3 days later…
When I start to get some awareness back, my eyes flutter open, I blink several times to adjust to the lighting. I notice that I'm on a soft bed, with the feel of bandages wrapped around me. I cast my eyes around the room to find Katara at the far back, bending some water into a pot. I shift my weight to try to get up but a shooting pain hits me in my back causing me to groan aloud. Katara spins round and runs over to me.
"Aang! You're awake!" She lightly sits on the bed beside me, trying to avoid causing me any more pain, and gently places her hand on top of mine. She gives me a small smile and I give her a weak one back. "How are you feeling?"
"Well not as bad as when I was in that cell."
"I do hope not. I've been trying to heal you all this time. Most of your minor cuts and bruises are gone, but your back where your scar is…" Katara trails off and looks away. Ahh that explains why the pain is less intense. My scar the cause of so much anguish…
"Thanks Katara, I appreciate it a lot." She gives me a warm smile. Suddenly Sokka bursts in the room.
"Hey Katara you said you'll start to prepare some din…" He stops in mid-sentence as he looks at me and rushes to me, "AANG! Buddy, you're awake!" I grin at him.
"Yep, I didn't know you missed me."
"What a dumb question! Of course I missed you. How are you doing?" I try to shrug but end up wincing. "Riiight looks like I ended up asking a dumb question too." Katara gets up from the bed.
"Well I'll go and prepare some dinner, you must be hungry after not eating for 3 days." She leaves the room and Sokka takes a seat on a chair next to my bed.
"I was unconscious for 3 DAYS?! What about Azula, she could be plotting her next move to capture us and torture us and then she'll end up throwing us into the fire nation and then we'll…"
"Woah woah woah buddy, you got to calm down." I gape at him.
"Calm down? Calm down? How can I be calm when we have Azula on our tail?" I shout, but immediately regret it when my back starts throbbing in pain, I let out a low growl.
"Aang when you went unconscious we had to find a safe place to go. So we went to a town not far from Kyoshi." I groan, this is feeling unpleasantly familiar.
"I feel like this is Ba Sing Se all over again. I get injured, you guys find a safe place until I wake up. I'm so useless!"
"Aang your being too hard on yourself." Katara walks back to Aang's room but stops a metre away from the door to listen to their conversation 'I wonder what Aang is blaming himself for? He didn't do anything wrong.' "You withstood a very high current of electricity, and you didn't slip into unconsciousness until later. When I was zapped with that for a mere second, I was out cold!" I close my eyes, remembering the moment, this is all my fault… "Hey Aang how did you managed to get in the Avatar State?" He leans in closer to me, but my eyes remain closed. Katara takes a small step closer to hear, 'Why is Sokka asking? He was never interested in any of Aang's Avatar stuff before.' "You said by refusing to open that earthly attachment chakra, and by being shot by Azula you locked it."
"Sokka I don't know I just don't know." I reply sighing, I wish I didn't tell Sokka about choosing not to open my 7th chakra because of Katara, I can't believe I told him that!
"Well the electric current is very powerful like lightening, and I should know since I've been electrocuted, sooo…. BINGO!" I open my eyes to look at him and raise an eyebrow, what kind of eccentric thought has Sokka come up with this time? "Aang you know with a light switch if you press it the light goes on, so if you press it again what happens?" He looks at me with a gleam in his eye, I frown.
"Well doesn't the light just go off?"
"EXACTLY!" I frown deeper, what in the blazes does a light switch got to do with activating the Avatar State?
"Sokka I don't think I follow."
"Your scar is a like a light switch, when Azula sent lightening at you she blocked you from using the Avatar state, and when she used a high electric current which is very similar to lightening she opened it again, it's like a light switch in a circuit!" Understanding begins to dawn on my face, wow that's amazing.
"Wow Sokka I got to say that sounds like a very plausible explanation." He grins at me and lifts one hand.
