Been a while? Maybe. I'm a good chunk of the way into chapter 5, actually. I just tend to spend a lot of time rethinking and rewriting. So far, I've clocked almost 100,000 words. That's pretty impressive, for someone used to writing one-shots!

Now, let's kick it off, starting from the end of the second season.

CHAPTER THREE: DOMESTIC-PUBLIC



They were an odd sight.

It was cold and dry out, without a shred of humidity in the air, and yet the sweat rolled off them as if they were walking the deserts. The shortest of the three was miserably wiping the sweat from her face, and brushing long white fur from her clothes. There was a funny bulge in the back of her apron, and a long brown tail stuck out from the side, as well as an ear. The girl in the middle was carrying a boy wrapped in a blue parka that was far too big for him, and struggling in vain to support his weight completely, so he was more draped over her arms than in them. The tallest boy carried a pack, and nothing else, and his teeth were grit tightly, as if he thought they would fall out if he loosened them. The giant bison behind them all did nothing to ease the clash of their mismatched heights, nationalities, colours and moods.

They had been traveling for some time, obviously, with their cumbersome weights.

"Are you sure, Sokka?" Toph said, "I think we should get farther away from Ba Sing Se."

"We've got to find a place to spend the night," Katara said. She was fussing over Aang, keeping her eyes intently on Aang's eyelids.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to be in a smelly old tavern," Toph grumbled. She reached around her and gave the lemur in her apron a nudge, and said, "Stop wiggling around in there, Momo."

The winged lemur gave a happy chatter, and Katara looked at the place wearily. Sokka was eyeing it with little worry, but with plenty of relief.

"Me either, Toph. Me either," he said, and he pushed the door open for them. As Katara passed him, at a turtle's pace, he said, "Let me take him again, you've got toothpick arms."

"Hah," Katara said dryly, catching eye contact for the briefest second before turning all her attention back to Aang. She shifted her grip on him and pulled up his hood, looking at his unconscious face with something akin to sorrow and protectiveness. "You'll jostle him too much."

"If you say so," Sokka said, closing the door behind them after giving the bison a curt wave and a clipped, "Sit, stay!"

The tavern was crowded and difficult to maneuver, what with all the people. It was a mismatched and odd place, so the four of them hardly looked out of place. There were men and women young and old, women cradling babies, and men drinking feverishly, as if they could wash away their problems with drink alone. Sokka carved them a path between the bustling tables and the jostling people, and up to the barkeep.

"Watcha got ther'?" the barkeep asked, leaning forward over the counter. His hair was tied into a greasy topknot with what looked like old fishing twine, and his skin shone with sweat. A bit of spittle shot off his lip as he spoke, and Toph was the only one who didn't look mildly disgusted, for obvious reasons.

Katara held Aang closer to her chest, and Sokka reached over and drew the hood lower on Aang's forehead, just in case the arrow was showing. Toph was trying hard to keep a straight face, with Momo hidden inside her apron.

"Our friend is injured," Sokka said, "We need a room. We have money."

The barkeep shifted on his elbows, his lips parting into a crooked smile, revealing jagged teeth. When Sokka kept staring, waiting for the answer, he just laughed outright. Sokka's look, which had been tired but mildly hopeful, vanished, and was replaced by frustration. "So?"

"Ah haven't had an available room in two months," the barkeep said, heartily, "Too many folks headin' to Ba Sing Se, see."

"Are there Fire soldiers here?" Sokka asked, none too optimistic. He folded his arms, and shifted the weight of the pack on his back. It was uncomfortably heavy, but at least he could support its weight, while Katara still struggled to keep a hold on Aang. She finally settled on sitting down in a nearby unoccupied chair, Aang across her lap.

"We're a secret town for a reason, boy," the barkeep snorted, "we set up secret communities to avoid that, and tho' we risk discovery every day, we stay open ta help people get to the citadel. Fire's got no place here, just moving Earth."

Sokka looked mildly relieved, as did the rest of them, but it was short lived, with the realization this town was funneling people into Ba Sing Se. The city had fallen barely hours ago, and it was likely few people knew of its loss. The residents probably didn't even know yet, and knowing Azula, they probably wouldn't know for a week yet, as she closed the army in on all sides and led them right in at once, or so Sokka could theorize. The capture of Ba Sing Se was still preventable, providing someone rode in and killed off all the traitors, those three horrible girls, the Dai Li and Prince Issues, but with Aang unconscious and all but dead, and no reliable back-up, there wasn't much Sokka, Toph or Katara could do about it.

"Don't let anyone else leave for Ba Sing Se," Sokka ordered, raising his voice to stress the importance. "It's fallen into Fire nation control, and if they go, they'll be trapped within the walls."

It was one of those moments where the room seemed to fall silent at the wrong time, so that everything Sokka said was magnified, and he suddenly felt the pressure eyes on him from all angles. Men and women, young and old, were looking at him with some sort of disbelief, anger, or doubt, and some let out disgusted gasps.

"Boy," the barkeep said, his voice dipping lower and rougher, "such a thin' is impossible. Don't even joke, lest it come true."

"It is true," Sokka replied, hotly. "I'm not joking."

He didn't seem too convincing to the hordes of people hanging onto his words. There were a few mutters, and then one man spoke up, saying loud, dreadful things that made Toph brace herself, and Katara's mouth set into a hard line.

"They could be spies, from the colony," the man said, and Sokka let out a loud scoff.

"Come on. These two are like, twelve, she's fourteen..." he gestured around Toph, Aang and Katara, and then shrugged easily, though his temper was visibly rising and showing on his face. "I'm sixteen. We're hardly old enough to be Fire nation spies. Plus, look." He held out the collar of his shirt. "Water tribe. So is she, and she's Earth nation. And he's the Av––"

Sokka was suddenly pushed up against the bar, and the collar of his shirt was taken up in the fist of a very aggravated man. Sokka protested immediately, but he was cut off by the man, who said, "Sixteen was old enough for the Fire brat who killed my son, boy, don't you dare tell me to let you pass unguarded."

Sokka grimaced, and Katara began to try to get on her feet to help him, but Toph was faster and more efficient.

"Back OFF," Toph said, stepping between them and shoving off the man. Despite being a good head shorter than Sokka, let alone the tall man, and only being twelve, she was boyish and had a good sense of strength. He released Sokka and moved back, and Toph said, "Don't touch him."

Sokka felt a bit embarrassed that Toph had to defend him, but he could be cool with it as long as they made it out of here. Toph let an angry breath and Sokka moved to stand equal with her, not about to let her stand up to some jerk alone. The man looked at Toph with an angry snarl, and it was Sokka's turn to snap, "Don't touch her."

"Get out of my bar," said the barkeep, behind them, and Sokka dared turn his head to look at the man. His mild friendliness was completely gone, disappeared under a steely hatred, and he repeated himself when Sokka only lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

"Excuse me?" he said, bewildered.

"Get out of this village and never return," the barkeep said, sharply.

"But if they're Fire nation, they'll know our location," the burly man in front of them said, honestly concerned, and the barkeep took a moment, while Sokka launched into protests that would all prove fruitless and pointless. The barkeep shook his head, sending a wad of spittle flying across the bar.

"We don't want trouble, and they are just kids," the barkeep said, "but I mean it. Get out, don't come back. We don't want or need trouble, especially from people suggesting the great Ba Sing Se could ever fall!"

"But it did," Sokka protested. This time, when the burly man reached for him, he sidestepped, nearly bowling over Toph in the crowded space, and he lifted his hands in protest. "Alright," he said. "Alright. We're leaving. Happy? Come on, Katara, Toph."

He grabbed Toph by the forearm and Katara around the shoulders, and he urged them up and out. They followed, hesitantly, and Sokka took a moment to take Aang in his arms, as he doubted Katara's ability to carry him any longer.

Worry flooded them as they exited, the man following them to the door to ensure their departure, and they started down the road, away from Ba Sing Se, immediately. Appa fell into step behind them, lumbering and huge, and as they walked, Katara fussed over Aang, worrying with how Sokka was holding him, with how it could jostle him. Periodically, Aang's eyes twitched, as if he were trying to come around, but no matter what Katara did, he didn't awaken.

"Let's fly," Katara said, "it's faster, especially if we want to get to the next down before we all fall asleep."

"Not this stupid chase thing again," Toph said, "and I am NOT riding Appa bareback anymore. After getting chased out of Ba Sing Se, no way. You can't make me."

"Katara," Sokka said, "the Fire nation's probably swarming the city already, as soon as they get word that that witch has it. Last thing we need is to raise the alarm that we're around, or that the Avatar's still around. Let's just get out of town and make camp."

"Make camp with what?" Katara demanded, and Sokka looked at Appa's back, and then he gave an odd sort of sigh.

"Huh," he said, "I see your point. I've got my sleeping bag, but the tent's back at the house in Ba Sing Se. Unless you want to rough it."

"I need to get Aang to a safe place to heal him," Katara said. "This can't be good for him. Let's ride Appa and get where we need to go faster."

"Point taken, but that's irresponsible," Sokka said, argumentative, "Appa may be faster, Katara, but the Fire nation can find us much faster on a bison we ADVERTISED as being Aang's. And if they catch us with his body, who knows what they'd do? That's not exactly helpful, either."

Katara didn't seem sure of whether the risk was worth it or not.

"What are we going to do?" Katara worried.

"Where's your optimism now?" Sokka said, letting a bit of sarcasm in, and she pointedly ignored him, instead concerning herself with finding shelter. Toph scoffed and blew her bangs up.

"What am I, chopped liver? I can make us a place to stay if we need it, just as long as we're far from here. This place gives me the creeps, and no offense, but I'm pretty sure they're going to notice Appa."

Katara was a bit less concerned, with this reassurance, but it didn't change Aang's state. She seemed to be an odd mix and match between fury, anxiety and confusion, going about here and there, stopping Sokka every other moment to ensure Aang was alive. It brought his nerves up, too, and he was already feeling the grind of aggravation and confusion himself. They just fed off each others worries, and if Toph wasn't there to mediate in her usual style –– demands and admonishments, and implications of stupidity in one or both parties –– they might have killed each other.

