Satisifed writer is satisifed.

Hey you reader! Welcome to the last last and very last episode of this fanfictional Jinoochy story(: I'm sorry its so long, but trust me, I love this episode A LOT so its worth it!

Before you start reading, let me just say once more THANK YOU! without your reviews and views and follows and favorites this story wouldn't have gotten so far without you :3 you special people.

So lots of angst in this one, be ready to "awwww" your hearts out! (hopefully, anways, if i did my job right) And even if this is the end, if I get enough reviews AND views I'll continue it in another story and I'll keep you updated on it :D BUT ONLY IF YOU REALLLLY WANT IT(;

Ok. Writer is done talking now. Scroll down and read on my lovelies!

~~AgentAva

Book 1 ¼: Between the Earth and Sky

Chapter 7: Like the Seasons

Earth. Fire. Air. Water. 70 years ago, my grandfather, Avatar Aang, master of all four elements, ended the 100-year war against the Fire Nation. With help from Firelord Zuko he created Republic City, my home. According to my father, Republic City is at war. Amon, the Equalists, and the non-benders of our city have begun a rebellion against all benders. They think we have repressed them because of their inability to bend an element.

Avatar Aang has long since passed, but the new Avatar is here—Korra. She will find a way to bring light to the darkness. She has to.

…

The bitter wind rising from the ice chewed on Jinora's cheeks and spit them back out a bright red as she stared out at the vast snow before her. She snuggled deeper into her heavy robes and tried to ignore the aching thoughts in the back of her head as she watched Korra jump onto her polar bear-dog and gallop off into the tundra of the Southern Water Tribe.

Amon had lost. Korra had exposed him; she had saved Jinora, her siblings and her father from the Equalists. But along the way, the Avatar had lost her ability to bend three of the four elements, and now she felt broken inside. Jinora felt the same way.

The airbender, along with the rest of her family, were safe and residing with Gran-Gran until they figured out what to do about Korra's lack of bending. Jinora was content being away from Republic City for a while, but she wasn't happy.

He had promised, she thought acidly, and narrowed her brown eyes to no one in particular. She crossed her arms and trudged back up to the lodge where everyone else was, not thinking clear enough to just airbend herself up the stairs and into the warmth. Out of the corner of her eye, Jinora saw Mako and her father exchange few words out in the cold, probably regarding Avatar Korra.

Slamming the door behind her, the airbender nonchalantly dumped her heavy robes onto the floor and, keeping her gaze on the floor before her, navigated her way to an empty seat next to Asami and flopped down in a heap of hurt feelings and sore appendages. Jinora had never really cared for the beautiful Miss Sato, but for the moment, the younger girl had different things to think about. For what seemed like an eternity the quiet bookworm just sat and thought of how he had betrayed her, betrayed his word, broken a promise he had sworn so gallantly to keep, given the circumstances. Without realizing it, the girl had clenched her fists and teeth so tight that her couch-mate had taken notice.

"You too, huh?" Asami tossed out her comment leisurely, and glanced over at Jinora out of the corner of her eyes.

Coming back to the real world, the airbender looked over at Asami and managed a half-nod. She had forgotten that she was still in the company of many others, and didn't know what kind of emotions had waltzed upon her face, enlightening the ones around her as to what was on her mind. Jinora pulled her legs up so she sat in a meditative position, set her elbow on her knee, and balanced her cheek on top with a sigh that blew her bangs up.

The airbending 10-year-old felt her companion smile perceptively. "I know how it feels." The older stretched out in her seat in a very unladylike manner, lacing her reaching hands and shooting her long legs straight out. Jinora managed to sneak a sideways glance at Asami as she finished stretching and returned her attention to the smaller of the two. "So tell me. What happened?"

Jinora opened her mouth, ready to let her uncut, unedited story loose on someone else, when she stopped. For the glimpse of a moment, the younger of the girls thought that maybe Asami wouldn't understand her problem with him and her odd way going about things. She took a long hard look at the non-bender, and realized that she was going through the same sort of thing Jinora was. Under her companion's eyes usually laced with optimism and sincerity, confusion lurked, obscuring anything Asami saw and turning it into a sight to be skeptical of. Thank you Hiroshi and Mako.

This was how Jinora knew that she could be trusted. She drew in air, ready to relieve herself of the troubles that had been haunting her every minute for the past few days. "Do you remember your cloak that went missing a few weeks back?"

