The Burning Rose

Chapter Six

OOC- I will give you till Chapter Seven to figure out who the girl is. There will be big hints dropped, so you can figure it out.

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She quietly walked over to Suki's door, hoping to catch her at a good time. It was around noon, so she should be up, unless she stayed with Sokka all night long. Then she would be very tired from staying up. This made her continue her thoughts from last night.

'Are they married?' she wondered as she walked up to the door.'They hang around each other a lot. In fact, I haven't seen them separated all day, and they do argue like a married couple. Hmm...' She lightly knocked on the cold, stone door. She heard nothing behind the door. She waited, then she knocked again, a little harder this time. Still nothing.

This time she shouted as well as knocked harder, swearing if she could knock any harder, the door would come off its hinges.

"Suki?! Are you in here!? Suki!?" she said as she knocked. Nothing.

She wiggled the doorknob a bit, but it was locked. She began to pound and kick on the door in an effort to open it. The door never budged an inch.

She sighed. "She must be with Sokka and Jalen."

She walked down the hallway slowly, immersed in her thoughts.

'Why was her door locked? Was something going on? What is going on between them?' She ran into a soldier as she walked down the hall, but she took no notice. She felt Aang's charm on her necklace brush her neck as she ran into the soldier. Her thoughts quickly shifted to her necklace.

"Why?" she said quietly to herself as she walked down a barren hallway. "Why did I have to marry him? Why did I have to say yes?"

She wanted to cry, but she held back as she came upon the healer's door. She didn't want anyone to see her cry, especially her brother, who had no emotions for how Katara felt, so she quickly wiped away the tears that were depositing in the corners of her eyes, and walked in with her head held high. She immediately saw the healer next to the door. He looked very tired and his white hair was everywhere. He was wringing his hands.

"Why hello, Katara!" he said, his voice very hoarse and weak, but she could still hear his happiness in his voice. "How are ya today?"

"Good, Jalen" she said, feeling bad for the man. He had to deal with Sokka whenever he would wake up. "How are you?"

"Pretty good, considering how your brother is." He glanced over at the shape of a body completely covered underneath a starched white sheet. "He doesn't look too good."

"What happened?" she said as she cautiously walked over to Sokka. She felt herself overcome with sadness as she saw Sokka's figure under the blanket. She quickly grabbed the end of the blanket, closest to Sokka's face. She pushed it back a tiny bit so she could see Sokka's face and saw that his cheeks were deathly white and his eyes were closed. She gasped and took the rest of the blanket off of Sokka's body.. His water tribe shirt and pants blocked her from looking where they covered, but she could see his arms and legs were also, if it could be possible, paler than his face.

"Sokka?" she whimpered as she felt all of her tears she had held in come out and run down her cheeks. "Sokka? Are you there? Sokka? Come on, Sokka. Don't leave me alone, you big lump. Don't leave me as an only child."

She reached out to his neck to check his pulse when a white hand grabbed her wrist. She jumped five feet in the air and screamed, till she saw who's hand it was.

She was in the darkest corner of the cell, which was everywhere. There was only one window, but the glass was black, so it let no light into her cell. She couldn't see anything, but it didn't matter to her. She didn't care for anything that would happen except what the letter would say when it returned.

She looked at her calendar, and noticed that is was her birthday. 'What shall I get on my birthday?' she thought to herself, for her throat was too dry to laugh or speak. It would just hurt her throat.

She heard a squawk first, then she saw red wings, then the bird. She crawled as fast as she could, which was the speed of a turtle, and grabbed the letter in the container. She slowly unrolled the scroll that, written hastily, said 'I will do what you say.'

For the first time since the comet came, an evil smile moved across her lips. The plan was working perfectly.

"SOKKA!" she screamed, panting loudly. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? HOW COULD YOU SCARE ME LIKE THAT?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

Sokka sat up on the bed with his feet dangling over the edge. He had a smile pasted on his face as he started to rock back and forth, laughing so hard,but no sound came out. He took two deep breaths as Katara tapped her foot impatiently. He stopped laughing, wiped away the tears coming from his eyes from laughing so hard, and began to speak.