And, when they neared the other side of the village, that was when they met the children. Sokka spotted them first, but it was Toph who brought them to attention, her keen ears picking out a curious and intriguing thing: "abandoned, haunted house".

The children were in their house, the uncovered window allowing light to stream out, silhouetting the kids against the backgrounds. Sokka pressed his fingers to his lips with a "sshh" and they all slunk closer to the window. Sure enough, crouched under the window, under the shadows of the sill and the trees, they could hear every word.

"So there's this house," a young male voice said. "A big, dangerous house!"

"A house?" a younger, female voice said. She sounded terrified, and Sokka nearly snickered, glancing towards Katara, who frowned and elbowed him. Apparently, she did not want to be reminded of that time he convinced her a giant fanged penguin lurked in the nearby glaciers, and hungered for the flesh of a young female bender with dumb hair.

"Yeah, that's why Mom doesn't let us go too far into the woods," the boy said, darkly, "because there's a house up on the hill, and a ghost lives there."

"I'm not afraid," the girl said, but the trio under the window could hear the fear in her voice. The girl continued, "What kind of ghost is it?"

"A nasty spirit, who drags children from the trees and up to his home, where he makes them into jiaozi."

"Jiaozi is made from kids?!" the little girl whined, concerned.

"Yeah, that's what makes it so bad," the boy said.

"I hate it," the girl whined.

And that was when a door banged, prompting all three under the windowsill to straighten up. Someone had entered the room, and Toph covered her ears for a second, until a motherly voice said, "What are you two still doing up at this hour?! Telling ghost stories?! You know you're supposed to be in bed!"

Sokka, who had been convinced they were caught and done for, let out a loud breath of relief, loud enough that Katara scrambled to jam her hand over his mouth and she hissed his name, angrily. The children, who had started apologizing and making excuses, fell silent, and so did the mother.

After a moment of baited silence, the little girl piped up, fearfully, "The spirit, the spirit! He's here to turn us into dumplings!"

"Mao, get back in your bed, it's probably just some animal," the mother scoffed, though she sounded unsure. Her footsteps brought her closer to the window, and all three stiffened.

She leaned out from the window, far enough that if any of them looked straight up, they could see her torso. She was looking straight ahead, and then she let out a gasp that told the three of them they had been caught... not because she had seen them, so close and tucked away, but because Appa was still standing on the road, plain as day.

"It's the Avatar's bison!" the mother gasped. "Just like from the poster!"

Sokka let out, loudly, "See? I knew they'd notice!"

Katara and Toph wheeled their heads to look in his direction, and Sokka looked up. The woman looked down, her eyes widening, and then she let out a belated shriek of surprise. Sokka acted quick –– he jumped to his feet and raised his hands in surrender, and Katara struggled to get to her feet with Aang in her arms.

The woman shrieked again at Sokka's movement, and he reached up and said, "Shh! Shh! Lady! Sorry! Hi! We need your help! Thanks!"

She stopped yelling and the kids stopped making noise. Sokka was pretty sure the little girl was crying, but he couldn't see her, he could just hear her sniffles. The woman calmed, slowly, and she breathed hard, still shocked.

"What were you doing there, you scamp?!" she demanded.

Sokka highly objected to being called a scamp, at his age, but that was beside the point. He said, concerned, "I know it's kind of weird, but I'm traveling with the Avatar, I have him here. Could you give us a place to stay for the night?"

The lady stared, and then she stammered, "W-What?"

"Told you it was weird," Sokka said, "Please? We'll be gone before you know it." When the woman went on being stunned, Sokka gave up on her, and he said, "Katara, you talk to her, she thinks I'm crazy."

Katara finally found her feet, and the woman jumped again. She held Aang carefully, and Sokka reached down and pulled Toph up. She whacked her head on the sill in the process, a thing that made the lady jump yet again, twice.

"Watch it, doofus," Toph said, and Sokka rubbed the top of her head. Toph scowled.

"How many of you are down there?!" the woman demanded, terrified, and she looked under, peering through the shadows to see more. There were none, fortunately for her, and Sokka urged Katara on.

"I'm sorry about this," Katara said, earnestly, "We're looking for a place to stay, it's an emergency... this is the Avatar, and he's badly hurt, we've just come from Ba Sing Se. We need a safe place to care for him. We heard your children talking about an abandoned house, and wanted to know where it was, but we'd be grateful if you could help us."

The woman seemed to be calming down. She said, concerned, "Why didn't you just ask someone? Why did you leave Ba Sing Se for here? You must have passed a thousand houses."

"No, ma'am," Katara said, and Sokka had to look away when the tears started rolling down Katara's face. "Ba Sing Se wasn't safe. And now he's hurt and we desperately need to find a place to stay. I'm begging you."

The woman hesitated, and then she said, "I could never live with myself if I turned the Avatar away. Come in, I'll unlock the front door."

"Mom, is it a spirit?" the boy asked, and when the mother moved away and disappeared further into the house, Sokka made a face at him that could only be described as disgusting. The boy hid under his covers, and Sokka smirked.

That'd show the kid to make stupid faces at him.

"Come on," he said, and he took Aang from Katara, "good thing strangers trust you."

"Maybe if you didn't introduce yourself as a weirdo, you wouldn't have that problem," Katara said, wiping at her eyes as they rounded the house.

Sokka glanced at Appa and he said, "Come on, buddy, let's get you off the road."

The woman, a widow named Sun, let them into the house with an apprehensive look. Katara dropped to the floor almost immediately, Aang's weight too heavy for her to support for too long, and she eased him into a more comfortable position on the floor, facedown. Carefully arranging the hood of Sokka's parka so that it cushioned his head, she ripped away the last of Aang's shirt. Sokka stood over her, quietly, and Toph seemed to wait for something.

Sun said, "Is he dead?"

The tone her voice took suggested she was terrified, mournful, but with the slightest bit of hope. She glanced at Sokka, who shook his head quietly, and Katara set on trying to heal him. Dip after dip of water slipped into Aang's skin and back out, but nothing changed.

The mark where Azula's lightning had forked in an out again was just a mark. Not bleeding, not broken, but the skin was fried and burnt, and the area all around it was an angry red.

"Will he be okay?" Sun said, almost more to herself. Her children were out of bed, clutching her legs and watching around her with fear and apprehension, as the Avatar did not stir. The little girl buried her nose against her mother's robe and sniffled.

"I… don't know," Katara said, but she wouldn't be defeated. She kept at it, even if the sweat was pouring down her forehead and dripping into Aang. Sokka had never seen her get so physically exerted while healing.

It was the sign of fruitlessness. Three hours of healing led to fruitlessness.

"Is he dead?" the little boy asked, when Katara sat back on her heels and closed her eyes, bringing her hands to her own face to cover them. He waited for his answer, and Sokka felt his throat go dry. Katara withdrew her hands, and looked at the boy with a childish sort of fear in her eyes. She was trying to hold back tears.

"No," she croaked, "he's alive. But… he's sleeping, and I can't get him to wake up."

Tears rolled down Sun's face, and she sank to her knees without a sound. Sokka watched her, awkwardly, and the kids did the same. Toph swallowed a lump in her throat, and Sokka looked away from the whole scene.

"We're doomed," Sun said, bowing her head, "the Avatar is lost."

Katara wiped at her eyes, and she said, with the slightest bit of anger, "No. Aang's still alive. We still have an Avatar, and when he wakes up, he'll help all of us take back everything the Fire nation has stolen."

Sun's tears kept rolling, and she said, in a deadly whisper, "I've seen many people fall asleep wounded and never wake up. No Avatar can reawaken the dead. He can't get us back everything the Fire nation stole, not the lives."

Katara paused, and Sokka reached out a hand to her. She ignored it.

"Let it go, Katara," he said, "let it go."

"He's not dead," Katara whispered back, almost as a hiss, "he's not dead and he'll wake up. Aang's alive. Aang's just as alive as he ever was. How dare you."

"He's left us once already, didn't he? My mother raised me on stories of the Avatar, and how he left us helpless," the woman said, awkwardly. "And in the end... all he's done is left us again."

"You dare you," Katara snapped. Sokka put a hand on her shoulder, and he took a deep breath. Katara was getting riled, between her anxiety, her exhaustion, and her ever-present need to save people.

"Get out of my house," Sun said, and the children exchanged worried looks. Sokka didn't want to put up a fight here. He took Katara by the hand.

"Come on, let's go," Sokka said.

"But," Katara said, angrily.

"Let's go, Katara," Sokka said, more firmly. He reached around her and rolled Aang over, and then picked him up. Toph headed out the door, and Sokka followed, with a pointed look at Katara. Katara didn't break eye contact with the woman until Sokka said, "Katara."

"I understand," Katara said, and she looked away, bitterly. She rose to her feet and followed Sokka to the door, teary and distressed. Sun closed the door behind them, with an anguished sob. Finally, she made noise.

"What are we going to do?" Toph asked, when they gathered around Appa's head. She squirmed, suddenly, as Momo climbed out of her apron to sit on Appa's nose. Sokka shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, "there are a lot of things we could do. I don't know if one's better than the other… we could find a place to stay, we could camp here, we could head to Chameleon Bay, we could… do anything, really."

"I don't want to travel long distances," Katara said, "And I don't know that a blockade against the Fire nation is safe."

"True," Sokka said. He rubbed his chin in worry. For a moment, there were no answers, so he said, "Say he never wakes up. What then?"

"What do you mean?" Katara said, testily.

"The Avatar wasn't reborn into the Water tribe because Aang was still alive, for a hundred years. Say he sleeps for the rest of his life. No new Avatar will come," Sokka said, hesitantly.

"None of us can be the judge of that," Katara said, "none of us can do anything about that right now. We can't predict that he'd never wake up. Don't even suggest we sacrifice him to get a new Avatar."

"I wasn't asking that," Sokka said, defensively. Katara didn't even reply.

Toph said, "The little boy's coming."

"What?"

"The little boy."

