A. N. : I've never posted a chapter this early in the day. Then again I've never been in Vietnam, awake at 5am, and finally giving up on sleep at 8. The joys of travel. Long chapter this time, closing the Painted Lady arc. After that we'll have two intermission chapters before Sokka's Master, and then a big storm will come.

Things went surprisingly well.

For a plan crafted on the spot – and with Jet's help, ugh – the fact that nothing went wrong is already a miracle, but it even actually worked perfectly ! Sokka is pretty satisfied.

He would be even more satisfied if Toph and Jet were actually in the village like they planned, but he's not surprised. Jet seems determined to prove he doesn't belong with the team, and Toph can't say no to rulebreaking and mischief, so –

Remind Sokka again why he thought it would be alright to leave them alone together ? At least Appa will watch out for them. Because of course the literal bison is more responsible than these two human disasters. Of course.

Sokka sighs. At least the plan worked, it's all that matters. Even if Katara went overboard and told the villagers to clean the river, before spookily disappearing in the fog. How did she even do this ?

Dock ferries Sokka and Aang back to the shore, before getting a third hat out of nowhere and becoming Bushi the river cleaner. Aang is incredibly frustrated at the weirdness of the guy – what, like it's the craziest thing they've seen ? – but Sokka just wonders if he has a personality for every occasion. Is there a version of him with a nightcap called Yo who just loves sleeping ? Does he turn into Meshi the food lover every time he wants to eat ? What hat would he even wear then ? What happens if he's not wearing a hat ?

Sokka pats Aang on the back in support and turns back to the camp. He half expects everything to be on fire but no, Toph Zuko and Jet are only sitting next to each other like a nice idiot-brochette, and Katara is washing off her face-pain near Appa. And Lin isn't crying, thank the spirits.

Now the only thing left to do is finish cueing Jet and hopefully banish him, and also get an explanation for why Zuko seems to think Sokka is reaching to get Jet kicked out when he is being perfectly reasonable. And why he did his defence all wrong earlier.

This could take anything between ten minutes and ten hours and Sokka wants to cry a little at his beautiful schedule being all messed up.

And given the way Zuko glares at Sokka when he tries to bring the subject back on the table, ten hours sounds more like it. Motherfuck.

Still, this is important dammit, and Sokka is not about to give up just because prince-jerkface is back in action. Jet needs to face the consequences of his actions and realize the group can't function like that, with him doing whatever the fuck he wants with no regards for the rest of them. If someone can give proof of his usefulness and he stops being a total moron, then he can stay. But so far he's done nothing but bring trouble to everyone.

Why is that idiot defending himself. That's not how it works Zuko already – okay sure, he had one good idea for the Operation Painted Lady, but that was one time, and that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't be the one saying this.

And now Toph is saying that Jet just helped Zuko with stuff but Sokka wasn't here to see it, and anyway who does he think he is – and hey, that has nothing to do with this, anyone can cue someone if they feel it's needed, does she not know how cueing works –

Oh spirits. She doesn't know how cueing works. None of them has any idea how cueing works and that explains so much – like Zuko doing the defence all wrong or thinking Sokka can somehow make Jet leave for bullshit reasons, or Jet trying to defend himself, or – spirits fuck. May the great octopus strangle him in his sleep, cueing is a Water Tribe thing !

Sokka should've been careful, after the whole family debacle and having to sit through the King's monologue, but he forgot ! He forgot that being from different nations didn't just make a difference for the color of their clothes !

Someone stab him in the foot, now. He is such an idiot – and no Toph, he didn't realize that just now, he just needs a reminder from time to time.

Still, now Sokka has to actually explain what he was trying to do to people who have never heard of cueing in their life – and seriously, why didn't anyone say they didn't get what was going on ?

Toph thought he was just being an ass – wow, thanks. Jet thought is was a hissy fit because Sokka can't get anyone to listen to him – fuck you Jet – and Jet was easy to blame – for good reason Jet. And Zuko just thought Sokka wanted to banish Jet – and yes, Sokka is aware banishment is also a thing in the Fire Nation, your sarcasm is not appreciated jerkprince.

Why does everyone have so little faith in him ? Don't answer that.

Katara joined them now, and Sokka puts his face in her shoulder and he's not moping, it's just that everything about this is a mess. He's not even sure cueing Jet is worth it anymore, since that idiot won't even get what's going on. And explaining would take hours and they're already behind schedule and Sokka just wants to go back to sleep and pretend nothing happened.