…

The waves crashed loudly against the shore as Skoochy looked over the beach from his hill. It had taken him all day, but he had finally made it to Mikah's default meeting place. As the earthbender surveyed the area, he noticed two familiar-looking dots side by side in the sand. One was sitting down, drawing something in the sand with a stick, and the other stood over her, looking out over the water and the sinking sun while her hands rested on her hips.

Smiling to himself in relief, Skoochy started down the hill, glad to know that his crew was safe. When he set foot on the sand, the standing girl twitched and turn to face the sound of someone moving. Her mouth fell open, then quickly shut again. Her face shimmered slightly in the dying sun, as if she was talking to the sitting girl, and her friend turned. Unable to keep a smirk off his face, Skoochy walked over to the girls and stopped a few feet from them. "Well," he started, tugging on his hat. "I made it."

Mikah ran the short distance towards her dear friend and hugged him tight. "Oh thank the spirits you're alright!" she exclaimed. The water tribe girl was close to tears, Skoochy could feel it through the slight tremble in her shoulders. "We thought…we thought you were captured or…worse." Mikah's voice caught at the end of the sentence, unable to face the possibility of her oldest partner-in-crime being in any sort of pain.

"Um…" Skoochy lifted one of his hands to scratch the back of his neck uncomfortably as he remembered the marks from the electric ropes burned into his torso. "I sort of did…get captured."

Instantly the taller girl broke away, fury rising in her blue eyes. She gripped his shoulders tightly and shook him like a doll. "Are you freaking kidding me?!" she shouted in his face, making Skoochy's ears ring. "Are you crazy?! You could've been…! I can't believe you…you are just so…!" Mikah shoved Skoochy aside and stalked off. "Ridiculous!" She shouted over her shoulder. "You are RIDICULOUS!"

Grinning to himself, Skoochy was secretly glad that someone cared about his safety like Mikah did. Sage stood behind him, and looked up into his eyes with her violet ones. "She'll come around. She's just glad you're safe."

"In her special Mikah way." The earthbender mused. "By the way, since when could you talk?"

Sage just shrugged, and began walking in the opposite direction of Mikah. "Since forever. I just figured that since Rai's still out, Mikah would need someone to talk to. And you know, I kinda like talking." The small girl said with a grin, and pulled her hood off her face, revealing her ever pale skin and pulled-back hair.

As soon as Skoochy was just starting to feel safe, his smile faded, and his heart began to panic. "What? What do you mean he's still out?"

His remaining friend turned to face her leader. "He still hasn't woken up." Her voice lowered. "He's still breathing, but Rai's out cold. I don't know how he can go that long, but—" Skoochy couldn't bear to hear anymore about his fallen soldier, and started sprinting towards the cave Sage was leading him to. As he ran, sand sprang to life and left a trail of shifted mounds behind him. Sage sighed, and rushed after him.

Inside the cave, Skoochy stopped at the entrance, and peered at the body on the side, Rai's hands curled together over his slowly moving chest. At least he was breathing. Stooping low on his knees to check his forehead, Sage appeared next to her leader and put a cold hand on his shoulder. "You shouldn't touch him." Her voice was quiet, almost silent. Skoochy felt his hand shake, just inches from Rai. His tough little urchin, the most outgoing, the most insecure. It drained the energy from him just to see the tiny boy this way. "Tonight, Mikah's going to shadow-run all of us to her old home. There the healers will do whatever they can to help Rai. But until then, she says we can't touch him. Something about his body and spirit being ruptured."

Gulping down his objections, Skoochy knew that Mikah was right…somehow. He withdrew his hand and sat back on his toes. "Now what?" he asked, not being able to tear his gaze of guilt from Rai. While he had been running, the earthbender had only been thinking about two things: the possibility of Rai's injuries being his fault, and Jinora.

Careful to lay her cloak out behind her as she sat, Sage slipped her arm around her leader's comfortingly and rested her cheek on the boy's shoulder. Ever since the orphanage, Sage had always found solace in the only brotherly figure she had ever known but now, he had to find it in her.

"We wait."

…

The night was pitch black, with only Yue's smile to guide the way. The moon set a strip of white light upon the sea, stretching as far as Skoochy could see. He carried Rai on his back, the burning up little boy creating a thick layer of sweat between him and his carrier. Sage stood on one side of him, Mikah on the other. The younger girl was right; Mikah did come around, faster than the earthbender anticipated. She had built a large bonfire on the beach, and it towered a good 10 feet over Skoochy.

