Zuko was in a meeting with his advisors when Aang's message arrived. His agricultural minister was livid at the idea of his farming reports interrupted by the Fire Lord reading his mail. Zuko didn't care about angering the man as he dismissed his entire staff from the room and reread Aang's message.

Azula was alive and in the Earth Kingdom.

He called for his personal airship to be readied and practically ran out of the throne room to his study. He wrote a quick message to his mother and another to his council members.

"What's so important that you need to leave the country right this minute?" Suki stepped into his office and sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

"Aang found Azula, but she got away. Her last known whereabouts are the Northern Air Temple. This is the closest we've been to finding her in three years."

"I don't want to be pessimistic here, Zuko, but… she already escaped Aang and Katara," Suki leaned forward, "I'm sure that Aang has it all under control. You don't need to stop everything and go there."

His hopes fell, Suki's realism managed to get through his excitement. "I should try though. It's my fault she escaped. I'm the one that let her out of the asylum. And I would never forgive myself if someone else got hurt trying to bring her in."

"If that's how you really feel, then we're bringing Ty Lee along too. Spirits, I'd call Mai as well if you two were on speaking terms." Suki stood, straightening out her armor. "What are you going to do if you actually find her?"

He opened his mouth then shut it, considering the question carefully. "I don't know. I guess I just need to talk to her."

He didn't meet Suki's eyes as she watched him fidget. For some reason, his bodyguard always knew how to make him feel like a nervous teenager.

"I'll make sure Ty Lee is ready," she said and left his office.

He sunk back into his chair, slumping down until he could just barely see the top of his massive desk. What in Agni's name was he going to do with Azula? He wracked his brain to try to think of why she would be all the way at the Northern Air Temple. Though he supposed it was far enough away from the Fire Nation, but there were people living there? Surely they would know of the princess.

"All this speculation is pointless. You need answers. So get up. Get a bag packed and get on that airship." He stood up, nearly knocking the high backed chair over in the process and went to do just that.

After an agonizing three-day airship ride to Northern Temple, Zuko was back on solid ground. Ty Lee and Suki flanked him, in their Kyoshi Warrior armor and makeup, as he approached the temple's bridge with a confidence he did not feel.

"Zuko!"

Upon hearing his name, Zuko looked up to see Aang circling above on his glider. Strangely enough, the sky was empty. Wasn't this the place where the civilians used gliders to get around?

"Aang. Good to see you. Well, not really, but… you know what I mean," Zuko stumbled, grateful that this wasn't a public event. "What's going on?"

"Azula was living here. Teo helped her escape when Katara and I recognized her. Teo is in… custody until you and the Earth Kingdom representatives decide if assisting her is enough of a crime to be locked up." Zuko could tell that Aang was not happy about any of this, but he put on his serious face so as not to start more conflict.

"I'd like to talk to him."

Aang nodded and turned, walking over the bridge to the temple. "He's in the workshop right now with Toph. Sokka and the Mechanist are trying to sort through some other matters and… well… I've been avoiding talking to my Acolyte."

"And here I thought you left Republic City to take a vacation," Zuko forced a smile and got a weak laugh out of the Avatar.

"I know. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation." The two laughed again and Aang led Zuko through the temple and to the massive doors that used to be the inner sanctuary. They were propped open, revealing the strange and wondrous inventions that the Mechanist and Teo had come up with.

Zuko stepped into the workshop and watched from a distance as a young man placed his fingers on a metal pipe and Toph bent the pipe to the exact degree.

"Perfect, Toph. You don't know how much time you've saved me," he said, arranging the bent metal on the workbench in front of them.

"Just doing my job to show off the fact that I'm the best metalbender in the entire world!" Toph jumped up on the table and posed as if she just won the Earth Rumble.

Teo laughed. "Yeah well, if you get bored of teaching, I'm sure I can put you to work here." His expression soured and he frowned, sighing as he arranged the pieces again on the table.

"Teo," Zuko started, feeling silly that he hadn't recognized the name before. Teo had been with them at the Western Air Temple.

Teo looked up at the sound of his name and pulled the green-tinted goggles off his face. "Fire Lord Zuko."

"I'd like a moment alone, Toph." Zuko turned to Suki and Ty Lee, who had been silent the whole time. "You two can go as well."

Once everyone had left, Zuko approached the table and looked at what was laid out there. Even up close it still looked like bent pipe. Though he had never been very mechanically inclined, he left that to his engineers.

"I don't know where she went."

Zuko looked up to see Teo looking right at him. The Fire Lord suddenly felt self-conscious. "I know. Was she… was she okay?" Zuko almost tripped over his robe sitting on the stool Toph vacated earlier.

"It depends. Is she healthy? Sure. She seemed well fed and strong. Is she crazy? Yes. She struggled with herself while she was here." Teo looked down, rubbing his thumb over one of the lenses of his goggles.

"Do you know what she was struggling with?" Zuko could only guess why Azula had opened up to Teo. They seemed like complete opposites. Teo wasn't even like Mai or Ty Lee enough to seem to catch the princess's attention.

"She thought I was going to kill her at one point. Then I believe it was mostly paranoia about being caught. If she would have listened to me, she probably would have never left."

