Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar.

A/N: Took a bloody long time but I finally managed it. Sorry for the wait, everyone. Enjoy the latest chapter.

+Toph+

Once outside the palace gates, they decided to split up. The Kyoshii Warriors paired up at once. Toph was perfectly okay with searching alone. After all, it was completely dark out judging by the hooting of owls, and two sets of eyes guided by torchlight were no better than a pair of blind ones with earthbending skills.

"Toph," Suki said, "you're with me."

Suki broke ranks with the other girls who were already paired up and walked over to Toph's side. The girl who had been next to Suki quickly joined a pair to form a twosome. None of them seemed perturbed by the fact that their leader had chosen to accompany someone outside their group, even if it was Toph who was friends with Suki.

"The others will do fine without me." Suki explained once they had all split up. They were all headed to their respective checkpoint, along the path where they would look for Katara. Toph and Suki were headed for the town Aunt Wu lived to see if they could find any clues. "Anyways," Suki continued, "I've been meaning to ask you something."

Curiously, Toph sensed a subtle trepidation ripple through Suki who was usually almost as steadfast as the down-to-earth earthbender striding beside her. Toph pretended not to notice and instead returned, "What is it?"

And there it was again, the slight quickening of the pulse and an almost inaudible tremble in her voice when she next spoke, "H-have you noticed anything strange about...about…"

Suki seemed unable to continue and Toph was a little deterred by the fact that Suki, who always seemed so confident and determined, had fallen silent, unable to even speak freely about whatever it was that was causing her such disquiet.

Toph remained silent, waiting for Suki to continue. She also wanted to share some sort of sympathy toward Suki and her mysterious problem but decided against it in case it was misinterpreted as pity. Not that there was anything too pitiful about having an uneasy mind, especially at the current climate of events, but Toph herself would never forgive anyone for thinking her anything less than rock-solid.

"Have you noticed anything strange lately?" Suki said at last, trying her best to sound casual and offhanded, though, admittedly, such questions did not easily pass as such.

"What do you mean?" Toph asked warily, sensing something a bit more ominous in Suki's question.

"Oh, you know." Suki said her voice still airy and outwardly none too troubled. Toph's felt the vibrations in the earth tell her a rather different story. Suki's heart rate had drastically quickened as though she was about to have a mental breakdown.

"Suki, what is it?" Toph asked, dropping all pretense of being oblivious. "What's the matter?"

Suki stopped walking abruptly. Toph stopped walking as well. There was something definitely odd about how Suki was acting. She was currently staring straight down at ground, head bent, apparently deep in thought but having an internal panic-attack as Toph could infer the erratic vibrations from the earth beneath her. The wind whistled, brushing Suki's hair across her painted face. Toph stood silent, waiting with what she realized seconds later was baited breath.

After what seemed like treacherously long hours though the silver-coin moon above did not yield its starlit stage to glowing sunshine, Suki looked up. Toph could not tell if she was crying.

"The truth is," Suki said, her voice coming out in one shaky breath, "I sort of knew this was going to happen. To Katara and Zuko I mean."

Toph couldn't have been more shocked and confused had Suki confessed that she was dumping Sokka because she had finally figured out that he wasn't gay. Toph merely stared at her, unblinking, her unseeing eyes gazing openly up at Suki's brown ones. The glowing moon seemed to have been eavesdropping as a hand-like cloud covered its nonexistent mouth in surprise. For a tiny fraction of a second, Toph allowed herself to hope that Suki was cracking a joke, albeit a lame even for Sokka's girlfriend, but at the same time registering that she was telling the absolute truth.

"Suki," Toph said cautiously. Suki just stood there, brown eyes cast down at her feet, eyes slightly widened as though shocked at having divulged this secret. Toph could feel Suki's heart thumping wildly like a mad drum performance staged inside her ribcage. "What do you mean you knew?"

