"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh."

-Gospel of Mark 13:35, King James Version

Chapter Three

"I must insist that you reconsider, Captain," the young healer standing in front of her said. The brown-haired woman of roughly her height, in her mid-twenties, had a mulish expression on her heart-shaped face as she regarded Ty Lee levelly, her arms crossed in front of the loose-fitting brown robes of her professsion. "My patient is unstable enough as it is. She's not going to be able to stand up to rigorous interrogation."

"As tempting as the thought is," Ty Lee said, leaning on the heavy wooden desk bolted to the floor in the meeting/interrogation room in the Hospital Complex's secure wing, her arms folded in front of her substantial chest. "I'm not going to be beating what I want to know out of her."

"It's not just that," the healer said pointedly. "This is a dangerous woman…and I'm not convinced she's become any less dangerous since her breakdown."

"I have a few doubts in that area myself," Ty Lee said with a sigh, resisting the tingling fear that crawled down her shoulder blades at the thought of being in the same room with Azula again, "but what choice do we have? If anyone we have access to knows anything it's her."

"With all due respect to your position, Captain," the other woman said patiently, "There has to be someone less…emotionally invested in Azula."

"Who?" Ty Lee asked pointedly. "The Avatar? The boy she shot in the back and came within a hairsbreadth of killing last year? Katara? The young woman who cradled that boy in her arms? The Firelord who's been at the receiving end of Azula's abuse his entire life?" She shook her head, a short sharp jerk from left to right that brooked no argument. "No, Healer, I'm afraid there's no ideal interrogator. Not for her." She reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," she said reassuringly. "Barring her escaping and trying to kill me or my friends, you will get her back unharmed."

The healer, whose name escaped her at the moment, breathed out a frustrated huff and bowed formally. "Very well, sir," she said leadenly. "You've made your point," before turning on her heels and walking out the door.

Ty Lee released the pent-up anxiety that had been building in her gut in one long, wavering sigh and turned to her executive officer. Mychi and Toph had been standing in a corner, arms crossed as they waited for the go ahead to bring her in.

"You may have her sent in now, Lieutenant," Ty said simply.

The older woman clicked her heels to attention. "Sir," she said simply, shifting the heavy leather bag on her shoulder as she walked over to the door. She opened it and stuck her head outside into the corridor. "Bring her in now, guys."

Her executive officer stood out of the way as a man and woman, both with dark hair and brown eyes, in the red and black lacquered armor of the Crater City Guard, frog-marched their prisoner into the room, their heavy booted feet echoing off the room's concrete walls. They walked Azula across the floor, their footsteps echoing loud in her ears as they crossed the stone floor. They sat her in the chair on the side of the table closest to the door and shackled her hands to the table.

After exchanging salutes with the two enlisted soldiers, they went to stand guard over the door, and she turned her attention to the woman she was to interrogate. The beautiful young woman, of age with her, with black hair and alabaster skin smirked, her lips curling with a smile that never touched her brown eyes. "So, I know who I have to thank for interrupting my lunch." She sat there, looking for all the world like she was still the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation and feared combat commander who'd suborned the Dai Li and took Ba Sing Se from within.

"You'll manage," Ty Lee said dryly, resisting the urge to strangle her now while she had the chance. It wouldn't do for me to be foresworn, after all, plus she is Zuko's sister, and he still loves her. How can he do anything else? He's my sovereign and supreme commander. He has ordered me not to touch her, and I will not. "If you cooperate with me, I'll probably get you back to your lunch before it gets too cold."

The dark-haired woman smirked and leaned back in her chair as much as she could with her hands shackled to the desk. "What do you want to know?"

"I assume you've heard of the attempt on Zuko's life last night?"

"I may have heard of a few things here and there, yes," Azula said idly. "Why? You think I had something to do with this?"

"It was a Lightning Sword. One of Medora's noncoms at the Boiling Rock as a matter of fact. The Lightning Swords traditionally reported to the Heir to the Throne. That was you before Zuko had you stripped of your titles. There have been rumors that those of the Lightning Swords or the Dai Li who went underground still report to you through moles in this very building."

