Iroh was the first through the trees. He searched the clearing and found that Zuko had re-lit the fire in the middle of their camp. He was sitting on the far side of them with his back against a tree with Riyo sleeping in his lap. Katara looked around Iroh but frowned and looked down to the ground. She didn't want to look at him yet. She couldn't look at him yet without crying. And she wasn't about to start crying. Once a month is all she would allow herself and even then that was pushing it.

Sokka pushed past her and pulled her but the elbow into the clearing. Aang followed slowly, pondering on whether he would be safer with Azula at the moment.

Sokka turned around and looked from Iroh to Katara and then to Zuko.

"Does anyone care to explain what happened back there?" Katara shrugged her shoulders and looked off into the forest. Sokka looked over at Zuko but he wasn't about to answer. Sokka turned eyes on Iroh who shook his head with a smile.

"I don't think either of them understand what happened back there."

"And you do?" Sokka ask impatiently. Iroh nodded and sat down on a small rock.

"I believe I do." He settled down against the rock and looked at Sokka. Aang sat down beside Iroh, figuring of all places he was probably safer there if the lover's started to fight. Sokka sat down across from him and stared at him patiently.

"Well?" Iroh smiled and shook his head.

"I guess I should start from the beginning." Katara sat down behind her brother and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Well it was close to the time when Prince Zuko was born. There was a fine admiral in the army. He was a good man, he served under me for years. He and his wife tried for years to have a child. But all their tries ended in loss. Either the baby was born dead or not at all. They had decided to give up, and when they did. She became pregnant again. They didn't think this pregnancy would be any different. The baby was born healthy, and he lived. But he was in their eyes a monster. Born with no color to his skin, and eyes pink like the lotus. They named him Fiosha Hunniwa. A demon name. The Fire Lord was very suspicious and seen the child's birth as a horrible omen. He had the baby locked away with the prisoners. He forgot about the demon child. But the prisoners that had taken the baby, only saw a baby. They didn't see a demon. The prisoners raised him down in the dark of the dungeons. Teaching him to bend and to fight. He was good, and he was crafty. He was about sixteen when he escaped. That was a little less then a year ago. The Fire Lord had sent officers after hi, but no one was able to find him." Iroh finished and shook his head. "The boy was damned from the day of his birth."

"Tell them the rest. Uncle." Zuko said from his spot against the tree, Iroh only stared at Zuko for a moment, before Zuko stood up holding Riyo close to his chest so that he wouldn't wake him. "Tell her!" Iroh shook his head.

"That isn't something that needs to be known." Zuko frowned at his uncle and stared at Katara. Katara frowned and returned his stare with a glare of her own.

"Tell me what, Zuko?"

"That he raped Azula." Katara's eyes widened and her frown fell away from her face. She stared at him then looked to Iroh but Zuko continued.

"The first thing the bastard did when he escaped, was to show the nation just what kind of monster he was." Katara stared at him.

"How do you know this?" Zuko's eyes dropped and his face turned to stone. He was silent for a moment before he looked back up with a blank expression on his face.

"She has the burn marks to prove it."

"What?"

"She has burn marks on her back where he pinned her down in the shape of his hands." Katara frowned and looked over to Iroh.

"Is that true." Iroh nodded then thought for a moment.

"It is true, but I have never seen the scars myself. The fire lord ordered the demon's death after he found out." Katara frowned and looked back at Zuko.

"I thought you hated your sister."

"I do, but that doesn't change the fact that she is still my sister. And the fact that, that man is dangerous!"

"He didn't try anything with me. He saved my life. He kept me from being a late night snack." Zuko's eyes flared.

"How do I know you didn't just go to him willingly. He could have caught you in his eyes and you would have walked into his arms." Katara's jaw fell slack.

Aang looked at Sokka with wide eyes. Sokka felt Aang's eyes on him and returned his own worried look.

"What are you saying? Are you accusing me of sleeping with him?" Sokka and Aang's eyes both widened more. Aang scrambled on his hands and knees over to Sokka.

"I can't be certain that you didn't! You seemed very happy to see him!" Aang and Sokka both took a diving leap behind Appa, peeping their heads over the saddle rim.

Katara stood up then and glared at him. She glared at him for a moment not even sure what she wanted to say to him.

"So now, I'm a whore?"

"I didn't say that."

"No you accused me of sleeping with some strange man just because I was happy to see him." Zuko glared at her. She wanted to play games? Fine he could play games.

"You were almost to happy to see him."

"Because he was alive! I thought he had been eaten!"

"He should have been." The yelling had gone on long enough to send Riyo screaming in a high pitched squealing wake up cry. Iroh walked over to take the baby but Zuko shook his head and put the baby on his shoulder and started patting him.

"You don't know him Zuko."

"I wish I could say the same about you. How well do you know him Katara?"

"Better then you do I think."

"Well isn't that dandy. You want to fuck rapist go ahead. What am I not good enough for you now?"

"What did you say?"

"You wouldn't make love to me but you would fuck a stranger?" Katara's blood ran cold and the anger itched at the back of her eyes.

"Zuko. Put Riyo down." Zuko glared at her and continued to pat Riyo. Katara' could feel her heart beating harder in her chest. She clenched her teeth together, so hard it hurt her jaws, to keep from yelling. "Iroh. Please take Riyo." Iroh shook his head and walked over and took Riyo away from Zuko. Zuko let him without any protest but didn't take his glare from Katara.

Katara waited until Iroh was a safe distance away and she closed the distance between the two.

"So you honestly think that I slept with him don't you?!"

"You haven't proved other wise."

"I love you, I shouldn't have to prove anything to you?!"

"Did you tell him you loved him too?" Katara's eyes narrowed and her fist came hard agaist his jaw. His head snapped to the side and he stumbled a little. He turned and glared at her, his own anger making smoke rise from his hands.

"You hit me?"

"When I say I love some one I mean it. I don't say it to just anybody."

"I can smell him on you! That's really trashy Katara!"

"Trashy?! This coming from a man that paid to have sex with strangers!" Zuko's eyes narrowed as his hands burst into flames.

"How dare you throw that back at me!?"

"How dare you accuse me of things that you know I would never do?!" Zuko closed the distance between them staring down at her maybe half of a foot between them.

"Do I know you? Really?" Katara shook her head and pushed him back from her.

"You think you are so much better then everyone else, and that just because you done things that you regret means that everyone else has to have done worse." Katara looked to the ground and softened her voice.

"You don't know me either." Katara looked up at him as he said it. She let her eyes relax and her face went blank. She looked up at him with nothingness filling her eyes.

"Fine." She said in a soft voice and turned around and started walking. Zuko stared after her. Sokka jumped down from Appa and started after her, but the vines from the trees started to entangle behind her.

"Dammit! I forgot that she could do that!" He started hacking the vines with his blade-rang, but as the blade was sinking halfway into a thick vine, the vines began to freeze, with a thin dusty looking coat of ice spreading from the middle out.

Aang looked at Zuko with a frown.

"You know she wouldn't do anything like that." Zuko growled and turned on the avatar.

"I KNOW THAT! What none of you seem to understand is that he would!"