Chapter 10

Katara rose the next morning with the sun. Morning was always her favourite time of day; all traces of night were gone and it meant a new beginning. Leaving the dark shelter of the cave Katara takes a moment to take a deep breath, and a quick twirl in the sunshine. She stops abruptly at a noise to her far right, turning she sees that it's just the air-bender, Aang, rolling over. Seeing him and the Exile…no, seeing Zuko still sleeping she can't help but think about what she'd overheard last night.

She hadn't meant to eavesdrop on their conversation, it had just happened. She'd heard them yelling and then there was a bright flash of light, she had only been worried that they were fighting and would leave her stranded here…but what Zuko had said, it had her thinking differently about him. They were more alike than she first thought; they were both victims of circumstances beyond their control. He did free her from the castle and was taking her to meet her true love, and get married, and have the happily ever after she'd always dreamed about. . And maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt her to be little nicer to him.

Zuko awakes slowly, the sun blazing across his face. Slightly irked at being awoken he tries to go back to sleep. At least until he notices that the sun is rather bright…he's overslept, which could very well mean,

"Where's the Princess!" Zuko exclaims jumping up. Looking around frantically he quickly runs over to the cave to find….nothing. No sleeping princess, no awake, cranky princess, just nothing. She's escaped. Angry, not just with the princess but with himself as well, Zuko grabs his swords from where he'd left them last night.

"Get up Aang," He says securing his weapons on his back.

"Five more minutes Sister…." Aang replies rolling over. Really not having time for this Zuko picks up a piece of wood from last night's fire and throws it at the air-bender, who then awakes with a start,

"What's wrong Zuko?" Aang asks groggily

"The princess ran off while we were sleeping, we need to track her down. She couldn't have gotten far in that dessert. If we leave now we should be able to find her before –"

"She's right there." Shocked Zuko turns to see Aang pointing towards the cliff face where, low and behold, out walks the princess with an armful of fruit.

"Where have you been?!" The princess jumps slightly at hearing Zuko yell at her, the two boys had still been asleep when she'd left to gather fruit.

"Good morning to you two, breakfast?" she asks offering up a kumquat.

Seeing the princess standing there, offering him the pathetic looking piece of fruit, some of Zuko's anger dissipates. "You just went out to get fruit, not to try and escape?"

"Well, no. I took some time to think it over last night and I realize now that it was wrong of me to act the way I did, and that you're just trying to help me. So, I'm sorry."

She seems really sincere…but Zuko is having none of this. Zuko grabs the kumquats and hands them to Aang. Aang of course does not mind and happily starts to eat. Taking her elbow Zuko leads Katara away from Aang and his kumquats.

"What's your deal?" he asks once they were a safe distance away.

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean Princess. Why are you suddenly being so nice to us? Yesterday you were doing everything in your power to get away from us, including trying to kill me!"

"Who are you killing?" Aang asks with his mouth full of kumquat. Both Zuko and Katara jump, the young air nomad having caught the two by surprise.

"We're not killing anyone Aang," Katara says gently, "I was just telling Zuko that after last night I've had a change of heart and I think we should keep going. As long as we stop for the night, every night."

"That will take us twice as long."

"And it will take us three times as long if I we don't all get along, so shall we finish breakfast and get going?" conceding defeat Zuko just stops trying and leaves Aang and Katara to their fruit while he starts packing up the supplies so they can get going as soon as possible.

After a few hours of flying they decided to touch down again since it was going to be dark soon. As the three of them walked along Princess Katara and Zuko got to talking. i.e. Zuko started interrogating the Princess about her magical change of heart as they walked along through the forest of huge red maple trees.

"So Princess, why did you really change your mind?" he asked her, looking her over with a scrutinizing eye, just knowing she has some ulterior motive.

"Why is it so hard to believe I had a change of heart?" The princess asks indignantly.

"People don't go from wanting-to-strangle-someone angry to understanding and forgiveness in a single night Princess." That manages to shut her up as the princess hangs her head in shame, Zuko with his body turned away from the princess. They walk like this for a few moments; Aang keeping pace a few steps behind the two teens.

"I'm sorry about that," she whispers finally, "I never really meant to hurt you or anything. I was…I was scared okay? For almost ten years that tower was my home, and as much as I wanted to leave, a part of me wanted to stay…" Zuko listens silently, a part of him knowing how she felt, spending so much time on his island.

"Because you know what's there, and what can and can't hurt you, but it's different, out here in the world," Zuko says stopping. The princess stops moments later and looks back at the young firebender as he looks her dead in the eyes, "I understand."

Gazing at him speechlessly she walks back over to him, coming to stand only a few inches from him, whispering a quiet 'thank you' and staying where she is, looking into his golden eyes, as he looks back into her sapphire ones. Aang sits there, looking back from one to the other, a large smile on his face. You can practically feel the…."tension" between the two of them.

