I know it's short and probably not as good as other chapters. I'm really sorry, I hope you guys aren't disappointed.

Tension coiled around the room, a viper with its fangs poised to sink poison into all of them. Lien stared at Jet, her gold eyes clashing sharply with his brown, waiting, waiting, waiting for her stomach to be reopened for him to swing a hook and take her eye out.

She could see Jet's jaw working, his mouth twisted unpleasantly downwards.

"Is this why you were talking about bastards when we first met?"

Lien dipped her head. She dared not look away from Jet. Her arms were stinging with the burns she had inflicted upon herself. Her skin itched under the intensity of his stare.

"Your mom," he started, then stopped, and all at once the tension left his shoulders and drained the rest of the room. "Oh."

Lien ran her tongue over her teeth. "Yeah."

"So. Are we, um. Okay?" where was all her wisdom now? Her eloquence? Fuck.

"No," Jet said frankly. "You're a firebender. I think I hate you."

"Oh."

Thus concluded the most awkward conversation she had ever had in her goddamn life. Either of them. She could give credit where it was due, Jet was honest. Even if it made her feel like puking.

Bee and Long Shot were staring at her, then at Jet, like they didn't know who to side with. She didn't blame them.

Lien folded her hands in front of her and tried to pretend she coudln't feel her heart threatening fall right out of her chest.

Strength through insurance, she reminded herself. Endure. You are Gansu.

And so she was.

"We should go get Appa before sun up," she said at length. Lien dropped her golden eyes and struggled to shove her budding pain as far away as she could get it, burying it in sand.

In its place, hysteria threatened to bubble up. Lien didn't let herself start laughing. She knew if she did, she'd never stop. Her secret was finally out to Jet and Bee and Long Shot and while no one had stabbed her yet, she was certain that the relationship between them had shattered.

Instead she looked across the room, away from Jet and Bee and long lost Long Shot and she finds blank eyes staring back. They can't see but Lien finds a startling softeness in them. That, at least made her smile. Even if Jet was done with her, he wasn't all she had. She may have lost some, but she was not alone.

Toph had waited for her when she left. She had lost sleep to say goodbye.

Sokka had stayed with her while she healed, held her when she woke and laid her back to sleep.

Iroh had played with her and offered her comfort when he knew only her name.

Lien stood up and fetched her hair tie, for once tying her long hair out of her face in a vicious bun. She breathed in and out. She was starting to feel lighter. Or maybe just lightheaded. She had never merged her chi so totally with another persons before and the end result left her feeling draining and full of energy in turn. Her mind swirled with new possibilities.

Lien cracked her neck from side to side. Something occurred to her and she looked back at the others, ignoring Jet's eyes and the intensity in Bee' couldn't tell, for all her wisdom, what the smaller girl actually thought.

"Does anyone actually know where Lake Laogai is?"

Stillness fell across the room.

"I never said we were going to Lake Laogai," Jet said, shifting further away from her. "What, did that let you read my mind or something?"

"...I heard you say it," she pressed her lips into a line and prayed she didn't look too guilty. It wasn't really a lie, so maybe Toph wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't the whole truth either?

"Is she right?" Aang asked, finally getting them back on track. Jet nodded slowly, his eyes locked on Lien's. She managed not to squirm where she was. Sometimes, she wished she could forget everything she'd known. It might make things easier. It might get her in less trouble.

"Yeah," he said at length. "I was under Lake Laogai. There's a facility the Dai Lee took me too. I don't think I was the only one there, either."

"Alright," Aang's young face fell into a grim line, determination setting his jaw. "Let's go."

Lien would be lying if she said she was looking forward to what was coming. Her stomach was in knots, and her heart was flip flopping and for a dead girl she was remarkably unwilling to let someone else die. She felt like a real teenager and she Did Not Like It.

She tracked behind the others as they hiked out to the edge of the city, out into grass and stone and fresh air. They had to be quick, they had to be quiet. They had to not get caught, not get noticed by the black ops that were trained to tail them.

