A/N: Wow! to think, I've had eighty people read this story already! That just makes me all giddy and warm feeling. ^.^ I hope you all enjoy reading this chapter!

-Aang-

"Alright, tell me what's going through that bald head of yours." Sokka let a teasing smile cross his face as he dropped down next to the young bender.

Aang had been sitting out on the edge of the camp, legs crossed and hands in his lap, back against the tree, for almost three hours. Which really wasn't that unusual. Being a monk and all, Aang was prone to random spurts of meditation. But something just seemed odd about it this time. A churning, rolling feeling in the pit of Sokka's stomache had started up when Aang first leftt their group to sit on his own and it hadn't gone away yet.

Aang's light blue eyes didn't leave whatever grain of sand they were studying, staying down-cast, when he spoke. "Nothing, Sokka. I...I'm fine. Really!"

And it was so obvious that he wasn't. The smile dropped from Sokka's face, lips pursing together slightly, as the younger boy shifted beside him. Practically every thing about Aang was screaming 'I'm not all right!'. It would take a blind person not to see it.

"Yeah," Sokka kept his voice dry as he spoke, making sure that Aang kne he wasn't actually joking around. "and I'm the leader of the Fire Nation. Now stop acting like a doofus and tell me what's going on."

Aang tilted his head slightly, light blue eyes giving Sokka a wary glance, before he let out a sigh. Really, he didn't know what he had been thinking trying to play off being upset as meditating. Even when he'd come up with it, he thought that it was a stupid idea. Granted, he had been expecting Katara to be the one to come over and talk with him.

"Really, Sokka, it's nothing." The Avatar muttered.

"Uh huh. So it's got nothing to do with the fight we had earlier with Fire Nation soldiers?" Sokka arched one of his eye-brows. Of course, he already knew that was exactly what had spurned this sudden bout of moodiness. There wasn't anything else that could have brought it up.

Of course, Aang didn't say anything to answer him; choosing this time to keep just keep quiet and hope that Sokka would get bored and go away.

Luckily for the young Airbender, Sokka had learned to be a patient person years ago. "Aang, if you don't tell me what's going on, I'm not going to be able to help and it'll just keep bothering you." Unluckily for him, Sokka was also a master at guilting people into doing what he wanted. "And then Katara's going to notice and she'll get worried."

Sokka could practically feel the coming off of the younger boy in waves.

"But...I don't want you guys to worry about me either, Sokka!" Aang turned to look at him, blue eyes laced with sadness and worry, and the most pleading look on his face. It was obvious that he wanted Sokka to go away, and at the same time, he also wanted him to keep asking about what was wrong.

"Well, you're just going to have to tell me anyways." Silence. Resisting the urge to sigh, Sokka gave Aang a leveling stare. "Listen up Aang, it's either me you're telling or Katara."

Resolve shattering, Aang turned his gaze from Sokka to the sky. He couldn't tell Katara. The older Bender would never stop thinking about him in battle then and she'd get distracted and then she'd get hurt. "It's just...I don't want to have to kill them, Sokka."

Sokka blinked. Once, twice, three times, before slinging an arm around the monk's shoulder and pulling him against his side. He didn't miss the tears welling up in Aang's eyes, tears there at just the thought of taking another person's life, and he knew that a simple hug wasn't going to make it better for the boy. But for the moment, it would give him the warm, fuzzy feeling that Sokka had missed out on over the years.

"Hey, hey! Don't get all upset like that, Aang." He let his voice take on the matronly tone he used to speak to Katara in when she was little and had fallen on the ice. "And don't worry about it any more either, Aang."

"But-"

"No." Sokka's voice was still gentle, still soothing, but there was an intensity behind it that Aang hadn't heard before. A seriousness that said, 'I mean business'. "You don't have to worry about it anymore, Aang. I promise you. I won't let you be forced into doing that."

And, because of those few words, Sokka let the blood coat his own hands, let it soak into his skin so it never came out and the sight was always there whenever he closed his eyes, so that he could spare the little Air-Bender that should never have been brought into the war in the first place.