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Sorry for the delay. This chapter is dedicated to my latest and most prolific reviewer. You know you are. :)

Restoration

Chapter 11

The sun had begun its descent towards the western horizon. However, its rays had not lost any of their intensity, and there were only small wisps of cloud scattered about the sky, to the dismay of the travelers. The travelers had been walking for about an hour or more. Lee couldn't tell. Even though he was wearing his straw hat, Lee could feel that his sweat had permeated into almost every inch of his clothing, and he was feeling a little woozy from this great loss of water. All he knew was that the pain in his chest was the only thing keeping him from falling asleep. Lee wanted to ask for Hana to stop at the river soon, but he was too exhausted to begin a conversation. Hana just kept walking in front of the ostrich-horse as if she were on autopilot. Lee could tell that the heat was sapping Hana's energy as well. For one thing, she had not said a word since they continued their journey north even though the terrain had changed from grassy plains to plains of rocky clay with a few patches of grass, here and there. And for another thing, she was starting to walk slower and almost like she was drunk stumbling along the uneven patches of dirt and rock.

Hana knew that they needed to stop at the river, but she wanted to get as much distance between them and those two earthbenders and anyone else who could be following them. However, for all she knew there could be Fire Nation soldiers or more bounty hunters up ahead. In either case, they needed to stop and rest so that they wouldn't be caught in such a disadvantaged state. She knew that when they stopped it would be for awhile, because healing Lee would take most of her time and strength and they needed to eat something before traveling again. For the hour and half they had been walking at a safe distance alongside the river, she would check both to make sure Lee was still on the ostrich-horse and to see how he was faring with the pain from his injuries. She had not noticed it before but blood had begun to seep through the bandages on his hands. Nonetheless this was the least of her worries compared to the unknown amount of damage of Xin Fu's last attack. At the very least, Lee had a few bruised ribs and luckily none were broken. However, from the pained expressions Lee was making as he held is hand over his left side every time the ostrich-horse swayed from one foot to the other, Hana could tell that Xin Fu might have broken one or two of Lee's ribs. She felt unsure about her decision to walk for so long in the sun, but Lee hadn't protested while they traveled. Because of this, Hana felt that she could bare the burning pain in her muscles and the lightheadedness she was feeling from the loss of water in this dry heat. But now she knew that they needed to take a rest by the river before either of them passed out from heat stroke.

"I think it's safe to say that we have walked long enough to get some distance from those two bounty hunters." Hana said as she gently steered the ostrich-horse towards a sparse group of trees by the riverbank. Lee didn't reply, but Hana wasn't expecting one either. His silent consent was enough that he agreed with her decision.

The coolness from the shade of the trees was almost enough to make Hana feel fully energized once again, but the feeling was fleeting as exhaustion soon returned. She could only imagine how Lee was feeling at the moment. Hana halted the ostrich-horse at the edge of the river. Moving around to the side, she let Lee use her shoulders as support as he dismounted. Even though Lee slide easily off the ostrich-horse's back, Lee grunted in pain as his feet touched the ground. Lee without complaint let Hana lower him to a sitting position by the riverbank.

Lee's and Hana's hands were both too dirty to use for drinking the water by hand from the river even thought they both were dying of thirst. So Hana bended the water up to Lee's cracked lips; Lee opened his mouth without her even having to ask. After giving Lee a few mouthfuls, she drank some water as well. Once they both had taken their fill, Hana turned her attention back to treating Lee's injuries.

"I am going to need to see your chest to treat your injuries, so we are going to have to take off your shirt." Hana said looking undeterred by Lee's angry gaze.

"No, I can take care of that myself" Lee whispered in a threatening tone. At first Hana was taken aback at Lee not shouting, but she quickly realized that it would probably cause more pain to him if he had spoken louder.

"Oh, please let's not start this again. We both know how it ended last time."

"Ya, I took care of it myself."

"Yes, with little bit of my help, of course. Oh, come on, I can easily heal your ribs. If you are as much as a masochist as you're making yourself out to be, I can let you deal with your injuries on your own."

"Did you say that you have healing abilities?"

"Yes, I discovered it when I trying to treat my wounds at the cave."

"Are you telling me that you could have healed my hands instead of giving me that pungent smelling salve since we left that cave?"

"Geez, for being so prideful and independent, you sure complain quite a bit. I'll heal your burned hands, as soon as, you let me heal your other injuries. Now let's get this outer robe off first." Hana said as she went to loosen the frog button closures on Lee's robe, but Lee grabbed her hand as she did so.

"I can take off my robe without your help." Lee replied stubbornly.

"Alright." was Hana's curt reply as she backed off putting her hands up in surrender. No way of getting to him as soon as he gets into one of his moods.