Sokka and Katara lifted their heads and looked towards the house. Sure enough, there was the boy, climbing through the open window, and as soon as he realized they had seen him, the boy pressed his fingers to his lips and hopped down. His sister appeared in the window, too, leaning out.

"You'd better go inside," Katara said, and Sokka almost rolled his eyes at the immediate mothering tone she took with the kid. Katara said, "You don't want to get caught."

"The cabin," the boy said, "the haunted one. You're not really going to stay there, are you?"

Katara and Sokka exchanged troubled looks. If they didn't have to, they wouldn't but it seemed there wasn't much of an option.

"We need a place to stay," Sokka said, "and no one here's offering, so we're going to make camp somewhere."

The boy looked sheepish. He said, "My sister, she... she's still little enough to believe it's really haunted, but..."

Sokka let a smile on, and he laughed, quietly, interrupting the boy. He said, "Yeah, she doesn't look it, but Katara's still afraid of ghosts. Real fun to have a little sister, isn't it?" He gestured at her with his shoulder, jostling Aang only slightly. Katara frowned, and Sokka said, "Where is this cabin? We'll go get rid of that dumpling fiend for you if you tell us how to get there. What do you say?"

"That's great," the boy said, nodding. He pushed by them to point down the road, and he said, "That way. If you keep walking that way, until the trees and bushes get so thick you can barely get through, there's a big rock. Someone bended it, so it's shaped like a big frog, if you squint."

"Gotcha," Sokka said.

"If you climb over it, and go straight up the hills for about an hour, you'll find it. There are frog-rocks along the way, if you look carefully."

Sokka smiled and nodded. "Great," he said. Katara breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps getting her optimism back, and Toph said, "Alright, a place that isn't Ba Sing Se."



The place was humble, that was for sure. Perhaps, a couple decades ago, it had been in a state suitable for habitation, but it was presently very run down. The weeds burst from cracks in the stone porch, and there was no glass in the windows. The sliding door had a gaping hole in it, and from the outside, Sokka could count six holes in the roof.

"Is it okay?" Toph asked, and Katara hesitated.

"We're not going to find better," Sokka said, and he started towards the door. Just in case, he pulled out his club and used it to pry the door open. He was almost wary of things that could pop out at him, but nothing tried to kill him, so he figured it was safe.

Katara asked, with baited breath, "Is it haunted?"

Sokka scoped what he could see of the room in the dark, and he replied, "It's a one-room place, so unless the ghost is in the cabinets or the stove, no, Katara. Don't be such a chicken."

The floor, covered with musty old tatami mats that reeked with age, was cold, and Sokka fumbled through the dim light to find a lantern. There was one hanging on a nail above the stone basin against the wall, and he tilted it curiously. Sure enough, there was oil left inside, and he grinned. Shucking off his bag, he rummaged for their tinder and flint. Within a minute, he had the light blaring, and the room was thrown into relief. In the bright light, Katara's weariness showed, and Sokka went to her and took Aang.

"Put him down, Katara, before you drop him," he ordered, and she reluctantly relinquished him. Sokka cradled the smaller boy with minimal difficulty, quite glad the kid ate cabbage instead of rocks. He didn't weigh as much as Sokka was expecting, though he was still awkward to carry. He nodded his head towards a rumpled up futon in one corner. "Katara, shake that thing out and I'll set him down there.

When Katara stopped stretching her arms, she did so, and Sokka knelt down to place Aang on it, but Katara chided him every other second.

"Mind his head," she said.

"I am," Sokka said, though he was actually just supporting Aang's shoulders and his knees, so his head lolled back. Katara reached over and helped hold him up, and helped Sokka lower Aang down even slower.

"You have to be gentle," she said imperiously, "Mind his head, mind his head! And don't put his back down like that–– BUT DON'T TURN HIM OVER. He can't support his own weight like that. Stop it. And not face-down, stop jostling him!! SOKKA!"

Sokka looked at Katara at eye-level, annoyed, and said, "Alright, shall I suspend him in mid-air?"

Katara opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped.

"That's right," Sokka said, and they lowered Aang to lie on his back. The boy didn't shift at all, didn't twitch. His chest just rose and fell, slowly, as if he were asleep. Katara stayed there to stare at him, glassy-eyed and concerned.

Meanwhile, Sokka went over and opened up the cabinets, hunting. There were assorted bits of old junk, and a futon. Sokka went about opening boxes and rummaging through buckets, finding an incomplete Pai Sho set, and a bunch of old candle oil and wick. There was a seedy-looking jar of honey on the shelf that he prodded with one finger. When he figured it was safe to touch, he turned it upside-down and watched.

The golden "liquid" was hard as amber, and it didn't budge, crusted over and rock-solid. Sokka stared at it in a strange sort of wonder, both disgusted and curious. He opened the container with much difficulty and brought it to his nose to sniff it.

Katara realized what he was up to and she left Aang's side, saying, "Sokka!" in a warning tone. She took it from him and made a face, realizing what it was up close. She recapped the jar and shoved it to the back of the cupboard. Sokka grimaced.

"Is it wrong that I'm so hungry that looked appetizing?"

"When was the last time we ate, ugh?" Toph commented. Momo poked his head out of her apron warily with a chirp, his great ears falling back and his nose twitching. Toph let out an exhausted but happy sigh and she slumped down to the floor, spreading out. She did cover her nose, though, to block out the musk of the flooring.

Against the floor, she mumbled, "I could eat a thousand dinners right now."

"Me too," Sokka agreed, "Phew."

Katara let out a yelp, suddenly, and Sokka whirled, startled, only to see a rather unthreatening rat-mouse. He raised his eyebrow at her, and she forced herself to relax, with a very stiffly-said, "Er, I was caught off-guard, there."

"And your true colours show!" Sokka grinned. He pulled out his machete and started towards it, stomping his feet hard on the floor, and the rodent scuttled away rapidly. Sokka gave chase, and threw the machete.

It cut through the air and landed point-first in the floor. The rat-mouse stayed there for a moment, with a pained squeal, though it hadn't really been stuck there. He had pinned it by the tail, and then it scampered off, leaving its severed tail behind.

"Cool," he remarked, pulling out the machete by the handle. Katara made a disgusted face.

"Not only is she afraid of big birds, but she's terrified of rat-mice," he said, knowingly, to Toph. He picked up the tail between his fingers and wiggled it about, and he held it in Katara's face. She leant back with a disgusted cringe, and he pinched it. Blood oozed out the cut, squelching.

"Eww! I am not!" Katara shot back, flustered. In the lamplight, her face went bright red, and she turned back to Aang. "Grow up, Sokka."

"Eh," Sokka shrugged, and he tossed the tail over his shoulder. Momo lunged from Toph's apron and landed on it, picking it up in his tiny paws and cramming it in his mouth. Katara grimaced, and Momo scampered off.

"Let's just sleep," Katara said, exhausted. "I'm going to make sure Aang's comfortable, but you two go to bed."

"Yeah, I'm tired," Sokka replied. He glanced out the door, and watched Appa for a moment. The bison was flopped on his stomach in front of the hut, easily taller than it, and the great monster gave a sigh, chest heaving and eyes blinking slowly. "Appa," Sokka called, "move to the side, buddy, I want to be able to see if people are coming up the hill."

The sky bison groaned, and Sokka went to him. He gave Appa a few pets on the nose, and then a shove on the cheek. Appa groaned again, and reluctantly climbed to his feet to lumber to the side. He flopped down again beside the house, so hard that the walls shook.

"Thanks, buddy," Sokka said. He gave Appa another pet or two, and added, "Aang'll be alright. By tomorrow he'll be up and angsting about how the Earth Kingdom fell and he couldn't stop it. We can all groan about our failure together."

"Shut up and go to bed, Sokka," Katara said, hurt, from inside the hut. Sokka shrugged and gave Appa one last scratch behind the ear. Appa groaned again.

"Bed it is," he said.



"Suki!" Sokka enthused, and she came at him at a run. He counted those twenty paces between them eagerly, and when Suki didn't stop running, he put his arms open for a hug.

She ran into him like a train would run into a wall, and it was much like an unstoppable force hitting an unmovable object. Well, no, Sokka figured, not really, but the impact itself left him stepping backwards to soften the blow, and she latched onto his neck with a joyous laugh.

"Sokka!" she said, against his neck, and Sokka grinned against her hair. Her body lined up with this perfectly: her breasts mashed against his chest, her stomach against his, her feet so close she was practically standing on his toes. His growth spurts had left him tall enough that she just barely had to rise on the balls of her feet to keep her arms around his neck.

"How was the trip? Did you get over here with the other Kyoshi warriors safely? How are you?" he asked, firing off the questions as soon as she stepped back. She laced her fingers with his and held their hands between them.

"It was fine, yes, and I'm fine," she said, and she smiled. "How are you? Things okay here in Ba Sing Se?"

When she was standing back, it occurred to him that she was dressed as Azula, but that didn't really strike him as weird. She looked gorgeous, and that was all that mattered, so he just said, "You're gorgeous, and everything's great."

She flushed in the face and pressed a kiss to his lips, and from there on, Sokka was on cloud ten, let alone cloud nine. Behind them, Katara, Toph, Aang, and Gran-Gran started cheering and clapping, and the rest of the Kyoshi warriors started a celebratory speech. Fireworks went off.

"Now that you're here, the entire world will be saved, and together we can take down the Fire Nation once and for all!" Sokka announced, and Suki agreed.

"Have sex with me, you stud," she said, and Sokka nodded very enthusiastically. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and made to drag him off to their room, but...

That was when Sokka woke up, with Toph knelt next to him, her hands on his bare chest. She shouted at him to wake up and shook him, hard and he said, "Woah, WOAH."

"Wake up!" Toph demanded, and Sokka opened his eyes. At that same moment, he realized the room was obscenely bright, and that his hair was whipping around his face like they were in the middle of a cyclone.

They were in the middle of a cyclone.

Sokka was sitting up in a flash, and he looked over in Aang's general direction, pretty sure he knew what was coming. He'd felt it numerous times before, and sure enough, Aang was glowing and shaking in the middle of the cyclone that was their new house, and Katara was leaning over him, seemingly trying to hold him to the ground. Her hair whipped around her.