"I got you good!" he said as he began to laugh as hard as before, because Jalen was still laughing. "Hey, Jalen, thanks for the help. It was worth wearing make-up!" He immediately began to break out in another round of laughs.

"Sokka," she said in a threatening voice, clenching her fists till they were white. She stared down at the floor, but he knew if she was looking at him, her eyes would be glaring at him."Don't make mad. I am completely surrounded by water."

Sokka looked around, and it was true. There was a basin of water next to the head his metal bed, and another at the foot. He immediately became serious and hopped off of the bed.

"All right, Katara," he said as he grabbed her shoulders and tried to look her in the eye, but her gaze was everywhere but his eyes. "I am sorry for doing that, but I needed a good laugh."

"Where…. Is…… Suki?" she panted through her teeth. Her grip on her palms became so bad, she began to bleed. Sokka realized the seriousness in her voice and became even more serious as well. Well, as serious as Sokka can get.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't seen her all day, and she wasn't here last night. I was just going to see her and play the same joke, when Jalen told me you were coming! The expression on your face was so funny when you thought I was dead!"

He began to roll all over the bed, clutching his stomach, as he laughed harder than he had in his life. Tears were rolling off his face onto the bed, but he didn't care. He kept imagining her face over and over again, and he couldn't stop laughing. Jalen started to laugh as well, but not as hard as Sokka.

Katara became infuriated, but she quickly turned on the spot and walked out the door. She took a little water with her to heal her wounds on her palm, which she did as she rounded the corner. Her thoughts went to Sokka at first, and she got mad, but restrained herself so she wouldn't hurt her hands again. Then they shifted to Suki.

'Where is she? If she isn't with Sokka and isn't in her room, where could she be?' she thought to herself as she stood in the middle of the hallway.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw Toph stomp down the hall. She could see that Toph was angry. Every time she stepped, she could see a wave of rocks come up from the ground right next to Toph.

"Sugar Queen, Where were you?" Toph said as she spun Katara around so she was facing the opposite direction, and pushed Katara on her back with her hands gloved in earth. "I need food right now. I am starving from last night!"

Toph pushed her to the kitchen, threw her in there, and bended a rectangle of earth over the doorway, so it was covering the whole doorway. Toph also made the rock thicker so she wouldn't be able to get out if she tried to use waterbending.

"You aren't coming out of there till you make us food. Now get to work!" Toph said as she walked away. She had to scream so Katara could hear her through the rock.

"But I have no food!" Katara screamed.

"Yes, you do!" Toph screamed just enough for Katara to hear it as a whisper as she walked down the hallway.

Katara looked around, and it looked like it had yesterday. Nothing was littering the counter tops, and it looked as if nothing had happened. There were no fingerprints on the cabinets.

Wait, Sokka was in the infirmary all night. He couldn't have come here to get food. She face-palmed herself.

She walked over and opened the cabinets, and they were stocked to the brim with different foods. There was fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, and everything you could think of in the Four Nations. She even found something that looked like fire nation berries. She began to make a stew, when she decided that there was enough to make a rice dish that her mother used to make for was rice cooked with beef and since Aang was a vegetarian, she added 20 different types of vegetables, making sure a small part didn't cook with the beef. It didn't take long to make it, but it was still tasty.

She walked up to the stone wall with a few bowls and silverware. The wall moved into the ground once she stopped in front of it. She knew that Toph was watching her from the dining room, so she wasn't shocked as it moved. She just silently stepped over where is was and walked to the dining room a couple doors off of the kitchen. She placed a bowl and chopsticks in front of Toph, Sokka, Aang, and in front of a empty chair for herself. She went back to the get the rice, and everyone was talking about the joke Sokka had pulled on Katara. Toph loved to hear about it, but Aang was uneasy as Sokka began to laugh as Toph began to laugh. Sokka finished describing her face, and soon, everyone except Katara was laughing.

OOC- She is back! It is weird, I know, but I like it. I do.

Please review! I like to hear your ideas, and how my writing is doing!