A/N: Aren't you all lucky? You get three chapters in one day! This is only because they were already written so don't be expecting this all the time! I'm not that quick of a writer. ^.^

Hope you all enjoy this!

-Hakoda-

"There has to be someone here to guard the village, Chiron!" Hakoda exclaimed angrily. His voice came out as a harsh jumble of words, just low enough to not be classified as a shout.

Chiron pursed her lips together as she looked at the man in front of her. Her aged eyes, framed by several locks of silver-grey hair that had slipped out of it's bun, narrowed at him as she tucked her legs underneath of her. "So leave one of your men here."

"I can't do that! We need everyone that can fight out there, Chiron. Everyone!" And that was true, he told himself, they would need every able bodied man they could get their hands on if they even wanted to think about bringing down the Fire Nation. Even if it meant leaving him behind. He was too young to come anyways.

"You're letting an anger-filled mind blind you, Hakoda." Chiron's words were crisp, clean. She wasn't playing around with him, she was trying to get a point across. "I miss her just as much as you do, more so, really. She was my daughter, if you remember."

"She was your daughter, but she was my wife. And I let them take her from me!"

He was pacing again, back and forth, from side to side, across the small tent that Chiron had spent her life in. The scent of ash and burnt flesh coated the Lion-seal pelt walls, a scent that would forever remind the people of the Southern Water Tribe of all that they had lost only the week before.

"And he's your son, and she your daughter. Are you really willing to leave them? Right after their mother left them?" It was so difficult to keep her voice straight and even when talking about her daughter like that. Her beautiful daughter that looked so much like her gorgeous grand-daughter it almost hurt. But somehow she managed.

For a moment, Hakoda faultered in his pacing. One foot held inches off the ground, eyes locked on something only he could see, but then the pacing started again and he had his face set in that same stony line.

"Chiron. I have to go. I have to take the men with me. And the village needs someone to protect it. If you have a better idea, by all means, tell me. I'm more than happy to hear it." And though his voice was nothing but anger and bitterness, hidden deep behind his storm-cloud eyes, Chiron could see the pain that he felt; not just over loosing the woman that he had planned to spend his life with, but the pain that making the decision to leave his children as well caused him.

And Chiron, for all the years that she had lived, couldn't think of a single thing to say to the broken-man in front of her. Because, really, what could one say to a man that had lost his anchor and was leaving behind his world?

"Dad?" The voice was so young, so easily recognizable as the boy that they were talking about, and yet both Water Tribe adults jerked at the sound.

"Sokka? What are you doing in here! I told you that you were supposed to be putting Katara to bed!" And even though there was nothing but rage in the older man's voice, the dark-haired child didn't even flinch.

"Dad, you don't have to worry. I'll make sure the village is taken care of." A pause as something flitted in the boy's ocean-blue eyes, something unrecognizable but that certaintly shouldn't be there, and then he was giving his father a look of pure determination. "I promise, I won't let anything happen to them."

And another promise settled itself on his shoulders.