"Aang!" she screamed, "Aang!"

Sokka climbed to his feet and Toph held onto the floor, cringing her shoulders almost up to her cheeks in fear. Sokka wavered in the strong wind, and he forced himself down by Katara, putting an arm around her.

"What's going on?" he shouted.

"I don't know, he just started going into the Avatar state!" she screamed, "Aang! Aang! Aang, stop! Wake up!"

Sokka held on for dear life, and Katara kept shouting. Sokka's shirt whipped around the room on the air currents, the door burst open with a bang, unable to keep the pressure inside. What was left of the glass in the windows shattered and flew outwards. Toph screamed.

"Stop him!" Toph shouted, "Katara, do something!"

Sokka looked up, his eyes rather blinded by Aang's light, and he caught sight of a second light outside, although it was much dimmer. He squinted to see what it was, though the dust whipping through the air stung his eyes, and he realized what it was.

It was Appa, his shaggy fur whipping in all directions, his head raised and his mouth lolled open. His eyes were so wide it seemed unreal, and they glowed white much like Aang's.

"Katara!" Sokka said, giving her a push on the shoulder, "Katara, Appa!"

She went on clinging to Aang in fear, and Sokka urged her again, and after a moment, she finally looked up, as the wind was spiking even faster. It ripped around the room with a chaotic force, and the doors on the cabinets blasted open. The potbellied stove quaked on its funnels. Katara turned to look at Appa, Sokka's arm tighter around her shoulders.

Her eyes widened, and she turned to Sokka in fear. They both looked back to Aang. There was a mysterious blue glow lingering on his skin, and to their horror, it began to rise, in the form of a person.

Aang's spirit was climbing out of his own body.

"Aang! Aang, please wake up!" Katara shrieked, "Aang!"

Sokka, then, was considering the very real possibility of losing Aang, the Avatar, and hope, and that was when Toph found the strength to let go of the floor and pound her fist against it. Earth shot up all around them, to brace them, and immediately, the wind felt cut and stifled. Sokka dragged Katara backwards just in time to avoid them being crushed by the stone that was jutting up from around Aang and wrapping around his body. The wind died immediately, and Katara pressed herself up against the stone barrier in panic.

She kept screaming his name as if he were dead, and the stone walls vibrated and hummed from the pressure inside. Toph was holding her hands in mid-air, stationary, as if she were holding it still without making any contact.

"What's going on?" Sokka said, throat sore, "What do we do?!"

"I don't know!" Katara said, obviously distressed. There was a large piece of hair across her face that she didn't bother brushing away, and now that the wind wasn't blasting her in the face, she was tearing up.

Sokka turned, rapidly, to look at Appa, who was tense and glowing. Sokka gave a hesitant look at Katara, and then let go of her to approach the beast.

"Appa's never reacted to Aang going into the Avatar state before!" he called, "Something's wrong. Is the Avatar dying?"

Katara looked at him rapidly and said, "Don't say that!"

"Not Aang," Sokka said, "the Avatar!"

"How does that make sense?!" she shouted, and Sokka reached towards Appa tentatively. Katara shouted, "Don't!"

But he already did. His hand brushed against Appa's nose and the beast's head shot up, ears flipping back and legs bracing. Sokka withdrew immediately, taken while on guard but surprised nonetheless.

"Sokka!" Katara shouted.

Sokka felt the stupidity of what he was doing quite suddenly, but the rumbling of the wind and stone stopped, and Appa slumped down. Sokka stood there, frozen, wondering vaguely what he had done, and why. Appa's body relaxed, seemingly in sleep, and his eyes closed. He seemed to flop, like he was boneless, and he lay beside the hut quite limp.

They all turned towards the stone cage Toph had erected around Aang and watched in concern. It didn't move, and Toph dropped it down into the floor.

Toph turned in his direction and Katara stared. For a moment, they reveled in the quietness, and then Sokka turned to Katara with a triumphant shout.

"YEAH! You can stop Avatars but I can stop Avatar Bisons! YEAH!"

But Katara wasn't listening. She was back at Aang's side, and she leant over him with a worried face. Her hand darted to his throat, to check for a pulse, her other hand laying overtop his heart. There was a moment of baited breath, between them all, and then she let out a long sigh.

"He's alive, just unconscious," she said. Sokka nodded, slowly.

"Alright," Sokka said. He turned back to Appa and said, "But what about Appa?"

Katara didn't seem to care nearly as much, but she asked, "What about him?"

Sokka pressed his hand to Appa's nose, and felt a long whuff of sleeping breath against his palm, relaxed. Calling Appa's name, he gave the great beast a shove, and there was no reply. He tapped Appa on the nose again, and tried pulling back his eyelids. No reaction at all, Appa just kept on breathing slowly. Panic filled him for a split second, and then realization dawned on him.

He said, "Katara, Appa's unconscious too, just like Aang."

"What does that mean?" she asked, concerned.

"It means Appa is connected to Aang," Sokka said. "He told us about it once, didn't he? Every Avatar has an animal companion-thing... like Avatar Roku and his dragon. If Appa is the same, well, if Aang goes, Appa goes."

Katara didn't reply, but Toph did. She piped up, "Are you basing that off a lot of Avatars or just Roku? One Avatar having a pet doesn't mean anything."

"Got a better theory?" Sokka shot back.

"No," Toph said, "I guess our gang just has to take everything whacked out as possible, though. You never know."

Sokka shrugged, and Katara sighed, "Let's try to settle in again... maybe he'll be awake by morning."

They all figured this was perfectly possible, but when morning came and Sokka awoke to found Katara dozing against the wall, with Aang's head in her lap, he felt the hopelessness pile on.



Sokka reached down to pull on his boots, and all at once, the terror slipped across his mind, unexpected.

Suki.

Suki.

He had felt the fear grip him when he had first realized the "Kyoshi Warriors" in Ba Sing Se were impostors, and in the frantic panic and fear over the next hours, it hadn't crossed his mind again.

The fear hit then, and it hit him hard. He let out a long, terrified breath and lifted his head, staring off into the distance, as if to check Suki was still around. He didn't see her, of course, and he said, panicked, "Oh no. Suki."

Katara lifted her own head like lightning as he said it, taking her attention away from Aang immediately. Her eyes locked with Sokka's as he turned to look at her, and for a moment, both siblings just stared at each other in horror, in silence.

Sokka burst to his feet and shouted, "Suki? Oh no. No. Where's Suki if the Crazy Wonder was in her uniform?!"

Katara processed this slowly, and she squeaked, "Oh no. Azula… Azula had her uniform and her crest and her make-up, and it just didn't click in my head, I mean, I didn't notice she wore her hair different, I thought she was Suki—"

"You mistook Suki for Azula?!" Sokka said, so loudly that Toph cringed and covered her ears. "Azula, Katara, AZULA?! Are you blind?! Where is Suki?! Did that freak of nature say anything about Suki?!"

Defensively, Katara said, "Sokka, she and her girls stopped me in my tracks practically two seconds later, I didn't really have a chance."

"What did she say?!" Sokka shouted.

"She didn't really say anything," Katara replied, "not… not much, anyway. The gymnast friend of hers paralyzed me and Azula told me a few things, but not much."

"So?! What did she say?!" he said, before she could explain. She sighed, concerned and aggravated.



"Where's Suki?" the girl demanded, from the floor. Azula watched her with a tiny stab of pride at her team's skills. She'd seen Ty Lee paralyze people hundreds (if not thousands) of times, and the thrill of power never managed to bore her. The girl couldn't move, couldn't feel her limbs.

Azula knew that feeling from experience; from one time Ty Lee got her in the arm by accident, at school. The sensation would disappear; everything would be numb, moreso than just a limb that had fallen asleep. It felt as if she didn't even have an arm at all.

This girl, the Avatar's friend, probably felt like a head and a torso, dismembered from the rest of the body.

Azula stepped around the water pooling under the girl's body, careful not to wet her boots. The girl couldn't move her neck, so Azula moved to the side, so she could see well. It was only polite, after all.

"Azula," the girl said, angrily, "where's Suki? What are you doing here?!"

To make an understatement, Azula wasn't terribly interested in discussing this sort of thing with the Avatar's friend. She was too involved with the resistance to be worth the time. But Azula loved a game of wits, and compared to her, this girl had none.

A look of twisted amusement found its way to her face. Azula said, almost playfully, "I am Suki."

"Liar," the girl said, and she grit her teeth. "You won't get away with this."

"And you all fell for it," Ty Lee said, chirpily, and Azula smiled more. Yes. Everyone did fall for it. "And we will get away with it! No one interferes with us."

"Where are the real Kyoshi warriors?" the girl demanded.

"Do you think I'd tell you?" Azula said, "Don't get me wrong, I truly believe you'll never have a chance to tell anyone before it's too late, but there's a fine line between taunting and telling. For all you know, though, they gave up the fight, gave us their uniforms, and went on their merry way. After all… you'll find some of the Earth kingdom is remarkably open to the idea of colonization."

"Suki would never bow to you," was the chosen comeback. Azula found it only mildly amusing. "She would never let you get away with any of this."

"Amazing how fast a bit of lightning loosens up the lips and tongue. I'm rather impressed so many of them held out for so long. But to reveal information under pressure… it's so deplorable."

"You're a witch," the girl hissed.

"That's what they all say," Azula said, and she stifled a slight yawn. She gave a wave of her hand and she turned her head to the Dai Li on guard by the door. With a glance back at the scum marring what was now her floor, she said to the guard, "I bore of this nonsense. Is there a place we can stow the Avatar's little friend until he arrives?"



After the initial shouting match and much storming about, the hut was relatively intact. There was a twelve-foot-high wall of solid ice all around the hut, at least a few feet thick, except for one part, which had been hacked at for a while by Sokka, as a last ditch bid to escape. Toph was rather irritated, especially after an attempt to referee that left Sokka with a temporarily broken foot and Katara bruised. The hut wasn't ruined, but there were still holes in the roof.