They all seem frozen in this little tableau when out of the trees swings this blur of colour and the princess is scooped up with a shout. In shock Zuko and Aang turn their attention to the forest canopy. "Princess?!"

"Put me down you freak!" following the sound of the princess' voice the two young men turn to see the Princess standing on a high up branch, grasped in the clutches of another young man, close to Zuko's age with shaggy brown hair, patched blue and red clothing and oddly enough a stalk of grass tucked in the corner of his mouth.

"Don't worry Princess; I'll protect you from the…firebender." The guy says, his voice dripping with contempt as he says firebender and looks down at Zuko.

"What do you think you're doing, put me down!" the Princess shout struggling against his hold. Rolling his eyes Zuko walks over to the tree the two are standing in, "Hey look…whoever you are, that is my Princess now her back, I've got a job to do!"

Arm still holding the princess tight, Jet jumps down to the forest floor, and he does so more people emerge from the woods, all in their teens or younger each poised with a weapon aimed at Aang and Zuko. "I'm Jet and these….are my Freedom Fighters."

"Alright, Jet, I don't know what you think you're doing but we're leaving now, hand over the Princess and no one will get hurt." Zuko says reaching a hand out in what should be a gesture of peace, but his growing hostility for the cocky young man made it feel more like a demand, which in essence it was.

Jet points one of his swords at Zuko accusingly, causing Zuko to take a step back. Jet holds the Princess tighter as she struggles to get away, "Please, you're nothing but Fire Nation scum. The world would be a better place without you…Exile, and it will be!"

Jet raises one of his swords to strike at Zuko when Katara gets an arm free and slams her elbow into Jet's stomach causing him to double over in pain. Free, she then elbows him right on the spine dropping him to the ground. Zuko and Aang stand there watching, mouths agape.

"Oh get over yourself." she says exasperated to the man lying on the ground in pain.

"Katara!" Zuko shouts as a young man in a large straw hat turns to her, bow raised and poised to shoot her. Seeing him out of the corner of her eye Katara turns, swinging her arm in a sweeping motion. As she does this a stream of water materializes and whips across the man's face, following the motion of her hand.

Thrown off balance and disoriented the boy looses his arrow, missing his target completely as he falls to the ground, hitting his head on a rock. Katara calls the water back to her covering her arm like a massive sleeve. Swinging around she uses the water to fling the other "freedom fighters" into the surrounding trees with enough force to knock them out. In only a matter of moments the small princess has incapacitated the entire band. Relaxing Katara lets the water fall to the ground, returning to her normal poised demeanor. She fixes her hair and pats down her dress to brush off any dirt.

"Well…shall we be going?" she says walking past the boys still standing frozen in shock at what they had just witnessed. Zuko is the first to come out of it, shaking his head he follows the Princess, "Hey Princess wait up!" he calls, running after her he catches her by the wrist, though she wasn't actually trying to run away. "What the hell was that?"

"What, you've never seen waterbending before?" she says breaking free of his grip.

"You never said you were a waterbender."

"You never asked."

"Where did you learn it, you said yourself you spent most of your life in a tower."

"I'm self-taught. I had to do something with my time, it was practice my bending or go mad."

Zuko wasn't entirely sure she hadn't, but he was sure she'd been lying to him. She pulled water out of the very air, something he hadn't even known was possible, she had clearly had some kind of formal training and had learned from a Master waterbender. And to think he almost let himself trust her…

Before he can focus more on this train of thought Aang comes into the glen with them and seeing Zuko screams. "AHHHH!"

"Aang what is your problem?" Zuko asks covering his ears.

"What's my problem? There's an arrow sticking out of your leg!" he screams pointing at Zuko with a shaking hand.

Surprised at Aang's statement, because he felt fine, Zuko looks down to see that he indeed has an arrow sticking out of his leg., blood leeching to the fabric of his pants, not really noticeable against their auburn colour. Non-plussed Zuko reaches down and grabs the shaft of the arrow, pulling it out, blood flowing more freely from his wound, "that's not good…"

"Ah! Zuko sit down!" Aang shouts pushing him down to the ground by hi shoulders. Zuko hisses in pain as his injured leg touches the ground. Aang starts panicking a little, zipping around at high speeds as he cries nonsense. "We need to get him help; he's going to bleed to death!"

"Aang I'm fine it's not that bad."

"Listen to him, he's delusional!" Aang stops before Zuko, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. "Stay with me Zuko, and whatever you do don't go into the light!"

"Aang, calm down." Katara says quietly, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Zuko is going to be okay, but he'll need some herbs in case he gets a fever. I need you to go into the forest and fins me some a plant with blue flowers, and red thorns okay?"