Hana sat in front of Lee patiently waiting for him to take off his robe. Lee was able to get the frog button closures unfastened while using only his left arm. Hana noticed this and asked, "What's wrong with your right arm?"

"I don't know, but I it hurts to move it. I think I might have torn a muscle or something."

"Here let me see." Hana got up and moved over to Lee's right side and tried to gently feel around the upper arm and shoulder area. When she gently squeezed his arm close to where the arm and shoulder socket join, Lee involuntarily let out a painful yell.

"Aahh, dear Agni that hurt a lot. Don't do that again, please." Lee said in a pleading tone.

"Don't worry I won't, but that isn't the least of your worries. Your shoulder is dislocated." Hana said in a grim tone.

"I take it this is going to hurt." Lee said matter-of-factly glancing over at Hana from under his straw hat.

"Well, you can let me know after it's over. I'm going to pop it back in on the count of five."

"Why on the count of five?"

"You're not going to chicken out are you?"

"In your dreams." Lee replied smirking.

"I thought so. One…two…three…four…" A sickening pop sounded.

"Aaahh, dear Agni, you said on the count of five!" Lee said a little irritated as he winced in pain.

"I'm just full of surprises aren't I." Hana said with a smirk as she glanced at Lee and then returned her attention to making sure his arm was set right. "I did that because you were expecting it on five, and I needed you to be relaxed when I popped it back in. Otherwise it would have hurt ten times as much as it did."

"Oh." Lee replied simply.

"Alright let's see how injured your chest is." Hana said as she started to help Lee get out of his outer robe and shirt. The shirt was a bit harder to get off without causing Lee any more pain from his shoulder and ribs. Hana grimaced as she looked at his ribs. Black and blue patches were splattered about the lower chest area. Quickly Hana took the pack off her back and took a blanket out, refolded it neatly, and placed it on the ground.

"Here, Lee, lay back and rest your head on this. It will be easier on both of us if you are lying down. This may take awhile to treat."

"Hn." was Lee's simple reply. He was too tired to protest any further. Hana put her hand behind his back to help him lay down.

Damn. Lee is pretty banged up. From the bruises I am guessing three bruised ribs, one on his right and two on his left. Who knows how many may be broken. His right shoulder is swollen as well. There must be some fluid trapped, because I didn't get to it soon enough. Why does Lee have to be such a hard…ah whatever, I can't do anything about that now. If he had said something sooner, we would have stopped for a break earlier.

"I need you to lie as still as you can. Let me know if it hurts at any time." Hana said in a serious manner. Lee only gave her a quick nod and closed his eyes.

Hana went right to work. She bended the water around her hands like gloves and held them over Lee's left ribcage. While focusing her chi into her hands, Hana could sense two bruised ribs and to her dismay one of his ribs was broken. She worked on getting the blood to flow more to ease the stiffness of the two bruised ribs. Next, she tried to see if she could stimulate the bone to repair itself, but she found the only thing she could do was stabilize the broken rib. It would have to heal slowly on its own. Hana turned her attention to the other ribcage. She healed three more bruised ribs, but thankfully he didn't have any broken ones on this side. Then Hana moved up to his shoulder. There was fluid surrounding the socket. She increased the blood flow just slightly, broke up the excess fluid, and eased the swelling down.

"Well, you were pretty banged up."

Lee opened his eyes and asked, "What's the damage report?"

"You had five bruised ribs and one broken rib. I healed all the bruised ones, but I couldn't heal the broken one. I guess my healing capabilities are limited. You are going to be sore for awhile from the bruised ribs. We can do another healing session if anything worsens. For the broken one, we are just going to have to wait for it to heal on its own. How does your shoulder feel now?"

"A little sore but other than that it feels great. Could you heal my hands like you promised?"

"Oh, almost forgot. Sure, no problem. You shouldn't have scars for sure when I am done."

Lee sat back up facing Hana. Hana removed the dirty bandages about his hands. Tearing a piece of cloth from her old dress, which by now had been reduced to rags, she wet the cloth and cleaned Lee's hands before she healed them.

"Alright, hold your hands out palms up." Hana instructed Lee to do. He obediently complied. Holding her hands over top his, she closed her eyes and focused her chi once again. After a few minutes, Hana let a sigh of exhaustion escape her as the soft glow of her hands subsided. Lee gave Hana a worried look, but soon looked down at his hands as Hana removed hers.

"There good as new." Hana said beaming at her work. Lee was looking down at his hands a little amazed at her healing abilities. There were no blemishes on his palms, and the skin was flawless like there were never burns to begin with.

