Sorry it's taken me so long to update guys, my job is keeping me ridiculously busy. Hope you enjoy the new chapter and please leave a review telling me what you think! I like feedback whether it's good or bad.

AEWFS Ch 4

Common Enemy

Prince Zuko's curses faded into the distance as they cleared the gates of Azulon; the trio breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down against the side of the saddle. Grimacing in pain from the deep slash between his shoulder blades, Shio shrugged his overloaded bag off and slowly made his way over to the still unconscious girl, rather worried that she still had yet to regain consciousness. He examined the girl briefly, her arms, legs and torso did not seem to have any significant injuries other than the burns, cuts and bruises.

He then examined her head; he found a large patch of hair at the back of her head, matted with blood. She must have smashed it into the wall of the cell when being shocked by Azula. Odds are she had a massive concussion and needed help very soon.

"She'll…be…Fine…" he lied between gasps of air, their escape leaving the three of them winded; he didn't want to worry them so he hid the true severity of the girl's condition. He saw a look of relief pass over the young avatar's face; the boy came over and sat down next to the girl.

Shio returned to his previous position "You know," he said, "I don't know any of your names." An uncomfortable silence followed, "Uh, I guess I'll start, I'm Shio."

The avatar continued to pointedly ignore Shio's attempt at conversation. The water tribe boy glared slightly at the young Airbender and rolled his eyes, "I'm Sokka," he said turning to the swordsman, "This is my sister Katara and…" He paused turning his head towards the pouting Airbender, "THE ONE BEING A TOTAL JERK" he yelled animatedly, "Is Aang." He finished calmly turning back to Shio.

Shio allowed himself a small smile; he nodded at his travelling companions, "Glad to meet all of you. He said simply. He leaned back against the lip of the saddle but suddenly sat up and doubled over in pain. He had leaned back on the deep slash right between his shoulder blades inflicted by the guards during their escape from the prison.

He gasped and shuddered, the adrenaline rush of the last half-hour wearing off; he just now realized how much he was hurting. His back throbbed sharply and he could feel the warmth of fresh blood flowing from the wound, the steady wind from their flight stung his severely burnt shoulder.

"Oh man," He heard Sokka mutter; now getting a clear view of his back, "You're bleeding straight through your jacket!"

That can't be good, Shio thought, That jacket isn't thin, must be soaked…

He attempted to sit up, but instantly became lightheaded and sank back down into his hunched pose.

"Here let me help," Sokka said helping him to lie down on his stomach and remove the red black and yellow jacket, a large, dark crimson stain now marring the back of it.

He heard Sokka inhale sharply as the damage to his back became evident. "We have to stop the bleeding," he said, "I have to get your shirt off."

Shio nodded in agreement and felt cold steel touch his skin and heard ripping as Sokka used his razor sharp boomerang, retrieved from their belongings, to slice off the swordsman's black shirt. He then the remains of it into long strips and used them as makeshift bandages to tightly wrap the deep cut.

Shio gasped in pain as the water tribe boy put hard pressure on the profusely bleeding gash.

Aang angrily muttered something about how Shio didn't stop the soldier's bleeding back at the prison.

Sokka angrily glared at him, "He saved our lives Aang," he said his voice tight with exasperation, "The least we can do is make sure that he doesn't die as well."

The avatar rolled his eyes and turned away, heading up to the bison's head.

Shio took in the state of all of them. While he had two significant injuries to worry about, the three friends were covered with small burns cuts and other injuries all of which had a good chance of becoming infected.

"All of us need a doctor," he said to the others, "as soon as we possibly can."

"How?" asked Sokka, "we're fugitives! Who would treat us?"

"No one…" Shio murmured to himself, slowly shaking his head; then he cocked his head to the side a memory suddenly occurring to him. He briefly rummaged through his bag and came out with a map. He used his fingertip, dipped in a trickle of blood running down his ribs to circle a small fire nation town on the map. "Go here." He said handing the map to the avatar, "there's a chance we can get some help there."