The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors jerked her head up, imitating a cow flicking away an irksome mosquito. Her brown eyes were wide, her face no doubt paler than the coat of makeup covering it.

"I…" she began. Toph could almost hear her heartbeat now. It was drumming so fast that surely the miniature drummer's drumsticks would be nothing but a blur.

Dumdumdumdumdum…

"I… we…" But Suki stopped again, not because she was having trouble explaining, but because Toph had help up a hand to silence her. Toph was standing so still, she could have passed for a waxwork.

"What is it?" Suki asked, clearly confused at Toph's bizarre reaction. But Toph did not speak. She was straining to hear, to feel whatever it was that was causing the drumming that was now creating ripples and waves, a battering-rumbling-thumping sensation that seemed to come from the earth itself. But this didn't feel like any earthquake she knew. The earth was definitely moving but not in a natural way.

"Toph, I-"

"Suki, we've gotta get out of here." Toph grabbed Suki's hand and tried to lead her away, though where they would go, she had no idea. Suki nearly tripped over her hem as she was yanked forward.

"Toph, where are we-"

"Suki, c'mon, there's no time to-"

BOOM!

The ground behind them split open like a melon cleaved cleanly in two. The two girls were separated, both jumping backward as the gap widened. It was difficult to stand upright with the ground shaking so violently but Toph realized at once that that was the least of their worries.

"Aaahhh!" With a horrible whistling noise that nearly drowned her scream, Suki lurched forward as though a malevolent fisherman from the chasm below had hooked her and was reeling her in. Toph had to bend a wall of rock to prevent herself from being sucked in as well.

"TOPH!" Suki was on all fours, digging her closed fan into the dirt in a vain attempt to stop herself from being sucked in. Pebbles and smaller rocks rolled forward and spilled into the crevice as though eager to explore the world below. Suki's feet were almost at the gap…

"UUGGHHH!!!" With a massive effort, Toph stomped down and punched her fists skyward. The wall of rock in front of her lengthened to form a bridge over the chasm. The vacuum effect it was producing was now almost godly. Trees were creaking in protests as branches and leaves were ripped and sucked into the fissure. Even as Toph crossed the bridge so rescue Suki, the sturdy bridge crumbled and was also swallowed up by the mysterious oblivion below.

Before the bridge completely disintegrated, Toph managed to pull Suki up and, with the help of some skillful earthbending, sped them away from the monstrous fissure. As they zoomed into the thicket of closely growing oaks nearby, one of the younger trees were torn, roots and all, and flung into the gap by an invisible hand.

"What was that?" Suki yelled over the racket of fleeing animals, cries of fluttering birds, uprooted plants and the terrible sucking-whirling-whistling of the crevice.

Toph didn't answer as she moved her feet, long powerful strides so that the platform of stone they were standing on sailed mightily through the sea of undergrowth. The moonlight poked through the leaves of the oaks, casting patches of silvery light in their path.

+Yumi Kim+

The walls were white; not the pleasant kind that accompanied silk but the industrially squeaky-clean and blinding kind. The floors were dark black, a stark contrast to the walls but this might have been because blood left a less visible stain this way. Even through the lingering scent of bleach and stain-remover, the vague stench of blood remained. Blood could never be erased. Not entirely, anyways.

The bed she was strapped in was highly uncomfortable. The straps that restrained her hands and legs were itchy and rough against her wrists and she was growing wearisome of this game. She was getting hungry as well.

The sliding glass doors slid open smoothly and in stepped a man decked head-to-toe in white. This time, however, it was a duller shade than the blinding walls which actually made him easier to spot as he walked silently across the room.

"Hello there, sweetie." The man's voice was calming and sweet, though a bit muffled as he was speaking through a white surgical mask. She had always found this curious as the man himself was not a doctor nor surgeon or any other type of scary grownup who would cause her pain.