He misses Dad. Misses not having to be the adult in the group and being free of the burden of responsibility crushing him. Also Momo sitting on his head doesn't help with the whole being crushed feeling. Seriously Momo get out of there you're getting heavy.

But just as Sokka has decided to give up and get on Appa and move along and forget about this whole disaster – Zuko asks him to explain. And like, that's very nice of him but it's going to take hours and it wouldn't really change anything, would it ?

Jet – Jet ! – disagrees, probably just for the sake of going against Sokka, and says it would actually be good if the group had a way of placing limits that aren't just something one person arbitrarily decided. Sokka is almost impressed – and also horrified because Jet actually being aware of the concept of limits makes what he did a hundred times worse –

But he must put that behind for now, because cueing is about what a person did – or didn't do – in the group, and not about how terrible they are. So he says that. It's all about the group.

Katara adds that unless you've done something really bad – like alerting the Fire Nation by walking into a forbidden place that happened to be a booby-trapped ship – and nothing can compensate it, the banishment is actually pretty rare. Cueing is mostly a warning. A chance to change.

But then, Toph asks, who decides if someone has to leave or not ? And that's actually a pretty good question, since there is no Chief, and no elders either around. Maybe since Aang is the Avatar and a monk and the one who gets in the less fights among them, he should be the one to choose. Since Sokka is doing the cueing here it's not like he could do it. Zuko is defending, Katara has proven she isn't the person to ask for reasonable decision-making – that earns him a hit – and Toph… uh… Toph.

She of course turns the ground Sokka is sitting on into something really uncomfortable – hey, he didn't say anything bad ! – and says she doesn't have any history clouding her judgement on Jet, unlike some, so she should definitely decide.

So Sokka guesses both Aang and Toph are going to play the elders here, even though they're the youngest in the group. Because nothing can ever make sense.

Oh well, it's not as if they'll always play that role anyway. The group is too small for the conflicts to never include one of these two. Speaking of which, there is now definitely a rule against cueing anyone while suffering from lack of sleep. Or when being chased by a crazy princess.

And of course since only the actions are judged, the defence can only include actions of the same person. No attacking other people at the same time, looking at you Zuko. And also there is one person attacking and one person defending and that's all. No ganging up on someone, whether that's the cued or the cuer.

And – that's about it actually ! Probably. If there's still something unclear or not fit for a small team they'll figure it out later hopefully.

That didn't take half as long as Sokka was fearing. Things are going very well today. It's almost scary.

So now he guesses it's time to start the cueing of Jet from the beginning and see if they can actually get somewhere that way. So Sokka goes over it again – the disappearance and subsequent enrolling of Aang, the wasted time in that village despite the tight schedule, the complicity in wasting more time in this village, and the blowing up of that factory over there in spite of the trouble it could've brought. All good reasons to banish him.

Zuko opens his mouth, stops, frowns – just give him a second, he's not used to that – Jet hasn't killed anyone during the whole time they've been in the Fire Nation – uh, yeah, so did all of them, that's not really a –

Ouch ! Alright, alright Toph ! No interrupting is now part of the rules, fine ! There was no need to hit that hard, geez.

The point is – Zuko glares so hard Sokka feels like he's going to combust spontaneously, but he keeps his mouth shut – the point is, Jet has been trying. He knows he has problems with fire, and he's been dealing with them the best he can. The wasted time in Sazakura was to get used to the idea of firebenders not being inherently a threat to him. If he didn't care about the group, he wouldn't do that.

He isn't – isn't a good person, but he's trying to get better. He shouldn't have to go because he made a few mistakes on the way there. He just needs a little time – or a bit more than that, but kicking him out now would just be a waste. He's already proven he can be useful when planning, and he is a good fighter. Once he gets what is and isn't alright, he'll be a great ally.

So they should – give Jet a chance. Like they did with Zuko.

And Sokka can't believe Zuko managed to build an actual defence for Jet of all people, can believe even less that it made sense, but he did, and it did.

And when Aang and Toph decide they should keep Jet, Sokka isn't surprised. What surprises him is that he's not sure he disagrees. And it's really weird and unsettling that he can think of Jet as a potentially not all bad person.

Ah well, weirder things have happened.