Sokka took the news like a man, after he was finished trying to take off for Ba Sing Se immediately, in his quest to find Azula and kick her Fire nation butt.

He sat on the porch, hunched over, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, his eyes screwed tightly shut. Katara sat with him, holding his free hand, although she threw Aang's sleeping form concerned looks every few moments, in case he stirred. After an incredibly energized reaction, he had settled into some nasty low, and Katara sat with him.

"Are you alright?" Katara asked, for the nth time.

"That's a stupid question," Sokka grumbled, and Katara rolled her eyes skyward and gave his hand a squeeze, and he squeezed it back somewhat half-heartedly. She leant her head against his shoulder.

"I'm really sorry, Sokka," Katara said, solemnly.

"Don't act like she's dead," he snapped, "Azula got information from them by force, obviously, but it doesn't mean Suki's dead. Or that any of them are dead."

Katara didn't want to argue, because he was right.

But after her sparring match with Azula, ruthless, fearless, Azula, she wondered if she herself would have survived without Zuko's Uncle's help.



"So how's Dad?" Katara asked. She folded her knees up in front of her, hugging them to her chest. She leant her head on her knees, looking at him sideways. Sokka nodded, and a smile tugged at his lips.

"Yeah. They're all good. Alive and well, but the boats could be better. Most of the men are pretty tired, but more or less, they're holding out well. Man, it felt good to eat real food again," he said, and he glanced at her with a knowing grin to say, "I was starting to think I had imagined Water tribe food all those years, you know?

Katara didn't say anything. She just continued to watch her brother, and Sokka felt the pressure of the gaze oddly, as if she were expecting him to pass on a message to her or something. Sokka waited for her to say something.

She didn't.

"Anyway," Sokka said, to fill in the gaps, "Dad's good. Bato's caught up with them fine. They're all good. They miss us."

"Did Dad tell you anything to pass on to me?" Katara asked, when he didn't supply the answer. He'd been waiting for her to push that one on him. Sokka hesitated.

To be honest, they hadn't really talked about Katara. Sokka'd told his father and the men what their travels with the Avatar had been like, and he'd assured his father that Katara was fine, but there had been no special message. Maybe there would have been if he hadn't had to leave so suddenly, but Hakoda had said nothing about it.

And there was only so long Sokka could fend Katara off with conversation about the ingenious new way they found to patch the hulls of the boats, or talk about how non-Arctic waters were host to algae and things that needed to be scraped off the bottoms of the boats to keep up their maintenance. Katara also wouldn't care about stink bombs, explosives, or how the men were using bits of their own clothing to patch up the miserable holes in the sails.

"I'm sorry, Katara, I had to leave suddenly. He just told me to take care of you."

She let out a long breath, almost as if she were angry, and then she said, "I understand."

He watched her for a second, and then he said, "Hey, I'm sorry. Next time we see him, he'll probably have a lot to say to you."

But Sokka wondered, in a way, just how much there was to be said. It wasn't that his father didn't care about Katara as much as he cared about Sokka. In fact, Sokka sometimes figured it was the opposite, because Katara was his baby girl and his princess, while Sokka was his first-born son. Katara was his soft spot. Katara was the one who got off scot-free when she got Sokka in trouble.

The thing was, Hakoda just had more expectations for Sokka than he did for Katara. The Southern Water tribe was much like the North, like that, and the raising of boys to be men just came before girls to women.

Besides, Sokka justified. He was there in Chameleon Bay, and he had been there to talk with their dad. He was sure that, had Katara been there in his place, the situation would be reversed.

Katara sighed, and Sokka felt guilty.

"Does he know I'm a master waterbender?" Katara asked, hopefully.

Sokka lifted an eyebrow and he said, "Obviously. He saw your freakiness before he left, didn't he?"

Katara used this opportunity to splash him with her bending, and before he could protest, she pulled it all out of his clothes and hair and back into her pouch. But she smiled, when she did it, and she said, "No, dummy, does he know I've mastered waterbending?"

"I told him," Sokka said. This was a bit of a lie: he had just said Katara was good at it, and how she was rudely challenging the traditions of their society, for which Hakoda had knocked him over the head and told him to be nice about his sister, even if he had been joking (at least, he hadn't meant the mock-scandalized tone).

Katara seemed excited. She said, "Was he happy? Did you tell him about how I almost beat Master Pakku? And about Zuko? And about Azula?"

"First of all," Sokka said, rationally, "I don't think it's a compliment to say you beat the banished loser Prince of the Fire nation, even if you did it more than once. And two, I don't have the gift, Azula didn't happen until after, so no, I didn't. But I did mention Pakku."

In passing, anyway.

"What did he say?" Katara egged him on. She stepped over her error neatly, as if it had never happened.

Sokka thought Katara could use a lesson or two in being humble. She was, after all, asking him if he had bragged to their father about her tradition-breaking, gender-boundary-clashing rebellion against elder members of their sister tribe.

"He's happy you're a waterbender," Sokka said, with a smile. Katara smiled, but she continued to ask questions about how their father had reacted to the story of their lives while he was gone. Sokka fended her off with a "Woah, woah. You were with me when we traveled the world, I don't think you need to hear a step by step recap of that."

"You're right," she relented, "sorry."

There was long pause, and then she asked, "When do you think we'll see him again?"

Sokka shrugged, "They're still defending Chameleon Bay. If they survive the battle, I guess we'll catch up with them there, as soon as Aang and Appa are ready to go. Hopefully that's not too far from now. It'll take at least two weeks to fly to the Fire nation, let alone detouring to find them again, if they've moved on from Chameleon Bay."

Katara nodded, but bringing up Aang again seemed to sober her up a bit. Her smile vanished, and she unfolded her legs, uncomfortably.

There was a moment of odd silence.

"Dad's content with how things are going, though," Sokka said, finally, "And I'm a man now. I know I've been one since Bato gave me the trial, but, well… hearing Dad say it just makes it a lot better."

"Congratulations, Sokka," Katara said, and Sokka thanked her. Katara paused, and then she asked, "What did Dad say when you told him we had been at the Northern Water tribe?"

Sokka's mouth opened to reply, but he was hit with a sudden loss for words. Katara leaned forward to see his face, around his shoulder, and Sokka quickly said, "He had never been there, so he asked lots of things about it and how it worked. Asked if they were a lot different than the Southern Water tribe."

Katara let out a scoffing noise, and she said, "Different is right. Women not allowed to bend. Ugh."

Sokka was glad her mind went to that first, because he didn't exactly want to share the conversation.



Hakoda hadn't exactly expected his offer for the three of them – his two children and himself – to go to the North Pole together, someday, to be rejected, let alone rejected so quickly.

"I don't ever want to go back there, Dad."

Hakoda glanced at his son, rather surprised.

"Why not, Sokka?"

He'd never seen his son make the face that appeared then, even if it only lingered for a second, before being replaced with one steeled and forced. Two years had deprived him of many, many of Sokka's moments growing up, and this face was probably one of them. It was pained, apprehensive, maybe even nervous in that boyish, guilty way. Like he'd done wrong.

Sokka said, too casual to be honest, "There's nothing special there, anymore. I just don't want to go back, it's a waste of time, not much to see, you know..."

Hakoda didn't buy this for a second. He let the silence sit for a moment, to ripen, and Sokka didn't meet his gaze. When there was no further excuse offered, he asked, "What happened, Sokka?"

His son stopped trying to act so casual about it. All at once, the rigidness from his posture disappeared, and his mouth twisted down. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then he looked up at Hakoda.

"I couldn't protect someone."

Ah. That brought up memories in his own old head, familiar and many years old. Hakoda recalled the finer moments of his time with his late wife and love, and he didn't regret a single one of them. Losing her had been his own failure to protect. Going to war had been his attempt at not repeating the same, his attempt to protect his children, and to protect himself from losing his children. He was protecting his children, his people, and the world from the western threat of Fire.

And just as he had taken his love under his arm, to protect her from harm and hurt, perhaps Sokka had followed in his footsteps and done the same. And just his father, Sokka had failed.

Going by the look on Sokka's face, perhaps he was dead on. He saw a bit of himself in that look, as it was the exact same as his own had been, whenever something reminded him of her. Hakoda had worn that look at least once every day, for the rest of his life.

But he hoped he was wrong, for Sokka's sake.

Hakoda put a hand on Sokka's shoulder, and Sokka paused, long and hard. While Hakoda waited, Sokka seemed to gather himself together, and Hakoda wondered if this was the first time he was telling someone about it. Sokka didn't seem to be able to explain, so he said something else.

"I think I understand how it was for you when mom died."

And then his worst suspicions were confirmed. Hakoda let his hand drop from Sokka's shoulder, slowly, and he instead pulled his son into a hug. Sokka didn't really lend himself to the gesture, remaining almost frozen still for a moment, and then he tucked down his chin.

"Sokka," Hakoda said, gravely.

Sokka gently eased himself from his father's grip, and Hakoda let him go. When Sokka lifted his head again, his face was guilty once more. The regret was overwhelming, and Hakoda said, "Are you alright?"

"It wasn't going to be forever anyway," Sokka replied, awkwardly. His voice, matured and still unfamiliar to Hakoda's ears, cracked a bit, and Sokka said, "It's a long story."

Hakoda nodded, and he said, "We have ample time before the raid. We'll take a walk around camp."

So they did.



The three of them, plus their animal companions and the lifeless Avatar, settled into a humble mode of life. The village was about an hour's walk from their humble little hut, where they were very sheltered from the passersby on the main road, where no one could stumble across them.

Even if someone did manage to stumble across them, Toph had equipped them with a good defense. While they originally thought of erecting a large stone fence enclosing the area, Sokka shot the idea down rather quickly. If people saw a fence, it could only be assumed that there was something hidden behind it, and that would only tempt people into trying to scale it, if they couldn't just bend it down themselves. He scaled what Toph did erect, and successfully getting over it was a feat that he proved, much to Toph's chagrin. So they opted for a different method of protection: if someone came to close, Toph would close the entire place under a sheet of rocks.