"The fire generates enough power for me to take all four of us back home, and creates a shadow big enough for us, too." She had explained when she commanded Sage and Skoochy to go and fetch firewood. That had taken the rest of the night to do, but finally, the shadow-runner was ready, and she clenched onto Skoochy's shoulder tightly. He cringed a little—her welcoming "hug" from earlier had left a few more bruises across his skin. Sage linked her arm with the leader's left.

"Everyone ready?" Mikah asked, her eyes closed in preparation for the journey ahead. She had never taken a trip through the shadows this vast before; the girl needed all the preparation she could get.

Skoochy closed his eyes tightly, and felt Sage's grip tighten around his arm. The two tag-along travelers could barely nod before Mikah stepped into the shadow portal and tugged the other three along. Behind his eyelids Skoochy saw a vibrant array of lights shower across him; he could feel the temperature plunge around him; he could feel Sage's arm tighten around his as they continued through the shadows to their destination. Suddenly something cold crunched beneath their feet, instantly causing Skoochy's peeking toes to numb. He opened his eyes and they were there.

Mikah released herself from Skoochy and stumbled over the ice to the nearest wall of snow, and leaned against it, gasping for air; she had drained herself of energy from the journey, and now the water tribe girl looked as if she hadn't slept in years; her skin had been sucked of color, leaving the shadow-runner pale as the snow surrounding her. Sage had also broken away from the two boys and gaped up at the ice structures around her, her violet eyes shimmering slightly in the moonlight. "Where are we?" the younger girl breathed, causing puffs of air to escape her mouth.

It took the shadow runner a few moments, but she managed to catch her breath, and pulled a rope hanging from her the large house she was leaning against. A bell was sounded, and a door was heard opening somewhere behind Mikah. The water tribe girl smiled up at her friends and said, "Welcome to the Northern Water Tribe."

The door creaked open behind her. "Who dares to ring the bell while the Master's asleep! You kids…" a man appeared in his nightgown, obviously angered, until he looked down at Mikah. He stopped in his tracks. "Miss…Mikah?" his voice was just above a frightened whisper. "Oh spirits!" the man turned back to the house. "Master! It is Mikah!" he yelled.

"Your daughter has returned!"

…

Having been too tired to make the mile trip to Gran-Gran's house that night, Jinora curled up against Asami on the couch and closed her eyes. It had taken a while, but the young airbender had finally told the whole story to the older girl; they had sat on the couch for hours, not moving, just talking, and after Jinora was done, she couldn't help but feel released from a heavy burden. Asami had listened intently, nodding when she understood, commenting when she saw fit. In the end, the non-bender had to disagree with her friend. "I don't really think you should be mad at Skoochy. I mean, if it was between him and your family, who would you choose?"

"…my family," Jinora muttered uncomfortably. The non-bender did have a point. If it was between Skoochy and her family, she would undeniably pick her siblings any day. "But he did abandon his family to save me." The airbender couldn't help to point out.

Asami flipped her hair over her shoulder and grinned. "He's a gentleman—you have to give him that."

"I guess you're right…" Jinora glanced up at her new acquaintance, a glow in her eyes. "So what about you and…you-know…?" she pointed at Asami's ex-boyfriend with her eyes. Mako was sitting with Avatar Korra on the couch opposite of the gossiping girls, making "lovey-dovey" faces at her and speaking in a low voice. Asami narrowed her eyes at the couple, and turned away in disgust.

"What's there to tell? We broke up, he's with Korra now, end of story." The non-bender held her arms tightly to her body, as if trying to catch herself from falling. Her bottom lip quivered slightly. "I'm strong. I'll get over it. I always do." There was a moment of just silence between the two, with Asami just staring at her boots and trembling slightly. Finally, she looked up, the light returning to her eyes. "Besides, this you and Skoochy thing is way more exciting than my problems."

The airbender just shrugged and blushed. "I guess…" from then on, the two lovesick girls just sat in silence, leaning against each other like they were the only people they could depend on in the world.