Lien was fast and as silent as she could manage. They all were, shadows in the night, none more so than the three freedom fighters that lead the way through the lower rings and out into the Agregrarian zone. Lien did her best to keep herself steady through the whole things. Her fingers itched for a pendant that she had never worn and her blood rushed hot and burning through her veins.

She could smell the grass that was crushed under foot, the crispness of the air that swept around her from the lake when the group came to a stop in front of it. She had spent so long in a concrete jungle, and then in a barren desert she had totally forgotten what they smelled like. Now, she took a moment to relish in the life that flourished around them.

She hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Jet the entire time they'd been coming. She wanted to reach out and touch him. She wanted to beg his forgiveness even when she had done nothing to forgive. She wanted to tell him to run and never look back before he died.

She knew Jet well enough to know that even if she told him the whole truth he would never back down from a fight, and no one could make him back down when he set his mind to what he was going to do. And he was going to help the Avatar.

So she had no choice but to watch his back in suffering silence.

Lien took up the back, her foot falls quiet. The slippers on her feet muffle the sound in the way thick soled shoes wouldn't. Jet and his move silently regardless. Even their weapons don't so much as click as they rush through the tunnels, by passing the Joo Dee's. Lien felt a brief coil of pity for them, but there was nothing she could do about it so she walked in with the others.

"I think there's a room up ahead where Appa can fit," Jet said and the group rushed forwards. Lien ran at their back but her feet slowed, stumbling, until she stood outside the room. Her hands shook. Fire licked under her skin, threatening to swallow her whole. The head buzzed up between her ears. All she could hear was the voice of Long Feng. She stood on the cusp of the darkness.

The buzzing got louder and louder.

Aang and Jet ran and as soon as they moved something overtook Lien's body. Flames shot behind her feet, the hot air shoving her forwards until she almost fell on her face with the new speed that launched her forwards. It was that same as her Sailer, but she'd never done it to herself before. The power rushed through her. The air whipped around her ears.

Sokka shouted something at her back but she wasn't listening.

She crossed the threshold with barely a second to spare. She navigated by her senses, the feeling of the heat of bodies around her. The sense was a feign memory, one from the dream she hadn't been able to truly forget. It was something she might have had, before.

It was something she didn't actually have here. Not yet. The Fire Within, was it real?

The fire without roared away from her hands, tearing across the tiled floor. Long Feng managed to block it, but the stone he lifted was so hot it turned red and started to melt. Lien let out a breath. Her fingers twitched. The fire around her fingers grew, red turning orange, blue, and finally settling on a blinding white.

"If you leave now," he spoke calming, despite the danger that he faced, "I will drop all charges."

"You don't have any room to make demands!" Aang shouted, his voice thrown off by the walls around them. Water rushed. Lien's heart beat harder. It was so cold. Why was it so cold?

"Don't I? Jet, the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."

Lien tensed. She didn't know what she would do. The fire inside of her seemed to have an idea. But, Jet didn't so much as twitch.

"The Earth King can stuff it!" Jet barked. Long Feng jerked, shock coloring his face. Aang rushed him first, wind whirling around his staff. Long Feng countered with the earth, and Jet rushed in after him. He threw his hook, tearing across the earth after it.

Lien saw it coming. Despite what had changed, she could see what was about to happen. It was cold, so cold no matter how hot the fire around her got. She couldn't heart her heart anymore.

I have to do something.

She saw the earth wall rise.

I have to do something.

She saw it move towards Jet.

I have to do something.

She thought of the hot air that twisted around her. Jet's wild hair billowed and he stumbled, skin blistering as it buffered out in front of him between the rock and the hard place.

I have to do something.

She breathed in and lifted her hand. The stone moved closer. It inched across the ground for an eternity. Her arm wouldn't move up faster. She wasn't going to make it.

'She took a breath, and imagine smoke rising from the cloaks. Imagined the temperature rising. Imagined their clothes igniting.

The explosion rocked the earth, and send bodies flying all over the place. Kiyi screamed, giving away their position, and arrows came flying towards them. Lien grabbed her hand and pulled her into the darkness, running, running. '

She swept her other arm up. Too slow, too slow, the world was too slow. She pointed her fingers and thought of Azula. She shoved the energy in her body out.

I have to do something.

She did.