A/N: Well, here's the next one. Next chapter should be fun. It's mainly about Zuko's time in Auschwitz, but there's a bit about the rest of the group, too.

I don't have much to say about this one, just read and enjoy. OH! I wanted to tell you, if you guys like Jetara as well, I've got an idea cooking that is kinda a crossover between Aladdin and Robin Hood. I just find it so ironic that Jet's part in the show is blown up to Robin Hood-like proportions. I love it! X) The Jetara story takes place in Persia. Yay...

Continuing on with the Nazis now:

Chapter 9—The Forest Again

Katara cried as she climbed over the fence. She did not care that her brother and the others still had yet to get over; she ran off back towards the forest, her tears blurring her vision and it was no surprise that she tripped over a rock and fell to the ground. She did not get up when she fell, just sat on the ground and cried her heart out. Sokka and the others climbed over the fence and ran over to her. Her brother let Suki down on the ground and wrapped his arms around his sister.

"Katara," he said soothingly. "I'm sorry. But we can't stay here; Zuko would have sacrificed himself for no reason if they catch us."

"I know," she sobbed. "I just can't. I can't do it; I can't keep going without him. He's kept me going for so long and now he's gone." She wiped her eyes and looked up at those around her. "I didn't get to tell him goodbye."

Sokka helped his sister to her feet and picked Suki back up on his back. "We're lucky they haven't spotted us yet," he said. "We should get going before they do." He then ran off with Suki on his back to the trees followed closely by Toph and Aang.

Katara wiped her eyes for the second time and ran after the others. Running across the grassy clearing to the forest seemed longer than it had been going to the camp. The tears still flowed from her eyes, but she could see a bit better than she had before.

Just as she was about to reach the forest, the darkness of the night was lit up and she was bathed in a bright, unnatural light. She gasped and glanced behind her. Shielding her eyes from the blinding light, she saw silhouettes of Nazi soldiers jumping the fence and running after them. They were yelling words that Katara could not hear but she knew well enough that they were angry and would imprison them all if they were caught.

She turned back to her brother who ran back to her, Suki still on his back, grabbed her hand and dragged her back into the forest. Once she was running, Sokka let her go and she bolted after the others, her tears dried up with cold sweat in its place. She was afraid, afraid they would be caught and Zuko would have been captured for no reason.

Her uniform was difficult to run in. It restricted the length of her stride and the movement of her legs and her shoes were uncomfortable and hurt her feet. Yet with all that pain and discomfort, she somehow managed to keep up with her brother.

Not even daring to look behind her, Katara kept her sights on her brother and Suki in front of her. They ran straight for a few minutes until Sokka suddenly cut to the right. Toph and Aang quickly followed and, confused, Katara did as well. They ran in a zigzag pattern, jumping over fallen branches, logs, and bushes to avoid the soldiers hot on their trail.

She could hear them, barking out orders and she pushed their words to the back of her mind as she ran for her life. It scared her, not knowing if they had seen them or not, and all she could think about was keeping pace with the group in front of her. Her heart beat so fast from fear and over-exertion. She had never run so fast and so far before and she was afraid that her muscles would give out before she made it to safety.

Katara rounded a corner only to hear more soldiers in front and behind her with her brother and the others nowhere in sight. She glanced around the clearing frantically. Where were they? Had they been caught? She was not willing to believe that she was the last one left and almost broke down crying again before she heard a soft hiss above her. She looked up into the trees above her and was confused when she saw nothing, but then a hand that looked surprisingly like Sokka's reached down and beckoned for her to climb up. She grabbed the hand and her brother helped her up the trunk of the tree.

When she settled herself on a thick, strong tree branch, she looked around to see that it was only Suki and Sokka who were up in the tree. "Where are Aang and Toph?" she whispered, sounding worried.

Her brother put a quieting finger to his lips and pointed to his right, indicating that the two teenagers were in the next tree over. A few seconds later, Suki let out a small gasp when the sound of the German soldiers appeared right underneath them. They were bickering rapidly to each other, jumping from their native tongue to several other languages before storming off in a huff. The three in the tree remained quiet for several minutes afterwards, none of them daring to move a single muscle for fear of more soldiers hearing them.

After ten minutes passed by with no sign of any soldiers, Sokka let out a sigh of relief and relaxed against the thick tree trunk. "Thank goodness, their gone," he said with relief.

"We're just lucky that the camp doesn't have any sniffing dogs," Suki commented. "Otherwise we would have been caught in an instant."

Katara started to climb down from the tree when she stared at her friend, confused. "They have trained dogs to sniff out humans?" she asked.

Suki nodded. Shuddering at the thought of herself being ripped to shreds by big German Sheppards, Katara jumped down the rest of the way and landed on soft earth before waiting for the others to join her. Toph and Aang were next to her in an instant while Sokka helped his girlfriend carefully out of the tree.

"What do we do now?" Aang asked no one in particular.