"Why should I believe anything you say?" the avatar asked turning to face them glaring angrily.

"Because," Shio growled, glaring right back at the small monk, "If we don't get help, then she may die, or have permanent brain damage."

The avatar's face softened, he looked at the unconscious girl, she wasn't looking very good, her face noticeably paler than before.

"So," Shio continued, his voice kinder and less harsh, "you can ignore me if you want, but we'll all die from infection. If we go there, we have a chance of all of us walking away from this alive.

Aang frowned for a moment then frusturatedly snatched the map from the swordsman and turned the bison in the proper direction.

After a few minutes of silence, Sokka released the pressure from Shio's back, "Bleeding has stopped for now." Then let out a huge yawn, "Man I'm tired."

"Get some sleep." Shio said, "It'll be a few hours before we get there and you guys have all been through a lot.

Sokka nodded and lay down and was almost instantly snoring quietly. Shio's eyes slowly drifted shut, plunging him into blissful unawareness of the pain in his body.

Shio woke to the soft thud as the massive flying beast touched down in a clearing on the outskirts of the small village. The bison gently lay down, trying to not disturb the occupants of his saddle.

Shio looked around and saw Sokka sprawled across the back of the saddle and Aang sleeping in the fetal position next to a still unconscious Katara. The girl looked almost grey at this point; she needed medical attention as soon as possible.

Knowing how risky this undertaking was, he decided to go by himself to see the person that may or may not help them. He slowly and quietly eased himself up into a sitting position, trying unsuccessfully to not reopen the wound on his back; as he sat up, he felt the scab rip open and felt warm, fresh blood began to flow freely from the wound.

Feeling lightheaded from blood loss, he used his broadsword and its sheath to support himself as he walked.

As he walked by its head, the bison gave a concerned huff. "Don't worry," Shio said, "I'll probably be I'm not back by sundown, get them someplace safe." The bison gave another huff which seemed to indicate that it understood.

He slowly made his way into the woods, leaving the still sleeping children behind as he made tracks for the small cottage he knew would be there.

He walked for what seemed like hours, in his weakened and somewhat delirious state, time didn't have much meaning. He could feel that the blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage and was running down his back and soaking into the back of his pants.

Eventually he saw the building he was looking for through a break in the trees, a field of fire lilies in the distance. Using some of the last of his strength he made his way to the door and banged weakly on the door, leaning heavily on his sword.

After a few moments an old woman wearing fire nation clothes answered the door, "Yes, can I help-"she stopped mid-sentence; she took in the boy's condition and her eyes widened.

"Help…me…" Shio managed to say before his knees buckled and he fell forward. The old woman caught him as he fell, his sword clattering to the floor in the doorway. She carried him to the kitchen table and with some effort hauled him onto it and immediately removed the soaked through bandages.

He was completely out of it from pain and blood loss but his addled mind did made a vague note of her long nails and her odd skin tone for a citizen of the fire nation; he knew he had come to the right place.

She left for a few moments and quickly returned with a large amount of bandages and put pressure on the wound.

After several minutes the bleeding was under control and Shio felt slightly more lucid now that he was lying down.

"I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, I'm only an innkeeper." The old lady said turning to the door, "I'll go get the town doctor."

The injured boy's hand shot out, grabbing her wrist before she could get very far, "Wait…" he rasped maintaining an iron grip, "I came to you for… a reason. I know who you are… Hamma…"

She ripped her wrist out of his grip, quickly whipping water out of the kitchen sink and adopting an aggressive stance, the water whirling around her menacingly.

"How?" her question was growled, a deadly threat implied if she didn't get an answer she liked.

"Did you honestly think that Fire Nation spies wouldn't notice that citizens were going missing once a month? They traced your history all the way back to the Southern Water Tribe. "

"So why haven't they done anything about it then?"

"Because, the fire nation is stretched thin enough as it is. They don't have the troops to deal with you and you're not hurting the war effort; essentially they don't care enough to deal with you."

