So this chapter is mostly Maiko, with the faintest splash of Zutara. Unlike the Day of Black Sun episodes, the Boiling Rock episodes had so much Zuko I had to split it into two, something I did not do with the other two part episode. So review, but, more importantly, enjoy! I should have chapter eight up soon!

Zuko does not expect how quickly, but not without difficulty, he slips into their patterns, does not expect to memorize the once foreign and unfamiliar sound of their names, especially when he says the Avatar's birth name aloud for the very first time. The entire world leapt then, and he knew there was no taking it back, yet Aang did not seem to notice. He does not expect the pride he feels when Aang firebends, truly firebends, for the first time. He does not expect the inner joy the first time Katara ever laughs at him without being cruel, before she remembers she is supposed to hate him. He does expect, however, the advice Sokka attempts to give him about the failure of a tea joke.

"Zuko?" "I know I said the joke wrong, Sokka." the teen answers testily from the evening-lit balcony, in no mood for more of Sokka's advice about comedy.

"No," Sokka amends. "I wasn't going to say that. I just… I had a question that I wanted to ask you."

Zuko makes a face, expecting something strange- or worse, personal. "Go for it, I guess. But do it quickly." Like ripping off a band aid.

"Not about you," Sokka clarifies, clearing his throat. "About the Fire Nation." Zuko looks at him curiously. "What did you want to know?"

"Well, I was wondering where they would keep their high security prisoners."

"As in the rest of the invasion?"

Sokka gapes. "How did you-"

"I had a feeling someone would ask eventually."

Sokka waits for Zuko to say something more. He doesn't.

"And?"

Zuko sighs. "It's not good."

Sokka looks out over the cliff, then back to him, sorrow decomposing his expression. "It's my dad."

Zuko is surprised, how hard the envy for a real father is to banish- not nearly as easy as when the man he once called his own father banished him. He cannot look the boy, a mere year younger but with more care for his father than Zuko could ever gain, in the hopeful silver-blue eyes as he speaks the unbearable words. "My guess is…they were taken to the Boiling Rock."

"What's that?"

"It's a huge Fire Nation prison, and it's inescapable. It's surrounded by water so hot it boils, and the slightest touch in the wrong spot could kill you. It's not far from here; you guys actually flew right over it." Then he sees the mad glint of desperation in Sokka's eyes, and adds hastily, "Sokka, don't even try."

"Try what?" the other teen quips, half-heartedly faking a yawn. "I wasn't going to try anything. Well, I'm tired. I think I'll get some rest. Thanks, Zuko. Just knowing makes me feel better."

Zuko watches him suspiciously as he walks away. "Yeah." he says under his breath. "I'll bet it does."

So, that night, Zuko places his sleeping back close to Sokka's and does all he can not to fall asleep; it is not in vain. Sokka rises stealthily when he is almost positive the others were asleep, and begins to gather the most valuable of his things. With the smallest of coy smiles lurking on his lips, Zuko makes his way to the bison when the boy's back is turned.

"Going somewhere?" he asks Sokka from the saddle as he climbs up, nearly scaring him off the bison.

"Fine," Sokka snaps. "You caught me. I'm going to rescue my dad. Are you happy now?"

Zuko raises his eyebrows. "I'm never happy."

"Well…" Sokka grasps at straws. "I'm going, and there is no way you can stop me."

Both Sokka and Zuko know fully well Zuko could beat him in a fight, but neither addresses this. Instead, Zuko presses him more. "And how are you going to get there? On Appa? Last time I checked, prisons don't have bison day care centers." He gets a bit of satisfaction on the tangible hesitation that seeps into the night air. "We'll take my war balloon. Start writing a note to Aang and-" he stops himself before he says Katara's name. "and the rest. Tell them we're off to get…"

"Meat!"

"What?"

"It's just… I'm a meat guy. They know I don't kid around about it. So we should be clear for a few days."

Zuko nods his approval. "Okay," he says. "Okay."

Although he doubts things will be.

In the air, the Western Air Temple fading quickly from view behind them, Sokka attempts to start a conversation, much to Zuko's dismay. It is not long, however, that the discussion turns to girls. After all, they are teenage boys- just teenage boys that have been forced to grow up faster than usual, forced to fit into their father's armor before they should've.

"You mean you didn't leave behind anyone you cared about?"

"Well, I did have a girlfriend." The name is pain on his tongue. "Mai."