No, this man was here to comfort and entertain her. There was no possibility whatsoever of this man even dreaming of hurting her. There was a working station next to her, a mobile sort of desk with wheels and with a long lamp attached. This reminded her of one painful trip to the dentist but of course, today was not a checkup day for her teeth or anything else. Again, this was just another curious factor, nothing to be alarmed by since the nice man meant her no harm.

"Maybe it's time for a little nap." The man said. She was slightly disappointed. She had been hoping for a more amusing game than rest. After all, she had been lying there waiting patiently for what felt like months. But, of course, the man seemed to understand as he always did. His eyes pinched at the corners and she knew he was smiling fondly down at her.

"Don't worry, dear. It'll all be over very quickly. And then you can get down and go play with your brother." He spoke again with that caring tone. She nodded, smiling sweetly back at him. It would only be for a little bit after all.

The man sat down on a small stool next to her. The leather of the seat squeaked a little like a mouse. In fact, this reminded her of the little test mice she had seen in the other room. It had been an out-of-bounds room, of course, but she had been so curious about the little white mice then. One peek, she though, and that would be all.

"When I count to ten…" the man said, holding up ten of his white gloved fingers, "One…"

There had scarcely been room to breathe in, she remembered. The cages had lined every inch of the wall and there had been rows and rows of them, all stacked and labeled. Some cages contained other species than mice such as cute little dogs, cats and a scary-looking monkey who had screeched at her, nearly making her cry.

"…three..."

But even the white mice she loved so much weren't all cute and adorable. There had been several cages in the farther back in the room which contained horribly ugly ones. She remembered taking jumping backward, shocked at the disfigured snouts and swollen bodies. A strange, rotting smell emanated from them as well, something worst than garbage disposals or urine.

"…seven…"

The whole experience had been so strange that she had wanted to flee right away after seeing the disfigured mice. But something coaxed her forward, to examine more of the mice. They did, after all, have a strange quality to them which, despite their ugliness, made them unique, exquisite.

"…eight…"

And then she had come across the final cage. Actually, it had been an aquarium filled to the brim with greenish water. Something had been floating, bobbing up and down in the tank, but at first sight, she couldn't figure out what it was. Taking a tentative step forward, she had gently pressed her nose up against the cold glass.

"…nine…"

Right before she closed her eyes, she saw in her mind's eye the greenish water that had sloshed in the aquarium. The strange little thing that floated lazily in the water had been a tiny, disfigured mouse corpse. The mouse's limp body had seemed far too bulky for its size but the most disturbing feature of all was that's brain, like a wad of chewing gum, had spilled from its eye sockets, its enlarged snout and a crack in its swollen skull. She recalled opening her mouth to scream but it had never come.

"Ten."

+Ethan Jones+

He was back in hell again, he knew it. The nurses either squawked or fussed, the doctors regarded everyone and anyone as agitating flies, flicking them away as coldly as they dealt with their worries and questions and everyone else was crying or moaning in pain.

But what was worse than all the drooling babies and complaining patients and having his foot rolled over every two minutes by a passing cart, baby carriage or IV stand, was that they had refused to tell him anything about Yumi's condition on the grounds that he was neither family nor friend, though how they had figured out the latter was beyond him. They had even waved away the lame explanation that he was her partner on an important case. Before he had time to shout that he was her fiancé, they had wheeled her into the ER and swung the door shut in his face. There was no hope of getting in as his mild wounds had been treated by another doctor and he had to obey when he was told to wait in the visitor's lounge where he would be notified of Yumi's condition later.

As he sat there on the edge of a long, padded bench which was being weighed down by too many people at the same time, he swore to himself that he would never again visit a hospital. If he got rammed by a car the second he stepped out the doors, he would just lie on the pavement and die. It would be less painful that way.

After about twenty minutes, Jones managed to develop a cramp in his leg from trying to balance on his barely half a seat and stood up. The large digital clock on the wall above the reception desk had stopped working. He consulted his own wristwatch. It was almost nearing half past one. His stomach growled. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. It was amazing that after such an eventful morning he was still capable of feeling such mundane things as hunger.