…

Liu was right, Skoochy thought as he looked around Mikah's house in awe. There were candelabras in every room, along with fur rugs and paintings of a family of three. On every wall there was a large poster of Mikah as a little girl, with the words MISSING on bold over it. Mikah's rich father was a middle-aged man with broad shoulders and graying hair tinted with the same color as Mikah's hair. His blue eyes so like his daughter's twinkled when he looked down at his long-lost daughter. The story was, Skoochy had just found out, that when Mikah was 7-years-old, an angered spirit took Mikah from her home and into the Spirit World. Her mother had tried to protect little Mikah, and that was what had gotten her killed. For 8 years her father looked for his daughter, but could never find her, and thought she was dead.

Of course, Mikah wasn't. She roamed the Spirit World as a "pet/prisoner" for the spirits for five long years, and she actually grew to care for her friends. They took care of her and taught her how to shadow-run, among other things. But after five years the spirits tired of Mikah, and tossed her out. She didn't return to the Northern Water Tribe, like what was supposed to happen. Instead, she was mistakenly thrown into Republic City, amongst the streets and ever-changing weather. For a year Mikah learned to live on her own, hone in her shadow-running abilities until the day she was strong enough to take herself home.

After that year was up, she met Skoochy.

"Wow." Skoochy took a sip of the tea the butler had brought. It was warm, and the earthbender was glad to have something to warm him up. "I can't believe you never told us about the Spirit World."

Mikah just shrugged, as if it was no big deal. She was curled against her long-lost father on the couch opposite, a "shock blanket" set on her shoulders and a shaking teacup in her hand. She still looked exhausted, Skoochy noted, but at least she was warm. "It wasn't really important to know about that in Republic City. There, the pace is too fast to care about things like spirits or anything like that. So I stopped worrying about it, and I didn't want you to worry, either."

After the butler had let Skoochy's gang inside, she and her amazed father had embraced, leaving Sage and Skoochy in the doorway, shocked. They thought that no one had any parents left. They thought wrong.

Carefully putting down his tea, the earthbender coughed slightly, drawing attention to himself. "I don't mean to kill the moment, but what about Rai?" he gestured to the boy taking up half an armchair on his own, still as stone and breathing deeply.

Sage sat silently next to the youngest boy, her teacup trembling in her hands. "He needs a healer." She piped up, her voice unusually high. Or a miracle, Skoochy refrained from adding.

The man of the house nodded gravely. "We need to get him to a healer immediately." He turned to his butler yawning in the doorway. "Can you fetch the best healer we have?" the servant nodded mid-yawn, and stepped out.

"Thank you." The earthbender bowed his head respectfully. Soon after, two men and a stretcher appeared, lifted Rai onto it, and disappeared with him. Skoochy refused to move from his seat, despite how much both girls insisted that he needed sleep. At some point Sage came and sat next to him; she later left with Mikah, to speak quietly in the hallway. The boy thought he heard his name, but was too numb to do anything about it. Skoochy couldn't move from his seat; the emotional stress and fatigue begged him to, but all he could do was stare ahead, his mind swimming with thoughts of Rai and Jinora. Jinora and Rai. His two ghosts for the time being; his father had been temporarily pushed out of the picture. Finally, morning came, and one of the men with the stretcher came back to report their findings.

"We tried everything we could to wake up the boy, but we could not. I'm afraid that he has fallen into a deep coma, and we don't know when he'll wake up; it could be years, for all we know."

Mikah stifled a cry by pressing a hand to her mouth. Sage let tears roll freely down her face, and her shoulders shook uncontrollably. Skoochy was too much in shock to do anything. He just sat on the couch and gripped the arm of it with all his might, just as he had done all night.

It could be years, for all we know…

Rai…was he ever coming back? Without realizing it, Skoochy began pounding at the furniture with his fists, bending up rocks all over the room, making them erupt through the ice, taking out his frustration on all the inanimate objects of the room. This made Sage cry even harder; she ran out of the room in fear. Mikah just stood there, in a daze, watching Skoochy destroy everything in her father's living room. Tears began to well up in the bender's auburn eyes.

Slowly, not looking up from the ground, Mikah began to move towards the out-of-control leader, his tears reflected in her eyes. She stood behind him, rocks bursting up from the ground around her, and reached forwards to take his left hand in hers. He stopped, and looked back at his most loyal friend, his right-hand man. Skoochy let the tears roll down his face, defeated.

He fell into her open arms and hugged her tightly, and cried into her chest in a way that he had never done before. Later, Skoochy would guess that if he had a mother, he would've done the same to her. Mikah set her cheek upon his head and let him cry out his pain as she wept silently with him, tears making wet spots on his cap.