"Wow, your healing abilities are amazing without having any previous instruction. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I hate to ruin this moment when you are suddenly being so generous with your gratitude. But we need to rap up your ribs so that the one can heal properly." Hana said as she turned to grab the strips of cloth that she kept in their pack of supplies.

Lee grabbed Hana's arm to get her to turn towards him, and she did looking questioningly back at Lee's unreadable, golden eyes. "I really am thankful for what you did and have done. You could have told those bounty hunters back there about me and my uncle to get yourself off the hook, but you didn't. And I appreciate that."

"Wow, the sun must have really gotten to you. You sure you don't have a fever." Hana said in a mockingly serious tone as she held her hand up to Lee's forehead as if she was going to check his temperature. As she did this, the sleeve of her robe fell down below her wrist. Lee caught sight of something that looked like a tattoo on Hana's wrist. He grabbed her wrist as Hana was drawing back her hand. Lee forcefully upturned Hana's wrist to get better look at the markings on the inside of her wrist. Hana winced in discomfort as Lee did this.

"What is this?" Lee said taking a closer look at the tattoo. There was a marking shaped like a crescent moon, which ran along the length of the wrist, while a full circle lay in the cradle of the crescent moon-shaped marking. "This looks like a tattoo of the watertribe. Is that where you are from?" That would explain her skin color. It may not be as dark as that watertribe peasant girl's skin, but it's darker than that of the people of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation for that matter.

"No, I used to live in a small Earth Kingdom village before the Fire Nation came for me." Hana said timidly while not understanding why Lee would be so interested in knowing if she was from a watertribe.

"Yes, but are you from the Northern or Southern watertribe?"

"No. Not that I am aware of." Hana replied. Lee could tell that she was telling the truth, because her eyes seemed confused by his line of questioning, and she didn't seem suspicious of his questions. So she didn't seemed threatened enough to lie. She must be adopted because I have not come across a person in either the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation with skin as dark as her's or her unusual hazel colored eyes. Her hair closely resembles Azula's friend Ty Lee's. But she can bend both water and air. Damn, this is infuriating.

While releasing Hana's wrist from his grip, Lee apologized, "Sorry, I was just curious about where you were from, and when I saw this tattoo I…"

"That's ok. Forget it." Hana said hastily while rubbing the part of her arm that Lee had gripped. She rose from the ground abruptly and walked over to the ostrich horse, which was gingerly drinking from the river.

Without turning around to face Lee, Hana said, "There are strips of cloth amongst the supplies, which we have. Help yourself to them. If you need more feel free to tear more strips of cloth for yourself." Hana stopped running her hand back and forth through the ostrich-horse's fury neck and sat down on the ground proceeding to take off her leather shoes.

"What are you going to do?" Lee asked.

"I am going to find us some lunch." Hana said in an even tone as she took the sheath from her waist and strapped it to her back. Then she got into the river water. "I recommend that you rest while I'm gone, of course, after you're done taking care of your injury."

Lee kept watching Hana has she waded past him through the waist high water, wondering why she seemed a little…subdued. He shook it off and went back to taking care of binding his lower chest.

To say the least, Hana's curiosity was growing by the second after that unexpected line of questioning from Lee. Why is he so interested in finding out what my heritage is? How could it matter now? This just doesn't make any sense right now. What do my tattoos have to do with anything? I have had these ever since I could remember. Hana thought this as she looked down at her wrists which bore identical tattoos. It worries me that he would be concerned about something as trivial as that. But maybe these mean something important to him. I sure don't know what they represent. If he had asked it like a conversational question, then I wouldn't be worried. But he asked those questions like it determined if he wanted to be around me or not. Why would it make a difference for him to know what group of people I belong to? I just don't get it. If he ran away from the Fire Nation, then he would be seeking refuge among the other nations and apparently the Earth Kingdom. I have already proven that I wouldn't betray him even though he is a firebender. He seemed to be concerned more about me being from one of the watertribes. What has the watertribe done to him? It was almost like he was going to accuse me of something horrible if I told him that I was from the watertribe. Well, not much I can do about it now. Darn, why did this have to happen? He was beginning to loosen up around me. At least enough, so that he was able to thank me for all I have done for him.

Hana's concentration was broken when she felt something brush against her pant leg. Looking down, she saw something that looked black, slender, and…long. She held a scream in, which was trying to make its way up her throat. The creature didn't seem to be content in swimming past her as it turned around and came back towards her. Hana tried to stay calm, but her heart was ready to leap out of her chest, on account of beating so hard within her. Quickly, she unsheathed the sword and gripped it tightly in her hands. Slowly, she began to move away from the creature swimming lazily towards her. Hana separated the sword into two preparing to attack the creature if it came too close. She reached the riverbank and hastily got out of the water. Hana walked backwards from the river with her heart beating faster and harder than before. A black, shiny snake-like head peeped out of the water looking side to side. Next two legs appeared with feet and long slender toes. These were followed by a long slender midsection, another pair of matching legs, and a long tail. The creature measured about three feet in length from head to tail. Its tongue whipped out and quickly retreated tasting the surrounding air. Directing its yellow, beady-eye gaze towards Hana, the salamander-like creature hastened its pace anticipating the meal that waited. But Hana made different plans.