"So, naturally, you think I had something to do with it," Azula responded simply, and it wasn't a question. "Unfortunately, I haven't had contact with the former Lightning Swords or the Dai Li since I was locked up here or we wouldn't be having this conversation

Ty Lee smirked derisively. "Oh, I agree we wouldn't. But I also think you know more than you let on. Especially because," and she motioned Michiko forward. Her executive officer set the bag on the table, unclasped it and pulled the weapon out. "Izani was armed with this. It looks like the weapons War Minister Qin was having demonstrated before the Firelord while we were in our final year, but it isn't."

"I can see that," Azula deadpanned, her wry tone belied by the fact that even her eyes widened in surprise as she reached her hands out to touch the cool black metal.

"And before you think of trying to use that to kill us and escape," Ty Lee said pointedly, "Zuko had Sokka discharge it until it died." A process that vaporized all the water in one of the ponds of the palace garden and still had enough power to take divots out of the dirt at the bottom.

Azula harrumphed. "So, Zuzu isn't as big a dumb-dumb as I've always taken him for. Still," she said, seemingly unable to take her eyes off it. "This is an…escalation."

Ty's eyes widened and for the moment she forgot the need not to show weakness against Azula. She can't mean what I think she means, can she?

"What do you mean 'an escalation?'" Toph growled from her corner, glaring at her.

"It's just the Raptor has never helped us openly," Azula said distractedly, still staring at the rifle in her hands.

Ty Lee cocked her head, nonplussed at her reference to the High Spirit of War and Death. "What do you mean?"

Azula's head jerked back up and she glared at her former toady. "Oh, come on," Azula said, her voice dripping with condescending scorn. "For the woman who got top marks in every tactics and strategy class at the School for Girls Cadet Program, you really haven't thought about this? There isn't a man or woman in our officer corps who hasn't, at least the ones who aren't incompetent layabouts just trying to use their uniforms to schmooze attractive men and women into their beds. Contrary to the propaganda that the last three generations of Firelord's were spewing out, the Earth Kingdom military is neither weak nor foolish. Given their far greater population and resources, you and I both know we should have lost this war long before either of us were born"

"I know," she said, ignoring the shuddering feeling running down her spine. "I think we all knew on some level. They were teaching us how to fight and win wars and do so competently. They had no choice but to teach us the rules of the game, even knowing that under those very rules we should have lost long ago."

Azula smiled thinly, nodding at the weapon in her hand. "We were supposed to lose. Now you know why we didn't.

Ty stood at parade rest in front of the large desk in the duty officer's office, as her commanding officer paced anxiously in front of the large window that dominated the wall behind her. After a moment, the auburn-haired young officer with fair skin and green eyes turned sharply to look at her. "Are you sure about this, Captain?"

"Any other day I wouldn't believe her if she told me rain was wet, sir," Ty Lee said, still roiling from what Azula had told her, "but…she's pointing at something that pretty much everyone competent who's served in Fire Nation uniform has pondered even if they'd never dare put it into words."

"And though the me of half a year ago would have rather died than admit it," Suki said, sitting back in her chair, "you're very competent. Which is a surprise coming from a woman who used to be a circus performer."

"You don't think I went along with my parents sending me to the premiere woman's college in the Fire Nation to join a circus act I could have joined out of state schooling, did you?"

Suki raised her hand, conceding the point. "That being said," she said settling back into her chair, "the fact that mainland forces kept getting their asses handed to them was a cause for concern, especially because offensives that should have driven your people back kept falling apart before they could get anywhere. The Earth Kingdom managed to inflict some reverses on you, but not as many as it should."

Ty snorted derisively. "The chauvinistic little girl in that expensive private school my parents sent me to before the School for Girls chalked that up to our natural superiority. The Avatar and the Air Nomad's had left us, we were told, and Providence had chosen us to take up the mantle of humanity's shepherd. When my people were settling the Western Air Temple archipelago, where I grew up, by the way, the temple complex itself was kept strictly off limits to avoid anyone realizing that they'd been exterminated by elements of the Fire Nation Northern Command instead of dying from some plague as proof that Providence had withdrawn its favor. But if some outside force was sabotaging the Earth Kingdom's efforts…."

