I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender, or any of the names or characters of the show. I merely control them for my own twisted pleasure from this point in the story on.

Chapter 16: The Rescue Part I

Katara sighed and leaned against the hard chair behind her. She'd been in this small tea shop for an hour waiting for her masked friend to give her the signal to join him. They'd waited in the woods all day; she knew it was because he would be less noticeable at night. They'd managed to make their way through the land much faster than she'd thought.

She credited that to the fact that every time Aang and Sokka had to walk, they always complained. Complaining slowed everyone down.

She missed her brother and her friends. She worried about them almost every time she thought about them, and she thought about them a lot. Thinking back to her fight with the firebender a few nights ago, she remembered that he'd said they were being pursued. That gave her hope that her friends had managed to escape and were still running.

She sighed again and leaned forward to place her elbows on the tiny round table in front of her careful to avoid the candle that lit her view. Her teacup was empty, but she was afraid to get up and miss the Blue Spirit's signal.

If he was even coming back for her.

Katara hadn't been entirely sure what he had been trying to say. She was almost certain he was somewhere near the Fire Navy ships that were using the docks and river around this small town as a base. She didn't know what he was doing or how long he'd take, but she began to get worried.

"Waiting for your boyfriend?" a kind voice called from across the shop. Katara blushed as she recognized the voice of the shop owner, a lovely middle aged lady. Katara smiled up at her as the owner walked over to the table from behind the counter, a serving tray in hand.

"Sort of." Katara blushed again, not really sure what else to say. "He's not really my boyfriend." She mumbled it because she didn't really want to say it but felt like she ought to.

"May I join you as you wait?" the woman said, motioning to the empty seat across the table from Katara. "You seem in need of a little company."

"Sure," Katara said with another smile, "it is your shop."

The women gave a charming laugh before taking a seat. "You're a traveler, are you not?" she asked. "Do you have a name?"

"Katara." Her voice was hesitant because she wasn't sure if giving her name would get her in trouble; she didn't know if the Fire Nation even knew her name.

"I'm Honyu," the women said, bowed her head in greeting. "You're tea is gone, would you like another cup? I have many different kinds now." Honyu sighed in pleasure and Katara felt warmth coming from her at her obvious love of her trade. "Apparently someone on one of those ships really enjoys their tea. The Fire Navy has paid me many copper pieces to supply them with as many different kinds as possible." She held a finger to her lips and shh'd "But they gave me too much and I've managed to order the ones I've always wanted to sell."

Katara giggled. "They can be good for something." She said, and then a thought donned on her. The old man liked tea; the Blue Spirit wouldn't carry around that heavy tea set if it wasn't important right? Katara grinned and turned her attention back to the heavily pleased shop owner. "How many different kinds did they order from you?" Katara asked innocently,

"Oh, about twenty or so," Honyu said offhandedly, "it was only for one ship."

"Only one?" Katara asked, keeping her voice unsuspecting, "It must be a special person that likes it. Maybe one of the commanders?" Katara asked the question in a rhetorical tone, as if she didn't expect an answer.

Honyu fell right into her trap. "No, I don't think so. The solider who came to buy it said something about serving tea to the brig. That was strange, huh?"

Katara felt like her heart took a leap into the sky. "Very strange," she tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. "Which ship was it?"

Honyu looked at her as if she was seeing Katara for the first time. She opened her mouth, before her eyes drifted over Katara shoulder. "That doesn't happened to be the young man now, does is?" Honyu asked in a slight whisper.

Katara turned in her chair to see the Blue Spirit halfway out of an alleyway ten feet behind her. It was so dark out, that if his mask hadn't been bright blue, she never would have seen him there. She turned back to the shop owner and remembered he was hunted here by the Fire Nation: Katara had seen his wanted poster on the town board.

Katara felted her questions wrap around her neck like a rope, branding her a spy. "Uh, no." Katara gasped, "Isn't he that-"

"The Red Rain," Honyu said quietly.

"What?" Katara couldn't read the woman's eyes but she was sure her confusion was readable in her own.

"The ship that ordered all the tea, it was The Red Rain." The women stood up and placed Katara's empty cup on her tray. "Don't keep him waiting," she said with a small smile before walking back over to her counter and disappearing into a back room.

She jumped when a hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up at her masked friends. When he grabbed a hold of his swords, she held up a hand. "Its alright, she's not an enemy." She placed her hand over his on her shoulder, squeezing it tightly and smiling at him. "If fact, she gave me a clue to where you're old friend might be."

Zuko led Katara by the hand out to where the ships were docked. The Red Rain was the ship the tea loving old man was on, she'd said as they wondered thought the darkened town. That was good because it was one of the ships docked and not anchored out in the river.

Getting on the ship was easy enough for Zuko; he knew all the tricks to the Fire Navy trade. He even knew where the brig was too, something that would come in handy if they ran into trouble and got turned around inside the ship. The hallways were scarcely manned, it being late enough in the evening for a meal break, and most of the crew was in the galley.