Sokka slung Suki's arm around his shoulder and helped her walk back in the direction they had come. "We get our packs," he answered. "Then we get the hell out of here."

Katara frowned and refused to move. "What about Zuko?" she asked angrily. "We can't just leave him in there to rot! I mean, look at what that place did to Suki!"

Sokka sighed and turned to face his sister. "Katara, we can't just waltz right back in there. What do you think would happen? They know what we look like so our uniforms would do no good. Plus we can't leave Suki on her own for too long in her condition. That would be murder."

She could feel her tears coming back as she yelled at her brother. "You were willing to put us all in danger for the woman you love but when I want to you won't allow it!? I trust Zuko, I trust him with my life! With your life! Why can't you do the same?" She was waving her arms wildly, pointing an accusing finger at her brother, wiping the tears from her eyes and pacing in a huff. "You haven't trusted him since the moment you first met him, but I have and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get him back! And nothing you say can change my mind!"

There was an eerie silence for quite some time before anyone said anything and Katara was surprised to hear not her brother, but Aang throw in his opinion. "Sokka's right, Katara," he said sadly. "As much as I hate to admit it, there is no way we can get Zuko back without help. He's out of our reach so we're just going to have to get to safety and find someone who can help him."

Katara stared at the teenager in disbelief before looking around at all the other faces around her. They all seemed to agree with Sokka and she could not see why. But maybe Aang was right, maybe Sokka was right. Was there really no way to get him back? The more she thought about it, the more she came to grips with the grim truth. He tears flowed more freely now as she covered her face in her hands and dropped to the forest floor sobbing. Now what was she going to do? She lost the one man who had ever made her feel truly safe and she had no way of getting him back. She cried into her knees in front of everyone, no longer caring if her brother knew she felt something for the German. She just wanted him back; she wanted Sokka to understand that.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up after wiping her eyes to see Toph standing next to her staring straight ahead.

"We have to go," she said bluntly. "We can't stay here."

Nodding, Katara slowly stood up and followed her brother back to the edge of the forest to retrieve their packs.

---

Zuko sat in a cold, dank, metal cell, jiggling his hand cuffs in frustration as he sat in a hard, uncomfortable chair. Damn Azula, he thought angrily. Leave it to her to know every detail that makes a person very uncomfortable. He sighed and dropped his hands, looking up at the ceiling. Closing his eyes, he remembered the miserable expression he had seen on Katara's face when she watched him being hauled off to the cell he was currently in. It hurt him to see her crying eyes, but he could not get the image out of his mind. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. But then he saw her brother and the smug smile playing across the gypsy's face.

Zuko hated Sokka for what he did. He despised Sokka for selling him out and putting him the very place he had rescued his girlfriend from. But most of all, he despised Sokka for making his own sister suffer. Zuko knew that Sokka had some inkling feeling that Katara felt something for him. So why on earth would he do this to her? Zuko had a feeling that Sokka believed he did it to protect his sister. The gypsy thought he was doing the right thing by getting rid of Zuko, but in actuality, he was making things a lot worse.

The German ran his fingers through his hair and sighed for the second time. What am I going to do? he wondered. With Azula in charge here, it will be near impossible to escape, and downright impossible to escape without help.

His mind had slipped back to thoughts of the girl he loved when the heavy metal door to his cell opened with a loud creak and he looked up to see his twin sister enter the room. Zuko frowned at the smile on her face. That bitch thinks she's won. But she just sucked the snake poison out of her heel only to get bit by a deadly scorpion.

"Welcome, dear brother," she said sweetly. "Welcome to the rest of your life, however short it may be."

"Just get to the point already, Azula!" Zuko snapped, standing up to face his sister eye-to-eye. "I'm in no mood to hear one of your pointless speeches."

She sighed with a smile. "Very well, Zuko," she said in the same sweet voice. "I just came to ask you something."

"And what is that?"

She smiled sadistically and pulled out the Broom Handle pistol she had taken for herself. "This is a good weapon," she began. "It comes to question, why on earth would someone like yourself give it to the soldier that they're keeping hostage?"

Zuko's eyes widened in shock. Was that what Sokka did when he went behind the building with the other soldier? He never knocked the man unconscious. He talked to him, made him believe a wild tale of Zuko being an imposter and holding him and Aang hostage so he could carry out his plans. The gypsy was good, a good talker and conniving.

"I'm thinking only because your information is faulty," he replied. This seemed to confuse his sister quite a lot. She raised a questioning eyebrow before holstering the pistol once again.

"How can that be?" she asked. "I was told directly from the soldier who got the information and then handed me the pistol."

A small smirk snuck onto Zuko's face. "That's because that soldier was misinformed. You so called 'hostage' soldier might not be who you think he is."

Azula grabbed her brother's uniform collar in her rage. "What are you insinuating!?" she screamed. "That you had friends!?" She dragged him over to the edge of the cell and slammed his back up against the wall. "Don't lie to me, Zuko! Tell the truth! And give it to me straight!"