"Hence the weapon," Suki said. "Question is why?"

Ty, who at least until the rest of the regiment arrived from Kyoshi, had to wear the dueling hats of Suki's only company commander and titular executive officer, sighed. "I have a few ideas as to why. All of them liable to keep me up at night." And unlike you I don't have a cute guy to play with whenever I can't sleep, she groused mentally.

"I know," Suki said, tapping her fingers on the heavy wooden desk. "I think we both had the same thoughts. The people who could build the ships necessary to cross the blackness of space to deliver weapons into the hands of our hardliners…"

"Wouldn't need too, I know, sir," Ty said, finishing the thought. "They have the technology to break the Avatar cycle for all time and conquer us outright. They don't need to weaken us by fomenting rebellion from within, so why not just rain death from our skies and send in the troops? If I had an insurmountable technological advantage, I'd press it instead of playing games like this. It's what I was trained to do."

"I don't know, Captain," Suki said with a weary sigh, tapping on her fingers as she stared off into space, looking just to her right. In that moment, Ty had to remind herself that the young woman who's command she was sworn to live or die by was her age. "All I know is that this puts the treaty negotiations into a whole new light."

Ty swallowed the lump in her throat, as she weighed voicing the uncomfortable conclusion that had been rattling around in her head since this all started. Should I really say what I'm about to say? If I say this, I could sound like I'm supporting the creation of a new Phoenix King?

"Maybe instead of concluding a peace treaty between warring nations," the young captain began carefully, with the air of someone who knew she was risking the career she'd worked so hard to regain. "We should be laying the groundwork for some sort of new union."

Suki turned to look at her, eyes widened in surprise. "Come again?"

"Working out a peace treaty and some sort of settlement regarding the colonies was all well and good when we just had ourselves to worry about," Ty continued, squelching the anxiety that roared through her. "I don't think it's sunk in yet for Aang and Zuko just how completely the game has changed. If we stand any chance at all against what we now know is coming, we need to meet it as one world. Not four nations putting all our faith in the Avatar to keep our world safe. Don't get me wrong, Aang's a great guy but he's not immortal and he's not all powerful, and if he dies, we'll have at least a decade without an Avatar."

"But the Avatar's role is to keep peace between the Four Nations," Suki pointed out.

"Yes, now, but what about before? It's not like either of our nations has existed since the days of the First Avatar. For a good chunk of the Avatar Cycle's existence, human society was scattered bands of hunter-gatherers. Another chunk of the time, entire petty kingdoms coalesced and broke apart, with the Avatars mostly acting to contain the damage. Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai were wrong to try to change that the way they did, but it doesn't mean we're fated to remain forever divided by lines on a map. Especially when people never stopped exchanging cultural influences intermarrying across those lines on a map anyway. There are at least two people from the Nothern Water Tribe in my family tree from before the war and my own first officer's great-grandfather was Fire Nation."

"And I have Water Tribe ancestors in my family tree as well," Suki pointed out, nodding in agreement. "But that doesn't change the fact that, at this point, it's going to take something truly compelling to make any such union come together and stay together."

The sound of running water caused Aang's eyes to shoot awake, casting about wildly as he tried to orient himself. He was sitting by the shore of a river, as the glowing orange and yellow sun began it's descent below the cloud shrouded mountains to his west. The light of the setting sun reflected off the running, rippling water, giving it a yellow-orange sheen. Aang took a deep, relieved breath, as a cooling breeze washed over him, rustling through the long grassy stalks that ran from the edge of the water several feet across the shore. Aang pulled him up off the ground staring around him. There was not a building around him for miles. Or another living soul, it seemed. He was lost, and alone in a land no Avatar had ever seen.

A rustling sound from behind him caused him to jolt, and he turned around to see the same young girl from before approaching her, with the same curly hair and rich full lips. The light of the setting sun put yellow-orange highlights in her dark brown hair as she stopped in front of him.

"My son," the young woman said simply, staring at her with her dark-brown slightly tilted eyes.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Aang asked. "You're around my age."

"Because you are." She said, putting a hand on his shoulder. A hand he felt surprisingly no compunction to shrug off his shoulder.