Sokka grins, raising his eyebrows. "That gloomy girl who sighs a lot?"

Zuko almost laughs, but he doesn't, feels incapable. "Yeah. Everything was happening so quickly and undeniably, so dangerously, then. I couldn't drag her into it."

Sokka nods knowingly, then confides, "My first girlfriend turned into the moon."

Zuko remembers the beautiful Water Tribe princess with the strange white hair, and looks at the boy sympathetically. "That's rough, buddy." "I felt so bad; I was supposed to protect her, you know? And then, to make matters worse, just when I was starting to get over it, Suki, this other girl I really liked got captured. By your sister. Azula. I don't even know if she's still alive. I mean, I feel like I'd just know if she was gone- like my heart would stop beating, too."

"You'd be surprised what the, uh, the heart can, um, withstand." He flinches; he's never been good at discussing his feelings. "Leaving Mai behind was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I thought I'd be broken forever."

"So how'd you cope?" Sokka's voice is not so amiable anymore as he jumps to a conclusion that Zuko has been dreading. He looks up to find Sokka's eyes on him, as if he knows exactly who his heart latched onto in order to heal. The stare, suddenly as cold as the tribal village from which he hails, challenges Zuko to say the word aloud, to utter Katara's name to one of the very boys that will destroy him for speaking it. Though Zuko is not one to back down from a challenge, he thinks he'll have to sit this one out, as he is not sure the answer Sokka is expecting is even the right one.

"I'm not sure. I'm still working on it," he admits truthfully, and is relieved beyond measure when the steam of the volcano approaches. "There it is! The Boiling Rock."

It is magnificent in all the wrong ways- a walled-in island within a deep, boiling lake, steam gushing from its depths. Two precarious gondolas brings prisoners and guards from the dangerous basin to the unforgiving stone walls of the Fire Nation jail- to hell and back again.

"It's remarkable," Sokka agrees, but Zuko sees the sadness in his eyes and knows part of the boy is kept in this prison as well. "And the air current should lead us straight to the island."

The war balloon creeps across the volcano's threshold and is soon enveloped by thick white steam; beads of sweat form on the boys' creased brows, and the heat slithers around them, suffocating with its unbreakable chokehold. Struggling for evasive breath, Zuko attempts to bend the heat out of the air without any success. He feels like he is in one of his uncle's prized tea pots, sweltering and billowing steam, and thanks the Spirits that Iroh is not in the Boiling Rock as well, that his father needed to keep his treacherous brother close at hand.

Suddenly the balloon pitches forward violently, and Zuko desperately snatches the basket as they begin to tumble in an inevitable downward spiral.

"What's happening?" he yells to his companion.

"The balloon isn't suspending us anymore because the air inside is just as hot as the air around us!"

"Should I try and make it hotter?" Zuko asks loudly as the balloon draws lower and the temperature higher.

"No, I don't think it will work!" "So what are we going to do?"

Sokka looks to Zuko helplessly. "Crash landing?"

And he means it to the absolute essence of the word. The balloon collides with the unforgiving rock at full, dangerous speed, skidding across the damp jagged surface and collapsing in a defeated heap on the lake's shore. Zuko thrashes against the canvas trapping him in its folds and fights his way out, hands smoldering, chest heaving, eyes wild; Sokka is close behind, and in roughly the same condition- bruised and cut in places but mostly unhurt on the whole.

"It's a miracle we made it out of there," Zuko gasps, doubled over.

"I had a feeling the balloon would be a one way trip."

Zuko looks up at the young warrior from the Water Tribe in outrage and general disbelief. "What? You mean you knew this was going to happen and you wanted to come anyway?"

Sokka avoids the penetrating amber eyes. "Yeah. But what else could I do? We'll find a way out of here. But first, we find my dad."

"I feel like I'm wearing a tin can," Sokka gripes, and Zuko rolls his eyes, slipping the helmet of his prison guard disguise on. "Why don't you Fire guys build better armor?"

"What do you suggest?" Zuko snaps irritably. "Something soft and light and able to be penetrated by swords and the elements?" He hears a sound echoing down the metal walls, and holds a finger to his lips to silence his accomplice. "Someone's coming. Act natural. Pretend like you belong, and you will."

A man in an outfit identical to theirs appears down the hall. "Guards, come quickly! There's a scuffle in the prison yard!"