"What's stopping me from killing you right now?" she asked, seemingly less angry than before.

"Well my friends are waiting nearby, they don't know anything about you but they're bound to come looking for me eventually. Oh," he fished around in his pants pocket, "and also this grenade." He wrapped a finger around the pin. "If you attack me, I pull the pin, the mechanism lights the fuse and your inn gets blown to smithereens."

She glared at him before for a moment before returning the water to the sink and pulling up a chair. She sat down and regarded the teenager, still flat on his stomach. "So, if you're not here to arrest me, then you must want something from me." she stated.

He nodded, "I have a proposition for you. My friends and I are badly hurt and we're fugitives from the capitol; we need to be healed and I understand that skilled water benders such as you can heal people." She nodded in confirmation, "Good," He dug in his other pocket, "This is literally all the money I have," he said jingling the bag of gold coins, "I am prepared to give you all of it if you help us; Half now to heal my back, half later when you heal my companions once I retrieve them."

She considered him carefully, "On the run from the Fire Nation you say? Well I'm no friend of the Fire Nation, I'll help you. I assume that the money is to not ask any questions and not tell anyone you were here?"

He nodded, plunking half the coins on the table.

She immediately went to work on his back and badly burned shoulder. He couldn't see what she was doing, but felt a cool sensation seep into the wounds washing away any pain, it was certainly weird when he felt his flesh begin to knit back together but the itching sensation soon passed. When she was finished, he examined his shoulder, showing no sign of burn damage but was bright pink with new flesh which she explained would adopt normal coloring over time. Apparently her healing had produced new blood because he didn't feel dizzy when he stood up anymore. He examined his back in a mirror revealing a jagged pink scar right between his shoulder blades.

He frowned, "Will it go away?"

She shook her head, "I can't say for sure, but probably not, that was a large wound, and you're lucky that I was able to heal it as much as I did."

He nodded, sighing slightly, "Well, I'll go and get my friends." He said picking up his broadsword and walking towards the door.

"Wait." She said stopping him as he was about to reach the door. She told him that she would only agree to heal them if they were blindfolded, it was bad enough that he knew where she lived, she didn't need more people knowing her secret.

"Fair enough." He acquiesced, opening the door and heading back towards the bison, moving at a much faster pace than the trip to her house.

He arrived back to find the kids awake but looking rather weak. "I've found a healer," he said not even greeting them, "She has a technique that heals you incredibly quickly." He spun around showing off the jagged scar on his back; it was certainly ugly but it was better than bleeding to death.

Aang glared at Shio mistrustfully and opened his mouth to argue when he glanced at Katara, who looked even worse than when Shio left, sweat now beading on her forehead. The avatar's mouth formed into a grim line; he scooped the girl up and jumped off, stumbling a little bit on the landing almost dropping the girl.

"Why don't you let me take her?" Sokka offered, "You don't look so good."

Aang nodded, handing Katara off to the older boy.

Shio explained that she would only treat them if they were blindfolded to which they reluctantly agreed.

He led them to Hamma's inn and she went straight to work on them. Aang and Sokka were easy fixes, they had many bruises and cuts and burns but nothing life threatening. She spent a much longer time on Katara, focusing mainly on her head. After a while she used the water to do something to her brain, and woke her up briefly, asking her a few basic questions to make sure there was no brain damage before easing her back into unconscious.

"She's going to be fine. Just let her rest for as long as she needs to. You all need to rest," she said in a stern motherly fashion.

Shio nodded, "We're all going to get plenty of rest. We all have some downtime coming after the last few days."

After a few thank-yous Shio began to usher the three out the door, the new peacefully sleeping Katara once again cradled in Aang's arms. Shio looked back at the older woman. He politely nodded to her and she nodded back, a silent agreement passing between them that neither had ever met the other. He tossed her the remainder of his coins, turned and walked out the door without another word, leading the other three back to the bison.