He sighed, rechecked his watch and waited five more minutes, flexing his bandaged ankle gingerly and trying hard to ignore the itch under the band-aid stuck just above his forehead. A sprained ankle and a cut on his face; this was the extent of his injuries whereas Yumi had probably dislocated her shoulder holding onto him and suffered respiratory damage from inhaling all the smoke. Guilt pulsed through his body like a drug. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Squashed in the middle of the still-crowded bench sat a harried mother with two small children crying on the floor at her feet. She was cradling a third, younger infant in her left hand. Its small face wrinkled into a scowl and started bawling as well. To Jones, who had never had children and was a raised an only child, was reminded of a talking walnut character he had seen on a cereal commercial. His stomach growled again at the thought of it.

Slightly shame-faced at the fact that a newborn infant had triggered this spasm of animalistic hunger, Jones rechecked his watch. Only two minutes had passed. This was getting nowhere. At this rate, he would starve to death before meeting Yumi again.

He walked up to the reception desk where a plump, Hispanic woman sat wearing a pink, nurse's uniform. She looked up rather guiltily when he approached and Jones realized that she had been playing on her Nintendo DJX, the newest version of the compact video games he had outgrown by the time he was in 3rd grade.

"Can I help you?" The Hispanic woman asked pleasantly, tucking the Nintendo DJ under a pile of patient charts. A fabric tag sewn onto her blouse read "Ann".

"Yes, I'd like to know when I can see a patient who's currently in the Emergency Room." Jones said. "Her name is Yumi Kim." He added.

"Let me see…" Ann started typing into her keyboard. Jones waited agitatedly, trying hard to stay off his cramped leg.

"Ooh, I don't think that's possible, sir." She said finally, taking her painted fingers from her keyboard. "I don't see anyone listed here with that name."

"What? But she arrived only half an hour ago. She was injured in a fire at that old apartment complex about fifteen minutes from here." Jones said. "I saw her go in there myself."

"Well, I'm sorry, sir, but she isn't on the patient list." She insisted, glancing at the computer monitor again. "In fact, her name doesn't come up anywhere on the hospital database. She's never been here in her life."

"Did you spell the name right?" Jones asked out of desperation, at the same time that a small voice in his head mocked him for kidding himself that anyone could misspell Yumi's name.

"Y-U-M-I K-I-M, right?" Ann asked and he nodded. She shook her head. "Have a whole bunch of Kim's and a couple of Yumi's but there's no one with the name "Yumi Kim". I even searched for a Kim Yumi just in case but there isn't anyone listed."

A small bead of sweat ran down the side of his neck. He stared down at his hands and was surprised to see them clenched, knuckles white against the edge of the cold counter. Strangely, the noise of dozens of other patients and their families had died down to a dull buzzing.

Was this what it felt like to be electrocuted, unable to move a muscle except his heart which was pumping blood as though he was running a marathon? And what was the meaning of this sensation anyway? Why should he be suddenly skittish over a small mistake in the records? Yumi was here in this hospital whether the damn computer said so or not. He was sure of it.

"Thank you," he heard someone say. Jones felt his numb lips move and saw Ann nodding but his brain felt too sluggish for words.

This couldn't be right. There must have been a mistake.

Strides turning longer until he was actually sprinting, he ran down the hallway leading to the left, swerving around other people and ignoring the cries of "Sir, there's no running in here!" all the way toward where the Emergency Room was located.

"Excuse me," he said to the first doctor he could get a hold of, "I've been waiting to see a friend of mine who was taken into the ER just half an hour ago. Her name's Yumi Kim. I was wondering if you moved her elsewhere."

The doctor consulted a clipboard he was holding. He shook his head, frowning.

"No, I'm sorry but there hasn't been anyone with that name brought here in the last hour." The doctor said finally, lowering the clipboard.