Zuko glared at his sister with the upmost hatred but did not speak. Only a few seconds elapsed before they heard a commotion outside the cell and a fist could be heard banging loudly on the metal door.

"Captain!" said a male voice. "There is an urgent situation in the female prisoner's hut!"

Azula glared suspiciously at the door before letting her brother down and telling the man to open the door. Zuko walked back over to his seat and sat back down, crossing his legs comfortably. The man opened the door and saluted Azula. He seemed out of breath when the Captain returned the salute. "What is it, Sergeant?" she asked.

He took a few deep breaths before answering his commanding officer. "It seems one of the prisoners has escaped," he said. Zuko was amused by his sister's slight shift of weight through her feet at the man's words. "We caught sight of a few of our guards leading the girl into the forest. We went after them but lost them in the trees."

Azula had let the man finish before letting her anger out. She contorted her face with rage as she spun around and glared at her brother. Zuko just sat calmly in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest and a smug smile on his face.

"Looks like I had some friends after all," he said sarcastically.

"What did you do?" Azula growled.

Zuko cocked his head to the side, his smile remaining. "Would you like the long version or the short, dumbed down version?" he asked innocently. Azula said nothing and Zuko just sighed. "The short, dumbed down version, I guess. Here goes; I participated in a raid in Poland with Lieutenant Colonel Zhao. We took one house together but when he began to rape a gypsy girl, I shot him, then killed a Sergeant. The gypsy girl and her brother escaped with me then we went to find their friends. We found two but one was taken here. So we came to rescue her. End of story."

Azula released her scowl and raised an eyebrow at her brother again. "Why the hell are you telling me this?" she asked. "Wouldn't you want to keep that a secret?"

Zuko shrugged. "It was the gypsy's brother that turned me in and frankly, I don't really care if you know the story or not. I didn't give you any specifics, no names, no destinations, nothing. Plus, they've already escaped by the sound of things and you're not going to catch them anyway, so what does it matter to me if you know or not?"

Azula frowned again and backhanded the man sitting in front of her. "You are a traitor to your country and I should turn you in immediately!" she screamed.

"But?" Zuko said, suspicious. "There's always a 'but'."

"But for causing me to have my good reputation ruined by infiltrating this camp and steeling a prisoner from me, I'll have you remain here for at least a month or two. You will live in this cell at night, and during the day, you will eat and work with the rest of the prisoners here." She stopped there but Zuko had a feeling there was more.

"That's it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No," she replied, a slight sneer on her face. "Because you are a former Nazi, you will work wearing the swastika from your uniform."

Zuko jumped to his feet, absolutely appalled. "What!?" he cried. "You can't do that! I'll be jumped by the other prisoners within two seconds!"

Azula laughed and turned to exit the cell. "Not likely," she said. "They'll just shun you and give you dirty looks." She then left the cell and slammed the door shut in her brother's face. "Though, if we're lucky, there might be a select few who will attack you." She spoke through the metal door before leaving Zuko alone with his thoughts.

Angry, he banged his fists against the steel door. "Damn you, Azula!" he yelled. "Damn you to hell!" He turned and slammed his back against the wall of his cell and slid down to crouch in the corner. "Damn you," he whispered as thoughts of Katara slipped into his mind once more and warm tears escaped his eyes as he buried his face in his knees. "Damn you…"

That night, he cried himself to sleep.

---

Katara unrolled her sleeping mat and blanket and lay down for a few hours of sleep. After retrieving their packs, the group had walked for a few more hours before Sokka deemed it safe to find a place to rest for the night. However, Sokka was still paranoid and insisted that they set up a watch schedule. He, of course, insisted on taking first watch, then it was Toph, and then Aang. Katara would start the next night.

She laid her head down on the cold mat and stared at the others. It was dark, due to Sokka insisting they not make a fire for fear of it being seen. She watched her brother. He sat down next to Suki with his rifle in his lap; she had passed out immediately after lying down. He looked down at her and caringly pulled her blanket up over her shoulders before gently caressing her cheek. Katara squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over. She tried not to think of what it would be like if Zuko were with them. Seeing her brother with Suki just made her hurt more. It reminded her too much of the young German and she did not want that. She wanted him there with her, not locked away in some death camp. She wanted to go back and save him, but Sokka would not allow it. She had thought about going back later after they had gotten Suki to safety but she was unsure of whether he would be alive or not. He was a traitor to his own country, was he not? And for the German's, the punishment for treason was death.

She sighed. Shutting out the others, she let her mind reel in thoughts of the man she loved and before she fell asleep from exhaustion, a single tear ran down the side of her face and fell onto the sleeping mat.

A/N: Hope you liked. And yes, I hold strong to the belief that guys can cry themselves to sleep. They just don't do it that often (plus I think Zuko had enough insentive to do so).

Oh, and Zuko and Azula like to mess with each other. That's why he was making all those snide comments. I love it, it reminds me of me and my twin sister... I miss the good ol' days when she lived here... Not really though. We fought too much.