…

It had been three days since the healers had taken Rai away, to be looked over at the tribe's infirmary. Every day, guided by Mikah's father Mukluh, the three remaining street urchins visited the boy in his hospital bed, the sheet pulled up to his armpits, his arms lying unmoving at his sides. Bandages had been wrapped around Rai's head, covering his jet black bangs. His mouth was hanging open, letting him breathe in the cold air of the water tribe. Every 30 minutes a healer would come into the room and check up on the boy. But still he did not wake up.

In the meantime, the noble Mukluh generously bought Sage and Skoochy thick fur coats, a new notebook for Sage, and koala-otter fur boots for Skoochy. He had offered to buy the boy a new hat, seeing as his old one was dusty and ragged, but Skoochy refused politely. He wasn't about to give up his father's cap—and the bender doubted he ever would.

Mikah was showing Skoochy around the Northern Water Tribe she remembered. Sage had refused to go back out into the cold. "It's freezing out there!" she had exclaimed. "If you don't mind, I'm just going to stay here with your dad. He said he needed a transcriber for his work."

The nobleman's daughter was walking on the wall of a bridge, with Skoochy safely trekking on the actual bridge. She laughed to herself when she almost fell off, just to jump backwards onto the bridge and land lightly on her feet. Skoochy kicked a pile of fresh snow with his foot, sending it away. "I hate the snow," he grumbled, not for the first time.

"Oh, but it's so fun to play in!" Mikah squealed in delight. "And sometimes, when it snows enough, we can make little snow people and have snowball fights and then come back home to warm up and have tea!" She glanced over at her friend and stopped in her tracks. Her lit up face fell. "What's wrong?"

Skoochy turned his face away so that she couldn't see him wipe a burning hot tear escape. "I hate the snow," he repeated. "I mean, I can't bend or anything! This is the worst possible place for an earthbender." He crossed his arms like a little kid and frowned. It was an excuse and he knew it, and so did Mikah.

"For goodness sake, Skoochy! You've been sulking around since we got here. I know we're all a little high strung because…" she couldn't even bear to say his name, so she cast it aside and moved on. "…but that doesn't mean you have to be such a butthead!" Mikah finished indignantly.

And she was right. Skoochy had been acting very un-leaderly ever since the North Pole. He had been unstable and weak and basically pissing off anyone within a three mile radius. Sage was afraid to be in the same room with him. The leader wasn't supposed to act so irrationally, but for the past five days he hadn't slept a wink, and that made him unhinged. If he wasn't thinking about Rai, asleep in his hospital bed on the other side of the city, then Skoochy was wondering about Jinora. He had caught the news that Avatar Korra had finished off Amon, or "Noatak," and she had saved the airbenders from Amon. He had also heard that she had lost her bending abilities to Amon, but now she had them back.

"Helloooo? Skoochy?" Mikah waved a hand in front of his vacant face, making the boy come back to his senses—and the icy temperature of the real world. He looked over at her, and finally began to realize how worried Mikah was, for his sake. Just visible in the high noon sun, Skoochy noticed small rings under her eyes and her disheveled face. Apparently she hadn't been sleeping too well, either.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, also not for the first time. "It's just—"

"Just what?" Mikah cut in, her voice soft. Behind Skoochy, two people in fur coats walked past, causing him to turn on his heel and fall into a fighting stance, ready to fight off someone that could hurt him or his crew.

Wait. His crew wasn't even together anymore. Skoochy had helped with that. Ignoring the faces he got from the passing men, the bender returned to his leisured position to find Mikah staring at him. "What?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"No," the truth slipped out before Skoochy could stop it. He cupped his hands over his mouth, as if hoping that the word would somehow just crawl back into his mouth and stay there.

Mikah waited for him to continue; she sat down in the middle of the bridge cross-legged, waiting for an explanation with a curious expression. Another group of people walking by had to part to accommodate for the girl sitting on the bridge. They tossed her snide looks before leaving. She stuck her tongue out to their backs in response, and returned her attention back to Skoochy. "So? Are you gonna tell me, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?" she asked playfully, and pounded a fist against her hand for emphasis.

"I—I just…" exhausted, the bender flopped down across from his best friend and rested his cheek on his fist. He pulled his cap down before speaking. "I wonder how she's doing."

"Jinora?" Mikahs's blue eyes widened. "But why? She's fine now—they said so on the radio the other night."