As soon as he heard a sword being unsheathed, Lee looked up river to find Hana standing perfectly still as if waiting for something. He laughed to himself. Maybe she found a new way to fish. But he began to think otherwise when Hana started to back away from something, which she was staring at in front of her. He watched as she separated the sword into two dueling blades. Lee became more confused when Hana continued to back away while getting out of the river and walking backwards away from the riverbank, not breaking her gaze for a moment. As something big and black came out of the river, all Lee could think of was holy !#.

There was no time for hesitation or a shriek. Within seconds Hana reacted to the animal charging towards her. As Hana backed away keeping barely out of reach of the reptile's barred fangs, she swung one sword to one side but missed the neck by an inch. Holding the blades crisscross and pointing downwards, she pulled the swords across each other snipping the head cleanly from the rest of the deadly creature's body. The body fell limp to the ground, and the head lay with its mouth still open showing the fangs dripping with venom. Hana stood in shock; her chest heaving as she breathed heavily. But she was not satisfied with only decapitating the reptile. Hana flipped the sword in her left hand and jabbed it through the head just to make sure. She held on to the other sword in her right hand, now with both hands, as if her life depended on it. Suddenly she felt a hand gently grip her arm. Breaking her gaze from the creature she noticed Lee standing next to her.

"It's dead, Hana. You killed it." Lee said calmly keeping eye contact with Hana.

Hana didn't seem to believe Lee as she shifted her frightened gaze back to the creature lying still in two parts. Lee used his other hand to take hold of the sword, which Hana was grasping in a death grip.

"Give me the sword, Hana." Lee said gently. Hana kept her eyes on the animal as she shook her head 'no'.

"It's dead, Hana." Lee repeated. "You can let go now." Lee said this without realizing the full weight of his words.

Hana released the sword to Lee. He took it and in turn jabbed the blade into the body while never loosing his hold on Hana's arm.

"See it's not going anywhere." Lee said lightheartedly.

That is when Hana broke down. She never tore her terrified gaze from the head of the deadly reptile. Her body began to shake uncontrollably, and her legs gave way to her weight. Lee tried to keep her standing by grabbing onto her other arm, but he ended up dropping to the ground with Hana.

"Whoa. It's alright. You are not hurt, are you?" Lee asked a little worried.

Hana finally looked back at Lee and spoke a soft, shaky, "No." But that didn't stop her trembling. Lee saw tears beginning to run down her flushed cheeks. Hana slowly closed her eyes.

"I…I…I thought. I thought that it was going to… and I wasn't going to able to kill it in time." Hana said softly while still shaking like a leaf. Then she did something which Lee was not expecting. She grasped onto his arms and pulled him into a hug. Now it was Lee's turn to be in shock. Hana seemed to let go entirely at that point sobbing freely on Lee's shoulder. Lee knew that he could not push her away in the state she was in. He had to calm her down first, so if hugging back would do the trick, then so be it. A few second of torture, he could deal with that.

"But you did kill it. And now we have something to eat." Lee said trying to cheer Hana up. It seemed to be working as Hana's body stopped trembling, and he didn't feel anymore warm tears fall onto his shoulder.

It's edible, right?" Lee asked warily.

Hana lifted her head off his shoulder and faced Lee saying, "Yes.", and she giggled at Lee's ignorance. "They taste rather good too. You've never seen an anamander before?" Lee shook his head. Hana continued sounding calmer, "I have, but never this close. I can never get used to how scary looking they are. I have heard that they can grow up to be five to six feet long. So, this one is still a youngling."

Lee helped Hana stand back up, and pulled the swords out and connected the swords to form one.

"Do you want the head as a trophy?" Lee said with a smirk.

"No, that's quite alright. The memory is enough for me."

"Do you want to carry the sword and I'll carry the prize?"

"Alright." Hana replied half giggling.

An anamander is a fictitious reptile imagined by yours truly. Think of it as a cross between an anaconda and a salamander. Creepy, huh?

If you still think that Hana's reaction was not justified, then please realize all the stuff she has gone through. Wouldn't a fierce bending battle, an hour walk in the blazing sun, and an empty stomach put you on the edge? You already know my response. If you want to leave yours feel free.