I Want to Live
A/n: So, I've been getting a lot of emails about people putting this story on their story alert, or their favorite story list, or putting me on their author alert, but I'm not getting reviews posted from those people?
Is there a reason for that? Did I miss a memo that reviews are now out of fashion?
If you're reading this, you can click the multiple functions all at once! You can still review! Once you're in the review box, before you submit it, check off the "add to story alert" button at the bottom and then submit. And then, everyone is happy!
This thus ends the public service announcement from Fiery-chan.
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own it. If I did, would we be waiting this long for the boiling rock? Or get teased by putting a game up at , making us think that the new episode is coming soon?
Ps- heard a tentative April 15th-ish date. Anyone have confirmation?
Chapter 4
"Wh-who's there?"
"Hey there, champ."
At the sound of that voice, Toph let out an involuntary squeal.
"Zuko!" She cried out, running toward the wooden door.
"Did Toph just squeal?" Asked a second voice that Toph also recognized.
"Sokka!" She was completely overjoyed. Her friends weren't dead. And they were here to rescue her! "Who else is there?"
"Hey Toph, are you ok?" A female voice this time.
"Katara!"
"Alright, so we made it here but um, how exactly are we going to get her out of here now?" Asked Sokka.
Silence. Toph assumed the others were just staring blankly at him, because she would be too, if she could. A thump.
"Ow!" One of them hit Sokka in the head.
"Let's see here, cell made of wood, wood breaks apart when burned, fire comes from fire benders, and oh look, we have a fire bender right here!" Toph couldn't help but laugh at the sarcasm dripping from Zuko's voice. "Stand back Toph, I'm about to light the door on fire."
Toph quickly scrambled to the back of her cell, and soon could smell charred wood, followed by the sound of a loud splintering crack.
The dim amount of light that was in the hallway came rushing into the dark cell, Toph could feel it on her face, but it was soon shadowed as her friends stepped inside the cell.
"Oh my god, Toph." Katara's voice was soft, when she took sight of her scarred and blistered friend.
XXX
Zuko emitted a low growl from deep in his throat. This was Azula's handiwork; he'd recognize the pattern of burns anywhere. He knelt down next to the small girl, and his hand brushed up against her skin, and he saw her face contort in pain.
Katara was soon kneeling next to him, on his right, examining the burns herself.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Toph?" She asked with a sigh, her voice softened by sadness.
Zuko removed his cloak and laid it down on the floor, then very carefully picked up Toph and laid her inside the cloak, wrapping it gently over her, so he'd have a way to carry her without directly touching her burns.
With the help of Katara, he slowly scooped her up into his arms, and her small hands reached out and clutched the folds of his shirt tightly.
"I knew you guys would come for me," she said softly, before her body shut down into sleep mode from utter exhaustion.
A smile broke across Zuko's face as he held her tight against him, standing up slowly, and stepping out from the now charred cell.
As if on cue, three guards came rushing down the corridor at them, fists in fire bender form, prepared to blast.
"Knew this wasn't going to be easy," Sokka said, drawing his sword.
Zuko looked down at the girl in his arms, and shook her slightly, she stirred.
"Hey buddy, think you can climb on my back and hold on? I need these arms to fight," he asked, looking down at the tired earthbender.
Toph nodded, and then Zuko carefully swung her around so she was on his back, her tiny arms latched around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist.
"Hold on tight, it'll be a bumpy ride."
Zuko accurately shot three fire balls, and all three slammed into one guard's chest plate, knocking him to the ground and into a wall.
Katara released some water from her skin and whipped it around, cracking it above her head before sending it crashing down into the second guard, sending him piling on top of his peer.
Sokka made sure to knock his assailant unconscious as well, by slamming him in the head with the flat side of his sword, before heaving him over to the other two.
"Alright, well, that was fun, but I do believe now would be the time to get out of here!" Sokka exclaimed, taking off down the hallway they had arrived from, Zuko following behind with Toph, and Katara taking up the back, water still out to take down any more guards.
A voice came booming through the hallways, "All guards to sector 9, we have a maximum security break in, block all exits; no one is to leave the building."
"Oh for Agni's sake! This is ridiculous!" Zuko yelled, "'All guards,' do you know how many guards work in this prison?"
"Obviously, a lot." Katara replied, judging by the tone in his voice.
"Well let's just hope we can beat them to the exit before they seal it!" Sokka replied, still running.
