Well, I'm back. Happy holidays to you all, since at the rate I'm going, I'm not getting anything up for a while. I'll try, I promise.

This story was invented by Goshzilla-1 on IMDb. He/she is brilliant, and I take no credit for the idea of writing from the prisoners' points of view. I don't take credit for writing Avatar, either, just for actually writing this.

It takes place after the episode Avatar Day, but before the finale.

Pronunciation guide: Xuo: Jeuh-ooh-oh. (The beginning of Zhao's name, followed by two grunts) Poen: Poe-en.(The poet followed by 'and' without the 'd'.) Kresh: Kerr-esh. (Crash with an 'E')

Dedication: Because you pretended nothing was wrong. There are worse lies to tell.

Chin always assumed, being named after a hero, he would do great things. Of course, as the Avatar proved, Chin the Conqueror wasn't much of a hero. That was okay. Neither was Chin.

Xuo was Chin's best friend in the little jail cell they all shared. King (that's what everyone called him, they didn't really know his real name) rarely came out of his dark corner and always tried to steal their food when he did. Poen never seemed quite sure whose side he was on in the little prison-cell war. There was also Kresh, who was only in jail every once in a while. He kept getting released and coming back.

Things were falling into a nice routine. They all did the same things every day. It was boring, but at least it wasn't hard. It could be worse, they reminded each other.

One day, the Avatar appeared. Everyone thought that was odd. What was the Avatar doing in jail?

King didn't even lift his head. It was uncertain whether the Avatar actually knew he was there at all. Kresh was overcome with a bout of shyness and stayed in the back.

Poen tried to take a leaf out of King's book and intimidate the boy, but he tried to take a leaf out of Xuo's book at the same time and befriend him. By the end of the conversation, they had one very confused Avatar, and a sore Poen (he had forgotten that he had a chain around his neck and tried to lunge forward).

But before long, the tiny power was being given advice and telling jokes like he'd been there for years.

"My friend Sokka," Avatar Aang told them, "thinks he's a detective."

"What, trying to prove your innocence?" teased Chin.

The boy bobbed his head.

"Well, that's not gonna do much good if you ain't," drawled Poen. Everyone turned to the Avatar. It hadn't ever occurred to him that this force of good in the world could actually be guilty of the crime that he was accused of.

"Are you innocent?" asked Xuo.

"Of course I am!" exclaimed Aang indignantly. After a moment, though, he sighed and leaned back against the wall. "I think. It was in a past life. I can't remember."

"You're lucky," commented King.

"That I can't remember?" asked Aang.

"And you have a chance," the reclusive murderer replied.

The Avatar shrugged. "It's not like I have anything everyone else doesn't. I mean, I didn't do it, or probably didn't, but good things happen to everyone."

"What good can happen to us?" asked Chin. He pointed around him. "King is to be executed next week. Xuo has a life sentence, and his family doesn't have the money to pay bail. I've been completely forgotten about, since nobody I wronged cares if I die, and nobody who cares about me remembers, if they're still alive. Kresh is the only one who'll get out of this..." He corrected his language for the child, "bad place. And he's going to be back in within a week, guarantee it."

Aang looked around, surprised to see nobody protesting. No one told Chin that someone undoubtedly remembered him. Nobody suggested that Xuo might be released, that King would escape or be rescued, that Kresh would change his ways.

Because, he realized, Chin was telling the exact truth as he knew it. None of them had a chance.

Well, if they wouldn't believe, Aang would just have to believe for them.

"Chin, you're not a very forgettable person," he said. "You'll see, somebody is waiting for you. They'll show up eventually. Xuo, how do you know your family won't find some money? And King, how do you know something won't come up? What about you, Kresh, you can find a way."

Everyone expressed their disbelief with varying levels of annoyance. But none of them admitted that it was nice, for once, to dream of a way out.

The very next week, King was executed. The Avatar's prediction was proved wrong.

The week after that, Kresh was released. He swore to himself that he would take the Avatar's words to heart. Just because it didn't work for King, after all, didn't mean it wouldn't work for Kresh.

His own doubts, after all, needed to be proved wrong.

He opened a restaurant, selling lots of Avatar Day-style food. As it turned out, the boy had missed his calling. He managed to make the unfried festival food taste, strangely enough, halfway decent. Everyone hoped that the Avatar would come back someday to find the changes he had made.

After a while, he had saved quite a bit of money. He gave it all to Xuo's family, and they promptly got him released.

So Chin was in their once-shared cell on his own now. He knew that between them, Xuo and Kresh would have enough money sooner or later to get him out. Mayor Tong wasn't so sure.

"That's why they call it 'Justice'," the mayor said. "Because it's Just." Everyone within earshot rolled their eyes at the obvious statement.

"Really," commented Chin. "I thought it was 'just us'?" Fidgeting slightly at the reminder of his treatment of the Avatar, Tong left.

And Chin settled down to wait. They said he had no chance. Eventually, though, they'd be proved wrong.