"What if the intruder is an earthbender?" Katara had asked.

"We're in the Earth kingdom," Sokka said, annoyed, "last I checked, they weren't the enemy, and firebenders can't bend earth."

"Do you want a defense or not?" Toph replied. Katara let it be.

But having a good defense wasn't the biggest part of the problem—food was. Protection meant nothing if they were going to starve to death. At first, none of them had believed it would be a problem, but after a few failed hunting trips, their spirits changed. Sokka had discovered that game was incredibly scarce, and while there was the odd bit of meat running around the area, he literally had to track them for hours before he could catch them, as the area was heavily forested and boomerangs depended on having open space, so he relied on his clubs alone. And fishing wasn't much better; while he had brought his fishing rod along with him when he had gone to see his father, it was pretty useless when there were few fish worth eating.

After the third time he returned with only a small rabbit or a couple fish barely the size of his palm, Katara suggested they go down to the village and see what they could buy.

"Er, with what money?" Sokka said. "Do I have to get another job?"

He wasn't really keen on being bossed around by people again, despite how pleased he was to be credited as breadwinner. Sokka could only degrade himself for so long, before he got tired of it. Katara, on the other hand, thrived on helping people for no reward other than a pat on the head.

"I've got a bit," Katara said, turning out her pockets. "Enough to at least get us a bag of rice and some vegetables."

"Why waste our time with veggies if Aang's not here to eat 'em?" Sokka said, mildly bugged. Katara frowned, and looked away, folding her arms.

"Some of us are happy being omnivores, thanks," Katara said, "Besides. If Aang wakes up, he's going to want to eat something other than your finger-fish or Fluffy the Second."

Somehow, Sokka didn't think Aang was going to be roused by the smell of mushrooms, but the jab to his hunting skills was enough to stop another "will he wake up?" discussion from ensuing. Toph was glad.

And, every few days, Katara (but on occasion, Sokka) would trek down to the village, where she'd bargain, trade, or purchase food. A few of the old things found in the backs of the cupboards—clothing, small crafts and knickknacks—were traded for goods, and as the first week ambled into history, they managed to establish their survival. Food was still rationed, of course, but at least they were making do.

Every night, sometime in the small hours of the morning, Aang would glow. The wind torrents never came back, much to their relief, but the tattoos on his skin would shine bright, though he'd never wake up. Katara would get out of bed and sit by Aang anyway, hoping that that night was going to be the one where he sprung up and urged them all to head out for the Fire nation, where they could end the war and be done with it.

But he didn't wake up.

"Why does he glow?" Katara mused, to herself, more than anything,

Toph said, "He's technically not eating or drinking anything all this time, so shouldn't he be wasting away, or actually dead? Maybe it's the Avatar state kicking in to keep him alive."

"He's never allowed to complain about me sleeping in ever again," Sokka grumbled.

Katara seemed to thrive on Aang's continued existence. No matter how humble their lives had become in a matter of a week, she didn't seem all that upset over it, as long as she could lean over Aang's body for long hours and try to heal him. Slowly, the marks on his back began to fade to mere electrical burns, and Katara didn't think he'd ever be free of those. But still, Aang didn't wake up, even after two weeks.

"Get some sleep," Sokka grumbled one night, when he woke up to find Katara sitting with Aang drawn across her lap. Aang was glowing, as usual, and Katara was watching him intently, as if this were the time he'd wake up.

"I will when he goes out of the Avatar state, if he isn't awake."

"He's not going to," Sokka warned her, "stop getting your hopes up."

Katara scowled and kept her attention focused on Aang. Her hand ran over the back of his head, tenderly, over his prickly scalp. His dark hair was growing in. She said, bitterly, "You act like you don't want him to wake up."

Sokka was insulted by this accusation, and he threw her a disgusted look that she didn't see, and then rolled over, yanking the corner of his sleeping bag over his head. He grumbled, "Well, excuse me for wanting to get a little shut eye."

"You're so selfish," Katara said, not quite ready to let the battle end. Sokka just growled at her, through his pillow.

"Face it, Katara, it's been two weeks. Him waking up in ten years is just the same probability of him waking up in ten minutes. Go to bed." He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, dragging the covers down to stop right under his eyes, and he said, "Unless, of course, I'm wrong, which seems to happen a lot, surprisingly."

Katara glowered at him, and she said, "Just because I have hope doesn't mean you have to rain on it, you know."

"I could be doing a thousand different things right now," Sokka growled. "I could be finding Suki, or stopping the Fire nation, or fighting with dad, rather than sleeping in this stupid hut, with my stupid sister, in this stupid forest, with all the stupid foresty animals, in the stupidest world in the world.

"That doesn't even make sense," Katara accused, "You're the stupid one!"

And that was precisely when a new wall, made of solid earth, was created in the place, dividing Toph from the two bickering siblings. Through the wall, she snapped, "Oh, can it, both of you, by the noise level, you could think it was the apocalypse."

Wisely, the both "canned it."



"I'm sure we'll be safe here for the time being," Katara said. She didn't sound too sure of herself.

Sokka itched to leave anyway. It was if he was having trouble sitting in one place, especially with Ba Sing Se so close and yet so far away. They were a four days' walk to the Serpent's Pass, and Sokka seemed sure they'd be able to make it there and run into the Kyoshi Warriors without wasting time.

"You know better than that," Katara would protest, to those sorts of offers. When Sokka would start to get dramatic about the whole problem, Katara would say things like, "I'm worried, too, Sokka, I really am" and "They could be anywhere, absolutely anywhere. They could be dead, they could be captured, they could be heading back to Kyoshi Island, they could be fine."

This didn't soothe Sokka's anxiety any. Instead, it just seemed to drive him up the wall even more. Sokka paced. He paced and he paced. When he wasn't sleeping or eating, he was pacing, and even then, sometimes he'd get up during whatever dinner they had scrounged together just to walk back and forth, munching as he went. The monotone vibrations through the floor drove Toph nuts, and she would do her best to look annoyed and express her anger, as a warning, before she slammed her foot against the floor and took his feet out from under him.

But that didn't really deter him. It just prompted him to take it elsewhere. He'd offer excuses to leave the place. Each time he left, Katara would worry he was taking off on a serious intent to find Suki, but he never left with his sleeping bag or pack. He'd bring his fishing rod and tackle box and come home with fresh fish. He's bring his machete and boomerang, and he'd be back in a few hours, sometimes even a dozen hours, with fresh meat and a whole load of grass stains. Then, Katara would breathe a sigh of relief that he hadn't left them, but only until he did it again.

She thought that, maybe, his anxiety was getting the better of him. She would catch him staring off over the hill, into the trees, as if he were waiting for someone to show up. She would find him taking trips down to the village, in haphazard disguises, saying he was going to catch up with news about the war. On some nights, when she'd wake up to check on Aang, she would see his empty sleeping bag and find him on the roof, staring at the sky.

And that was fine, in some way. They all needed a safe house, and she knew Sokka liked to keep watch for coming enemies, like he always did back home. She hadn't seen the backwards glances he used to give to the seashore, searching for coming boats, in a long time, but they were back. They all depended on news from the Earth kingdom and the Fire nation, as such news could affect how close they were to being found. And they all needed their time apart, too. Toph would build herself her own room, and Katara would go for walks to the village, too, but Sokka seemed downright antisocial with concern.

It was like they were back at the North Pole, and they only ever saw Sokka at meal times, and even then he barely talked to them, because he was too busy in his personal la-la-land. But it was different all the same –– the blissful, dreamy look on his face was replaced with one concerned, the eyebrows knitted together and the mouth twisted down.

After a week of the business, Katara got concerned.

"Toph, do you think Sokka's alright?" she asked. Sokka had been gone for exactly four minutes, tackle box in one hand, fishing rod slung over the other shoulder.

"He's fine," Toph replied.

Katara frowned and she replied, "He's obviously worried about Suki, and the invasion, and everything. He's hardly been himself for the past weeks, Toph."

"He woke me up this morning because he was horsing around with Momo," Toph said, skeptically, "and yesterday, while you were out getting water, he told me about how, when you were little, he convinced you that if you hold too many sneezes in, you'll explode. And he laughed the whole time."

So that was what they had been laughing about. Katara flushed, slightly, because Sokka had likely told her the bit about how Katara had caught a cold that same day, and had burst out in tears every time she had to sneeze but didn't. Judging by how Toph gave a weird smile, Katara figured he had, and vowed extract revenge.

"Well, okay," Katara replied, "he's had his moments. But he's not exactly himself. Has he talked to you about that?"

Toph sighed. "It's not like we have some secret-sharing bond, don't ask me, I just read him through the floor and hear about how you didn't eat some sort of fish for yeaaars because he convinced you that it'd make your hair frizzy."

"I beat him up for that," Katara said, firmly, "I gave him a black eye."

"He didn't tell me that bit," Toph said.

"He also tried to drink up his nose, once, because I told him that if you could breathe with your nose AND mouth, why couldn't you do the same with drinks and food," Katara said, quickly, trying to even out the score a bit. "And that if he jumped off something really, really, high, like a glacier, he could fly."

Toph shrugged, and replied, "I thought that too. I think every kid but you believed that."

Katara was a bit disappointed.

"Oh."

Still, it lightened her mood a bit.



News from Ba Sing Se came sporadically. Occasionally, on the trips to town, they'd pick up the current events from a stranger. There were many strangers, and many passers-through, drifting through the village and onwards, determined to get as far away from Ba Sing Se as they possibly could. The kids themselves never lingered in town for too long, either, as they were technically banished and someone was bound to place their faces sooner or later, but with so many changing faces, they weren't recognized. They managed to piece together the whole story of what had happened to Ba Sing Se rather quickly.

Ba Sing Se had been, in short, burned to the ground, which explained the mass exodus of displaced families.

"Why would they burn it down?" Katara said, "If they're planning on cultivating the Earth kingdom and actually using it, why would they get rid of it?"

"Because Ba Sing Se is as large as the Fire nation," Sokka replied, soberly. Katara didn't seem to understand, and Sokka said, "Okay, so, they don't want to keep the city. Guess why they trashed it."