Two more guards came barreling towards them, and Sokka took them both down with his sword, while three came up from behind Katara, but she quickly froze them together to a wall.
Zuko reached behind him to hoist Toph to sit higher on his back so he could run faster. Suddenly, a stone wall erected behind where the gang was running and similar stone walls began to fill in all of the surrounding corridors.
"Woah, hey! What's going on?" Sokka asked from the front of the group, almost ready to stop running.
"Did we forget that I'm an earth bender and we're in a building made of earth and stone?" Toph asked from atop Zuko's back. "I may be useless currently, but I'm still not a complete waste of life."
Zuko grinned.
"Glad to have you back, champ."
"Glad to be back, Hotman, now giddy up, run faster!" Toph replied, filled with a new vigor of energy since being reunited with her friends.
XXX
A blast of fire shot past Katara's head and she whipped around to see four guards rushing up at them.
"We've got company!" She yelled to her companions ahead of her, slashing her waterwhip through the air.
Sokka pulled out his boomerang and flung it out, allowing it to snap into the back of one of the guard's heads before returning to his outstretched hand.
Zuko stopped to join the fight, but Sokka stopped him.
"You're carrying precious cargo there, Zuko, keep going. Katara and I will be fine."
"Are you sure?" Zuko asked, concerned for his two friends, even though he knew they would be quite capable of handling the three remaining guards.
"We'll be fine, just get Toph out of here, we'll find you when we're finished with these blockheads."
Zuko nodded and readjusted his grip on Toph, before darting off into the woods.
"He was lying," Toph said.
"I know," Zuko replied softly.
XXX
Sokka darted over to his sister's side and pulled out his sword.
"Ready to take down some fire nation scum?"
"Always," she replied with a grin, turning the water into blades of ice and flinging them like daggers at her opponents.
Sokka swung his sword above his head, before bringing it down to clash against the steel of a guard's sword. He laughed sharply.
"Steel? Do you really think that will protect you?" He flicked his blade and it cut the man's sword in half. The guard stood there, jaw agape, holding a stump of a sword in his shaking hands. Sokka took this moment to his advantage and twisted his wrist, bringing the flat side of the blade against the man's skull, knocking him unconscious into the ground, with a heavy thump.
He turned back to his sister, to find her fighting off the last two guards at the same time. Sokka ran up behind and knocked one away from her.
The two siblings finished off the last two guards, and Sokka dragged all four unconscious bodies over to a tree where Katara froze them altogether in place.
"Perfect," Sokka said, admiring their handiwork. "To be honest, I was afraid we wouldn't get out of that one."
"Well let's get out of here before more come." Katara said, glancing down the path from the prison, looking for any more guards coming up the way.
"Good idea."
The two headed into the woods in the direction of Zuko, darting in and out of trees and bushes, careful to make sure their tracks were hard to follow. Sokka reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small whistle in the shape of a little bird, and he blew into it in a distinct pattern, and then stopped to listen.
Sure enough, the same pattern was repeated back at him, coming from less than a mile north west of where they currently were standing.
"And Zuko said these were a bad idea," Sokka said with a grin, sticking the whistle back inside his shirt.
XXX
"You want us to what?" Zuko had asked incredulously, staring at Sokka, who was currently admiring a variety of whistles lying out on the tabletop of a market stall, during one of their few stops.
"Buy whistles. For communication. You never know when we'll get separated; we need a way to find each other."
Still a silent blank stare from Zuko as a response.
"When we had traveled with the Freedom Fighters, they just whistled up into the trees naturally, I just don't have that kind of skill, so this will be easier."
"So how many do you expect us to buy?" Zuko asked, eyeing the way overly charged price tag.
"Only two. One for you and one for me. At least one of us is always with Katara, so we don't need a third. But if one of us gets separated, or has to stay behind, or run ahead, we need a set of code whistles for like 'where are you,' and 'coast is clear,' and 'RUN AWAY!'"
Zuko sighed and figured it was best to give in. When it came to Sokka and shopping, he would always just go ahead and buy anything impulsively. Sometimes it was just better to say ok and let him get what he wanted.
"Ok fine, just two though." Zuko said, pulling out the money pouch and counting their fire nation coins.
"Sweet! Two bird whistles please!"
XXX
"He made you buy whistles for communication?" Toph asked, laughing hysterically after inquiring about the whistles. "That is such a Snoozles thing to do."