"I know, I'm a genius. This is the only advantage I can see from being electrocuted, not sure if finding an explanation for your Avatar state was worth it." He muses to himself. Guilt begins to settle upon me, this is all my fault, I have to tell Sokka.
"Hey Sokka can I tell you something."
"Yeh sure buddy, whatever you want." I gulp, better get this over and down with.
"Ok… it's all my fault that you guys were captured and that you were electrocuted!" I see confusion settle on his face.
"What are you talking about? We went to try to find you and then we were ambushed."
"That's not exactly what happened… I…I kind of made a deal with Azula, if I told her where you guys were likely to be…." Katara gasps with shock which soon turns to rage, 'How dare he? He put us all in danger!' She storms out from her hiding place and throws the food on the floor and marches to Aang, with her finger pointed at him.
"WHAT?! YOU PUT ALL OUR LIVES IN DANGER, BY TELLING HER WHERE WE WERE GOING TO BE!" I look uneasily between Sokka and Katara; Sokka's face is full of shame and disappointment while Katara's face is full of fiery rage, I don't know what's worse. Sokka reaches his hand out to his sister's shoulder.
"Katara I'm sure Aang has a very good reason for telling our enemy where his only friends are." He says in a cold voice, which sends shivers down my spine.
"I…I… well she threatened that once she found you guys she would k…kill you. I begged her not to… she asked me what I could offer to change her mind… so I promised her to tell her the location of where you guys were… to make it easier for her to find… as long as she didn't hurt you guys… a…"
"AND YOU TRUSTED HER! How did you know that she wasn't lying? We know Azula always lies." Katara points her finger right into my face. "Because of you we were all tied up and thrown into cells, because of you Sokka got hurt and because of you we've been chased around the world, nearly dying multiple times!" Every single accusation sliced into my heart, breaking it bit by bit, even the one about Zuko, because as much I didn't like them being together, I hate the thought that it was my fault that I broke them up. Everything she said is true, I'm just a walking disaster, bringing destruction to everyone one I meet and every place I go, look what happened in the North Pole, or Ba Sing Se. I look at Sokka but he refuses to meet my eye, I try to hold back my tears.
"Come on Katara, we need to get dinner ready, because everyone is getting hungry." He pulls at her arm and she reluctantly follows but not before glaring at me and stomps out, leaving me all alone in the room. What have I done? They didn't have to know. Why did I tell them? Because it's the right thing to do, a voice whispers to me. Eurgh I'm do dumb! I've already lost my people and now I've also lost my best friend and the closest thing I have to like a brother. I've lost everything! Every single thought makes my pain even worse and slowly I drift into an uneasy sleep.
Dinner time…. Katara told everything to the group…
"Sugar Queen don't you think you're taking this a bit too far?" Katara whips round to face Toph.
"Too far? He betrayed us! He told Azula of where we will be and the likeliness of us coming to look for him. It's his fault we were captured!" Zuko puts down his bowl and looks up at Katara.
"Katara don't you think there's more to what Aang told you? Do you honestly think that Azula will actually not hurt us if Aang told her where we were, in time she would have found us. I think that Aang also agreed to take all the lashes and beatings for himself instead of us."
"Oh really, you're just defending him and trying to put him in a good light. How do you know Aang did that?"
"Sparky got a pretty good point. Plus Sugar Queen by the sound of it, you stormed off before Aang could finish his sentence."
"I can't believe you are all defending him!"
"We're only doing what you used to do for him. You were his defender, so someone had to take your place." Katara's mouth drops open.
"Excuse me?"
"You always defended Twinkle Toes, now you are totally against him. What's wrong with you! What changed, is it just because of what he did to Zuko?" Katara moves her mouth to answer but clamps it shut, 'it's true I did always defend him, since when did I start to get cold hearted?'
"Fine we'll ask him to find out the truth." She turns her back to them, ready to march to Aang's room, Sokka gets up from his seat.
"No Katara, you will ask him, you're the one who's so mad at him, you find out." She spins around to face him.