They made their way through the underbelly of the ship, avoiding most of the guards by going under them. A few more yards and they would be up under the brig, and Zuko would be able to navigate all the way to the brigs door. Down the hallway a bit was a turn off and he opened the hatch with both hands before motioned for Katara to go forward.

As she crawled through the doorway, he heard a noise from behind him and turned to see a guard make a blind turn around the corner to his left. He pushed Katara through the door, and ran down after him, knocking him out swiftly and without much fuss.

Katara stumbled into the doorway as the Blue Spirit pushed her forward. She huffed and turned back to tell him off, but the door shut behind her.

Worried, she tried to open the hatch from her side of the door, pulling on the round handle. Before she could get it to move, however, the sound of boots scuffing the floor made her look around for a hiding place.

She ducked into a room and waited. Hiding behind the opened door, she sucked in breath and held it. The noise got closer and closer, and she leaned her head against the door hoping they would by pass the room after seeing it empty.

When the man stuck his head in the room to look around, Katara realized he was a firebender by his face plate. She didn't move at all as he walked in the room and looked around.

She let out a scream when he spun on his heels and blew a fire blast at her, barely missing her behind the door. She ran, bending some water out of her hip flask and heading down the hallway. She passed the door she'd used to get in and kept running, knowing she'd lose precious time trying to get it open.

She looked behind her in time to block another fire blast with her water, and also managed to almost run into a wall. Taking the tight corner, she used her water to freeze a slip of ice on the floor before running on, smiling triumphantly when she heard the firebender go down with a crash.

She stopped after another few feet, realizing what she had to do. She couldn't keep running away, she had to fight. If she let the firebender escape then he'd tell others. She turned around, holding what was left of her water in her hands and ready to take the firebender on if he decided to come after her again.

He didn't disappoint.

He came running down the hallway, and blew a fire ball at her almost as big as the hallways itself. Horrified, she stared at it for almost too long: something that big would dwindle her remaining water down to almost nothing. Having no choice, she blocked and was helpless.

The force of the steam that shot off the colliding elements knocked her to her butt, and she looked up through it to see the firebender reading another attack. She closed her eyes and used the last of her water to block something she knew she could never stop.

She saw light behind her closed eyelids but nothing else happened. Slowly opening on eyes, she saw the Blue Spirit standing before her, his swords out and ready. How'd he gotten there and how he'd stopped the blast was a mystery to her, but he'd saved her life again.

The firebender blew another blast at the mask man, and he didn't dodge it. Katara cried out when he was engulfed in flames, and covered her own head in response to the heat.

Again nothing burned her, and when she looked back, the Blue Spirit was still standing there, unhurt. Not even his clothes singed. He rushed forward toward the firebender and quickly blocked his arms and knocked him to the floor. Breathing hard, he turned back to her as she stared at him in amazement.

She remembered it happening before, back in the holding cell with her and the others. Back then he hadn't mattered to her because she was too busy trying to escape. He's been covered in flame and had come out unscathed then too. But to see it happen right in front of her eyes, there was no other explanation.

The Blue Spirit was a firebender too.

Zuko turned to Katara, his breath coming out in short bursts. He'd run to her when he heard her scream, and was sure his heart had never missed so many beats. He walked over to her quickly, holding out his hand to help her up.

When she hesitated, he became worried. Was she hurt? The thought made him knell at her side and quickly check her over. She didn't seem to be burned anywhere, and he looked up into her face to make sure she wasn't in any pain.

Her eyes were narrowed, and he leaned back to get a better look. When he titled her head, she took a deep breath and let it out before smiling sadly at him and shaking her head. "I'm fine, let's go."

She let him help her up and they continued on their way down the hallway. They weren't very far from the brig when he realized she was acting strange. She was following him but didn't seem to be watching where she was going. Maybe she had been hurt.

He stopped and she ran into him, gasping and apologizing in a hushed voice. He held a hand over her mouth when over her whispers he heard something else.

The familiar laugh caught his attention, and he rushed towards it. Down the hallways ten yards and behind a door, that's were his uncle's laugh was coming from. Hurrying through the door he found the brig and one quick glance had him both relieved and completely confused.

In one of the cells was his uncle, sitting on the floor and, by god, enjoying a cup of tea with a female Fire Nation solider.

Okay, so here's where my really important Author Notes go. Enjoy:

God, I love Iroh.

I have good news in the short run and bad news in the long run.

I just got a new job. –yay!- The problem with that is that I'm now working about 45 hours a week. Add school onto that, and I'm afraid that my updates will be very erratic from this point on.

Now… emphasis on the AFRAID. I'm not saying they will be I'm just saying they might be.

Also. just to make it clear, Zuko has no idea he firebended. It was a " in the heat of the moment" kind of thing. -hahah look a another pun-

Oh, and Honyu is so my IC (insert character). . lol