"Yeah, I know," Zuko muttered, still not happy about the little whistle he now carried all the time, but he had to admit, it did come in handy for situations like this.
Moments later, two forms plowed through the shrubs over to Zuko and Toph.
"Oh, Toph!" Katara immediately knelt down next to her earthbending friend and began examining the injuries. "These are bad; some of them might not heal."
"Did anyone follow you?" Zuko asked, directing his question at Sokka, who was currently cleaning his sword.
"Don't think so."
"We need to find a river," Katara said, looking up at the two boys. "This way I can just completely submerge Toph while I heal her. It might have a stronger affect that way."
"There should be a stream not too far from here," Zuko said. "Toph, do you think you can feel what direction it's in?"
Toph paused for a moment, having to concentrate harder than usual because the scarring on her skin made it much harder for her to feel her surroundings. "It's just a bit north of us, just through those trees," she said, pointing to their left.
"Ok good, let's get going then; we have no time to waste." Katara stood and brushed the grass off of her skirt. Zuko began to step forward to go and pick up Toph but an arm reached out and stopped him.
"I'll take her this time," Sokka said, softly. Zuko nodded and allowed the water tribe boy to gently scoop Toph into his arms. He couldn't help but smile at Toph's gleeful expression, unnoticed by Sokka. "Lead the way, Miss Bei Fong." Toph grinned and pointed in the same direction she just had.
"That way, Snoozles." Sokka couldn't suppress his laugh completely, and took off through the trees.
XXX
Zuko was about to begin walking when he noticed Katara hanging back, her shoulders dropped low.
"What's wrong?" He asked, walking over to her.
"She's really messed up Zuko; I'm scared I won't be able to heal her. If she's permanently scarred then she'll be completely weak. She won't be able to bend, or find her way around; she'll be an easy target for Azula's soldiers to pick off. I don't want to lose her. Not to mention that with all this commotion and her senses weakened, she hasn't even noticed Aang's not here."
"Do you think she knows that he died?" Zuko asked, slowly understanding the point Katara was getting at.
"No, she got separated from us long before Azula, well – you know."
Zuko nodded, it was still hard for them to talk about such a touchy and emotionally scarring subject.
"When she finds out, she's just going to be a wreck. And I won't know what to do. Zuko, it's getting harder and harder to hold our family together. I'm afraid that it's about to fall apart." Zuko stepped closer to her, and took her small hands within his own larger ones, and squeezed them softly.
"You don't have to worry about that Katara; we're all in this together. You never have to worry about facing anything alone," he said reassuringly.
She smiled softly up at him. "As comforting as that is, I'm still very scared."
"I vow to Agni Katara that I won't let anything happen to you, or to Toph, or to Sokka, or to our family. Azula has hurt us. But I will make sure that she does not have the opportunity to do it again."
Much to Zuko's surprise, Katara reached her arms around and embraced him in a hug. Cautiously, Zuko wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. This affection was not the sort that he was used to. This hug felt different. It felt as if Katara needed to be in his embrace, needed some sort of physical acknowledgement that his words carried truth. Sure, every night when they went to sleep and he wasn't on guard duty, his arms wrapped protectively around her thin frame, but so did Sokka's. There was no emotion behind it, so to say; it was merely an arrangement that the two boys had agreed upon during their travels. But this embrace was full of emotions, and this was something Zuko was not quite used to, so he pulled away from her somewhat awkwardly.
"Let's uh, go catch up to Sokka and Toph before they begin to wonder what happened to us." He noticed a slight blush creep up her cheeks. "I mean, um, you have to work on Toph, right?"
"Yeah, right," Katara replied, becoming aware of the apparent awkwardness that followed their embrace. "Let's go take care of that then."
A/N: There's so much more that I wanted to put in this chapter but I felt so bad for not updating for awhile that I stopped it here. I have a lot of scenes played out in my head, including some more interesting and dramatic scenes battling fire nation soldiers, and of course tons of awkward Zutara moments, much like how I ended this chapter. It's kind of weird to develop a relationship between them when I've already provided such a strong family bond through the antecedent action, but don't worry, I will make it work! I didn't proofread this, so don't mind any mistakes. I wanted to just post it.
And as mentioned before, if you plan on adding this to your story alerts/favs without REVIEWING I do not suggest doing so. Reviews keep me going!
Until next time, which I promise will be sooner than you may think,
--f.c