep, calming breaths of the ocean air, knowing that this would take a lot of strength to maintain.

Reaching the water, she continued into the waves, allowing the water to come to mid calf before she stopped. Closing her eyes, she reached out into the air, feeling the water underneath her, around her, within her. She took another steadying breath, then stepped forward. Dipping her body low, she extended her mind into the waves below her, and coaxed them to change form, to follow her guidance. As it had been since she trained, the water happily responded, and followed her movements as she guided it into the sky above. The droplets left the ocean, and flung themselves into the air, to dance and be free among the wind.

"Katara…"

She heard a voice behind her, and allowed a small part of her mind to identify the voice - her father. Her mind was with the water in the air, but her voice acted of its own accord.

"Tell a sentry to go towards the eastern hills. When the ship passes their point, I'll drop the fog."

She heard nothing, and resigned herself to her work, just as a gentle hand was placed on her shoulder.

"Your mother would be so proud."

A single tear, the only water she couldn't bend to her will, rolled down her cheek, as her father's footsteps receded into the sand.