Sokka and Zuko look at each other, and the latter is frustrated he cannot see the other boy's expression. "Come on," he says, and drags Sokka by the shoulder in the direction the other guard sped off in. Their footsteps are metallic echoes, their shallow breaths those of liars and drowning men. The hall yawns wide into a gaping maw of an entrance, emptying into the prison yard, where a crowd has gathered around two men that circle each other like scavengers. Onlookers invade every available space, smelling of failure and hopelessness with despair swimming in their bloodshot eyes. Zuko sucks in anxious gasps as Sokka searches the faces of prisoners and guards alike, the desperate fire in his eyes flaring and dimming with each new prospect. There are many brothers and sons and fathers, but not one is the quarry the boys seek. Zuko has an undeniable sinking feeling spreading its roots in his stomach, and turns his attention to the two quarrelling men, a formidable, helmet-less guard and a bulky prisoner with clenched fists, as he and Sokka push their way to the front of the crowd.

"Hear that?" the guard yells to those watching. "Chit Sang wants to know what he's done! Isn't that cute?" He looks behind him at Sokka, who says nothing. "I said, 'Isn't that cute?'."

Sokka's eyes grow large, and Zuko nudges him to provoke a response. "Er, yes." he responds stiffly. "Very cute. Sir."

The guard rolls his eyes and looks back to the prisoner, Chit Sang. "You didn't bow when I walked by, Chit Sang."

"What?" the man replies in a stunned, gravelly voice. "That's not a prison rule. I'm going back to my cell."

The guard grins wickedly, and, while Chit Sang's back is turned, summons a flickering orange tongue of hellish flame. With a roar, he forces it, twisting and burning, towards the prisoner's retreating back. The other man spins around, shocked, and as a reflex he catches the flame and sends it back at the guard.

"You just broke a prison rule, Chit Sang. You know bending is not tolerated for prisoners." He looks back, and his eyes pass from a relieved Zuko to Sokka. "You! Help me take this jail scum to the Cooler."

Zuko, blood frozen in his veins, has to literally force a frightened Sokka forward. "We'll meet up here in an hour," he promises in a hiss as Sokka, wobbling, follows Chit Sang and the guard through the prison yard and down a different hall.

Suddenly hit with that familiar feeling, of being lost and alone in the world, Zuko glances around in hopes of picking up what to do from the other guards. Two, a fierce-looking woman and a man with a stubbly beard, glance at each other and point to the sky, eyebrows raised. An uncertain Zuko follows them at a distance from the yard and through the halls to a room that appears to be a kind of lounge. A bedraggled cook slops food into bowls, and a few guards are scattered around in uncomfortable wooden seats.

"Hey, new guy!" the man with the stubbly beard calls over to Zuko. "Why don't you relax a second? I know it's a prison rule to always have your helmet on, but this is the lounge!"

"But what if someone should strike me on the head?" Zuko inquires nervously, causing the guard and the others at his table to snort with laughter.

"Give him some time, Ruan," the woman says. "He'll loosen up."

Zuko gulps, then plunges into the question burning its syllables onto his tongue. "Can I ask you veterans a question about the prison?"

The woman laughs loudly. "No, you can't date the female guards."

The man next to her smiles and shakes his head. "Trust me," he tells Zuko conspiratorially, "you don't want to."

"No," Zuko replies, forcing a laugh that catches sourly in his throat. "I was wondering if you had any Water Tribe prisoners."

"Water Tribe?" Ruan asks, scratching his head. "Do we?"

"I don't think so," replies the other man, and something in Zuko plummets to the floor with a silent yet irreparable crash, hope colliding irrevocably with truth. In order to mask his disappointment and slight fury, he turns abruptly and snatches a tray of slop from the cook. Brain whizzing with horror and bewilderment and schemes for escape, Zuko sits alone at a table and picks at his food without eating.

"Hey, buddy," the second man calls out boisterously from across the room. "You gonna eat through your helmet?"

"No."

"Just take it off, man," the other man, Ruan, says tiredly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Zuko insists, and a grin breaks through the second man's face like the sun bursting through the clouds.

"Why? Are you ashamed of how ugly you are, new guy? Is that why your parents shipped you out here so young, so you couldn't escape?" He laughs cruelly, then continues with the words that are the last straws for Zuko, the last thread pulled in an unraveling sweater. "Or do you just have an embarrassing scar from where they burned you?"