Zuko chewed on his lip. "Why do you say that?"

"Because she generally got along with everyone and we were far enough away from anyone else for her to be recognized by anyone else." Teo shrugged and leaned forward so both his elbows were on the bench.

Zuko watched him and nodded, struggling for something to say. He found that now he was face to face with Teo, he didn't have too many questions. He picked up a random tool and turned it over in his hands.

Teo sat up and watched him. "Do you know how to weld?"

"Oh. No, I've never tried it before." He put the tool down and looked around again.

Teo put his goggles back on and held two pieces of pipe together at right angles. "Give me a small, but hot flame right where these two pieces meet."

Zuko rolled up his sleeves and concentrated the hottest flame he could manage at his fingertips and touched the metal at the join. Teo touched a spool of what looked like wire to the hot metal and it melted. "Keep going, you're doing alright."

For hours it seemed, Zuko and Teo worked silently, creating something out of the pipes where just a mess seemed earlier. Maybe that's why Teo gravitated towards his sister; Teo saw the organization in the mess that most others see.

"Okay, that's enough for now. Let's see how sturdy it is." Teo grabbed the metal frame they finished assembling and lifted it up over his head.

Zuko watched him throw it across the room and crash into the wall. "What did you do that for?"

"I told you, to see how sturdy it is. Do you mind bringing it back? I'm stuck." Teo gestured to his legs, still hanging rather uselessly off the ground.

The Fire Lord felt like he was back at the Jasmine Dragon, waiting tables for tips and taking orders from customers. He picked up the metal frame and checked it over. "It's a little scuffed up, but still intact."

"Bring it over here again. I promise not to throw it again."

Intrigued by the project still, Zuko set the frame back on the table, still trying to make sense of what they'd done.

"Hey, you started without me!" Toph huffed and made her way back into the workshop, a bottle in hand.

"Sorry Toph, Zuko volunteered to weld and I couldn't pass up using the Fire Lord for my nefarious scheme," Teo laughed and pulled out the stool beside him so Toph could ear the metal scraping against the floor.

"You should have put Princess Crazy to work then." Toph hopped up on the stool and leaned over on the table.

"I almost did. But she left before I could get back to work." Teo checked over the frame more carefully than Zuko had. "Zuko, can you grab that box behind you?"

"I doubt Azula would settle for manual labor," Zuko picked up the box, wondering if his advisors would have owl-kittens at his actions today.

"She worked in the kitchens. Nobody died." Teo took a file and scraped the metal smooth in some places, then gestured for the box.

"I hear you almost did, Flyboy." Toph took another sip of her bottle. "Sugar Queen was pretty descriptive about that kiss."

"Kiss?" Zuko shifted uncomfortably. He had always assumed Azula was an asexual being, like how most older brothers imagine their younger sisters.

"She distracted me, cut the glider wings and sped off using her firebending." Teo pulled a sturdy rod from the box and handed it to Toph. "I need two pieces of this. One piece should be twice as long as the other."

"So was it hot?" Toph felt out the metal rod with her hands and snapped it where Teo indicated.

"It was… intense, I'll say that." Teo threaded the small rods through holes that had already been cut through the frame. He then fished out two small rubber-treaded wheels from the box and fit them on each end of the small rod.

"It sure sounds like Azula to leave you to die," Zuko muttered, still fascinated by the building process. He had grown up with the idea that all firebending was destructive. And though he'd known that there were firebenders that worked in factories and on ships and construction sites, he never put together the idea that fire can create as well. He now had some ideas for a retraining program for ex soldiers so that they could provide for their families.

Teo pulled out two larger wheels and fastened them down the same way. A padded board came out next and got bolted down. A second one was fastened down perpendicular to the first. It wasn't until Teo set the wheels down on the floor of the workshop that Zuko finally understood what they'd been doing.

"Oh! It's a wheelchair."

"Seriously Sparky? You didn't guess before now?" Toph shook her head.

Teo ignored the metalbender and slid off the stool and used the table to steady himself before he sat in the chair. He put his feet on the footrest and took the wheels in hand.

"I'm not an engineer."

Teo pushed the chair forward and it glided across the floor with a smooth motion.

"You'd make a piss poor earthebender that's for sure. The first thing we learn is how to build."

Teo looked up at Zuko and smiled, "Not bad for your first project. If you ever get tired of being the Fire Lord, I will find some work for you to do around here." His smile faded. "If I'm not arrested."

Zuko sighed, "I wouldn't arrest you, Teo. But I can't say the same for the Earth King. Kuei is still upset over the fact that Azula made him look like an idiot."

"Thanks for your help guys. I'm going to go back to my room and pretend that I'm allowed to leave it." Teo sighed, though he pushed himself to the door.

"That guy is head over ass in love with your sister."

Zuko turned around, startled. "What? How?"

Toph shrugged. "Got me. I just calls 'em as I sees 'em."

"But you don't see anything."

"Don't I?" Toph grinned and elbowed Zuko in the side as she caught up with Teo.

Zuko thought about Azula again, trying to think of her as a woman instead of a monster. He felt a little too weirded out by that and left the workshop as well.