For a moment Iroh was completely disoriented. He was in a very soft and unfamiliar bed in a small room with pale yellow walls and blue-and-white flowered curtains. A thick quilt, patterned with the same blue flowers as the curtains, was bunched up around him. I'm being smothered in a fancy teacup, he thought distractedly, still half asleep.
He shook his head and his surroundings slowly came back to him. He was in one of the spare bedrooms at Katara's house. At her insistence he'd gone to get some rest and had almost immediately fallen deeply asleep. He thought he'd heard something banging, but if so it seemed to have stopped. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, but based on how groggy he was it must have been a couple of hours at least.
Iroh sat up and almost regretted it. His whole body felt stiff and sore. Katara had been able to heal the worst of his injuries with her waterbending, including his shin and a nasty cut on his head from where he'd head-butted Aunroch, but his arms ached from the hours he'd had them cuffed behind his back. He looked down at himself and grimaced. His right arm and shoulder were a mass of black and purple bruises—they had probably taken his full weight when he fell. An angry red scrape from where he'd skidded in the dirt started on his hip and disappeared into his shorts. He'd had far worse, but it wasn't pretty.
Iroh's head snapped up at the sound of a commotion in the hallway. At least two voices, talking fast. He dressed in a hurry and quietly opened the door. No one was in the hall. He stopped to listen and heard faint voices that now sounded like they were coming from outside the house.
He crept down the hallway just in time to see the front door open. To his surprise Asami stumbled in, supporting a large man on one shoulder. After a moment Iroh recognized Chief Tonraq, whom he'd met a few times as a child and then once shortly after his promotion to general. Iroh rushed forward and put a shoulder—thankfully his unbruised one—under Tonraq's other arm and began helping him into the house.
"I've got him," he said to Asami, taking Tonraq's weight himself. He was very heavy. Asami flashed him a grateful smile and moved aside. Iroh half walked, half carried Tonraq back down the hall that he had come from to another one of the bedrooms. Katara herself had gone ahead and opened the door. She gestured to the bed, and Iroh lowered Tonraq onto the edge. He sat heavily and grunted, clearly in pain. Katara nodded to Iroh. "Thank you, dear. I'll take it from here." Iroh left the room and closed the door softly behind him.
He'd barely gone two steps when something soft hurtled into him. Asami wrapped her arms around him in a swift hug. "Oh thank goodness," she breathed. Iroh winced without thinking as she squeezed his arm.
"Oh! Sorry." Asami dropped her arms and backed up, looking a tad embarrassed. "I didn't mean to, it's just that we didn't see you at the spirit portal and I thought… I didn't know what to think."
"I'm fine," he said, cursing his own reactions. For the most part, the hug had felt nice.
She looked at him appraisingly. "You look terrible."
"You too," he said, and smiled. In truth, she didn't look terrible at all, but it was clear that she had seen at least some action. She had a long scratch on one cheek and had the wide-eyed, staring look of someone who had gone too long without sleep.
To his surprise, Asami burst out laughing. "Look at us," she said. "Some survivors." A few black locks had fallen out of her ponytail, and she pushed them back out of her face.
"For now," said Iroh. He gestured to the kitchen. "Go sit down. Give me a minute and I'll make you some tea. I want to hear everything."
Iroh looked in the mirror of the tiny bathroom and took stock. Asami was right. His hair stuck up at all angles from where he'd slept on it. The bruises on his arm were clearly visible before disappearing up under his sleeve. There was a small crust of blood under his hairline from where he'd cut his head on Aunroch's teeth, and both his wrists were red and raw. He looked dirty and tired.
I wonder if pretty-boy Mako ever took a hit in a real fight, he thought, and was instantly ashamed of himself. He had nothing against the man personally, and knew that Mako had done his share in the battle against Amon last year. Hell, the guy was a cop now, and probably put his life on the line on a regular basis. The fact that he seemed to be using Asami as some kind of side piece, or at least stringing her along, was none of Iroh's business. Especially if all that he could offer as an alternative looked like something that had been dragged five miles behind a Satomobile.
Iroh sighed, then washed up as best he could. He needed to find out what had happened to Asami and the rest of the group and then plan his next move. He had a sinking feeling that time was running out.