With gritted teeth and an angry snarl poised on his lips beneath the metal of his helmet, Zuko pushes out of his seat with a clatter and skulks out of the room. If only those guards knew just who they were speaking to, knew just who they were dealing with- Zuko of the Fire Nation, son of their feared ruler, ally of their most esteemed foe, and master of the crackling flames they think obey them, a thought Zuko can snuff out like a feeble candle in an erumpent gale. They'd be sorry if only they knew who he was, now that Zuko knows the answer himself.

"Zuko?" inquires tentative but familiar voice, and Zuko looks, relieved, over to the mask that hides Sokka's flushed and anxious face. He joins his companion at the rail overlooking the dismal prison yard.

"Yeah," he replies, taking a breath. "Look, Sokka, I asked around the prison. No one knows of any Water Tribe prisoners, or any from the invasion."

Zuko cannot see it but knows just how wide Sokka's eyes must be. "What? No, that can't be!" His voice is high and cracking, nervous and angry. "You mean all this was for nothing? It was all a complete waste?"

"I don't-"

"I risked both of our lives for nothing? Oh, Spirits, I don't believe this! Why does the universe hate me?"

Zuko makes a face, and racks his brain for something to say. Something Uncle would say….

"You know, Sokka, sometimes life is…like a cloud. Yeah, a cloud. There's a dark side, and a light side. With a silver lining in between. Like, um, a silver sandwich. So, when things seem dark, just… Sometimes you just have to, er, take a bite out of the silver sandwich."

Sokka straightens up suddenly. "Maybe this wasn't a complete waste."

"You mean what I said worked?" asks Zuko in disbelief.

"No, what you said makes absolutely no sense at all. But look, in the prison yard! It's Suki!"

"Stay out here and keep watch," Sokka instructs, slipping inside the girl's, Suki's, cell. Zuko leans against the iron door, worriedly craning his neck from side to side.

"Make it quick," he hisses through the door, but Zuko knows that if it were Mai in there, he'd take all the time he could get, too.

He hears a startled exchange of murmured words and a several muffled, rapid movements, and wonders wildly if they are embracing. Slightly uncomfortable, he doesn't dare look in to see. Then, to his horror, the fierce female guard he'd met earlier struts importantly down the hall; panicking, he raps on the door thrice.

"Incoming," he whispers.

The guard approaches him with a scowl. "Move aside. I need to get into that cell."

"Wait," Zuko cautions, a spur of the moment lie. "The lights are out. The prisoner could sneak up and attack you."

The guards smiles, a cocky yet thin, and hardly kind smirk. "I'm more than capable. Now move." "No, wait-" But she's already pushing past him, reaching for the handle, about to blow everything Sokka and Zuko have worked for.

"Stop!" Zuko yells, and, in one, last desperate attempt, pushes the guard against the wall.

"What are you doing?" shrieks the guard furiously. "Help! Someone help!" She catches sight of Sokka, whose slipped out of thee cell mere seconds too late. "Guard! Help! I think he's an imposter!"

Zuko glances up at his comrade frenziedly, trying to convey the message, as the female guard knocks his helmet off. Go along with it or both or covers will be blown.

He gets the message, and obliges reluctantly. Zuko allows himself to be cuffed in chains and thrown into a darkness even his flickering flames cannot illuminate.

"If it isn't Prince Zuko," a voice drawls, and the words are mocking. "To what do I owe this pleasure? Never thought I'd see you in here."

"How do you know me?" Zuko asks, throwing his hair out of his face to see the man who now enters his cell. Too tall and proud for his age, one apparent by the frown lines etched into the weathered face and streaks of gray in his shoulder-length hair, the warden gazes at his prisoner with utmost contempt.

"How could I not recognize that face, Your Majesty? After all, you have stood before adoring thousands of loyal citizens, have led the troops of Ba Sing Se to victory. The Fire Lord will be pleased to hear I am the one who has you in captive, in this place where you can no longer embarrass him by way of your…misguided adventures." The frown lines in the dark face deepen, and the warden steps closer. "Yet I have a more personal reason for paying you this visit, Zuko. You broke my niece's heart."

Zuko's eyes widen in shock. "You're Mai's uncle?"

The man nods slowly. "She's better off without you," he says nastily, and it kills Zuko inside to know that the words this bitter man speaks are nothing but the truth. The unbearable pang in his chest proves without a doubt that his heart will always bear the scars Mai has left there from trying to claw him back into a destiny he'd wrongly chosen for himself, instead of the one he was always meant for. Suddenly, he wants to follow the jagged paths carved into his heart back to her, to where she stands and speaks and breathes, where she exists, fuller and stronger and more beautiful than anything his memory can even begin to conjure.