"To shame the Earth kingdom," Katara replied.

"Yeah, but also because it's the most concentrated population of Earth kingdom people. If they start burning the lands and destroying it, all those people are going to die," Sokka said. "It's pretty bad, the Fire nation has used Ba Sing Se's walls against all the people in it. You don't even want to know. Those that managed to escape are leaving as fast as they can."

"Where are they going to go?" Katara said, concerned.

"If they can get out, wherever they can," Sokka replied.

Katara paused, and then she said, almost scared to confirm it, "The Fire nation has walled them in AND they're burning the city down. All those people are stuck in there, in a burning city, unable to escape."

Sokka nodded, and looked away. Katara grit her teeth, her eyes welling with tears, obviously trying her best not to make a scene. Sokka said, "It's a fact of war." He pulled her into a hug anyway.

The shopkeeper let out a long, dwindling sigh, and then looked down at his hands, scrubbing them clean of dirt. Sokka exchanged an odd look with the man, but the man didn't seem capable of keeping eye contact with him. Apologetically, the man said, "I've seen too many tear-streaked faces, in the past three weeks, to look upon another. I'm sorry."

"We should help them," Katara said, steeled. She pulled herself from Sokka's arms, and she said, again, "We have to go help them."

"Help them with what?" Sokka asked, "Katara, it's over."

"It's only a matter of time before the Fire nation joins us, too," the shopkeeper said, "I'm too old to move, I'd rather die in my village, but… everyone with a hope left in the world is leaving. The Avatar's dead, as is our hope. Many are heading to the North Pole—it's the last free place in the world, and the new Avatar will be there."

Sokka let out a long sigh, and he let his hand slip from Katara's shoulder. He looked at her, and she looked away, the shame of silence so apparent on her features. Neither said a word.



"Is there something you aren't telling me?" Katara finally asked, when Sokka returned from yet another failed fishing trip.

He shrugged and replied, "About what?" in a tone that was suspiciously forced into sounding casual. He crouched down on the floor in front of Momo, who had come over to greet him, and he scratched the lemur behind the ears for a moment, with a smile. Katara watched him for a moment.

"You just seem really down lately," she said, and when he looked up, his grin faded. She said, "I know you're upset about Suki and everything. But is something else bothering you, too? I realized yesterday that you never talked to me about Princess Yue after we left, and I know you didn't want to talk about it, but..."

She wasn't sure where she was going with that. Sokka raised an eyebrow at her, and then sighed.

"Sorry," Katara said, "I know Princess Yue and you were close, but you never talked about it, just that you were spending time together. Aang thought that you two were just friends, and I sort of agreed, but..."

Sokka was staring at her, some strange mix between horrified and feigned calmness, which meant his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were wide, but his eyebrows were drawn down. Katara held up her hands in front of her, in surrender, and she said, again, pointlessly, "Sorry. You don't want to talk about it."

He looked away, pressing one palm to his forehead. He didn't turn back to face her, and he busied his hands with playing with Momo, but he said, "I don't know. I miss her a lot, and knowing Suki might be, well, gone, too... well, it's kind of embarrassing, and kind of hard, to talk about with your sister. No offense or anything."

"So Aang was wrong?" Katara said, hesitantly.

"We called ourselves just friends but we're liars," Sokka said. He cringed out of the embarrassment, and Katara pursed her lips to keep back a sad smile. He covered his eyes with one hand again, but wasn't able to hide the flush to his cheeks. He said, "Er, yeah. Awkward, I know."

"You could have told me," Katara said. She leant over to hug him, leaning her cheek against the top of his head. He waited for her to move back a bit, and then he shook his head. "Or Aang, if you're too chicken to talk to girls about love."

"Yeah, no," he said, voice funny, but she knew he wasn't crying. She didn't want to think about what he had been doing on his little solitary moments, over the past months. Sokka continued, "And Aang... just a kid, it's not like he'd have understood love and that."

"He doesn't need to understand, just to listen," Katara replied. "Besides, I'm pretty sure Aang knows what love is. And don't talk about him like he's dead."

Sokka shrugged, and Katara released him from her hug when he moved to stand up. He pulled her into a brief hug, and then finally made eye contact again. His eyes were a bit glassy. Katara smiled at him, reassuringly.

"But even if it's weird, we can talk," she said, holding his hands. "Okay? It's not like I'm going to laugh at you. I just get worried when you talk about going out to find Suki and then go off to do something. And I get worried when I find you on the roof at night. That's kind of weird."

"The moon," Sokka said, dismissive, and it clicked in Katara's mind. "I'm not going to take off on you, I can't. You guys depend on me."

"Sokka," Katara said, hesitantly, "I know Suki matters to you. And I know I told you that we couldn't risk the time, and that it was unlikely we'd find her, but if you want to go, you should go. Maybe you're right about Aang. It's like sitting on the edge of a market street, and never crossing it, because the moment you step out, a cart could come around the corner and run you down. If you keep wasting time waiting for Aang to wake up, he'll wake up when you finally get the courage to walk."

Sokka stared at her, blankly. For a moment, he seemed to wait just like she had described, waiting in case she said something more, and then he finally said, "But what if he does wake up? You can't wait for me, either."

Katara couldn't say. She just drew her mouth into a line, unsure of what to say, and her eyes zoned out, eye-level with his neck. Then, she decided, "It depends on how strong he is. If he's strong, and can travel, we'll follow the path between here and the Serpent's path. If we don't see you... we'll keep going towards the Fire nation, I guess."

He seemed to take this path with some sort of finality, and he nodded. "I'm going to head out, then, Katara." He nodded again, despite the fact that he didn't need to, and he let go of her hands. "Suki might need me. I could never forgive myself if she went Princess Yue's way."

"Sokka," Katara said, miserably, and she put her arms around him and hugged him tightly, "please come back."

"Of course," Sokka replied, "what kind of lousy brother would I be if I didn't? I'm going to get you some food, and then I'll go. Fast as I can."

"Alright," Katara consented. "Alright."

She still didn't release him from the hug for another minute, chin digging into his shoulder, thinking that she didn't want Sokka to go off over the horizon line, just like dad. But she knew that if she didn't let him go, eventually, he'd break free himself.

But she knew he'd come back. Sokka always came back, just like that boomerang.



The forest was deep and lush.

It was sweltering hot when Sokka realized it had been the middle of spring when he had passed through the first time. Now, it was nearing the middle of the summer, and sometime, in all that time, while he had been lazing about Ba Sing Se, or goofing off, or doing miscellaneous boring things, Suki had been somewhere out here, struggling under the weight of Azula's tyranny.

He didn't know what to think about that, except it infuriated him. He held it in, for one moment, and then he let it go, giving out a cry of anger and kicking a stick, and it rolled over in a rather disappointingly unexciting way. So he kicked a rock, and that flew wildly, and Sokka watched it land in the bushes, and then he said, aloud, to no one in particular, "I'm an idiot."

No one replied. There was no one around to hear. It was just Sokka's ego, Sokka's guilt, and a bunch of memories, all rolled into one egotistical, guilty, and sentimental teenage body. One drenched in sweat and exhausted, just to put the icing on the cake. And he was all alone, just like that.

"I'm such an idiot," he repeated, sitting down and slouching his shoulders. He felt the weight like a sack of rocks over his shoulders. Sokka turned his face skyward, and he found the moon, or what was left of the moon, in the bright sunlight. All he could see was a sliver of white, only visible for how pale it was against the sky, between the trees. He strained his eyes to watch it closely.

The moon didn't seem to have an opinion on his idiocy, because nothing happened. Not that he expected anything to happen –– time and time again, he had hoped that just straining his eyes to see the moon, desperately, would be enough to make Princess Yue come to him in a vision, but it was never enough.

His eyes just couldn't see spirits, lost loved ones, or not.

"What do I do?" he said to himself. He had been remarkably hopeful about this. He had figured it would be easy enough to just walk along the road from Ba Sing Se to the Serpent's pass, that he would find Suki just like that. As if it were easy, and not a feat accomplished only by sheer luck and knowledge, both of which seemed to be lacking horribly.

"What do I do?" he repeated.

He closed his eyes, and opened them again, as he stood up. And then he pressed his palms to his temples, and let out an agitated breath. When he closed his eyes and then opened them again, his eyes fell on a tree burnt black.

Sokka paused, and he dropped his hands, almost in surprise. It didn't look natural at all. So he approached, almost eagerly, and he traced his fingers against it. The bark didn't break off, and it was obviously an old and rather superficial mark. There were grooves cut in an odd shape, where knives or something had punctured the bark. Sokka traced from one groove to another. Along two straight lines, then a break where something wide had been, and more rows going down either side of that. Realizing what it was, Sokka swallowed the dry lump that had formed in his throat.

A human had been hung here.

He moved away from the tree immediately, almost with some sort of crazed anticipation. He let out a loud breath of surprise, and he scanned the place for more clues. Fire. Fire meant firebenders. Knife grooves –– hadn't that knife chick with Azula pinned Katara to a tree with the same technique? The path to Ba Sing Se, if the Kyoshi warriors really had passed this way, then they were in the right place...

Everything was falling into place as soon as he got the ball rolling.

The lump in his throat was growing more and more painful to swallow. He felt suffocated by it, and Sokka looked between the tree and the rest of the clearing carefully. He found another clue so easily... a gigantic log strewn across part of the clearing, burnt a while ago, too. It was far less superficial, and when Sokka kicked it, large pieces crumbled off into mere black dust. It both excited and terrified him, but the pieces of this sick puzzle were falling into place much faster than that.

His eyes had found a glimmer of gold in the long grass.

Sokka fell upon that gold like a tiger-seal would fall upon its prey. He snatched it up and drew it up to his face, and he didn't care that it was damaged. The fact that he had found a golden fan was enough to thrill him enough.

When he twisted his wrist to flick the fan open, he read the characters eagerly. There it was. Her name, engraved into the blades, filled with chipped black paint.