"Blue flowers red thorns, got it!" letting go of Zuko Aang heads off into the woods chanting over and over 'blue flowers red thorns'

"What are the flowers for?" Zuko asks holding his aching head.

"To keep him occupied."

"Blue flowers red thorns, blue flowers red thorns, come on Aang!" Aang mutters to himself as he searches frantically through the bushes looking for the plant Katara asked for. In the back of his mind Aang knew that Zuko would probably be alright, there was something inside him that was very afraid. Zuko might not like it but Aang considered him his friend, and after losing everything and everyone he knew Aang didn't want anything to happen to Zuko too, especially not when there was something Aang could do to prevent it…this time. Suddenly out of the woods comes a cry of pain.

"Zuko!" concerned Aang grabs the first plant he can get his hands on, coincidently a plant with blue flowers and red thorny stems and heads back to where he left Zuko and the Princess. "I'm coming buddy!"

~~Meanwhile~~

"So…what now?" Zuko asks looking up at Katara. Now that they were alone he realized that with him injured she had the upper hand if she wanted to escape.

"Relax; I'm going to heal you." She says getting down on her knees before him , leaning in to take a closer look at his wound.

"You're a healer too?"

"That's right…uh-oh." Reaching over Katara picks up the arrow and for the first time Zuko notices there's something missing – the arrowhead. "That's not good…I'm going to have to remove the arrowhead before I can heal you."

"No way!" Zuko protests, sliding backwards away from her, wincing in pain as he can feel the arrowhead moving as his muscles tense.

"What are you doing?! You're only going to make it worse!" she reaches for him and again he moves out of her grasp. "Why won't you let me help you?"

"Why you want to help me? Yesterday you couldn't get away fast enough and now you want to help. I asked you before and you lied to me. What else are you lying about, what's your game princess?" he says scathingly, staring at her with a mixture of anger and disappointment – mostly anger.

Katara fell silent, sitting back on her heels, unable to look him in the eye as he glares at her. Taking a deep breath she says shakily "I heard you and Aang talking last night…"

"I don't need your pity."

"I don't pity you! You think I don't know what it feels like to be alone? My own father locked me away in that tower. I was taken away from my home, my family, and everything I knew…I was just a little girl. I may be a "princess" but I was just as much a prisoner as you." She says voice shaky but none the less strong, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she meets his glare. Zuko looks away feeling guilty and more like the monster everyone thought he was more than ever. What had Aang said last night…to trust people? Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea; it couldn't hurt any more than getting shot.

"I'm sorry." He says under his breath, barely audible but Katara hears it. She looks over at him, brushing away her stray tear and smiles sadly.

"So now will you let me help you….Zuko?" He's surprised to hear her use his real name, he wasn't even sure she knew what it was. He nods mutely and watches as she leans in again prodding his wounds. "Doesn't look too bad, seems like you just pulled too hard and the arrow came apart, most of the arrowhead isn't even in there anymore. This is still going to hurt though."

Katara takes hold of the stone and swiftly jerks it out causing Zuko to cry out in pain. Dropping the stone arrowhead to the ground she bends some water out of a nearby plant causing it to wither. She bends the water to cover her hand placing it on Zuko's wound the water starts to glow softly with healing energy.

"W-where did you learn to do that?" Zuko asks trying not to focus on the dull throbbing pain as Katara heals him.

"Practice, I noticed how gooey and juicy the fruits the beast brought me were so I tried bending them. Dried fruit lasts longer than fresh fruit anyways. That ought to do it." She says removing her hand.

Zuko looks down at his leg, flexing his knee. It didn't hurt or feel stiff at all. He looks back up at her, noticing now how close they were, finding himself strangely lost in her deep blue eyes. "Amazing…."

"Ahem…if you two wanted some time alone all you had to do was ask." Both Katara and Zuko look to their left simultaneously to see Aang leaning against a tree grinning like an idiot. Quickly realising the compromising position they're in – Katara sitting between Zuko's legs, their faces inches apart – the two disengage, moving as far away from each other as possible.

"Nothing happened." Zuko says tersely, stalking over to Aang, inwardly noticing how easy it was for him to walk.

"Really cause from where I'm standing,"

"Nothing. Happned."

"Hey Zuko, what do you want to do with this" Katara asks walking over to the boys holding the arrowhead she'd just removed from Zuko's leg. Seeing it Aang goes whute as a sheet.

"I-Is that b-b-blood?" he stutters before passing out falling to the ground. Zuko sighs, shaking his head as he bends over and picks Aang limp body up, slinging him over his shoulders like a fresh kill. "Just leave it here. Come on, the balloon is this way."

Giggling Katara drops the arrow head following him back to the small hot air balloon.