"But how?" Aang asked after a moment.

The young girl smiled. "Return to the place where you began," she said simply. "And all will become clear."

Aang awoke. For a second of brief disorientation he didn't recognize where he was and he grabbed for his staff, before bringing himself up short with a sigh. He was in his chambers in the Fire Nation Palace, and, much to his chagrin, he had apparently fallen asleep while meditating. He levered himself to his feet using his staff.

"The place where I began?" Aang repeated, "Why does that sound so familiar?"

The mysterious girl simply smiled, as a bright light exploded all around him.

His eyes jerked open again and he almost fell backwards in shock. He was back in front of his bed, where he must have fallen asleep while meditating. His small, white, floppy-eared lemur Momo staring at him with his golden-brown eyes. He leaned forward without thinking to scratch his head, when it hit him all at once. No, he realized all at once. She can't be talking about that, can she? Aang's nostrils flared, and he scrambled to his feet and headed for the door. "No choice now," he said to himself. "I have to talk to Katara."

Katara sat in her office, brightly lit by the noonday sun shining through the large window that dominated her back wall. She was idly twirling a finger around her long black hair as she contemplated what her brother's girlfriend sitting across from her had reported to her. Not for the first time, she wished she could shed the robes of her office for the far more comfortable sarong and midriff baring top she had in her closet.

I'd love to but I can't, Katara thought, If I had been born in the Fire Nation, perhaps I could get away with being more casual, but I wasn't. Here I'll look like even more like some stupid jumped up girl that Zuko only appointed to the highest office in the Fire Nation in a fit of nepotism. Which is what most of the rumor mills seem to keep spewing out. That and he only appointed me because we're sleeping together, and he wants his concubine close to him.

Not for the first time, she wondered if Zuko had made a mistake. Perhaps Zuko should have appointed a Fire Nation First Councilor, instead of making me the first First Councilor in two hundred years who was born a citizen of another nation, and the youngest First Councilor in Fire Nation history to boot.

"Well, Suki," Katara said after a moment, "it certainly explains a lot about how we kept losing." Making an express point of not referring to Suki by her rank. Unprofessional or not, this was Suki and she would be damned if she was going to let the hecklers who kept trying to oust her from a position that was supposed to be temporary tell her how to behave behind the closed doors of her own office. "I just wish I knew what to do about it."

"Other than the surveillance efforts on known and suspected Lightning Sword sympathizers and their families, I'm not sure. Maybe we'll get lucky. It's not like they can completely drop off society's radar, they have to acquire food from someone at the very least," Suki pointed out.

"What if the enemy is supplying them food along with the weapons?" Katara asked pointedly.

"They'd have to find somewhere to put that food," Suki pointed out. "No matter how you look at it, no army of partisans hiding out in the hills and the forests can simply disengage from society entirely. They need to recruit, they need places to train, they need places to store weapons and supplies. It's impossible."

"I agree. Our best bet," Katara said with a nod, "is to locate some of those clandestine supply depots before they're ready to put these weapons into full-scale use." Katara shook her head. "They took a risk when they made their move against Zuko last night: they let us know that they had these weapons. Now it's possible that, if they'd succeeded it wouldn't matter, but they didn't. And given that they haven't seized control of the capital yet, it's possible that they don't have enough people trained in the use of these weapons. Or enough weapons."

"Which means if we can get those weapons out of our hands and into ours, we might be able to both nip this in the bud and even the odds…for down the road." When the people who gave them these weapons inevitably put in an appearance, went unsaid.

"But the window of opportunity is closing even as we speak," Suki pointed out. "If we don't find these weapons in time…"

"I know," Katara sighed, "it means everything we've worked for will end."

"Not if I can help it," a male voice said. Katara jolted in surprise and looked up to see Aang standing in the room, as ever, Momo on his shoulder. There was a determined glint in his gray eyes.

Katara breathed out a sigh of relief. "Aang don't scare me like that!"

He had the grace to blush, at least. "Sorry," he said, after a moment. "Katara there's something I need to talk to you about."

Suki got up out of her seat. "I'll let you two talk," she said quickly.