"She has to be here!" Jones said, voice rising in spite of himself. "She's an Asian who was in a fire accident down at Xai Apartment Complex. I was brought here with her and she was-"

"Victims of that particular accident were indeed brought here within the last hour and I've seen to almost all of them. Nothing serious except some mental trauma, but most were small children between the ages of 7 to 13 but I didn't treat any Asian female patients."

"Maybe someone else treated her first! There were a couple of nurses who are bound to have seen her-"

"If that were the case," the doctor cut in smoothly, "she would be listed here on the patient log which she isn't."

"Where were the others taken?" Jones asked, close to shouting.

"They were either discharged or taken to other wards for further examination." The doctor replied coldly. "Now, if you would excuse me sir-" The doctor stepped briskly around Jones with a last, disapproving look and walked away.

Jones stared after him in utter disbelief. If what he was being told was true, Yumi had never received any treatment here which, surely, was impossible. Jones himself had followed her to this very spot, had been forced to wait just to see her but now…

Throwing all the caution to the wind, he stepped forward and pushed the steel double doors to the ER open and, ignoring the protests of the triage nurses, rushed inside.

Moans of pain issued from a man bleeding from various puncture wounds in his stomach. A disheveled teenage boy was sitting next to his friend who had obviously broken his leg. The stench of vomit and blood reached him but it was panic that was threatening to make him hurl. Yumi was nowhere to be seen.

All feeling drained like dirty dishwater from his body. Like a rag doll, he allowed himself to be roughly dragged away by angry looking security guards. The guards were saying something but he wasn't listening. They crossed the atrium to the entrance and left him outside like last night's garbage to await pickup.

As he stood outside in the cold, crispy air and sunlight that gave no warmth to him, a familiar tune reached his ear. His cell phone was ringing.

"Yeah…" Jones managed to say into the phone. Not having checked the caller ID, he had no idea whom he was talking to.

"Hey, Ethan-baby!" a high-pitched voice trilled at the other end of the line. "I've just got a call from my ex and I think I'll need to skip the next couple of interviews."

A girlish giggle came from the other end. It was like he was in the office with her damning bust and annoyingly diamond-studded earrings dangling over him.

"Anyways, babe, I need you to cover for me. I know you're probably hoping to spend the day with Yumi and all but-"

His insides clench tightly. Was it just hearing the name that made him dizzy or was it nausea brought on like a toxic wave by Georgina's stupid voice? Either way, he wished he could double over puke without anyone noticing.

"-obviously your date's over now seeing as how chief got her to go as backup on a terrorist attack or something downtown. I swear, if she wasn't so-"

"Wait, what did you say?" Jones's voice came out in a croak as he said it.

Georgina replied, "I said if she wasn't so hellbent on her job, then I'd actually totally meet eye-to-eye on why some guys like you are turned on-"

"No, not that!" Jones interrupted impatiently. He glanced sideways along the parking lot. An elderly old man was being helped into a minivan by a skinny teenage boy. Two parking spaces to the left, the same harried mother who had been seen in the visitors' lounge was loading her screaming kids into the backseat of her Hyundai vehicle. Everywhere he looked, people were crawling like ants, hurrying to get treatment before their favorite soap was on. All in all, not the best of conditions to hotwire a car even for a daytime hijacking.

On the other end, Georgina's voice trilled with delight, "Ooh, you didn't know, did you? Secretive little fox, isn't she, not even telling her boyfriends where she's going? Yeah, I overheard the chief on the phone." There was a pause as Georgina tried to remember the details. "Don't think he was speaking to her directly but he mentioned her having to go downtown and getting a problem solved. Best guess is that she's needed on this wicked terrorist attack or some shit? It was all over the news, didn't you see? Apparently someone bombed the bloody Microbe building. Some nerve, right? I mean I'll be surprised if the Mafia isn't hired to break their legs-"

"Georgina, are you sure he said that's where Yumi's going? Microbe?" Jones cut in.