"But before they come for you, Prince Zuko," the warden continues, folding his hand behind his back. "You're going to do me a favor."

After two long hours of unendurable chores, including scrubbing the cells and mopping the floors, a beaten-down Zuko, still smarting from the image of a broken Mai burned into the back of his mind, is properly introduced to Suki. He supposes she is pretty, quite a few steps above plain, at least, with her light brown hair and big expressive eyes. He can see why Sokka likes her, for she is smart as a whip and capable of taking down great obstacles; the girl is a decent match for the sarcastic and excruciatingly unlucky Sokka, but not Zuko's type in the slightest.

"Good!" Sokka chirps, oddly cheerful, appearing on the steps above them as Suki and Zuko mop the floors until they can catch gazes of their own pained and uncomfortable expressions. "I see you two have met!"

"We've met before," Suki retorts sourly.

Zuko's blood runs cold, knowing this can only lead to trouble. "We have?"

Suki glares at him. "Yup," she says. "You sort of burned down my village." Both Sokka, now next to them, and Zuko cringe, yet it is worse for Zuko because he cannot even pinpoint which village she is referring to. "Oh," he says in a small voice. "Sorry about that."

"Anyway," Sokka breaks in, and lowers his voice to a hoarse whisper. "I thought of a plan."

"You did?" Suki inquires, pleasantly surprised. "Yes, and if I do say so myself, it's pretty creative."

"Sorry, Sokka, but I don't care about creative as much as effective." This comment causes Suki to shoot Zuko another venomous look, even if Sokka just shrugs it off.

"The Cooler," he says simply, referring to the prison's freezing holding cell for firebenders.

"What about it?"

"Well, it's insulated right? To keep the cold in? That means it has to keep the heat out! It would make the perfect boat across the Boiling Lake! We can escape that way!"

"That's not a bad idea, Sokka," Zuko relents, "but the thing is, how are we going to get it out?"

"If I can get in on this, I can definitely help you with that," says a deep voice, and a hulk of a shadow drops from the steps above to the floor with a loud thud, startling the trio. Chit Sang smiles, a crooked half-moon of yellow teeth, and Zuko wishes instead they were stars, for he wants to wish on something that this last hope will prevail.

"Watch where you're going!" Chit Sang snarls, shoving Zuko.

"You watch where you're…shoving!"

"Are you asking for a fight, boy?" Chit Sang raises his fist, and Zuko, checking first to make sure guards are watching, firebends a weak jet of flame at him.

"All right, break it up!" yells Ruan, and he grabs Zuko's wrist. "It's the Cooler for you!"

Zuko holds back a smile as they lead him away. Perfect.

Inside,his breath unfurls in a burst of fog in the stale, shivering air. The bolts that hold the Cooler in place wear temporary lines into Zuko's fists, clenched so hard they've turned white.

"All right, you!" a familiar voice yells, and Sokka's welcome face peers in at him. "Have you learned your lesson?"

Zuko smiles and discreetly reveals the displaced bolts to his partner in crime.

"Yes," he replies. "I have."

That night, Sokka unlocks their cells silently and stealthily, knowing that their very lives may hang in the balance, and Zuko and Suki follow him out onto the steaming shore, to a blind spot between two watch towers and beneath the chosen Cooler.

"Are you sure that's what they said? A gondola of war prisoners?" Suki presses Sokka in a whisper as they wait for Chit Sang to join them.

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. It could be my dad." Zuko's brow creases. "But, Sokka, it might not be. If we wait for the morning and the gondola, our chance of escaping in the Cooler might be over. I mean, they'll have to use the Cooler again soon, right? They'll discover it's broken." Sokka's face falls, and he looks out wistfully across the broiling lake. "I know. And I don't want to risk your safeties for something that only might happen."

"But it's your father," Suki says softly.

"And it's also your call."

Sokka presses his fists into his temples, the minutes until dawn slipping away agonizingly quick. By the time Chit Sang arrives with his best friend and girlfriend, Sokka has still not chosen, much less disclosed his answer.

"I'll go along with whatever you think is right," Suki says quietly, and Zuko agrees silently and begrudgingly. He cannot leave without him.

Still, when the Cooler glides out across the bubbling water soundlessly, filled with hushed escapees, Zuko is extremely saddened to see it go.