"Sokka I thought you were mad at him too?"
"No, shocked yes, disappointed maybe but mad no. I'm sure he had his reasons, we know him long enough to judge that. Talk to him, I think you both need it." Katara frowns at him, then exits the room to go to Aang's room. She peers inside to find Aang sleeping, 'looks like I'm going to have to wait.' She goes to the far back of the room, she sits down on the floor with her legs tucked underneath her and starts bending the water in the pot.
30 minutes later…
I wake up and then all of what happened today rushes back. Tears start to roll down my face, I can't stay here, not after all I've done to them. I push back the covers and attempt to get up, but end up flopping down on the bed from the pain, no I've got to get up, I use my arms to push myself up into a sitting position, grinding my teeth in the process, Eurgh why is there so much pain? All the while Katara had got to her feet to watch Aang struggling to get up.
"You shouldn't be getting up you know." I jump and glance to the side to find Katara watching me. "I can give you a healing session if you want." I shake my head, they've done enough for me. She sighs and walks up to me and gently pushes me back down on the bed, I weakly protest but her gentle hands on my chest is too soothing that I fall back on the bed, wincing in the process. Katara furrows her eyebrows in concern. I glance away from her.
"I thought you didn't want to talk to me." She kneels beside me.
"Aang I'm sorry I got so angry for no reason.
"It WASN'T for no reason, all that stuff you said it's true! Everything bad happened has been my fault! I cause destruction to everyone I meet and everywhere I go!" I say raising my voice. Katara places her hand on my shoulder.
"What I said was wrong, I said it because I was angry. All the stuff that I said happened was because of me, I was the one for causing you to run off, leading to us all being captured. I'm so sorry, it's my fault." I shift slightly closer to her to comfort her.
"It's not your fault. I made that deal with Azula because I couldn't stand to see any of you guys hurt, I took the lashes because I deserved it and in return she wouldn't hurt you, or so I hoped until I thought of a plan to escape." Katara starts crying.
"You didn't deserve it! You did what you thought you could to protect us, and I rewarded you by shouting in your face. I'm a horrible person." I move my hand and put it on her arm.
"You are not horrible. You are the kindest, caring person I know."
"How can you say that? After shouting and not caring about you being tortured."
"We were both hurting, I hurt you because I was selfish and took my anger out on Zuko, you do unforgivable things when you're hurt." Katara doesn't look convinced, tears still falling down her cheek.
"But how can you forgive me so easily? Why don't you hate me? I was horrible and selfish to you! I don't think I could forgive someone so easily!"
"Because you are my best friend, friends forgive each other, plus you've done so much for me. You came with me to travel the world, risking your life in the process, you comforted me whenever I needed it, you protect me whenever you can, you taught me waterbending, and you brought me back to life, I mean how many friends can say they've brought someone back to life, no one! And that's because your incredible" Katara blushes at that and looks down at her lap. "You're the one who freed me from that iceberg, you are the one who resurrected hope to the world! You inspire me with your caring, stubborn, determined attitude. How can I forget all that? Just because you did one thing wrong? No, I will never forget." Katara looks up at me and gives me a small smile and wipes her tears away with the back of her hand.
"Thanks Aang, you're so understanding and forgiving. If it wasn't for you I would never have become the waterbender I am today, I would never experience so much more than what's outside my small tribe, you say I brought back hope, but to me you are the hope of the world. I don't deserve you as my friend. I want to say thank you, thank you for changing my life to the better." I grin at her, I didn't realise that I made a difference to her life. I sigh in content, finally my friendship with Katara is not going to die. She gets up and bends some water on her hand. "Now do you want me to heal that back of yours?" I grin sheepishly at her.
"Yes please, it's killing me!" She gives me a warm smile and gently helps me up to a sitting position.
A/N: Hey that was my last chapter for this story hope you enjoyed it! If you want me to do a sequel just ask, all suggestions are welcome :)