"I know!" the boy said exasperatedly. "That's not what I meant. I just…I wonder how we are going to be when we meet again. I mean, I made a promise I didn't keep, and it's tearing me apart, and I think its doing the same to her, too." Instantly Skoochy felt something relax inside him. Now that his troubling thoughts were out in the open, there was no taking them back. But his body told him that that was okay, in the way that it involuntarily loosened up.

After a minute Mikah's face brightened and she snapped her fingers. (Skoochy wasn't quite sure how she could do that with such thick gloves on, but at the moment he didn't have time to ask.) "I got it!" she exclaimed, and bounced up, making the ice bridge rock. She took Skoochy's arm and ran off, the boy just keeping up behind her.

"Wheeeeeere aaaaare weeeeee goooooing?" the earthbender shouted, barely keeping up with the reenergized Mikah as she ran through the city blocks.

"We need a big fire and a bigger shadow!" the shadow-runner yelled over her shoulder gleefully. "I know what we're gonna do—we are going to take you to her!"

…

The sun was setting over Jinora's fifth day at the South Pole. Tomorrow, her father was going to take her family, back to Republic City. Korra said that she was going to stay back for a few days, to reconnect with her parents and regale them with her stories about the City she had made her home.

Carefully laying her books back in their bag, Jinora finally finished packing and flopped down on her bed in Gran-Gran's home. After Korra had rediscovered her bending, there had been a big feast, and everyone had had at least three bowls of water tribe noodles. Bolin had been retching up the green things for days; the airbender found that he couldn't hold his noodles for very long. Asami, on the other hand, chowed down five bowls without even breaking a sweat—another thing Jinora had found to admire in her new friend. She had found consolation in the 18-year-old from Skoochy, and Asami had found optimism about her situation in Jinora. She had decided to go back to Future Industries and start rebuilding the traitor company. The non-bender had left with the fabulous bending brothers a day before on a cargo ship, ready to pick up the pieces that her father had dropped. Before leaving, Asami had hugged Jinora and said, "As soon as I clean up the mess Father has made, I'll let you come over and see the company. And I can tell you now—it's nothing like the factories you've read about." The woman grinned, took her things, and boarded the ship.

Jinora looked out of the window, and heard her siblings playing in the snow in the background. In the room across from hers and Ikki's, the girl could hear her parents cuddling Rohan and cooing his name. All of a sudden everything went quiet, and for the first time in five days, Jinora could finally think.

Asami had said to just let her anger go. It wasn't right to be mad at someone if they made a decision you would've made, too. But even though she had tried, Jinora just couldn't get over the fact that Skoochy had abandoned her. Despite what he had promised, despite what he had told her, he still left her. And that hadn't just angered the level-headed airbender; no, it had clawed out her insides and thrown her heart to the wasp-vultures and then punched her in the gut for good measure. It had torn her apart, and Jinora couldn't quite pinpoint exactly why.

All she knew was that she was hurting. And she was hurting bad.

Suddenly, there was a crash in the room next door that made the airbender sit bolt right on the bed. She heard someone cuss, but their voice was muffled by the wall between them. Cautious in her step, Jinora bended herself up and crept out of her room. As she left, she looked across at her parents. It seemed as if they hadn't heard a thing. Now even more wary, the bender stepped into the doorway and listened.

Somewhere in the dark, she heard a vaguely familiar voice whine, "Why are there shadows everywhere? I can't—I can't find the exit! Skoochy, you have to find the light switch."

Skoochy! Jinora felt her heartbeat jump tremendously.

"But if I let go I'm gonna get sucked in!" his voice sounded.

"Oh I hate these stupid shadows," the girl muttered.

Reaching over to the light switch, Jinora flicked it on and instantly Mikah and the cause of the airbender's pain fell on their knees in the middle of the storage room, looking relieved and in a little bit of pain. Scattered around them was an overturned box and a mess of packaged noodles. Leaning against the doorframe, the girl crossed her arms and looked over the mess before her. "You know you're gonna have to clean this up, right?"

Mikah ignored Jinora's comment and stumbled over to the nearest wall, and leaned against it, breathing heavily. "Don't…don't mind me. I'm just…so tired…" she managed through her panting. From the doorway, the airbender could see her eyelids slipping lower and lower.

Rushing over, Jinora bended a ball of air to catch Mikah when she fell. And the shadow-runner did; before she hit the air she was already asleep. Keeping the ball floating, the bender turned to face Skoochy, and tried to suppress the blush rising in her cheeks. "What do I do?"