"Yeah, pretty sure." Georgina said, clearly enjoying the effect her gossip was having on Jones, though not for the reasons she thought. "He said 'downtown' and something about 'getting a problem solved' and what else could that mean? It's a hell of a lot more paperwork for us but you know how Yumi is so into that sort of thing. Not that she handles the crappy paperwork but still-"

There it was: the glorious chance given to him by some divine spirit, some holy ghost watching over him. A highheeled woman in tights that matched her badly-dyed tricolor hair got out of her silver Mercedes, leaving it in the reserved parking space for the disabled. She glanced around to see if anyone would notice that she wasn't crippled and tapped her heels into the hospital in a hurry. Apparently, she was hoping that she could make a quick in-and-out before her car was discovered but unfortunately for her, Jones had seen her leave her car keys in the door.

Still holding the phone to his ear, he briskly walked to the Mercedes, pulled the keys out and got in.

"Listen, Georgina!" Jones shouted into the cell phone so as to end Georgina's rambling gossip. "I need you to keep this all a secret for me, okay?" He almost cringed as he said the words. This was certainly a bigger gamble than he was hoping to take but he couldn't be choosey now.

"Oh, Ethan-baby, I know you're upset and everything but seriously, I need you to cover my ass. My ex, you know what an asshole Gary can be-"

"Georgina, just forget about Gary for a minute, okay?" Jones said, backing out of the parking space. "I need you to keep it down about what you know about Yumi. How many people have you told?"

"About you and Yumi? Told you, Ethan-baby, it's all good. I'll keep your secret safe, trust me."

"Then I need you to keep it that way." He turned the vehicle to exit the parking lot. "Please, it's urgent. I need to get there before-"

"Oh my GOD." The exclamation was so ecstatic that for a minute, Jones lost all hope handling Georgina. But then she said in girlish exuberance, "You're going to propose to her, aren't you?"

"I-"

"GOD!" she cried again, every syllable ringing in his ear as he put his foot to the accelerator and zoomed out onto the main street. "You're fucking going to propose! I can't believe it, and you didn't even tell me, you sly bastard!"

He ran a red light, nearly colliding into a truck. He swore under his breath but Georgina was still in a fit of euphoria at this gossip-worthy news.

"You know what, Ethan-baby, fuck Gary. I can't be a bitch and ruin this for you! But to think you were going to propose… today of all days!"

Jones couldn't help but feel that Georgina was beginning to sound a lot like his mother, who for two years before her fatal heart attack had badgered her only son to hook up with a "suitable" girl and settle down. Jones had not regretted denying her this last wish even as he stood over her casket at the funeral and but felt mortified that he was being reminded of his mother by someone like Georgina.

"Did you buy the ring?" Georgina gushed and Jones could almost see the froth on her lips.

"Uh, yeah. Picked it out a couple days ago."

Georgina made a noise somewhere between a squeal and a grunt. "Oh, you should've invited me! I know a fantastic place!" she pouted.

Jones sped down road at breakneck speed, indifferent to every traffic signal or sign and only ever slowing down when he needed to cut corners or dodge pedestrians. He reckoned that he was about 10 minutes from Microbe but doubt still remained. Was that where Yumi really was? Even if he was right in thinking the chief was corrupt, was that really where she was? He pushed these thoughts out of his head. He had, after all, already stolen a car and would soon be arrested for traffic violation.

"Don't worry about it, honey, I'll cover you on this one!" Georgina trilled. Jones let out a sigh of relief he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"You do that, Georgina. I'll tell you all about it later." Jones added. He terminated the call before she had a chance to change her mind.

The tall, intimidating tower rose, rapidly growing in size as he neared it. It was by far the most impressive building for miles around. Jones drove on toward Microbe building, hoping that the day would end with both Yumi and him alive.

A/N: Thanks for reading, everyone!