"She was here," he said to himself, loudly, "Suki. Suki was here."

He stared at the fan. A Kyoshi warrior would never go down without a fight.

Sokka knew that, had he come here a month before, he might have found more clues than this. Rain, wind, and other weather had passed through for many days and nights, and if there were even any bloodstains to begin with, they were washed away now.

There were no bits of clothing. There was a headband belonging to one of the more inexperienced warriors under one tree, and Sokka easily found more scorch marks on trees. Using all the details, he managed to figure out what Azula had been doing, at any rate, and Sokka could guess that Azula would fight the best of the bunch, namely, Suki, especially if she had taken Suki's robes.

A mark there meant Azula had fired that way, and that Suki had dodged. He could track Azula from one end of the field to the other, because very few trees were marked, but figuring out what everyone else was doing was much harder. Between six warriors and three Fire nationers, it was pretty difficult to find out who had been where, in such a small clearing.

Sokka was just following the marks over to the huge, burnt log, when he looked down into the dirt and saw a very familiar footprint, with three toes. He lifted his eyebrows.

"Appa…" he mumbled, and then let out a loud whoop of surprise, "Appa! Appa was here with them?! Alright! I'll ask him what happened!"

And then, besides the fact that Appa was asleep, Sokka recalled that Appa was a bison, and couldn't talk. That was a bit disheartening, but the fact that answers were somewhere heartened him nonetheless.

But eventually, there was little other to look at. Sokka held Suki's fan between his fingers, and then pressed the flat of it against his chest, right over his heart. He held it there, for a moment, and then he pulled it back to look at it.

The first character of her name was written with the strokes for rebirth, for being alive again. The second was written as hope.

He knew she was alive, and with that in mind, he reluctantly left for home.

Sokka made the long trek home with a strange sort of feeling in his chest. Every step he made had him thinking about Suki being on the same road, somewhere around the next bend, but every corner he turned, he saw nothing but weary travelers heading to opposite direction. He was the only one walking towards the great fallen city—a couple with children told him they had never seen anyone walking in his direction, in all their days of travel.

It was easy to conclude that everyone was getting far, far away from Ba Sing Se, and part of him considered that if Suki was free, she was likely going his way, and that she was shepherding people out of the city. That was a Suki thing to do. That was a Kyoshi warrior thing to do.

They placed their lives in jeopardy to save others all the time, and he was proud of that. Which was why, when Sokka reached the path and had the option of going to Ba Sing Se instead of back to Katara and Toph, he had to hesitate.

Shouldn't he be doing the same?

He adjusted his grip on his pack and headed towards his family. He didn't have much of an option, but with Suki's fan between his skin and the breast of his shirt, he had a lot of faith in his girlfriend, his best friend, his Suki, whatever she was.

He knew she was alive, and he'd find her as soon as he could. Next time he returned home, he vowed she would be with him.



Sokka's return happened with little fanfare. Katara was already asleep when he came up to the door, but Toph was there waiting for him, surprisingly. She sat on the porch, calmly, with her bare feet planted firmly on the ground. Sokka wasn't sure if she had been waiting for a while, but she certainly knew he was coming. He had heard her call out his name before he was even within sight of the place.

"Hey, Toph," he replied, with a weary smile. He hadn't slept much, admittedly.

She seemed almost cheery as she replied, "How was the trip?"

He wanted to say, 'It was a stunning failure, obviously, can't you tell simply by the fact that Suki isn't here with me?' but he bit it back. Standing there on that ridge, with Toph so boldly asking the obvious, it just seemed to remind him that he hadn't found Suki, nor many answers. So there was a struggle. He knew that. So there were weapons. He knew that. Suki wasn't waiting in that clearing for months, he knew that.

But he still didn't know where Suki was, if she was anywhere. What he didn't know pointed out his biggest failure, even if the margin of success had been pretty lousy to begin with.

"Well, I found where Suki and the rest of them encountered Azula," Sokka said. He hated how he was too tired to really put enough energy in what he said. "I'm not sure what I think."

"Is she alive?" Toph asked.

"I'm pretty sure," Sokka said, but that was a lie. The negativity in him surged. All the hope from the long road home seemed to vanish as soon as he was confronted about it. Truth be told, he didn't know. He couldn't possibly know.

Toph didn't say anything. Sokka figured it was pretty hard to reply to that with anything that wasn't predictably reassuring.

"She wouldn't die like that," Sokka said, "I know that for sure. Suki'd die fighting or never die at all... no way Azula won."

He was pretty glad that Toph didn't point out the fact that yes, they had been fighting, and yes, it was possible she had died then. He wasn't even sure if he was putting his sentences together properly.

"Katara missed you a lot," Toph announced.

Sokka smiled, and he sat down on the porch next to her. He said, mustering up the voice to tease her, "What, and you didn't?"

"No," Toph said, stubbornly, "why would I need you around? We take care of ourselves just fine, it's not like he were helpless without you. Though things were pretty boring, I admit."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Sokka said. "But don't worry, Toph. I know you missed me most of all, right? I bet you just pined for me."

Toph turned her head away, which was a rather definitive thing for her to do, and she said, "I did not."

"Sure you did," he said, and he leant over her, just to be annoying. "I bet you cried yourself to sleep without me! You just felt so helpless, huh?"

"I did not," she repeated, this time with a jab in the ribs. It didn't take much to hit him hard enough to get him to back off –– he doubled over, clutching his ribs with a groan, and she said, firmly, "Not everyone thinks you're the greatest thing since instant noodles. Make an effort to make yourself great before you go on whining about it."

"They don't?" Sokka quipped, "I'm shocked. But thanks for the warm welcome, I really appreciate it."

Toph said, "No problem, Sokka."

He smiled at her, even if she couldn't see it. He could always depend on Toph to hit him until he stopped feeling sorry for himself.



Sokka hadn't been back to the inn since – he'd mostly hung around the marketplace, keeping an eye out for anyone that might turn him away or recognize him as that guy in the tavern, the one accused of being Fire nation. And that was all right by him. There wasn't much there for him but drink, and as curious as he was, they couldn't exactly afford it, and food came over curiosity.

"People've finally stopped coming through here," the shopkeep said to him, softly, sadly, as he handed over the sack of raw rice. Sokka took it and weighed it in his hands, and then slung it over his shoulder. "No one wants in Ba Sing Se anymore, except those looking for lost loved ones… not much to find but ashes."

Sokka'd heard that a thousand times, and he was starting to get desensitized about it. There were only so many times he could think about it and get upset, though his anger hadn't faded. As long as the Fire nation existed, he'd be angry still.

"And the Fire nation occupation hasn't left yet?" Sokka asked, lowering his voice.

"Nay, not until they've sucked us of all our resources. People fear the army stopping here for sustenance. They can dry up a large town in a fortnight."

"Huh," Sokka breathed, and nodded. "I don't doubt it. Anything I can do to help?"

The shopkeep gave a laugh. It wasn't hearty or warming, but nor was it scornful. It, too, was a bit sad. "No, man, no one person will make the difference here. We're all cripples in our own nation, now, flogged by our new masters. There isn't much hope anymore, with the Avatar dead."

"Don't worry," Sokka said, "the Avatar will come again. Up North. I've been there… they've got lots of women and men, any minute now, some kid will be born, and then things will get sorted out."

The man laughed again, and he said, "Is that so? I hope we can survive the sixteen-year wait for him or her to come of age, no?"

"Hey, Aang was only twelve, and he knew," Sokka said. He was surprised by his own optimism. "But yeah, if there's anything I can do, let me know. I'm a warrior. Any Fire nation bullies can answer to me."

"Thank you," the man said. "You kids… yesterday, I had a young girl offer the same, real eager to help us. She didn't look well, so I turned her down, but she insisted. You kids are the things keeping the Earth kingdom alive, you know."

"That was probably my sister," Sokka said, "She never lets someone in need go alone, trust me, it's led to some pretty aggravating detours on our travels." He paused, concerned about the not-well comment. Katara seemed fine to him, physically, at least. He asked, "She's fine, though. We're all just a bit troubled, now, I guess. A bunch of our friends are missing."

"Your sister? She didn't look a bit like you," the man said, surprised.

Sokka paused, rather surprised himself, as it was usually painfully obvious the two of them were related. Same eyes, same skin, same hair colour. Katara carried herself much like he did, too, not to mention the Water tribe colours.

And then it occurred to him that Katara hadn't gone to the village yesterday. He had. Katara hadn't been the one to make a trip to the village the entire week. Sokka's eyebrows lifted, and his eyes widened.

"Never heard that before," Sokka admitted, pretty sure of himself. "Maybe you met someone else. Come to think of it, Katara didn't even go to the market yesterday."

"Tall, lots of make-up, warrior costume," the man said, "Pretty girl, but on the sickly side."

Sokka froze for a moment, staring. Warriors girls with make-up. Sokka dropped his bag of rice onto the counter again so he could give a wave of his arms, and he let out a gasp of joy.

He said, very enthusiastic, "Wait. Warrior girl? Green robes, gold headpiece, red and white make-up, armor, fans? Really pretty?" He leant forward against the stall, almost crushing quite a few tomatoes. "Was her name Suki?!"

"I didn't get a name, but that's her to a T," the shopkeep admitted, almost surprised at Sokka's sudden reaction.

"Do you know where she is?" he demanded, putting almost all his weight on his hands to lean forward into the shopkeep's face. The man leant back, awkwardly.

"No, sorry, but she probably stayed in one of the inns. You could ask around," the man said, "She's one of your missing friends?"

"Yeah!" Sokka said, despite how obvious the answer was. The grin on his face was huge and bright, and he didn't even care that the shopkeep had described the girl as sickly. It meant Suki was alive. It meant Suki was here for him. It meant Suki had found him and was wandering, and it meant he could sweep her up in his arms and take care of her.

He let out one long excited breath, and he said, "Thanks, Mister."

And then he sped off, leaving his rice behind. He heard the shopkeep calling for him, but that didn't matter – Sokka was already racing down the market street, in long, energetic strides.

He headed straight for the inn he had tried to get a room in weeks ago.