He readjusted his cap and smirked a little. "Let her sleep, of course. She just took us from the North Pole to…here, so she'll probably be out until tomorrow." He looked around the closet. "Where are we, anyways?"

Groaning slightly, Jinora bended the knocked out girl out the room and into hers, where she laid the water-tribe girl on her bed and shut the door. Finally she turned and looked up into Skoochy's auburn eyes. She unconsciously lifted her head to make herself feel taller, and crossed her arms. "What're you doing here?"

Skoochy grinned. "I think I asked first."

"Southern Water Tribe. Now what are you doing here?" she emphasized the words, hoping to make a point.

"Just thought I'd drop in."

"Yeah, right." Jinora couldn't help but snort at this. He came from the other side of the world just to drop in?

"Alright, you got me." Skoochy scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed, and slid down the wall to sit in the middle of the hallway. Jinora followed suit, plopping herself down next to him with an irritated look still set upon her face. "I came to see you." He blurted out.

This actually surprised the airbender, and she turned to face him. "What?" she managed to say as she felt her face become hot.

"Uh…yeah. I just wanted to tell you that I…that Rai got hurt." Jinora felt the heat leave her face. From the change of his voice, she could tell that this wasn't what he wanted to tell her, but he was still upset by the news nonetheless.

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah. The healers said something about how he might never wake up."

This brought the pinprick of tears to the airbender's brown eyes. She remembered the boy on the rooftop with his toothy grin and lack of height. That poor kid… "Is that all?" she asked, trying to shake away the new ache in her throbbing heart.

"I—no! No that's not. I also wanted to say…that I…I am so sorry." He confessed, his eyes beginning to shimmer. It was all coming out now. "I made that promise to you and I…I broke it. And I…I just…I kind of just wanted to…" Skoochy tried to start the next sentence many times, but couldn't seem to get the words out of his mouth.

Inside, Jinora felt as if she could airbend herself into the air and never come back down. And in reality, she wanted to, but she knew that would be kind of rude. She wasn't about to pull what Korra did to Mako. She wasn't going to run away. She wasn't the type.

Instead, the girl took Skoochy's hand in hers. It was cold, but that was okay. It was the South Pole, after all. She met his eyes and said in a low voice, "I know."

Before she knew it, the boy had pulled Jinora into a hug. She felt small drops of warm tears fall onto her shoulder, but she didn't care. She didn't hug him back, either.

Skoochy felt this, released Jinora and studied her face. "But you can't forgive me, can you?" he asked tentatively, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

She shook her head a little, tears obviously welling in her eyes. "I'm sorry too, but—"

"No! No. I understand." And Skoochy did. It was going to take a while to forgive himself, too. It was going to take a while to learn to live without Rai being there, and it would take longer to learn how to forget about Jinora, if that was what she wanted, because at this point, whatever she wanted from Skoochy, he would've done, no hesitation. That was how life was for Skoochy, so if that was what had to be done, he would do it. Whatever it took, he would find a way. "You don't have to forgive me." He gave voice to part of his thoughts.

Jinora looked up from drying her eyes, shock consuming her face. "That's not what I meant! I just…I'm confused. About a lot of things."

The earthbender couldn't help but chuckle. "Join the club." His companion laughed too. For a minute they just sat side by side, leaning against the wall, watching the sun drop outside the window. Finally, he looked over at Jinora out of the corner of his eyes. "So…are we…okay?" he asked quietly, timidly. This time the question was different from all his hesitant questions. This time he wanted to know the answer; for the first time, he wasn't afraid of it.

Shifting her gaze to Skoochy, Jinora gave him a little smile and nodded a little. She slipped her hand into his, and they returned to watching the sunset from their spot in the hallway. They stopped talking, and everything was silent around them. There was nothing else to distract the two as they watched the color of the sky change from orange to red to pink to purple. As Skoochy sat, he cherished the quietness he shared with Jinora. It was different from the strained silences he had had to live through; it was sweet, simple, peaceful. It was different.

That was when Skoochy realized that nothing was ever going to be the same. But everything was going to be okay.

He was sure of it.

Thanks for reading dears! Hope you L-O-V-E loved it as much as i loved writing it.

Tell me if you want a continuation or not! :3

author OUT

PS if you got the reference of the chapter title, 10 POINTS TO DUMBLEDORE haha :D