Aang held up his hand, forestalling Suki leaving. "No," he said firmly, "stay. She's going to have to tell you anyway. Better to get it out of the way now."

Katara stood up in her chair in a rush and crossed around her desk. "What's wrong, Aang?"

Her best friend sighed. "Last night, just before the attack? I…think I had a vision."

"A vision?" Suki asked.

Aang nodded. "You see," he began.

Katara's eyes rose as he described the vision of the mountain, and the young woman barely more than Aang's age who described him as her son.

"Aang," she said after the Avatar was done speaking, sitting on the edge of her desk. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

Aang spread his hands in a gesture of confusion. "I don't know? We had just been attacked. The Kyoshi Warriors and the Foot Guards hadn't finished securing the palace and I was more concerned with keeping anybody else off you and Zuko's back. Besides," and his face flushed again. "I didn't see how it was relevant."

"Monkeyfeathers, Aang," Katara said, her irritation surging. "Of course, it's connected! When have there ever been two strange events going on at the same time!"

Aang, again, had the grace to blush. "Never," he muttered.

"This girl said, 'return to the place where you began,'" Suki said. "What do you think she meant by that?"

Aang sighed, and Momo climbed up on his head as he moved his shoulders. "When I was growing up at the Southern Air Temple there were rumors that part of the training for Avatars was exposure to something in a strange box hidden deep in the Inner Sanctum of the temple where children were never allowed to go. I think I should go there and take a look around."

Katara's nostrils flared. After what had happened under Ba Sing Se, the thought of sending him away without her stuck in her craw. But what choice did she have. Things were…tense right now, to save the very least. As much as she desperately wanted to go with him, to put that sarong of hers back on, to get out of this dusty office, she didn't see how she could get away with it.

Zuko had appointed her to the position of First Councilor within five minutes of his sister going down. In that moment, he'd absolutely needed someone with proven leadership ability that he implicitly trusted watching his back and ensuring the palace had been cleared of everyone who'd been loyal to his father or Azula. A task she'd seen to with gusto. The last thing either of them needed had been a knife to the back. The irony hadn't been lost on either of them, especially because only a few weeks before she would have happily volunteered to put that knife in his back and not lost any sleep over it.

"Look, Aang," Katara began pleadingly. "If the situation were any different, I'd go with you in a heartbeat, but if what happened last night is any indication our world is about to change forever in ways not even we thought were possible. As much as this has to be connected, we cannot all go off and investigate." As much as I hate to say it. However good at her job she was, she was too young to spend the next decade or two behind a desk, sending other people out to have the adventures and change the world. At least I can take some comfort from the fact that, however bored I've been lately, Zuko is even more so. He commanded his own ship for three years, making the transition from that to sitting on a throne far from where the action is has been…difficult at best.

Aang's shoulders sagged, disappointment all over his face as he realized his dream of being able to travel with Sokka and Katara like the good old days faded. "Not," Katara continued quickly, "that I'm letting you go anywhere alone. Sokka and Toph will go with you. So will Suki."

"Me?" Suki blanched.

"Yes, you," Katara said pointedly, "Apart from you, there's only one company of Kyoshi Warriors in the metropolitan Fire Nation and that's commanded by Ty Lee. Until the rest of the regiment arrives from Kyoshi, your kind of superfluous." Suki was supposed to have rotated out with all but one company of the regiment, leaving Captain Ty Lee and her Third Company behind as the contribution to the Palace Guard and taking Sokka to introduce to her parents. Right before they were due to leave, however, both of them had come down with a rather severe case of the Kissing Disease. They had both been too ill to travel for several weeks and rather than hold everyone else up, she'd just sent them on ahead.

"The rest of the regiment will be here soon enough," Suki admitted. "I suppose they can spare me for a week or two." She stood up, straightening her uniform tunic. "If you excuse me, I'll tell Sokka and Toph to start packing." She headed for the door, Aang trailing at her heels.

As Aang and Suki walked out her office door, Aang stopped in the doorway, looking back at her with a sympathetic glance. "I wish you were coming with me," he said after a moment.

"Me too," Katara said with all sincerity. "Me too."