The kid is still asleep when Sokka wakes up the next morning, and he doesn't know what to make of that either, because Aang is sure that only firebenders have eyes that color, and Zuko always rises with the sun as if it were some sort of compulsion, and the sun has clearly been up for several hours already, and this kid is still sound asleep.
He wakes up, though, when Sokka sits up, and looks around sleepily, yawning and rubbing his face with one tiny, adorable hand.
He sees Sokka and flashes another one of those bright-as-the-sun smiles at him before holding his arms out to him.
Sokka scoops him up and they join Katara and Aang for breakfast.
The question is, of course, what now. Because Aang's lost his firebending teacher, Zuko could quite realistically (as much as Sokka hates to admit it) have decided to betray them after all, and they're stuck with a kid who can barely walk and has shown absolutely no ability to talk.
It's not a good situation to be in.
But no one from the Fire Nation has come looking for them yet, and even Katara will admit that if Zuko intended to betray them, they should have at least heard from him by now.
Aang, at least, has about a dozen different firebending moves with several different katas that Zuko taught him before he disappeared, and-according to the missing firebender-Aang still needed to work on, so at least he has something to do.
The kid, though, that's a different story. He's quiet, the opposite of fussy, and sweet as can be. He's little more than a baby, though, and their life, since meeting Aang, has been anything but safe. And though things are currently quiet, there's absolutely no way to know how long that will last.
Never mind that Aang's supposed to be learning firebending so they can stop the Firelord, defeat the Fire Nation, and end the war-none of which are the sort of things you want to drag a toddler along for.
They don't have any answers. By the end of the meal Aang is trying to get the kid to say his name while the kid simply stares up at him with those uncomfortable yellow-gold eyes.
After breakfast Sokka decides to show the kid around the temple, just to have something to do. Dressed in the clothes Katara must have gotten up early to finish-they had managed to swap blanket for a tiny blue shirt and pants with surprisingly little fuss on the part of the boy-he's still propped on Sokka's hip because there's nothing they can do for him as far as shoes are concerned, and every time Sokka tries to set him down the boy starts shivering the second his bare feet touch stone.
Sokka's talking as they walk, pointing to different things and trying to remember everything Aang said when he showed them around, but it was a lot and Aang can keep up a steady stream of chatter that's hard to follow when he gets excited, so Sokka's pretty sure he's not doing the best job ever.
The kid doesn't seem to care, though. He just takes in everything with that solemn, thoughtful gaze and leans into Sokka's shoulder.
"Wish we had something to call you other than 'kid,'" Sokka admits, looking down. "Here you are, stuck with us, and we don't even know your name. Though I guess to be fair you probably don't have a clue who I am either." He looks down into guileless yellow and notes that they are almost-but not quite-golden as the boy meets his gaze.
"Sokka," the child says, the word plain as day, and Sokka nearly drops him.
"He talks," Sokka says as he shoves the kid into Katara's hands. She nearly fumbles the hand-off, not expecting her brother to appear out of nowhere and drop a toddler in her lap. She settles the boy and watches while her brother paces, waving his hands, clearly excited about this new development.
"Or at least, he talked." Katara's brother calms slightly, coming to sit beside her. "He said my name. Once. Hasn't said anything else."
Katara looks down at the child currently settled in her arms, watching Sokka pace with an almost somber air. Her brother leans in, and suddenly it's a repeat of Aang at breakfast, with Sokka getting in the kid's face and trying to get him to say his name and getting nothing but blank stares for his trouble.
Katara shoves him, because he's in her space too, and it's bugging her. Looking down, she realizes the kid's attention has switched from Sokka to her.
"You understand more than you let on, don't you?" she says almost conversationally, and there's just the tiniest bit of a tilt of his head to the side as he looks her over. "But you aren't a baby anymore, no matter what Toph thinks." Toph still hasn't gotten past calling the kid a baby, or worse it instead of he.
The boy looks away, out across the courtyard, where Toph is doing her best to smash Aang with a giant slab of earth. Katara shakes her head, then looks back at the kid.
"You know who Toph is. What about Aang?" Again he looks away, towards the courtyard, and Katara winces as the young airbender narrowly misses slamming into a stone column. Katara looks down at him, and gets the fleeting impression that he's only humoring her. "Do you know my name?"
"Katara." The words come out careful and hesitant, in sweet, soft baby soprano, and he smiles at her before looking over at her brother. "That's Sokka."
Sokka looks like he can't decide whether to scowl or grin in response. Katara chuckles before turning her attention back to the child in her arms. "So you know all our names. It would be nice to know yours."
He stares up at her for a long, thoughtful moment, and then smiles.
By mid-afternoon they've figured out that just because the kid can talk, doesn't mean he will.
He sits and stares solemnly at Katara as she tries to ask him anything she thinks will help them figure out what to do with him: what his name is, who his parents are, where his parents are, how he got here, and a dozen similar questions. He doesn't answer any of them, and Katara is starting to get frustrated.
"You're from the Fire Nation, though." Toph says, but it sounds more like an interrogation than a simple statement. The boy turns to look at her, but remains silent.
Katara stops because she's getting frustrated, and doesn't want to yell at the kid and scare him.
Toph reaches out and pokes him in the shoulder, and for a second Katara is worried, but then the child giggles. He reaches up, toward her face-and her eyes. Toph smacks his hand away before he can poke her in the eye.
"Don't touch," she says, and the boy looks at her with those golden-yellow eyes that seem to take in everything all at once and reaches forward again. "I said no," Toph says, knocking his hand away once more.
"Not that he isn't cute," Sokka picks up the child and settles him in his lap, out of range of Toph, "but we still haven't figured out what to do with him. Or what to do about Zuko."
"Zuko's gone." Katara snaps. "I told you we couldn't trust him."
The child looks from Sokka to Katara. "Zuko," he repeats the name oh-so-carefully.
Sokka looks down. "Did he just say Zuko?"
Katara eyes the kid warily. "He did. Do you know who Zuko is?"
The boy nods, wide eyes staring up into hers. "Zuko," he says again.
Aang gets excited. "It's your dad, isn't it? Zuko's your dad!" The airbender grins triumphantly, but the kid frowns at him, eyebrows furrowing and his lip sticking out in a tiny, adorable pout.
Katara rolls her eyes and leans forward to get the kid's attention. "Can you tell us who Zuko is?" she asks.
He looks at her for a moment before twisting his head back so he can look up at Sokka. "Zuko," he says again, and Katara sighs.
"I think he's just saying the name because you said it," Toph suggests, and Sokka thinks she might be right. The kid turns to look at her, and for a moment it almost looks like he's trying to make a very important decision, which is ridiculous, because he's two. Maybe three at the oldest.
"Zuko," he finally says, one last time.
"He's not here." Toph tells him.
The boy just looks at her.
Katara and Sokka end up spreading their bedrolls together and plopping the already half-asleep Fire Nation kid down between them that night, just like mom and dad used to with them when Katara was that age and the nights were colder than usual.
The boy snuggles down and goes straight to sleep. Katara and her brother stay awake long into the night, watching each other across the kid and worrying.
Diclaimer: Avatar: the Last Airbender does not belong to me.